Second Heart: Bones of Eden Read online

  The mouth of the cave rose up in a jagged arrowhead, some thirty feet high, though only a few yards wide. Inside, the ceiling rose up in an echoing gloom, too high for their meager fires to illuminate. Her sisters spread out across the open floor, bedding down on pockets of fine sand and between the stony columns of stalagmites. The cave was several hundred feet deep, though only the first fifty were comfortably open. It narrowed considerably after that, and jagged overhangs of rock became a serious hazard. Deeper in, the cave dropped away into several large shafts that fed into tunnel systems lower down. Sometimes they could hear the surge of the ocean tide, echoing up hundreds of feet through the layers of rock.

  It would be some time before they heard anything so mundane, as the whole world was overcome with the screaming, roaring, vibrating force of the cyclone. Even when they yelled, it was nearly impossible to hear one another. The rain lashed the cave mouth and flurries of wind sent it spiraling quite deep into the cave, so every so often they would be flecked with water.

  The Varekai huddled together, wrapped in hides and faded, crackling tarps. It was near impossible to sleep, and they all sat tense and silent in the darkness, waiting for it to be over, or for the dawn, whichever came first.

  They were not the only ones taking shelter. As the lightning flashed, eyes would light up all around the cave. Not just from the dog pack, but feral goats, two mean-looking feral cats, some bedraggled birds and a whole host of snakes, mostly pythons, who had slithered up the rock faces or into crevasses and were only visible because of the reflective sheen in their unblinking eyes.

  This was how it had to be. There were not enough safe places in the archipelago for all the animals to hide alone. During the cyclones, Varekai and animals alike had to share. There were rules. Rules of mutual need and survival. All of them, Varekai and animal, just wanted the storm to be over and to still be alive at the end. So they huddled side by side, miserable and uneasy with the presence of the others.

  It had been like this since the world was born.

  Though, there had never been an Elikai taking shelter in the Varekai cave before, which made this a little different from the other years. Across the cave, Charlie could see Tare was wrapped around India, as if she could defend her from an entire cyclone. They looked comfortable. Safe. When she’d come upon them like this in the camp, she’d thought of Sugar and had to force herself to turn away. But tonight there was no room for longing inside her. The storm drowned out all other thoughts but for the raw desire to survive.

  Charlie could see the trees outside when the lightning struck. They were bent over, almost touching the ground, and as the night progressed, they had been stripped bare. Their once fluttering leaves had all been ripped away, and now it was only their naked skeleton fingers thrashing in the rain. She saw a little thing tumbling in a lightning flash; the wind whipped it across the mountainside and slammed it into the cave entrance. It wriggled and bleated, half broken and unable to stand, no larger than the feral tomcats huddled by the wall.

  In the next blinding flash, Charlie saw Whiskey had broken away from her sisters. She had a large bone knife and was crawling over the sandy leaf-strewn floor on her fingers and toes. The wind was snarling, beating at the stone, and a tree branch nearly twice as long and heavy as a Varekai flew past the cave opening, clipping the stone and being whipped away as if it were grass.

  “Whiskey!” Charlie screamed it with every decibel she could muster. She could barely even hear herself, just a faint mewling that was eaten by the storm.

  “Whiskey!” she tried again, waving her arms. She had to snatch at her blanket as it started to snake away from her toward the door.

  Whiskey glanced back, and Charlie waved, trying to time her movements with the lightning so Whiskey would see.

  In the flickering light, Charlie saw Whiskey point at the goat, then in the next flash she was drawing her finger across her own throat.

  Charlie growled in frustration. She knew what Whiskey was doing, she just didn’t want her to do it. Mercy killing a baby goat was not worth dying over.

  Whiskey crawled closer. Her red-gold hair was whipping around her in a frenzy, thrashing like a living thing. She was almost at the kid when another gust of wind ripped the buildup of debris away. Branches, leaves and the goat were all whipped up into the sky and were gone. Whiskey flattened herself to the floor, clinging to the stone to save herself from being torn away too. Charlie saw her looking up, out into the swirling, ferocious night with an expression of regret.

