by Lisa McMann
At the eel’s other end, Spike flailed in the water, trying to escape from its grip. She saw Pan and Florence and spurred toward them, hoping to move closer so they could help her.
Florence leaned over Spike and hurriedly unwound the trapped eel from her tail. “Go!” she cried through the water when Spike was free. The whale shot to the surface as fast as she could.
Still gripping the eel’s head between her teeth, Pan followed Spike to the surface so that Florence could help the boy, but the dragging tail of the eel thrashed and struck out. As Florence bent over Spike and saw that Henry wasn’t moving, the eel slammed into her head with a mighty blow, knocking her off Pan’s back. Florence yelled and made a desperate grab for Pan, trying not to sink all the way to the bottom of the sea. But Florence’s slick hands against the dragon’s slippery scales couldn’t keep their grasp.
Pan’s tail shot out like an arrow through the water. The dragon wrapped it around Florence’s wrist as the eel writhed and churned nearby. It was hard to tell which was which in the dark water. Florence grabbed on to Pan’s tail and pulled herself up hand over fist to the surface, desperate to see if Henry could be revived.
With a roar, Pan struck out with her claws and speared them through the eel’s skin. She opened her jaws wide to get a better grip, exposing rows of sharp teeth, and with a sudden movement, she clamped down again and chomped off the eel’s head, swallowing it whole. Its body dropped into the water, and with a few twists and splashes, it disappeared.
Florence made it to the surface and hoisted herself onto Pan’s back once more. When she was safely steady, she leaned over and began wrestling with the cocoon to get Henry out. “Henry!” she shouted, afraid. Was it too late?
The boy didn’t move.
A Close Call
Florence reached into the cocoon and pulled Henry out. His eyes were closed, and he flopped like a bundle of rags in her arms. She ripped off his component vest and threw it aside, then squeezed his abdomen and pressed on his chest and pounded his back, trying to get him to breathe. She had no breath of her own to lend him.
Pan worried over the scene as Florence tried everything she could think of to save Henry. But he didn’t respond, and he didn’t respond, and he didn’t respond.
Finally the dragon spoke. “Let me try,” she said. “Put him on his back and open his mouth.”
Florence turned Henry over, supporting his head. His arms fell to his sides. She took his face in her hand and gently opened his mouth.
Pan turned her neck, bent down, and closed her eyes as if making a wish. She blew a slow breath into the boy’s mouth.
Henry’s chest rose. Pan kept blowing, and then she pulled away and opened her eyes, watching him carefully.
Without warning Henry reared up, coughing and choking, water spewing from his mouth. He twisted to one side, Florence supporting him, and gagged and gasped until he’d cleared most of the seawater from his lungs.
Florence looked like she could cry. She turned to Pan. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t know it would work,” the ruler of the sea said softly. “But dragons can do things one wouldn’t expect them to do.”
Finally Henry stopped choking long enough to speak. “My vest!” he rasped. “Florence, where is it?” He coughed again.
Florence looked around. She’d flung it aside. Where was it? “It’s gone now,” she told him. “But there are extra components in the crate in case we need them.”
Henry struggled mightily to sit up next to Florence on Pan’s back. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair stood on end. “No. You don’t understand—I have to have it!” he cried. “The medicine for Karkinos is in there!”
“What?” cried Florence.
Alarmed, Spike wasted no time. She dove underwater in search of the vest, and Pan ducked her head below the surface to look around, letting her tremendously long tail slither through the water in search of it too.
“I didn’t know that’s where you kept the medicine,” Florence said, distraught. “I’m sorry. I thought it was packed with the other supplies.”
Henry stood on Pan’s back, holding on to Florence’s shoulder, peering anxiously at the water even though he could see very little in the darkness. “If we don’t find it we’ll have to go get more, but it comes from Ishibashi’s island,” he said. “We don’t have time to go all the way back there!”
