THE AUTHOR
© Copyright 2010 James Andrew Wilson
PROLOGUE
The End
Journal Excerpt (300 years ago)
There is a magic to this place. We have all felt it—a stirring in the dirt beneath our feet, a mystery on the wind. The Island is like no other place on earth.
Earth. . . .
We barely had time to realize that it was our doom before the continents started to sink into the ocean. First New Zealand, then Australia and up through India. The southern tip of South America followed, and suddenly, it seemed, the whole world was breaking loose and plummeting into the depths.
What caused this catastrophe? To those of us who have survived, the truth is clear: We poisoned the earth with our evil ways. Destruction and bloodshed, hate and greed—the black virus of our sins was decaying the very ground we walked on.
Now it is gone. The whole world has sunk into the ocean.
No . . . not everything.
We called it the Ark, the massive vessel that we packed with supplies for recolonization. There was little hope that we would find land. We sailed for a decade. Countless died.
Then we found the Island. At first we thought that it was the top of a mountain—Everest perhaps. Though that wouldn’t explain the sandy beaches. Then we thought that it was an island that had miraculously survived the catastrophe—but how? All of the world sank into the ocean. There was nothing left.
The longer that we are here, the more apparent it becomes that the Island is none of those places. Either it has been on earth all along and we simply never found it, or it did not even exist until after the catastrophe.
Whatever the case, it is a place of magic. There is no denying that fact.
There is an abundance of hearty forests, quarries of rare minerals, endless springs of water. We could not dream of a better place for restarting mankind. The Island is a new Garden of Eden.
We have begun to build the Village in the southwestern region. It is hard to contain our excitement at seeing the first buildings come together. It has been ten years since any of us have slept on dry land.
We have agreed that some form of government is required. There will Elders over each of the villages that we build. The Elders will be accompanied by an Island Council of up to twenty-four members. These will be the ones responsible for any major decisions we might face.
I was voted to be the first Elder, and I have accepted the responsibility. My first act was to gather together all the books and records of the world before us and have them burned. We piled them on the beach and let fire consume them, and it felt like a cleansing flame.
We will write a series of books titled the Volumes of the Ancient World. All the Elders and Island Council Members to follow will be required to read them. The Volumes will tell only what is necessary—that we were evil, and that it was our undoing.
This new world will be a civilization of peace. Of innocence. History will not be repeated. The rules we establish will see that it is so.
And then there are the Whispers. . . .
What are these mystical voices that speak to us day and night? They seem to offer comfort and guidance. Already the Whispers have led us to hidden orchards of fruit, and helped us begin to establish the Village.
We don’t know where they came from or what they are. Maybe they are the voice of the Island—guiding us and leading us. If that is so, then it is a great comfort, for the Whispers are wise and gentle, and they will help us find our way.
This is the start of a new world. A time of peace. With the Whispers to guide us, and the Island to protect us, we will recreate history so that the generations to follow will never experience the hate and the bloodshed that was our downfall.
This is the end and this is beginning. There will be peace.
ONE
For Blood
Simon Crain was trespassing, and he was looking for a knife.
There were knives in the kitchen, but they wouldn’t do. He was looking for a special knife. A knife for blood.
The front door was cracked open. Rain plummeted from the black heavens and wind screamed through the Village. Blasted cold wind. He was sweating but he shivered. Then he cursed.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Here,” said the Whispers. “It is here.”
“Where?” He couldn’t search all night! The owner of the house would be back soon.
“The bedroom. Look in the bedroom.”
There was a bed, but the knife wasn’t under the mattress. There was a nightstand, but the knife wasn’t in the drawer.
The front door creaked open. Simon darted into shadows and held his breath. He peered through the open bedroom door.
Darkness outside, rain, a storm, and a person. Somebody was standing in the doorway. Watching, not moving, just watching.
Simon waited. Two silent breaths. Three.
The sky shattered with a streak of lightning. The white-blue spark drew an outline around the watcher. A cloak and a hood. The face doused in shadow. Wait—something else.
A bird. There was a tall black bird perched on the shoulder.
Darkness reclaimed the night. The watcher turned and walked away.
Simon exhaled and unfurled a clammy fist. Had the stranger seen him? Who was it?
“The knife,” said the Whispers. “Look in the dresser.”
There was something about that person. . . .
“The knife! Get the knife!”
The Whispers were right. He had to find the knife. Forget about the person. Get the knife.
Simon yanked open the top drawer of the dresser and stirred through socks. There! Yes. There it was. Razor-sharp blade, ready for blood. There was a name carved into the handle of the knife.
“Take it!” the Whispers cried. “Take it!”
