Nil Unlocked (6 page)

Dad rubbed his chin. “I’m not certain. But Scott references it by name in his journal.”

“Dad, if Nil exists, why has no one heard of it? Why has no one found it before?”

“Excellent questions. First, a few things. Scott didn’t fully understand the island himself. People arrive through portals and apparently leave the same way. There doesn’t seem to be any other avenue of escape. The portals—the teens called them gates—appeared in the lava fields a few times a month, always at midday, and sometimes somewhere else. There weren’t that many people on the island. Scott guessed twenty on average, twenty-five at most, from all over the globe. So I’m guessing that perhaps one person arrives each week, possibly two. Extrapolate that and you have approximately fifty-two people per year, 104 at the most. Compare that to lightning. Lightning strikes kill approximately twenty-four thousand people around the world each year. And about two hundred forty thousand globally are injured by lightning. Based on those numbers, the odds of being struck by lightning, let alone killed, are incredibly small. There are over seven billion people in the world, Skye. So put the island against that global backdrop. The odds of hearing about a few dozen or even a hundred people going to some remote island is almost nonexistent.” He paused. “Plus, according to Scott, only teenagers made it to the island. And unfortunately, the disappearance of a teen spurs less interest than, say, a child gone missing or an adult. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.”

I shivered.

“And don’t forget,” he said, “I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but the World Wide Web connecting the globe is relatively new. So until news searches were available at the click of a Google button, it was up to people sifting through papers and microfilm in libraries. I haven’t made strides myself until the last few years.”

“Really? You’ve ‘made strides’?” I couldn’t help making air quotes around his words. “How?”

“This.” He tapped a group of papers tacked at eye level. “Over the past ten years, I’ve tracked every news story I could find about teenagers appearing naked in odd places, because according to Scott’s journal, everyone arrives on the island nude, and based on his experience, when they return, they wake in the same bare state.”

Do they always find clothes?
I wondered. It seemed a small point, but I’d seen an ad for the television show
Naked and Afraid
, and the naked guy on TV was the scariest thing I’d seen in a while. Plus being naked on an island sounded like an absolute nightmare.

“There aren’t many stories,” he continued, oblivious to my naked-and-afraid horror, “but the few I’ve found stand out. Only one mentions an island, but the articles tell me it’s still happening.” He walked over to the massive map of the South Pacific.

“As you know, I’ve traveled extensively to the South Pacific. I’ve spoken to hundreds of islanders and collected volumes of anecdotal information. I’ve been putting together the pieces for twenty years, Skye. But the big break came last year, in Micronesia. My guide—Charles, the one who hailed from Tuvalu—spoke of a place. Here.” His hands traced an invisible circle on the map and stopped at a yellow tack in the center. “Spirit Island, his grandmother called it, a place of magic and mystery only accessed by a select few.”

Dad turned toward me, his expression resolute. “And this December I’m going to find it.”

“What do you mean, ‘
I’m
going to find it’?” Something felt off, like I was late to the party. Not that I went to parties, but still.

“I’m heading to Micronesia at the start of winter break. I’ve got a charter booked and ready. I’ll be gone for roughly two weeks.”

I processed his words. There were an awful lot of
I’
s. “I’m going with you, right?”

He shook his head. “It’s too remote. Too dangerous. You’ll stay with your mom.”

“No can do, Dad.” I fought a winning smile. “Mom’s not coming home for Christmas, remember? She’s not coming back to the States until spring break.”

Dad’s expression said he’d totally forgotten, which wasn’t surprising. His organization was bad on a good day, and with Mom’s surprise departure, Dad was a full-blown parental mess.

“Your mom’s not coming back until spring break,” he repeated slowly. It was an old trick he used, buying time to think. “Right.” He smiled too brightly. “I’ll call my sister. I’m sure you could stay with Aunt Meg and the twins. I’ll be gone for less than two weeks. More like twelve days and—”

“Stop.” I cut him off with a wave. “I’m not staying with Aunt Meg. I’m going with you. End of story. You can’t just shuffle me off with your sister because you forgot I’d be here.”