  * * *

  Fox had never enjoyed the wet season. The Elikai were spread out over eight different caves, small and poky, with narrow crevasses and few proper places to gather. It gave them greater protection from the storms than the Varekai’s giant cavern, but much less room and no way to get everyone together. Most of their caves were connected through mazelike tunnels, but Sugar had long ago ruled that those were off-limits. The rocks were unstable, and drop shafts could send an Elikai plummeting so far down rescue was impossible.

  Fox’s stomach growled. There was no food with them, and virtually no blankets or furs. Some weapons and a few empty water bottles were the only supplies they had been able to salvage from their ruined village.

  In Feather Hole, a wide, sandy-bottomed cave with a claustrophobically low ceiling, Fox, William and Romeo had gathered together with some of the dogs. Fox had given his blanket to William, because he was hurt. He and Romeo were in each other’s arms and asleep. The four wet, stinking black dogs had curled up together to form one big ball of fur in the back of the cave.

  Well away from all of them, Fox was tired and cold. His back ached where it was pressed against the damp stone. While the others slept, he had been crouched by the opening, catching the trickle of rain off the stone in their empty water bottles, filling them as best he could. That was done. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  Looking out at the cyclone-ravaged world beyond, he could see there would be goats on the mountain and other game, but no wood to burn. Still, they needed to eat. With or without a fire.

  Something was coming. Claws clicked against rock, and Fox tensed as the creature came into view. It dropped down from above, landing lightly on paws bigger than Fox’s face. Its sandy-colored fur was so sodden it was dark brown. In the dim light, glittering gold eyes fixed on Fox, and for a long moment he and the lioness were both frozen, gazes locked.

  It had been a long time since anyone had seen a lion. Fox had been starting to think they were all dead.

  The lioness licked its lips and padded away silently, vanishing into the rain. Fox exhaled slowly. There was always another danger in the archipelago.

  A sudden scream from somewhere farther up the mountain sent Fox scrambling for his spear. Romeo and William woke with cries of alarm.

  “What is it?” Romeo demanded.

  Fox shook his head. “I don’t know. Careful, there’s a lion outside.”

  He didn’t wait for their reply, putting his head down and scrambling out of the cave mouth into the torrential rain. The lioness was nowhere in sight, but Fox could hear his cries of alarm from one of the other Elikai bolt-holes. Fish Hole was a hundred feet above them, impossible to see through the heavy curtain of rain.

  He picked his way up the mountain face. The wind and rain lashed him, and every surface was slick. Water flowing down the mountain, forming little streams through the rocks, trickled over his hands and feet, and it was a challenge to climb and hold his spear at the same time.

  Dog hauled himself out of Fish Hole, face bloody from a gash on his forehead.

  “What is it?” Fox called.

  “Cave-in!” Dog pressed against the rocks, trying to shelter from the torrent. Clean streaks formed on his skin as a liberal coating of mud was washed away. “Vaca and Zebra are in there.”

  “We’re coming!” Romeo was only a fe
w yards behind Fox, but the wind whipped his voice away so he sounded faint and far distant.

  Fox picked his way up to Dog, touching the blood on his face. “Will you be okay?”

  Dog nodded, then winced.

  He leaned closer to Dog’s ear as the wind howled. “Go around to Mouse Hole. Sugar is there.”

  Dog nodded again, then grabbed Fox’s arm as he tried to duck into the cave. “You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’m not leaving them.” Fox shrugged him off and wriggled into the partially blocked opening—Fish Hole was long and narrow, choked now with mud and rocks. There was water pouring into the cave from the ceiling. There must have been an underground stream overhead that had become too saturated and burst through the ceiling.

  “Vaca! Zebra!” It was almost too dark to see. The narrow opening and the dark gray skies meant Fox could do little more than feel his way forward, deeper into the gloom.

  “Here.” Vaca was surprisingly close.

