Gray Wolf Island

by Tracey Neithercott

  “Light, dark. Either way, he’s gone,” I say, rising to meet him. I stare at the wolf inked on his skin. Howling mouth. Sharp teeth. Fur-covered ears pushed back on its head. It’s real enough to jump off his body and to the ground. My fingers skim over the intricate artwork.

  “Ruby,” he groans. Rests his forehead on my shoulder. He snatches my hand from his side. My thumb traces his battered knuckles.

  “We found it,” I say. Elliot’s head snaps up. “I think my secret unlocked our final clue.”

  I may be a liar, but I can spot the truth, and right now it’s silver zinging off my tongue. In answer, the symbol inhales. It sucks down the night’s light. Through the crack in the ceiling, the sky is velvety black.

  Gorged on moonbeams and starlight, the mark glows with an unearthly light. My eyes water at it, so outrageously beautiful. Charlie looks away, and I wonder if we could be thinking the same thing. That it seems impossible we should experience anything so blatantly breathtaking after Gabe’s death. That it should have exhaled night, covering the cave and the moon and the stars with gloom.

  “Oh,” Elliot says. He’s kneeling beside the stone now, though I don’t remember him moving from my side. His fingers rest in the grooves of the slashed square. His eyes are open, but his body is motionless. If it weren’t for the rise and fall of his chest, I’d assume he was turned to stone.

  “Why is he not moving?” Charlie’s voice is frantic. “It’s like the light is sucking out his soul.”

  “My great-grandmother says the Thornes are born with half their souls on Gray Wolf Island. Maybe he’s trying to get his back.”

  “He’ll wake up.” Charlie is squashed between me and Anne, our backs to cool stone. It’s been over an hour since Elliot went still.

  “Of course he will.” Anne says it like she hopes her words will turn into truth. “Now would you quit repeating that?”

  Charlie squints at the back of Elliot’s head. “You think he’ll wake up, Ruby?”

  “Of course he will,” I say, though I don’t feel nearly as confident as I sound. Gabe’s death stole almost all of my hope, and Elliot’s catatonic state took the rest.

  “The island’s already swallowed Gabe.” He rakes a hand through his sleep-rumpled hair. “And now it froze Elliot. He could be just as gone.”

  “I’m going to tell you something—and I’m talking to you, too, Ruby, because you’re just as worried as Charlie but better at being silent.” Anne kneels before us, and I can almost taste the insect repellent she recently reapplied. “Gabe never slept very long. No, that’s a lie. He slept a long, long time—time stops and stretches during the night when everyone but you sleeps—but he didn’t waste half the next day. He used to climb out of his tent while the sun was rising and keep me company until we had to wake the rest of you.

  “The morning after he told us his secret, Gabe said the island wanted the truth. I told him that was unfair, considering the island hadn’t given up the truth of the treasure for hundreds of years. Gabe got real serious—well, more serious than the serious he had been acting since he kissed Ruby—and he told me what the island had been whispering to him through the leaves and the grass and the dirt stirred up in the wind.”

  “It should have been whispering a warning about his death,” Charlie says with a rasp to his voice. “If it cared so damn much about him.”

  “It did,” I say, though I don’t know why. It lobbed a rock at his head. But something about his death—the way the cave cried tears of light, the way flowers blanketed his broken, bloody body so it became beautiful once more—tells me this place mourns Gabe as much as we all do.

  Charlie grunts. “What’d it whisper?”

  “That the island devours the truth like…” Anne searches the ceiling for the right words. “Like the slashed square swallowed the light from the sky.”

  “But we already know that.”

  “Charles Kim, one day I’d like to get through a story without your interruptions,” Anne huffs. “As I was saying, Gabe was certain there was more. After the island drank our secrets from our lips, we’d be worthy of one of its own.”

  “But Charlie—”

  “Told me his a few days ago,” Anne says.

  “So Elliot was worthy,” I say.

  Anne nods. “And now he’s learning the truth.”

  Charlie is out.

