Isle of Swords (15 page)

As Cat stepped inside, his foot brushed an empty dark brown bottle. It spun slowly on the floor among broken shards from countless others. Three barrels rested against the wall in the back of the room. Cat kicked one of the barrels with the heel of his boot. It clattered onto its side. “They're empty.” Cat shook his head. “I don't remember anything here. Let's go to the next one.”

None of the next several houses turned up anything at all. But when they came to an odd one-story building in the middle of the town, Cat felt the skin on his arms prickle. Something heavy weighed in his stomach. He stopped and stared up the cracked stone walk, up the wide steps, between the sturdy columns, to its dark door.

“What is it, Cat?”

“I don't want to go in here,” he replied. He backed slowly away.

“But if you feel something out here, maybe going inside . . .”

The chill on his arms quickly spread. Cat found himself short of breath, but still he could not take his eyes off this strange building.

The only two windows—both broken out—stared back like empty sockets. “I have a terrible feeling about this place,” he said. “But if there's something inside . . . something I might remember, I've got to look, don't I?”

Anne nodded. Cat's reaction to this house made her feel uncomfortable. She scanned the empty buildings on both sides of the road.

The place was so quiet—so empty. Anne swallowed and nodded again. The place was a ghost town.

The stairs creaked as Cat and Anne ascended. The floorboards of the porch trembled, and each footfall gave an empty thud as if there might be some empty space beneath them. Cat stood at the dark door for several seconds before finally reaching out and turning the knob. It was unlocked, but the door protested as Cat pushed. It came free, and swung slowly into a shadowy twilight.

The smell hit them first. It was a hundred times worse than the first house. The odor of decay and death drifted out of the darkness.

Cat covered his mouth and nose with his arm and took a cautious step inside. There was little to see in the two rooms: a few more empty barrels, some wood scraps, and an odd hook-shaped piece of metal that was embedded into the plaster of the wall. Anne coughed and stepped in beside him. “Maybe you're right,” she said. “Maybe we shouldn't be here.”

As their eyes adjusted to the shadows, Cat went forward and saw that the wooden floorboards gave way to stone in the back of the building. In fact, the narrow hall between the two rooms extended farther back than he'd thought. With Anne right behind him, he stepped onto the stonework and followed the hall. They came to a large door. The horrific odor was much stronger here. Cat opened the door, and the smell of rot became nearly overwhelming. They both looked down at the floor of the closet. Recessed into the stonework of the floor was a dark disk of metal. There was a tiny divot on the side of the disk. It was big enough maybe for a finger or two to slip in and pull up the disk.

“Do you think we should?” Anne asked.

Cat tried in vain to remember something about this place. “The smell . . . I don't know. I think we should leave.”

Anne frowned. She wondered if he really did remember something— something he didn't want anyone to know. She put two fingers into the hole and pulled. The metal didn't budge. She pulled again with all her strength, but the disk would not move. “It's too heavy or rusted shut,” she said.

Cat shook his head. Without a word, he left the building.

“Cat?” Anne called after him. “Cat, wait!” She caught up to him and grabbed him by the arm. He immediately shrugged her off. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I should have listened to you. I just thought tha—”

“It's not that,” Cat replied. He slumped to the ground and put his head in his hands. “It's this place. It's all of it. I feel like years of my life have been stolen away. Years, ha! I don't even know how many.”

Anne knelt beside him. “I know this isn't the same,” she said.

She found it hard to meet his gaze, so she stared at the ground.

“But I know how it feels to have life stolen away from you. When my mother died, my father changed—at least he did toward me. He stopped treating me like a daughter, stopped letting me play and explore. Now, he keeps me on a leash.” Anne wondered what he was thinking—if he thought she was crazy or mean. She'd wished before that he could remember his identity so she could be rid of him. Now she wished only to comfort him. “I can't make you remember,” she said. “But I'll help you any way that I can. And I guess, I just want you to know . . . that you aren't alone.”

As Cat started to turn his gaze toward her, he spotted the side of the strange building they had just left. There, illuminated in the grass by the last rays of the afternoon sun, was a pair of storm doors.

He was on his feet and at the doors in a heartbeat. Anne stood beside him.

“This place . . . it . . .” Cat clutched his head. An echo of a desperate scream, long and shrill, burst into his memory. The scream grew louder, more desperate, and then vanished. “I've been here.”

That was all Anne needed to hear. In spite of the fear that lurked in the corners of her mind, in spite of the smell of decay that permeated the area, Anne grabbed the handles and threw open both storm doors. A cloud of flies swarmed out, and the smell of decay became so intense that Cat and Anne gagged. The swarm had gone, and they could see into the basement room.

Anne caught her breath, and they both staggered backward. They ran recklessly into the street—and sprinted past building after building. They came at last to the foot of a stair before a two-story house. Cat dropped to his knees and wept. Anne dashed into a patch of tall grass and vomited.

16
GLT

W
hat they had seen in that basement room did not bring back any memories for Cat. In fact, both he and Anne wished many times afterward that they both could forget what they had seen.

“Who would . . . who would do that?” Cat asked moments later as they sat on the warped steps of a boarded-up cottage.

Anne bowed her head. “Pirates,” she whispered.

Cat looked across the road. His left hand wandered over the scars on his back. He turned back to Anne. “Why?”

