Nil Page 9

  As Sy slowly peeled back one corner, I’d have sworn Nil giggled. Inside the cloth was a bracelet, an ivory-colored cuff, about two inches wide and perfectly smooth.

  I knew that cuff.

  It’d taken the owner months to craft it—to smooth it using a fine mixture of sand and salt. I remember sitting beside her, watching her rub the cuff. I’d thought it was creepy then. Hollow and empty, it was beyond creepy now.

  “What is it?” Bart’s voice came over my shoulder. I’d forgotten he’d followed us.

  “A bracelet,” I answered, irritated. Then I looked at Sy. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Near the groves.” He swallowed. “Whoever she was, she didn’t make it. I, uh, had to take it off her wrist. Or what was left of her wrist.” Sy looked ashamed.

  “I told him to leave it.” Speaking for the first time, Johan’s words were like nails. “That to bring it back was bad karma, but he insisted.” Johan shot a dark look at Sy, who visibly withered. “He doesn’t get it.” Johan’s troubled face matched Miguel’s. “We buried the body, and we should have buried the bracelet with it.”

  No argument there.

  “Look, I thought we should bring it back,” Sy said. “So you or someone else could ID her. I didn’t think just telling you about it would be enough to make a positive ID. She deserves a cross, man. On the Wall.”

  I couldn’t argue with that either.

  “But to disturb someone’s final resting place—” Johan broke off. He shook his head and crossed himself.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Bart offered.

  “Thank you,” Sy said, emphasizing each word.

  Johan exhaled heavily and leveled his eyes on Sy. His voice was a mix of frustration and pity. “The deal is,” he said softly, “we didn’t see a single gate after you took the bracelet. Not one.”

  Sy stiffened. “It’s not like a gate’s guaranteed to flash. It’s all chance anyway. Pure luck.”

  “Bad luck,” Johan shot back. “Which you brought upon us. You should have left it.”

  “No,” Sy said. “I did the right thing. She deserves a cross.”

  The argument felt stale, getting nowhere but here.

  “Enough,” I snapped. “What’s done is done.” Rattled, I couldn’t stop staring at the cuff.

  “What’s it made of?” Bart asked, his voice curious. Unsuspecting.

  “Bone.”

  Sy dropped the cuff like it was on fire.

  I lurched forward. The brittle bone fell toward the charcoal rock, and just before the cuff hit and shattered, I caught it.

  Johan was beside himself. “Holy Mary, Mother of God! Sy, are you trying to bring us bad karma?” He ran both his hands through his hair, pulling at the roots.

  Sy stared at the cuff in my hands, his mouth slightly open, as Johan spun to me. “Do you know who it belonged to?” he asked, his eyes wild and worried.

  “Ramia,” I said quietly. “Her name was Ramia.”

  Sy found his voice, but his eyes remained locked on the cuff. “Bone?” he asked. “Who carves stuff from bone?”

  “Ramia,” I said.

  “Yeah, I got that,” Sy said. “But, man, that’s messed up.”

  I shrugged. “Ramia made the bone fish hooks, too.” And she had a disturbing knack for predicting people’s fate, including her own. I closed my eyes, blocking the memory of her prediction for me. “She left my third week here.”

  “She didn’t get far,” Bart said at the same time Sy said, “That sucks.”

  Suddenly I couldn’t wait to be rid of the bracelet. It felt heavy in my hands. “I’ll take care of this, okay?”

  “You’ll bury it, right?” Johan’s eyes were twitchy.

  “Definitely.”

  Johan stood. “I’ll come with you. Sy, you come, too.” Johan’s tone left zero room for Sy to worm out. “We buried her, we should bury this, too. And we’ll pray.” Briefly, he turned to Bart and Miguel. “No offense, but you two should leave. Thad makes three, and right now we need all the luck a trinity can bring.”

  Miguel didn’t need to be asked twice. Crossing himself repeatedly, he took off. Bart lingered, then left.

  We walked in silence, past the Flower Field, to the burial ground. Johan and Sy used flat rocks to dig a hole. I wrapped the cloth around the bone like a shroud, then placed it in the hole, and Johan filled the tiny grave with dirt. The cloth disappeared, Nil reclaiming her own.

