Scar Island

by Dan Gemeinhart

  “There’s no flowers here.”

  When the door closed on the round room, Colin was still standing pinching his neck, a thoughtful frown on his face.

  When Jonathan returned to the dining room, they were just starting their nightly letter home. No one spoke to him. The dining room was again awash in candlelight and the whispers of pens on paper. Jonathan’s letter was short. But he was the last one done. Benny read it and rolled his eyes and said, “Fine. Night-night, Johnny.” Jonathan didn’t reply, or even look Benny in the face. He supposed that he should have glared at him. Stared him down. He supposed that he should hate Benny. But Jonathan didn’t have any hate left. He’d already used it all on himself.

  When Jonathan went to his mattress to go to sleep, he found that the ring of seven mattresses had shrunk to three. Most of the other boys had dragged theirs away into a different corner. Away from him. Only Walter and David had stayed.

  The two boys looked at him from around the slowly dancing candle flame between them.

  Jonathan put his head down and closed his eyes.

  “Aren’t you gonna read, man?” Walter asked.

  “You still want me to?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you have another book?”

  “Um-hmm.” Jonathan rolled over and fished Treasure Island out from where he’d stowed it under his pillow. He looked up at the faces of Walter and David, waiting in the yellow glow of the candles.

  “You sure?” he asked. They both nodded.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Chapter One,” he began, his voice still a wounded whisper. It gained strength as he read. “The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Benbow.”

  In the morning, when he awoke, there was a new piece of paper lying on the pillow beside his head. It was not a crane.

  The paper on his pillow was folded into the shape of a perfect flower. The flower had a shiny gold center.

  A dark brown square of chocolate sat beside it.

  “Last chance, Johnny boy.” Sebastian’s voice was a snarl. Outside, the wind howled with fierce strength between the crumbling towers of Slabhenge. Lightning flashed on puddles growing and spreading across the courtyard stones. Thunder scared the window glass into shaking.

  The storm had been growing all day. Jonathan had watched it rage and strengthen through the windows. He’d been locked inside during the mail exchange. He hadn’t bothered going to see the librarian or Colin. He knew he’d have plenty of time for that when Sebastian banished him. It had been a long day. He’d read most of Treasure Island.

  But now the sun had set. The day was over. His deadline had expired. All the world was dropping into storm and darkness.

  “I don’t know where he is,” Jonathan lied.

  “Liar.”

  Jonathan looked away. He was seated at one of the long dining room tables. Benny and Francis stood on either side of him. All the other boys were standing around, watching nervously.

  “Fine. It’s your funeral.” Sebastian pushed a paper and pen across the table to him. “Write what I say. Exactly what I say. Benny, check his work.”

  Jonathan pursed his lips, then picked up the pen. There was no use fighting. It would only make things worse.

  “Dear Mom and Dad,” Sebastian started, and Jonathan rolled his eyes and copied the words onto the paper. “Everything is going fine. The food is good and I’m learning a lot.” Sebastian lowered his voice. “Add an exclamation point to that. Make it look cheerful.” His eyes rose to the ceiling in concentration. “I won’t be able to write for a while. We are …” Sebastian paused and squinted one eye, drumming his lips with his fingers. “We are getting ready for a big test. I love you and miss you lots. Love, Johnny.”

  “You really want me to sign it ‘Johnny’?”

  Sebastian lowered his eyes and glared across the table.

  “Love, Jonathan.”

  Jonathan’s pen scratched across the paper and then he set it down.

  “How’d he do, Benny?”

  “Fine. He wrote just what you said.”

  Sebastian rose to his feet.

  “That’s your last letter home, Johnny.” He looked past Jonathan to the kids standing behind him. “Give him a couple candles. And a book of matches.” His eyes dropped back down to Jonathan and he smiled. “Although I don’t know if we can really trust him with matches.”

  With an echoing crash, the door to the courtyard swung open and smashed into the stone wall. They all jumped and turned. Rain blew through the open door, splattering the dark stone wall. Some of the candles they’d lit blew out in the wind that blustered in among them.

