Noah stopped moving about a month ago. If his eyes can still see, he has a nice view though, perched at the top of a cliff where the ocean breeze is strong. I sometimes check in on him, sit by his feet, which are slowly taking root.
After your brother was born, I lost all of the voices, like the passengers jumped ship once they knew the lifeboat had been dropped into the sea. I suspect they’re with him now. It feels like a strange kind of shunning. It makes the island smaller. But there’s one stowaway who still makes an appearance every now and again—the Julia beneath my skin. I’ll be at the stony beach, and then find myself in the island’s greening interior, the sun higher in the sky. Once I came to and found she’d drawn a gecko in the mud, although there are none here. But for the most part, if she wants to wander, she does so at night, when I’m asleep. A truce of sorts. The boy calls Julia-under-the-skin “other Mommy.” I asked him if he was afraid of her, and he said no, because she’s Kapu.
Which I guess means I’m not.
Strangely, I miss it. I could spend hours, even days, sitting in the shade, traveling through all the memories it held, the lives it incorporated. You might not believe me, but I even miss Ethan. I spent a good deal of time mucking about in his childhood, and although what he did will pain me for the rest of my life, I do have a better understanding of why his heart was such a desert. What he went through when he was a child. I finally forgave him.
Dr. Stolz would be proud.
God, I miss you too. Miss isn’t a strong enough word, though. I don’t think one has been invented, in any language.
DATE UNKNOWN
I’ve looked everywhere for the key. I have this very stupid idea that I’ll find it, and somehow magically sail away, and then find you. I don’t know if I believe myself, but it gives me something to think about. The Reverend must have buried it somewhere, because I’ve surreptitiously looked through every accessible part of the boat, every item that we brought to shore. He must have my GPS phone too. What I wouldn’t give for just one stupid headline, to know there are still people out in the world, worried about what the hot color is for fall.
The Reverend built a small church out of trees that had blown down in the last big storm, and palm fronds, binding it all with twine the boy made. He even made a rudimentary cross, and a floor of dried thatch. A good rain sometimes causes the poles to list, since they’re not set too deeply in the sand, but he just fixes them when the sky clears. Every Sunday (or what we think is Sunday), he glowers when I go for a walk instead of joining him.
We still call your brother “the boy” because he doesn’t seem to respond yet to any name we’ve tried so far. Michael, James, Daniel, Lucas, John, Dylan (my favorite), Caleb (the Reverend’s). It’s become a family game now, if family is a word you could use for our configuration, with the Reverend or me tossing out a name while we’re gathered around the fire, the boy giggling and shaking his head no each time. Maybe the Julia-under-the-skin knows. I’m jealous of her, in a strange kind of way, because she’s more Kapu than I am.
How long has it been now? I’m not sure, but the boy is taller now, as high as my waist. He loves to rhyme and mostly sticks with English, although sometimes he’ll go silent for weeks at a time. Absorbed in Kapu.
I asked the Reverend why he’s immune, and he said it was part of an agreement made a long time ago between Kapu and his grandfather. Why I’m immune now, I can only conjecture.
But it’s a terrible burden, carrying this weight of self. A kind of coffin. I’ve even gone to the other side of the island, where the corpse flowers grow, pressed my face into the center of the bloom, inhaling the spores deeply, to no effect. When you’re a “one,” you’re trapped in linear time, only able to see what’s in front of and behind you. When you’re a “many,” your joy is dispersed, but so is your pain. It’s easier, somehow.
I don’t have the comfort of faith in God, but Shakespeare isn’t a bad substitute. The Reverend memorized all of Shakespeare’s work, which I’m starting to memorize as well, just from the repetition.
“Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
My love for you is fixed here, for now, but it’s never shaken.
DATE UNKNOWN
I’m locked in the cabin of the boat as I write this. Rapunzel in her tower. I think it’s been twenty-eight days. The boy looks so solemn when he brings me my food, slipping it through the notch at the bottom of the door, which the Reverend kindly cut out with an axe. The boy snuck me my journal, and a pen, to give me something to do. Sometimes he’ll sit outside the door while I eat my food, keeping me company.
“I spy with my little eye . . .” His favorite game.