  “I don’t care what the island told Gabe, I’m not hunting for a treasure while my best friend is…that,” he says, thrusting a hand in Elliot’s direction.

  He hasn’t moved. I thought, for a little while there, I’d stay rooted to this spot, too. That I’d be forever staring at Elliot’s fingers, at the way the light seems to curve around his hand. All that staring, and it still took me three hours to spot it.

  Now it’s all I can see.

  “I’ll find it alone.” The words don’t taste half as sweet as they did at the start of this quest.

  I stand in front of the Star Stone. Head-on, it’s nearly impossible to see that certain slant of light. I study the upper left corner of the square and…there. An odd beam breaks from the rest and bends outward. It’s slight, so slight. But it’s enough for my treasure-starved mind.

  I hold my hand in front of the beam, watch it pale my skin. I take a step back. And back. And back until I hit the cave wall. I click off my headlamp. Shadow swallows this section of the cave.

  If it weren’t for the dark, I’d never notice the light. It’s faint, barely brushing the wall, but it’s there. I run my hands along the stone. Searching, searching, searching for something. Anything.

  A button.

  A lever.

  A hidden door.

  My fingers brush dirt, something slimy, and sharp stone. I’m sure I’m bleeding, but I’m not sure I care.

  I follow a crack down the wall. It yawns wider as I reach the base, where I can faintly make out a small cranny. I flick on my headlamp. There’s a whole lot of black. And a flash of red.

  “I think I found it,” I say, and the entire cave brightens.

  Anne and Charlie race to my side. We slither on our stomachs until we’re inches from the opening. “There could be spiders,” Charlie says with a shudder.

  “There could be snakes,” Anne says, and Charlie groans.

  “There could be treasure,” I say, reaching a hand into the small space. My fingers brush dry earth, cool stone, and something else. Fabric. When my fingers have closed around a strap, I pause.

  “I’ve got your daydreams in my grasp,” I say softly to my sister. And I know that whisper is traveling out of this cave, across the island, and all the way to the cemetery, where Sadie will hear it and celebrate with enough glee to shake the entire town of Wildewell.

  I pull out the treasure.

  I’m filled with a bizarre buzzing. It makes my skin itch and mind twitch.

  There’s something I’m supposed to remember. I don’t know what.

  Tell the truth, the grass whispers. I crush it beneath my shoes.

  The closer I get to the cave, the more my body tingles. It’s the worst in my brain. Static that’s trying to say something.

  What am I supposed to remember?

  The wind tosses dirt into my eyes. The truth, it hisses. Tell the truth.

  Dirt clouds follow me across the valley. To the waterfall. To the cave.

  Then I’m there. Standing in the center of the underground Star Stones.

  I wait for the moon to show up. Just like Bishop’s letter instructs. Except his letter makes it sound exciting.

  It’s not.

  The island hounds me the whole time about the truth. I toss out a few.

  “I am Cooper Rollins!”

  “I’m a treasure hunter!”

  “I really have to pee!”

  None stick, and the longer the air whispers about the truth, the more my head swims. By the time moonlight hits the symbol Bishop chiseled into one of the Star Stones, I can barely feel my limbs.

  And I’m still
forgetting something.

  I shrug it off. Follow the light to a crevice in the cave wall. Either it’s really well hidden or my brain’s as sluggish as it feels.

  Red backpack. Dark hole.

  A push. A kick.

  For all the hours of planning it took to get here, burying the treasure is pretty anticlimactic. I bet it’d be a million times better with Bishop by my side. Now it just reminds me he’s gone.

  I shake my head. There’s something specific I’m supposed to remember.

  My beginning on Gray Wolf Island.

  The search for my lost identity.

  A deer on the beach.

  Lies, whispers the darkness. Tell the truth.

  “He killed Toby,” I say. “On the beach.”

  But that’s not all. I can taste the hint of memory on my tongue.

  I flop onto my back. I’m loose legs and liquid arms. Brain sloshing all over in my skull. Rinsing away fiction and replacing it with fact. I shout the truth to the ceiling.

