19. DAY THREE: DOUBLE VISION
Ava
I sit up and see the fire still smoldering. Looking over where Dax should be, I discover he isn’t there. The pitch black hovering at the opening of the cave tells me it’s the middle of the night, and I’m filled with panic at the sight of him being gone. I crawl to the entrance and stare out into the dark night, lit only by a crescent moon.
The steady tide washes up on shore, and a flash of movement catches my eye. I squint to see the shape of a person at the edge of the trees disappear behind the dense leaves. I run out of the cave and down the rocks, convinced it is Dax, and race through the sand to try and catch up with him before he gets too far into the forest. Why would he leave me alone again?
I cut through the trees and call his name, pausing every few feet to search for him in the dark, and then I start moving faster, darting around the bushes and calling his name louder. He couldn’t have gotten far because I ran to catch up to him, but now I feel uneasy about finding him because the more I venture away from the beach, the darker it gets.
Flames flicker through the trees in front of me, but wide leaves separate me from the light. I push them aside and walk into a small clearing. In the middle sits a short table with no chairs, made with tree stumps for legs and large planks of smooth wood on top. All around the table are torches atop tall sticks that are staked in the ground, forming a large semi-circle that beckons me to come closer.
I call for Dax again, positive that he’s nearby, hoping to ask him where we are and what this place is as I walk to the table and search the surrounding trees for any sign of him. A shadow becomes the shape of a person against the trunk of a tree, but when I blink, it’s gone.
My eyes drop to the table and now that I’m close, I lean down to stare at the wet puddle of water that reflects the shimmering image of the fire-lit torches. The puddle leaks over the edge of the wood and drips onto my foot on its way to the ground. I instinctively wipe the spot with my fingers and find the liquid is dark—not clear as I expected. It’s a deep shade of red like the color of—
Blood!
I stumble backwards away from the table that just revealed itself to be some sort of alter and bump into something solid. My startled scream pierces the silence and I swing around to stare at the large trunk of a tree, with a diameter five times my size. I exhale and prepare to run around the tree, but then something near the bark makes me hesitate.
A triangle, like a giant, pointing arrow, is noticeable by the off-white color that stands out against the dark bark. It’s inside the large root system that wraps up the tree, much like the one Dax hid me in. I lean my head closer to focus while my pupils adjust from the blinding light of the torch flames I’d been looking at moments ago. I blink twice and then stop breathing. It’s a large tusk below a set of nostrils. And without warning, a set of wild eyes belonging to Zoron flick open a few inches from mine.
I jerk awake with a gasp. I’m drenched with sweat and my heart is pounding but I’m relieved to see Dax is actually asleep a few feet away, across from the dwindling fire that dimly illuminates the cave.
My racing heart skips another beat when I think I see something move beyond the mouth of the cave, and I squint to peer into the darkness. Is that a person crouched near one side of the opening? I open my mouth to warn Dax but when I blink, the shadow is gone. No one is there, I tell myself. My mind must be playing tricks but I’m still scared so I silently scoot next to Dax, being careful not to touch him. I watch him sleep until my heart rate slows, and I can’t keep my eyelids open anymore.
It’s morning, and Dax’s explosive cursing startles me awake before the sun ever has a chance. He bolts upright and jerks backwards because my close proximity caught him off guard.
“You scared the hell out of me!” He runs his hands through his hair and then slowly down his face.
“I’m sorry.” I can feel my face flush. “I had a really bad dream, and I was scared. It made me feel better to lie next to you. It won’t happen again.”
“No—no.” He’s quick to backtrack. “It’s fine. I mean you can lie next to me—if you want. I just—well, next time, a little warning might be nice.” He sounds flustered but shoots me a quick smile. “Trust me, I don’t mind at all. I’m just used to sleeping alone and you—were just—right there. Okay. Never mind.” He sighs, and then hurries to change the subject. “Speaking of scaring people, are you ready to meet Roxy?”
“I guess.” He’s made me so nervous about meeting her that part of me wants to stay in the cave and go back to sleep. “She has to be less terrifying than Zoron.”
