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Fox Island

Chapter 20

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When his eyes opened, for a moment he thought he was floating in outer space, surrounded by stars, for all he could see above and below were the flickering lights. Then he felt the canoe was still under him and noticed the water lapping the outside hull. Above was a brilliant crescent moon gleaming, and below another waved delicately. He wasn’t in the stars; they were the reflections floating on a peaceful ocean glade. It surprised him. He thought he’d have died by now.

Then, from the darkness, came a whisper that chilled his spine. He lunged into the frame of the boat and pulled his face under the seat of the canoe. There were voices out there and they were speaking with one another in a language he hadn’t heard in a lifetime. 

He shut his eyes and swore he must be dead. A new horror crept onto him. He wasn’t dead; he was back on the island. The storm must have taken him back to where he first began, just as it always had. He washed up on the beach and was starting his journey all over from the treacherous beginning. They were waiting for him. Come to take him back to the place he had escaped—back to the land of sacrifices, deception and death. He whimpered in the boat and begged for insanity to come upon him and the hallucinations to return. But the voices were real, and they said things that he did not create in his mind.

What was he searching for if not a voice to hear and speak to him? And now, as it found him, he could only shudder and dread.

The voices murmured, and then he heard a clatter like an alarm. And then footsteps and metal scrapes. Now someone running on boardwalks. And finally, an Englishman screaming.

“Man overboard! Astarboard!” The voice hollered in the darkness. 

Tears rushed to his eyes. He sighed heavily, yet shaking, and his breath floated above him in a frosty cloud. His muscles relaxed. He began sobbing as he looked up and saw a man sitting upright in a small vessel, lowering down to the water’s edge from the top side of a large bulk carrier. Blood rushed to his head, and he passed out. 

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He was laying in a larger vessel now—a wooden rowboat with two locked oars at starboard and port. A gray wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His body was prostrate on a seat at the bow. Men were hollering from above and a single man just beside him was yelling back orders.

“—I don’t know,” the man nearest him hollered up.

The boat tipped awkwardly, and the stern shot up violently. It slammed itself into the side of the ship.

“Christ!” The man yelled. “You just rammed the deadlight—get your act together—you’re acting like the first time you ever dropped a dinghy.”

A voice hollered from above, “Captain! The carrick bend’s coming loose!”

“Bollocks,” the Captain murmured to himself. “Get us onto that bloody ship before that squall hits again!”

The boat yanked about wildly.

“Get to the bloody bulwark! What are you waiting for—Good, now grab this chap. Yes, I know, he’s at death’s door. In a bad shape. Gonna need stitches on his side. Looks like he tried to make do, but made a bloody mess out of it. God, it’s a shame what he must’ve been through. No! Don’t bring that old thing, get him a proper crib from one of the quarters! Good, now—Oh God, did you see his back? In shreds.”

He was lowered onto a cot with white linens and a burlap pillow under his head. Someone came close to him. The smell of fish and liquor was on him. Suppertime, he thought. He opened his eyes and saw a burly Englishman with a long brown beard.

“My God, lad,” he said. “How long were you out there?”

He shook his head and closed his eyes.

The Captain gave orders, and a shipmate went running for antibiotics.

“What’s your name, sailor?” The Captain asked.

He opened his eyes again to look at the Captain. He was rough, but kind in the eyes. He did his best to remember his name. He searched distraught for a memory. It was lost out there in the sea.

“I don’t know,” the Traveler whispered.

The Captain looked away and took the antibiotics from the shipmate who just returned.

“Who is he, Captain?” Someone asked. “Where did he come from?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is he’s safe.”

A great trumpet blew from a foghorn sitting at the bow of the ship. It was breathy and metallic, like the voice of a dragon, rising and falling, and ringing in his ears. 

Someone hollered from afar. “The squall is coming back, Captain.” 

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The End

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Fox Island

Chapter 19

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He couldn’t tell what time of day it was. A black cloud expanded from horizon to horizon. The ocean glistened like onyx. He reached for his oar and tried to make sense of which way was east. The rainfall was deafening. It was an endless barrage of numbing noise dancing on the water and low growls of thunder in the heavens. 

The rain on his back was harsh. It bitterly tore into his sores and scars, ripping into him like knives into leather. The waves soaked his hair and beard, laying it flat against him; he looked like a wet, dying rat.

Lightning scratched across the sky like electric fingers and briefly lit the ocean. He glimpsed a large wave roaring toward him at starboard. He dug the oar into the water port-side to face it. He stroked as quick and painfully as his body would allow. A giant spray of foam came over the bow and knocked him off his seat.

He picked back up, and another wave knocked him back down. A crack of lightning snapped the sky and an ear-splitting roar sent him cowering from his seat and into the hull of the canoe. He cried out in fear for his life. 

A gargantuan wave lifted the boat up into the air. Up and up he went and thought he may never come back down when finally the boat leveled, and next moment, he raced downward into the black ocean. 

He grabbed at his supplies in frantic commotion, guaranteeing he tied them to the frame of the boat. All were secure and just in time. Another wave lifted the boat up. He could feel this one was even larger. The vessel was vertical now. He held tight to the seat in the back, slipping underneath it, completely upright as if he were standing on the ocean. Lightning flashed, and the ocean illuminated under it. He stood floating above it like a bird hovering over the world of water, fifteen feet in the air. He screamed in horror. He felt the boat would give in to the deluge any second—crack, splinter or flip—something to destroy his hope.

It held firm. He felt the boat level and gravity came under him again. His arms braced against the hull; his hands clenched to the sides. He was falling down the other side of the wave. He was in the trough now, getting tossed each direction by little flurries of water and rain.

Up and down he proceeded, but the waves grew less prominent after each passing crest. He could sit up now without the pain of falling down or the dread of falling out. He saw that the boat was damaged in  many places and leaking a considerable amount of water. 

He went to fixing the broken planks with strands of dogbane and large handfuls of the rubber tree latex to plaster the cracks. It was arduous; the process of being pushed down by the unsupported surface, up and down, left and right, tipping and topping. He floundered about, trying to keep his hands steady and tie the small strands of rope into proper bowlines. His hands were wet, the rope was frail, and his body trembled everywhere. The rope tore many times, and he feared he would run out of usable strand before finishing. As soon as he secured one end, a wave would crash, throwing him to the stern and tearing the rope in his hands. It was horrible and lasted hours. But in the end, he felt happy that the canoe was mostly secure. As long as the storm didn’t pick up again like it had before, it should last a good while. 

He used his pack to scoop the water and bail it out the side. He never could properly plaster the cracks without first freeing them of the water they drowned in. This part of his task infuriated him. As surely as he removed water, the boat drank more in, both from the rain above and the ocean below.

He gave up at the fruitless endeavor and tried gluing the boat in the water—hands held out in the darkness and fumbling in the flotsam. It felt completely ridiculous, and he cursed himself many times in the process, but at least a few of the holes were patched enough to slow the incoming water.

In the following hours, sunlight occasionally fell through the black clouds. There were even lulls of no rain hitting him. He discovered the placement of the sun in the early afternoon of what he presumed was the same day. It warmed him and dried out his body, pulling the saltwater from his skin. But it didn’t last for long. The rain began each moment he became dry. 

Rain. Sunshine. Rain. Sunshine. 

During the times the sun was out, he laid across the stern and rested, sipping the rainwater from whatever puddle the salt hadn’t sullied. And while the sun wasn’t on him, the endless game of bailing water was at hand. In this manner, he never paddled or made any headway. He wasn’t sure if he was being tossed into the east any longer. He may just be floating in circles. 

His stomach twisted inside his body and he feared he was at the end. From all the moments he believed death was upon him, he now realized it were only a whisper of the thing—a shadow that blocked out the sun and removed his hope for a moment. But now, he understood that the thing was actually on him now. There was no hope left. The sky thundered. Lightning stretched from cloud to cloud like a spider’s web. He fell for the last time into the hull, facedown beneath eight inches of water. He had nothing left in him—no more throwing the water out—no more paddling to his destiny. He was at the end and ready to let his body finally die. 

With his last bit of strength, he turned over to listen to the rain and watch the sky fall. He wasn’t sad or hurt anymore. His sores were healed or numb enough that they couldn’t feel. The sun disappeared behind a black cloud and all the world became dark again. The waves were rocking him to sleep, and the rain was cleansing his soul. 

He turned his head from side to side and experienced the unquestionable sensation that he was floating in a black abyss like the bottom of the cenote again. He recalled the first time he felt scared and the last time he felt brave. He was happy to have seen the flowers on the lily-pads one last time and the sunlight coming through their long stretched arms. He closed his eyes and smiled. 

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A great whirring and metallic horn exploded from the darkness. Gravel and ancient rivets collided and reverberated. The blast of organs and guttural breaths rising and falling, oscillating and decaying all at once and all over again. He opened his eyes. It was the terrifying horn blown that he had heard all his life.

His heart pounded, and fever shook him. Now, he wanted to die. He wished the thing that had been hunting him all along would hurry up and find him already. No matter how far he journeyed up the mountain, and into the depths of the ocean he sailed, it was always there hunting him. 

He opened his mouth to cry out into the darkness, but his voice failed to speak. A silent ache left his lips.

The trumpet blasted again.

His voice came weak as a whisper, “Hullo?”

