Something Soft for Something Sweet
The sand was warm and crumbly under Odin's knees. He pressed his palm in and made a shallow bowl. Pip sat beside him with his ears up. The sea came in slow and went out slower. Odin's wool scarf lay across his shoulder. It still smelled of home, of woodsmoke and apples, even here. He held a corner of it to his nose and breathed. Pip leaned in and sniffed it too. The moon lay on the water like a dropped coin.
They walked along the shallows together, where the water was only ankle deep. Warm ripples went over Odin's feet and let them go again. Then Pip stopped. His nose lifted. Odin smelled it too, drifting between the smells of salt and wet stone. Something sweet. Something like melon, and like rain on a warm path. "That way," Odin said, and Pip was already going that way. They followed the smell to a row of quiet tide pools.
The smell was strongest at the smallest pool. Odin knelt down and looked in. A little crab sat in the middle of it, holding a curled pink shell. The shell was the sweet thing. Odin could smell it from where he knelt. Pip put one paw on the rim of the pool and looked in beside him. The crab did not run away. He turned the shell over slowly, as if he were deciding something.
Odin looked at the rest of the pool. The floor was all hard pebbles, round and cold and shiny. The crab shuffled off the shell and tried to settle on the stones. He shifted. He shifted again. He could not get comfortable. Then he climbed back onto the curled shell and sat there, because it was the only smooth thing he had. Odin understood. The crab did not want a sweet smell. He wanted somewhere soft to sleep.
Odin sat back on his heels and thought. Pip watched his face, ears forward. Then Odin found the fringe at the end of his scarf, where the wool had gone loose and fluffy. He worked one tuft free between his finger and thumb. It came away like a tiny cloud. It smelled of woodsmoke. It was the softest thing on the whole beach. "Something soft for something sweet," Odin said. Pip's tail swept the sand once.
He lowered the tuft into the pool. It floated, then sank, and settled in a dip between two pebbles. The crab came over sideways and touched it. He climbed on. He turned around once, the way a dog does, and sat down in the middle of the wool. Then he pushed the curled pink shell across the pool floor with one claw, all the way to Odin's waiting fingers. Odin lifted it out. Water ran off it in bright threads.
The shell smelled of melon and warm rain. Odin held it to his nose for a long time. Pip pressed his cream muzzle against it and sniffed, then sneezed, then sniffed again. Odin's scarf was one tuft shorter now. He checked it. It still smelled of woodsmoke and apples, just the same. Behind them the crab was already asleep on his small grey cloud. "Something soft for something sweet," Odin whispered, and left him to it.
They walked back along the sandbar, slow as the tide. Odin carried the shell in both hands like a cup. Pip trotted ahead and waited, trotted ahead and waited. A big smooth turtle went by far out in the shallows, lifting her head once. Odin sat down where the sand was warmest and Pip curled against his side. The sweet smell came up from the shell. The woodsmoke smell came down from the scarf.
Odin laid the shell beside his cheek and closed his eyes. Pip's chin settled on Odin's arm. The sea came in a little way and went out a little way, quieter each time. Far off, the ripples flattened until the moon stopped shaking on the water and simply lay there. "Something soft for something sweet," Odin said, almost asleep. The water went smooth around the sandbar. Somewhere under it, a small crab turned over in his wool.
