Island of Graves (34 page)

“America?” Sky asked. “Is that an island?”

Kaylee laughed. “Funny! No. You know, the United States?”

Sky shook her head. “I've never heard of that.” She looked at Alex. “Maybe it's that big piece of land on Lani's map.”

Alex took note of the fading smile on Kaylee's face. “Maybe,” he said to Sky.

Kaylee searched the faces before her. “You're not joking,” she murmured.

“No,” Sky said. “We've traveled all around the world and haven't ever heard of it.” She was tempted to ask the girl about other worlds, like she'd asked Ishibashi, but the girl was in rough shape, and Sky thought it would be better to wait in case it upset her like it did the scientist. Instead, she offered a sympathetic smile. “I'm sorry.”

Kaylee pressed her lips together. “No, it's okay. I . . . I had a feeling about this. Ishibashi tried to tell me. And then there's the ship's log . . . and everything that happened with that.” She turned to look out over the water again and let out a small despairing sigh. It almost sounded like she might be crying.

Sky glanced sidelong at Alex, who shrugged. He glanced at the gorillas, most of which had begun grazing in the long grass nearby.

Alex turned and walked carefully over the rotting boards to the sea side of the deck, wondering where the white boat was. It wasn't
hard to spot. It sat safely a few hundred yards offshore. He waved to Charlie, though he couldn't actually see the statue from that distance, and then he saw Spike's faux diamond–covered spike coming up alongside the back end of the old ship, which was in the water.

“I'll take you whenever you're ready, the Alex,” Spike said when she sensed his presence. “Is everyone okay? Did you find the singing girl?”

“Yes, we've got her,” said Alex. “You did good work, Spike—you kept dozens of gorillas from coming after us. We're waiting for them to get bored and leave.”

Alex turned to the others. “Okay, people,” he called softly. “Our ride is here, so as soon as the gorillas wander off, we need to head for home.” He looked at his brother, who was still nursing the deep scratches on his legs. “Hey, Aaron,” he said. “Tonight you get to learn how to swim.”

S
o you found Aaron, then,” Kaylee said, turning back after her momentary grief. “That's good.”

“Oh yes,” Alex said. “We did. Thank you.”

Kaylee nodded, subdued, and clearly struggling internally. None of the others knew quite what to do for her, so they waited respectfully for her to gather her wits.

After a moment Kaylee took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Okay. We need to stay out of sight from the gorillas for a while. Stay quiet so they forget about us. By evening they'll head to the top of the mountain, where they sleep. Once they're
far enough away, they won't come after us when we jump into the water.”

Alex relayed the plan to Spike. “Go to the boat and tell Charlie what's happening,” he said. “Then ask him to tell Matilda that we stopped here to rescue a castaway, and everybody's safe, and we'll be on our way again by nightfall.”

Spike swam out to the boat, and Alex returned to the group.

“I want to grab a few things from the cabin below before it gets dark,” Kaylee whispered. “This ship is super old, but there are three logbooks. I've only had a chance to read the first one. It was written by the cabin boy, like, a hundred years ago.”

Sky looked up. “Wow. Can I come?”

“Sure,” Kaylee said. “Stay quiet. One on the ladder at a time—this thing is falling apart.”

The two girls descended the ladder, which was missing a few rungs, to the deck below. Toward the stern, several tiny, narrow cabins lined the hallway. But Kaylee turned forward and went down a few stairs into a larger square cabin. There was a small bar with broken bottles everywhere, and a rickety old desk that was bolted to the floor. Kaylee headed straight
for the desk. She tugged open a warped drawer and pulled out three yellowed volumes. On each book cover were the words “Ship's Log.”

Kaylee held them out to Sky. “See? I'll bet the whole story of this shipwreck and the people and gorillas on board, and maybe even something about the graves, is in here.” Her eyes shone with excitement. “So far, in reading the first book, I've discovered that this whole tribe of saber-toothed gorillas began with just four animals about a hundred years ago. There's at least seventy of them now on the island—I've counted them enough times.”

“Incredible,” Sky said, carefully opening one of the logbooks and looking at the strange handwriting on the fragile pages.

While Sky looked through it, Kaylee moved around the cabin as if she were at least a little familiar with it, pulling out papers and unpinning a giant map from the wall, which she folded up. “Do you want to see the cages?” asked Kaylee.

Sky nodded and tucked the books under her arm. Kaylee led her out of the cabin and down another level, where cages lined both sides of the ship. A few portholes up high on the
walls let light in. Some of the glass was broken or completely missing. Standing on her tiptoes, Sky could see the gorillas not far away.

They heard a slight noise behind them and saw Alex and Aaron coming down the ladder. “We were curious,” Alex whispered.

The two stood side by side, looking remarkably the same except for their clothes.

“Which one is which again?” Kaylee asked. “Oh wait—Alex has the robe.”

“Yes, and Aaron has the scar,” Sky said. She grinned at the boys. “I guess people will be able to tell you apart now, at least until the scar fades.”

Aaron smirked. “Don't go trying to imitate my scar now,” he said to Alex.

Alex grinned reluctantly. “I won't.” He was actually impressed with Aaron's willingness to fight the gorillas even though he'd clearly been scared to death. With a little training, Aaron might become a decent fighter. Though there was still something about Aaron that worried him. What if his evil twin was so sneaky that he really was faking this new alignment
with Alex and Sky? But then again, what kind of idiot would willingly risk fighting gorillas if he were faking it? Aaron could have stayed in the boat, but he chose to help. He was either insane or truly sincere with his new attitude. Alex was starting to believe that Aaron might have actually changed for real.

