Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters

by Margaret Dilloway

  Peyton’s hand grips my arm. “Dude. You’re the color of Mountain Dew. You better get to the railing.”

  I try to get up, but the deck’s too wobbly. Or maybe my legs are too wobbly. “I don’t think I can.”

  Peyton helps me to my feet. “Come on, I’ll take you.”

  Leaning on Peyton’s solid mass, which seems a lot more solid than it did yesterday, I manage to make my way to the side of the ship. I grip the wood until my knuckles turn white.

  “You want me to get one of those salted plums?” Peyton pats my back. I manage to nod. He heads below deck. “Just let it hurl if you have to, dude,” he calls back. “You’ll feel better.”

  “’Kay,” I murmur. My forehead’s clammy. Ohhhh. Why am I such a pig? I lean over the railing. Inu whines and paws at my leg, looking up at me with his big brown eyes. I pat his head. “I know, Inu. Don’t worry.” I stare at the water, listening to the steady chop chop chop of the waves striking the ship and taking deep breaths in and out.

  Then I hear something else. Something underneath us.

  Swishing. Swimming.

  I crane my neck, looking for the source of the sound. Are we going through a bed of seaweed?

  For a moment there’s just murky water. The ship continues sailing.

  I hear the sound again. A creature is down there.

  And then, way below us, I spot a light.

  A glow, as if someone left on an aquarium bulb way beneath the now calm surface.

  I stare. I can see a forest of red-and-white coral spread over the ocean floor, the light coming from somewhere within. Arms of coral stick up, making it look like a fortress, almost, or a palace. Someplace the Little Mermaid would live.

  The ship scrapes over a finger of coral and slows. Somewhere very close I can also still hear the creature moving—a whale? It sounds like it could be that huge. I tense, wondering what I should do. Run below deck? Fight—and with what? Is this the first monster?

  A shadowy form glides above the light, and I blink.

  It’s a long sea snake, with green and gold scales on its back, long whiskers on its doglike snout, long golden claws—

  Claws? Wait. That’s not a snake. That’s a dragon. I may never have seen a dragon in real life, but Dad has shown me enough pictures of Japanese dragons that I know one when I see one.

  My nausea is completely forgotten as I watch the undulating, powerful form of the sea dragon weave through the coral stacks.

  He rolls on his back and shows me his shiny red-and-gold belly, his claws spread out to the sides, sort of like Inu when he was lying on the deck. But this thing is huge, bigger than an orca, bigger even than the fifty-foot-long humpbacks I saw on a whale watch once. I can’t even see the end of its curling tail.

  I shiver. It is a beautiful and terrible sight.

  His golden eyes dart up just then and lock onto mine. I gasp.

  I expect to be afraid, like I was in my dream with the beast-man, but I’m not. I feel like I’m waiting for something. Not something bad. Like after I’ve taken a spelling test when I know I’ve gotten all of the answers right, and I’m waiting for it to be handed back with 100% written on top.

  I hear something that reminds me of bubbles in a swimming pool. Kids, talking underwater. Are they words? If they are, I can’t understand them.

  The dragon bows his head ever so slightly and closes his eyes.

  Without thinking, I bow back, my eyes closed, too. A sense of calm enfolds me. The sun reappears, hot on my skin, and the cold wind dissipates.

  When I open my eyes again, the dragon and his palace have disappeared.

  The ship changes direction slightly. Inu runs to the prow and barks. I run up there and look at what he’s barking at.

  Land. To the right (Is that starboard? I can’t remember), a mountain peak looms. A big, dark triangle emerging from the ocean. “Land ho, Peyton!” I yell. “Or whatever you’re supposed to say.”

  Inu barks twice sharply, staring down at the water.

  The dragon again? I peer over the railing.

  No. An undulating cloud of silvery white hovers in the water, in front of the ship.

  Peyton comes up beside me. “Here’s that salted plum. I ate the rice that was around it.”

  I take the plum but don’t eat it. “Hey, Peyton. Look in the water. What is that?”

