by Lynne Matson
It is me, I thought. I can’t keep us safe or together.
But right now it wasn’t about me; it was about Michael, a kid who just wanted a better shot than the one I offered.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“Tonight we will camp in the cave. The one with the carvings, behind the waterfall,” Michael said. “Then we will head to the North Shore. Nothing likes the North Shore.”
“True,” I agreed. The North Shore screamed island defense. Incoming waves spit high against a harsh black rock wall. Where there was no wall, there were rocks. No animals. No sand.
No room to run.
Then I thought: Michael knows about the Looking Glass cavern.
What else does everyone know that I don’t? My grasp of City knowledge and City politics slipped farther down the he’s-got-his-shit-together list. Maybe I hadn’t broken my rules, but I sure hadn’t followed them.
Look around.
Pay attention.
I hadn’t seen this City fracture coming.
Abruptly I thought of Maaka, who never joined the City in the first place. I wondered what Maaka would think when he found squatters in his sacred cavern.
The idea made me smile.
Anything that made Maaka uncomfortable was a good thing, and I needed something good to counter how much I sucked as Leader. I couldn’t hold the City together at the first sign of danger.
Michael’s feet shifted; he was clearly ready to go.
Regrouping, I gently grasped Michael on the shoulder. “One last thing. Don’t bring fire into the cave. It’s sacred ground. I know it’ll be dark in there, but no fire.”
Michael nodded. “No fire. And it is dark everywhere here, my friend.”
“True enough.” I dropped my hand. “I wish you well, Michael. Get home safe.”
He nodded, his face fiercely calm as he shook my hand. “You too, Rives.”
I nodded at Leila, who was watching from a few meters away. I’d never really had a conversation with her. “Good luck, Leila,” I said.
“Thanks.” No handshake, no smile. Just a clear desire to leave.
Same for Cho and Uri.
Sy came up and stuck out his hand. It trembled like he was cold. “Rives. I’m taking off, too.”
“Seriously?” Sy was far from a risk-taker, and betting that Nil outside the City was safer than inside was a massive risk.
He nodded. “I can’t stay here another night. I’m going to take my chances out there with Cho. And Michael,” he added.
I glanced at Cho, who remained expressionless. All I knew about him was that he had a firm commitment to self-preservation that trumped his commitment to the City. Uri faced away, already mentally gone. Sy had never chosen allies well.
“Good luck, Sy. You know we’re here if you want to come back.”
His head wobbled. “I know.”
Still gripping his hand, I lowered my voice. “Stick with Michael. I trust him.”
“Thanks.” Sy pumped my hand like it might give him winning island mojo.
“Good luck,” I repeated. It took all I had not to add you’ll need it.
As the group walked away, Dex clapped me on the shoulder, his voice low. “You can’t save everyone, mate.”
“Maybe not,” I said.
But I can damn sure try.
I glanced around, wondering if Maaka was watching the City split. Kiera’s eyes were on me. My eyes caught hers. She smiled and mouthed, Let them go, in French.
As if I could make them stay.
Ahmad stood to her right, his eyes on Sy’s back. Skye stood behind me; I sensed her.
No sign of Maaka at all.
I didn’t sense him, either. The last time I’d sensed Maaka watching when he didn’t show was the night he’d dropped the carved moon.
A gift he’d given.
A gift I’d taken.
I stiffened, struck by an unpleasant thought. Did I owe Maaka now? What does he want?
My fists clenched reflexively.
“What’s wrong?” Skye gently tapped my right fist with one finger. Like she’d hit a nerve, I released my hands.
“Do you really need to ask?” My laugh was sharp.
She gave me a long look, one that said yes. It was moments like these when I wondered exactly how much Skye saw. My gut said too much.
“I’m sorry they’re leaving,” she said finally, as if she’d settled on this as the most likely reason for my worry. Her eyes flicked to Sy’s retreating back. “But it’s not your fault. This island is bigger than all of us.” She paused. “And you’re a good Leader.”
