Island of Fog (Book 1) (6 page)

Stuffing four long candlesticks into his pocket, Hal stepped out of the shed, closed the door, and returned to the house.

In his room he studied the strange purple sludge Robbie had given him. Then he pushed up his sleeve. The rash was still there, unchanged since he’d last looked, but it didn’t seem to be itching now. He applied a thin layer of cool sludge and wondered if he should mention the rash to his mom. But she’d send him straight to Dr. Porter, and Abigail would be there, hanging around and giggling while Hal was examined all over . . .

He shuddered and hoped the sludge would help clear up the problem.

His dad returned home an hour later. “Been planting onions and cloves,” he said in a cheerful booming voice. “Every year I think it’s not going to work, we’re going to get a frost this winter . . . and it never happens. This fog never ceases to amaze me—keeps the winters mild and the summers comfortable. Come spring we’ll have another good crop.”

Dinner was served and the three of them dug in hungrily, with no sound but the crackling fire and the gentle clash of silverware on plates. It was a good ten minutes before Hal sighed and looked longingly at the remaining slice of bread in the basket. Could he manage another piece?

“So what have you been up to today, Hal?” his dad asked between mouthfuls.

The question seemed innocent, but Hal felt a surge of guilt. “Oh, nothing much. Went down to the docks.” He liked to stick to the truth wherever he could, and simply leave out important details rather than lie.

“You didn’t go in the water, did you?”

“No, too cold,” Hal said. It was true—he
hadn’t
gone in the water, just floated on the surface. “Hey, Dad?”

His mom rolled her eyes. “Watch out, George, he’s asking a lot of questions tonight.”

Hal ignored her. “Is there really a sea serpent?”

“Oh yes, of course,” his dad said, nodding. He narrowed his eyes, swallowed a mouthful without chewing it up, and shot Hal a stern look. “So you’d better not be thinking of swimming out too far, or it’ll eat you up in one bite. You know the rules, Hal. Stay near the pier.”

Hal nodded, reaching for the bread even though he wasn’t sure he wanted it. It was a way of diverting attention from his face, which had heated up. “Yeah, I know the rules. I was just curious. I mean . . . why is it there? Has it always been there?”

“What, the pier?”

“No, Dad—the sea serpent.”

His mom pushed her plate back and spoke first. “To tell you the truth, Hal, it’s a good thing the serpent is there. It protects us from the people on the mainland.”

Hal hadn’t thought of it that way. “So there are definitely still people Out There?” he asked.

His parents looked at one another in silence.

“If you can call them that,” his mom said. She pulled at the scrunchy in her hair and shook her head so that her locks tumbled free around her shoulders. She seemed deep in thought. “Hal, you’ll be thirteen this year. I understand that you’re curious to know your origins . . . curious to learn about the big wide world. But
you
have to understand that you’re here on this island because the alternative is too . . . too horrible to imagine. There’s no life Out There for us.”

Hal opened his mouth to ask another question, but his mom held up her hand. “No more, Hal. No more questions. I’ve said enough already.”

No you haven’t
, Hal thought. But he sighed and slumped back in his chair.

“However . . .” his mom said quietly.

Another silence fell, and Hal frowned. Something was in the air. “Mom?”

“You don’t want that bread, do you?” his dad asked, and plucked it off Hal’s plate. He crammed it into his mouth and chewed with his mouth open and head down.

His wife shot him a look. Then she took a deep breath and turned back to Hal. “You’ll have a visitor on Monday.”

Hal frowned. “What do you mean?”

“A visitor. At school. Mrs. Hunter won’t be in on Monday. Someone else will be there instead.”

“Is Mrs. Hunter sick?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

More silence, apart from the sound of Hal’s dad swallowing bread. He had crumbs in his beard. “So she’s having a break?” Hal guessed. “Who’s replacing her? Darcy’s mom again?”

