Island of Graves

by Lisa McMann

  “I really regret not asking Ishibashi to tell us everything he knew about Mr. Today,” Alex admitted. “I was so preoccupied with trying to get off that island that I didn’t take the time to really talk to him.”

  Sky closed her book and sat up. “It’s understandable. Plus he didn’t seem to want to talk about certain things, like where he came from.” She stood up and wandered over to look at the map on the dashboard. “It’ll be dark when we get there,” she said.

  “We’re not going on shore unless we can see,” Alex said. “We’ll have to wait until morning to look for Aaron.”

  “Yeah.” Sky lifted her head to the breeze, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. Then she reached her hands up and stretched.

  Alex watched her. The sun and sea air filled her brown cheeks with the glow of life. Impulsively, he reached over to the steering wheel and cranked it to one side.

  Sky, thrown off balance, shouted and landed hard in Alex’s lap.

  “Oof,” he said, recoiling, and grabbed her around the waist.

  “You did that on purpose,” Sky said, squirming and laughing. She leaned down until her face was aligned with his.

  “Maybe,” Alex said. He looked into her eyes.

  “We’re probably going off course now,” Sky murmured.

  “Good thing we don’t have to be there until morning, then.”

  Sky grinned. “Aren’t you going to let go of me?” Her lips were dangerously close to his.

  “Do you really want me to?” he asked.

  “You’re the one who needs to concentrate so badly,” Sky said. She moved back an inch.

  “You’re so practical,” Alex said, cringing. But he knew she was right. He loosened his grip so she could stand up if she wanted to, but kept his fingers lightly laced around her waist . . . in case she didn’t.

  “I don’t know about that,” Sky said. “If I were really practical, I’d point out that you don’t have me to blame as a distraction for totally mucking up your Gondoleery plan.”

  “Oh, really?” Alex’s lips parted at the insult. “Is that right?”

  “Isn’t it?” Sky said coyly. “Think about it, since you’re thinking about regrets. And you should consider this: Maybe you’re just looking for something to blame when things are naturally going to go wrong sometimes anyway.” She paused, thinking. “Or you’re just looking for a way to explain the fact that you’re a human who is constantly faced with new dilemmas, and therefore you’re going to fail sometimes.”

  Alex frowned. “Wow, that was direct. Anything else?”

  “I’m not insulting you, Alex,” Sky said. “I’m pointing out that you are probably the biggest perfectionist in the world, and you think that someday, when all the stars align and when all the conditions of your life and relationships are exactly perfect, you will never fail at anything.” She chuckled under her breath and shook her head a little. “And when you’ve driven everybody away to accomplish that impossible feat, well, that’s when you’ll figure out that you’ve become the biggest failure of all.”

  Slowly Sky sat up straight and pulled out of Alex’s grasp. Alex dropped his head back on the cushion, her words stinging hard.

  Sky squeezed his shoulder and stood up, moving over to the control panel. “Looks like the boat put itself back on course automatically after your little stunt,” she said, looking at the map.

  Slowly Alex sat up, feeling bruised all over. “That’s good,” he said, his voice hollow. After a moment he picked up his book and pretended to read once more.

  Sky gave him a pitying glance, which he didn’t see. But she knew he needed to hear what she had to say. The problem was, maybe he needed to hear it from somebody other than her.

  But no one else knows about our private conversations, about the fears and dreams he reveals to me, she argued with herself. And no one else could see it the way she could. Still, she hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. She just wanted to point out what was painfully obvious . . . to her, anyway.

  The afternoon passed slowly, Alex barely grunting whenever Sky offered up a tidbit about gorillas or an interesting fact about crabs. And after a couple hours of it, Sky began to wonder if Alex was ever going to get over his bruised feelings, or if he’d stay mad at her forever.

  As they sped along, the sun was high overhead. Sky snapped her book shut.

  Alex, startled by the noise, looked up.

