Aaron frowned. “No? No, what?”
I couldn’t help the irritation from creeping into my voice. “Is that all you think about?” I asked.
“Is what all I think about?” Aaron asked, a look on his face like a little puppy that had had a favorite toy taken away.
I sighed. “I don’t know. This. Kissing, cuddling, and telling me I’m adorable all the time.”
“But you are adorable.” He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Don’t!” I said sharply, pulling the strand back down. I didn’t mean to snap. I didn’t want to be horrible. And it wasn’t his fault. But there was so much going on in my head, that any second now, I knew the dam was going to burst.
And unfortunately for Aaron, it looked like it was all going to be aimed at him.
Aaron stared at me with a hurt expression.
Even that annoyed me. Couldn’t he tell that I didn’t want him to be mushy and touchyfeely all the time? I didn’t want him to be so easily hurt. I needed him to be strong. I needed him to be the one in charge so I could fall apart if I had to.
Which I very much did.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I began, trying to keep my voice level. “I just —”
“You just don’t want me to be your boyfriend anymore?” Aaron said, cutting in.
“What? I never said that!”
“You don’t need to, Emily. I can tell.”
“Aaron, why are you saying that?”
Aaron shook his head. “Don’t make me spell it out,” he muttered. “It’s obvious. You’re just not being the same with me. How do you think it feels for me that you wince every time I come near you?”
“I don’t,” I protested, but Aaron was on a roll, and he suddenly seemed as fed up as me.
“Or that you look embarrassed when I say nice things to you? How do you think that feels for me, Em?”
“Aaron! This isn’t about you,” I insisted. “It’s about me.”
“Well, what a surprise that is!” he exclaimed, leaning back on a wall and folding his arms. “Of course it’s about you. Everything’s about you, isn’t it?”
I stared at him, all my feelings rolling up into a ball inside me. And then they erupted out of my mouth.
“How dare you!” I yelled at him. “I’ve been wanting to tell you how upset I am about fighting with Shona. You should be there for me and not attack me when I’m down.”
“And I’ve been trying to tell you that I’ll always be there for you!” Aaron yelled back. “But any time I get close to you, you just shrug me off. And now it turns out you only want to be with me because Shona’s fed up with you.” He paused for a moment, then scowling right into my face he added, “Well, guess what, Emily? So am I.”
I felt as if he’d hit me in the stomach. What was going on? My two favorite people were mad at me. This was meant to be our dream vacation and it was crumbling at every edge.
Tears pricked at my eyes.
Not that I was going to let Aaron see that.
“If that’s how you feel, why are you still here?” I asked, my voice as cold as the rocks around us.
“Good question,” Aaron mumbled.
“If you’re so fed up with me, just go. Get on the boat. It hasn’t left yet.”
“I’m not leaving you here on your own,” Aaron snapped.
“I’ll tell you what then,” I said, my anger and obstinacy getting in the way of any sensible, rational thinking. “I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll go.”
And before I could even stop to think about where I was going or how I was going to get there, I turned and started walking away from him. In the opposite direction from the boat.
Aaron reached out to grab my arm. “Emily, don’t be silly. It’s dark down —”
“Leave me alone, Aaron,” I said, shrugging him off. “Let’s just go back separately, OK? You get this boat. I’ll get the next one.”
“But Millie said —”
“I don’t care!” I snapped. “I need to be on my own.”
And with that, I turned and started to move away. Leaving Aaron in my wake, I walked, then jogged — every footstep taking me away from all the stress, away from the upset, and deeper into the darkness.
I didn’t know where I was going. Even if it hadn’t been dark in there, my tears were filling my eyes so much I could barely see.
How had everything gone so badly wrong?
The question played over and over again in my head as I stumbled blindly through the tunnels.
I didn’t know how long I’d been wandering. I didn’t know exactly which tunnels I’d gone down. I didn’t know how many there actually were.
I didn’t know much.
What I did know was, somewhere along the way, I had gone off the main path. There were no barriers anymore. No lights. No yellow lines on the ground.
My thoughts were as murky as my surroundings.
Every time I thought about what had happened, the feeling of despair hit me again like a punch, each time harder than the last. The only way to deal with it was to stop thinking about it, and the only way to stop thinking was to keep moving.
Which meant that I was soon so deep in the tunnels I was in almost complete darkness.
I stopped walking and looked around me. Tried to, anyway.
A new feeling crept up inside my body, overtaking the miserable one.
Fear.
What had I done?
My breath rasped in and out of my body in short, harsh gulps.
What if I ran out of oxygen in here?
I ran my hands along the walls. Damp. Cold.
Plip!
Argh!
Something landed on my neck. I swatted it away with my hand.
Water. It was just a drop of water. Probably dripping off the end of a stalactite. I looked up. Peering into the darkness, I could just about make out the row of them above me, pointing down like arrows.
I had to calm down. I’d gotten out of worse than this. At least, I thought I had. I couldn’t remember anything much anymore.
I just knew I had to get out of here.
