Fantastical Island (Old School Book 2)

by Jenny Schwartz

  Then she was out of the harbor and, confronted with the wild waves of the open sea, could only concentrate on keeping the dinghy headed north-east toward the Buccaneer. Sea spray stung her eyes. The dinghy rose and dropped with heavy force as it struggled valiantly with the waves.

  Progress was cold, wet and dangerous—and problematic.

  Ahead were two boats. She understood why Roy and Janelle were anchored out here despite the weather, but why had the other idiot not made for the shelter of the harbor?

  Two boats. Which boat? She wiped water out of her eyes. Being out in the dinghy in these seas was a perilous endeavor, and she didn’t want to prolong it by heading to the wrong boat, then having to struggle across to the second one.

  She thought of her encounter with Janelle and Roy when they’d met the hotel guests at the ferry. Only yesterday! Corey had said they’d lived on Roy’s boat since last summer. They had seemed perfectly ordinary island adventurers. It was obviously part of their cover story, and that meant their boat had to look ordinary, too. As if it held no secrets.

  On that basis, Naomi chose the boat that anchored fractionally closer to the lighthouse, although still safely away from the rocks. The shoals to the north of the headland were treacherous. According to old maps, there was a channel through them to the narrow beach below the lighthouse. Smugglers had used it during Prohibition.

  The dinghy’s engine roared, blurring with the noise of the wind and waves into a torturous clamor. Naomi was cold despite the waterproof jacket she wore. Her jeans were soaked and her feet were in water dumped in from her crashing progress through the waves. She lifted the bag that supposedly contained the baku and began baling one handed.

  She was relieved to finally come within hailing range of the larger boat. She dropped the baling tin and peered through the rain. Yes, rain now mixed with the sea spray. It made visibility awful. The storm was nearly upon them.

  “No.” She groaned. The name of the boat in front of her was the Second Chance, not Roy and Janelle’s Buccaneer. She had chosen the wrong boat. It was already ten past midday and the Buccaneer was a distance that was no distance at all in fine weather, but soul-crushingly far in the storm.

  She looked up at the heavens just as lightning flashed across the sky and down, striking the ocean a few miles away. A white bird flew in front of the lightning, gold flaring from its wings and a note like a death toll rolling before the thunder. A lightning bird.

  According to African legend, to hear the cry of the lightning bird meant someone would die.

  “Not Corey. Not me.” She dug deep into her inner resources, trying to stop her panic. She had to get to the Buccaneer, and she would.

  But a voice hailed her from the Second Chance. To be heard over the storm, the person had to be using a megaphone. “How did you know we were here?”

  Janelle.

  Janelle on the wrong boat. Or the right boat? Had this been her plan all along, to observe Naomi (or Otis, as had been demanded) and the baku before trading for Corey?

  Naomi gathered her determination and hoped that the wild, dangerous ride out to the boat hadn’t frozen her wits. She was about to play a dangerous game of bluff with kidnappers and potential murderers—and Iovanius was nowhere in sight. She gunned the engine of the dinghy and headed straight for Janelle on the Second Chance, positioning herself where the bigger boat would provide some shelter. Just getting out of the buffeting wind helped her to think.

  She tied the dinghy to the Second Chance’s ladder. Her hands fumbled, clumsy with cold and fear.

  “Do you have the baku?” Janelle leaned over the railing. She stared at the bag in the dinghy with Naomi. “Show me.”

  “I have the baku,” Naomi shouted. “Show me Corey before I hand her over.”

  “Her.” Even shouting against the competing noise of the storm and the fading echoes of another blast of thunder, the satisfaction in Janelle’s voice came through. “You are in no position to make demands.”

  Roy appeared and pointed a spear gun at Naomi.

  Her heartbeat stuttered. Get a grip. You expected something like this. “I have the baku.” She picked up the travel bag, unzipped it and upturned it. The brick and cushions fell out. “But not here. You get the baku when I see Corey.” The negotiations would have been easier if she didn’t have to shout, which meant her sentences had to be short and to the point. But the alternative was for her to board the Second Chance and that was a terrible idea.

