Nil Unlocked

by Lynne Matson

  Saturday morning I woke with a new plan. Okay, “plan” was generous; it was more like a default. I’d just walk up to her house and introduce myself. Lay it all out and hope for the best.

  I’d just pulled onto her street when Charley blew by; she wore tights, a long-sleeved shirt, running shoes, and a fierce I-will-take-you-down look. Her long ponytail whipped behind her as she passed.

  Crap.

  At least I was dressed similarly, for stakeout comfort rather than running, but still. I parked, grabbed Uncle Scott’s journal, and took off after Charley.

  Holy cow, the girl was good. It took me four blocks to catch her.

  “Charley!” I called.

  She whipped around, wary. She hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  “Do I know you?” Her light eyes were sharp.

  “No,” I said, catching my breath. “And I know this is weird. But please”—I held up both hands, one of which held Uncle Scott’s journal—“just give me five minutes.”

  She glanced at the journal, her entire body tensing. “Are you a reporter?”

  “No. My name is Skye Bracken. My dad is an astrophysicist at the University of New Hampshire, and this is his brother’s journal.” I waved the worn black book. “My uncle wrote it when he was seventeen.” I paused. “Here’s the thing. Back in the eighties, my uncle claims he was biking down the street and hit a wall of shimmering air. He called it a gate.”

  Charley’s eyes widened, but to her credit she stood her ground, looking down at me. The newspapers hadn’t mentioned she was so flipping tall.

  “According to his journal, my uncle passed out and woke up on an island called Nil.”

  Charley sucked in a small breath.

  “This island,” I continued, “was a freaky place. First he saw a giraffe, then a walrus, then finally some other people.” Inwardly, I winced. It sounded more unbelievable when voiced out loud. I kept going, keeping my voice calm and, hopefully, sane.

  “My uncle only met teenagers, and he figured out pretty quickly they all had a year to escape or they died. Some kids died, but my uncle made it back home, through another gate. Well, not exactly home. He ended up in Boston. Anyway”—I waved the journal—“he’d been missing for ten months. When he told his parents his story, my grandparents thought he was crazy, and they made him go to therapy, where he wrote this journal. But my dad believes everything in here is the truth.” I took a deep breath. “And, after two decades of searching, now my dad thinks he can find Nil and rescue all the kids there.”

  A million emotions flickered across her face, but the greatest one was grief. Crushing grief. Suddenly I felt awful. Like I was rubbing salt in raw wounds, wounds I couldn’t see but that were tearing her apart from the inside out. Pain wrapped Charley so tightly it was a miracle that she could breathe.

  “I’m sorry.” I took a step back. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know where you’ve been, or what you’ve been through. And I know this all sounds crazy. I don’t know what I thought you could tell me, but my dad, he’s got this wild idea that he can find this island and save everyone—” I stopped, aware I was rambling. I never rambled. But the hurt and loss emanating from Charley was so thick it choked all rational thought.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I turned.

  “Wait.” Charley’s soft voice stopped me.

  I looked back to find Charley staring at me, a tear trickling down her face. She made no move to wipe it away.

  “If this place did exist”—her drawl stayed soft—“Nil, what makes your dad think he can get there?”

  “His brother graphed out the stars—the constellations—and my dad believes he’s narrowed down an area in the South Pacific where he’s convinced the island is located. It’s a long shot, but my dad, well, he’s determined. He thinks there must be a direct route to the island no one has found. Yet.”

  Charley pointed to the journal. “Did your uncle ever mention anything washing up on the island?”

  I thought carefully. I’d been through the journal a dozen times already. “No. According to my uncle, everything on the island was made there or came through the gates.”

  She didn’t flinch. “So why does your dad think he can access the island any other way?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “If you knew him, you’d know he’s prone to wild ideas. Even if he is an astrophysicist.”

  Charley stared at me intently. “How old are you, Skye?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “If there is another way on the island, your dad won’t be the one to get there, because he’s too old. You already know that, don’t you?” She tilted her head at me. “But you could.” Charley closed her eyes, a long, slow blink. The she sighed. “But if you’ve read your uncle’s journal, you also know it’s not a place you want to visit. Right?”