He narrows his eyes and scratches his chin playfully as if pondering the comparison. “Well, it’s a close tie, but she won’t want to eat you, so you’ll be fine,” he says with a laugh and offers his hand. “Come on.”
Dax carries the cooked pig on the spit with one hand and still manages to hold my hand with the other, giving it an occasional squeeze to calm my nerves as we cut through the forest to the tree house. We are walking in silence and I wonder if he’s nervous too, trying to figure out the best way to break the news to Roxy. When the tree house comes into view, he gives my hand one last reassuring squeeze and then steps into the clearing. He sits the meat in the kitchen hut and then points to a slim girl who stands with her back to us, hanging a shirt to dry over a laundry line made of vine. She must hear us approaching, but she doesn’t bother to turn around until Dax clears his throat.
Roxy stares at me with wide eyes, and I stare back. I expected her to be unfriendly, but her expression far surpasses that. It is one of disbelief, looking me over as if I’m a figment of her imagination.
Her hair is invisible, tucked up into a wide-brimmed hat made from woven strips of palm leaves. She wears a faded black bikini top with jean shorts cut off just above her thighs. Boar tusks occupy both lobes of her ears and what looks like a very small rodent bone pokes through her left brow. The piercings surprise me, but not nearly as much as what hangs from her neck.
“Roxy, this is Ava,” Dax says cautiously. “I found her three days ago near the beach. She doesn’t remember how she got here, but we think the plane she was on may have crashed.”
I smile weakly, still self-conscious of her relentless scrutiny. Suddenly, her brow creases and she tears up.
“Impossible,” she hisses, almost in a whisper. Glancing at Dax, she whips her gaze right back to me. She takes a sudden step towards me, causing me to step back and position myself partway behind Dax. Something about her makes me feel threatened.
“Roxy, don’t freak out, okay? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,” Dax says in a soothing voice.
Logical explanation? I feel like I’m an outsider to an inside joke. Before I can ask anything, she ambushes me with questions.
“What’s your last name?”
“Starr… Ava Starr.” My voice surprises me—it’s quieter than I intended.
“Where are you from, Ava Starr?” Her lips are pursed together and her hands are on her hips in an authoritative manner.
“I’m originally from Colorado, but I moved to California four months ago.”
She takes another step forward, and I’m glad to be standing behind Dax. Then she walks in a slow circle around us to study me intently. As soon as she completes the circle, she stops in front of me and then reaches for my necklace. I stop myself from flinching.
“Where did you get this?” she demands, holding the locket and key in her hand for examination. An identical key hangs on a chain around her neck. She’s making me feel like a criminal—interrogating me like I’m guilty of a crime.
“My parents gave it to me.”
She looks at the necklace for a second longer before she lets it fall back to my neck. I look at Dax for support, but his eyes are fixed on her.
“It’s her,” he tells Roxy. “The one from the beach when I was nine. The one I told you about.” A sly smile crosses his face. “See? I told you she was real. If you had any g
um, I’d make you pay up. We both know you lost the bet.”
She stops staring at me to glare at him.
“I don’t understand,” I say. Now I’m irritated, but they don’t notice because they’re staring each other down. Roxy sighs, and then her expression softens. She slowly reaches up, and with one fluid motion, she removes her sunglasses and hat.
It’s as if I’m staring into a mirror. She looks so much like me that we could almost pass for twins, but she’s younger and her hair is a light shade of strawberry blonde. My mind spins with possibilities.
She surprises me by holding out her hand in a friendly manner to shake mine. “My name’s Roxy Miller. Nice to meet you, I guess.”
She drops my hand as quickly as she grabbed it to twist her hair back up into her hat.
“Nice jewelry,” I say as a friendly gesture, and then I feel awkward in the moment I created. She returns my smile, but it is short and immediately disappears from her face.
I want to say more, but her body language stops me.
“I’m going to show her around,” Dax says. He takes my hand to lead me around Roxy, who doesn’t move from where she stands with her arms folded across her chest.
