On the Isle of Sound and Wonder (9 page)

The bird cocked its head almost disapprovingly, and Truffo frowned at it. “I told you, it hurts,” he insisted through his teeth. “It hurts a lot.”

The orange-yellow bird fanned out its blue tail and gave a trilling series of whistles and chirps. Then it leaned over and jabbed its beak directly into the wound in Truffo’s shoulder.

He screamed, an infantile shriek that echoed off the flat beach and the rocks beyond, startling some sparrows out of a shrub. The prodding of the bird did not cease, and Truffo continued to cry out loudly, voicing his excruciating displeasure. It wasn’t until he lurched upright and tried to scramble to his feet that the bird trumpeted and flapped its wings, trying to cling to him.

“Get off, get off of me,” Truffo sobbed, the pain in his shoulder a flaming spike of agony that nearly caused his knees to buckle, even as he stood. “Stop, just stop it!”

The bird trilled and cawed and clucked in a myriad of different voices. Its orange and yellow wings spread and flapped and ruffled at him, its dark little claws clutching his torn shirt and jacket, and its sandpiper beak poked at his wound, causing the dark blood to flow once more.

Truffo staggered forward, still swatting at the bird, but the pain shot deeper into his body and he stumbled to his knees in the hot white sand. Black shimmering dots swam at the edges of his vision, and Truffo wondered if he had survived the shipwreck only to die at the beak of a tropical bird on a desert island.

What a punchline,
he thought bitterly. Then he felt the bird grasp something deep in his shoulder and yank hard. Truffo sucked in air so quickly that he was utterly silenced from shock, and the bird hopped back from him, beating its wings. Much of his pain left with the bird, like a candle blown out, and Truffo sagged as blood trickled down his shirt.

The odd sandpiper dropped the offending object onto the beach beside him, and Truffo saw that it was a twisted splinter of metal, slick and shining with his blood—shrapnel from the shipwreck. His arm throbbed, as though it had been asleep and had just begun to regain feeling.

Truffo gasped for air, pushing himself up on his good arm to stare levelly at the bird, which poked at the metal on the sand once, twice, and then cocked its head at him.

“That,” he panted, “was a bit clever of you.”

The bird cocked its head the other direction and gave a shrill echo of Truffo’s previous shriek. Truffo winced at the noise.

“Yeah, yeah, all right, that’s enough of that now . . .” He hefted back onto his heels, sweat shining on his brow as he shifted his tingling, sore arm into his lap, looking down to wiggle his fingers one by one through the pain. At least this was progress.

The bird was cleaning its own feathers now, as if pleased to have been right about the shrapnel, but it looked up at him from time to time and its tail feathers flicked up and down.

“Oy,” breathed Truffo, leaning forward a little. “Is there anyone else here, birdy? Scary natives maybe? A rich millionaire with a private retreat?” The bird fluffed itself as if it had no interest in him. “What about water?” His throat was painfully dry, and it was quite hot in the sun, out here on the open sand. The thought of sucking down seawater was revolting, but he was terribly thirsty. And if the bird was smart enough to have pulled a piece of metal out of his shoulder. . . .

Truffo whistled faintly to catch the bird’s attention. “Yoo hoo, then,” he prompted. “Polly want a cracker? Polly where’s-the-water? Promise I won’t eat you after,” he added.

He stared at the bird as it continued to preen. After several moments, the bird clucked to itself and hopped along the sand a little ways, poking its beak in and out of the ground in search of something. Truffo groaned, pulling himself to his feet, and shambled after the bird as it picked its way down the beach.

“Go on, go on,” he urged the bird, “don’t mind me, but don’t waste time, neither . . . You’re smart enough to do surgery, you’re smart enough to find water . . . or some shelter. Or help.”

Truffo’s dark eyes cast out toward the ocean for a moment, wondering how far away the shipwreck was from him, and how long he’d been unconscious on the sand. He tried to focus again on the bright orange bird, which had wound its way up the beach with quick little steps and turned toward the rocky upper dunes.

Truffo’s feet slid about in the sand, his vision growing spotty around the edges again, but the bird’s cheerful plumage was a considerable target.

Good old bird,
Truffo thought.
Some men have dogs and others cats, but my life
’
s been saved by a strange and hitherto undiscovered species of sandpiper
. He wondered if their new friendship would be his utter salvation, if he could teach the thing to speak—it could mimic well enough—and if it could help him survive on this spit of land.

I damn well can
’
t eat it now,
he thought crossly as he scrambled after it, seeing what looked like the mouth of a cave up ahead. A cave meant shade, protection from the sun, perhaps even an underground spring full of cool, clear water, and—

Something huge and dark lunged sharply out of the rocky hole and snatched up the orange bird, which trilled loudly and began to scream with Truffo’s voice. Truffo fell back in fear, hitting his head on the hard ground. He gasped hard in pain and looked up just in time to see the big, man-shaped shadow snap the bird’s neck.

“No!” Truffo sputtered, his vision blackening. “No, no, birdy! Oh, gods, is there no justice?”

The hulking shadow turned, the limp orange bird in its hand, and as the uneven blue eyes stared down in surprise and bewilderment, Truffo slipped into unconsciousness.

Mira broke the surface of the water, blinded momentarily by sunlight before the lenses of the diver’s goggles adjusted to the gleam. She spat out the salty seawater and breathed in the clean air of the surface. Paddling her legs beneath her to stay upright, she held her trophy above the surface, turning it back and forth to examine it.

The object was partly wood and partly silver, etched with ornate curls and patterns she did not recognize. It was a little heavy, despite being quite slender, and its oblong shape sat comfortably in her palm, as if it were meant to be held there. She inspected it from every angle, noting the artful shapes and grooves in the thin sides of the thing.

