Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“ W here to now?” I ask Mara as I take in our new landscape.
“Through here,” she says, pointing to a pathway that cuts through the rock.
“Are you going to tell me what we’re looking for now?” I ask.
She scans the rock walls as we move. “Dane already explained to you we are looking for the cure, right?”
“Yes, he told me that no one knows where it is or how to get it.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
“No. He was in the middle of showing me around the island to get acquainted when he was called away for Fin.”
“Right. It’s important to get to know the island like the back of your hand. That’s why we go out searching every day.”
“Maybe I’m not understanding something correctly. I’m assuming you’ve been here…a while…and you go out and search the island every day. You and all the other boys know every square inch of it. So, why is it you haven’t found the elixir yet? ”
She stops in the middle of the path, turning to face me.
“It’s because the island changes. The land stays the same, but parts of the land, they’re different. It’s like a giant obstacle course with traps along the way, and every day you don’t know what different place you’ll find. Any of them could lead us to the right place, to the hiding place. We have to keep trying every day.”
“How do you find them?” I ask, as I take in our surroundings. The rocks, the trees, the packed dirt from being trodden repeatedly every day for years. Nothing looks like it is fake or constructed. It all looks so real, so solid. But maybe that is all magic. It is all an illusion until you fall into the right place. “Everything looks so normal to me.”
She turns and continues down the path, climbing up over a boulder that is blocking the way and hopping down to the other side.
“Me personally, I think Dawnlin is alive. I think it is watching us all. I feel like it chooses to show you things when it wants you to find them. Dane doesn’t agree with me. He says if that was the case, then why have none of us found the hiding place yet?”
“He’s got a point, though. Wouldn’t the island want to help you find it?”
“Maybe it’s protecting it. It was hard to get here, right? Maybe it is making us earn it.”
I agree with Mara. So far, everything I have seen and learned about this place has been earned. The myth says nothing about how to find it or how to find the elixir. You have to figure that out on your own in order to get here. It almost feels as if the accomplishment is acknowledged by the magic that lives here. Maybe that magic is actually protecting the island and the cure, and making sure the person who finds it is deserving.
Like keeping it away from Weston.
But how does it know?
“What kinds of things do we look out for?”
“Some are obvious. An enormous hole in the ground, a trip vine. Some are less obvious, and you just stumble upon them. But whenever you think you want to look somewhere you discovered again, it might not be there. It will be something else or just gone.”
“So that’s why you can never stop looking. There’s always somewhere new to look.”
“More or less. Sometimes, they can be pretty dangerous. Sometimes, it’s just a dead end. You always have to stay on your toes.”
I eye the pathway with the boulders and sharp rocks differently now, realizing that at any moment, anything could change. “So, between the island basically trapping you every day, and keeping an eye out for the Castaways, how does anyone survive here?” I say.
She smirks. “That’s what makes it fun. It’s also what makes it seem like you haven’t been doing the same thing every day for years and years.” She glances down at her feet and kicks a rock off the path.
“If you don’t mind me asking Mara, how long have you been here?”
“We don’t really keep track. It’s?—”
Mara is cut off by a scream as the ground drops out from under us. Before I know what is happening, we are tumbling, head over foot, down a steep slope that is completely shrouded in darkness. My body slams into the hard ground as rubble and sharp rocks stab into me while we tumble. I clench my eyes, trying to block out the dirt and gravel kicking up into my face.
Mara cries out as my body slams into hers, coming to a halt against a wall.
“Fuck!” Mara groans as she rolls onto her back, untangling herself from me.
My entire body aches from the beating it just took. I open my eyes and try to look around, but wherever we fell is pitch black, and I can’t see my hand in front of my face.
“You alright?” Mara says.
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” I stand and reach my hands out, trying to feel anything around me. My fingertips find soft fabric and I grab onto Mara’s arm. “But what do we do now? ”
“We need to find a way out.” She takes my hand and places it flat against the wall we crashed into. “Grab on to me with the other. We need to feel along the wall to see where this goes.”
We make it a few steps forward, sliding our fingertips along the wall to guide us when a torch lights suddenly in front of Mara’s face. The flames illuminate the tunnel in front of us, but only as far as a few steps. Packed dirt and hanging roots make up the roof, and a damp musty smell meets my nose.
