ManicWorld Magazine

Sand blankets Dyl’s arms. The sun beats a headache into his temples, a punishing white spot in the backs of his eyelids that he can’t peel open. He’s too scared to touch, scared to get sand in his eyes. The last thing he remembers… all thought scatters.

He bolts upright, and the aching sinews of his back creak and protest. The boat! Aunt Kath is going to kill him. A thin white line appears at the bottom of his vision, but with the slow cracking of his eyelids comes searing pain. Dyl grinds his palms into his face, no longer caring about the sand. Tears leak out of his nose, and he lets out a gasp, rolling over, on his knees, trying to seek shade from the sun.

A warning cry sounds, echoing as wings take to the sky. The soft chatter of birds and other creatures cease. The world holds its breath.

Then, a laugh.

“Who’s there?” Dyl calls. The sand eats his voice.

“Just me,” says the laugher. She speaks like a string on a harp. “They call me Ambrosia.” She turns away, he’s sure of it, from the sound of shifting sand and the shadow removed from the left of him. “When I said I was bored, I didn’t mean I wanted this on my doorstep!”

“Hey!” Dyl says, but his throat is so dry it comes out as a croak.

She crouches next to him. Water swishes. “I’m going to clean the salt off your eyes. Hold still.”

Something soft, steeped in cold water, touches his face. He flinches, jerking backwards. But the girl is gentle, and soon his thoughts drift back to what Aunt Kath will say. He’s grounded for sure. No more vacation for him. No more surfing, and he’s definitely not touching any boat for another year. Probably won’t be allowed to fold a paper boat, even.

The haze of tears is clearing. He gazes at a face with a pointed chin and a fair amount of baby fat. Brown curly hair, burnt and salt-dyed white in places, frames it, so long that it spills onto the sand and trails like seaweed. Freckles roll over her nose and disappear into either side of her hair. She can’t be older than him.

“Clean the sand off,” she says, thrusting the bowl at him and standing. It’s roughly carved from a hunk of wood, and the edge bites into his palm. Water sloshes over and down his sleeve.

“What’s your name?” she asks. He blinks, remembering hers. Ambrosia. What a trippy name. One’s tongue had to roll and one’s lips had to flap considerably to be able to say it.

“Dyl.” He gets up. She’s taller than him, and there’s a golden glow to her face as the sun beams upon it. His legs shake. He’s missing his sandals. Then reconsiders, “Dylan.” It only seems fair. “My boat…”

Ambrosia points. “O’er there.”

Pieces of prow and hull mar the shiny white sand. The bright blue paintwork Aunt Kath did last summer lies in jagged strips, and the whole boat is positively shattered. He nearly empties his stomach on the fish-belly white beach. How has he survived that?

“You were fortunate,” she says. “The storm was wicked.”

Dyl lifts his eyes to the horizon, towards the mainland he so foolishly left, and sees the darkness hanging over the city.

“It shall dissipate once it reaches north,” she assures him. “Now come. You must eat and regain your strength” —she looks him up and down—“…whatever you had in the first place, anyway.”

They walk into the colossal trees; the cool shade immediately lifts some of Dyl’s headache. A six-legged critter, all kinds of bright colour, darts up a trunk. It stops halfway to track them with its huge black eyes, swivelling as they pass. Ambrosia stops him with her arm and jerks her head at some bushes. Birds hop about, squabbling, pecking at berries that shine gloriously where the light hits. Dyl swallows, tasting grit stuck against his throat.

She keeps her voice very low. “See how the birds are pecking away at the red ones? But see how the blue ones are left completely untouched; look how they’re going out of their way to avoid it. What does that tell you?”

“I don’t know, that they’re colourblind?”

She tilts her head. “Amusing. No. The red ones are safe to eat; the blue are not.” Ambrosia takes the bowl he’s still carrying, dumps the sandy water out and hands it back. “Pick some.”

“But—”

 “Go on, they won’t heed your presence.”

He stumbles forwards to kneel in the patchy grass, each blade of which is perfectly sharp and slick with the storm. The birds don’t mind him. One even hops onto his bare foot, which prickles, so he flicks it off. He stuffs his mouth first, then the bowl, twisting around every so often to make sure Ambrosia is still there. She is, her lips always turned up very slightly, as if the sight of him scrabbling in the grass is somehow funny. The berries are bittersweet and crisp. She calls his name, and the birds startle and retreat, although they don’t take off, and the two move on. He learns they are on an island. That ships rarely pass by, because of the rocks.

