The Dark Atoll

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  I said, “OK, we have our assignments. When we finish those, we’ll move on. What’s the inside of the house like?”

  Toni and Bebe noticed that half the Nomads were moving but somewhat slowly, and there seemed to be some grumbling a bit and arguing about the plan. The two of them called all of Toni’s women together and had a conference and convinced them to listen to the plan. It looked like they agreed after just a few minutes and all of them went off to their assigned tasks more enthusiastically. I saw Bebe give me a sign that everything was OK. The trust and comfort level was growing and it looked to me like they were ready to work with me. That left Ariel and I alone. The girls all knew what to do for now. Allie understood what to do to the roof. Christie and some others rushed to clean furniture. Cleaning the furniture could have waited; we could have just shoved it to the side but cleaning it was important for the sake of us feeling safe here. The dead needed to be cleansed from the house.

  Ariel stood beside me, holding my arm against her body. I was getting used to it and had even forgotten that she was there until she spoke again.

  She said, “Hi. I’m Ariel. I waited for you. Welcome home.”

  CHAPTER Twenty-Four - Ariel

  I turned to the tiny woman, who I hadn’t really talked to at all yet, and said, “Ariel, do you know me? Who are you? Where did you come from?”

  Ariel squeezed my arm and said, “Florin, I had to say what I said. I know what I know. How can I know how I know? Please, don’t be afraid. We need me.”

  I thought that she was starting to cry a little. She was so strange but in a way no stranger than Allie or Christie or Bebe. Each of them was different and so broken that they were difficult to communicate with. They communicated fine within their own context but in my broader context, we had to learn each other’s languages. What was Ariel trying to tell me? What was her context?

  Ariel’s context was listening to the sky and the wind, and possibly, the dead. If I had heard things right and understood anything, Ariel had been alone for a long time. Even the Vegetables had periodic contact with other people. It sounded like maybe Ariel had been completely alone. She didn’t act like she hadn’t spoken though, so I assumed that she had been talking to herself, to invisible spirits, or to imaginary friends. None of the girls could remember having ever seen her before. She must have been out of contact for a very long time. I didn’t really know if she was even part of the group that had crashed here after taking off from Hawaii.

  But Ariel seemed to be staying, so I would be patient and get to know her. I’d help her if I could. If not, she’d…well, I didn’t know what she would do if I couldn’t help her. Toni claimed that she was my problem now. I hoped not. I didn’t need another problem. Wait. The last thing that Ariel had said was for me not to be afraid of her. She had said, “Please.” So she was aware that I might have exactly the feelings that I was currently facing. I was a bit afraid that she was too broken and that the way that she clung to me now was going to be a problem. And she knew that the way that she was acting could be a problem for me. That was a really good sign. She was apparently highly self-aware. Possibly empathic. She was telling me to try to get past who she seemed to be so that I could find out how we needed each other. I wondered if she knew what she was saying, or if it was unconscious. Either way, it was good advice.

  Ariel suddenly said, “Good! Thank you!”

  Wait, she couldn’t read my mind. How did she sense the change in me? Oh, she was holding my arm. My gosh! She was reading my mind to a degree. She was so attuned to my involuntary autonomic responses that she read my muscle tension and body posture and unconscious facial expressions so well that to her it was the same as if I had spoken out loud. Well, that’s what I assumed from how she was acting, anyway. I couldn’t know but it was the easiest explanation.

  I relaxed even more and tried to silently express acceptance of her. And in response, she moaned softly and rubbed her cheek against my arm.

  I said soothingly, “Ariel, welcome home. Hey, can you answer some questions for me?”

  She had her eyes closed as she said, “Do you love me?”

  I didn’t want to lie to her.

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  She nuzzled my side again and said, “Thank you. I love you too, now. I waited for you. Florin, it doesn’t matter that your brain can’t say what you mean. I heard you. You love me. I understand that you are still a little afraid. Don’t say words if you don’t know what words to say. I can hear you if I hold you. Please listen to my story. Can I stay?”

  Before I could answer, she said, “Good. I’m glad.”

  I said, “Ariel, do you want to tell me your story?”

  She said, “Not yet. When we are together. Our house and the canoes. Oh, wait! No. They won’t hear me. I will tell you and you can tell them.”

  For the next hour, Ariel told me her story. It was disjointed and mysterious the way that she told it. Some of it could have been said in a fraction of the time; some would have warranted another hour with someone who didn’t understand her context. I asked questions where I needed to. We were sitting on the ground, watching the flurry of activity as the women worked but as I listened to Ariel, time seemed compressed. Bebe and the others seemed to move far faster than how time was passing for Ariel and me. As I fell into a new pattern with her, a peaceful bubble formed around us and the girls outside the bubble moved four times as fast as we did. And as we talked, it seemed to me that Ariel became less ethereal and easier to understand.

  Finally, Ariel said, “That’s enough for now. They need you,” and she stood and pulled me to my feet.

  Sure enough, all four of my lieutenants were approaching, ready for status and new direction.

