Scar Island

by Dan Gemeinhart

  Gregory and Roger grunted in, tugging the dreaded Sinner’s Sorrow between them. They dragged more than carried it, and when they’d managed to pull it close enough to Sebastian, they leaned against it, gasping. The raindrops dripping down the dark wood looked like blood in the cloud-darkened light seeping through the windows.

  Sebastian shoved James roughly toward the dripping Sinner’s Sorrow.

  “How many pieces did you eat?”

  James gulped and looked out at the other boys. Again, all the eyes dropped.

  “Um, like, one or two, Sebastian, but I—”

  “One or two?” Sebastian reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of shiny gold wrappers. One by one he let them drop to the ground. “One. Two. Three. Four.” He cocked an eyebrow and raised the sword to point it at James. “One minute per piece for stealing. And one minute per piece for lying to me. Eight minutes on the Sorrow.” Tears pooled in James’s eyes. His bottom lip began to quiver.

  “The watch, Benny,” Sebastian said, holding out his hand. Benny handed over a tarnished silver pocket watch. Sebastian looked out again at the gathered boys. “Who wants a room? One just became available. It’s got a window and everything. Doesn’t it, James?” James sniffled and nodded miserably. “Okay, who wants it?”

  There was a tense moment of silence. Finally, the kid named Reggie raised his hand.

  “I’ll take it.”

  Sebastian smiled like a snake and tossed Reggie the watch.

  “Keep him on there for eight minutes, Reggie. I’m getting lunch. Make sure he doesn’t cheat and make sure he stays on the whole time. If he gets up, the clock starts over. Then the room’s yours.”

  Reggie nodded and stepped hesitantly forward.

  “Get on there, James,” Sebastian said, lowering his sword and turning toward the kitchen.

  “Wait.” Colin’s voice stopped Sebastian cold.

  “Thith ithn’t right. We never voted on thith.”

  The muscles in Sebastian’s jaw rippled and he took two slow steps toward Colin.

  “Mind your own business, Colin.” Sebastian’s eyes flickered over to Jonathan, then quickly back to Colin. “This is fair. He stole from me.”

  “You thaid there were no ruleth.”

  “Well, Colin, I guess there’s at least one. Don’t mess with me.” He gave Colin a long, steady glare. “Next time you talk back to me, you get the Sorrow, too.”

  Sebastian stalked off toward the kitchen. The rest of the boys stood for a moment, awkwardly watching James kneel down reluctantly on the awful device.

  “I’ll start the clock,” Reggie said quietly. When James whimpered and sniffled, Benny and a couple of other kids laughed. They spun some chairs around and settled in to watch James wiggle and moan. Jonathan swallowed down a sour sickness and turned away. Most of the other boys did, too. A few wandered outside or into the kitchen, their eyes held carefully away from James’s torment.

  Colin stood beside Jonathan, pale and frowning.

  “Thith ithn’t right,” he repeated.

  “Just leave it alone,” Jonathan whispered. “It’s not a big deal. If you stop pissing him off, you’ll be fine.”

  Colin looked back over his shoulder at James shaking on the Sinner’s Sorrow, and the three vultures watching him from their chairs.

  “I don’t think tho, Jonathan. I don’t think tho.”

  Jonathan shuffled through the pitch-black corridors, his eyes on the uneven floor before him and his ears listening for the skittering sound of rat claws on stone. He held a tall white candle in one hand. He gripped the candle tight, his palm sweaty. His body didn’t like being that close to the hot flicker of a flame. Neither did his heart, for that matter. He steadied his shaking as best he could and pressed on through the darkness.

  He ducked under the now-familiar rope gate and descended the stairs, pausing for only a second to listen at the narrow passage that dropped down to the Hatch. Then he climbed the other staircase and retraced his steps to the closed door of the library.

  Again, light showed from beneath it. And, again, low humming sounded behind it. He took a breath and then knocked on the door. The humming stopped, and the door creaked open.

  “Ah,” the librarian said, with a raise of his bushy eyebrows. “It’s you. Again. Come in.”

  Jonathan entered the lighted warmth of the library and let the door close behind him.

  “Back for another book?”

  “Um, no. Just to look, I guess.”

