Chapter Thirty-One
Jules
In just an hour, Cillian worsens. All the reassuring things I was telling myself about him being fine in the morning go up in smoke: he’s sweating buckets, trembling, hot enough to cook his brain, and is completely incoherent.
Outside the hut in the evening light, everyone is gathered.
Darren is among the group, and I don’t even care why or how.
Right now, Darren knowing where I’m sleeping doesn’t matter.
My hand slides to the belt beneath my shirt.
The reassuring shape of Cillian’s survival knife. It can’t help anyone now.
“Can you remember what type of snake it was?” Seán asks. He’s at Cillian’s side, the med kit gutted on the bed. I know what’s in the kit. So does Seán. Knowing what type of snake it was doesn’t matter because even if there’s an antivenom, we don’t have it.
Mathieu replaces the cloth on Cillian’s forehead with a fresh one. He smooths back his sweat-sticky hair so tenderly I have to tear my eyes away from them.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It was dark. Cillian said it was one of the grey racers, but it looked green to me.”
A weak cough splutters out of Cillian. Mathieu rests his hand on his shoulder to stop him thrashing. I stare. A few hours ago, Cillian was the strongest man on the island. A beacon of safety. Punctured by a snakebite.
“He needs a hospital,” I say.
There’s a flash of genuine fear in Seán’s eyes. He looks at the med kit again, as if something new might magically have appeared. What if he dies? After only being here because I asked Seán to bring his “hot” cousin along? After I broke that fucking phone?
I tear my eyes away from Cillian and leave the hut. Everyone turns to me for an update.
“He needs a rescue. Right now,” I say. “Ideas?”
I’m desperate. If there were ideas, we’d have done them already. We—
The bonfire. The bonfire on the top of the mountain. I look toward the top of the hill. It won’t be long before the light fades from the sky. Realistically, getting out there and building a fire will take a few hours, so it would need to wait until morning.
My gut is telling me we don’t have that long.
“I said something like this would happen.” Darren’s voice cuts through my panic.
“Fuck yourself, Darren,” Mary says. “Just because we’re letting you stand there doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten what you did. Either be quiet or get lost.”
Darren shoots her a glare, and Charles leaps to his feet, getting between them. “Don’t look at my girlfriend like that. We can still see the bruises you left on Jules, you piece of shit, so shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.”
Mathieu exits the hut. I turn to him and see my fear mirrored in his eyes.
“I’m getting more water,” Mathieu says. “Can you help?”
I go with him to the shore. On the walk, he catches my hand and squeezes. I realise I’m trembling. I take in several shaky breaths and force my mind from the panic.
“We need rescue,” I say. Mathieu wades into the ocean, scooping up water. I turn and face the island. The topmost point. I stare and stare. “Right now.”
“You have an idea?” Mathieu asks. He comes to my side, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Whatever it is, we need to try it.”
“It’s a Hail Mary. If it goes wrong, the rest of us are screwed.”
Mathieu studies me. There’s no doubt in his eyes when he nods. “What do you need me to do?”
His backup is all I need. “Everyone needs to be upwind, even Cillian. You’ll have an hour to get him safely moved to the beach, as close to the water as you can get.”
“I’ll do it. Go.”
I take off down the beach. I don’t bother stopping by the hut to ask for permission because I’m doing this anyway.
Nobody is stopping me, risk or not. I tear into camp and grab the surviving jerrycan.
Petrol sloshes in the container as I race down the jungle path, following the straight shot to the watering hole.
The death of my parents is a distant thing to me.
They’re gone, and it’s sad, but I don’t remember them as individuals as much as in the abstract.
The feeling gripping me now is pure terror.
A monster, looming loss waiting to fell me.
This isn’t a vague I’ll never have a safety net.
It’s a terrifying Cillian won’t exist. The man who stood on deck in that storm, risking his life to save me.
The man who’s been caring and kind and gentle, in spite of everything. He’ll be gone. That’ll be it.
There’s barely any light when I reach the pool. I shoot past it, tackling the hill, throwing myself through thick growth. I get pierced, snagged, bitten, and a million other things. I taste blood in my lungs with every inhale.
I reach what I think is the top. I can’t fully tell. The canopy is too thick for light to pierce.
I uncap the petrol and pour, drenching branches and bushes in the firestarter. Cillian’s warning about using petrol for a fire echoes in my ears. Please don’t ever do that, it’s worse than bad. I toss the empty can aside, breathing in the fumes.
I’m breaking my promise to Cillian and Mathieu not to be reckless, but surely they’ll forgive me given the circumstances.
I look at the shadowy forest floor. I pat my empty pockets.
“You idiot. You idiot!”
I didn’t bring the matches. They were right there next to the jerrycan!
The petrol-wet earth is ready to go up, but there’s nothing to ignite it.
I’m only just catching my breath. The thought of running back fills me with panic and despair.
I don’t have time to go back for matches. My mind is a blur of noise.
My survival instincts kick in. Not the ones that I learned on the island, but the ones that got me through years in youth care. I stop. I think. What do I need?
Fire. Ignition. A spark.
What do I have?
The clothes on my back.
Cillian’s knife.
