It’d been like this with the other one, too—that “Pa.” He’d stood and stared at Finn almost like he’d never seen another person in his life! He’d even dropped the book he carried and ran back into the hut.
“A spirit, Moss—that’s what it is!”
“He’s a boy, Pa.” That’s what she’d replied. “A real, live human boy! He’s come from the Old World.”
And then the man—that Pa—had cried. Really cried. Finn had heard it through the rough-cut walls of the hut—a grating, desperate wail.
What did it all mean?
Finn shifted uncomfortably as he tried to get his head together. Who were these people? They seemed sort of nuts. But they had helped him, too. His leg no longer throbbed so bad, at least.
When he reached over to stroke her dog, Moss’s eyes were back on his, still so curious. Back home, girls never looked at him like that. If Tommy were there, he would have laughed about it.
Tommy!
Finn tried remembering how he’d gotten here from that gorgeous beach—if he’d noticed any sign of Tommy along the way. The only clue was just more of the Swift, pieces of wood splintered across the sand. Perhaps wherever the rest of his boat had washed up was where Tommy was, too. Perhaps they were both all right. Battered, but …
Maybe.
When his head stopped spinning, he’d ask Moss how big this island was, where the places were to shelter. He’d make her help.
“How’s your leg?” Moss said, jolting him back.
She looked at him for approval before her cool fingers were peeling back the dressing of the colorful flowers, checking the wound. Remarkably, it had stopped bleeding, was hardly hurting at all. But if he tried to stand on it again, the pain would come as a sharp stab. He’d tried it once already, when they’d first gotten to this strange camp. He’d been trying to leave while she’d been trying to make him stay.
“I need to find my friend!” he’d said.
“You need to be still!”
She’d made him some sort of herbal tea, and the Pa man had come back out of the hut to help. He had dressed the wound, whispering and murmuring, almost as if he were speaking spells over it. Then that Pa man had plastered more flowers on top. He was like some kind of tribal medicine man, a witch doctor, maybe. Only he was white and English.
After this, Finn had slept, his mind strange. He didn’t know for how long. He wondered now … had they drugged him? Again, he shifted uncomfortably. His head felt heavy enough to drop right off his shoulders. Like this, could he even get to Tommy? Where would he start?
Moss made a kind of clicking noise behind her teeth as she prodded and pushed at the wound. She peeled away the flower petals slowly and cast them aside. She didn’t look like someone who would drug anyone. Actually, if anyone looked drugged, it was that Pa character. Maybe Finn had somehow stumbled across some new age hippie commune—he’d heard about those things happening on the islands around Thailand and Laos; he’d seen The Beach and all those Survivor shows. But Moss was clear-eyed and serious.
“You’ll be able to walk proper again come morning,” she said.
He moved from her fingers. “But I need to search for my friend now.”
“Wait ’til morning.”
“I need to know if he’s alive.”
“Morning, I said!”
They glared at each other.
How could she, this stranger, tell him what was most important? Tommy could be suffering. He could be wounded, needing his help. Finn ran a hand over his eyes. Or maybe … maybe Tommy was already out searching for Finn? It’d be just like Tommy to be back on his feet, sorting out the mess they’d gotten into. Though Finn also knew Tommy could just as easily be kicking back at a bar, ordering up the local booze—if there was even anything like a bar in this place. Somehow, Finn was beginning to doubt it. He tried to imagine Tommy drinking a tequila cocktail here, a colored paper umbrella sticking out of his glass; couldn’t.
When he looked back, Moss was still watching him. “This island is different at night. Believe it.” She said the words softly enough, but there was iron firmness to them.
Finn remembered those thousands of colorful flowers, and the big white horse that had watched him on the beach. This island seemed different enough by day. This girl in front of him, and the raving man in the hut … they seemed different enough too.
“Listen,” she said. “If your friend is sensible, if he has shelter and a little warmth, the island will be kind. There’ll be no more storms tonight, and tomorrow will be calmer still. We can look for him then.”
