Island of Graves

by Lisa McMann

  Faced with the rocky high side of the island, Alex stopped the boat in the shade, and they took a break to eat.

  Sky poured water from Ms. Octavia’s fountain and handed a cup to Alex, who was rummaging through a crate of lunches. He pulled out Sky’s favorite meal no matter the time of day, and handed it to her: sweet applecorn on toasties with platyprot eggs, which cooked up multicolored and presented beautifully. The food was exactly the right temperature, and Sky dug in hungrily.

  Alex pulled out his favorite, a thick seafood chowder with a slice of fig-jam toast, which he’d taken a strange liking to ever since Fifer shoved a piece of hers into his mouth. He smiled, thinking of her as he took a bite.

  “What’s funny?” Sky asked.

  “Just thinking about my sisters.” He laughed. “It’s still weird to call them that.”

  “So you like them?”

  “Yeah, I really think I do,” Alex said. “I mean, all right, obviously I was a little unsure at first. But . . . they’re okay. They’re nice.”

  Sky wiped her mouth. “I saw one climbing up the staircase the other day calling out ‘Ax! Ax!’ It was so cute.”

  “Really?” Alex sat up. “Are you serious? Do you think she was calling for me?”

  “Of course! I mean I certainly hope she wasn’t calling for a real ax.”

  “Which twin was it?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell them apart.”

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway.” Alex couldn’t stop grinning. “Ax. That’s cool. It makes me seem really tough, too.”

  Sky groaned. “Great.” She folded up her empty plate until it made a bright popping sound and disappeared, then rinsed her hands in the water fountain.

  Alex hesitated, wondering if now would be a good time to tell her that he’d been thinking about what she’d said. But he didn’t want to start an argument when they needed to look for Aaron. Besides, he was still thinking about it. A lot.

  So he commanded the boat to begin circling the island once more, this time from a bit more of a distance so they could keep an eye on the rising accessible part of the land.

  “Aaron!” he shouted.

  “Aaron!” echoed Sky.

  A moment later Alex frowned. “Do you hear something?”

  Sky nodded. “Something’s rumbling. Reminds me of the hurricane after the hour of calm, when the thunder starts rolling back in.”

  They were silent for a moment, watching the highest point of the island but unable to really see anything except for the grass and trees on the downward slope before the land dropped off and became sheer rock.

  “Spike?” Alex called softly. “I’m going to speed around to a spot where we can have a better look. Charlie, you might want to get in your safe place in the cabin. Sky, hang on. We’re going to fly.”

  Charlie moved toward the cabin but stayed on deck to watch. Alex pressed down on the throttle until they were skimming over the water full speed ahead to the south side of the island, where they’d seen the come-back sign. Even with the noise from the boat, they could both tell that the rumbling sound was increasing.

  As they rounded the highest point of the island and sailed to where the waterfall was visible and the land sloped quickly to just above sea level, Sky touched Alex’s shoulder and pointed. Alex cut the motor so the boat drifted just offshore.

  It looked as though the center of the island was moving or shifting toward them. The trees and long grasses waved in a single giant motion, and for a moment, Sky thought the island was about to split in two. After a few curious minutes of watching while the thundering increased, she caught a glimpse of black and silver, and then more black and more silver, and as the sound grew, a tremendous beastly cry rang out.

  Charlie dove for the safety of the cabin as a stampede of what seemed like hundreds of silverback saber-toothed gorillas burst through the thick brush and flattened the grasses. They barreled straight toward the beach in front of the boat, growing larger by the second.

  “Oh my—” Sky breathed. “Look at them all! They’re not going to stop.” She gripped Alex’s arm. “Alex! They’re not stopping!”

  And she was right. The front line of gorillas reached the sand, continued toward the edge of the shore, and plunged into the water without even slowing down. They splashed in the direction of the boat, their fangs gleaming.

