Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters

by Margaret Dilloway

  Then, before my eyes, the pixels of the tree bark actually shimmer and move. Whoa. I take a step back. The squares clump and rearrange themselves into a silvery shape that mirrors my shape, like a light-colored shadow of me.

  You have awakened me, a whispery voice says. It might be a man’s, or a woman’s. A teenage boy’s, maybe? Like a dude whose voice is still changing, not too high and not too low.

  “Who’s there?” My voice sounds out of place and too loud in the grove.

  I am here. You wanted to speak to me. The tree-shadow thing is talking. I look behind me, but everyone else is still sleeping.

  I move so I’m kneeling in front of it, facing it. “I didn’t want to talk to anybody,” I whisper. “Who are you?”

  I am Wakunochi-no-kami, second son of the gods Izanami and Izanagi, who created this place.

  Those names sound vaguely familiar. My dad has a book called The Kojiki, which is a Japanese legend of creation. Or maybe it’s not legend—who knows anymore? He used to read it to me when I was little. Izanami and Izanagi, I recall now, were gods who gave birth to the islands of Japan as well as a bunch of other gods. I don’t remember this Wakunochi, though. Probably because I was mostly asleep when Dad shared the story with me at bedtime.

  You are looking for your father.

  Well, I guess a god would know that. I spread out my hands and so does the shadow. It has no face. To my surprise, maybe because I’m still so darn tired, I’m not scared. It’s just a tree without eyes or a mouth. “If you’re a god, can you help me find him? Or tell me how I’m supposed to do it? Like, how do I fight the oni? I don’t even have a sword.” I shut my mouth. I sound kind of whiny. Not at all like a hero.

  I am a kodama, a tree spirit, and as such can only stay here. It raises its hands, which I am definitely not doing. I can tell you this: you have powers the sword does not. The sword has powers you do not. Together, you have twice as many powers. But the sword will not appear until you earn it.

  “Well, how am I supposed to do enough stuff to earn it, when I don’t have the sword to fight with?” I ignore the fact I don’t know how to use the sword anyway. It’s obviously magical. Once I get it in my hands, I’ll probably turn into a crazy good fighter straight out of a video game. That’s what always happens.

  I’m sick of people (or spirits) talking to me in riddles I can’t figure out. Going on about powers they claim I have but I don’t. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m super-duper thirsty and tired, but I’m as cranky as a toddler coming down from a sugar high. “Spirit, if you can’t leave your tree, what good are you?”

  The shadow reaches out of the tree, its arm all see-through pixels, and puts its hand on my forehead. It’s as cold as an icepack. The ground shudders under my knees—only under me. The chill seems to pierce my skin and touch my brain. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t feel good, either. I try to stand up, get away from it, and—yowch!—now that hurts, like my head’s caught in a vise.

  You are not very respectful for a boy without a weapon. Not like a Momotaro should be.

  “Sorry!” I yelp, and the cold lessens. “I don’t know how a Momotaro should be. I’m just me.”

  The kodama sighs. That is not an excuse.

  I gulp and try to turn to look at my friends, but I can’t move at all. I take a deep breath, and I don’t even feel my stomach move. It reminds me of the time I got my tonsils out when I was five—that moment when the doctor sticks the mask over your face and tells you to go to sleep, and you know you have no choice. Okay, now this is getting a little scary. “I thought you were a god. Aren’t you a good tree spirit?”

  Why do you think this part of the forest has so many trees? the spirit says, sounding almost gleeful. These were all people once, until they annoyed me.

  Uh-oh. “What did they do?”

  They were both impertinent and stupid. There is no crime worse than being so stupid you do not even realize how stupid you are.

  I think of Lovey, being racist and mean and too dumb to know it, even when people tell her so. I guess maybe the kodama’s right.

  I could not let them infect the world. Now, if you prove to be impertinent but smart, I may let you go on your way. Listen.

  “Okay,” I whisper. I hope I’m up for this. I don’t exactly feel at my mental best at this moment. If I mess this up, my friends will turn into trees right where they’re sleeping. And my dad will never be able to find me, if he does manage to escape on his own. Who’d think to look in a sacred grove on an island of oni?

