The Inventors and the Lost Island

by A. M. Morgen

  “Don Nadie rose up like a giant. Inside I was trembling, but I stood straight and tall, facing this enormous enemy the way David faced Goliath. Blue sparks flared from his walking stick like lightning. His eyes blazed with fire as he revealed the truth that would change my life forever—”

  George was interrupted by a scream as something heavy crashed down through the trees.

  Silently, Ruthie had doubled back and wrapped herself around their pursuer. She must have caught the person quite off guard, because they’d both plunged almost all the way to the ground before Ruthie had managed to save them. Ruthie was hanging by her feet upside down from a branch with her hands gripped tightly around the pursuer’s wrists.

  “Aha! We caught you!” George declared.

  Their pursuer was a girl about Oscar’s age. She dangled from Ruthie’s grip, her feet nearly level with George’s shoulders. Her dark hair floated around her face like a cloud made of tiny ringlets. Though her skin was darker, her round face tapering to a sharp chin was identical to the little girl from Don Nadie’s portrait. George’s mouth fell open—Oscar was right.

  The girl began to giggle.

  Ruthie let go, and the girl dropped to the ground as lightly as a cat. She clutched her stomach as her giggle turned into a thunderous laugh. “You did! You did! You tricked me!”

  George and Oscar glanced at each other. The girl’s delight at being caught was not what they had expected. But George had not expected her to step out of the portrait, either.

  The girl in the painting was Estelle—could this be Don Nadie’s sister? But that was impossible. Estelle would have been almost as old as Don Nadie. Besides, she’d died in the shipwreck, George remembered with a jolt of sadness.

  “How… who are you? Why were you following us?” George asked.

  After the girl had caught her breath and wiped tears from her eyes, she shrugged. “Why not?”

  Oscar’s brow wrinkled. “Why did you try to trap me?”

  “I didn’t try,” the girl protested, then erupted into a fresh wave of giggles. “You were too slow. You were both too slow for my game.”

  A glint of gold on the girl’s tattered dress caught George’s eye. “Hey! Those are my buttons. Give those back.”

  The girl stuck out her tongue. “Finders keepers.”

  “You didn’t find those, you stole them from my jacket,” George said.

  “Losers weepers,” the girl replied. “If you catch me, you can take them back.”

  Oscar wheeled his arms at Ruthie. The little orangutan dropped onto the girl’s shoulders and began plucking the buttons from her dress. The girl grabbed for Ruthie, but the orangutan was too quick.

  “Clever clever!” the girl cried delightedly. “I want one.”

  George pressed her. “Do you know anything about survivors from a shipwreck called La Isla?”

  The girl grabbed a branch above her head and began swinging on it like Ruthie. “Is this a game?”

  “No,” George said.

  The girl did a backflip and dropped from the branch. “Oh. I was hoping it was a game.”

  George huffed. He was quite sick of games by now. “We’re looking for someone who was on the ship. Her name was Estelle.”

  The girl jumped up and down. Her hair bounced with her. “That’s me. That’s me. I’m Estelle.”

  “Are you really?” George asked doubtfully.

  The girl looked hurt. “It is my name,” she insisted. “I’m called Stella for short. I’m named after my granny.”

  George’s heart leapt. “Your grandmother? Her name is Estelle?”

  “Estelle Devonshire,” said Stella. “Your name is George. I knew yours before you told me. I found you right away. I watched you.”

  At just this moment, George realized that Estelle was not just a name, it was a clue. The illustrated ribbon on the map with the words Tabula ad Stella Victōriae waved furiously in his head. His grandfather had been leading him not just to the Star of Victory, the object, but to another Star of Victory—his grandfather’s sister.

  The realization struck George so forcefully that he plopped to the ground in a sitting position. Ruthie, in mock surprise, scattered George’s buttons into the dirt as she pretended to faint. The girl quickly scooped up the gleaming golden buttons and dropped them in George’s lap.

  “Thank you, Stella,” he said, staring at her in wonder. In response, she stuck her tongue out at him.

