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He was too fast.
Three times he vanished and Kandi was left in the damp embrace of the jungle. Every nick and slash—fresh and old—was awake and stinging. Claustrophobia started to take hold. She had no sense of how deep the jungle was or how to get out. Paradise was smothering her. Before she could panic, a hand would reach for her and the race was back on.
Occasionally, he would stop and listen, eyes alert. His finger would rise before she could ask a question; then they’d double back and find another path. She knew who he was avoiding.
She just didn’t know how.
Walking seemed impossible, the jungle too dense and sticky, but doing as he did—trotting sideways and dodging low-hanging branches—kept them moving in all directions. The jungle abruptly ended. There was a building in front of them, two stories tall and plastered with lights.
“What—”
Cris grabbed her arm with a finger to his lips. His thumb had been freshly gouged, his blood sticky and warm. He was watching something she couldn’t see. Or was he listening? There was nothing between them and the building, nothing to the left or right. Still, he remained still. His eyes followed something, and then she saw it.
The gnats.
They swarmed in a dancing ball, buzzed around one of the windows then dispersed to another one. Down the wall they went, window by window, one by one. Kandi put her lips to his ear, his checkered headband soaked with sweat, hair stuck to his cheek.
“What are we doing?” she whispered.
He pulled a glove from his pocket. It was metallic and slid on his hand like fine silk. His fingers twittered like he was playing an instrument—an invisible trumpet or unseen keyboard—and then he waved off like a begging dog was in the way. And then a weird thing happened.
The gnats stopped what they were doing.
It was like they all looked in one direction before forming a tight ball. They darted away. Not a single one stayed behind.
“Did you—”
He pulled her out of the trees and raced to the nearest window. Pushing it open, he laced his hands into a saddle.
“Hurry.
Kandi stepped into his hands. He flung her up and over and into the window. She stumbled inside and he fell next to her. Quietly, he closed the window and lay against the wall. He pulled her next to him.
It was a bedroom with two bunk beds, each stacked five high. The room was stagnant and steamy. The jungle left her parched and shaky.
What am I doing?
She was about to ask him that question when the buzzing was back. It streamed past the window and hovered just outside it. There was a tap, tap, tap as they threw themselves against the pane. Cris waved his hand like he’d done before.
And then it was quiet.
“Microeyes,” he whispered. “She knows if you’re naughty or nice.”
“How did you do that?”
“Magic.”
He slid the glove off and smiled. She didn’t believe in magic. There was deception and phenomena, but nothing was beyond the reach of explanation. But magic was a good answer for the moment. Whatever that glove did wouldn’t be explained in a minute or two.
And neither would those gnats.
“What is this place?”
“Welcome to Miser Island.”
“Heether Miser?”
“It’s not her.”
That was the third time she’d heard that. “What’s that mean?”
He cocked his head and listened. The gnats hadn’t returned. He pulled the headband tighter. The edges were frayed, the ends hanging down to his shoulders. The fabric was familiar. It was the pattern, she’d seen that before.
Sonny wore a shirt like that.
“You’re one of the others,” she said. “You ran away.”
“I didn’t run away. I set myself free.”
“You won’t get far on an island.”
He crawled on his knees and peeked through the window. He looked at her with a guarded yet penetrating stare, so wild yet innocent, traces of Sonny in his kindness with hard edges carved by the jungle.
“True freedom,” he said, “has nothing to do with land.”
He held out his hand and pulled her up. It wasn’t the way he sped through an impenetrable jungle or the ease with which he lifted her off the floor or the muscles that bunched around his shoulders or even the mystery surrounding him that made her stomach suddenly bubbly.
She followed him out of the small room, thinking about Alaska and how she felt so trapped. There were days she wanted to start walking and never turn around, keep going until she was all alone with nothing but sky above and ground below, unfettered by expectations and responsibility. To be raw and wild.
Like the boy holding her hand. True freedom has nothing to do with land.
***
“DO EXACTLY AS I DO.” He looked into the hall. “Got it?”