You can walk around this island in half a day, it’s that small. I’ve tried to sketch it, but I’ve never had that gift. There hadn’t been that much vegetation before we got here either. Rain clouds passed mostly overhead, and there was only one natural spring. But the Reverend’s work has taken root, and it’s hardly recognizable now, or it is recognizable if you’ve been into the interior of Kapu. Massive curling ferns. Low, stubby trees. I even saw one of those twiglike leeches, brushed it off my shoulder.
A change is in the air. What kind, I’m not entirely sure. It’s been building, though, for months.
The pen, it’s running out.
I saw them whispering together, become silent when I approached. Noticed patches on the island that looked recently harvested. Found specimen jars that’d been washed and left out to dry. I decided to have another look in the cabin for the ignition key, and then heard the click behind me, too late. I hadn’t realized he’d switched the doorknob so it locked from the outside. That he’d been watching me too.
I think a new ark is under way, but whether I’ll be going along for the ride is a question. Maybe they’ll leave me behind. It’s a special kind of agony, not knowing. Like when I’d catch Ethan whispering with you. You’d look at me strangely after, as if you were already being pulled and stretched between us. Your voice would catch in a funny way. I’m so sorry, Evie. I’m sorry for all of it. I should have done more, been more.
Damn this pen.
I can’t promise you a happy ending, or that everything will be all right. The greatest lie we ever tell our children is that we can protect them. The truth is, the world has teeth, and people are ferocious creatures, and yes, half the world is trying to eat the other half. The truth is, there are witches in the woods with houses made of candy, who entice you inside with promises of cake, but have a dark purpose.
I can’t remake the world into something better. All I can do is love you. Be something recognizable so that if—no, when—we meet again, there’s something left of me you can still call home. Come find me, Evie, if you can. Follow the bread crumbs. I wish
#NDC DEV ORG HUB
23:04:11
do you have eyes on them?
23:04:17
affirmative. estimate 3 days until departure.
23:04:29
any intel on the route?
23:04:35
GPS searches show interest in Chile.
23:04:45
he thinks Dr. Greer is dead?
23:04:52
uh, yeah. his first search. we redirected to fake sites. how is the old broad doing?
23:05:13
in other words, you want to make sure you’re paid. she’s fine. blood infusions giving her a boost, but the little brat is getting combative. her mother on board?
23:05:53
if she wasn’t, don’t you think we’d mention that?
23:06:06
any more snark and your check will be lighter.
23:06:18
<
br />
shit, chillax a little. are we a go to intercept?
23:06:31
once they’ve got distance from island. might as well let them fill the boat with our samples.
23:06:55
copy that.
23:06:57
gently. the reverend doesn’t matter, but we need the boy in good shape. and his mother.
23:07:19
oh man, no romance?
23:07:24
don’t even joke about it. you’ll be able to afford plenty after, but that womb is off-limits. we have plans.
23:07:51
shit, i get the feeling you always do.
23:08:02
it’s not a feeling. it’s a reality.
23:08:17
- - > bai908 has quit
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’D LIKE TO THANK THE people of Maui for sharing their mana‘o with me, and making space for the strange woman with thick black glasses, who wore long-sleeved shirts (with collars) on the hottest days of summer. I don’t know what I was thinking either. Thanks for your patience with my ignorance. Mark Edward Minie offered a different kind of guidance, in scientific form, and pointed me in the direction of relevant articles (at least I knew where I was taking fictional liberties).
I feel extremely fortunate that my literary agent, Jill Marr, saw this piece when it was a short story and thought it would make a great novel—at the time I don’t know if I would have agreed, and yet now, here it is. Thanks, Jill. A huge thanks also to Kevin Cleary and John Beach for their unquenchable optimism and hard work on my behalf in the City of Angels.
I’m immensely grateful to Ed Schlesinger and the team at Gallery Books for helping me sort through the complicated strands to make the novel stronger (and presentable). Ed’s insight in particular always surfaces things I might have missed, adding dimensions that make the work richer.
Writing takes a lot of time, and this book would not have been possible without the support of my husband, who gives me the space to work, and believes in me more than I do. Often he holds the candle of my dream when I can’t. I also find inspiration in my son, who is well on his way to becoming a young man of substance. His journey gives me hope for the future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. LINCOLN FENN is the critically acclaimed author of Dead Souls and Poe, which won the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror. Fenn grew up in New England and graduated summa cum laude from the University of New Hampshire. She lives with her family in Seattle.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Nicole Beattie
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First Gallery Books ebook edition October 2018
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ISBN 978-1-5011-1096-2
The Nightmarchers Page 29