  If Estelle was the same Estelle who was on the passenger manifest of La Isla…

  And that Estelle had wrecked near this very island…

  What if she had survived the shipwreck and had been living here all this time?

  “This is too easy.” George pressed his fingers to his forehead. “Oscar, is this a dream? It can’t be this easy. It must be a trap.”

  Oscar grimaced. “I wouldn’t call it easy, exactly. We had plenty of bad luck getting here.”

  “You got captured by the bad man, and your friends left you, and you almost drowned,” Stella agreed cheerfully. “Nothing so exciting ever happens to me. My whole life and not one bad thing. It’s a curse, I think. A curse of good luck.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Stella did not find it extraordinary in the least that she lived on the side of a volcano in the middle of a jungle. Nor was she impressed by the small village that her grandmother Estelle Devonshire had helped to carve out of that wilderness. A village that wasn’t on any map or in any guidebook. Wide dirt paths connected small houses made of stacked stone with thatched roofs. Stacked-lava-stone fences bordered neat garden plots and fields. Goats and sheep grazed on the hillside overlooking the flat beach and harbor below.

  Ruthie was drooling at the sight of the orchards that surrounded the village. The papaya, orange, and plum trees all made her tremble with joy.

  “Oscar, I can’t believe it,” George repeated over and over again as they followed Stella—his cousin, his cousin—home. “My family isn’t all dead. This whole time my grandfather left me a map that was leading me to his long-lost sister!”

  As soon as the words rang out into the air, George’s stomach lurched. Because if his grandfather knew where his sister was… why hadn’t he retrieved her himself?

  A small knot formed in George’s stomach. Maybe his grandfather had been hiding her because she knew something important about Don Nadie. Maybe he had been protecting Estelle, like a secret weapon of his own, hidden where his evil brother would never find her. Hah!

  George looked to Oscar to share his triumphant answer, but Oscar was too busy investigating an outcropping of pumice stone along the path. He stuffed his pockets with the airy stones, which he told George were the perfect tool for cleaning his hands of paint.

  Though he laughed as Oscar struggled to carry a mountain of rocks in his arms, George was itching with nerves. All he could think about was meeting Estelle—the real Star of Victory. If she was his grandfather’s adopted sister, and if she was alive, then she might be able to somehow help them stop Don Nadie from springing his trap on the scientists of C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S. Because that was what his grandfather had intended George to do, wasn’t it? To stop his vile brother from wreaking havoc on the world?

  George was so preoccupied with what might happen next that he wasn’t paying any attention to Stella. She tried to warn him about getting too close to a poison apple tree called a manchineel. But George completely ignored her because a poison apple tree sounded like something from a fairy tale. It wasn’t. It was very real. So was the blistering rash on George’s arm that appeared after he brushed against the leaves of a manchineel tree.

  “You’re lucky,” Stella said, examining George’s red, burning skin. “If you fall asleep under the tree, you can die. The poison gets in your lungs and kills you. My mama told me so.”

  “I’m not very lucky.” George scratched.

  Stella frowned. “You are! Mama will give you a nice bandage and some medicine. She never gives me any.”

 
“Not even when you’re sick?” Oscar asked.

  “I’m never sick,” Stella replied. “I’d do anything to get a toothache so I could have a nice white bandage wrapped round my head.”

  George was grateful to know relief was coming when they turned off the path toward a small house made of stacked stones, beyond which stretched a long row of similarly sized homes. Stella skipped ahead, calling for her mother and grandmother. “Mama! Granny! I told you people were at the farthest beach. Here they are!”

  Two women stood up from inside a stone garden fence. They were both lean and wiry, and their rolled-up sleeves exposed strong, tanned arms, which were very unlike the soft, pale arms of the ladies George had seen in London. Immediately George recognized which one was Estelle. Though she no longer resembled her portrait and was far shorter for not having stilts, she had the same brilliant white hair as her brother.

  Estelle shaded her eyes to look at the boys as they neared. Her gaze danced over Oscar and Ruthie, then fixed on George—and when her eyes flicked from his face to his sailing jacket, which had belonged to his grandfather, a lightning flash of recognition passed across her face. Her shoulders sagged, and she leaned against Stella’s mother.

