Stopping, closing my eyes, I say a sort of prayer requesting Tilly’s guidance.
“Help me?” I whisper to the forest, and it’s more than clear I’m not only asking for help to find eggs. Tears prickle behind my eyelids at the thought of Tilly, and I realize this is the first I’ve been alone in a long time. In the absence of prying eyes and questions of concern, I allow my tears to fall freely. I cry for Tilly and for Duke. For Will and Jude. For the little ones and Lewis. For poor Jack and Tommy. Noah and Henry. Even Shiloh. No one asked for this.
Finally, I cry for myself. For Olive Maxi Gagmuehler.
Step by step, I walk the forest aimlessly, sobbing, but keeping an ear out for any clucking.
When I’m all dried out and the crippling weight on my shoulders has lightened, I realize where I am. It’s like I’m opening my eyes for the first time since arriving.
My boulder sits before me. The huge thing is still mossy. Still enormous. I walk up to it. Touch it. It’s cold and fuzzy and hard as ever.
When I pull my hand back, cinching the hammock I’ve made with my shirt to hold my bounty, several nuts slip out, tumbling to the ground.
“Damn it,” I swear under my breath, crouching to pick them up. As I crawl around the base of the boulder, gathering the nuts, this time putting them in my pocket instead of further overflowing the makeshift hammock, something catches my eye. There’s a shimmering just on the other side of the large rock like heat waves rising above the Texas sidewalks in August. I squint, unsure if I’m seeing things when I’m hit with the unmistakable scent of popcorn. My mouth instantly waters.
Inching my way closer to the illusion, I crawl until I’m face-to-face with the bizarre and barely-there shimmering. The sun now up, from this angle, the reflection, image—whatever it is—glistens in lucent rainbows, pearly like a bubble.
Cautiously, in super slow motion, I poke at the iridescent waves with my forefinger, which disappears behind them. I yank it back.
Both my hands stretched out in front of me, forgoing all I’ve gathered for breakfast, allowing the items to fall out of my shirt and scatter to the ground, I reach toward the mysterious opal waves.
My hands disappear. But I don’t pull them back this time. Instead, I get even closer, swallowing hard and, breath held, sticking my face right up to the surface.
Closer and closer I move until my chin is in. I don’t feel any change in sensation, no pain, no alarm sounds off, I can still breathe. I figure it’s safe to keep going, so I push my mouth and nose in, then my eyes, and lastly my forehead.
A cornstalk tunnel greets me.
I gasp and scramble in reverse, bumping back-first into the boulder.
Home.
That was definitely home.
I could return right now and, in a matter of seconds, be back in Hillings where beds and showers and French fries exist. Lucky and Tawny and Mom and Dad. And, oh my God, chocolate and movies and clean clothes.
But… The others.
Though, what if this is my only chance to get back? What happens if I leave and return and the shimmering disappears?
But I can’t go.
Not now.
Not this way.
Shit.
Eggs and nuts and fruit forgotten, I sprint back to the cave-tree.
I arrive to Lewis, who stands outside our home like he was watching for me. I’m out of breath and can barely form the words, but manage, between breaths, to spit out a nonsensical sentence that includes, “heat waves” and “boulder” and “home” and “get the others.”
Once Lewis deciphers and translates, everyone follows me back to the boulder. As we speed-walk, I don’t stop talking, explaining my morning, the egg hunt, the nuts, and how I almost accidentally went home.
God, I nearly went home. My head spins at the thought. The endless what-ifs.
When we get there, I’m out of breath again, hunched over, hands on my thighs, verging on hyperventilation.
“There,” I say, pointing at the shimmer, thankful it hasn’t vanished.
“Whoa!” Bug shouts, tip-toeing up to the wavy window like a cat stalking prey.
“Careful, Bug,” I say, glancing over at Will, unsure of what might happen.
Will jumps in front of her.
“Hey!” she shouts.
He gives her a look that lays to rest any ideas she had of messing with the iridescent waves.
