Kaya Stormchild (8 page)

Kaya and Josh
came to peer over her shoulder.

“
There are
only two little islands close by. There, to the south west,” said
Josh, pointing excitedly. “They look almost identical. Twin
islands. It’s got to be one of them!”

“
They are
called Edith Island and Bella Island,” said the Duchess, reading
the map. “Hmm...Perhaps they were named for two sisters. But they
are not very large. It shouldn’t be hard to search them. What do
you think?”

“
Let’s go!”
said Kaya and Josh at once.

They both
leaped to their feet and began to clear the dishes.

“
Wait, my
dears,” said the Duchess. “We have to be careful. These men are
dangerous. We don’t want to confront them ourselves. That’s a job
for the police. We need to be discreet – to pretend we are just out
for a nice family picnic. I’ll pack some food and my red checkered
blanket and - and we’ll take along this old Frisbee and perhaps a
butterfly net. If we bump into them, they will never guess what we
are up to,” said the Duchess.

She stood up
and opened her cupboard. “Oh good. Here is an unopened box of
crackers,” she said happily. “I have cheese and apples in the
fridge. And we can take the rest of the muffins.”

“
I’ve got
some trail mix in the canoe,” said Kaya, “and two full bottles of
water.”

The Duchess
locked the front door of the shop and straightened the “Closed”
sign. Then they set off for the dock.

The four
friends got into the canoe. Kaya sat in the stern, Josh in the
prow, while the Duchess perched demurely on the seat in the middle,
with Tike curled up at her feet. As Kaya pushed the canoe away from
the dock and thrust her paddle deep into the water, she saw her
elderly friend shudder suddenly.

“
Are you sure
you are OK?” asked Kaya. “Not too uncomfortable?”

“
I’m
perfectly comfortable, my dear. It’s just - such a strange
sensation keeps coming over me. It’s as if the fabric of the world
is unravelling. Or a hole opening up somewhere. It makes me dizzy.
But not to worry. The feeling has already passed. Perhaps I’m just
getting old.”

She laughed a
little, shrugging her shoulders.

Kaya stared
into the still, silvery-smooth water as she paddled. The sea was
like glass. The sky overhead was perfectly blue, with just a hint
of a breeze on the air. An ideal day for a paddle.

However, she
too had begun to feel a curious lightness in the pit of her
stomach. It was as if she hadn’t eaten all day. Yet she remembered
clearly her breakfast of bread and peanut butter on Tangle that
morning, not to mention the muffin just now at the Thrift store.
Kaya watched her hands as, stroke after stroke, they swung the
paddle down into the water. She half expected to see her skin
thinning somehow, growing transparent. But her fingers looked
tanned and solid as they always did.

What was wrong
with everything? Were these strange sensations simply the result of
all the excitement of the past few days?

With the
weight of the four of them in the canoe it took longer than the
previous day to reach Heron. It was an hour before they had passed
the island and were approaching Edith Island, the first of the twin
islets to the southwest. The sun was high and hot, and Kaya felt
the sweat trickle down her temples as she stopped to rest her
paddle on the side of the canoe.

She’d become
aware during the past ten minutes or so of a faint humming or
throbbing sound in the distance. Like the beat of a far-off drum,
or the pulse of a heartbeat not her own. The Duchess sat rigid in
front of her, evidently listening too.

“
Ouch!” said
Tike, rubbing his ears. “What’s that noise? I don’t like
it!”

From the prow
Josh called. “That sound is really annoying, isn’t it? Kind of
grates on your nerves. Makes you all jittery.”

“
It’s some
kind of drum, I think,” said Kaya. “But that doesn’t make sense.
Who’d be drumming? Nobody lives out here.”

No one
laughed. A deep uneasiness had settled into each of them, though
the little island, like a bright green jewel floating on the quiet
sea, looked serene and inviting.

“
I don’t see
their boat anywhere,” said Josh. “According to this map, this is
the only beach. Those guys aren’t here. That’s a relief, at
least.”