  “It’s because I love you, Alexander Stowe,” Sky said abruptly, barely able to comprehend what she was doing. “That’s why I said those things. Because I . . . because I love you.”

  More Regrets

  Alex stared.

  And Sky choked. Before her mouth had finished forming the words, she regretted blurting out her confession of love. What was she thinking? And the more Alex sat there staring, the more she felt she had to do something fast.

  “I mean, as a friend! A—a—a sister!” Sky nearly shouted, even though Alex was sitting across from her.

  She slapped a hand over her eyes. What? she thought. No! Not as a friend! A sister? Stop talking!

  Alex continued to stare, his face awash in conflicting emotions and settling on complete confusion. “So, um, do you want to maybe try that again from the beginning?” he finally asked.

  “No! Nothing!” Sky said. Which didn’t even make sense. She turned abruptly and went to the bow, her face burning and her insides twisting. She crouched on the seat cushion and gripped the chrome railing, leaning out over the water. Why did she say it?

  The first part was true. She loved him. She’d loved him for a long time, at first as a friend, but never, ever like a sister. Ugh! And while she wasn’t romantically dramatic enough to declare she’d been in love with him since the moment she’d laid eyes on him, she was pretty sure she’d fallen in love with him the day he swam out to her raft when she’d foolishly set out to save her mother on her own.

  But then she’d gone and ruined everything. Like a sister? Where did that even come from?

  And now she was trapped. She’d have to stay on the bow of the Claire forever or try to melt into the cushions and disappear.

  “Hey!” Alex called out. “That wasn’t awkward or anything.”

  Sky cringed. “Shut up and toss me some books.”

  » » « «

  The day wore on, and soon the sun was beginning to set. Alex, still confused about what had happened, wasn’t quite sure what to think. First Sky had told him all his faults, and then she said she loved him . . . like a sister. What was that all about? It felt like a punch to the gut.

  If there was something Alex had never envisioned about his relationship with Sky, it was her acting like a sister to him. Had something changed? Had he been so self-absorbed that he’d missed it? Or maybe this was all part of how he was “pushing people away,” as Sky had accused him of.

  He grumbled to himself as he read Mr. Today’s journal. Sky had certainly pulled out all the stops in that speech. She hadn’t held back in telling Alex all the things that were wrong with how he was living his life as head mage. The words had stung. They still stung. And he was having a hard time understanding why she had decided to attack him like that.

  Was there any truth to it? Had he been using her as the reason for his failures? And just why was it that Alex always expected to get everything right, every time? Nothing about his job as head mage was comfortable or easy. None of this was familiar at all. And Mr. Today had really left Alex completely unprepared.

  Sky seemed to think it was okay to fail once in a while—that people expected that. But Alex hadn’t felt that way. Not ever. Alex looked at every decision he made as all-important and absolutely crucial. If he failed, he was a bad leader. If he succeeded, well, then he was just doing his job. Every failure he’d made was mortifying. What would the people of Artimé think of him if he couldn’t get something right the first time? They’d revolt. Or fire him, or something. Or worse, they’d call him a failure. It was much safer for Alex to analyze everything, d
etermine the cause of his mistakes, and try to eliminate those things from his life.

  “Like now, for instance,” Alex muttered under his breath. He’d been staring at the same page for half an hour, analyzing everything that had just happened. If this most recent distraction caused him to fail at finding Aaron, he was going to be really mad.

  Abruptly Alex closed his book and stood up. Feeling restless and trapped, he moved to the stern of the boat and looked back in the direction of the cylindrical island, which was gone from view by now. He shoved his hands into his pockets and filled his lungs with air, then let the breath out slowly as he watched the sun disappear. Sky had told him it was okay to fail and said she loved him, which had given him the most amazing rush of feelings. And then she had ruined it all.

  Alex sighed, contemplating the situation. They were stuck together on this boat for the next few days, at least, in close quarters. It was beyond uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure how to face her. The tension was horrible. Maybe if he didn’t look at her until after dark, it would be easier. Maybe they could pretend that whole scene had never happened, because they couldn’t very well go on like this indefinitely.