  “They can swim!” Alex yelled in fright. He lunged for the controls, trying to turn the boat around, but he was so flustered that he fumbled everything. Finally, with the grunting carnivores nearly upon them, he managed to shout out a command to the boat to head straight out to sea. As the first gorillas reached out their clawed fingers and grabbed the side of the boat, the vessel kicked into gear, shaking most of the gorillas loose. But one held on. With saber teeth just feet away, Sky jumped to the other side of the boat and dove for the sword, while Alex tried desperately to shake the beast off by grabbing the wheel and steering as wildly as he could.

  Off balance, Sky pulled the sword back and slammed it down on the gorilla’s arm. The beast roared in pain, its open mouth wide enough to fit an entire human head. Alex grabbed spell components and began throwing scatterclips at the beast, but they seemed useless. The gorilla wouldn’t let go of the side of the boat. It began to pull itself up as Sky cracked it over the head with the sword. She could smell its sickening rankness.

  Alex pulled out a handful of heart attack components and looked at them. He cringed, took a breath, and closed his hand firmly around them, winding up for the throw. “Heart attack!” he cried, sending them soaring at the beast. The gorilla seemed stunned for a moment, but it still didn’t let go. Instead it gripped the side of the boat with its elbow and began hauling one leg up over the railing.

  “Get off!” Sky screamed. She slammed the sword down again, then pulled back and sliced it sideways through the air, smashing it with all her might into the gorilla’s head.

  The creature wobbled, and its hand slipped. But with a mighty reach of its other hand, the gorilla grabbed the back of Sky’s shirt and yanked her toward its face. Sky twisted around and slammed her elbow into the creature’s eye. She tore herself from its grasp, sending her sword skittering across the deck. The back of her shirt was shredded from the beast’s sharp claws.

  After dodging and fighting off multiple gorillas, Spike finally caught up to the boat. She tried jabbing the stubborn gorilla with her spike, then grabbing its legs in her mouth to pull, but every time she got a grip, Alex yanked on the steering wheel, which sent Spike flying and trying to catch up again.

  Alex, who was still trying to shake the creature off the boat, pelted the gorilla with half a dozen more heart attack spells, but the beast wouldn’t die. Sky regained her footing and, with a mighty raging yell, grabbed on to the seatback and kangaroo kicked her feet at the gorilla’s mouth. She landed on the railing, stomping on the gorilla’s fingers. Then she jumped back to the deck, picked up her sword again, reared back, and shoved it into its leg.

  The gorilla howled and snapped at Sky and Alex, its sabers dripping with saliva.

  Alex shot one more round of heart attack spells. This time the gorilla’s head finally flopped back. And with a last swerve of the boat from Alex, the creature’s grip released. It fell backward with an enormous splash into the water and sank.

  Stunned, Sky staggered to the side, chest heaving, hands shaking. The sword dropped from her hands to the deck, its blade covered in blood. Alex shouted a command to the boat to continue at full speed, and ran over to her. He flung his arms around her and held her.

  Once Sky realized she was safe, her body began shaking uncontrollably. She hid her face in Alex’s neck and started to sob, and he held her, stroking her hair and whispering in her ear, and they stood there in the speeding boat together until both of them stopped trembling.

  Back to the Island

  Does that sting?” Alex asked, dabbing the deep scratches on Sky’s back with some salve Henry had put in their healing kit.

&nbs
p; “Not bad,” Sky said, cringing. She lay on her stomach on her fold-out seat as Alex tended to her wounds.

  “It’s a nice set of stripes.”

  “I’m just glad I still have a head attached to my body,” Sky said. “A water attack was not something I expected.”

  “Me either,” Alex said, mad at himself. “And I should have. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that the gorillas would leave the island and chase us. I just didn’t think hard enough about them being able to swim like that.” He handed Sky a towel and then turned his back so she could change into a new shirt that wasn’t shredded or covered in saber-toothed-gorilla blood.