  “Damn it, close that door, Reggie!” Sebastian shouted. Lightning flashed, and a rumble of thunder cracked, sounding unnaturally loud through the open door. “And make sure it’s closed all the way this time!”

  When the storm was once again locked mostly outside, Sebastian turned back to Jonathan.

  “Say hi to the little rat for me. I hope you two have lots of fun.”

  Jonathan was jerked to his feet. Candles and matches were pressed into his hand. Sebastian stalked around the table and poked him with the sword.

  “Go on,” he said, prodding Jonathan toward the door that led into Slabhenge’s dark interior. “Go ahead and find your friend. And don’t come crawling back here. You two made your choice.”

  He was pushed through the doorway, into the familiar musty shadows of the corridor.

  “Good night,” Sebastian’s voice echoed after him. “Sleep tight.”

  With trembling fingers, Jonathan struck a match. He held the sputtering flame to a candle wick, then quickly dropped it with a hiss into a puddle at his feet. The rain was falling even harder now than it had been the morning the Admiral and his men were struck down. Slabhenge, inside and out, was all dripping and puddles.

  Jonathan bit his teeth together hard and started off into the darkness.

  It took him a while to find Colin’s tower hideout. He’d been wandering the first time he’d found it and this time he had to circle and peer and look for landmarks. He remembered what Colin had said about everything in Slabhenge being connected, and kept walking. He stopped from time to time to listen; the rats seemed more than normally large and active, especially behind him. Maybe it was the storm, which was howling and thundering loud enough to be heard even through the thick stone walls.

  At one point as he wandered he passed one of the staircases that he knew led down to the Hatch. It was wild tonight, knocking and rocking and echoing up from the darkness. Like a demon thrashing against chains ready to break. He swallowed and pressed on, looking for Colin’s refuge.

  And then, there it was. The long hallway with the four doors, the little paper bird hiding in the darkness. Jonathan slipped through the door and up the stairs.

  Colin was sitting on his bed. Paper, some folded and some not, lay scattered and piled on the bed and floor around him. Four candles sat around the bed on the floor. Startling splashes of white light flashed through the windows from the storm outside. Colin was facing the door, chewing on a bright red apple.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile as brief and bright as the lightning. “I wath hoping that wath you.”

  A ferocious blast of wind whistled in through the broken window, shuffling the loose leaves of paper into a swirl of scattered white. One of the candles flickered out. When the gust had died down, Colin calmly relit the smoking wick with one of the other candles.

  “You’re here late,” Colin said.

  Jonathan took a couple of steps into the room.

  “I’m here for good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sebastian. He said I had to leave. I’m, like, kicked out.”

  Colin’s brow furrowed and he pinched at his neck with one hand.

  “I thought he wanted to catch me.”

  “Yeah. He does.”

  Colin squinted one eye and cocked his head.

  “Well … don’t you think he’d jutht follow you?�
�

  Jonathan opened his mouth. But before he could say anything, he heard the distant creak of a door from behind him, and then the rumble of footsteps running up the stairs.

  The lightning was constant and explosive and spectacular. It provided more light to the dining room than the candles that were lit on every table. Colin sat in a chair in the middle of the room, flanked by Roger and Francis.

  Rain pelted the huge windows. Thunder booms like cannon shots rattled the glass. The courtyard was a rain-lashed lake, reflecting the violent white cracks of lightning above. The wind shrieked between Slabhenge’s tall towers like an army of furious ghosts.

  The sword glowed red and yellow in Sebastian’s hand, from the candlelight. Except when it gleamed white in the lightning. The Admiral’s hat was back on his head, retrieved from Colin’s room. His sneering mouth was busy chewing one of the reclaimed gold-wrapped chocolates.

  Jonathan stood off to one side with the others. Benny was holding him roughly with one hand, pinching harder than he needed to, his fingers like fangs in Jonathan’s shoulder. Jonathan sniffed from time to time and rubbed at his nose with his arm. His sleeve was smeared with dark blood. When the boys had reached the top of the stairs to Colin’s room, he’d tried quickly to slam the door, but it was too late; they’d burst in and Sebastian had knocked him to the ground with one vicious punch. Colin was bleeding, too, from a cut above his eye that Sebastian had given him when he’d tried to dash to the broken window and toss the Admiral’s hat out.

