Revel (11 page)
On Wreck Beach the waves crashed on the sand in overlapping curls of blue and green and white.
Wooden crates and white plastic tubs were strewn across
the sand. Some containers were at the very edge of the water, tipping over and rolling in the surf.
“How did this stuff get here?” I asked, watching as people scrambled along the sand and waded through the water to claim boxes.
“The First Ones,” Zuzu answered, surveying the scene with a look of excited pleasure. “They give us supplies from things they’ve collected.”
“Collected? You mean they sink ships?”
“Of course not,” said Zuzu. “That would attract too much attention. But containers are always getting lost from cargo ships. Falling off docks, slipping out of holding straps on rolling decks.” Her eyes scanned the beach. “I hope they brought some DVDs; we need new movies.”
It was like some kind of combination shopping spree and scavenger hunt. Boxes of tennis shoes, a case of shampoo, metal canisters of propane, and a pallet laden with crates labeled
Bananas—Product of Ecuador
. The assortment seemed completely random.
There was a woman who stood apart from the rest of the crowd. While others scurried from container to container, she remained motionless, staring out at the water. But piles of items were at her feet, and as I watched, one of the men brought a bag of oranges and added it to the rest.
“Who’s that?”
Zuzu glanced over. “That’s Sophia Clark. Isn’t she lovely?”
She was. Sophia Clark must have been in her thirties and
had long, straight ash-blond hair. She wore a silky green print dress, and a striking gold medallion dangled from a gleaming chain at her neck. But her dark eyes held a haunted look. She seemed unaware of the activity, keeping her gaze trained on the water as if searching for something, or someone, out there.
“Finally,” muttered Zuzu. She bent over a wooden crate and fished out a can with triumph. “Mandarin oranges. I’m so sick of cling peaches.”
Suddenly a high-pitched wail broke out behind us. Sophia Clark pointed at the water. “It’s coming.” She paced through the sand, back and forth, while hugging her arms tight to her body.
I looked in the direction she was pointing. There was nothing out there except the empty, rolling water.
“Don’t pay any attention,” said Zuzu in a low voice. “She gets like this sometimes.” She went over to the woman. “It’s okay, Sophia,” Zuzu said, bending to pick up some of the items at the woman’s feet. “Here. Look at these.
People
magazine. Look, Brad and Jen are splitting up. Wow, that’s too bad. Shall I help you get these home?”
The woman quieted and blinked. Then, as she seemed to notice me for the first time, her face contorted. “It’s her,” she yelled. “She’s bringing it here.” She covered her ears with her hands and began to cry.
“What’s coming?” I asked.
“The monster,” whispered the woman. “The monster.”
Zuzu shook her head and said in a low tone, “Sophia gets mixed up about stuff, and you’re new here. Maybe it frightens her.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
Zuzu nodded. “I’ll take care of her, don’t worry. I think you’d better go home, Delia.”
I walked away thinking exactly the same thing.
O
n Trespass the water was never far away, and the sea made sure I didn’t forget it. The smell of salt, the bite of wind and the rumble of the waves were everywhere, all around me. As each day passed I felt more and more trapped on this island.
I went to the dock, making sure I stayed in the middle of the walkways and well away from the edge. I didn’t care to have any more encounters with anything that lurked beneath the surface-though I couldn’t help but wonder about the dark-haired First One named Jax. Would I see him again?
I found Ben Deare working on his boat. The
Belores
looked more dilapidated than ever, even though repairs had begun; there were new planks in place on the deck and the
smell of varnish hung in the air. Ben’s back was to me, and I noticed he was moving slowly.
“Ben.”
“Ben.”
“Ben!”
I shouted.
Ben leapt up and spun around, looking like his limbs were being jerked by puppet strings. “Hell’s bells, girl! You’ll kill a man with that caterwauling.”
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. Then I saw that his left arm was hanging by his side in a sling. “What happened to you?”
He grimaced. “The First Ones were none too pleased about me bringing you, miss. The Council had their Glaukos guards give me a talking-to.”
“A talking-to?” I repeated softly. I could see a brown stain on the edge of the gauze on his wrist. I jumped onto the boat beside him. “It looks like more than just talking. Ben, you’re bleeding! They hurt you just because you brought me here?”
“St. Cuthbert save us,” he muttered, adjusting the bandage and hiding it from my view. “It’s not that bad, miss. They could’ve done a lot worse. Just wish they hadn’t set the Glauks on my poor boat is all.”
“I’m so sorry.” The words seemed lame in view of what had happened. “I had no idea you would get hurt. Or your boat. If I’d known—”
Ben snorted. “Pshaw.” His pointy chin jutted up until it nearly met his nose in a defiant expression. “I’ll be fine.” He patted a hand to the boat’s railing. “And she’ll be all right
too,” he added, as if that was somehow more important. He surveyed the
Belores
with affection in his flinty blue eyes. “It would take more than a few Glauks to pull
Bellie
down. And there’s no need to blame yourself. I brought you here because it was the right thing to do.”
The back of my throat burned with dull anger, and with the words I would’ve liked to use against whoever had hurt Ben. That probably wouldn’t help him, though, and maybe it would make things worse.
And I’d even been thinking about asking him to take me back to Portland if his boat was fixed. But I could never ask that of him now. I couldn’t ask it of
anyone
, not if this was the way the First Ones punished disobedience.
“Can I do something to help you?” I asked.
