Second Heart: Bones of Eden Page 9

  “You have to sort out your differences with Charlie,” Tare told him.

  “He won’t even talk to me,” Sugar said sadly. “Which doesn’t even make sense. They were kidnapping us. Whiskey kidnapped Fox. Surely I’m the one who should be mad? I don’t know what to do.”

  Tare shrugged. “You’re the one with all the bright ideas, Sugar. I’m just the pretty one.”

  “You’re the one who knows the most about the Varekai. How did you get to the bond you have with India?”

  “I’m nice to him. I listen. We talk. I don’t throw around ultimatums and say I’m going to declare war if he doesn’t do what I say. I think that helps.”

  “I didn’t do that.” Sugar tried not to grit his teeth.

  “No. Well, kinda. Charlie did spend a lot of time flirting with you. He tried to kiss you. You kept rejecting him. If I tried to kiss India and he shoved me away, I’d be brokenhearted. I think I’d curl up and die.”

  He looked down. “I never wanted to hurt Charlie’s feelings.”

  “But you probably did. What are you going to do about it?”

  “You’re supposed to be telling me. What would you do?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt India’s feelings in the first place. He’s precious. It’s my job to protect him.”

  Sugar shook his head in disbelief. “How can you just say that? How are you so certain?”

  Tare shrugged. “I know how I feel. I knew how I felt when we were on the mainland. Maybe even before then. I didn’t throw myself in the channel to rescue India because I was curious, Sugar. I couldn’t bear to let anything happen to him. I figure, as long as he’s safe, I’m doing a good job.”

  Sugar was silent for a moment.

  “I saved Charlie,” he confessed.

  “What? When?”

  “Before you ended up on the mainland. He’d waded into an inlet with a crocodile, and it attacked. I speared it and drove it back. Charlie wanted me to stay and talk, but I walked away. I was scared of the bloodlust. I didn’t want to get sick.”

  “But you didn’t want him to die, either.”

  “My feelings were different then. It’s not like now. This still feels like a sickness, Tare. It hurts.”

  “That’s because you’re doing it wrong. It always hurts being away from India. I miss him all the time. But when we’re together, I’m happy. Content, you know? We don’t have to be touching, as long as I can see he’s nearby and he’s okay. As long as he’s always happy to see me.”

  “Well, Charlie isn’t happy to see me. I hate this.”

  “Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you like him and you want to spend time with him.”

  Sugar’s chest tightened. “I can’t do that. What if he says no? What if he rejects me?”

  “Like you did to him?”

  “Oh! Oh...”

  “Yeah.”

  Sugar sagged. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess I have to talk to him.”

  “Can’t hurt. Well, actually it can. Don’t start a war, okay? Just...be nice. Apologize. Let him say something mean and get it off his chest.”

  “I can do that.”

  He didn’t feel as confident as he sounded. He just felt...lost.

  Chapter Nine

  Sugar approached Charlie, feeling a little like he was trying to sneak up on a sleeping snake. Without eyelids, snakes slept with their eyes open, and it was hard to tell if they were oblivious to you or about to strike.

  The Varekai was seated by a fire, charring some fish-flesh into inedible black squares.

  “Can we talk?” He frowned. “What are you doing to that fish? You’re making a mess of it.”

  Charlie glanced at the meat and swore, tossing it at a dog, which startled, sniffed the meat and quickly scurried away without it.

  Sugar sat down and started to thread new squares of meat onto a skewer. “Here, I’ll do it.”

  “I’m going scouting tomorrow,” Charlie said. “Alone. We need to have eyes on these things. What does India call them?”

  “Megalania.”

  “We need to study the megalania. See what they’re doing and why. It’s the only way we can drive them from the islands. We just don’t know enough right now. They’re too dangerous to fight head-on.”

  “I think it’s a good plan,” Sugar said. “But I don’t think you should go alone.”

  “One person has less chance of being caught.”