“No,” his mom said. “This isn’t anyone you know. It’s someone else, a visitor. She’ll be taking your class for a few days, talking to you all, getting to know you.”

Bewildered, Hal glanced from his mom to his dad and back again. “Mom, who are you talking about?”

“A lady named Simone. She contacted us today and said it was time.”

Hal tried to digest this impossible piece of news.
A lady named Simone.
His mouth worked up and down a few times, but no words came out.

After a while his mom smiled. “It’s a shock, I know, meeting someone new. You never thought you’d see the day. But you’ll like her. Simone is a very special lady, and she’s coming to the school tomorrow to talk to you all . . . and to . . . well . . .” She trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

Hal stared in disbelief. “But Mom, you mean this person has come from Out There? But didn’t you say everyone Out There was crazy or something? You just said so a minute ago! How can there be someone—”

“Simone’s different,” his mom explained, exchanging a glance with her husband, who was still chewing. “You’ll like her.”

Hal pushed his chair back with a scrape, got up, and paced the kitchen, trying to sort out his muddled thoughts.
A person he’d never met. A visitor. Coming to the island.
“But how is she getting here? By boat? But the sea serpent will get her!”

While his dad stared at his empty plate, his mom spoke in a slow monotone, as if reciting a memorized speech. “All will be explained, Hal. Just go to school on Monday as usual, and be polite to Simone. Don’t pester her with questions. She’ll tell you everything you need to know, when she’s ready. Now, go find something to do.” She stood and started clearing away the plates, then clicked her tongue at her husband. “And George,
please
brush those crumbs out of your beard. You look ridiculous.”

Dazed, Hal trudged down the hall to his room. He wondered if Robbie had been told the news yet. He could nip over there and tell him, talk things over, but right now he just wanted to think. He sat on the edge of his bed to mull things over.

A person he’d never met.

Hal was so shocked by the news that he lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling, with a candle flickering on his bedside table.

Simone. A new person on the island. Someone from Out There.

How did his parents know her? Why was she showing up now, after all this time? And what did his mom mean, ‘it was time’? Time for
what?

Everything’s gone crazy
, he thought. What with his rash, and Robbie’s amazing feats of strength, and the fog-hole in the woods, and the red-faced creature, and the sea serpent, and now a strange woman named Simone showing up for class on Monday . . .

Hal grew sleepy. Eventually his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. At some point he became aware of his mom shaking him gently, telling him it was late and he should get out of his clothes and climb into bed, and he sleepily mumbled, “Sure, Mom.” But the next thing he knew, he’d drifted back to sleep.

Tap tap.

The soft tapping on the window woke him, and he sat up. It was dark outside, and the candle on his bedside table had melted down halfway. For a moment Hal was confused. He was still fully clothed, lying on top of the bed—oh, yes, he’d fallen asleep, thinking of . . .
Simone!
Yes, he’d been going over everything his mom had told him about the new teacher—

Tap tap.

Hal sat up, blinking. Then he saw a pale face staring through the window at him and he almost fell off his bed in surprise.

It was Abigail, standing outside in the cold, her face pressed to the glass.

“Open up,” Abigail mouthed from outside the window, gesturing toward the latch. Behind her, the fog rolled in the darkness.

Hal opened the window and leaned out as an icy breeze pushed past him into his room. “What are you doing here?” he whispered. “It’s late. And freezing.”

Abigail frowned and rubbed her arms. She wore only a light red dress despite the thick cold fog. “I told you I was coming tonight to tell you something. Did you forget?”

“Oh,” Hal mumbled. “Yeah. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

Abigail rolled her eyes. “Come out. Bring a lamp and meet me in your garage.”

“But—”

Without another word, Abigail tiptoed off across the gravel driveway toward the squat brick building that stood alone at the front of the lawn, next to the road. She had no lantern so faded into the darkness almost immediately, lost against the black silhouette of the garage.