“I can’t plane this smooth with only one hand,” Ben admitted, tapping a plank with one foot. “I’d be obliged.”
Ben showed me what to do, and so I learned how to use a planer to even out the new planks. I enjoyed the feel of the sun on my shoulders as well as the smell of the fragrant curls of wood that piled up beside me. Ben watched me work with hawklike attention, directing my efforts until a particular spot was smoothed to his satisfaction. After we’d worked for a while, I paused and sat cross-legged on the deck. The gentle rocking motion of the
Belores
beneath me was soothing.
“If I’m going to stay here, Ben, I want to know more about the island.” I brushed sawdust from the plank I’d just finished. “The only map I could find that even had this place on
it was in an old book about New England legends. And the only sentence in the book that mentioned Trespass Island was about buried treasures.”
No wonder the ticket agent in Portland had acted so strangely when I produced those gold coins. They would have been enough to get any treasure hunter excited.
Ben didn’t react, only rubbed an assessing hand over a place where two boards met. “So,” I prompted, “
is
there a buried treasure?”
Ben shrugged. “Oh, there’s treasure here right enough. But not the way most people think. The First Ones don’t care too much about gold or jewels. They have as much as they want of that stuff, you see? Every treasure chest ever lost at the bottom of the sea is open to them. No. They protect what they see as the real treasure of this island.”
“And what’s that?”
“Something called the Archelon. It’s buried deep inside the heart of Trespass. They say that the Archelon contains the power of Poseidon himself. He left it here, and here it will remain, until the old gods return to reclaim their world.”
“And when is that going to happen?”
“No one knows that, miss,” said Ben. “But they wait.” He squinted out to the water. “We all wait.”
There was something so resigned and sad in his voice. “Really?” I asked. “What are you waiting for, Ben?”
“Waiting for you to get back to work, that’s what,” he said with a waggle of his free hand at the next plank.
I sighed and kneeled over it, scraping carefully. “Yesterday a woman on the beach freaked out when she saw me. Someone named Sophia Clark.”
“Yep,” he answered. “I heard something got her upset. You shouldn’t pay her too much mind.” Ben tapped a finger to the side of his head. “What did she say, anyway?”
I hesitated. “She said a monster is coming.”
“Well, no wonder everyone’s in a bunch.”
“And she said I’m bringing it here. And back in Portland, when I threw those bones,
you
said you saw a monster in my future. So what is this monster? Did you mean the Glaukos? Or the First Ones? Or something else?”
Ben took off his cap. “I just read the portents, miss. I don’t know all the answers as to what they mean. World’s full of monsters. We’ve got a big whirlpool called the Tor about four miles due southeast of Trespass. It’s a whirlpool they say goes down to the bowels of the Earth. And all sorts of beasts live at the bottom. Imprisoned there in olden days by Poseidon himself.”
I grimaced. “He left stuff all over the place, didn’t he?”
“Joke all you want. Some of these stories are true.”
“So why should this Sophia Clark think I have anything to do with monsters?” I asked. “She acted like she was actually afraid of me.”
“I don’t know,” Ben grumbled. “But it don’t matter. You’re meant to be here. The portents said so. Look out there, now you’ve missed a spot.”
Portents. Monsters. Buried treasure
.
Trespass Island was not exactly the ideal spot for a summer vacation. I didn’t belong here. But could I leave? Noooo.
It was early afternoon by the time I finished helping Ben, and the sun blazed with the kind of heat that raises tingles on your skin. I walked down the slope of dune to the beach near Gran’s house and decided to explore in the opposite direction from the one I’d been before. There were hardly any waves, and quiet sheets of water rolled to meet my feet as I kicked broken shells along the sand.
If only my mother were here. She would have been able to tell me what to do, how to fit in here. But did I even
want
to fit in here?
I came to the end of the beach—or at least, as far as I could walk. An irregular wall of black rocks rose and protruded onto the sand, blocking the way. I reached out and touched the craggy surface. It was a strange-looking rock, with tiny holes in it. Like pumice. I had seen something similar—where was it? In the earth sciences lab at school.
“Volcanic,” I murmured, running a hand over the sharp edges.
Since when did the New England coastline have volcanoes? It was official: everything about this island was impossible.
Something shiny lay at my feet when I turned around. It was my glasses, with beads of seawater still clinging to them.
How had these suddenly appeared? Looking around, I saw that the beach was empty and mine were the only footsteps in the sand. I turned toward the sea and saw him in the water.
It was the angel. The one who’d kissed me beneath the dark water.
A fin flashed silvery in the sunlight and he disappeared almost instantly, ducking below the surface without a splash or a sound.
“Wait!” I called. “Don’t go.”
His dark head emerged from the water, much closer now. How had he moved through the water so fast? He wasn’t bobbing or sweeping his arms. It was as if the water simply parted around him, supporting him.
“You require those lenses for your vision,” he said. “I’ve returned them to you.”
“Thank you.” I picked up my glasses, wiped the lenses with the bottom of my T-shirt and put them on, immediately feeling more comfortable.
Above the water and in daylight and now with my glasses, I really saw Jax for the first time.
He wasn’t handsome. And not even faintly angelic.
His nose was aquiline but flattened and widened at the bridge, as if it’d been broken and mended badly, giving his face a leonine look. His mouth was firm, with narrow, uncompromising lips. Black hair hung in messy waves nearly to his shoulders. His eyes were the same brilliant blue that I remembered and of such a strange, deep intensity that I felt I could get lost in them.
