Soon she came upon a suitably dank and shadowy alley and dove inside. She found a decent hiding spot behind a mound of old crates and crouched there, hugging her knees, hoping the merchant and his helpers hadn’t closed in when she’d nearly blown her cover. If they found her, they’d turn her in to the King’s Men for punishment. And supposing they discovered that the skinny, dark-eyed boy in ragged trousers and an old gray coat was actually a twelve-year-old girl? That would absolutely scuttle.
Anyway, hers had been a valiant crime as far as crimes went. She’d do it again in an instant, no hesitation. Just fifteen minutes ago she’d been slinking along between the docks, looking for a shiny, green lime or a stray doubloon to pocket, when she spotted a merchant with a great big cage full of birds. Having always been partial to winged things, she approached and instantly felt her stomach turn when she realized what kind of birds the merchant was selling. Only one island creature had such beautiful, ruby-red feathers, marked by a single band of blue and green on each wing.
The Islanders had called them “aras.” They’d nearly been killed off completely a few decades ago when the King’s Men first invaded the islands to harvest exotic wood and spices and send them back to greedy King Aberhard. The birds’ beauty had been their undoing. As soon as the King’s Men arrived, they began to blast them out of the sky, then ship their red feathers back to the Old World in overstuffed canvas sacks. Rumor had it that every night, King Aberhard rested his big, greasy head on a pillow stuffed with ara feathers. The thought made Scarlet’s blood simmer.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Old Worlders of all kinds, from spice merchants and wood cutters to plantation owners and pirates, soon descended on the islands as well, hoping to get in on the pillaging and plundering, especially if it unearthed a bounty of precious jewels. The native Islanders, who’d lived in leafy huts and tended garden plots on the islands for hundreds of years, watched with increasing alarm as these pale, brisk men invaded their homelands and spread Old World diseases among them. Islander numbers fell as hard and as fast as the trees around them, and one particularly deadly plague, known as the Island Fever, was rumored to have killed them off completely.
Scarlet hated that story. It made her stomach ache just as badly as the story of the aras. For perhaps the thousandth time, she wished she could have done something to save them.
And so, when she saw the merchant’s cage nearly overflowing with the rare red birds, Scarlet wasted no time in committing her crime of passion. She marched right up, grasped the doors of the cage with both hands, and yanked them wide open.
The aras needed no instructions. Out the doors they flew, a long, red ribbon streaking across the sky toward the jungle and hopefully home.
Home. Scarlet bit her lip as she watched them, and for a moment she forgot that she was a criminal, being sized up by a seething merchant with bloodshot eyes and bared teeth…
“Stop the boy!”
Tucked away in her hiding spot, Scarlet heard the merchant and a few other men run past, boots crunching on gravel. She let her breath out in a whoosh, then grinned. She’d saved some powerless creatures and made life a little more difficult for the gluttonous, overdressed Old Worlders. Wishing every day could feel so productive, she stood up and dusted off her grimy trousers. Now she’d just sneak out, find her crew, and regale them with the tale of her daring adventure. Maybe it would inspire them in their own mission. They were, after all, in dire need of inspiration.
She stepped out of the alley, blinked in the sunlight, and headed back toward the docks, pulling her cap down low over her eyes, just in case.
A new ship had docked in port—a great big schooner with Old World flags quivering in the silver afternoon sky. Passengers stumbled from its deck to the dock, looking stunned and grateful to have both feet on firm ground. Most were King’s Men, smoothing the wrinkles in their coats and trousers. But two of the travelers, neither one in uniform, stood out against the crowd. One—middle-aged and fat with a shiny scalp—studied a compass. But it was his companion who drew Scarlet’s attention: a smallish boy around her age, staring slack-jawed at the busy port before him.