Then there was silence, and tears filled his eyes.

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Fox Island

Chapter 18

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A cool breeze ran along the cobbled village road, lifting a tribe of red and orange leaves into the air. A brick sidewalk framed it on the side of a hill, wrapped by markets, restaurants, and salons. At the top, a decrepit mansion sat idly—a monument of yesteryear. People strolled, bartered, and peddled on every corner in listless languor; each more irreverent and apathetic than the last. 

He walked up the hill and attempted to greet the people. But he was unnoticed by them—nothing but a nuisance. They chatted with one another about shopping, trades and weather, never looking him in the eye. He wondered why he was unseen by them, but refused to ask because he worried he may truly be invisible. It were as if his presence shrunk to minuscule the nearer he approached them until he disappeared from their existence altogether. The more he tried to meet someone, the more they turned away. 

He found himself on a bench, staring at an ornate metal sculpture. It was of two men holding grand and delicate instruments, laughing wildly, eyes closed and jazz music coming from their strings and fingertips. He studied the metal-men, investigating how they could make music without moving their hands. 

Oh, there it was. A speaker hidden in the hedge, playing Billie Holiday and deceiving the passerby. 

He smiled and recollected how his wife would love to hear the music and see the metal-men play. Yes, his wife. He now remembered that he was looking for his bride. He stood from his place of rest and walked back onto the street. 

“Excuse me,” he called out to a man in the window of a shop. “Have you seen my—”

The man shook his head and promptly closed the door of his shop and shut the blind.

He continued up the street, frantic in his search. The longer he searched, the more he knew she was not in the village at all. She said she would be at the mansion. But he didn’t want to believe it. 

He looked at the top of the hill and saw it. An ancient Victorian in faded cream, stained by weather, wear and tear. It towered over the village, looking down on her like an angry old man that would never be pleased till she were gone. A cupola stood in the center of its roofline between overhanging archways. Earth and vines spread off of it and through a cornice protruding underneath. They ran down its sides and draped out onto the ground below its feet. A decorated frieze wrapped the building, telling the stories of those it wished were still alive; though it was broken and ruined in many places now. He shuddered when he looked at it, but he knew that his wife ventured to the house and he must go to find her. Its doors were wide open. 

Each step felt heavier and more strained than the last. He reached halfway and thought of turning back. The path was painful, so much so that he didn’t think it was really worth the effort. It embarrassed him to know that if it weren’t for his promise to meet her, he would have given up and left. But the promise pushed him, and on the path he walked with tense muscles and sweat on his brow. 

Soon, he felt as though he were making progress and believed he could actually finish the climb. He encouraged himself audibly. He wasn’t a quitter, and in the climb he lived. He came to the top of the hill and looked upon the house. It was far less ominous than it seemed from the village. It wasn’t until now, at the end of the road, did he realize the strain came from the incline and not the destination.

The entry read: A Cat in the Attic Antiques. He walked up the steps and entered.

Inside, the room smelt of lacquer and pine. Golden rafters exposed themselves overhead. The windows were the only source of light. The place was old and worn, but pleasant and warm. 

An older woman, hidden by shelves and pillars, was rummaging through a bundle of dresses. She  looked up and smiled. “I believe she is upstairs,” she said to him. 

He turned to a balustrade of iron and oak. He scaled the steps, one at a time, and with every stair, he relented to a growing excitement. 

At the third floor, he saw her. Her hands were holding a piece of antique pottery. She looked up and grinned. She ran to him, as if her feet were gliding under the white dress she wore. She leapt into his arms and put her head on his chest. She sighed and squeezed him tightly. 

“I’m so glad you finally are here,” she said. 

“Why did you leave me?” he replied. 

“Its only going to be a little longer now.” Her smile faded, and she looked deep into his eyes. “But you still have to get hit a few more times.”

“I don’t understand.”

She stomped her foot on the wooden slats. A thud shook through the antique store. She was smiling. He looked down at the floor. The foot stayed still, but the pounding against the wood floor recurred. 

“Its only going to be a little longer now,” she kept smiling.

The thud kept coming. 

He opened his eyes. He was on his back in the hull. It was dark still. Though the moon and stars hid behind a blanket of clouds. Slight shadows crept through them, illuminated on the far side near the heavens. He listened to the water smack against the canoe like a typewriter.

He was lost at sea. His mouth was parched and his head continued to hurt. He gasped for breath, but the air was stale and briny.

Thud!

The pounding against the wood-slats was real, after all. He couldn’t move but only a little; he turned his body over to its side and pressed his hand against the hull. His heart raced inside his chest, but his body remained still.

Thud!

The canoe bent under his palm. Something in the dark was ramming the boat. His eyes were wide open, though he saw but two-feet into the darkness. They flicked around in scattered glances, focusing on nothing and peering into naught. Little waves splashed in the darkness.

His hand refused to leave the side of the hull. It was a small boat, but the darkness made it feel large. He curled into the fetal position and closed his eyes. He prayed for it to rain and for the sound to go away.

Thud!

The sound persisted. His head hurt. His ears rang. And soon he was dreaming again.

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Sunlight sparkled through the canopy; glitter danced on the forest floor. The underbrush rolled down a rocky chasm and up again, forming a large trench lined by moss-laden rocks and loose soil. It was black and formless, ghastly and long. In the center, he lay in the fetal position, cowering in terror.

In the distance, thunder clapped the forest, and the canopy shook. He knew the sound was after him, but he didn’t know from what direction it came; he didn’t know from what it came. He must escape for he would surely die. He must get out of the trench and into the jungle.

He rose and took a step forward, only to hear a familiar but sinister rattle in the leaves. He looked round and with horror saw that in the trench were dozens of serpents—golden and scarlet eye-lash vipers, rock and dusky rattlesnakes, fer-de-lance, taipan, and kraits waiting in the leaves. They were watching him, vitriol in their black eyes. 

He stepped in hesitation, making for the nearest bank. As he climbed, he reached for a branch and a yellow viper lashed at him, just missing his hand. He pulled back, nearly fell, corrected himself, and froze in fear. The two stared at each other—one in stark terror, the other in a devilish grin. Its eye pierced him like a knife; the long slit of black through the middle of the speckled yellow orb. Its horny jagged edges crowned its evil eyes, like a horrific dragon trapped inside of a frail body. 

He backed up and stepped on a rattlesnake. The rattler lunged back without striking but its rattle primed to a terrible roar and disturbed all of its relatives in the trench. Soon a symphony of deadly rattles were drowning out the jungle. 

Fear was alive, creeping down his spine and up the back of his legs. And then the sound came from the jungle again.A terrible thud—but no, it differed from that—longer, melodic, rusty and booming. The same noise that haunted him from his beginning. From the first moment, he lay against the ceiba and thought himself a victor; the same moment the storm beat him. 

He remembered it was a monster called Koh hunting him and wanting him dead no matter what. It was a great lizard of grotesque proportion, with red eyes, a long, black, forked-tongue, and a tail like a dragon’s. It was just on the other side of the trench, waiting for him to leave the frying-pan and crawl into the furnace of its jaws. 

Rain fell in the forest, and he heard the monster scream. It sounded like a cry of pain and retreat rather than ferocity and pursuit. He noticed the serpents began slipping away while the rain fell on their faces. He looked at his side, and sure enough, the viper and rattlesnake retreated. 

He was at the top of the trench when he slipped in the mud and fell forward, doubling over himself and sliding down a long, wet path. Mud and leaves whipped him in the face until he landed painfully against a tree trunk. 

He stood on a felled tree at the center of a swamp. The rain was falling harsh and the water level was quickly rising around him. Brilliant droplets of water burst into the swamp, forming bubbles and whitecaps in the wind. The drops were dense, powerful, and viscous, like they were growing into something. The bubbles and waves collected together and formed into bumps and ridges. The thing became white and black, striped and spotted. Two eyes slid open into the shape of brilliant glass orbs, opening and closing under the viscous membrane; green cat eyes peered out and caught him in their gaze. Next the nostrils formed and a blast of water erupted from them. Large white jaws came from under the water, opening and closing in mesmerizing rhythm.

It was a crocodile. Long and powerful. Majestic and horrifying in every sense of the words. It draped itself on top of the water and swayed its tail, merely calling to him. He stood erect on the tree trunk. From the fallen tree, he noticed a dozen more in the water now, slowly drifting toward him. 

He looked to the sky, exasperated, and saw a cloud racing by. The sun peaked from behind and shone down on him. Then it disappeared. The rain filled his mouth, and he had a hard time swallowing it. He was coughing and trying to get the stuff out of his lungs, but for whatever reason he couldn’t turn himself over to let the water out of his mouth. He was drowning and couldn’t lower his head to breathe. 

He shook himself awake and gasped for air. It was raining on him and his face was in a puddle of water. 

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Fox Island

Chapter 17

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He woke facedown in a puddle of dirty water. It rained while he slept, but it delighted him to have fresh water again. He drank with disregard, before placing the lids of rubber on top of his bowls to protect them from the sun. He sat and chewed a piece of seaweed like bubblegum and wondered how long he would be at sea before he either died or found land. 

The sun was excruciating. It beat him like a mallet, pounding him into the hull of the boat. He tried resting, but it was no use, so he waited for the day to pass, cowering under his supplies until night fell. 

