Nil on Fire (30 page)

“No. Not now. Now I was expecting you.”

But before, yes
, Charley thought.

“Come.” Rika waved Charley to the room to the left. “I have pineapple muffins.”

A cheery yellow couch filled the space, along with three bright-orange chairs. Green plants and pots of pink flowers were tucked in odd spaces. It was a rainbow of color in one small room.

“Sit.” Rika gestured. A tray of golden muffins and two small green bottles of Sprite sat on a square table in front of the couch.

An uncomfortable feeling bloomed in Charley's chest.

“How did you know I like Sprite?” she asked, hating the rise she heard in her voice.

Rika smiled. “I know many things, child. It's why you are here, no?”

Charley nodded. And she silently prayed she wouldn't be staying long. Rika made her less comfortable by the minute.

“Please.” Rika waved toward the couch. “Relax.”

As if I could
, Charley thought. Still, she was a guest—
an invited,
summoned
guest
, she thought, and rudeness would not win her any favors or information.

Charley sat.

But she refused to waste another minute on idle chatter. Reaching into her bag, she found Skye's uncle's journal and grasped it tight. “You met Scott, who was my friend Skye's uncle. You met him on the island. When he came back, he wrote this.” Charley waved the journal. “Skye read it, and then last December, she went through the winter gate on the solstice. And she returned in March. But—” Charley paused. Rika was staring at her with an unnerving curiosity, as if she already knew what Charley would say before the words ever left her mouth. Charley shook that feeling off and kept going. “A few weeks ago, the island lured her back. She took the summer gate and now she's stuck on the island.”

Rika's smile developed slowly. “You don't believe that, do you?” she asked softly. “That she's stuck.”

“Well, I know she's trapped until either a gate pops up at noon to take her back, or the equinox gate opens in September. So essentially, she's stuck.”

“But not forever.” Rika's voice was cool water running over hot stones.

“I hope not,” Charley said.

A long pause passed between them. The ceiling fan whirred in the background, chopping the silence into slivers too sharp to touch. Charley waited, lips closed. Nil had taught her patience and an appreciation of time, and
timing
. The next words belonged to Rika.

A slight smile crossed Rika's face.

“So,” she drawled, “tell me why you wanted to see me. Tell me why I am so important to you.”

“Because you told Skye's uncle about his destiny, and how it wrapped the island from beginning to end. What does that mean? What did you
see
?”

“You want this information why? So you can help your friend?” Rika's dark eyes glittered with curiosity. “Or because you want to save your lover?”

“Both,” Charley said without hesitation. “Helping one helps them all. I want to help them all get home safely and end this awful cycle once and for all.” She leaned forward. “You saw something, about the island's end. You know what's going to happen, right? How can we help them?”

“Give me your hand,” Rika instructed.

“What?” Charley asked, taken aback.

“Your hand. Please.” With a flick of her hand, Rika gestured for Charley's.

Slowly Charley offered her right hand. Rika grabbed it, clutching it tightly as she inhaled. Without warning, Rika dropped Charley's hand as if she'd been burned.

“The answers you seek are already inside you,” Rika said. “They lie here”—she tapped the journal—“and here”—now she brushed Charley's forehead. “And most certainly in here.” She gently pressed her palm over Charley's heart, then withdrew it. “Now you know where to look, and where to tell your friends to search. Answers are not always pretty, or in pretty places. But they are always true.” She closed her eyes again. “Let the past guide the future, Charley. Study it. Learn from it. And so it will be.”

When Rika lifted her eyes to Charley, sadness engulfed the brown depths, rich and rolling and heartbreaking. “I weep for you, my child. And for all of them. If they ignore the past, they will repeat it, that I see. You, my child, you must look for what you don't see. And so must they.”

Look for what you don't see.

It made no sense at all.