  Untying a small sack from his waist, Johan shook out a handful of bleached coral. One by one, he placed pieces on the raw dirt until he’d formed a cross.

  Still on his knees, he said, “Let’s pray.”

  Eyes closed, I listened to Johan’s deep voice.

  “Heavenly Father, we come to you on our knees. We ask you to bless this bracelet. And bless its owner, Ramia. May she rest in peace, and give her family strength. Your strength, wherever they are. And, Father, please help us. Please protect us from Nil and get us safely home. Amen.”

  “Amen,” I murmured.

  “Jeezy Pete, Johan, was that a prayer for the dead girl or for us?” Sy asked as we stood. “Are you supposed to dump all your prayers together like that?”

  Johan shrugged. “Can’t hurt. Might help.” He looked at me, worry darkening his eyes. “Thad, I’ve got a bad feeling. We shouldn’t have taken that bracelet.”

  Johan was by far the most religious and most superstitious person in the City. But I had a bad feeling myself. Finding a body was never good, and stripping it of a bracelet—a bracelet made of bone of all things—felt even worse. Especially Ramia’s bone bracelet. Holy Nil-nightmares-waiting-to-happen.

  “At least it didn’t come back into the City,” I said, looking for the good. “And in the end, Ramia gets her cross.”

  Johan nodded, but he still looked worried.

  “What kind of bone was that?” Sy asked. “Please don’t tell me it was human.”

  “Cow.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Johan said.

  That’s all we said the entire way back.

  At the edge of the City, Sy cut right. “See ya,” he mumbled. Then he scurried toward the Cove. Johan hung back with me.

  “I’ll carve for Ramia,” I said.

  Johan nodded. “Thad.” His voice was firm. “I won’t go out with Sy again. I know he’s new, but he doesn’t listen. And he doesn’t get Nil.” Johan paused. “About an hour before we found Ramia, an inbound flashed twenty meters away. A hippo fell out. Big one, too. My shout gave us plenty of warning, but Sy panicked. He dropped the supply pack as he bolted to hide, and guess who trampled it? You know it, the hippo. Our last two days of food, gone.” Johan snapped his fingers for emphasis. “That’s why we’re back early. And then the bracelet. We shouldn’t have taken it. But Sy wouldn’t listen.”

  “I hear you,” I said. “I’ll talk to Sy.”

  “Good,” Johan said. “Maybe you can open his eyes.”

  Doubtful, I thought. If the bone bracelet–hippo combo didn’t sway Sy into recognizing Nil’s bad karma, I couldn’t imagine what words would.

  “I’ll try,” I said. It was the best I could do.

  I strode to the Wall, ready to rid myself of Ramia and find Charley. Going straight to Ramia’s weathered name, I carved a cross beside it. Then, out of habit, I glanced at my name. The day I’d carved those letters was still fresh: I remember gouging the wood, sealing the deal, and I remember my confidence, tinged with relief. The weird truth was, when I first landed here, I was secretly kind of stoked. Primed for a break from the grind and the pressure, I’d viewed Nil as a forced vacation, a mandatory mid-season break. I figured I’d be back on the mountain in no time. Back battling my dad over my dreams or his.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. And judging by the crosses littering the Wall, plenty of other people had been wrong, too.

  Except Ramia. She’d been dead right.

  I closed my eyes, abruptly repelled by the Wall, by the crosses, but mo
stly repelled by Ramia, whose prophecies I couldn’t shake.

  Spinning around, I nearly knocked Li down.

  “Ramia.” She pointed to the cross. “How you know?” Li made a slicing motion across her throat.

  “Sy and Johan, they found her.”

  “No. How you know it Ramia?”

  “Her bracelet.” I wrapped my hand around my wrist. “The cuff. It was her.”

  Li nodded, her eyes back on Ramia’s fresh cross. “Nil crazy,” she whispered.

  “Thad! Incoming!” Macy shouted from the tree line. “On the beach!”

  I dashed toward Macy, pulling my knife. The handle was still warm. I hit the sand at a full sprint, just in time to see the inbound gate flash brilliant and blinding. I had seconds, at best.

  Charley, Sabine, and Natalie stood between me and the gate. Just ahead, Raj held a knife; Samuel and Rives gripped spears.