Hal closed his window with a sigh. He picked up the candle from the bedside table and crept to the door. Popping his head out into the hall, he found more darkness and silence. His mom and dad must already be in bed, which meant it was past midnight.

As he stood there, candle held high, he noticed with a shock that the back of his left hand was covered with the same dark green rash as his forearm. His mouth dropped open. Candle wavering, he pulled back his sleeve. The rash, or whatever it was, had spread fast and now encompassed his entire lower arm. It had crept up past his elbow and was almost to his shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but it itched, and Robbie’s sludge had done nothing to help.

His heart hammering, Hal knew he’d have to tell his mom about it in the morning—if he dared wait that long. He’d surely have to go see Dr. Porter, for this was no ordinary rash. It felt tough and smooth, and scaly in the center where it had started.

One thing at a time.

Steeling himself, he rolled his sleeve down and tiptoed along the hall past the living room, his candle flickering. He grabbed the lantern that stood by the door, lit it, and snuffed out the candle. With a stronger light to show the way, he slipped out the front door and closed it quietly behind him, then crunched up the gravel path to the garage.

He found the side door ajar, and a pitch-black room beyond. Hal stepped inside, and the light from his lantern picked out Abigail standing quiet and still in the center of the room, squinting at him. Wasn’t she cold in nothing but a light dress? Where was her coat? And why didn’t she have a lantern?

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Come in, sit down,” she said, as if inviting him into her house. She waved him toward an upturned five-gallon drum. “There’s a seat for you. I want to show you something.”

Bewildered, Hal set the lantern on the floor and perched on the drum, which moved a couple of inches under him and made a horrendous scraping sound. He flinched, glancing toward the door. What would his dad say if he caught him out here in the dead of night?

And with a girl!

Abigail looked tired, but her eyes gleamed in the light. She stared at him, then her eyes dropped to his left hand. Too late Hal remembered the green rash, which stood out bright and obvious next to the lantern. Mortified, he stuck his hand behind his back.

But Abigail had already seen. “What’s that green stuff?”

Hal racked his brains for some plausible explanation. Green paint? A grass stain? But it was no good; he’d have to tell her. She’d know soon enough in the morning anyway.

He held up his hand for her to see. “It’s a rash or something. It’s not poison ivy or any kind of insect bite I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s an allergic reaction to something. I’m going to have to go see your mom in the morning, get some kind of treatment.”

He waited for the teasing to start. This was the sort of thing Abigail loved. She’d probably taunt him all night long and for days to come.

Instead she nodded with interest, a serious expression on her face. “I’ve noticed you’ve been scratching your arm at school, and now I know why. That’s how mine started.”

Hal blinked. “You mean . . . you have a rash too?”

“Not anymore. And it wasn’t all green like that, either. Mine just itched. That’s sort of what I’m going to show you. Are you ready?”

“Uh, sure.”

Abigail swallowed. “All right then. Promise you won’t go screaming from the garage in a panic and wake your parents?”

Hal nodded, an uneasy feeling settling in.

Abigail turned around. Her red dress was ripped high up between the shoulder blades, a ragged, vertical slash roughly eight inches long, dead center. Her ponytail hung almost low enough to cover it, but not quite. “Are you ready?” Abigail asked again over her shoulder. She sounded nervous.

“I guess.”

Abigail stretched her arms wide. In the glow of the lantern she looked eerie, standing there with her back to him, feet together and arms out straight.

The rip in her dress parted and folded back as two giant insect-like wings erupted straight out of her back.

Hal heard himself whimper as the paper-thin translucent appendages spread outwards, buzzing with a vibrant energy. They grew to three and a half feet in length, stretching thinner and thinner. The light from the lantern picked out a network of fine, barely-perceptible veins and capillaries.

Hal watched, stunned, as Abigail turned and smiled at him. Her wings buzzed and became a blur. Then she rose off the floor.

