The spray from the wind splashed over the sides with the waves. Char let go of the tiller and scrambled forward, his bailing bucket in hand, and began tossing water over the side as fast as he could, but the rain was filling the boat faster than he could bail. Clemency helped him, shouting for Ida, but she didn’t answer.
“Just our luck,” Char grumbled, “she’s fallen overboard, and we came out here for nothin’.”
Ven kneeled, trying to steady the riggings, which were threatening to snap. He looked up at Char to see the cook’s mate staring behind him, toward the bow, his eyes as wide as the full moon had been.
“Uh, Ven?” he stammered.
“What?” Ven asked, turning to look over his shoulder.
“It’s here. Only I don’t remember it looking like that before.”
29
A Delicate Balance
THE FLOATING ISLAND LOOKED LIKE THE MAW OF A GIANT SHARK lunging out of the dark. The wind swirled all around it, churning the sea, crashing the waves against the island’s fragile coast, and causing the trees that lined its curled summit to bend in a horrific dance.
“That’s—not the way I remember it, either,” Ven said nervously.
“It looks angry,” Clemency whispered.
“Well, you might be, too, if you got called away from wherever you were goin’ in the middle of the night,” said Char, grabbing onto the side of the boat for balance.
“Are you still here, Ida?” Ven called into the shrieking wind.
“Yeah,” came a voice on the floor of the stern.
Char scooted away in surprise. “Gah! Where are you? Is it your head that’s tickling my bum?”
“My nose, actually,” said the voice.
“Ugh!”
“Hold tight to the tiller, and turn the rudder to keep aligned with the island, Char,” Ven shouted. “Clem, grab an oar and row.” He tried to hoist the sail higher, but the swirling wind caught it and dragged them across the waves, sucking them closer to the unsteady coastline, which was pitching in much the same manner as the Rescue.
The rain began to pelt them, strafing the boat in sheets. Ven raised his eyes and saw that there was a pattern to it, currents of air that twisted like a spiral tunnel as they got closer to the island. He trimmed the sail as best as he could, struggling to keep it from falling apart, all the while calling directions to Char, so that he could steer the boat into the wind tunnel.
As they approached the dark island the noise from the wind got louder, a feverish roar that competed with the crash of the waves against the side of the Rescue. Ven swallowed hard when he saw the eastern tip of the island sway in the wind so violently that it lifted completely out of the sea, then splashed down again.
“Char! Hard to starboard!” he yelled as another sheet of rain blasted the boat, filling it by almost half with water. “Clem, crouch down as far as you can—er, you too, Ida, if you can hear me.”
Char leaned on the tiller, struggling to hold it in the pull of the waves.
With a crash the mast fell over, narrowly missing Clemency, and covering all of them with the ragged sail.
The Rescue pitched, then shot forward, spinning wildly in the wind, caught in the tunnel of air currents that were churning around the Floating Island. The sound of muffled screams from beneath the sail was drowned out in the crashing of the waves.
With a thud, the Rescue ran aground, coming to a jolting halt.
For a moment, there was no movement from within the battered boat.
Then, slowly, the canvas sail began to bump in places, lift in some and fall in others, as the companions struggled to come out from under it.
Finally Clemency, the tallest of them, let out a growl of frustration.
“Stop moving!” she ordered. When the sail ceased bumping she stood up, like the center pole in a tent, and threw the sail off her head and shoulders onto the sand of the island’s beach.
Ven climbed out of the Rescue and detached the lantern from the boat’s prow, remarkably still lit.
“Char, toss out the anchor,” he said, holding the lantern aloft in the wet air. “Ida, are you still here?”
Nothing but the wind, distant and moaning now, answered him.
“Ida?”
Clemency and Char took up the call. “Ida? Ida! Ida!”
The sound caught the wind and was echoed back to them in a moaning wail.
Ida! Ida! Ida!
