The Silent Isle (22 page)

“Wait a
minute.  Does that mean you don’t count us as men?” Paul asked.

“Enough,” Rawl
said.  “Paul, do you remember how to get to the meadow where we buried the
stone?”

“Why there?”
Josie asked.

“He seemed to
think that place was right for offsetting the energies trapped in the
stone.  I think that’s where he’ll go.”

“It was east of
here,” Paul said.

“We started off
by heading east,” Rawl said.  “But we ended up zigzagging all over. 
I think we ended up somewhere north-west of here.”

“No,” Paul
said.  “It was east; I remember.  I can find it if we see some
landmarks.  I think we should try to retrace our exact steps.”

“That’s only
going to waste time,” Rawl said.  “He could be digging his grave as we
speak.”

“I don’t think
Elias went to the meadow,” Josie said.

“Why not?”
Rawl asked.

“Because, think about it, a man can’t bury himself alive.
 
Not with a pit and shovel.  Not like you did with the stone.”

“But he’ll want
to trap the energy somehow.”

“The only way he
could bury himself is by collapsing a mine or cave on himself.  But to do
that he’d need blasting powder to cause a cave-in or a sledge hammer to break
the braces.”

“He wouldn’t use
blasting powder,” Rawl said.  “He needs a physical body to trap the
darkness in.  It wouldn’t do to blow himself to pieces.”

“But did he have
a sledge with him?” Paul asked. 

“I don’t know,”
Rawl said.

“But you saw him
in the supply shed.  What tools did he have with him?”

“There was a
hammer, but only a small one.  And some pointed tool.  An awl or a
chisel; I can’t remember.  It was dark anyway.  These were laid out
on the table; I’m not even sure he was taking them with him.”

“So maybe you’ve
been reading it all wrong,” Paul said.  “Maybe all he’s planning to do is
carve some warding spell on a tree or stone.”

“No,” Rawl
said.  “I’ve got a feeling it’s a lot worse than that.”

“What else do
you remember?” Josie asked.

“He asked me for
rope.  He tested it to make sure it was strong and he wrapped it around
his hand several times.  I think he was planning on making knots or tying
something.”

“Oh, Kran.
  He’s going to hang himself,” Paul
wailed.  “And you’re an accomplice.  The curse of this will be on our
family forever.”

“How was I
supposed to know what he was planning?” Rawl said.

“I should think
when a depressed loner asks you for a rope it would be fairly obvious,” Paul
said.

“No,” said
Josie. 

They turned to
her.

“He’s not going
to hang himself.”

“How do you
know?” Paul asked.

“Because if that
was enough, he could have just tossed the stone out in a field.  He buried
the stone so no one could ever use the energy trapped there for evil
again.  He’ll do something with his body so that no one will be able to
find it and use it against us.”

“All this
detective work is great,” Paul said.  “But we’re running out of time.”

Josie didn’t
seem to hear him.  She was repeating softly, “Hammer. 
Awl.
  Chisel. 
Rope.
 
Rope.
 
Rope.
 
Hammer-Awl-Chisel-Rope.”
 

Suddenly, she
turned and started running south along the wall.

“Where are you
going?” Rawl called, already starting after her.

“To the harbor,”
she called without slowing down.

“Why the harbor?”
Paul asked.  He sighed and followed
them.

“Because,” Josie
called over her shoulder.  “He is going to try to bury himself. 
Just not under the earth.”

Elias Wick had already considered
all the options Josie and the twins had just been discussing.  What he had
to do had been obvious to him for some days now.  What had remained to be
thought out was how to do it.  But he knew now.  With the mallet,
awl, and chisel in his bag, and the good rope around his shoulder, he tied the
other, more cumbersome rope to the wall and used it to let himself down. 
As soon as his feet touched earth, they started for the harbor. 

