by S.A. Bodeen
Sarah tipped her head back and gazed up. “Is this the same one I fell off?”
Marco crossed his arms and looked around. “This might be the end of that valley. At least, the opposite side of where it ends.” He turned all the way around and let his hands drop with a slap onto his thighs. “I’m confused now.”
“We’re lost?” asked Sarah.
“No, we can always go back on the path. I’m just trying to figure out how to go farther this way.” A pile of boulders lay there, covered with vines. He walked over to them and started to climb.
“Seriously?” Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Because we haven’t had enough cliffs for one day?”
Marco looked over his shoulder at her. “I’m just going up a bit, to see if I can see something.” He grabbed at the vine on the top boulder for a handhold and it snapped.
“Whoa!” He fell back onto his butt and slid down the boulders, landing on the ground with a jolt. He winced and put a hand on his back, which stung from being scraped. “Ow.”
“Marco.” Sarah sounded funny.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking.” He stood up and brushed himself off. But Sarah hadn’t moved. She stood there, gawking at something behind him.
He turned. By tearing off the vine, he’d uncovered the boulder. Two identical circular indentations about the size and shape of doughnuts sat across from each other above the top of a jutting portion of stone. Beneath that a crescent curled up into a smile.
“It’s a face,” said Marco.
“A face rock.” Sarah pointed at it. When Marco didn’t say anything, she repeated, “A face rock. What Cash said Fox was searching for!”
Marco put a hand over his mouth for a moment. Impossible. Fox had seen the island and had discounted it, ruled it out as the one he’d been marooned on. “But Cash said that Fox had taken one look and said it couldn’t be the island, that there had barely been any trees on it.”
Sarah glanced sideways at where they’d come out of. “But this island is jammed with trees.”
“Yeah, now,” said Marco. “Maybe they weren’t here when he was.”
Sarah shook her head, “I’m no expert, but I know trees don’t grow that fast. And don’t you think Fox would have mentioned the rhinocorn or the bird with a stinger on its tail? Or the Curator?”
Marco said, “But how do you explain it?”
“I don’t think any of this was here when Fox was marooned. I think all of this—happened—since he left.” She paused for a moment. “And in that time, at some point, Captain Norm came here and found that trunk.”
Marco nodded. “But it still doesn’t explain how all this ended up here.”
“I know,” said Sarah. “Which is why we need to find the answer.”
Marco shook his head. “Oh, no way. We are out here to look for your dad and my brother. We’re not here to look for something we may not want to find.”
Sarah swallowed. “But what if my dad isn’t okay? What if he got taken just like Cash did?”
“So you believe her story now?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. With everything we’ve seen, how can we not believe her?”
Marco nodded. “I know. But your dad is okay. Ahab was with him. He wouldn’t have let anything happen to him.”
Sarah said, “Marco. Nacho doesn’t have Ahab. He’s alone. Just like Cash was.”
Marco felt his heartbeat speed up. What if Nacho was in trouble? And what if Cash had been telling the truth? And what if the same thing that happened to her was going to happen to his little brother?
Sarah looked over at the rocks. “Do you think that’s the way to where Cash got taken?”
Marco stared at the rocks. If there was any possibility that his brother had been taken, he was going to find him. Marco sighed. “I have no idea. But it’s worth a try.”
13
Sarah began to climb, avoiding the vines in order not to duplicate Marco’s mistake. But to keep her balance, she had to set her scraped hands on the boulders, which made them sting even more than they already did. She tried her best to ignore the discomfort as she kept climbing. When she reached the top of the stack of boulders, she stuck her face into a foot-wide crevice. Light came through from the other side, about fifty yards away. “There’s a passageway here!”
“But Cash didn’t say anything about that,” Marco called from below.
