by Lynne Matson
The alpaca raised its head, bewildered.
I exhaled as I turned to Rives. “Better an alpaca than a walrus, right?”
He stared at me. “Who are you?”
I smiled. “How much time do you have?”
He broke into a slow grin, one that lit his eyes from within; the turbulent Caribbean waters swirled with a different sort of trouble. When he smiled, he was alarmingly beautiful, a fact I was not prepared for at all. “Enough,” Rives said, still grinning. “Now start talking.”
I looked away, trying to figure out where to begin.
“Start with Charley,” Rives said quietly, his smile fading as he pulled me to my feet. “And let’s walk on the beach. It’s safer.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice.
We walked on the sand, heading south, the same direction that would take us toward the City, if my uncle’s journal still held true. Rives walked on my left, between me and the trees. Every so often, his hand brushed the sheath at his waist, an involuntary movement, as if his palm needed to feel the solid hilt of the knife—like Rives had a security blanket, too. After just three days, the few times I’d put down my spear and sling I’d felt more naked than if I’d ripped off my leaf bikini.
Not that I had any intention of ripping off my bikini.
Holy naked visuals, I thought, blushing, remembering the Brazilian kid who’d walked around the City nude while my uncle was on Nil. That was so not me.
I felt an unexpected kinship to Uncle Scott, who’d been here, too, trapped and thirsty and tired and thinking crazy thoughts in this freaky place.
Of course, Uncle Scott was dead.
Which means I’m connecting with a ghost.
Three days on Nil and I was a walking Ouija board.
I pulled my last guava off my twine fruit string, took a bite, then sucked it dry, certain I had low blood sugar and just couldn’t sense it. Then, taking a deep breath to pull myself together, I threw the sunken guava rind into the brush and started talking.
“I met Charley three weeks ago,” I said slowly, “in Atlanta. Her story was all over the papers. She was found in France, on Mont Blanc, by a group of expert skiers in unmarked terrain. She was naked. But she’s okay.” I glanced at Rives. “She said to tell you the gates went both ways. And to tell you she made it, and Natalie too. And Kevin. And”—I paused, somehow knowing that this next bit of information would be the hardest for Rives—“she said to tell you that she’s still waiting for Thad.”
Rives’s jaw ticked. He looked toward the sea, like answers would tumble in with the surf. “He made it,” he said, his voice hard, his fists slightly clenched. Then, as if he’d caught me staring—or caught himself—he relaxed his hands, still facing the sea. “I know it. He had to.”
Something told me his words were for his benefit, not mine, because the name Thad meant nothing to me. But it obviously meant something to Rives, something powerful. Pain wrapped him like an ethereal cloak, thick and suffocating and out of his reach, so real and raw I wished I could reach out and tear it away, knowing I couldn’t, just like I couldn’t help Charley.
The helpless feeling roared back.
How many people will this island hurt?
Rives turned to me, his green eyes full of emotion, a hundred different feelings, all intense, all churning like the chaotic brilliance of a gate. The only thing missing was fear.
“Please. I need to know everything. I need to know answers now. Who you are, how you got here. How you knew to find me. Maybe starting with Charley wasn’t the right place. Go to the beginning.” Under his breath, Rives muttered something about “the middle” and “the beginning.” I’d swear he said something about a macadamia nut getting in his head.
I was losing it more quickly than I thought.
“Okay,” I said, trying to figure out where to start. Where the beginning of my story was. I decided that, in the end, it all began with Uncle Scott.
“About twenty-five years ago,” I began, “my uncle came to Nil…”
CHAPTER
27
RIVES
DAY 279, LATE MORNING
I studied Skye as she spoke.
I read her expressions, her posture, her word choices, and her cadence. She spoke calmly, like Macy, but where Macy’s tone exuded quiet reassurance, Skye’s radiated careful thought. Like she privately considered each of her words before she spoke, judging their weight and how to string them together, carefully calculating their effect on the listener.
Which was me.