  Now would be a good time for Iovanius to show up. At least with the storm and Janelle and Roy’s preoccupation with Naomi, they wouldn’t notice a hovering drone bringing the Roman ghost’s sword close enough for him to manifest at full poltergeist power. He’d said he had a half-mile range.

  “Do you think you can double cross me?” Janelle shrieked. “It is easy to kill a man in this weather. Just dump him overboard.”

  The lightning bird’s cry had warned of death.

  Naomi had to hold her nerve. “Show me Corey and I’ll show you the baku.”

  Janelle and Roy both stared down at her in the dinghy. A baku might be only cat-sized, but there was nowhere left to hide it, not with water filling the bottom of the small boat.

  “Corey is on the Buccaneer,” Janelle shouted. “We can’t show him to you.”

  But they had another option, and Roy took it. He aimed the spear gun at Naomi. “Show us the baku or I’ll kill you.”

  She’d suspected she wouldn’t be able to out-bluff Janelle and Roy, that was why Iovanius was meant to be speeding in right now. Relying on a sulky two thousand year old ghost wasn’t the strongest of strategies, but it had the element of surprise—if he appeared.

  She had to play for time. She waved her right arm in a prearranged signal. “Look at the base of the lighthouse. My friend Cait is there with the baku.”

  Janelle vanished.

  Roy remained with the spear gun pointed at Naomi. Lightning cracked in the sky above him, blindingly white.

  Naomi ducked her head. As scared as she was, she also had another immediate threat to deal with. She began baling water from the bottom of the dinghy. It wouldn’t do to rescue Corey only to have the dinghy sink under them.

  Her hands were so cold they’d lost all feeling. So far, she’d only seen Roy and Janelle. They could have other crew on the boat, but why would they bother hiding them from her? She was in the weaker position. If Iovanius wasn’t going to materialize, then she would have to take down the two kidnappers.

  The first step was to divide and conquer.

  “I see the baku,” Janelle said.

  Naomi dropped the baling tin.

  “How will you get the baku to us?”

  The waves, the wind, the rain, everything was building to a crescendo. As bad as the storm was, the full force of it was yet to hit. Naomi and Corey needed to be off the water, or at least within the shelter of the harbor, before then.

  Time was against her.

  “There’s a channel through the shoals to the lighthouse beach,” she shouted.

  Janelle and Roy looked to the lighthouse. Some trick of the wind brought his words to Naomi. “We won’t make it,” he said.

  Waves crashed against the rocks at the base of the headland. He was right. Naomi was bluffing. The shoals were treacherous in fine weather. Attempting them during the storm would be suicide.

  “I will have the baku,” Janelle screamed.

  And there on the storm-wracked ocean, body frozen, terrified for Corey and herself, Naomi understood the nature of evil. People did bad things. Horrific things. But true evil was fueled by hate.

  Janelle was no longer rational. Whatever the baku represented to her, she was obsessed. Moreover, she accepted her own evil. It was why she’d stipulated that the baku had to be in enchanted hobbles, otherwise it would repel Janelle and her evil.

  Perhaps Roy was just as evil, but he didn’t want the baku at the price of his own life. “You want the baku, get in the dinghy and fetch it.” He w
as sending his girlfriend on a suicide mission.

  “Naomi, get the baku,” Janelle shouted.

  Lightning struck the Buccaneer and thunder shook the air. Naomi’s dinghy smashed into the Second Chance.

  Roy had had enough. “We’re leaving. Hostage exchange after the storm.”

  “No!” Janelle screamed.

  Naomi fumbled with the knot she’d used to tie the dinghy to the ladder. It ought to have slipped easily undone. Instead, her cold fingers and the wicked power of the waves, even in the shelter of the larger boat, cost her precious minutes.

  Her plan had been stupid, ridiculous. She shouldn’t have overruled Otis. Maybe if he had brought Poppy here Janelle and Roy would have made the exchange and Corey would have been here and not potentially fried by lightning on the Buccaneer. The knot came free. Crying and desperate and hating herself, she roared the engine of the dinghy as the Second Chance upped anchor and swung north.