  “See, there you go again,” Sky said. “We also had no way to know there were so many of them. Give yourself a break for once.” She pressed her lips together, vowing to say no more, and slipped into a lightweight shirt.

  “I get it, okay?” Alex said with a groan. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  “Oh.” Sky wasn’t sure what to say, so she changed the subject. “Okay, you’re good to turn around again.” Gingerly she tested out how the shirt felt against her scratches. “This is going to be really uncomfortable for a few days, I think.”

  Alex turned to face her again. “Henry said the salve should help quite a lot after about half a day. The healers are getting good at this stuff.”

  “And see, there’s something you did that was really successful—you made healing a priority when Mr. Today didn’t have much of anything in place before.” Sky eased to her seat and perched on the edge of it. “Anyway, I can’t force you to realize what you’re doing to yourself—you’re just going to have to see it on your own. Now, let’s go back and finish this island. I’m ready.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We need to find Aaron. The sun’s going to set soon,” Sky said. She gazed at the island in the distance. “At least we know what we’re up against now.”

  Alex swung the boat around and directed it to take them back to the island. He pulled out his supplies and reloaded his vest pockets, thinking about the horrible attack. He’d used heart attack spells during it, and he didn’t regret that for a minute. The experience was probably the most frightening thing Alex had ever faced without Simber or Florence nearby. And he’d survived it.

  Sky was a maniac—they’d both be dead without her and her quick thinking with the sword. Clearly Alex’s spells intended for humans were not about to take down a nine-hundred-pound gorilla. He thought about the magic and wondered if there was anything he could do to his current stash to strengthen it.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Sky asked as the island drew near. “Stay back if we see any gorillas?”

  Alex laughed uneasily. “Yep.” He trained his eye halfway up the mountainous side where they’d first noticed the movement and pointed. “That extra-lush area there, next to the waterfall—I think that’s where some of them came from. Others came from the clearing near the river on the low side of the island, several hundred yards from where the old ship ran aground.”

  Sky studied the area he pointed to. “If you look really closely all around the clearing, you can see the grasses moving in waves,” she remarked. “Like they’re just walking through it.”

  Alex nodded. “Okay. So they were there the whole time. We must have set them off somehow when we began yelling again after lunch.”

  Sky nibbled on the jagged edge of a fingernail that had been torn to the quick in the fight. “It was echoey on that side. Maybe that was it.” She shrugged. “I can’t imagine how your brother could have survived on this island for months, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. I think we should anchor on the cliff side, within sight of the bone sign, and wait for him to find us.”

  “I agree,” Alex said. “We’ve made it all the way around, though the last bit was pretty fast. Spike,” he called, “did you see anything around the side before the gorillas started attacking?”

  “Nothing,” said Spike. “But I will not leave your side again.”

  “I know,” Alex said. “Thanks. Intuitive or not, there’s no way you could have predicted that was going to happen.” He glanced sidelong at Sky, who was giving him a pointed “I told you so” look.

  He smirked back at her and continued. “I think everybody in earshot probably knows by now that some sort of intruder was here. The gorillas were loud enough.”

  The sun was beginning to set, and the waves calmed. Alex set the anchor on the mountainous side of the island a hundred feet offshore for safety. Spike roamed around the boat, keeping a watchful eye on the island for anything that might move.

  “I feel that there is a human somewhere,” Spike said at one point, but she had nothing more than that information to offer.

  While waiting to be noticed, Alex and Sky finished cleaning up the boat. There were several scratches in the gunwale from the gorilla’s claws and teeth, but nothing worse than that, thanks to the preserve spell. They buffed the scratches the best they could and washed down the entire deck, the dirty water draining through the floor vent. Soon everything was crisp and clean again.

  Alex folded down a sofa cushion at the stern where he and Sky could both sit and eat dinner together while hoping for signs of human life.

  And as darkness fell, so did any awkwardness that remained between them.