In midday, the acrobats of a kite mesmerized him. She was miles from land, fluttering and banking on heavy winds, searching for fish, and captivating him. He had a headache that forced his eyes shut, but he kept peeking them open to watch the beauty of the bird. At one point, she landed on the bow of his canoe. He didn’t move to scare her, but watched in silence. She rested for half an hour and took to the skies again. He didn’t remember exactly when she was in sight or gone, but after opening his eyes from his migraine, he saw that she had disappeared.

As the sun went down, he reacquired his heading and paddled onward. His second night was far less eventful than his first and it made for a drudging miserable time. He hadn’t the same confidence and desire to continue and would often rest and think about the island. 

He remembered the first time the jungle attacked him, prior to discovering the Liberi village. Venturing far south of his beach, he found a cave at the base of a Spanish lime covered in grapevine. Partaking in the vine, he pondered the idea of the cave becoming a suitable place for him to live. It surely made a decent shelter. It wasn’t until he crept on his hands and knees into the darkness, that he smelled the stench of rotten flesh and heard a shrill whisper. 

He wasn’t sure if the smell belonged to the prey or the resident itself. When he backed out, he heard a growl from the canopy. Frozen in fear, he jumped into the cave for cover. The animal was on him, scratching and biting. He fought back, and it threw itself away just as suddenly as it had at him. 

Next moment, he saw it; an ocelot, stricken in colors of gold, bronze and emerald eyes. He picked up a stick to protect himself, but just as soon as he did, the thing retreated into its den. It was happy to leave him and satisfied that he was out of its home. It wasn’t until much later that he suspected the animal to be a mother and attacked him whilst protecting her children in the cave. 

He left the southern beach to the family of cats, not to worry the mother in the future. The grapevine and cave weren’t worth the effort of torturing an animal that didn’t understand his presence as anything but hostile. Besides, there were far more fruit trees and places to rest.

He paddled into the darkness under the stars watching overhead. A meteor darted across the sky and chased the horizon into the abyss. He recalled a game the Liberi children played. One child was anonymously selected as “the rabbit” and another played as “the ocelot”; the rest were “the mandrills”. As the ocelot tried to discover who and where the rabbit was, the others defended the rabbit by mimicking it—throwing the ocelot off in his or her discovery. 

The children ofttimes played in the fields outside the village and their joy always made him feel untroubled. It was an innocent gladness, born from the soul and not emotional. The laughter was the sort that intoxicates and makes one feel at home. One feels the difference in laughter that does not care of the opinion or worry of others; it is unreserved and abandoned. While most, if not all, hold mature laughter close to the chest and do not give in to its full potential; they restrain in fear and knowledge. He pondered if only children ever experienced true reckless laughter and its healing power.

Now alone, lost at sea, he gave himself over to it. He mustered up a hysterical laugh and surprised himself when he fell back into the boat with his joyful nonsense. His laughter became a fragmented stutter, and the stutter gave way to weeping. He sat on his knees, and tears fell into his palms. His shoulders convulsed, and his heart shook inside his chest. He fell forward and his head rested on the back of his hands. His breathing slowed; each exhale was like a long trumpet played through baleen. 

Eventually he sat up, rested his head on the back of his neck and gazed at the moon. He was calm, and he felt like the entire episode refreshed him more than any sleep he had yet.

Night was at its darkest. The stars were deep and shimmering. He thought of Arvor. The stoic, strange man that guarded and watched him. He knew he was one of Watano’s police; their relationship began only as a duty and resentment. Arvor fed him the knowledge that they allowed him and gave back the report of his habits and inquiries. But it evolved, as these things do—a relationship built on mistrust and ignorance can only go about being malicious until one is shown the heart of a person. It’s much easier to hate a person one does not know and understand. 

Their friendship was the blossom of a bitter root, and that root was in ugly soil; nevertheless, it bloomed, and through it, was made stronger than any relationship he had ever known. He looked behind him. He missed his friend.

He reached for a piece of seaweed to chew, but to his dismay, discovered that he ate the last of his food. In the icy darkness, he didn’t understand his blunder and improperly rationed it. Worry rushed over his face. 

How long had it been since he saw any hint of a mantle of seaweed? Was it even worth the hope that a leaping fish or resting bird found its way into his boat? Would another kite come near him—but that thought disgusted him. How long could he go without food once the sun was out and upon him?

He subdued the worry, while he questioned if it were worth changing direction and following the waves. Perhaps chance could bring him to a weed cropping rather than his blind devotion to the east. But in his heart he knew it didn’t matter what direction he headed. He was just as likely going toward something as he was going away from it, and only madness lay on the other side of doubting his direction thus far. He had but one option—to only rest and trust that provision came along.

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He opened his eyes at noontime. Nothing was in him but to lie in pain and drudgery. The pain came from beneath the blistering sun as he was an insect under a magnifying glass, burning no matter where he lay and altogether helpless to its power. The monotony brought with it a persistent suffering and insatiable hunger. 

In the daytime, he often retched. His stomach would convulse and throw itself over the side, but nothing would come out. He was too dehydrated and starved to vomit anything but small bits of saliva and energy. He reached for his water-bowls and his heart sank when he discovered all of them dried up.

The sky was a blanket of sordid blue while he prayed for a rain flurry. Part of his soul previously believed he had a chance at sea. None of him conceived it would be a slow, gradual, crawling death; rather he imagined his end to be quick, painless, sudden and his spirit dancing to whatever place it decided to venture for eternity. Now, at the face of it, he abhorred what the process of death really felt like.

The morning and afternoon slipped by at the pace a flower blooms. He wondered—not for the last time—if it were possible to drink saltwater without going mad. Insanity was often on his mind. What did it feel like, anyway? Madness.

He often conversed with people in his canoe and fell dismayed when they vanished moments later. The dread didn’t come from the awareness of his mind being lost, but, in fact, came from the painful and recurring revelation that he was still alone. 

In the evening, he hated his devotion to the east. It infuriated him. He discerned that east was leading him to the end of the earth, but north, south, and west led to land and civilization. And that, he knew, was the very instrument of insanity itself. His devotion to something indifferent when there was zero reason to believe it could still save him. 

He was trusting a former version of himself that decided this was the correct path to salvation; now nothing in him believed it except the belief in his former self. He couldn’t trust anyone anymore. Therefore, no matter how angry and forlorn he became, he kept his heading in the night and never strayed from the path. His faith was no longer in his heading or rescue; he only believed that he used to believe. 

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The sky was on fire when he woke at the end of morning. His stomach growled, and salt sealed his swollen lips. A crusty tongue scraped across them. 

Hours turned into hot knives and minutes scorched his body, head-to-toe. In what felt like an eternity, the sun cocked west of its peak. His head throbbed, and chest burned. He slouched against the seat in the stern and dug his thumbs into his eye-sockets to relieve the pressure. He pulled at the hair alongside his ears, ripped a tuft of the stuff from his beard, and scratched at his face and chest wildly. Sweat beaded on his burnt and bloody back. 

The next thing he looked up and in front of the boat was the island. It was a vivid painting of exuberance and life, yet horror and fear, on the other side of the east. 

“My God—” he thought, “I have been sailing in circles.” 

He looked away in panic and reached for his oar. It was in the water. Spray and salt splashed into the sky as he frantically turned north, then it was gone— 

“Where has the bloody thing gone?” he thought.

He turned round in his seat, searching in tousled confusion. It was just there, on the horizon—exactly how he remembered it. And now it was—wait!—now it was at his breast—no, starboard—now port—right, left, front, rear—Oh God, it surrounded him! The thing was everywhere and was growing larger every moment. He turned the boat round and struck the water with the oar wildly.  

He shut his eyes for he hated seeing it looming over him. If only he could keep paddling and keep stroking and keep paddling and keep stroking—he could escape it. The idea of rest and sleep—under his ceiba one last time—strung through his mind like flickering lights. But he knew the rest would never last. They would be there waiting for him, and this time his death was certain.

But what was death, if anything, but certain? Of course, he would die at sea if not by the hands of the Liberi. What was one death compared to another, if not at least one death could involve a little bit of rest? 

No, it wouldn’t be rest though. It would be torture. It would be brain-washing. And cannibalism. And all the things he knew to be true of the island when he first fell asleep. He knew the only actual death he wanted lay in the ocean.  

He stopped paddling, exhausted, and opened his eyes. His heart caved in. Fear and fever clung to his breast. He collapsed forward. In the west, horrified, he saw the island was following him now. He wondered if it would always be with him. Just on the other side of the horizon, burning like a star—and now, yes!—it was on fire, burning before his eyes like the sun itself came down to the edge of the earth and lit it ablaze. 

He threw the oar into the hull, grabbed his head and fell to the side, nearly into the water. He reached his hands out in desperation, splashing his face and drinking the ocean. The salt stung his brain, and he fell backward again, clenching his eyes shut, tears dripping down. And then he passed out.

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“Reynard,” the old woman called. “What do you want to get for Grandpa?”

A little boy scampered his way through the feet of grown-ups and round the table-tops of knickknacks. It was his first time at a flea market and Grandma and he were shopping for Christmastime in a place called Hackney. His fingers draped across a typewriter, pots of copper, gems and stones, fine jewelry and East India Company trappings. The bustle of the bazaar was numbing his senses, but his purpose remained before him. His attention fell upon a little clear package of purple plastic worms crammed between lures, hooks, and fishing-lines.