  Roy must be hoping to outrun the storm. The Second Chance didn’t seem big enough or powerful enough.

  It was still bigger than her dinghy. Focused on the lightning-struck Buccaneer where Corey was held, Naomi only just avoided the Second Chance’s maneuvers.

  Roy was crazy to think that there’d be a hostage exchange after the storm. She would rescue Corey now and—

  She turned her head sharply. Corey wasn’t on the Buccaneer. She hadn’t been paying attention. Janelle had lied, but Roy had let slip the truth. For a hostage exchange after the storm, Corey had to be on the Second Chance now. And the Second Chance was preparing to challenge the storm.

  It was futile, but Naomi turned the dinghy back toward the Second Chance.

  Lightning blasted the sky again; and again, the tolling cry of the lightning bird sounded.

  Into the storm and the wildly heaving sea, a figure dived from the deck of the Second Chance.

  “Corey!” She fought the waves to aim the dinghy at where he’d entered the water. How would she even find him in the steep peaks and troughs of the waves?

  Then a flying pig with vivid white wings circled a tiny spot in the churning water.

  “Cliff.” Naomi gritted her teeth, ignored the burn of the muscles in her arms, and kept the dinghy aimed for the behemi. The problem of how to haul Corey into the dinghy in these wild seas would have to be solved when she got there.

  She saw Corey’s dark head, but he wasn’t swimming properly. He was on his back, gasping and kicking with his two legs together. With horror, she realized he was still bound.

  Leaning over the edge of the dingy, praying she wouldn’t fall in, she grabbed his shirt.

  His green eyes were pain-filled and exhausted, and she lacked the strength to pull him into the dinghy.

  She reached for the knife from the sheath Otis had insisted she fasten to her belt. But Corey’s hands were tied behind his back. If he flipped over to let her cut the ropes, he’d drown in the time it took her to saw through them.

  Then the water around and under Corey surged and he landed in the dinghy like a hooked fish.

  Cait! She must have followed everything through binoculars from the lighthouse, and with Cliff still circling, pinpointing Corey, Cait had used her water talent to push Corey from the sea.

  Of course, that left Naomi to bail as if their lives depended on it—which they did.

  Corey wriggled to a sitting position on the floor of the boat as she bailed around him. A tired grin lit his face. “Mermaid.”

  “You?” She laughed as he nodded, and paused a moment in her baling to hug him. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  “Not yet. Knife?”

  She cut the ropes that held him.

  He groaned as circulation returned to cramped and frozen limbs. He still sat on the floor of the dinghy when he took the baling tin from her.

  She looked at the harbor, but the heart of the storm was already around them. There was no way the dinghy could battle through the monstrous waves to relative shelter. Cait, I hope you have some magic left. Naomi let the waves drive the dinghy toward the shoals around the headland.

  The sea to portside calmed. Naomi threaded the dinghy along the narrow channel of placid water. It was a maze within rocks and wild waves, one created by magic and the old map Naomi had given Cait.

  Corey bailed with grim endurance, saying nothing as the sea crashed and stormed around their fragile thread of safety.

  Naomi gunned the dinghy and drove it up the beach. “We made it.” She couldn’t believe it. They hadn’t drowned. They hadn’t died. They still had a rocky, steep and wet path to climb, buffeted by the wind and rain, but that was doable.

  It took the last of their energy. They were moving on willpower alone when they reached the top of the headland. Cait and Otis instantly helped them into the pickup. It made for an insanely crowded cabin, but Naomi sat on Corey’s lap and they shivered together.

  Poppy, the baku, had vanished, but the silver hobbles remained. They sat on the dashboard, an ugly reminder of greed and hate.

  Otis drove straight to the medical center, where Corey and Naomi were treated for exposure and Corey was assessed for concussion. Somehow he managed to keep the raw marks of the ropes around his wrists hidden.

  A very annoyed member of the harbor master’s office demanded what the hell they’d been playing at, going out in the storm of the decade.

  When neither answered, the harassed man finished having his arm stitched and headed back out.

