Chapter 13

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THE SCREAM SPLITS THE DAWNwhen I’m halfway to the house. It propels me into a sprint, over the porch steps and into the kitchen, my eyes darting around to see who’s hurt, who’s died, but it’s just the kettle, come to a boil on the stovetop.

Right. People can do more things than die.

Like prepare breakfast in my absence. “Morning,” says the boy, bustling about the kitchen with a towel tied around his hips like an apron. “Where’d you…”

He trails off when he sees my sorry state.

To paint a picture: I’m soaked up to the waist and dripping all over the floor. My feet are caked in sand and some stray kelp’s plastered around my ankle. I have no idea what I can say to dodge the boy’s inquiries so I don’t try, offering up “beach yoga” as my explanation before I climb onto the kitchen counter and toss the house key onto the highest shelf.

There. Now, I might fall and break an arm in the middle of the night, but at least I won’t wake up like I did this morning, standing waist-deep in the sea as the surf hurtled toward me.

Clambering down, I brush past the boy. I’ll field his questions later. But once I’m in front of M.M.’s closet, hunting for dry clothes, his words from the other day resound in my skull.

Your mojo could kill you.

I grip the edge of the closet door. Normally, I can trick myself into seeing the hilarity of sleepwalking to the shore. But today, my mind refuses to reframe the shit I can’t control. Thanks to the boy, it’s stuck on the possibility that I could really die the next time. It’s bad enough for me to assume there will be a next time.

“Hey.”

I take a deep breath, let it settle my nerves, then release the closet. “Yeah?”

The boy stands in the bedroom doorway. He’s removed the apron, unveiling his outfit of the day: an M.M. pom-pom sweater and hair, freshly washed, that drips onto his shoulders. It’s a good look. Would be better if his lips weren’t parting to release a flood of questions in three, two, one—

“I’d like to join.”

I blink. “Join?”

“Beach yoga,” says the boy, and oh, love. He believes me. Why wouldn’t he? The truth—that I sleepwalked to the beach—is just too out there for him to arrive at on his own.

Let him believe it, then. My problems aren’t his, and what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. “It’s an advanced class,” I say, untying my wet cargos and nearly dropping them before remembering such a thing called propriety. I glance at the boy; he’s already turned around. “Not sure you can handle it.” I step into a dry pair, cinch the waist, and tell him I’m good.

“I’m a quick learner.”

I turn toward his voice—and back up into the closet.

He’s stands in front of me, long-lashed eyes slightly hooded. I don’t think we’ve ever been this close before—conscious, that is. Can’t forget about the time he almost crushed the life out of me.

“Some other day,” I say, flustered at being caught off guard. “Gotta run.”

I wait for him to move and let me pass.

Instead he leans in. His head tips down beside mine, hair dripping onto my shoulder.

“Don’t go.”

His voice holds a command, a plea, and an invitation all in one and my stomach answers with a clench of hunger. My veins throb with blood and I know what I want to do—press him up against the closet and devour him, as I would any other boy who speaks to me like that.

Except this isn’t like him. This isn’t the boy I’ve been getting to know. Nor is it the unhearing, unseeing boy who tried to strangle me on the beach, but—Careful, Cee, says a voice in my head as I cup his cheek and turn my head a fraction, my lips brushing his ear. “Unless you want to be kneed in the balls again,” I whisper, “you’re going to step aside.”

For a long moment, nothing happens.

Then he stumbles back. He clutches his face like I slapped him. He shakes his head, mouth opening, closing, eyes looking to me, as if I can explain his strange behavior, before frowning. “Again? You’ve … done it before?”

His voice is back to normal. My heart rate sure isn’t; my brain’s confused and whiplashed and it takes a lot of effort to think of a comeback. “Clearly, I didn’t do it hard enough to leave an impression,” I say, deliberately eyeing his crotch.

Then I get the hell out.

“Stay,” I order at U-me as I hurry down the porch, swiping my fanny pack on the way.

