aullis sat on the beach and waved his arms in what he hoped were the proper patterns. So far as he knew, no one had ever tried a pearl-summoning spell before, so he couldn’t be exactly sure if he had it right.

After a half-hour of muttering and gesticulating, he stood and tried to shake the sand from his sarong. He knew it was impossible; the fine bone-white sand of the Raphei Cays had a way of finding its way into everything eventually. On a coral island, there was just no way to get away from the sand.

Caullis had lived here in the Cays for all of his forty-one years, and for as long as he could remember, he’d been annoyed by the sand. If it bothered his wife, she didn’t show it; his three daughters didn’t even seem to notice it. Caullis, however, couldn’t help but notice. He felt every grain of it on his feet, in his hair, and in every crack and crevice that modesty demanded he cover with a sarong.

A quick dip in the water would wash the sand off, he knew, but as the island’s medicine man, he was forbidden to swim or even wade in the warm turquoise waters surrounding the cay. He had no desire to lose his magic now, in the twilight of his life.

It was this restriction, indirectly, that had brought him to the beach today. Despite being a healer and the island’s only contact with the wind-spirits and the ancestors, a medicine man wasn’t paid very well. At least, that was Caullis’ opinion. The fact that he was dependent on the islanders’ generosity for his livelihood didn’t sit well with him. Neither did the fact that the lowliest pearl diver could gather more wealth in a day than Caullis received in a year.

It was not the lowliest pearl diver who had drawn his ire the night before at the men’s fire, though. It had been Galito, the richest of the divers and second-man to the chief. Caullis came to the fire with the other men to eat and drink coconut liquor and join in any discussions that involved something other than pearl diving. These discussions were few, so there was little for Caullis to do but drink and eat whatever scraps had been set aside for the medicine man.

He picked at his pig’s ears and drank copious amounts of liquor as Galito told fabulously exaggerated accounts of his own prowess. He had just finished telling of the fist-sized black pearl that had slipped out of his hand just before he’d surfaced when Caullis spoke up.

“Pigsnot,” said Caullis.

Galito and the rest of the men were stunned into silence. After a moment, the second-man asked, “What did you say?”

“I said pigsnot. Your story’s pigsnot.” Caullis was obviously drunk, and he rose unsteadily. He looked across the fire at Galito, then threw his somewhat mangled pig’s ears into the flames.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you –“ Galito started, his face growing angry in the ruddy light.

“What’s wrong?” Caullis’ voice was a drunken shriek. “What’s wrong? You tell lies and get the best meat every night, and I get burnt pig’s ears! I am the medicine man! You would never have treated my master this way!” He stumbled over someone – his second son-in-law, he thought – and nearly fell before stepping on someone’s hand and righting himself.

Now Galito stood and stared back across the fire. His chest was huge from years of diving, and the rest of his body was sleekly muscled. When he spoke, his voice was hard and quiet. Your master was a good medicine man. My respect for him is the only reason I don’t throw you into the lagoon right now.” Caullis opened his mouth to speak, but the second-man silenced him with a harsh gesture. “You’re not a good medicine man. What have you done for us? The ancestors gave your master a black pearl as a blessing. What have they given you?”

Caullis didn’t answer, so Galito went on.

“You complain that I get the best meat. Don’t I earn it? Don’t I find more pearls than anyone? Don’t my pearls buy things from the mainland for the whole village? You complain that we give you scraps, but you’ve done nothing to pay for even that. You’re worse than a woman, Caullis. At least the women tend the yams and gather fruit. You’ve done nothing, and yet you have the nerve to accuse me. Maybe if you bring us a pearl, you’ll get your respect.”

There was a general murmur of approval from the men, and Caullis looked about himself unsteadily. Then he threw back his head and tried to look regnant. “So be it,” he said formally. I will bring you your pearl. A black one, if I have to search every oyster in the sea.” He turned, tripped over his second son-in-law again, and staggered to his hut, the laughter of the men following him all the way.

That was how he had ended up on the beach, braving the irritation of the sand to entreat the ancestors for a black pearl. He had no idea how to go about it, so he just made it up as he went along. Prayers to the ancestors normally took the form of dances, but since oysters didn’t move around much (he assumed), he decided he wouldn’t, either. Anything to get the idea across, he thought. The ancestors were a thick-headed bunch sometimes.