I rip it from its sheath. I remember Cillian’s lesson: you don’t need flint, just a rock that’s harder than steel and has a rough edge. Any hard rock can do it. Jasper, agate, chert. I scan the ground, but all I see are shadows. I drop to my knees and dig my hand into the soil, seeking stones.
My vine necklace slides forward. My heart slips out of my shirt, dangling in the air beneath my chin.
Quartz works too.
I snatch the rock from my neck. Mathieu’s sweet gift. It’s too dark to see, so I feel for the rough edge. I bring it to the ground, setting it right on the edge of the petrol, and brace the knife spine against it at the angle Cillian showed me.
It sparks on the first try, and the entire puddle goes up. I’m downhill of the petrol, and didn’t take into account gravity. The forest floor beneath my knees catches fire, and I suck in hot, burning air before throwing myself backwards, tumbling head over heels down the steep slope behind me.
◆◆◆
I strike the water with force. By some miracle, I must have fallen into the deeper gap in the centre of the pool because the only thing I feel break is my arm. My elbow strikes hard rock, and everything below it goes numb. My left hand might have fallen off for all I know.
I flail in the water.
It’s dark. I can’t see which way is up. The panic of breathlessness rises in my head, and visions that I thought were gone resurface: towering waves turning me over, rolling me on churning tongues, and spitting me out on the sandy shore as if they didn’t like the taste.
Suddenly I’m yanked sideways and dragged out of the pool.
“I’ve got you,” Mathieu says.
I fall to my knees, and he holds me as I crumple forward over my arm. I can’t feel anything below my elbow, but it’s agony everywhere above it. My knees sting, and my hand does too. I’m burnt. I don’t know how badly. I can smell singed hair and what I’m afraid is melted skin.
Cillian’s knife falls from my right hand onto the ground. Mathieu’s gift is tangled around my left fingers, the vines snagged on my thumb.
“That’s going up well.” Mathieu’s voice draws me back into the present.
Teary-eyed, I tip back my head. The branches are already blazing, throwing up light and smoke.
“We need to go.” Mathieu stands and gingerly helps me up, avoiding my left arm, sticking to the right side of my body.
“Knife,” I say. “Cillian’s.”
Mathieu braces my hip when he bends and retrieves it, sliding the blade back into the sheath. “There we go.”
He wraps his arm around my waist and guides my right hand to his shoulder. My left arm hangs uselessly. I lean on Mathieu as we limp down the path. Thick, black smoke follows us.
“What are you doing here?”
“You told me to get everyone upwind.”
It takes me a long time to understand what he means. When I do, I let out a weak laugh that hurts my chest. “You just saved my life.”
“I had taken one step up the hill path when you came tumbling right off the edge of the cliff. Like a falling angel. Though in this instance, not a particularly graceful one.”
I laugh again and groan. “Please, I can’t. Don’t be funny.”
“I’ll do my best.”
The jungle path gradually lightens. We pause for breath. Through the branches above, the sky is glowing orange. “It’s spreading fast,” I say.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it? Are you able to walk faster? It’s getting hazy in here.”
I tore through the path on the way in, but I can barely amble now. When we reach the halfway point, there’s smoke all around us. Mathieu stops.
“Find some energy for me, just for a second, okay?” Mathieu asks. He turns his back on me and crouches. “Climb on.”
I clumsily do as asked. Mathieu fastens his hands beneath my thighs and stands up, keeping his torso forward so I can lie against him rather than needing to hold on.
“There we go.” Mathieu starts forward, going far faster than I was managing. By the time we break through, we’re both coughing through the smoke. I can barely see because my eyes are burning so badly.
“Upwind is this way,” Mathieu coughs out. He guides us in the direction of our hut, leading us past everyone’s abandoned camps. Everything is illuminated in the orange glow of the fire.
Mathieu’s breathing heavily, his arms shaking, when I spot everyone. They’re pacing on the edge of the surf, heads on swivels. There are two people on the ground. Cillian is lying out on the mattress, and Mary is sitting next to him.
I can still smell smoke, but the air isn’t hazy here. The breeze is blowing the right way to push it to the other side of the island.
Seán rushes to us. “Over there. Mary, can you move? Mathieu, lay him down in her spot. Don’t touch that arm.”
Mathieu guides me down, Charles and Yasop helping, and I don’t know if I follow orders or collapse.
Either way, I end up on the edge of Cillian’s bedding.
From this angle, I can see the island. The fire is blazing so large that it’s probably visible from space.
Someone will see it. Someone has to see it.
Mathieu sits next to me and rests his hand in my hair. He tells me it’ll be over quick when Seán does something that makes my knees feel like they’re on fire, and I feel Mathieu’s tears wet my forehead when I cry about my arm.
“Don’t touch it, don’t touch it.”
Mathieu stoops, pressing a sorry kiss to my forehead. “Your fingers are swelling up. We have to get the necklace off so it doesn’t cut off circulation.”
“Don’t throw it away,” I say blearily. “That’s mine.”
“I won’t,” Mathieu promises. “See? It’s going around my neck right now. I’ll keep it safe.”
“I see lights—there’s a boat!” Mary cries out.
There’s a ruckus as everyone flies to their feet. Mathieu stays with me. Punctuating cries of jubilation is Cillian’s ragged breathing. My pained groans.
Don’t be too late. Please.