The Castaways

by Jessika Fleck

  “Thanks,” I say, glancing back at the man in the booth.

  He tips his hat.

  Lucky waits for me on the other side of the gate, jumping up and down like he needs to pee and clutching his golden coin. “I wanna see the pirate ship first!”

  “Settle down, buddy. We have plenty of time.”

  I scan for the ship—which can’t be missed—and am bombarded by game booths, food stands, red-and-black striped tents, and a handful of rides, all of it dipped in pirate. Hooped earrings, beards, hats, boots, even some peg legs and lots of scallywag talk abounds. It’s a Renaissance fair, pirate, and theme park mash-up.

  “The ship!” Lucky spots it and is off running, his black cut-off pants swishing at his ankles over his tennis shoes.

  “Lucky, wait up!” I call after him.

  He slows, bouncing up and down from the knees, waving his hand out. We close in on the ship, scents of turkey legs, popcorn, and cotton candy all mixing into one heavenly, salty-sweet concoction.

  The un-seaworthy monstrosity grows larger and larger until we’re at the roped ramp. A woman, corset busting at the seams, long black hair setting off her very red lipstick, sits on a stool. She opens a black velvet bag for our coins. We drop them in one by one.

  “Welcome aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Enter at ye own risk. And—” She leans in, chest bulging, begging to spill right over her top (I’m tempted to cover Lucky’s eyes with my hand). “Mind the plank and keep on the lookout for old Blackbeard himself!” she warns us in a bad British accent.

  “Cool,” Lucky whispers as we walk past.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  She nods.

  As we head up the ramp and into the ship, I’m impressed at the attention to detail. I’d expected it to be pieced-together plastic and cardboard, but the thing somehow feels authentic. Metal cannons line the sides and the wood creaks under our feet as we walk. We bump shoulders with other carnival-goers who are in just as much awe. Lucky hasn’t uttered a word, a feat in itself.

  After we explore every room, hatch, and galley, we reach a black door with a crude painting on it: a horned skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and pointing a spear at what looks to be a bleeding heart with his other. The wood across the top of the door has the name, Captain Blackbeard carved into it.

  Lucky puts his hand on the ornate brass door handle, but hesitates.

  “We don’t have to go in, buddy.”

  “I know. I want to. I just think we should knock first. You know, to…be polite.”

  “Ah, of course.” I nudge my head toward the door. “Go ahead.”

  His pale knuckles barely make a sound against the thick door.

  “Enter if ye dare!” booms a voice from the other side like clockwork.

  Lucky peers up at me, then opens the door.

  Before us sits Blackbeard. He’s behind a desk, piles of gold towering all around him. The room is rustic but fancy, all wood and plush carpet and candlelight. Books and maps adorn the walls and cover the desk. Blackbeard holds a large compass in his hand. He stares back at us and… Wait, I recognize old Blackbeard. We met a few hours ago, in the field. He winks at me, confirming it. I flush.

  “What brings ye scallywags to Blackbeard’s personal quarters?” he grunts.

  “We just wanted to see your room, Captain Blackbeard.” Lucky’s voice—bless him—is sweet yet confident.

  “Aye. Well, come closer. All young pirates who find me be deserving of gold doubloons.”

  Lucky stares up at me and smiles.

  I stay at the door as he marches up to the pirate. Blackbeard picks up a handful of coins and dumps them into Lucky’s small hands. “Share with ye sister now.”

  “Oh yes, sir. Thank you, Captain.” Lucky turns on his heels and I’m witnessing a new obsession developing in Lucky’s smile—spy gear traded out for swords and maps and eye patches.

  We make our way out of the ship, Lucky’s pants jingling, my back jeans pockets overflowing with doubloons. He insisted I take half or “Captain Blackbeard would know because he’s magic.” How could I argue?

  It doesn’t take long for the kid to realize the coins not only grant access onto the ship and into the maze, but also buy food and games. Two hours, one cotton candy, two hot dogs, two sodas, countless ring toss attempts, and one stuffed parrot later, only a single, lonely doubloon rests in my back pocket. I pull it out. “Last one, bud. What’s it gonna be?”