In her quiet, methodical way, she’d walked me through her uncle’s psych-trip journal, her dad’s lifelong quest to locate Nil, her run-in with Charley, and her recent trip to Micronesia. She’d tossed out a suspect boat captain, a tatted-up kid chucking rocks into the sea, a solo twilight beach walk that would have probably pissed off her dad, not to mention a beyond-dangerous canoe trip that definitely would have pissed off her dad, and an insane jump—on purpose—into a gate.
A gate that made no sense.
A gate that led here.
I held up one hand. Skye stopped talking immediately.
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “So you see a kid—a kid you don’t know but you’d seen earlier chucking rocks into the ocean—packing live snacks for an ocean road trip. He takes off in a canoe. You steal a canoe and follow him, in the dark, on open water, to a pair of remote islands called the Death Twins, where you land—”
“One island,” she interrupted, uncannily calm. “I landed on one island. Since we’re being clear. And I didn’t steal the canoe, I simply borrowed it.”
“Did you return it?” I asked. “The canoe?”
“Not yet,” she admitted. “But I intend to.”
“Okay, we’ll go with commandeered for now. So you commandeer a canoe, and then you follow this loner kid across the open ocean, in the dark, to one Death Twin. How am I doing so far?” I smiled slightly.
“Good,” Skye said. Her lips narrowed, but her tone stayed glassy calm.
“Awesome.” I fought the urge to mess with Skye some more. It was highly entertaining. “Then you stalk this strange kid across the Death Twin island, commence a nighttime stakeout in the dark, and when a shimmering wall of black air rises from the ground, the kid throws in a goat, a chicken, and himself”—I raised a finger in turn, counting—“and then after Casper the cat hijacks the gate, you follow the menagerie. You run straight into a midnight-black wall of rippling air that could either kill you or, for all you knew, take you to planet Krypton.”
“I had a pretty good idea that the air wouldn’t kill me because of Uncle Scott’s journal,” Skye said. “And Krypton doesn’t exist.”
“Neither does this place.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” She leveled her eyes on me, her gaze so fierce I couldn’t even read their color. Blue, maybe green, flecked with steel.
“Yes, you are.” I paused. “Welcome to Nil, Skye.”
We walked in silence for a moment. I could grill Skye all day, but I decided I should start with the basic intro.
“How many days have you been here?”
“Today’s my Day Three. I’ve got three hundred sixty-two left.” Same matter-of-fact tone, no hint of fear. Complete with a full grasp that her island hourglass had already tipped and her clock was ticking.
Damn, I thought.
She didn’t need the normal intro. Hell, she didn’t even look hungry. She’d tossed the half-eaten guava away without a sideways glance. Most rookies gnawed down to the rind and then asked if they could eat that, too. But after less than an hour in Skye’s company, it was clear she wasn’t your average Nil rookie.
She was as mysterious as Nil.
I refocused on her story, on the part that didn’t add up. On the single gate, or equally unbelievable, a lightning-fast set of five.
“Okay, so that gate,” I said. “The one that brought you here. Are you sure it was just one gate? Not multiple gates, appearing one after ano
ther, maybe so quickly they seemed like one gate?”
“It was definitely just one gate. It rose into the air and locked into place, like a liquid door.”
I frowned. “It didn’t move? It just stood there, waiting?”
“Right. And it was like Paulo knew it was coming.”
“Paulo?”
She nodded. “That’s the kid I followed. The one with the lei and tattoos? When I woke up in the dark, two people were arguing.” She recounted her possum routine and stealth peeks at the two other boys, carefully describing Paulo, the thin one that whined, and a big one with muscles and ink. I privately identified the second boy as Maaka.
Every island mystery seemed to lead back to him. My annoyance with him skyrocketed.
“What were they arguing about?” I fought not to snap.
“Me.” She paused. I could tell she was thinking through her next words. “The muscled guy blamed Paulo for bringing me through the gate into a ‘sacred place.’” She made air quotes around the last words. “I actually feel bad for Paulo, because he didn’t know I would follow him, and because of me, his mentor ditched him. His words.”
