“I can’t die. I’m already dead. Maybe I’ve been sent back.” Her head hurt, she couldn’t open her eyes, and every part of her body hurt. Whatever was in her stomach burned a trail all the way to her throat. She gagged, spat, and heaved until there was nothing left but the dry, nasty taste in her mouth. She wanted a drink of water. Everything hurt. She lay wet, sobbing, and miserable on a mound of gray sand.
“Ark, ark, ark, ark, ark.” The sound of something barking echoed in her head. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t Midas.
“Who’s there?” She tried to yell, but she was too weak. She dug her fingers into gritty mounds of sand. Water tickled her feet as it moved in and washed back with the tide. She tried to sit up by bracing herself with an elbow.
“Where am I? How long have I been here?” The Gold Sun was sliding into the sea. “I’m talking to myself,” she said then drifted back into darkness.
The beach curved in a ragged half circle, ending on one side with a stand of tall, sand-colored cliffs, and, on the other side, a dark and seemingly endless sea. Black boulders surrounded the entrance to the beach, sending jets of water into the sky as waves broke over them. Behind her stood a jungle of thick, thorny bushes and vines. Tall limbless trees, their tops erupting into a fan of slender blades, reached toward a cloudless blue sky. Clumps of knife-sharp plants acted as a fence around the narrow strip of a gray-sand beach.
She was alone on a beach.
“Ark. Ark.” Something splashed in the water. There was a barking sound somewhere near. Goose bumps appeared on her arms.
“Ark. Ark.” The sound coming from the water was louder now and sounded like something big.
“Ark.” A huge blue-gray fish popped out of the water, sending a torrent of water over her feet. She jerked back and screamed. Her voice echoed across the water. Maybe there were other creatures in this desolate place.
The fish raised its head, staring at her with mismatched eyes: one blue, one purple. It barked again. She remembered seeing another pair of mismatched eyes. Asia had a blue and a purple eye. Asia was an angel. Could a fish be an angel, too?
She tried to stand, but her legs were too weak. Sitting up didn’t work, either. She was tired and her stomach hurt. She managed to scoot toward the edge of the water and reach out toward the fish. It barked a warning and disappeared under the water. Her hands were trembling. A sharp pain stabbed over her left eye. She pushed herself closer to the place where the fish appeared and fell headfirst through the sand into deep water.
“Ark.” The fish used its tail to push her backward toward safety. The fish was too large to swim in the shallow water closest to the beach.
She caught her breath and sat up. “That’s what you’re telling me. It’s deep water here.” The fish blinked its eyes again, reminding her of Koze.
“Did you bring me here?” she asked, thinking how silly it was to talk to a fish. How could it understand and help her?
“Ark. Ark.” It’s sleek blue-gray head bobbled up and down.
“Can you take me home? Oh no! I’m not dead again, am I?”
The fish bobbed in and out of the water, its eyes blinking like crazy.
“Guess not,” she sighed. “You saved my life, didn’t you?”
“Ark.” The head bobbed up and down again.
“Well, thank you.” She giggled at the ridiculousness of her situation. “It’s all fun and games, and I’m talking to a fish who seems to understand me. I don’t want to go back into that water again, and no way do I want to wade through that jungle behind me. The suns are going down, my head hurts, and I’m afraid.”
She watched the fish swim back and forth, eyeing her with its crazy mismatched eyes.
“I’m hungry, and I need water to drink, not that you can do anything to help. Fish probably have all kinds of critters and things to snack on down there. This place isn’t food friendly, is it?” She inched toward the edge of the jungle, hoping to see a path, people, food, anything.
The fish must have carried me here, or maybe I washed up on the shore.
“Ark. Ark.” The fish honked for attention.
“Yeah, yeah, I see you. I really need some food and water. I don’t feel like playing now.” The fish sank back into the deep water.
“Okay, I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me here all by myself. I’m scared. Do you know about being scared?” she called out over the water and waited for the fish to pop up again.
The dark, starless sky and the black sea merged, leaving only a full silver moon casting eerie shadows across the water. She needed a way to keep warm and something to eat and drink. The beach was getting smaller as the tide washed farther up the shore. She collapsed on the sand and fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming of a campfire, food, and clean, clear water.