The harbor
looked much the same as it had on the day they landed, although now it was
night instead of late-morning.  The three boats of the erstwhile Haven-ers
still knocked idly against the dock.  And there, turned over on the beach,
looking rather like great sea turtles laboring up the scree, were the vessels
which would convey him to the culmination of his priestly duties and his grave. 
The rowboats.
  He only needed one.  He
flipped it over, set the pair of oars in it, and pushed it down to the
water.  Its hull made a loud scraping sound against the gravel of the
beach, jarring in the otherwise silent night.  It would have seemed to him
like a protest of his actions, but the boat slid easily over the grit despite
the noise. 

When the boat
was just above the reach of the waves, he went in search of the final tool to
wreak his demise and, hopefully, the salvation of his comrades.  He found
the perfect one near the tree line, just above where the boat had been. 
It was a large rectangular rock.  He hefted it in his arms and struggled
back to the boat.  He set it gently beneath the rowing bench; careful not
to damage the hull.  Not yet. 

He pushed the
boat a little ways into the water and pulled himself in.  He set the oars
in the oarlocks and began to row.  When he came to the middle of the
harbor, he put the oars up and got out his mallet.  He had brought both
the awl and chisel because, not being accustomed to working with wood, he did
not know which would serve his purpose better.  Looking now at the boards
that formed the hull of the boat, he decided on the chisel.  He placed the
blade against the hull between his feet and struck it with the mallet.  He
was encouraged by the bite it made in the wood.  He struck again and
again.  Once he wiped his brow and in doing so unintentionally looked
up.  This glance made all the difference in the world.  For when he
looked up, he saw he had drifted quite close to shore.  Knowing this would
not do, he set the oars in place again. 

This time he
rowed nearly to the mouth of the harbor.  Then, leaving the oars dangling
in the water from the oarlocks, he began his work again.  Soon his efforts
were rewarded by the sight of the sea seeping into the small hole he had gouged
in the bottom of the boat.  He looked up.  He had drifted further
into the harbor.  He rowed to the harbor’s center, believing this to be
its deepest point.  He tied one end of the rope about his waist and
knotted it securely.  He crisscrossed the other end around the rock as
though he were wrapping a present with a bow.  He laid the rock between
his feet next to the hole.  There was a small puddle in the boat
now. 

The purpose of
the stone of course was to be an anchor for his body.  This was the
purpose of the hole:  He could not simply drop himself and the rock off
the side of the boat before he had done what he’d come to do.  He had to
wait until he had drawn as much of the darkness into himself as he could before
burying himself beneath the waves.  But he did not know what the darkness
would do to him.  Perhaps it would fill him with selfishness and cloud his
mind from his original purpose and leave him with the desire only to save his
own life – in which case the purpose of all his actions might be negated. 
The slow filling of the boat would give him time to invite the darkness in
without giving him any recourse for responding to any trick of said darkness to
try to change his mind.

He watched the
water bubbling into the boat.  It did not seem to be coming too
fast.  Then, rising slowly and cautiously to his feet so as not to upset
the boat, he closed his eyes and held out his arms. 

“Come,” he
said.  “Come.” 

He did not know
what else to say.  He had never prayed such a prayer before (if a prayer
it could be called), and the burden he had taken upon himself was so heavy upon
him that very little energy remained to him to formulate any real
sentences.  But his despairing state of mind over the past few days had
perhaps prepared him better than any thought-out oration. 

At any rate, it
worked. 

“Come,” he said,
and the darkness came. 

It came with
movements and sounds and sensations he felt more in the pit of his stomach than
with his external senses.  Things that fluttered like bats’ wings and
scuttled like crabs. 

“Come.” 

It came.

My name is
Hurt
.  My name is
Shrink
. 
My name is Gnaw.
 

“Come.” 

They came to him
like great black birds flapping home to roost in a ruined tree. 

My name is
Plague.  My name is Lost.  My name is
None
.