  The kodama speaks again.

  It occurs once in every minute,

  Twice in every moment,

  And yet never in a hundred thousand years.

  I shut my eyes, picturing the words written on a blackboard in front of me. A comet? An eclipse? A dying star? A breath? No, no, no. It has to be something not so obvious.

  In my head, I look over the words. The letters.

  I can’t tell.

  Time’s up.

  I flinch, my heart racing. “You didn’t tell me this was timed.”

  I don’t have to tell you anything. This isn’t school. It’s life.

  “I give up!” I yell. And then, suddenly, I see the answer on my mental chalkboard. Of course! It’s so obvious. “The letter m!” I say, and I can’t keep the huge grin off my face. Take that, tree.

  But the kodama continues.

  It can be said:

  To be gold is to be good;

  To be stone is to be nothing;

  To be glass is to be fragile;

  To be cold is to be cruel.

  Unmetaphored, what am I?

  I raise my voice. “Another one? That’s not fair!” I’ve used up all my brainpower already.

  I never said I was fair.

  I could swear the shadow smiles.

  “That’s right. ’Cause you’re a tree,” I mutter under my breath.

  I take another breath. Now I’m sweating again, the moisture leaking down my sides. Metaphor—I remember the definition from English class: a figure of speech, a comparison.

  If only I had my phone! I could Google this. But no, there’s only me and my brain. Think, Xander, I command myself.

  He’s not even in GATE, I hear Mr. Phasis say.

  My face goes hotter yet.

  You just have to access this information, I hear my grandfather say. You know this.

  I decide to listen to my grandfather.

  I picture something gold, something stone, something glass. What is something that could be all three? My head pounds. I picture my dad, remember how once, when we were already running late to a doctor’s appointment, he saw a man with a stalled car in the street and he stopped to help him. Another time, he rounded up a stray dog and put it in his car, even though it tried to bite him.

  I lift my head. “You know what people always say about my dad? He’s got a heart of gold.”

  The tree seems to inhale sharply.

  I think of my mom, abandoning us, and how other people talk about her. Poor Xander, no wonder he’s weird. His mom’s so cold she left them without a word.

  I clear my throat. “Do you know what people say about my mom? Heart of stone.”

  And I remember asking my grandmother why my dad couldn’t forget about my mother after all these years; why he still keeps wearing his wedding ring and won’t even glance at another woman. “Because his heart will shatter,” she told me. “He has a heart of glass.”

  I suck in a big breath. “The answer is heart.”

  Instead of being mad, the shadow seems pleased. Very good, Momotaro.

  I’m so relieved my muscles turn into jelly. “Can we please go now?”

  One last.

  “No,” I groan. “Come on, already. I got two out of two.”

  He ignores me.

  Power and treasure for a prince to hold,

  Hard and steep-cheeked, wrapped in red,

  Gold and garnet, ripped from a plain

  Of bright flo
wers, wrought—a remnant

  Of fire and file, bound in stark beauty

  With delicate wire, my grip makes

  Warriors weep, my sting threatens

  The hand that grasps gold. Studded

  With a ring, I ravage heir and heirloom.

  To my lord and foes always lovely

  And deadly, altering face and form.

  Yikes. This one’s harder. My brain is sludge. Inside my head, I suddenly hear every teacher I’ve ever had chorusing at me that I’m slow, that I don’t pay attention.

  I’m not smart enough for this. I’m two breaths away from getting all of us turned into trees forever. My mind feels like that twenty-year-old car Dad used to have that had trouble starting. He would turn the key over and over, muttering, “Come on, start. Start!” until finally the motor caught. “You always have to rev the engine now,” Dad would say, hitting the gas pedal. “Give it as much juice as you can and it won’t stop.”

  “Come on,” I whisper, like Dad. “Start. Start!”

  My head clears. Just picture the words. Ripped from a plain of bright flowers? A remnant of fire and file? Power and treasure for a prince. Warriors weep. The images come together as one. I see King Arthur—he’s pulling something from a stone….

