by Mary Weber
A moment later his gaze falls to my lips and the look turns heavy—like a fog-covered moor when the earth hasn’t quite woken yet. I study his mouth—it really is anatomically perfect.
And then he slips his hand to my forehead and brushes aside my bangs, and everything about it feels calm and electric. Like a wildfire racing for a tranquil sea.
His fingers trace my cheek down to my chin, and he holds his hand there. And he is trembling just as much as me. And then I place my lips on his and he is pulling me in, and it is the most delicious sensation I’ve ever known, as a breeze picks up and my skin is a ripple of goose bumps and heat and home.
I tangle my hands through his hair and down the sides of his face until they have wandered to his neck, beneath which his pulse is crashing like the morning tides. And mine is crashing just as strong. A minute longer, and I pull back. And my heart is racing so hard I swear they can hear it all the way down in the tent.
I blush and it provokes his dimpled smile, and I’m just about to tell him what happens to a person’s blood and organs after their body dies, when a low wail picks up in the direction of the island.
Lute sits up and I scoot right beside him so he can slip his arm around me.
As if in answer to the ghoulish moans, a low scream starts out on the lake that prickles the hairs on the back of my head.
He looks at me. “Apparently there are sirens in the water.”
I shiver. It sounds like they found whichever boys were attempting to reach the island.
18
The sirens’ screams die down eventually, and Lute and I sit like that for the rest of the short night. Me beside him, his hand tucked around mine, listening for other hauntings and keeping watch on the camp below.
I’m not aware I’ve dozed off against him until I jolt awake in a clammy sweat from a memory playing out like a dream. Vincent had been studying a live virus that’d been causing strange behavior and death in the local cattle population. I’d been focused on the trials Da and I had created for the lung-fluid antibiotic.
“Here, Rhen, check this out.” Vincent had lifted a needle in gloved hands and waved me forward to peer into his scope where he injected some of the live virus into a dish of clean cow blood. Within seconds, the virus began attacking and dissolving the membranes of the healthy cells.
I glanced up and stared at him. It was incredible. Awful, yes, but incredible how such a small organism could act like an army and go to war against a healthy host.
He grinned, and his blond bangs slipped across his cheek. “We should test it against your antibiotics.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You know it wouldn’t work. And your father is probably wondering where you are by now.”
He leaned in and winked. “My father is chair of parliament. He couldn’t care less where I am right now as long as you and I are increasing my education.”
I blink and feel the memory bring up a small ache that feels unfair after Vincent’s behavior last night. I may never have been in love with him, but I did love the camaraderie we had. Or what I’d thought we’d had.
Lute shifts beside me. “You all right?”
“I am.” I slip my arms around my chest because I don’t want to talk about it, and as if sensing my mood, Lute simply tightens his arm around my back and goes silent. Until the memory ekes away and the sun slides up the eastern horizon, and morning dawns with her brilliant birdsong.
The moment we stand my muscles scream in fifty different places. Lute’s, too, by his expression. He grabs my hat and plants it back on my head along with a quick, shy kiss on the side of my forehead before he steps away and we hurriedly return to camp lest they come looking for us. I rouse Seleni, and Lute jabs Beryll and Sam. “Wind’s in our favor,” he murmurs to Sam. “But there’s gonna be a mean riptide.”
Sam jumps up, nods, and turns around to relieve himself. “We’ll have to work the sails.”
I cringe and avert my eyes—tapping the tent before I peek inside. “Mr. King, we’re—”
I go still.
Germaine, Rubin, and Vincent are gone.
What the? Their bedrolls weren’t even slept in.
“Um . . .” I yank the tent flap wide and scan the hillside. “We have a problem. The Uppers are gone.” I look at Lute. How did they leave without us noticing?
“Fools,” Sam snarls. “How long ago?”
