by Wesley Stein
Juliet laughed.
“Apple, water,” she said as she alternated raising each of her hands, palm-up like a scale. “Tree, fountain. They’re the same thing.”
“What?” Joanna asked.
“Tell me,” Juliet wanted to know. “Who wrote the book of Genesis?” We looked at one another blankly. I didn’t know the answer. My older sister spoke up, finally.
“God?”
“It was written by Moses,” Juliet went on. “Given to him in a vision from God. Everything in Genesis was filtered through the mind of a man. It was filtered again through one language, then another. It was filtered again through culture, ancient culture, then modern ones, until the story is but a reflection of the truth. The Bible calls it a tree. The truth is this.
“The fountain burst from the earth like a geyser. The water spout rose like a stalk then took on an umbrella shape as it cascaded back down over itself.”
Juliet made a motion with her hands, to illustrate the mushroom shape.
“Moses had never seen a geyser before,” she explained. “So he called it a tree. It looked like a tree, after all. And when he saw, in his vision, Eve dip a hand into the water and sip from it, he likened it to her harvesting an apple from the tree. The bible is full of metaphorical language, Genesis is no different.”
“So the tree is here? The fountain?” Jacey asked.
Juliet nodded with a smile then turned away. We kept following her, down the walkway from which we’d come, toward the cave mouth at the base of the mountain.
“Inside these catacombs,” she said. “There is a pathway to the heart of the mountain, where the fountain springs eternal.”
“Can we drink it?” I asked. “We’re terribly thirsty.”
“Yeah,” Joanna added. “And the fresh water on this island sucks. It’s disgusting.”
“The only freshwater we have,” Juliet answered, “is from rain collection. But you can always drink from the fountain.”
“But how do we get home?” Joanna asked again.
Juliet paused, her face going blank. She seemed tired of the question. She looked over our shoulders to a small group of villagers gathered behind us. She nodded and they quickened their approach, soon encircling us on the walkway.
“I’m afraid no one leaves Three-Hook Island, dear,” Juliet said.
“What?” I asked.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Joanna added. The group of islanders was on us now, and the stronger ones were pulling at our arms.
“Stop it!” I yelled.
“There’s going to be a short transition period, I’m afraid,” Juliet said to us. “You’ll feel just awful. You’ll mourn the life you had, the people you knew. But trust me, once you accept it, this place will unlock a whole new world for you.”
Fifteen Years Earlier
The cabins were even more amazing than the girls had imagined they’d be. The water was emerald green and as clear as glass. The sun was warm and the smell of coconut tanning oil filled their noses.
They each claimed a sleeping hammock, then ran out onto the deck, suspended over the water by a few feet. Already in their bathing suits, the girls leaped into the clear, calm, and warm ocean.
The first day was spent doing much of the same. They swam, they lay around the hut, they roamed the beach searching for unique shells.
Rachel, their mother, had been acting strangely. But she would go through phases like that, usually after one of her cosmetic surgery procedures. The girls’ father, Mark was too busy as a Los Angeles attorney to pay them much attention.
He had taken them on vacations, once each year for as long as they could remember, but otherwise the girls couldn’t recall many memories with their father. Last year it was the French Alps. This year, French Polynesia.
At the end of the day, when Rachel and Mark had soaked up enough sun, they went to the cabin and cleaned up for dinner. The girls went with them, walking together down the boarded walkway to a surf-side restaurant. They ate fire-roasted seafood and whole-roasted vegetables. They left feeling satisfied.
Back at the cabin, the girls sat on the floor to play a board game. But soon all three of them were sound asleep, lying face down on top of property cards and fake money. Rachel and Mark went to the deck just outside, and they whispered to each other.
“It’s time, Rachel.”
“I’m not going,” she said. “And neither are they.”
“I’ll protect them,” Mark said, his voice in harsh falsetto. “I thought you wanted this. You said you wanted this.”
