by Неизвестный
She pulled off the borrowed sunglasses and gave her face a scrub, glad to be free of the dust from the desert. She removed Peter's sunglasses too, and tucked both pairs into his cargo pocket.
Peter turned his face up to catch the water, his mouth open.
Opal said, “Do you think the water is helping your eyes?”
“Can't hurt,” he said, then he tried to hold hands with a tree.
She took Peter's hand in hers and led him along the path. He wasn't limping quite as badly as before, but she wanted to get that honey, fast. According to Aunt Waleah's instructions, the bluebees and their honey-castles would be in the next forest.
She flipped up the hood of her jacket to keep the misting water out of her eyes. Even though the water wasn't cold, she looked forward to being dry again.
* * *
They'd been walking for about an hour when Opal sensed something following them, something just out of sight. She had reason to trust her instincts, because she'd been right about Peter following her in the square. She pulled down her hood so she could hear better.
She whispered, “Do you hear something? Are we being followed?”
“I do hear something. Take my knife out. I still can't see anything but bright and dark, so you'll have to protect us.”
“Is it the snakes? Do they come to his area? Or something else? Tigers?”
She pulled the knife from his holster. It had done well against the cactus, an inanimate plant, but the blade seemed small now.
“Peter, no offense to your cool hunting knife with the nice engravings, but I don't think this will do any good against tigers. We should climb a tree, or use the knife to sharpen some spears.”
“Spears? And here I thought you were a city girl.”
“Goes to show you how well I'm adapting to Broken Shell—I mean life on this island.” She reached for a branch on a yellow-leafed tree next to them, then thought better of it. The trees weren't raining everywhere, but only over the areas where the two of them were walking. For all she knew, they could be sentient, and she didn't want to break off one of their arms and find out the hard way.
She selected a fallen branch from the ground and shook it carefully, waiting for a reaction from above. Nothing beyond the steadily misting rain happened, so she cautiously took the knife to the narrower end of the sturdy stick and sliced off a bit of wood. The rain continued, unabated, so she got to work, listening to the twigs snapping nearby and trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was following them.
As she sharpened the sticks—one for herself and one for Peter—she asked him why the name she knew, Broken Shell Island, was, as the witches had told her, a cursed name.
He didn't want to talk about the issue, but she grew insistent. “Peter, I can't be in the dark. First of all, I don't like the dark. Second of all, if I don't know what I'm not allowed to do, I'll stupidly do it and get myself into huge trouble. And then I'll blame you.”
“No, you won't,” he said. “Be safe. Don't touch anything and don't do anything.”
She explained to him how ridiculous that was, and begged him to tell her.
Finally, he caved.
As they walked, he told her that before the mass killings, townspeople commonly voted on laws, and they used either a black stone or a white, broken shell to cast their votes. Something terrible happened, though, at a critical vote, and when the voting boxes were opened, all the white shells had disintegrated to dust, and could not be counted. The leaders at the time took this as a divine sign that the maker, their god, was on their side.
“And that was when they switched from deporting people to killing them,” Peter said.
“Oh.”
“But that was a long time ago.”
“Thanks for telling me. I swear I'll try not to mention the name again.” She wiped the water off her face, her hands acting like squeegees. The water came down steadier now, and was no longer as refreshing as it had seemed immediately after the Drylands.
“Maybe we should,” Peter said. “Talk about it, that is. By trying to bury horrible things in the past and pretend they didn't happen, doesn't that leave us open to such a thing happening again one day?”
“My history teacher would agree with you. He thinks it's important for us to not forget how easily atrocities can happen.”
The shrubs next to them shook. Opal held tightly to both of the spears, one in each hand. Peter started to say something, but she shushed him.
She whispered, “Something's in the bushes right here. Get ready to fight.”
The water from the trees came down harder, blurring her vision. She blinked her eyes furiously and prepared herself to fight whatever came at them from the depths of the forest.
Out of the bushes leaped a little yellow goat, followed by a chocolate brown goat.
“A goat!” she cried. “And another goat. Hey, I know these goats.” She relaxed. “I've named them Chocolate Goat and Banana Goat. If you could see them, you'd understand why.”
Peter said, “What's chasing them?”
She tensed up again and crouched, ready to spring at whatever came next.
Minutes passed, and nothing came.
The goats pressed their heads against Opal's and Peter's legs, giving them loving little bunts.
She relaxed and petted the goats while giving Peter a running commentary.
“Let's not tell anyone we were scared of goats,” Peter said.
Opal scratched the goats' ears as she gave them heck, telling them how much they'd scared her. She asked where their fruit-gathering baskets were.
Peter said, “Are you just talking to them like a fool, or are they actually answering you back? What do the voices in your head sound like, exactly?”
She gave him a playful swat across the chest. “They're not saying anything. I don't know why I'm talking to them, I guess chatting just feels good. People talk to little babies, and they don't understand either.”
The two goats trotted ahead, up the road.
Opal handed both of the sharpened sticks to Peter. “You're walking a bit better now,” she said. “You can lean on me if you'd like, but maybe you can use these to balance yourself.”