  George stepped into the garden, heart pounding. “Do you know who I am?” he asked hesitantly.

  Smiling, Estelle reached out to brush a lock of hair from George’s forehead. Her fingers were as rough as lava stones, but tender. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “You look exactly like him.”

  A warm ray of sunshine melted through George’s heart. “I do?”

  Estelle’s eyes grew misty. “Arthur always wanted children.”

  Hearing Estelle call his grandfather Arthur, not George, was like having another nail of truth driven into his heart. He wobbled on his feet. “He only had one, my father. I’m his grandson.”

  “I never thought I’d see him again, but here you are,” Estelle said. Her eyes glowed, making her look years younger. “Is he with you? How on earth did you find me?”

  George’s heart lurched. Is, not was.

  Though he’d seen his grandfather die with his own eyes—though he had buried him—George could not summon the words to tell Estelle that his grandfather was dead. His face, though, must have said it for him. Without speaking a word, Estelle pulled him in close with her strong arms. George buried his face in her shoulder and let himself finally release the tears he’d been holding inside for two years. Estelle’s soft cotton shirt was warm and smelled like sunshine and rain.

  When they let each other go, George wiped his eyes and said, “He gave me a map that led to you. I didn’t understand it at first. I suppose I’ve been looking for you a long time.”

  Estelle smiled, but the smile was weak, like watered-down tea. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. “Ah. Did he tell you about the games we played when we were children? Such clever games. You must be very smart to have reached the end of his map.”

  “I had lots of help,” George admitted.

  “It’s smart to ask for help. Arthur never made a puzzle that could be solved alone.”

  More tears welled in George’s eyes. “So it’s true? He was your adopted brother.”

  “He was my brother,” Estelle said firmly. “But that was a long time ago. Things became… complicated. Come now, don’t be upset.”

  Stella cartwheeled into the middle of their conversation. “He’s crying because he needs a bandage. The manchineel tree got him.”

  Renata, Stella’s mother, took George inside their small house and put a poultice of herbs on George’s itchy skin and wrapped it in a strip of cloth. Stella watched jealously until her mother shooed her outside with Oscar and Ruthie.

  Estelle brought George a cup of herbal tea. “It’s not the same kind of tea as you’re used to, I’m afraid. We make do with what we have here.”

  Wrapping his hands around the cup filled him with warmth. He held his face over the liquid, letting the steam rise up and sink into his skin. Don Nadie was getting closer to London with every passing second, but right now, all George wanted to do was sit in this cottage over a hot cup of tea and bask in his miracle. “Have you really been on Chatham Island since the shipwreck?”

  She smiled and laughed softly. “For forty years, I think. It’s hard to keep count. We travel to Ecuador once in a while on the whaling ships that pass by. Some of our friends in the village went last year to celebrate Ecuador’s independence,” she said, raising her teacup in a toast. “Whalers stop by here fairly often, and we are able to trade for what we need. In return, the whalers keep our village a secret and off maps.”

  “If you could go to Ecuador, why didn’t you find a ship to take you home? Were you hiding?”

  “Hiding? No, not hiding.” Estelle’s eyes locked on to his but went fuzzy and unfocused, as if she were staring at something very far away. “I had no home to return to. My parents were dead, my brothers were at each other’s throats about who would inherit the house and our father’s title. A silly house. Can you believe it? And—”

  Estelle turned her head away so George wouldn’t see her face crumple like the handkerchief she clutched in her hand. Gently, he squeezed her arm. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She inhaled deeply and turned back to George. “I fell in love.”

  “Oh.” Of all the things he’d imagined Estelle might say, he hadn’t expected that.