They tied up
in the small, pebbly cove. The throbbing sound was still faint, but
persistent, never missing a beat. As soon as he was out of the
canoe, Tike dived into the water as if to escape the noise. Josh
took a long drink from Kaya’s water bottle, then passed it to the
Duchess.

“
Shall we
break up?” he asked. “Kaya, you and the Duchess search the south
end. I’ll take the north. Tike can look in all the caves along the
beach. Let’s meet back here in an hour.”

They agreed.
The island was tiny. Once Kaya and the Duchess had climbed the hill
up from the beach they could see the ocean only a few hundred yards
away on the other side. A narrow path, not more than a well-worn
deer track, led towards the south end of the island. They followed
this, walking slowly and peering carefully at the rocks and
undergrowth to either side of the trail.

After a
quarter of an hour, the Duchess sat on a stump at the side of the
trail to rest. Kaya stretched out on her back on a flat stone
nearby. She felt hollowed out, like a cave. Crossing her arms
beneath her head, she gazed up through the dappled alder branches
to the blue sky beyond. The distant drumming seemed to keep time
with the shifting of the leaves in the breeze.

“
When I was a
girl in England,” began the Duchess, pressing her fingers to her
temples, “my family would spend summers at a little cottage down in
Cornwall, on the southern coast. That’s where I first discovered I
had the Speech. I used to go and sit on a spit of rocky headland
that jutted out into the sea.

Thousands of
sea birds of all kinds would stop there, to fish, or just to rest
and preen their feathers in the summer sun. I remember trying to
sit very still, so that they would forget I was there. At times
they came very close. I found I could understand their
conversations with one another. At least partly. And the more I
listened the more I understood.”

Kaya sat up.
She gazed intently at the old woman.

“
I didn’t
realize until many years later that I could
be understood
in return. If I had, I
might have asked some questions. I remember one particular day as
if it were yesterday. It was about this time of year. We had gone
down to spend the weekend at the cottage. I got up early and walked
down to the headland before breakfast. I wanted to be alone for a
while. I overheard an old gull talking to a fledging. He spoke of
some event that was going to occur very soon, an event of great
importance, which the young bird was going to witness for the first
time. The elder gull explained that, scattered over the surface of
the earth were points of power, axes around which nature’s force
turned. One such axis was just off the coast of Cornwall, near the
headland I was sitting on. The event - the Turning, I think he
called it - would take place there, and soon. I was so fascinated.
I tried to keep absolutely still so as not to frighten the birds.
But some noisy village children wandered onto the headland to hunt
for crabs. The birds flew away.”

The Duchess
leaned back, smiling a little.

“
Strange. I
remember such a sensation of excited agitation, almost of
dizziness, gripping me, as I listened to the words of the old gull.
A sensation similar to what I am feeling right now. Only then I
wasn’t afraid.”

Kaya stood up
and gazed out through the trees towards the glistening
ocean.

“
It’s not
just the Salish Sea, then,” said Kaya softly. “There are Turnings
everywhere, at the heart of each place. Grandmother didn’t tell me
that.”

“
What did you
say, Kaya? Do you know what the gulls were talking about?” asked
the Duchess, leaning forward eagerly.

Kaya turned to
her friend. She studied the lined face of the elderly
woman.

“
I think I
can trust you,” she began. “I think - I know you’ll
understand.”

“
About
Grandmother?” asked the Duchess, her blue eyes
twinkling.

Kaya stared in
surprise.

“
You
know?”

“
Tike and I
had a conversation earlier, as you were packing the canoe. He’s a
confiding little chap. He wanted me to know about Tangle Island,
and about the nest you built. He’s very proud of you, you
see.”

“
Do
you…mind?” asked Kaya, her face worried. “I mean, I think you would
love Grandmother, and she would love you. But she has always warned
me --”

“
She was
right to,” said the Duchess gently. “Most of the world wouldn’t
understand. Most people have a very low opinion of any creature
different from themselves, and most people think their way of life
is the only right way. But I think your life on Tangle sounds
perfectly splendid!”

Kaya crossed
the path to where the Duchess sat and threw her arms around the old
woman’s neck.

