Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I swipe the sweat off my brow and reach behind my head to gather my hair into a knot. I’ve become accustomed to Dawnlin’s heat since being here, but today the suns feel hotter than usual. I reach into my shirt and pull out the map I have been adding to over the past few weeks.
I’m proud of the progress. All the landscapes are filled in, and I marked places I had faced any challenges, like those monsters under the bridge. Despite keeping my distance from them and not having any life-threatening experiences since then, the nightmares hadn’t subsided. Night after night, I wake gasping into the stifling night air, and it still takes orienting myself before I remember that I’m not in danger.
At least not at that moment.
I shield my eyes as I stare up into the clear sky, then back down at the base of the mountain in front of me. I’ve worked my way through the jungle, to the mountain, the large pillar that stands between the opposing sides of the island. It is so large, I don’t even know where to start. I can hear the roar of a waterfall coming from the other side, but I’m not ready to go near it, especially alone. Staying on the back side is a fine place to start.
I glance down at the map once more before folding it up and shoving it back into my shirt. I have no idea how to scale a mountain, let alone any equipment to do so, but there is no way this entire area has gone unexplored. There has to be a path or hike of some kind that Voyagers have tried before.
I squint against the light and look up toward the peak. Something in my gut tells me that the mountain is essential. I can’t figure out why, I just know in the depths of myself that I need to set my sights on it. I’d spent the last few weeks traipsing through the surrounding areas, fighting my way through all the traps that are thrown at me, all to find nothing, and trying to fight the disappointment and stay focused. But something about the mountain just reminds me of a fortress, like the castle back home. Large, grey looming stone, protecting what lies inside.
Protecting or hiding? Or both?
I walk along the base of the mountain, scanning the rising rock, looking for any sign of a path.
“Hey Lennox!”
I turn toward the voice I’ve become familiar with, a lightness filling my chest.
“Fin! How’s it going, bud?”
He emerges from the trees and skips to me, wrapping my legs in a hug and squeezing tight. The bow he carries is too big for him, and drags along the floor as he walks, but ever since I taught him how to shoot, he has been carrying it everywhere.
“This thing bothering you?” I say, lifting it out of his hands.
“I trip on it sometimes, but I like it. I’m getting better! I’ve been practicing just like you showed me.”
“I’m glad,” I say and ruffle his hair. I kneel to his level. “Let me show you how to make it easier to carry.” I drape the bow over his shoulder, the string taut across his body from his shoulder to the opposite hip. “This way, you can grab it if you need to, but it keeps your hands free.”
“Thanks Lennox. Can we practice more later?”
“Of course. After dinner, sound good?”
He nods with a wide, toothy smile.
“Where are you headed off to today?” I ask.
“I dunno,” he shrugs. “Where are you going?”
“Well, I was going to check out the mountain a little bit. See if there’s anything up there.”
“There’s only one way on this side. I saw it before. Come on! Let me show you!” He reaches up and clasps my hand, dragging me toward the base.
“Right here!” He squeezes his body between two large chunks of rock and disappears.
“Fin?” I call, panic rising in my voice. The space is too small for me to squeeze through, and I can’t see past it. It’s as if he’s vanished.
“C’mon Lennox!” I hear his small voice from behind the rocks.
I eye the small space warily. There’s no way I will fit through, and I’m shocked he did. The surfaces are too slick to climb over, and there doesn’t seem to be a way around.
“Just walk through!” he calls out.
I decide to trust him and step up toward the boulders. I turn my body sideways to squeeze through, hoping that the jagged rock won’t tear my clothes or scrape my skin. I slide against the surface, and it is as if there aren’t any boulders there at all. My body glides right through a hidden portal to the other side, just like at camp. I pop out on the other side to meet Fin smiling up at me.
“Let’s go!” He yells, grabbing my hand again and pulling me forward up a steep rocky slope. We clamber over rocks and hug the side of the mountain to stay away from the edge.
“How did you find this before, Fin?” I peek over the edge and try not to get dizzy from how high we have climbed .
“It was on accident!” The excitement in his voice makes me crack a smile. “I wanted to climb on those big rocks, and I just went right through! Do you think it’s important, Lennox?”
“It could be. We’ll have to keep looking and see.”
“Let’s go, let’s go!” He sprints across the rocks in front of us, hopping over some sharp points that stick out across the trail. The higher we go, the hotter it gets. Without the shade of the mountain, and the coolness of the soil and trees below, my body is dripping, and it is definitely slowing me down. My eyes sting from the sweat falling into them, and burn from squinting into the light.
I step over the sharp rocks Fin has just passed and come to a halt, pulling my water skein off my belt and taking a swing. Fin is just ahead, looking between two different paths. I hand him the water and he takes a quick drink.