“Long enough apparently.” Seleni is pointing halfway down the steep mountainside—where the three Uppers are scrambling for the lake—to a bank just beside a chain of willow trees where a grouping of boats are moored. Four boys are already there struggling to push one into the water. Apparently not everyone from the other camp attempted to cross last night.
“Kids can’t even set a proper mast.” Sam ties his pants and swings around to look at us. The next second he launches down the hillside after them.
We grab our water bags and scramble to follow him—and it doesn’t take long to realize the distance down the mountain is much farther than it looks. We hurtle and slip our way down the steep, grassy incline, and twelve minutes later we are sweating and heaving. By the time we’ve almost closed in on the Uppers, they’ve reached the vessels. They climb in and out of one, then another, before Germaine looks up and seems to realize we’re just behind them.
“Move!” he yells, and directs the boys to a third boat. Within seconds they’ve pushed it off the shore and splashed through the water to climb in. Rubin turns around and salutes us with a smirk plastered clear as day on his face.
“You know, I’m really starting to hate them,” Beryll says.
We make it ten more paces when a small explosive sound reaches our ears and a puff of smoke goes up from one of the boats they’d climbed in first, then left on the sand. A spark of flames surges up and catches the sails, and thirty seconds later the thing is engulfed. They must’ve used the coals from last night.
Seleni has just pointed to the remaining two boats when a cry rings out, and we look over to find a group of three boys from the other camp racing down behind us.
Beryll shoves ankle deep in the water and starts pressing his weight against the stern.
“It’s no good, mate. Someone got to it.” Lute indicates the gush of water pouring into the hull, then joins Sam and me in putting our weight against the other boat.
“Hate to interrupt, but either you hand it over or we’ll hurt your friend,” a voice calls. An accompanying screech from Seleni cracks the air.
We spin around to see one of the three boys pinning Seleni to his chest from behind, while in his other sleeve-covered hand, he holds bloodberries toward her cheek and mouth.
“Whoa. Come on, guys,” Sam says. “Let the kid go. We can all take the boat.”
“Says the dead jerk in our camp who ate those berries that your friend gave him last night.” He yanks Seleni’s head backward and waves the berries nearer her closed mouth.
Her eyes go wide as her breathing quickens and her foot stamps around to connect with either his man jewels or his shin. He dodges and moves two of his fingers up, as if to plug her nose. “A life for a life. Or you can give us the boat.”
Seleni seeks out my gaze. Her expression is a mix of fear and a confidence that he’s bluffing. She drops her eyes to his hands to indicate how bad they’re shaking. I frown. She’s right. This kid’s never killed anything in his life—and from the look of him, he’s just as terrified as the rest of us. I bite my lip and calculate the chances if Seleni and I are wrong.
“Fine, take it.” Lute lifts his hands in the air and steps away, then looks at Sam and me to do the same. “We’ll find another way.”
“But—”
“We’ll find another way,” Lute says to Sam.
“Good choice,” the kid holding Seleni says. He tips his head at the two boys with him, who run ahead and promptly push past us to confiscate the boat. When they have it full in the water, the kid drags Seleni backward until he reaches it, then releases her and the
berries before he jumps up to hoist himself aboard.
The three loosen the sails, and the wind whips and fills them, and within seconds they are following Vincent and Germaine and Rubin, whose boat is already bobbing on the waves thirty feet out. And sixty feet beyond them, the first vessel full of the other boys is reaching the quarter point between us and the island.
Sam lets out a low curse and scans the lake’s edge. “We could’ve taken ’em.”
Seleni nods even as she rubs her arms to stop from trembling. “He was more scared than me.”
“That might have made him more dangerous—simply because it made him incompetent,” I say.
From the corner of my eye, I see Beryll. He’s been standing in the same place for two minutes, staring at Seleni. He rubs his neck, then looks at me before he turns back to the water and promptly tugs off his shirt. “Guess that means we get to swim.”
“There are sirens in the lake,” Lute and I say at the same time.
