Nil on Fire (10 page)

“I see that,” Paulo said dryly. “But why?”

“Because it's not finished yet.”

Paulo rubbed his forehead, wondering how he'd ended up stuck on the island with a person who not only had zero sense of humor, but who also might not be fully stocked in the sanity department either. Hafthor was a strange one. He hadn't reacted when Paulo had given him the rundown about the island, the year deadline, and the only avenue of escape: gates. Daily ones, unpredictable and wild, and the equinox gate, still months away. Hafthor had simply nodded, then walked away to digest the information that Paulo had dropped on him.

That had been weeks ago, and Hafthor hadn't mentioned any of it since.

With care, Hafthor adjusted the husk roof on the middle house.

Paulo sighed. “Why the houses, Hafthor? There's a ton of stuff for us to do. Like go find people who may need help, and hope. We don't have time for playhouses.”

Hafthor's head jerked up. “These are not playthings. These are for the hidden people.”

“The hidden people,” Paulo repeated. He took a small step back.

Hafthor nodded. “My mother taught us the Icelandic legends, including tales of the hidden people. Hidden people are real, and you must do all you can to give them a home and make them happy.” Hafthor's blue eyes clouded. “We are not alone here. There are hidden people; people here we cannot see. I feel them. And Paulo … the hidden people are not happy.”

Paulo couldn't argue with that. He stared at the tiny houses. They were roughly a foot tall, at most.

“These hidden people,” Paulo said with curiosity, “they'll fit in there?” He waved at the dwellings dwarfed by the black boulder.

“The small ones,” Hafthor said, standing up to his full height. “I can do nothing for the big ones. The island is their home already.”

An odd chill crawled down Paulo's spine, an icy finger pressing against bone.

“Are they—good?” Paulo hated the hitch he heard in his voice, the thread of fear. “The hidden people?”

Hafthor shrugged. “They can be.”

But not always
, Paulo thought.

He remembered the boy snatched in the field by a large cat; he remembered the boy fighting briefly and losing swiftly. He remembered other deaths at the hands of different predators, many of them strange. He recalled faces of people lost to the island forever, people stolen by the ultimate predator—the island itself. He never saw the face of the island; it was always hidden, cloaked in secrecy, cloaked in darkness.

It is dark everywhere here
, he'd overheard Michael tell Rives once.

He felt the truth of that statement in his bones. He'd never spoken with Michael, but he'd watched him from afar, enough to be impressed with his intuition and strength. Michael had been dead right. Paulo had no interest in meeting hidden people if they were in fact here; the very idea of hidden people brought to mind dead people, perhaps people seen by his aunt Rika. Were there island ghosts here, too? The more he stared at the little houses, the less safe he felt.

“Paulo?”

He looked up to find Hafthor regarding him intently, his arms folded casually across his chest.

“Most people are not all good or all bad, true? People are—” Hafthor gestured wildly with both hands as he struggled to find the word. “Complicated.”

“This place is complicated,” Paulo said slowly. He thought of the island, of all the wild gates he'd seen in the past weeks since Skye left, all the wild gates he'd run like the wind to avoid. But his footing was surer now, as was his path. Ghosts or no ghosts, most things were less complicated than when he'd arrived—like the end date, a year deadline as unmovable as Mount Nil.

Paulo knew exactly when his end here would come.

This knowledge gave him a critical measure of comfort, a vital measure of control in a place where he had little. But it wasn't his time, not yet.

In this moment, standing beside Hafthor and his odd tiny houses at the City's edge, Paulo felt an abrupt urge to
leave
, to go toward the Looking Glass Cavern and show Hafthor the carvings tucked inside. Perhaps this man with a history and culture and stories so different from his island ones—yet equally grounded in the unseen—perhaps this man could find something in the symbols Paulo could not. Perhaps Hafthor could see beyond the carvings, discerning something Paulo had overlooked that would help them all. Because Paulo still hadn't figured out what happened to him that day on the platform, the day he'd failed Skye. The day he'd lost time. Maybe the carvings would give up a secret he didn't know to seek, something to help him succeed where he'd once failed.

