Island of Fire (The Unwanteds) (23 page)

When at last the sun rose, Alex stood up, shivering a little in the cool morning air, waiting for the rays to warm him. He could see Quill, a dot in the east just this side of the sun, and Warbler, a large lump on the horizon with its rocks jutting out.

In front of him the volcanic Pirate Island loomed blue-black and craggy and ominous, throwing spooky shadows
everywhere. As far as Alex could tell, the fiery outburst had subsided completely.

Alex peered beyond Pirate Island to the west, knowing there was one more island out there somewhere. He thought he spied something rising up from the water, but it wavered and moved, the sea playing tricks on his tired eyes.

Simber stretched his hind legs, first one, then the other, and then arched his back and yawned.

Alex leaned over the side. “I want to explore,” he whispered, not wanting to wake anyone. “Maybe there’s a clue somewhere about how to deprogram the ship.”

Simber nodded. “Just you?”

Alex thought for a moment. He shook his head. “Be right back,” he said. He picked his way over sleeping bodies on the deck, making his way to the bow, where his friends had camped out for the night. He bent down next to Carina and shook her shoulder.

She roused and was wide awake in an instant. “What’s wrong?” she asked. She smoothed her pixie-cut hair, but it still stood up in one spot.

“Will you come explore the island with Simber and me?”

“Sure,” Carina said. She got nimbly to her feet.

Alex grinned. He stepped over to Sky and found her already awake. “Want to explore?” Alex whispered.

Sky nodded once, and then she said, “But not without Crow.”

Alex flashed her a puzzled look. “Okay,” he said. “He can come too. No problem.”

Sky stood up and woke Crow, and then the four went back to the side of the ship nearest to Simber. Crow rubbed his eyes sleepily as he stumbled along.

Alex signaled to Simber and the great cat unfurled his wings, making a bridge to the ship. Alex hoisted Crow up on the wing first, and the boy crawled along it to Simber’s back without fear. Sky went next, and then Carina, and finally Alex.

“Hang on,” Simber said quietly, then loped along the shoal and flapped his powerful wings. Soon they were soaring toward the rocky shore, and then the short journey was over. Simber landed and everyone got down.

“Stay close. If anything begins to move, jump onto my back,” Simber said.

Alex hesitated. He glanced back at the ship, realizing that
thanks to Simber, the four of them were probably safer here on the base of the sinking volcano than the others were in the boat.

“That’s why,” Sky said softly, reading Alex’s mind. “I can’t leave Crow. We live and die together. I took that oath when I took him with me from Warbler.”

Alex and Sky followed behind Simber, Carina, and Crow. Alex glanced at Sky with admiration. “That’s pretty noble of you,” he said.

“He’s the only family I have now.”

Alex wondered what she meant, but he didn’t dare ask. It felt personal.

She touched his elbow. “I’m sorry I kissed you,” she said softly. “That was . . . weird. I know that you and Lani are . . . whatever. It was just—I wanted to feel like—” She sighed. “Oh, never mind. I know you and Lani . . . you know. And not me, and that’s okay, because I’m not sure about . . . things . . . either. So you don’t have to, like, feel bad.” She blushed, fingering the scars at her throat.

Alex looked down, feeling strange and empty inside. A sort of airy rushing sound batted him around his ears, almost making him dizzy. But when he remembered to breathe, his brain
went back to Mr. Today and how he’d seemed destined to be alone. “Don’t worry,” Alex said, trying to sound cheerful. “I already forgot about it.” But it was the biggest lie he’d ever told. So big that saying it made his skin hurt.

“Oh,” Sky said. “Good.” Then she added, “Me too.” And she was silent.

They climbed over rocks and globs of seaweed and tiny pools of water, looking for any clues that would indicate why a ship would want to come here. After a quarter of an hour they reached a long, flat piece of land with some vegetation and wet sand. Several planks of rotting wood stuck out of the dirt.

Alex pointed to it. “Could someone have lived here once? It looks like the frame of a house.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Carina said.

There was a rivulet coming off the side of the mountain, washing away some of the sand. Alex put his finger in it and tasted. “This is freshwater,” he mused. He didn’t understand where it could possibly have come from.

Crow ran ahead, climbing some of the rocks to see if he could find the origin of the stream.

“Stay close,” Sky warned.

“I’m just going right here,” Crow said. “There’s a flat spot and a little pond.” He hopped up and looked around. Carina followed him.

Alex frowned. He wasn’t sure they’d find any clues about ships in a place where ships couldn’t get to. He gazed around the flat area, and then went to the edge of it, where waves lapped the shore, and peered into the water.

A fish jumped almost under his nose. “Whoa,” he said, and he stepped back, laughing at himself. It jumped again in almost the same place, which was strange, and then Alex saw it had a hook in its mouth attached to a line of fishing wire. The fish sank straight down, as if it was being pulled, and disappeared.

He whirled around to tell the others, but before he could say anything, Carina gave a shout and Crow gasped.

W
hat’s happening?” Alex said, and he ran for the rocks where everyone else had already gathered.

“A person!” Crow said. “I saw a person!”

“Are you sure it wasn’t your reflection?” Sky asked him.

“
I’m
sure it wasn’t his reflection. I saw it too,” Carina said. She knelt down at the edge of the shallow pool of water, stuck her arm in, and pushed the wet sand away from the bottom. Sky and Alex stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. Simber opted to watch from above.

