Alabaster Island_The Mermaid Curse

by M. S. Kaminsky

  The pilot got out of the airplane and hopped from the plane’s pontoon. Behind him a different boy about the same age as me followed. Tall and handsome, he looked around with amused curiosity. He inspected the gaping crowd with a bewildered smile but when his gaze drifted to me our eyes locked and he swallowed hard. A sudden thrill rose in my chest and spiraled into confusion. The mayor guided him and the pilot away and led them to the small dockside cottage. That was where they'd stay. Kassandra walked past me shaking her head.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “They dumped six thousand dollars worth of supplies in the ocean. They only have half of what they’re supposed to. Idiots.”

  “Why did they do that?”

  She mumbled something I didn't understand and stormed off. Mayor Marlow joined her and they conferred angrily. I walked out onto the dock. Cunningham had the airplane's hood open, looking at the engine.

  “How do we know they didn’t just sell our supplies to someone in the Outlands?” Carlos shouted loudly, so everyone could hear.

  “He’s been flying here for four years. Don’t make sense. I believe him.” Cunningham replied.

  “Dang extreme reaction, if you ask me,” Carlos responded.

  I learned that the pilot and his son ran into mechanical trouble, a turbo failure, whatever that meant. So they dumped weight, half of our supplies, to avoid crashing in the ocean. Ditched supplies seemed better than landing in the middle of the Big Ocean. Most of the others disagreed or thought there was an aspect of irresponsibility if not fraud.

  Chloe still avoided me and Ethan wasn’t around. I headed to the center square to find her, deciding to pass by the small hut on my way. I hadn’t yet updated her about my plan.

  “So, you’re not allowed to talk to us.” A voice said behind me.

  When I turned the boy from the plane stood looking at me, arms folded, slight smile on his face. The wind blew and mussed up his dirty blond hair. He was tanned and athletic with strong arms and muscles that rippled beneath a blue t-shirt with a surfboard on its front. Nothing like the pudgy kid who normally came on these trips.

  “Uh…” I said.

  “It’s okay, Dad said you’re not allowed to talk to me. Don’t want you getting in trouble.” He turned away. “My brother warned me you’re an odd bunch.”

  I bristled at his insult. “I can talk to whoever I want!”

  He turned back around, eyebrows raised.

  “Really? Cool.” He guided me out of sight from the dock. Up close he smelled like diesel fuel and sweat, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

  “What do you guys do for fun on this island? Dad says you’re all bunch of crazy hippies,” he grinned at me.

  “Hippies?” I’d never heard the word before but his smile was contagious and I smiled back.

  “Yeah, like…hippies. Peace, love…good weed,” he winked as if we were both in on a secret. I wasn’t sure what was good about weeds, but I didn’t want our conversation to end.

  “Yeah, weeds can be good I guess. Depends on the type.” Mom made salads from the chickweed and purslane that snuck between our beets and chard.

  “Exactly! It’s all about the variety.” He laughed. It was a deep, rich and free laugh that released something in my chest. I felt myself relaxing places I hadn’t realized I’d been tense.

  “I dig you. You’re cool,” he said pointing a finger at me. “So how can I find you again? We should hang.”

  “Sure…but how? I’m not allowed…and you’re not…will it be alright with—”

  “Hey, everything’s negotiable, right?” he said. “Or there’re workarounds. I’m gonna make it alright. I didn’t fly all this way not to see this place. And meet the locals,” he smiled again. “I feel like an old time explorer. You guys are da bomb.”

  “Thanks,” I said awkwardly. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to get his approval, but his good nature bubbled over and infected me.

  “How can I find you again? Where do you live?”

  I pointed up at the lighthouse.

  “You live in a lighthouse? No shit. That is dope. I have to visit you.”

  “Okay, but how?” I whispered. “When?”

  “After dark. Gimme a spot…someplace good, easy to find with a flashlight,” he looked at his watch. “Around ten. My Dad’s trashed. He should be hella zonked by then.”

