We were in a flat, rust-coloured coastal desert plain dotted with tall, white windmills. On one side, there were rectangular, rocky hills that seemed made up of cliffs and caves and, on the other, the wide watchful ocean. It reminded me of photos I’d seen of the Hato Plain on the island of Curaçao. Had the door brought us from Bonaire to here? It sure seemed that way.
We walked across the sand, following the new direction of the arrows on our wristbands. I remembered what I’d read about a temple in Willemstad, Curaçao’s capital: the oldest surviving synagogue in the Americas, where the floor was lined with sand to remind the worshippers of wandering through the Sinai desert and their many waves of arrival across 155the sea to Curaçao.
If the Ostrich Labs had been in a place of semi-arid scrub, green hills and cacti forests, this place looked even more dry, with cracked reddish ground. As we tramped across the packed, clayey sand, I told the others where I thought we were.
“Another island?” Esme sighed.
The dragon doors could clearly move us anywhere in the Caribbean, possibly in the world. I still had some nagging questions. Where was everyone? If this was the Hato Plain, where were the people: laughing, arguing, catching up and sweet-talking?
I’d done an entire end-of-term project on Curaçao as part of our “Know the islands” series in school. So, I knew that even though the Hato Plain was a protected area, the fact that we hadn’t seen anyone at all in any of the places where we’d been, was most likely the Council’s doing.
True, this wasn’t the middle of the Kaya Kaya Festival in the Ser’i Otrobanda district of the city, covered in murals and street art with social statements as bold as their colours. Nor was this one of the many markets on the island, filled with vendors selling world-famous Lahara oranges, Surinamese 156kashu, tamarind, and other fruit and vegetables. As I chewed a brown protein bar from the backpack and downed a carton of water, my mouth watered at the thought of real food.
This definitely wasn’t one of the food markets serving dishes like Indonesian Rijjstafel or rice table, with spicy, savoury nasi goreng, satay, and more; or Dutch Stamppot with pounded potatoes and delicious fermented sauerkraut; or the fried red snapper, plantain and smooth polenta of Piska ku Funchi.
And this wasn’t one of the high-end, air-conditioned stores run by European and American brands that lined the duty-free shopping areas of the capital. Instead, the Hato Plain was a beautiful, dry, sweeping area by the coast, full of rare plants and animals, with caves or kuebas lined with drawings and artefacts from the island’s Indigenous and African ancestors.
It was big enough to still have its secrets, but even the Hato Plain shouldn’t be this deserted …
Somehow the Council always seemed to find spaces with next-to-no people in them and, even when people were nearby, to camouflage their 157activities from the rest of the world. My heart dropped. How could we hope to win against an organisation so powerful and well-hidden? Still, something in me refused to bend.
“Bad mind has its uses,” Mum would say. “Don’t let them beat you just so.”
We might lose, but I wasn’t about to give up.
“Come on guys,” I looked at the arrow on my wristband, “let’s go.”
We walked and walked until the beat of the windmills faded in the distance. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes morphed into what felt like forever. Esme checked her wristband for the hundredth time.
“This is bare foolishness,” she muttered, her cinnamon skin red and peeling in the sun.
We had walked for over an hour. In the blazing heat of the desert, that was too long. And we still had no instructions from Cap’n Peg, Yara, or the Council, just the arrows on our wristbands pointing the way.
“We should probably come up with some kind of plan,” Adri croaked.
But no one was in the mood to talk.
Our mouths were dry and gritty with dust and 158sand. Despite unfolding wide-brimmed hats from our backpacks, we were sweating through our jumpsuits. I paused again, reaching for one of the water cartons in my pack.
“No,” Luna coughed, “save … water.”
I snarled, “Who died and made you boss?”
“Okay, die of thirst then,” she snapped back, then stamped on.
Deep down, I knew that she was right, but I felt like I would die without a drink of water.
Adri and I both took swigs from our cartons. I was too scared to think about how many we had left.
Esme pursed her lips, warning us: “Wunna carry on. Continue.”
I pretended that I didn’t hear her.
The more we walked, the longer our shadows stretched. The day was getting away from us.
I should have been worried about our lack of instructions from the Council, but all I could think about was the shade that evening would bring. I looked forward to the sun going down and a blessed relief from the heat.
According to our wristbands though, we still had a few hours to go before dusk. I didn’t have hours 159of walking left in me.