  “Admit it, Colin, you’re the one who stole my chocolates.”

  “Of courth I am. You found them in my room, Thebathtian.”

  “Shut up. So you admit it, then, trespassing and theft.”

  “Yeth. I went into the Admiral’th room and took the Admiral’th chocolateth.”

  “It’s my room!” Sebastian shouted, getting right in Colin’s face. “The Admiral is dead! I’m in charge! When are you going to get that?”

  “Oh, I get it, Thebathtian.” Colin’s voice was calm. Soft. Sad. “I abtholutely get it.”

  Sebastian straightened back up. His face was eerily pale in the shifting light.

  “And we all saw what you did to the Sinner’s Sorrow. That’s destruction of property. You have to be punished.”

  There was an especially loud crack of thunder at the same moment as a particularly forceful gale of wind. One of the large windows shattered, sending shards of glass flying into the group of boys. They screamed and ducked and dove under tables. Rain blew in through the broken window. Wind whipped through the room, blowing out most of the candles.

  “Hold that little thief!” Sebastian hollered. “Relight those candles!” The boys stood frozen, their eyes wide and scared. “Oh, Jesus, guys, it’s just a little thunderstorm. Relight those candles. We’ll cover the window in the morning.”

  They got the candles relit and moved to tables farther from the broken window. They all shivered wetly in the storm that was now in the room with them.

  “Punishment,” Sebastian continued. His black hair was plastered to his forehead with rain. Water dripped down his face. He had to almost shout to be heard above the wind and the thunder and the pouring rain. “The Sinner’s Sorrow is ruined. So what could we do? What could we do to a thief and a criminal?”

  The group blinked at him in silence. Teeth chattered.

  “In some places, they cut a thief’s hand off,” Sebastian said. He held the sword up and looked at it, turning the blade to catch the light. His mouth widened into a grim smile. The tips of his teeth showed whitely. The group tensed. “But that would be too messy.” He stepped slowly closer to Colin and his captors. “In other places, they just mark a thief. They carve a T into his forehead. Or his arm. Or his chest.” The smile disappeared. “Put him on the table,” he said. “Hold him down.”

  “No!” Jonathan cried, and Benny’s arm jerked around his neck, holding him in a headlock.

  Colin wiggled and fought, but he was too small. The older boys wrestled him onto a table on his back and pinned him down.

  The lightning flashed. Thunder cracked so loudly the boys could feel it in their chests. It sounded like the thunder was coming from inside the prison.

  “Come on, Sebastian! This is messed up!” Tony argued.

  “Shut up!” Sebastian’s voice was wild and furious. His face was twisted in anger. It was all white and black in the flashing light. It looked like a mask. “Open him up! Bare his chest!” he commanded, and the goons obeyed. Buttons popped and Colin’s skin shone white in the twisted light. Sebastian stepped forward, brandishing the sword.

  Jonathan twisted with a surge of energy and broke loose from Benny’s hold. He ran toward Sebastian.

  Sebastian turned to face him just as Jonathan slipped in a puddle on the floor. He hit the stone floor with a hard splash. He pulled himself quickly up to his hands and knees, but then Sebastian’s booted foot swung into his side like a sledgehammer. All the breath was kicked out of his lungs with a piercing whoosh of pain and he rolled over onto his back.

  Sebastian stepped forward and pressed a foot onto Jonathan’s neck. It was wet and cold and hard. Jonathan blinked and gasped for breath. His feet kicked in the puddle. His hands tugged at Sebastian’s leg, but Sebastian just pressed down harder.

  The sword blade swung slowly around until it was inches from Jonathan’s face, sharp and silver and dripping rain onto his nose.

  “You’re next, Johnny,” Sebastian said.

  Behind them, the door crashed open, letting in another mighty gust of wind.

  “Damn it, Reggie, I told you—” Sebastian started, before he turned and looked and stopped.

  They all did.

  Someone was standing in the doorway.

  A stranger. On Slabhenge. Looking at them all standing there in the storm-drenched dining room.