She hovered, bobbing up and down. The constant, heavy buzz reminded Hal of a hummingbird. Abigail turned a full circle, then glanced upwards and frowned. The ceiling was pitched, but the rafters hung low. She dropped lightly to the floor and her wings became still.

“My wings are very delicate,” she explained, gesturing toward the rafters. “Better not fly around too much in here.”

Hal just stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

Abigail turned around and demonstrated how the wings could shrink and vanish back through the tear in her dress. They sank into her flesh as though her skin was liquid. In the next second they were gone, leaving smooth unblemished skin just visible through the hole in her dress.

“Like magic,” she said, turning to face him once more. “But I never quite know when I’m going to use them, so I’ve had to make holes in a lot of my clothes for my wings to poke through and spread out. And just so no one asks me why I have a hole in the back of my dress, I wear a sweater or coat over the top, which I can take off and carry while I’m flying. I’ve even had to start washing my own clothes at home, so Mom doesn’t catch on.” Abigail giggled. “She loves that; thinks I’m becoming a responsible young lady.”

Hal stared and stared, still unable to say anything. When he looked down at Abigail’s thin red dress, she hugged herself and knelt on the floor, suddenly red-faced. “Brr, it’s cold,” she mumbled. “Carrying a coat is a nuisance, so I didn’t bring one tonight. Thing is, I don’t really feel the cold while I’m flying. It’s like I’m different, somehow; warmer on the inside, you know?”

Hal didn’t know.

“I can see better too,” Abigail went on. “When I grow my wings, it’s like my vision brightens. All the darkness outside becomes a little less dark and I can see things, like trees and bushes, as if they’re lit up by a flashlight that I don’t have.”

There was a long pause. “Okay,” Abigail said finally. “So that’s my secret. Now . . . what’s yours, Hal?”

“W-w-what?” Hal sputtered. “I don’t have one.”

“Of course you do. You have green, scaly skin. That means you’re turning into something. Now come on, show me what you are.”

Hal stared at the back of his hand. “I don’t know what . . . It’s just a rash.”

“It’s not just a rash,” Abigail insisted. “It’s
skin
. The scaly skin of whatever creature you’re becoming.”

“What?”

Abigail laughed. “Don’t worry. If your magic is anything like mine, you can change at will.” She pursed her lips and stared at him. “But maybe you don’t know what you are yet. My wings didn’t happen overnight either. They started out as an itch on my back, and I kept straining to see in the mirror. Then one morning I woke to find I had a couple of red sores. I wanted to tell Mom straight away, but she’d gone out early that morning. Then the sores . . . well, they sort of burst open, and there they were—two wings. They were small and folded at first, drooping and oozing some sort of slimy stuff, but they were definitely wings.”

Hal was horrified. “What did you do?”

“I panicked. I ran around the house screaming, with these awful wet things flapping around on my back. Good thing Mom was out, actually. But after a while I calmed down and just stared at them in the mirror for ages and ages. Got a stiff neck with all that twisting around. After a while they sort of dried out and stiffened, and looked like proper wings.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, somehow I knew they were supposed to be there—part of me, you know? I realized this was part of the secret. Why we’re here on the island.” She leaned forward and stared at Hal with big brown eyes. “Hal, don’t you get it? We’re freaks.”

Hal caught his breath. “Don’t say that.
You
may be, but I’m not.” He glared at the back of his left hand. “This is just some stupid rash, that’s all.”

Abigail laughed, shaking her head. “Who are you trying to convince, Hal? Look, face it—all of us kids are part of some experiment. You saw Mrs. Hunter’s reaction when she inspected Fenton’s toothache? He’s starting to change too. And what about Lauren? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen her trying to scratch
her
back all the time? I think she must be growing wings too, and I once saw her fingers stretch and grow hair as she tried to reach that itch. And then there’s Emily’s neck . . .”

Abigail trailed off, spreading her hands. She looked imploringly at Hal as if seeking his agreement.

And Robbie
, Hal thought.
Robbie’s amazing strength, and his tattered shirt . . .