So Maaka was Paulo’s mentor.
Who the hell gets an island mentor?
Paulo, apparently, I thought. The same kid who knew the gate was coming. Suddenly two massive pieces of the island puzzle took the hard form of people. People with secrets and ink. I clenched my fists, sick of being one step behind. I breathed deeply, fighting to chill, knowing I needed a cool head to process the clues. And Paulo was the best clue I had.
Besides Skye.
“What else did Paulo say?” I asked.
“The first time I saw him or the second?”
This just gets better.
“Start with the first convo, the one with the muscled kid.”
She nodded. “Paulo said that his older brother was supposed to come instead of him, but his brother chose to study Western medicine instead. That this was his destiny now.”
“And what did the other kid say?”
“That Paulo had to find his way. And that he was on his own.”
Aren’t we all, I thought.
“And”—Skye paused—“he told Paulo he had to deal with me. That’s when I ran.”
“You ran.”
She nodded. “Over the black rocks, and down into the meadow. I ran until I lost the boys. And now I’m here.” She didn’t meet my eyes, a basic red flag.
What isn’t she telling me?
“It sounds like you woke up on Mount Nil.” I studied her as I spoke. “Do you remember where?”
“Not exactly. It was dark, and for a few minutes I was pretending to be unconscious. So I didn’t get the best look around.” She met my gaze straight on. “Why?”
“Because,” I said slowly, “gates here aren’t stationary. Ever. Sometimes they’re fast, sometimes they’re slow, but they always move. So that wasn’t a normal gate. Plus, gates here are always solo trips. One gate, one rider. No exceptions.” If Skye’s story was true, her inbound broke all the rules.
Welcome to Nil, Rives, I thought. Again.
We came to the end of North Beach, where white sand butted against the black cliff, the same cliff that housed the mysterious pool. Right now the girl standing beside me packed more secrets than the Looking Glass cavern. Impossible yet real, another Nil twist.
Maybe her story was real, too.
Maybe.
“Skye?” I said. She was staring at the water. “Are you absolutely sure it was one gate? Because I’ve never heard of a gate taking more than one person.”
She looked at me, her eyes raging with island heat usually reserved for Nil veterans. “I know. My uncle described single gates as racing like fire, invisibly burning up the ground under them, offering freedom for the winner and an electrocution for the second-place finisher. His words.” She paused, gripping her spear tight, and I got the distinct vibe she was repressing a shudder. “His journal made it clear that gates took one person, and one person only.”
“And knowing that, you just jumped into that stationary single without a clue if it would fry you or send you here?” I held her gaze, not sure whether to commit her or congratulate her. She was either crazy or had balls of steel. Maybe both.
Skye shrugged. “I’d seen the cat follow the boy, and it seemed fine. So I figured I’d be okay, too.”
Balls of steel, I thought.
I pointed Skye toward the path, keeping my eyes open for leopards, loners, and anything else that might be a foe. I still hadn’t decided which category Maaka fell into.
Or now, Paulo.
“What did Paulo’s tattoos look like? I know you said they were all black. But did you get a good look at them?”
“Not really. It was like one really big tattoo; it wrapped around his upper arm. Part of it looked like waves. I’m not sure about the rest.”
My money’s on interlocking diamonds and moons. Like Maaka’s. Like the carvings in the cavern of the Looking Glass pool and the backside of the Wall.
“I think there was a sun,” she added. “But I could be wrong.”
I doubted that.
“So what else did Paulo say?” I asked. “The second time you spoke?”
She thought for a moment. “He said that there were rules but didn’t tell me what they were; he just said he couldn’t break them. He told me to go west, to find people like me.” She looked sideways at me, humor denting the steel in her eyes. “Which I think means you. I told him he could come with me. He said no. He said he had to do it alone. And he said he couldn’t leave yet.” She paused, and a full smile broke through her calm. “He also said monkeys threw poop at him. He smelled awful.”
