| |
The fans were spinning.
They were big eyes looking down on the master suite with warm, humid breath. She woke with morning light filling the room.
“What happened here?”
Red lines crisscrossed her forearms. The same design was cut into her legs. Her dad was standing next to her bed.
“Good morning,” she mumbled. “Did you just get here?”
The flesh around his eyes was dark and tired. “About an hour ago.”
“Where were you?”
“You first.” He touched one of the shallow cuts on her shin.
“It’s nothing. I went exploring through the trees.”
That wasn’t a lie. Although if he pressed which trees she was exploring, it would turn into one.
He examined the cuts on both arms. Worry lines bunched on his forehead.
“Dad, they’re just scratches.”
She went to the bathroom. When she came out, he was organizing his tool bags. She thought he was testing his blood again, even though he’d already done it. The sat laptop was on the bed. Kandi grabbed a banana from the kitchenette.
“We’ll need to stay a little longer than planned,” he said without looking up.
“How much longer?”
“A month.” He shrugged. “Maybe more.”
“What about school?”
“How do you feel about homeschooling?”
That subject had come up before but never went past casual conversation. Now he was making a statement. Not like there was a public school option on the island.
“Were you in the tower all night?”
“The job’s a little more... complicated than I thought.”
He didn’t touch his temple, but he didn’t answer the question. Which was worse: a little protective lie or a big scary truth? Either way, it hid a monster.
“Can I help?”
“Not on this one.”
He offered a weak smile. It looked like someone had given him a bag of rocks to carry. He wasn’t one to let go of responsibility, but one of these days those bags would break his back.
He looked at the enormous window-wall. Promising sunlight made it hard to sleep in and almost impossible to nap. But if those tired eyes closed for longer than a second, a spotlight wouldn’t keep him from sleeping.
“Dim the window,” Kandi called.
As if she’d turned a dial, the window turned several shades darker. Day turned to an early dusk.
“How’d you do that?” he said.
“Ask and receive.”
He found that mildly funny. An impenetrable barrier of disbelief he’d cultivated over the years kept him from fully embracing that notion.
“You all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Tired is all. Get yourself a shower and we’ll grab some breakfast.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. Sometimes he did that when the night was dark. Like a parent hovering over his sleeping child to keep the bad dreams away. He kissed her on the forehead. When she came out of the shower, he was surrounded by his tools.
And snoring.
***
“DID YOU GET IN A FIGHT with wrapping paper?”
Sandy was waiting outside the master suite. Kandi leaped on the glider and blasted through him. Sand particles showered the floor. Moments later, he was cruising next to her. She told him about Sonny and the miser with the fat man dressed in a Santa outfit, how she’d followed them deep into the island.
“It was snowing,” she said. “Inside that warehouse, it was snowing.”
“Weird.”
“What is this island?”
“I just work here.
They passed through the waterball fight into a new illusion of an endless beach. Ornaments lay like Easter eggs. Kandi soared through the foyer and into the B wing.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
When she didn’t answer, Sandy vanished. He was waiting outside Sonny’s doors, arms crossed. If they weren’t sticks, they’d be bulging. Instead, they were crackling. It was quiet.
No music.
“I’m not opening the doors,” he said. “Even if you ask nicely—”
Kandi started knocking and he stopped talking. His jaw drizzled to the floor. He tried to stop her when he recognized the rhythm, but his illusory sticks went through her arms.
Jingle bells, jingle bells...
Kandi shaded her eyes. The sun was still near the horizon. The silhouette of the Christmas tree was in the center of the room. The pile of presents had grown. Her carving was still displayed. She looked around, careful not to smudge the transparent barrier.
Sonny was wearing hard-soled slippers and silky pajamas with creases ironed down the front. A popcorn chain dragged behind him.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
He said it with a little less zeal than the other times. Maybe the shine of a new guest had dulled. There was something different about him. His cheeks were pale and waxen. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead, but his hair was neatly parted.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“A little slow this morning. Mother says that’s normal.”
“What’s normal?”
“To feel slow. Sometimes I feel that way, but it goes away. It started last night. I started stringing popcorn for the trees and I’m already feeling better.” He munched on a kernel. “Do you ever feel that way?”
Maybe he was depressed. No one ever described it as feeling slow, but that wasn’t too far off. Everyone had bad days when their heart pumped blood as thick as syrup and a cloud followed them around. If the cloud stayed, blue days turned into depression.
“Sometimes,” she said.
“Me too.”
He dragged the chain of popcorn to the tree. It looked heavy, the way he lifted it onto the branches. He accidentally stepped on it. Kernels cracked on the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“If it’s all right,” he said, “can we play a game another time? I still have more presents to wrap.”