“I want to search now.” He tried to stand and, again, felt that stabbing twinge.
“You’ve set healing back!” She tutted as she reached for the flower petals, his wound bleeding again. Finn sighed. Like this, he wouldn’t even get back to the beach he’d washed up on, let alone anywhere else.
“You go for me, then,” he said to Moss. “Please? He could be dying!”
“In morning I’ll go. I have things to search for too.”
There was no convincing her.
Finn looked away, back toward the ocean, which was calmer than a swimming pool now. There was still enough light to get a good search in.
Why couldn’t that useless Pa go look for Tommy? He wasn’t doing anything, far as Finn could see, except for lying about in that hut and crying like a child.
“Will be dark soon,” she added. “Will be cold. Trust. We’ll set a poultice on this tonight, and you’ll be good come morning.”
After she’d rewrapped his leg, she turned away to where the fire had gone low. Now that she’d said it, Finn could feel the cooler, late-afternoon air, getting under his shirt and wrapping around his stomach. Could feel it plucking the hairs on his neck.
And Finn could feel another coldness inside him now, too, growing darkly. That feeling got colder when he looked back at that water. When he saw the sharp, rocky points jutting out of it. When he thought about the last time he’d seen Tommy.
Tommy on the mast, taming the sails. Tommy with a wave the size of a building behind him. How could Tommy have survived it?
How had Finn?
Finn, at least, was a strong swimmer. But Tommy? For all his bravado as a sailor, he could hardly manage a doggy paddle. What were the chances of him even being alive?
Again, Finn tried his leg. And again, Moss growled at him. He was mad at himself, for sleeping so long, mad at his stupid bloody leg, mad for being so confused. A part of him knew he couldn’t help having a concussion, and a part of him knew he’d never forgive himself for it. Not in ever bloody ever!
He jumped when he felt Moss’s fingers on his arm.
“We’ll look in the morning,” she said again. “First light. Promise. And I’ll look for Cal besides.”
The tightness in his throat wouldn’t let him speak back, not even to ask about who Cal was. She’d mentioned him a few times now.
When he looked back at the sea, he was shocked at how the sky had changed: Where it had been blue before, it was now turning orange as a traffic cone. Like many of the islands they’d been to this past year, sunsets happened fast here. So, where was he?
Finn shook his head, wiped his eyes. He wouldn’t let himself crumple. Not in front of this girl. Not when he didn’t know anything for certain. Tommy was resourceful, if not exactly sensible, usually much more so than Finn. Maybe he was kicking back with his own pretty island girl, flirting shamelessly.
Moss poked at the fire, then got onto hands and knees and blew hard at its base. Light flickered brightly. Finn watched sparks fly into the darkness, dance around them. He winced. Those sparks reminded him of the house lights on the opposite hills of his hometown—of all the times he’d sat on the bench outside his house and looked across the valley, watching those hundreds of lights blink on and wondering who they belonged to. He’d been younger then, and stupider—he’d wanted to find a place where no house lights existed at all. As he looked now at the burning orange sky a
bove that dark ocean, he guessed he finally had.
Tommy had sat on that bench with him, plenty of times, looking at those lights.
“I can take the Swift, and we both know how to sail,” Finn had said. “What’s the rush in going to university straightaway anyway?”
Finn had convinced him. “A life-changing adventure,” he’d said. “A coming-of-age tale. Our very own story!” Like he’d been quoting some novel. Like he was some sort of pompous, well-read fool! But all that seemed a long time ago and very far away.
Wood popped in the fire, made him flinch. Moss swore something filthy-sounding under her breath, and poked at the fire until more sparks flew up. The dog came over and rested its wide-boned head on Finn’s knee.
There had been sparks of light, too, down under the ocean, like tiny bright fish. Finn had followed them. Had Tommy seen them as well, followed them to safety? Moss took a piece of flint from the edge of the fire and started scraping it against an ancient-looking fork to make another spark. Her dog barked and snapped at the light, but Moss found flames quickly.