“I went that way last time,” he says, pointing to the right at a steep path that wraps up rather than around.
“You did that by yourself?”
“Yeah! It was fun. It didn’t go anywhere, though. Just a dead end. So I came back down. We should try this one.” He points to the other path.
“Let’s do it. I’ll lead. We don’t know what we will run into.”
“I’m not a baby Lennox,” he pouts, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Oh, I know you aren’t. You climbed that thing all by yourself. But I can still try to protect you. Would your big sister let you go first?”
“No…” he mumbles, a dejected look crossing his face.
“Alright then. Let’s get going. We still have to get back down and back to camp before it gets dark.”
Luckily, this path is more flat than the one Fin had already tried, but the height is making me nervous. I’m beginning to feel like we made a mistake as I take in the path and how much less trodden it is than the others. Thoughts of what the island could do to us flash before my eyes, many of which end with us dead at the base of the mountain. I glance back at Fin, but as always, he seems fearless .
That could change at any time.
I decide to keep him distracted from the potential danger ahead. “So tell me, how has your search been going? Where have you been looking?”
“Fine. I haven’t found anything special. I can’t make it too far, but it has been fun. It’s almost like a game my father plays with us back at home, so I don’t get too sad about not finding it. It’s like I’m home again.”
“Do you miss everyone back home?”
“Yes,” he whispers.
My voice softens. “You know Fin, it would be alright if you went back home with your family. I know you came here by accident. I know Dane would help you if you really wanted to go back.”
He doesn’t respond, so I stop and turn back to him. His face has fallen, the excitement and pride previously there from finding and scaling this mountain by himself, gone.
I kneel in front of him and watch a single tear fall on his cheek.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I say, reaching up to stroke my hands up and down his upper arms. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I just want to help her,” he pushes out, hands swiping at his face. I wrap my arms around him and he curls his body into me. He rests his head on my shoulder and his tears soak my shirt. I squeeze him tighter before quickly releasing him and holding him at arm’s length.
“That is what we are going to do, alright Fin? We’re going to find the cure. For you, for me, and for all the other Voyagers.” I stand up and extended my hand to him. “Are you with me?”
He sniffles and nods, reaching out to clasp my hand tightly.
“Now, let’s see where this goes. It could be important.”
We keep hugging the side of the mountain and make our way up. I run my fingers along the side, searching for any false rocks or seams, anything that might lead to an opening. Fin trails me, but still grips my hand tightly, his sniffles getting less frequent as we trudge on.
Just ahead, the path catches my eye, and stops me dead in my tracks .
“Can you see that?” I ask him, crouching down and pointing up ahead. “Does it look like the path is missing to you?”
Fin steps beside me and squints his eyes. “I think so. Maybe we should go back.”
“No, you just stay here. I’ll go look and see if there is a way we can get across.”
I slowly approach the gap, assessing whether or not it is safe to get too close. The ground disappears a few steps ahead, a chunk of the mountainside missing. I look across and notice that the path doesn’t continue on the other side, whatever was here before, lost to the rest of us.
I take one step closer, my boot crunching in the gravel as a huge explosion thunders in my ears. I am thrown backward, my body slamming into the sharp rock behind me. Dust and rock rain down over me and I frantically try to cover my face.
Then I am slipping, the explosion causing the ground under me to crumble and slide down the side of the mountain.
My body follows, sharp rock scraping and cutting me as I fall. I dig my fingers into the rock, grasping for purchase. I can barely see through the debris as I feel myself falling down the side of the mountain.
The ringing in my ears blocks out everything except my thoughts.
Fin. Where is Fin?
“Fin!” I scream, at least I think I do. I can’t hear myself, only a loud, high-pitched noise as I still try to grab onto anything around me.
This is it. This is how I am going to die. Falling from the side of the mountain, trying to save my mother, to save Fin’s sister, Mara’s family. Hopefully Fin cannot see me, so he doesn’t have to watch another sister die.
My grip on the rock is weakening, my muscles straining to keep hold. But there is nowhere else to hold. Nothing around me to grab.
I hope my father will find an heir he is proud of.
Something hits my hands and I look up, squinting through the dust and dirt .
A dull sound surrounds me, but I still can’t make anything out.
It hits my hands again, and I focus on it.
It is the end of a bow. Fin’s bow.
I raise my gaze higher and see something take shape. Fin is above me, kneeling over the edge with the bow, and yelling at me. I eye the bow that is still resting on my hands.
I can’t pull on it like I’m sure he’s telling me to. He is too little, too light, and I would surely pull him over the side with me.
My voice sounds distant in my ears as I yell up to him.