“Sure, okay. Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
She shook her head. “When I’m feeling slow, talking helps me through it.”
He seemed to think about it, looking at his feet and noticing the popcorn on the floor. His shoulders sagged. Without a word, he shuffled off and returned with a broom and dustpan.
“You look tired,” she said. “Have you been doing anything, like exercising or running around?”
“No.”
His pajama bottoms hiked above his ankles and exposed part of his shins. The boy she’d seen at the tower had been in shorts and barefoot. He’d run between the same trees Kandi had hid behind and she was covered in cuts.
Sonny wasn’t even scratched.
“I don’t feel like talking.” He held the dustpan near his waist. “Maybe tomorrow. Is that all right?”
The doors began to quietly close before she could answer. Popcorn spilled from the dustpan as he carried it sluggishly in one hand. Kandi stepped back to avoid the doors. “It wasn’t him. That wasn’t Sonny at the tower.”
“Told you.”
“Does he have a twin?”
“Define twin.” His bottom scratched around. If he had legs, he would’ve been kicking the ground to avoid the question.
“Sandy? Ask and receive, remember? Does he have a twin?”
“There have been others.”
“Others?”
“Other Sonnys.”
Kandi frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Me neither.”
She stood on the glider without urging it forward. The boy at the tower looked like Sonny, but Sonny would never go barefoot. The Sonny who was stringing popcorn chains was proper and quiet and fearful, unless he was a superb actor. Or bipolar. That might explain feeling slow.
Split personality?
“The others,” she said, zooming away, “where are they?”
“You’re asking the wrong sandman.”
When she stopped beneath the chandelier, he watched her walk onto the veranda. The pool was empty and the beach pristine. It was still early. Her dad would be asleep till lunch. Hopefully longer.
Secretly, she was happy they were staying.
***
THE POEM AT THE END of the beach had been washed away by the tide. Kandi tucked her phone into a palm tree. If her dad pinged her location, he would guess she was lounging on the beach.
He was still fully clothed and sleeping when she peeked into the room. The sat laptop was under his arm. Kandi grabbed her backpack and snuck into the adjacent room. The tower was bright and shiny in the late morning.
“What’s weirder?” Sandy said. “That I suddenly have the urge to recite the poem or that you saw Santa Claus?”
“A guy dressed like him.”
“Or was it him?”
Kandi pulled away from the telescope, heavy-lidded. “You’re weird.”
That wide path was the only way past the tower. If there were side paths, she couldn’t see them. She couldn’t blaze a new path, not without a bulldozer. The cuts from last night still stung. If she stuck to the outside of the wide path and was fast about it, she could make it around the tower.
“Where you going?” Sandy sang.
“Exploring.” She checked the water bottle in her backpack.
“Bad idea.”
“If someone finds me, I’ll say I got lost.”
“Someone is the miser. She told you not to, ’member? You ’member.”
“She’s not God.”
“She kind of is.”
“Maybe for you because you’re... whatever you are. I’m fifteen years old. I’m a curious teenager. Don’t tell me not to do something and expect me not to do it.”
“You’ve heard of consequences?”
“I’m just going for a walk.”
She stepped on the glider. Sandy didn’t follow along this time. His voice, though, carried the distance.
“There are things out there in the woods. You know that, right?”
A chill caught up to and ran down her neck. There were those things she saw in the jungle and the branches breaking in the trees last night. She convinced herself it was Sonny out there or someone who looked like him.
One of the others.
***
THE PATH FELT WIDER in the daylight.
The cart was gone, the one she’d used the night before. Now it was just a wide-open field. The tower stared down like an effigy of a technology god. No amount of garland or happy Christmas lights could hide the feeling it was a cruel one.
The guy dressed like Santa hadn’t look thrilled.
He had been exhausted. And the way he’d looked at the sky, relieved. That was the same building her dad had been inside all night, too. And he came back a little more than bummed out. He seemed worried.
What did he see?
The gnats were waiting for her this time.
She took three deep breaths and muttered a little pep talk before she rounded the corner. The tower loomed with multifaceted eyes from three floors. The jungle shadows were deepest on the other side. She tried not to hurry, didn’t want to look suspicious. Thumbs hooked beneath the straps of her backpack, she tried to look like a casual day hiker. She made it three steps.
A hard tug yanked her into the trees.
Wide fronds fluttered as she stumbled backwards between spiny palm trunks. She was pulled into the shadows and started to fall. Something caught her.
“Are you crazy?”
It was him. It was the boy.