“I do,” Rachel replied as quietly as she could manage. “But we can’t spring it on the girls like this, or risk something happening to them.”
“We’re not springing it on them,” Mark countered. “Jacey knows all about it.” His voice was getting louder, deeper.
“Jacey thinks it’s a bedtime story, Mark.”
The girl in the hut stirred. She’d been dreaming of her mother. She raised her head and saw a blurry vision of her parents, standing outside the cabin, leaning against the deck railing. She laid her head back down but kept her eyes open. She watched them, she listened.
“Maybe it is only a story to her,” her father was saying. “But it’s not like she’s never heard of it.”
“And the other two?”
“Joanna will be eighteen in five years,” Mark answered. Who wouldn’t want to spend five years in an island paradise?”
“I’m afraid of the other people,” Rachel said. “I’m afraid they’ll try to take advantage of the girls. I don’t want-”
“Rachel, come on.”
“I don’t want to be worried about them all the time,” she continued. “That’s why they don’t allow kids. There’s no fun in it for me, if I’m always worried…” She paused.
“What?”
“I’m a terrible mother,” she said after a beat. “I never wanted to be a mother. I don’t want to be one now.”
Mark saw an opportunity and pounced like a puma.
“I have an idea,” he said.
Young Jacey had only pretended to be asleep. But as Mark began to lay out his plan, she accidentally drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, it was to the sound of fading footsteps outside.
She leaned out the open doorway to gaze down the pier. Her mother must have sensed her, because she paused and turned.
Jacey came out of the door and stood, waiting for her mother. But Rachel only came back for a moment. She leaned over and put a palm to Jacey’s cheek.
“This is a dream, Jacey,” she said softly. “Your father and I are going to the magic island, where only those who do very good things are allowed. Maybe someday you can come too.”
Jacey tried to make sense of what her mother was saying.
Rachel collected herself, and gave Jacey a big hug.
“Now go back to sleep.”
Rachel walked back to where Mark was waiting. They started down the walkway but Rachel turned back to her daughter for a moment. She blew the girl a kiss, then brought her index finger to her lips. She shook her head, clearly telling Jacey, keep quiet.
And with that Rachel turned and went with Mark, disappearing into the darkness of the inland jungle.
Jacey returned to her place on the floor and tried to go back to sleep. She hoped that when she awoke, her mother and father would be preparing breakfast.
But Rachel and Mark were not returning. Mark’s plan was simple. He wanted to disappear and abandon the children. Once Rachel heard him out, she could shape the idea into something sensible.
Because neither of them had any close family, Mark’s law firm partner was the person who would look after girls. If they vanished, Benson Sanderson would have to raise them for the next five years, then the girls would inherit a fortune and be set for life.
It was enough for Rachel, who hoped the money would help her daughters find a way to Three-Hook Island someday, where they could be reunited as a family.
Rachel w
as also daydreaming about her everlasting beauty. The transition from thirty-nine to forty had been so rough for her that she’d almost taken her own life. She was clinging to youth as a moth clings to a hot light bulb and she’d been promised a solution.
Mark wanted sex, never-ending sex, with Rachel and anyone else with whom he pleased. And he had been promised that as well. Rachel didn’t mind, so long as she could have what she wanted. Together, they lit out across the island and through the jungle.
Mark’s map was more than directions, it was instructions. He’d memorized it, and left it safely back home. They were instructed to cross the resort island and wait on the opposite shore, where the staff and residents lived. In the early hours of the morning, a boat was to appear and take on the whole family, sans any possessions.
But when it came time, only Rachel and Mark slipped aboard, sailing away into the darkness without anyone noticing. They sailed to the mysterious landmass, which the locals called E’ Toru Haru, but on his map was labeled with the English translation, Three-Hook Island.