He winced. “I’m not shuffling you off. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“Bullcrap, Dad. You forgot, plain and simple. You made plans and now you’re stuck. I’m coming with you.”

“What about Tish?” Dad’s tone was desperate.

“What about Tish?” I said flatly. Tish was my best friend back in Gainesville. I knew where he was headed, but I refused to make it easy.

“Perhaps you could stay with her?” His upbeat tone pleaded for a yes.

I crossed my arms. “So I can’t stay with Tish to finish out my senior year in Gainesville, but I can go spend the
entire Christmas break
with her? How messed up is that?” Two months ago I would’ve jumped at the chance to hang with Tish for two weeks. Now it felt like a consolation prize. I stared at my dad, unwilling to back down.

He flinched first.

“No,” I said calmly. “No Aunt Meg, no Tish.”
No ditching me like Mom.
“Book another ticket because I’m coming with you. And in case you’ve forgotten”—I took care to emphasize that last word—“I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. Isn’t that what you’ve worked so hard to make sure of all these years?”

Dad’s shoulders drooped, and I knew I’d won.

“Fine.” He sighed. “But you’ll stick with me at all times on the trip, okay? No wandering off, Skye.”

“Deal.” I smiled. “So when do we leave?”

CHAPTER

7

RIVES

DAY 241, MID-AFTERNOON

Chalk one up in the let’s-make-people-suffer category of Nil.

Jason’s gritted teeth spoke volumes.

We’d just finished eating. Actually, I’d just finished chowing down on three shrimp wraps, but Jason had barely touched his food.

I pointed at his half-eaten wrap. “Your finger killing your appetite, bro?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe I dropped a frickin’ rock on it.” He sighed. The circles under his eyes darkened in the afternoon shadows.

“It happens.” I took a hard look at his finger and frowned. Angry flesh bulged between the tight white lines of Jillian’s homemade bandage. Luckily for Jason, his bone hadn’t broken the skin, but it obviously hurt like hell. “You’re off watch until I say otherwise,” I told him. “Try to get some sleep tonight, all right? Hit it early.”

He nodded.

Jason walked away, cradling his hand, shoulders stooped in exhaustion and pain. I sighed, knowing he needed rest to heal but cruelly aware that pain and sleep meshed as well as oil and water. He needed a painkiller that would knock him out.

He needed Sabine’s deadsleep tea.

It had helped Charley, maybe even made the difference for her. But so many what-ifs here were out of my control, binding my hands with invisible ties.

What kind of Leader was I?

One who’s fearless
, I thought grimly.

I strode back to my hut.

Behind it, resting on a flat plank, three coconut shell cups sat waiting. By my count, the deadleaf seeds had been soaking in water for a week, the same time frame Sabine had mentioned once. No seeds had been fermenting when Talla had been hurt, and there hadn’t been time to soak them. No one knew a shortcut. No one knew Sabine’s secrets.

Except me.

I’d sat with her the day she’d mixed deadsleep tea for Charley. I’d watched Sabine’s every move and paid attention to her potion. I didn’t know a fermentation shortcut, but I knew the process from there.

It was time to experiment.

It was time to wrench this variable in our favor. If not for Jason, whose broken finger was minor by Nil injury standards, then for the next person who clung to life. I was done with watching people get hurt and die.

I picked up the first cup. Using a clean piece of taro leaf, I carefully scooped out all seven seeds and dumped them on the ground like Sabine had done. The remaining water was tinged gold; it was the same translucent caramel shade I remembered. Possibly darker.

Rivesssss …

The afternoon breeze whispered like a ghost. It blew onshore, smelling like salt and sea and memories. I looked toward the field, where the inked boy had stood, where bleached coral crosses lined the field’s edge and marked island graves.

Be fearlesssss …

Careful not to spill the amber liquid, I carried the cup into my hut, where a small table, an empty cup, and a gourd of water waited.

Recalling Sabine’s methodical steps, I cut the fermented liquid by half with clean water. I sniffed it. Bitter, but not unpleasant. I took a sip. Too sharp, too strong. I added more water and sipped again, twice. The flavor still tasted off. I added a dash more water and drank again. I frowned and took another drink, rolling the tea around on my tongue. The strength felt right—but the tea wasn’t.