  When night fell, and the lush, green island number six was in sight, lit up by the moon, Alex finally stopped trying to avoid Sky. From the captain’s seat, he looked at her for the first time in a long time. And, to his relief, she was sound asleep.

  He gazed at her for a moment, then pulled out the blankets. He dropped one on his seat and carried the other one to the bow and draped it over her, tucking it in so it wouldn’t blow away. With the soft glow of the moon illuminating her face, she looked otherworldly—too good to be true. A sharp pain stabbed through Alex’s heart as he fought the urge to brush the hair from her face, hold her in his arms, and kiss her soft lips.

  He turned away and went back to his position at the controls, verifying they were still a few hours from reaching the gorilla island. From his perch, he looked out over the water, scanning it for Spike, whom he’d forgotten about most of the day.

  “Spike?” Alex called in a low voice, growing fearful at the realization that he hadn’t noticed the whale in a long time. Was she still with them?

  “I am here, the Alex,” said Spike from the other side of the boat. With a splash, Alex caught sight of the whale’s tail, and then a moment later, Spike surfaced at Alex’s side.

  “Good,” Alex said. “I was worried we’d lost you.”

  “I was being quiet like the Alex and Sky.”

  Alex chuckled softly. He was proud of his creation. She was so smart, yet wonderfully naive in her early stages of life. “So you heard the conversation?” Alex asked.

  “Yes, it was very interesting, thank you.”

  “Did you learn anything?” Alex asked. “Because I just got more confused about life.”

  “Oh yes,” Spike said. “I learned that you are very hard on yourself.”

  Alex considered that. “I suppose I am,” he said. “But I want everything to go right.”

  “It goes the way it goes,” Spike said. “Sometimes your right isn’t the same as the other people’s right.”

  Alex blinked. He wasn’t sure what Spike was trying to say. “But my right is the only right,” he said, a smile playing at his lips.

  Spike didn’t answer at first. And then she said, “That makes me feel scared, the Alex. I don’t like it.”

  “I’m sorry, Spike,” Alex said quickly. “I was only teasing. Making a joke. I didn’t mean it. There are many different rights, and many different wrongs, I think.”

  Spike blew a spout of water from her blowhole. “Thank you for teaching me what your joke voice sounds like. I will understand next time.”

  Alex rested his chin on his arm and watched the whale swim effortlessly through the water. While he watched, he wondered if he had really been joking at all.

  Circling

  Alex endured a troubled night of sleep as the questions ran endlessly through his head. Did he really think his way was always the right way? Did he look for people and things to blame his failures on? And why was he so afraid to fail? Because that much was true—he admitted it. The thought of failure was frightening to Alex, and he never truly considered it an option in any part of his life.

  Which was entirely ridiculous. He didn’t expect anybody else to get through life without failing sometimes. So why did he expect them to think that of him?

  It was because he was the leader of Artimé. A great weight had been thrust upon him against his will. He could have walked away. But he hadn’t. He’d taken it on, and somehow that had landed him here—a teenage ruler with responsibilities so heavy even Mr. Today had been weary holding them. And that was before the chain of rescues and battles.

  When Alex opened his eyes, he stared at the sky and knew that he needed to make some changes in his life. He had lost perspective. And he’d been too hard on himself. And that, he believed, made him a weaker ruler, not a stronger one. He’d lost his sense of instinct as he’d mired himself in people’s high expectations. He’d lost creativity, no doubt, when he’d put all sorts of rules on himself. He’d stopped himself from feeling things for Sky . . . or at least he’d tried. It was almost like a piece of Quill still ruled inside his brain, telling him what he could and couldn’t do. Telling him he wasn’t good enough, and that failure was wrong. Telling him not to feel his feelings.