“Here,” said a weak voice low to the ground. Ven held up the lantern, but saw nothing. He set the lantern down and drew out his jack-rule, extending the lens and peering in the direction from which the voice had come. The image he saw through the glass horrified him.
Pinned beneath the boat was the clear white outline of a girl.
“Oh, man!” Ven exclaimed. “Come on, she’s crushed under the Rescue. Together, now—heave it off of her!”
Quickly they rolled the boat off of the invisible Ida, who, to Ven’s surprise, stood up easily and shook the sand from herself. I suppose there is something to be said for wasting away, Ven thought. It’s sort of hard to hurt a body that’s not there. He folded the jack-rule, tucked it carefully back in his pocket, and started across the beach and up the twisted, translucent mountain where the wind made its home.
“Ida—we can’t see you at all now, so stay between Clem and Char,” he called over his shoulder. There was no answer, but a moment later he heard a loud ooof! from the cook’s mate. Char went flying and planted his face in the blowing sand of the beach.
“I guess that means she’s here,” Clemency said to Ven. She offered Char her hand and pulled him up, then switched places with him.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this, Ven?” Char said through his teeth as they headed up the mountain.
“Rover’s box—bones—she shut it,” Ven answered, not turning around as he climbed.
“Oh, right,” mumbled Char.
Up the spiraling sides of the dark mountain they climbed, the wind rattling through the trees all around them.
* * *
Whatever sense of wonder I had felt when we first came here was gone. The island was dark and windswept; all around us the trees and vegetation danced and writhed as if they were in pain in the grip of the wind. Leaves and hail rained down on us from the misty clouds above, made all the more unpleasant by the alternating blasts of warm and cold air.
I thought back for a moment to the first sight I’d had of the place, the morning sun shining off it, the glistening clouds of fog making it seem like a fairy-tale mountain rising out of the clouds. If the island was able to have a mood, it was welcoming then, if a little timid, and wholly magical. Now, with the black of night broken only by thickening mist, the wind screaming all around us, the rising tone of the voices on the wind as we approached the mouth of the cave, and the total darkness that seemed ready to devour us at any moment, I sensed the island was in a much worse mood.
In fact, it seemed really angry at us.
* * *
After what seemed like forever, they finally reached the summit of the shell-shaped mountain. They hurried inside to escape the bitter wind, which had left their skin stinging from its bite.
The inner tunnel of the hollow mountain was even darker than the sea had been. Ven held tight to the lantern, trying not to wince at the large shadows it cast in the trees above. The smell of wet earth filled his nostrils, along with the smell of dread. We shouldn’t have come, he thought, walking carefully along the downward curve as the mountain curled, the trees and plants thinning until they were gone. I knew it was wrong when Whiting wanted to call the island, but I didn’t think twice about doing it myself.
He remembered what McLean had said about it again. Something that powerful should only be sought out in a matter of life and death, the Singer had told him. The thought made him feel only a little bit better.
They continued down into the belly of the mountain, single-file, listening to all the voices on the wind. When they came to the place Ven
thought the wind from Vaarn blew, he called a quick hello to his mother, hoping she might hear.
Finally, in the total darkness at the bottom of the mountain, they stopped beside the tiny silver spring of Living Water in the rich green glen of lichen and moss.
In that place, all the noise from the echo chamber above died away, leaving only the soothing sound of the water’s song. Ven bent down beside the stream and gestured to the darkness behind him, in the hope that Ida was still with them.
“Drink,” he said. “Just a little; you only need a few drops.”
All the sound in the cave around them seemed to die down to a gentle whisper. Clemency and Char watched in silence, holding their breath.
In the middle of the tiny spring a ripple appeared, as if a hand had been slipped into it and a palmful of water removed. Ven’s eyes were fixed on the area in front of him, searching for any sign of Ida.
Across the stream from him the air seemed to move, then to shimmer. Slowly, like a spyglass coming into focus, Ida’s outline appeared, followed in degrees by the rest of her, filling in colors one by one, her body becoming visible, solid.