I want to see the tree house and I don’t want to offend Dax, but mostly, I just want to get it over with. I’m dying to ask Roxy more questions, to figure out how someone could exist that looks so much like me. A glimmer of hope stirs inside me, and I’m positive that together we can solve this mystery. Maybe I can finally get some closure to my past.
Dax lets me go first and I ascend the steep ladder, trying my best to not look down. The large hut is simple but very impressive for a tree house. There’s furniture made from lightweight branches tied together with fine strips of bark. I explore everything in the room while Dax watches me from the doorway with his hands on his hips.
“So doesn’t that weird you out a little?” he asks.
I glance at him over my shoulder. “The tusk gauges I can handle but yeah, the stick in the eyebrow is a little freaky.”
“It’s a bat bone. And that’s not what I meant. You guys look like you could be sisters.”
I’m still trying to make sense of it myself, and there’s only one explanation I’ve come up with. “Maybe we are,” I say. “I was adopted. My birth mom died right after I was born, but I don’t know who my birth dad was. Maybe Roxy and I have the same father.”
I turn around to face Dax and giggle at his creeped-out expression.
“Where’s your room?” I’m anxious to finish the tour before Roxy disappears like yesterday.
“Follow me.”
Dax walks out to the walkway and around the hut to a bridge that extends out to one side. I hold the railing tightly and try not to look down again as we cross to a smaller hut. Inside is a bed centered in the room, smaller but similar to the one in the castle. The frame is an open box made from solid planks of wood. Stretched firmly across the top is the hammock-style woven pieces of vine. A large animal skin pillow rests at the top.
There’s a small table pushed against one wall with a turtle shell sitting on top for a sink. On the opposite wall is an extensive assortment of weapons—a large stone axe and a collection of bone knives, numerous spears, and an extra bow. A hollowed-out log filled with different types of arrows sits in one corner.
Dax drops his bow and quiver on the floor and walks to a doorway opposite from the one we entered.
“Come check this out,” he says with an eager wave of his hand.
The doorway leads to a small deck. At one end is a closet-size space, blocked off except for a small opening. I peek inside and at first I’m baffled, not sure what he intends for me to see. Unlike his room, this part of the floor is made of sticks of bamboo lying side by side, with small gaps between them, allowing me to see the ground far below.
“Look up.” He points above me.
A few feet above my head is a funnel-shaped tube made from overlapping palm leaves, hanging from the tree because there’s no ceiling. At the smaller end, a wooden cork plugs the water from the inside. He reaches over and pulls a piece of vine that dangles near the wall, and the cork lifts upward inside the funnel, allowing water to flow out around it. It’s a shower.
“Dax, that’s brilliant.”
“My dad and I came up with it,” he tells me, and a hint of sadness crosses his face. “Let’s go; I’ll show you the other rooms.”
We walk across another bridge to Roxy’s room. I remain outside to look in and as crude and plain as the room is, she has warmed it up by draping various garlands of brightly colored dried flowers along the walls. Everything else looks the same as Dax’s room, minus the weapons.
The last room he shows me is larger than the other two bedrooms and the bed in the center is more like a king-sized.
“This was my dad’s room so you can stay here,” he says. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be in the kitchen hut if you need me.”
I thank him and wait all of one minute before stripping off my clothes on the way to the private deck, anxious to try out the shower and enjoy the one piece of normality since waking up on Lamarai Island. I’ve never been so thankful for a shower in all my eighteen years of living, even though it’s nothing more than warm water dribbling from some palm leaves above my head.
I find Dax in the kitchen hut behind a large counter where the wild boar lays on the spit he carried from the cave this morning. He’s just finished cutting a large section of meat and places it on a wooden tray covered in palm leaves for the three of us. We carry the rest of the meat to the Anwai village. Chief Anwai thanks Dax, and then we head to the cave on the beach to get his guitar. The walk is only about ten minutes but by the time we climb up the rocks to the cave, I have to sit and rest.
Dax picks up Preston’s board and looks it over. “So since we’re here, I say we surf for a while. I’m dying to get on a board even if it means surfing waves as weak and lame as those. Which one’s yours?”
“Neither,” I tell him. “That’s Preston’s and the other board is Kirk’s, the co-pilot. I don’t surf.”