Simon hid the knife inside of his jacket. He grinned a little. Then he hurried out into the rain.
TWO
Like a Storm
There was something wrong with him tonight. Julia Belle couldn’t understand why Connor wouldn’t look at her. Was he nervous? She didn’t remember ever seeing him nervous before.
The roof of her parent’s front porch gave them shelter from the downpour. Puddles were already forming in the road, and soon there would be a small river flowing down Fourth Street all the way to the docks at the bottom of the hill. Storms like these always seemed to leave a mess of mud in their wake, but Julia liked the rain. She liked the power of the storm, the beauty, the mystery.
Pulling a blanket tighter around herself, she curled into the chair and let her eyes explore the man sitting beside her. Connor was leaning forward over his knees, strong hands laced around a teacup. At first glance, she wouldn’t consider him handsome. There was nothing striking about his appearance. He wasn’t tall. His hair was a walnut brown, generally untamed, and a few stray locks would sometimes shield his eyes. And maybe his nose was a little too big.
It didn’t matter though. She saw past all of that now.
Connor was watching the rain muddy the street. She often wondered what thoughts were dancing around in his head. Was he filtering through complex mathematical equations, creating another machine that would take him across the Chasm? Or was he simply thinking about the rain?
He was like a storm—a force of power and intrigue that she could not understand. There was something behind those steely gray eyes that drew her in. There was a mystery to Connor. A magic. He was meant for great things, and when he smiled—a big grin that made dimples in his cheeks—Julia felt that anything she dreamed would be possible.
The wool blanket could not stop a chill from pricking at her cheeks. Winter was fast approaching.
She took a sip of her tea and asked, “Are you going to cross the Chasm tomorrow?”
Connor chuckled. “We should have the catapult ready to try by midmorning.”
“Do you think it will work?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps, but with the luck we’ve had lately, it will probably shoot the rock backwards.”
She smiled. Though he was determined to cross the Chasm—obsessed with it in fact—he was still able to view his quest with a humor that tickled her heart.
Silence fell between them. She listened to the rain smacking the roof and wondered about the future. What would life be like if she were to marry Connor? Would every day be filled with new adventures, new ideas and new experiences? She’d read countless stories in which the hero and heroine became married only to live what she considered to be extremely dull lives.
Of course, those were stories written after the Ancient World—stories meant to encourage a peaceful and quiet civilization. Boring, more like.
“Do you think,” she asked, “in the Ancient World I mean—do you think, when people got married, that they went on adventures together?”
Connor smiled and sipped some tea, then grimaced. “What does your mother put in this stuff?”
“Her own special mix of herbs. Supposed to keep the cold away.”
“Ah. Right.” Connor pulled in another sip and made a drama out of swallowing. “There’s certainly enough fire in here to keep something away.”
“She likes it when you drink it.”
“She likes to see me suffer?”
“My mother and my father think that it will keep you from doing anything you shouldn’t with their daughter.”
He looked at her, straight at her, and his eyes seemed to dance. “Do you think it will work?” he whispered.
She blushed and averted her gaze. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She felt his eyes linger on her for a moment, then leave. “The Volumes of the Ancient World don’t talk much about how they lived,” he said.
“Why do you think they don’t?”
Connor almost sipped some more tea, but he frowned and returned the cup to the shelter of his hands instead. “Because we’re supposed to think that the Ancient World was all wrong. Lustful, evil, full of hate.”
“But that’s not true,” Julia said. “Remember that passage we found about the movie theater? The wall of moving pictures where couples would go and watch stories. What’s so wrong with that?”
He swirled the tea in the cup. “The Island Council would say that the movies encouraged violence and selfish behaviors.”
“I can’t imagine that it was all bad. They were people just like us. And then it . . .” She trailed off, thinking about the tragic catastrophe that had covered the whole world in water. All the land on the face of the earth had sunk into the ocean—except for this one island.
One of the survivors had called the island Eden—but the name didn’t stick. Now it was simply the Island. It might as well be called the World, because it was all that was left.
“I think they did have adventures,” Connor said. “I think they created, and reasoned, and explored. I think life was full of excitement and promise.”
“Do you think the same thing will ever happen to the Island?”
“What? That it will sink into the ocean?”
“We’re always being told that the catastrophe happened because of the evil hearts of the people.”
“If that’s the case,” Connor said, “then I don’t think we need to worry.”
“People get in arguments. Even my mother and father have it out on each other sometimes.”
Connor raised an eyebrow. “Your mother? Get angry with your father? You can’t be serious.”
She punched him in the shoulder. “You know she’s just—”
“Stubborn as a stump.”
