The Raft: A Novel (32 page)

“A man? What man?”

“He is a man who scares me, I must admit. It is also worth mentioning that I know he is here, on earth with us right now, in
our
time, and he has the answers to questions few of us have bothered even asking.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“I know who he is, but I do not know exactly where he is. I have no reason to actively seek him out. I don’t care enough to be bothered. But you do, don’t you? Oh yes. You have a reason to find this man. Because if anyone knows, he will know how you may find Andy. Whether he’s willing to tell you where the boy is, I don’t know, but he does know. And there’s enough courage and will in your heart to at least try.”

“So who is he?”

The voice stopped. Outside, the jungle was sounding strangely disturbed. Without my sight, I could hear the slightest of sounds: the rhythmic drip of water on the wooden floor, the scuttling of a small
something
, the moaning of the wood being pushed and pulled by the wind.

“Our story starts many years ago, Kayle,” the voice continued. “With the disappearance and reappearance of Chang’e 11. The crew of that ship returned from a place they could not explain. Nine of them came back. Not long after that, one passed, and there were eight. And seven. And six … until finally there were only two. Their names were Shen and Quon. The last two survivors of an ill-fated mission to the stars.

“One of them knows the whereabouts of your son and his name is Quon. He is the one who sees me in my dreams. Will he help you? Who can say? He won’t let me know. But to find this man, you must find the family of his old friend, Shen. They are the only ones who can lead you to Quon.

“To find Shen’s family—and remember this is a vision that was passed on to me—sail through a sea of rooftops until you come across a burning house. Follow the road along this burning house. At the end of the road you’ll find the nicest family ever made. They will point the way.”

He paused.

“That’s it?”

“I’m afraid for now that’s all I can tell you. I wish I could tell you more. I am still in the dark, you know. But sometimes I think it’s no darker in here than it is out there. That is what my brother understands the least, although the truth is he doesn’t need to know what I know to do what he does. He knows only what he needs to know. The habit of selective forgetting and living by convenient truths, Kayle. It is a dangerous habit. One we have all entertained for far too long. But on your journey, remember this always and above all: the thing you see and know is not the true nature of the thing. You are but a dream of yourself, a dreamer in a dog’s reality.

“I really do look forward to meeting again when we are one, Mr. Jenner. When we’re free, and in the light.”

At that point, the brother of the darkness stopped talking. I took it as my cue to stand and exit. As I did, however, his voice shot out again.

“There is one other thing,” he said to me. “Before you go.”

I had my hand on the door handle. Through the window I could see the shaking leaves, the filtered light of the sun, and the black cut-out of a seated man.

He went on: “You don’t have to fear what it is you secretly fear the most, because you have no need to fear it.”

“And what fear would that be?”

“That your memories are deceiving you. And that your son is not really your son.”

My stomach lurched. It was as if he had reached his pale hands down my throat and pulled some true and terrible thing from the depths of me. He was right. After everything I had heard, this was the very possibility that was tormenting me. What if everything I thought I knew was a lie, as it had been for Moneta and Jai-Li? What if Andy wasn’t my son at all?

“Like I said,” he went on. “You have nothing to worry about. Trust me, on this above all else, I’ve been told. Andy is waiting for your arrival. But now that I’ve told you all of this, I’d very much appreciate it if you’d do one thing for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Would you tell my brother I am sorry.”

“For what?”

The voice sighed.

“I do love my brother. He’s taken good care of me. But as I once overheard in a conversation between two men sitting inside a beached whale:
If you come to the realisation you are a mistake in this world—will you have the courage to go willingly, to remove yourself of your own accord, or will you stubbornly remain, in stupid denial and against the will of nature?’
Very interesting thought, from a very interesting dream.”

I remembered those words. I remembered that dream. It had been
my
dream, the one in which I had spoken with Jack Turning.

“Please remember that,” he said. “Tell him I’m so sorry; there are some things I can no longer permit in good conscience. That’s just the way things are.”

“I’ll tell him.”