  The language he used thrilled, but confused me. Hella? Dope? Zonked? I understood what he meant by context but none of us talked like that

  “Ten at night?” I couldn’t think of the last time I was outside after eight. Mom and Dad would be in bed. We rose before dawn every morning.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “How about…up at the lighthouse, behind the chicken coop, beneath the tallest mango tree?”

  “Perfect. Okay, I need to get back and help my Dad fix the plane’s engine.” He turned to leave.

  “Wait. You know engines?”

  “Sure.”

  “What about boats?”

  “In terms of what?” he asked.

  “Fixing the engine and some holes.”

  Dylan scratched his head. “Don’t know much about fixing holes. But I could try…” he said. “Why?”

  There was no reason to trust him, but I already did. I was about to tell him my plan to fix up the boat when his Dad appeared around the corner.

  “Dylan!” his father barked. “Quit goofing around!” His father looked like a pirate in one of our fairy tale stories. His face blasted red by sea and salt. Unshaven with a several day growth of beard and piercing blue eyes like his son. He glared at me and then yanked Dylan back by the arm.

  “Well, gotta go,” Dylan said sheepishly.

  I nearly answered See you later. But Dylan’s look stopped me. This was our secret, I understood.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  That night, I crept out of my bedroom and into the kitchen. Down the hall Dad snored softly. Above me our wall clock ticktocked, its face painted one half like a happy yellow sun and the other half a moody blue moon. It was five minutes until ten.

  Once outside, I waited. I stood behind the chicken hutch which lay silent save for the occasional random cluck. Did chickens dream? I wondered. A few moments later, Dylan appeared around the corner. My heart pounded. I hadn’t remembered him being so tall and his shoulders appeared broader in the night. It reminded me that I’d just met this boy, this stranger who had snuck out against his father and Mayor Marlow’s wishes.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he whispered. “Everything looked different at night. If I hadn’t followed the silhouette of the lighthouse, I would have gotten lost on these paths.”

  He turned his flashlight back on, cupping it with his hand. The warm glow that snuck between his fingers lit up his shy smile.

  “Well, I’m glad you found it…me,” I said, twisting a lock of my hair in my fingers.

  “Thanks for staying up.”

  “I stay up late all the time,” I lied.

  He raised one eyebrow. “So you got weed? Maybe we can go someplace where we don’t need to whisper?” His eyes explored mine with a silent intensity. This boy differed from the island boys in some way I couldn’t place. He was a mystery, a puzzle I wanted to solve.

  “Yes,” I said. “Turn off the flashlight for now.” He stumbled in the dark. I took his hand and led him around to the side of the house. It felt warm and rough in mine. At the end of a narrow stone path we entered Mom’s herb garden.

  “Here,” I whispered. “There’s plenty of chickweed, and lambs quarters too.” Mom made that into a delicious salad. I didn’t understand why he was so keen on collecting weeds, but it was important to him, so I tried to appear knowledgeable. It was while showing him a small patch of sweet clover and explaining its use that I heard a choking noise. I turned to find him doubled over, with tears streaming down his face.

  “You’re killing me,” he choked through spasms of silent laughter.

  “Killing…you?” I repea
ted. His laughter was contagious, even though it was directed at me.

  “You’re not messing around?” He stood up.

  “I…”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he wiped away the tears. “I shouldn’t be laughing.” He grabbed my hands. Then he became nervous, caught off-guard by his spontaneous gesture as much as I was. His throat clicked as he let my hands go.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” I whispered, looking up at my parent’s window. “Then you can tell me what you found so funny.”

  I took him out the back way along the path, four hundred and thirty-eight steps (lucky), that led to smooth luck rock. He followed behind. Out in the open beneath the three quarter moon he didn’t need his flashlight and even less as we neared the water. I touched smooth luck rock three times, trying to make it appear like I was dusting her off.