  Lucky looks up at me, large parrot tucked under one arm, his eyes glazed over and coming off his cotton candy high. “You can have it. I’m ready to go home now.”

  I finally broke him.

  “You sure?”

  He nods in slow motion, a line of ketchup dried under his bottom lip.

  “All right, let’s go, then.” I shove the coin away.

  Several steps toward the exit, I notice he’s fallen behind. I turn around. “Lucky, what are you—”

  He’s stopped dead, staring at the entrance to the maze, the corn stalks so tall they’d easily tower over my head. I can only imagine they seem like skyscrapers to him.

  I walk back and stand next to him.

  “Can we go in?” he whispers, not sounding so sure.

  “Well, we only have one coin, so you’d be on your own. Cool?”

  I hear him swallow. “No.” But he walks closer.

  I follow.

  He steps to the side of the entrance, pushing his head between two stalks. “It’s dark.”

  “Can be pitch black in some spots. That’s why we give you one of these.” The same leathery man who took our tickets sits next to the entrance on a stool, holding up a lantern that flickers as if there’s a real flame but is obviously battery powered. “You going through?”

  “No, just checking it out. Maybe next year, right, buddy?”

  I look down at Lucky.

  He stares up at me. “Can we go home now?”

  “Of course.”

  He makes it halfway to the car. I carry him the other half, and he’s asleep the minute I put the car into drive, parrot pushed against his cheek and the window.

  Chapter Eight

  The Maze

  For the third time in one day, I make my way across the field toward the maze. It’s cooler now, that storm from earlier returning for another round.

  Once again, the bright carnival lights are overhead, creepier now that it’s completely dark out. I walk up to the booth.

  “Forget something?” the leathery ticket man asks, pushing a newspaper away and removing a pair of glasses then folding them into his breast pocket.

  “No, just came back to meet a friend.” I give him a five-dollar bill.

  “Mmm-hmm. Well, you’ve got a coupla hours till closing.” He hands me my ticket.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Again, he tips his hat. He’s creepier in the dark, too.

  I enter through the gate and there are more people here than I’d expected—the late-night crowd, hardly anyone under the age of twelve. Cliques of guys and girls checking each other out, couples, groups, older kids with their parents…it’s a mixed bag and things are hopping.

  When I arrive at the maze, it’s deserted. No line. No old man. In the solitary chair is a handwritten cardboard sign that reads: Be back in five in black marker.

  I check my phone. T and I had agreed to meet here, but I’m fifteen minutes early, so I decide to grab a soda.

  I take all of three steps and a familiar, shrill laugh slinks up my spine.

  “Well, well, look who’s here!” Lesley says.

  I glance over my shoulder to see the Trio standing firing-squad style. They’re all carrying lattes and wearing fingerless gloves, despite that it can’t be below sixty-five degrees.

  Lesley’s nose has grown angrier since the locker room. A purple bruise has bloomed across the bridge and under one eye. The corner of my mouth inches upward.

  I turn around and swiftly walk away like buying a soda is my one and only goal in
life. I’m not doing this. Not here.

  “Olive! Wait!” Lesley calls.

  I walk faster.

  They stampede and are on top of me within seconds.

  Three pairs of hands drag me to the ground.

  I try to yell for help, but a palm smacks my face, covering my mouth. It smells like mocha.

  “You pushed it too far today, McGaggy. I told you I’d get you,” Lesley seethes.

  I shake my head, screaming into Hannah’s hand, my voice muffled by her stupid, knit glove.

  Lesley laughs and then that sneer curls the sides of her lips right up toward her eyes.

  “Dillon. Clippers,” Lesley demands like a doctor in surgery.

  A small black machine with sharp silver teeth flashes past my eyes.

  Kicking my legs as hard as I can, digging my heels into the dirt, and pulling my wrists back, I try to escape their grip, try to get away. But they’ve got this perfected. I can’t move.

  This is happening. Here. Now.

  “Your curls are getting a little unruly, Olive. Let me help you out.” Lesley winks and then raises the clippers.

