Cave of Bones (Dark Island Series Book 2)

by J. D. Matheny

  “She also asks to know where your child is now.”

  19

  Sophie chewed on her lower lip, her mind working through the problem. What will this woman do if I tell her the truth? she wondered. What can she do if I don’t? Her mind raced back through the dreams and through the details that Jacob had provided her when they had been together on the island. This creature, this Daucina God, seemed too formidable an opponent to just sweep in upon. Surely, if all this truly were real, they wouldn’t be capable of just walking in and taking Kai back. They would need help, assuming these people were willing to help, or even capable of doing so. But that was their only choice.

  “My baby was taken from me. In a dream. By this Daucina. I gave birth in my dream, in a temple on Vaqava, and when I woke my child was gone.” Saying such a thing out loud brought everything to the forefront of her mind and she realized then how much she had been shielding herself from the stark truth of her situation. A great stream of tears burst down her smooth cheeks and she buried her head in her hands to hide her shame. Through her hands she bellowed out, the words muffled, “He has my baby! He has Kai.”

  Noni stood before them, towering over them as if she had somehow doubled in size. Even Thomas seemed shrunken before her. The eyes of the old crone blazed at Sophie, yet her words where chilly. Lomate, who appeared now to be dwindling into himself and wishing he had never agreed to return here with his two foreign friends, whispered out her words to them.

  “Perhaps there is help for you. Perhaps there is not.”

  With that, the woman swept from the tiny house and was gone. Thomas reached out to take hold of his little sister while Lomate just stared at them both in horror.

  “Where is she going, Lomate?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to know. You both kept these secrets from me! Why would you bring me into this nightmare? I have a family! You should have said these things to me. You should have let me know the truth so I could choose to be a part or not.” The mask of fear that had been on his face was being replaced by a fierce anger.

  “You’re right, Lomate. I thought it was just a boat ride, but you’ve become more involved than that. I am sorry. Truly I am, but we needed help. Will you stay now, or will you go?” Thomas watched him, his sister still shuddering against him.

  “I wanted to help you and your sister, Thomas, but I cannot go further with you. I have children waiting for me at home. If you intend to come back then I will take you, of course, but if you will go to your death on that island then I will not join you.”

  “Go on, then,” said Thomas. “I will not leave my family behind, even if death is waiting for me.”

  “Good luck,” he said curtly, and swept out through the doorway. Just like that, he was gone.

  “Thomas.” Sophie’s head was still buried against his chest as she was shaking it back and forth, almost as if to deny all that was happening. “Thomas, you should stay.” She looked up at him now, her tears halted, and the green of her eyes showing brilliantly even in the darkness of the room. “If this thing really is a God, and from what has happened to me I see no reason to deny it, then what chance do we have? I have to try to get my baby back, and maybe I’ll die doing it, but there’s no reason you have to.”

  “Sophie,” his voice sounded injured, “how could you think I would abandon you? Or Kai? You won’t be going alone. I don’t want to hear anything like that from you again.”

  She looked at him gratefully and placed a hand on his cheek. Her big brother, ever her savior. How many times had he come to her rescue? How many times had he been there to comfort her when she had made mistakes or suffered from a broken heart? He was the rock her life was built on. Ever since mother and father had been taken away. Maybe with him by her side this hopeless journey wouldn’t be so hopeless after all.

  “Well then, it seems we’ve been abandoned by all. We have no help from the village people and we have no boat. Will we be swimming then?”

  Just then a large figure appeared in the doorway. The Chief was back. He stared down at them, huddled together on the hard dirt floor. “Come.” Then his formidable mass was gone.

  “Do you think they’re going to kick us out?” Sophie was staring at Thomas, but not in fear. These people didn’t scare her as they might have only minutes before. They were going off, just the two of them, to wage battle against a god. What could these people do to scare them?

  “Only one way to find out.” He lifted her up next to him and they both left the pitiful house, blinking wildly into the sunlight as though they’d just emerged from a long and dark captivity.

  Outside, the village had gone completely quiet. It appeared as if all the residents had found better things to do and went off to do them, leaving them alone with only the Chief, and standing beside him looking bent and withered like before, the sorceress of the village. They were facing Thomas and Sophie, standing in the clearing before the church where they had previously been welcomed with a kava ceremony, what seemed like ages ago.

  “Well, there’s no warriors standing around in grass skirts waving sticks at us, so that’s a good sign I guess.” Thomas looked down at Sophie with a crooked little smile before leading her up to the Chief and his Vuniduva.

  “Roko Josefa, you summoned us?” Thomas stood two feet apart from the imposing figure of the village Chief, his head tilted slightly upward and his shoulders squared. Despite his joke about primitive warriors he looked as though he expected an actual physical confrontation. But none came. When he spoke, his voice was friendly.