  “A sword!” I exclaim before I can think twice. Whoops. I close my eyes. Please be right.

  Very good. The voice is impressed. Maybe even smiling.

  “Do I get the sword now?” That’s why he posed that riddle, right?

  But the kodama says nothing, just releases me, the shadow disappearing. I shudder and gasp and stumble forward, catching myself on the trunk. Uh-oh—hope that doesn’t make it wake again.

  Nothing happens.

  I sink down into the dirt. Oh my gosh. That was so close. My brain’s an engine out of gas now. I hug my knees close to my chest and feel a smile playing on my lips as I think of how I outsmarted the tree.

  I wish Mr. Phasis could have seen that. He’d probably think, Kid outsmarted a plant. Big deal. I could become boy president of the United States and Mr. Phasis wouldn’t be impressed.

  On second thought, I don’t care about his opinion. Maybe the truth is that all those school tests don’t matter quite as much as they think. Maybe what matters is not your score, but how you use the talents you have.

  I stretch out my legs and look at my sleeping friends. My body’s full of nervous energy again, as if having the confrontation was the equivalent of drinking a caffeinated soda. “Hey, you guys.”

  My companions stir. Peyton lets out a blood-curdling yawn-squawk. All of us jump. “Well, that was refreshing!” Peyton stands. “Ready to get this party started?”

  Ruff. Inu rises and shakes, sending bits of fur, sticks, and dirt flying.

  Jinx stretches, then grabs her stomach. “Oooh. You know, I could do a lot better if I had a little bit of something-something in my tummy.”

  I shake out a rice grain for her. “Here.”

  She pops it into her mouth with a grin. “Thanks.”

  Inu’s at my feet, pawing the netsuke. Woof.

  “I won’t leave you out.” I give him one, too.

  I check around the tree trunks, expecting the sword to pop up as my reward. But there’s nothing.

  Well, at least I didn’t turn into a tree.

  “Come on, you guys.” Jinx is on her feet and moving again.

  “Jinx,” I grab her arm, “why’d you let us stop here? That tree’s a kodama.”

  She yanks her arm away. “I know. The God Tree. But he’s been asleep for two thousand years.” Then she leans toward me, curiosity written all over her face. “Why? Did you see something?”

  “He talked to me. I guess I woke him up.” I shrug.

  “A tree talked to you?” Peyton half opens his wings and leaps forward to land next to me. “Oh man. Sorry I missed it.”

  Jinx opens her mouth as if she wants to ask about the God Tree, but I don’t say anything more. I don’t want her or Peyton to know that I was almost impertinent enough to get us all turned into vegetation.

  I change the subject fast. “That was a neat trick. The long hop.” I point at Peyton’s wings. “Those things come in handy.”

  “What?” Peyton looks behind him at his feathers. “Oh yeah. I hope I get to keep these. Think of how well I’ll be able to play basketball.”

  “Ha.” I feel a small twinge of envy in my chest. “Your dad will be happy.”

  Peyton’s face darkens. “My dad will sign me up for pole vault, too.”

  “My dad would just cut them off of me.” Jinx taps my arm. “Another rice, please?”

  I give her one and study her face, trying to figure out if she’s joking or not. My stomach flips. Something tells me she’s not. I kind of want to give her a hug, but I think that would feel about as nice as hugging a blackberry bush.

  Peyton frowns and helps himself to a grain of rice. “Your dad doesn’t like you to be different, huh?”

  “No. He doesn’t like me to be better than him.” Jinx shoves the rice into her mouth. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We leave the God Tree copse, and the forest canopy begins opening up overhead again. I hear a shooshing noise. Water! Thank goodness. The plants underfoot give way to sticky red mud, and we begin making our way down a steep embankment. The running water sounds closer. We navigate through the last little thicket of trees, and I see heaven: a big, clear, wide expanse of river. All of us break into a sprint.

  “You can drink it!” Jinx kneels on the bank, cups her hands in the water, and slurps it down. “I’ve had it plenty of times.”

