Then it knocked the torch aside with its leg and bit down on Harry’s shoulder, sinking its fangs into his chest. Harry screamed, screamed and screamed, and his scream unfroze my brain.
Blood spurted and venom poured, burning his skin wherever it splashed and spilling into his muscles and bones.
The belly, the belly, I thought, and knew I wouldn’t have another chance. It was distracted by Harry but it wouldn’t be for long. Maybe, maybe, I could still save him despite all the blood and the poison and the way his scream was fading away like he was waving good-bye.
I ran behind it, skidded to a stop near its stinger and leapt forward with my arms in front of me, belly down, sliding underneath its body.
It smelled of foul death there, so rank I nearly choked on it. I flipped to my back so I could see the bloated mass shaking above me as it killed Harry.
I slid the blade into the Many-Eyed’s belly, jerking the blade parallel to its legs to make a long slice in the thick hairy skin just like I did when I slid down a pirate ship’s sail holding on to the handle of my knife.
The Many-Eyed reared back on its legs and there was a terrible rending noise as its fangs tore free from Harry’s body. I rolled free just as hot liquid poured out of the slash I’d made. It stung where it touched my hand and arm and shoulder—I wasn’t quite quick enough to escape without getting burned.
The thing screamed again, that terrible high-pitched, inhuman sound. I thought I’d finished it, but it wasn’t quite done yet.
I rolled up to my feet, my knife in front of me, dimly aware that one of the twins had run to Harry and was dragging him toward the cave.
The Many-Eyed turned to me now—all of those red eyes mad and rolling, Harry’s blood coating its venom-spitting fangs, and its own blood running in angry rivers all over the rock shelf.
If I lunged for it, my moccasins would slide in the mess. They might even slide me straight under those sharp, sharp teeth.
The creature pounded all its legs on the ground again and I knew it was going to charge me. I’d gotten turned about while underneath it and now I was essentially in a corner with the cave wall on one side and the cliff face on the other.
There was a little jutting bit of rock shelf about waist high in front of me that made a kind of momentary shield, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Many-Eyed; nor was there enough of it for me to crawl into and hide.
Besides, I’d never hide while it went for the rest of the boys.
The Many-Eyed ran at me, though I don’t know how with its guts spilling everywhere like that. I didn’t have much space, but I got a running start and leapt onto the rock shelf. I lost the temporary protection of the shelf and was completely exposed atop it, but I was only there for a moment before leaping again.
It was going too fast to stop, and I don’t think it quite realized what had happened in any case. I jumped on its back before it realized I was above it and not in front.
I mirrored the slashing action I’d used on its belly, this time stabbing hard in the center of its body and sliding over it and down, just like I really was on a pirate’s sail this time.
More of the creature’s blood and venom spurted out, shooting upward in fountains. I crashed to the ground behind it, narrowly avoiding the stinger, and scrambled out of the way before it decided to sit on me.
The Many-Eyed thrashed its legs in all directions as it screeched, all of its insides erupting out. I flattened against the cave wall, covering my ears as it shrieked out its final death throes.
That noise will bring every Many-Eyed on the island, I thought in despair.
I had to get the boys away from there, back to the tree. And maybe I could lay a false trail with the dead Many-Eyed’s blood back to the pirate camp, so if any of its fellows came looking for it they would go after the pirates, not us.
I felt a little sick at the thought of the pirates paying for my deed, turning into meat for the Many-Eyed’s children. But truly—it would be better that it was the pirates, who just stayed on the island to torment us or to try to nab one of us to discover the secret of our youth. Better the pirates than one of my boys.
I thought all this as the Many-Eyed shook out its last drops of blood and then stilled. I could send Nod and Fog back to the tree with the others while I laid the trail to the pirate camp. I could burn the body first, too, and stink up the area, make the Many-Eyed confused about just who and how many had been here.
And then a voice rang across the rock shelf, sharp and clear and angry.
“What have you done?”
chapter 5
It was Peter, his words like frost on the air. I’d half forgotten he was on his way, likely delayed on the path by Nip and his injuries. Peter’s green, green eyes burned in the moonlight.
Most of the other boys stood silently behind him, their faces unsure. Everyone’s expressions said they were glad the Many-Eyed was dead, but Peter quite obviously was not glad and so they didn’t know how to feel about this.
“It attacked Harry,” I said, feeling angry and slightly ashamed, and then angrier because I thought I shouldn’t have to feel sorry about the Many-Eyed. “I thought it was going to kill him.”
“It did kill him,” Peter said.
His tone said this was of no consequence to him whatsoever. I closed my eyes for a moment so I wouldn’t scream at him in front of all the other boys.
“You should have left and taken the rest of the boys with you while it ate him,” Peter continued.
“Why? So it could follow us and eat the rest when it realized just how delicious we are? Peter, it was calling the rest of them. They would have swarmed all over this place.”
“Now they are going to swarm all over,” Peter said. “Because of what you did they will follow us into the forest and hunt us until we are all dead, and that will be the end of Peter and his boys.”