“That's my answer?” Charley asked, suddenly furious. She felt as though Rika was toying with her. If he were here, Thad would joke that Rika was in cahoots with Nil. But Thad wasn't here; he was on Nil, and this conversation wasn't funny at all. She was poised to leave with no more knowledge than when she came. “Look for what I don't see?”

Rika nodded. “It is one answer of many; there is always more than one answer to the same question, but only one is the truth. Only one will reveal the knowledge you seek.”

Answers. Knowledge. Information.

They are not the same
, Charley thought. And she'd been given nothing at all.

“Muffin? Sprite?” Rika offered politely.

“No, thank you.” Charley's tone was strained. “I don't want a muffin or a Sprite. I don't want water or coffee or tea. I want you to tell me exactly how I can help my friends. Maybe you know this, too, but I can hear Thad. Not all the time, but sometimes. So I think he can hear me, too.”

Rika's expression didn't change.

Charley continued speaking. “So if there's something that can help them, please tell me. I'm begging you.”

“Begging doesn't become you.” Rika's tongue sharpened, like her expression. “I never said it would be easy, or without work. You already have the answers you seek. Are you so lazy that you want me to spell it out for you, child? It doesn't work that way. The end is written, but the middle—that is up to you. And them.”

Charley worked to ask another question but her mind spun in circles—jumping to the end, the middle, the coming equinox gate, and more; she constantly stifled her overwhelming fear of losing Thad, believing fiercely that they would win instead. She would accept nothing else.

“That's it, child.” Rika nodded approvingly, her bone bracelets cracking together as she clasped her hands in her lap. “Fight. Don't give in to the fear or fear will win. It gives power to the dark places.”

Rika's eyes dimmed and a single glistening tear ran down her cheek. “So much blood to come,” she whispered. “The island will bleed, and people you love will be lost. That is the end you seek, child. Prepare yourself.”

Jumping to her feet, Charley stumbled away from the couch. She had to get away
now
. She couldn't sit here another minute with this freaky woman who sent chills to her soul. “Thank you,” she said, backing away. “For talking to me. I have to go.”

“Of course you do,” Rika rasped, her finger stroking her bracelets. “Remember what I said. Fight the fear. And prepare for the end you crave so badly.”

Charley burst out into the open air, breathing like she'd just run a thirteen-mile race. Her heart pounded against her ribs; her chest was tight.

Behind her Rika called, “Child, don't forget a muffin!”

Pretending she didn't hear, Charley mounted her bike and took off the way she had come. Wind bit her hair as she pedaled; sweat ran down her back. She didn't stop. Not her legs pumping, or her mind racing.

You already have the answers you seek
, Rika had said as she'd tapped the journal.

How is this possible?
Charley thought. She knew the journal by heart; she'd read it so many times she could quote by rote, without error, any passage from any page. What could she possibly have missed?

Look for what you don't see.

Rika spoke in vague phrases that meant nothing to Charley. It was as if Rika talked in riddles.

Riddles
, Charley thought, her mind following a trailing thread. A page of the journal flashed in her memory. Entry number thirteen. One line leaped out as if written in flames.

Mazes and men, caves and creatures, ruins and riddles, all wrapped up in an island bottle.

That's it
, she thought, braking to a stop. Certainty halted her panic like the douse of a fire.
Thad needs to find the ruins and the riddle.
Maybe the ruins
were
the riddle, she mused. Or maybe they were just part of it.

Thad might know, if he could just hear her.

Thad.
She thought his name fiercely, with as much intensity and love and clarity as she could muster.
Find the ruins, solve the riddle. Look for what you don't see.

She repeated this thought until her head ached from the effort. Then she stopped altogether, and tried to listen. Nothing. No reply from Thad, nothing at all. But she didn't let that stop her from believing he had heard her.

Thad, I love you. I believe in you. Look for what you don't see.

She started biking again, slowly this time. Rika would tell her no more, of that Charley felt certain. But perhaps Maaka might be willing to talk about island riddles. It was worth a try. She had absolutely nothing to lose, not here anyway. But she had
everything
to lose there, and she wouldn't stop fighting to get her world back.