“I suggest we salvage this wood for a raft.” Sam indicates the boat taking on water.
“Won’t that take too long?” Seleni stares at Beryll’s bare chest, which is surprisingly more muscular than one would’ve thought.
I raise a brow. Then turn back to scanning the bank and then the campsite—with its smoking coals, white tent, and black-painted question that’s too tiny to see but keeps asking, “What do you want?”
The tent sides ripple in the wind that’s picking up. I can almost hear the ropes and white linen snap from all the way down here.
Like a sail from one of the boats we should be on.
I squint. “Lute. What would happen if we attached a sail to a person rather than a boat?”
He follows my gaze and studies the tent with a look of surprise. I can see the wheels turning in his brain. After a moment he nods. “That actually might work. If you three can do some calculations, Sam and I can handle the tents.”
Eighteen minutes later, we’re standing at the top of the hill. Seleni, Beryll, and I are estimating the size of the sails and how long the rope tethering them needs to be, while Sam and Lute are busy stripping down three tents, two of which they dragged over from the other encampment. Once finished, they rig the ropes and sheets together with nautical knots until they have what appear to be a cross between kites and those festival balloons we saw last night.
“We’re doing this by size and weight.” Lute holds out a rope to me. “Sam and I will each take one of you smaller kids. Beryll, you’ll have to go on your own. Think you can handle that?”
To Beryll’s credit, he pushes back any expression of fear, simply tilts his head, and begins tying the rope Sam hands him beneath his arms and around his chest. I watch this braver version of him. What’s gotten into him? Apparently Seleni’s thinking the same, because when I glance over, her face is alight with admiration. So much so that I nudge her to knock it off and let Sam tie her to himself.
Once Lute has lashed the balloon-sail to his and my rope harness, he fastens me to himself—my back to his chest, my waist to his waist, one of my thighs to his. He tugs and pulls long enough to ensure we’re locked in tight, then leans down to my ear. “Ready, Rhen Tellur? Match your steps to mine.”
I’m about to ask what he means when we’re suddenly running and tripping down the steep hill—testing to see how fast and from what part of the sharp incline we have to launch for the sheets to catch the perfect gust of wind. It’s a lot higher and faster than one would guess, which means we end up face-planting into the cliffed slope of grass more times than I care to talk about. As do the others.
But by the time the sun is high enough for its warmth to flood the small valley, we’ve figured it out enough to believe this might actually work. That or we might die.
“Fingers crossed,” Lute mutters. And with that, we take a final run beside Sam and Seleni and Beryll. It’s magic the way it happens. How, just before we hit the second ledge of the mountain slope, the air currents catch the sails and yank them up behind us, and then they’ve lifted us off the ground and we are soaring ten feet off the grass, and then over the mountainside—and then out over the water.
Sam actually hoots, and Lute and I laugh, and even Beryll’s high-pitched scream quickly turns to one of thrill and pride. And for a moment—for this moment, with Lute’s warmth and spirit entwined around mine—I think it’s something I could live in forever. It reminds me of watching Mum and Da play at the seaside—the laughter, their salt-swept hair, and long days of Mum’s adoring smile. I chuckle and my eyes well with tears from the lashing wind and the painful swell such memories bring.
I refocus on Sam’s joyful hollering, which has just turned to deep shouts from Seleni to look out for what’s ahead—where the boat confiscated by the three boys appears to be stuck in a whirlpool. We watch them try to adjust the sails, but the water current is too strong, and within minutes they are spinning helplessly and yelling at each other to do something.
We pass by and have just reached what I guess to be the midway point when Lute tips his head to mine and his lips brush my ear. “I have to confess I wasn’t actually sure this would work.”
I tilt my head to the side and try to look at him. “Then why’d you agree to it?”
His chuckle falls soft in my ear. “Die alone, or die with a risky girl strapped in my arms? Seemed like a good way to go.”