Focus.
I tried to recall the map Aaron and I had been looking at. Tried to stop myself from crying at the thought of how happy we’d been and how quickly everything had gone wrong.
No.
I couldn’t afford to do that. I had to think of the map. Try to visualize it and try to place myself on it now. Then figure out how to get back to the entrance.
I closed my eyes and took a few slow breaths. OK, I remembered seeing the row of stalactites, and I was pretty sure it was only a few turns away from where I’d left Aaron.
I just had to choose a direction.
I picked the one I thought I’d come down and started cautiously feeling my way back along it.
The ceiling was growing lower. Had that happened on the way here? I couldn’t remember.
Soon, the ceiling had lowered so much I had to crawl.
This felt wrong. I hadn’t had to crawl on the way here.
Maybe this was a different way back?
Or maybe it was leading me farther into the mountain.
I was about to shuffle around and turn back the way I’d come when something stopped me.
The sound of rushing water.
Yes! I’d found my way back. This must be a shortcut to the platform beside the falls. From there, I was sure I could find my way back to the rocks where the boat had docked. So I just had to follow this track till it led me back and wait for the next boat, and I’d be fine.
My spirits lifted like a helium balloon. I would get back to the hotel, find Aaron, and apologize for being so horrible. Then I’d do the same with Shona. I’d do anything I had to do to show them how much they both meant to me. I’d make it right.
And when we’d made up again, we wouldn’t do anything except hang out and play and chill for the rest of the week. I wasn’t going to think about doom or threats or anything. Surely I’d gotten all
of that wrong, anyway. I must have. This place was way too beautiful to be threatened with danger.
I was determined: we’d get the trip back on track.
We would have the best week ever after all.
Just as soon as I got out of here.
The sound of water was growing stronger. I crawled toward it, hand over hand, leg over leg.
Soon, the ceiling was becoming higher again, the path growing wider. I could stand.
I pulled myself up, dusted my legs down, and continued along the path, my mood lifting with every step.
The noise was thundering now.
Just one last corner and I’d be out of here.
And then the last corner came — and my hopes sank back down, like a rock hurtling to the bottom of the ocean.
The sound I could hear was the rushing of water. But it wasn’t the platform we’d been at with Susannah.
In front of me was a hole in the cave wall, just big enough to crawl into. At the end, this short tunnel met another, forming a kind of T-shape. But the second tunnel, set slightly lower than the first and sloping downward, had one major difference.
This one was filled with a foaming, rushing, furious stream of water.
Now what?
I looked behind me. The obvious thing to do would be to retrace my steps. Crawl back through the tunnel and hope I could feel my way through the darkness back to where we’d started.
But when did I ever do the obvious thing?
A thought was nagging at me, pulling and prodding at my mind, demanding I listen.
See where it leads.
I could crawl through the hole and into the tunnel. If there was rushing water inside it, surely that meant it led back to the falls. And if that was the case, perhaps it was my best way out of here. I already knew I could survive the falls, as I’d done so twice already.
I could be back at the hotel in no time.
The thought was irresistible.
So I climbed into the hole and crawled through. And then I slid into the dark, narrow tunnel and let the water whisk me away.
The water whooshed me so fast, I didn’t have time to think. It took me over so completely, I transformed into my mermaid self without even noticing.
I let it carry me. I didn’t resist.
Please, take me back out to the ocean and let me get back to my friends.
It was all I wanted.
On and on, it took me. The rocky cave around me grew tighter and smaller. Soon it was barely wider than my body. The water was thunderous. It was as bad as being inside the falls. Worse, perhaps. It felt like a death chute — the scariest ride at an amusement park. And I wanted to get off.
I was beginning to wonder if I would survive it when —
Aaaaargghh!
The water gave one last kick and booted me out the end of the tunnel into a more open expanse of water.
Oh, thank you, thank goodness, thank . . .
Wait.
I swam up to the surface of the water, pulling hair off my face and rubbing my eyes. As I did, my gratitude fizzled into confusion.
The death chute of water hadn’t taken me back to the falls. It had deposited me smack-dab in the middle of a sparkling turquoise pool at the bottom of a well.
I twirled my tail and turned around in the water. Almost perfectly round, the pool was surrounded on every side by dark, damp rocks trailed with green moss.
I looked up. Far above me, the high walls of rock formed a jagged hole. Trees bowed over the edges, their leaves sparkling, as sharp rays of sun beamed down like a searchlight.
Where was I?
I gulped. There was only one way to find out.
I pulled myself out of the water and perched as well as I could on a rock at the edge of the pool while I waited for my legs to come back.
Then, clinging to plants, scrunching my feet into cracks, and scratching myself on jagged edges, I clambered up the rocks. My heart hammered as I climbed, but it gradually got easier. Thankfully, the rocks under my feet felt stable, and the crevices were big enough to cling to. Soon I’d reached the top and heaved myself over the edge.
I collapsed on the ground and allowed myself a minute to get my breath. And then I looked around.