“Grandma, this!” the young boy said. “I want to get Grandpa these to fish with. He will like that.” The boy looked fondly on the long glittery worms. “He will like these.” 

The boy carried the precious worms to the register with a few coins in his hand. 

“Two-sixty-four,” the man behind the table told the boy. 

The boy turned to Grandma disquieted. She smiled and dug a large coin out of her purse. She handed it to the boy, and he turned back to the cashier with pride. The exchange was made, and he proudly walked out of the market with a brown paper bag in one hand and Grandma’s hand in the other. The purple worms were safe in his possession. 

Family met at the dinner table; laughter and joy abounded. There was such a commotion of voice and volume that the boy didn’t even remember when dinner ended and he was now playing with his cousin a game of Battleship in the corner of the living room. At one point, a dessert was brought out, and the adults made a great deal out of its presentation. Later, another of his older cousins—one that was crooked in his face and always looked to be planning on torturing someone—was chasing his sister with a spider he caught in a corner of the house. A distant grown-up relative, whom he never met before, said something that he didn’t understand, but knew to be inappropriate on account of everyone’s hushed and awkward silence. A large group of the children gathered and watched a movie in the living room. The adults escaped into the dining area to be boring and have grown-up conversations while sipping tea. 

Finally, Grandma called everyone’s attention and announced it was the time to unwrap presents. The kids cheered, and the adults wandered in and found a place to sit. Pandemonium sprung forward as Grandma tried to keep order, selecting people to open their gifts and trying her best to enjoy each moment and reaction. 

The little boy heard a phrase cut through the bedlam. “This next gift is for Grandpa,” Grandma informed, with a sweetness on her face. “Reynard picked it out himself.” 

Grandpa was in his recliner and didn’t move to receive the small gift. The little boy sat on his knees, pregnant with joy. He’d forgotten about his present he selected at the flea market, but now all of his attention was on the thing he knew Grandpa would love.

Grandpa opened it. He pursed his lips and nodded his head slowly. The boy’s father gave a slight noise of approval from somewhere behind him. 

“Thank you,” Grandpa said, glancing at the boy. He half-smiled and put the gift down on the floor next to his recliner and leaned back again. 

The boy knew that he was grateful. That was Grandpa’s way about him. His mind was always on something else distant in the future, or forgotten in the past. But the little boy knew he would love and use his gift. 

---

His eyes opened. He was still in the boat. The waves rocked him like he were a toddler in a crib. The stars were out, and the sun left for the evening. The island left for now.

“Maybe I’ve already died,” he mused. “Maybe I’ll sail forever in an eternal ocean.” 

A wave pushed him up and rolled him back down. 

“Or maybe this has all before been the dream and now I’m awake.” 

The stars twinkled. 

“Maybe I was never really awake on the beach and now I see.”

He closed his eyes and slipped into another dream.  

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Fox Island

Chapter 16

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The canoe touched the water, and the weight lifted from his legs. He fell into the center and let the waves beat him about. Back and forth, back and forth, the current pushed and pulled, taking him ever further and closer to the island, but always a little further than closer, until he lifted his head over the stern and saw the island a few hundred meters from him. Rain was falling on her; she looked beautiful in the absence of his accusers. 

The ceiba was as strong as ever. A flawless monument of power and protection. Seeing the beach from a distance, he saw there was no place he could ever have ended up but under the shadow of her limbs. It was the perfect place to rest and grow, and he pined for leaving her. Just to the north was the rocky enclave he struggled terribly to pass, and the bay where he arrived and found his loafers. 

And there, as he knew it would be—like a monument itself sitting in perfect harmony and revelation, like a thing meant to be and never otherwise—there on the beach sat the island fox. Nobly staring and pondering his exodus. He raised his hand in farewell, and then drooped it, feeling silly. The flash of red and orange, brown and gray vanished. Gone back to its secluded home somewhere in the jungle. 

Then he collapsed and fell asleep. 

He didn’t wake until the next morning. He was lost now, far enough into the sea that the only sights he saw were the grand blue oceans, beneath and above him. Mist shrouded the sun. His canoe had a considerable amount of rainwater in her, which he gladly fell forward into and drank. After, he laid backward and fell asleep again.

On he went like this—waking, drinking, and sleeping—while his energy recovered. At some point, though he couldn’t remember when, he fashioned strips of the giant lily-pads into bowls that could catch and store the freshwater in their rubber hands.

The next morning, his strength returned enough to clean himself. His wounds weren’t bleeding on his back, but his side was in a bad sort. He had to wrap the gash, but thought to suture the wound first. 

The Liberi used an ant with large mandibles as sutures. The ants weren’t at sea with him, but a colony of small relatives were living with him at the front of the canoe. He collected a few and began the awful endeavor of letting them bite him on his open wound. The ants could never reach around the end of the cut, and the mandibles were far too pitiful to do anything but send stings into his side. He gave up, cursing himself and the little insects for his miserable undertaking. 

He made do with a thin strand of dogbane and a splinter of wood to run it through the skin. It hurt like hell and he passed out several times while tying it up. He was never positive it helped or made matters worse for him. He dressed the wound with grass and pieces of rubber tree latex and lay back to rest again.

He was sure he was sailing to his death. But part of him knew he was doing that for some time. And the notion of being unencumbered—choosing his life and choosing his death—was far more exciting than any silly dance the Liberi had each night. Perhaps Watano was right for his acceptance of death’s eventuality. If, at least, nothing else. 

When he had enough strength to do so, he sat forward and threw his joy into the east, watching the waves and smiling grandly. Every moment was terrifying, but he no longer feared the terror. It became a friend that greeted him with every wave. And in it was joy, the feeling he had survived and escaped the terrible fate the island had for him. He didn’t worry or wonder if his death would be that day or the next. At least it wasn’t at the hand of Watano. Through that alone, he felt victorious. 

It was best to sleep during the day when the sun was at its highest, hiding under his lily-pads and letting the waves take him wherever they desired. But in the cool evenings, he paddled onward, using the stars for guidance. 

His first night awake, and second at sea, he looked skyward and matched his heading to what he believed to be east. It was a garden of colorful stars, planets, and our galaxy’s edge arching its way across our globe and disappearing into infinity. There was no trouble seeing in the moon’s and stars’ light. A meteor shower danced on the stratospheric terrain; each one zipped from the cosmos into his world overhead. 

He paddled for a few hours until starving. His only sort of ration was a collection of dried persimmons. They were bitter and absolutely terrible to eat. But they filled him. The rest of the rations spoiled, and he feared they might make him sick. 

Luck fell when he saw a black mass floating in the ocean. It was a large patch of seaweed sifting its way through the water. He grabbed heaping piles of it and threw it in the center of the boat. If the grass were to dry out, he could eat it. What’s more, krill and minnows were trapped in the web and came into the boat with it. 

It wasn’t the best meal, but it was food. He munched on the fish and shrimp, distracting himself from the slimy and crawling texture as he went back to his paddling. Near sunrise, he settled back into the center of the boat under his lily-pad, and fell asleep. 

---

He woke up in the late afternoon, famished, but happy to find the seaweed dried out. He ate liberally and stored more for later. It was stringy and tough, but he found the stuff better than the raw minnows and shrimp. He drank from his bowls of rainwater and prepared for his second night of paddling.

Late in the evening, he had a terrible fright. While watching the skyline and transfixed on his heading, he heard a loud animal call from the darkness. He leapt down into the boat, and for a moment feared that it was the same beast that cried out during the storms on the island.

He peeked over the bow; there was a monstrous shadow cutting through the night, covering the stars as it moved. It was an enormous three-pronged claw coming out of the ocean, some appendages rising higher and another dipping underneath. It ambled toward him, but was so gigantic that it was at the boat’s side in moments. 

He struggled to fathom what sort of monster this hand belonged to—perhaps it wasn’t a claw at all—but the body of some sea monster, swimming through the water, like Scylla, whose only purpose was to beset sailors. He thought of her angry damnation in the depths, always looking to attack and take some lost soul down with her. Pictures of sea-dragons and serpents flooded his imagination, and he cowered lower in the boat.

The shadows crept closer; water glided down the rough edges of the monster. And then one claw arched itself high into the air and sprayed a fountain of watery mist thirty feet up.

The sound rang, and he realized it was not the booming horn he had heard many times before; rather musical and sing-song in nature. One claw turned itself over to show a white and stranded belly, while another slowed down behind the others and he saw them detach. 

His heart leapt when he realized he happened upon a pod of humpback whales, three in total. He blushed for getting frightened. He paddled their direction; surprising them in the dark.

They became inquisitive of the little man floating in the middle of the ocean. They sang to each other, aspiring to understand what he was and why he was at sea. Their voices were a symphony; sliding strings met plucking harps, and booming trumpets shook violent vibrato, squealing and thunderous echoes for miles in the midnight sky. 

He entirely lost himself in the untamed song. It wrapped around him and he felt happiness. He laughed hysterically. It was the first time since sitting by the fire with Arvor. He sat back with paddle across his lap, smiling and staring at the stars. It tempted him to jump into the sea and swim in the starlit ocean with the beautiful beasts, but worried he may never get back in his boat. 

