The Floating Island (20 page)

Ven’s head was spinning. The walls of the tiny cell seemed to close in, making it harder to breathe.

“Nothing evil was done with the water,” he repeated, his voice wobbling.

Mr. Whiting stopped suddenly. “You think not? You are wrong. Snodgrass gave it, no doubt, to that harpy wife of his.” His voice turned cold. “Didn’t he?”

“She—she needed it,” Ven said, hating how shrill and squeaky his voice sounded.

Whiting’s face hardened.

“Well, that’s true, boy,” he said, “but I don’t know if you want to be the one giving it to her.”

“Why?”

Mr. Whiting looked above him into the dripping darkness, and when his eyes returned to Ven, they were shining with what seemed like fear.

“Because Trudy Snodgrass is a Revenant,” he whispered.

“W
HAT IS A REVENANT?” VEN ASKED NERVOUSLY.

The endless dripping seemed to stop, the light in the lantern to dim, as Maurice Whiting considered his words.

“A Revenant is a person or thing that has died, but who lives on in an unnatural and unholy way after death,” he said. “Something that returns from the grave—usually because there is something in their lives that remained unfinished when they died. They are called by many names the world over, but in the end it comes down to the thwarting of nature so that someone who should be gone remains on the earth. It is evil, and unholy—and what they do to remain in this state of undeath is even more so.”

Ven was trembling as violently as the sails of the
Serelinda
in the wind.

“You’re lying,” he said.

“No, lad, I’m not,” Mr. Whiting said darkly. “Did you have the chance to observe the woman before you gave her the water, and then after? Did you notice a difference?”

Beneath Ven’s feet the floor of the dungeon began to shake. A heartbeat later, he realized it was not the floor, but his own body that was shaking.

He remembered thinking how Mrs. Snodgrass had improved once he had given her the diamond vial, how her face had filled out in places that before had seemed withered, how her energy had returned.

Like a drying apple suddenly full of juice again,
he thought.

“You did, lad, I know you did,” Whiting said softly. “You saw the life actually return to her, because the life within that woman is
artificial.
She actually died long ago, when her son did, but her husband was not willing to lose them both. He had enough of the Living Water with him to save her—but their boy was too far gone to be brought back. They buried their child, but Trudy remains, ruling that tawdry inn with an iron fist by day.” His voice dropped. “Walking the crossroads by night—with the other undead buried there. She haunts the crossroads because she can’t find her way away from it—just like the other Revenants.”

“Stop it,” Ven whispered. “Stop it.”

“She sends you to bed as the sun goes down—doesn’t she?”

“Stop, please, stop.” Ven clapped his hands over his ears.

Whiting shook his head. “The captain warned you not to go there at night, didn’t he?”

You do not want to go to the Crossroads Inn at night. Do you understand what I am saying? Don’t start out on the road after the sun begins to go down.

Ven turned his back and leaned his head against the damp dungeon wall behind his bed.

“Leave me alone,” he said weakly.

Behind him he heard a sympathetic sigh.

“I know this is distressing, lad, but you must be strong and hold to your courage. The Snodgrasses have been kind to you, but for an evil purpose; they want you to live in their shoddy inn where they can keep you at the ready to call the Floating Island whenever Trudy’s unnatural health begins to fail. Doubtless you would have been happy to do so until the day when the first of your friends disappeared, the victim of that Revenant’s evil hunger. That’s what happens to the travelers who stay at the Crossroads Inn. Sooner or later they become food for the Revenants. Or they become Revenants themselves—which is why they cannot leave, like that Singer who is always on the hearth. The sailors on his ship all know this—why do you think they are all so afraid of her?

“Fortunately for you, I was traveling on the
Serelinda
with you; I can save you from this path of death, and undeath that you are unwittingly on. I will get you out of here today—though it’s dark in here, it’s only noon now. I alone have the power to drop the charges and have you released. We will hide at the White Fern Inn until night falls. Under cover of darkness we will hurry to Kingston Harbor and set sail away from this place.” Mr. Whiting inhaled deeply. “And I will take you home.”

Home.
The word rang in Ven’s ears above the dripping water and the harsh tones of Whiting’s voice. In his mind he was suddenly back on the wharf in Vaarn, trailing along behind his father, watching his brothers and sister in the course of their work building ships, hurrying home to his mother in order not to be late for tea.

His chest squeezed so tightly it ached, bringing the sting of water to his eyes.

Home.

Slowly Ven turned around.

“You’ll take me home?” he asked shakily. “Home to Vaarn?”

Whiting nodded. “Yes. All the way to Vaarn.”

“My friends, too?”

The man nodded again. “We will stop on the way to the harbor and have them released from Kingston jail. They can sail with us.” He smiled at the grateful light that was beginning to shine on Ven’s face, then his expression became serious. “But they will need to remain on the ship while we are on the Floating Island, of course. We can’t risk too much weight.”

Ven felt his ears pop.

