Island of Graves (26 page)

“Do you think they're talking to us? Did they see you and Simber fly over, I wonder?”

Alex shook his head. “I don't know. We know there have been other ships passing by besides us—Simber saw one, remember?”

“Maybe it's Aaron who changed the sign, asking the pirates to come back.”

“Maybe.” Alex's insides twisted. Could they be close to finding Aaron? Part of him hoped for it, and part of him never wanted to see his twin again. The conflict was eating him up.

“Let's not waste any time, then,” Sky said. “Pull up as close to shore as you can and start circling. We'll call out his name and see if he answers.”

Alex hastily shoveled down the rest of his breakfast and then guided the boat toward the shore, letting it determine
when they could get no closer. It moved around shallow spots and kept them within spitting distance of land.

“Keep an eye out behind us, Spike,” Alex called to the whale. “Let us know if you detect any signs of life.”

“Yes, the Alex,” said Spike. “I can feel something strange, but I don't know what it is.”

“The gorilla, maybe,” Alex said. They moved along slowly, calling out Aaron's name regularly and trying to see through the bushes and trees that grew all the way to the island's edge. Both Alex and Sky pretended like yesterday's blowup had never happened, and it was easy not to actually look at one another since they were both looking so hard to see through the brush.

It was the largest island of the seven, and other than some birds chirping occasionally and a rustle of a bush now and then as an unknown animal startled and ran, there didn't seem to be much happening—along the shore, at least. The only interesting thing they saw was the shipwreck, but it was abandoned and so old there couldn't possibly be anyone left alive from whenever it wrecked. They didn't dare go ashore to look at it.

By the time they'd made it around the low end of the island and
the land began to rise up out of the water, it was midafternoon.

Faced with the rocky high side of the island, Alex stopped the boat in the shade, and they took a break to eat.

Sky poured water from Ms. Octavia's fountain and handed a cup to Alex, who was rummaging through a crate of lunches. He pulled out Sky's favorite meal no matter the time of day, and handed it to her: sweet applecorn on toasties with platyprot eggs, which cooked up multicolored and presented beautifully. The food was exactly the right temperature, and Sky dug in hungrily.

Alex pulled out his favorite, a thick seafood chowder with a slice of fig-jam toast, which he'd taken a strange liking to ever since Fifer shoved a piece of hers into his mouth. He smiled, thinking of her as he took a bite.

“What's funny?” Sky asked.

“Just thinking about my sisters.” He laughed. “It's still weird to call them that.”

“So you like them?”

“Yeah, I really think I do,” Alex said. “I mean, all right, obviously I was a little unsure at first. But . . . they're okay. They're nice.”

Sky wiped her mouth. “I saw one climbing up the staircase the other day calling out ‘Ax! Ax!' It was so cute.”

“Really?” Alex sat up. “Are you serious? Do you think she was calling for me?”

“Of course! I mean I certainly hope she wasn't calling for a real ax.”

“Which twin was it?”

“I don't know. I can't tell them apart.”

“It doesn't matter, anyway.” Alex couldn't stop grinning. “Ax. That's cool. It makes me seem really tough, too.”

Sky groaned. “Great.” She folded up her empty plate until it made a bright popping sound and disappeared, then rinsed her hands in the water fountain.

Alex hesitated, wondering if now would be a good time to tell her that he'd been thinking about what she'd said. But he didn't want to start an argument when they needed to look for Aaron. Besides, he was still thinking about it. A lot.

So he commanded the boat to begin circling the island once more, this time from a bit more of a distance so they could keep an eye on the rising accessible part of the land.

“Aaron!” he shouted.

“Aaron!” echoed Sky.

A moment later Alex frowned. “Do you hear something?”

Sky nodded. “Something's rumbling. Reminds me of the hurricane after the hour of calm, when the thunder starts rolling back in.”

They were silent for a moment, watching the highest point of the island but unable to really see anything except for the grass and trees on the downward slope before the land dropped off and became sheer rock.

“Spike?” Alex called softly. “I'm going to speed around to a spot where we can have a better look. Charlie, you might want to get in your safe place in the cabin. Sky, hang on. We're going to fly.”

Charlie moved toward the cabin but stayed on deck to watch. Alex pressed down on the throttle until they were skimming over the water full speed ahead to the south side of the island, where they'd seen the come-back sign. Even with the noise from the boat, they could both tell that the rumbling sound was increasing.

As they rounded the highest point of the island and sailed to where the waterfall was visible and the land sloped quickly to
just above sea level, Sky touched Alex's shoulder and pointed. Alex cut the motor so the boat drifted just offshore.

It looked as though the center of the island was moving or shifting toward them. The trees and long grasses waved in a single giant motion, and for a moment, Sky thought the island was about to split in two. After a few curious minutes of watching while the thundering increased, she caught a glimpse of black and silver, and then more black and more silver, and as the sound grew, a tremendous beastly cry rang out.

Charlie dove for the safety of the cabin as a stampede of what seemed like hundreds of silverback saber-toothed gorillas burst through the thick brush and flattened the grasses. They barreled straight toward the beach in front of the boat, growing larger by the second.

“Oh my—” Sky breathed. “Look at them all! They're not going to stop.” She gripped Alex's arm. “Alex! They're not stopping!”

And she was right. The front line of gorillas reached the sand, continued toward the edge of the shore, and plunged into the water without even slowing down. They splashed in the direction of the boat, their fangs gleaming.