  “This is one of my favorite spots,” I said. It was vastly different at night with its long shadows and endless shimmering ocean. It felt bigger. Dylan sat next to me. The indent was perfect for two. We sat shoulder to shoulder looking out over the rolling whitecaps as they sprayed against the rocks.

  “It’s awesome,” he whispered.

  “You don’t need to whisper anymore,” I said.

  “Oh right,” his voice cracked. “I mean, right,” slightly deeper. We both giggled.

  “Everyone’s asleep and people don’t come here anyway….so we’ve got the island to ourselves.”

  “Sweet,” he said.

  “Yeah, sweet,” I repeated. “So are you gonna explain the joke back there?”

  “Pot…I thought you had pot. I have a little left, but I can’t find it.”

  “Pot?” I thought of our kitchen pots and pans.

  “Yeah, like marijuana?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Do you watch TV here?”

  “Nope. Just a few videotapes that Kassandra ordered for special celebrations. Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, hmm what else...The Little Mermaid?”

  “All Disney fairy tales. And no TV. Radio?”

  “One night we listened to music on Ethan’s dad’s radio. But we aren’t allowed to.”

  “That’s wacked.”

  I shrugged. “There’s plenty to keep us busy. The Outlands sound awful. Are they really terrible?”

  “Outlands? I dunno what they’ve told ya, but people pay serious dough to live in Hawaii.”

  “But I heard there are bombs that could kill entire cities in moments. Crime everywhere. That’s not true?”

  Dylan shifted and looked uncomfortable “No…that is true. Nukes, crime sure those things do exist but…it doesn’t really affect me, not where we live. I read about it…maybe stuff could happen. But so far so good.” He knocked on his head three times and my heart flooded with warmth.

  “People are bound there, right? Married.” I remembered the word Mom used.

  “Yeah, sure people get married.”

  “People who love each other.”

  Dylan nodded, cocking his head. I forced myself to breathe. I’d wanted to meet with Dylan because he fascinated me, I was strongly attracted to him. Now I realized that there was a whole other benefit. If, no when, I left for the Outlands, I needed to find out how things worked. And Dylan was someone who could teach me.

  “What about here? There aren’t that many of you…how are you all related?” he asked.

  “We aren’t, exactly,” I said. “We’re different families. My mom and another woman arrived here first and then others followed. Our parents came here twenty years ago more or less. Everyone under eighteen was born here. None of us have ever been to the Outlands. So that’s why I don’t know some of your expressions. Everything we learn comes from old books or what Mrs. Caroline tells us in Assembly.”

  “What’s that?”

  Now we trod on uncertain territory. I wasn’t sure how much to say about Lemuria, or our quest to return to our homeland.

  “It’s like our school,” I explained. At the word school he lost interest.

  “Do you guys all, like date each other?”

  “Some people do. Or did, but not anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were Bound.”

  “Dude, that sounds painful.”

  “It was,” I turned to hide my face. “It is.”

  “So are you…bound?”

  “Yes, but it isn’t…”

  He raised his hand. “Hey, it’s okay. Things are different here, I see that.”

  I blinked away tears. “Ben hates me and I hate him. It’s horrible. We don’t love each other.” Talking about Ben was the last thing I wanted to tell Dylan, but there we were.

  “So, I’m leaving,” I said.

  “The island?”

  I nodded.

  “Can you do that?”

  “No,” I whispered. “I have to escape…No one knows I want to, well except for Chloe.” I explained my plan of fixing up the boat, getting far out enough toward the ship when it came and being picked up by them. “That’s why I asked if you knew how to fix boats.”

  “I can’t promise, but I’ll take a look at it. Where is it?”

  “Not far from here, I can show you.”

  Part of me wanted his help, but a bigger part of me wanted him to know how serious I was about leaving. Right now he viewed me as an islander, someone different from him. But not long from now, if everything went according to plan, I’d be living in the Outlands. Hopefully in the same village as him.

  We walked closer to the water’s edge using his flashlight to navigate the rocks. Luckily the tide was low and we took the easy way without scrabbling down the steep slope.