  “Right,” I said. “But what if there were a way to rescue the kids still there?”

  She bit her lip before she spoke. “There are good people there,” she said. “Some of the best. If there was a way to get there and save them, I would. But there are only gates.” Suddenly she strode forward, closing the gap between us and dropping her voice to a fierce whisper. “Skye, if for some crazy reason you get there, find Rives. Tell him the gates are round-trip. Tell him Charley made it. Natalie too. And Kevin. Tell him”—she swallowed, closing her eyes, fighting emotions so strong her fists stayed clenched at her sides even when she opened her eyes—“tell him I’m still waiting for Thad.” She breathed deeply, visibly pulling herself together. “You’ll know Rives when you see him. He looks like Ronan from that old Stargate show. Built, with bleached-out dreadlocks and pale-green eyes the color of summer limeade. You make sure he makes it.” Then the fire left Charley as quickly as it had come. “And if you can’t find Rives, find Dex, or Jillian. And if you can’t find any of them, God help you, Skye.” She smiled. It struck me as grim. “At least you can run.”

  “Can you tell me anything else? Anything that can help us?”

  Charley looked away, like she was deciding how much to share.

  “Gates follow a pattern,” she said finally. “On both ends. Like a storm. A hurricane. Rives knows how it works on the island. Here”—she gestured—“on this end, the haystack is so big, I don’t know how you’d find a gate. The storm cell is too big, so to speak. Maybe if you can figure out the pattern on this end, you could get there. But again, it seems impossible, and honestly, I don’t know why you’d want to go. Nil’s not exactly a vacation spot.” She gave a choked laugh. “I’d like to believe in an islandwide rescue,” she said, her voice dropping, almost cracking. “But some things are too big to hope for.”

  Her pain was back. Crushing, almost suffocating. It was amazing she could run with that.

  “Thank you,” I said. It seemed inadequate, but it was all I had.

  Charley nodded in acknowledgment, then lifted her chin. “One more thing. For the record, I have amnesia.” She tapped her head, a wry smile tugging at her lips. “Head injury. Shock and whatnot.” She glanced at the journal. “Better forgetful than crazy,” she murmured. Her eyes flicked back to mine, her gaze remarkably steady.

  I thought of Uncle Scott, stuck with one psychiatrist after another.

  “I get it,” I said softly. “So this”—I gestured to us—“never happened.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Be careful, Skye. And be careful what you wish for. You just might get it, and it might not be what you think.”

  *

  “She has amnesia,” I told my dad when I returned to the hotel room. “Head injury.”

  His face fell. “That poor girl. Amnesia is a documented coping response to a traumatic event.” He sighed. “Could she remember anything at all?”

  I tucked Uncle Scott’s journal into my backpack, then I looked directly at my dad. “Dad, I know you wanted Charley to be your big break, a modern-day Uncle Scott. But she isn’t. So if you want to go, we’re on our own. And you’ve got to be ready to be disap
pointed, Dad. We may never find the island Uncle Scott talks about; it’s like chasing the Holy Grail, only a scary island version.”

  “You’re very wise, Skye,” Dad said calmly. “But even without help from Charley, I have a good feeling about this trip.”

  That makes exactly one of us, I thought.

  We left in twelve days.

  CHAPTER

  18

  RIVES

  DAY 265, BEFORE DAWN

  I woke to the inhuman sound of terror.

  Then, silence.

  I peered through the open half walls of my hut, sifting through the darkness to figure out what the hell just happened. My hand gripped Thad’s knife tight. I slept with it now.

  “What was that?” Dex whispered from across the hut.

  “No clue.”

  I crept outside. Dex followed, moving just as softly.

  Ahmad stood next to the firepit, his torch raised high, body tense.

  “What happened?” I kept my voice low.

  “Not sure. But the goat’s gone.” Ahmad pointed to the post where the thick braided-twine rope hung slack, holding nothing.

