Arcene: The Island (3 page)

Fasolt climbed into the basket reluctantly. "Come on then," he mumbled, scowling as he looked up into the balloon. He turned up the burner so the flames licked high and the whole thing strained at the tethers like it would pull them from the ground at any moment.

"Okey dokey, let's do it. Go on, Leel, in you get." Leel stared at Arcene as if she were mad. Like she had no idea how to jump and had never seen the basket before in her life. "Come on, don't make me tell you again. You're not scared, are you?" Leel whined and Arcene was sure she nodded her head slightly. "Don't be silly, it's fun. Isn't that right, Fasolt? Fasolt?"

"Oh, yes, of course, great fun. Come on, Leel, the sooner you get in then the sooner we will be home and you can sleep and eat lots and even have a nice new blanket and a roaring fire too. How does that sound?"

Woof. Woof woof!

"There's no need to be like that!"

"Right, Leel, I'm undoing the ropes, so if you don't jump in you'll be left behind." Arcene unhitched the tethers; Leel stared at her in shock, as if she truly believed she would be left alone. She let out a final bark of protest then stepped/jumped into the basket, the effort so minimal she may as well have simply been walking up a few stairs.

Stupid dog. She's just acting up because she hasn't seen Fasolt for a while.

Arcene held onto the basket with one hand, undid the final rope, then hopped in. "Here we go." The excitement built.

"Ugh, yes, here we go," moaned Fasolt. He turned the burner up full and in seconds they were high in the sky, heading home.

"Look, there it is," shouted Arcene, ducking as a fat dreadlock whipped at her face like a cat-o-nine-tails. "There, over there. Look!"

Fasolt turned his attention from staring at his navel, something he'd done ever since they took off, put a hand above his eyes, and peered where Arcene pointed. "It's kind of blurry, but I think maybe I can make it out."

"Hmm. Guess it does look a bit rubbish from this far away." Arcene watched as the last shimmer of blue disappeared from the top of the castle and then it was gone, lost behind the hills as they traveled away at speed.

Fasolt turned his attention back to his belly button, and Arcene looked ahead eagerly, willing their transport to move faster, to get her home to her son so she could have her cuddle.

They were making good time. In only a few hours they had passed several ancient towns and a few large cities, the crumbling remains of skyscrapers and houses always a reminder of what life had once been like.

It was hard to imagine Fasolt as a grown man over three hundred years ago when everything was pristine. When everyone had a TV and a job, a house of their very own, and the roads were full of cars and trucks, everyone obsessed with money and how to get more of it.

The old world sounded like an absolute nightmare to Arcene — what could be worse than doing something every day you hated just so you could drive there and back in a vehicle that smelled funny, spending hours sat in queues of traffic? It was absolutely mad.

Still, she loved hearing the stories of those times, and Fasolt often told her of what it was like. It always felt made-up though, not like it was real, all those people, all those things happening. Where did they all fit? Supermarkets jammed full of food that didn't look like the animal it came from, clogged roads and everyone always busy — it was no wonder Fasolt went bad and ended up nearly destroying what remained of humanity.

"Hold on, the wind's getting up," warned Fasolt. He ducked to avoid his own hair that had got loose like it alway did and danced in the air like snakes that were very, very angry.

"It's just a gust, nothing to worry about," said Arcene, smiling at him for being such a baby. Leel whined and leaned heavily against her side, her eyes inches from Arcene's as she sat there panting and looking scared. "You two are such babies, this is fun!"

"Fun is being on solid ground, not fun is being up in the sky in a balloon when it's windy. Or even when it isn't," added Fasolt.

"Babies." Arcene let the wind flap at her pigtails, burning orange as the lowering sun caught her silver hair and made it sparkle. She stood on tiptoes so she could revel in the power of nature, let her kilt whip around her thighs, and as she did about fifty times a day she bent her head a little, lifted a leg and admired the pink bunnies stitched up the side of her socks. Cool.

The wind picked up speed, and with no warning the sky darkened, as if somebody had the sun on a dimmer switch and wanted to make it night prematurely.

"I think we're in for trouble," said Fasolt. He turned and pointed in the opposite direction to the way they were heading, hair trailing behind him like living streamers.

Arcene adjusted her position and saw a mass of dark, evil looking clouds bubbling up from nowhere. Flashes of lightning could be seen, but there was no thunder yet, meaning it was well off and might not even come their way at all. She watched as the clouds got denser and darker, huge, puffy menaces like evil mushrooms that would twist your mind and make you believe the sun was a figment of your imagination.

Gosh, I'm getting a little carried away. They're just clouds, nothing to worry about.

"It's time to worry. The storm is heading right for us," shrieked Fasolt. Already, it was hard to hear him. The wind was fierce, and the darkness hurtled toward them faster than they could escape.

Oops, maybe I'm not exaggerating.

"Get ready, get ready. Hold on tight and whatever you do don't fall out." Fasolt gripped on tight to the basket; Arcene did the same as the first really powerful gust of wind hit and rocked the basket violently.

Leel whimpered and lay down; Fasolt shrieked like a baby; Arcene smiled into the swirling, elemental force and dared it to do its worst.

Bad move. Uh-oh.

"Ugh. Argh, yuck!" Arcene spat out a mouthful of bugs, tiny, brittle and chewy bits stuck in her teeth, a quick flashback to her youth when she had eaten insects on purpose as she was so close to starving — she learned how to hunt and trap animals soon after. Bugs were no way for a child to get strong and survive in an uncaring world.