  “Are you reading? Robinson Crusoe?”

  “Yeah. A bunch of us are. It’s pretty good.”

  “Yes. It is.” The librarian turned and walked back among the shelves. Jonathan followed, the candle still in his hand. He stepped quickly away when he saw the giant rat, Ninety-Nine, atop a shelf at his shoulder, sniffing and stretching toward him with his nose. The librarian saw and smiled.

  “Oh. Don’t mind him. He just wants. To be petted.” The librarian reached back an arm, and the rat scrambled up it, his claws catching in the woolen sleeve, and curled up around the librarian’s neck.

  “What is the Hatch?” Jonathan asked abruptly. The Hatch—the sound of its violent knocking and sloshing, how deeply it lurked in the darkness of the prison like a shameful secret, with the skull standing silent guard—had haunted his thoughts since he’d left it.

  “The Hatch? Ah. Yes. Quite a curiosity. Isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It looks so … old. And it makes all these weird sounds.”

  The librarian smiled a strange, knowing smile and shook his head.

  “It is old. But it does not make any sounds. No. It’s what’s behind it. That makes the noise.”

  “Well, what’s behind it, then?”

  The librarian pursed his lips and leaned forward, cocking one sideways eye at Jonathan. Ninety-Nine’s beady eyes sparkled at him.

  “The sea, my boy. It is. The sea itself. Behind that ancient door.”

  “The sea? How?”

  The librarian heaved a heavy breath and walked over to the closest window, mostly blocked by standing books. He pulled one of the books down and peered through the space where it had been. The gray light shone through the old man’s wispy white hair.

  “The water,” the librarian whispered, looking out at the storm-tossed waves. “It is rising.” He cocked one eye back over his shoulder toward Jonathan. “Or the island is sinking. Both. I think.” He looked out again through the gap at the sea. When he spoke this time, his voice was different. Faster, smoother, less labored.

  “Years ago, back in the asylum days, the water was not so high. There was a beach around Slabhenge then. A smooth stretch of sand. With shells, and logs, and pools. We had a pier, even. Big enough for large boats to dock at. I would sit on the pier, sometimes, and fish. Watch the sun set. Or rise. Look off at the distant mainland and wonder. Of course, I was a boy then. So long ago.”

  Jonathan stepped to stand behind him. He stood on his toes to see the white-capped ocean.

  “You … were here when you were a kid?”

  The old man’s eyes were trained far off in the distance. His voice was feathery and far away.

  “Oh, yes. I was born here. My mother and father were both … patients here. She was a madwoman. He, a lunatic. The asylum was my home. My school. My playground. The guards were my aunts and uncles. My friends. My tormentors, sometimes.” He brought one wrinkled hand up to stroke the rat perching on his shoulder. The gigantic animal twisted and stretched so that the old man’s fingers could scratch his itchy places.

  “They offered to send me away to the high school on the mainland when I was old enough. The head warden, I mean. He was a kind enough man, I suppose. But I refused. It all seemed too terrifying. Leaving the island. The walls. The water. So I stayed.”

  The librarian sighed. It was a weary sigh, tired and breathy and covered in the dust of years.

  “I became the librarian’s assistant. I did my learning from these books. And my traveling. My
living, really, right here in these pages. When the old man died, the warden let me take his place. Not long after that, my mother died. And my father. And I just … stayed. When the asylum closed, they allowed me to stay, to care for the facility. Run the lighthouse. Keep it all from falling apart. And when it reopened as a school, the Admiral kept me on.”

  “So you’ve never left the island? You’ve always been here?” The librarian was still turned away, toward the sea, but Jonathan could tell from the old man’s voice when he answered that he was smiling.

  “Oh, yes. Always. I have never once left this island. This beautiful, crumbling island. Not once. And I never will. Never.”

  Jonathan took a breath and a step back. The rat turned on the librarian’s shoulders and narrowed his eyes at Jonathan, his pointy front teeth showing.

  “And … the Hatch?”