The expanse of seawater in the distance wasn’t helping. Like the Hato Plain itself, it was stunning at first. Then it was painful looking at gallons of liquid we couldn’t drink.
“Want to hear a joke?” Esme wheezed, as we trudged along.
“Nope,” Adri clapped back.
I giggled deliriously.
Luna pretended none of us were there.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” Esme quipped through the chalky sunblock slathered on her face and neck.
I stared at her blankly.
“To get to the giant cactus,” she pointed with one limp hand.
I tried not to laugh.
We hadn’t seen a cactus for a while. Up ahead was a round area dotted with cacti and rock towers. It took me a second to realise what that meant.
Shade!
I started running.
Soon the others were right behind me. I collapsed into the shadow of the nearest rock tower, with an 160exhausted sigh. Adri flopped at the base of another. They were taller and wider than we were, each made from one piece of craggy, pitted rock, carved into different shapes.
“Look!” Esme cried, gulping a mouthful of water, “that one’s a snake!”
“Yup. A boa constrictor.” Luna frowned at the carving.
“That one’s a giant crapaud …” I jumped in. “I mean frog.”
Even Adri got into it, pointing one out. “That one looks like a croc!”
“Caiman,” I corrected.
“Okay. Caiman,” he snorted.
“Cai-man in the Ca-ri-bbe-an!” I sang weakly.
Adri rolled his eyes. “You definitely need to get out of the sun.”
Luna rubbed a palmful of water over her head and wiped some of the sand and sweat off her face: “Okay guys, we rest here for a bit, then we move on.”
“Do you ever relax?” I complained.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with staying here until the sun goes down?” Esme pushed back.
“Because we don’t know what’s out there!” Luna 161argued. “Do you really want to be here in the dark?”
I pressed my point. “I’m just saying that since we don’t know how far away the door is, we can at least walk when the sun’s not out. We have torches after all …”
“No. Luna’s right,” Adri jumped in. “We can’t be out here in the dark. We’ve got to keep going.”
My face burned. Would he ever take my side?
“Mr. Know-it-All,” Esme huffed loudly.
“In any case, nobody asked you,” Luna snapped at Adri.
His face flushed. Clearly, she hadn’t forgotten the kids he’d left stranded back at the Ostrich Labs. I shifted uneasily, thinking of them stuck there, while I laughed and talked with the person who’d betrayed them.
“Forty minutes,” Luna said to me and Esme, “then we move on.”
Adri’s chin dropped at her obvious disgust. I wondered if he was having second thoughts about what he’d done. He got up and walked over to the farthest rock tower; the one shaped like a hunched bird. My stomach squeezed. I knew he was wrong but … 162
“Why do you always have to be so hard on everyone?” I accused Luna.
“Hey,” Esme jumped up to defend her, but Luna raised one hand and looked at me.
“Because of your little ‘friend’, my friends are trapped who knows where. Besides …” she got up and came toward me as softly as a jungle cat. “You don’t know squat.”
I braced myself. Her face shone wild and bright as her silver nose-ring.
“I’m tough because I’ve had to be.”
Her eyes held mine until I looked away.
“I’m sorry, Luna,” I mumbled, wishing I could just go over to Adri and make everything right. “It hurts to see him like this.”
She breathed heavily. “I know.”
As Luna and Esme sat down in the shade, my mind went back to restoring Adri’s memories. Getting him to agree to the process was one thing, but how could I do it if I didn’t even know how?
I turned to Esme. “Please teach me some more memory-work.”
“No way,” Esme shook her head, leaning her pack against the rock behind her, then settling against it 163like a cushion.
I thought about what I’d stumbled into last time in Esme’s memory. The image of the baby whale in a net on the beach came to mind. For some reason, she hadn’t wanted me to see that part of her memory, or anything connected to it.
I had enough sense not to bring it up now.
“Esme, please,” I begged. “Just help me. Maybe we can try with one of Luna’s memories.” I looked at Luna hopefully. “You said I don’t know you, right? We can change that!”
“Ha!” Luna threw her head back and laughed.
“Let you rummage around in my memories?” she chuckled, running a shocked hand over the buzz-cut side of her head, while a black curtain of hair fell over the other side of her face. “That and a flying donkey, you will never see.”
Esme’s face was closed. She lay back, pretending she was sleeping. Then it hit me.
“Okay, well instead of us going into your memories Esme, or Luna’s; why don’t we go into mine?”
I could see that Esme was listening, even with her eyes shut.