  “Noni has told me of your … situation. My father was chief of this village, and his father before him. On and on it has been like this, for too many seasons to count. My ancestor was Chief when my people left Vaqava and he died to get them here to escape sickness brought by the white man. Or possibly, as they thought then, a curse from Daucina for making friends of the white man.” He looked back and forth between them, a grave look on his face. “He also brought them to escape Daucina. It is true that our people were blessed by Him, we lived well and never went hungry. But Daucina is a tricky God who can be cruel. Always He wants power and He has a strong lust for women. Even the wives of the Chiefs were not safe from Him,” he said. There was anger on his face and Thomas and Sophie didn’t have to guess why. “Vaqava is His home and He is strong there. Not strong like before, but if He has done these things you say, then He is strong still. You intend to go to Vaqava? To see if your baby is there?”

  Thomas and Sophie both nodded at him.

  “Then Noni will go with you. You will take one of our fishering boats and the three of you will go to the island together.” He looked down at the shriveled woman beside him. “Noni may be old and small, but she will be of more help to you in this than all the warriors of the village. It is not through the strength of your bodies that you will overcome Daucina. Only one who knows the old spells can hope to stand against Him.” Chief Josefa took a step forward and placed a giant hand on each of their shoulders. “Listen, my new friends, I do not know what will happen. None of my people have ever challenged one of the gods before. It may be He cannot be defeated. Noni says she can help, though I do not know how, but I will tell you this. Be fast and be quiet. If you are lucky, He will not know you are there until you are gone. If He does, then I would tell you to run.”

  With that said, the small woman beside the Chief only snorted and moved off toward her small home, her thin robes swirling around her. One moment she was clear as day and the next she was gone through a wall of darkness.

  “She will only take a few moments to gather some things. Come! Do not worry, she will join us soon. The Vuniduva have a great interest in the gods and will not pass an opportunity such as this. Let me take you to the boats.”

  The Chief wound his way down through the village toward the water. There was an eerie silence that persisted, as if each person of the village were holding their breath at the same time. Sophie looked around with a great deal of uneas
e, feeling as if they were now most unwelcome. Thomas just stared straight ahead with a determined look on his face. If he registered the shift in his surroundings then he didn’t let on.

  After just a few minutes they were down at the water, where there were four small boats, with equally small engines, bobbing on the waves. The Chief approached the nearest one, waded into the water, and peeked around at the engine, unscrewing caps and replacing them with small little grunts of satisfaction.

  “You have plenty of fuel and it is a short trip.” He turned and pointed out to the North and a little West. “The island is that way. Just keep the sun where it is in the sky. Do not worry, you will only need to go a short time, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, then the island will come into view. If you do go off track, Noni will point you in the right direction.”

  As if by magic, Noni appeared behind them, brushing past Thomas, and climbing into the boat with a deftness that belied her advanced age. She was dressed just as before, in a thin, dark robe but now had two narrow satchels at her sides, one over each shoulder. Taking her place at the front of the boat she faced out over the blue sea and waited in silence, not once casting them a look or uttering a word. A wave pushed up on shore that was twice as big as the rest, lifting the boat and rocking it back down again, causing it to slide two feet further down the sand and out toward the open water.

  Did she do that? Sophie wondered. She watched the old woman apprehensively and noticed that, despite the upheaval of the boat, she never reached out to grab the hull of the craft to steady herself. She simply sat and waited.

  “Good fortune! I expect to see you soon! If all goes well you will be back before the darkness falls.”

  “Thank you, Roko Josefa.” Sophie really was thankful. Despite her feeling she had been shunned by everybody in the last hour she still felt lucky to get what little assistance they had. Besides the information, they were getting a boat, and without that their rescue mission would be dead in the water. No pun intended, she thought with a shake of her head. Not only that, but even this creepy old lady with the bent back and prune-like face seemed to emanate some hidden strength and having her with them gave Sophie some small amount of comfort. With that thought, she hauled herself up into the boat and sat on the hard wood of the middle seat, directly behind Noni.

  Thomas reached his hand out toward the Chief, who grabbed hold with a firm grip and pulled him close. “I have never seen Daucina, or any god for that matter, Thomas. But I believe my father and my father’s father and all who came before. You do not want to face a god, Thomas. Even one who has lost most of his power. Be fast! You should go straight to the temple in the middle of the island, that is the best chance to find the child. Be very fast! Go there quickly, get the child, then get back to the boat.” He still held Thomas’s hand, their eyes locked just as firmly. “I do not know just how much power the Vuniduva holds but she is stronger than she looks. And if you do have to fight, I have given you a gift, one that has long been in my family. It is under the cover by the motor.” His eyes moved down to the stern of the small boat and Thomas’s eyes followed. Tucked against the hull, near the engine, was a piece of green canvas, something bulging beneath it.

  “Thank you, Chief. We’ll be back.”

  With that, Thomas grabbed the boat and gave it a powerful thrust, pushing it out into the water. He hopped in and took his place as the Captain. With two strong pulls the engine was spitting and firing and they glided out to the open sea and toward what felt like the end of the world.

  20

  Bolo had finished stringing together all seven walls of his family’s new home and was looking forward to standing them up. Right now, those walls were just individual puzzle pieces lying about on the ground, but once they went up into place and were fastened together, the puzzle would take form and the real beginnings of a home would appear. He had dug holes at a corner where each wall would go. The corner bamboo on each end of wall was cut longer than the other. This would allow him to brace the longer piece in the hole and erect the wall without the base sliding around on him. Bolo was a fisherman, not a builder, but this seemed like an idea that would work.