***

Josie, Rawl, and
Paul did not slow their pace as they neared the beach. They ran all the
faster.  Twice Rawl tripped and fell.  The second time, he struck his
lip and tasted blood.  He ran on.  Josie stumbled in front of him
and, catching up to her, he helped her to her feet.  He could hear Paul
crashing and snorting through the forest behind him.  If he had not known
who was making them, the noises would have frightened him. 

The three broke
out onto the beach almost at the same time. 

“The boat,”
Josie said.

Rawl understood
many things from her two words.  One was that there was only one boat
left.  The other was missing.  He also knew she meant they had to get
the remaining boat in the water as quickly as possible.  Rawl scanned the
beach.  He did not see the other boat or Elias anywhere.  There was
no fog here and the moon was almost full (otherwise the whole venture might
have been utterly hopeless) and the water in the moonlight was a mirror of dark
silver.  And in the center of that dark mirror, Rawl saw something which
froze his blood. 

Elias Wick was
standing knee-deep in the water.  But he was standing in the middle of the
harbor.  The priest’s boat had sunk now too low for Rawl to be able to see
it or recognize it for what it was.  The priest stood with his arms and
face raised to the night sky.

“Rawl,” Josie
called. 

Rawl came to
himself and helped right the boat and push it into the waves.  They all
scrambled aboard.  Paul slammed the oars into the oarlocks as though he
meant to snap them in half.  Rawl pushed his brother forward to the prow
and took the oars.  Rowing meant he faced astern.  He was facing
Josie, who sat on the bench fixed against the stern, but she hovered more than
sat, looking over his shoulder. 

“To the right,
back to the right,” Paul called from his place in the prow.  “You’re too
far over.  No, now you’ve over-corrected.”

Rawl looked over
his shoulder until he had the prow pointed at Elias once more.  The priest
had sunk to his waist.  Rawl threw himself into the oars. 

“Hurry up,” Paul
said, “We’ll never get there in time.”

“He’s doing his
best,” Josie said.

Rawl realized
he’d only thought he’d been doing his best.  He redoubled his efforts.

“You’re getting
it all whopper-jawed,” Paul shouted.  “Straighten it out.”

Rawl glanced
over his shoulder.  He worked exclusively with the left oar, using the
right like a rudder, until he was lined up again. 

“Hurry,” Josie
said.

Rawl glanced
over Josie’s shoulder for a point of reference but found none.  The shore
was a uniform line and the forest a blur of anonymous dark.  “Josie,” he
said, “Point at him.”

Josie, rising to
a crouch, extended her arm and pointer finger towards Elias.  Using her
arm like the needle of a compass, Rawl set his course.  He set to the oars
again, moving his whole body in the driving of them. 

Glancing over
his shoulder, he thought Elias had disappeared.  On the second glance he
spotted him.  The priest had sunk to his chest. 

“Josie, take the
oars,” he said.  They bumped past each other, trading seats.  “Paul,
get ready to dive.”

“Can you swim?”
Paul asked Josie as he unlaced his boots.

“No,” Josie
said.  “But that doesn’t mean I won’t try.”

“No,” Rawl
said.  “We need someone to stay with the boat.”

Rawl wasted no
time with his boots.  He pulled out his knife and cut the laces up the
side.  He ripped the boots off and stood up.  He stripped down to his
leggings.  Removing his belt, he felt a strange prompting to bear his
knife into the water with him.  But he let it drop with everything else
into the bottom of the boat.  Standing in the wobbly craft, he spotted
Elias.  The priest had sunk to his shoulders.  Only his head and
upraised arms were above the water. 

“Elias,” Rawl
shouted. 

The priest gave
no indication he had heard him. 

And then, as
Rawl watched, Elias Wick disappeared beneath the water.  Rawl knew then
that was the worst moment in his life.  By the time they reached the spot
where he had gone under, the last ripple had died away.

Rawl and Paul
coordinated their dives, Rawl jumping to the left and Paul to the right, so as
not to flip the boat.  Even so, Josie had to brace herself by spreading
her feet and putting her hands on the gunwale.  The boat rocked wildly
before settling down but it had not stopped rocking before Josie was hanging
over the side trying to see into the ink-dark water. 