He was making me feel more foolish and embarrassed with every word. This was the first time any of us had killed a Many-Eyed, though we had fought them before and the monsters had eaten their fair share of boys over the years. I’d never understood why Peter only let us wound them, or why he would never explain.
“Why?” I shouted, unable to restrain my temper before the boys. I kept hearing Harry’s scream fading away, the last breath leaving his body. “Why are they allowed to take as many of us as they like but we’re not permitted to do the same for them? They should have been burned out years ago. We should have scorched the plains and chased the rest of them to the sea. We should never have let monsters stay on this island.”
“They’ve been here as long as I have,” Peter hissed. “We had a treaty! And you, you fool, you broke it and now they’ll come for all of us.”
I went very still. “What treaty, Peter?”
Peter’s eyes shifted away.
“How can we have a treaty with monsters, Peter? How can you have a bloody damned treaty that none of us have heard about before when we don’t even know how to talk to them?”
I saw it in his face—he’d said something he hadn’t meant to, and it was bad enough that I knew but worse that it was revealed in front of the others.
How had I not known this? How could I have lived on this island for scores of years and not known that Peter could actually speak to the Many-Eyed?
Worse, how could he treat with them like they were our equals? They ate us. They didn’t fight us fair and face-to-face like the pirates. They treated us like dumb animals, nothing but blood bags for their survival. They’d eaten more of the boys than I could remember all down the years.
And yet, and yet . . . Peter never let me kill one of them. Not one, no matter how many of my boys they took screaming to the plains.
The others were murmuring now, as some of the brighter ones fitted the jigsaw together.
“I never said I could talk to them,” Peter said in that careless
way of his. Sometimes I could ignore it, but just then it made me see red.
I stalked toward him, splattered in the Many-Eyed’s burning blood, still gripping the knife that had saved the others and me from being eaten alive. I wondered, for the first time, why I’d ever followed him through the door in the Other Place, all those years ago.
When he’d smiled at me and told me we would have adventures, I thought we would be friends always, that it would just be Peter and me, like brothers. But now I saw—and it was so strange that after all this time I finally did see—that I wasn’t enough for him, had never been enough.
I didn’t mean anything to him, and not even I was special if he could keep a secret like this. And it made me love him a little less, and the memory of that smile hurt deep down in the place where I kept all my secrets and my sorrows.
Peter must have seen some of this on my face, or guessed it by my silence. I saw a little flare of panic in his cool eyes, where he thought no one could see. If he wasn’t careful, he would lose the boys. The others would follow me and he knew it, for I was the one who looked after them, looked out for them—not Peter.
His adventures wouldn’t matter when it came down to it. The boys wouldn’t enjoy starving to death just because Peter didn’t want to be troubled about gathering food.
“Well,” he said, as if I were not standing less than an eyelash’s length from him, covered in blood and fury. “It’s all done now and I suppose I will have to forgive you. After all, you didn’t know about the treaty and I really think I could make an argument to their chief that you were provoked. I must speak with him about his soldiers coming into the forest anyway.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t talk to them,” I said through gritted teeth, and I was certain I’d never sounded quite like that before.
The boys knew it too, for they went completely still and silent, as if abruptly aware of the presence of a bear, or something else large and sharp-toothed and hungry.
I felt something coming off Peter—not anger, exactly, but something strong and powerful, something I’d never felt him direct at me before. That power rolled off him, pushed against the haze of red all around me, sparked against it.
A few of the boys gasped and backed away. There was a rising scent in the air, that almost-burning smell that came before a lightning storm.
A little drop of blood rolled from the corner of Peter’s mouth, but whether it was wrought by my will or his effort against me, I never knew. All I knew was that something deep and savage inside me howled, howled for more blood, said there could never be enough.
“You’re allowed this one time,” Peter said, and I had a sense that only I could hear him now. “Just this once, because you’re Jamie and I can see you’re upset. But never again. If you try to take them from me, I’ll cut off your hand.”
“Don’t ever lie to me,” I said. “Don’t.”
I didn’t threaten him, for even as that submerged piece of me raged for more of his blood, there was still a part of me that hurt when I remembered just the two of us, and how we were happy.
Peter sensed the shift, the throttling of my anger, and gave me a crooked smile as he turned away, not worried in the least that I might plunge my knife into his neck.
“I’m going to burn the Many-Eyed,” I told his back. “And leave a blood trail to the pirate’s camp, away from the forest. At least it might confuse the Many-Eyed for a time, especially since they think we have a treaty.”
Peter turned back to me, ignoring my dig, his face transformed. The light of adventure glinted in his eyes. “That sounds marvelous fun! So much better than a silly old raid. I’ll laugh myself to death if a big old Many-Eyed lumbers into the pirate camp and eats that fat pirate Captain. He’s gotten so fat he’s hardly sport at all. What do you think, boys? Shall we lay a trail for the Many-Eyed to follow?”
There followed a series of reluctant murmurs instead of the cheers of delight Peter clearly expected. Most of the new boys (and a fair number of the old) darted their eyes between the corpse of the Many-Eyed and me. It was obvious they didn’t wish a repeat of this encounter, particularly if it meant they would end up like Harry—burning from the inside with venom and bleeding out white.