“She has her own opinions and wants them to be heard.”
Connor masked a chuckle by sipping some tea. He almost spit it out and frowned at the cup. “Does she make your father drink this?”
“My father likes it.”
“Well, at least her daughter is sweeter than her tea.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment, but thank you anyway.”
Both of them smiled, and then Connor returned to staring out at the storm. He was tapping his foot. He never tapped his foot.
Something was wrong.
“I—” Connor said, but faltered.
Now she was sure—he was nervous. It was odd to see him this way. He was always so steady, so purposeful. He set his mind on a task and worked until he accomplished it. Nothing could sway him.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Julia,” he said, still looking out at the road. “What do you think about me?”
The question was broad, it was complex—but at the same time it was the most simple of questions.
She loved him. Entirely. Crazily. Even in their youth she had been drawn to him. Passing years had done nothing to damper that attraction. Even though she was only nineteen and he was twenty-three, it seemed like they had been together for a lifetime.
But he knew of her love. She’d told him before, hadn’t she? Or was this about that . . . that incident that had happened so long ago? Had he found out?
“I admire you, Connor, and think you are a great man.” She cringed. The words sounded better in her head.
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,” he said, “but thank you anyway.”
She breathed a laugh. “Connor, I love you. I dream about you night and day. I fear for you when you are at work—not because I think you’re careless—but because it would leave me empty if you didn’t return. If you didn’t stop by my house to share our nightly conversations and drink my mother’s horrible tea.”
A smile washed over Connor’s face and he chuckled. Oh, that smile. He raised the teacup and said, “So you admit it!”
Julia nodded and laughed along with him.
“I know that you love me,” Connor said. “But I had to hear you say it one more time before . . . before I went to him.”
“To who?”
Connor wasn’t looking at her, but he couldn’t hide his excitement. “To your father.”
It was amazing how three obscure words in the right context could mean so much. “You’re not going to—”
“Yes,” Connor interrupted, jumping to his feet, face beaming. “I’m going to ask to marry his daughter.”
Marriage. Was he serious?
“But you weren’t supposed to know!” He came and knelt before her. His tone was soft. “Julia, I love you. With all my heart. I want to make you my wife. I want that honor.”
A nervous wave washed through her body. But I don’t deserve you, Connor. You don’t know what I did.
Connor seemed to realize that he was down on one knee. The dimples appeared in his cheeks. “Next time I’m in this position, I will have a very important question to ask you.”
She felt tears but let them linger. If he knew, he would love her anyway. It didn’t matter. She whispered, “And you know what I will say.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Just promise me, when we’re married, that you won’t make me drink that tea.”
“Would you marry me even if I did?”
“My love,” he said, “I would marry you even if I had to drink ten barrels of the wretched stuff every day. Though, I imagine, if that were the case, we wouldn’t see very much of each other.”
She loved how her hand felt inside of his. “Why not?”
“If a man drank ten barrels of that stuff, he’d be sicker than a dog and have to pee all day long.”
Her laughter rang with his, and he rose up and kissed her on the cheek. He whispered in her ear, “I will dream of you tonight.”
She ran her fingers through his coarse hair. “And I of you.”
“Good night, my love.” He drew back, pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, and ducked out into the rain.
Julia watched him hurry down the road until he was out of sight. She loved that man. Oh, she loved him like crazy.
What would he say if he knew? If he knew about she had done? It was so long ago—just a stupid notion of a stupid young girl. It didn’t really matter anymore. That moment didn’t define her.
She was about to go inside when she noticed somebody on the road. The figure was shrouded in a dark gray cloak, and seemed not to care about the downpour of rain. She thought it a man by the gait. He was walking slowly, arms and hands hidden inside of the cloak, and face shadowed by a hood.
Peering closer, she thought that she saw—was that a bird on his shoulder? A black bird with silky feathers and a beak that curled ever so slightly downward at the tip. A raven, perhaps.
She didn’t know of anyone on the Island with a pet raven. Who was this strange figure walking the streets at night?
The stranger passed out of sight, and a bolt of lightning shattered the darkness. Thunder roared through the night, shaking the boards beneath her feet. Julia went inside, thinking there was something about that man . . . something very odd. But then she was thinking about Connor, and there was no one else in the world.
THREE
Something Missing
Connor Grey retreated into the threshold of the White Shore Inn. The sign above the door swayed and creaked in the wind. Rainwater flooded the streets, and still it continued to poor, the first heavy storm the Island had seen all autumn.
He thought about daring the downpour again, racing through the Village to his house at the end of Main Street, but the rain suddenly turned to hail. A thousand tiny balls of ice littered the washed-out road and floated in the puddles.