“Obviously these are the cages,” Kaylee said, keeping her voice low. “According to the logbook, this was some sort of animal transporter bound for a circus in the US when it got lost in a storm. Saber-toothed gorillas,” she said, shaking her head. “Can you imagine that scene at the circus? What an attraction that would have been.”

The three looked puzzled, and no one dared admit they had no idea what a circus was, or the US for that matter. They understood storms, though.

“It's all documented, you see,” Sky told the boys, holding up the logbooks. She shivered. “It's creepy down here. All these creaking cages in the dark underbelly. No wonder the gorillas won't come near it.”

Kaylee nodded expertly. “The original animals must have passed down the fear of this ship and the cages to their offspring after having been locked up in them the whole voyage,” she said bookishly. “It couldn't
have been a good ride through the storm.”

Their new companion sounded so much like Lani that Sky and Alex just looked at each other and laughed. “You sound like one of our best friends,” Alex explained, not wanting Kaylee to think they were laughing at her. “You'll get along just fine.”

“Yeah?” Kaylee smiled sadly. “So . . . what happens now? I guess I go to your island with you, right?”

“That's pretty much the only option,” Aaron said. “For now, at least.”

“Anywhere but here,” Kaylee said. “What's your island like? And how on earth did you do that thing with the glass walls? That was really freaky.” She began to perk up. “Also, I don't know if you know this, but you have a talking whale.”

Alex laughed, forgetting to be quiet, then covered his mouth. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Kaylee hopped to see out the porthole, then pointed to the ladder. “Let's go back up,” she whispered.

One at a time they climbed the ladder up two levels, staying low on the top deck so they would remain hidden from the gorillas. They kept their voices quiet.

Alex explained to Kaylee that Artimé was a magical land. He told her that he placed the glass shields on the ground with magic, and showed her a couple of little spells, like tapping his notebook to produce a pencil. She didn't believe it at first, but then Alex used the preserve spell on the ship's logs, and she marveled as the spell seeped over each page. Once the spell was complete, the brittle pages were flexible and protected from further damage.

“They're waterproof now too,” said Alex, “so when we jump into the water, they'll be fine.”

“That's fantastic,” Kaylee said, turning the books over and admiring them. She glanced over her shoulder to check the sun's location, but it was hidden behind the mountainous side of the island. “They should start moving upland fairly soon. I'll let you know when it's safe to jump.”

Aaron wore a perplexed look. “Why did you live up there in the tree at the top of the mountain when you could've lived here on this ship?” Aaron asked. “I mean, it's falling apart, but you'd be safe if you repaired it. And we could have picked you up from here in the first place instead of messing with the vine and the cliff.”

“Two very important reasons,” Kaylee said. She stretched
out on her back and grimaced as her spine popped. “Oof,” she said. “That was from the ride down the waterfall. My body has taken a beating on this island, let me tell ya.” She twisted her back until she was satisfied.

“Anyway,” she continued, “why didn't I just live on this boat? One, this ship is too far away from the river. I needed to be able to get water safely. Plus the water is a lot cleaner up at the top because the gorillas, um, spend time in it down at this end, if you know what I mean. And two, food. There's nothing but grass and weeds down here, and a herd of wild pigs, but I haven't been able to catch them and I don't have any way of cooking them. I'm sort of a vegetarian now, I guess,” she said thoughtfully.

The others didn't know what the term meant, but they could guess, and they didn't want to interrupt.

Kaylee looked at her deteriorating clothing and scars all over her arms and legs from various cuts, scratches, and bug bites. “It's been rough,” she said softly. “Really rough. I . . . For a while there I started to feel myself slipping away. Losing my mind, I mean.” She ran her hand over her arm, wiping away a bit of caked mud from the underside.

Aaron watched her. “How did you manage to hold on?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“I'm used to being alone,” Kaylee said. “I've trained for it.
And I told myself every morning that I just had to get through one day, and surely someone would come tomorrow. . . .” She swallowed hard. “Making the vine rope helped. It gave me something to work for.”

Aaron felt a wave of emotion sweep through him, though he wasn't sure why. All he knew was that he understood being alone.

“Getting back to my story,” Kaylee continued, “I lived in this ship for a couple of days when my sailboat first sank out there, and then when I got deliriously thirsty, I made a run for the river. While I was there, the gorillas caught sight of some weird creature floating off the north shore—”

“Ah yes, I bet that was Pan, the coiled water dragon,” Sky said.

“She rules the sea,” added Alex.

Aaron looked mystified.

“Okaaay,” Kaylee went on. “And I ran up there to see if I could find food. I found a lot of it, actually. Bird eggs, wild raspberries, mushrooms, and cattails by the mouth of the waterfall.
When the gorillas came back, I got cornered, so I climbed to the top of the tallest tree. They tried to get me, and for whatever reason, I started singing, because I couldn't think of anything else to do to save myself. And they liked it. They made a pet out of me.”

“A pet,” Alex repeated. “And they let you live up in your little cage at the top of the tree.”

“Exactly. They didn't hurt me. They got a little aggressive when they wanted me to sing, so I learned quickly to start doing that before any tree shaking began.”

“And you said they sleep up there?” Sky asked.

“Most of them. All night, a few always right at the foot of the tree. After the first few days, whenever the coast was clear, I got down for a bit to get food and water. I also started to make a vine hammock so I could sleep in the tree without stressing about falling out. For the first few days I figured I was going to die at any moment.”

“I've felt like that before on a raft in the sea,” Sky murmured. “It's a terrible feeling.”