  Blade low, I sprinted toward Charley. Her eyes were on the gate. It glittered over the sand, like a two-dimensional disco ball, and for an instant, the beach was perfectly reflected in the sparkling air.

  Then every speck went black.

  Rider. I tensed. Person, thing, or animal?

  Natalie stepped slightly in front of Charley as a blur of red fell from the air.

  Person, I processed with relief. A boy. Nothing with fangs, nothing with claws. My knife slid back into hiding as the gate collapsed and winked out completely.

  Slowing, I jogged up behind Charley, in time to hear her murmur, “Another kid.”

  Before I could speak, Charley looked at Natalie. “What do you mean, no adults? No children?” Her voice was measured, carefully deliberate; it was the same tone I recognized from this morning as Charley worked to connect Nil’s dots. “Not in the City, or not here at all?”

  “Not on the island,” Natalie said. She’d already ripped off her chest wrap and was draping it over the boy’s groin. He was still out cold. “The youngest person is Jason, who dropped in at thirteen. The oldest person to come through was nineteen. All of us fall somewhere in the middle. Like this guy.” Her arms folded across her chest, Natalie tilted her head at the boy. “Didn’t Thad tell you?” she asked Charley, her expression perplexed. “Only teenagers come through the gates.”

  “And the occasional mountain lion,” Charley muttered.

  “Don’t forget African lions,” I said. “We get those, too.”

  She whipped her head around. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. We’re pretty sure gates regularly roll through the African plains.”

  “The zebra.” Charley nodded. “Right.”

  Rives tossed Natalie a piece of fabric. “Nice move, twin. You just made my day.”

  “Then my work here is done,” Natalie told Rives, tying the material around her breasts in a flash. But her eyes stayed on Charley.

  “Lions and zebras and teenagers, oh my,” Charley said in a tight voice. She was staring at the boy.

  The boy moaned, drawing everyone’s attention but mine. I stayed locked on Charley, who frowned.

  “Is he burned?” Charley asked. “I mean, can gates burn you? Mine felt like it. And he looks fried.”

  Now that I looked, the boy did look a little crispy. His face was bright red, like his hair. Ditto for his shoulders.

  “If the gate roasted him, it’d be a first,” I said. “I think he had a head start on his Nil tan.”

  Charley nodded. “Poor kid. Now I know why you didn’t add alone to your ‘same song, different verse’ intro this morning. I guess not everyone wakes up naked and alone, just the lucky ones.”

  “Lucky?” Natalie’s voice was sharp. She raised an eyebrow at me, and I mouthed, Not yet.

  The boy moaned again and blinked.

  “Seeing how you’re still introducing Nil to Charley, I’ll take this one.” Nat’s voice had a dangerous edge. “Unless you want to.”

  “All yours,” I said.

  The boy jerked up, making the wrap slip and exposing himself. Snatching back the cloth, he stared at us, shocked.

  “Hey,” Natalie said in her gentle-but-firm Leader voice. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  “Bloody ’ell.” His eyes flicked to Natalie. “Who the fuck are you? And where the ’ell’s my bathers?”

  I actually felt bad for the guy. Charley had a point. His entrance on the beach in full view had to suck, worse than just waking up in a dark meadow by yourself.

  “You nicked my clothes?” The boy looked incredulous. “And my watch?” He scooted backward on the sand, but struggled to stay covered.

  “We didn’t take your clothes.” Natalie’s voice was soothing. “I’m Natalie. I know this sounds crazy, but you came through a wormhole, and your clothes didn’t make it. I’ll answer all your questions in a minute, I promise. But first, where were you when the heat hit?”

  The boy flinched. “How’d you know that?” His accent was tough, like a brogue. He narrowed his eyes at Natalie. “Wha’ja do to me?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” The edge crept back into Nat’s voice. “The heat, it’s a gate. A portal. A wormhole, and it brought you here. But where were you?”

  The boy blinked. “Mykonos. On holiday.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, smiling like normal Nat. “Do you remember what day it was?”

  “What day?” The rookie looked thrown.

  “Try to remember,” Nat urged, gently. “What day was it?”

  He told her, and she nodded. “And the year?”

  She nodded again. “Okay, like I said, I’m Natalie. What’s your name?”

  “Rory.”

  “Welcome to Nil, Rory,” Natalie said.