  “Bloody hell,” Dex murmured. “That’s our last goat.”

  The first goat got snatched two weeks ago at the Nil Night. It was Pari’s scream we’d heard. She’d seen nothing but a pair of yellow eyes.

  “Same thing happened to the cow a few months ago too.” I studied the darkness where the goat had been snatched. No shadows, no movement. Nothing but flat Nil night. “We found the cow dead one morning, being finished by a hyena, but we didn’t think the hyena started the dinner party.” I paused, remembering the scraggly hyena’s arrival minutes after Thad left. I’d thought he’d headed toward the meadow, but it was a guess, not a given. “Another hyena showed up the day Thad left. So now it looks like we have two. And we definitely have two lions and a leopard. Not good.”

  “Not good at all.” Ahmad looked at me, orange torchlight licking his face, highlighting haunted eyes. “I only heard the goat cry out, Rives. No warning at all. It’s like the darkness got it, man. I used to sleep like an infant. But here”—Ahmad swiped his torch against the blackness—“I go to bed, afraid I may not wake.” He fell silent.

  “Sometimes I nap on the beach,” Dex offered. “It helps.”

  Something attacked inside the City, the goat is toast, and we’re talking about napping.

  I bit my fist to keep from laughing.

  “What?” Dex shrugged. “Naps are underrated. And sometimes it’s the best way to kill an afternoon. Especially with nights so full of fun.” He tipped his head toward the matte black of the island’s interior. “It’s hard to keep your wits when you don’t sleep.”

  “True,” I said. The flicker of humor was gone. I turned to Ahmad. “If you want, I’ll finish watch so you can get some sleep.”

  “Nah. I couldn’t sleep now if I tried, man. Something’s out there.”

  “Also true. But whatever it is, it’s busy having breakfast. So we’re good.”

  “And by ‘we’re good’”—Dex rolled his eyes at Ahmad—“Rives means ‘we’re still completely buggered but just a bit less buggered right at this very minute.’”

  “Thanks, Dex.” Now I laughed humorlessly. Dex was dead right.

  “Rives?”

  Kiera crept forward, her eyes wide. Her hair was mussed from sleep, her flower gone. So was her air of privilege. “What was that noise?” Her voice shook.

  “The goat,” I said. “He decided to take a field trip.”

  “Because he was being escorted by something big and hungry that wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Dex said.

  Kiera blinked, raw fear ghosting her face, her mouth fixed in a silent O.

  “Seriously, it’s okay.” I spoke reassuringly, realizing she hovered at the fracture point. Her shocked expression read like an open book. I see it now, it said. The nightmare is real.

  She’d finally realized that time here wasn’t all fun and games until you hitched a ride home. If you hitched a ride home.

  “Kiera, you’re okay.” I spoke quietly. “Whatever it was, it’s gone, and it’s not coming back tonight. And it might not come back ever. Nothing here is permanent.”

  Kiera burst into tears.

  Dex leaned close. “I think that last line might’ve been a bit much, mate,” he whispered.

  I shot him a shut-the-hell-up look as Kiera covered her eyes with her hands and wailed.

  Dex looked uncomfortable. Ahmad looked at me. Zane looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Smart guy.

  “I want to go home.” Kiera’s words burst between sobs. “I can’t t-t-take it.” She crumpled, and I caught her before she fell. Kiera melted against me like butter.

  “You can take it,” I said quietly, holding her steady. “You can take it because you have to. And then you’ll get home. You’re gonna be okay.”

  We stood there for an awkward moment, Kiera clinging to me as if I were an anchor. As if I were something solid, something unbroken. It took all I had not to pull away; the island pressure had never felt so intense. Or unwanted.

  “You’re okay,” I told Kiera. Smiling, I stepped away slowly, hoping she didn’t collapse.

  She didn’t.

  The sky lightened, barely. Just enough to tell me the endless night wasn’t so endless, that the sun was actually going to rise after all.

  Macy joined our dawn party, coming up beside Kiera and patting her on the back.

  “Macy, the goat’s gone,” I said.