  She flips the switch.

  The quiet hum buzzes in my ear like a hundred angry wasps.

  Dillon grabs a thick chunk of my hair, just above my ear, and holds it up for Lesley.

  Again, I shake my head from side to side, pulling the hair out of Dillon’s hands.

  “Uh, uh, uh. You move, I’m slicing your fucking ear off.”

  I stop. Dead still. Because I believe her.

  My heart pounds against my chest as I hold my breath.

  A group of carnival-goers laughs in the distance. But they’re too far… Too distracted… Too much carnival noise booms between us.

  “Hurry!” Dillon says, glancing around.

  “Come on,” Hannah adds.

  The thick, long wavy section of hair is pulled away from my face. It tugs at my temple.

  Lesley grips the clippers and then brings them to my head.

  Zzzt. Zzzt. Zzzt.

  The wasp has its way and wins.

  Beneath Hannah’s mocha hand, a whimper escapes my lips.

  The switch clicks off and the buzzing stops.

  Lesley puts her mouth to my ear. “Don’t you EVER touch me again. Because I promise you”—she clenches her teeth—“it’ll only get worse.” She punctuates her threat with a kiss to my ear.

  They let go of me.

  I stand up on my knees, biting back tears and hate and everything that’s built up all these years.

  I was wrong. The bomb isn’t in the reaction my parents might have. It’s inside of me.

  Lesley throws the cut tendril of hair. I catch it against my chest.

  Staring down at the clump of auburn, I touch the side of my head. Where the hair should be, it’s all stubble. Rough. My scalp right there beneath my fingertips.

  The bomb goes off.

  I run straight toward Lesley and push her so she stumbles backward.

  Her eyes go wide.

  Shit.

  She bounds back toward me.

  I search for an escape route, but my only option is the maze.

  I run straight for it.

  “Olive!” I hear Tawny call, but she’s far away. Too far to save me. Too far to do anything.

  Without hesitating, I grab a lantern, scale the closed gate, and take off.

  I hear Lesley follow, but it sounds like she trips on her way over.

  Not a thought as to where I’m going—except that I’ve got to lose her—I sprint through the maze, curving here, turning around there, hitting dead ends only to flip around and double back.

  Making my way deeper and deeper into the stalks, I notice things grow quiet. I can no longer hear Lesley’s footsteps crunching fallen leaves. I risk slowing down to catch my breath.

  Everything appears the same—all tall stalks of corn and dirt paths. It’s the maze, me, and the night sky above. The moon is a perfect crescent smiling down on me, half covered by clouds. The wind picks up, shaking the dried stalks that surround me. They jingle and whisper and hiss all at once. Pulling my hat down over my ears, the breeze licks along the path, kicking corn husks and leaves into my face.

  I hold the lantern out in front of me. It’s pitch black except for the six inches of light the sad thing provides. The blowing leaves have grown so loud I can barely make out sounds from the carnival: muffled voices, muted music, the smells barely sticking in the air, now overpowered by the earthy scent of plants and dirt.

  Rounding the corner, I risk a glance back to be sure I’ve truly lost her—

  I hit a wall and fall back onto my butt.

  It’s Lesley.

  She sneers.

  I glance to my right and spot a low tunnel in the corn where the stalks are separated and bowed above the ground.

  I chuck the lantern at Lesley but don’t wait around to see if it hits her.

  Bounding into the tunnel, I scurry like a small animal along the dirt. It’s pitch black, but I keep going, hoping beyond hope this is a magic wormhole out of here.

  I don’t hear Lesley behind me but don’t dare assume she isn’t.

  Speed-crawling, dried corn husks rustling beneath my knees, I think I see something ahead, a black hole that must lead back to the path or, please, the exit.

  I scoot out under the tube of stalks as fast as I entered it.

  Standing, brushing off my hands and knees, readying to resume sprinting, I stop. A bird sings loudly above me. Something scurries from a branch. The bird squawks.

  I look up.

  A thick canopy of trees towers over me. But there are no trees in this field, only grass, cornstalks, a carnival. Taking a step to the right, I catch a bright light peeking through a break in the leaves.