  “Nil?” Rory frowned. “Where the ’ell’s Nil?”

  “Good question,” Charley said.

  Rory jerked his eyes to her, lingering on her legs before traveling north. Watching his lip curl into a smile, I fought the urge to knock him back unconscious.

  “Who’re you?” he asked Charley.

  “Charley. Been here thirteen days.” Her response killed all thoughts of Rory. How would Charley know the days were so important? “Just thought you’d like knowing you’re not the only one new to the freak show,” she added, smiling.

  She doesn’t know, I thought, strangely relieved. She’s just being kind.

  Natalie spoke back up. “Nil’s an island. We all got here the same way you did, and we’re all trying to get home. Gates go both ways.” She smiled wryly. “Welcome to paradise.”

  “Bloody ’ell.” The boy looked from Charley to Natalie, then swept the rest of us. When he passed over Heesham and Rives, he stiffened, and his eyes flew back to Natalie and settled, hard. “You think I’m a fucking eejit?” He glared at her. “That I’ll buy this Alice in Wonderland shit yer selling? What’re you blokes really after? Money?”

  “Hardly.” Natalie sounded disgusted. “What we’ve told you is the truth. It’s up to you what you want to believe.”

  “Bloody ’ell,” Rory said. “I’ve got no bathers, no mobile, no idea where the fuck I am or who the fuck you nutters are.” His fingers gripped the wrap so tightly they turned white; freckles popped out like dirt. “Fucking fairy-tale nut jobs.”

  “Like I said, you’re on Nil,” Natalie snapped, “and it’s no fairy tale, let me tell you that. And if you wouldn’t mind, would you please stop using the word fuck so much? It’s getting on my fucking nerves.” Then she stormed away.

  I was shocked. I’d never heard Nat cuss, let alone ditch a rookie.

  “Be right back,” I told Charley. Then I glanced at Rives, who was eyeing Rory with a mix of contempt and pity. “Rives, you got this covered, eh?”

  “Yeah.” Rives nodded. “Go.”

  I had to jog to catch Natalie. “Nat, you okay?”

  She turned, and I was stunned to see tears streaming down her face. “I can’t take it anymore. People come, people go. Jerks drop in, and Kevin’s gone.” Her voice cracked. “I’m done. I want out. I want Kevin, and I want t
o go home.”

  She looked ready to break, or maybe she had.

  “I know. Hey—” I moved to hug her, but she held up one hand. “No. I’m fine,” she said, sounding remarkably steady. “Get back to Charley.”

  Charley. I sucked as an island guide. I’d left her twice now.

  “You’d better tell her.” Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “And I mean now. She needs to know.”

  “I know. I was just giving her some time. To, you know, get adjusted.”

  Natalie sighed. “There is no time. You know that.” She paused, then hit me with a hard Nat stare. “If you don’t tell Charley, I will.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  CHARLEY

  DAY 13, LATE MORNING

  The boy named Rives led Rory away, steering him by the shoulder. Lips pursed, Rory looked like a mad blowfish, or maybe it was just his sunburn.

  As I turned, Thad reappeared by my side.

  “I think I need a new island guide,” I teased. His face kind of fell. “Kidding,” I said. “Is Natalie okay?”

  “She misses Kevin.”

  “I figured.” Then I remembered something. “Hey, what did Miguel show you?”

  “A cow bone.”

  “A cow bone,” I repeated. “Why?”

  “I had to bury it.”

  “Okayyy,” I said. “Did something bad happen to the cow? I mean, obviously the cow died. But was it bad?”

  “Actually, no. The cow fell off a cliff. Everyone had steak for dinner.” Thad grinned.

  “Huh.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  I looked around the beach. The surfers had come in. I recognized one as Jason, the curly-haired kid who’d accused me of stealing Kevin’s clothes. The boys had stopped throwing their coconut football; the group around the fire had split up. Anticipation hung in the air as thick and heavy as Atlanta humidity in August.

  And then it hit me: it was nearly noon.

  “Is everyone looking for a gate?” I asked. “An exit gate?”

  “Yeah.” Thad’s eyes roamed the beach. “They always come at noon, but that’s all we know. They pop up anywhere, but never the same spot two days in a row.” He ran his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “It sucks. Like trying to hit the lottery.”