94 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, EARLY AFTERNOON
I no longer heard Rives’s dead ex-girlfriend in my head. It was almost worth being back on Nil.
Almost.
I’m back on Nil.
How do these things keep happening? It seemed as if my entire life revolved around Nil. I’d grown up with Nil as a family shadow, then I’d experienced Nil on paper, seeing it through my uncle’s eyes, before experiencing the island firsthand through my own. I’d escaped, and then, lucky me, it was my turn to be haunted by Nil in the real world—and now I was back.
But as the curved steps left the platform behind, it became frighteningly clear that this Nil was not the same Nil I had left. We’d definitely left our mark.
Up ahead, black rock gave way to charred black ground. Green shoots were popping up like hope, but fire had wreaked havoc on a wide section of the once-vibrant swath of grasses. The lush trees at the far end were reduced to limbless black stalks; they lined the perimeter in eerie spikes, rising from the ground like brittle bones. No animals were in sight. It was as if someone had taken a vibrant landscape and cursed it with decay.
The field reeked of death.
“Skye?” Rives’s hand slid into mine, warm and alive.
I’d stopped walking. I turned to find his eyes on me. Pure green, bright enough to hold the gray at bay.
“You still with me?” he asked, his voice steady. “In the now?”
I was so grateful he knew. That he didn’t ask me if I was okay, because the answer was a firm Hells, no.
Dex died there. I am not okay. This is not okay.
“I’m not walking though the meadow,” I said. “Or even close to it.”
“Good call,” Thad agreed. Beside me, his eyes swept the burned land, lingering on the far edge and sticking.
I followed Thad’s gaze. A glint of gold defied the washed-out meadow. A second flash of light followed the first, popping into sight like a spark. The light moved, warm and alive—and furred. I squinted. At the far edge, two lionesses paced, their eyes fixed on us.
Abruptly, every cell in my body urged me to run; even the island breeze pushed me to go. To leave the meadow and devastation behind—right this very second.
I spun toward Rives, shocked to find him still staring at me. “We need to go. Now.”
Rives didn’t move. A third lion raised his head, massive and way too alert.
“Rives!” I snapped my fingers in front of his face and he blinked. “Lions. Far end of the meadow.”
He jerked his head to look, his face closing up as he saw the predators too.
Paulo and Zane were yards ahead now, still on the black mountain. Below us, the rock with the Bull’s-eye carving winked in the sun. I see you, it seemed to say. Everything had eyes now; we were under a microscope, watched from all angles. The sun above, the sun on the platform, the carvings on the rock … the golden-furred beasts too close for comfort with hungry eyes and possibly empty bellies.
I pulled Rives’s hand, using thoughts and feelings and touches to say what words couldn’t; syllables tripped on my tongue, tangled up in fear and lions and Nil.
Thad followed quickly, moving as silently as me. We trekked in smooth sync across the rocks until we caught up with Paulo and Zane.
“Paulo,” Rives growled, “did you see that? Lions at the meadow’s far end?”
“I did.” Without looking back, Paulo strode quickly, winding across the edge of the black rock, Zane by his side. “Stay above the grass,” he added calmly, his pace brisk, one level shy of outright jogging. “Follow me.”
He didn’t need to ask us twice.
We stayed on the mountain, moving up, moving away, stumbling across the pitted black rock without pause until the meadow fell from sight, until lava greeted us. It crept like sludge, thick and black and laced with blood-red cracks, the steaming flow forcing us to change course and head down. Around us, the heat choked the air. Steam hissed as it fought for freedom, an eerie noise punctuating an already eerie moment.
Rives glanced behind us, again, his eyes roving, his shoulders tight. I didn’t have to hear his thoughts to know what he was thinking. If the lions followed, we’d be trapped, penned by lava and a steep grade at our backs.
The five of us descended as swiftly as we could toward Mount Nil’s base. No one spoke. Everyone screened the silence for sounds of pursuit.