They were majestic and articulate, as if they came to find him at this moment and minister to his soul. Every breath and whisper from their deep voices lifted his spirit higher, and he thought he may have sailed into another world—one that did not know things like hatred, deception and exhaustion. 

As quickly as they were inquisitive, the whales became disinterested and moved on from the boat. He thought of following them, but something about the idea seemed wrong; like staying with the majesty too long would only make it grow routine and ruin the surprise of the encounter. Instead, he enjoyed the glory for what it was—a moment, and a moment alone, when he became enraptured by the delicate song of three of earth’s mightiest and honest creatures. 

As they swam away, their song continued, and for this he was very grateful. He fancied that they appreciated their privacy, and with it gave their melody in gratitude. The song lasted for hours, dimly disappearing into the silent ocean—a memory of grace and power—until all he could listen to was the quiet smacking of the water against the boat, wondering if he could hear it still or if it were only his imagination.

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Fox Island

Chapter 15

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The world was amorphous. All was black and incomprehensible. His body floated like an astronaut lost inside a black hole, an endless void of weightlessness and breathless fear. He threw his arms and legs about wildly; no idea at knowing if he was swimming upward toward oxygen or downward to his grave. He bumped into something and fought it with his fists but found nothing in its place. 

He caught sight of brilliant beams of light shimmering through the lily-pads and dissecting the surrounding water. The stocks grew dozens of feet up through the world around him, before bursting into magnificent white flowers. He swam through the leaves before hitting his head against the limestone ceiling overhanging the cenote. He swam toward the light under the sun, out into the pool among the lily-pads.

His leg wrapped in a firm grasp, and his body jerked underwater. The man was fighting with him again—his arms and legs around him, choking the life out. He wondered if this was the end—if this was how all of it finally came to a head. He stared forward into the burly stocks of lily-pads. It was a miserable way to die. It achieved nothing. 

His abdomen thrust forward from the man squeezing and pushing on him. Then the grip became loose. He pulled the arms away from his neck. The water turned red. He spun round and saw the man’s face. It was ugly, full of horror and hatred—the face of a man whose purpose is to abominate, wielding power like a toy who has realized his life was the product of deception and evil disposition—a lie spun on him from childhood. He wasn’t special, and he wasn’t worthy anymore. A pair of massive white and black jaws locked onto the skull. The brilliant teeth crushed the horrified face into two and blood exploded under the black water. 

He swam to the surface, fought his way through the lily-pads, and pulled himself up to the roots of the jungle. The water was red and black. At the center was a great black caiman, fifteen feet long. Its tail caressed the water with the grace of a dancer. In its jaws were the dead man.

He stared in the beast’s eyes. They were black and blood ran down the speckled jaws. He had seen an animal stare at him this way before—full of resolve and nobility. It was the king of this pool, king of this jungle, waiting in its lair for a sacrifice. The beast lowered its back and sank below the surface with its meal. 

A spear landed at his side and lodged into a thorny thicket. Three hunters were on top of the precipice under the ficus. Two were staring at the bloody water in disbelief. A bow pulled, and an arrow strung, but he was back in the jungle, racing for the beach as hard as he could. 

He was back at the place he called home. Time, rain, and nature beat his paths, but they could not destroy them. He raced quicker than before and the cool water refreshed his wounds.

The hunters were faster, but he knew his next step before they did. He flashed past the rucksack tree and into his runs along the beach, heading south, past the very first mango tree and north again along the dense forest line, before he burst out of the tree-line and saw it: the ceiba tree.

She stood tall and brilliant, adorned in elegance and motherly wisdom. Her shade a perfect reminder of her grace and fortitude. She had been waiting, always waiting, for her child to return and rest again. 

But he wouldn’t relish her beauty and magnitude; under the tree waited two more villagers. They lunged at him with reckless hatred while the other three came bounding from the jungle and joined the scuffle.

The wind swept up and the ceiba bent over from the weight of its breath. The leaves trembled and screamed; sand threw everywhere, blinding the hunters. 

They were at him again. He was on the ground now. Kicked and beaten, madly. Someone reached down and drove a sandy hand inside his hip. A foot dislocated his jaw. Another jab. Another pummel. Another kick. 

Lightning splintered across the sky. Rain fell. 

The storm was brutal, pounding the hunters; the wet weakened their blows. He gasped for air and held onto the last of his life, curled in the sand. This was it. The moment at last. 

He was floating above his body, looking down at the pitiful bloody corpse being kicked and spat on; it didn’t even look like a man anymore. 

The hunters stopped. They gave up their wrath and looked at the horizon in astonishment, mouths agape. 

Air filled his lungs and he was in his body once more. He could feel his heart beating and his back bleeding. He took his hands from around his head and looked up. The five men were hovering nearby, but completely disinterested in him. And then the sound shook the beach. 

---

The great horn blew from the mammoth creature, breathy and metallic. It came from the ocean. 

“Jikarai is coming!” They cried, fleeing into the jungle. 

He lay motionless, collecting his consciousness, before sitting up with the toil of an elderly dying man, arms shaking underneath him and legs bruised and broken. He crawled on his stomach to the canoe.

The vessel was ready. Patched and prepped, stored with rope, flax, sack, and an oar. He pushed with his all his might and life seeped from his bones. Years of life escaped him with every inch moved; with every foot closer to the water, his soul left the corpse on the beach. But he had to get into the ocean. In the water was freedom; a chance to live. 

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Fox Island

Chapter 14

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He rose to his knees. With face bent downward, he drank the rain sliding down it. He collapsed again and gasped for breath. He held his hip; blood seeped through the fingers, and he wept. He caught his breath again and stood. Four-hundred yards of grasslands lay between him and the manor. It was a distant dream, an old landmark from a lost adventure. 

An arrow whizzed by his head and landed ten feet behind him. Before he knew what was happening, another came flying and stuck in the tall grass. He fled to the tree-line. Another arrow landed, some thirty feet behind. He was out of range, but he was being hunted. 

The tree-line came, but reason did not. He had no idea where he was. The trees, branches, leaves, flowers, grasses, weeds—they thrashed into him, passing in a fiery blur, whipping him with lordly anger. He was a pest. The forest was angry. The blood was spurting from hip to thigh.

He was in a panic, adrenaline racing in his veins, pushing him beyond his limitations. The ground was moving underneath him. He looked and thought for a moment he might be flying, before slipping in the mud, catching himself and falling into a branch. He kept his feet, continued running, stumbled once more, and put his soles on the forest floor. His toes squished in the soil, and sticks scratched and chewed at them. He must not stop running. The leaves kept slashing. The rain made him heavy. 

His head hurt, and he couldn’t see well. A thought crossed his mind that he could rest and lay down. The grass looked sweet, and the bushes were a bed. What was the point in running, if only to be slapped by these branches? No, he needed to keep running. He couldn’t remember what, but something was after him and the only way on was forward into the jungle.  

Wasn’t he supposed to be looking for his watch? 

He felt naked. He was naked. Why was he naked? What had happened to his loafers? When did he wake up on the island? When did he first meet the click beetle and rest under the ceiba? He was a native now, running in the jungle, naked, hunted, alone, doomed. The blood kept spurting.

He ran through a field and rested in a copse of verawood trees. Their yellow flowers showered down on him and he leaned against the trunks. He thought of laying down and dying, but his legs continued moving and bounded onward. The rain was filling the valley with water. Moorhens and coots were grazing in the wetland. His legs felt as if they were no longer moving. He could see the ground rushing passed him, and his heart exploded in his chest, but he wondered why he wasn’t going fast anymore. It was as if his mind was already on the other side of the valley, waiting for his body to catch it.

Through the trees he went again and wondered if anyone was after him anymore. Something horrible beat in his chest—an idea that he could never stop. He was unworthy, and now he needed to leave the island. The blood kept spurting. 

Firs, pine, fruits, dandelion and cactus collided into one another in a memory underneath his feet. He was running downhill now because blood covered his shins. He arched his back and tried to steady himself before falling forward. Vines and branches helped to steady him as he crashed through the jungle. 

A horrid stench swept up in the wind and he thought it was his own corpse running without stopping to die. But the smell was not rotten flesh, rather like a great cesspool of animal filth. He turned toward the smell and came from under a weeping willow into a clearing. 

It was the bog. He started writhing his way through the sawgrass and banana trees. The waterline was at his waist. The mud and grass were impossible to ford. Every sinking step was a grave to bury him; every blade of grass a noose to hang him.

He had to stop. He couldn’t keep running forever. He leaned back on an upheaval of mud and caught his breath. He waited so long he believed he wasn’t being pursued any longer. It’s possible the bog was the line they feared crossing. 

---

He woke when he heard voices. The sun was in a different part of the sky. It was no longer raining. He couldn’t tell from what direction the sounds were coming, but he was sure they were in the swamp. Whispers and mysterious calls bounced around. They were the sounds of hunters undulating through the grass blades. With every utterance, the group grew closer, tightening the circle. He wasn’t sure if he should flee or stay still. Hide, fight, or give up and die. 

He moved his legs beneath his body; the water was manageable now. The mud settled to the bottom after the rain ceased. He leaned his body forward and began swimming through the marsh, pushing the grass out of his way. 

He came from under the long drooping arms of a dead banana tree and startled a family of moorhens. They cackled at his presence and scurried away. The hunters cried out, and he heard thrashing water. 