Something was missing.

I drank another swallow, and a memory hit: fruit juice. Just before she’d given it to Charley, Sabine had mixed fruit juice into the tea, a blend of guava and redfruit juice. I’d assumed it was for flavor, to cut the bitterness, but maybe it was to cut the tea’s strength. Maybe it was to neutralize the acidic bite; maybe it was to keep the tea’s balance between life and death.

Maybe it was important.

I had this juice epiphany as I realized I couldn’t move. My legs and arms were dead weight masquerading as flesh and bone, sinew and muscle. They were attached to me, yet they weren’t; below my neck, I felt nothing. My eyelids dropped like blackout shades.

Merde.

The thought ended as I slammed into a wall of black; the black hit me, held me, turned me into stone. Inside my skull, blackness dripped through my brain, thick and heavy. No heat, no ice.

No sensation at all.

No me.

CHAPTER

8

SKYE

NOVEMBER 16, MID-AFTERNOON

“Four weeks,” Dad said grudgingly. “We fly out on December eighteenth. Normally I’d be ecstatic to have you come with me, you know that, Skye. But I feel like I’m putting you in harm’s way. You’re still a kid.”

“I’ll be eighteen in February, so technically I’m almost an adult.” I paused. “But more importantly, I’m a teenager, which—correct me if I’m wrong—are the only people allowed on the island, right? So did it ever occur to you I might just be your best hope of finding it?”

Dad looked less thrilled by the minute.

I changed the subject before he changed his mind. “Dad, say we find this island, Nil. Then what? Not to dash your dreams, but what’s the point? Is it just to prove that Uncle Scott was telling the truth?”

“Confirmation of the island’s existence is part of it, certainly. The island’s existence goes against every scientific fiber of my being, and the scientist in me wants to confirm it for myself. But there’s more.” He paused. “I think that if I—
we
,” he quickly amended as I arched my eyebrows, “can find the island, then we can save the sanity and potentially even the lives of the kids who end up there. Once the island’s existence is acknowledged to the outside world, then the teens won’t suffer the stigma of disbelief. And we’ll also have the coordinates so all the teens there can be rescued.”

I frowned. “One problem. Didn’t Uncle Scott say the only way to the island was a portal? So what’s the connection between these kids”—I tapped the articles of missing-and-then-found teens—“and this possibly-real mysterious island?” Now I tapped the special yellow tack out in nowhere.

“I’m not sure,” Dad admitted. “I can’t help but think there might be another way onto the island, possibly a direct route, accessed by boat? Perhaps it’s so remote that it’s difficult to find? Perhaps something is protecting the island, such as a natural barrier? That part of the Pacific Ocean is enormous. We just need the coordinates, Skye. We’ll use the information from my guide, Charles, and the stars to guide us; Scott references specific constellations in his journal. And if we can find Nil, we can save all the kids. We’re the answer they’ve been waiting for.” The fanatical news-of-the-weird gleam was back.

Something told me finding the island wouldn’t be as easy as Dad believed, and finding a way to save the kids would be even harder.

Maybe even impossible.

Otherwise wouldn’t it have already been done?

“Maybe,” I said.
Or maybe it’s the ultimate island pipe dream.

I backed up, raising the journal like a shield. “I’m going to go read. Try to find something to help us.”
And something to help me believe.

“Good thinking.” Dad’s eyes shone, a sign he thought I was fully on board the crazy train with him. The truth was, I
was
on board with the idea of going along with my dad for a Micronesian excursion rather than being left behind over winter break. But as for the mysterious island of Nil and Dad’s pie-in-the-sky hope of not only finding this tiny island somewhere in the giant Pacific Ocean, but also rescuing the kids? I wasn’t on board with that train wreck at all. Not that I didn’t think it was noble and laudable and a lovely Christmas gift for everyone; I just didn’t think it was likely, or even possible. I thought Dad was setting himself up for mega disappointment.

Still, a trip to the Pacific Islands in December sure sounded nice.

Weeks later I’d remember that thought.
Nice
wasn’t the right word at all.

Risky.

Surprising.

Terrifying.