She knew right away what had brought them there. These days, sailors lay anchor in the islands for one reason alone: to search for treasure. Around the time the Island Fever had begun to rage—some seven or eight years ago—one of King Aberhard’s underlings began to speak of a treasure he’d come upon. Unfortunately, the man—Admiral Something-or-Other—perished of the fever himself before he got around to explaining exactly what the treasure entailed. But he had captured the curiosity of the king, who promised a hefty reward to whoever found the mysterious thing. Even now, years later, boatloads of pirates, merchants, and King’s Men flocked to the tropics, practically drooling at the notion of unearthing the treasure. Most even enjoyed the mystery surrounding it—at first, anyway.
Scarlet studied the boy, noting his tailored coat and stiff, shiny boots. His companion’s clothes were slightly more weathered. She wondered how the boy would fare in this part of the world. The islands, rife with drunkards and thieves and generally unsavory types, didn’t exactly cater to children and their notion of fun.
Maybe… she squinted at the sun, still high overhead. She had a good hour before she had to meet her crew. She could follow these two, just for a bit, to find out what they were about. Children didn’t arrive in port every day, and Scarlet knew it was her duty to check this one out.
The boy’s traveling companion, maybe his father or some other relative, was pointing to the tavern and patting his protruding belly. Hungry, of course; they’d probably eaten little but hardtack since leaving the Old World. And judging by their tailored coats and stiff, shiny boots, they were more accustomed to dining on roast duck and buttery pastries than gnawing on the rock-hard biscuits that passed as dinner on board a ship. The boy was smoothing down his sandy-brown hair and adjusting his cuffs as if the tavern might have a dress code. Scarlet snickered. The only clothing requirement in port was a sturdy pair of boots, spacious enough to house at least one dagger.
She waited a moment after the pair marched into the tavern, then slipped inside herself. One good thing about the port towns was that the pirates and King’s Men who inhabited them were so busy eyeing one another, hoping to catch the other in some wrongdoing, that they didn’t notice much else. They rarely noticed stray children wandering around. Unless, of course, those stray children let themselves get spotted while, say, releasing animals in danger of extinction. Scarlet reminded herself to keep a lookout for the merchant with the bloodshot eyes.
The boy and his companion claimed two rickety wooden chairs on either side of a table sticky with rum, and the boy, looking ravenous, stared around him, eyes unblinking. Scarlet scanned the dim room, barely half full of sailors at this time of day, and slunk along the wall to a dark little nook not far from their table where she could stand for a while without being noticed. The tavern owner gave the newcomers’ well-dressed figures a once-over, then hurried into the back with promises of fresh fish.
“After a good meal,” the older man was saying, “we’ll reconvene in our boarding house and discuss plans for tomorrow.” He spoke with an educated accent and an air of authority that Scarlet decided would drive her mad after a day or two. “I’m going to ask Captain Noseworthy about hiring a small sloop to take us there. We’ll have to find a few trusty shipmates to join us for navigational purposes—men who won’t take off with the…” He lowered his voice. “The you-know-what.”
Scarlet leaned toward them. She’d bet her front teeth she knew what! But everyone and his monkey had a theory about where the treasure was hidden. Could these two really know any better? She listened closely.
“Do you think,” the boy said as he tried to find a clean spot on the table to settle his elbows, “that these men are real pirates, or do you think they just read the stories and dress up like them?”
The older man shushed him, and Scarlet stifled a guffaw.
Real pirates? This one had obviously never set foot off the Old World. No wonder his eyes were so wide.
“Quiet, Jem. Don’t say anything that might get you stabbed. Now look, I think it would be most useful if tonight you reviewed the botany journals I gave you. You’re going to need to identify everything from Mondatricus triceriaptus to—”
“Yes, Uncle Finn,” the boy named Jem said with a little groan, as if he’d heard this a hundred times before. Scarlet frowned. She wouldn’t know a Mondatricus triceriaptus if one tripped her and sat on her. Nor did she know what it had to do with the treasure. “But I’d much rather—”
Just then, their fish arrived, and the two tucked in, barely surfacing for air as they devoured every morsel on their plates in concentrated silence. Once finished, they paid and stood to leave. Scarlet followed, for she, too, had business to get back to.