  “But four eyes are better than two. Let me come. You watch the megalania, and I’ll watch your back.”

  He frowned, uncertain. “I should take Whiskey.”

  “I’m good at scouting. I might not be the best Elikai hunter, but I am good at observation. And I’m fast. Let me come, Charlie. It will be good for the others to see us working together.”

  “And who is going to be in charge and supervising if we are both gone?”

  “India and Tare.”

  “You would leave Tare in charge of your tribe?” Charlie looked even more doubtful.

  “It’s only for a few hours. Xícara can back him up. He’s sensible. As long as it’s not Fox and Whiskey, right?”

  “Right,” Charlie agreed.

  “So it’s settled? You and me? Tomorrow.”

  “If that’s what you really want.”

  Sugar swallowed, trying to find the words to express what he’d really come over here to say. Suddenly “I’m sorry” seemed like an impossible mouthful. Charlie wasn’t angry at him right now. He wasn’t happy to see him, but he wasn’t sullen or glaring. Sugar couldn’t help thinking if he brought it up now, all that would change.

  “Tomorrow,” he repeated, then quickly walked away.

  * * *

  It was a long and tiring night. Both tribes organized sentries, and everyone slept in shifts, keeping watch for a few hours at a time—two people per point of the compass. Everyone was cramped together, sharing spaces meant for fewer people, and the dogs, made tense by the strangers and unease, barked at every sound, causing multiple false alarms.

  Charlie took the final watch and felt like she hadn’t slept at all. As the camp roused and cooking fires were loaded with wood, she gathered her pots—one for ink and one for clay—and sat on a stone to complete the morning ritual of adornment. Using her fingertips, she streaked the black and white across her skin. She didn’t need to see the fading marks from the day before to follow them, even on her face. The pattern was always the same. She did her face first, then her arms, legs and belly.

  Soundlessly, Tango crouched beside her, and Charlie pulled her hair over one shoulder so her tribe-mate could paint stripes and spots across her back and shoulders. These would be in Tango’s signature, and for the rest of the day, the Varekai would recognize who had painted them on.

  “She’s watching you,” Tango said.

  “Who?”

  “Sugar.”

  “They’re all watching us.”

  The Elikai had huddled together in one big miserable group, passing around the meager rations the Varekai had offered them, clearly missing having one big fire. Some looked lost, and others comforted them. The rest appeared morbidly fascinated by Varekai life, curious, but still clearly afraid. All except Tare, of course, who was still sprawled in India’s tent, on his back, snoring softly with the witchdoctor curled up beside him. They were the only happy people in the whole world.

  “You should take a sister with you, not Sugar.” Tango finished her art and put the clay pots down.

  “It’s important everyone sees us working together.” Charlie glanced at Sugar only to catch him quickly look away. “If we look like we’re bickering, someone else is going to start a fight.”

  “Whiskey,” Tango scoffed.


  “Maybe. Maybe not. Whiskey might have a temper, but she’s adaptable. She’s not looking to be right, she’s looking to win.”

  “They’re the same thing.”

  “Not always.” Charlie stood up and picked up her spear and a water bottle. “India is in charge, but you seem to have made friends with Zebra and Xícara, so I want you to help keep the peace. Keep the Varekai away from the Elikai as much as possible. They’ll probably want to take canoes and go back to their village to salvage what they can, but I want our sisters to stay here and keep the camp fortified. We must not lose our food like they did.”

  Tango nodded, and Charlie crossed the camp to where Sugar was sitting with her sisters.

  “Are you ready?”

  She rose lithely to her feet, also armed and carrying a water bottle. “Yes.”

  They took a Varekai canoe, paddling out into the relative cool of morning. The banks and beaches were lined with crocodiles waiting for the heat of the sun to warm them. Here and there they could see signs of the megalanias’ passing. Not just torn foliage and shattered branches, but pieces of dead crocodile and the head of one of the Elikai dogs rolling back and forth in the surf.