“Seriously?” I laughed again. I wanted to punch something, like Nil. “Did you see what just happened? A good Leader would’ve kept the City together. A good Leader would’ve changed Michael’s mind.”
“Really?” Skye asked, her eyes searching mine. “I told you earlier, free choice. If Michael doesn’t want to be here, it’s no fault of yours. Pressuring him to stay makes no sense.” She pursed her lips. “Nil doesn’t come with a guidebook; it doesn’t come with rules and a plan. We’re all just doing our best. Same for you. You don’t have to be a savior.”
I looked at her. “Because that’s your job, right?” My voice sounded bitter and I hated it. “You had a guidebook. You came to save everyone.”
The hurt in her eyes made me wish I could take it back.
“Not a guidebook.” Skye’s voice was quiet. “More like a peek into my uncle’s head. It was addictive and terrible. And I know I’m not a savior.” She looked at me, the flecks in her eyes hardening. Because of me. “None of us are,” she said.
“None of us are what?” I asked.
She frowned. “A savior. I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think one person can do it alone. I think if we’re going to leave, it has to be a group effort.”
I looked away, because looking at Skye hurt, deeply, for reasons I couldn’t explain and didn’t want to. And I knew I’d been an ass. Again.
“I hope you’re right.”
Skye nodded. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. Then she walked away.
I almost asked for her to come back. Part of me desperately wanted her to turn around, to talk about Nil and island secrets and strategies, because despite her rookie status, Skye got Nil better than anyone I’d ever met. But part of me rebelled, the same part begging me not to play with fire. The part that told me I’d pushed her away on purpose.
I let her go.
I turned away, and the driftwood moon shifted against my chest. A subtle reminder of a debt unpaid.
What does Maaka want?
That disturbing thought clung like a Nil shadow, ratcheting up the mental chaos already in full churn.
I focused on Maaka because it was easier than thinking of Skye. I didn’t know how to get Skye out of my head, or how she’d snuck in so deeply when I wasn’t paying attention. But Maaka was my link to the mythical gate, our one shot at an islandwide exit. And I couldn’t shake the sense that he wanted something from me, too.
I thought of it on watch, I thought of it while I killed myself with sprints. I thought of it while trying to sleep, which right now was a total Nil joke. Sleep these days was not happening, unless I channeled Dex and napped on the sand in daylight, which was actually going better than expected.
Time passed.
Days passed. One, then two, and another after that.
Today was day number five.
Five days since Michael and crew bolted from camp. Five days since Archie’s death, five days of uneasy peace. Five nights of expectant nothing. Five days of no gates, five days of no Maaka, five days of wondering what he wanted from me. Five days of dodging Skye and seeing her everywhere.
I was more wired and exhausted than ever.
Done with today’s sprints, I dribbled a crosshatched ball up and down the beach, one of the ones Li had woven, wondering how weak my football skills had become. I hadn’t seen a pitch in months.
I was used to breaks, but I’d never had a break this long. An extended break, with no end in sight. Maybe a permanent break.
What a shitty thought.
Out of my head, Nil.
When my control slipped, I slumped against the large black rocks by the water’s edge, closed my eyes, and willed myself to relax. The ball tucked into the curve of my side like I was chilling on the pitch. The rocks were warm, like the afternoon sun. The feel of the ball slipped away, replaced by the weight of the crescent moon around my neck; it pressed hard on my chest, even though I wasn’t wearing it.
Most people wanted something from me. I got it. I was Leader, a position that came loaded with obligations and expectations. But did Maaka want something from Rives, the Leader, or just me, Rives? I could barely separate the two anymore. Lately I hadn’t bothered to try.
If Maaka’s gift came with strings, I couldn’t see them.
My time was the only thing he’d taken, and my gut said it was the only thing he’d accept. Valuable, no doubt, but he’d never shown himself to me at noon, a fact that suggested he valued my time, too—maybe even my life.
