I groaned under my breath.
How?
How exactly are you going to do that? You’re hurt beyond hell. You can’t bend. You can’t dig.
As a guy (the only guy older than thirteen), I had to man up and protect the others. But what was the use in wanting to do what was necessary when my body point blank said to get screwed?
I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Standing with a dead body gave me the damn creeps.
Get it together. You need to work fast.
I didn’t know the time. Probably not too late as we’d fallen drowsy after our meal and retired. For the first time, we settled into our dug-out leaf-lined beds and were warm thanks to the fire.
Perhaps, I’ll have to wait until I’m healed.
I rolled my eyes. Eight weeks minimum before I had full use of my ankle and foot again and that was only if they healed correctly. I couldn’t wait eight weeks. The bodies would stink out the entire island by then.
We might be found before that happens.
We had a fire now. A way to signal. We had enough resources (hopefully) to keep us alive until that day.
But as much as I wanted to believe that in eight weeks I’d be somewhere where indoor plumbing and supermarkets reigned, I didn’t hold my breath.
I’d stopped believing in miracles unless I had the power to grant them. And I had no power to guarantee a rescue.
Not until I’m well enough to build a raft.
The only option I had was to suck it up and get it over with.
Pain or no pain.
Hobbling, I moved closer to Akin. His skin was purple-bloated with congealed discoloration. I gagged as I grabbed his wrist and hauled him from the helicopter windshield.
The squelch of his body sent repugnant disgust rippling down my spine.
I had to let go.
I had to clamp a hand over my mouth.
I had to stop this.
I can’t stop.
Gritting my teeth, I picked up the smaller piece of fuselage Estelle had salvaged and looked for a clearing to dig.
How the hell are you going to do this?
Ask the corpse to kindly bury itself?
Goddamn tears sprang to my eyes. In the days since we’d crashed, my temper shielded me from the helplessness inside. But here, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
I needed help. But was too bloody stubborn to ask for it.
I sniffed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Do. Not. Dare. Cry.
My eyes burned but I managed to shove aside my need for someone, anyone, to tell me things would work out and keep it together.
I bent over to grab Akin’s wrist.
“Stop.”
My torso twisted toward the soft command. My leg screamed at the extra weight I placed on it.
Then anger blocked everything out but her.
Estelle.
The woman who’d blatantly disobeyed me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I spun around, doing my best to shield her from the body.
Her gaze zeroed in on him anyway, her face contorting. “You were gone when I woke up.”
“That was the plan.”
“You can’t do this on your own.”
“Watch me.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t want to watch you. I want to help you.” Drifting closer, the moonlight cast her blonde hair into platinum. “Don’t ask me to walk away. Not when I just saw—”
My blood stopped flowing. “Saw what?”
She swallowed. “Saw how much you’re hurting...inside as well as out.”
I turned my back on her. “You didn’t see anything. I’m fine.”
She didn’t say a word. My scalp prickled from her presence.
Straightening, I growled, “Go away, Estelle.”
“No.”
“Do it. Before I get pissed.”
“You’re already pissed.”
My growl became a snarl. “Estelle...goddammit.”
Let me shield you from this. Let me take the horror so you don’t have nightmares.
I already suffered bad dreams from what I’d done. This was nothing compared to those.
She came closer, placing her hand on my shoulder. It could’ve been condescending but the way her eyes filled with understanding turned it into a caress. “Listen to me. I’m not leaving. You can swear and curse but the fact is, you can’t make me leave.”
My hands curled. “I could with force.”
“You could.” Her fingers massaged my flesh, granting comfort and relief to crash-bruised muscles. “But you won’t. Because as much as you don’t want to admit it, you need me. You can’t do this on your own, and I don’t expect you to.”
She gave me the sweetest smile. “Please...let me help.”
I had two choices.
One, continue to waste night hours and my dwindling energy on forbidding her. Or two, accept that I did need help and trust she had what it took.
She knew my answer before I spoke. Knew in the way my shoulders slumped, my eyes closed, every ounce of anger drained into the dirt.
“Thank you, Galloway.”
My eyes snapped up. “Never thank me for letting you do this. Never, do you hear me? This is a thankless task and shouldn’t be done by anyone, let alone you.”
She touched my hand wrapped around my crutch. “Nothing is thankless. No matter what it is. Someone always appreciates it.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.” Her voice was a soft melody. “A rubbish collector, for example. A thankless task for him. Dirty, smelly, a stigma attached to his profession. But every bin he collects, every removal he does, a house owner is grateful. They might not consciously thank him, but they are thankful.”
I huffed. “They’re alive to appreciate it. Big difference in this case.”
“How so? Conner and Pippa aren’t aware of what you’re doing, but they’re grateful regardless. You’re saving them heartache and pain. It’s best that they don’t know because their thanks is worth a thousand more because you did the right thing.”
I couldn’t win with her. She was so wise, so calm. The exact opposite of who I was. Was it possible to develop such intense feelings for someone so quickly? Was it our situation—stuck on an island and all alone?