There was another sigh. “Very kind of you. Very kind of a very kind man. Now, if you’ll excuse me. You have your idea. Your few vibrating atoms. And I need my sleep.”

And then there was nothing. No sound at all. He had returned to the darkness, and the darkness to him.

I opened the door and stepped back into a bright and baffling world.

I sat on the wooden deck by myself and watched the other island in the distance. All around, the jungle moved with the wind like an animal slowly waking from some long and dreamless sleep. The grey cloud was still growing far out over the ocean but overhead the sun was beating down. There was still no activity down below, no sign of anyone from the other island.

I thought about the man in the cabin’s words: his prophecy, I told myself, as difficult as it was to accept that it could be a prophecy at all.

A sea of rooftops. A burning house. Shen. Quon. And the nicest family ever made. With nothing else to guide me, I wanted to believe him, wanted to accept his advice, but beneath the mantle of my hopes stirred the molten rock of dread. I had washed up on the shore of that place bound on a raft, but the relief of my arrival was gone. All I could think was that on this new “raft,” something terrible had been allowed to grow. The carnivorous trees. These people, marking time until the trees grew wild and uncontrollable enough to take them …

Finally, I shook my head and stood up. The brother of light was nowhere to be seen. I supposed he was getting himself prepared for these “pirates.”

I turned from the deck and went into the house. I grabbed a cup from the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, which I drank quickly. Then I walked back along the corridor towards my bedroom. I needed to lie down for a while, close my eyes and give my mind a chance to rest.

Coughing.

I stopped. The sound was coming from the father’s room. The door was standing slightly ajar and I peered in. The father was awake, twisting his shoulders, hawking hoarsely.

I glanced down the corridor, checked the narrow window that revealed a part of the deck, and turned back to push open the door.

The man was still on the bed beneath the white sheets, head on a flat pillow. He was a gaunt skeleton of a man with skin like leather.

In the corner of the room an old television showed nothing but static. There hadn’t been a signal in years now, not since Day Zero, and I wondered whether the television had ever shown anything besides those chaotic speckles of snow fuzzing in and out of existence.

The father’s cough went on, an endless wheezing. I approached his bedside and propped his pillow up behind his head. His thin grey hair was glued to his forehead by a film of thick sweat.

There was a glass of water on a table next to his bed. I held up his head and put it to his lips. He took a sip and released a foul sigh. He closed his eyes, taking a moment to calm his laboured breathing, then he turned his head and looked at me.

Without warning, his hand snapped out from under the sheet and grabbed my wrist. He tightened his grip and pulled, urging me to lean in. Cautiously, I did. He lifted his head off the pillow and brought his face nearer to mine.

His cracked lips opened to speak:
“Run
.”

Startled, I pulled back. He held his grip, but with the jerk of his arm came a new sound. The rattle of metal on metal.

I looked down at his pale and spotted hand and carefully lifted the sheet.

I shuddered. His wrist was shackled by an enormous rusted handcuff. It was attached to a rusted chain which in turn was attached to the frame of the bed.

Suddenly there was a great distance between me and every other object in the room. It was as if my mind was fleeing the scene before my body could take the chance. He wasn’t bed-bound because he was dying; he was a prisoner.

“You don’t know,” he said in a crackling whisper, “you don’t know where you really are. You don’t have a clue what’s going on here.”

I wrenched my hand from his grip, began to back up slowly towards the door. He lay limp on his bed, coughing, exhausted, frustrated. All the time I could hear his chains clanging beneath the sheets.

“He can’t know you’re in here.” Desperate gasps escaped as he spoke.

“Why are you chained?”

“Leave.
Run …”

The man began to cough again, waving his hand weakly for me to go. I hurried from the room.

Bouncing back into the bright corridor, I was suddenly aware that everything I thought I knew was wrong. I was dizzy and the walls and the door leaned in on me, the way an image on a page warps one last time before flames burn it to ash.