Florence put a hand to her forehead as she realized the severity of the consequences. “I thought you were dead,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about the vest. I was thinking about you.”
“Oh, Florence,” Henry said, reaching out to her. “I’m not blaming you. Thank you—you saved my life. I just hope . . .” He stared at the water in the darkness, waiting.
Minute after agonizing minute went by. Henry coughed now and then, still recovering. He drew strength from his fear and focused only on the water. How could Spike or Pan possibly find the vest in the vast, churning waters of the sea?
After a time, Florence detected a ripple in the water’s surface a short distance away. “I hope that’s not another eel,” she muttered.
Henry looked up.
Pan lifted her head up out of the water as the ripple got closer, and soon the tip of Spike’s spike was evident, coming toward them. When the whale reached Pan’s side, she rose up, and there, hooked around the base of her spike, was the vest.
“Spike, you found it!” said Florence.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Henry breathed. “You have no idea what this means.”
Florence reached out to get the vest and handed it to Henry. Anxiously he checked the special pocket, and there he found the tin of seaweed, safe and sound. He slumped back in relief, then put the vest on and secured it.
“Well done, Spike,” said Pan, like a queen to her favored subject.
Spike bowed to her, then turned to Henry. “I am terribly sorry I hurt you,” she said.
Henry stroked the whale’s forehead. “You couldn’t help it,” he said. “And I’m all right now. I would have been fine if I’d just taken a breath before we went under. I was just surprised.”
“We all were,” Pan said. “We’re lucky Spike detected the eel coming at us when she did or we’d be in much more dire circumstances now.”
Spike bowed her head humbly and sidled up to the dragon. “We must go,” she said. “We have lost too much time.”
“Are you fit to go again?” Florence asked Henry.
The boy nodded. His vest was in place and secured, with the container inside its pocket. That was all he needed.
Florence helped Henry climb from Pan’s back onto Spike’s. He slid into the cocoon, and when all was well again, the four continued their journey.
The Dragon’s Triangle
As Kaylee gazed at the map on the table, Alex, Sky, and Lani looked curiously at her.
“The Dragon’s Triangle?” Alex asked. “What’s that?”
Kaylee gave him a grim smile. “It’s a mythical place. Or at least that’s what I used to think.”
Sky and Lani exchanged a questioning glance. “We’re not mythical,” Lani said. “We’re real.”
Kaylee continued to explain. “There are a few places in the world—the world I came from, I mean—where ships and airplanes have been lost and never found. The Bermuda Triangle is one. The Dragon’s Triangle is another.” She pointed them out on the map. “In the old days sailors would avoid the mysterious waters in those places for fear of being lost for good.” She pulled a dining chair out from the table and sat down heavily. “I remember studying it before I set out on my journey, knowing I’d be passing nearby. A fleet of Japanese military ships disappeared there—here, I mean—in the 1950s.” She looked up. “When I saw the Quillitary vehicles on your island, I wondered if they’d come from those missing military ships.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “There’s a whole shipload of them sunk off Ishibashi’s island.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that. Some scienti
sts went in search of the missing fleet,” Kaylee said. “But they went missing too.”
“Ishibashi, Ito, and Sato?” guessed Lani.
“For sure,” said Kaylee, nodding. “I forget the name of their ship, but it was well documented.”
“Oh!” said Alex abruptly. “I saw the name. Some of the letters were missing. K-O something number five.”
Kaylee looked sharply at him. “That’s it! Kaiyo Maru Number Five. You saw it? It was Ishibashi’s ship?”
“That’s what Ishibashi told me,” Alex said. “I transported it from under the water and put it on the shore so they could get their stuff if they wanted to.”
“And they did,” said Sky. “Remember the telescope Ishibashi showed us?”
Alex nodded.