  “Feeling better, I see.” Peyton leans over next to me. “Can’t tell from here.” Peyton hops up onto the railing, his toes clutching it like a perch. He spreads his wings and jumps off.

  “What are you doing?” I shout, startled.

  “I’m cool,” Peyton shouts back. He glides down next to the water, his wings flapping as if they’ve always been on his back. It didn’t take long for him to get used to those. He jerks his head up at me and climbs the air back up to the deck. “Jellyfish. There are thousands of jellyfish pulling us.”

  I look again. Now that I know what they are, I can make sense of their forms. All the jellyfish in the ocean must be assembled here, towing this ship toward the island. “Wow. I wonder if they have anything to do with the dragon.”

  “Xander.” Peyton lands next to me, his hands on his hips. He stares hard at my head, above my right ear, then my left. He reaches out and touches the hair. “Man. This trip has been hard on you. You’re going gray!”

  “What?” I touch my hair. I run down to the bathroom and peer into the small hazy mirror above the sink.

  Two long streaks of silver hang at my temples, like someone clipped on a couple pieces of jewelry or something. I clap my hands over them. “Great. Just great.” The thought of Clarissa’s reaction when she next sees me makes me blush. Like I don’t have enough problems already. Now I have to look like my grandfather, too. And my dad.

  Wait a second.

  The locks are definitely shiny silver, not plain old gray. Yes. Just like my father’s and grandfather’s.

  Just like a Momotaro.

  In the mirror, my reflection’s face stretches into a wide grin. I go back up to tell Peyton and Inu.

  When the sun is directly overhead, it’s about noon. I know that much. We’re approaching the land. I expect to see a castle, like in the story, but instead there’s just a black mountain. An old volcano, I think—I can see pockmarks in the rock. Lava rocks are razor sharp if you touch them the wrong way, and that’s what the whole island is made of. You can’t climb it unless you want to bleed a lot.

  The chunk of rock juts high into the violet sky, which is now streaked with pink and cobalt blue. Peyton climbs the mast and sits on the crow’s nest, his wings flapping every so often to keep him balanced as he examines the mountain.

  “See anything?” I yell up to him.

  “Just a whole lotta rock,” he yells back.

  The ship’s heading toward a little cove cut out of the base of the mountain, bordered by a small wedge of dark sand. From there I don’t see any way to get off the beach. I hope there is real land, maybe a nice city with warm houses and comfy beds tucked just past this towering black mass. But there’s probably just a barrel of demons instead.

  Peyton calls down. “There’s a little cave. That must be the entrance.”

  Inu moves to the prow and makes three short woofs.

  “Just that way. Maybe.” Peyton points in the direction Inu is barking.

  The cave opening is about four and a half feet tall, and maybe three feet across. Small. Where does it lead? I look up and down the boulders, searching for any other crevasse in this peak.

  Nope. The cave is the only way into the mountain.

  I’ve never been inside an actual cave. All I know about them is that bats live in them and poop enormous amounts of guano; and if there aren’t bats, there are bears or tigers or eyeless transparent centipedes or other grotesque creatures that want a taste of you; and caves have drop-offs and collapses and underground rivers and bottomless lakes; and people get lost in them all the time; and you’re supposed to wear a helmet with a flashlight on the fr
ont when you go in one.

  Yeah, um, I’d rather not go in there.

  On a cliff above the cave, something catches my eye. Two spheres, a darker black than the rock, seem to shimmer. Something scarlet flashes in and out of the crags. I hold my breath, waiting for it to reappear.

  It’s gone.

  You imagined it, I tell myself. The oni from my drawing and my computer game and my dream is just on my mind. I shake my head, hard, to get rid of the red image.

  Peyton spirals down from the crow’s nest and lands next to me. Inu woofs and runs around him in a happy circle.

  “I bet there’s a way to sail around the mountain.” My hands tremble, and I stick them under my armpits. I hate being such a coward. “Maybe there’s a good spot on the other side. Let’s check it out.”

  “The ship dropped anchor here,” Peyton points out.

  It’s true. I hadn’t even noticed we’d stopped moving.

  “I’ll just fly up and take a look,” Peyton continues. “See how big the island is.”