Monkeys, I thought. As in plural.
Maybe Bart hadn’t lied completely after all. But he was still a heartless coward, and selfish as hell. It changes nothing.
I ground my teeth.
“My turn,” Skye said. She stared at me intently. “What were you just thinking?”
You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.
“Rives?”
“That monkeys can be dangerous,” I said.
She glanced toward the trees. “Most animals can be,” she said finally.
I studied her, stretching her definition of animals to include us. Humans. “True,” I said.
I glanced back at the trail, in time to see a porcupine waddle across without stopping. Just a Nil drive-by. Not deadly, not benign, somewhere in the middle. Just your average Nil day in a nutshell.
Skye missed it; she was looking at me.
“Who’s Maaka?”
“Good question,” I said. “I think he’s the boy who greeted Paulo. Intense ink, intense personality. And Paulo’s supposed mentor, whatever that means. I’ve run into Maaka a couple times over the past month, and I think he knows a lot more about this place than he’s telling.”
“Same for Paulo,” Skye said. “So I’m assuming Maaka isn’t in the City?”
“Right.” The word City rolled off Skye’s tongue like she’d been here three hundred days, not three.
“And this path. It leads to the City, right? After we pass the Crystal Cove?”
“Right again.” I stopped walking and Skye immediately stopped too. I knew she would. “If you listen, we’re close enough to hear the roar of the falls.”
She cocked her head, her halo of wild hair shifting with her. “I don’t hear anything.” She frowned. “Except maybe the leaves rustling.”
“Close your eyes.”
She did.
“Filter the silence. Sift through the silence until you hear what you’re looking for.”
A long moment passed. I watched her, watching a tiny line appear between her brows, the same line that appeared when she paused at length before speaking. A long curl blew across her cheek. Her grip tightened on her spear.
Looks like Nil finally sent a contender after all, I thought.
She opened her eyes. “Nothing.”
/> I nodded. “It takes time, but you’ll get it.” I watched her shift her sling higher on her shoulder, a primitive homemade weapon with a one-hundred-meter range if slung well. I’d guess Skye, lean but ripped, could sling it pretty damn well.
“Skye, you’re not the average Nil rookie. We both know that. You didn’t drop in cold and clueless, and you definitely don’t look scared of your own shadow. You know there’s a City and a Cove and animals that fall from the air. Some deadly, some not. You know your time here comes with an expiration date written in blood. You had a full Nil preview thanks to your uncle’s journal. So knowing all that ahead of time, why would you come? Why jump through that gate into Hell?”
Skye closed her eyes again, a long blink. This time I knew she wasn’t searching for sounds of the Cove; she was searching for words. I hoped she wasn’t an adrenaline junkie looking for a fresh fix. My patience for Nil’s theatrics had thinned to a razor-sharp edge.
“I don’t know exactly. I didn’t really think. I just acted.” She rubbed the inside of her left wrist with her right thumb. “It was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done—besides the canoe trip—and my dad would kill me if he knew. Of course, he knows I’m missing by now, and that’s probably killing him as it is.” She swallowed, her face paling under her slight sunburn. “But in hindsight, it was because of Charley.”
“Charley?” I asked.
Skye nodded. “When I met her, pain poured off her in waves. She was grieving and hurting and suffering alone. She’d told everyone she had amnesia. But she remembered everything. Everything. And her grief—” Skye’s voice dropped an octave. “It was awful.” Skye lifted her eyes to mine. “It was because of Thad, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Now it was my turn to pause. “They were good together. Intense, kind of over the top at times.” I smiled. “But—” A memory flashed: Thad’s face, his expression fierce, his eyes burning with longing and desperation that I’d known had everything to do with the fact it was his 364th day and that within hours, the island would rip him apart from Charley. Not my back, he’d said. Charley’s. Promise me you’ll have Charley’s back. Thad’s words, delivered with an ache that had slayed me back then.