by Liz Kessler
Joel smiled more broadly. He had a nice smile. His dark eyes lit up with a sparkle that softened his face. He was quite good-looking, too, now that I thought about it.
What? What was I thinking? I had a boyfriend! This boy had practically kidnapped me! What on earth was I doing thinking he was good-looking?
My face felt warm. “All right, let’s start again,” I said quickly, in an attempt to cover my embarrassment. “I’ll answer your questions. But you answer some of mine first, OK?”
“All right, Emily,” he said, smiling even more widely. “How about this? I’ll tell you about this island, about us. I’ll give you our story.” He narrowed his eyes into a scowl. “But after that, it’s your turn. After that, you answer my questions.”
He held out his hand. “Deal?”
I let out a breath as I considered it.
“Please?” he added. “I promise you can trust me.”
Finally, I reached out to shake his hand. “OK,” I agreed nervously. “Deal.”
People have been on this island for many generations,” Joel began. “No one has ever been able to find a way to leave.”
“Whoa. Really? You’ve never been off the island at all? None of you?”
“Not for many hundreds of years. And anything before that is the stuff of legends. We can’t leave, though some have tried.”
“And . . . ?”
He shook his head. “They didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Joel shrugged. “Our world is here. It’s all we know. All my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and many generations before them knew.”
“Wow,” I breathed.
“It is what it is,” he said. “We have developed in all sorts of ways, as each generation gives way to the next. Like any society, I suppose like yours.”
“How do you know about people outside of the island if you’ve never left?”
“We don’t know much, it’s true. But I watch. I see people who come to look at the falls. Like I said, that’s part of my role.”
That was when something suddenly clicked. His job of watcher. His eyes . . .
“Wait. Was it you?” I murmured.
“Was what me?”
“The eyes. Through the water. It was — it was you, wasn’t it?”
Joel nodded quickly. “I thought you’d seen me — even though it has never happened before. These boats have been coming here for only the last year or so. Since the clouds lifted. Usually by the time the boat is close enough to be in range, everybody has gone inside. No one sees me.”
“How do you know that?”
Joel lifted a shoulder. “Because they don’t think I exist. So they do not question that perhaps I might. And even if they think they see something, one of the people in charge will tell them it was just a trick of the light.”
That was exactly what the man had said to me!
Joel went on. “Sometimes I wonder if the people who run those trips know about us. They must wonder. They must question it at times. But then I guess if they do, they will tell themselves that their imaginations are working too hard. People living on this island, trapped behind the falls — it’s an impossible idea to them.”
“Joel,” I asked, “how do you know so much about this?”
He shrugged. “We pick things up. We may not be able to leave, but between us, we see things, we hear things, and we sense them. I’ve seen your boats. I’ve seen people holding things that they look into, talk to — machines that run your lives,” he continued. “Here, we have stronger instincts, better knowledge of the things that really connect us.”
“Like nature?” I asked.
“Like nature,” he agreed. “We hear what the earth is telling us. We see signs of activity through the tiniest gap in rushing water. We spy our next meal when it is hiding in the thickest of forests.”
“Which is how the guy you were with managed to hear me from so far away,” I mused.
“Yes.”
“That is some powerful sense of hearing.”
Joel lifted a shoulder. “Maybe, but do you question the advances your society has made?”
I thought about the things I took for granted every day. The Internet. Cell phones. Airplanes. Space travel! “I guess there are a lot of amazing things out there, when you stop to think about it,” I agreed.
“Exactly,” Joel agreed. “I just live in a different kind of reality from yours. That’s all.”
He kept talking about his reality and my reality. Did he know that my particular reality wasn’t the same as most people’s? Had he seen me in the water? Did he know about my tail? Surely he would have mentioned it if he had.
“The trouble with our reality,” Joel went on, “is that things are not good at the moment.”
I thought about what I’d heard yesterday, about the threat facing the island — and the world beyond it. The thing I’d been trying desperately to tell myself I’d gotten wrong. “What’s happening?” I asked.
Joel paused for a moment before replying. There was a darkness in his voice as he spoke. “It’s hard to say. We don’t know every detail, but what we do know is that there’s something very serious coming.” He kicked at the ground as he went on. “We just can’t agree on what to do about it.”
“What is it?”
Joel looked up. “The ground is shaking,” he said. “There is movement. It started a long time ago. Maybe a year even. For months, it was very slight. A movement in the earth so subtle that only the most skilled listeners noticed it. Most of us wouldn’t have known about it, but for the cloud clearing.”
The cloud clearing? Wait, hadn’t the man on the boat said something about that? That it could be because of a change in nature? Had this shaking in the earth made it happen?
“It was like that for some months,” Joel went on. “But in recent weeks, it has begun to intensify. It’s getting stronger every day. The earth is shaking enough that most of us here can feel it.”
“What — you mean, like an earthquake? There’s an earthquake coming? That’s what you’re saying?” My voice rose with every question.