Real again.
As soon as Ida had solidified completely, Clemency burst into happy tears. She turned to Ven and hugged him joyfully, released him and turned to Char, who hugged her back. Char turned to Ida, his arms open wide, but the expression on her face caused him to spin back around and hug Clem again.
“You all right?” Ven asked Ida, who was staring all around her in wonder. The thin girl nodded. “Good. We had best get out of—”
Before he could finish his thought, the ground beneath him rumbled.
“What was that?” Char asked nervously. Ven shook his head, but it happened again, this time causing dust and gravel from the walls of the shell mountain to crumble and fall to the floor of the cave around them.
The Floating Island shuddered. In the tunnel above, Ven could hear the sound of trees cracking and rocks sliding.
“Ven—?” Clemency said, her voice trembling. “What’s happening?”
Before Ven could answer, the island shuddered again, this time rocking more violently.
“We’ve unbalanced it,” he said, trying to keep from panicking. “Oliver was very specific about the need to keep the place in balance, to not take anything that belonged to the wind.” His forehead furrowed in realization, and he winced as if in pain. “Blast! I forgot! Oliver brought something with him, a type of water he said was as rare and special as the Living Water, that came from a well that the wind couldn’t reach. It was a trade. Of course! We should have brought something to trade for the water, but I didn’t.”
Dust rained down on their heads from the mountaintop above.
“Do we have anything we can use to trade?” Clemency asked desperately. “The place appears to be crumbling. I don’t know if we can even make it up out of the cave, let alone back to the boat or to Kingston, if we don’t set it right and balance it again.”
“All I have is a jack-rule and a seashell,” said Ven, his voice tight and high as he patted his pockets, trying to summon forth something he didn’t remember. “Somehow I don’t think that will do it.”
Beneath them the ground trembled.
Char covered his head as a cloud of dust and grit fell down from the twisted tunnel above. “We’re gonna be buried here,” he said anxiously. “There’s no way we’ll make it—”
The ground stopped rumbling, the tunnel stopped moving. The last remaining grains of dust fell. Then silence returned again.
“It’s stopped,” Clemency said in wonder. “Amazing! How did it balance again? We didn’t have anything to trade or—”
She fell silent at the sight that the two boys had already witnessed, joining them in awe.
At the edge of the spring Ida was sitting, staring into the silver pool of water as if it were a mirror. Tears from her eyes were flowing down her cheeks, making their way into the spongy moss at the side of the little well.
Balancing it.
For a long time the other three sat and watched her, unable to speak or move. Ven shook his head in wonder. The captain traded the island some water from an ancient well that was as rare as the Living Water, he thought as Ida ran the back of her sleeve roughly over her face and scowled at them. Ida’s tears served as a substitute. They must be as rare, then, too. I bet this is the only time in her life she’s ever cried.
The newly solid girl stood up abruptly.
“Let’s go, Polywog,” she said, but her tone was not as unpleasant as usual. It was clear to Ven that the Living Water had done more than restore her visibility, but what that effect was, he could not tell. He contented himself with following Ida and the others back up the winding passageway to the air and the trees and the voices and the wind.
When they reached the top of the mountain, the darkness of night was just beginning to fade, giving way to a flat gray that would linger for a few hours until dawn. They scurried down the mountainside, laughing out loud, singing and shouting along with the voices on the wind, past the trees that still were cloaked in night, past the hats and kites and shirts that hung in them, all the way down to the waterfront where they stopped, stunned.
Their boat was not on the shore where they left it.
“I told you to drop the anchor,” Ven said tersely to Char.
“I did! I did drop the anchor!” Char protested. “Wedged it into the sand myself!”
“Then where’s the boat?” Ven demanded.
Clemency pointed off shore. “There,” she said despondently.
The Rescue was floating in the middle of the sea, about a hundred yards off the coast of the island.