He looked through the narrow slot of foliage he’d just pulled her through and put his finger to his lips. Sun-bleached hair hung over his ears in long looping curls. He wore dirty shorts and that was it. His chest was tanned leather with scarred traces of sharp foliage. The shorts were torn and smudged, but the faint crease lines were still visible. A headband kept his hair out of his eyes. It looked like it had been torn from a checkered shirt.
“Sonny?” she whispered. “You... look like Sonny.”
“If she saw you walking toward the tower, her head would explode.”
“What?”
“She’ll get angry.” He looked through the narrow opening again, as if there was something to see. Nothing was moving. And the gnats were gone.
“I was going for a walk,” she said.
“Bad idea.”
“It wasn’t a bad idea last night.”
“Shhh.” He shoved his finger on her lips. It smelled earthy. “It was night and she was distracted. But you can’t just go off on your own.”
“I’m not going to sit in my room.”
A smile cracked his face. “You should be scared.”
“I’m not.”
He covered his mouth and stifled laughter, pointing at her face. Was her chin quivering? Did she swallow too hard? Or was it just written on her forehead. I’m scared. He was disheveled and wild. He didn’t smell bad, but he wasn’t exactly clean. His hands were callused and his arms were shaped from climbing.
“Do you live out here?” she whispered.
“Where else is there?”
“The resort—”
“I don’t live there.”
“The miser,” she said, “isn’t she your mother?”
“No.”
The humor drained from him. He backed up a step and she was afraid he would bolt. She didn’t know how she was getting out of the trees without sacrificing a pint of blood. Kandi stepped closer, but he didn’t run. He leaned back like she might bite. Grimy creases of sweat lined his neck and the corners of his sharp blue eyes. Kandi pinched his arm.
“You’re real,” she whispered.
Sandy had taught her not to trust her senses. An illusion couldn’t drag her into the trees, but she had to be sure. She didn’t want to be attracted to an illusion. She didn’t want to be attracted to anyone, but definitely not an illusion.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Who are you?”
“You’re Sonny.”
He shook his head. The same pall that had possessed him when she asked about his mother was back, and again she was nervous about him abandoning her. He was tense and nervous, ears perked, eyes dancing. He was a rabbit, albeit a very strong rabbit.
“You left me a riddle, to meet you at the tower. What did you want?”
“Why are you here?”
“The miser hired my dad.”
He stopped looking around and smiled. His stare was kind but penetrating. She glanced away, her thought suddenly exposed. When she looked back, he was still smiling.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“You don’t know anything.”
“Is that why you’ve been taking my stuff, leaving me riddles?” She raised her voice and blocked him from covering her mouth again. “Who are you?”
“I just saved you. If you think you can just hike over to the North Pole, you’re cracked worse than she is.”
“The North Pole?”
He squinted at her. It was snowing inside the warehouse. The North Pole. “How did you know where I was going?”
He was back in rabbit mode, tense and jittery. He peeked through the foliage then stepped through it. She was alone. Maybe he’d had enough. He’d said he saved her from the path and maybe that was it. Surely he wouldn’t abandon her in the trees.
She was glad she pinched him.
A minute passed and she wasn’t sure which direction to go. Everything looked the same. If she stumbled in the wrong direction, it could be hours before someone found her.
Or something.
If the miser caught her, what was she going to do, ground her? Then again, if the miser caught her, Kandi wouldn’t make it to the warehouse. The North Pole... that would explain the man dressed like Santa Claus.
“Sonny.” She pulled back a giant frond. “Sonny—”
“My name isn’t Sonny.” He was behind her without making a sound. “You want to see the North Pole? We have to go now while your dad is still asleep.”
“How do you know he’s still—”
“So yes or no, now or not? The miser sees and hears all, but she don’t see me. We stay in the trees, I’ll show you how to move. If you’re fast enough, I’ll show you everything.” He looked up. He saw something she wasn’t seeing, hearing something she wasn’t hearing. “Now, now. Yes or no?”
Her chest fluttered. “Yes.”
He broke open a smile and turned sideways to duck beneath a quivering frond. Kandi started to follow. He was slashed with thin scars, the kind of cuts she’d collected the night before. But there was a different scar on his back.
It was thick and shapely.
“Are you coming?” He popped back out.
“I don’t know your name.”
“Is that important?”
She shrugged. “What do I call you?”
He shook his head. If he was alone in the trees, why would he need a name?
“Can I call you Cris?”
“Is that an old boyfriend?”
“It’s my goldfish.”
He slipped out of sight again but not before flashing the strange scar on his back. Kandi did like he did and turned sideways, dipping into a narrow opening, and recognized what was burned on his back.
It was a handprint.