I trust you, I said to the boy.

You know nothing about me, the boy said to me.

The score chart as of this morning:

Boy: 1

Cee: 0

I can’t unhear his voice no matter how I try, and believe me, I try. I chop trees so single-mindedly that the hours run together. The sun’s setting when I finally drag all five trunks to the ridge; I curse when I realize my maximum load of two trunks per climb means three separate climbs.

Better start now.

The sun is already lower by the time I complete my first ascent. I quickly unload the two trunks at the ridge top. As I prepare to head back down for two more, a sound comes from the shore side of the ridge. I freeze. Again—same sound.

A voice.

“Cee!”

I peer over the edge.

Oh my Joules.

The boy is climbing. Without. A. Rope.

I throw him mine—and not a second too soon. He grabs it just as he loses a foothold. My stomach plummets as he plummets, and my heart snaps taut when the rope halts his fall.

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” I shout. Something glints at the base of the ridge. U-me, loafing around. Failed at her supervision job and can’t even be bothered to be useful now. “Help him, U-me, for fuck’s sake.”

Slowly, she rolls beside the boy as he relocates his footholds. “Strongly disagree. Disagree. Neutral. Agree.”

Eons pass before the boy reaches the top. I grab his hand and tug.

“Explain”—he lurches into me—“yourself,” I puff out.

“Let me—help.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Forget about his weird behavior this morning; I’m not about to let my first guest fall to his death before my very eyes.

The boy finishes catching his breath. “The sun’s setting.”

“So?”

“So we should get going.” He grabs a log and moves toward the edge, as if the descent is as easy as stepping off.

I seize him by the back of his sweater. “Okay, first, you don’t descend with the logs. It’s hard enough carrying them to the top. Let the rope do the rest of the work.”

“Any other pointers?”

No. No pointers. You shouldn’t be here.But the sun isn’t slowing for us as we argue, and at some point, the boy’s going to have to climb down on his own anyway since I can’t strap him across my back like a log.

I blow a long breath past my lips. “Listen closely.”

I show him how to tie the rope around himself like a harness, then send him on a test climb down the ridge side.

He didn’t lie—he is a fast learner. And with him here, I don’t even have to climb the logs to the ridge top. He can stay at the base to fasten them to the end of the rope, and I can stay at the top to pull them up. The sun sinks past the horizon as we lower all five logs down the shore side of the ridge. We complete our own descent in the after light.

“Thanks,” I say later as we’re dragging the logs across the shale. “But never again.”

“I won’t bog you down.”

“Don’t care.”

“There’s nothing else to do.”

“Remind me to dirty up the house for you,” I say, and he snorts. The sound suits him, fits nicely into the repertoire I’ve collected for the boy-I-think-I-know, a boy whose mysteriousness begins and ends at his lack of memories and who, for the most part, is the opposite of dangerous. The opposite of suave. It’s somewhat of a shame, I think, glancing sidelong at the boy as he wipes the sweat from his brow, because I guess there are a number of human debaucheries I miss and the boy, while a decent helper, is far from an (in)decent partner in crime.

At night we still go our separate ways—bedroom for him, couch for me—but he’s up in the morning, ready when I am, and after some verbal sparring, I let him come that day.

And the next.

We build a routine. I chop down trees. He drags them to the base of the ridge. Transporting them over to the other side takes half as long with our human pulley system, and time goes by quicker when split with someone. Before I know it, I’m only three logs short from finishing Leona, and the boy and I have even wandered through several conversations.

“How do you think of me?” he asks when we’re dragging logs through the meadow on our fourth and likely penultimate outing. For a second I’m not sure what I would say. You’re fine/helpful sounds lukewarm while You’re pretty great would be coming on strong. Luckily the boy clarifies by adding, “Do you have a placeholder name in your head?”

Ah. Nope, just the boy. “Would you like a placeholder name?” I ask, arching a brow.

“Depends.”