Forest. Green. Lush. Silent.
My body hurt as a sob racked through me. I hadn’t found the falls. I hadn’t come out into the ocean. I wasn’t about to swim back to the hotel and make up with my best friends in the world.
I was, once again, stuck here on Forgotten Island.
I picked myself up and started walking. Where, I had no idea. But I couldn’t sit there doing nothing. Perhaps I could find the bay Shona and I had swum into yesterday and get back through the falls. It was my best hope.
It was my only hope.
I hadn’t been walking for long. Maybe five minutes.
And then —
“Stop!”
The voice came from behind me. My instinct said: run. My feet said: we’re not going anywhere.
So I stopped.
Footsteps behind me. Then the voice again. “Listen carefully. I’m not going to hurt you. See those trees over there to your left? The ones with the branches entwined in an archway?”
I turned my head as far to the left as I dared. Yes. I could see them. Two thick trunks with a green canopy of leaves linking them above.
I nodded again.
“Right. That’s where we’re going. Quick.”
Without looking behind me, I reached the trees and stepped in between them. The trunks were so close together they were almost touching. The leaves hung down on either side like curtains. It felt like being in the kind of fort I used to make at home when I was little. I’d get Mom to pull the chair right up to the sofa and throw a blanket over them. I’d sit under it, in between the furniture, and feel safe.
I couldn’t feel further from safe now.
The voice took on a shape as my pursuer followed me through the leaves and stood in front of me.
“You!” It was the boy I’d seen yesterday. The one who’d been sent to hunt for dinner.
I swallowed hard and tried to give him my best you-don’t-scare-me face, despite the fact that I was very scared indeed.
He didn’t look that old. Maybe a couple of years older than me.
He pulled his hair back and narrowed his eyes as he stared back at me. He was looking at me as if I was some kind of museum relic that he was studying.
I guess the you-don’t-scare-me face wasn’t fooling him, as he held up his hands, palms facing me, and said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” in a much softer voice than he’d used so far. “I told you, I was never going to hurt you. I just wanted to get you somewhere safe so we could talk.”
“Safe from what?”
The boy shrugged. “Safe from all kinds of things. This is a forest,” he said simply.
I folded my arms and waited for him to go on.
“Look, I have no idea who you are or how you got here,” he said. “But I know this. No one has ever gotten through the falls to us.” He paused and looked hard into my eyes. “No one can,” he added. “It’s impossible.”
I cleared my throat. “I know. I . . . I guess I can do things others can’t,” I said.
He nodded. “I noticed,” he said. “Twice, it seems. You know I saw you yesterday as well, don’t you?”
“You mean when you were sent to hunt me for dinner?”
The boy laughed. “I wasn’t sent to hunt you. I was sent after what Saul hoped would be his dinner. He hadn’t seen you.”
“He heard me, though, even though I barely made a sound.”
The boy shrugged. “We are in tune with our surroundings. We can always hear an animal in the forest.”
He couldn’t be telling the truth. They must have some kind of alarm system set up or something. I mean, it was impossible that they had heard me from that far away. No one had hearing like that. But then as far as he was concerned, it was impossible that I was here at all.
Maybe we’d both have to reconsider what we thought was and wasn’t possible.
“Anyway,” he went on. “That wasn’t when I noticed you.”
“It wasn’t?”
He shook his head. “I’d already seen you. I saw you in the woods. Then running to hide behind the tree. Before we came past you.”
He saw me before I even knew they were there? How?
“I’m a watcher,” he said, as if he had read my mind. Which, incidentally, I kind of hoped was something he couldn’t do or he’d know how much of a lie my brave act was right now. “My sight is better than most.”
“So you already knew I was there?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you say anything to the others? Why didn’t you give me up?”
He rubbed his chin. “You haven’t seen Saul on a bad day. And yesterday was one of those days. I wasn’t sure he’d take too kindly to an impossible stranger showing up in our midst.”
What was I supposed to say to that? Thank you?
“It’s not his fault. I mean, he’s not a bad guy. He’s just having a rough time at the moment,” the boy went on. “We all are.”
“Why?”
He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that. It’s not your problem. Or . . . well, I guess it is. Or it will be.” He shook his head. “I wanted a chance to speak to you first to find out more. And now I have that chance. So . . .” He turned his dark eyes on me again.
I swallowed and hoped he didn’t notice that I’d started to tremble.
“How did you do it?” he asked in a low voice.
How was I supposed to answer him? With the truth? No, I wasn’t ready to give him what he was asking for. The truth was the only advantage I had over him, and I planned to hold on to that as long as I could.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” I said, trying to stop my voice from wobbling.
A glint of a smile sneaked into the corners of his eyes. “OK. Sorry. You’re right.” The boy held his hands in front of him, palms up, in a mock surrender. “Let’s start again. I’m Joel. Who are you?”
I paused while I considered making up a fake name. But what was the point of that? Besides, my mind was so full of questions and fear I couldn’t even think of one on the spot. “Emily,” I said.