Isle of Gods I: Damek

by H. Lovelyn Bettison

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two

  Chapter10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter1 6

  Chapter 17

  Chapter18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  From the Author

  Prologue

  It didn’t take long for the water to get rough, but no matter how bad it got there was no turning back. The clouds billowed upward on the horizon, their dark muscular arms stretching across the expanse of sky hiding the sun. I stood on deck watching the inky water churn ahead of us as the rest of the crew rushed around me readying the boat. A knot formed in my stomach and I wondered if it were possible to pass through this storm safely a second time. Flashes of jagged lightning scarred the sky in the distance. The storm looked even more ominous than it had before. This time it seemed determined to sink us.

  Raul limped up to me, the full beard that covered most of his pock-marked cheeks glistened with the spray of the ocean. He was the captain and the epitome of a seasoned sailor. Even when he’d been on dry land for weeks his clothes smelled of the sea. “It’s getting closer,” he said.

  I nodded, preferring silence. I’d been sailing since high school. My abilities though unexplained were common knowledge on the docks. I could do the work of several men for the pay of one. Every captain wanted me on his ship for that very reason, but the only work that interested me was the work on Raul’s ship. We were both hunters, but Raul’s motivation was far different than mine. He wanted revenge.

  “Will we make it through this?” he asked.

  “We have to,” I said.

  “That’s not quite the answer I was looking for.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  He patted my back. “That’s what I like to hear.” Mist clung to his gray beard. He turned and coughed into the wind. “Have you checked on our cargo?”

  I looked skyward. A small patch of blue still peered out from behind the clouds.

  “It will only get rougher. You should check on her and let her know.”

  “Don’t you think she already knows?” I asked.

  Raul crossed his arms and glared at me. He didn’t need to say anything else.

  I nodded, knowing my place on this ship was to take orders not to question. It didn’t matter that I was the one that led us here. This was his ship and his crew and I was happy to be a part of it because it wasn’t too long ago that I thought I would never sail again.

  Part One

  “And it came to pass that before he was created he was chosen, but he knew not. For the chosen only know when their time has come.” Book of Gods

  Chapter 1

  Some men would sacrifice everything to hold their families together. I didn’t realize that I was one of those men until I made a mistake that tore my family apart. Every time I stepped up onto the front porch of the home I once shared with my family to pick up my daughter for the weekend it served as a stark reminder as to why I wasn’t on a ship. I would’ve never thought that it was one of these visits that would eventually lead me back to the sea and back to searching for the Isle of Gods.

  The door was the same, but the locks were different. Lourdes seemed to be taking too long to answer after I rang the bell, and I wondered if something was wrong. I knocked. When we bought the house together four years ago I never thought the day would come when I wouldn’t be living in it. But there I was on the front stoop knocking, like a stranger. It wasn’t right.

  Lourdes opened the door cradling the phone against her shoulder, a baby-blue and white checked dishtowel in her hand. Her gray sweat pants had a few coin-sized holes in the right knee. When we were still together I would stick my finger through them and tickle her. Her green T-shirt was spattered with white paint. It felt like ages since I’d seen her. A week can feel like forever when you’re used to seeing someone every day. Her black hair was short now, exposing her small seashell ears. I liked it better long, but that didn’t matter anymore. Her face was full. That last fifteen pounds of baby weight that she was always trying to get rid of clung stubbornly to her small frame. I liked that too. She’d gotten too thin before Tatiana was born, but my opinion on that didn’t matter anymore either.

  "Just a minute,” she said before lowering the phone from her ear. “Damek, you’re late.” She turned and walked inside without giving me a chance to speak, continuing her conversation on the phone.

  I followed her. She gave a slight bow to the altar sitting in the entryway. A bunch of bright oranges sat in a bowl on the table, an offering to appease the gods. One orange was already covered in a thin layer of white fuzz. Behind the bowl was a small statue of a golden ring, the Sacred Circle. I’d bought that for the house when we first moved in. It was real gold not fake like the one we had when we were renting. Lourdes loved it then, still did. She dusted it daily to show respect. Next to the bowl of oranges was a white leather-bound copy of the Book of Gods. The pages were edged in gold. This copy was never opened. We had other copies in the house for reading. This one was special, just for show on the altar. A thick white candle sat behind the book on a glass saucer. The candle had never been lit.

  Lourdes looked back to see me pass the altar without even acknowledging it. She shook her head disapprovingly. “Hold on a minute,” she said into the phone before lowering it from her face. “You have to honor the gods to keep Tati safe.” She looked at the altar and then back at me. “Tati is a special little girl. You know, a rarity. I can’t have you taking her anywhere if you don’t have the gods on your side. Anything could happen.”

  “Anything could happen whether I bow at the altar or not.”

  She gave me a long stare.