  Before I can say anything, he’s off, his wings flaring into gliders above the white-capped waves. For a second he looks shaky, dipping too close to the water, but then he flaps harder and manages to soar upward, circling higher and higher until he’s above the mountain. I hope he can see what’s beyond. Then he swoops back down and heads toward the cave.

  Inu barks hard and runs to the prow. He stands there growling, the ruff of his neck standing up and his enormous teeth showing.

  “What is it, Inu?” I look where he’s looking, at the cave.

  A woman in a long white dress stands on the black beach. She’s wearing a fur cape over her shoulders and holding something in her hand, like a staff.

  Inu dives off the boat and comes up paddling and barking. Woofwoofwoof! He’s going crazy, growling and snarling.

  “Hey!” Peyton shouts at the woman from the air. “Hello. We come in peace! We have a question. How do you get through—”

  Suddenly he drops out of the sky like a stone, his left wing streaking blood behind him. He clutches the wing with his right hand and spins out of control. He hits the shallow water shoulder-first.

  My heart jumps into my mouth. “Peyton!” I look toward the woman. Now I can see that it’s not a staff she’s holding, it’s a bow and arrow. “Run! Get out of there!”

  Peyton drags himself onto the beach. The woman runs toward him, an arrow pointed again. At his chest.

  I look down at the water, which seems really, really far away. I’ve jumped into swimming pools before, but truthfully I hate going deep. My ears can’t take the pressure change, and they bleed. But I have to get to Peyton. I’ll hold my breath; I’ll swim up. I picture it in my head for a second, then jump in. Quick, before I can imagine sharks and whirlpools and poisonous jellyfish.

  The water closes around me. My feet hit the sandy bottom and my eardrums bulge with pain, and I push myself back up to the air. It’s so cold I can barely move. I’m going to turn into a Xander-pop, like those people on the Titanic. Move, I tell my legs and arms, and reluctantly, they start churning through the water.

  I swim as quickly as I can, and finally I make it to the beach. Inu’s already there, circling Peyton and barking wildly at the woman but not attacking.

  I stumble over to Peyton. The woman kneels beside him, dabbing the wound with a white cloth that’s turning pink. Fat tears stream down her face. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I thought he was a pheasant. I didn’t know.”

  The woman is beautiful. Or girl—she looks maybe sixteen. Not that I’m in love with her. No matter who you are, if you saw her, you’d have to admit she was beautiful, just like you’d have to admit the sun rises in the east. Because it’s a fact.

  Her marble skin glows as if there’s a light inside her head. She has long hair the color of the mahogany dining table after my grandma polishes it with lemon Pledge. Her hair swirls in the wind like she’s on a magazine cover. Her eyes are large and gray, rimmed with thick black lashes. She smells like apples. Really, it’s almost ridiculous how pretty she is—she looks unreal, like she just escaped a portrait painted by some Renaissance guy.

  She’s sobbing as she swabs the wound. Doing no good. I think about the time Dad accidentally ran over a neighbor’s cat—it darted out in front of him—and he cried more than the neighbor did, he felt so bad. Inu licks the woman’s hand sympathetically.

  Peyton’s injury is a clean hole in his wing the size of a dime. Blood’s whooshing out. “Give me your thing.” I point at the fur around her shoulders.

  She touches it. “My mantle?”

  “Mantle. Cape. Thing. Whatever.” I put the fur over Peyton to keep him warm. I take the cloth out of her hand. “Don’t worry.” I don’t know if I’m talking to her or to my friend. So I look at Peyton. “You’ll be okay. It’s just a flesh wound.” I think that’s what it is. That’s what they say in movies. I try to remember the first-aid training Obāchan put me through in case The End of the World happened. Press down. Keep pressure on it until the bleeding stops.

  Maybe my grandma did know what she was doing after all.

  The woman wrings her hands. I’ve never seen anyone do that in real life before. “Oh my. Please, don’t die. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. Ever.”

