“So I can’t walk down the beach, but I’m strong enough for a woods hike?” Charley asked. Her face was pale, a fact I didn’t miss—or like.
“It’s close. Two minutes, tops, but I could use a snack.” I paused, giving her a chance to take a break. “What about you?”
“Sounds great,” she said, sitting on a black rock. “I’m thinking a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, and a Snickers. And a Sprite.” As she talked, her hand crept to her head.
“How ’bout a pineapple?” I pulled the fruit from my satchel. “It’s almost a Snickers. Minus the chocolate, the caramel, nuts, andnougat.” With my knife, I sliced the pineapple in two and cored each half. After cutting a half-moon slice, I speared the yellow fruit on my knife and offered it to Charley.
“Wow,” she said, plucking the fruit off my blade. “Where’d you get the handy tool? I gutted a poor pineapple with lava rock. It didn’t go so well.”
“The Shack. There’s a stash of knives in there. Most are wood. They’re stronger than you think, and there’s a few rough metal ones, too, like this one. Someone before us made them. Our job is to sharpen them and not lose them.”Thanks again, Bart. Leave it to the biggest tool to take one on Search and come back without it. I made a mental note to talk to Bart again later, along with Sy. Then I focused on Charley.
The two of us ate quietly, tossing rinds into the woods and licking juice off our fingers.
“Best Snickers I’ve ever had.” Charley smiled. “Thanks.”
I laughed. “Just wait. It gets better.”
We walked in easy silence. Blue sky shone ahead, and when we broke through the trees, an open meadow burst with color: purples, blues, pinks, reds, yellows, and lots of white. Riding the breeze, the colors shifted in gentle waves.
“This is the Flower Field,” I said. “I don’t know what kinds of flowers they are, but—”
“It’s gorgeous,” Charley said simply.
For a minute, we just stood there. As they always did, my eyes drifted to the brightest patch of white. Not in the field, but high to the right, on the mountain peak. White covered the summit, like confectionary sugar, full of icy goodness. My mouth watered; I could almost taste the snow. I closed my eyes and let myself go, feeling a sick powder rush. This was my favorite spot on the island, and my most hated.
Then the wind whispered, making me open my eyes and look at Charley.
Her eyes were on the field. The wind played with her hair, pushing it around, making the ends tickle her shoulders. Her head was tilted to one side, and her expression was strange.
“What is it?” I asked.
She looked at me and smiled. “Nothing. Thanks for showing me this.” But when she looked back at the field, the weird expression returned. It bothered me that I couldn’t read it.
“Charley, what’s wrong?”
Charley laughed, a subtle sound that saideverything. “It’s funny,” she said, still watching the Field. “Everything’s so beautiful here. Too beautiful. Like it’s not real. And it really isn’t.”
“Oh, it’s real,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen such beauty. The black sand beach, the Crystal Cove. The Flower Field. Even the red lava field was beautiful in its own freaky way. But it’s not really real. Because in three hundred fifty-two days, it will all disappear, right?” Charley turned to me, and her golden eyes were haunted.
The façade was gone. For Charley, Nil’s mask had finally cracked, this time for good.
***
That afternoon, I pulled Rives aside and told him about the skull Charley had found.
“Take Miguel, Heesham, and Nat and anyone else you want. Go to Black Bay, try to find it. If you do, try to make an ID. Look for a necklace, a bracelet. Anything.” I handed him a bag of bleached coral. “Then bury it.”
Rives nodded. “Will do, bro.”
As Rives walked away, I thought about the skull.Can we leave?Charley had asked, her golden eyes troubled.Everyone leaves,eventually, I’d said. And it was true. Now, whether you made it out alive or dead, that was a different question, and the answer was up to Nil.
Nil crazy, Li had said.
She was so right. And right now, she was exactly the person I needed to see.
CHAPTER
