“Half a book,” she says.
“Only half?”
“Yeah, the last part is missing, so I just make up my own endings every time.”
“At least it’s always different then.”
She smiles. We kick our legs. I try to whistle a tune. After a while I turn to Bree.
“Hey, do you know how old Finn is?”
“Finn? I don’t know for sure. Nobody really knows. He’s old, though. Some people say he’s immortal. That he’s older than the island, even. But I don’t think so. A couple years ago, Brent and me—he won that year—we were snooping around some, and we found a room from the original castle, before they rebuilt. It’s kind of a basement. Anyway, there were lots of kid’s drawings down there on the walls that made it look like beings came from the sky. Brent said Finn was an alien.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“An alien?”
“I’m not sure I believe that,” she says, “but who knows?”
I’m a little worried with Jimmy being so lavishly celebrated that he’ll forget his deal to help me get the David’s hand back. I’m even more worried that he’ll really want to stay on now that he’s the island hero.
“Hey, Bree. Do you think you could show me that room?”
“The basement?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure,” she says, hopping of the wagon.
She fetches a lantern from her tent and leads me to the deserted north side of the castle, down a flight of stone stairs winding around a circular tower. The ancient wooden door at the base of the stairs appears to be locked, but Bree wiggles the rusted iron latch and shimmies it open.
“Not very good security,” I say.
Bree shrugs. I hold the lantern while she lifts the glass and strikes it lit. Then I hand it back and follow her inside.
The room is dank and musty. The lamp casts a dim glow on stacks of old barrels and piles of antlered deer skulls tangled like bleached branches in the corners. I eye them, wondering if one of them belonged to the stag we killed.
Bree walks me to the back of the room and opens another door onto a narrow passageway.
“You can see that this was the wall of the original castle,” she says, pointing out the worn, hand-laid stones. Then she stops at yet another door, this one half-rotted. She puts her shoulder to it and forces the door open on creaking leather hinges, dried and brittle with age.
Inside is a small room that was once partitioned into two, except the wall between them has largely crumbled. Bree steps over the tumbled stones and leads me to the far wall.
She holds up the lantern—
Faded but detectable, black charcoal drawings adorn the wall like ancient cave paintings from a people long gone. I can see right away why Bree joked about aliens, because the most prominent image is a drone lifting off into the sky while a mother and son stand below and wave goodbye.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“What?” Bree asks.
I take the lamp from Bree and hold it closer, inspecting the drawing. Sure enough, a Park Service crest is clearly visible on the side of the drone. I move the lamp around and see that the valknut symbol is reproduced in other places on the walls, too. Then my eye spots something on a lower stone, beneath the waving figures. I set the lamp down and drop to my knees. It’s a signature, scrawled by a child’s uncertain hand—DAVID.
“Who’s David?” I ask, pointing.
“Why, that’s Finn,” Bree says, seemingly surprised that I don’t know. “His name’s David Robert MacFinn. But since he’s the head of Clan MacFinn, everyone just calls him Finn.”
An image of Finn’s face pops into my head—his sharp nose, his crystal blue eyes. I’ve seen those eyes before. I try to recall Finn’s song the other night: “Inside the woman a child grew, _something, something_, an immortal son ...”
Bree finishes it for me. “Half god, half man, a deadly duo. A gift of love by a woman’s courage won.”
The truth springs into my consciousness with the clarity of a cold, clear morning. The drawing. The drone. The signature.
“Finn is Dr. Radcliffe’s illegitimate son.”
“Whose son?” Bree asks.
It’s the only explanation. It explains the island being off limits to the drones. It explains the secrecy. The myth. Didn’t the professor tell us Radcliffe spent a lot of time here in the early years? I’d bet my head Radcliffe had an affair with Finn’s mother. And I’d bet he injected his son with the serum, too, before he left him to spawn a clan of descendants, most of whose skulls now hang on the wall. But most importantly, it means that the encryption key I’ve been looking for isn’t in the statue’s hand at all. It’s in his hand, David MacFinn’s.
“‘Where man rises from the sea, in the right hand of David you shall find your key.’”
“I don’t know that one,” Bree says.
I turn and hug her.
“You’re amazing, Bree. You have no idea what you’ve done for me.”
She pats my back uncomfortably.
“Okay, easy there, tiger.”
All night the castle rings with the sounds of celebration. The wine flows, the music plays, the guests dance. A royal feast is prepared, even bigger than the last. There are so many dinner guests they won’t all fit in the great hall, and the statue room is opened so people can eat amongst the marble figures, including the David with its still missing hand. But I pass it by with little interest now, because I know we were looking for the key in the wrong David. All I can think is that Dr. Radcliffe must have inserted a chip in his son’s hand. Or perhaps the code is some algorithm from his fingerprint, if fingerprints don’t change as we age. Anyway, I don’t know how it’s hidden in his hand, and I have even less ideas about how to get at it.
I try to corner Jimmy to tell him what I’ve learned, but he’s overwhelmed with attention, and I can’t even get close. He sits next to Finn at the head of the big table, receiving a long line of people presenting him with gifts. Precious stones and feathers and even a gray rabbit-fur coat that Jimmy slips on, making him look ridiculous. But Jimmy’s loving it. And who wouldn’t? He’s suddenly the island’s favorite son. And he’s not even from here.
