The Guardians of Island X (13 page)

“Are you sure?” Tim asked. “Because…well…the Islanders are dead, mate.”

Jem took a deep breath. “I know. I know that’s what we’ve been told. But you only need to look at Scarlet to know that not all the Islanders died of the fever.”

The Lost Souls’ heads swiveled to Scarlet, who was looking seriously perplexed.

“So you’re saying they’ve been here? All along?” Edwin’s voice dripped with doubt.

“Exactly. And it explains so much,” Jem said. “Like why things keep disappearing!”

“You think they’re stealing from us?” Scarlet, too, sounded dubious.

“Well, I—”

“What’s all this?”

All heads now turned to Gil, who’d just appeared on the scene, looking flushed and out of breath. Someone near the back of the crowd brought him up to speed.

Gil’s eyebrows disappeared under his flop of brown hair. “Islanders? But that’s impossible. They’re all dead.”

“These two,” Jem said, tired of repeating himself, “were not at all dead.”

“Really? You’re sure you’d know an Islander if you saw one? No offense, Jem, but you’re pretty Old World.”

Old World! Jem had had enough. He took a step toward Gil. “I’m no more Old World than any of you,” he declared, then added, “with the obvious exception.” He nodded at Scarlet. “I saw two Islanders today. I’m not lying.”

But Gil didn’t back down. He, too, raised his voice. “Don’t you get mad at me, Fitzgerald. I’m not in the mood!” He stepped closer to Jem until they were standing nearly nose to nose.

Jem dragged his eyes away from Gil and looked at the crowd of dirty faces. Not a single Lost Soul seemed to believe him. “This is ridiculous,” he said, and he turned and walked away.

“Stupid, stupid pirates,” he muttered, stomping hard on the grass, not caring how sacred it was. “‘You’re too Old World to know an Islander, Jem.’
Humph.
Like they’d know an Islander and I wouldn’t.”

He could still picture them perfectly. The girl wore a dress made out of plants and an Old World coat…Jem snapped his fingers. The coat that had disappeared from Scarlet’s pile of belongings. And she’d blamed the monkey!

“We must have been chasing one of them the other day!”

And on her shoulder she’d had—

“That’s it!” Jem snapped his fingers again, picturing the girl’s bow.
She
was the one who had shot at the King’s Man and pinned his coat to the tree. He knew it couldn’t have been Smitty!

Feeling like a brilliant detective, Jem turned around and marched back to the clearing. He would show the crew what had been under their noses all along.

It wasn’t that Scarlet didn’t want to believe Jem. Her brain was just so full of questions (When to pay attention to a creature in distress? How to teach the aras to hang on to their rubies? How to fight off and/or attack Lucas and his crew? What the flotsam to do about her father?) that she feared one more might make it explode.

But the look on Jem’s face when he returned to the clearing told her she had better take this one seriously. If he was right and there really were Islanders on Island X, it would change everything.

“All right, Fitz,” she said. “Show me.”

She told the spying mission to wait a few minutes and followed Jem into the jungle—to the spot where the King’s Man had killed the pig the day before.

“Look. There are two arrows here. There’s this one.” He picked up an arrow from the jungle floor. Too thick and crooked to fly in a straight line, it had obviously been carved clumsily and in haste. “And there’s that one over there.” He led her to the tree where the King’s Man’s coat still hung. “This second one is perfect. You can’t tell me it belongs to Smitty. I know he means well, but he’s no fletcher.” When Scarlet raised an eyebrow, he added, “That’s an Old World name for someone who makes arrows.”

Scarlet’s stomach turned a somersault. The second
arrow was straight and smooth, its head a sharp black stone.

“Captain,” Jem said seriously, “this was the job of an expert.”

Scarlet bit her lip and whispered, “You’re right.” She looked from the arrow to Jem. “But then…where are they?”

“I don’t know,” Jem said. “But I’m starting to think they’re never far away.”

Scarlet shook her head in amazement. Islanders, here all along, and she hadn’t even felt their presence. “They must be first-class spies,” she murmured. And she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d recognized her.