“So we just blindly follow it?” I ask, squinting into the darkness to make out if there are any threats just past the ring of light.
Metal sings through the space as Mara draws her sword. She grabs the torch and extends it in front of her. “We just blindly follow it.”
I unsheathe my dagger and hold it at my side. I’m regretting dropping my bow into the river right about now, thinking how much better it would be to have the ability to strike any opponent from a distance.
This will have to do.
We follow the tunnel in silence, but on high alert. I have no idea what direction it is leading, and there’s no way to get my bearings.
“How far do you think this goes?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know,” Mara says. “I haven’t been in one of these in a while.”
“So this isn’t the first time this has happened?”
“First time I was dropped into the ground? No, but the first time it happened in that spot.”
She said it so nonchalantly, yet my mind is still reeling from falling into the ground and how this tunnel which would have taken months to dig out back in Blackwood is just here today, and possibly gone tomorrow.
“Do you ever think you’ve gotten close?” I say after a few moments more.
“To the cure?”
“Yes.”
Mara sighs. “Maybe? There’s not really any way of knowing. There have been times where I thought I must have gotten there, only to be met with a dead end. It can be hard, especially after such a long time. It’s easy to get discouraged and wonder what it is about you that can’t figure it out, or isn’t enough.”
“What makes you keep going?” I ask. “Especially after all this time.”
Mara stops and turns slightly to face me, the light from the torch illuminating the soft look on her face.
“Hope.” She turns back and keeps walking.
That one word fills me with warmth. It isn’t just me that feels it, that needs it to be here. Hope is driving all of us and keeping us going. Despite all of our previous lives, our backgrounds, our relationships, we all have something that binds us together and gives us a purpose.
I hurry to catch up. Just as I am about to reach Mara, my foot depresses into the ground and I freeze.
“Uh, Mara?” My voice wavers as I try to figure out what that step just did. She turns back to me and looks down at my foot, sunken into the ground. Her eyes widen and she quickly scans the tunnel around us, looking for whatever is coming.
A deep boom sounds, and the tunnel around us shudders. We stare at each other, unable to move. I watch as Mara’s face changes from wary to terrified.
“Run!” she screams and bolts into the darkness.
I don’t wait. I tear after her, trusting that whatever she saw was worth running from. Legs pumping and chest heaving, I sprint after her, and that’s when I realize what is happening.
The rock wall to our right is moving.
The tunnel is closing in on us.
Terror clutches at my throat as I stare straight ahead, refusing to look at the wall creeping in. All I can focus on is the ground under my feet and begging for an exit ahead.
“I see something!” Mara screams. “Go, go, go! We can make it!”
The wall is inches away from my shoulder and I can feel the panic bubbling up. If Mara is wrong, we are moments away from being crushed.
I push harder, my toes almost touching Mara’s heels as we sprint toward whatever she sees. Seconds later I see it too, an arch of rock that looks like a portal. I pump my legs, the rock now scraping my arms as they swipe by with each step.
“Argh!” I let out a cry and push Mara forward, just as we reach the archway. She tumbles into the portal, and I follow behind, losing my balance from the force of pushing her. We hit the portal and fall straight down, landing in a heap in a pile of leafy plants.
“Sweet mother,” Mara pants. “That was so fucking close, Lennox.”
I gasp in breaths, and take in the scrapes up my arm and the blood dripping down my skin.
“Yeah,” I gasp. “What a great first day.”
Mara giggles, and I can’t help but laugh too. I don’t know which death would have been worse, eaten by the river beasts, or crushed underground. Either way, I thank the island for scaring the shit out of me, but also for letting us survive.
Maybe Mara was right. Maybe Dawnlin is watching us.
Maybe it is fighting us, but what if it is also helping us?
I look around to see where it spit us out and realize that despite this being my first real day, I recognize where we are.
“Are you kidding me?” I push to stand and take in the lush plants and wall covered with vines just next to us. “We went through all that, just to end up literally back at camp?”
Mara stands and slides her sword back into its sheath and holds the torch away from the foliage. She chuckles and says, “Welcome to Dawnlin.”