“It won’t work if we all troop through the plains and the beach leaving a trail behind us,” I said. “It’s really a job for one or two.”
“Then we can be the two,” Peter said, slinging his arm over my shoulder like nothing had happened between us.
I shrugged out of his embrace, nodding my assent because I still didn’t trust my voice, not entirely. He wasn’t acting any way that he didn’t normally act, but it bothered me more than usual.
Peter pretended he didn’t notice my cut, but I knew he did. “Nod, Fog, you take the others back to the tree.”
He waved his hand, dismissing them. They all looked relieved to be going home instead of with us. The fun had gone out of the adventure for most of them when the Many-Eyed appeared.
It made me worry, again, about taking the new ones to the pirate camp. Just because we didn’t go today didn’t mean we wouldn’t go another day, when Peter got it into his head again that it would be fun to have a fight. The pirates, like the Many-Eyed, weren’t interested in mercy for small boys.
The only one who looked disappointed was Nip, whose bruises appeared worse than they had the afternoon before. The broken cheekbone had swelled and was pushing up to his eye, making it look even smaller and meaner. Someone ought to fix that, I thought, push the bones back together so they’ll heal properly. But the only person who knew how was me, and I didn’t much care to.
Nip’s good eye watched me, and I saw the waiting in it. He would wait for his chance to hurt me and then take it.
I didn’t care about that as long as he stayed away from Charlie and the others. What Nip might do to me—or, rather, try to do—was no worry to me.
I went into the cave to see if I could salvage some of the burning wood from the bonfire. The boys followed me to collect the sacks of supplies and the weapons they’d left there.
Nod jerked his head at the deer carcass they’d spitted. It was scorched on one side and dried out on the other, entirely uneatable.
“Waste of good meat,” he said sadly. “And I took it down with one shot, too.”
“Aye,” I agreed, though I wasn’t really listening.
Harry’s body had been dragged off against the wall of the cave. He looked like some rubbish that had been shifted aside so people wouldn’t have to look at it.
And that was how Peter thought of him, really, now that Harry was gone, and his big stupid face was stupid and empty now, and I wanted to weep but knew I couldn’t as long as the other boys were there. So I put that weeping feeling inside, next to the place where Peter’s lie about the Many-Eyed had burrowed into my heart and curled up there, waiting.
I carried an armful of dry wood out to where the Many-Eyed’s corpse lay, seeping fluids that steamed in the night air. It was almost impossible that it was still night, that the sun had not yet risen to end that seemingly endless darkness. It was a very long time ago that I’d woken in the night to the sound of Charlie’s cry, though a full day had not passed.
I returned back to collect some of the burning wood to use as torches. Charlie stood in the mouth of the cave, his gaze half on me and half on the other boys, shuffling his feet.
Before I could ask what was wrong, he burst out, “Can’t I go with you?”
I could just imagine what Peter might do to Charlie if we brought him along—tie him up and leave him in front of the pirate Captain’s tent when I wasn’t looking, or “accidentally” push him over a cliff, or some other horror I couldn’t imagine. No, it didn’t bear thinking about.
Besides, it would do Charlie some good to be away from me, with the other boys. It would help him find his place, and he needed to find it if he
were to stay on the island.
“I won’t be gone long,” I said. “You just stay close to Del. You like Del, don’t you?”
“Not as much as I like you,” Charlie said, and then he beckoned me closer.
I put one knee down so our eyes were level, and he covered the side of his mouth with his hand as he whispered, “And I’m afraid of him.”
He cut his eyes toward Nip, who leaned against the cave wall with his arms crossed, watching us. There were burn marks around his eyes and that swelled cheek and I didn’t like the way he looked at Charlie, not at all. We’d crossed him, to his way of thinking, and he wanted his own back. He would take it out on Charlie when I wasn’t there.
Del had crossed him too, I realized, and rethought the idea of having only Del watch out for Charlie while I was gone. I couldn’t trust Charlie entirely to the twins, though, for the twins liked to run and fight and play too much—they didn’t have it in them to look after a little one.
“I can’t take you with me, Charlie,” I said. “We’ll have to move very fast, and there might be more Many-Eyed.”
“I . . . I can fight and run fast,” he said.
He could do neither, which we both knew very well, but he was trying so hard to be brave I didn’t have the heart to crush him. “There’s no shame in going back with the others,” I said. “They can run and fight too, but this is a job for just two.”
One, really, for there was no reason for Peter to come along except to pretend he knew what to do when he didn’t.
“I have to get back to it,” I said, so that he would know there would be no more discussion.
Nagging in the back of my mind was the worry that the Many-Eyed would track the smell of the dead one before I had a chance to lay the false trail. I hoped, too, that burning the corpse would keep the rest away entirely.
They all feared fire, and the scent of smoke should drive them away instead of arousing their curiosity. Though that juvenile had run right at the fire . . . but that one was stupid or sick. It had to be.
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