“How did you live in California and not surf?” Dax seems appalled. “Didn’t Preston teach you?”
“No. He didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go surfing.” I don’t know why, but I’m annoyed by his shock and confusion. “Sharks? Bad luck?” I say, waiting for him to catch on. He raises one eyebrow and starts to make what I assume is a snide comment, but he closes his mouth and pauses before speaking.
“Well, I can teach you. I’m not afraid of sharks. I used to be until I found there are much scarier things than sharks on this island… and worse ways to die.” He winks and waits precisely one second before he gives up on a response. “Come on, you know you want to.”
His dimples are making it hard to refuse, and I do want to learn. I just always thought it would be Preston who would show me. I reluctantly agree, and his smile doubles in size. He carries the boards to the water while I change back into my tank top. When I get to the beach, he’s traced both boards in the sand with his finger and drawn a line down the middle of each. We lay on our stomachs on the surfboard outlines and Dax shows me where I should be positioned on the board, but I find myself a little distracted as he demonstrates how to push to a standing position. His movements are so fluid and graceful that I worry about looking clumsy and awkward in comparison. I copy him and try it a few times, then we wade out in the water with the longer board. He holds the board for me in the shallow surf so I can practice getting up in the water. After what I feel is a lot of un-earned praise and encouragement from him, we head out together on Kirk’s board.
We paddle out far enough to catch a wave, and my stomach fills with butterflies the minute we stop paddling. The sun is high in the sky, reflecting off the water like diamonds as we wait for the next set of decent waves. Dax is straddling the board behind me and when his hand brushes my lower back, it gives me a start.
“Sorry,” he says, and I k
now he’s only apologizing for startling me, not for his happy hands that have now nestled their way around my waist. He’s explaining what will happen next and I should be listening but I’m so distracted by his touch that when he tells me to start paddling, a surge of panic hits and I scramble to pick his last few words of caution out of memory. What did he just tell me to do? Or not do? Am I standing first or is he? But now it’s too late because we are paddling fast, and he’s standing and gently guiding me up in front of him. My stubbornness doesn’t want his help, and I pull my arm free. I hit the water and before I can open my eyes and look around, I feel him beside me. He laughs and offers encouragement.
“You almost had it,” he says, climbing back on the board and pulling me up in front of him. We paddle into position, and he must have scooted forward because I’m suddenly aware of how close he is. I can feel the heat radiating from his chest against my back. “Don’t fight me this time,” he says, and I’m about to say something but he beats me to it. “You need to relax. When we stand up, lean into me and let me guide you.”
This will be hard for me. It reminds of the stupid trust game my coach had us do where you close your eyes, fall backwards, and trust your team to catch you, but I’d agonize over which teammates should be checked off as trustworthy while waiting for my turn. That first year of public school had been a rude awakening of just how mean some girls could be to each other. I’d glance across the circle and decide where my fate would lie. I loaned that girl a pencil one day—that should count for something, right? And I told that one I liked her hair, only after she’d glared at me because she caught her boyfriend leaning over to ask me the answer to number three. Does a compliment cancel that out?
And my worries weren’t unnecessary because I’d seen betrayal first hand at a pep rally my sophomore year. The cheerleaders were performing a routine and after tossing a girl in the air, their arms suddenly became Jell-O on the way down. She fell to the floor with a flat sound, body against wood. They all claimed it was a fluke accident as some students pointed and laughed while others stared horrified at the injured girl who laid there and cried. But the rumor quickly circulated that the fallen girl had gone out on a date with a recent ex of one of the other girls, and speculation grew that the accident wasn’t really an accident at all.
I push these thoughts aside when Dax lines up the surfboard for an oncoming swell.
“Get ready… okay now!” he says, and we start paddling to catch the wave.
He’s up and I start to stand, but my foot slips. I think I’m going to fall, but his hand catches my arm and steadies me before he pulls me against him. He tells me to trust him and his left arm circles my torso while his other hand takes mine to hold it out to the side. I relax a little but not enough because his arm tightens around me. We’re actually doing it. I’m surfing and it’s such a rush that I want it to last forever, so I do my best not to ruin it and melt into his body for the last few seconds before he pulls me into the water with him.