As Carina slid the sand to the side, she revealed the water’s
bed. It wasn’t the black rock that made up almost the entire island. Not this part. The bottom of the pool was clear, like a window.

Crow put his face near the water. “I can see down in there!” he said with a loud whisper. “There are people moving around, way down at the bottom!”

Carina made room for Alex and Sky. It was like they were standing on top of a glass box, or a skylight on the roof of a tall building. They could look through this window and see the glass walls with fish swimming outside the sides.

“It’s like an aquarium,” Alex said, breathless. “Only the water is on the outside, and the glass encases a dry world.” He looked up at Simber. “It’s a
reverse
aquarium.”

“Look,” Sky said, pointing. “Here, on an upper level. There’s a garden.”

“And there’s a playground at the bottom too,” Crow said. “See the little kids jumping around?”

“It’s really light down there,” Carina mused, “so there must be more skylights like this one. And there are walkways and little rooms on this upper level too. But look—see how the volcano runs down the center of it all?”

“That must be theirrr sourrrce of heat,” Simber said. “And the sun, I suppose.”

The five watched the people, oblivious to the ceiling visitors in their busyness, scurry around far below.

Alex pointed wordlessly to the floor directly beneath them as a sliding glass door opened, making a sheet of water pour into the reverse aquarium. Someone walked in through the water wearing a strange mask. The door slid shut again. All the water that had come in disappeared through a grate in the floor, none of it flowing to the floors below.

The person was carrying a string of fish on a hook. He took his mask off and placed it on a shelf, and then walked around a corner with the fish. “That hook is his hand,” Alex said, intrigued. “He caught the fish right where I was standing, there.” He pointed.

It was Crow who noticed the creatures. In a real aquarium attached to the reverse aquarium, Crow could just barely see things swimming around. “I can’t see what those things are, but they don’t look fish-shaped,” he reported.

“I wonder if anyone down there can help us,” Alex said. “I suppose we could dive down and see if they notice us through the glass wall.”

Everyone was quiet, wondering if these people were friendly, or if being seen would only get them into more trouble.

“They seem . . . normal,” Carina said weakly. She looked over her shoulder at Alex. “I think we have to try. We don’t have a choice.”

Alex nodded. “I can try right here, I suppose.” He scratched his head, thinking. “No, this spot is where the guy was fishing. It didn’t look like anyone else was over there.”

“The ship took us to a cerrrtain spot,” Simber said. “Perrrhaps forrr a rrreason.”

“Good point,” Alex said. “Let’s go back there. And then we’ll have help from our army in case we need it.”

While Carina, Alex, and Simber plotted, Sky stared through the glass, frowning. She nudged her brother and pointed. He turned to look, and then he gasped. Before anyone could stop him, Crow began pounding on the glass with all his might.

Sky whipped her hair out of her eyes with her hand and stared, then grabbed Crow’s arm to stop him from pounding. “No,” she said. “We don’t want them all to see us. Watch.”

When a woman walked on the floor nearest them, not
twenty feet away, Sky leaned over the glass, stretching her shirt wide to block the sun. “Watch,” she whispered again, “I’m a cloud.” Her heart thumped.

The woman, in a sudden shadow, looked up. She frowned, and then her mouth slacked and her orange eyes grew wide.

Sky choked on a sob, which caused the others to turn and see what was happening. Immediately, through her tears, Sky’s hands flew through the air, speaking a language few of the others knew.

The woman held a finger to her lips and looked all around. Alex went to Sky’s side and put his hand on her shoulder, feeling it quake. Crow simply clutched the rocks on the edge of the pool and stared, a look of agony on his face.

Then the woman signed something very quickly and scurried away to a set of stairs. When she disappeared, Sky slumped back into Alex’s arms and sobbed.

He pulled her to him and patted her back, unsure what to do.

Carina knelt next to Crow. “What’s wrong?”

Crow’s face crumbled. “That stupid creep told us she was dead!” he cried, his face hot with anger.

“Who is that woman?” Alex whispered into Sky’s hair, though he thought he knew.

She took a deep breath and pulled back, still clutching Alex’s shirt. “Our mother,” she said.

I
told her about the ship,” Sky said. She let go of Alex, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and sniffed a few times. She slid back to the edge of the glass so she could see. “She said don’t dive down. Don’t let anyone see us.”

The others stared at her.

“She’s going to try to find out how to disenchant the ship so we can get away, but she’s only—she’s a—” Sky pounded her forehead and took a few deep breaths, blowing them out. “Come on, Sky,” she muttered.

Alex had never seen her so upset before.

“She’s a slave to the pirates,” Crow said. His fiery eyes narrowed into slits.

Carina put her hand on Crow’s shoulder, and he let her leave it there. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And I’m sorry someone told you she was dead. What a horrible thing to do.”

“It was Queen Eagala.” He nearly spat the words out.

Carina said nothing. She only lowered her head and rested it on her free hand, closing her eyes.

Simber perched on a nearby rock, not wanting to be seen through the glass. “Did yourrr motherrr say how much time the volcano stays above the surrrface?” he asked in a rare gentle voice.

Sky shook her head. “There wasn’t time to ask. She had to hurry.”

“That’s okay,” Alex said. “We’ll wait. And then, once we’ve got Sam and Lani, we’ll figure out how to get her out of here.” His stomach felt like he’d just swallowed a dozen lead milk shakes.
One more impossible thing.

Sky looked up at him, her bottom lip quivering.