Sarah leaned back and looked down at him. “But she didn’t know how she got to the Curator’s cave, remember? She went into the trees and the net fell on her, and the next thing she remembered, she was waking up in her cell. She doesn’t know how she got there. And neither do we.” For a moment she studied the crevice, thinking there was no way anyone could have hauled Cash through there. Sarah was not a fan of enclosed spaces, and this space looked far too tight for her.
“I’m not even sure we can squeeze through here.” She turned sideways and reached out an arm into the crevice, then took a step. The walls were close, only inches away from her on either side. “Nope.” She stepped back out and called down to Marco, “It’s too skinny, I think.”
Marco held up his hand. “Well, now what?”
Just as Sarah started to climb back down, the ground rumbled beneath them. From her high vantage point, Sarah saw gray flashes through the trees as a creature ran by. She pointed. “The rhinocorn—it’s back! Hurry!”
Marco scrambled up the boulders. “Go!” he yelled.
Sarah’s heart pounded. “Into the crack?”
“We don’t have a choice!”
Sarah turned sideways and slid into the crevice, hoping that the walls wouldn’t get any closer together. “Marco?”
“Made it!” said Marco, breathing hard. “This is tight.”
Sarah felt his hand brush her shoulder and sighed with relief. She tried to turn her head, but smacked it against the hard wall. There was no longer enough room to turn her head around to look at him. Her heart began to pound harder, and her breaths became shorter and quicker. “Marco?” Her voice shook.
His voice had a forced calm to it, far more cheery than usual. “Just keep going. Slow and steady. We’ve got this.”
“Okay.” She slid one foot to meet the next, slid the other one out, and then repeated the actions, slowly closing the gap to the other end of the crack in the rock. The space continued to tighten, the walls closing in. A scream bubbled up and she swallowed it. Instead, she shouted, “I want to go back! I want to go back!”
“I don’t think I can,” said Marco.
“What do you mean?” Sarah cried.
“Well, for one, the rhinocorn is probably waiting out there for us.”
“And that’s it?” Sarah asked. “Maybe it left already.”
“Um, not the only reason. I don’t think I can go back,” he said. “Please, you’ve got to keep going.”
Sarah shut her eyes and took a deep breath. You can do this. You have to do this to find Dad. She opened her eyes and focused on the light, less than twenty yards away. Her feet scuffed as they slid and she heard Marco do the same behind her.
“That’s it,” he said. “We’ve got this.”
One step at a time, one shallow breath at a time, Sarah made her way closer and closer to the end of the crevice, the seam of light growing bigger with each moment. With only a few feet to go, the passage narrowed so that the walls scraped against her back and front. She swallowed down a scream. And then, with one last step, her lead arm was free, out in the air, followed by her head and one leg, then the other, and finally her other arm.
She took a few steps into freedom, then doubled over, hands on her knees, and blew out a breath.
“A little help?”
She lifted her head.
An arm waved at her from the opening. “I think I’m kinda stuck.”
Sarah walked over to him. Marco’s face was sideways, his body crunched between the two walls. She took ahold of his arm and yanked.
“Ow!” Marc
o grimaced.
Sarah dropped his arm. “Sorry.”
“No, don’t stop. You have to pull.” Again, he held his arm out to her. “I’ll suck in as much as I can.”
She widened her stance, gripped his arm, and pulled with everything she had. She felt him move slightly toward her, so she took half a step back with one foot and pulled again. Something gave, and suddenly she fell backward onto her butt.
Marco landed right next to her, facedown. “Oomph!”
“You okay?” she asked.
He lifted his head up. His cheeks and chin bore several scrapes. “Yeah, thanks. Better than being stuck in there.”
Sarah nodded and looked back at the crevice. “I just thought of something.”
“What?” asked Marco.
“There’s no way my dad would have fit through there. Or Ahab. I was so worried about wondering how Cash got to the Curator that I didn’t stop to think about who we’re really looking for.” She sighed.
“I was going to say something, but…” Marco stopped.
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “But what?”