He let go and dove under the water, grabbing grass blades at the root and pulling feverishly through the mud. He held his breath until consciousness left him and came up for air. The group of hunters was somewhere behind him, at the spot where the moorhens ratted. 

He continued, unsure of which noises were his own or the hunters. A few more yards and he felt the ground come underneath him. He stood on his legs and ran again. The noise gave his location away, but he was putting hundreds of feet between himself and the others. 

The jungle was around him. Trees and branches flitted passed. His legs could move again. He remembered why he was running. He remembered Arvor and Watano and most of all he remembered his beach. He feared hope was deceiving him—the belief that he knew where he was in the jungle. Trees looked as familiar as his hallucinations.

He tripped on limestone, kept his footing, corrected his step, and continued on. He was climbing now. Using branches to steady himself over large rocks and stone. He came through a clearing and stopped. He was on a ledge. The edge of a precipice made of sharp limestone. A large ficus bent down over him and threw her streaming limbs over the edge. At the bottom were walls and caverns scaling upward and encircling an enormous cenote covered in giant lily-pads. A beach lay to the north where an old canoe used to sit.

He smiled and prayed out loud, weeping in exhaustion. 

The next instant someone was on him. He fought him tooth and nail and kept from being tied down. They threw each other onto the ground, beating their heads against the limestone. He tripped the man and found a tree limb to smash into his breast. Biting at each other’s legs and ears; tearing hair from scalps, arms and legs. Sweat, blood, and saliva soaked the two in a silent fight of desperation. They locked onto one another and one slipped while the other lost footing. They were falling off the cliff.

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Fox Island

Chapter 13

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The sky was overcast; the bahia turned green to blue. He walked a well-worn path of pebbles up a piedmont. The valley stretched for miles with nothing but grass in every direction. The wind swept along the surface, bending the tips in glorious waves while their seeds caught the edge of the swell and took to the sky. In the center of it all, at the crest of a large hill, stood the stone manor. 

It took him an hour to reach it. His feet ached on the path; they were not used to hard and loose surfaces. With every step, he doubted Arvor’s survival and thought of the folly of his venture. The alluring Manor’s romance drove him forward. 

When he came to the top of the hill, an arcade wall ran along the path. Hiding beneath the arches, he stole from pillar to pillar. He hadn’t yet thought of how to sneak up to the place.

He was close enough to see the manor well now. The masonry chipped and crumbled; the stones stained black and silver from years of burning in the sun. Vast and numerous gardens surrounded the mansion, choking once beautiful sculptures in their overgrown weeds and vines. A calm breeze swept through the arches and whispered in his ear.

At the top of the Manor was a belvedere, between ornate chimneys and arches. Fox watched a man ambling between the crenellations. 

He pressed himself under the arcade’s shadow. He waited a moment before stepping back into the sunlight. What he was always certain of happened. He felt the blade of a knife press against his back. The calm hushed voice of a sack-cloth clad man spoke behind him. Then the world became black, and he felt like he was floating in the air.

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Fox came to. Painful flashes of red and orange, yellow and white burst in front of his eyes. He was in a stupor; his head pounded and his back ached. The colors left and nothing made sense. Darkness enveloped him; he didn’t know if his eyes were even open anymore. 

He sensed a cramped room. The cold echo revealed they made it of stone, and the stale air put him underground. His eyes acclimated to the darkness; a thin sheen of blue light crept from some window far away behind many corridors and walls, like a heavy fog crawling over a wetland. The room was only a few feet wide with nothing but himself in it. A dark passageway on the far side led to an unknown corridor. 

The stone was under him; he realized his face was against the floor of a dungeon and his wrists secured behind him. Someone removed his shirt and loafers while he lay senseless. A familiar pitter-patter was tapping the rock beneath him. His weight shifted and his fingertips felt the chilly dampness of blood. His back was bleeding; he recalled being whipped and beaten before he lost consciousness. 

A whisper came from the shadows, out there beyond the passageway. 

Then a deeply set voice responded. 

Then a faraway door creaking open and slamming shut. 

“Hullo?” Fox called out in English. 

A considerable amount of time passed, though Fox was uncertain of any sort of length. A sackcloth-clad man came into the room at one point and placed a wooden chair. He said nothing, refused to look at Fox, and exited.

The sound of the door creaked open and again slammed shut. 

Fox heard footsteps in the corridor. Every step echoed with confidence. The stone walls shuddered with demonic power.

Fox was breathless. His mind reeled with anticipation and nightmarish pictures. What was he to see on the other side of the sound? 

The sound itself was more terrible than the instrument. It was a thing that echoed on and on, without clarity or physical attribute. A thing that creates imaginations in the mind; ones of terror and monster. The brush of a wall can be the breath of a devil; the snap of a twig can be the footstep of a beast. It was almost worse to wait on the outside breath of defeat than to face it with clarity and suffering. It was better to see what monster is under the bed than to lay all night wondering when it will come out to eat you. 

It was deafening, a torment that collapsed into his soul. He closed his eyes and gave his heart away to defeat and tragedy. Nothing was in him now but to discover the face of the demon behind the name, the one that no man dared to mention on the damned island. 

The steps grew louder and louder still—until he knew they were just behind the passageway. They shuffled back and forth in the dust, and he heard the deep-set voice again. Finally, in came his accuser. 

Fox was frightened, albeit disappointed, when greeted by an elderly man. His face was crooked and his eyes lazy, the look of a smug and disingenuous adolescent. A silvery robe crowned his shoulders and fell to the stone floor. He looked at Fox with disdain and pursed his lips.

Fox lay motionless and quiet. 

“Do you know who I am?” The man spoke first. 

“You are Watano.”

The man smiled, curtly. He sat in the seat across the room.

“Voice of the Sky-god.” Fox pushed himself up from the floor. “I am Vulpunei—”

“No. That is the name the people gave you. You aren’t worthy of that name. No—I shall call you Criança instead.”

“What is this place?”

“Uada, Criança.” Watano smiled. “Home of the gods.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It was made long ago by those who perished. They lived in deceit like the fox, and because of it, Jikanei came and took them. They are unworthy.” 

Watano’s attention wandered around the room, and for a moment the two men sat in silence. 

“The Liberi don’t work in stone and mortar,” Fox mused.

“Many ships came. And with them, men like you. At first they came with gestures of kindness. But the future revealed their hearts.”

The pocket-knife!

“It is now a place of worship. A place for the gods to lie down. A place for the Voice to rest his throat. It is now worthy. Only seen by those worthy and unworthy—those like me, and those like you.”

“Where is Arvor?” Fox said, unimpressed. 

“Who?”

“The man that you brought here two weeks ago. My friend.”

“You have something confused. I don’t bring and brought. I only say and see.”

He could feel it in his pocket just at the tips of his fingers. 

“Did Arvor become unworthy?” Fox was indignant, dripping in hatred. 

“I find it exuberantly remarkable—if not flamboyantly amusing—that an Englassman could ever look at me with such disdain. The product and legacy of such a race that raped and destroyed my island. All of it chunnelled into a pitiful specimen sitting before me. And it has the gall to look at me in this manner. You—Criança—are the very definition of unworthy.” Watano stood and looked down on Fox. “Who is unworthy is he that Watanei no longer looks upon.”

“And you decide who Watanei sees?” 

“I am the Voice of Watanei.” 

He sat back down.

“How long have you been here?” Fox asked.

“Long enough to know what is at the end. Through me, the people know what tomorrow brings and despise it. Through me, we can laugh today.”

He was sawing the thick rope along his wrist.

“So you aren’t one of them?”

“How can a god be a man?”

“They are afraid of this place,” Fox retorted. “They live afraid to speak and think. They—”

“—They are trees without leaves,” Watano interrupted. “An ocean without waves.” He stood and walked about in circles like a stage actor. “Aquilei the Eagle was the symbol of hope and love.” The Voice stared up at the ceiling and closed his eyes, nobly. He drooped his head and shook it. “But those symbols grew to be too burdensome when things needed doing. So I broke the wings off the idea—and made it unworthy. The eagle is a predator. It is a reminder that all are lower.” 

A rope was untethered.

“I know your thoughts, you know.” Watano smiled. “I can see it on your skin. You think what I do is hurting them. But it’s what they deserve. It’s what they need.” Something agitated Watano; he squirmed in his chair. “Aren’t you going to ask why you are here?” 

Fox remained silent.

“You don’t even care about what you came for.”

He threw the Traveler’s watch at him.

“Don’t you care about what you desire!” He screamed.

He calmed himself and sat down elegantly. “I like to have conversation with those that are unworthy. There’s nothing satisfying about having cattle that don’t cry. You want to see that they care about their loss. The doe lays down when she is hit with an arrow, because she has nothing left to do but rest and sleep. But they—they should be better than that!

“It’s in the eyes,” he stood, with a vision in his heart, “you see that they lost a thing of hope—the deer, of course, they no longer care to survive. They sleep in their death having not a hope. But these ones—the Liberi—they have to be taught all over again it were ever possible to have hope. You have to bring them out of being the doe and into a god again. 

“If not I—than who—who can ascend into the clouds and bring it to them, that they may hear it and do it? Who will go over the sea for them and bring it to them, that they may hear it and do it? But the Voice is very near you now, before your mouth and in your eyes, that you may do it. 