Jem nodded. “I bet the girl will be back for her arrow and this coat, too. She seems to make her clothes out of Old World cloth and plants. Actually, I think she used your coat for her dress.”

“My coat!” Scarlet cried. “My stolen coat?”

Jem nodded. “So maybe we should wait here until they come back, although who knows how long that’ll be.”

“A girl and her brother,” Scarlet said. Who were they? Could they be childhood friends? Or…cousins? Dazed, she nodded. If there really were Islanders on Island X, she had to meet them—even if it meant putting the pirates on hold for an hour or two.

She chose a large plant with heart-shaped leaves and crouched behind it, moving over so Jem could sit beside her.

“I hope this works,” he whispered.

They rustled around, checking for snakes and spiders and getting comfortable on the forest floor. Then they settled into silence, passing the time by watching leaf-cutter ants march single file across the dirt. Each one carried a tiny piece of a leaf on its back. Scarlet felt their stoic determination, and it reminded her of the King’s Men.

That brought her father to mind. His refusal to remember his past still made her want to throw things. If he would only try, it would all come back to him—of that she was certain. Maddening, maddening grown-up.

Grown-ups. Scarlet sat up straight as a wild and wonderful thought came to mind. If these children were indeed Islanders, could some grown-ups have survived as well? Namely, her mother?

Don’t get your hopes up,
she told herself firmly. One thing at a time. And yet, wouldn’t it be amazing…

Jem’s head lolled beside her, and she poked him in the ribs to wake him up. He grimaced and crossed his eyes. Scarlet stifled a laugh and touched her tongue to her nose. Jem puffed out his cheeks and pulled on his ears. Scarlet flipped her eyelids inside out.

Jem looked horrified. “That’s disgusting!”

“Shhh!” Scarlet raised her finger to her lips, then noticed the nice shadow it made on a nearby tree. Jem noticed it, too. He twisted his hands into the shape of a bird in flight and made the shadow fly across the tree trunk.

“Jolly!” Scarlet mouthed. She added a bouncing rabbit to the scene. Then Jem transformed his bird
into a dog and turned it on her rabbit. A frenzied chase ensued, and they were mere seconds away from bursting into laughter when they heard a soft padding just beyond the ferns. Rabbit and dog froze in mid-chase, and they slowly, soundlessly, turned back into fingers. Scarlet parted the ferns as quietly as she could and looked out.

Her stomach turned another somersault at the sight: A girl, perhaps a year older than her, was sneaking toward the arrow in the tree. She had long black hair like Scarlet’s, but without the tangles. Behind her trotted a boy, even smaller than the smallest Lost Soul. Scarlet’s heart began to pound again. Jem nudged her, mouthing, “Do something.”

Trembling, she rose and cleared her throat. “Hello.”

The children whirled around to face her. Jem stood up as well. The girl, caught with her hand on the arrow, froze for a moment, then in one swift motion yanked it from the tree, grabbed her bow, and drew its string back to her eye, pointing the arrow right at Scarlet’s face.

“Oh!” Scarlet threw her hands up. “Don’t do that! We don’t mean any harm. We…oh scurvy.”
Now would be a perfect time to remember my old language
, she thought, taking a slow step back from the pointy object aimed at her nose.

Beside her, Jem raised his arms as well. “Can you talk to them?” he hissed.

“Obviously not, or I’d be doing it!” Scarlet shot back.
Think, think, think
, she urged herself. But no words came.

The girl muttered something to her brother, then motioned for him to get behind her. They began to move backward.

“Wait! Don’t go!” Scarlet stepped forward and found herself with an arrow an inch away from her left eye. “Okaaaay…” She stepped back again. Blasted memory. Blasted language. Blasted father for making her forget. She decided to try English, anyway. “Look, I’m Scarlet…I mean, Ara! My Islander name is Ara. And this is Fitz, er…Jem. We don’t want to harm you, I swear. We’re here to protect the island. You see, it’s my home, too. You might not remember, but we probably all grew up together.”