“Well, now what are we gonna do?” asked Char, hysteria building in his voice until it topped out in a squeak.
“We can swim,” Ven offered. Clem and Char shook their heads.
“That’s the middle of the bloody sea, Ven,” Char said. “It’s gonna keep drifting; we’d never catch it.”
“We can try to signal another boat,” Clemency suggested. “Once dawn comes, the ships heading for the harbor will start coming in.”
“Yes, but we will be somewhere on the other side of the world,” Ven said gloomily. “This is a floating island, remember? It travels wherever the wind takes it.”
“We can try to find a way to steer it,” Char put in. “Maybe if we go back down into the mountain tunnel—”
“Or we can wait for the boat to come back,” said Ida.
Ven let out a short, harsh laugh that sounded a little like a bark while the other two rolled their eyes or sighed.
“What makes you think it’s going to come back, Ida?” he asked as calmly as he could.
“The fact that it is,” Ida said smugly. She pointed out to sea.
The Rescue was making its way directly back to the island under its own steam, or so it seemed.
Ven’s panic broke, and a grin of relief spread across his face.
That merrow, he thought happily. Thank goodness for Amariel.
Once the boat had returned mysteriously to shore, Ven and the others loaded up, cast off, and sailed for home. Ven turned in time to catch one last glimpse of the island; from just offshore, peace seemed to have returned. The morning air was beginning to twitter with birdsong; the wind that rustled the many and various leaves and fronds that grew on its summit was gentle now, content. The island seemed to be satisfied once more.
And then it vanished into the wind, the same way the Fire Pirates had emerged from it.
I really must learn how to do that myself someday, Ven thought.
Strangely enough, it took them even less time to make it back to the abandoned pier than it had to get to the island in the first place, gliding back out of the sea and into the harbor, almost as if they were being pulled.
Which, of course, they were, even if only Ven knew it.
As Char, Clemency, and Ida were reuniting with Saeli and clambering back into the wagon, patting the horses and cha
tting in joyful voices, Ven stopped and looked over the end of the pier once more. He waited, watching for any sign of a multicolored tail or glistening hair, until the others started calling impatiently. Then he sighed and bent down close to the water.
“Thank you, Amariel,” he said quietly. Then he turned and caught up with them.
The ride back to the inn was much less painful than it had been from there. Ven asked to stop behind the fishmonger’s stand and managed to obtain an entire barrel of discarded fish heads for Murphy, a gift he knew would leave him in good standing with the cat.
They took their time passing through the gate so as not to raise the notice of the guard, who was busy by that time talking to the town crier, getting ready for the day that would be dawning in an hour or so. Saeli urged the horses to hurry past the White Fern Inn, but there didn’t seem to be anyone there.
They made it back to the crossroads just as Seren began to set. It was the daystar, Ven noted, the brightest star in the sky that glowed in the east as the sun was preparing to rise. It pierced the gray haze that hung in the sky like the light-tower beacon. Seeing its light shining on the crossroads made Ven smile, especially when he remembered Gregory’s words about it.
This warm, safe place where the star Seren first shone on the island—that first starshine made this land magical, gave it special power.
Watching his friends climbing happily down from the wagon, chattering with excitement, he had at least a small sense of what kind of magic that might be.
“All right, time to get this Rover’s box buried before the sun comes up,” Ven said as Char and Ida chased each other around the wagon. Ida tagged Char again, heedless of Ven’s words, and then dashed behind the cart, where she suddenly disappeared from sight, letting loose a howl of horror.
Ven ran like lightning around to the other side, to discover Ida had tripped and fallen into the hole with the Rover’s box. She glared up at him in a mixture of fury and panic.
“Hmmm, seems I’ve seen you here before,” he said jokingly, offering his hand. “Let’s get you out of there before you start disappearing again.” Ida grabbed hold and he pulled her from the hole with a nervous yank that sent both of them into the others who had been hovering near. All five went down in a heap.