“Ark. Ark.” The giant fish jumped halfway out of the water and splashed down, making waves with its tail.
“You came back.” She was so happy she wanted to hug him, but how would she go about hugging a fish? He carried a mouthful of sticks and leaves, spat them out, and blew them toward her.
“What’s this?” She examined one of the sticks, thinking the fish wanted to play a game.
“I can’t play fetch. I’m tired and hungry, too.” She thought about Midas and the way they played fetch. Poor Midas. She’d forgotten about him. The thought of losing him and her little friends at TLC brought tears to her eyes. She’d made new friends in this new life, and now they were gone. She was really alone.
The fish did the barking and honking thing and blew the branches across the water toward her.
“This branch smells like wish berries.” She grabbed the small limb and examined a few of the multicolored berries nestled in the leaves. “You brought me wish berries. I can’t believe it. Oh, thank you.” She fell flat against the sand, stuffed a pod of them in her mouth, and chewed. They burst open, filling her with energy and rehydrating her. She crawled across the sand, picking up every single berry. She wanted to stuff every one of them into her mouth at the same time. No, no, wait, she needed to ration them. No telling how long she’d be here. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if no one came to find her.
The fish worked with its nose and the wind from its mouth to send the stray floaters closer to her.
“You saved my life. Thank you. I wish I could understand you. I wish you could help me get home.” She didn’t want to be a crybaby, but couldn’t brush away the tears.
“I’m really glad you came back. Would you like to have a wish berry dinner with me?” She chattered on because she needed to talk to somebody. She couldn’t understand the fish barks or honks, but it seemed to understand her. She didn’t want to be alone tonight.
“You brought me here, didn’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
“Did you see what happened? I’m trying to remember. Zadie, she’s my roommate at White Feathers. I guess you don’t know where White Feathers is or you would have taken me there. Anyway, today was Field Day, and another raft crashed into ours, and Zadie fell off. Zadie can’t swim, but she didn’t want anybody to know. I tried to find her in the water, but it was hard to see down there. There was a lot of seaweed, big rocks, and slippery things swimming around. I’ll bet you can see fine in the water.” She talked constantly, not wanting to be left on the island by herself.
She told the fish about White Feathers Academy, Dr. Leaf and his creatures, TLC, Jet, Koze, and the beautiful angel, Asia.
“She has eyes the same color as yours, except she has this sparkly blue thing under one of them. It’s shaped kind of like a half-moon.
“I miss Koze, too. He’s not real, but he is in a way. He’s an android. Have you ever seen an android? Me, neither, until him. But that’s what he is.”
The fish popped in and out of the water as she talked. It seemed to understand every word she said, and its mismatched eyes followed her every move.
“You see we were in this raft race. It’s part of the Star Festival, which is probably a lot like our Christmas at home. I mean where I used to live, before I died.” She sucked in her breath, determined not to cry.
“Christmas at home celebrates the birth of the Christ child. The Star Festival does, too, only it’s different. Everybody here has the same birthday and it’s the same day as the end of Star Festival, or Birth Day. Where I came from, people give gifts to each other at Christmas, but at White Feathers, during Star Festival, we offer our talents to the angels. Are you an angel? You have funny eyes like Asia. Do you know Asia?”
The fish cocked its head, blinked, and popped under the water for another breath.
“Oh, yeah, I was telling you about the raft race, and Zadie falling into the water, and how I dived in after her. I think that Annie ran into us on purpose. You don’t know Annie, but she doesn’t like me or Zadie very much. I think Zadie is afraid of her. She yelled something mean at Zadie, something about her brother, Jet. So then our friends, Opal, Star, and Amber, they’re triplets, they fell into the water, too. They held onto pieces of our raft. When I pulled Zadie up, they grabbed her. I don’t remember much after that. I hope Zadie is all right. I hope they all got rescued. Zadie, she wasn’t moving when I found her. I couldn’t feel her breathing.” She couldn’t hold back the grief any longer. Great sobs shook her body, and she curled her knees to her stomach, covered her eyes with her hands, and cried herself to sleep. The fish sank into the depths of the sea, leaving her alone once again.