  After a short greeting, I got a status report. A crew was continuing to pile vegetation on the roof. Three others were gathering palm branches and stripping leaves to be used for weaving with the plan that we would make mats during the evening hours. Allie enjoyed the weaving and felt that we should make mats. The defiled furniture had been scrubbed and was back in place on the covered veranda for now. Two of Toni’s crew were towing a canoe full of the dead off to the burn site and would return when the wind died down. The bodies were so emaciated that they all fit in one of the large watercraft.

  The next item on the agenda was to see about the house. This time, as we moved toward the front door, everyone was together. The Nomads were mingling freely with my family and even with me.

  The house was built to withstand the occasional hurricane. The glass along the front of the house was thick and shatterproof but there were also hard shutters that could be pulled across the windows for extra protection. We made sure that they moved easily and left them open for now.

  Inside was a large combination open living room, kitchen, and dining area. Farther in was six bedrooms, each with a bathroom; some with just a toilet and sink; others with walk-in showers and jetted tubs; and some in between. At the back of the house, on the northeast corner, was another, smaller, living area.

  There were several questions along the way, but Scout was the one who asked about lights. She and the others had seen that we had working electricity at the little house that the girls and I had stayed at and wondered just how dark it was going to be indoors with the shutters closed at night during a bad storm. My next task would be to check out the power and water situation. Some of the women would start gathering some food while the rest continued to work on the roof. Our concern about the roof was, once again, noise, and now, large hailstones. Hopefully, the branches and leaves would soften the impact of the ice and keep it from damaging the solar tiles too much.

  When I got to the power controls, I found that the batteries had been left connected and were currently fully charged. Then I discovered the source of our little stream that flowed into the cove. It was the overflow from the water collection system. This one was much larger than the tank at the other house, and because of how it was built, much easier to clean out.
I had it flowing through the faucets and running clear water in about an hour.

  All this time, Ariel stayed very close to me. Most of the time, she was touching me. When I worked on a piece of equipment, she stood close by and helped if she could. If I wasn’t working on something, she held my arm. When I climbed up the tank, she climbed up with me and helped me remove debris. And when she talked, she sounded calm and “normal”.

  We worked for several hours. We stopped and ate lunch together. We had some cooked fish. They were all excited about that. Cooking was a lost art. All we did was make a fire in a fire pit near the house and roast the fish over a fire, but they liked the fact that we were doing something “like it was supposed to be.” We also had some grapes, but the real treat was a pineapple that we shared between the 20 of us.

  After we had done about as much as we could to prepare, when we felt ready, we all gathered on the lanai and Allie and Christie explained the purposes for the woven mats and showed everyone how to get started making some. It wasn’t long before we noticed that we wanted to talk, and it was just too noisy outside, and the wind made it more difficult to handle the long palm leaves. It was funny that none of them even thought to move indoors until I told us to. Once inside and settled again, I started on Ariel’s story.

  I said, “Well, let’s talk about this place and what happened and where Ariel came from.”

  At that point, Ariel took the mat that I was working on and set it aside and seated herself in my lap. Wow, she had the most wonderfully tiny bottom and it fit so perfectly on my lap. This was nice.

  I continued, “So, here’s the story: Ariel was 14 when you all got on the plane. She was a freshman in high-school. She was on the junior gymnastics team. She says that she was OK but not the best. She was mostly interested in ballet. After the crash, after you all made it to the islands, one group immediately formed and split off and came here. There were roughly six to eight men and eight to ten women. Some of the women were stewardesses from the plane who escaped from the coaches. A few other men and women were team secretaries and school administrators who weren’t actually athletes. Things were already turning really ugly and these people wanted out. They escaped on inflatable pool floats from one of the hotels. They disappeared in the middle of the night and paddled quietly away on one of the rare calm nights in those days. The women in that group insisted that Ariel go with them. She was the youngest person on the plane, and they wanted to protect her if they could. You guys know what was done to everyone, so…well, I’m glad she wasn’t there for more of it. She doesn’t know how long it took them to get to this island.”

  Toni interrupted and said, “What about the tree that she showed us? With your name on it?”

  I explained about my family’s involvement here and then said, “I was here for a few weeks, and we did stay at this house. I met this girl my age named Pahu and we kind of had crushes on each other and one day I carved our names in that tree. Her family was moved to a safer place before the cataclysm and I never saw her again. Ariel was more or less alone, because there was no one her age here, and when she found my name on the tree, she decided that um, that it was her destiny for me to come back someday, and that she would be with me and Pahu. She thought that I must be about the same age as she was, and she um, just believed it. Ariel made up her mind that well, that she would marry me when I came back.”

  Bebe said quickly, “Perfect! Ariel, welcome to the family. You are very welcome. You understand about all of us, right?”

  Ariel smiled and said, “We are Pahu. You, me, Allie, Christie, and the other Pahu that are coming. I see how you kiss him in your invisible side. I understand.”

  Bebe said, “Good. You are welcome here.”

  Ariel said, “I waited for you. Florin plus Pahu. Plus Ariel. We’re home now.”

  I said, “So, the people here weren’t Ariel’s family. The older women took care of her but because things were so messed up, she lived emotionally apart from them. Below the house here, there’s a basement storeroom. If things get bad enough during the storm, we’ll all go down there. But when these people arrived, they used the supplies and lived for about two years.”