“I just have a gut feeling. I feel like…”
“What?” whispered Sarah.
“Cash’s story is real. Everything about it. And I feel like Nacho or your dad … that they are already there. With the Curator. And we have to get there however we can.” He lifted and lowered a shoulder.
“It’s not like we had a choice.” Sarah sighed. “It’s too late now. We can’t go back through there. But where do we go now?”
“I think, maybe…” Marco pointed. “There.”
Sarah twisted her upper body around. A path curved around another set of boulders, disappearing after about thirty yards. “Is that it?”
“Only one way to find out.” The canvas bag had fallen off his arm when he fell, so he picked it up as he got to his feet. Marco held out a hand to Sarah and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet.
She brushed herself off and followed her stepbrother.
14
The path led them into the trees. They kept walking. Marco was so tired of looking at trees that he just focused on the ground as he walked, avoiding roots and vines.
Sarah gasped.
Marco stopped and turned around.
Her eyes were trained over his head, and he slowly leaned his head back and followed her gaze. A tree branch stretched out straight above them. Ripe orange fruit dangled from it, and Marco reached up and plucked one. The shape was that of an orange, but instead of a dimpled peel, it had a shiny skin. He held it up to his nose. “Smells like an orange.”
“Don’t eat it!” said Sarah.
“I think it’s okay.” With a crunch, Marco took a small bite and chewed. The texture of an apple with the taste of an orange. Odd, but not bad. Kind of fun. He reached up and plucked one for Sarah. “Try it.”
Sarah scrunched up her nose, but took a small, tentative bite. Her eyes lit up. “That’s kinda good.” She took a bigger bite.
Marco reached up and picked a few, then put them in the bag. They kept going for about a hundred yards, where the path led them back onto the beach. Marco stopped to look back the way they had come.
“Are you kidding? We could have stayed on the beach and ended up here.” Sarah sounded frustrated.
Marco checked the angle of the shoreline compared with where they had gone through the woods. “I don’t think so.” He smiled. “Actually, I think we stumbled on the shortcut.”
“But Cash said she ran out of the cave right to the beach,” said Sarah.
Marco said. “I know. But that may have been the long way. Like going around the outside of a circle. We cut off part of that circle.” He looked at Sarah. “So, yeah, I think we maybe could have gotten here from the beach, but it would have taken us longer.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “So if my dad and Ahab stayed on the beach—”
“And my brother,” added Marco.
“They could still be walking! Maybe we can still catch them.” Sarah began running down the beach. She stopped and waved her arm at him. “Come on!”
Marco firmed up his grip on the canvas bag and ran after her. He hoped she was right, that they would run into John and Nacho before they encountered the Curator. Because then he and John could go on, find the person Cash told them about, solve the mystery.
Or—what sounded like a better option to him at the moment—they could all just go back to the beach and hope that Cash’s grandpa showed up to rescue them before the Curator came looking …
Sarah was quicker in the thick sand, so Marco moved down to the harder-packed layer so he could catch up a bit. He happened to look down and stopped running. “Sarah!” he yelled.
She slowed and turned around, walking backward. “What?”
He pointed down. “Footprints.” He set his foot next to one of the deeply imprinted tracks not yet washed away. His foot was bigger. “They’re my brother’s!”
Sarah jogged toward him, panting. “What about my dad? Or the dog?”
Marco shook his head. “The tide is already washing some of these away, and they would have been here before him…”
“So they’re gone,” said Sarah. “If they were even here.” She wiped away a tear that Marco hadn’t noticed fall. She looked up at him with watery eyes.
“They were here,” he said. “I know they were.”
“How do you know?” Sarah sniffled. “We have no way of knowing.” She glared out at the lagoon.
Marco hesitated, then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
She glanced sideways at it, then up at him.
“We’ll find them. All of them. My brother. Your dad. The dog. We will.” He swallowed. “I promise.”