The guests raise their glasses to toast.
“Today for Jimmy,” someone calls. “Tomorrow for us!”
I refuse to wait in line to talk with my friend, so I grab Junior from the study, where I find him asleep in front of the fire, and carry him upstairs to my room and shut out the sound of the festivities and lie on the bed and think.
“What am I going to do, Junior?”
A warm lick on my forearm is the only answer I get.
Maybe with Jimmy’s newfound fame, he can convince Finn to come back with us so that Hannah might use her equipment in the lab to find the encryption key hidden in his hand. Which reminds me, she had better still have that longevity serum for Jimmy. I still can’t believe she lied to me. And about that of all things. Jimmy. My friend. I force myself to forget her betrayal, to focus instead on the next steps to getting home safe.
I’m more than a little worried that Jimmy really won’t want to leave the island now. But we’ll see. Maybe he’ll be bored with it tomorrow when things settle down. Maybe.
Part Three
CHAPTER 20
My Sacrifice
Junior’s whining wakes me.
I get up and open the door to let him out. He races down the hall, probably to go outside and pee. It’s early, the window in my room touched with gray. I wash my face in the basin and run my wet fingers through my hair. Then I step into the cold privy to do my own morning business.
I stop at Jimmy’s door and peek in, but he hasn’t been to bed. Downstairs it doesn’t look like anyone else made it to bed either. People lie passed out everywhere—beanbags, chairs, couches. The main door is open, and a cold draft blows through the hall. Riley must be passed out somewhere himself.
I step outside and close the door behind me.
“You’re up early.”
I whip around to see Bree sitting on the steps behind me. “You scared me,” I say, clutching my chest. “I didn’t see you there.”
She holds out her canteen. I take it and sit down beside her and swig warm tea, laced with a bite of something bitter.
“Who died?” I ask, handing her canteen back and nodding toward the crane.
“Nobody’s died yet,” she says.
“What do you mean ‘yet’?”
“They’re getting ready for the oblation.”
“The what?”
“The sacrifice,” she says. “You know, from the games.”
The way she says it, with a sad look in her hazel eyes, fills me with sudden horror over what she means. Is that why she’s out here so early sipping spiked tea?
“Don’t tell me they sacrifice the loser to the sharks,” I say, my voice filled with terror for her.
“No,” she says, shaking her head.
I sigh with relief.
“Good”
“They sacrifice the winner.”
“What?”
“The winner gets to join Clan MacFinn on the skull rack.”
“Please say you’re playing some kind of sick game.”
She looks at me.
“You didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Does Jimmy know?” she asks.
“Of course not,” I say, still thinking this must be a joke. “This is ridiculous. Nobody’s sacrificing anyone.”
Bree’s face goes white and she shakes her head.
“It isn’t a joke,” she says. “They’ll sacrifice him at noon.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” she replies.
“You wanted to win yourself,” I say, determined to out her for pulling my leg. “Why would you do that?”
“Yes,” she says. “I wanted to be the sacrifice. It’s an honor to protect the island. We dream of it growing up. How do you not know this? I though you said you came from Ayre?”
As I realize she’s not kidding, my pulse quickens, and it’s suddenly hard to breathe.
“We’ve got to stop it.”
“You can’t stop it,” she says. “Nobody can. The winner has to go willingly. If he doesn’t they feed him to the sharks anyway, but without any honors. Then the runner-up gets to go. That’d be me, but I don’t want to win that way.”
A loud clanking draws my attention to the crane where the men work in the fog, attaching the crossbeam to the murder machine. I leap to my feet.
“Where’s Jimmy?”
“Shh ... ,” Bree holds a finger to her lips and nods toward the men. “Keep it down. Jimmy will be in bed with Finn until they bring him down.”
“What do you mean: ‘in bed with Finn’? What’s this, some kind of sick sex thing on top of killing him? You people are royally screwed up here.”
Bree shushes me again.
“Calm down now. It doesn’t have anything to do with sex. Lying next to the young champion is supposed to keep Lord Finn young. Something about the purity of youthful body heat. But that hardly matters. Are you serious that Jimmy doesn’t know what he was playing for?”
My mind races away from me, searching for solutions. Create a distraction. Escape. Maybe we can fight our way free. Then I remember the men hunting that stag. How skilled they were at the chase, how easy it was for them to rope it.
“There has to be a way to stop it, Bree.”
She shakes her head.
“I’ve never seen it stopped before.”
“Come on, Bree,” I plead with her. “Please think. There has to be a way. There has to be.”
She stares at the crane and the workmen there moving like ghosts in the fog.
“There is a story they tell sometimes,” she says, after a pause. “A popular player arrived late, his father had been dying or something. Anyway, he challenged the winner by claiming to be the more worthy sacrifice. They let them have a match to decide. But only because he had a red sash from being a finalist the year before.”
“You have a red sash,” I say, pointing to the sash still tied at her waist.
“Yes, but I’ve already lost to Jimmy,” she says.
