Isle of Gods I: Damek

by H. Lovelyn Bettison

  I didn’t know exactly what we were doing once we got out there. We could only head toward the Sacred Circle like we always did, but once we got there I wouldn’t know how to find the door she told me about. There was so much pressure to get this mission right, and I wasn’t sure I could without her help.

  I went to bed that night longing for a dream that would tell me exactly what I needed to do. There was nothing. My sleep was dark and empty. I woke up early, my brain muddled. I snuggled up to Lourdes while she slept and kissed her temple. It was so good to be home again. It made me not want to leave on this voyage at all. I could hardly believe it when Lourdes asked me to move back in the week before I left. Her mother couldn't believe it either. I was sure she made a big stink to Lourdes when she found out, but since I moved in she hadn’t been around at all. I was glad and I think Lourdes was glad too.

  Lourdes was quiet all morning. She sat at the kitchen table eating dry cereal from the box as she held a groggy Tati in her lap.

  “I won’t be gone that long,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

  She nodded, picked up the cereal box, and appeared to be reading the ingredients.

  “Only two and a half months at most. It just depends on what happens.” I paused for a moment and watched her.

  “Sounds like a long time to me.”

  “Not in the scheme of things.”

  She shook her head. “I hope you really know what you're doing this time. I'm not ready to be a widow.” Her voice cracked.

  “You’re not going to be one. Where’s your faith?”

  “I think it’s on vacation.” She gave a weak laugh and reached up and touched her pendant. “You’re right. I need to be able to accept our destiny whatever that is. Even if you don’t come back the gods will provide.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’ll be back, and when I do come back everything will be different. The whole world will be better. Imagine that.”

  She sighed. “I’m still not sure how that’s going to happen. You can’t force a god to do anything.”

  “We won’t need to force her. Once she sees the suffering of the babies and their families first hand she’ll be moved to help. The gods are merciful.”

  She shook her head. “If this wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen don’t you think they would’ve done something about it already?”

  Why was she so difficult to convince? “I have to try.”

  “You had a vision. You are destined to help her. I know that. I worry, but I keep telling myself that you were chosen for a reason and that means that no matter what happens everything will be all right.” A tear slid down her cheek.

  “I will be all right, Lourdes. It might be difficult, but I’ll make it through. We’ll make it through.” I knew leaving her again would be hard, but I didn’t expect to feel this pang in my chest.

  She shook her head again. “I hope your visions are real.”

  “I've been seeing someone, that's for sure. She is as real as you are and she will guide me to the island. I'm as sure of that as I am anything.”

  “When we were kids you always dreamed big. You made me feel like anything was possible. That’s one of the things I loved about you.”

  “Loved,” I said looking into her weary eyes.

  “Love—,” she corrected herself. “All of this kind of makes me tired now. Every time you leave you seem just as convinced that you’ll find something as the last. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up. The most I can hope for is that you won't vanish like those men on the Santa Cruz.”

  “This time is different,” I said.

  She sighed. “I know.”

  I put my coffee mug on the counter. I needed to get going. Raul wanted to leave the dock as early as possible and there were still a few things we needed to do to prepare the boat for the long trip.

  Lourdes stood up and wrapped her free arm around me pulling me into her softness. Tati giggled, catching hold of my sleeve with her tiny fingers. “If they really are visions you have to go. It's your destiny. I'll be praying for you to come back to me safely.”

  I breathed in the sweet scent of Lourdes’s hair. “Everything I do is for you and Tati.”

  “Everything?” She pulled away and looked up at me.

  We still hadn't talked about Brenda. Every time I tried to bring it up she told me that she didn't want to discuss it because it would upset her too much. “That was a mistake,” I said. “I betrayed you and Tati and I'm so sorry.” I wanted to apologize before I left. I couldn't leave this hanging in the air without apologizing. Even though I still felt like I should tell her why I did it, I knew this wasn't the time. I wanted these last few moments to be good. “I love you.”

  “I know, baby. I love you too,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  It was good to have the old crew back together. The boat wasn’t really big enough to justify having too many men on board so there were only five of us. There wouldn’t be much room for any more people. If our trip was successful Raul expected to have some extra passengers anyway.

  Louis was a lanky kid who’d practically grown up on boats despite his parents’ disapproval. His father was a doctor and always assumed his son would follow in his footsteps. Problem was that Louis hated studying. He barely made it out of elementary school before he started working on the boats. His folks kind of let it go. People in town said they gave up too fast, but maybe they hoped his brother would make them proud. I got the feeling that all that really mattered to them was academics and when Louis was failing at that they threw up their hands and walked away.

  “I didn’t think we’d see you around here again,” Louis said as I stepped on board.

  “I stayed away as long as I could,” I said. I noticed the Sacred Circle pendant hanging around his neck. "That won’t do you much good on this trip.”

  Louis shrugged. "My mom insisted. I have to make her happy."