Either way, I never wanted to be apart from her.
I reluctantly gave in to her reasoning. “I accept what you’re saying but you got something wrong.”
“Oh?”
“You said me. What I’m doing.” My heart beat faster. “You mean us. What we’re doing.”
Her smile glowed like the moon. “I’m glad you’ve come around. Now...let’s get started.”
.............................
I swayed on the beach, holding my crutch with all my strength because if I didn’t, I’d splat head-first into the sand. Estelle stood beside me, our skin on fire with proximity but not touching.
We didn’t say a word as the tide slowly crept higher the brighter the sky became.
Sweat had drenched and dried on my skin. Estelle’s had done the same. Her hairline was damp, her cheeks flushed, her movements achy and overused. She’d done so much. I would never be able to repay her.
Her suggestion had saved me work I couldn’t have accomplished on my own, and together, we’d ensured the island was dead free and the children would never see what a child should never see.
Amelia and Duncan Evermore were almost gone. We couldn’t give them the send-off they deserved, but they would always be remembered.
Estelle’s head suddenly landed on my shoulder. Her blonde hair draped over my back, tickling my bicep and forearm. “They’re at peace.”
I didn’t respond.
The three bodies in front of us lay on their backs, their hands tied together in prayer, pebbles placed on their vacant eyes, and rocks inserted into their clothing.
 
; We’d taken anything that might be of use. A pen engraved with Duncan’s initials for Conner, a gold tennis bracelet from Amelia for Pippa. We removed the wedding rings and decided to use them as a memorial. We’d already painstakingly carved their names on a piece of driftwood and attached two plaited pieces of flax to hold the rings.
Akin lay beside the Evermores, together but apart. Would his family be searching for him? Would they know how to find us? Or had any hope of being found died the moment we stepped aboard a helicopter without a working Emergency Locator Transmitter?
Slowly, dawn crept closer as did the tide. The bodies went from being lapped gently to slowly consumed, their legs vanishing beneath the surface, followed by their chests and faces.
It had been Estelle’s idea to use the ocean.
The island soil was rich and fairly simple to dig, but tree roots and obstacles didn’t make it easy. After a few minutes of trying, Estelle had asked me to trust her, and together, we found Amelia and Duncan and respectfully, painfully, so, so slowly dragged them to the opposite side of the island.
Our pace had been a gait between a hobble and a lurch, careful not to damage the dead any more than they were. The causes of death had been easier to see the lighter the sky became. Duncan had perished from a broken neck like Akin, and Amelia had bled out from a piece of metal cutting her carotid artery.
The beach on this side was rockier than on ours. A steeper slope to the water with sparse undergrowth. By weighting the bodies down, they would sink and be dragged along the ocean floor as the tide took them farther out to sea.
There was a risk they would eventually make their way to our side of the island. However, the teeming sea life would help with that. Crabs and fishes, sharks and crustaceans, the creatures would live another day by the grace of one of our dead.
I wanted so much to sit. To lie down. To close my eyes and slip into sleep with Estelle in my arms.
But we’d made an unspoken agreement to be there until the end.
So we stood as the night gave up its cloak of black and the sea slowly devoured the dead. When we could no longer see them through the water’s surface, Estelle raised her head from my shoulder.
Her voice was haunting in the dawn. “Rest in peace knowing we’ll look after your children. We’ll love them. Care for them. Make sure they grow and eventually find rescue off this island. Akin, we promise to let your family know your final resting place. Goodbye.”
Silence fell.
Should I say something?
But what?
I didn’t know the first thing about eulogies. I hadn’t given one at my mother’s funeral because I hadn’t attended. I didn’t know how to say goodbye.
Estelle saved me from the task by turning and clambering up the beach. She turned to look back. “Are you coming?”
Every part of me shook but I nodded. Slowly, I hauled myself up the sand, crutch and hop, crutch and hop. One lumbering step at a time, following the woman who made me a better person just by smiling at me.
Together, we returned to our furnitureless home.
Together, we stripped off our clothes and waded into the fresh ocean and washed away the remnants of the night—washed away the smell, the memories, our old life.
Together, we looked forward to the future.
Chapter Twenty-Five
...............................................
E S T E L L E
......
I’ll die on this island.
I’ll survive on this island.
I’m afraid.
I’m no longer afraid.
I’m alone.
I’ve found someone worth fighting for.
Taken from the notepad of E.E.
...
DAY FOUR
THE CHILDREN KNEW.
After our swim, Galloway and I set up the driftwood memorial at the base of our umbrella tree. The pen and bracelet taken from their parents were placed by their respective heads for when they woke, and the wedding rings glinted in the sunshine, clinking together in the muggy breeze.
When the children woke, their melancholy blanketed the campsite. They didn’t speak, merely hugged their tokens and sat in vigil to say goodbye.
No one mentioned what we’d done. An unspoken bond that their parents were gone and all that mattered was their memory.