  Fox squelched through the mud on his hands and knees until he was pressed to Vaca’s side. “Are you hurt?”

  “A little. I can’t get Zebra. He’s out cold.”

  Fox felt his way across the prone form. Rocks covered Zebra’s hips and legs. Vaca had scraped the mud off his face so he could breathe, but he was lying in a fast-rising pool of water and soon he would be drowning.

  Fox started to roll the rocks off him, but his movements caused the ceiling to shift. Another avalanche of pebbles and mud buried Zebra’s head. They began to dig frantically, clearing another airway for their brother.

  “We’re going to be buried in here,” Vaca said sadly. There was no fear, just a quiet acceptance. He would not leave Zebra, and they could not get Zebra out in time.

  Fox twisted around to check. The opening was no more than ten feet away. He and Vaca could leave before it collapsed. Three lives or one. Was he strong enough to drag Vaca if he refused?

  “What’s going on?” William called from the cave mouth, blacking out the tiny rectangle of gray light.

  “You’re blocking the light!” Fox called back. “Don’t come in, it’s going to collapse.”

  William vanished from view. Fox studied Zebra. His brother. Stupid. Goofy. Always ready with a joke or a sharp stick to poke the nearest vicious animal. Vaca was right.

  “I’m going to hold the ceiling up,” Fox said. “You drag him out.”

  “When I move him, it’s all going to come down.”

  Fox grimaced and nodded. Vaca didn’t need to say the rest. Fox wouldn’t be able to get out. Maybe none of them would. Safety was so close, but neither of them could leave Zebra. Two was better than none.

  Fox clambered carefully over his fallen brother and dug his feet into the mud, bracing his back against the wall and ceiling. He put his arms out, holding as much of the shifting wall steady as he could.

  “Go,” he said.

  Frantically, Vaca shoveled the dirt and rocks off Zebra, freeing as much of his body as he could, then grabbed his brother’s wrists, dragging him over the uneven floor toward the exit. The sharp rocks tore Zebra’s skin, and even in the dim light Fox could see the wide red path left in his wake.

  As soon as Zebra was free, the wall behind Fox shifted. He felt the weight and pressure of the entire mountain. Millions of tons of mud and rock, all ready to make a tiny adjustment and crush him into a paste. He strained against the weight of it, muscles screaming in pain. The light was blocked as hands reached in, helping drag Vaca and Zebra out into the storm.

  There was a grinding, and his knees started to give. He made a desperate lunge, clawing his way across the jagged debris toward that little triangle of light. Toward his brothers. Toward life.

  Mud and rock crushed him, enveloped him and drowned him. It was in his eyes, his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. The exit was only feet away. Water filled the dirt, saturating his hair. He wasn’t just buried now. The cave had filled with water.

  He kicked and fought, dragging himself forward. Four more feet, perhaps. The cave mouth might as well have been on the moon.

  Chapter Two

  Dawn came slowly. For a few hours there was silence as the eye passed overhead. It was not the silence of night, with the reassuring hush of the breeze in the trees and the quiet chatter of nightlife. It was more like an absence of sound, as if they were all deaf now and would never hear again. The occasional rumble of thunder was enough to keep Charlie sane, and for a time most of them slept.

  Too soon the eye passed, and the storm was back with the same ferocity as before. When the night finally started to turn into a thick gray dawn, the worst of it had passed. The wind still howled and the rain poured from the sky like a waterfall, but there were no more trees flying past, and a desperate Varekai could have dashed a few yards in the storm without being bowled over by the force of it.

  They could once again speak to each other, and at the back of the cave, in the most sheltered place, they dared to start a well-protected cooking fire.

  Many of the animals had fled during the eye, but as the Varekai began to stir and chat, the rest slipped out from their sheltered nooks and braved the rain. A few of the birds stayed, as it was too wet and windy for them to fly, but the Varekai ignored them.

  They were all alive and the worst of the cyclone was past. There would be more, perhaps three or four before the summer was complete, and the rain and wind would be nearly constant, but the morning after was always a relief.

