Tears of the Moon - Di Morrissey [116]
Finally Tyndall indicated she should follow him, and he led her along the bottom to where a strip of sand ran between two coral outcrops. He pointed to a ledge and when she shook her head, uncomprehending, he bent over and picked up a large pearl shell. Olivia suddenly saw the others, so simply cam-ouflaged yet now so obvious. They collected half a dozen and then Olivia pointed to the coral and made a querying gesture. Tyndall peered at where she pointed, then reached his gloved hand in and felt for what appeared to be a pearl shell nestled in the coral. It was well concealed and hard to dislodge, he struggled and was about to give up when Olivia pushed her hand beside his and together they pulled it free. Tyndall turned the shell over in his hands. It was very large, plump and heavily encrusted. He put it in the bag and pointed to the surface. They tugged on their lines, signalling to the tenders to bring them up.
It wasn’t till after they’d eaten and sailed well clear of the beach to anchor for the night that Tyndall and Ahmed opened the shells. One yielded a perfect round, but very tiny pearl. Nonetheless Olivia was elated. Tyndall then opened what he announced to the crew was ‘Olivia’s shell.’
It was stubborn, the muscles tightly holding it shut. Tyndall worked the knife until it slipped through and the shell fell open. Without even removing the meat they could see the glow of a fat round pearl.
Olivia, crouching beside Tyndall, leaned forward. ‘There’s more than one,’ she breathed and the crew gathered around, moving the lantern closer.
Tyndall carefully scraped away the meat.
A collective gasp went up as they saw on one shell, seven fat, spherical pearls. Each on its own would fetch a goodly price but what caused the crew to murmur in amazement was the formation. The seven pearls lay joined in the shape of a star.
Olivia and Tyndall stared at one another in disbelief.
‘My God, it’s fantastic.’ Tyndall’s hand shook slightly as he studied the shell in his palm, tilting it to and fro to catch the light of the lantern from different angles.
‘It’s worth a fortune,’ Olivia whispered in awe and behind her the crew broke into a gabble of exchanges in Japanese and Malay. Ahmed gave thanks to Allah in a silent prayer.
‘The great gem buyers of the world will be fighting like hell to get their hands on this,’ crowed Tyndall.
‘We’ll have to call it the “Star of the Sea”, of course. Odd, isn’t it, that the shape of the pearls matches the name of our company,’ said Olivia, her voice still reflecting the awe in which they all held the freakish pearl find. ‘Spooky in a way.’
‘Everything that led us to finding it is a bit odd in a way, when you think about it.’ Their eyes met for the first time since the shell was opened. ‘It’s going to change our lives, Olivia.’
She nodded in silent agreement, then they both looked down at the shell again, transfixed by its beauty.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maya still missed her mother. The women had told her that Niah had gone to live with her ancestors among the stars but she watched over her and was always with her even though Maya couldn’t see her.
‘Sometimes when the wind come and blow your hair and brush your face, that your mummy touching you. When you eat good and find clean water for drink, that your mummy looking out for you,’ they told her.
Maya struggled to grasp this abstract