“The Floating Island?” he asked. “We are going to the Floating Island? Why?”

The warm look on Whiting’s face faded, and he blinked.

“We should check on it, don’t you think?” he said quickly. “Who knows what might have happened to it when Snodgrass was there? For all we know, he might have even
poisoned
the water.”

Ven took hold of the bars of the cell, trying not to think about the sight of Oliver bending over the tiny silver stream. There had been respect in the sea captain’s gestures as he poured blue liquid from the diamond vial into the moss, then refilled it with the Living Water.

His own voice rang in his memory.

Captain, I thought you said we weren’t to take anything from the island.

Oliver had walked away, not looking back.

This place needs the water I bring it. It comes from a well that the wind cannot reach, a well from before history. A form of water that is as rare as the water of this spring. That water helps keep the island alive, in some respects. In return, I take a small amount of water from the silver spring, for my own purposes.

What do you do with it?
Ven had asked.

Enough questions for today, Ven.

Down the hallway a jangling of keys could be heard.

Mr. Whiting looked quickly over his shoulder.

“All right, now, Ven, time to go. I will have the jailer release you, and then we must hurry if we are to make it to town in time to free your friends before we sail. We don’t want the sun to go down before we get through the crossroads, now, do we?”

Ven said nothing.

“Ya gonna talk to Galliard, then?” the jailer with the bristly beard demanded. “How many bloody times do ya expect me to trot those stairs, man?”

Ven’s hand went to his pocket. He pulled forth his grandfather’s jack-rule, remembering what his father had said on Ven’s birthday as he gave it to him.

It will always measure truer than any other instrument could.

Slowly he opened the measuring tool and extended the magnifying glass.

“Yes,” Mr. Whiting told the jailer. “I’m going to drop the charges and take custody of this prisoner as soon as I can speak to the Vizier.”

Ven raised the magnifying glass to his eye.

At first he could see little in the dim light of the jail cell, and what he could see was out of focus. Then he tilted it a little and caught the lanternlight, and the image sharpened.

The magnifying glass was pointed toward the jailer’s coarse beard, and tucked within the folds Ven could see pipe ashes and the crumbs of the man’s breakfast. He moved the glass to the left as Whiting continued to talk to the jailer, and examined the hawk-nosed man a little more closely.

Ven started at the top of his head, then moved down until the glass caught a sudden glint in the folds of Whiting’s gray robe. He turned the jack-rule carefully to enhance the image.

A rainbow sparkle gleamed within his pocket. Ven recognized the colorful pattern of the light.

Whiting had a diamond vial of his own.

Before he knew what he was doing, a word formed in the bottom of his throat and shoved its way up his neck until it came out his mouth.

“No,” he said quietly.

Both Whiting and the jailer fell silent, then turned to him, shock on both of their faces.

“What did you say?” Whiting asked, disbelief in his voice.

“I said
no,
” Ven replied, louder this time. “I’m not going with him.”

Through the glass in the jack-rule he saw the veins pop out in Whiting’s forehead, and beads of sweat emerge as the man strode over to the cell bars again.

Ven quickly folded the measuring tool and put it back in his pocket.

“Are you daft, boy?” Whiting demanded. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

“Every one of them,” Ven replied, a tone of bravery that he didn’t feel ringing in his voice. “And I disbelieve every one of them as well. You aren’t here to help me; you are certainly
not
my friend. You want the Living Water for yourself, nothing more. You have since that day on the ship when I got your place in the longboat. I’m not going to help you get it. I will take my chances with the king’s justice.”

Whiting’s eyes darkened with rage.

“You’re a fool,” he snarled, his mask of pleasantness gone now. “Look around you, Nain
brat.
Do you like this place? It may very well be your home for the rest of your life.”

Ven shrugged. “Well, we Nain like it underground,” he said. He stepped away from the bars of the cell as Whiting jammed his fingers through them.

The hawk-nosed man laughed sharply.

“This cell is not the only
underground
you will see before I’m done with you, boy,” he said. “When the king returns, you will be tried for your crimes as the fifty-year-old Nain that you are, not the idiot boy you appear to be. Thievery of my ring aside, the king will hold you responsible for the deaths of all those sailors you blew to smithereens on the
Angelia.
You will hang for sure, and then they will plant you underground forever. With any luck, they will bury you at the crossroads, with all your Revenant friends. What a joy that will be, now, won’t it? You can haunt the night with them for eternity.” A cruel smile spread across his face at the look on Ven’s.

Ven had gone white, but from shock, not fear.

“How did you know the name of that ship?” he asked. “An unchristened ship, in
Vaarn
Harbor? No one was supposed to know that.”

Whiting’s smile faded. He leaned as close as he could to Ven through the bars.

“You truly must be stupid, even for a Nain,” he said disdainfully. “I would have thought you might have noticed by now that I know many things that no one is supposed to know.”

He turned on his heel and strode up the stairs into the darkness, leaving Ven and the jailer behind, both blinking, one on each side of the bars of the cell.