“That way you still get to teach me how to control 164my gift, but I don’t enter your memories at all; just my own.”
Luna said nothing. It was Esme’s decision.
“Please,” I begged. “Isn’t that what gifted kids do? Help each other? I need this. If I can bring back Adri’s memories, he won’t sell us out again. We might have a chance to escape this time and find a way to save the others.”
Esme took a deep breath and sighed, “Give me a minute.”
“Sure,” I said, “Take your time.” Like I had all the time in the world.
Luna started sorting through her pack, but I could tell that she was paying close attention to Esme’s and my conversation.
While I waited, I checked out the statues. Who had made these and why? They were in a wide circle facing each other, like an outdoor ampitheatre. I realised that most of the animals weren’t native to Curaçao, but were from other Caribbean countries and South America. And they were all at-risk or endangered – each with a reason to feel threatened by humans.
That was weird. Who had carved them here and why? My skin prickled. I wondered if it was okay 165for us to be here.
“Okay,” I heard Esme say.
I spun around to face her.
“Really?” I kept my face calm.
“I’ll show you how to flip through memories okay?” Esme explained. “You don’t have to go into them one at a time.”
I remembered seeing her browse through my memories before. At least, this was a start.
Esme came over to my patch of shade. I was in the shadow of a rock shaped like a giant bald-headed monkey with sharp, bared teeth.
She continued, “We’ll see if you have a memory locked away, maybe from when you were little. And I’ll show you how to release it.”
She looked at me warily. “That’s it, okay?”
I was singing inside. This was exactly what I wanted to hear.
Before she changed her mind, I stretched out my arm. Esme sighed and took my hand.
In my own mind, Esme showed me how to scroll through memories like a display on a screen. I could even focus on a time-period, person, experience, or emotion, to see the related memories. She taught 166me to fast forward or rewind through memories, to get to certain moments more quickly. If I wanted to drop more fully into a memory, I could.
“But …” she taught me, “you don’t have to fall willy nilly into other people’s memories. You don’t have to be afraid to touch people once you learn to control your energy.”
“Okay,” I murmured. “I’ll try.”
From what I could tell, harnessing my energy for memory-work was like the focus, breathing, and visualization exercises we did in our warm-ups for gymnastics and swimming, especially leading up to tournaments.
Esme, standing next to me in my mind, seemed surprised at how quickly I learned.
“I can do this!” I grinned.
“Okay, good,” she nodded, her eyes warming from hazel to brown, dimples deepening as she smiled. “Show me again.”
So I did.
I scrolled through my memories of Adri like a digital album of the past. However, this time, as I looked at the images of him and I together, a year ago in Samaan Bay, I paused. I thought about 167how Adri had helped me overcome my fear and hopelessness when we were trapped in the Flesh-skinner’s pit. He could have just left me and saved himself, but he didn’t.
I scrolled to the moment in the forest when he’d decided to go back into the Council’s power, for his parents’ sake.
Cold tears ran down my face. Esme was quiet. Sometimes I wished that it had never happened, or at least, that it had all happened differently. What if Adri had simply been a lost boy I’d rescued from the river? What if we’d found our way out of the forest, becoming friends along the way? What if we’d found his parents safe and sound, back at the village, celebrating our return?
A cold and powerful feeling rushed through me, like an icy glass of water on a sweltering day.
“What’s happening Zo?” Esme asked, looking around us.
I didn’t answer, but I could see what was bothering her. As I imagined a different past for Adri and I, the memories in front of me began to change. Colours shifted and their shapes blurred, as if they were becoming something else. 168
I wondered: what if a year ago, after Adri and I escaped the forest in Samaan Bay, Da had taken me to live with him in New York? What if I had become Adri’s next-door neighbour in Queens? What if we saw each other every day?
“Zo, what are you doing?” Esme broke in, her voice rising.
I ignored her, breathing in deeply and focusing. I could see it. Out of the old memories I had of Adri, new memories were starting to take shape. Why couldn’t I go further?
What if instead of being gifted kids trapped by the Council, Esme and Luna were our schoolmates in New York?
Esme looked up and saw her face begin to form in one of my memories, in a school and uniform she didn’t recognize. It was still blurry, out of focus, but coming together, like the huge smile on my face.
Esme grabbed me, horrified. “Zo! Stop this right now!”
