The Skeleton Tree

The Giant-Slayer

The Séance

Gemini Summer

B for Buster

The Lightkeeper's Daughter

Lord of the Nutcracker Men

Ghost Boy

The Convicts

The Cannibals

The Castaways

The Wreckers

The Smugglers

The Buccaneers

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Iain Lawrence

Cover art copyright © 2016 by Daniel Burgess

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lawrence, Iain

The skeleton tree / by Iain Lawrence. — First edition.

pages cm

Summary: “Chris and Frank's sailing vessel sinks and they are stranded alone in the wilds of Alaska. They don't like each other at all, but to survive they must build a relationship”—Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-385-73378-6 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-385-90395-0 (glb) — ISBN 978-0-307-97489-1 (ebook)

[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Wilderness areas—Fiction. 3. Brothers—Fiction. 4. Alaska—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L43545Sk 2016

[Fic]—dc23

2015011779

eBook ISBN 9780307974891

Cover design by Kate Gartner

Interior design by Heather Kelly

Random House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v4.1

ep

For Françoise

With happy memories

When I wake in the night, I'm afraid.

I lie staring through blackness, listening for every sound from the forest. I can't see the ceiling or the walls of the cabin. I can't see Frank, and for a moment I'm sure that he's gone. But then, through the dark, comes the fluttery sound of his breathing, and I feel safe to know that he's near.

I used to be scared all the time, and nights were the worst. When the sun went down, I felt like screaming. I'm not the same anymore. I've learned many things about the forest and the sea, and many things about myself. But when I wake in the dark, I'm afraid.

Out in the forest, something is waiting. It's staying as still and silent as I am, both of us listening.

Is it the grizzly bear? I can imagine it standing huge and shaggy right beside the cabin, just the thickness of the wall away. But it might be a wolf. We've heard them singing, every night a little closer. It could be a man. Or it could even be a skeleton. I've heard them stirring in their coffins. These are things from my nightmares, and they loom in my mind in a terrifying cycle.

I always think of the worst things first. But it's probably a squirrel out there. Or a deer that will flee in a moment, crashing through the forest in leaps and bounds. I hope it's my night-black raven, come home at last from his wandering. But I'm afraid to call out. Through the cabin wall, through the stillness of the night, we must feel each other waiting. We're just two creatures in the darkness.

I don't know how much time passes before the window begins to brighten. Maybe it only
feels
like hours. But long before the sun will rise, the square of plastic starts to shine with a gray light. Shadows of trees appear like etches on a slate. Through the cracks of the cabin walls shine little gleams of gold.

With morning, my fears vanish. And so does that thing in the forest. There's no burst of noise, no thudding feet. I don't hear it leave, but I know it's gone. I have lived long enough in the wilderness that I sense things like that.

Quickly now, the darkness of the cabin dissolves into shadows, and the shadows change as they harden. Mushrooms sprout from the floor and become the stones of the fire circle. A skinny-legged beast morphs into our driftwood table. Monstrous men stand in the corner, then slip into the plastic capes that hang from their pegs.

I see the stack of firewood, the bottles of water, the shoes piled high beneath the table. I guess I went a bit stupid with shoes. I see all the things I've carried from the beach, the stuff Frank calls junk. But to me it's important because it came across the sea from Japan. I like to wonder about those things, to invent their stories.

Near the floor where Frank is sleeping, pale scratches in the wall mark the days that have passed. They're squashed together, blurred into one long smudge just like the days themselves: thirty, forty, fifty of them, and all the same.

Then I remember that this day is different. Today is the day we'll be saved.

It's still early, at least an hour till dawn. But I can't wait that long. I have to go down to the skeleton tree.

I roll out of bed and crouch over Frank. Not long ago I would have been afraid to wake him like this. He would have gotten very angry very fast. But this morning I think he won't mind. I shake him by the shoulder, shouting his name, and his hands swing up to fight me. He springs away with a cry, thumping his back against the cabin wall. His eyes are huge and startled, and when he sees me, he groans. “What's the matter with you?” he asks. “Are you crazy?”

“Today's the day,” I tell him.

“Stop shouting,” he grumbles.

I can't understand why he isn't excited. Frank's only three years older than me, not even sixteen. But sometimes he seems almost grown up. He scratches his matted hair and squints at the window. “It's not even morning, Chris.”

“But they might be landing right now,” I tell him. “Don't you want to see that?”

He coughs and shakes his head. “You go ahead. I want to sleep some more. But start the fire first; I'm cold.”

Even a month ago it would have made me angry to be told what to do. But now I know it's just Frank's way. I squat by the circle of stones and scrape at the ashes with a small stick. The coals underneath are still warm and glimmering. In their glow I see my breath, a little red cloud like dragon's fire. I arrange a few twigs and a sprig of dry moss, and as I lean forward to blow on the embers, smoke rises into my eyes, making me squint. But flames come quickly. I'm an expert now at starting fires, maybe better than Frank.

I add more wood. The smoke grows thick and ropy, swirling up to the ceiling and out through the hole. I can imagine pictures forming in front of me, images that whirl apart and form again.

My uncle Jack told me once that if you look too long at a fire it will steal your thoughts away. He was right.