Gray Wolf Island

by Tracey Neithercott

  “I should have stolen the dagger,” Elliot says the next morning as we’re tramping through yet another forest. There’s a certain sense of peace among the spindly trunks, but I can’t seem to touch it. Instead of chasing away darkness, the morning light seems to have brought it to the surface. Every silent space still shouts Gabe’s secret. Sadie’s voice still plays in my mind. And there’s still someone else on the island.

  And so, the dagger.

  Elliot growls. “It was right there. I should have taken it.”

  “What do you imagine doing with that knife that you can’t do with your pocketknife? Engaging in a knife fight?” Anne shoots me a look that says these boys are bizarre.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” Elliot says. “Who knows what this guy will do if we get to the treasure first?”

  “If there’s another person on the island.” Gabe shuffles to a stop beside a thin birch. He’s no longer lost to the island’s taunts, all empty-eyed and filled with fog. But he’s also not the same oil-slick and shimmery boy who hopped a boat to Gray Wolf Island. He’s human in a way he’s never been before.

  And he’s absolutely drenched in relief.

  “I think…” For the first time today, Gabe raises his eyes higher than our knees. He looks like a thing with wings that’s been let out of a cage but still needs permission to fly. “I think the island can make us see what’s not there. Maybe it can make us not see what’s there, too.”

  “Maybe the island took the book. Maybe some treasure-hunting dude did. The point is,” Charlie says, “you promised a waterfall today, Elliot. And all I see are trees.”

  Elliot’s sigh is so deep it nearly creates a breeze. He glances at his compass. Without a word, he heads farther into the forest.

  Trees. Ferns. Grass. More trees. An hour becomes two, and the scenery blurs until I can’t tell the difference between where I am and where I came from. I’m starting to hate the forest, but not nearly as much as I hate my hiking boots.

  I’m not the only one cursing this godforsaken island and the thief forcing us into a frantic pace. Charlie slaps at a fat fly. “How far to the waterfall, Elliot?”

  “Do I look like a member of the Gray Wolf Island tourism board? It’s out there, somewhere closer than it was the last time you asked.”

  And then it’s there, a white curtain of rumbling water and a pool of dark blue.

  We trudge over rugged shoreline, a jumble of rock, mud, and the occasional tuft of grass. Thick tree trunks climb out of the lagoon almost horizontally, their long branches skimming the water’s surface and creating shady caves beneath their emerald leaves. At the opposite end of the lagoon, tall boulders covered in moss and lichen nip at the sides of frothy white water. It tips over an opening in the rock twenty feet above.

  Charlie is the first to break from the trance, shucking all but his swim trunks and diving into the clear pool. I strip down to my bikini, toss my filthy clothes on a nearby rock, and jump.

  I hold my breath and let myself sink, let the water rake its fingers through my loose hair and kiss goose bumps onto my skin. Down here, the weight of everything that’s happened and everything that still needs to happen floats away. Too soon, I’m pushing for the surface, wiping the wet from my eyes.

  “I was looking for you,” Charlie says from a rock jutting into the lagoon. I clasp the hand he offers. “Time to jump.”

  “Jump?” I shake my head in an attempt to get the water from my ear.

  “Yes, jump.” He grins. “From there.”

  I follow his gaze to the towering boulder to the left of the waterfall. “No way. We’ll crash into the rocks below.”

  When Charlie rolls his eyes, his whole head follows. “I don’t die in or near water. See? Safe.”

  “Yeah, for you. But I don’t get glimpses of my death.”

  Charlie grabs my shoulders. “Ruby. This is where you start to live.”

  This is the year you finally live, Rubes.

  That’s what Sadie said before she died. She’d want me to do this. So I square my shoulders. Nod. Follow Charlie from one baked rock to the next until we’re at the top of the leftmost boulder, the sound of pounding water loud in our ears.

  “I’ve already checked the area below. You can only land there,” he says, pointing to a dark spot in the water below. “I mean, you can land where it’s more shallow, but you’ll probably get maimed or at least go brain-dead or something.”