  “I came to warn ye about the storm!” he shouted. It was Patrick, the guy from the boat. He was wearing a yellow rain slicker and he was out of breath.

  The boys all stood, frozen, in the lightning and the flickering candlelight.

  Patrick’s eyes seemed to focus. He saw Colin, bloody and pinned down on top of the table. He saw the Sinner’s Sorrow standing in splinters. He saw Sebastian, soaked and furious and wearing the Admiral’s hat. He saw Jonathan, lying on the floor with a bloody nose and a boot on his throat and sword to his face.

  “Where is everybody? What in the world is going on here?” he asked, taking a step back.

  Sebastian raised his sword and pointed it at Patrick.

  “Grab him,” he said.

  After a few minutes, Patrick sat straining and panting, tied firmly to a chair. He’d been too surprised at first to run when the pack of wild boys had rushed him. They’d caught and tangled him in a tidal wave of arms and hands and pulled him to the ground.

  Then he’d started fighting. At first, he’d gained ground. He’d wrestled and twisted and was almost free when he’d felt the tip of Sebastian’s sword pressed against his neck. “Don’t move an inch,” Sebastian had warned. “Not an inch.”

  Patrick had frozen, an arm around his neck, others pinning his arms to his sides, his lungs heaving, and looked into Sebastian’s eyes. He must not have seen any bluff there. He was tied up and walked to the chair where he sat, looking around with wide eyes at the savage boys.

  Sebastian was pacing. He was grinding his teeth and idly swinging his sword. His eyes darted around the dark room. His shadow, thrown onto the wet stone walls by white flashes of lightning, loomed and jumped as he walked.

  “Where is everybody?” Patrick asked again.

  “We’re all right here,” Sebastian said with a sneer, holding his arms open.

  “Yeah, but—what about the Admiral? Mr. Vander? Where are all the grown-ups?”

  Benny, who was standing guard by Patrick’s side, leaned in close to his face with a toothy sneer.

  “All the grown-ups are dead and gone,” he said. “And that’s just how we like
it.”

  Patrick looked at him like he was crazy.

  “What d’ye mean? Ye mean … ye killed ’em?”

  “No!” Sebastian shouted, spinning in a puddle. “We had nothing to do with it! It was lightning. They were all struck by lightning!”

  Patrick gulped and looked around at the ring of frightened faces.

  “What … all of them?”

  “Yes, all of them!” Sebastian yelled, stamping his foot in the puddle. “We had nothing to do with it!”

  Patrick licked his lips and shrugged.

  “Okay. This is a crazy storm,” he added, nodding with his chin at the raging tempest howling through the broken window.

  “No, no,” Sebastian said, resuming his pacing. “Not tonight. The last storm. What … five days ago?”

  Patrick went pale. His eyes widened even farther.

  “Five days? Ye’ve all been here by yerselves fer five days?”

  Sebastian stopped his walking and glared at him.

  “Yes. And we’ve been fine. Just fine.”

  Patrick’s eyes darted to the shattered Sinner’s Sorrow, to Colin’s bloody head and Jonathan’s bloody nose.

  “Aye,” he said carefully. “Sure ye have.”

  “But now we’ve got a new problem,” Sebastian continued. “What to do with you?”

  “I think ye should let me go,” Patrick tried.

  “No,” Sebastian said with a small smile. “Then our game is over. And I’m not ready for that. I don’t want to go back just yet. None of us do.”

  “I do.”

  “Shut up, Colin. Of course you do. We’ll get to you in a second. First … what do we do with him?”

  All eyes turned to Patrick. He looked nervously around.

  “We could put him in the freezer with the grown-ups,” someone suggested.

  “Nah,” Sebastian said. “That wouldn’t be very nice. Anywhere out of the way will be fine. How about the coal room, for now?” He nodded to Roger and Gregory. “Take him down there. Leave a lantern on for him.”

  “Wait!” Patrick protested. “Ye never listened to why I came! There’s a monstrous storm coming on. It be a hundred-year storm, they say. A hurricane. Class Five! Bringing a terrible storm surge with it, too, historic high tides. Why, it could wash this whole place away! They told me I was mad to even try and make it out here, but I couldn’t leave ye all to drown.”