“You’re good at that,” Finn said.
She shrugged. She came back to sit on one of the big stones beside the fire, near him. “Not as good as Cal.”
Finn wondered if this Cal dude was anything as crazy as the Pa man, and whether he’d be coming back anytime soon. Perhaps Cal could help him look for Tommy. He was about to ask when he saw how deeply Moss was frowning at him, like he’d just committed some horrible social faux pas. But before he could ask what he’d done, she said, “You’re different from how I thought.”
“You’re different from everyone,” he replied immediately.
It was true. She was sort of gorgeous, but strange and wild-looking, too. She said things that made him wonder what her life was really like. One day he’d tell stories in pubs about this girl. That was, if he ever got home to any pubs to tell them in. If he ever lived past this island. If he ever found his friend. He felt the tightness start in his throat again and looked back to the darkening sea.
“Did you mean what you said before,” he said fast, “about never seeing a boy?”
It’d sounded like a throwaway line, back when she’d been explaining why that man Pa’s reaction to him had been so strange. Perhaps he hadn’t remembered her words right, not with how he’d felt so hazy. When he looked back at her now, he was expecting a laugh, but she didn’t even smile.
“Not a boy I remember,” she said. “Only Cal. Only boys in storybooks. In dreams.”
He smiled. “Weird.”
He didn’t know what else to say. If Tommy were here, no doubt he’d make some joke about this—about being the boy of this girl’s dreams.
“I’ve always wanted to be a dream boy,” he murmured, trying to picture Tommy beside the fire, slurping back that sweet-tasting tea and enjoying himself like he always did in strange situations.
Moss was still frowning at him. He didn’t blame her. He ran a hand through his hair. It was this place, making him act like a moron. It was not knowing where he was or what was happening. Not knowing what had happened to Tommy.
“Pa’s a boy, I s’pose,” she added. “Was once.”
Finn waited for her to finally explain who Pa was, but instead Moss leaned forward and placed her hand against his arm. Her fingers were warm as she twirled one of his arm hairs.
“Gold,” she said. “You’re all golden.”
He stared at her. “And you’re seriously strange. Do you even know how strange you are?”
But he smiled. Because in this moment, she was the one who looked golden, whose skin in the setting sun glinted like shined chestnuts.
Her hand moved down his arm, investigating his fingers, making him tingle. “You don’t shuck many oysters, do you?”
Again, he wished Tommy were there. I would, he could imagine his friend saying, complete with his best charming smile, I would for you.
“Not much call for oysters in my house,” Finn said instead, moving his arm away when his skin felt too ticklish. “Takeout pizza’s more our thing. Indian, on a good night. My parents work too much to cook.”
Finally, if only to stop her frowning at him, Finn asked about Cal. She smiled a little then, and Finn wondered if Cal was her boyfriend.
“He’s like the black sea bass,” she said, “but he is a shining thing. A boy like you, but with stars for eyes.”
Finn listened to how the fire cracked. Should he feel jealous of a boy with stars for eyes but who also looked like a fish?
She pressed his arm, more urgency in her stare. “He wasn’t in the water, was he? Not last night, in the waves?” She explained how Cal should be with them now, how she was worried. “He’s not come back, not proper, for days.”
Finn shook his head. “Never seen anyone like that,” he said truthfully. He wanted to add, How have you?
She slumped. “Cal must be settled in the island, then, hidden deep.”
She spoke so strangely—almost old-fashioned—her words were like something Finn might read in a book. He wanted to pluck her arm hairs so he’d feel she was real too. He watched her roll grass between her fingers, easily weaving it into a small rope.
“I think you must tell me a many-lot of things … ,” she said, soft, “… many truths.”