Outside, she trailed Jem and his uncle until they rounded the next corner and stepped into another dim alley, at the end of which stood a ramshackle boarding house. Scarlet was about to let them go on their way when she saw a strange sight: a shadow—no, two shadows—pressed up against the alley wall, frozen and silent, waiting. This didn’t look good. Shadows in a dark alley almost always meant bad news. Scarlet was about to call out a warning when a hand clamped down on her shoulder and spun her around, knocking off her cap. “Gotcha!” a gruff voice proclaimed, and she found herself face-to-face once again with her favorite merchant.
The man started at the sight of her long, dark hair. For a moment he softened his grip on her shoulder, as if unsure what to do. Then he seemed to remember something—probably the sight of the aras streaking across the sky—and he dug his tobacco-stained fingers into her skin again. “So the little thief’s a girl, is he?” The merchant shook his head and sneered.
Scarlet squirmed under his grip. “Um, she,” she said, scanning the alley for an escape route as best she could without making it too obvious.
“Heh?” The fury faded from the merchant’s eyes, replaced momentarily with uncertainty.
“She,” Scarlet repeated, buying herself some more time. “You said, ‘So the little thief’s a girl, is he?’ And that would make he a she. See?” There was a big stick nearby—if she could just reach it, maybe she could pound him senseless.
“Oh.”
“Hm. Pronouns. Tricky things.” Ah. A ladder. Even better. It seemed to reach up to the rooftop of the building on her left.
“Er. I…” The merchant now looked thoroughly confused.
“Right. Think about that for a while.” With a few swift motions, Scarlet squirmed out of the man’s grasp, stomped on his right foot, booted his left shin, and made a dive for the ladder as he keeled over, swearing. She scaled the rungs like a monkey, pulled herself up onto the roof, then ran to another edge so she could look down on the alley where she’d last seen Jem and his uncle.
They’d disappeared and so had the two mysterious shadows. Scarlet ran farther along the edge of the roof and saw several figures ducking down another lane. Two of them seemed to be struggling, accompanied by the unmistakable clang of pirate cutlasses.
“Scurvy!” Scarlet cried, for now it was too late to help them. If only she’d been quicker or more aware of that blasted merchant’s whereabouts. Jem must be terrified, she thought. He was, after all, only a child, unused to the dangers of…
Scarlet paused for a moment, then snapped her fingers and laughed out loud. A child in need of help. Right here on the islands. She couldn’t have planned it better herself! It was exactly what her crew needed.
But now she was wasting precious seconds. She scanned the scene below her until she found the pirates and their prey and watched until she was fairly certain she knew which ship was theirs. Then she drew a breath and ran straight to the edge of the rooftop. She leaped across the gap to the next building, which she knew had a rain gutter, for she’d shimmied up and down it before during port raids. She put two fingers to her lips and let out one shrill blast, then another. The signal. Her crew would meet her at the ship, hopefully right away. There was no time to lose.
The Lost Souls’ adventure continues!
Scarlet McCray was beginning to regret going barefoot. At the time, it had seemed like a jolly idea. After all, her feet hadn’t even known a stocking for the first five years of her life. So why, she’d reasoned, confine her toes to some rat-eaten boots now that she was back in the place of her birth?
Except that now as she crept through the jungle, twigs snapping under her heels and burrs burrowing between her toes, she suspected she’d been too hasty in handing them off to that monkey who’d eyed them hopefully.
Maybe it was the funny kink in his long black tail. Or the way his fur stood up on one side of his head, like he’d just rolled out of bed. Whatever it was, Scarlet had been charmed into trusting him.
“But look, Monkey,” she’d said as she tugged the boots off her feet, “you’ve got to take good care of these. I’ll need them next time we set off on the Hop for a supply run.”
The monkey had responded by snatching up the boots, pinching his nose, and scampering off, leaving Scarlet to wonder if she’d ever actually see them again.