“Yes,” he said simply. “That is exactly what I’m saying. It threatens us all. All of us here on this island, and all of you on yours as well.” He hesitated before adding, “When it happens, it will start a tidal wave that could threaten entire continents. It’s bad,” he added, in case I hadn’t figured that much out. “Really bad.”
“But . . .” I began. I wasn’t sure where to go after that. “But . . .”
“There are no buts,” he said. “And there is no way to stop it. Our only choice is to get away before it kills us all.”
“Are you sure? I mean, we have instruments, computers out there. Surely we’d know?”
Joel laughed drily. “You and your machines. They don’t tell you everything. You know how strong the current is in these falls?”
I tried to remember what the man had told me. Something to do with gallons. Hundreds of thousands. “I know it’s really strong,” I said.
“Yes. And that’s the problem. The force of the falls is so great, it masks what’s going on underneath the water. All your instruments are fooled by the power of the falls. They will never pick it up.”
“You’re sure?”
“Unfortunately, yes, I’m positive.”
“When is it coming?” I asked, my throat as dry as the ground itself.
He shook his head. “The one thing we don’t have is a sixth sense. We cannot predict the future. But we know that the earthquake will be devastating. It could cause landslides that break off huge sections of these cliffs. Maybe even break up the entire island.”
He pointed high above us. “Can you imagine the effect of half of this mountain landing in the sea? It would create a tsunami that could wipe out whole countries once it has traveled the length of the oceans.”
I stared at him. My heart felt as if it had stopped beating. “So why are we here talking about this?�
� I asked. “Why aren’t we doing something about it? Telling people? Stopping it!”
“Like I said — we cannot get out, so we cannot warn people. And we cannot agree on how to save ourselves. There are two factions with opposing beliefs.”
“What are the beliefs?”
“My group believes we have to find a way to get out of here. We are not safe staying on this island, and nor are the people on the other island. We have to get everyone off the islands, and then warn the rest of the world.”
“So what’s stopping you from trying to do this?” I asked.
“Other than the fact that there is no way out?”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “Other than that.”
“In a word? Saul.”
“The guy you were with yesterday?”
“Yes. Saul is our leader, and we can’t do anything without his say-so. His faction doesn’t believe we should take action yet.”
“What do they believe?”
Joel looked down. Scuffing the ground with his feet, he shook his head and mumbled his reply. “They believe in the Prophecy.”
“The Prophecy? What is that?”
Joel bent down and picked up a stone from the ground. “See this?” he asked, passing it to me. “To me, it’s a stone. That’s it, just a stone. To Saul and his followers, it’s more than that.”
I studied the stone. “More than a stone?” I asked.
“Well, not this one. But others like it,” he said. “Some of the trees, some of the rocks — they have drawings on them. To my group, these are no more than etchings drawn by people long dead, idling away the hours on a lazy day. Sometimes they just look like random patterns.”
“And to Saul?”
Joel laughed wryly. “A couple of times, there have been things in the drawings that have happened in our real lives.”
“What d’you mean? Like what?”
Joel sighed. “In the west forest, there’s a big rock with something etched on it that looks like a rainbow. Next to the rainbow is something that looks like rocks sliding down a cliff.”
“And . . . ?”
“And one day a couple of years ago, there was heavy rain followed by brilliant sunlight. A beautiful rainbow lit up the sky. The rain had destabilized the hillside. The ground was loose, and a few rocks slid down the hill.”
“Like in the picture?”
“Exactly. But it was a coincidence. I mean, a huge downpour like that leading to a loosening of the soil — that’s nature. That’s science. It’s not a prophecy.”
“So there have been more events like that?”
“Yeah, one or two other things happened that bore a tiny resemblance to something from the ancient etchings. When the third one happened — a tree falling into the river and being washed away — Saul decreed that from that point onward the etchings were to be regarded as a prophecy. If anyone found one, it was to be brought to him. He started collecting them, studying them.”
“Wow. And your faction doesn’t think they mean anything?”
Joel shook his head. “Sometimes I wish I did. But I don’t. I believe in reality, in nature, in science, in things I can see in front of my eyes.”
I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Joel sounded like Aaron. I wondered briefly if they would ever meet. The idea made me feel weird, but I wasn’t sure why.
“But Saul — he won’t do anything unless a drawing shows it,” Joel went on. “Unless one of his pictures points the way, he’s not going. He even wears one around his neck, a stone with a picture he believes will save us all.”
“And you think that while you sit around waiting to be saved, it’s going to be too late, and the earthquake will come along and wipe us all out?”
“That’s it exactly,” Joel agreed.
“And he won’t listen? Even to you? You two looked pretty friendly yesterday.”
“Oh, we are close in some ways. He relies on me for my hunting skills. He keeps me near when he needs me. He’s been like an uncle to me most of my life. He and my father were best friends.”
“Were . . . ?”
“Before they fought over all of this. My father is the leader of my group. He and Saul no longer speak.”
“What a mess,” I murmured.