  There was a time when I wouldn’t have let Lourdes push me into something I didn’t want to do, but I wanted to save our marriage. We’d been separated for almost six months. That was my fault. I messed up and I was paying for it. Nothing was official though. Just separate residences, we hadn’t been to court or filed any papers. I was hoping we never would. That’s why I stopped sailing and hunting the gods. I walked back to the altar and gave a half-hearted bow. For good measure I took my index finger to my chest and drew a circle on my breastbone. “Okay?”

  She nodded.

  As I tried to walk past her to get Tatiana she grabbed my arm. “Wait there.” She motioned toward the dining room. “I’ll get her.”

  “I can get her.” This arrangement had grown tired quickly.

  “I know you’re capable. But I have to get her ready.”

  “But you said I was late.”

  “You are, but she’s not ready.”

  “She’s just over a year old. What does she need to do to get ready?”

  Lourdes crossed her arms and looked at me sternly.

  “I’ll wait in the living room,” I said.

  “There’s no furniture in the living room, wait in the dining room.”

  “Where’s the furniture?”

  “I’m remodeling this weekend so it’s been moved. Wait in the dining room.”

  I went into the dining room and sat in one of the hard straight-back chairs just to avoid an argument.

  “Yeah, I know right?” Lourdes said into the phone and then laughed as she walked away.

  Who was she talking to? I wondered if it was a man. Was that who helped move
the furniture? I didn’t ask because it was none of my business, but that didn’t stop the questions in my mind.

  The dining room walls were covered with new maroon floral wallpaper that reminded me of a horrible hotel lobby. She’d started changing everything in the house as soon as she put me out. I was glad she kept some of our old things though. The dark wood table was bigger than anything we’d ever needed. I found it in a classified ad in the newspaper and went ahead and got it without Lourdes knowing because I knew it was exactly what she wanted. I was right. I’ll never forget the smile on her face the day the table arrived. She’d been annoyed because I bought furniture without her, but when she saw it she was pleased. It felt good to be able to do something that made her happy. Seeing the table made me wish I could figure out how to do that again.

  The collage of family photos Lourdes had spent two days organizing when we first moved in still hung on the main wall in the dining room. Pictures from our wedding and honeymoon in the islands were along the top row. We both looked so young then that we seemed to gleam. My mahogany skin was as smooth as a child’s. I had no idea back then how quickly the sea would age me. The goatee I’d grown since covered the dark scar I’d gotten on my chin from an accident on the boat a few years ago. I’d already started growing my hair out back then, but had gotten it cut short for the wedding because Lourdes’s mother insisted. My round face looked so strange in the pictures without the soft black Afro that usually haloed it.

  The next row of pictures featured Lourdes with her stomach as big as a beach ball when she was pregnant with Tati. Below those were pictures of the three of us together when Tati was only a few weeks old. Lourdes rehung them after she’d wallpapered. That gave me hope. Maybe I had a chance after all.

  Lourdes and I had been together for twelve years and married for six of those years. Then one day I came home to find a packed suitcase sitting on the front porch with her mother standing at the front door refusing to let me in. When I told her this was my house she said that I should’ve thought of that before.

  “Before what?” I yelled, but I knew what.

  That’s when Lourdes came out, her face streaked with tears. “Just go,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you now. Go!”

  “How did you find out?” I heard myself asking, knowing that was the wrong thing to say.

  “How did she find out? That’s what you ask? How about starting with an apology?” Lourdes’s mother’s bony finger thumped my chest. She was tiny at just over five feet but her fury was ten feet tall. She’d always hated me. I could see the joy in her eyes as she kicked me to the curb. That was the day she’d been waiting for. She turned to Lourdes and said, “It was destined to happen this way. I could feel it the day you brought him home, but we had to just let these things play out. At least you have Tati.”

  Lourdes nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  I started toward the door pushing past Lourdes’s mother. “Let me say goodbye to my daughter.”

  Lourdes met me with an outstretched hand. “Right now, I need you to leave,” she said.

  I wanted to explain myself but I knew there wasn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t sound like an excuse or an accusation. I took the suitcase and stayed at a friend’s place. That was almost six months ago and since then my whole life had been turned upside down. I stopped sailing because Lourdes never liked my sailing anyway. And if I was going to get her back I needed to be here, not out at sea. Problem was, I didn’t qualify to do much else as far as work went. I ended up doing odd jobs here and there. Most employers these days want you to have some kind of degree and I dropped out of school as soon as I could. It wasn’t that I didn’t like learning, it was just that I didn’t like the methods they used for teaching. I could get along a lot better with a book than I could with a teacher any day. Nobody really cared how many books I’d read though. That left me scraping the bottom of the barrel for work.

  It had been a struggle, but I did find a little studio. I didn’t have to sign a lease which was just what I wanted. I knew me and Lourdes would be back together soon.