Maybe Hafthor wasn't crazy after all.

“You're right.” Paulo nodded. “The island isn't happy, and I'm trying to figure out why. If you have a minute, there's something I'd like you to see.”

Hafthor stepped away from his houses. Perhaps he felt the urge to leave now too, because he followed Paulo without a backward glance.

*   *   *

It never occurred to Paulo that the urge to leave was not his own, which was precisely as the island intended it to be.

The island watched, pleased, as the pair strolled north. It knew their destination, their intentions, it even knew their fears; all were found easily near the surface of their minds, all typically human. The male, Paulo, did not like closed spaces; he imagined the walls pressing in as he left the water and entered the Cove's tunnel. The island had already catalogued this fear to use if needed. The male, Hafthor, was more concerned with what lay beyond the walls, a more rational fear. As those two crept through the narrow passageway, the island felt the thud of their hearts, the pulse of their electria flowing throughout their frail human bodies as water dripped from their skin. As tempting as it was, the island would not take them, not yet.

But it would take a sip.

Of them, of time.

And so it would be.

Delicious.

*   *   *

Paulo stepped into the Looking Glass Cavern, blinking against the sudden rush of light and space. He inhaled, drawing a breath so rapidly that a wheeze echoed throughout the underground chamber as his chest expanded and the grip of the tunnel loosened. He'd never tasted such sweet air in his life. He'd always hated when Maaka had brought him here, not because of the cavern; it was the horrible route he had to take to enter it. It didn't matter whether he took the Cove entrance through the rock passageway above, or the water-filled passageway below. Regardless of his chosen route, his claustrophobia suffocated him to the point of near fainting. It seemed to be getting worse each time he attempted it. If he wasn't mistaken, the walls of the passageway had narrowed as he walked. As his heart slowed a fraction, Paulo made the snap decision to exit via the underwater route. At least it was shorter.

Hafthor stared at the walls coated in carvings.

“This is why you brought me here,” he said. His stance wide, he crossed his arms, facing the wall, settling into himself with a comfort Paulo envied. “To see these carvings.”

Paulo stepped forward, beside Hafthor. “What do you see?”

Hafthor studied the wall methodically. “History,” he said softly. He glanced at Paulo. “What do you want me to see?”

“I don't know,” Paulo admitted. “A clue. Something I don't, I guess.” As always, Paulo's gaze went to the massive diamond, the one with the eye in the middle. It called to him, drew him in.
Pulled
him in. Time swirled through the cavern, wrapping around Paulo and Hafthor as the two boys stood still, each staring at the carving that spoke to him most, each lost in the moment. The moment passed, as did the next.

*   *   *

Time marched on, like the island, but the pair didn't move.

Around them, the island drank in the echoes of power, of time, faint but delectable, more a tease of what was to come than any true measure of sustenance. The island took what it could, until no echoes were left, until the island grew bored and then frustrated. It wanted
more
, but time demanded the island wait, at least for this pair. With supreme effort, the island looked elsewhere.

As always, the island was drawn to the fighter, the female, Carmen. Strong and predictable, the fighter did not disappoint. Perhaps today the island would disappoint her.

*   *   *

Carmen regarded Ace with thinly veiled contempt. He was more concerned with his abs than the stealth of his feet.
Annoying
, she thought. For the hundredth time, she wondered how, in this strange world, she'd managed to get stuck with him.

Ace smoothed his hair back, tucking a stray strand in place.

“Come on, pretty boy,” she said with a sigh, her hand instinctively brushing her hip. The metal blade butting against her side reassured her that she was the one in control, regardless of what she let Ace think. “Move faster and try to be quiet, would you?”

She'd been here several weeks by her count, and so far, the only person she'd found was this fool, Ace. She'd seen lots of animals, strange ones, and more than once she'd had the disturbing thought she was an animal too, stuck in a cage for someone else's amusement.