It said nothing about Maaka’s time, because he had a midnight escape hatch; Maaka didn’t thirst for noons like we did.
So what does he want?
Opening my eyes, I saw only Nil sky.
Skye.
Should I ask her? Get her take on Maaka? I considered it. She knew Paulo, and he was a solid link to Maaka.
No, I thought firmly.
Coward, the sea crooned.
My lids grew heavy under the lull of the sea. Try as I might, I couldn’t remember the timbre of Talla’s voice, just her fierceness and her goodness. Pictures of her rolled through my head, crashing with the waves, bittersweet. For the first time in months, I didn’t block the memories, or the regrets. I let them crash in, all of them, until there were none left to fight. And then I let them go.
My thought as I fell asleep was that while I heard the sea, my last vision was of the sky.
CHAPTER
40
SKYE
DAY 11, PRE-DAWN
I woke before the other girls, slowly opening my eyes to cool Nil air. Light brushed the edges of the sky, just enough to soften the dark. Dawn was close. Curled under my creepy cheetah pelt, I was cozy warm. I didn’t want to move. For a long moment, I listened to the ocean, reveling in the peace of the morning. Like Uncle Scott, I’d quickly found that dawn was my favorite time of day on Nil. Its peace was fleeting, vanishing with the rising sun, so I never took the moment I woke for granted.
Movement caught my eye.
Tilting my head, I had a clear view of the firepit. Rives paced like a caged animal in the dark, his face cut in hard lines of worry, like the first day I’d seen him—but worse.
Much, much worse.
He’d taken Sy’s departure personally, and Michael’s, and if I was right, the whole darn group. Since that moment, something had changed. He’d lost his easygoing edge. A rather frightening intensity had taken its place. Not that Rives was ever sharp or impatient; if anything, it was the polar opposite. It was as if he was determined to single-handedly lighten everyone else’s burden by taking on more himself. He stoked the pit, hauled wood, and brought back fish, keeping his conversations pleasant but short, talking just long enough to reassure someone or help out before he was off to the next task, and the entire time his shoulders stayed tight, on full alert.
You’d think with days like that, he’d sleep well, but from what I’d seen, Rives barely slept at all. He’d taken watch every night, and twice I’d caught him dozing on the beach. His days and nights were flip-flopping fast, but the ratio stayed off. The circles beneath Rives’s eyes grew.
How long could someone go without sleep?
If Rives’s mind was on the predator and City defense, mine was on the stationary gate. But now the two were linked; I felt it. I’d asked Rives about his plan to search for the stationary gate. His answer had come without hesitation, his tone cool and unwavering.
Not yet, he’d told me. When the time is right.
All he’d forgotten to add was the patience, padawan. But the teasing Rives was gone.
I felt powerless—to help Rives, to help the City. And weirdly enough, I knew that to help the City, I had to help Rives first. Letting him self-destruct could not happen, and yet he’d erected a wall around himself I couldn’t breach. Time was slipping away, and it wasn’t a good feeling.
The peace of dawn was lost, and it hadn’t even arrived yet.
Rives was still pacing.
I reluctantly pushed back my covers and reached for my rock sling. It sat curled beside my pillow, at the edge of my bed close to the open-air sides. Before my hand touched it, I stilled.
Sitting on top of my sling was a braided piece of twine. Dangling from it was a tiny grayed moon, carved from driftwood, delicate and worn. A bracelet, left for me. Kind but disturbing, because it meant someone stalked me while I was sleeping and I didn’t even notice.
I breathed deeply, fighting a freak-out.
If they wanted to hurt you, they could’ve, I told myself. Instead they left you a gift, going out of their way not to be seen.
Paulo, I thought.
It had to be, and by leaving the bracelet at night, he’d avoided any chance of me asking him more questions or giving him more information.
A gift and a message, both in one.
Now we’re even.