  Despite the inherent threat the morning possessed, Charlie found herself all too aware of the Elikai behind her. Being near Sugar made her chest and throat ache. This sad longing was both alien and unwelcome. Not so long ago she would have thought it was the disease, bloodlust, and that she would go mad. She was not altogether sure their original fears had been unfounded. She certainly felt like she was going mad. And seeing Tare and India so content and so confident in their affections made Charlie angry. The affection between Tare and India was so far from what Charlie and Sugar had, she had no idea how they could possibly get from here to there.

  “Where do you want to go?” Sugar asked.

  “What?” Had the Elikai somehow read her mind?

  “The megalania, where do you think they will be?”

  “Oh.” She blushed, glad Sugar couldn’t see her face. “Stony creek. On Pinnacle Island.”

  “Why there?”

  “Crocodiles can drink saltwater, but lizards can’t. The megalania are huge. They must need to drink a lot. There aren’t many big sources of freshwater on the islands.”

  “They’ll be gathering around the creek today. That’s clever. But there’s a lot of open ground there. They’ll probably like that. For basking. But it makes us vulnerable.”

  “I know. Maybe there’ll be some where the creek meets the ocean. I don’t think they’ll swim out to us. We can put an anchor down and stay in the canoe.”

  “It’s a good Plan A.”

  The sun was up by the time they reached Pinnacle Island. Where the creek ran into the sea, the water was swarming with brackish fish, which fed eagerly on the dying freshwater shrimps and yabbies that were unfortunate enough to be pulled out into the salt water by the current. On the shore, the eastern side of the creek bank was heavily forested. The west side was a wide shelf of volcanic rock, meaning only low bushes and grasses could take root in the thin layer of sediment.

  Momentarily distracted by a half-grown tiger shark inspecting the bottom of the canoe, Charlie almost didn’t notice the large megalania basking in the sun. At a quick glance, the massive creature just looked like a shelf of rock or a weathered tree trunk.

  It was the first time she had seen one, and when she realized what she was looking at, she simply stared in awe.

  “Looks like you were right.” Sugar hoisted the anchor over the side. It was a sharp, angular steel contraption they had found on a dead motorboat. A genuine anchor, from the world before. The original chain had rusted, though, and now it was tied with a rope made from plant fibers.

  Charlie followed the Elikai from the corner of her eye. Sugar tested the anchor, then leaned on the edge of the canoe, watching the megalania.

  “They’re so big,” Sugar murmured.

  “It’s hard to imagine there is enough food for them.”

  “There’s bigger game for them on the mainland. Deer, camels, kangaroos.”

  She felt a rising tightness in her belly. “So why come here? What if they’re like locusts and they ate everything on the mainland?”

  Sugar glanced at Charlie. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll find a way to stop them. Baits, perhaps. We’ll stuff puffer fish in dead chickens and feed them to the megalania. Look, there’s half a dozen puffer fish in the creek mouth.”

  Charlie blinked back tears, wondering how the Elikai could be so reasonable when her whole village had already been destroyed. If it was Charlie, she would have been angry or scared or completely numb. Maybe all three at once. Sugar must be stronger than she was, to keep it together like this.

  “I won’t let you starve,” she blurted suddenly. Then regretted it. There were too many Elikai to feed all wet season. And she had no right to give away anything without consulting her sisters.

  Sugar studied her a moment, then gave her a shy smile. “Look, I’m sorry. About everything. I was so scared Fox would be hurt. Tare told us about November and what the Teacher Steve did to her. I thought Fox would be traumatized, but even though what Whiskey did was very wrong, Fox is fine. He’s not scared or angry. It can’t be allowed to happen again, but I’m sorry for what I said about us going to war again. I want peace.”

  Charlie opened her mouth to respond. She wanted to tell Sugar it wasn’t about the tribes or even Whiskey and Fox. She wanted to say how she felt. The jealousy, the hurt, the longing, all of it.