But she was no one's toy.

And Ace was certainly not amusing. He wasn't even entertaining. However, Carmen expected he would come in useful eventually, which was why she allowed him to cling like lint. Plus, at the moment, he was the only other living soul around.

She didn't want to think about the body she'd found.

Thankfully there'd been no bodies in the abandoned settlement, just weapons and food. Located on the west side of the island, thatched-roof houses—huts so rustic they were almost charming—circled a firepit. People had lived here once, and not long ago. Recently enough that the chicken coop still housed birds, with a lovely cache of fresh eggs that Carmen had taken full possession of, along with rope, some knives and a sheath, plus clothes. Shorts and bandanas, the latter wide enough to wrap around her chest and bind it tight. She'd even found twine to secure her hair, and sandals to protect her feet.

But she didn't stay in that camp. Despite the lack of bodies, it swirled with ghosts and something evil, something that reeked of death.

The whole island stank of it, if she were being truthful. It was why she preferred to stay near the shore, where the breeze smelled salty sweet and fresh, where food swam in abundance and the animals let her be.

“You are one quiet chica,” Ace said.

“My name is Carmen,” she snapped.

“Touchy, touchy.” He raised his hands, smiling and confident.
Overconfident
, she thought.

He tilted his head as if he could read her thoughts. Then his smile flickered for an instant, like a dying firefly. Something fragile replaced it. “Okay, Carmen, so where are we going?”

“A place where we can get what we need.”

*   *   *

Farther north, at the top of White Beach, Molly plucked a familiar green fruit off a tree. She squeezed it gently, brought it to her nose, and sniffed. Satisfied, she handed the fruit to Calvin.

“If it smells sweet, and kind of musky, then it's ready to eat,” Molly told Calvin. She hadn't eaten guava in years, but when she was twelve, for an entire year, Molly had practically lived on fruit, and guava had been one of her favorites. Fortunately, that phase had passed. Right now Molly would have given anything for a cheeseburger with extra ketchup.

“What's
musky
mean?” Calvin stared at the green fruit, then sniffed it suspiciously.

“Ripe,” Davey offered. He held up his fruit and with a nod, took a bite. He showed Calvin the inside of the fruit, which gleamed a deep pink.

“You can eat the peel?” Calvin's suspicion grew.

“Totally,” Molly said. “It's guava.”

Calvin shrugged. “Guava,” he said before taking a bite. “Tastes weird.” Juice dribbled from his chin.

With a guava in each hand, the group headed south, toward the black rock cliff curving into the sea.

No people. No houses. No boats.

No docks
.

No roads.

No power lines.

No sign of civilization at all.

Molly had trouble accepting the reality of the last few days. Grabbed by a mysterious force, she'd woken in a mysterious place. Something she couldn't pinpoint told her she wasn't in Australia at all anymore; a sixth sense perhaps. This same sense told her she was in as much trouble as she suspected: She was lost, hungry, out of sorts, and stuck in this strange dream until she figured it all out.

Not a dream
, she thought.
More like a nightmare.

After all, Davey was here.

She was stuck here with the last person she'd choose to have her back. She wasn't sure Davey even
had
her back, wasn't certain what he'd do in a truly prickly situation. Right now she might pick Calvin as more reliable, the friendly boy from America, but he actually seemed more terrified than her and Davey put together, which was odd since he had more muscles than anyone she'd ever met. And she had known Davey since she was four, whereas she'd just met Calvin.

So, left with little choice, she'd slept outside last night on the beach, under the stars, with—of all people—Davey King, the biggest player she knew. They'd literally slept back to back, skin touching skin—which was awkward and weird and highly unnerving in its own odd way—as they tried to stay warm. Calvin had slept a few feet away. Given the weirdness, Molly had barely slept. She wasn't sure about Davey. They'd talked a little, enough for Molly to know that Davey didn't have a clue what was happening either.