  “Don’t get that bandage wet,” the nurse shouted after him. She sighed. “He’ll get it wet.” She sounded resigned and her smile was just as resigned as she met Naomi’s eyes. “He’s my nephew.”

  Naomi and Corey were released to Otis and Cait’s care, with Otis promising solemnly to keep an eye on Corey. The doctor didn’t think Corey had concussion, “just a heck of a headache, and head injuries can be tricky.”

  Bunyip House welcomed them with warmth, shelter, and Poppy. The baku’s orange elephant ears waved in welcome from the veranda, and her trunk tapped Corey’s knee as he crouched gingerly to pet her.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said to her.

  The baku tapped his knee harder. Anyone could decipher it as a command.

  He sat down and the baku delicately raised itself, paws on his thigh, and snuffled the bump on the back of his head.

  The lines of pain on his face slowly vanished until he was smiling.

  “Bakus can heal?” Naomi asked.

  “Never happened before,” Otis said. “Then again, none of us have ever saved one before. Maybe this is a thank you.”

  If it was, it was a very welcome one. Naomi had to sniff back tears at seeing Corey himself again, and not a gray-faced, barely walking man suffering intense pain. “Thank you, Poppy.” She crouched, balancing herself with a hand on Corey’s sturdy shoulder, and patted the baku.

  Then the whole party, with her and Corey moving stiffly, shuffled inside Bunyip House and Otis closed the door on the world.

  Chapter 8

  A hot shower washed the salt from Naomi’s skin, even if by the end of it she was leaning against the tiled wall to stay upright. She dried cursorily and pulled on a clean t-shirt. “Ow.” Her arms hurt. Holding the dinghy on a steady course in the stormy ocean had been arduous. She gritted her teeth and combed out her blonde hair, leaving it to air dry. And if it wanted to dry into a frizzy mess, it could! Leggings completed her outfit. She wasn’t about to bother with shoes or socks. The old wooden floors of Bunyip House were smooth and comforting under her feet.

  She needed a sweater, though, and hers was a wet crumpled mess. She needed to wash her clothes and get clean ones from the boarding house. Ugh. Tomorrow.

  “Ow, ow, ow.” She gathered up her wet clothes from the bathroom floor. She’d put them in the laundry till she had energy to deal with them.

  “Are you okay?” Corey’s voice from the other side of the door sounded concerned.

  She opened the door. “Sore muscles,” she said ruef
ully, and smiled at him. Seeing him here and safe was worth every bit of pain and more. “I couldn’t borrow a sweater, could I?”

  “You can have everything you want. A sweater is easy.” He took her bundle of wet clothes and threw them back into the bathroom, onto the floor.

  Her jaw dropped. “What?”

  “We’ll deal with ordinary problems, tomorrow.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, especially when he took her now free hand and enclosed it in his.

  “Thank you for being stupidly brave and sailing the dinghy through a storm to rescue me.” He drew her into his room.

  “Stupidly brave?”

  He smiled. “Luckily for me.”

  His room at the front of the house was simply furnished with a big wooden bed, a solid armchair, an old wardrobe and a chest of drawers, with big windows on two walls—it was a corner room—that took in a panoramic view of the harbor.

  Corey crossed to the wardrobe while she studied the view.

  The storm was passing, although the sea still churned violently even within the sheltered harbor. Boats rocked, lights glowed, necessary despite the afternoon hour, and lightning flashed to the north. She flinched.

  He threw the sweater on the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “Problem?” His voice rumbled against her ear.

  “I heard the lightning bird. Out there, on the ocean.”

  “Loud, aren’t they?” he said agreeably.

  She leaned back to look at him. “You’ve heard a lightning bird’s cry?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned, puzzled.

  “Who died?” she asked.

  It was his turn to lean back, his hands running up and down her arms as he studied her. “What do you mean, who died?”

  She pulled away and dragged on the sweater. The soft blue wool was warm. She pushed up the sleeves. “The legend of the lightning bird is that when you hear one, it’s a sign that death is near.”

  “I’ve heard lightning birds lots of times. People haven’t died.” He sat down on the bed. “But you thought someone was going to.” It wasn’t a question.

  She sniffed.