  He stretched himself out, feeling the burn in his lower back creep all the way up into his neck. A rest would feel good but he was eager to continue progress. As grateful as he was to Daucina for this new path in life, he was a little uncomfortable now to be staying overnight in the Bure Kalou. He couldn’t have pinpointed why. It might have been the scene earlier, watching his wife scrabble in the dirt, caught up in some dark vision that obviously terrified her. If Daucina thought it was necessary, then who was Bolo to question? Still, it had unsettled him. Push on, Bolo, he thought to himself. If you don’t want to stay in that place then Sala won’t either.

  Yet, she was there now, wasn’t she? There hadn’t been any real hesitation. She hadn’t asked for him to go back with her and check for boogeymen. Like the strong woman she was, she simply walked off on her mission.

  She loves the baby. The thought struck suddenly. It was a worrisome one. He had never given the baby any real consideration. It was Daucina’s baby. But what did that mean, exactly? For the first time, the fate of that tiny little creature crossed his mind. Will he kill it? It’s a foreign child, why else would he want it in place of a true Fijian child? The train of thought he was on made him uncomfortable, but if that was the child’s future, what could he do about it? He didn’t know. What he did know was that his wife was bonded now to the child and if anything bad happened to it, things would get ugly very quickly.

  Enough thinking Bolo, you’re better at working than thinking. He walked over to the interior of his budding home and went to positioning the feet of one wall over the holes he had dug. In the middle of each wall he had tied a separate bamboo pole at the top. Once he pushed it up he intended to wedge the pole against the ground, which should hold the wall in place plenty long enough for him to secure it further.

  Just as he was readying himself for the heavy lifting he stopped, thinking something around him had changed, and took in his surroundings. The forest had gone quiet. That was never good. Bolo knew the sounds of the forest, it was always alive with the calls of the wild and the skittering of a hundred different creatures. If there was silence then there was a reason. His thoughts went to the shadow creature that appeared to him earlier. Strangely, he hadn’t given it much thought in the last several hours. Too much going on. There was no telling what the thing was, but he didn’t get the feeling that it meant him harm. It had shown him something. A face. A woman’s face. Was it back to show him more?

  Just then a fat drop of water splashed down right on the bridge of his nose and he had to blink it out of his eyes. Then another drop hit. And another, until they were bombing down all around him.

  Fool! he thought. Look at the sky! Feel the air! He looked around, noticing now how the clouds were forming and feeling the wet silence of the air around him. There was a purple color in the sky to the Northeast. A storm was coming.

  Without any further hesitation, he set off at a jog toward the Bure. All Fijians knew that the weather could get out of hand quickly on the islands. It was not the season for a cyclone, but things could get bad in any case. As he thought it, the wind began to whip around him and the rain was pelting down hard enough to make it difficult to see. The air around him was darkening, as if God himself had swiped his great brush across the landscape, giving it an ominous tint that pleased him. No, not God, you fool. A god. There is not just One. There should have been four hours or more until dark but the great clock must have been sped up. Darkness was creeping in all around him.

  He reached the water, and after a brief look along the shore, realized that the raft was on the other side. Sala must still be there, which was good. He jumped in and began to swim. It wasn’t something he was strong at. Most of his time in the water was spent either at shore bathing or in a boat, floating along. Rarely did he find the need to swim anywhere. His strokes were powerful b
ut inefficient, and once he reached the opposite shore he was huffing and puffing. With muscles and lungs aching, he walked up the sand and climbed the stairs to the Bure.

  Entering into the small temple was like entering a completely different world. The spattering of the rain quieted and the rush of the wind died down to nothing. The interior was lit with two burning torches that cast a warm, orange light all about the room. His earlier misgivings at the idea of staying there for the night were suddenly dissolved. Once he saw his wife, laid out on the altar, and sleeping peacefully, a small olive head with a dark tuft of hair poking out from her enclosed arms, he felt just as good as he had all day.

  Not wanting to wake her, he moved to another doorway and stared out over the water and into the jungle beyond. His eyes swept back and forth, taking in the mounting aggression of the storm outside. It had a certain beauty to it. Bolo had always liked storms. Cyclone season could be a little scary, mostly out of fear of people losing their homes or belongings, but there were good things that came out of even those giant monsters. Anytime a cyclone swept off the sea and over their island his beautiful wife would shake in fear. Which normally isn’t something he would be pleased about, except in those cases she would look to him for comfort, and that did please him. He enjoyed being the protector. It was his proper role as a man and a husband.

  He also enjoyed the lovemaking that inevitably occurred during those scenarios. He would always hold her and whisper to her, telling her that it was just another storm, they had been through many. She would always shiver and shake, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the dark. Eventually his caresses that were intended to comfort would take on a different intention. It was the best way to distract her, he would tell himself. It always worked. She would end up forgetting about the storm for a while and the passion that rose out of her was like its own storm. Bolo cherished those moments when they would lay silently next to each other, totally and completely spent from a long night of vigorous lovemaking.