  Even Peyton, though he’s obviously in pain, thrashing in a pool of water that looks like cherry Kool-Aid, tries to make the woman feel better. He also says, “It’s okay. I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

  She smiles then, wiping away pearly tears with the back of her hand. Once the bleeding has slowed to a trickle, she says, “Come inside. I have bandages. Let me help you.”

  When she stands I see that she is only a little bit taller than me, which means she’s pretty darn short. The woman takes me by one hand and Peyton by the other and leads us into the cave. Her skin is cool and a lot more leathery and rough than I would have imagined. I thought girls had soft hands. I also never thought the first girl I held hands with would be someone who, you know, shot my best friend.

  I duck as we go inside. “Be careful,” she says. “Don’t hit your heads. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that, too.”

  “Wow,” Peyton breathes.

  At first I think he’s sighing in pain, but then I see what he’s seeing. The cave ceiling stretches up and up and up, for hundreds of feet. But that’s not even what’s impressive.

  Everything is jeweled.

  Instead of stalagmites and stalactites made of regular, boring-looking minerals, these are covered with emeralds and rubies and diamonds, like in a dragon’s treasure cave. It’s at least thirty degrees colder inside, and Peyton and I begin to shiver. The ceiling above the jewels is white ice, and the floor is black ice. We walk slowly, my bare feet slipping and going numb.

  I let go of the woman’s hand and check Peyton’s wound. It has stopped bleeding.

  “I’m good. Much better,” he says through chattering teeth. He flaps his wings experimentally. “It didn’t go through a muscle, so I think I can still fly.”

  The woman smiles. “Just a little farther inside. It’s warmer there, I promise.”

  We make our way through a maze of jeweled stalagmites taller than we are until we get to an open spot. I hear water spattering and look to the right.

  A wall of rain is coming down in a circle. Like a waterfall, only the water’s moving quite slowly.

  In the center of the circle, I can barely make out a figure behind the wavering curtain of liquid.

  “Get out!” a girl’s voice screams. “Get out now!”

  “Oh, don’t mind her,” the woman says with another lovely smile. “That’s my little sister. She was naughty, so she has to stay in time-out.”

  “You’re too ugly to be my sister!” the girl shouts back.

  Suddenly the woman snarls, and her entire face transforms into something monstrous. Her lips curl back, revealing teeth as sharp and white as Inu’s. “Shut up, before I come in there and eat you!”

&
nbsp; Too late, I realize we’ve made a really big mistake. I try to move my frozen feet.

  “Run!” the girl in the water cries out. She’s been trying to warn us. “Don’t be stupid.”

  But before I can move, the woman grabs my arm and twists it backward, her nails digging into my forearm like ten small daggers. I try to pull away, but she digs in deeper. Blood runs down my arm. I kick her and pain shoots up my leg. It’s like kicking a block of ice.

  All the woman’s teeth are out now, in a gummy, wolflike snout. She yanks me close, wraps her icy arm around my neck. Her cold breath prickles my scalp. I can’t breathe.

  Inu attacks with a growl, going for her neck. It sounds like his teeth clamp down on stone, and he bounces off. He tries again, and she knocks him away. He falls down with a yelp. Peyton tackles her, too, and Inu joins in. This time she slips and slides on the icy floor. I manage to stagger out of her reach. The woman hisses and grabs my other arm.

  With my free hand, I fumble to open the octopus’s box and dip my fingertips in. Salt is a weapon. Could that really be true? Desperate, I throw it at her. Disappear, I think. Melt.

  For a long second, nothing happens. She stares at me with her soulless eyes. Then her bones dissolve, and she falls into a heap of white, bubbling and sizzling. Like a ginormous slug.

  It worked! I did it! I’m not totally useless after all.

  No time to celebrate. Peyton grabs my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  But the human girl—she’s still in her watery cage. Inu paces around the perimeter, whining, trying to figure out how to get to her.

  “It’s no good,” the girl says, her voice fainter now. “Go out through the back.”

  “We can’t leave her there,” I say. “She helped us.”

  Peyton sighs and slaps his hand to his forehead as he shifts back and forth on his feet. His wings flutter nervously. “Well, why doesn’t she just step out already?”