  I shifted in my chair and drummed my fingers on the dining room table. Divorce wasn’t anything I planned on, but I guess nobody gets married thinking they’ll get divorced. I wanted to be the best husband and father possible. I didn’t have that growing up so it was important for me to show that I could give it to someone else. My dad ran off when I was too young to remember. After that my mother started going downhill, drinking a lot and the drinking gradually progressed to drugs. She was always in trouble. She certainly wasn’t fit to take care of me. That’s when my grandmother stepped in. She loved me, but she couldn’t really fill the hole left by not having my parents around. She knew that too. When your parents don’t want you that can put a special kind of hurt in your soul.

  I didn’t want my kid to feel that way. That’s why divorce wasn’t for me. I was going to get Lourdes back. I knew I should’ve thought about that before I went screwing around, but Lourdes could be so hard sometimes that I just wanted something easy. Brenda was easy. I mean she was easy to please. She made me feel good. She saw the value in what I was doing. When I came back from a long trip she wanted to hear all about it. She understood that I didn’t hunt the gods because I wanted some kind of fame or glory. I hunted the gods because I wanted to help. They’d stopped answering our prayers years ago. I just wanted to make them see that we still needed them. Lourdes didn’t get that. Whenever I was getting ready to go to sea she’d complain and we’d end up arguing right before I left. Then when I got home she’d tell me about everything that went wrong when I was gone. Brenda never harped on me like that. A man needs that. No matter what my reasons it was the wrong thing to do, I knew it and that was all the more reason to make it right.

  Suddenly I started feeling kind of woozy. I leaned forward in the dining room chair and put my head in my hands. The air seemed to be moving in waves around me like heat rising from the road in the middle of summer. I looked up and on the wall in front of me an image slowly started to appear. It was like an old photograph that had accidentally gone through the wash. At first it was all grainy and muted but then it slowly got brighter. It was a woman with long, wavy black hair and copper-colored skin. She had a pointy nose and deep-set eyes. Her face was bare and bright. There she was on the wall all of a sudden. I looked around. Then I looked back at the wall, and she was still there. She wasn’t still like a painting or anything, she was moving. I could see her turn her head from side to side and push her hair behind her shoulder. She leaned in as if to get a better look at me. Could she see me? Were we looking at each other? I didn’t know.

  I got up from my chair and walked around the table to get a better look. “Lourdes!” I called. I wondered if this was something she had seen before. “Lourdes!” I repeated, my voice quivering slightly.

  The woman didn’t seem to be able to hear me. She just stared at me unblinking as I yelled.

  Lourdes didn’t answer.

  I ran my fingers along the edge of the picture of the woman, trying to figure out how she could possibly be there. It wasn’t a projection. If it was one, my shadow would’ve been blocking it. It was coming from behind the wall, but how? As I got closer to her she leaned back like she thought I was getting too close, like she thought I could reach out and touch her. I touched the wall right where her face was, but could only feel the smooth surface of the wallpaper beneath my fingertips. A woozy feeling washed over me again. I gripped the wall and looked down for a moment to find my balance. When I looked up, she was gone.

  Lourdes came into the dining room holding Tati. “Listen. I’m sorry about just now. I didn’t mean to be rude to you. It’s just that I’ve been stressed. Work’s so busy and with all the remodeling I’ve been doing there hasn’t been any downtime.”

  I looked at the wall again and then at Lourdes. “It’s okay. You weren’t rude.” I wasn’t really paying attention to what she said. I could only think about th
e woman. Who was she? How did she get there?

  Tati laughed. Her hair was up in two little Afro puffs. Deep dimples sank into her fat caramel-colored cheeks. She held out a chubby hand to me, and I reached for her, taking her from Lourdes.

  “I just saw the strangest thing.” I pointed to the wall. “Have you ever seen anything weird in here?”

  She shrugged, uninterested. “Here’s Tati’s things.” She handed me a small pink backpack with her name written on the back in black sharpie marker.

  “Lourdes, has there been anything weird going on in this house?”

  She shrugged again and this time the right corner of her mouth raised as she did. “Like what?”

  “I saw a woman on the wall just now.”

  Lourdes looked at the wall and then looked back at me. “Who was it? Brenda?”

  I shook my head. Why was she doing this now?

  “Datty,” Tati said, pulling on my T-shirt.

  I’d been so busy thinking about the woman I’d just seen on the wall that I forgot to even say hello to her. “Hi, baby. Daddy’s missed you so much.”

  “You take good care of my baby girl,” Lourdes said.

  “She’s my baby girl too.”

  Lourdes gave a slight bow to the altar again as we passed it on the way to the front door. I stepped outside and she said again, “Keep her safe.”

  “Of course I will.”

  As I left Tati raised her hand to wave goodbye to her mother. I looked back briefly and saw Lourdes holding the gold ring-shaped pendant that hung on a long chain around her neck up to her mouth and muttering something, probably a prayer. As we got into the car I heard her call out, “From eternity to eternity and always.”

  “Always,” I said back to her wondering what it all really meant. As I strapped Tatiana into her car seat a sense of dread washed over me. Everything in my life was about to change.

  Chapter 2

  Tatiana cooed and giggled in her car seat. “You’re happy today aren’t you?” I said.