To our left, the cliff narrowed. Lava dripped off the edge into the water below, sending massive cotton balls of steam into the air. Time passed, thick with anticipation, and then miraculously we reached the base without incident. I took a deep breath, my thigh muscles quivering from the descent, grateful to no longer have to fight the pull of gravity and the steep slope. Here the rock was just rock, solid and generally flat. Now that we’d left the slope behind, our pace quickened.
Ahead, the south cliffs loomed. Each step away from the mountain and the meadow brought a fraction of relief, as though distance meant safety, even though I knew safety on Nil was a relative term, and always changing. Still, the farther from the meadow we walked, the better I felt. Beside me, Rives still looked intense; he constantly glanced around, observing, calculating. Thad’s face was blank, like he’d passed angry and just settled into shock. Zane and Paulo walked slightly ahead, their faces hidden.
The wafting breeze from the south carried a hint of salt. Soon the hiss of steam vanished altogether, and the air cooled.
An alarming sense of familiarity washed over me with the breeze. We were tracing the path my uncle Scott had walked on his first days, I realized; the weird coincidence didn’t sit well. I felt manipulated. I had the strange sense that the island had driven us here, that the island had driven me here, to walk the path of my uncle, again. Only he hadn’t encountered any lions, if his journal was accurate.
Technically you didn’t encounter lions either, my mind clarified. They hadn’t followed us, at least not yet. And my Nil sense told me they wouldn’t.
A gift from Nil, or a warning? I wondered.
“Warning,” Rives said, breaking the prolonged silence. “Something tells me Nil no longer gives gifts.”
“Holy crap,” Zane said, wiping sweat from his forehead as he dropped back to walk beside Rives. “Can we talk about that now? That was insane. Nothing like a little mad cat welcome party to kick things off.” His stride faltered as he stared ahead. “No way. That is not what I think it is.” He whipped his eyes to Rives, then back ahead. “Do you see that, Chief? Is anyone seeing that?”
Thad shielded his eyes with one hand. “Is that—a penguin? Damn thing’s huge.”
“An emperor,” Rives said. “The king of the penguin world.”
“Unreal,” Zane said. The penguin stood at the edge of the cliff like a giant bird statue.
“They are warm-blooded. And better than a polar bear,” I added.
Zane pointed a finger at me. “Skye, we are not discussing bears. Of any kind.”
“There is a brown bear here,” Paulo offered. “Or at least, there was.”
Zane’s eyes went wide as he stared at Paulo. “So besides penguins and brown bears, what other fun creatures are camping out on Nil these days?”
“The question is, what isn’t?” Paulo eyed Zane without fear. I studied Paulo, impressed. This Paulo was so different from the one I remembered. This Paulo was so calm, so assured, so much stronger mentally as well as physically. The panicked, defeated boy covered in monkey dung was gone. Even his limp had vanished.
“I’ve seen pumas, a jaguar, hippos, and rhinos, plus elephants and an ape,” Paulo continued. “And the less deadly, like squirrels and rabbits, sheep and boar. I’ve even seen a camel, and a kangaroo. And of course, the lions and the penguin.” He pointed ahead; the massive bird hadn’t moved. I wondered if it was already dead but just hadn’t fallen over yet.
“For months, I saw no people, just animals,” Paulo said, his voice thoughtful. “One day it would be a goat, the next, a bear. One day something to feed me, the next, something to eat me. No rhyme or reason.” He shrugged. “Then finally, people. But most of the animals that fall from wild gates now are predators. That I know. Nil is not a peaceful place to be.”
“Nil never was peaceful.” Rives’s voice was quiet. “Not for us.” He exhaled heavily, sweeping his eyes across our group. “We need a general plan. I’m thinking we head for the City and let you fill in the blanks as we go.” He looked at Paulo. “Is that cool with you?”
Paulo nodded. He seemed content to let Rives take the lead.
“So, besides all of us, and Lana, who else is here?” Rives asked. He’d slid back into his Leader role like he’d never left; I wondered if he’d realized it himself.
“I can only answer what I know,” Paulo replied. “In the City, there are six of us. I believe there are other people here too; I’ve seen signs. Hidden people.” He smiled to himself. “But…” He paused, his expression troubled. “Like the animals, the feel of the island seems to have changed.” He lapsed into silence.
