7. Chapter 7
My head jerked back as a raging wind pelted us and lifted us both into the air. I clenched Ben’s hand as if our lives depended on it, but the gale ripped him from my grasp. My hair flew about my face as the wind hurled us backward through the trees. Not again.
I tumbled through the discoloured foliage and landed hard on my back among the roots. Tossing my hair out of my face, I sat up and massaged my back with one hand. What happened to asking people to leave nicely?
“Ben?” I called.
Looking around, I could only see trees and roots in their normal forestry colours. The phoenix had thrown us outside of the barrier.
“I’m here!” Ben staggered out from behind a tree, holding his hip. “I’m guessing it didn’t take our apology very well.”
“I just hope we didn’t make it worse.” I stood up and picked my way across the forest floor toward him.
But as we met in the middle, a sense of despair bubbled up from my stomach. The phoenix had smashed any hope I harboured and... we officially had no other plans.
Tears welled up in my eyes so suddenly that I didn’t even have time to hold them back.
“What is it?” Ben asked, his expression converting from mild annoyance to shock. “Are you hurt?”
He gingerly grasped my upper arms and looked me over.
“No, I’m fine.” I bit my lip, but it was too late. The tears spilled down my cheeks. “It’s just... that was it... wasn’t it? We don’t... we’re not...”
Even though I had no idea how to put into words what I wanted to say, Ben seemed to understand. He wrapped his arms around me, and I nestled in the crook of his neck, my hot tears spilling onto his collar.
“I know,” he muttered. “I know.”
***
Tails between our legs, we returned to the inn to drown our sorrows. Given that I was driving, I only pretended to. But I wouldn’t deny that the futility of our situation made me not want to care.
Kira, despite her eagerness to drink in theory, just stirred her pint of cider without taking a sip. Allison and Bronwyn huddled together in the corner, not drinking anything either. In fact, the only person who did was Adrian, who finished his pint and then Ben’s before slumping in his seat and saying nothing.
I rested my head on Ben’s shoulder, trying to calm the panic that threatened to take over. Nobody had expected our plan to go through flawlessly, but I had hoped for more than ejection from the forest with no dialogue at all. The phoenix was truly too devastated to listen, and while I wanted it to, I could hardly blame it.
But the part of me that wanted to survive held nothing but rage. How could it do this to us all? Trap us here to suffer a slow death with no way to redeem ourselves?
Still, if the curse chose me to die when Isadora’s twins were born, at least it was better than dying from this illness or starvation. But how did that help the people I left behind? After all I had done to prevent the fighting, the Arrowood family had still caved in under the weight of the curse and dragged the entire island down with us.
“What do we do now?” Allison eventually asked.
“There’s nothing left to do.” Adrian had slumped lower and lower toward the table until he buried his face in his arms. “We’re just going to die now. That’s it. Game over.”
“No, shut up.” Kira flicked her droplets of her cocktail at Adrian’s head with her stirrer. “There is something we can do.”
“What?” Allison perked up a bit.
Kira pursed her lips. “Well, I don’t know what it is yet, but when I do, I’ll tell you.”
Adrian snorted. “See? We’re dead.”
I wanted to argue with him and bring some positivity to the table. But what could I say that had even an ounce of truth? What was the point of wasting energy with fake platitudes when Adrian was probably right? We were all going to die, one by one, if not from starvation then from the disease, and nothing could stop it. Certainly not us.
I took Ben’s beer and drank some. The police had too much on their plates to worry about anyone driving drunk, anyway.
Ben massaged the back of my hand with his thumb, staring into space. “Maybe we should just... do what we can to live our lives before the end comes,” he muttered.
“I can’t believe you’re all so happy to give up,” Kira snapped. “It’s not over until it’s over.”
“It is, though.” Adrian’s muffled voice rose from his arm cocoon. “We’re done.”
“Maeve?” Kira turned to me but I couldn’t meet her gaze. “Wow. After all you three did to make this happen and you give up when the going gets tough.”
“Excuse me?” I straightened up and stared at her.
She of all people knew that I had done everything in my power to stop something like this happening, and she wanted to blame me?
Kira grinned at me, still stirring her drink. “Thought that would get your attention. Come on, don’t give up on me now. Yeah, we’ve had a setback, but can’t we chalk it up to a bump in the road and try something else?”
“Is there anything left to try?” Allison asked.
“There has to be.” Kira finally took a swig of her cocktail. “I refuse to believe there isn’t.”
Well, nobody could say she didn’t have a fighting spirit.
“Okay, then let’s press pause.” Ben offered me his drink, but I shook my head, and he downed the rest of it. “Let’s process what happened today, and we’ll... come back stronger?”
“That’s more like it,” Kira said.
We finished up our drinks and wandered out to the car park together. Ben walked me to my car, and I leaned up against the driver’s door as we sank into each other for a hug.
“See you at the beach tonight?” Ben murmured into my ear.
“I’ll be the one with your surfboard.”
Ben chuckled and kissed me. “Can’t wait.”
I waved Ben and Adrian off in their car and gave Kira and Allison big hugs each before they retreated into the forest. On the drive home, the radio played gently in the silence between Bronwyn and me.
“Do you think Kira’s right?” Bronwyn asked as we drove up the driveway to the house. “Do you think there is a way?”
“I hope so,” I said.
When we got inside, Bronwyn excused herself to her room and for a moment I stood in the hallway at a loss. What should I do after failing to save the island? Curl up in bed and cry? Tempting, but I had an urge to spend a little time with Dad. I needed a little comfort and... if we couldn’t lift the phoenix’s curse, I didn’t want to lose a second.
I knocked on his office door and waited, but he didn’t answer. Had he finally torn himself away from busy work to touch some grass? But Sammie’s whines from within had me opening the door, anyway.
Dad’s head rested on his arm on the desk as if he was sleeping. Sammie sat at his side, pawing at his knee, but he didn’t budge.
“Dad?” I walked around the desk to him and shook his shoulder. “Dad, wake up.”
“Hmmm?” Dad groaned and struggled to sit up.
“Dad, what’s wrong with you?” I grabbed his shoulders and eased him upright.
But as he leaned against the back of his chair, his collar slipped down his neck to reveal the telltale bulge of navy-blue veins running up his throat. My heart plummeted into my stomach. Dad had the sickness.