“But I have to get back,” Dyl says, his voice soaring, cracking.

“Why would you want to go back to people who don’t want you?”

He freezes.

“It’s a gift. I can sense a kindred spirit. We’re all cut from the same fabric; the ones sent away, the ones lost at sea.”

“Is that… what happened to you?”

She nods, then picks up the pace so he’s forced to stumble after her.

They come to a hut, a proper little thing with dried grass on the sloped roof, two shading trees flanking it like sentinels. There’s a garden of sorts outside, the same bushes with the red berries, and behind them familiar vegetables. These haven’t weathered the storm well. Tomatoes spew everywhere, smashed against the house, their parent vines dreadfully ruined, much like the boat…

Ambrosia ushers him in. “You must rest.”

He’s all too happy to collapse on the pile of bedding she shows him to. It smells thickly like sunlight inside, and roses hang from the walls garishly, most of them withering or dead. There’s a string of fresh ones just above his head, though. Dyl accepts the strip of smoked meat she hands him, and devours it in a second. She just sets the plate in his lap.

“Tell me of the mainland,” Ambrosia says, suddenly, intently.

He blinks. “What happened to me resting?”

“What manner of person rules there?”

“Rules? The King doesn’t really… he’s more of a figurehead, I guess.”

“So the people govern themselves?”

Dyl shrugs. “No. There’s a prime minister and a parliament, they make all the decisions. It’s been like this for years and years. How do you not know this?”

She just raises an eyebrow and gestures at the walls. At the island sprawling beyond.

“Oh. How long have you been here, anyway?”

“Most of my life.” A sort of hungry gold gleam enters her eyes. “I’ve got used to it, and you will, too. No one’s coming for us.”

He swallows, no longer with appetite. “My aunt will. We’ll get off this island, I promise.”

Ambrosia’s gaze shutters, and she vanishes from his side to the far end of the hut. She sits before a gigantic frame that looks as if it belongs in a museum. Threads stretch across it, of gaudy and deep colours, Persian blue and a rich red that looks straight from someone’s veins. Something ivory flashes in her hand, in and out of the threads. He cannot look away. He’s frozen solid, pressed into the floor beneath the bed which hugs him back like the gaping abyss embraces light. He wants to ask how exactly she came to be left on the island, but the thought leaves his brain as quick as it enters. Ambrosia weaves, and Dyl watches, until the sun has surely gone, and they hear the howling of creatures, closer and closer, and Dyl’s blood runs cold and his breathing becomes shorter and shorter.

“Calm yourself,” the girl says, lighting more candles. “They will not hurt you; none shall on my island. But they can sense your fear, and they feed upon it. Think about a dessert you really enjoyed. Or of your aunt.”

His aunt, who will certainly rip him limb-from-limb. Or whom he may never see again. He can’t decide which is worse. “That’s a terrible idea.” Something snuffles at his back, and he bolts from the bed and to the very centre of the room. All that separates him from the wild are wooden walls built by a teenage girl who continues to weave, heedless of the danger outside.

“What are they?” he gasps. In his mind, they are dark phantoms with blood-soaked maws and slitted red eyes. In his mind, they are as tall as trees, but crouch themselves low to the ground. They are many, they are ravenous. They want to grip his heart by the aorta and rip it out his chest.

“Just wolves. They’re just curious; it’s not often we get arrivals.”

A howl erupts. And another, coming from behind the door.

“You’ll get used to them. Maybe even befriend some.”

The howls echo all around–they’ve surrounded the hut! He quakes and begs silently, staring into the girl’s eyes. He tells himself it’s the not-blinking, but he’s tearing up and it’s leaking from the corners. Ambrosia lets out a sigh, stands and stomps her foot, and the sounds stop at once. Bushes crackle wetly as paws retreat. The soft call of an owl or two replaces the hubbub of before. Dyl paces for hours, head spinning, heart pounding against his ribcage, before he collapses back into bed. The girl is right, he desperately needs rest. He falls asleep to the quiet sound of threads pulling tight.