“You can’t leave us hanging like that, dude,” Zane said. “What do you mean, the feel of the island has changed?”
Paulo shook his head. “I’ll let you decide.”
He glanced back toward the mountain.
“Are you worried about Lana?” I asked.
“Yes, and no,” he said. “More no than yes.” He smiled. “She is Maaka’s cousin.”
I wasn’t sure whether that familial tie made her tougher than normal or just more stubborn—or neither. Regardless, Lana was nowhere in sight. For someone new to the island, she’d certainly disappeared quickly. I sensed she’d be as difficult to convince to leave as Maaka had been, perhaps more so. At least his time had been up. Lana’s, on the other hand, was just beginning.
She hadn’t even balked at the thought of Nil on fire.
“How bad was the fire?” I asked Paulo quietly. “When we left, everything was burning.”
“Not everything,” Paulo said. “The fire was contained to the meadow and the groves. But the fruit trees were decimated. A few mangoes survived, but not many. The deadleaf bushes have taken over.”
“Nice.” Thad shook his head.
“I salvaged what I could,” Paulo said. “Let me know if you get hungry. I’ve got some dried fruit.”
“Did you hear that?” Rives had stopped walking.
“What?” I craned around, listening. Thad and Zane had stopped too. Black rock sprawled in the distance, full of dips and holes and rises.
“Someone’s yelling,” Rives said. “Listen.”
I cupped my ears to amplify whatever sound Rives had heard, straining to block out the crash of the waves.
A boy with dark spiky hair popped into sight, careening over a black rock rise as if he’d been shot from a cannon into the bright-blue Nil sky. He sprinted toward us. A light-brown strap crossed his chest, running from his hip to shoulder. He wielded a long wooden sword in one hand, brandishing it wildly; his other hand alternated between pumping and pointing at us. His lips moved, his mouth open wide, but the open air stole his shout.
“What’s he saying?” Zane squinted against the bright light, a hand shielding his eyes.
“Not sure but if I had to guess—” Rives broke off as Paulo yelled, “Run!”
Three wolves burst over the rise behind the boy, stalking as a pack. Still a football field back from him, they were closing fast.
“Aw, no,” Zane groaned as he took off at a sprint. Agony ripped across Rives’s face for an instant before he glanced at me with fierce resolution. We were already running too.
“This way!” Paulo yelled, gesturing ahead. He pointed down the cliff line, straight toward the penguin. The boy raced over the rocks, catching up to us with remarkable speed.
The pack of wolves closed in too, snarling and growling and nasty-looking, the trio now thirty yards back at best. There was nowhere to go: We were trapped, again. The cliff’s edge held us tight on one side, the frothing wolves on the other. We’d gone from lions to wolves in less than thirty minutes and we knocked on Nil’s death door as if we’d never left.
We kept running.
The penguin startled, waddling away from the cliff with a jerk. His movement bought us precious time. The wolves’ pace slacked a crucial bit; they seemed torn between us and the massive black-and-white animal—or thrown off guard. Perhaps they didn’t know what to expect from a giant penguin either. Are penguins aggressive? Do they attack? Most animals do when afraid or hungry, and for all I knew, this penguin was both. Dad had never given me any literature on Antarctic animals, an unexpected gap in my survival education.
“Behind him!” Paulo yelled, pointing at the giant bird.
The six of us swerved behind the giant bird. He made a strange sound but didn’t move.
Paulo dropped back. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Do we have a choice?” Thad muttered.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“When I say jump, we jump!” Paulo pulled away again. “Don’t stop running!” he yelled as he veered toward the edge.
“Off the cliff?” Zane asked, horrified.
The boy brandishing the sword had caught up to Paulo. His grave expression didn’t waver, his eyes fixed ahead.
“Five meters!” Paulo shouted, sprinting ahead. And then he ran straight off the cliff and dropped out of sight. Without hesitation, the boy thrust his sword in the air, and with a cry, he leaped off the cliff after Paulo. He too disappeared into thin air.
“He didn’t say jump,” Zane hollered.
“Jump!” I yelled.
And with Rives beside me, I did.