  I’m shaking, gaze hooked on the thundering water. This should be Sadie, standing atop a slimy green rock with a boy who looks death in the face with a wink and a dare.

  Palms to my cheeks, Charlie forces my gaze to him. Staring into Charlie’s eyes is like staring at a beating heart. He’s so intensely and perfectly alive. “See you down below.”

  He releases me. Backs up as far as the rock will allow. And then he’s running running flying over water and air. He’s pencil-thin and piercing the glassy surface. He’s under and gone.

  My heart’s somewhere between my lungs and my lips. I peer over the edge of the rock. No Charlie. I call his name, but it’s lost in the crash of the waterfall.

  A lifetime later, he surfaces with a whoop. “Ruby Caine! Get down here!”

  I shuffle backward, blistered feet over slick rock. I take a breath. Three more.

  I run.

  I jump.

  There’s nothing but air and the spray of cold water. Something like euphoria rushes me, and I release a shout that’s part laugh. As I go down, my heart goes up, up, up. I swallow a lungful of air a second before my feet slice through the surface.

  The force of the falling water spins me around until up looks like down. I open my eyes to bubbles and blue, but as I swim toward stiller water, a face forms. It’s indistinct at first, clearing as I near. She has auburn hair that floats around her like a veil. Blue eyes blink at me. Bow-shaped lips part, but she doesn’t speak. Somehow I know this isn’t me even though it’s as if I’m staring into a murky mirror.

  My fingers reach for her, float right through her face. I’m greedy for any glimpse of my sister, so I ignore my screaming lungs.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, filling my mouth with water and blowing out my remaining air with a burst of bubbles. There’s so much more I have to say, but an arm grabs me from behind and tugs me up. I gulp a few breaths before searching the lagoon. Three people stare at me, and not one of them shares my face.

  “Hey, you’re alive,” Charlie says.

  “We were mostly certain you were dead.” Anne’s perched on a rock, filling our water bottles.

  “I saw…” But now it sounds silly. I look up to find Gabe’s gaze on me. I hold his stare and say, “I saw Sadie.”

  “You probably saw your reflection.” Elliot’s voice is loud in my ear, and for the first time, I realize his arm’s holding my back tight to his front even though we’re now in the shallows. I wiggle from his hold. “Or lack of oxygen made you hallucinate it.”

  “No, you saw her,” Gabe says. “The island wanted you to see her.”

  Elliot shoots him an annoyed look. “Since when do you know what the island wants?”

  Gabe shrugs, which seems to annoy Elliot even more. He refocuses on me. “You’re okay, right?”

  I grin. “Charlie was right. That was amazing.”

  “You hear that? She said I was right.” Charlie turns to Elliot. “You never tell me I’m right.”

  “That’s because you never are.”

  Charlie responds, but his voice sounds immeasurably far with Elliot looking like a picture I might pin to my wall.

  “You sure you’re okay? After, you know, your sister?”

  Oh. So this is about…oh. I shrug. Drop my eyes to the tattoo over his heart. Semicircles in shades of blue and white fill the bottom half of the circular image. A black cross rises from the waves, dark against an azure sky. “What does your tattoo mean?”

  He shrugs. “Told the guy to pick one for me.”

  I do a really fantastic jo
b of staying silent even though that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week.

  He glances down, hesitates, and then says, “No, that’s a lie. I do know what it means. But if I tell you, you’ll think I’m a dork.”

  “I already think you’re a dork.”

  “Ruby,” he says sternly, then smiles. It’s a spectacular thing.

  We drift toward a flat rock half dunked in the lagoon. Elliot climbs onto it. I pull myself up beside him.

  “All right,” Elliot says. “It’s from a recurring dream. Me and my mom are on the beach having a picnic and this fawn steals our dinner. My mom is so mad. She has this big umbrella and keeps trying to shoo the deer away with it. You know how dreams cut from scene to scene but it doesn’t seem weird? Well, one second the deer is eating our dinner and the next it’s dead. It was shot in the head. And I don’t know why, but it’s so sad.”

  “So you went out and tattooed its gravestone on you?”

  “It’s dumb, I know.” The wind kicks up, flapping the ends of his swim shorts.