“Oh, come now.” I nudge him with an elbow. “I’d pick a good one.”

“It’ll be weird if it’s random.”

“It won’t be random,” I promise.

“Dmitri?” I pop seconds later.

“Sounds pretty random to me,” says the boy.

The grass ripples around us as we slip through it. The blades tickle, and I scratch my ear. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“It’s too…” The boy trails off. I wait, and sigh when he remains tight-lipped.

“Fine.” I have other contenders. “What about Tristan?”

“Same issue as Dmitri,” says the boy as the last of the grass parts, the meadow behind us and the ridge towering over us. “They’re both…” His forehead wrinkles as he thinks.

“What?” I prompt. I refuse to let him off the hook this time.

“Promise not to laugh.”

“Promise.”

The boy offloads his logs at the ridge base. “Hunky.”

I howl.

“You promised!”

“I know. I’m horrible. I’m sorry.” I think you’re plenty hunky—but the boy looks mortified enough. “Just—hunky.”

The boy is not amused. “What term would you use?”

“‘Smoldering,’ maybe. ‘Dark.’”

“Do I look dark to you?” demands the boy.

“No tragic backstory?”

“Nope. Tragic, right?”

My abs ache as my laughter finally releases me. We’re standing in the shadow of the ridge. Not working. Not moving. Just talking. And I don’t want it to end. “Heath?”

“No.”

“Stop rejecting my names.”

“Stop pulling them all from the same hat.” Then the boy frowns and looks at me closely. “Are these coming off the top of your head?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe names are like faces in dreams,” says the boy. “Maybe you only know the ones of people you’ve met before.”

“You’ll have to write that theory down. Publish it in some peer-reviewed journal when we get off the island.” Be scouted by an innotech firm.

Now where did that come from?

“Am I?” asks the boy, distracting me.

“Am I…?”

“Getting off the island.” He speaks without bitterness or blame, his words as soft as the rain that begins to fall. He faces the ridge. “You don’t have to answer that,” he says, and starts climbing as I stand, speechless at the bottom.

Great. Just great. He’s not allowed to say something like that and leave me agonizing over what he really means, because there’s no way he’s that neutral to the idea of being left behind—

Or is he?

I stare at him over dinner. As we wash the dishes. He gives me nothing to work with. We part for the night, and I’m left tossing and turning on the couch, his question gnawing at me.

Am I getting off the island?

The raft could be big enough for both of us, if I keep building it. Food is the real issue. We haven’t stockpiled enough for two people on a journey of indeterminate length. I could set sail first, I decide, and spare the boy a watery death if I fail. And if I succeed, and find Kay, then I’m sure she’d help me rescue the boy as well. But why do I assume he needs rescuing at all? What if he also has someone he needs to find, someone he doesn’t remember? And even if he doesn’t—if he’s truly alone—does that discredit his desire to go home? Is his life worth less than mine just because he isn’t missed or loved?

“Still up?”

The whirlpool in my head stops at his whisper. I nod, say “Yes” in case it’s too dark for him to see. He comes around to the front of the couch. I sit up and pull my legs in to make room. The cushion beneath my feet flutters as he sits, and something in me flutters too, adjusting to his presence across from me.

I wait for him to address what he said back at the ridge.

I don’t expect him to ask, “Do you ever dream about things you can’t make sense of?”

“Sometimes.” Sometimes, scenes from my dreams seem too good to be true. Like the blueness of the sea, the crystalline sky, and the white ladder running between the two. “But mostly, I dream about my sister.” Or swimming in the ocean, which usually ends with me waking in the ocean. “What about you?”

For a minute, it’s just the sound of my even breathing and the rain, gentle outside.

“White.” The boy speaks in a whisper. “In my dreams, all I can see is white.”

“What kind of white?”

“Just … white.” A measured breath. “A white worse than nothingness. The kind that makes you go blind.”

His voice is hushed, his fear barely audible, but there.