  “I heard,” she said calmly, still patting Kiera’s back. “But we’re okay.”

  I nodded at Macy, grateful. Maybe I should tap her as my Second after all.

  “Ready to check out the goat pen?” I asked Dex.

  “Not a bit,” he said.

  “Me either. Let’s go.”

  The pen was undamaged. The only sign that a goat had been here was the fresh streak of red on the dirt. The blood was already darkening, sinking into Nil earth.

  “That is insane,” Zane said. “It’s like ‘poof’”—he made a magical hand motion—“and the goat’s gone.”

  “Hello?” An unfamiliar girl’s voice drifted through the air, dangerously close to the bloody pen. “Anybody there?” She sounded scared.

  “My name’s Rives,” I said, my hand relaxing on my knife. “We’re not your enemy, I promise. You can come out.”

  A wiry girl with stringy blond hair emerged from the dark, wearing a City-made chest wrap and skirt. Dirt covered one arm like a bruise. Her wide eyes flicked across me, Zane, and Ahmad, repeatedly. My first thought: skittish.

  “He said you’d be here,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Him.” She pointed behind her, then her hand fell as she squinted at the darkness. “I swear he was right there. A boy was right there. And he led me here.”

  “Did he have a big black tattoo? Here?” I pointed to my upper arm and shoulder.

  I wasn’t surprised when she nodded.

  “Okay, I’m Rives. This is Zane and Ahmad”—both boys raised a hand in turn—“and over there is Kiera and Macy.” Macy smiled wide; Kiera waved weakly.

  “What’s your name?” I spoke softly.

  “Brittney.”

  “Okay, Brittney. Do you know how long you’ve been here on the island?”

  “A few hours? Maybe a day?” She frowned. “I passed out in the yard in broad daylight and woke up naked in the dark.” The word naked sounded like “nekked.” “What happened?”

  “You took an unexpected trip, no passport required.” I smiled my best reassuring smile. “This is going to sound crazy, but remember that heat you felt? Before you passed out?” She was nodding. “That was a gate. A freak wormhole of nature, a rip in space, whatever, but it’s what brought you here, and it’s what will get you back home.” I paused, letting those bombshells sink in. “Where is home?”

  “Blessing, Texas.”

  I’d never heard of
it. I took in her slumped posture, her shifting feet. Her wide eyes darting around. Her shock level reminded me of Dex on his first day in the City.

  “Do you travel much, Brittney?” Same quiet tone.

  “I went to the big city once,” she said. “San Antonio. For back-to-school clothes.”

  I’d never been to San Antonio, but I was pretty sure it hadn’t prepared her for Nil.

  “Okay,” I said, knowing it was anything but. “Just a few more questions. Do you remember what day it was when you passed out?”

  “December second. Or maybe the third.” She frowned. “I didn’t hit my head, I swear.” Her speech accelerated; so did her drawl. “I saw a show last week, you know, the one about real-life EMTs? This man got in a wreck and when they laid him out, the EMTs asked him all kind of questions like that.” Now she looked confused.

  “Okay, great.” Holy shit. Nil was going to eat her up and spit her out in days. Talk about unprepared.

  I switched up my questions. “And the boy—the one who led you here—he gave you those clothes?”

  Brittney nodded.

  “What did he say?”

  “He threw the clothes at me like I was a dog on the ground. ‘From your people,’ he said. Then he told me I’d better follow him if I wanted to live. Who was he?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. But I’m going to find out.

  The sun chose that moment to poke above the horizon. The day would fly fast from here; it was the time between night and dawn that crept like slow lava.

  Zane stood beside me, watching the girls walk away. “Dude. She’s going to have it rough.”

  “No rougher than anyone else.” I sighed. “No Wi-Fi, no pasta. No high-thread-count sheets. But maybe she’ll surprise us.”

  “Maybe.” He sounded doubtful.

  Does everyone seem weaker because I’ve been here so long?

  The strongest people were gone, replaced by rookies afraid of their own shadows, not a fair trade.

  Because Nil was not fair.