A streak of pale lightning splintered through the black canopy, and a lion of thunder roared a moment afterwards.
The last time Connor had seen a storm like this . . .
Well, he didn’t want to remember.
He glanced up at the sign knocking back and forth. The lacquered board reflected light from the front windows of the inn, revealing the need for a new paint job. The White Shore Inn had been here on Third Street for at least a hundred years, and as far as Connor knew, the sign had never been recoated.
People didn’t notice things like that—or if they did notice, they didn’t care. Connor noticed. He would have repainted the sign at the first indication of peeling.
Another flash in the heavens, and the echo of thunder a moment later. It was still hailing, the orbs of ice nearly the size of fingernails.
Just as well—not like he’d be able to sleep tonight anyway. Julia danced in his heart and mind, and there was no room for slumber. He pulled open the door of the inn and stepped inside.
A circle of old men sat around a table, and one of them hollered, “Close that quick! My bones are freezin’!”
Connor secured the door in its frame and shook the rainwater from his cloak.
The grizzled old man raised a tankard to the innkeeper behind the counter. “Wade, how’s about another splash of mead for me and the boys? And another split of pine on the fire wouldn’t hurt neither.”
The innkeeper came over to the table and topped off the tankards from a metal pitcher. “I ain’t letting you all out of here tonight without paying. You hear me, Ben?”
Ben waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. Throw another log on that fire. My bones turnin’ to ice.”
Connor took a seat at a corner table near the window. The inn was already hot, so much so that Connor had to shed his cloak and roll up his sleeves.
The old men made no effort to hide their glances. They stared at him over their shoulders and over foaming tankards, glaring old eyes beneath untamed eyebrows. After staring, they all leaned their heads in toward the center of their table and began to whisper among each other.
Connor could hear their words, but he ignored them. He was used to the gossip, the ridicule, the unmasked disgust. It hardly fazed him anymore.
Wade came over to his table. “Evenin’ Mr. Grey.” The innkeeper was apparently one of the few people in the Village who didn’t harbor a preformed prejudice toward Connor—he was polishing the inside of a mug and smiling. Wade set the mug on the table. “Can I get you somethin’ to drink?”
“Some hot cider would be nice.”
“I was thinkin’ the same thing myself,” Wade said. “Mighty fine storm out there tonight.”
Through the window, Connor could see that the hail had turned back to rain, but it was falling even heavier now than before. “Yes it is.”
“Well, I’ll get the cider goin’.”
“Thank you.”
Wade left the empty mug and went back to his kitchen.
Connor traced a circle around the rim of the mug and listened to the old men.
“What’s he thinking anyway, wasting all that material? We could be using that good lumber to build more houses.”
“I know I could use another room or two. Wife’s always complaining about it being too cramped with the two of us.”
“There ain’t nothin’ across that Chasm worth gettin’ to anyway. It’s a waste of
materials, it is.”
“Not like we have a hundred acres of forest on the Island. We’re gonna run out of lumber sooner or later, and I don’t see the point in wasting it on bridges and what have you to cross some wretched Chasm.”
“You hear about the new contraption he’s built up there? Calling it a caterpillar. Dang, I says, I’ve seen them furry little things all over the ground. How’s one of them gonna do you any good?”
They chuckled, and Connor smiled into his empty mug. His latest contraption was actually a catapult, but none of the old men would know what that was. Connor had found the description of the machine in the Volumes of the Ancient World.
“I’ve been saying it for two years—that Connor Grey is twelve eggs short of a dozen. He’s gonna get somebody killed with his insane projects, and I ain’t gonna be the one to say I told you so, but I did.”
“Speaking of insane, you hear about what that chap saw up in Ravenword?”
At the mention of the Island’s northeastern village, Connor leaned toward the old men and focused on their words.
“Fellow says he was out walking in the woods near the village when he looked up and saw letters falling out of the sky.”
“What’s letters?”
“You know, letters like in a book.”
“Real letters? A, B, C and what not?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Letters don’t fall out of the sky. What did they spell?”
“The chap said they didn’t spell nothin’, just piled on top of each other in the middle of the forest.”
“That’s hogwash if I’ve ever smelled it. Had too much of that good Ravenword wine, he did.”
“And here’s the kicker. He says after the letters stopped falling, they turned into a tree.”
“What type of tree?”
“Didn’t hear, but people saying you can go out and see it for yourself.”
“See what? A tree in the forest? Hogwash and hog snot, I ain’t never heard a bigger load of manure in my sixty-nine years. People goin’ crazy round here, I’m tellin’ ya. Something in the air.”