  “I didn’t wake up on Gray Wolf Island.”

  “I had a home all along.”

  The island roars. Every piece of dirt and every other hidden thing this far in the earth rumbles with its cry. Tell the truth!

  “My dad tried to kill me,” I whisper. “He killed my brother and I was next.”

  ONLY THE WORTHY

  can see the clue

  to the greater treasure:

  to know what is true.

  We sit in a circle, knees pressed tight to one another’s. Anne’s bounce up and down, faster and faster.

  “All of the magic of Gray Wolf Island might be stuffed inside that bag,” she says. “But we’ll never know unless you unzip it.”

  She’s talking about the backpack lying inches from my fingers. Its underbelly is coated in a layer of dirt, but the rest is shockingly red. It seems to me the treasure must have been buried recently, but Anne’s convinced the island protected it for us.

  Charlie shakes his head. “Honestly, the island took Gabe and it did something to Elliot. I don’t give a shit about the treasure.”

  “Don’t curse,” a voice croaks.

  There’s no beam of light. No illuminated square. No magic at all.

  There’s only Elliot.

  I drink him in, noting every strange and wonderful piece. “You’re better,” I whisper.

  Charlie is less contained. He springs from the ground. Crushes Elliot in a hug punctuated by slaps on the back. “I thought you’d be stuck like that forever.”

  Elliot sinks to the ground. I’d like to run at him. Wrap my arms around his waist so I can know for sure. That he’s alive. That he’s flesh and bone. That he’s going to be all right.

  Instead I say, “Are you okay?”

  He scrubs a hand over his face. “Not really. But I think I will be.”

  “Dude, you wouldn’t move. You didn’t even blink—it was actually really creepy.” Charlie’s voice is teasing, but there’s an undertone of worry to his words. “What happened?”

  “I—” Elliot exhales, the kind of breath that’s more about holding something back than letting something go. “I know the truth, and I’m going to tell everyone everything. Set things straight. But not right now.”

  Anne nods. “Two things in this world my great-grandmother says you can’t rush: bowel movements and grief.”

  Charlie laughs.

  Elliot narrows his eyes. “What makes you think I’m grieving?”

  “Oh, Elliot,” Anne says. “It’s written all over you.”

  She’s right, though I think it’s more than that. It’s like he’s added a whole world of troubles on top of it. Like he’s been through the kind of event that knifes your life in two. Before and after.

  He clears his throat. “You found the treasure.”

  “We think. We got as far as wondering, then you came to.” I tug the bag onto my lap. My fingers play with the zipper. I look from Charlie to Anne to Elliot, and I feel such immeasurable love for my twin, who knew that the end of this quest would be a terrible place to reach without friends.

  I open the pack.

  The light from my headlamp bounces around in there, reflecting off silver and gold, winking around in a pile of jewels.

  Nobody speaks. I inspect an ancient figurine while Anne presses a gemstone between her fingers and Charlie weighs gold coins in his palm.

  “There’s one more thing,” Elliot says.

  “Always one more thing with this damn island.”

  “Don’t curse, Charlie.” Elliot swallows. There’s something like guilt in his eyes when he turns to me. “You made a promise to your sister, and I know how important that is to you. We’ll keep the treasure, Rubes, if that’s what you really want.”

  “We have the treasure.”

  “Wait. I have to get this out.” Elliot’s fingers clench the fabric of the bag. “We can keep everything in here, but I’m hoping we don’t have to. We’re meant to leave this behind.”

  “It was never about keeping the treasure,” I say. “We’ll hide the book. We’ll let someone else find it.”

  “Then all of this was pointless,” Charlie says. “Gabe died for nothing.”

  Anne stares at the leather band around his wrist. “That first night, around the fire, I said you could beat fate. Do you remember?”

  “Of course I remember. I fell a little bit in love with you then.”

  “Because it’s what you wanted to hear. That you weren’t going to die. But I was wrong about destiny,” she says. “You glimpsed his death for a decade, Charlie. Gabe was always going to die here.”