“I bring them the truth of their unworthiness. They once were gods, but now are not. And when they see that—when they look upon me—who ascends and crosses over—that is when I see the satisfaction of their unworthiness.” 

The second rope was free. His hands could move. The little pocket knife would never do in a fight, but it could pry a stone free.

“If you liken them to gods,” Fox asked, “why do you prevent them from thinking?”

“No, see—they already are gods. They just forgot when the Englassmen came to teach them otherwise. And in that, they became animals again.” 

“So tell them. Let them think. Let them choose.”

“Faith is necessary. If questions are asked, the thinker becomes unworthy.” 

“So you hold them afraid and ignorant all the while punishing them for not maturing?”

Watano clenched his jaw. “An animal cannot find its way to being a god. He must be brought there. And when he is there, he is free to ponder. One cannot stand on the shore and be swimming in the ocean at the same time.”  

“What about the little ones you take—Why take them?”

“Economics. The wet season is inevitable. The storms will grow stronger, more frequent. And when that happens, our crops will drown. We will be in famine.” He stared at the ceiling. “The little ones serve no purpose. When the harvest runs out, we will need to feed on something. Why not on the ones that are only taking and never giving? The Voice decides who is to be sufficient.”

The room felt smaller, darker, and hopeless. 

Fox felt the rain outside from the sweetness in the air.  

“Surely, you aren’t implying you eat the children to survive?”

“The future is against us, Criança. And I am the one to see us defeat it—”

“Your children are your future?! How will you survive if you are destroying it?”

Watano was reverent.

The blade was digging deep around the edges of a stone, pulling the dirt and mortar.

“The crops are healthy now,” Fox said, hurriedly. “Why take the little girls?”

“Fruits and vegetables are not the only crops that matter. They feed the stomach. What will feed my carnal desire if not those who serve no other purpose? I feast on whomever I wish.” 

“How in all of God’s creation did you convince your people—”

“—Convince?! I am a living god. Mine is not to convince or teach! I speak and see, they live and obey.” He relaxed his shoulders and leaned back. 

“I see—” Watano smiled liked a curt teacher. “you are asking me of the politics of the matter. Are you taking lessons in your own deity? Well,” he sighed, “as long as we forbid writing—and punish the cattle for speaking of the gods—it’s simple. After all, an animal must be kept an animal until the day they become a god like us. When that happens, they will think and write—until that day—lead however you like.”

The blade broke. Fox’s heart sank; he thought Watano might hear. He scratched and dug his nails into the mortar. A stone budged to the left. 

“So you took Arvor because he told me about you.” Fox mused.

“The ideas of rebellion are rooted in the unworthy. His purpose was rebellion. Don’t make me speak of him again.”

Fox was silent. 

Watano leaned forward in his seat. “We must all die for the past. The future is against us. In our death, we honor our ancestors and in our fear we respect our outcome.” 

“You think fearing the future—never changing, never evolving—is good?” 

The stone was a loose tooth at the edge of freedom. Blood was sliding down his fingers from what was left of his mangled nails.

“The future is unworthy. It’s diseased. It is death. On the other side of the Marshlands, where only Jikanei lives. I have seen that death. I look upon it every morning.”

“Who is he?”

“Jikanei? He is the god of death. The one at the end.”

“Why doesn’t he live here then?”

Watano chuckled. “You almost made me think you were intelligent.”

“I’m starting to think you actually believe the lies you vomit on your people.” 

“I am the Voice. I can only speak the truth. Whatever I say and do is god.” 

“But you break your own laws.” The stone budged to the right. “You eat the animals. You speak idly of the gods. You abuse the children. You murder men and women. You—” 

“My hand cannot be bent. Therefore, whatever I do is done by Watanei.” 

He stood and walked forward. 

Fox straightened and looked up at him. 

Watano pulled a long blade from under his gown and struck Fox in the side. “And now this is done,” he whispered in his ear.

Fox’s hip poured out as Watano pulled the knife. He screamed in agony, bending over double. 

Watano cleaned his blade, pulled his gown forward and sheathed it. “I thought you would be more interesting to converse. But you are just like the cattle. You aren’t anything but a child.” 

He turned to leave but stopped at the entryway. “The men would have killed you for being at the feet of the monolith Cultus,” he said. “When they found you on the other side of the marshes, they feared you were Jikanei. When they found you dining at the feet of Cultus, it made them angry. But had it not been for their fear of the fox—” he trailed off. “I see now that their error almost convinced me otherwise of what I always knew to be. You’re not a god, you’re just like the rest.”

“And how do you know I’m not the Fox-god?” He replied weakly.

“Don’t amuse me now, you’re already beyond the Marshlands.”

Fox gasped for breath. “I wasn’t meant to die here—” Watano left the room. “I wasn’t even meant to live here.” He fell onto his back and cried out, holding his side. 

The man with the deep-set voice came into the dungeon, clad in sackcloth. Fox turned on his stomach. In the darkness he ran his bloody hands along the ground searching for the loose brick. The man was at him and kicked him in the side. Fox screamed. His hands were shaking while they searched. They felt the loose tooth. 

He gripped and pulled with every ounce left in him. It ripped from its stone gum. He leapt to his feet and came at the man with all his might. 

The rock crashed against the skull and cracked in two. The man fell into the black and all was silent. Fox was gasping for breath, his head was dizzy, his eyes were red. He fell to one knee. A whisper of the steady gush of blood came from somewhere in the darkness. 

He caught his breath and rose to his feet. He raced out of the passageway and ran into another jailor. He pushed him against the wall and the man fell easily at his feet. He didn’t slow down to look, but raced down the corridor for the door at the end. With every pace the darkness dissipated and more of the thin hallway came into view. 

He threw his body into the door and it flung open. Another long corridor lay ahead, lit by lanterns along the ceiling. A number of doors led to unseen rooms. Banners, busts, and stone statues of long ago royalty covered in moss and vegetation lined the halls. He kept forward and could feel the air growing sweeter and lighter. The floor was damp and he felt the sense he was running upwards at an angle. 

He turned another corner and continued toward the sound of rain outside. At the end of this hall, he met a flight of stairs leading to a wooden bulwark. He threw his body into it and almost fell back down the stairs from the impact. Again, he charged the bulwark until it gave. He could hear the rain pounding against the outside of the door. He backed down the steps and again he charged into the wall until it tore from its hinges. 

The rain thundered and crashed through the broken wood. He grabbed hold and squeezed his body through the broken pieces. In seconds, he was on the soggy ground, gasping for air, the rain falling on him. He was free.

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Fox Island

Chapter 12

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Fox became a pariah among the Liberi and it drove him mad. Though, they shunned him indirectly. They merely stopped seeing him, as if his presence irritated them. He was a gnat stinging their shins and elbows by the fire; one that they believed would go away if they simply ignored long enough.  

He slept outside of the village and was unwelcome at the evening fire. He fancied abandoning them altogether if not for his loyalty to Arvor and his hatred of the faceless Watano. The investigation was grueling. No one would speak to him, and those that did, did so hushed and afraid. 

It lasted a fortnight of this—hearing whispers and discomfort in the darkness. He had all but given up hope, ready to return to the beach, when he came upon fortune at the outskirts, along a crop of wheat and barley. A group of sack-cloth clad men harassed a mother and daughter. They pushed the woman down into the dirt and ripped her daughter from her arms. 

The woman fought, scrambling, scratching, biting and bruising. But her voice sounded like a pitiful whimper. One man held her down with his foot and another dragged the child away. The child lay frozen in the arms of her captor, like a fledgling fallen from the nest. 

Fox made out, “Jikarai is coming.” 

The men withdrew. The woman left despondent in pain, alone and broken; it was his opportunity. She mimicked Ina, curled against the tree and crying for her daughter.  

“They took your daughter,” Fox said. 

The woman was lifeless. “She is on the other side of the Marshlands.”  She replied, catatonic. 

“Look at me, child!” Fox ordered. 

The woman stared like a rabbit to a predator.  

“Tell me where Watano is.” 

She shook her head. “He is everywhere. And he is watching. He is the wind.” 

“Where is the place Uada?” 

The woman shivered. “Leave me alone! Go from me now!”  

Fox feared attention from the rest of the villagers. He held up his palms. “What is your name?”  

She appeared confused. “Kònya,” she replied.  

“Who gave you that name?” Fox asked. 

“The Voice of Watanei,” she replied. 

Fox licked his lips. “The birds in the air are the tori.” He smiled and pointed into the sky. She followed his gesture. “And the greatest of these is the Eagle-god, Aquilei. You know this don’t you, Kònya?”  

She nodded. 

“Watanei made the Eagle-god, didn’t he?” 

Her lips parted.  

“The monkeys dance in the trees and play with our things. We love the silly monkeys, don’t we, child? Yes, we do. And the greatest of the monkeys is the Monkey-god, Simei. He leads all the monkeys, doesn’t he? And he was created by who?” 

“Watanei.” 

“Very good, child.” Fox was a pleased teacher.  

“Watanei the Sky-god named the gods,” he continued. “Watano the Voice named you.”  

Her jaw clenched.  

“Who is the Fox-god, Kònya?”  

Kònya’s hand shook. Fox smiled and took it in his own. 

“Who is the Fox-god?” 