We tried to run, but the men grabbed us. We tried to fight them off, but they were too strong. We tried to scream, but no one could hear us. I saw Joanna kick a man in the jaw as he tried to bind her hands. I saw Jacey’s eyes, wide with fear, and I couldn’t help her.
They bound our hands behind our backs. Our captors, holding us by our bonds, led us down the boardwalk with Juliet. She paused at the entrance to the catacombs.
“Welcome to Adam’s hearth,” she said as we stepped inside. The tunnel curved and bent, leading to a vast cavern, crisscrossed with passageways. We’d been here before.
There were dozens of tunnels leading from the cavern. The one down which we’d first come was impossible to discern.
“We call this the Crossing Cavern,” Juliet said. “The passages are marked above.”
She led us to a tunnel near the right side of the cave and nodded to the marking of a tree engraved into the stone above its entrance.
The industrial light fixture, ensconced in the cave roof, lit our way through the tunnel. We stepped through and came to another open chamber.
Along a quarter of the wall in the round room, was another wooden platform. It was much like the ones we had seen before except much taller.
Juliet stepped onto the platform and we were made to follow her. The scaffolding upon which we stood was no more than an elaborate ladder, made to access a small passageway carved high into the wall. We peered into the passage and saw steps leading downward, to an orange cloud of steam. Juliet stood by the opening and pointed down the tunnel.
“Down there,” she said, “is the fountain.
I leaned my head in front of the opening and looked. A blast of heat hit my face. The steam that wafted toward us was intoxicating. It caused my heart to beat a little faster, my mouth to water just a little.
“But before you drink,” Juliet went on. “I want you to say hello to someone.” She looked over our shoulders, to the entrance from which we’d come, on the other side of the chamber. We spun around and gasped.
Jacey screamed, the same blood-curdling scream as we’d heard the night before. Joanna tried to calm her but was overcome with emotion herself. I was at once terrified and confused. It was startling.
There standing in the dim light, were the two white-robed shapes I had seen in the jungle. It was the same two people who had chased us from our first campsite and who had terrified Jacey to silence.
It was our parents, Mark and Rachel.
They had not aged much since we last saw them, if at all. It had been fifteen years.
Their eyes were deep black pools of nothing, their souls seemed sucked from their bodies. Their hair was shiny and their skin was radiant, but there was no life beneath the surface.
Rachel smiled wildly, her teeth a perfect row of white turrets. Mark mechanically raised an eyebrow and tried to smile with her. They simultaneously raised their arms for a hug and began to walk across the cavern.
I put a hand over my mouth as they approached the platform, terrified at seeing them in any closer detail. These weren’t our parents, but demons who’d taken over their bodies. Jacey turned away, burying her face into Joanna’s shoulder. This is what she’d seen. This is what had traumatized her earlier.
Mark and Rachel were nude beneath their robes and seemed unbothered by exposing themselves through the sheer garment. They arrived at the base of the platform but didn’t climb up. Instead they opened their mouths and tried to speak.
The sound that came out of Rachel was grotesque. It was a low gurgling sound from her lungs that grew higher in pitch as she tried to speak until she finally choked on fluid and had to stop. Mark grunted, but the same sound was bubbling in his voice so he stopped too.
Mark’s left arm hung lower than his right. When he raised it, I could see a large black hole in the top of his ribs. There was no blood, only a black stain around the hole and black parts moving inside. It reminded me of the boar we’d seen earlier. It was horrifying.
I could see nothing in their eyes. It was as though they were looking through me, to the back of my head and beyond. It was a radioactive glare that we knew would kill our spirits entirely if we looked too long.
“Come Claudius, Gertrude,” Juliet said.
She had new names for them, which was fitting. This wasn’t Mark and Rachel.
“Help me show our guests to the fountain room,” Juliet went on. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate your company.”
CHAPTER 4
CLAUDIUS & GERTRUDE
Fifteen Years Earlier
The boat carried Mark and Rachel for almost two hours until the engines finally slowed and then stopped. The sky was full of stars, more stars than Rachel had ever seen.