  I lean my head on Charlie’s shoulder. Take his hand in mine. “Even without the treasure, this wasn’t nothing. Not to me.”

  “No.” Elliot’s eyes are on the slashed square etched into the Star Stone, but his mind is somewhere else. “No, it wasn’t all pointless.”

  He rummages through the treasure like he’s searching for something specific. He plucks out an object and, without showing the rest of us, stuffs it in his pocket. He dives in for more.

  “This reminds me of you.” Elliot tosses Charlie a small Buddha statue. It’s blindingly gold. The kind of gold that comes from daily polishing, not aging in a hidden cave.

  “Sure, give the Asian kid the Buddha,” Charlie says, snatching it from the air. “You know I’m Catholic, right?”

  “I’ll take it back, then.”

  “No.” Charlie squints at the statue’s face. “His smile kind of looks like mine.”

  Elliot laughs. “You don’t say.”

  He reaches back in the bag, rustles its contents all around. It sounds like a hundred glass marbles rolling over one another. Elliot unfurls his fist, revealing a small cameo. He holds it out for Anne. “It’s three-layered agate,” he says, and none of us ask how he knows this. “One stone, but the horse figure is carved in the white middle layer. You can see the light brown layer below. And here, see? Its mane and tail are carved from the upper layer.”

  “I used to have a horse.” Anne’s finger runs the length of the cameo.

  Elliot nods. “Riding it made you happy.”

  “It did,” Anne says. “But my aunt thought all the time I spent with Violet was making me weird. I tried telling her I’d be weird without Violet, but nobody trusts the weird girl. So she sold him.”

  “Violet was a boy?”

  “Yes, Charlie. I didn’t know to look underneath when I was little.”

  Charlie shakes his head, but he does it with a smile. “Looks like you’re up, Ruby.” He peeks in the bag as Elliot rummages around. “How’s a guy with a bag full of treasure say, ‘I want to keep making out with you’?”

  “I’m going to throw you down the pit,” Elliot says.

  Charlie laughs and laughs until Elliot pulls a grape-sized diamond from the bag. “Dude, that says, ‘I want to keep making out with you for the rest of my life.’ ”

  “Charlie,” Elliot says between clenched teeth. “Mind shuttin
g up?”

  Anne purses her lips. “Charles Kim, you make one more joke and I’ll drag you across the cave. Then neither of us will hear what he says.”

  Charlie mimes locking his lips.

  “Can you maybe pretend you didn’t hear any of that?” Elliot’s ears are red. Cheeks, too. “I’m not proposing, so you know.”

  “I’m crushed.”

  He drops the diamond in my hand. “It reminds me of you is all.”

  “Sparkly?”

  Elliot laughs. “Um, no. Kind of think that was Sadie, right?”

  “Right. I’m more of a ruby.”

  Charlie leans into Anne. “I was thinking I’d have to make a ruby joke if one of them didn’t.”

  “So much for zipping his lips.” Elliot clears his throat. “It’s like this: You have these carbon atoms and they’re put under extremely high temperatures and all this pressure. And because of that they form bonds. And you don’t care about the details, but the end product is this really hard material. I’m not saying you’re sparkly, Ruby. I’m saying you were under some pretty serious pressure when your sister died, and it made you tougher than nails.”

  I close my fist around the gift, so tight the point bites my palm. “One day,” I say, kneeling in front of him, “I’d like to see myself the way you do.” And then I kiss him.

  “So cute.”

  “They’re adorable.”

  “I’m being serious, Charlie.”

  “Know what I’m serious about? Getting off this island.”

  I pull away from Elliot. Stare at the crack in the ceiling. In the midnight cave with only a sliver of moon, it’s as if time has tossed us a million extra minutes. As if it’s waiting for us to feel safe before speeding back up again. But Charlie is right. Morning is close, and we need a plan.

  “Tomorrow morning,” I say, “we follow the tunnel back to the musical cave. Those rocks were stacked. I bet we can climb to the cliff above.”