  “No, I like the idea of preserving dreams like that.” I wonder if once I’m gone anyone will think of me the way Elliot thinks of his deer. “Sometimes I think I’ve existed for so long only because Sadie was there to remind everyone there was another of us. And now that she’s gone, I’ll just fade away, not even a memory of me left behind.”

  Elliot’s eyes snap to mine. “You’d haunt me, Ruby. Even if you faded to nothing and everyone forgot.” He opens his mouth to say something else, but the wind stops him with a deafening roar. It sprays us with water and pine needles that stick to my wet skin.

  We stare at each other for a long minute. Finally, I say, “I should call my parents.”

  “Yeah. We need to get going anyway.” Elliot hauls himself out of the water. I follow him to the bank of the lagoon, dig around in Charlie’s pack for the satellite phone, then call home.

  “Tell me you’re safe,” my mom says as I stand atop a boulder overlooking the lagoon.

  “We’re fine, Mom. They’re just planning to use me as a virgin sacrifice.”

  She heaves a dramatic sigh. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “That they’re going to kill me?”

  “That you’re still a virgin.”

  “You need to get your priorities straight.” My voice is stern, but I’m smiling. I lucked out. I could have Elliot’s mom, and then I wouldn’t have a dad, either.

  My mom says something else, but the wind swallows her words. From my perch on the tall rock, I see an angry current of air battering the trees. Each blow sends them into a backbend, trunks arched at the top, leaves thrashing.

  I hurry off the phone as I hurry down the rock. “Pack up!” I yell when I reach the ground. “There’s a storm coming!”

  The wind howls, and everyone springs to their feet. They’re shoving food and dirty clothes into their packs when I reach them.

  “It’s trying to kick us out,” Gabe says. “Blow us straight to the other side of the island. Maybe even into the ocean.”

  “Because the island doesn’t want us to find the treasure?” My words seem to shake the trees. Spindly branches reach for us, strike our skin with territorial rage.

  “Why would the island talk to Gabe?” Elliot’s voice is crisp and condescending even over the howling gale. “It’s about high- and low-pressure systems, and how hot air is less dense than cold air, so—”

  “No,” Gabe says to Elliot, but he’s looking at me. “No, it’s the island. It won’t let us at the treasure until it has the truth. All of it.”

  “Let’s look for the cave,” I say, searching for my bag to give my eyes something to do other than stare at Gabe’s stupid face with those stupid eyes that are trying to tell me something I think I already know. We’ve decided to leave the tents behind—they add bulk and we won’t need them in the cave—so I toss mine beside the boys’. Elliot adds the large shovels to the pile.

  We follow the curve of the lagoon, Charlie in the lead. I pinwheel my arms as a particularly strong gust of wind tries to knock me into the water. Gabe holds my pack steady as I regain my footing. I try to see him as I always have, but it’s impossible. Everything he’s done is right there on his face.

  I give him a terse thanks and hurry after the others. A minute later, when a mouthful of air has me gasping for breath, I know I’m choking on my own hypocrisy.

  There’s a gap between the lichen-covered boulder and the curtain of water, but not even Anne could squeeze through and stay dry. Charlie leaves his pack with Elliot, then pushes through the water. He disappears in bits and pieces, the way I was disappearing until these people put me back together. I hold my breath and hope and hope and hope this isn’t how Charlie dies.

  And then he’s there, all shiny skin and hair sticking to his face. His smile’s a mile wide, and Elliot’s pushing for the water like the cave will vanish if he’s not quick.

  Anne follows on his heels, and then it’s my turn. The wind’s wild now, sending rocks sliding from far above. The air smells like threats and promises.

  “Ruby.”

  I twist around, and when I see Gabe’s face I know he’s going to say something I don’t want to hear. “I don’t know what it is or why I know it’s even there—”

  “Stop it.”

  He does, for a moment. Pine needles rain from the sky and tangle in our hair. Then he says, “You have to tell.”

  He’s lit from above, a splash of sunlight turning his skin fiery gold. In the rumble of water and whistle of wind, I hear Sadie’s voice. Or maybe it’s the island.

