The last hour was the hardest climbing yet, but it finally stopped raining as we approached the top of the volcano. The clouds blew quickly across the horizon, followed by blue skies. I could finally see the trees in front of me start to fall away and I knew we were nearing the top.
Panting, my vest and cutoffs still wet from the downpour, I stumbled out onto a little plateau.
“What is it?” Sukey called from behind me. “What do you see?”
We had come out into a clearing the size of a football field, the ground covered with the flowering bushes that filled the air with that wonderful scent. It ran right up to the edge of a steep cliff.
Far below we could see a beach. The water was pristine and the contours of the coral reef fringing the island were clear from above.
Sukey caught up to me and took in the view. The sun was dropping down toward the water, filling the sky with rosy smudges. It wouldn’t be light for much longer. The golden clouds looked lit from within, shot through with the sun’s rays. I felt like we’d walked into some Italian painter’s idea of heaven.
I could see the ocean in every direction I turned. Not a bit of land to be seen anywhere.
We were all alone—except for whoever was down there, at the source of the plume of smoke curling up toward the sky.
“I think it’s them,” Sukey said as she held her hands over the little fire we’d managed to get going in the low brush. I’d been worried about setting the whole mountain on fire, but everything was still so wet from the rain that there wasn’t any danger of that. The fire we did get going was pretty pathetic, but we sat very close to it and warmed our hands and faces.
“It might be, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up,” I told her. “Think of how it’s going to feel if we get down there and it’s not them.” My voice caught a little and she turned to look at me.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Kit.”
The fire sputtered and a weak spark floated up toward the star-filled black of the night sky, disappearing among the bright points of white.
I tucked my vest under my head, pulling the reflective blanket I’d taken out of one of the pockets around my shoulders.
“Look at all those stars,” Sukey said. “Think of how many people out there are looking up at these same stars. “We’re just two of them. We hardly matter, when you think of it that way. If we never get off this island, how many people are going to actually care about me?”
“I would care,” I said.
Sukey laughed. “You idiot, if I don’t get off this island, you’re not getting off either.”
“Right.”
“Kit, you’re not mad, are you? I just meant . . . It’s true. Whatever happens to me is probably going to happen to you.”
Embarrassed, I threw another wet branch on to the fire. “We should go to sleep,” I said.
As soon as the sun was up, we started back down the other side of the mountain, making our way quickly down a narrow, muddy path toward the source of the smoke. The plume was much smaller, as though the fire had gone out overnight, but a thin line of gray still snaked its way up toward the wispy white cloud cover.
“We’ll stop when we get about halfway down,” I said. “We need to figure out who it is before we get too close. If they’re dangerous, we need to be close enough to the top so we can run.”
It wasn’t more than an hour before I whispered, “Okay, let’s stop here.” We could smell the smoke in the air and I thought I heard a faraway murmur of voices. We stood very still for a moment, just listening.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, taking out my spyglass and switching on the sound utility. I pointed it in the general direction of the smoke and listened. All I could hear was a rhythmic banging sound, as though someone was swinging a large metal object at a rock. I didn’t like the sound of it. Other than that, I could only hear the waves, amplified by Dad’s gadget.
“What is that?” Sukey asked, listening to the banging over the spyglass.
“I don’t know. I’m going to get closer and see if I can see anything more. The trees are too dense here. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“Why should I wait here? I’ll go down with you.”
“But what if something happens to me? At least this way you can head back to the other beach.”
“All right.” But she looked annoyed.
I made my way down the path, going slowly and quietly as I could. Finally, I came to a little promontory and trudged through to the end of the thick vegetation. I was looking down onto a little beach. I could only see one end of it. The smoke was coming from the other end, but I could see that someone—or something—had been digging in the sand. There was a very large hole in the center of the stretch of beach.
I leaned out as far as I could and directed the spyglass down toward the beach. All I could hear was the same rhythmic banging sound. Nothing else.
I decided to go a little farther along the path and see if I could see the other end of the beach. I had only walked a couple of yards, though, when I heard a piercing scream from behind me.
Sukey.
I turned and ran back toward where I’d left her.
But I didn’t have to go far. She’d followed me and I found her slumped against a tree just before the promontory. Wrapped around her neck was a huge, green eel, just like the ones we’d seen coming out of the ocean, but much, much larger. It was speckled and nearly six feet long. She was gasping for breath, but the eel was only squeezing tighter and tighter.
I got the knife out of my vest and started stabbing the eel, but it didn’t seem bothered at all, and I could see from her face that Sukey was having trouble breathing. The eel was hissing and baring its sharp teeth at us, switching its tail back and forth.
I looked for a stick I could use to pry the eel away when suddenly, a whir of black went by my head and I heard a loud squawk. Eel! Eel!
I looked up in astonishment.
Pucci attacked the eel with his metal talons, squawking Eel, Eel! again, as Zander, holding a sword and followed by Joyce, came crashing through the underbrush.
“Did someone say eel?”