Tears welled up in Kaylee’s eyes for reasons she had trouble articulating. “No one has ever returned from a triangle,” she said. “I guess . . .” She trailed off, gazing across the dining room deep in thought. “I guess I always thought the people had died. And the ships and planes that disappeared were at the bottom of the Devil’s Sea, so deep they were unable to be recovered. I never imagined there was an actual place where people could survive . . . and thrive, even.”
Sky frowned. “If the scientists are from your world, are you saying that it’s possible we all came from there? That we were somehow swept into the Dragon’s Triangle? Because I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. I was born on Warbler. So was my mother.”
“Not you specifically,” Kaylee said. “But maybe your ancestors. Your grandparents or great-grandparents or who knows how many generations ago were lost at sea, succumbing to the grasp of the dreaded triangle. And instead of dying, they found themselves here.”
“Like the people in the vessel?” Sky asked. “Several months ago a . . . a thing fell from the sky and landed in the water.”
“An airplane,” said Lani.
“Right,” said Sky. “The people inside were dead, though.”
Kaylee nodded. “I suspect they came from my world,” she said. “If no one on all the seven islands you’ve visited manufactures or flies airplanes, they must come from somewhere else, right?”
“We have parts of airplanes upstairs in the Museum of Large,” Alex said. “Mr. Appleblossom and Mr. Today kept them from years ago.”
Kaylee looked at the others, puzzled. “But I don’t understand something. Didn’t anybody ever tell you stories about how they came to be here? Your grandparents or anyone?”
“Not in Quill,” Lani said. “No storytelling allowed. Or writing things down.”
Kaylee shook her head. “That’s right,” she muttered. “What a strange place.” She looked at Sky. “How about you on your island?”
Sky pointed to the scars on her neck. “We didn’t exactly have a chance to talk a lot, and we didn’t have school like the children in Quill did—we just worked from the time we were able. But I know my mother and her parents were born on Warbler. You’re the only one I know who just showed up here and survived.”
“Well,” Kaylee said, “there are the scientists, too.”
“Oh yes,” said Sky, “I forgot. They never told us, though—you did.”
“And Talon, maybe,” suggested Lani. “He said he didn’t remember how he arrived on Karkinos, but he’s been there for thousands of years.”
“Well . . . ,” Kaylee said, screwing up her face a little as she was about to object, but then didn’t see the point in it.
“And Issie,” Alex said, sitting up. “She’s been looking for her lost baby for seven hundred years, remember? I wonder if she was swept into our world while she was looking?”
“And now maybe she’ll never find her child,” Sky said sadly.
They were silent and thoughtful for a long while as they contemplated the origins of everyone they’d met in their tiny, seven-island world.
Lani’s interest returned to the map. “What’s the name of your . . . of the place you came from?”
Kaylee found the spot for her. “My family is here in a city called Manchester-by-the-Sea. It’s part of the state of Massachusetts.” She glanced at Lani, who seemed enormously interested. She added, “But my ancestors are actually English—from here, across the Atlantic Ocean.” She pointed to a piece of land to the right.
“I wonder where my ancestors lived,” said Lani. “Do you think they were English too?”
Kaylee studied Lani. “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say you’ve got some Asian roots, or maybe Polynesian or Hawaiian. . . .” She shrugged, but then searched for and pointed out the locations she was mentioning.
Lani turned to look at Kaylee, incredulous. “How in the world would you know that?”
“Because of the way you look, I guess,” said Kaylee, almost apologetically.
“No way. Seriously?” asked Lani.
Kaylee nodded.
This was a foreign concept to all the Artiméans.
“That is so cool!” said Lani. She brushed her fingers over the Hawaiian Islands, and then did the same to the tiny Polynesian islands below.
“So,” interjected Alex, “people look different depending on where their ancestors came from?”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Kaylee. She was shocked that there were intelligent humans who didn’t understand this. But it was true that the people of Artimé didn’t have a specific look about them—they had a variety of skin tones and hair and eye colors. Which made sense when she thought about how their ancestors must have come from all over the world.