  “I don’t know how you convinced Lourdes to let you come back,” Pete said. He chuckled heartily. Pete was older than Raul, maybe in his early sixties. He was a beefy guy with a round stomach that hung over his belt buckle.

  “I don’t know how I did either,” I said.

  Marco, the new guy, walked over and stood near us, but said nothing.

  “Is this the first time you’ve tried to get to the Isle of Gods?” I asked him.

  Marco stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. I always wanted to go, but there aren’t many boats leaving for there from Seacrest.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why I sail with Raul almost exclusively.”

  Marco nodded and looked around. He was about the same age as Louis. He was a skinny guy who tended to look off in the other direction when he was talking to someone. I’d seen him in The Tornado a few times before, but had never really talked to him. “Raul told me you see visions.”

  “Did he now?”

  Marco looked at me skeptically. “He told me that because of your visions we’re guaranteed to make it to the island.”

  I wondered what else Raul was telling people. Granted all of this was true, but I wasn’t ready to go around bragging about it.

  “He told us that too,” Louis and Pete said.

  “I guess the pressure’s on then.” It wasn’t really any pressure. I was confident that the woman in my vision would help us get to the island even though she still hadn’t shown me how.

  I watched the pelicans dive into the surf as we sailed out of the harbor. It was hard to believe that I’d been on dry land for more than six months. This was my home, and standing on deck as we left the mouth of the harbor and entered the wide open ocean I knew that this was where I was always meant to be.

  The anxious pull that had driven me to the ocean in the first place left and was replaced with a calmness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. The first week of sailing was incredibly easy. I’d never seen the water so calm or the sky so blue. It was like we didn’t have to do much at all besides point the boat
in the right direction. But as the peacefulness of our trip stretched out for days, I started to worry. I hadn’t heard or seen the woman since we’d left. I started to doubt whether I’d ever really seen her at all.

  “I thought you were going to be giving me directions,” Raul said one day as we stood in the wheelhouse together.

  “Do you need any?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I just thought your god would be eager to keep us on course.”

  “I think she’ll give us directions when we need them.”

  “So there’s been no new visions so far?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

  “No, but there should be.”

  “You don’t sound very confident.”

  “We have to get to the Isle of Gods this time. Failing is not an option. We’ve failed too many times before. Even if she never shows up again we’ll find it.”

  Raul smiled. “Now you think we don’t need her help?”

  “Maybe she already gave us all the clues we need.”

  I started feeling anxious as more days went by with no visions. I’d brought along the leather-bound copy of the Book of Gods that I’d had since high school. It was marked up, but that was what made it good. I’d underlined so many sections there wasn’t a page that hadn’t been attacked with a ball-point pen. In high school, I studied that book with the fervor that I should’ve had for my academics, hiding it in my textbooks during classes so I could study what I thought really mattered. The book always seemed like a puzzle to be solved, the stories about myself as much as the gods.

  Even though I knew it practically by heart I was always hoping to find something new that had gone unnoticed before. Would it tell me how to find my mystery woman? With her new silence, I hoped. There must’ve been a clue hidden in plain sight. Something I’d missed all those times before.

  I knew I was desperate when I started to pray when no one else was around. I’d go below deck to the area in the back where the cells were to pray for help. Logically I knew that there was no reason for the gods to help us get to the island to take one of their own, but I prayed just as I knew Lourdes would. The woman was still strangely silent.

  On the twenty-second day I began to hear her again. The voice I’d heard in my head that I was beginning to dismiss as madness, returned one night as I sat on the deck looking at the stars.

  “You’re almost here,” she said.

  As her voice spoke I closed my eyes and it was as if I could see her. “Thank you for coming back,” I whispered into the darkness.

  “The door is near.”

  “How will we find it?” I asked.

  “Continue on your path. When you see it you will know.”

  I could’ve asked a million questions. All of the waiting I’d been doing gave me time to make a list of them. She was gone quickly though. The warm fullness in my chest that I felt when she was near dissipated.

  The next day we sailed into a storm.

  “Looks like a big one,” Raul said, nodding toward the somber black clouds in the distance.

  “Should we sail around it?” Louis asked.

  “We can’t,” I said. “The only way to the island is through that storm. We’re almost there.”

  Raul laughed. “Getting around a storm that size would be impossible anyway.”

  We had to prepare for the pummeling that lay ahead. Mimi had gotten us through many storms before. She was a tough old boat and both me and Raul were confident that we’d make it through this one. Louis was nervous though. He stood on the stern holding his Sacred Circle pendant and praying

  “You’d be more helpful if you’d stop praying and get to work,” Pete called to him. The waves splashed up onto the deck.

  I was never a man who was afraid of storms. I knew the power that Mother Nature could have and I welcomed that power. When you’re aboard a boat you have to embrace it. Sometimes battling against something so much greater than yourself is what causes your destruction. Sometimes you need to let the wind take you.