It hurts me to hear it.

I inch over to him as he says, “I don’t know how you did it, living so long here on your—what … are you doing?”

“Combing out the dreams,” I say, one hand on his shoulder, the other running through his hair.

The boy is stiff, but doesn’t move away. Doesn’t move at all when I replace the hand on his shoulder with my head. “And this?” he asks, voice airless as if he’s stopped breathing.

“Listening to your fears. Rest your head on mine.”

After a second, he does—very, very carefully, as if our skulls might break. As the weight of his head settles, so does the breath in his chest. He resumes breathing; I’m close enough to feel it, now that we’re sitting arm to arm, in darkness and silence still as water.

Eventually, I break it to whisper, “Can you hear my fears?”

“No,” admits the boy, and just as I’m wondering if he thinks this is too weird and dorky, he says, “I hear the sea.”

I smile. Might still be smiling when I drift off, into a dream where me and Kay are walking along the beach and Kay bends down, picks up a shell. A Fibonacci spiral, she says to me, holding out her palm. Normally, such a dream would have me sleepwalking to the shore but in the morning, I wake to light from M.M.’s good old window and something thumping under my cheek.

A heartbeat.

My own heart, sleep-sluggish, wakes up once I see gravity’s work. Overnight, my head appears to have fallen onto the boy’s chest and we both appear to have fallen flat onto the couch. His one arm dangles to the ground while the other rests over my waist. His head’s angled back, the pale column of his throat exposed.

I touch my own throat. The bruises have finally stopped hurting. That night of thunder and rain feels like a week-old dream. The boy beside me (under me?) is warmer than any carpet-blanket, and I’m tempted to lie back down, but rafts don’t build themselves and at last, I lift his arm, lift myself, and carefully reposition the limb over his stomach.

I grab a taro patty left over from last night’s dinner and eat it on the porch. The tide rises with the sun. The boy doesn’t wake. Let him rest. I don’t need his help today when I’m only three logs short of completing Leona.

Three logs short of setting sail.

I feel none of the joy I did when I finished Hubert. Instead, the taro patty sits like a boulder in my stomach, and I do everything slowly—checking my pack, climbing the ridge, even going through the grayscale meadow and its creepy shrines. I cut my trees with precision, trying to make each stroke count. All the while, the forest keeps on calling my name. Beckoning.

Cee.

Cee.

Cee.

Fuck it. I toss down the kitchen knife and rise. It’s just the foggy trees and the Shipyard, deeper in. What do I have to be afraid of?

I follow the call of my name, venturing into the trees. My steps, loud at first, quiet down as the pine cones underfoot decay. No beetles today. The island isn’t exactly a menagerie, crossing predators off my list of things to worry about. But as the fog thickens, strung between the trees like cobwebs, I’m also reminded of how alone I was before the boy washed up—and how alone he’ll be when I leave.

I shake off the thought. We’ve only known each other for one week. Kay and I have shared—and lost—years together. Nothing can compare, and when I reach the clearing in the forest and see the Shipyard, surrounded by the piles of junk I scavenged through to exhume Hubert, it rushes back. Every ridge crossing. The broken arms and ribs. The pain and joy and hopelessness, to have come so close and lost it all to a storm. But despite my worst fears, it didn’t take three more years to find another way off this island. This really is a best-case scenario. Leaving will hurt, but I’ll survive. Nothing can kill me. Kay is waiting. I hear her. Her voice—it’s coming from the pool.

Cee.An ash-gray leaf lands in the middle of it, quivering the surface. My ribs uncurl in reach, and I stumble to the pool rim, my face perfectly reflected in water still as glass.

It shatters as I step in.

The water closes over me. My thoughts dilute. My eyes open. The pool’s shockingly deep. I part the water before me like a curtain, revealing the bottom. It’s plush with moss and speckled with toadstools, some as small as pebbles, other as big as dinner plates, glazed with light from above. Shadows gather, cloudlike, as I dive deeper. The water goes on forever and ever, and at some point, I begin to see.