  She chuckled. “I don’t remember much of the day La Isla sank. Arthur and I chased our brother here, to stop him from throwing his life away with a bunch of thieves—and then Arthur fired on my brother’s ship, even though he promised me he wouldn’t. Cannons started to fire back, and there was a terrible fight, and that’s where my memory ends,” she said, tapping her temple. “The next thing I can recall is waking up on this island, surrounded by a handful of people who started this village. Jean-Charles was one of the founding villagers. He bandaged my wounds with his strong, gentle hands. One look into his eyes was all it took. We fell in love and got married within a week.” She smiled. “He’d wanted to be a doctor ever since he was a boy. He studied by candlelight.”

  “That’s wonderful,” George said.

  “I’m afraid it wasn’t that simple. He was born into slavery in the colonies, and he was here searching for a new life. There were some in London who might have accepted us, but they were vastly outnumbered by the people who wouldn’t. And I couldn’t be apart from him. I would have died if I’d gone home without him.” She pounded the table. “Well, if I was going to die, I’d prefer to do it here with my husband—on my own terms.”

  The sudden fierce determination in Estelle’s voice reminded George of Ada. He could almost hear her saying the same words. Even so, anger bubbled in him. “You pretended to be dead all these years?”

  Estelle wavered slightly, then steadied herself. “I had to make a choice, and I chose to make a new family. Haven’t you ever had something that you couldn’t bear to lose? Something that you’d give up everything for?”

  “My friends. My grandfather, if he were still alive.” He paused. “My grandfather would have helped you and your husband. I’m sure of it.”

  “Perhaps.” She sighed. “In the beginning I was too angry to return. I was furious at my brothers for risking my life and theirs over nothing. Then, when I had children, how could I bring them to a place where they might not be safe because of the color of their skin? How could I ask my husband to join me in a land where there was still slavery? Besides, home was wherever Jean-Charles was, and we made our home here. Together.” Estelle winced from remembered pain. “I was happy here, George. Truly happy, even after Jean-Charles died a few years ago. This is where I belong. It’s as if the rest of the world faded away.”

  Estelle turned away from George, dabbed at her face with her apron. “Was your grandfather happy? Did he have a good life?”

  “He must have been happy,” George said, searching for some reassurance among the wreckage of his memories. “He took your
brother’s name. He brought honor back to the Devonshires. We lived in a beautiful house. And he told me stories. Lots and lots of stories about the most valuable treasure in the world. It turned out to be you.” George continued, unable to keep the hurt from his voice, “He never told me you existed.”

  “Ah.” Estelle dropped her eyes to the table, suddenly looking like a sheepish child. She twisted her handkerchief between her fingers. “I didn’t disappear completely, you know. I wrote Arthur a letter to tell him where I was and whom I’d married. I apologized, but I said I would never return—that as far as anyone in London should know, Estelle Devonshire was dead. I said some harsh things that I wish I hadn’t. But you see, I was afraid your grandfather wouldn’t be able to leave me behind. That he’d sail around the world every year to come to see me or try to bring me home. I couldn’t live my life worrying about him, wondering if he was at the bottom of the ocean because he’d been on his way to see me. If I know your grandfather, he took my proclamation seriously. I suppose I was dead to him.” A smile flickered on her face. “But your grandfather was clever. He gave away my secret to you without breaking his promise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She nodded toward the map. “Technically, you figured it out yourself.”

  “I had help,” George said, his brain buzzing. He had discovered the truth—so why did it still feel as if he was missing something?

  The image of her brother—his great-uncle, he reminded himself, though it seemed like something from a dream—stalking the world on his stilts burst into his brain. “Your brother Don Nadie—I mean, your brother George still thinks you’re dead.”

  Estelle’s eyes widened. “He—he does?”

  “Yes. He told me so himself.” George recalled what Don Nadie had told him yesterday: that he’d had himself moved from prison to prison to get away from his grandfather’s taunts. “My grandfather must have kept your secret. Your brother was just here, Aunt Estelle.”

  A laugh escaped Estelle’s lips, but the sound was harsh, twisted with disbelief. “Well, I never thought I’d have to worry about him looking for me. Sometime during that terrible fight, he told me he hated me for choosing Arthur’s side and never wanted to see me again as long as he lived,” she finished softly, as if the words had been spoken yesterday and not over forty years ago. “I remember so little about that day, but I remember that.”