“Me tell you?” He’d thought it’d be the other way around. “About what, exactly? What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” She looked at him in quick glances, like how a bird might look at a worm it wanted to eat. “You need to tell me … umm … about where you are from and how you got here. About what happened in the sea and to your boat. Tell me right now while Pa is sleeping.”
And, slowly, he did. With the night setting in and his leg still hurting, there was nothing else he could do, anyway. Besides, he also wanted to know about her, and this place … that Pa and Cal. Maybe she’d talk if he got her confidence up first. He told her about the many months he and Tommy had sailed around the world, and about some of the things they’d seen.
“Sharks big as houses round the coast of South Africa … Cheap drinks in Cuba … And the Cayman Islands are gorgeous …”
He explained how they hadn’t been expecting land for days, not proper land, anyway.
“Maybe a rock outcrop or two,” he said. “Not an entire island like this!”
More hesitantly, he told her of the storm that had arrived from nowhere.
“It took my boat,” he said. “My father’s boat, actually. We … wrecked. Is there a reef or something, hidden rocks? It was all so … weird!”
“You’re not the first boat to wreck here.” She looked away as she spoke, dropped the wound grass rope and found a stick instead, poking it in the fire.
“Why, who else has come?”
Perhaps there were other people on this island; perhaps Tommy had found them!
“Just us.” She shrugged. “Just us for as long as I can remember.”
“Just you? Seriously, you and the Pa guy? The only ones?”
She shrugged, turning away. “Pa’s better to tell that story,” she said. “… How we got here. I don’t really remember.”
“Wait.” He leaned forward. “This island isn’t your home?”
She shrugged. “We came on our boat, before the floods hit proper.” Abruptly, she turned back to him. “But what about where you live? What’s that like?”
“Well, OK …” He sighed as he watched her, wanting more. But again he reasoned it—if he started speaking, maybe she might too. “It’s just an average town, I guess, where I live. It’s old, it’s got a big, smelly river and a weird, ugly church and lots of other buildings … It’s down in the southwest of England. Nothing special. Like most of the towns there, really. Couple of pubs, cafes, even a small cinema …”
He watched her mouthing some of his words, repeating them for herself. It was so odd, the way she reacted to him; it made him shut up entirely.
“Pa said everyone died,” she whispered. “O
r nearly everyone. He said all the towns were gone.” Her voice was so soft, as if she were talking only to the fire. “He said the waters swallowed them,” she added. “Said only the flowers would bring them back.”
Finn had to look closely to see her serious expression and make sure he’d really heard her words correctly.
“Flowers? What do you mean?” he said. “And who’s everyone? Died … how?”
Again, Finn wondered about that Pa in the hut. Perhaps he should shake the strange man awake right now and get his take. He also wasn’t sure he wanted to spend the night so close to someone who could be truly crazy.
“Pa said the floods got almost everyone,” Moss said. “Dark floods swept the rest of the world away.”
“What … floods?”
She looked at him, eyes big. “The ones that rose when we left our home, of course. We got away, were lucky. Perhaps you were too?”
Finn reached into his memory, into everything he could recall learning about the world in geography and history class. “How long ago was this?”
She frowned. “Ten years. Maybe. That’s what Pa said once, anyway. That’s the date in his scrapbook. Don’t really know. The thick air here …” She shrugged. “It’s hard to remember … You’ve felt how the flowers are, the air … you know …”
But he didn’t know, not at all. Big floods? Everyone dying? What was she talking about?
“Where, exactly, was this flooding?”
“Everywhere!”
Finn looked at her light brown skin, at the frizzy corkscrew curls of her dark brown hair, trying to work her out. She could have come from any number of places he and Tommy had passed through. Hell, she could be from anywhere at all! Australia had bad floods once, didn’t it? He vaguely remembered a news report about floods that’d swept crocodiles into houses and left people stranded on roofs. But she didn’t sound Australian. She didn’t sound … anything. Only like herself. Only unique. Though that Pa had an English accent, didn’t he? But there’d been no floods like this in England!