In color—just like my memories and dreams—I see Kay. We’re in a shoebox of a room, lying on the same bed and curled like kidneys, knee to knee. My fingers comb through her hair as I talk to her and my words appear on my hands, wrists, arms. They darken into bruises. The walls around us move away. Now I’m alone and speaking to a man in a white suit. Eighty years, he says, but I can’t wait that long, so I walk to the doorway and step out, into the ocean waiting beyond. Water licks my skin; the sun bakes it dry as I’m washed ashore. A woman runs out to greet me; she wears a baby-blue sweater with iron-on pugs. I gave her that sweater, and she gives me a mug of tea and together we go to see a wall of concrete, soaring into the sky.

The images come faster and faster.

And freeze.

I choke as something cuts into my midsection, digging in as it draws me up and up and up.

Turns out it’s the boy’s arm, a vise around my waist when we break the surface, and though it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to kill me, I still panic. “The fuck do you—”

I break off. My eyes widen, absorbing the turquoise water around us and the gem-green trees, hemming in the Shipyard.

Turquoise.

Green.

My vision blurs, unable to process. To focus. When it finally refocuses, it’s on the boy, his face mere centimeters from mine, his breaths ragged on my lips. His are pink. His hair is a dark, dark brown, strands matting his forehead. His eyes are the color of the sky.

Color.

Joules, I can see in color.

A voice worms through my sensory overload. It’s the boy’s, ordering to me swim.

Hard to obey when he’s holding on to me like a floatation device. “What are you doing?” I snap, pushing him before he can answer.

We separate with a splash. The boy sloshes backward, floundering, then regains control of his limbs. “What does it look like?” he snaps right back, treading the water.

“Like you’re trying to drown me.”

“I was saving you.” He spits out a leaf. “You weren’t moving!” he cries when I glare at him in disbelief. “And you were under for at least three minutes.”

Yeah, right. Three minutes, and I’d be blue in the face. I only choked on one mouthful of water, and guess who made me do that?

“I counted,” says the boy, swimming after me as I paddle to the rim. “I waited as long as I reasonably could and only jumped in when I had to.” Blah blah blah. I hoist myself out of the pool, flopping onto the green dandelions. “Because believe it or not—” The boy flops beside me, panting. “—this is not my idea of fun.” He glances to me. “Say something.”

“Sorry to break it to you, love, but I don’t need saving.”

“Got it,” says the boy, adopting my annoyed tone. “Will keep that in mind if you’re ever hanging off the edge of a cliff.” Then he sits upright and wrings out M.M.’s sweater. It’s blue. Brings out the color of his eyes.

“What?” he asks when he catches me staring.

I’m still peeved at his meddling, but also curious. “What color is my hair?”

“Black…?”

“And my eyes?”

“… Dark brown.” He looks me over, brow furrowing. “Are you okay?”

I don’t answer.

Black hair.

Dark eyes.

Just like Kay.

Relief trickles through me. I don’t know what I expected. We’re sisters, after all. But I feel closer to her than ever, especially with the new memories.

The memories.They were cut short. There are more, I’m sure of it. My eyes snap to the pool, the source of everything, before I was interrupted—

The boy grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. “We’re heading back now.”

“Says who?”

“Says whoever didn’t just try to drown themselves.”

Grumbling, I follow him through the forest, too wet and too tired to pick this bone with him. My whole being buzzes. First memories, now color. It’s overwhelming—and probably the reason why I screw up an hour later, after we’ve gathered the trees, lowered them down the ridge, and it’s time to descend ourselves. I go first, barely a meter down when I lose my foothold. My hands shoot out, grappling for a dip in the rock. I miss, and my other foot swings free.

Above me, the boy shouts. My eyes shut on instinct, and I brace myself for the hard bite of the harness up my ass.

It doesn’t come.

The rope goes slack. Untied.

I keep on falling.