The girl blinked but didn’t lower her weapon.

“I don’t think she remembers,” Jem whispered.

“Thanks, Fitz,” Scarlet replied through clenched teeth. She decided to simplify things. Poking herself in the chest, she said, “Ara.” Poking Jem, she said, “Jem.”

The girl muttered something to her brother, who nodded and replied.

“What do you think they’re saying?” Jem whispered.

The girl gave Scarlet a scornful look, gestured to her trousers and dirty shirt, then shook her head at the boy. Scarlet’s ears burned. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t the warm welcome she would have liked.

But before she could say anything more, the children turned and zipped off into the jungle.

“Wait!” Scarlet gasped. “Don’t go!”

“Should we go after them?” Jem looked ready for another chase.

Scarlet shook her head. “If we chase them, it’ll just scare them even more.”

“Oh.” He looked dejected. “But if we don’t, no one’ll believe us.”

Scarlet watched some branches shake where the Islanders had pushed through them. She remembered the way the children had looked at her and how it felt to flounder for words she had completely forgotten.

Her anger began to simmer again.

“I’m going for a walk,” she announced. And she turned to her right and pushed her way into the trees.

“Oh. Okay,” Jem said to her back.

He began to say something else, but she ignored it. She only had one thing on her mind: The sole person on Island X who could help her remember what he had once made her forget. If he would only try.

It was early afternoon by the time Scarlet reached the cluster of gray canvas tents. She stopped and looked around, suddenly realizing that marching up to her father and demanding some language lessons might not be as simple as it sounded. First off, she had to find him without attracting his crew’s attention. A few King’s Men were chatting off to her right, so she sneaked toward them for clues.

“Come on, Donovan,” a young man sitting on an overturned pail said to another standing before him. Scarlet recognized the one seated as the yellow-bellied boy she’d followed through the jungle a few days before.
“You’re sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing?”

“Imagine it?
Imagine it?
” the other man exclaimed. “You think I just left my coat behind by accident? Ask Collins and Watt. They saw it.” He stepped toward the man on the pail. “Listen to me. Us and those pirates, we aren’t the only ones on this island.”

“So there are spirits,” the yellow-belly scoffed. “How much harm can they do? I say we march right back there and drag that pig home. I’m hungry.”

Donovan shook his head. “Not me. No, sir. You can face those spirits—or whatever they are—yourself.”

The yellow-belly laughed. “What did the admiral say when you told him?” He jerked his thumb toward a very large tent off to Scarlet’s left.

That was just too easy
, she thought, and turned in that direction.

Donovan harrumphed. “Told me that next time we follow him without his permission, he’ll see to it that we never leave camp again.”

Good
, Scarlet thought.
Although I personally would keelhaul you.

The yellow-belly snorted. “At least he’ll be gone soon. If you ask me, the old man should’ve retired years ago.” Donovan shushed him.

Retired? Scarlet paused. The admiral? Had the life of a King’s Man finally worn him out? She shook her head; she had more pressing things to think about.

Once hidden in the bushes beside his tent, she thought hard and fast. What would get his attention and draw him out? The idea that came to mind wasn’t exactly
creative, but it would do. She began to search the ground for pebbles and lobbed them at her father’s tent.

Sure enough, moments later, out he stomped, scowling left and right.

Scarlet poked her head out of the bushes. “Father.”

His eyes fell upon her, and his mouth fell open.

“Scarlet!” he hissed, moving toward her. “What are you doing here?”

“Meet me in the clearing,” she whispered, slithering backward out of the bushes.

He met her there within minutes, breathing hard. “Scarlet, this is dangerous. You shouldn’t be—”

“I know, I know.”

“No, you don’t know. One of my men was almost killed yesterday. Nearly had his arm taken off by…” His voice trailed off as he watched her reaction. “Scarlet, tell me you weren’t involved with that.”

“Well, I can tell you I didn’t shoot at him. But he deserved it after what he did. Killing the smelly wild pig and all.”