  The moon stares down on me as a perfect silver circle in a cloudless sky.

  Chapter Nine

  The Moon

  Wait.

  I spin in a circle.

  No corn.

  No stalks.

  No carnival sounds or smells or lights. All I see are shadows, silhouettes of trees against the dark sky. And the moon? It’s no longer a crescent. Somehow, it blew up into a bright bulb.

  I turn around and glance back. I try to gain my bearings because I’ve obviously gotten myself lost.

  But there’s nothing. Only more trees. A large boulder. I touch it to make sure it’s real. My hand shakes as I graze the top with one finger, careful, as if it might burst like a bubble. It doesn’t. The rock is smooth, covered in soft, slimy moss. I jerk my hand away.

  It can’t be.

  A far-off whimpering sends a shiver down the back of my neck.

  But I recognize the voice. It’s mine.

  I spin away from the boulder. My heart beats and beats, threatening to jump out of my throat and run for its life.

  “Okay. It’s okay,” I whisper, swallowing back the hyperventilation monster I know is on the other side of my words. There’s got to be an explanation. It’s some kind of illusion.

  But the sky…

  Again, I stare up between the trees.

  I fall to my knees.

  Pulling my eyes from the sky to my surroundings, I take things in. I’m in a moon-lit, dense forest boxed in by trees and plants and god knows what else.

  I listen: birds, bugs, and…water?

  A damp, cool breeze brushes past my face, dousing me with aromas of the ocean and honeysuckles. But there is no ocean in Hillings. We’re lucky to have a pond people like to call a lake. Having lived in Oregon most of my life, the difference between sea-smell and pond-smell is like fresh pine and those blasphemous, tree-shaped car air fresheners.

  All of that aside, I stand, determined to find my way out, convinced that this must be a dream or hallucination or an extravagant Castaway Carnival prank. I walk forward, but instead of cornstalks bowing around me, I now have branches waving and stooping above, as if the tunnel from the maze only grew and morphed.

  I raise my
eyes to the sky. The full moon glares down at me through blowing leaves like a large, silver eyeball.

  Something catches my foot.

  I trip and fall. Tumble. Twist. My ankles become more tangled in the “something,” then I hit the rocky ground with the side of my head.

  Hot pain spreads from my temple to my ear to my face. Once it hits my eyes, the forest spins upside-down like a carnival ride. The strange, foreign world goes fuzzy, then flickers out like an old, crappy battery-operated lantern.

  “Where do you think she’s from?” A boy’s voice, masked with a barely there southern drawl, creeps in through my ears, stirring the fuzzy into froth.

  I chance a tiny peek through dim light and the dark wisps of my eyelashes.

  A fire. Dancing shadows on earthy walls. Four figures huddled into a circle: a boy with glasses, an older boy with nose and lip piercings that reflect the fire, a girl with unruly red hair, and another guy, his dark hair carelessly a mess, who wears a black patch over one eye. Something springs deep in my gut when I search him further. When his good eye focuses right on me, the spring in my stomach flings to my throat and I squeeze my eyes closed.

  “She’s probably from the caves,” Lip Ring Guy says, his tone undeniably pissed. “I’ll bet my share of pork she’s a spy.”

  “She’s quite pretty.” The girl, British accent lacing her gentle voice, breaks in.

  “All right. Where’d you find her again?” Eye Patch Guy asks, his voice just as low as Lip Ring Boy’s but softer and more commanding.

  “We were doing the nightly perimeter check, just up the ridge, and we found her, out cold and caught up in one of the pig traps. Jude helped me—” the boy with glasses answers, but is interrupted by the one with the lip ring.

  “Yeah.” He laughs. “I helped all right. After you begged me and threatened to do it on your own, which would have been an epic disaster. Dammit, Lewis!” There’s a pause and a crash like he’s thrown something. “There’s no telling who she is or where she’s from.”

  The two argue over me and the noise shoots into the side of my head like jagged metal. I don’t mean to, but I moan in pain.

  The room goes silent.

  I hold my breath.

  The fire crackles.