I forced myself to stand upright, slowed my pace to a casual walk. My eyes remained wide and alert—I was on the lookout now—but my heart! My heart hammered in my chest.

I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply, then stepped out onto the wooden deck.

Anubis was standing at the rail with his back to me, holding a large dark object. He looked over his shoulder and smiled.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied.

As I approached, the object in his hand became alarmingly clear. He was holding a firearm of some sort—a big, black machine connected to a strap over his shoulder.

“Take a look,” he said. “It’s an ingenious piece of machinery, really. A thousand years ago it would only have tuh-tuh-taken one of these to win a war. It would have seemed like dark magic. The enemy would have simply surrendered out of fear. And respect. They would have bowed on their knees. They would have thought me a god.”

“And they wouldn’t have known any better,” I said. My heart was still beating madly but I kept my voice cool and even, as un-flustered as I could manage.

He held the weapon up over the rail. “You ever use one of these before?” he asked chirpily.

I shook my head. “No … You?”

“
No-ope
,” he said, one eye against the sight attached at the top of the weapon. He was poised for a kill, swivelling it on the rail, on the lookout for something moving in that jungle. “Always wanted to though. Always wanted to know how it would feel. Th
-th-thun-
der and lightning in the palms of my hands.”

I nodded.

“You see my brother?”

“I did.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Not much,” I said, a small and unnecessary lie I regretted immediately.

“Really?” Anubis said. He pulled back from the sight and glanced up at me. “That’s too bad. Sometimes he’s a real help.”

“Where’d you get that gun?”

“Where do you think?”

“Left in the jungle after your friends and family were taken?”

“Taken. Good one. I like to th-think of it as an inheritance.”

“Is it necessary?”

“Necessary?” he said, and then once more, as if he was still deciding, “Necessary. Well, take a look.” Still supporting the weapon on the edge of the rail, he moved his head away, giving me space to look through the telescopic sight. I leaned in. The sight had incredible range. It was pointed at a group of people in the distance—the so-called pirates had landed.

“I thought you said they wouldn’t get through the jungle,” I said, my eye darting from one distant person to the next. “Why the gun?”

They didn’t look like pirates. Just regular people: a couple of women, a slightly overweight man, a younger man carrying sling bags. But then, what were real pirates supposed to look like?

“Well, yes, I did say that. Yes. Except …” He turned the gun on the rail. “Look left.”

The people on the beach were opening a small crate. Somebody was pulling out what appeared to be black gas masks.

“See what I mean?” Anubis said. “I don’t know how, but they know about our island. They’ve come prepared. And it looks as if they have no intention of
stuh
-stuh
-stopping
for a bit of lunch. Which means, if they push right through the jungle, they’ll be here in less than an hour.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“You mean
our
plan. You’re a good man, Kayle. I feel that you understand me. This place. And I’d be honoured to have you at my side when those b-b-bah-bastards come crawling up the hill.” He whipped the gun off the rail and held it upright, the barrel resting on his shoulder. “We’re gonna come down on them with thunder and lightning, my friend. Light up their little lives in a hail of bullets. But first, we’ve gotta get you one of these. There’s a whole stash in the shed at the back. You can take your pick.”

I looked out towards the beach. I needed to go along with this for as long as I could before choosing the moment to make a move.

“Okay.”

The man patted me on the shoulder.

“Oh-kay! Okay, Raft Man,” he chuckled. “It’s a bit of a walk out back, but we’ll need ammunition. I’ve got bullets for Africa but damned if I know which go where. One thing’s for sure, they’re gonna think we’ve got an army at our backs!”

I looked back at the house.

“You go ahead. Grab one for me,” I said. “I don’t know anything about guns. Really. I’ll stand post. Keep an eye in case they’ve brought any surprises of their own.”

Anubis thought about it a bit, glanced towards the people on the beach, and grinned.

“Suit yourself,” he said.

I said nothing. He smiled, barely noticing the fear creeping beneath my flapping facade. He was clearly too excited to care. He hoisted his gun up and walked over the hanging bridge towards the second deck.