“Exactly.” Joel looked around then moved his head closer to me. “But maybe you can help me change his mind.”
“Me?” I gasped. “What do I have to do with it? What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”
“In all of these hundreds of years we’ve been here, the one thing we have never managed to do is find a way off the island. The only way out is either through the falls, which we cannot attempt without risking death, or through Blue Pool, which leads to life-threatening underwater tunnels with powerful currents. It’s impossible. Or at least, we thought it was. But you’ve shown that it can be done. If you speak to Saul, he won’t be able to ignore our argument any longer. He will see that it is possible to cross the falls. We can tell him how you did it — and perhaps then he will finally agree to stop believing in nonsense and listen to reason. And then we can all get out of here and off this island before it’s too late.”
Joel spoke so fiercely, it was hard not to get caught up in his argument. But there was one thing he was missing — one thing he didn’t know. I still hadn’t told him how I’d gotten through the falls. And I knew I had to. But now it felt even harder than ever. Now that he’d told me he was pinning all his hopes of survival onto me, how could I turn around and tell him that he was wrong?
“So. I’ve told you about us,” Joel said. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me — how did you do it?”
He was right. We’d made a deal. I had to tell him. Even if it did make me feel like I was going back to the old days when I was scared of being called a freak when people found out about me.
I took a breath. “Joel,” I began. “Look, there’s something I need to —”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Two men and a woman were approaching the clearing. One of them called out, “Joel, is that you? What are you up to in there?”
Joel grabbed me and shoved me into the shadows of the tree. “Stay there,” he hissed. “Let me deal with them.”
I ducked down in the shadows and held my breath.
“It’s me,” Joel said casually, stepping out into the clearing. “Nothing much, just relaxing, thinking, you know.”
The one who had spoken laughed. “You? Thinking?” he said good-naturedly. “That’s a first.”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Joel replied.
“See you later then,” the other man said, and they started to move off.
“Wait.” The woman stopped, peering through the leaves. “What’s in there?”
“It’s nothing,” Joel insisted. “Honestly, don’t worry.”
The woman squinted into the darkness as she took a few steps forward.
It was too much. I stood up, hands in the air. “I don’t mean any trouble!” I burst out, stepping out from my hiding place.
The woman stepped back, looking shocked, and turned to Joel. The two men came and stood in front of me, examining me as if I’d landed in the forest from outer space.
I guess to them I might as well have.
“I can explain?” I said in a tiny voice.
“I think perhaps you’re going to have to,” one of the men said. He turned to Joel. “Unless you want to?”
The other guy stepped forward and looked me right in the eyes. “Save your explanations for our leader,” he said. He nodded toward Joel. “You, too,” he added.
Then he turned to the others. “Let’s take them to Saul,” he growled. “He can decide what to do with them both.”
I tried to keep my mind busy as we walked. I didn’t want to think about what Saul might do to me.
I didn’t want my mind to keep remembering overhearing him ordering Joel to hunt for dinner. I kept reminding myself he didn’t specifically want him to hunt me.
The reminders didn’t help
all that much. I still felt like a prisoner being marched toward my doom.
“We’re here,” Joel said as we arrived at a clearing with a massive tree in the middle of it. It had the widest trunk I’d ever seen. The growly guy pointed to one side of it where there was an opening with branches crisscrossed over it. He pulled the branches away and indicated for me to go in. The others followed behind me, apart from the woman, who stopped at the door.
“I’ll get Saul,” she said as the rest of us went inside.
The trunk had been completely carved out. In other circumstances, I would probably marvel at how cool it was. A little house, literally inside a tree!
In these circumstances, all I noticed was that my knees were shaking so much I wasn’t sure I could keep standing much longer. What was Saul going to do to me? Put me in a cage? Lock me up? Worse?
I didn’t have long to wait.
A deep voice at the door. “I’ll take it from here. Thanks, Maya.”
Saul.
He ducked down and came inside.
I looked up at him and tried to hold my nerve. He was tall and almost bald, with a bushy gray beard, a wrinkled face, and flecked brown eyes, which were currently trained on me as fiercely as if they were daggers pinning me to the wall.
He moved silently toward me. “What have we here?” he asked almost in a whisper.
I tried to remember that I’d stood up to Neptune. Neptune! King of all the oceans! I tried to find the confidence I’d had back then.
But this was different. This time I was completely alone in a land that no one else knew existed. That no one else could get to except Shona — and she couldn’t care less about me right now. No one but Aaron even knew I was gone.
This wasn’t the time to feel confident.
“I’m s-sorry. Don’t kill me!” I said as a hot tear burned the edge of my eye.
Saul flinched. “Kill you?” he repeated. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“I — you — you — said — chase — me . . .” I stammered.
“What? I’ve never seen you before in my life!” he boomed.
Oh, no! I’d made him angry. That was the last thing I’d wanted to do. I swallowed hard and tried to hold my nerve. “You — you sent Joel to chase after me for dinner,” I said, like a mouse with a particularly timid voice.