“I haven’t.”
“You mean you want to ...”
Sound seems to fade away until all I can hear is my own heartbeat. I take a deep breath. I feel as though I’m hovering above, watching myself standing on the edge of an irreversible decision. I feel curiously detached. The sun rises behind the castle, sending ladders of golden light angling through the fog, and we seem to be floating on the very light itself. My course is clear. My future certain.
“That’s what I’ll do.”
“You mean challenge Jimmy?”
“Yes.”
“But if you win, they’ll sacrifice you.”
“I know it. But I owe him. How much time do we have?”
“Maybe four hours,” she says, looking at the rising sun.
I grab Bree by the shoulders.
“Listen, I need you to coach me quick. Teach me everything you taught Jimmy. Teach me everything you didn’t. Then I need to get in there and challenge this before Jimmy realizes what’s happening.”
Three and half hours later, I storm into the castle, dripping with sweat and feeling more alive and more determined than I ever have before. I push through the mob of people gathered in the great hall, wave off Riley’s good morning, and force my way to the front of the crowd just as Finn is walking Jimmy downstairs, still half asleep and wearing that ridiculous coat.
“I challenge the winner!” I shout.
The people nearest me fall silent. Finn stops on the stairs.
I say it again: “I’m challenging the winner.”
A wave of whispers passes through the crowd, silencing their chatter until all I can hear is my own labored breathing.
“You don’t have a bye,” Finn says.
“Yes, I do.”
I wave the red sash.
“Where did you get that?” he asks.
“Bree gave it to me.”
“Well, then,” he says, “it isn’t yours to use.”
“Nothing in the rules says I can’t.”
I’m just making stuff up now, but a murmur runs through the crowd and some people nod.
“And, besides,” I add, sensing hesitation on Finn’s face, “I’m the more worthy for the ritual. I should have played, but I was locked in my room, if you remember.”
Jimmy stands next to Finn. looking down on me, his gray eyes burning with anger. I can’t blame him for hating me. He doesn’t even know where they were taking him yet. From his point of view, I must be a jealous prick.
Finn shakes his head.
“Sorry, kid. You can’t use someone else’s bye. You’re too late besides.”
“If you’re sure you have the best, what are you afraid of?”
“You can’t possibly think—”
“I wanna play him,” Jimmy says, cutting Finn short.
Another murmur of excitement runs like a wave across the crowd. Jimmy stands frozen on the stairs, glaring at me. Finn looks between us, his mind working behind his blue eyes. Then he shrugs.
“Fine, then. Let’s have ourselves a little match.”
I can feel Jimmy’s contempt as he brushes past me.
The crowd pours into the courtyard and swarms to the bleachers. Jimmy wriggles out of his fur coat and hands it to Finn, then he throws me a look that cuts to the bone as he descends the ladder into the court. I strip off my shirt and toss it to the ground. I catch sight of Bree in the crowd but find
no comfort in her expression. I climb down to the court, watching as the ladder is hauled up, trapping me here with my choice.
Jimmy spits on the ground.
“Ya jus’ couldn’t stand to see me be more popular than you’s, could ya?”
I want to grab him and shake him, tell him everything that I know. But I can’t. If he learns what’s really on the line, he’ll fight even harder to beat me—sacrificing himself to save me, just as I’m sacrificing myself to save him. I know he would.
I hear the ball hit the court. and the next thing I know it’s in Jimmy’s hand. He lines up to serve, keeping his eyes locked on mine as he aces the ball right past me. I’m still hearing the ring of its crack against the front wall when he snatches up the dead ball and prepares to serve again. Pay attention, Aubrey, I tell myself. Remember what Bree said: watch his hand and anticipate where the ball will go; don’t watch the ball itself.
His second serve is less fierce. and I manage to smack the ball with my palm and send it back to the front wall, but Jimmy catches it before the bounce and taps a soft return, forcing me to run forward to reach it. Too late.
“Two serving zero.”
I notice Jimmy’s serving with his left hand, his right one red and raw. Try and return it to his right, I tell myself. But he aces it past me.
“Three serving zero.”
Then another kill shot.
“Four serving zero.”
And another.
“Five, zero.”
On his sixth serve, I manage to get behind the ball and send it back, bouncing low toward his right. Jimmy stretches, but misses. Finally, my chance to serve.
“Zero serving five.”
I bounce the ball in front of me and level a monster swipe at it. I miss the ball entirely. The crowd laughs. Jimmy shakes his head and smirks as he scoops up the ball.
“Five, zero.”
I return his serve, finally seeming to get the hang of it a little, and we volley for several shots until Jimmy beats me. The next volley is longer still, but by the time I win back the serve, it’s eight to zero. The thought of Jimmy being clamped into that iron mask and lowered to the sharks makes my blood boil. I funnel my panic into a laser beam focus with only one goal—winning. I try to forget about what happens after. I send a serve to Jimmy’s right, acing it past him. I’m not sure who’s more surprised by it, him or me. I keep the serve for several points, winning the next four volleys, but losing the serve to him on the fifth. Now it’s my five to his eight as he sets up a serve.
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