“Quick, the med-kit!” a no-nonsense voice ordered.
“Luna, I’m going as fast as I can,” another voice responded, soft but firm.
Water hit my face, shocking me awake.
I wiped my eyes and blinked slowly.
Standing over me was a powerful-looking girl with dark brown skin and a silver nose-ring. A wave of dark hair fell over one side of her face, clashing with a short buzz-cut that looked like she had shaved it herself. Her eyes were arched and wary as a cat’s. She stared at me with a mixture of suspicion and concern.
“More hot water Esme!” she demanded.
“I’m right here,” the other girl pointed out, “you don’t have to shout.” 59
That girl, Esme, came up behind Luna. Even in my pain-addled state, she grabbed my attention. She had round cheeks, with freckles scattered like stars over her brown skin, and what could only be described as her own style. She wore sparkly eyeshadow in a blend of shades. Her hair, tied up in knots all over her head, was every colour of the rainbow, but it was her outfit that really caught my eye. She looked like she was wearing a handmade jumper from chess-board patterned fabric. Two chess pieces – black and white knights, dangled from her ears.
Somehow, the effect was stunning.
She handed the shaved-hair, cat-eyed girl, Luna, a mug and a piece of cloth. Luna dipped the rag into the mug and pressed it against the cut on my foot. It was hot water. I whimpered and pulled away.
“Stay still,” Luna ordered, in the tone of someone used to being obeyed.
“Is it working?” Esme asked anxiously.
“Swallow this,” she said, handing me two pills and a thermos of what looked like water.
I hesitated.
“Don’t worry, it’s allergy meds,” she assured me. 60
“If we were going to kill you, we’d have done it by now,” Luna added, giving me a less-than-impressed look.
She had a point.
I swallowed the tablets.
After a few minutes, I sighed with relief. The hot compress was definitely making my leg feel better.
“See,” Esme gave a belly-laugh, dimpling her face and setting her chess-earrings dancing, “you’ll live.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, slowly sitting up.
That was when I saw Adri lying on the ground a short distance away. He was out cold.
“What did you do to him?” I shouted, scrabbling to get to him.
“Careful,” Esme pleaded.
“Nothing, you crazy girl!” Luna yelled. “He had a spike in his arm. We took it out and patched him up same as you, but he had more venom in his system. He has to sleep it off.”
“Who are you anyway?” she confronted me, eyes flashing.
“Can you give her a second?” Esme protested.
“Who are you?” I pushed back.
Luna snorted. 61
“A feisty one,” Esme grinned.
Each of the girls spoke with a different lilt, like they were from different countries. Esme’s accent sounded familiar.
“Where are you from?” I challenged them. “Where are we?”
“Where we’re from is none of your business. We came through a Dragon Door, same as you,” Luna shot back. “Just not the one you used … And how should we know where we are?”
“Can we just all stay calm,” Esme pleaded. “Wunna not tired arguing?”
Luna paced, scanning our surroundings as if expecting an attack.
Our backs were against a rocky slope: part of a line of low hills. Around us was dusty ground, covered with rows of tall, prickly cacti that blocked our view of what lay ahead.
Adri was asleep under a cactus. It stood up like the mismatched fingers of a giant’s spiky hand. The cacti seemed to be the only thing, other than the hills, that provided any kind of shade.
It reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Washington Slagbaai Park on the island of Bonaire. Bonaire was 62one of three Dutch and Papiamentú-speaking islands west of Trinidad. The ABC islands – Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao – were once part of the Netherlands Antilles, even though they were in the Caribbean.
How had we gotten here from Dragon Mouth Island without a boat or a plane? Clearly the Dragon Doors were even more powerful than I thought.
“The doors … how do they work?” I asked out loud.
Luna stormed over to a nearby rucksack that looked the same as mine.
She ignored me completely: “Well, what to do Esme? Why we eh get the instructions yet?” she tapped her wrist.
They both had on the same golden wristbands as me and Adri. So, she and Esme were on the Council’s test too!
I took a deep breath and tried again. “Look, I’m sorry.”
Esme gave Luna a ‘please calm down’ look.
“I’m Zo.” I raised my wristband-wearing hand. That guy is my friend Adri.”
Luna shoved things into her pack, “Really? Friends don’t leave friends behind. That boy dropped you like pholourie in hot oil! Didn’t even bother to 63look back for you. Esme and I were the ones who went in and dragged you through the door … Just in the nick of time too.”
My head dropped.
“It’s not his fault,” I croaked. “The Council. They wiped part of his memory – at least the part with me in it.”
Luna was silent.
Esme exhaled softly. “I might be able to help with that,” she said softly.
Luna objected under her breath.
Esme continued anyway: “I’m a memory worker.”
Energy coursed through my body. “What …?” There was a name for this?