  The thought was shocking. As hard as he’d tried to turn from Quill’s rules, he was still fighting them every step of the way, and he hadn’t even realized it. Until now. Until Sky punched him in the face with it.

  A splash woke him from his reverie. He sat up and looked over the side of the boat, which floated several yards off the coast of the lush island. Sky was swimming, getting some exercise after a long day. Or maybe she was still trying to avoid him after yesterday.

  “How’s the water?” Alex called out.

  She ignored him, or more likely she didn’t hear him, and kept swimming in a straight line parallel to the shore. Alex took the wheel and commanded the boat to troll in the water a short distance behind Sky, and then he stripped off his shirt and jumped in next to her.

  She yelled, startled, and then grinned and spit water in his face and kept swimming.

  Phew, Alex thought, treading water and grinning back at her. Things were going to be okay.

  » » « «

  After several hundred yards, the two climbed back into the boat, refreshed, and Alex turned it to circle the island. He took a good long look at it. They were coming up to the area where they’d seen the word “HELP” spelled out in bones, and as he toweled off, he began to watch for it. Common sense told him that if someone had been able to make a sign there, chances were that it was at least a little safer than other parts of the island.

  “Maybe we can spot the gorilla as we circle and then speed around to the other side of the island and start searching there before it gets to us,” Sky suggested. She pulled out a container of breakfast items that the kitchen had prepared for them and took one out, attacking it ravenously. “How do they keep this so fresh and hot?” she asked, her mouth full. “I love magic.”

  “That’s something I definitely don’t know how to do,” Alex said.

  He turned back to look at the island. Two-thirds of the island was at or only slightly above sea level, and he could see an old ship that had run aground about a quarter of the way around the island from them. The other one-third of the island rose up sharply. “I’m hoping we don’t have to go ashore at all,” Alex said.

  He scanned the beach area as they rounded a sharp point of the island. When they came upon the bone sign, Alex gasped. “Sky, look,” he said, pointing.

  Sky looked, and she gasped too, almost inhaling a rather large bumbleberry from her breakfast pie. She licked her fingers quickly and stood up. “It says ‘come back.’ ”

  “I know,” Alex said reverently.

  “That means . . . that means . . .”

  “I
t means somebody changed the sign since we passed by here last time,” Alex said.

  “Do you think they’re talking to us? Did they see you and Simber fly over, I wonder?”

  Alex shook his head. “I don’t know. We know there have been other ships passing by besides us—Simber saw one, remember?”

  “Maybe it’s Aaron who changed the sign, asking the pirates to come back.”

  “Maybe.” Alex’s insides twisted. Could they be close to finding Aaron? Part of him hoped for it, and part of him never wanted to see his twin again. The conflict was eating him up.

  “Let’s not waste any time, then,” Sky said. “Pull up as close to shore as you can and start circling. We’ll call out his name and see if he answers.”

  Alex hastily shoveled down the rest of his breakfast and then guided the boat toward the shore, letting it determine when they could get no closer. It moved around shallow spots and kept them within spitting distance of land.

  “Keep an eye out behind us, Spike,” Alex called to the whale. “Let us know if you detect any signs of life.”

  “Yes, the Alex,” said Spike. “I can feel something strange, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “The gorilla, maybe,” Alex said. They moved along slowly, calling out Aaron’s name regularly and trying to see through the bushes and trees that grew all the way to the island’s edge. Both Alex and Sky pretended like yesterday’s blowup had never happened, and it was easy not to actually look at one another since they were both looking so hard to see through the brush.

  It was the largest island of the seven, and other than some birds chirping occasionally and a rustle of a bush now and then as an unknown animal startled and ran, there didn’t seem to be much happening—along the shore, at least. The only interesting thing they saw was the shipwreck, but it was abandoned and so old there couldn’t possibly be anyone left alive from whenever it wrecked. They didn’t dare go ashore to look at it.

  By the time they’d made it around the low end of the island and the land began to rise up out of the water, it was midafternoon.