She
waited.  The ripples caused by the boys’ dives disappeared and were
replaced by a terrible calm.  Josie waited.  “Please, please,
please,” she said aloud. 

Paul surfaced
ten feet from the prow. 

“Did you find
him?” 

“No.” 

“He went down
over there.  Look there.”

Paul wiped the
water from his face.  “I just did. 
Nothing there.”
 

“Look
again.” 

Paul dove again
and again the surface returned to its glass-like calm.

Rawl had spent
many hours swimming in the ponds and streams around his home.  Even as he
dove from the boat, muscle memories formed from dozens of similar dives kicked
in to make the movement as smooth as possible.  As his hands pierced the
water, warm memories of summer afternoons floated before him.  He thought
of Paul showing off by catching crawfish with his toes and of Fletcher’s pasty
skin and the ridiculous, turtle-shaped birthmark on his chest.  But the
instant he cut through the black waters of the bay, he knew he was in an alien
world. 

He had been
prepared to storm through the night-haunted forest to rescue Elias.  But
the mere thought of having to dive in the sea at night had started a cold feeling
in the pit of his stomach which now erupted in a sensation like icy ants
crawling over every inch of him and under his skin.  He would have been
alright if he could have stayed in the shallows with the gravel beneath his
feet.  But here in the open water, fear of the unknown gripped him as
though his heart had been frozen in ice.  He shuddered to think of what
inhabited the waters in which he swam.  He kept his eyes open although it
did no good. 

He flailed about
beneath the water, striking with feet and hands.  The placid surface did
not betray his frantic movement below.  Part of him feared he would find
nothing and part of him feared he would.  The water was so dark and
featureless it gave him a crushing feeling of immense oblivion.  Even as
he groped for Elias, he feared he might kick for the surface only to find it
had disappeared, that his whole world, his whole universe, was this black,
breathless nothingness.  He encountered nothing in the space he occupied
and he knew that meant he had to search deeper.  In a race where every
second counted, he hesitated.  He hesitated only a second but he hesitated
nonetheless. 

He realized now
that, while he preferred the feel of the gravel bottom beneath his feet to
floating freely if swimming by the beach in daylight, here, in the great, dark
nothing, the nothing was far better than what lay beneath.  He thought of
monstrous devilfish, scenting his fear and sensing the tremors his small body
created in the water, reaching up with their writhing snakelike arms to take
him.  He knew he was likely only to find the bottom of the harbor, but
even that, with its waving weeds, many times his own
height,
and the quicksand-like muck below, seemed bad enough.

This was his
second of hesitation.  He wished he had brought his knife.  Then,
angling his body down, he made movements like a frog and strove for the
bottom.  It was farther than he thought.  His ears felt like they
were caught in a vise.  The sensation spread over both sides of his head. 
His lungs burned; his limbs ached.  Now at last he began to see something
with his eyes.  Spots of light like bursting stars danced in them.

Something
touched him.  He shuddered.  Swatting it with his hand, he found it
was only seaweed.  But there was in the sensation something of a terror
that had been part of his race since time primeval – the loathing of touching
and being touched by that which one cannot see.  He swam farther down into
the entangling weeds. 

Shooting his
arms forward for another stroke, his hand struck something solid.  He
jerked it back, but even as he did, he knew what it was.  Extending both
hands, now with fingers splayed to explore greater area, he caught hold of the
solid thing.  It was a human hand.

Rawl felt his
way down the arm until he found the body.  Coming behind it, he hooked his
arms under those of Elias.  He kicked for the surface.  Their bodies
shot upwards and then jerked to a halt.  Elias’s body was nearly torn from
Rawl’s arms.  Rawl thought of the mud-like ooze at the bottom.  He
kicked again but the result was the same.  Then he remembered the
rope.