  A sudden commotion on the island cut her short.

  A megalania twice the size of the one already on the beach was making its way down to the shore. Its huge bulk swung from side to side with every step, its thick hide streaked and pockmarked with pale scars. Swarming behind it were nearly a dozen others—all longer than the canoe and heavier than a bull crocodile, but dwarfed by their leader.

  “Is that...” Charlie breathed. “The alpha? The pack leader?”

  The creature they had been watching doze on the sand raised its head and hissed, then quickly scrambled out of the path of the larger lizard. It began to flick its tongue like crazy, as if the sight of the larger animal was driving it into a frenzy. In its wake, the rest of them squabbled and hissed, a tangled mess of gray, conflicting limbs and tails.

  As they watched, the largest animal crawled over a large rock. It stopped, positioned awkwardly with its hips at the peak of the stone, and rolled its tail to the side. Between its legs, where a mammal might have a penis, was the cloaca. The vent was little more than a slit for the excretion of waste and the act of copulation. It was leaking a thick, yellowish paste, which the megalania smeared on the stone, sending its smaller cousins into a frenzy of activity. Even at a distance, the musky smell made Charlie gag a little.

  “It’s...” Sugar was staring at it intently, frowning with concentration. “It’s a girl! That’s the female. They’re all following him.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. “She’s in season, like a bitch! They all followed her here to breed.”

  Sugar grinned at her. “You know what that means, right? If we get rid of the matriarch, the others will leave too. We just have to think of some way to drive him out of the archipelago.”

  Charlie brightened at the idea, then her gaze found the massive creature again. All those scars spoke of massive injuries in its past. Injuries it had survived. She had serious doubts the Varekai spears could even pierce a hide that thick. As for driving it off the islands, what could they possibly do? They only had a few days left before the rains came, and then the storm would be just as likely to kill them as the lizards.

  “Easier said than done, Sugar.”

  * * *

  Everyone was tense as night fell. India sat with Tare as the Elikai huddled together at the edge of
the camp and the Varekai prepared for their blood ritual.

  “It’s bad timing,” Tare said conversationally. “Any other night, right?”

  “Perhaps you should be with your brothers,” India said. “Reassuring them the Varekai are not going to kill them.”

  She snorted. “Nah. I told them everything about the last moon ceremony. In detail. Several times.”

  “Yes, and you were tied up and terrified. You thought we would kill you. With the drums and the screaming, they are going to be afraid.”

  She pouted. “Don’t you want me here with you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want anyone to get excited and get hurt either.”

  She put her arm around India’s shoulders. “I don’t want to leave you. I want to know straight away, if you bleed.”

  India felt forlorn for a moment. “You want to know instantly if we failed?”

  “It’s not a failure.” She kissed her temple. “It will happen. I believe in you. In us. I’m sure you’re right about this.”

  India sighed and rested her head on Tare’s shoulder. She knew how badly Tare wanted this, but her gut had been twisting all morning. When night fell, her blood would start. On the one hand, it meant she was putting on the weight she needed. On the other, it would be a clear sign that she was not pregnant yet.

  She wondered if that should be her priority, when the situation was so dire. Already, there would not be enough food for both tribes over the summer. If the Varekai did not share, the Elikai would starve. If they did share, they would all lose condition and be thin and weak when the storms passed. It was an awful, ugly situation.

  When Charlie and Sugar had returned, they had told everyone what they had seen and shared their theories. India hadn’t seen it, but she had supported their claims. The pythons formed massive balls at this time of the year. Writhing, snaking knots of flesh. It was probably the same thing. Breeding cycles. Reproduction. Now they knew about it, it seemed to be everywhere.

  India flinched as another cramp clenched between her thighs.

  “What is it?”

  India dipped her fingers between her legs. They came out red. Tare’s shoulders sank with disappointment.