Moonfin

by L. L. Mintie

  “He liked our ideas—we were making so many scientific breakthroughs—but when he saw the suffering…. There’s always a price to pay.”

  “What ideas—what are you doing to these animals? Why are you changing them?” Lizzy garbled.

  “You’ve heard of cloning and genetic modification?”

  “You mean like with DNA?” Her parents often talked about DNA, the codes that made life possible.

  “Yes, deoxyribonucleic acid: splicing, dicing, rewriting, virus mutations—we’ve tried a whole gamut of experiments. Some with great success and some, well, not so much. Think of all the good we could do for the world with this knowledge! We could create burgeoning crab and tuna populations to feed the starving—so much marvelous potential!”

  Lizzy couldn’t believe her ears. She slid to the floor, eyes glazing over, helpless. Mustering what little strength she had left, she cried out, “What have you done that’s good? You aren’t helping anyone by making turtle-sharks!” She wasn’t buying any of this “save the world” stuff Mrs. Gates was trying to sell her. It was just cruel.

  Mrs. Gates’s playful tone dropped, and turning dark and strange, she said, “We can control any living thing we want. You can be a part of it too, if you wish.”

  It made Lizzy’s stomach turn.

  But she was also … curious. There was a part of her that wanted to see what Mrs. Gates was talking about—wanted to belong to this “club” that seemed to know so much more than everyone else—to know how a Bip worked. It was tempting, this forbidden knowledge. Then Iddo’s words came crashing in on her thoughts and she remembered—

  “There are things that shouldn’t be messed with. You have only caused great pain,” she said sadly.

  “Pish-posh! Where will all that morality get you? In a pit, I dare say. Ha-ha! I see you are a Grape for sure,” Mrs. Gates said, mocking her some more. “Science is so useful on this planet. You can’t stop us, you know. Your brother was foolish to even try!”

  “Where is my brother!” Lizzy yelled back in one last failed attempt to find out what happened to him.

  “Goodbye. Have a nice sleep, you meddling little imp.”

  Mrs. Gates’s footsteps trailed off, and Lizzy couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard two other sets of feet stomp away as well. She looked over at Jeff and Kai—both were trapped in a glassy stare, barely conscious. She gave Kai a sharp nudge.

  “Snap out of it! We need to get out of here!”

  Kai’s head fell on her shoulder, and she said dreamily, “Why would I want to get out of here? I love right where I am! I never want to leave.”

  “We’re in a pit of disgusting slime!” Lizzy hissed. “What’s wrong with you?” She pushed Kai again, and the effort caused Lizzy to topple over, her back now stuck to the floor of purple goo.

  “No, no, it’s not a pit at all. What are you talking about? I just won the Pipeline Grand Masters tournament! I am rich and famous. Oooh, Hawaii is sooooo beautiful …”

  Her voice trailed off into gruesome silence.

  Jeff gawked into nothingness, a disturbing smile frozen on his face. Lizzy noticed the color of their eyes had changed to a deep purple; nothing left of them both but a stale haze. A few minutes later, Lizzy also fell under the jello’s poisonous spell … and the dreaming began …

  Kai’s dream was truly magnificent. The ocean waves were crashing down on the North Shore. She clung to a trophy while being carried on the shoulders of her adoring fans. They put her down on a stage where cameras flashed all around, and reporters asked her poignant questions such as, “What’s it like to win eleven world titles?” She laughed joyously and flipped her crop of wet black hair. I am somebody, she thought. For the first time in her life she was completely happy.

  Jeff’s dream was quite different. He was shaking hands with the president of NASA, having won a contract to build their rocket engines for the first passenger shuttle to Mars. This would mean millions of dollars for his company. His father and grandfather stood by congratulating him—“We knew you’d do great things, son!” They beamed with the prospect of so many greenbacks in the bank. All three piled into a limousine full of caviar and root beer floats, laughing and toasting themselves for all of their success. Jeff grinned from ear to ear, tears of happiness glistened in his eyes. They are so proud of me.