He leaped out of the room and took giant steps. The floor was checkered with black and white tiles. He was only stepping on the white ones. She hopscotched past three closed doors. He stopped before passing an open one and pressed against the wall, tapping the space next to him.
Next, he crawled.
They did this past two closed doors before sprinting past the next five rooms. Slightly out of breath, they waited with their backs against the wall. He turned to her.
“Ready?”
Kandi didn’t think about what he was doing next. She tucked her thumbs into her armpits and followed along. There were gnats out there he could control and things on the island that were dangerous and the miser in her tower. He knew what he was doing.
He was doing a chicken-walk.
Kandi had flapped her elbows and even bobbed her head before he burst out laughing. Confused, she stared down at him and frowned. His face was red with laughter.
She kicked him. “I’m so stupid.”
“No, no, no... shh-shh.” He held out his hand and she swatted it away. He wiped his eyes and held out his hand. She wouldn’t take it. “I’m sorry, I won’t do that again. I swear. It’s just, you looked so serious.”
“You want me to trust you now?”
Her voice echoed down the long hall. He put his finger on her lips and, despite her best efforts, her stomach swirled with affection.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Trust me.”
His pace was confident and patient. He stopped a few times and did that listening thing before continuing to a large lobby. The ceiling was vaulted. Light cut sharply across it from an enormous window. Cris hugged the far wall and stayed in the shadows. He waved her over and pointed out the window.
It was the warehouse.
The lights were flashing and the animated ornaments moving. A small train chugged along a set of elaborate tracks, white smoke puffing from a straight pipe. Candy canes led up to closed doors. She had followed the miser around the building she was now inside, had seen the decorations and door.
But those people weren’t there.
They were round with long beards and extremely large feet. They waddled when they walked like wind-up toys. So round were their bellies that they could barely reach past them.
They were straightening decorations and weaving palm fronds into festive wreaths. Three of them were standing on each other’s shoulders. The one on the bottom was an overinflated exercise ball. The one on top—half the size as the one on the bottom—teetered with fistfuls of lights.
“What are those?”
“The helpers. They do the decorations and build the buildings and do the repairs and pretty much everything she wants them to do. They were born to serve.” He leaned in and whispered, “I was born to run.”
“But their feet...”
“It’ll make sense. Once you see the inside.”
The train made another loop. The whistle blew and steam rose up.
“Inside?”
He shook his head. “Not now.”
What could possibly be the purpose of those feet? They were abnormal. Freakish. They could barely walk. And if they swam, they’d float like beach balls or sink like cannonballs.
A song began to buzz.
It was a distant, nasally tune coming from outside. Their beards were too thick to see their lips moving. The fat-footed helpers were singing something that sounded like “Deck the Halls.”
They look like elves.
“How could it be snowing,” she said, “inside that building?”
“Anything is possible.” He tugged her sleeve and crept through the shadows. The elves were unloading boxes from the miniature locomotive. Cris pulled her by the arm. Just before they reached the next hallway, a sudden gust of wind battered the lobby window with pellets.
A swarm of gnats hovered outside.
“Are they looking for us?” she whispered.
“They know when you’re awake.”
He was off again. No jumping jacks this time. He was sprinting down the hall and she couldn’t keep up. The doors were lined up on both sides like a dormitory. All of them were closed except for one.
Cris was inside.
The room was clean and orderly. If this was where he slept, he was to be complimented on a well-made bed. The sheet was stiff and smooth. The pillow not even dented. With his finger to his lips and a silent shhh, he slid the dresser from the corner and pulled on the strange glove. There was no trapdoor, no treasure chest hidden beneath it, but when he waved his hand, the floor began to shimmer.
Then evaporated.
There was now a hole in the corner. Steel rungs were anchored in the earthy wall. It breathed a salty breath that was cool and noisy. He climbed inside. The shag of blond hair popped back up. She’d come this far. Why not climb into the earth with him?
It was a short climb into a dark, cramped space. The walls were damp and drippy and the tunnel blew her hair off her ears. His glove was iridescent and shimmered off the wet walls. When she looked up, the opening had closed. She assumed it must look like a floor again.
“How did you do that?”
“Before me,” his voice echoed, “there were others.”