But the cold energy surged through me. I was powerful in a way I had never been. Finally, I could make things happen, instead of them happening to me. In my memories, I could have the life I imagined: 169a past full of dreams instead of nightmares. My new memories kept taking shape, ready to replace the old ones.
Without warning, Esme slammed into me.
Crack! I felt the full weight of her mind and body. Then everything went black.
I woke up on the sandy ground of the Hato Plain, staring up into the wide, glaring sky.
“Ow,” I groaned, rolling onto my side. My head hurt like I’d been hit by a truck.
Esme was standing over me, shaking, her eyes a terrified shade of green. She had snapped us both out of my memories.
“What happened?” Luna asked, as I got up slowly.
“She was doing it …” Esme muttered.
“Doing what?” I asked angrily. “Why’d you hit me?”
Esme stared at me then at Luna, with a grey face. “Zo was replacing her memories with invented ones,” she said clearly, slowing down every word.
“What?” Luna took a step back; her eyes darting from side to side.
Why were they acting like this? And where was Adri? I looked around carefully, trying to quiet the drumming in my head. He was under the farthest 170rock tower away from us. It looked like he was sleeping.
“Invented memories Lu!” I could hear the crack in Esme’s voice. “I’ve never seen anyone do that.”
“I’ve heard of someone like that,” Luna growled darkly. “A memory-worker at one of the Council’s holding centres who can put fake memories into people’s heads.”
“Do they know she can do this?” Esme wondered out loud. “It’ll be trouble if they ever find out.”
“Hello! I’m right here.” I shouted. “Can you talk to me please?”
What were they going on about? They looked at me from the sides of their eyes, like I was a dangerous animal.
“Guys, enough. Tell me what I did wrong. I was just wishing that things were different, that’s all.”
I felt sick, nauseous: whether from the memory-work or the tackle, I didn’t know. I hoped that Adri kept napping and didn’t hear this. How would I ever get him to trust me again, if Luna and Esme thought I was a threat?
Finally, Luna swung toward me. “Get to your feet,” she barked. 171
It was a strange relief to see the Luna I knew, rather than the scared girl I’d just seen her become. I tottered to my feet. Esme must have knocked me down hard. Now she was staring at me like I was a poisonous snake she’d stumbled across in the desert.
“Never, ever do that again,” Luna warned me, her eyes as hot as coals. “Inventing memories to replace the ones you have? Don’t do it. Ever. To you or anyone else!”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, “but what’s the harm? Couldn’t it be used to help people if I learn to control it? If their actual memories are awful, I could …”
“No!” Esme yelled so loudly she made me jump. “It’s too dangerous. One of the most dangerous things you can do …”
She sank down heavily on the sand next to her pack, like a stone had fallen on her head.
I felt fear crawl up my spine and wrap itself around my neck. What was this terrible power I had, if it made Luna and Esme so worried?
Luna took a deep breath and pushed back her hair, picking up where Esme had left off.
“Listen, Zo. Transferring someone’s memories 172into someone else. Inventing memories. Creating memories to replace the one’s you or others already have. Those abilities are rare, not meant to be used. They can all go terribly wrong.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to …” I pleaded with them both, my hands hanging uselessly at my sides.
Sometimes it felt like everything I did was wrong.
Then I remembered Da saying that no one was a mistake. Everything and everyone had a purpose. I tried to believe that about myself.
Esme whispered in a broken voice, “Believe me Zo, I know …
“Um, guys …?” Adri interrupted.
“Not right now,” Luna shut him down, as she went over to comfort Esme.
He was up from his nap. How much of this had he heard?
I felt defensive and angry at the same time. Not to mention that my head still hurt. Adri should know better than sharing his thoughts on memory-work. He didn’t even want his own memories restored!
“Okay, fine!” I clapped my hands. “I’ll never do it again!”
Esme looked tormented. Luna was skeptical. 173
“It was a mistake … I get that now,” I searched for the words to regain their trust. “All I care about is getting Adri back his memories. The real ones. If he says yes, I wouldn’t even go in alone. Esme can come with me, to make sure everything’s alright.”
“Guys!” Adri’s voice sounded strange, high-pitched, insistent.
“I know you don’t want to do it Adri!” I swung around to face him. “I was just saying that if …”
The words dropped from my lips. Luna turned to see what I was looking at. Her eyes bulged out of her head; body frozen in place.
Finally, Esme saw it too. Her mouth opened and closed slowly like a beached fish.
With a shaking arm, Adri pointed at one of the rock towers.