by Lynn Wahl
“I’ll stay,” I said. My voice was so quiet I barely heard it, but William plopped down in front of me and smiled.
“Glad to hear it, because I wouldn’t take you back anyway.”
I forgot for a moment that I didn’t want to go back. “Why not?”
William shrugged and flung a handful of rotting leaves at me. “Because silly, I need help fighting the Captain. You might have an ability we can use.”
I brushed the leaves off my lap and stood, shaking my head. “No. I won’t fight for you. That’s ridiculous. I’m not some comic book heroine with super powers. I think the Captain already tested me anyway.”
William’s face fell a little, but it came back again just as bright after a few seconds. “Maybe he’s wrong. Sometimes it takes awhile. In the meantime, you can help dig a new privy. The old one’s full.”
Groans broke out across the clearing, and when I found my hands full of a crude shovel, a pair of leather pants, an old threadbare shirt, and a vest, I nearly chucked them into William’s face. When he just stood there and stared at me, I stomped off into the trees and changed. I took down the rest of my hair, knowing it was tangled and sticking up in weird places from the hairspray. I let the little rhinestone pins fall to the ground. They sparkled against the rotten leaves on the jungle floor. I carried the dress back out with me, ready to pitch it into the fire pit, but Jasmine came and took it away from me, her fingers stroking a clean spot of silk.
“I’ll keep it for you,” she said. “You might want it again.”
I shook my head. “No. You can have it.” I gave her the shoes too. They were so covered in mud you couldn’t even see the rhinestones anymore.
She smiled a little and walked away before coming back without the dress and climbing into the hole with her shovel. I followed her, wincing as the leather of the pants pinched my leg as I walked. I was barefoot, but after looking around at the other kids, no one else was wearing shoes, so I didn’t bother to ask.
The mosquitoes were worse near the stream, and I spent more time slapping at them than digging. Jasmine dug next to me, her movements quick and sure. She looked like she’d dug a lot of holes in her life.
“So, uh…what did William mean when he said he might need my help to fight the Captain?” I asked.
She stopped for a moment, leaning on her shovel. “He needs soldiers. We’re at war.”
I felt my mouth fall open. War? Great. It figures. “Why?”
Jasmine stopped again. If she was irritated by my questions, she did a good job of hiding it. “The Captain kidnaps kids from Earth. He makes them do terrible things. William rescues them sometimes and we all try to stop the Captain. For good.”
“What kind of terrible things does he do?” I asked.
“He kills the fae and fairies and animals here on the island,” Jasmine said.
“Why?” I asked. I felt like a broken record, but I just didn’t get it.
Jasmine sighed. “Because the Captain hates the fae. None of us really know why. William has always fought the Captain, and the Captain has always fought William. The Captain kills the fae and the fairies, and William rescues them and the kids that the Captain kidnaps. That’s how it works.”
It sounded endless to me, one of those catch-22 situations that could never be resolved. I looked around at the kids digging in the hole with us. They ranged in age from four or five to fifteen. All of them were dirt-stained and missing teeth. A few of them were so skinny I could see the bones of their ribs even through the tattered clothes they wore. I turned back to Jasmine and pointed at one of the little kids. He looked about four.
“How old is he?” I asked.
Jasmine turned to look and shrugged. “Older than I am. He was here when I got here.”
I looked at the boy again, watching him struggle with the shovel. “Why don’t your bodies age?” I asked.
Jasmine didn’t answer at first. She’d gone back to her shovel, moving in steady, precise movements. I waited for her to answer, knowing she’d heard my question. Finally, I went back to shoveling too.
Jasmine eventually stopped. “The same fairy dust that gives us our abilities keeps us from aging.”
I frowned. “Then how is the Captain so old? Isn’t he from here?”
Jasmine shook her head. “None of us are from here. Only the fae and fairies. Everyone else is from Earth. That’s how it works.”
“What are the fae and fairies? Are they different?” I asked. I’d seen some little winged people looking creatures darting through the bushes around the clearing, but they hadn’t held still long enough for me to get a good look at them.
“The fae are the royalty here on the island. They’re normal sized and don’t have wings. The fairies are the little winged ones you’ve seen around the clearing. They’re the ones with the dust. The fae and the fairies are like distant relations from the same species.” She looked down at my pathetic little scratch in the ground. “Less talking, more digging,” she said.
I sighed. When it started raining again, filling the pit with mud, I promised myself that I’d do whatever I had to to get home and go to college so I wouldn’t ever have to do such hard, manual labor again.
A few hours later, with blistered hands and an empty stomach, I flopped down against a log and snatched the food Jasmine handed me. It wasn’t a cheeseburger, but it smelled like rice and beans and that was fine with me. I finished the food in three bites and slid down until my head was pillowed on the log. For now, Jake was out of reach and I felt like I’d just run a marathon … without any shoes on. I fell asleep to the sound of the snapping fire.
I woke up later when Pyro kicked my leg. “Hey. Wake up. You’ve got centipedes in your hair.”
I sat up, trying to fight past the fuzzies in my brain. I was so tired I could barely think straight. I yawned.