She glanced at her watch. It was noon on the dot. She closed her eyes and pictured the boy with sapphire eyes, the one she loved with every bit of her heart.

Thad, I love you. I believe in you. Look for what you don't see.

*   *   *

Thad.

On the beach, Thad sucked in a hard breath. His name echoed in his ears, a cruel taunt. It sounded so much like Charley he'd swear that if he spun around, he'd find himself looking into her golden eyes, close enough to touch. But Charley wasn't here. She was safe.

Nil was playing tricks again.

He closed his eyes, half wanting to hear the voice again, hating himself for even considering it was Charley.

Get out
, he thought with a vengeance.
Go play in someone else's head.

The whisper brushed his mind again, as warm as the noon Nil sun and just as fierce.

Thad, I love you. I believe in you. Look for what you don't see.

Thad's heart skipped in shock. It was
her
voice,
her
drawl, dripping through his head like honey; it stirred an ache in his soul that told him this was real. The voice
was
Charley, not Nil.

He'd bet his life on it.

The more he listened, the more he
heard
, the more Thad realized that was exactly the wager he would make.

Despite the hell of Nil around him, Thad smiled.

Nil still ran the tables, kept cards up her sleeve. But this time, he had a few of his own. One in particular, the ace of hearts, and his gut said the ace of hearts beat the ace of diamonds any damn day.

I guess I'm playing after all
, he thought, jogging up the beach, toward the City.

In a few weeks, he'd find out who held the stronger hand.

 

CHAPTER

43

SKYE

83 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, AFTER NOON

Would you have run?
Paulo had asked after that gate had vanished.

No
, I'd thought. If anything, I would have run
away
from the gate. I had business to finish, ripples to stop. I eyed the mountain, picturing the platform in my mind, knowing our gate would rise in eighty-three days.

And then we would destroy it, if I could just figure out how.

Rives stood beside me on the black sand beach, his strong hand wrapping mine, our hearts and heads woven so tightly that we were one. The island had sealed our bond, branding a bit of each of our souls on the other, but the love we shared was ours and ours alone.

I could not lose Rives.

But the island wanted something, maybe some
one
. And now Zane had me thinking it wanted
everyone
.

The thought terrified me because it felt true.

An animal cry reached my ears, a predatory call that stole my full attention. An answering call replied to the first, louder. Possibly closer.

The three boys stared at the mountain, all oddly oblivious, all strangely still. Despite his hand in mine, Rives felt very far away.

“Rives,” I hissed, tugging his hand.

He jerked his head toward me, his eyes clearing as he blinked. “How long have I been staring at the mountain?”

“Long enough. We need to go,
now
. Something's coming.”

I slid my sling off my shoulder, rock in hand. On cue, a deer leaped from the bushes, its hooves gouging deep grooves in the black sand, slipping and slowing as it tried to gain traction.

“Zane. Paulo,” Rives said sharply. Their heads snapped toward us, their eyes as clouded as his had been. “Let's move. A deer just showed up and something's chasing it. Keep your eyes open and minds to yourself, all right?”

As he raised his knife, two animals burst from the tree line. They moved sleekly, their coats a blurry mix of black and caramel, their teeth bared in feral snarls.

Hyenas
, I thought. I was flanked by Rives and Paulo; I was caught between Dex and Jillian. The animals hit the sand in tandem, hunting the deer.

“Skye!” Rives jerked my hand, urging me to run. He held his knife out defensively; Paulo gripped his spear tight. Zane was unarmed and I wasn't much better off. I'd have to stop to aim.

The deer stumbled.

The animals pounced. They bit the deer repeatedly as it tried to escape; they nipped its legs, its hindquarters, its flanks, anything they could get their teeth on. I'd never seen hyenas attack so efficiently, and so brutally. I
hated
hyenas. I stood rooted to the sand.