Peter tested the sticks and reported that he was able to feel the ground ahead of himself and stay on the cobblestone path.
“Stupid rain,” Opal said, shivering. Whether it could still be called rain, considering it didn't come from clouds, didn't occur to her. She wished Peter needed her support for walking, as she would have liked the warmth of contact.
“Are you warm enough?” she asked him.
“Yeah. How are you?”
She wrapped her arms around herself and lied, “Fine.”
They trailed after the goats, with Opal behind Peter so she could call out a verbal warning if he was veering too far left or right.
Leaves overhead fluttered, and a tiny bird flew from the foliage and flitted from branch to branch overhead. The bird was the size of a hummingbird, and pale green, with a yellow chest.
A dozen more tiny birds, nearly as fast and acrobatic as hummingbirds, but not quite, joined the first bird, and they all chirped merrily and flew back and forth over Peter, Opal, and the two goats. The birds put on a show, diving and frolicking in the rain. Their chirping grew louder, and sounded like the laughter of schoolchildren.
Opal tripped and nearly fell, and the birds' laughter changed to that of mean schoolchildren.
Opal said, “I don't mean to alarm you unnecessarily, but, these little green birds. Are they dangerous? Lethal? Should I be concerned?”
The birds screamed with laughter—laughter that was bordering on sarcastic.
Peter said, “Yellow chest feathers?”
“Yes.”
“Keep your mouth open at all times, or they'll sew your lips shut.”
“What?” Opal dropped her jaw and kept her mouth open. The birds didn't seem to notice, and kept chirp-laughing and flying in figure eights.
“Wait, no,” Pe
ter said. “Green and yellow? These are the zumi. They fly inside your mouth and yank out your teeth. Better close your mouth, quick.” He laughed. “They'll pull out your tongue as well.”
Opal relaxed her mouth and rolled her eyes, even though the expression was lost on Peter. “And you wonder why I didn't take the snake warning seriously.”
The birds disappeared, climbing up high, above the treetops and the water. Opal wished she could fly, and soar over the drippy, miserable trees. “I don't love the Wetlands,” she said.
“Nobody does.”
* * *
Time passed.
The forest grew so dark that soon she'd be able to see no better than Peter. They still hadn't arrived at the next forest, the one with the bluebees and the honey Peter needed. She was starting to panic on the inside, but kept her fear from Peter.
They'd been talking about Spider-Man and Batman—Peter was a huge fan of superheroes, especially Spider-Man, after having gotten hold of some comic books from the mainland—and Opal broke the news that it was growing dark, almost night time. The little green zumi birds had come back a few times, but not recently, and the energy of the forest was shifting into night-time mode.
Just as Opal mentioned the growing darkness, the two goats stopped where they were on the narrow cobblestone path, blocking the way. The little yellow one stepped a few feet off the path, between some trees, and seemed to be beckoning them to follow. Opal described all this to Peter.
“I've heard of goats helping travelers,” he said. “They could be leading us to one of their caves.”
“Like the caves in the fairy tale? I mean, like the caves in the story you gave me?”
He stumbled a bit, then transferred both of the pointed sticks to one hand and offered the other hand to Opal, to lead him. “Let's find out.”
As they left the path, the trees seemed unhappy about this decision, tripling or quadrupling their precipitation. Soon, Opal had to hold her hand over her nose and mouth, just so she could breath.
Peter said, “Did you hear that Svetlana was drowned?”
“What? I thought she was killed in the woods.”
“She was found in the woods, but with seawater in her lungs.”
Opal had heard a number of different speculations when she was at the clothing store with the witches, but none that included drowning. She repositioned her hands to keep the water from pouring in her mouth as she spoke. “Do those other woods rain like this? I could almost see someone drowning from this amount of water.”
“This is unique to the Wetlands,” he said. “Besides, like I said, she drowned on seawater.”
“Right.”
They tramped noisily through the woods, following the goats. The chocolate brown goat all but disappeared amidst the darkening terrain, but the baby-chick-yellow goat was visible, even in the torrential downpour.
“Peter, this may be an incredibly stupid question—”
“Yes.”
“But do you guys have zombies here on the island? Do dead people walk around?”
“Not that I know of.”
“So she couldn't have drowned first, and then walked into the forest?”
“No. Not unless she was already a zombie when she was back on the mainland. You guys don't have some new medical technology for reanimating corpses, do you?”
“I hope not,” Opal said. “But I really don't know as much about the world as I thought I did.”
As the water pelted down and she led her possibly-blinded friend through an unhappy, darkening forest, Opal thought about the poor Russian girl and how panicked she must have felt before she died.
The water pouring down became colder, with fewer warm pockets of red-leafed trees.
Opal regretted accepting the beeswax errand from her great-aunt. She regretted rolling out of bed that morning, let alone leaving the house.
* * *
Night was almost upon them when the yellow goat blinked out of sight. Thankfully, the goat had disappeared into a cave, not abandoned them deep in the woods.
Opal expected to find more goats inside the cave, but she and Peter were joined only by the yellow goat and the brown one with the white stripe down his face. The goats bleated a few times, then bedded down on a pile of straw.
