Hugh leaped high from the boat, and then he dropped to the beach, his feet feeling the sand appear beneath him. He started to walk, and in each step, the sand gently sank -- giving way and then holding him up with a delicate firmness.

The sand also gave way to the wind; sand was rippled and piled into dunes, whichever way the wind wished, but it was always still sand. When the wind sang, "Huuuuu," the boy could almost imagine that it was carving that word into the beach.

As Hugh walked along the long beach toward the cave, each grain of sand seemed to reach toward him with a tiny finger of glittering light. In the sand's language of light, it told stories of those grains who act like suns of the sky. They were not really suns, of course; they were playing, reflecting the golden daylight and the blue starlight.

The blue light slipped down the mountain slope -- and with it flowed a wind with the sweet scent of trees that grew on high. When the breeze reached Hugh, it dashed across the beach and danced into the seashells that lay around.

The boy picked up one of those seashells, and listened. It played sounds from far inside, like a memory -- in music -- of the creature that had lived and left there. The soft music of its breath remained, echoing the ocean, and calling from some invisible inner ocean, deep within the shell.

Ahead of Hugh, in the cave, was darkness, calling to him with its promise of light so deeply there.