I laugh and make a comment about him being the cushion if we go down, so really only one of us will die. Then I’m pointing ahead of us—to the first boat that went out. They’re so close to the shore they could walk, but two sirens have caught the boat and are trying to board.
I keep hold of the ropes tied around my chest and lean forward ever so slightly. I’ve never seen the ocean ghouls this close before, and a chill skitters down my spine. They’re a combination of beautiful and terrifying. Half fish, half women, their scales shimmer like blue skies in the light. But their hair and eyes look like sparse, decaying corpses. “Is that how they all are?” I yell.
He nods and sets his lips to my ear. “Legends say they were women sacrificed to the sea, the lord of which saved them by turning them into fish. Their human forms continue to decay while their lower halves are immortal. They’ve sought revenge on humans ever since.”
I nod and watch the boys in the boat tighten their sails and yank free from the fish-women long enough to run the vessel up onto dry land.
“Vincent’s boat just made it too!” Beryll’s yell is faint, and I scan to the left to see the three Upper boys lunge out of it and promptly disappear into the forest.
“Where to?” Sam calls.
A canopy of thick, low greenery spans in front of us, like a meadow of trees. Lute tugs one of the ropes and the wind yanks us up higher, giving us a better view of the forested island and keeping us from slamming into the branches we’re fast approaching.
Sam and Beryll do the same, and a minute later a stone structure comes into view. It looks like a white, spiraled bull’s-eye right in the forest’s center. “Aim there,” Lute calls to the others, to which Seleni nods vigorously, then points at the two groups of boys below who appear to be heading for it too. They’re running like wild animals through the foliage, and I can barely make out their shouts to each other to “stick to the path.”
“We’re coming in too fast,” Beryll hollers, and my stomach lurches because he’s right. For all the launching we practiced, we didn’t prepare to land.
“Aim for the path ahead of where they’re running—there’s a clearing around it,” Lute calls back. “Pull your arms together and start tugging the left side down, like trimming your sails. Get as close to the ground as you can, and hopefully you’ll catch it on a branch! Or you’ll get killed,” he adds, for only me to hear.
Before I have time to holler back that nothing about that sounds like a safe idea, Lute’s already showing Beryll how to do it by example. My lungs lodge in my throat as he drops us right above the trees, and a clearing suddenly appears. Lute’
s muscles are straining against my back as he’s leaning forward, his veins rippling along his arms.
He says, “Start running on the count of three.” And then I am running, and he is running, and we are no longer running on air but stumbling and hitting the ground in what feels like something between experiencing an earthquake and having a house fall on you.
We skid to a stop and I lose the will to move for the rest of my short life.
Until Lute tugs the knots loose on the ropes and slides them free so he can roll off of me. His face is inches from mine when he grins. “I keep forgetting you cut your hair.”
My hand flies up, but my hat is gone. It must’ve blown off over the water, or more likely during the landing. I try to cover my head with my hands and scramble around to search for the thing, but it’s no use. It’s gone.
Lute watches me with a glut of amusement. “I would’ve mentioned it over the water, but I like it. It suits you.”
“That’s nice.” I scoff. “Except now everyone else will know too.”
He looks toward where Sam and Seleni are hobbling to their feet and trying to untangle themselves from the ropes after the death landing. Sam keeps yelping.
“I think they already do.” Lute nods to Beryll, who’s got one hand on his nose, which appears to be broken, and the other shielding his brow from the sun as he stares at Seleni. Blood is pouring down his chin and onto his bare chest, and he keeps frowning and tilting his head as Seleni attempts to adjust her clothing. Her hat is missing, and her hair’s come loose in wild puffs around her face, much like a cat stuck in a windstorm.
Beryll’s expression turns to his seventh level of appalled, which I’ve actually never seen. “Seleni?” he whispers. He blinks, then peers around, and his gaze passes right over me before it swerves back to land square on my face. “Miss Tellur? What are you two doing?”