“Fine…” she mumbles, backing away.
Will moves forward, taking her place.
“So this is what it looks like?” Lewis says, following Will closer to the surface. He runs his hand in front of it as if checking for heat or static. “Fascinating.”
“It’s so subtle,” Will adds. “I’d have never noticed it.” His face is close as he studies the practically invisible door back to the corn maze. “Is that…popcorn?”
I nod.
Charlie, Bug, and Jude all step up to take a whiff. Their eyes widen at the magic that is freshly popped popcorn.
Out of nowhere, Jude shoves his hand into the waves.
“Jude—” Will begins, but his warning is useless because nothing happens. Jude’s arm goes through the bubble as if it isn’t there. He then takes a step right through it.
Nothing.
“Hmph,” Jude grunts. “Damn it, I really want popcorn now.”
“I wonder…” Will says, following suit. He encounters the same result.
Everyone has a go at the mysterious, shimmering pane, passing through it without ceremony until I’m the only person standing on the other side.
“Can you see it from over there?” I ask, gazing through the barely-there iridescence at all their faces.
“No, we only see you,” Will answers. A slight tugging at his lips, he shoots me a crooked smile. “Try again,” he urges.
Pulling my sight from his lips, I nod, pushing my hand into the waves. It disappears.
“No way!” Charlie shouts and I jerk my arm away.
“That thing’s here for you and only you,” Jude says.
I nod.
But what now?
We brainstorm the entire walk home, deciding to visit each of the places on the island where the others had arrived. With each one, we grow less and less hopeful. Lewis’s, Jude’s, and Bug’s haven’t opened. No heat waves. No shimmers. Charlie’s and Will’s were obviously closed.
Last, we visit Tilly’s. She had shown up on the northern side of the island, near the largest, windiest section of beach.
Palm trees sway like a sad dance, as Jude leads the way. Once there, next to an overgrown prickly fruit bush, there, along with the strong breeze, shimmer the now familiar heat waves.
“Holy shit,” Jude mumbles, his hand placed over his mouth.
Holy shit, indeed.
The irony and tragedy and sorrow is overwhelming.
No one says another word, and we walk back to the cave-tree in utter silence.
“Let’s get this straight,” Lewis says, tapping a stick of charcoal against the inside of the cave-tree wall where he’s already jotted down all sorts of theories and ideas from the obvious to the completely unrealistic. “The boulder is a regular destination for us. We pick food there, gather firewood, trap pigs…” He glances at me and I playfully scowl. Lewis grins. “No one’s ever seen anything like what’s there now?”
We all shake our heads.
“So we can assume the window is new,” he states to himself more than anything.
We rarely venture to the north end of the island, so it’s hard to say how long Tilly’s window has been there.
I glance at Jude. He sits in silence in a sort of hard daze, not saying a word since we arrived at Tilly’s place. Damn it—poor, sweet Tilly. The echoes of that horrible bomb still ring in my ears. What a terrible way to leave the world and for such a gentle creature it’s doubly tragic. Wrong. Then there’s the irony… She’d arrived at the island running from bombs and left it with one hugged close to her chest.
Wait.
My body is taken over by goosebumps.
I stand.
I walk toward the wall where Lewis scribbles the charcoal down to nothing.
Everyone stares at me.
My arm thrust outward, palm up, I wait for Lewis to give me what’s left of the charcoal, as my mind reels over and over, worried if I don’t toss the idea endlessly, I’ll forget. Lewis, albeit reluctantly, sets the black charred chunk of burned stick in my hand.
I write it as it appears in my brain:
Tilly + runs from bombs = the island
Tilly + faces bomb head-on = window home
Turning on my heels, I wait for a reaction—a round of applause, a series of gasps. What I get is shocked silence. But they’re with me. And surely, they get it.
Just in case, I say, “What if…to get off the island, we have to somehow face what we were running from when we arrived?”
“Makes sense for Tilly, but what about your window?” Jude breaks his silence to point out the flaw in my theory.