  “Can I get over here with no one seeing me?” he asked.

  “If you followed the shore from the docks,” I said as I pointed beyond the lighthouse. “There’s a path most of the way, but it’s overgrown.”

  Now we were in the small inlet. Dylan shone his flashlight over the boat. In the moonlight, she looked like a regular boat, with nothing wrong with her.

  “She looks fine,” Dylan said.

  I showed him the damage on the underside and when he looked at the engine, he didn’t look optimistic. “I’ll need to check her out in daylight,” he said.

  “You don’t understand, I have to get off this island,” I said grabbing his wrist. “I can’t stay here with Ben.” Tears filled my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. We stood close together, heat from our walk poured off our bodies. I let go of his wrist and Dylan put his arm around me, awkward at first.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my cheeks.

  “No, it’s okay. You need a hug.” He wrapped his arms around me. “And my arms are big.”

  I leaned into him and felt his heart thudding against me. My tears dampened his shirt.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said sounding upset. When I looked up into his eyes, we both froze for a minute.

  “I feel stupid,” I said. “I barely know you. It’s just…” I felt embarrassed to have lost control in front of him. I broke away and fished a handkerchief out of my pocket and blew my nose trying to keep a shred of dignity. When I turned back to him he was still watching.

  He put his hand on my cheek. “I’ll help you with your boat,” he whispered. We looked into each other’s eyes and I realized I was holding my breath. He leaned in and we kissed. It left my lips and entire body tingling with wonderful glowing warmth.

  “Sorry,” he said, smiling.

  I smiled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You don’t look very sorry,” I said.

  Dylan bit his lip.

  “I’m not sorry either,” I added.

  “Oh, sweet.”

  “But, I should go back,” I said.

  “It’s only eleven.”

  “Eleven! I need to be up at five.”

  Dylan turned to the water, ocean breeze tussling his hair, soft moonlight on his face. “I bet I can sneak over here tomorrow if I plan it rig
ht.”

  “During the day?”

  “Sure. My dad let me take a break and swim after lunch today. I could head along that path you told me about. I can see the dock from here. I can nab a few things for the engine, but you have tools, boat repair stuff?”

  “Gosh, we must somewhere...”

  “Can you nab tools? And a repair kit. We’ll need acetone and epoxy to patch up those holes. Sandpaper too.”

  I felt I was back where I started. But I didn’t want to ruin the moment. For now it felt as if anything was possible.

  Motion in the water caught my eye and my breath seized in my throat. It was her…the mermaid. She swam near to shore, about twenty feet away. Dylan had his back to her. She watched me with an odd, hungry look on her face. Dylan lifted my hand and kissed it.

  “You okay?” he said.

  Then the mermaid girl smiled, and I gasped. For the first time she opened her mouth. Instead of regular teeth like Dylan or I had, she had a row of tiny, jagged, wicked looking shark teeth. Her smile turned to a scowl when she saw the fear on my face and she dove back into the water just as Dylan turned.

  “What the hell was that?” he stumbled back. “Did you see that fish? It was mad huge.” He turned. “Hey, you’re shaking.” He drew me close to him. I felt that the mermaid wanted something from me. I just wasn’t sure what.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Saturday morning there was no Assembly. I woke early to get my chores done and then quietly left. It took four times as long as it should have to get to Marlow’s place because I didn’t dare take the main trails. I wound my way through lush vegetation that grew dense as the topography became more rugged. Soon I walked along the island’s narrow spine.

  Below, I saw my home. Dad stood in the garden laying strips of mango out in the sun to dry. Mom sat up in the lighthouse working on the scroll. I could see her stooped over the desk. As I watched my dad, he glanced up toward me. I felt the impulse to duck even though I knew he couldn’t see me from there. I thought of the mermaid girl and how I’d known she was watching me. It made me uneasy that I might have given Dad the same, icky sensation. On another day, I would have jumped up on a rock and waved my arms.