Wade returned with a brass kettle and filled Connor’s mug with steaming cider. “There you are, Mr. Grey.”
Connor snapped a coin onto the table. “Thank you, Wade.”
The innkeeper slid the coin into a pocket of his apron. “How’s work going on the Upper Island?”
Connor sipped the cider and looked up at Wade. The innkeeper had a full beard and most of his teeth. “Good as it can, I suppose,” Connor said.
“You know, I agree with you. It’s important for us to see what’s over there under all that fog.”
Connor found himself smiling at this rare support. “That means a lot to me.”
Wade cleaned the tip of the kettle with his apron. “Don’t you pay any heed to what those others say about you. You just keep working at it. There’s somethin’ over there across that Chasm, and I think we’re supposed to see what it is.”
“That’s really kind of you. Thank you.”
“You gonna be wanting another cup?”
Connor raised the mug. “I think one will be fine. I should be getting off to bed soon.”
“Looks like the storm ain’t lettin’ up yet.”
The rain continued to pour through the window, not as heavy now as a few moments before, but still enough to turn any patch of dirt into a muddy bog.
“Suppose I’ll have to face it,” Connor said.
“Let me know if you change your mind and want another cup.” Wade returned to the counter and started polishing a drinking glass.
Connor listened to the men and their gossip, but their conversation soon turned to grumbling about their wives and their own old age, and Connor lost interest.
He occupied himself with his own thoughts about Julia and their future together. He was going to stop by the bakery tomorrow on his way to work and ask Mr. Belle for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He knew the man would agree—Julia’s father had practically asked Connor to marry her. Still, it was the proper thing to do.
Then Connor was going to pick up the custom-made ring from the jeweler during his lunch break. He was going to let his crew go home early tomorrow so that he would have time to set up the table out on the sea cliffs. He had ordered a special meal from Julia’s favorite restaurant to be delivered hot and fresh to their private dining area overlooking the ocean.
As the sun began to set, he would kneel and ask her to be his wife. Then they would dance under the stars, and hold each other and speak of nothing and everything. His only concern was this downpour—if the storm continued through the night and the following day, they might be dining in the rain.
Connor finished his cider and took the mug over to Wade. “Thank you for your hospitality.” He placed an extra coin on the counter. “And thank you for your support.”
Wade rejected the coin. “You keep that. I hear rumor that you’re going to be having yourself a little wife to take care of soon.”
“A man can’t keep any secrets around here.”
Wade chuckled. “It’s a small world now, Mr. Grey.”
Connor left the coin and exited the inn, ignoring the stares of the old men. Outside, the rain had abated as much as it was going to, and Connor pulled on his hood and jogged down the road.
He turned onto Main and passed the house of Scarlet Rose. The old woman was outspoken about her opposition to Connor’s attempts to cross the Chasm. Her complaints about Connor were different than others though—she wasn’t against crossing the Chasm, but rather she was against the means by which Connor attempted to do so.
On more than one occasion, Mrs. Rose had vocally declared that the Chasm could not be crossed by any contraption or device of man, but that it would take magic to reach the other side. When asked what magic she was referring to, the wrinkled old woman just smiled and hustled off back to her house.
Crazy, some said. An old loon. But even though she gave Connor a glare to melt ice whenever she saw him, he liked the old woman.
His cloak was thoroughly drenched by the time he reached his house. He looked down the road toward the docks where the water was churning and spitting up waves. Not a good night to be out on the water. Not a good night to be anywhere but inside by a fire.
He knew something was wrong when he noticed that his door wasn’t latched. He’d made sure it was closed when he left that morning. Had the wind blown it open?
Connor pushed the door open further and saw the books scattered across the floor. Not the wind—somebody had ransacked his house. Were they still inside? He listened but heard only wind and thunder.
Stepping inside, Connor drew a match and lit a candle. Nothing seemed to be ruined, but the place was certainly a mess. Food and his few kitchen utensils were strewn all over the counter. His books had all been ripped from the shelf on the wall. The furniture was overturned, the covers pulled from the bed, and his dresser—
Only the top drawer of the dresser was open.
Connor stepped over a pile of papers and rummaged through the few items of clothing in the open drawer. His heart began to hammer when he didn’t find what he was looking for. He set the candle on top of the dresser and searched the remaining drawers, even though he had always kept it in the top drawer.
A thorough search of the dresser revealed nothing except for the obvious: Somebody had broken into his house, rummaged through his belongings, and taken one of the only items that truly meant something to Connor.
His best friend Arnold Reynolds had given it to him as a gift. It was a knife with Connor’s name engraved into the handle. The knife was missing.