  Ariel said, “And then they left. The food and soap and soda and shampoo ran out and they decided to leave. The man told them that they could go away and start over on the other side.”

  I explained, “Essentially, from what I understand, they didn’t adapt to life here very well and when the supplies ran out, they didn’t know what to do. They talked it over and decided that mass suicide was their best option. They had a hope for a life after this, and they decided to take that option.”

  Ariel said, “Janine told me to go away and be a jungle girl. I told her that I would wait for Florin plus Pahu. She told me, ‘Just don’t come back here.’ I knew how they would go to sleep and not wake up, so I left. But not far. I watched.”

  I went on, saying, “Apparently, their leader went to each one of them, and putting his arm around their neck, as if he were hugging them, he cut off the blood supply to their brain and they passed out. Just like I did to some of those that I had to fight at the trade village. No one struggled, and they all allowed him to do the same to every one of them. When they were all unconscious, he went back to each one and cut off their breathing until they died. Again, just like I did during the fight. That’s why there’s no sign of violence. They all submitted to it willingly and we found them where they died in their sleep.”

  Toni asked, “And what about the last man?”

  I said, “Ariel says that she watched him for another day. He tried to hang himself but couldn’t bring himself to do it. In the end, he went and joined the breeders. Ariel says that at some point, maybe a few years later, she spotted his body floating in the atoll.”

  Scout said, “How did she survive? Why didn’t we ever see her? She could have come with us.”

  Toni and Bebe both sighed and Toni said, “No. It was probably better for her like this. Scout, we were lucky enough but not all of us were. Remember the mushing.”

  Scout looked down and nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess so. We couldn’t have known what would happen to any of us, I guess.”

  I said, “So Ariel swam away and hasn’t been back here until today. Probably 15 years or more. Ariel, you are 32 years old now. Anyway, she disappeared. Ariel saw you but you never saw her. Um, apparently, Ariel taught herself to sleep floating on her back. According to her, she can stay in the water almost indefinitely. But she stayed on the smaller islands as well.”

  Bebe said, “Ariel, why didn’t you at least talk to us? Or to the Vegetables like Allie?”

  Ariel said, “I did. But you were too far away and didn’t listen. That was OK. I wanted to show you things, but I was waiting. There’s more pineapples.”

  Allie said, “I liked the pineapple. It was delicious.”

  Ariel said, “I planted them. Oh, not the ones here. I planted some on another island. No one ever went there. It has pineapples all over. A whole big pineapple farm.”

  I said, “Ariel says that the sky told her to come back because…well, because I was going to be here today, I guess. And that’s about it.”

  Christie smiled and said, “So, that’s about it. What now, Florin?”

  I said, “I trust Ariel about what she says about the weather. I really do think that everyone should stay here. The hail that Ariel is predicting sounds like it could be deadly. I think that the branches on the roof will help protect us. This place was built for hurricanes but there will probably be more damage. Keep working on the roof. I’m going to check the power and water again. If someone has time, after you think that we have enough food for a few days, maybe we could start cleaning, if the house needs it. It looks like there are still sheets and blankets and drapes here. Maybe we could take them outside and shake them out to get rid of some of the dust.”

  Ariel said, “You are all naked.”

  Allie said, “Ariel, we are all naked. So are you. We
’re always naked.”

  Ariel said, “The ones who left had clothes.”

  Scout said, “She’s right. I hadn’t even noticed. The dead were wearing clothes. They were outside, and the cloth had adhered to the bodies but yes, they were wearing clothes when they died.”

  Ariel said, “They always wore clothes. When they left, I had a dress. I didn’t need it and I didn’t want to ruin it, so I took it off and hid it. But I knew that you don’t wear clothes, so I didn’t put it on.”

  I said, “How do you feel about that?”

  Ariel said, “I like it when you touch me. I didn’t have anyone to hug me. Scout, are you going to be part of our family?”

  Scot looked around nervously, and said, “Um, no, Ariel. I have my own tribe. I’m happy for you but I live with these girls now, so no, I won’t live with you.”

  Ariel smiled and said, “I like it that you tell the truth. I just didn’t know. Now I know. You want to stay with the canoe girls. But I want to be friends. If I know what the weather will be, I’ll tell you so that you will know when to stay on an island or come here for a visit. Be happy now.”

  Scout seemed a little unsure of what Ariel was trying to say to her but accepted her offer of friendship happily. After that, everyone went back to work. We seemed to be at ease with what we were doing and with each other. The Nomads were increasingly friendly and accepting of me and some level of trust and friendship was growing as the hours passed.

  While everyone else worked at whatever needed to be done, Ariel never left my side. She was usually so close that if she weren’t actually touching me, I could still feel her body heat. As I inspected the house and other buildings, Ariel pointed out this thing or that and helped me with minor repairs where I could make them. Mostly we checked the systems and made sure that the shutters would close.

  At one point, while I was on my hands and knees, taking a look at where the water tank’s overflow created the small stream out to the beach, Ariel lay down on her back beside me.