~ ~ ~
The Blue Team returned to the pier screaming about an overturned raft near the floating pier. They all tried to talk at the same time until their captain, a tall boy named Liam, yelled, “They’re still out there hanging onto pieces of the raft. We were closer to the pier than the others, so we came here to get help.”
The boy named Liam paused before adding, “An ABC will reach them faster than the rafts, and it will have rescue equipment. Hurry. You need to hurry, please. I’ll show you the way.”
Koze’s bright-star eyes blazed in silent communication to Jet. Together, Koze, Jet, and the tall boy named Liam jumped into the white rescue airboat. Jet took the pilot’s seat, and the airboat zoomed away from the dock. Liam pointed the way to the three identical heads bobbing in the water, each waving one arm and yelling hysterically. They used their other arm to hold onto a limp, dark-haired girl draped across a long wooden pole held afloat by life jackets.
Jet pushed the airboat to full speed, sending silent panic messages to Koze. Moments seemed like hours until they set the ABC down beside three panic-stricken girls and an unconscious Zadie.
A second emergency vehicle arrived with a medical team, supplies, and two transport vehicles. Two of the team members helped Koze and Liam pull Amber then Opal, and an anxious Star out of the choppy water. A man wearing the white uniform of the medical team helped Jet move Zadie onto a stretcher while another attendant began pumping air into her lungs. Jet stood helpless and pale, watching the grim faces of the medics.
Koze got in the airboat and signaled for Jet to go back with the medics while he searched for her. Jet dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand and returned to the pilot’s seat of the airboat. Liam volunteered to go back with the girls and medical team.
Jet took the controls, lifted the ABC out of the water, and headed toward the Star Points dividing Dolphin and the Rogue Seas. Koze scanned underwater with his sensors while Jet watched for any sign of Halo’s red hair.
They covered the area from the spot where they found Zadie and the triplets, to the forbidden darkness of Dolphin Sea beyond the Star Points. They found no sign of the missing girl. The suns were sinking into the horizons leaving a trail of peach and violet ribbons across the sky. Koze touched Jet’s arm, nodding toward the setting suns.
“One more circle,” Jet insisted, sending a mental message to Koze.
They’d found remnants of the girl’s raft, but Koze’s sensors picked up nothing from the depths. Jet navigated the airboat toward the floating pier beside the Star Point border.
“We must get back to White Feathers. We will resume the search tomorrow. You can’t see in the dark, and my sensors aren’t picking up anything under us. We’ll talk to Star, Opal, and Amber for details and come back at suns up.” The facts were unacceptable, but Jet knew Koze was right, and the odds of finding Halo weren’t good. They needed to go home.
Jet extended the ABC’s wings, prepared to lift off when Koze’s eyes flashed like a beacon in the darkness. Then something huge bounced against their boat. A long blue-gray snout poked out of the water then disappeared under the airboat. Jet started to lift off in order to avoid being capsized by the fish, but Koze stopped him. The fish reappeared, stared with its mismatched eyes at Jet, and made another honking sound. Koze flashed. The fish honked again, and began swimming back and forth, nudging the airboat toward the Star Point.
“He wants us to follow him,” Koze told Jet.
“It’s a trick. We can’t go there.”
“His name is Gamy. He found a girl.” Koze’s eyes continued to flash, and his ear sensors whirled as he communicated with both Gamy and Jet.
“Tell him to stay close. We don’t have lights.” Jet retracted the ABC’s wings, and they followed Gamy past the first Star Point.
Jet remembered the first time he broke a rule. It was the beginning of his troubles. It didn’t matter; he had to keep going. His punishment couldn’t get much worse. He wondered if Koze had already read his mind.
They followed Gamy jumping in and out of the sea and barking when they veered off course.
Koze continued to communicate with Gamy using eye flashes and whirling ear sensors while mentally communicating with Jet. When they entered the rough waters of the Rogue Sea, Gamy swam beside them, his blue-and-purple eyes shining like jewels against the Rogue Sea. They were totally committed now, broken rules and all. Going forward was the only option.