  When Lizzy finally fell under the power of the dreaming jello, she fell hard. Her eyes glazed deeply as her dreamscape came into sharp focus. It was all a lie, but she didn’t care. It was all she wanted in life. Kai was right, why would she want to leave? She was transported, at that very moment, to a crowded auditorium. Her parents were in the front row, waiting for their daughter to win the greatest award of all: the Nobel Peace Prize in agricultural science. She had invented a machine called the Diatomic Duck (it quacks when turned on) that changed plain dirt instantly into food, especially candy, making her very popular with her classmates. They were applauding and congratulating her for stamping out world hunger. Her parents shed tears of joy. Jade was green with envy. Her brother was there. He gave her a big hug and said, “I am so glad to share this with you!” I fit in, she thought, truly the happiest one of all.

  And so Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai stayed trapped in the Dreaming Pit, sleeping their cares away….

  Several hours passed.

  Crickets chirped.

  Hairless rodents scurried around the top of the pit, kicking dirt and leaves onto their heads. The moon rose above them, casting shadows across grisly grins. Tears streamed down their besotted cheeks. They stared off into nothingness, never once waking up to see their dirty and dark surroundings.

  Not far off, a bear was watching with keen interest. He wasn’t an ordinary bear, but a very intelligent creature with golden-brown fur, tusks jutting up from a wide jowl, and an angry scowl perpetually cemented to his brow. He savagely rattled the metal belt that encircled his waist; from it hung a flail that dangled at the end of a chain. He had an important job to do as Guardian of the island: bash man-intruders to pieces with the spiked flail and throw them into the hungry stomach of the Pit …

  But now the flail fell limply to his side, the angry scowl on his face melting a little. Perceiving what was happening to the three children, he set off to see what could be done about it, because, and he didn’t know why, there was something very special about the one called “Lizzy.”

  Chapter 15

  GLIMMRUYN OF THE DEEP

  Twenty-four delightful hours passed while Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai slept peacefully in the Dreaming Pit. Stomachs growled, and throats were parched, but no one knew it, and no one cared. It was the most blissful sleep any of them had ever had. And as the island awoke with the chirping sounds of night, the dewy purple pit grew chilly, but the warmth of their glory-dreams kept them very happy …

  Jeff was currently enjoying a chocolate sundae on a flight in his private jet over the Atlantic Ocean—the Prime Minister of England was holding tea for him until he arrived; Kai was at a photo shoot for a sportswear company in Australia, after that she planned to hop a plane to Tahiti to surf the famous Teahupo’o shore; and Lizzy worked busily away in her new state of the art laboratory built especially for her, while leaders from around the world asked her to solve hunger problems in their countries.

  They were all quite famous … in their heads.

  The bear had been circling the area looking for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Sometimes he knew. At other times, he would get hungry and wander off into the forest looking for berries, forgetting about the three children (bears are rather led around by their stomachs, you know). He even found a curious bag hanging from a tree, and rummaging through it, found a scrumptious honey-like bar to munch on.

  Berriesnutsfishbeeshoney swirled around in his head like a busy beehive. And occasionally, berriesnutshoney children would pop in there too. After a while, he’d tread back to the pit in search of the very thing he remembered: When Dr. Krell wanted to save the life of that which had fallen
into the pit, he turned a circle of some sort. They called it a “wheel.”

  But where this could be, he didn’t know.

  The bear thought hard about the wheel. He meandered and dug, pulled and plodded until finally he found the wheel hidden in the brush behind a tree. He tugged on it until it loosened. The pipe leading to the pit started to gurgle and salt water came rushing into the pit where the three children were trapped.

  Then the bear became nervous and let out a series of loud gruuuuffffs and hullabaloos in alarm, hoping they would snap out of their dreams in time to keep from drowning. And so he pulled and turned and gruffed and sniffed some more, then he scurried up a tree to watch what would happen next.