The day followed much like the last.
Water collected over the course of the day, the leaves graciously donating liquid the hotter the sun became. After a brief nap in the shade, Galloway mentioned he would go clam gathering. But when he went to stand, he couldn’t.
He’d done as much as he could.
His body had reached an impasse.
The self-hatred and curses he layered upon himself broke my heart. He needed to be kinder to his body and mind if he was ever to find true happiness.
I brought him water and kissed his brow with sweet sincerity. He held my hand, whispered his thumb over my knuckles, and looked at me as if I was an angel, begging for salvation.
I wanted to fall into his eyes and forget. I wanted to curl in his arms and remind him that he wasn’t alone.
But there was too much to do. Too many tasks to complete in order to stay alive.
Leaving him to heal, I organised the day even though I hurt all over. My ribs hadn’t let up their torture and my back ached from dragging corpses all night. I never, ever, ever wanted to do something like that again.
Galloway was right.
Some things, you should never have to do.
No one had the energy to arrange S.O.S out of logs and fuselage; we subconsciously agreed the fire would be our signal.
And as much as we wanted to rest...we couldn’t.
If we didn’t forage, we didn’t eat. And I was more able than Galloway was today. Tomorrow, I might have to lean on him. I didn’t mind sharing duties. If only he could understand that.
Pippa and Conner came with me when I announced a scavenging trip. Together, we found twice as many clams as the day before. Galloway’s messenger bag groaned beneath the salty weight.
I was careful not to lead them too close to the other side of the island, and once we’d collected all we could carry, we returned to the beach and gathered more firewood and fresh coconuts.
Once our chores were complete, we rested around the fire, and ate a simple fare washed down with evergreen water.
We said goodnight to yet another day in deserted paradise.
.............................
DAY EIGHT
The sun seemed intent on chargrilling us from the moment it crested on the horizon to long after it fell into the sea. The children were lethargic and suffered borderline heatstroke.
We spent most of the day bobbing in the tide, trying to stay cool.
If anyone noticed us, swimming in a mismatch of t-shirts and slovenly clothing, they would’ve laughed at our ingenious ways of staying free from sunburn.
Galloway wore the baseball cap while Pippa and Conner found their own straw sailor hats from the clothing Amelia had packed for them. I wrapped my gold negligee over my head and drenched it with seawater, ensuring as much as possible shielded my face. It’d taken a lot of convincing, but Galloway insisted I wear the only pair of sunglasses as I didn’t have a hat.
At least, spending all day in the water meant I was able to sand-scrub our clothes and do my best to get them clean.
Dinner consisted of clams and coconuts washed down with restricted allotments of water.
At the end of the day, I slipped into my dug-out bed, toasty warm by the crackling fire. Drowsy, I stared at the clear horizon and begged for rain. I prayed to every god to grant us a reprieve from the dry spell. Our limited water collection from the trees kept us alive, but we desperately needed more.
Every night, the urge to be greedy and keep all three bottles for myself turned me into a horrible person. I craved the luxury of a fresh-water bath. Of washing away the salt and sand from my skin. I dreamed of gallons
of crisp water raining from above; I fantasised of ice cubes and air-conditioning.
I imagined we were rescued and this was all over.
But that was all they were: dreams, fantasies, imagination.
We went through the motions.
We ate but slowly lost weight.
We drank but slowly died from dehydration.
And we interacted less and less, growing quieter as the hours plodded on.
We’d survived longer than originally thought.
But we hadn’t been rescued.
Not one engine on the horizon. Not one flare of hope.
Our limited supplies of toothbrushes and meagre possessions gave us a little wealth but in the scheme of things...we were destitute.
We’d explored and trekked and plotted and planned.
But we were alone.
And our temporary measures at clinging to life weren’t working.
.............................
DAY TWELVE
My taste buds craved anything else but clams.
It’d been twelve days; I needed variety. Nutrients. Vitamins from a range of food not just one salty morsel.
We’d tried to snare the occasional lizard that ventured too close. We swatted at mosquitoes that turned us into a meal. We eyed seagulls flying high. And we resorted to hunting tropical bugs and pan-frying them on rocks. The crunchy critters tasted disgusting, but at least it offered a small amount of energy.
Our qualms over what society deemed acceptable quickly shredded the longer the days stretched. My stomach constantly ached along with a dehydrated throb behind my eyes.
The hottest part of the day was reserved for rest, but the remaining hours were dedicated to remaining alive for one more day.
One more morning.
One more night.
One more chance of being found.
Yesterday, Conner had earned a lashing from my tongue. He’d taken it upon himself to swim offshore, far, far, farther than his young body should. I hadn’t noticed until it was too late, his head bobbing in the turquoise drink.
Galloway cursed like a pirate when the dripping, broken-wristed boy finally waded back to shore. But Conner merely straightened his back and said someone had to try. Someone had to swim out to the reef-break and see if there was another island close by, a ship hidden behind an inlet, some sort of hope that we couldn’t imagine.