“
I’m so glad!
It’s such a relief not to have to keep it secret from you
anymore!”

The two
friends smiled at one another. The Duchess got to her
feet.

“
But listen,
I have to tell you. It’s so important!” said Kaya
eagerly.

They began to
walk further down the path towards the south end of the island. As
they went, Kaya told the Duchess everything she had learned from
Grandmother and Kelpie about the Omrith and the Summer
Turning.

As she
finished her tale, they came to the end of the forested stretch of
the island and out onto the southern tip. Here the trail ended on a
low bank above the sea. They stood side by side in silence for a
moment, gazing across the small strip of water that lay between
Edith island on which they stood and its twin sister, Bella
Island.

“
It’s louder
here,” said the Duchess, rubbing her forehead.

Kaya nodded,
frowning. They both stared towards the other island. The pulsing
vibration was much more noticeable now that they were facing this
direction.

“
I have a
hunch …” began the Duchess.

“
I know,”
said Kaya. “It’s over there. Whatever it is. That is not a
drum.”

“
Whatever it
is that’s at the root of it all,” the old woman whispered. “My
dizziness…”

“
My empty
feeling.”

They looked at
one another.

“
The others,”
said Kaya quickly, “we’ve got to tell them. Let’s go!”

Back at the
beach, they called for Josh and Tike. The boy and the otter came
running, their faces hopeful.

“
We didn’t
find it,” said Kaya. “We’ve got to go to the other
island.”

“
But we
haven’t finished searching this one!” exclaimed Josh. “We can’t
leave yet!”

“
I can’t
explain,” said Kaya. “I just know we have to go there. Maybe it’s
this shell thing, maybe it has something to do with the Omrith. I
don’t know. But it’s urgent. Oh! I wish Grandmother were here!”
Kaya’s voice caught in her throat. The Duchess put a hand on Kaya’s
shoulder.

“
Steady now,”
the old woman said gently. “We need to think as clearly as we can,
and be brave. Let’s have a bite to eat. Food will give us energy.
And then we’ll go across to the other island and find out what’s
there.”

Silently and
quickly, they ate their simple picnic. Then they launched the canoe
once more. It took them less than ten minutes to cover the distance
between the two adjacent islands.

Once they
reached the tip of Bella Island, they paddled west along its rocky
shore until they spotted a sandy beach. Approaching the beach in
order to dock the canoe, however, was extremely difficult. The air
throbbed almost visibly with a deep, insistent pulse that set their
teeth and their hearts pounding. Tike wailed and curled into a ball
at the Duchess’s feet. Josh and Kaya scowled as they paddled, and
the Duchess kept her hands firmly clapped over her ears.

They forced
the canoe forward and had reached the shore when the sound of a
motor cut through the throbbing. Kaya swiveled in her seat to see.
The white boat! It was coming right towards them! She could see Rex
standing at the helm, wearing a thin T-shirt that revealed his
huge, pale, flabby arms. Spencer stood glowering beside him. The
men seemed hardly to notice the red canoe ahead in the shallow
water. Their eyes scanned the sandy beach intently.

Josh and Kaya
leapt from the canoe and helped the Duchess and Tike onto the sand.
They stared as the white boat swept in close to the beach, stopping
not ten meters away from the canoe. Rex cut off the motor and
Spencer jumped out, plunging thigh-deep into the water.

They all saw
it at the same moment.

It lay on a
bed of sand, pebbles and dried seaweed, just up the beach from
Rex’s boat. It was large for a shell, nine or ten inches long from
tip to tip, and spiral-shaped, like some great conch of the
tropical seas. Only this was like no other shell they had ever
seen. Great stripes of deep black and brilliant white intertwined
over its outer surface. The interior of the shell, however, shone
with an iridescent, rainbow-hued light that seemed to grow brighter
with each passing moment. Around the shell the air faintly
shimmered and vibrated and throbbed. Tiny flecks of light, like
sparks from struck flint, leapt from it and sank into the sand.
With each pulse, the shell seemed to swell and recede, like a heart
alive and beating visibly before them.