“Where do you think my ancestors are from?” asked Alex, leaning over the map.
Kaylee frowned. “I’m not sure about you. You’re sort of ambiguous. Maybe southern Europe, like Italy.” She pointed out the area on the map. “But your sisters have different skin and eye color than you and Aaron.”
“They look like our mother,” said Alex.
Kaylee had never seen Alex’s mother. “They definitely look more distinct with those black eyes, but I don’t know—I’m not actually an expert on this or anything.” She chuckled nervously, feeling weird about declaring people’s heritages without having any information about them.
“Yes, but what do you think?” asked Alex. “It’s not like we’ll be mad at you if you’re wrong. We’re just curious.”
“Well,” said Kaylee, giving in, “maybe your mother’s ancestors are from Tahiti or somewhere tropical. Or northern Africa, like Morocco.” Kaylee soon realized Alex was right, and they’d probably never know the truth, so she began to take the whole topic a bit less seriously and started to have fun with her predictions. “I’d guess that Sean Ranger has Irish roots, and Carina looks Eastern European—maybe Russian. And Samheed has a pretty clear Middle Eastern look.”
“What about my ancestors?” asked Sky.
“Mexico or South America,” Kaylee guessed. She pointed the places out. “You know, there’s a good chance all of you have ancestors from a bunch of different countries.” She paused thoughtfully. “Most people in America are like that too, actually. People from a lot of different countries moved to America in the past few hundred years, so there are a lot of Americans today with combined heritages.”
The friends began to imagine a similar scenario in their world—people from the seven islands meeting others on different islands and falling in love, and somehow they ended up in a silly conversation about what Florence and Talon’s children might look like if they ever had any.
When the fun died down, Alex was quiet for a minute, and then he frowned and turned toward Kaylee. “You said no one ever returns to your world from the triangles. But your world is so huge—how would you know if one returned or not?”
“Oh,” Kaylee said, “it would be all over the news channels and the Internet in about ten seconds. Nobody would be able to keep a secret like that for long.”
“The Inter-what?” asked Alex.
Kaylee sighed, looking suddenly weary. “Nothing. Never mind. Nobody’s ever returned—you’ll just have to take my
word for it.”
Lani bit her lip. “So,” she said softly, “now that we know where we are, and we know there’s no way back to your world, what can we do to help you?”
Kaylee blinked hard and tried to appear brave. “I think you keep doing what you’ve been doing all along. We make the best world we can, wherever we are. Because the next person to end up here will definitely be just as sad as I am right now.” She looked at the others. “But at least there’s a chance they can be sad with friends.”
Aaron’s Last Secret
When Aaron returned through the tube after many hours spent in the jungle playing stay and attack with Panther, the kitchenette and hallway were dark. He stayed in the tube for a moment, looking at the buttons in the dim light from the window. Would the button to Haluki’s house work now that the tube had been destroyed in the fire? What would happen if he tested it?
He was tempted to try them all out individually. Indeed if he had been feeling reckless, he might have. But now he had creatures and people counting on him. What if he pushed the button that led to the broken tube on Ishibashi’s island and he got stuck somewhere in the invisible in-between? There weren’t many things more frightening to Aaron than disappearing into thin air, never to be seen again.
He stepped out, thinking of his scientist friends. He was growing more and more anxious to go back. It seemed like a perfect time to leave now that the Quillens were settled in their little housing rows.
Aaron’s footsteps echoed down the wide hallway. Seeing light streaming from under the door that led to Alex’s living quarters, Aaron stopped and knocked.
“Come in,” Alex called.
Aaron opened the door and stepped inside. “Hi,” Aaron said. “Am I disturbing you?”
Alex looked up from the small desk, where books lay scattered about. On the floor were three or four tottering piles of them. “No, come in. Have a seat.” Alex shoved the hair off his forehead and pushed his chair back. He wore the slightly dazed look of someone who had just returned to real life after having been lost in another world for hours.