Opal stamped her feet and described the cave to Peter. Now that they were out of the raining trees, in dry air, she realized how thoroughly soaked she was, and how cold. At least her teeth were still chattering, which meant she wasn't yet in a state of hypothermia. Or did it mean that? She'd taken some wilderness survival training in Girl Guides, but the lessons hadn't stuck in her head. Opal regretted not paying more attention to survival training and less attention to text messages and celebrity gossip.
The light was murky inside the cave, and all would be black in minutes, she guessed. She couldn't see the color of Peter's lips, but by the way he was shaking and shivering, they were likely as blue as the lips of little kids who don't want to get out of a swimming pool.
“At least it's warm in here,” she said.
“Cozy.” He crossed his shaking arms over his stomach.
She explored the cave, describing everything to Peter.
“Pretty much your standard cave,” she said jokingly.
“You've never been in a cave before.”
“You're right, but it's still what I'd imagined. Where do you think the straw came from? Are there farmers that look after the goats? Wow, what a weird echo my voice has. Echo, echo, echo.”
Peter shivered and jumped up and down on the spot.
Opal went as far back into the cave as she dared, relieved to find a back wall, and that the cave ended. At least nothing would be sneaking up on them from more than one side. She noticed some crevices in the ground—crevices that let out luxurious streams of warm air. She rubbed her hands over the vent until they were dry.
“Peter, I found some sort of geothermal thing, that's why it's toasty in here. We should wring out our clothes and lay them across the vents to get dry.”
Peter sputtered, “And be naked?”
“Peter, your clothes are sopping wet. They'll take forever to dry if you stay like that. You can leave on your underwear of course.”
“Easy for you to say. I can't see you, because I can't see anything.”
“I promise not to look at your body,” she said. “Come on, it's getting darker anyway, I can barely see you now.” She clapped her hands. “Chop, chop, get those clothes off.”
He began to peel off his damp shirt. “I've had dreams about a girl asking me to take my clothes off, but it wasn't like this at all.”
Opal laughed, glad that Peter had his humor. When he made a joke or smiled, it helped take her mind off worrying about his eyesight coming back.
They wrung out the clothes and left them over the vents. Opal admired her new blue hoodie, because, true to the man at the store's promise, the bamboo fabric did wring out easily and was nearly dry already.
After they'd put everything, including their shoes, over the crevices, Opal checked the contents of her backpack. The wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches were wet, but still edible, so they shared what was left and drank the water from the bottle. She noticed Peter did not bother to wipe the mouth of the bottle this time. When the water was mostly gone, she set the bottle outside in the rain to refill.
Even though they weren't standing or walking under the trees, the ones near the opening of the cave kept pouring down, almost in anticipation of them emerging. Opal decided the Wetlands were her least favorite region of the island thus far, and that she'd avoid them from now on.
Though the area by the vents was the warmest, the straw the goats were curled up on looked to be the most comfortable, so they approached the goats and asked politely if they might share the bed.
The goats were not just welcoming, but downright friendly, moving over to give them the softest spaces, and then nuzzling the two humans' heads with their tickling goat lips.
The trees continued to
pour down outside, unabated, yet the atmosphere was cozy enough inside the cave.
“I wish the goats could talk,” Opal said.
“Be careful what you wish for.”
“I wish I could see my grandfather,” she said. “But of course, my number one wish is that you get your eyesight back by morning.”
“Thanks,” he said, and they didn't talk much more, because they both fell asleep on the straw.
In his sleep, he muttered about Spider-Man.
Opal snored, noisily enough to wake the goats a couple of times.
The brown goat skillfully applied two cloven hooves to Opal's stomach, until the girl rolled onto her side and stopped snoring.
After that, all four slept soundly through to morning.
Chapter Twelve
Edwin
Edwin returned to work, even though he had the time booked off, and ought to have been at sea with his new bride. He returned partly because he thought it would do him good to be productive, and partly because his home had become rather messy and he was sick of being in a filthy space, yet not sufficiently motivated to actually, you know, clean the place.
The massive heap of paperwork sitting on his desk did make him question his decision.
Edwin poured a giant mug of coffee and got to work.
One of his co-workers, Brian, came over to offer his condolences.
After several minutes of condolences and polite acknowledgments, Edwin finally said, “Enough bird feathers, Brian, out with it.”
Brian, a forty-four-year-old man with big, inquisitive eyes made bigger by thick glasses, pretended not to know what Edwin was talking about. Edwin knew that Brian's large frame held an inner teenaged girl who loved all things drama or gossip. Brian's clothing confirmed this, as he was wearing the newest fashion for young people: red jeans. A shipment had arrived via salvage, in all sizes, and The Mainland Emporium was releasing a limited number of pairs per day, and being awfully secretive about the actual supply. Opening prices for the red jeans had been rather high, so Edwin had stayed away, plus he'd had all the wedding plans to attend to.
Brian said, “You're Mr. Crankybottom.”
Edwin said, “Out with the gossip. I know that's what you really want to talk about. You're as bad as the women around here.”