“Well… I don’t know.” I shake my head because I hadn’t thought that far before I jumped up and started writing things in front of everyone. I lean against the wall and slide down it until I’m sitting, knees pulled into my chest, wracking my brain for answers, jotting down crazy equations in my head as Lewis drones on with speculations and lists.
Olive + runs from the Trio = arrival on the island
Olive + x = window home
x = ?
Tilly’s equation was so clear.
Mine looks like a complete cluster of crap. Unsolvable.
But…
What if Tilly’s equation wasn’t so easy? I mean, I’m looking from the outside in. Of course, there’s more to it. If we asked Tilly, she’d have a much different answer to “what were you running from,” right?
And, if looking from the outside in, what would one see of me? My reasons for running?
The answer comes like a flash of lightning: my name.
Simple.
I’m so defined by that name.
And searching on the inside, that name has been the scale of which I’ve measured myself for so long.
So, was I running from myself?
Maybe.
If so, what about myself do I fear so much that I’d run from it?
I fear the unknown without a doubt. And I’d thought that by doing the bare minimum, by not fighting back, even as shitty as it was at school, at least, it wouldn’t get worse. The Trio had become predictable in a way, and there was safety in that because it meant I wasn’t bringing conflict onto myself.
Because I also fear conflict.
Instead of facing the Trio all these years, I’d run from them, hoping they’d go away or stop noticing me or move on without me. In doing that, I’d chosen avoidance over coping and confronting both the Trio and myself, my name.
But getting stuck here, thrown into everything, I’d had no choice but to confront my fears. The unknown? God, everything about this place, including its existence, is one big unknown.
And, Olive Maxi Gagmuehler? It’s like I had to figure myself out to survive. Face bullies and friends and family and all the conflicts that came along with it. Realize my name is simply that—a name.
But all of that happened slowly over time. And the window appeared recently. I glance up at the wall, where I scribbled Tilly’s equations. I think back the short distance to that day on the mountain. That seemingly defining moment when everything seemed lost and I blew everything I had into that damn horn.
I inhale a slow, heaping gasp and it’s like I can finally breathe.
That hyperventilation that’s always right on the surface clears, leaving nothing but a beautiful openness in a place previously in constant constriction.
With that act, stepping forward, blowing the King’s horn, and taking charge, I’d faced all I’d run from head-on. Like Tilly and the bomb, but I’d been my own bomb.
x = confronting myself.
With a therapeutically deep breath, I stand and write:
Olive + running from confrontation = arrival on the island
Olive + confronting herself = window home
I explain my epiphany to the others and they accept it. They believe me, but it’s also all we have to go on.
We spend hours in deep speculation and endless lists and equations until the wall is covered in math graffiti like a genius’s—or madman’s—chalkboard and all our hands are stained charcoal black.
Individually and together, we come up with an equation for each of us. They’re full of question marks and speculation and missing components, but, more than anything, they’re full of hope.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Windows
On the way to the mountain, which is much closer from our new home, we decide not to divulge our findings to the Panthers. Not right away, anyway.
Shiloh waits outside for us when we reach the cave. She’s sitting on a rock, riffling through the tangles in her long hair. When she sees us, she stands. “You came.”
“We said we would,” I say.
She nods, narrowing those deep green eyes of hers. “Follow me. Everyone’s waiting inside.”
“Everyone?” Will asks.
“Everyone.”
Everyone.
Duke is still alive. My shoulders soften in relief, but at the same time, my stomach tightens with suspicion. God, this could be a trap. As much as I want to believe we’ve smoothed things over, I can’t completely ignore the fact we were at war yesterday and for years before that.
“We’d prefer to meet out here. More neutral territory and all.”
Shiloh huffs but concedes. “I’ll get the others.” She disappears into the mouth of the cave.
No one says a word.