  “You were right yesterday,” Alex said after a while. “I don’t know why I always set such high stakes for myself.” He leaned back on the sofa and propped up his feet. “I think it has something to do with Quill and how I was raised. I knew I was going to be Unwanted for three years before my Purge. I think living with that knowledge and shame somehow makes me want to prove something now—that I’m not a failure in the eyes of the people of Artimé like I was to my parents and to Quill.” He laughed softly. “I don’t know.”

  “Just because you fail once in a while doesn’t make you a failure,” said Sky. “It makes you real.”

  “I know that. It makes sense when you say it. I just forget easily, I guess.”

  “Then I’ll keep saying it until it gets pounded into your thick head.”

  Alex’s mouth twitched. “Okay.” He looked over at Sky, who was sitting gingerly on the edge of the sofa. His face filled with concern. “Still hurting, huh?”

  Sky managed a smile. “Just being careful. It hurts to lean back.”

  “That’ll make for a rough night,” Alex said. “Want more salve on it?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Alex got up and went into the cabin for the healer’s kit, then applied salve to Sky’s back once more. The scratches were red and angry-looking. “You want something for the pain?” he asked. “It’ll help you sleep.”

  Sky considered it but shook her head. “I don’t want to be groggy if something happens with Aaron. I’ll be all right.” She yawned.

  “Here,” Alex said, stretching out onto the sofa. “Rest with me.”

  Sky eyed him suspiciously.

  “I’ll be good,” he said.

  Gingerly Sky crawled next to him and curled up on her side, facing him.

  “How does that feel?” Alex asked, letting his chin rest against the top of her head.

  Between them, Sky’s hands slipped into Alex’s. “Pretty good,” she whispered.

  Alex closed his eyes and gave Sky’s hands a soft squeeze. Before long, they were both breathing deeply, fast asleep.

  They slept so soundly that at first they didn’t hear the voice.

  But Charlie did.

  The Song in the Night

  Alex thought the song was part of his dream. He was back in Artimé, and Meghan was practicing in Ms. Morning’s classroom, just like old times. But then Charlie yanked on his hair, and Sky stirred and sat up, and Alex woke from the dream and remembered Meghan was dead.

  But the song was still there, sweet and lilting, like a lullaby.

  “Do you hear it?” Alex whispered.

  Sky nodded. “There’s no way that’s Aaron, though. It�
�s a girl.”

  Alex eased himself off the sofa, careful of Sky’s injuries, and went to the side of the boat. “What’s happening, Spike?”

  “It is a girl on the island. She is singing a story to us, I think.”

  “Where is she?”

  “At the very top, near the mouth of the waterfall.”

  “We can hear her from that far away?”

  “The night and the calm water carry her voice,” Spike said. “Listen please. She is telling us something.”

  Sky joined Alex at the side of the boat, and they listened, trying to make out all the words. Alex quickly pulled his magical notebook and pencil from his pocket and began to scribble down everything he could understand.

  I am singing from this tree—

  My voice soothes the gorillas in their sleep.

  Will you please stay and rescue me?

  They let me live but won’t let me leave.

  The voice quieted, and then it began again, soft and lilting. The first line was muffled and sounded foreign, and only a few words came through before the voice strengthened.

  I am Ka . . . rica

  I am . . . and stranded here.

  I see you there in your white boat.

  Please don’t leave. . . .

  The voice quivered, and the rest of the line was muffled.

  “Did you get that?” Sky whispered when the voice was quiet again.

  Alex shook his head while scribbling out the last bit, and then they held the notebook to the soft boat lighting and read it over.

  “This part I think was her name,” Sky said, pointing to the first line of the second verse. “I didn’t catch it either.”

  “I wish she’d tell us how to rescue her,” Alex said. “It sounds like she’s trapped.”

  The song began again.

  The creatures sleep at night.

  I am lucky that they like my voice.

  They keep me trapped in this tree to sing for them,

  Overlooking all the graves.

  There were many who were stranded here.