  The smell of sizzling fat warmed the air, and Charlie accepted a wooden bowl with wide, charred chunks of bacon, mashed yams and dried slices of banana.

  These were early summer foods, the preserved goods that wouldn’t quite make it through to the end of the season. Later their diet would be reduced to mostly protein. She would have to settle arguments over who got the liver and kidneys. They would have enough dried fruits to keep them from getting scurvy until the plants began to grow back, but even fishing and gathering crustaceans and mollusks would be harder. The storms stripped away the beaches, the wild weather made the surf dangerous and the influx of freshwater scared the fish into the deeper sea. The Varekai had been planning and storing all dry season. Now the Elikai had nothing. Charlie ate knowing they were all probably hungry. That Sugar was hungry. The food seemed to stick in her throat.

  There was a squeal and a sudden flurry of movement. A thick, luminescent coil of scales and muscle had locked on to Bravo’s leg. The python had struck mid-calf—perhaps in fear—then latched on, coiling around her leg in crushing, constricting loops.

  The python was large, perhaps six feet, which was large enough to kill if it coiled around a Varekai’s throat. It could not suffocate Bravo’s leg, but it could probably break her ankle or dislocate her knee. Already her foot was turning black as she bumbled across the floor of the cave.

  “Stay still!” Tango and Whiskey were scrambling after her, both being tripped up by the excited dogs that were now barking and growling.

  “Get it off!” Bravo grabbed a knife, trying to force it down through the top of the snake’s head. Tango caught her arm just in time.

  “You’re going to stab yourself!”

  Whiskey elbowed a dog out of the way, dropping to her knees by Bravo’s side and bringing out her own bone knife. She laid the blade against the back of the snake’s skull and began to saw, severing the spine.

  The snake contracted and Bravo screamed; huge wet tears rolled down her cheeks. Even dead, the snake would not let go. Mike had to help Whiskey, their muscles straining as they forced the rigid coils away from Bravo’s skin. Tango held the youngest Varekai still, her arms around her shoulders as she sobbed.

  Finally, Whiskey was able to pry off the python’s jaws, carefully pushing them forward to slide the curved teeth out with as little damage as possible. The blood flowed with ala
rming speed, and India brought a thick, greasy paste they made from papaya. She globbed it on in a big handful, but even so, the blood seeped through, beading on Bravo’s now oily skin. A strip of leather tied snugly over the injury dampened the flow.

  The bite was not the worst of injuries. Already Bravo’s leg was changing color as bruises formed under the skin.

  “Come and lie down,” India said. “You need to elevate it. We might be able to stop some of the swelling.”

  Still sniffling, Bravo nodded, letting Tango support her as she limped back over to a pile of furs and stretched out, resting her leg against the wall so it was almost at a right angle to her body.

  “Maybe we should clear out all the snakes,” Tango said, looking at the now limp corpse in Whiskey’s hands.

  Whiskey tossed it to her sisters near the fire. Snake meat was good. It had a greasy texture that some found off-putting, but they needed the fat. The corpse would be picked clean by midday.

  “No,” Charlie said. “Leave the other snakes alone. There have been snakes in the cave every summer, and no one has been bitten before. If we kill them all now, there won’t ever be peace again.”

  India nodded, putting away the jar of salve. “She’s right. We must keep the truce during cyclones. We don’t want to start a war between Varekai and snakes.”

  “Who says we aren’t already at war?” Whiskey said. “We killed that megalania matriarch. Maybe all the reptiles are angry.”

  “The megalania attacked us,” India said firmly. “And snakes and the lizards are different. There’s no need for more killing.”

  “I’m sure all the other snakes get the message,” Tare said, padding over to join India.

  In the chaos, Charlie had almost forgotten the Elikai was there. It had been a bit of a surprise that she wanted to stay with India instead of riding out the storm with her own tribe. The Varekai and Elikai had a tentative truce, but they had been enemies for many years. There were a lot of old grudges. And some new ones.