But the idea of becoming something else, something inhuman, terrified him—and if he accepted that the others were changing, he’d have to accept that
he
was too. “No way,” he said, shaking his head. “Fenton’s got a toothache, that’s all. Lauren’s probably got poison ivy or something. And you reckon Emily’s neck got
longer
one day? You’re nuts, Abigail!”

“Am I? You’ve seen my wings, Hal. How do you explain that?”

“I can’t. But not everyone is a freak just because
you
are. You don’t want to be the only one, so you’re seeing things that aren’t really happening. But I’m not a freak, Abi, and neither are Fenton, Lauren or Emily.”

Robbie is though
, the voice in Hal’s head told him.

Abigail leaned forward and stared intently at him, her words flowing fast and smooth as if she’d run over the same things in her mind a million times before. “When Fenton got his toothache and skipped class, he went to see my mom. He was gone by the time I got home, but Mom was all agitated and excited about something. She wouldn’t say what. She dug around in a drawer and found an old hollowed-out tusk or horn. Then she went out. She was gone a long time. And tonight she told me a stranger is arriving at school on Monday. I think Mom went to see this stranger, to tell her about Fenton’s toothache.”

Hal shook his head continuously, mumbling that he didn’t care.

Abigail pressed on. “I bet this visitor that’s arriving on Monday, this Simone person—I bet she’s a scientist or something, a doctor like my mom, and she’s going to run all kinds of weird tests on us. I’ve got it all figured out. The adults keep telling us the world is ruined and we’re all that’s left . . . but I think we’ve just been hidden away on some remote island as an experiment. I know how doctors think. If they’re anything like my mom, we’re just curiosities to them. Remember how Mrs. Hunter made us cut open those frogs once? So we could see inside? Well, we’re like those frogs. We’ve been changed somehow, and now Simone’s going to poke and prod us, and stick needles in us, and—”

“Shut up!” Hal yelled, jumping to his feet.

Abigail drew back in alarm. “Shh. You’ll wake your parents.”

Hal pointed a finger at her, backing toward the door. “Just go, Abigail. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but there’s nothing wrong with me. Just get lost.”

Abigail sighed. “Look, we should stick together. We’re both monsters and we should stick together and make sure—”

Hal lashed out with his foot and kicked the plastic drum hard across the floor. It bounced off the wall. “No! It’s not true! I just have a rash, that’s all. Your mom’s probably got something for it, and I’ll go see her in the morning and—”

Abigail jumped to her feet and advanced on him. “No, Hal, don’t. If you tell my mom, she’ll tell Simone. You can’t be cured. Neither can I, nor Fenton, nor any of the others when they start to change.
This is who we are.
”

“This is who
you
are,” Hal snapped, backing away. “Get away from me!”

Abigail spread her hands. “Hal—”

“Go home!”

“Hal, don’t tell my mom about this, or your parents. Don’t tell anyone. They’re waiting for us to change. That’s why Simone’s been called in, to see if we’re turning into freaky monster things yet. She
knows
we’re changing. She’s been expecting it. Let’s keep quiet until we know what’s going on. Otherwise we’ll be sent away to some laboratory where—”

“Get out of here!” Hal said, and instead rushed for the door himself. He yanked it open and stumbled out into the darkness, running across the lawn. Tears formed in his eyes and, ashamed, he brushed them away. He ran around the side of the house, clambered over the fence at the foot of the garden, and stumbled out into the field beyond.

He ran and ran, gasping for breath, tripping in the long grass and climbing back to his feet to carry on. He scrubbed hard at the rash on the back of his hand. “Go away, go away, go away!”

Finally Hal stopped and bent over, hands on knees, panting. His hot breath plumed in the air as he fought to regain his composure. In the end he flopped down into the grass and lay on his back, watching the fog drift by, staring at the hazy bright patch where the moon was. An owl hooted somewhere.