There was also what appeared to be a hinge, but she was unsure how to pry it apart to see what was inside, or even how it was put together. She would need some more tools to gut it, she realized, and swam toward the shore, the clear waters rippling about her. Fish skirted by her, and a ray fluttered along the sandy bottom as the way grew shallower.

At last, Mira could stand, and she walked the rest of the way up onto the beach. She dropped the rope coil she’d been wearing across her body and stood on the warm sand, as naked as the day she was born.

She had learned knots from a book in her father’s cave many years ago, and had used that skill to rescue debris from the bottom of the bay. Mira pushed the goggles back from her brow to rest on the crown of her head, her thick, tangled hair falling in a twisted, uneven braid down her back. The water beaded on her sun-browned skin like dew on a duck, and she furrowed her brow upon the little thing she’d recovered from the wreck.

Although the ship had sunk in parts and pieces, Mira had found no bodies when she dove to investigate, and hadn’t seen any survivors beyond the lagoon. It puzzled her, but she soon became distracted by the fascinating array of items spread throughout the lagoon.

Over several trips to the bottom, she had spotted silverware, long-necked glass bottles—some still unbroken—and several leather and wooden trunks. This little thing of dark wood and curlicued silver had been a surprisingly easy find for its size. It had gleamed in the dark shadows of the bay as though it had wanted to be found, and now it puzzled Mira more than the missing passengers of the ill-fated vessel.

She stretched her arms above her head, working out a cramp in her shoulder, and yawned heartily. The sun was warm, inviting her to sleep, but she wanted to dive back down and retrieve some of the trunks first, to see what was inside.

Mira moved swiftly up the beach to a tree at the edge of the forest beyond the dunes. As a child, she’d hidden and found and re-hidden things all over the island, some of which she was still rediscovering. In the shade, she reached under a bundle of driftwood and pulled out another length of rope she’d placed there some time ago, leaving behind the silver-and-wood object for safekeeping.

Mira bound this rope to the first with a double fisherman’s knot. She looped the large coil across her body as before, then ran splashing into the surf. She swam out to where she’d found the silver-and-wood artifact, took a deep breath, and dove down toward the wreckage.

It took some time to bring each trunk up to the surface and tow it back to shore. Had they been too heavy to swim with, she would have been faced with a difficult choice: open them underwater to try and salvage some of the contents, or leave them unopened on the ocean floor, forever a mystery. Two of these were quite light, the third being only moderately heavy, but still Mira was winded when she hefted the last of the three leather trunks onto the sand and sat down hard beside them, her arms aching.

She blew her breath out hard, and pushed her heavy braid back over her shoulder. She hoped one of the trunks contained a knife or shears of some kind—to cut her hair short and not have to drag the tangled plait around all the time would be a blessing. Who was that fairy tale princess again? The one with the long hair, trapped in the tower.

Petrosinella,
she thought, and grimaced.
At least I have a whole island, not just a tower.

Mira eyed the trunks beside her, wondering which would be most likely to give way and open up first. They were locked tight, but not completely unaffected by their stint underwater. She rubbed her upper arms, kneading the sore muscles, and looked out over the water, admiring the rich blue of the ocean.

It was something she never tired of. She loved the sea, even though it was equivalent to the walls of her prison. Mira felt more conflicted the older she got; some mornings she woke feeling as though the world was just right as it was, and the isle was all she would ever need. Some days she felt trapped and suspended in time, knowing that beyond the waves there was more, so much more, of everything. It frustrated and taunted her to think of the world beyond, but she loved the island, and, as there was no apparent chance of leaving, she did not struggle with the concept very often.

The soreness in her arms was beginning to subside, and, as the warm afternoon sun beat down on her, Mira thought she saw a dolphin’s fin break the water a little ways out, in the direction of the wreck. She squinted, a smile creeping across her lips, but the fin didn’t dip back down. Then she noticed the gulls circling overhead. She could just faintly make out their whining cries as they flapped and turned, a couple daring to swoop down at something on the surface. She pulled her glasses down over her eyes again and adjusted a knob on the side of them to focus the view for a longer distance. Something floated on the surface, though it was hard to make out what for a few moments. Then the angle of the dark shape shifted, and Mira saw what it was.

A body!

Without a moment of hesitation, Mira leapt to her feet, adjusting the view on the goggles as she did, and ran into the surf.
Maybe they’re still alive
, she thought, and plunged into the water, kicking out with powerful strokes. She swam hard and fast, her eyes fixed on the bobbing shape. As she got nearer to the spot she’d already explored, she realized that the body was floating just a bit further than she’d swum before. She thought about turning back, but the idea that whoever it was may not be quite dead yet was too great to neglect, so she kept swimming, hoping that she wouldn’t tire too much to swim back by the time she reached it.

The gulls squawked and cried at her, flapping and fluttering as she splashed noisily toward the body. Mira changed to a different stroke to keep her head more above water, slowing as she approached, and saw that it was a man—a young man, sprawled face down on a floating piece of wreck. His dark hair was short, his clothing finer than she’d expected for a sailor. His trousers were an exquisite material, his boots shined, and his shirt was very fine, other than the obvious tears and stains of blood and soot. The embroidery at his sleeves and collar was intricate and brightly colored, unlike anything Mira had seen before. She held onto the side of the raft with one hand and reached up the side of his neck with the other to look for a pulse. She realized she’d never taken a pulse other than her own before, and couldn’t tell whether she actually felt one, or whether it was the bobbing of the waves, or even her own pounding heartbeat.

Better safe than sorry
, she thought. She positioned herself behind the raft and began to swim, pushing the man toward shore with a steady, but urgent, kick.