Words tumbled out of me, “Wait. Me too! I think. But I thought I could only go into people’s memories … not bring memories back!”
“Hold up,” Luna raised one calloused hand, “Run that again?”
I quickly told them some of what had happened in Samaan Bay and how I’d learned that I could enter other people’s memories through touch.
Esme turned red with excitement, her dimples deepening. “You’re a memory worker too! We’re 64hard to find. They must have brought you here as part of your training.”
Luna dropped her backpack with a sigh and sat down heavily.
She and Esme explained that they were part of a group of gifted children (“That’s what they call us at least”) forced to live at a twisted Council training centre called the Big House, run by a terrifying superintendent they knew only as the Headmistress.
“I know,” I interrupted. “Yara.”
“You know the Head’s name?” Esme stared at me incredulously.
“How come?” I could see that Luna was suspicious all over again.
So, I told them everything that had happened to me since this morning, right up to Yara having Mr. Yancy throw me through the first set of Dragon Doors. The only thing I left out was Yara slipping me a dragon-shaped key. I didn’t know these people well enough to tell them all my secrets.
“We call the old man Antsy,” Esme jumped in, “cause he like ants … everywhere … and you don’t want to see him mad.”
“As you may have guessed,” Luna explained tiredly, 65“the doors are portals connecting places across the Caribbean and the world, where we get tested by the Council.”
“You know what happens if we fail the tests?” Luna asked in a heavy voice.
“Yeah,” I muttered, getting a flashback of Alice, the girl in Yara’s office, shrinking down into a fluffy white rabbit.
Some things you couldn’t un-see.
“If your friend has been under the Council’s control all this time,” Esme shook her head sadly, “his parents too … It’s been just as much a nightmare for him as it’s been for us. If he’s willing, I can help him get back the memories they took. The Council can lock certain memories away, but they can’t get rid of them completely. They’re still there in his mind where he can’t get to them, or even remember they exist. With practice, you’ll be able to control your power better – even restore locked memories like his.”
I turned toward Adri. In sleep, he looked so peaceful, like the little boy I’d gotten to know. I thought of him recognising me again. I imagined being able to hug my Da, Mum, Tayo, and even Jake, without always being afraid. 66
My heart felt like a steelband rhythm section in my chest. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. It was almost too much to hope for.
“But we don’t know for sure where this guy’s been, or what he’s been up to …” Luna tossed me a small tube and packet. “Antibiotic cream and a bandage. Put them on your leg,” she said in clipped tones. “To tell you the truth, we don’t know you either. So, if you don’t mind Esme checking your story …”
It was more of a statement than a question.
I bristled.
“Do you mind?” Esme asked quietly.
“Thank you for asking,” I said pointedly, slathering the antibiotic cream on my leg and bandaging it carefully.
Luna sat there, waiting.
I calmed myself down and wiped my palms on my jeans. Then I held out my right arm to Esme.
When I opened my eyes, I was inside one of my own memories from a year ago: on the edge of a river in the Samaan Bay forest, about to jump in to try to save Adri. I could see the gently swaying bamboo, hear the gurgle of the water and smell the dank, earthy smell of mud beneath our feet. 67
“So, you were telling the truth,” Esme observed.
I turned to see her standing next to me, her boots squishing around on the riverbank.
My mouth fell open. “How are you here … as yourself?” I asked her. “When I fell into people’s memories it was so confused, so close. I felt like I was going through things the way they had experienced them … from their point of view.”
Esme nodded, “Yes, it’s like that when you start out, but I’ve learned to come in as myself now. I see what they saw, hear what they heard, but without getting sucked in. I can control when it happens too. I don’t fall into other people’s memories anymore.”
I felt a rush of envy and excitement. “Will you teach me? Is that why I know you’re in my mind? When I entered Adri’s memories before, he seemed to have no idea.”
“Nah. Memory-workers can always tell when someone enters our memories. Most other people don’t realise it unless we let them know. In the memory, we can speak directly to their mind and tell them that we’re looking through. But really, that’s something you should ask permission for first.”
A flash of pain crossed her face. 68
“Bad things happen when you invade someone else’s mind.”
I thought back to Adri and my adventures the year before and how many times I’d fallen into his memories. How I’d hidden it from him almost until the end of our time together, and how hurt and angry he’d been that I did.
She was right.
Esme glanced at me softly. “Can I take a look around?”
At least she’d asked my permission.
I nodded.
She took my hand in hers and with her free hand swiped the air across her face, like she was swiping a screen. I stepped back in shock. Like scrolling images, my memories slid in front of me. Esme would stop one and let it play for a bit, then move on.
I smiled at seeing Adri and I back in the branches of the samaan tree, getting to know each other for the first time.