“They can swim!”
Alex yelled in fright. He lunged for the controls, trying to turn the boat around, but he was so flustered that he fumbled everything. Finally, with the grunting carnivores nearly upon them, he managed to shout out a command to the boat to head straight out to sea. As the first gorillas reached out their clawed fingers and grabbed the side of the boat, the vessel kicked into gear, shaking most of the gorillas loose. But one held on. With saber teeth just feet away, Sky jumped to the other side of the boat and dove for the sword, while Alex tried desperately to shake the beast off by grabbing the wheel and steering as wildly as he could.

Off balance, Sky pulled the sword back and slammed it down on the gorilla's arm. The beast roared in pain, its open mouth wide enough to fit an entire human head. Alex grabbed spell components and began throwing scatterclips at the beast, but they seemed useless. The gorilla wouldn't let go of the side of the boat. It began to pull itself up as Sky cracked it over the head with the sword. She could smell its sickening rankness.

Alex pulled out a handful of heart attack components and looked at them. He cringed, took a breath, and closed his hand firmly around them, winding up for the throw. “Heart attack!”
he cried, sending them soaring at the beast. The gorilla seemed stunned for a moment, but it still didn't let go. Instead it gripped the side of the boat with its elbow and began hauling one leg up over the railing.

“Get off!” Sky screamed. She slammed the sword down again, then pulled back and sliced it sideways through the air, smashing it with all her might into the gorilla's head.

The creature wobbled, and its hand slipped. But with a mighty reach of its other hand, the gorilla grabbed the back of Sky's shirt and yanked her toward its face. Sky twisted around and slammed her elbow into the creature's eye. She tore herself from its grasp, sending her sword skittering across the deck. The back of her shirt was shredded from the beast's sharp claws.

After dodging and fighting off multiple gorillas, Spike finally caught up to the boat. She tried jabbing the stubborn gorilla with her spike, then grabbing its legs in her mouth to pull, but every time she got a grip, Alex yanked on the steering wheel, which sent Spike flying and trying to catch up again.

Alex, who was still trying to shake the creature off the boat, pelted the gorilla with half a dozen more heart attack spells, but the beast wouldn't die. Sky regained her footing and, with
a mighty raging yell, grabbed on to the seatback and kangaroo kicked her feet at the gorilla's mouth. She landed on the railing, stomping on the gorilla's fingers. Then she jumped back to the deck, picked up her sword again, reared back, and shoved it into its leg.

The gorilla howled and snapped at Sky and Alex, its sabers dripping with saliva.

Alex shot one more round of heart attack spells. This time the gorilla's head finally flopped back. And with a last swerve of the boat from Alex, the creature's grip released. It fell backward with an enormous splash into the water and sank.

Stunned, Sky staggered to the side, chest heaving, hands shaking. The sword dropped from her hands to the deck, its blade covered in blood. Alex shouted a command to the boat to continue at full speed, and ran over to her. He flung his arms around her and held her.

Once Sky realized she was safe, her body began shaking uncontrollably. She hid her face in Alex's neck and started to sob, and he held her, stroking her hair and whispering in her ear, and they stood there in the speeding boat together until both of them stopped trembling.

D
oes that sting?” Alex asked, dabbing the deep scratches on Sky's back with some salve Henry had put in their healing kit.

“Not bad,” Sky said, cringing. She lay on her stomach on her fold-out seat as Alex tended to her wounds.

“It's a nice set of stripes.”

“I'm just glad I still have a head attached to my body,” Sky said. “A water attack was not something I expected.”

“Me either,” Alex said, mad at himself. “And I should have. I don't know why I didn't expect that the gorillas would leave the island and chase us. I just didn't think hard enough about
them being able to swim like that.” He handed Sky a towel and then turned his back so she could change into a new shirt that wasn't shredded or covered in saber-toothed-gorilla blood.

“See, there you go again,” Sky said. “We also had no way to know there were so many of them. Give yourself a break for once.” She pressed her lips together, vowing to say no more, and slipped into a lightweight shirt.

“I get it, okay?” Alex said with a groan. “I've been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“Oh.” Sky wasn't sure what to say, so she changed the subject. “Okay, you're good to turn around again.” Gingerly she tested out how the shirt felt against her scratches. “This is going to be really uncomfortable for a few days, I think.”

Alex turned to face her again. “Henry said the salve should help quite a lot after about half a day. The healers are getting good at this stuff.”

“And see, there's something you did that was really successful—you made healing a priority when Mr. Today didn't have much of anything in place before.” Sky eased to her seat and perched on the edge of it. “Anyway, I can't force you to realize what you're doing to yourself—you're just going to
have to see it on your own. Now, let's go back and finish this island. I'm ready.”

“Are you sure?”

“We need to find Aaron. The sun's going to set soon,” Sky said. She gazed at the island in the distance. “At least we know what we're up against now.”

Alex swung the boat around and directed it to take them back to the island. He pulled out his supplies and reloaded his vest pockets, thinking about the horrible attack. He'd used heart attack spells during it, and he didn't regret that for a minute. The experience was probably the most frightening thing Alex had ever faced without Simber or Florence nearby. And he'd survived it.

Sky was a maniac—they'd both be dead without her and her quick thinking with the sword. Clearly Alex's spells intended for humans were not about to take down a nine-hundred-pound gorilla. He thought about the magic and wondered if there was anything he could do to his current stash to strengthen it.

“So, what's the plan?” Sky asked as the island drew near. “Stay back if we see any gorillas?”

Alex laughed uneasily. “Yep.” He trained his eye halfway up the mountainous side where they'd first noticed the movement and pointed. “That extra-lush area there, next to the waterfall—I think that's where some of them came from. Others came from the clearing near the river on the low side of the island, several hundred yards from where the old ship ran aground.”