  The water churned wildly around Jeff, Kai, and Lizzy’s feet. Nothing happened at first. The bear bellowed out a fierce howl when it reached up to their waist. They began to stir slowly from their deep, deep sleep as the salt water washed the jello from them. Jeff woke up first, then Kai. Lizzy was the last to go under and the hardest hit, so it took longer to bring her out.

  “Ugh, my head hurts. Where am I?” Jeff said dizzily, slapping a hand to his face and rubbing furiously.

  “We’re still in the pit,” Kai said groggily. “I-I think we’ve been asleep!”

  Lizzy woke up in a suffocating panic, coughing violently from the gallon of salt water shooting up her nose.

  “What’s happening!” she spluttered.

  “I’m not in Australia, that’s what!” lamented Kai.

  The water rushed up the walls like a small geyser and lifted them off their feet, fully awake now, and paddling for dear life to avoid drowning like flies caught in a stewpot. It propelled them up and up and splashed them along the edge, where they sat in a puddle of watery slime, and a pool of disappointment, from being woken up from such nice lives.

  “Wait! I’m not the CEO of a multinational company?” moaned Jeff.

  “Achoo!” Kai coughed up a mouthful of purple goop. “No, I guess it was all a fantasy world,” she murmured. Finding her knapsack sitting safe and dry near the edge of the pit, she pulled it close, squeezing it to make sure it was real; she was especially sad not to be on her way to Tahiti to surf.

  “How long were we stuck in there?”

  “Must’ve been a while—my stomach’s growling,”

  “Your stomach always growls. That’s no way to tell time.”

  “Very funny. According to my watch, it’s the next day—exactly twenty-four hours later.”

  Lizzy poked at red festering circles pocked along her arm and winced. “Ouch! Anyone else have sores on their skin?” Her pant legs had a few gnawed holes too.

  “Yeah, I do. There must be some acid in that jello stuff. I’ll get the medical kit—there’s aloe vera in there to cool it down,” said Kai. She dug through her knapsack and pulled out a small green bottle, squirting a dab in each of their palms.

  “Rub it in well,” she fussed, watchful.

  Jeff eyed her oddly.

  “Since when did you get all medicinal on us?”

  Kai shrugged. This was a side of her most people didn’t see—all those years taking care of Gracie had made her a really good nurse.

  The water subsided from the pit. Lizzy crawled over to the edge on all fours and peered into it, careful not to lose her balance and go careening back down.

  “I think we should mark this hole with a sign, or fill it in with dirt, so no one else falls in there like we did.”

  “Uh—Lizzy, look around you,” said Kai, motioning behind her.

  Lizzy gasped. Surrounding them on every side, and spilling into the forest, were hundreds of glowing, fluorescent circles, sparkling and pulsing purple in the night. One false move and they could go sliding into another dream world.

  “Oh my!” she squeaked. “They must form naturally on this island for there to be so many. You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” replied Jeff grimly, “any number of natural things on this island can kill us.”

  “We’ll have to watch our every step!”

  Lizzy stood wobbling to her feet and looked around for her backpack. She was sure it didn’t go into the pit with her. Looks like Jeff’s pack got slimed, but hers was missing. “Has anyone seen my—oh! How did it get all the way over there?”

  She darted to a nearby tree, where her pack dangled from one of the branches with the flap open, and reached inside to make sure everything was still there.

  “Yuck! It’s filled with slobber! And I’m missing a granola bar!” (From somewhere in the trees a snort sounded, but no one heard it.)

  “If we can manage to clear this pit-field, I think we should head down to the beach like Jeff said before,” suggested Kai. “I would feel much better being along the edge of this island, versus in the middle of a jungle full of surprises. It looks safe enough—the moon is bright and giving us plenty of light to see by.”

  Jeff and Lizzy agreed to this plan. After dousing their sores with aloe vera, they headed out of the field of glowing orbs, hacking through thick forest vines in search of a path that would lead them down to the shore, their minds now free to ponder their recent dreams, which felt as real to them as their own lives. Kai was wondering what the boy who had everything could still want in life.