“Vulpunei,” she whispered. 

“Who am I?” 

She hesitated. “I don’t know—” 

“—My name is Vulpunei!” 

“No!” 

“Is not my name Vulpunei?”  

Her eyes raced along the dirt, searching for an escape. 

“Do you know who gave me that name, Kònya?” 

Her head shook.  

“Watanei,” he smiled. “The same Sky-god that made the Eagle-god, the Monkey-god, beginning and end—he made the Fox-god—he made me.” 

Her pupils dilated.  

“Tell me where Uada is.” 

“Uada is Death,” she replied. “It is home of the dead. Only the Voice can go there.”  

“Why?” 

“These are things that only Watano knows. Not Kònya.”  

“Am I not the Fox-god?” He replied. “Now.” 

She pointed to the southwest, far over the tree-line. Fox stood and left her in the field of barley.  

She cried out after him, “You are not Vulpunei are you?” 

He smiled.  

Her disposition changed. Her body bent provocative and her eyes filled with the devil. “You are nothing more than the ones from beyond the ocean—the Englassmen.”  

He furrowed his brow. 

“You’re the ones that built it—Uada,” she hollered. “You brought death.” She reached into her sack and drew a stone blade. “I think you are as cunning as the Fox-god, anyway, Traveler.”  

She put the blade to her skin and ran it deep, from inside the wrist to elbow. The blood poured like milk and spilt onto the grass. Her knees became weak and fell to the dirt.  

He met the tree-line as quickly as possible without drawing attention. He was unsure if anyone witnessed his encounter with the woman. Despite her death, they would care little for her remains. She was beyond the Marshlands now, and they would do with her whatever they did with that little girl.  

Looking back, he adjusted his heading, moved a little to the south, and kept on west. He prayed it would not take more than a day’s journey for he did not have any supply or rations save a few fruits and his pocket-knife.  

A familiar flash and broad stroke of reddish-orange caught the corner of his eye. Under the cover of the forest, the familiar flickers of the animal danced along the ground. He searched in the underbrush until his eyes came upon the island fox, still and staring. 

Prior to seeing it, his heart rate raced from his encounter with the woman, but the fox calmed him. He sat down in the grass and waited. The fox’s hind legs rose and its back arched; Fox imagined it would run. Instead, it came close to him, within arm’s reach. Fox refused to move, fearing he would startle it. The fox turned and pranced ten paces away. It paused and looked back at Fox. The beast was not a beast at all. 

Fox stood; the animal remained still, watching. He took a step and satisfied the island fox. It leapt away, but never too far to leave Fox’s sight. Every few paces it would pause and wait until Fox came close again. As soon as he was only a few meters away, it would run ahead again; never too far, and never too close. The two ventured into the jungle together like this. Fox gave up understanding to belief; nothing was left in him now. He would follow the fox to whatever it led him. He thought he must be either brave or mad before its end. 

It didn’t take long until the two discovered the trail of the men with the little girl. It filled Fox with awe as his feet met the worn path. He no longer worried of getting lost, but realized he never could have with the fox by his side. The animal led him to it.  

It trotted ahead. Fox met its pace, and the two were moving briskly on the black path. The longer they walked, the more he noticed a change on the island. The trees were no longer palm, banana, papaya and ficus. They grew thin, tall and ominous; oak and pine, knit together and domineering. Needles covered the ground, choking out any vegetation; the low palms, pepper trees and brambles were long gone. It was a strange country; one lifeless and dark, but powerful and destructive. Nothing survived except at the top nearest the canopy.  

The island fox hesitated in the center of the path; something had startled it. Its hair stood on end and it lowered its head. Nearly crawling on its belly, the animal crept to the edge of the path. Here it looked back to Fox and sat on its haunches.  

Fox proceeded closer and saw they came upon the carcass of a doe with a broken arrow standing erect out of its neck. He never saw a dead body on the island except the adventurer long ago who he stole the rucksack from; now, he saw two in one afternoon. There she lay, once a beautiful doe, but now the remains of a meal; strewn open and cleaned of all her meat. Her face was eaten by wildlife and the bones remained. The kill was months old. 

The act of eating meat never bothered him. But living with the Liberi established an admiration of animals in him; it disturbed him seeing this animal murdered and used for food. He looked at the fox and felt inclined to apologize to it. The animal cocked its head as if confused.  

The friends sat together in the jungle, and Fox believed it was a moment of silence for the fallen doe, until the animal looked dumb and witless and stole off into the grim shadows. It was a wild animal again. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared. Fox waited a few minutes, in hope it would reappear. It would not return though.  

He proceeded on the footpath to what he believed ended at Uada. The jungle became silent around him. It was gradual; he realized that while the tree-line grew higher, and the fruit grew less, there was a great absence of any bird song. He stopped walking when all he heard was the soft crunching of needles under his loafers. He was alone; the loneliest he ever felt on the island.  

A breeze caught the tree-line and whistled in the distance. Far away, a loon wailed. The shadows fooled his eyes, and he saw men standing in the distance, but the longer he watched he saw them as the trees they were, growing tall, reserved and unreachable. He hated this part of the island as much as he hated the bog. Worse even, the bog was dead already; this forest was hunting him.  

He walked a few hours more until stumbling upon a strange sound he hadn’t experienced while on the island. It was a creaking and old sound from a lost memory; like two smooth stones sliding against one another, while some animal screeched in high-pitched agony between them.  

It was the noise of a metal gate being opened. It slammed shut, and he heard voices. He jumped off the path and hid on the ground behind a large pine.  

The voices were Liberi; two men in sackcloth, making the journey back to the village. Once the voices disappeared, he realized he wasn’t breathing. His hand clenched around his pocket-knife. He was on forbidden land; one that only the eyes of the sacred and expendable saw.  

He came out of his hiding place and entered the gate. It creaked and slammed shut. He looked before him to find a wide open bahia field, a plantation long ago, and in the distance a colossal manor made of stone. He was at Uada.

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Fox Island

Chapter 11

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With the morrow came the slow and awful truth that Fox wouldn’t see Arvor ever again. He stood outside the village where the two men often met, pacing back and forth for hours. Every day and every moment, the comrades spent their lives together. And now Fox was abhorrently alone. 

He struggled to understand what it was. The thought tasted like a bruised apple, bland and tasteless, disgustingly worthless. It was asinine, immature, irreverent—imagine a conversation leading to such irreparable damage to a relationship. 

Whatever terrible thing he made Arvor reveal about his village’s beliefs—and what caused a belief to be hidden? A belief should be shouted from the rooftops! It is the soul, the spirit of a man—the thing that he wakes and dies for! 

What belief is in a man that should be hidden or concealed? If it were concealed, is it a belief at all—or the thing another forces one to accept? If he have love for a woman, does not his love come showering out at every opportunity? Only shame, jealousy, hatred, bitterness—these things are the damnable disgraces that a man hides and wishes he hadn’t. A belief is the foundation to the soul, and the soul is the voice of one’s thoughts. Nothing else can escape him but what he believes. Nothing can be concealed but what he is afraid of. 

It weren’t true! Arvor was his brother. The only one that loved him on the island. No conversation could destroy that thing. 

He sought Arvor to apologize and make right his blunder, but an unfamiliar man and woman whom he did not recognize inhabited his hut. When he asked, they did not know of him. 

Fox walked away dumbfounded. His anger gave way to fear. He ran up and down the village streets asking about his friend.

For a week he searched the village to find him. And for a week they denied him. The response was always the same: They never met Arvor. With every hour, day, and night, Fox’s fear became imminent. The island had forgotten Arvor. 

One night, sitting by the fire, he recognized the young nephew of Arvor. The boy was impish and stupid; he never carried the regal and clever qualities of his uncle. Fox came near him, hoping that he could discover Arvor’s absence through the adolescence of the buffoon. The boy listened to his whisper and turned to his mother asking about uncle.  

The mother hushed him and whispered, “He is on the other side of the marshlands.”

Fox was correct in his assumption. Some reason drove Arvor to regret his conversation, and the remorse led him to penitence, and the confession led to his discipline. He wasn’t sure of the penalty or its execution, but he knew that Watano was behind it. 

The thought of it drove Fox mad. He grew tired of the Liberi, with their incessant ignorance of imagination and creativity, weak manner in conflict and controversy, and their diffidence to speak out about any sort of philosophy and belief without becoming like mindless cattle.

He had a friend in Arvor, and figuring they punished him for doing anything other than the mindless propensities of the others drove hatred into him.

Rain began falling on the fire, and soon a large storm erupted. Fox ran under the cover of a pavilion with a group of the villagers. The storm cracked and howled and it reminded him of his ceiba. It had been two months since he was home. Somewhere out there beyond the monolith, bahia fields, marshlands and cenote, lay his kitchen of fruits, vegetables and nuts and a make-shift canoe ready for him to leave this damned place. 

On cue, conjured by every torrential storm before, the booming howl came out of the darkness, screaming and shrill, yet long and dull. 

“What is that sound?” Fox asked a woman next to him. 

“Storm.” She responded.

“No, the howl, you imbecile?” Fox responded in his English tongue. 

The woman stared.

Again, the booming cry shook through the village. 

“That!” Fox shouted, back in the Liberi language. “What is that sound?”

“I do not hear that sound.” The woman responded.

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