I cringed when Esme stopped at the memories where I’d abandoned him to the X, or when I’d pretended that I had no idea what had happened to his parents – afraid to reveal to him what his 69memories had shown me.
Was him forgetting me now some kind of cosmic payback for the things I’d done?
As if she could sense my pain, Esme stopped.
“I’ve seen enough,” she turned to face me softly. “Thank you.”
I nodded silently.
When I blinked, I was back in the cactus-filled corner of the earth where we’d left Luna and Adri.
Luna stared me down.
Esme gave her the nod. “She’s telling the truth Lu.”
I turned away and wiped my face.
This is what it felt like to have someone go through your memories … Open. Exposed.
No wonder Adri had resented it when I finally told him what I’d done.
“Okay, great,” Luna jumped to her feet as though I hadn’t just allowed a stranger to flip through my most private moments.
“Now let’s wake the boy up and get moving.”
“But we haven’t gotten any instructions yet,” Esme pointed out. “Let’s at least rehydrate some corn soup and eat.”
“Corn soup?” My stomach grumbled. 70
After everything I’d been through that day, I was hungry. “Wait,” I continued, excited, “is that a solar oven? Did you make it?”
Nearby, on some rocks, was a cardboard box held open with a stick, with foil lining the inside, including the inside cover, reflecting sunlight into the main part of the box, which was sealed by a clear layer of plastic wrap.
“The parts came from the rucksack.” Luna brushed my compliments aside, but I could tell she was pleased by my reaction.
A solar oven: that was where they’d gotten the hot water to clean my wound. Da had taught me how to make these on our camping trips. I was impressed.
“Luna made it,” Esme answered, seeming relieved to see me smile. “She’s a Girl Scout for sure,” she grinned. “Anything survival-based … And …” she looked pointedly at Luna, “we need to eat to live.”
“Esme,” Luna sighed, “you and I both know that it’s not safe to stay in one place for too long. We’ve already been here long enough.”
“Where are you from?” I asked, trying to change the subject. 71
“Guyana,” Luna said shortly, packing up her gear.
Esme waved, “I’m Bajan. From St. Phillip.”
Barbados! I knew it.
“My family’s there now!” I jumped in excitedly.
Esme had this faraway look in her eyes. “But my parents are from the Grenadines.”
“The Grenadines …” I tried to remember what I knew about the tiny islands between St. Vincent and Grenada. “They make ships there, right?”
A cloud came over Esme’s face.
“Mm-hm, used to,” she answered, focusing on packing up the solar oven, putting it into a canvas bag and tying it to the outside of her rucksack.
I squirmed. Clearly, I’d hit a nerve.
“Let me guess, you’re Trini,” Luna said dryly, re-rolling a coil of rope.
I got up gingerly and slung my pack over my shoulders.
“Guilty,” I smiled awkwardly, then grew serious. “But how did the Council find you?”
“We don’t have time for that now. Besides,” Luna looked around carefully, “Bush got ears … Esme, go wake up that boy and see if he wants to move with us or no.” 72
“Girl, you know I doan’ work for you, right?” Esme threw out as she sailed over to her pack.
“Oh look!” she squealed, pointing at Adri, “What a cutie!”
I stiffened. Sure, Adri was good-looking, but … Then I realised that she was pointing at an anole lizard on the ground next to his arm.
Oh. Thankfully no one could see me blush.
The lizard was small, greenish-brown, with black stripes along its side and a long, pointy-tipped tail.
“Racerunner, we call them. Oh Lu, can we keep him?” Esme begged.
“Absolutely not,” Luna slung her backpack over her shoulders and picked up Adri’s.
The lizard looked at Luna and puffed out the skin under its neck, revealing a yellow flap with a black spot, like an eclipse of the sun.
“See, he don’t too like that Lu …” Esme chimed in.
Luna exhaled and rolled her eyes. “For the love of … Zoe, Zo, whatever your name is. Go and wake up your friend please, before we all end up stuck here in who-knows-where.”
“Girl, you ain’ bossy in joke.” Esme started packing up her backpack. Slowly. Taking her cool time. 73
I couldn’t help grinning, but I went over to Adri and bent down to wake him up. Then I froze. An idea popped into my head. Now that Adri was sleeping, I could try going into his mind, to find and restore the memories the Council had locked away.
I felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t right to go into his memories without permission, but this was the perfect moment and maybe my only chance. Once Adri was awake, he probably wouldn’t let me near him.
I reached out slowly. As I stretched my hand toward his bare arm, I got myself ready to look for lost memories of me and our friendship. I had no idea how to do what Esme talked about, but I could try.
“Let me see,” I whispered, getting ready to go into his mind.
We all jumped back. Esme screamed. Luna dropped the pack in her hands.
I pulled away from Adri. What had I done?
He’d woken up with a bloodcurdling shriek and was slicing around wildly with his knife.