“I’ve got what in my hair?” I asked. I raised a hand to it, meaning to pluck the leaf or dirt out, and my fingers felt a segmented, oily body. I screamed, fingers flailing around my head. I couldn’t see what was in my hair and was too afraid to just reach up and grab it. Whatever it was, it felt big. I danced around the fire, feeling more and more panicked. I felt the first sting of tears in my eyes as no one stepped forward to help. When I felt the tickle of a hundred little legs brush my ear, I thought I was going to faint.
I sat down hard, my breath whistling in and out of my throat. When I felt something bigger rustle through my hair, I squeezed my eyes shut and began to hyperventilate.
“They’re gone.”
William’s voice in my ear calmed my breathing. I opened my eyes, and he pointed over at two six inch long centipedes burrowing under the leaves. I shuddered and felt my stomach turn over.
“So gross,” I said.
He smiled. “Yeah. It’s a jungle. Come on. We need to talk. I’ll carry you.”
I looked around the clearing, wondering why we didn’t just go off into the trees away from the group, but then realized that I didn’t really want to go wandering into the jungle in the dark anyway.
“Can’t it wait until morning?” I asked. “It’s raining.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Most people love flying,” he said.
I shrugged. “I like flying too. In airplanes, where I sit in a chair and the stewardess brings me peanuts.”
“Well there aren’t any airplanes, whatever those are, here. You’ll have to make do with me.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the flirting edge to his voice. In the dark, his eyes were softer. His voice had lost the harsh edge I’d heard all day as he ordered us around the clearing. I sighed and stepped closer to him, wondering if I smelled as bad as I looked. He grabbed me and launched us both into the air.
I clamped down on my stomach as it heaved, trying not to look down. Flying in the dark was even worse than flying during the day. I could feel the wetness of the rain on my face and smell the lush jungle below us, but I couldn’t see the horizon. I couldn’t see anything but the stars
.
“So, uh… what did you want to talk about?” I asked.
William shook his head. “Wait,” he said.
I sighed. Talking helped distract me from my stomach. I tried closing my eyes, but when my stomach rolled and my head spun, I slammed them open again, taking shallow breaths to keep from throwing up. I’d never had motion sickness before in my life. Not on airplanes, boats, or roller coasters. But flying like this with just my body hurtling through the air sucked.
When William set us down on top of a large, wet rock, I sighed and sat down. My legs were still trembling. After a few minutes, my stomach stopped rolling, and I looked around.
We were at the top of a waterfall. In front of us, the water roared past, filling the air with mist. I looked over the edge, trying to judge how high we were, but it was too dark to see the bottom. I scooted farther from the edge and turned to William.
“So?” I asked.
He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring off into the dark over the top of the trees. I looked in that direction and gave a little gasp of surprise. We could see the ocean from here, and there near the shore was the Captain’s ship. It was lit up like a Christmas tree, lights shining all down its length. Through the haze of the waterfall and the rain, the lights looked fuzzy and soft.
“Do you know what the Captain wanted your friend for?” William asked.
I shrugged, pulling my eyes away from the ship. “He said he wanted Jake to build him technology. Like computers and stuff.”
“Figures,” William said. “All the Captain has ever wanted is to make this island more like Earth. It’s a sickness that eats at him, and every season he destroys more and more of the island. Do you think your friend will be able to do what the Captain asked?”
“I don’t know. If the Captain can get him the parts, yeah, probably. Why doesn’t he just take computers from Earth?”
William laughed. “He doesn’t want just computers. He’ll want your friend to build him something monstrous.”
We sat there in silence for a few moments, listening to the sound of the water crashing below us. Finally, I asked, “Why hasn’t anyone stopped the Captain before?” I asked.
William looked at me, his face shadowed. “He bespells people with his voice and surrounds himself with kids with special abilities. He’s almost impossible to fight.”
I sighed. “Someone could just shoot him from a distance.”
“With what?” William slammed his hand down on the rock, the frustration in his voice obvious. “We don’t have guns.”
“Can’t you get guns? The Captain doesn’t seem to have any problem.”
William shook his head. “The Captain guards the gates. He’s the only one able to use them at all now. Even the fae can’t get through with all their magic and spells.”
I didn’t ask about the fae, more curious about the war between the Captain and William. “How long have you been fighting him?” I asked.
“Forever,” he said. He didn’t say anything else, and the tone told me he wasn’t going to say anything else about it.
I jumped when I felt his hand on my knee. “That’s why I need your help, Paige. We’re losing. I can’t afford to send you back to Earth. I need every able body I have to fight the Captain.”
I rolled my eyes, thankful for the darkness so he couldn’t see me. “William, I can’t fight. I just want to get my friend and go home.”
He stood up, feet scraping against the rock. “You’ll learn, just like the other kids, and I can’t take you back anyway. The gates are too closely guarded.”
“So what, you want me to just start chopping people up with a sword? I’m from a suburb. I’ve never even been in a fist fight. I’ll be useless to you,” I said.