  Satisfied that his prayers had worked Louis came toward me. “We will make it through,” he said, but I knew that already.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “The gods always answer my prayers.” Confidence shone from him as he walked past me and into the wheelhouse to share the good news with Raul.

  Lightning flashed and the air was heavy with moisture when we entered the storm. The rain fell in large angry globs and the wind acted like it wanted revenge. Mimi dipped and swayed in the furious waves as they burst over the bow and before we knew it we were in the thick of it.

  Raul pushed the ship full force into the swells and the stern rose up nearly sending us vertical before slamming down again into the water. The rain fell in blinding sheets.

  “Will we get out of this?” Pete yelled over the wind and rain.

  Focused on steering the boat Raul didn’t answer.

  “We will,” I said. As the waves dipped I got a glimpse of a flash of light in the distance. “Did you see that?”

  “That I did,” Raul said.

  “What?” Pete looked out the window trying to see the light.

  “Do you think it’s another ship?” Raul asked.

  The boat bucked and as it crashed down again we got another look at the sliver of light in front of us. It was closer now, its sharp unnatural edges more apparent. It was like someone had taken a pair of giant scissors and cut a rectangle in the storm. A swath of sky and sea seemed to be missing and from that hole came the brightest, whitest light.

  “Is that our door?” Raul asked.

  I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t think of anything else it could’ve been. Who other than the gods could do that? “It looks like it,” I said. My heart thumped with excitement.

  Chapter 9

  “I sure hope you’re right about this,” Raul said as he cranked the engine and we cut through the surf to enter the blinding white light. Suddenly the fierce storm all around us didn’t seem as frightening as the unknown inside that light.

  “I hope so too.” I braced myself. This was the moment of truth.

  “I can’t steer it,” Raul said. “The current is pulling us in.”

  “At least it’s the direction we want to go,” I said.

  “There’s no changing our minds now.” He let go of the wheel.

  Pete sat down in the chair placing his hands on the counter to hold himself upright. Louis, Marco, and I steadied ourselves against opposite walls. The waves rose tossing the boat to and fro as we went into the light.

  “This better not kill us,” Louis said.

  “I lived my life,” Pete said. “I’m on this trip because I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  “That makes two of us,” Raul said.

  “I still have a lot of life ahead of me.” Marco closed his eyes tightly.

  Louis dropped to his knees and started mumbling a prayer.

  “That won’t save you now.” I braced myself for the worst.

  Louis stopped praying. “It’s worth a try. Just in case.”

  Entering a blinding white light was just as bad as stepping into complete darkness. Our ride got rougher and rougher. Somehow it was far worse than the storm I thought we were leaving. The boat seemed to groan and I wondered if she’d be ripped apart from the strain. I fell to the floor and rolled up against the wall to try to keep from bumping into anything else. I couldn’t see anything around me, just blankness as if there was no time and space. A high-pitched buzz assaulted me: one long, distressing note. I reached up trying to cover my ears. I didn’t want to end up deaf as a result of this trip, but covering my ears didn’t make any difference at all. The sound was just as loud. My head throbbed like all my blood vessels were going to pop. I yelled in pain. I didn’t know what the other guys were doing. I could only see white light and hear that awful noise.

  I was sure this was the end of the line for all of us. In those painful, confusing moments I started to doubt everything. Was the woman in my visions really
asking for my help? Was she trying to trick me? Was this all a terrible mistake? I thought about Tati and Lourdes. I bristled at the thought of never seeing them again. I pictured Lourdes sitting alone in the kitchen waiting for me to return. Was she right all this time? Pain ripped through me and my body felt as if it would break apart. Just as I thought I was going to die it all stopped. It was quiet and still. I looked around and all of us had been knocked to the ground. I stood up slowly and I looked behind us to see the other side of the door, but the column of light we’d passed through wasn’t there. Instead there was only a band of ominous black cloud. Bursts of lightning flashed, connecting the sky and the water, but where we were the water was completely calm and a clear bright blue that I’d never seen before.

  “Everybody all right?” Raul said. He used the chair to pull himself up from the floor and sat down.

  We all gave ourselves a once over checking for injuries. “Seems like it,” Pete said.

  “All good here,” Louis and Marco answered.

  Through the front window of the wheelhouse I could see the rocks from my dream. The largest of them, rising high out of the ocean, was shaped like a camel. Just beyond it in the distance there was a lush tropical island. “There it is, the Isle of Gods.” I pointed in front of us. It was just like I imagined it, lush and green and vibrant. The island itself seemed to pulse with life.

  Mimi’s engine coughed a bit before starting up. As soon as the engine began to chug we made a beeline straight to the island. We didn’t get far past the camel-shaped rock before we realized navigation to the island would be too hard. Barely visible over the waves, clusters of rocks jutted up from the seafloor. It would’ve been impossible to navigate without ripping a hole in Mimi.