Anne shrugged. “Maybe they were stowaways . . . or mutineers. I don't know.”

“But why would pirates bring them inland just to torture the—”

“I said I don't know!”

“Your father wouldn't do that.”

“My father is no monster,” Anne said. “He has his vices—but unlike so many others in the sweet trade, Declan Ross grants quarter when quarter is justly requested. When he conquers a ship, he does all that he can to spare the lives of the crew and passengers. What we saw . . . that kind of horrible torture . . . is the work of a soulless villain . . . someone like Edmund Bellamy, Thierry Chevillard, or Bartholomew Thorne.”

Cat shook his head. There was nothing he could do to rid his mind of the images he'd seen in that basement. Hanging inverted, visible through the bars of their iron cages, were more than a dozen bodies. The sun's light had mercilessly revealed flesh, torn and rotting; skeletal limbs; and grinning skulls. Anne and Cat had stumbled onto a chamber of horrors. And worst of all for Cat were the echoes of screams he'd heard. Had they come from the victims left to rot in that dank basement? And if those screams came from a memory of his past, what did that mean?

“Come on,” Anne said. “Get up. We need to get out of here.”

“But I haven't seen the rest of the town.”

“Haven't you seen enough?” The question hung in the air.

Cat stood. “Something drew me here. You said it yourself, it was as if I'd run that path a hundred times.” Anne wasn't sure she wanted to see any more, but she nodded . . . for his sake.

The sun had at last dipped behind the mountain, and a gray twilight fell over the abandoned town. In the shadows, Cat and Anne missed a turn in an alley and wound up in a part of the town they had not seen before. The buildings were taller and seemed to be in better repair. Cat spied a large house up ahead.

It was two stories, and, with its small belfry on top, it almost looked like a church. At that moment, a strange sound came out of the forest behind the row of houses. It was a thin, rising bird's call, but the bird could not be seen. Cat stopped walking and stared. The air grew cold.
Keeee-wic, keeee-wic, keee wic, wic, wic.

The call came again.

“That's a black ani,” Cat whispered.

“What?”

Cat's skin prickled. He squinted. He could hear a woman's voice echoing within his head. It was as if she were calling from up ahead.

Come inside. Leave the birds alone.
And all at once, it all became familiar: the bird's call, the alley, the silhouette of the two-story building. Cat flew up the alley.

“Cat!” Anne, a step behind, called. “Cat, not again!”

It's getting late,
came the woman's voice.
Come inside this instant or I'll fetch a switch!
Cat's mind flooded with images: a porch swing, a steep narrow stair, a curving room at the end of a hall, and a ladder. And suddenly, he was there—at the two-story house. It had a wide porch with a rail. The porch swing was gone, but two chains dangled from the ceiling where it might have been. Cat threw open the front door and raced up the narrow stair. There were three rooms upstairs, but Cat ignored the first two and went straight for the room at the end of the hall.

Leery of what she might find, Anne followed Cat into the building. He was already gone up the stairs when she entered. She glanced left and right and then climbed the stairs as well. Anne searched the first two rooms and found nothing. “Cat?” she called as she approached the room at the end of the hall. The last room seemed to be empty as well. “Cat?” she called again.

“Up here!”

Anne found that the room's outer wall curved to the right, creating a small alcove. On its far wall, a ladder dropped down from a square opening in the ceiling. Anne scaled it quickly and emerged in the belfry tower overlooking the dusk-shrouded town.

“Look,” Cat said. He pointed to a beam that extended horizontally from one post to another like a kind of safety rail. There was something carved into the beam. At first she could not tell exactly what, but she came closer and stooped.

“GLT?” Anne traced her finger across the coarse lettering.

“I carved them,” Cat said excitedly. “I must have. I heard a voice calling me from this house.”

“A voice?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but several times since we made port in Dominica, I've heard a woman's voice in my mind. And I've caught glimpses of images—like when I saw the path and the face on the rock wall. I somehow knew this house the same way—I saw the porch, the stair, this room, and the ladder. And I knew I'd find something up here.”

“Initials . . . ,” Anne said quietly, thinking. “Your initials? What do they stand for?”

Cat shook his head sadly. “I don't know.” Despair crept over his face.

“No, Cat, this is incredible!” Anne said, standing and taking his hand. “GLT . . . you could be a George, a Gabriel . . . a Gregory!”

Cat looked out over the shadowy town, and hope began to bubble up inside. At last he had something more to go on. Not much— mere letters—but they were letters to a name . . . his name. All he needed to do was consider the possibilities.
How many “G” first names could there be?

The smile disappeared from Cat's face and he stood stock-still, staring out over the town. “What?” Anne asked, suddenly alarmed.

“Shhh!” Cat urged. “Look.” He pointed into the massive dark forest past the far end of town. Here and there, tiny orange lights flickered.

“Torches,” said Anne.

“Who?”

“I don't know.” Anne watched more and more tiny torchlights appear. She turned and started down the ladder. “We've got to get out of here—get back to the
Wallace
.”

“Wait!” Cat grabbed her shoulder. “Look there.” The torch-lights were now no longer confined to one area. Cat and Anne turned and looked from one side of the town to the other. Everywhere in the woods, torchlights shone. Hundreds, maybe thousands. It was as if the little abandoned town were surrounded by a swarm of angry orange stars. And the stars were closing in.