Sarah gave the slightest of nods, then swiped a hand across her eyes and turned away. “Let’s go then.” She started walking again.
Marco took a last glance at his brother’s footprints and followed Sarah up into the soft sand. They walked in silence for close to a half hour, trudging through the sand as the hot sun beat down on them. They stopped to get a drink and Marco looked at the lagoon longingly.
Sarah watched him as she took a warm sip from the plastic bottle.
He pulled the collar of his drenched T-shirt away from his skin. “I’m sweating to death. Worse than this morning.” He asked, “Think we could jump in, just to cool off?”
Sarah’s bangs were matted to her forehead and her face was red and sweaty. “But we need to find them.”
“I know, but just like five minutes. It would reenergize us so we could move faster.” Marco raised his eyebrows. “Please?”
She nodded. “Okay. But I’m not getting salt water in my clean hair.”
They went down to the water. Sarah sat down to remove her shoes. Marco kicked his off, peeled off his socks and stuffed them in his shoes, then pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it by the canvas bag. Running into the waves, he dove, surfacing a few yards farther out. His wet hair clung to his face as he turned to face the beach. He flipped it out of his eyes. “It feels as good as the waterfall pool! Woo!” He went under again, then popped up, bobbing there.
Wading in, Sarah seemed content to get wet up to her shorts. She leaned over to cup some water and toss it onto her face. She grinned.
Marco figured they would regret this later. The salt would dry on their skin and feel crusty and unpleasant, but he was too hot to care. Maybe they could go back and swim at the waterfall when they’d found everyone. Maybe his mom would even feel better and want to go.
Sarah jumped as a wave came in, then laughed. She started to wave at Marco, but her arm stopped midair. The smile dropped off her face, replaced by an open mouth and wide eyes.
Sarah pointed beyond Marco and screamed.
Marco didn’t even look to see what it was; he just assumed something bad. He began a rapid overhand crawl, as fast as he could, trying to ignore his pounding heart and trembling limbs.
“Marco!” Sarah kept sc
reaming his name.
Marco didn’t stop kicking and stroking until his knees brushed the sand. He stood and plowed through the waves until he could run, then tripped and fell in a heap at Sarah’s feet.
He rolled onto his back, panting, and looked up at her.
Sarah said, “Shark.”
He shuddered. That’s what he’d been afraid of. He lay back and shut his eyes, panting, relieved to be out of the water. He was definitely only swimming at the waterfall from now on.
“Marco.”
He opened his eyes and gazed up at Sarah. She still seemed frozen.
“What?” he asked. “I made it. I’m fine.”
She shook her head and pointed at the lagoon. “Something isn’t right.”
Marco sat up. About ten yards offshore, a dorsal fin paced back and forth. “He’s so slow.”
Sarah nodded. “And that’s a really big fin.”
Marco got to his feet. “That’s too shallow there. How is he even swimming—”
As if the beast had heard them, the fin stopped moving parallel to the shore and turned. Then it stopped completely, not moving at all.
“That’s not possible,” whispered Sarah.
Marco said nothing; he simply watched.
The fin began moving again, inching toward the beach, heading straight toward them.
Marco’s hands trembled. “That’s way too shallow.” He started to back up and Sarah stayed with him. She grabbed their shoes and Marco’s shirt and stuffed them in the bag, then hooked her arm through the handle. “There’s no way that—”
The fin came closer to shore, rising higher as the water grew shallower. Silvery gray flesh appeared, until the shark’s monstrous pointy, cone-shaped snout emerged, dripping; the black beady eyes on each side stared, unblinking.
“It’s a great white,” whispered Marco. He didn’t think there were supposed to be great whites in the South Pacific.
“What is it doing?” yelled Sarah.
Marco shook his head, but took a few steps back, his heart pounding faster now than when he’d been swimming.
The shark’s gigantic mouth dropped open, revealing rows of white triangular razor teeth set in a cushion of red.