“Hook the bow around a rock so I can pull on it!” The dust is settling now, and I see him nod in acknowledgement. He pulls it up and hooks the edge on a large rock jutting out of the top of the path.
I hope it holds.
His actions put it just out of reach. I kick my feet along the side of the mountain, trying to snag on something I can stand on, but the rock face below me is too smooth. My fingers start slipping, and the panic in me rises. If I do nothing, I will fall.
I will die.
I have to get to that bow.
I flatten my boots onto the face of the rock so I can pull up and scale the side of the mountain. My arms strain, pain flaring through them as I pull. A scream slips through my lips as I pull my body up with all my might, and hold myself suspended in the air. I let go quickly with one hand and reach up to snatch the end of the bow, hooking my hand between the wood and the string.
I suck air through my teeth as pain sears through my hand. I clamp down as hard as I can before reaching up and grabbing the bow with the other. It shifts on the rock as it supports all of my body weight, and I worry it might not hold.
I need to get up over that ledge before it gives way. I tighten my grip and walk my hands up the wooden shaft of the bow, my feet flat against the side of the mountain step by step .
Almost there. The edge is within reach.
Snap.
The bow splits from the string and falls, crashing down into the chasm below, but not before I pull myself up, throwing my body over the edge. My elbows and chest catch just enough so I can swing my leg up, my heel snagging on the sharp rock edge. I roll over twice, landing on my back, but far enough away from the edge not to worry.
I gasp for breath, hand clutching my chest as I suck in air. The ringing is slowly improving the longer I lay here.
Fin’s knees hit the side of my chest as he drops next to me.
“Lennox! Are you okay?”
“I think so,” I breathe. Now that my life isn’t in imminent danger, the pain I ignored before explodes all over me. My hand is throbbing where I sliced it on the bowstring, and every inch of me feels like I’ve been beaten. I will be lucky if I didn’t break anything. “I don’t think it’s safe to go that way.” I tilt my head toward the gaping hole next to us.
“No. We should go back to camp. You’re hurt.”
“I know,” I breathe, chest still heaving. “We should. I just need a minute.” I lay there for another few moments before slowly sitting up. My hand is bleeding badly, and it feels like there might be more running down my face. I rip off a strip of fabric from the bottom of my shirt and hand it to Fin.
“Can you wrap this for me?”
“I, I don’t know what to do,” he stammers.
“It’s alright, I’ll walk you through it.” I tell him what to do until he has it tied tightly around the slice in my skin. The fabric quickly soaks through with blood, and I wince as I clench my fist.
We hobble back down the path, taking extra precautions now that we know the mountain might explode. It is still early in the day. The suns have barely started their afternoon descent, but there is no way I can do any more searching today. I can barely move. I need to rest before heading back out tomorrow .
The idea is frustrating. I am going to lose half of a day of searching. Every day that goes on without success makes me more and more eager to find this cure, and watching Fin get upset today didn’t help.
Families out there truly are suffering, and no one has found the cure for so many years. How long would the island continue to let people suffer? Why did it seem like it was giving everyone false hope?
As we trudge back to camp, I look down at Fin and feel a pang in my chest. I don’t want to give up, just like he doesn’t. At what point is it giving up versus being logical? At what point should I leave and return to my kingdom? At what point will Fin be satisfied with his efforts and decide to leave and see his sister before she dies?
This hope that the island gives every one of us is a beautiful gift, but also a curse. How do you move on from the hope that you had when reality isn’t supporting it anymore? Tears prickle my eyes at the thought.
“Are you alright Lennox? Do we need to stop?” Fin’s small and hopeful voice breaks through my thoughts.
“I’m alright. Just thinking.”
He gives my hand a reassuring squeeze and keeps walking beside me.
“That was scary today. I thought I was going to lose you too,” he mutters quietly.
I can’t stop the tears now, at his words, at the events of the day. I sniffle, but pull my face together, trying to show him confidence that I am not exactly feeling.
“You didn’t lose me. Not yet. It’s going to take a little more than Dawnlin coming after us for me to go away.” Another pang hits me. I will be gone once we are in the real world, back in my kingdom and he in his. No updates, no knowledge of his family’s fate. He would just disappear from my life as if he was never there.
But he is here. This tiny person for whom I have grown so fond in so little time. “Promise me you won’t go back to that mountain, especially not alone.”
He nods. “I promise, Lennox. ”
“Good.”
“My bow broke,” he says suddenly, hanging his head a little lower.
I chuckle. With all the danger that happened today, if a broken bow worries him the most, I’ll take it.
“Don’t worry,” I say, reaching up and lifting mine off of my torso to hand to him. “You can take mine.”