One by one, the other Panthers emerge. Tommy, shirtless as always, seems eager, but skeptical, and Henry, sling of knotted rags cradling his broken arm, flashes me a dimpled smile I can’t help but return. Last is Noah who carefully carries Duke, still wrapped in the blanket, but conscious and so different from the Duke I’ve come to expect. He’s boyish. Small. Frail. His eyes squint into slits at the burning sun, and Noah sets him just inside the entrance. Duke winces in pain, his head falling to one side. He’s close enough so he can hear, but is out of the blinding sun. He keeps his eyes down.
Aside from Duke, we’re in two lines staring across at one another. Two sides. Divided, yet connected by a common goal.
Bug grabs my hand.
Shiloh steps forward. “Truce?”
Will takes a step toward the Panthers’ side but stops. Glancing over at me, he nods, then steps back in line.
This is my thing, isn’t it? “Truce.”
The Panthers then sit on the ground. We follow their lead.
Shiloh opens her mouth to speak.
“But first, there are just a couple things we” —I stare down the line— “need to know first,” I say.
“Like?” Shiloh asks.
Lewis nudges me because he’s dying to know about the bombs—how they made them, where they found the materials. But it isn’t necessary. Not now. What’s done is done and we need to keep things peaceful. But before he loses it and blurts the question out himself, I jump in.
“This war has gone on for years. We know why we’re willing to come together now, but we…” I glance at my family. “We need to know why, after all of this time, are you?”
Shiloh takes a deep breath and glances down the line at the boys. “From the moment each of us arrived, Duke…” She stares back at the cave, at him, her eyes questioning. Duke keeps his head down. Is he even listening? “Well, he spoke about nothing but how horrible you all were. How Will was assembling an army who could strike at any moment. He told us his personal stories about Will and what a monster he was, how he’d stop at nothing to kill Duke and all of us on his side. When Olive injured Jack and he died, we were convinced.”
Tommy looks away. I shrink under my skin.
&
nbsp; “But we know it was an accident.” Shiloh’s eyes soften. “Just like we never meant to hurt Annabel. Yes, we caught her and held her as leverage. The plan was to lure Will in. Duke felt if we got rid of Will, the rest of you would join us. As you know, that didn’t work out. Annabel escaped and fell trying to climb up the cliffs. We agreed to claim responsibility for it, to intimate you all.” Shiloh wraps her hair into a knot on the back of her head and crosses her arms in front of her stomach.
“After that, Duke changed. I mean, he was intense before, but it got worse…” Again, she glances down the line and back at the cave opening and the lump that is Duke sitting under it. “Still, he was our leader and we’re loyal. Always. We’d follow him to the end of the earth and back. Maybe we did.” She seems to reflect on something then sniffs and straightens her shoulders. “But now… After everything… We just want to get home.”
I look to my right. Jude and Lewis nod, Charlie raises his eyebrows. I then glance the other direction. Bug shrugs her shoulders. Will nods, his jaw tight, but not in anger. His expression is one of hope.
“We have some theories on how to do that,” I say.
Lewis explains the “face what you ran from” theory and tells them of my shimmering window and how it appeared sometime after I blew the horn and brought us together. He’s got their full attention, because they all entered the island under similar circumstances: on the run, evading various demons. When he’s finished, Shiloh stands.
“You have to see this.” She motions for us to follow her into the cave.
The others look to me and I nod.
Everyone follows Shiloh toward the cave entrance. When Noah makes to lift Duke back up, Will stops him, whispering something only they can hear. Noah nods and steps away. Will lifts Duke, cradling him against his chest.
My throat closes up with emotion as a wave of goose bumps covers my body.
Duke stares at Will like a helpless child, so trusting, so vulnerable. But it’s still Duke. King of the island. The miscreant who almost killed us all. The war paint under his eyes is now smeared with sweat and dirt and ash and dripping dark red like someone cut a couple of slits under his eyes—less menacing, more wounded. Will and Duke enter last, just after me. Despite the fact that they’re a ways behind me, I can hear Will whispering to Duke, his words nothing but hushed secrets.
The Castaways Page 20