That night, he avoided the men’s fire and ate in his hut. There was no pork, so he was forced to make a meal of breadfruit and raw yams. He could smell the pigs on the men’s and women’s fires, so he prayed to the wind-spirits to carry the delicious scent the other way. They ignored him, as they often did.

The following morning dawned cloudy and cool, but the spirit-signs told him that there would be no storm. The men set out in their canoes for the oyster beds outside the lagoon, and Caullis watched them, wondering if he would receive his pearl today. He didn’t even see the oyster in his doorway until he stepped on it and looked down, cursing his cut foot.

When he realized what it was, though, he forgot about his foot and grew excited. He certainly hadn’t expected the ancestors to answer his prayer so quickly. He grabbed the rough-shelled mollusk and ran inside to get his knife. The knife had only been used a handful of times, and he was by no means proficient with it. Miraculously, he kept from cutting off any fingers while shucking the oyster. In a couple of minutes, he had the shell open and was looking into the oozy body of the creature, where he found nothing but the oozy body of the creature.

The next day there were two oysters in the doorway, both empty. Caullis began to suspect that the islanders were playing jokes on him. There were four on the third day, and eight on the fourth. After a week the number was over a hundred, and seemingly the entire cay was showing up at his house every morning to see how many there were. His hands were nearly ruined from the cuts he’d given himself shucking, and his wife was pulled from her fruit-gathering and yam-tending to help him.

On the ninth day, he found a pearl, a tiny, perfect sphere of unblemished white. He cursed it and threw it at his wife.

On the eleventh day there were over a thousand oysters, filling his doorway and spilling over the leaf mats of his hut floor. The place stank of rotten shellfish and was surrounded by piles of discarded shells. He called his three daughters from their husbands’ houses to help shuck and enlisted several small children to carry the unclean oyster-meat the lagoon. A large school of fish had learned to wait near the beach in the mornings to receive the bounty. His daughters found three flawless white pearls, which even Galito spoke of admiringly.

The next day, though, the chief’s youngest son was bitten on the leg by a shark that had somehow made its way into the lagoon for an oyster breakfast. It was a very small shark, and the bite was little more than a scratch, but the islanders insisted that Caullis dump the oysters outside the reef. This added a half-mile walk to the unprotected western side of the cay, and the children, faced with real work, abandoned him. He was forced to carry three huge baskets of putrefying oyster innards while his wife and daughters shucked over two thousand shellfish. Tired though he was, Caullis couldn’t sleep that night.

In the predawn hours of the thirteenth day, he watched unbelieving as 4096 oysters somehow shuffled their way up the beach and settled themselves in his hut. He cried like a girl for some time, then looked up and surprised to see a familiar face. “Master?” he croaked.

“Quit your blubbering, Caullis,” said the shade of the long-dead medicine man. “You’re embarrassing me.” The shade tapped him in the middle of the forehead with an oddly substantial finger. “Get up. It stinks in here.”

Caullis rose and wrapped his sarong around his hips as he tender-footed over the oysters that carpeted his hut. He followed his master outside and stood before him on the edge of the lagoon. “Caullis, you revolt me,” said the ghost. “I raised you better than this. Galito’s right; you’re a pitiful excuse for a medicine man.” The glowing face was stern.

Caullis said nothing for a moment, then stuttered, “H-how m-m-many more?”

“What?”

“H-h-how m-many m-m-more oysters?” Te medicine man was shaking.

“Well, that’s a good question. They’ll keep coming until you find a black pearl. In another week or so you’d have a million, which would pretty much bury this end of the island. You swore you’d search every oyster in the sea, and there are ... well, more than either of us can imagine.”

“What should I do?”

His master’s shade breathed a disgusted, derisive little sigh. “How should I know? You’ve never done anything right in your life, so why should I believe you’ll start now? I know what I’m going to do, though.”

Before Caullis could ask him what that was, the ghost picked him up and flung him two hundred yards into the middle of the lagoon. “There,” it said. “At least you won’t do anything like that again.”