  Tell the truth, Ruby. Tell him what you did.

  I part the water instead.

  NIGHT DESCENDS QUICKLY AND

  dark is made near.

  It cloaks you in shadows,

  but strangle your fear.

  So the cave’s a letdown. And it’s not because I’m in a mood, which is what Elliot says as I’m squeezing water from my hair. “Oh no, Ruby’s in a mood.”

  My hiking boots squelch as I walk farther into the cave. It feels more like a tunnel, really. Wet stone walls curve on either side of us like parentheses. The ceiling’s so low everyone but Anne has to hunch. “I’m not in a mood, Elliot. I’m sick of this island telling me what to do.”

  Elliot sighs, a long, laborious thing. “The island is not talking to you.”

  I don’t have to turn around to know Gabe’s expression is telling me just the opposite. I change the subject. “I thought it’d be bigger.”

  Charlie snickers. “Careful, you’ll ruin Elliot’s self-esteem.”

  Elliot aims a punch at Charlie’s gut, but Charlie swivels out of the way. “I bet the cave gets bigger as we go farther in.”

  I strap on my headlamp and make for an opening at the back of the cave. We’re forced to squeeze single file through the crevice, and I’m amazed we can fit at all with our massive backpacks. It doesn’t take long for the air to cool and the dim light from the cave entrance to fade. Soon we’re walking through blackness so black it seems to swallow light. The beam from my headlamp illuminates less than five feet in front of me.

  My mind creates the sound of dragging claws. Of hot breath on my face. Of a rock-rumbling roar.

  How have none of us considered that this cave might belong to something other than ourselves? “Animals,” I say with a full-body shudder. “We didn’t consider what animals might live in here.”

  “I researched Gray Wolf Island wildlife last week. Because I actually have a sense of self-preservation.” I can’t see him from here, but I just know Elliot’s rolling his eyes. “Aside from the pit, this is the most trafficked area of the island. There’s been so much human disturbance from excavations over the years that bears and foxes have stopped turning its entrance into their dens. It’s mostly small animals, like mice and spiders.”

  Charlie sucks in a breath. “And bats?”

  “There used to be brown bats in these caves, but they abandoned it. They relocated
to an old mine in Waldo County.” Elliot pauses. “And your bedroom.”

  “Don’t even joke.”

  “Is an animal going to kill you, Charlie?” There’s something to Anne’s words, a deep scratching sound, that makes me think of strong fingers around a beating heart. Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeze.

  I think Charlie hears it, too, because he doesn’t speak for a long while, and when he finally does, it’s with a smile in his voice I can tell doesn’t belong there. “Nothing’s going to kill me,” he says. “I’m wearing your bracelet, remember?”

  In the silence and in the dark, with Charlie’s phony voice chasing us like an echo, the path seems endless. I follow the curve of the cave left, then right, then right again. That’s when I hear the song.

  It’s beautiful and haunting. I imagine long draws on my harmonica, lazy chords meandering through the air. I imagine the sort of mind-blowing throat vibrato I’ve yet to master, and it twists its way into the tune.

  The voice ruins it all.

  Ruby, Ruby, what have you done?

  I breathe out, and with it comes a strangled “No.”

  “Ruby?”

  I don’t answer Anne. My boots scrape across the rough ground. The scrape gets louder and the scrape gets human.

  Ruby, Ruby, what have you done?

  I cough to break the sound. For a minute it’s like I simply lost my mind. Like the dark was taking up so much space in this cave it had nowhere to go but in through my ear, making me hear things that aren’t really here.

  For a minute.

  But it’s back with fingers of a breeze that walk their way down my spine. Oh, Ruby, she says, and I’m suddenly not sure: Is the island taunting me or has it summoned Sadie’s ghost?

  The air hums a melody I want to forget. The voice that might be Sadie’s croons.

  Ruby Caine’s tears did make

  a dark and deep and ice-cold lake.

  Gave her sister one more breath,

  then held her down to meet her death.

  My body moves as if it knows where to go. My muscles predict this twist, that turn, the dips and rises in the earth.