And it also meant he was close. Which meant I had a chance of finding him if I could just figure out where to look. I stared at the mysterious bracelet, debating whether to wear it or leave it alone, then slipped it on next to the tri-shell bracelet from Jillian and Macy. I studied the moon charm, taking in its smooth lines, turning it over to find a small pit in the wood on the backside, a dent I could touch. An imperfection, a flaw.
A clear mental picture blossomed in my brain—another small moon, equally imperfect.
The same crescent moon had been doodled in the margins of my uncle’s journal.
I closed my eyes, mentally sifting through the journal, searching for the entry marked with a crescent moon and wondering what I’d missed. Wondering what clues Uncle Scott had left that I didn’t understand Nil well enough to see.
It was Entry #17.
I remembered it verbatim.
Day 201 in my tropical freakfest vacay. That day stands out for two reasons. It stands out because of two people.
I woke early. The only other person up was Rika. She’d shown up yesterday, but she was on the fence about sticking around. I’d seen enough rookies to know.
I’d asked her the night before if she wanted to carve her name. She’d shaken her head. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”
Now she’d been sitting in front of the Wall of Names for the last twenty minutes, Indian-style, like she was silently singing the Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” Only she didn’t look like a Clash groupie. She looked more like my island angel’s cousin. Dark hair, big eyes. Distant air. She didn’t move, even when I knelt beside her.
“You okay, Rika?”
“Scott.” She said my name with precision. “You do much. You Lead well. You save many.” She turned to me. “Let me see your eyes.”
“What?” I asked, not following.
She didn’t answer. She grabbed my hands and stared at me, pinning me with a fierce glance that shot through my bones with a creepy chill, which said something, because the island hadn’t shaken me in weeks.
“Your destiny,” she said softly, like some crazy-ass island tarot card reader. “It wraps the island from beginning to end; I feel it. Don’t you? So powerful.” Now she looked shaken. She closed her eyes, her voice dropping to a guarded whisper. “Your time ends when the crescent moon rises over the heart of the island. Remember that.”
Then she got up and walked away, heading out of the City. I watched her go, wondering what the hell she’d been talking about.
“Hey,” I called.
“Are you leaving?”
Rika turned around, looking worried. Looking desperate to get away. “Yes. But like you, my journey does not end here. My end stretches beyond, I have seen it.”
With absolutely nothing to say to that, I just waved. I wondered whether the island had driven her nuts, or whether she brought her own brand of crazy to Nil in the first place.
That night Rika’s words weighed on me like bricks.
I stood alone on the beach, watching the sunset, looking for a crescent moon.
Jenny came up behind me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Rika.” I turned toward Jenny, struck again by how beautiful she was. Tangled brown hair, bright-blue eyes, charcoal smudged on her cheek. Rika vanished from my thoughts completely.
I reached up and gently wiped off the charcoal, letting my thumb linger.
“Rika?” Jenny whispered, her eyes on mine.
“I don’t want to talk about Rika right now,” I said. “I don’t want to talk at all.” Slowly, savoring every speck of air disappearing between us, I leaned in and kissed Jenny, drowning in the heat of the moment. That was our first kiss, but not our last.
I never saw Rika again.
But I looked for the crescent moon every night. The last time I saw it was the night before I left.
I opened my eyes, pulling myself out of Uncle Scott’s Nil and into mine.
When the crescent moon rises over the heart of the island, he’d written. That was the clue, I knew it.
Where was the heart of the island?
Rives, I thought. He’d know.
Unfortunately, Rives was nowhere in sight. He’d been replaced by Zane, who was adding wood to the firepit. Sparks glittered with each addition.
“Morning, Zane,” I said.
“Morning, Skye.” Zane smiled. “You always an early riser?”
“Here for sure.”
He nodded. “I get up back home for dawn patrol when the waves call. Here”—he shrugged—“I just get up. It’s hard to sleep knowing something’s out there.” He thumbed toward the woods, where there was just enough light to differentiate the trunks and leaves. The island brightened with each passing minute, making it less scary.