She pushed aside a massive fern and climbed over a rock nearly as big as herself. Then she stopped to concentrate. At first she felt nothing, but after a few moments… yes, there it was. A faint tremor. And if she stood perfectly still and squeezed her eyes shut, she could feel something else. Uncertainty. Panic. Somewhere on the island, there were animals in distress. And it was up to her to find them.
Unfortunately, in a place like Island X, so full of surprises, this was no easy job.
It had only been a month since Scarlet and her crew had first set foot on the X-shaped island, but in that time she’d made more amazing discoveries than she had in her entire life. To start, she’d realized that Island X was, in fact, her birthplace. Scarlet was part Islander—one of the only remaining members of a culture killed off when people from the Old World came to the islands, bringing diseases and despair. Perhaps even the only remaining member.
And if that weren’t overwhelming enough, she’d also discovered that somehow she was able to channel the island’s animals and feel what they were feeling. If a flock of parrots rejoiced in the fruit of a nearby tree, her heart felt light and joyful. If the chief of the local band of smelly wild pigs had slept badly the night before, she felt that, too. It was a huge honor, an amazing ability. Not to mention totally perplexing.
The problem was, she could never tell when an animal in distress needed her help. Just an hour ago, for example, she’d followed a panicky feeling to its source, only to find the monkey with the kink in his tail having a temper tantrum because his brother had stolen his breakfast of termites. (He quickly got over it when she agreed to lend him her boots.)
Then, as soon as he’d left, she’d channeled another upset feeling. This one, she was fairly certain, came from the aras, her very favorite kind of bird. And while it was possible the aras were simply being harassed by hummingbirds, it was also possible that they were trying to warn her of something far more important. Like, for instance, a troop of treasure-hungry pirates. So she had no choice but to search for them—which was what she was doing now.
“If only I knew where I was,” Scarlet grumbled, looking around the jungle with her fists on her hips. She concentrated hard. It was like a game of Hot and Cold, which the Lost Souls sometimes played on board the Margaret’s Hop. Someone would hide a “treasure”—usually a lime or a piece of hardtack—while someone else would get blindfolded. Then the crew would yell “Hotttt!” or “Cooold!” as the blind one wandered toward or away from the treasure. In Scarlet’s case, though, the feeling of distress grew stronger the closer she came to the anxious animal.
It felt strongest over to her left, but as she took a step in that direction, her foot sank right into a patch of amber-colored mud. “Blasted boots,” she growled as the mud oozed between her toes. “And blasted monkey.�
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Trying to ignore her mucky foot, she inched toward some soft, leafy shrubs. “Maybe if I just cut through here…” Scarlet slipped between the shrubs, pushed through a wall of ferns, and found herself standing underneath the trees that held the aras’ nests. Exactly where she wanted to be.
“But how… ?” She looked up into the tree branches and sighed. Her new talent was just one of many things about this island that she didn’t understand. Its geography was another. Not for the first time, she wished her crew’s only map hadn’t been stolen by the treasure-hungry pirates. But then, she reminded herself for what must have been the millionth time since they’d landed on the island, what kind of Islander needs a map?
“An Islander who was forced to forget all about her island, that’s who,” she muttered.
When Scarlet was five years old, the Island Fever had struck her village, and her Islander mother had fallen ill. She’d begged her husband, a former admiral for the King’s Men, to take Scarlet off the island and keep her healthy. Scarlet never saw her mother again.
Her father, John McCray, had returned to the King’s Men, leaving Scarlet with a governess named Mary Lewis (aka Scary Mary), who’d made every attempt to erase Scarlet’s memories of her old life. She’d even forced her to do awful things like curl her hair and wear petticoats and learn English.
Not that the English lessons themselves were awful. It was being forced to forget her language that truly scuttled. Now, with no other Islanders around, Scarlet doubted it would ever come back to her.
She studied the tree branches above her until she spotted a sparkle of red. Then she concentrated hard. The aras’ distress was gone.
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