  “What did you dream about, Jeff?”

  “Nothing important.” Then he licked his lips. “But I did eat caviar and it was out of this world.”

  “That’s all?”

  “And a root beer float. What about you?”

  She doubted his dream was that simple. Eating. But this was Jeff, after all.

  “I rode the biggest wave on earth and conquered it,” said Kai, dropping into a surf pose. “What a feeling! What about you, Liz? What did you dream about?”

  It seemed so silly she hardly wanted to share it. “I—uh—made candy out of dirt,” she said quickly, turning red.

  Kai and Jeff laughed and said they wished that were possible!

  The bear followed behind them at a safe distance. When Lizzy talked about her dream, he felt a slight stir in his heart. For one moment, he didn’t look very much like an angry bear but more like a man—a very sad man.

  They clambered down to an empty stretch of beach. The waves were crashing against the sand, the night was balmy, and a cathedral of stars stretched into a glistening rooftop above. Jeff worked on building a fire. Kai and Lizzy looked around for enough wood to last them through the night. After the flames crackled to life and the purple goo had been brushed off as best as could be, Lizzy told them about her conversation with Mrs. Gates.

  “Are you sure that was her back at the pit? I mean, how is our science teacher involved with all this?” said Kai.

  “I’m sure it was her, all right. Oh! And there’s more—” Lizzy pulled the picture from her pocket, barely intact from the wet, sticky jello, and showed it to them. They agreed it looked like Ophelia Gates, complete with little hair-nest and beady eyes, although they couldn’t understand how since the photo had been taken over a hundred years ago.

  “I checked the school yearbook before I left and found out she came to work for Monarch Middle six years ago.”

  “That makes sense. If she hasn’t been around here for a while, that would keep people from being suspicious as to why she hasn’t aged in all this time,” said Jeff.

  They stared into the crackling fire, warming their hands and feet.

  “What now?” asked Kai. “Thanks to those nasty pits, we’re stuck on this island for much longer than we planned.”

  “Eat. The Doritos from the vending machine survived in my pack,” said Jeff, pulling out several small red bags.

  Lizzy wasn’t sure what to do. She would much rather explore the island in the cloak of night, but unless all the island snares gave warning by glowing in the dark like the pits, it was better to travel during daylight.

  “It’s late, I guess we should wait here,” she said, yawning. “We can rest before the sun comes up in the morning.�
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  But then she caught something out of the corner of her eye and almost missed it because she thought it was an ember from the fire. But on second look, realized it was a translucent bubble, practically invisible, floating on the night breeze in front of her nose. It popped, and for a moment she could see words wobbling inside before vanishing into thin air.

  She looked over at Jeff and Kai, who didn’t seem to notice the bubble or the words. It looked like this:

  Lizzy’s eyes darted anxiously seaward.

  “Think I’ll see if—if anyone is stirring around the island waters—maybe Xili or Iddo can—can give us some help,” she stammered. Was it for real?

  “Good idea. Jeff and I will keep the fire going—and be careful, will you? This island is messing with our heads … literally,” warned Kai.

  “Look who’s acting like a mother hen now,” Lizzy quipped.

  Jeff looked at Kai like she was someone else.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  The waves had died down to a gentle lapping. Lizzy stepped into the water and somewhere inside of her words began to form—words she didn’t even understand the meaning of …

  “Kelea el omi yam!” she called out.

  Minutes passed and nothing happened. After a bit, the water before her began to whirl and whorl, swish and swirl. Two forms shot up out of the sea, towering fountains of shimmering fluid.

  “Mhmhmhm, my sister, you called to us in the language of the Deep!”

  Lizzy liked when Xili giggled like that; it sounded like effervescent ripples along a gurgling creek.

  “I did—I think. I’m not sure what I said.”

  “It means ‘heart of the living sea’ in your language.”

  The figure next to Xili appeared to be the mysterious dark-haired boy she met before. It was hard to tell, his face kept popping in and out of the rippling fountain.