He pulled me to my feet and closed the distance between us, hands locked around my upper arms. This close, I could see his eyes and the curve of his lips.
“I hope not,” he said. “I’d be sad if you died. You’re very pretty.”
His face came closer, but I strained backwards, too distracted by the thought of dying here on the island in a fight against some imaginary story character to pay much attention to William.
“I could die?” I asked.
He nodded, distracted. “The island keeps you young, not immortal. Be quiet. I’m trying to kiss you.”
As William leaned in, my mind went blank. His lips were soft on the corner of my mouth. It surprised me. He took my stillness as permission and pulled me closer, one arm locking behind my back, the other tangling in my messy hair.
It wasn’t my first kiss. Not even close to the first, but as I kissed him back for that one split second before my brain caught up with my lips, I realized it was the best kiss I’d ever had.
I pushed him back. “What was that about?” I asked.
William looked confused. “Do you not like being kissed?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, glad it was dark so William couldn’t see the blush I felt spreading across my cheeks and forehead. “Um…yeah. I like being kissed, but I really don’t know you.”
He laughed. “So if I take you flying next week, after we know each other a little better, then you’ll let me kiss you?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I reminded myself that William was older than the seventeen years he looked. He was probably way more experienced than me. The thought made me blush even harder. Now even my ears were hot.
“I’ll let you know next week,” I finally said. In my head, I thought please God don’t let me be here next week.
“Good.” He stepped closer and we were up in the air before I could even take a breath. The flight back was much faster. William held me tightly, pressing my face into his neck. I tried to hold myself away from him, but then realized that probably wasn’t a great idea.
When we dropped down in the clearing next to the fire, I blinked in surprise and stumbled away from William when he let me go. He gave me a little smile and launched himself back into the air again.
I looked around. Most everyone was already asleep on blankets near the fire or in hammocks strung between the few trees that stood in the clearing between the streams. They didn’t seem to mind the rain which had slackened a little but was probably going to start up again at any second. I yawned, wondering if I was going to have to curl up in the mud. As I turned, I caught Jasmine staring at me. Her face looked guarded and suspicious, but when I yawned again, she shot me a sympathetic look and pointed behind me at a hammock strung between two trees.
“I’ll be on guard duty tonight, so you can use mine. We’ll work on building you one tomorrow. Put a palm frond over your face to keep off the rain. If you have to get up at night, don’t cross the stream,” she said.
I sighed and headed toward the hammock. “Why not?” I asked.
She pointed off into the jungle. “The spiders won’t cross running water, but if you go out there, you’ll be dead and eaten before you even realize it.”
“Spiders?” I asked. I shuddered and waved a hand at her as she began a spiel about six foot wide arachnids with immobilizing venom. I really just didn’t want to know. Really. As I drifted off to sleep in my hanging bed, I smiled. It was a good thing Jake was with the Captain. He couldn’t handle spiders at all. He had fits if he saw the tiniest spider within ten feet of him.
Five: Jake
I stared at the mechanical spider where it sat in front of me on its dagger tipped legs and shuddered. I’d tried to petition for a less arachnid looking machine, but the Captain had insisted that the first invention must be a spider. Its heart, an empty cage at the center of the highly polished metal, waited for power before it would move, and I was secretly glad that the Captain hadn’t been able to find anything that would work.
I sighed and went back to assembling the parts of the newest mechanical creature. I’d finished the spider in only a few hours, a feat that was almost as disturbing as the fact that I knew it would work, just by looking at it.
This new design looked
like a wolf and was taking a little longer. It was a better build than the spider, faster and easier to program. Although my hands were bandaged from handling its serrated teeth, I couldn’t help but run a loving hand over the thing’s cold, metal skull. I’d never been able to build anything so beautiful before. My drawings back home were similar to what I drafted here, but there, those steel beasts had no chance of gaining life. Here, I had simply to draw it and the Captain provided what I needed to bring the idea to life. Like magic, I knew what needed to attach to where and what programs to install to make them work.
I didn’t think about what the Captain planned to use what I was building for. That wasn’t my issue. I was the engineer, the designer, the creator. The nagging voice at the back of my head that whispered I was creating monsters was overwhelmed by the sheer joy of imagining something and then watching it come to life under my hands. There was no fumbling for parts or ideas. I simply looked at something and knew what was needed.
With a careful finger, I caressed the jaw of the metal wolf, marveling at how easy it’d been to create. Attached to the jaw was a hydraulic system that favored speed over power, but would still snip off fingers and hands. Similar constructions moved the elbow joints of the wolf’s legs and small copies allowed the wolf to flex its feet and toes. The technology I used here didn’t even exist yet on Earth, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t sound. The island didn’t recognize Earth’s limitations, and neither did I. My notebook was full of ideas and new clever ways of using the unlimited potential of this place. I never wanted to leave.
I felt sorry that the Captain had sent Paige back to Earth before she could see what I could do here. She’d always teased me about my fantastic drawings of mechanical creatures. She preferred organic creatures: unicorns, dragons, griffins, things like that. She said they were magical, not mechanical, and more fun. Yes, I wished she could be here to see what I’d built.