  “Yes. The beach, foot by foot, year by year, went away. Swallowed. Then, in a storm, the pier was washed away. Behind the Hatch is a staircase that leads down to the very bottom floor. The cellar, if you will. During the asylum days, it was a sort of special prison for the most troublesome.” He returned the book to the shelf and half turned to look up at Jonathan in his queer way. “A dungeon, you would probably call it. My father was there, briefly. During his dark days. Eventually, as the water rose, it was too wet for people. There was standing water at high tide. It was a storeroom then. High shelves. Then the water got too high even for that. It filled the room, began to climb the stairs. During one bad storm, maybe, oh, twenty years ago, there was a surge and it came all the way up, up into the main floor. So many rats died that night.” He scratched his yellow fingernails through Ninety-Nine’s fur and nuzzled the rat’s neck with his face.

  “So they installed the Hatch. That’s an iron door, solid through. Nine inches thick, bolted into the stone with foot-long bolts. Sealed with cement and mortar and soldered steel. Strong enough, they say, to hold the sea back. And those sounds you hear? That is the sea, crashing and surging beneath us. Sucking at forgotten windows. Opening and closing submerged doors. Tossing old furniture around. Rattling old chains. Chewing at the foundations. And always, always, knocking at the door.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed and stroked his monstrous rat.

  “The sea is in the dungeon. Seething, beneath us. But it doesn’t want to stay there.” The old man’s eyes opened and focused on Jonathan’s. “It wants the whole island. It wants it all. And someday. It will. Get it.”

  Jonathan’s mouth was dry. He blinked. His mouth was stuck open.

  “Now,” the librarian said, taking a step and brushing past him. “What book would you like?”

  “I’m, um, still reading the first one,” Jonathan said, shaking his head. “I don’t need another one just yet.”

  The librarian stooped down and Ninety-Nine crawled down his arm and onto a shelf. The old man looked back at Jonathan and shook his head and smiled a crooked smile.

  “No. You can’t leave a library. Without a book.” He scanned the nearest shelf with a finger and one sideways eye. Jonathan stood where he was and watched the hunched old man creak along the shelf, muttering to himself and shaking his head.

  “Ah. Yes. This one. Is appropriate.” He pulled a thick volume off the shelf. “Another island story. About a boy. And a crazy sea captain. And treasure found.” He held the book to his nose and closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then handed it to Jonathan.

  Treasure Island, the cover said in plain black letters on red leather. By Robert Louis Stevenson.

  “Thanks. I better get back.”

  “Yes,” the librarian said, walking with Jonathan to the door. “You should. Thank the Admiral. For letting you come. It has been so long.” Jonathan stepped out into the dark corridor, holding the candle before him. The librarian closed the door nearly all the way, so that only his mouth and one eye were visible in the crack. “And say hello. To the ocean. For me. When you go past. The Hatch.”

  The door closed, leaving Jonathan with his feeble flame and the sound of rats and, in the darkness ahead of him, a rattling door to a watery dungeon.

  “You know the drill,” Sebastian decreed from where he sat on the table, his shoes on the Admiral’s great chair. “No dinner until we have your letter. Get it done.” He was bent over, focused on the tip of the sword he was holding. He was using it to carve something into the surface of the table.

  The boys each filed by to grab a pen and sheet of paper from where Benny sat frowning officiously at them, coiled up in a chair. Already out the windows the sun had set on their second day alone on the island. The room and its long tables were lit here and there by flickering candles.

  Jonathan sat and looked at his paper. He remembered his mother’s words from the letter that still waited under his pillow. So much needs to be said, she’d written. But we don’t know what it is yet. His fingers balled into fists. His tongue was pinched between tight teeth. He looked up and saw Colin watching him from across the table. His flitting, hummingbird smile came and went and he looked down at his own paper. All around was the sound of pen points on paper. A thin mile of ink, measured in words. I love yous and I miss yous and can’t wait to see yous. Messages from naughty boys, sent home to worried mothers. Jonathan blew a breath out through his nose and picked up his pen and began to write.

  He scratched out a message, writing quick without thinking too much. He signed his name in a hasty scrawl and walked over to where Benny sat waiting to check their letters.

  Benny looked his letter over with his usual sneer and then snorted.

  “You really think that’ll make them feel any better?” he asked. Jonathan looked down and didn’t answer. “Fine,” Benny said and handed the letter back. “Now the envelope.”

  Jonathan addressed the envelope and sealed his letter inside and slipped it into the mailbag.