He took her hand. His steps were much more confident than hers. He’d done this before, but she couldn’t see the floor and only a few feet ahead of them.
“Where are we going?”
He stepped onto something and helped her up. It bobbed under her weight and settled. It felt like a glider, but there wasn’t a handlebar to hold. He turned his back to her and put her hands on his waist. The frayed ends of the headband dangled in her face.
“You’ll see.”
The glider lifted up and a white light filled the tunnel. His glove was hot and beaming, specks of light flashing on the rough-hewn walls. The tails of his headband fluttered on her cheeks and her belly filled with butterflies. They were moving.
She clutched his hips.
His laughter carried over the wind in her ears and the noisy breath of the tunnel. She buried her forehead between his shoulder blades and felt the glider tip as their weight shifted into a turn.
With her eyes closed, she couldn’t judge their speed, but it had filled her legs with ice. Her arms ached with tension and her fingers dug into his flesh. She shouted for him to slow down. She wasn’t impressed. Fear had grabbed her by the throat and still he laughed. He leaned into a turn and then continued straight. When it finally slowed, her face was flush and dry.
Kandi shoved him into the dead-end wall. “That wasn’t safe!”
She was struggling to catch her breath. The air was dense and her chest was tight. The noise of the tunnel was loud. It sounded like the ocean, but they were surrounded by earthen walls lit up by his weird glove.
“If you play it safe, what do you get?”
“Your sixteenth birthday.”
“Why do you want that?”
“Because I don’t want to die.”
“We’re all dying. Nothing you can do about that.”
She took three steps back down the tunnel, but it was dark without the glove. Still, she could feel her way back. Before that ride, the day had felt like an adventure. Now it was suicidal. She wasn’t signing up for serious injury. Disciplined, maybe. Parental disappointment, perhaps. Not maiming. She could walk to the resort by nightfall and still be in one piece.
The tunnel suddenly roared.
It was followed by bright light, but not the shimmering kind. It was warm and natural.
It was sunlight.
The dead-end was gone, replaced by blue sky and white birds. Like the hole in the floor, the wall disappeared. Now he stood on the edge, his headband snapping in the wind.
He held out his hand.
She shuffled next to him. There was no land beyond the edge, no step to take. It was ocean as far as she could see, a breeze blowing the hair from her face. He nudged her closer and leaned out. The icy fear that had filled her legs now pulled her stomach down to her toes.
It was a straight drop.
They were standing in the side of a cliff. Waves battered rocks with showering explosions. Kandi leaned against the wall, moisture seeping through her shirt. This tunnel led to a long and final drop, and he was so close to the edge. His foot was more than halfway over the edge. She clutched the wall behind her.
He leaned out and looked down. “You’re missing the view.”
“I can see it from here.”
He was so close and didn’t care. One slip, a crumble of stone or a change in the wind would take him on a great ride to the bottom. He leaned out farther. Her stomach clutched. She was trapped against the wall, unable to grab him, too afraid to shout. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he stepped away, the dead-end was back.
She melted on the ground. “Why did you bring me here?”
He didn’t answer her, just put his arms around her and lifted her up. Her legs had liquefied. She leaned against him to keep from turning into a puddle.
“I’ll go slow,” he said. “I promise.”
They returned to the glider. This time, she wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed her cheek against his back. There were no steep turns. The wind hardly blew. When the glider finally stopped, the exit didn’t open in a bedroom with a waiting dresser.
Kandi climbed out of the ground and into the jungle. She walked on cold feet and numb legs, eager to warm them in the sun. He followed her above ground. The waves were breaking nearby. The beach wasn’t far.
“Do something for me?” he said. “Play some checkers today.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He slipped between two palms. Like that, he was gone. No goodbye or Merry Christmas. Kandi wondered if she would wake on the beach. Tunnels and elves and a hand-shaped scar were the ingredients of an afternoon nap, but her arms and legs were freshly scratched and bloody.
There was something strange across her arm where he’d grabbed her. Earlier, he had cut his thumb. She thought he had accidentally smeared her with blood. It was still sticky, but it wasn’t blood.
It was gray.