  Inu’s already lapping it up, so I know it’s got to be good. Inu never drinks bad water, unlike a lot of dogs. I drink, too, then wade in up to my waist. It feels so good to wash off all the sweat and jungle grime.

  “Wait!” I back up quickly, peering into the water. A school of small purple-silver fish, with golden beaks like parakeets, swims by. “What if there are piranhas?”

  “Nah. I swim here all the time.” Jinx kicks off her shoes and splashes in. “I have to warn you, though: none of the fish are good to eat. Those purple ones taste like tile grout.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “How many times have you eaten tile grout?”

  Jinx smiles at me. “You can eat it and it won’t kill you.”

  “The fish, or tile grout?” Peyton mutters. He dips his face into the water.

  I do the same, opening my mouth to let the cold water rush in. Ahhh. Nothing ever tasted so good. I duck my head all the way underneath.

  “Come on.” Jinx starts walking downstream. “If we follow this river, it’ll take us to where we need to go.” She glances at the sky. “And we should try to get there before dark.”

  “There?” I ask. “Where’s there?”

  “Where your father is, dum-dum.”

  I bristle at the name, but now I think she’s joking around. “But where is that, exactly?”

  “You want its satellite coordinates or something? I don’t know.”

  “Have you been there before?” Peyton asks, catching up to her.

  “I know where it is,” she says evasively.

  I stop moving. “Why won’t you give us a straight answer?”

  She presses her mouth into a thin line. “I just don’t like telling you my personal business, okay?”

  Peyton and I look at each other.

  She points at us in turn. “See? That. It’s because of stuff like that. If I tell you things, you two are going to use it against me somehow. I don’t know you well enough to trust you.”

  Inu barks and whines. Jinx pats his head. “I trust you, Inu. Of course I do.”

  I close my eyes. Give it time, my father’s voice says in my head. Trust builds over time. “Okay, fine, Jinx. You don’t have to tell us if you were there before. But do you know how much farther it is?”

  She starts wading again. “Not much.”

  “That’s specific,” Peyton huffs.

  We sta
rt following in her wake. This is better than making our way through a steamy, bug-filled jungle or slogging through slimy mud. The sand beneath my feet is silty and soft. Inu splatters us as he lopes and leaps through the water. Jinx laughs and he chases her. She splashes him.

  Could she be having fun? Peyton and I look at each other. He points to Jinx, like What do you think of her? I shrug. Maybe she’s okay after all. For the first time all day, I relax a tiny bit.

  In fact, all in all, I have to say this quest is going pretty darn well. I mean, there was that thing with the snow woman—but we got my monkey sidekick out of that deal.

  I push my shoulders back. Maybe I’m actually as smart as my father says I am. Maybe I’m stronger than I thought I was. Wings or no wings. I smile.

  Peyton kicks some water at me. “What’s that big old grin for?”

  I kick water back at him. “Nothing. Just thinking about how awesome I am.”

  He stretches his wings and spins, sending a wave flying at me.

  I shake my dripping head. “Now you’re in for it!” I leap at him, catching him off guard, and tackle him into the water. We play-wrestle. The water feels great. Inu jumps on us, barking happily. Jinx doesn’t join in, but stands off to one side, watching with a big, old eye roll, like she thinks we’re two little boys. That’s okay. She’s not ruining our fun. We mess around for a few minutes.

  Then I hear the sound of branches snapping. I turn my head to look at the bank. Oddly, Inu seems oblivious. I see two black eyes peering out at me.

  I stop moving and hold my hands up to the shrieking Peyton and barking Inu. “Guys, shut up!”

  “What?” Jinx turns to look where I’m looking. “I don’t hear anything.”

  But I do. Something’s there. Watching us. I move toward the bank.

  A tiny red bird hops out of the growth, chirping. I relax.

  But then, suddenly, the sunlight dims and I sense something else, this time from the sky. An undulating black cloud has formed over us. Thunderhead?

  Jinx’s eyes widen. “Move!”

  We start running, but it’s like we’re in slow-motion, since we’re in the water. The cloud is following us. “Stalker cloud!” I say.