  He saw, lost in the shadows along the far wall, the Sinner’s Sorrow standing in darkness. He looked at the rest of the boys. Their heads were down, their eyes away, the dim candlelight glinting off the shiny moving metal of their pens. With a last glance at the group, Jonathan ducked away and over to the Sinner’s Sorrow.

  In the darkness, the wood was black. He ran his fingers along the top rail, worn smooth by countless sweaty, tortured hands. He bent to touch the biting edge of the sharp kneeling ridge. Outside, rain tapped on the windows. His throat tightened, and his eyes watered. His words would never make his parents feel better, he knew. Benny was right. With trembling fingertips he felt the burns on his arms through his sleeves.

  Then he bent down and knelt on the punishing edge.

  The pain was immediate, and familiar. He remembered the Admiral’s words from that first night: You have done terrible things, haven’t you, Jonathan Grisby? Jonathan clenched his teeth and nodded and let the growing pain sharpen and fill his brain. His breaths were tight and jerky.

  The letter had brought back memories. Memories that Jonathan kept quiet and locked away, down where they couldn’t drown him. He let the pain push them back down, let it flood them away. His breathing eased. His jaw clenched even harder. His eyes closed.

  “What are you doing?” The whisper snapped his eyes open. Colin was standing beside him, his eyes concerned, one hand fluttering at his neck, the other holding a half-folded paper crane.

  “Leave me alone,” Jonathan whispered back in a shaky voice. He closed his eyes again.

  “Thith ith crazy. Why are you on that?”

  “Go away, Colin.”

  “You thouldn’t let the otherth thee you. You thouldn’t let Thebathtian thee you.” A nervous hand tugged softly on Jonathan’s shoulder.

  “What are you tho thad about?”

  Jonathan screwed his eyes shut tighter and bit his lip until it hurt as much as his screaming knees.

  “Jonathan! Come on, get off it! You’re gonna hurt yourthelf!”

  “I know.”

  “What? What do you—” Their hissed conversation was interrupte
d by a commotion behind them, at the tables.

  “Sebastian! Sebastian, come look at this!” Benny’s voice was triumphant and angry. There was an ugly delight in it.

  Jonathan opened his eyes and looked over. Colin was still looking at him, his pale eyebrows knit together in worry. Jonathan jumped up and brushed past him to join the scene at the tables.

  “I just barely caught it!” Benny was saying. He was handing a crumpled letter to Sebastian, who had stalked over with the sword in his hand. “Look! Look at what he wrote in the fold on the back!”

  The rest of the boys had jumped up and were crowding around, wide-eyed in the candlelight, a few steps back. One of the older boys, skinny with black, curly hair and a twitchy face, was standing at the table in front of Benny, eyes darting back and forth between Benny and Sebastian. Jason was his name, Jonathan remembered. Walter had said he’d been sent to Slabhenge for stealing cars. He was frowning and chewing at the inside of one of his cheeks. He was one of the ones who had joined Jonathan’s group the night before, to listen to Robinson Crusoe.

  Sebastian snatched the letter and turned it over. His eyes scanned the paper and then his lips tightened into a thin, angry line. He glared up at the black-haired kid.

  “Really, Jason? You?”

  The kid shrugged and looked down.

  “Sorry, Sebastian.” His voice was a little shaky but resigned. He wasn’t crying. His eyes slid back up to Sebastian’s. “I hate it here. I wanna go home.”

  Sebastian shook his head. He looked like he was going to spit. He held the letter closer to his face and read aloud.

  “We’re in trouble. All the grown-ups are gone. Please send help.”

  A whisper ran through the crowd.

  Sebastian set the sword on the table and reached to pull a candle in a tall brass holder a little closer.

  “We’re not in trouble, Jason,” he said, his voice cold and angry. “You are.” He held the letter out so that its bottom corner dangled in the slowly dancing flame. It caught fire and the flames licked quickly up the letter, curling it and crackling. The light in the room grew brighter. Sebastian’s face was washed in brighter shades of red and flickering orange. He held the letter as long as he could, until the hungry flames were right up to his hand, and then let it drop to the damp stone floor at his feet. He sucked on his fingers and looked at Jason.