Dax never lets go of me except to help me onto the board, and I beg him to go again each time we fall just like I remember doing as a child. I begged my father for one more airplane ride until he’d grab my arm and leg to spin me through the air until we were both dizzy. Dax laughs at my enthusiasm and doesn’t admit being tired even though he must be, because he’s doing all the work.
We tandem surf over and over with a high rate of success except for the few times I move too quickly and send us toppling ungracefully into the water. This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks, maybe months, and my stomach hurts from laughing so hard. Surfing is such an adrenaline rush and I’ve become a junkie, craving the excitement of facing my fear of the ocean while gliding gracefully through the water in Dax’s arms. And I try not to think too hard about the last part, because a little voice in my head tells me it might be part of what I crave.
Dax helps me onto the board first this time and climbs on in front of me. He straddles the board knee to knee with me and I know we can’t surf like this, so he must need a break. He lies on his back and lets his arms float out to his sides, then closes his eyes. I’m tired too and the idea of lying down seems nice, but since he’s hogging the board, my only option would be to lie down on top of him. So I sit, wait, and hope he doesn’t fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. Studying the beach is only interesting for so long before my eyes are drawn back to him, to his sculpted arms and chest, his bronze skin beaded with drops of salt water. He looks perfect and royal lying there, with his wavy, golden hair, and I can almost picture him with a trident in hand and a crown on his head. Prince Daxton.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice startles me and my eyes dart to his, expecting him to be peeking up at me, but they’re still closed. My face floods red with guilt, and now he really is looking at me with one squinted eye because I haven’t answered.
“Uhm, nothing really,” I say, but the hint of a smirk on his lips tells me he’s already filling in the blanks with his hormone-fueled imagination. I better set him straight. “I was just thinking about mermaids… you know, like mermaid people in general… mermen… princes and castles underwater.” He quirks an eyebrow, and I still haven’t succeeded in wiping away that smirk. “It’s no wonder sailors imagined them after seeing places as beautiful as this.” The exaggeration of my thoughts spilled out of my lips with little effort, but now it is requiring a great deal of effort to keep a straight face.
He sits up and now he’s studying me with curiosity and probably trying to decide if my answer’s acceptable or nothing remotely close to the truth.
“That’s funny, because a mermaid is what I thought about the first time I saw you.” He reaches up to slide a lock of my wet hair through his fingers. “You have amazing eyes, long, wavy hair, and looks I’d definitely consider enchanting.”
His hand drops from my hair to my knee, and I want to glance down to see it resting there, but I can’t break away from his gaze. I’m not thinking about mermaids now, or surfing, or sharks, because all I can think about is what it would be like to kiss him, and that’s weird and crazy because I know there’s something else I should be thinking about instead—something important that I’m forgetting.
He leans closer, and I don’t think I’m imagining the slight tremble in his fingers that leave a burning trail as they move away from my knee to skim the outside of my thigh on their way to my hip. I don’t know where to look because his eyes are full of want and his lips are too close and he’s moving so slow he’s barely moving and now I’m sure he’s really going to kiss me. Our foreheads almost touch. His gaze drops to my lips and I wish he would kiss me already—I wish I was brave enough to close the gap—I wish the movement out of the corner of my eye would stop fighting for my attention. But then it succeeds with a blast of reality, and I gasp.
Dax straightens and jerks around to follow my gaze to the beach where two men from the Anwai tribe have come to check their nets. And the moment is gone, because that flash of movement jogged my memory and now I know what it is I almost forgot.
Those men could have been Preston, Kirk, and Anna, breaking through the trees to find me at last, only to catch me about to lock lips with a beautiful boy from my past. What was I thinking? I’m wracked with guilt, and the pained look of disappointment on Dax’s face is only making me feel worse. He’s so patient and kind, and now he’s giving me control to take this moment whichever direction I choose. He’s watching me, waiting for me to say something, and his eyes beg to know what I really want. I can’t tell him that I wanted to kiss him just moments ago, but now I want to find Preston more.