But she had a knot in the pit of her stomach. It was partly from the unknown future that lay ahead but mostly from the guilt of abandoning her girls. She was a terrible mother or no kind of mother at all.
Soon, it wouldn’t matter. Her thoughts were like the waves washing past her while she bobbed up and down in the boat.
“What’s going on?” Mark asked the boat’s driver.
The skipper was a shirtless local, who had not spoken a single word to Mark or Rachel since confirming their names when they came aboard.
“This is as far as I go,” the man finally said. He opened a box of cigarettes and put one to his lips. “They’ll be here soon.”
Mark nodded and turned away as the man lit up. He and Rachel watched off the bow for any sign of a coming ship. After a while they moved to the stern. Eventually they gave up and went below deck.
“Who knows how long this will take,” Rachel said. “Are you sure we can trust this guy?”
Before Mark could answer her, there was a knock on the cabin door.
“It’s time,” the captain said.
Mark and Rachel came to the deck and spun their head toward the sound of an approaching boat.
It was a small yacht, similar to the one they were on, but longer, taller. Mark smiled at his wife as the boat approached.
The captain stepped forward.
“You’ll have to jump overboard,” the skipper said. Mark’s smile disappeared. Rachel looked confused.
“Excuse me?” She asked.
“You need to jump, now.”
“What are you talking about?”
The captain went to the edge of the boat and pointed to the lights on the horizon, where the coming vessel was now slowing its approach.
“They won’t come any closer,” he said. “They like to play it safe. You need to jump. I will go and they will come over and collect you.”
He produced a small red cylinder and held it up for the couple to take. Mark grabbed it. It was a flare.
“As soon as I’m away,” the skipper said. “Crack this in half. They’ll be hauling you aboard in no time.”
The couple did as they were told and leaped off the boat. The water was colder than they�
��d expected. Their transporter slowly circled them and then accelerated away into the darkness.
“What the hell have you gotten us into?” Rachel asked Mark as they tread the dark water. He cracked the flare and suddenly they were blinded by a white-red burst of flickering light.
Just as the boatman had said, the other yacht slowly approached. In no time, a man with no shoes and no shirt was helping them up a ladder to the deck.
“Welcome aboard,” he said with a smile. Then his disposition shifted. “Wait, there’s supposed to be five of you.”
“Our girls didn’t make it,” Mark said. “We had to leave them behind.”
Rachel gasped and began crying. She fell against her husband as they stood on the swaying boat.
“Shit, okay,” the man said. “We can talk later. It’s not safe out here.” The man’s long hair was pulled into a ponytail, his skin was glowing. He wore only a pair of short linen pants. A knife, sheathed in leather, hung loosely from his waist.
“Get below deck. I’ll let you know when we’ve arrived.”
Mark and Rachel did as they were told and found the accommodations quite nice. They made themselves a drink and got a few minutes of sleep in a very soft oversized bed.
After the boat engines idled down to a hum, the man with the ponytail knocked on the cabin door. The couple came up to the deck and surveyed their surroundings.
They had just rounded the outermost point of one of two twin peninsulas and were headed ashore in the bay. Because the peninsulas crossed, the bay was all but hidden from the open ocean.
A small satellite island was also situated so that it blocked the view to the gap through which the three now coasted.
“I’m Yoggy,” the boat’s captain said. “Welcome to Three-Hook Island.”
“Wow,” Mark said. Rachel was speechless.
The beach was lined with trees and from among them rose cabins and huts. Some were situated over the clear water of the bay, others were stacked atop stilts, covering enclosed storage containers below them. Light bulbs illuminated a few of the beach houses so that it looked much like the resort from which Mark and Rachel had been brought. Some of the places were larger than others. Some were more well-kept. The dwellings closer to the square at the center of the village seemed more luxurious, while the huts scattered far from the colony were barely habitable.