Hard pellets rained down onto the balloon canopy, pat, pat, pattering faster and faster, and the wind changed direction, angling down then up, catapulting the swarm of insects right at them, smacking Arcene in the face like a million grains of sand like when she'd once found herself in the middle of an unseasonal storm on a beach at some unnamed town.

She turned away from the onslaught, picking what appeared to be ladybugs from her hair, out of her nose and mouth. They were even in her ears. Gross! She examined the tiny creatures in the half-light, little black things with red dots, before the basket rocked wildly and the insects were forgotten. She clutched tightly to the wicker rim of the square basket suspended by ropes from a balloon high above the ground, as nature decided to put them firmly in their place and show who was boss.

Fasolt's hair was out of control. He'd lost his topknot completely now. The meters long dreadlocks flapped wildly, like tattered sails on their airborne ship, hitting her arms and legs, slamming into their faces like evil tentacles, wrapping around the ropes and knotting as their transport lurched this way and that.

"I'm stuck, untie me, untie me," screamed Fasolt, spitting as he got a mouthful of ladybugs. There was real fear in his eyes, the only time she had seen him genuinely afraid. He fumbled with the caught hair, but the basket was swaying too violently and he had to hold onto the ropes securing the basket so he didn't fall out.

The wind became a hurricane, gusted past as if to win a race, and more thick dreadlocks were pulled high above Fasolt's head as if an invisible puppet master was making him dance and scream for daring to defy nature — man was to walk the earth, not fly in the air.

Fasolt's eyes opened wide in terror. He was stuck fast, head close to one of the ropes, hair wrapped tight. Arcene turned and saw a flock of dark specks heading straight for them. Birds.

"Leel, Leel, don't stand up, stay on the floor." Leel whimpered and tried to hide under her paws, covering her floppy ears and eyes with paws as large as Arcene's head. Arcene kept her grip and ducked down low, the respite from the wind welcome and glorious.

Everything went silent for a moment, the shelter allowing her to gather her thoughts and breathe without fear of death by bugs.

The balloon dropped without warning, the wind gone. Her stomach lurched and Fasolt screamed. Leel whimpered and then they were buffeted high, the sudden pressure drop filled with an incredible gale that sent them hurtling skyward, racing the wind as they entered the storm proper.

Then all hell broke loose as the flock of geese slammed into the balloon canopy and the basket, dull thuds that shook her teeth and sent her clutching at Leel for comfort.

The basket rocked almost sideways and Arcene slid over to Fasolt's legs, stick thin and hairy. She grabbed at a calf then looked up.

Ugh, bad move. Stupid willy, stupid bare bum.
Arcene averted her gaze — the last thing she wanted was for her final memory before death to be of Fasolt's gross appendage and a goose pecking at her thigh.

A goose? Arcene gathered her wits as birds slammed into the only transport they had and scrambled backward on all fours as the disheveled bird stared at her with angry orange eyes. Feathers littered the floor, and it glared at her in accusation, as if it was all her fault.

Lighting flashed, thunder broke the sky, and ahead the sun miraculously shone through, as if the storm had shattered the cloud it created into tiny fragments and orange light bathed them, the white goose feathers gleaming as orange as Arcene's normally silver hair, and as Arcene scrambled to her knees she saw the life-giving orb touch a pointed outcrop far ahead. Was it a mountain? A building? They were too far away to see, the jagged shards of whatever she saw was in silhouette, the perfect orange circle behind the highest point.

Then it was gone. The storm gathered momentum once more, the goose pecked at her kilt, and nature decided it was time to stop messing about and got serious.

Stupid Balloon

The sun was obliterated as night descended with all the grace of a lump of coal clattering down a mineshaft. Everything was black. Black and scary. Lightning flashed every second, highlighting Leel curled up as tight as she could, trying to ignore everything and focus on her whining.

Fasolt's face was a mask of terror, eyes and teeth shining white, face a rictus of fear as the sky strobed white then black like a nightmare disco. And the peck, peck, pecking of the damn goose as Arcene tried to grab it when the lightning flashed and she could see.

Finally, she managed to grab it around the neck and with a quick, "Sorry, Mr. Goose," she dropped it over the side. It squawked as the wind sent it sailing down and behind as strong currents eddied around them like a ship lost at sea in a storm.

They hurtled toward the west and the sinking sun, shining bright for a split-second before it vanished again. For a moment, there was a weird reflection of orange ahead and far below, the ground lit up oddly. It was water, it must have been water. The sea? No, they couldn't have traveled that far, surely? A lake then, or a river?

It didn't matter. Darkness returned, more terrible than ever, and the wind punched at them as the massive storm from the east finally clutched them tight in its cold and fierce embrace.

Then silence, a terrible emptiness as the world was sucked away. Again, they dropped, another lurch of the stomach, the only sound the burner as it spluttered then burst to life and shone bright now the flames no longer fought the wind.

What if it gets blown out? We'll just drop to the ground and die.

Arcene hadn't even considered such a thing, but it was a real possibility, and as she stared at the flame she turned a little, catching Fasolt's eye. He nodded at her, knowing her thoughts, his mastery of The Noise meaning he could read her mind as easily as if she'd spoken — she hated it when he did that; some things were private. So it could happen, and this is why he was terrified. Not of only losing his own life, but her's too, and Leel's. He loved Leel, although he often acted grumpy around her and called her names, but Arcene knew deep down he thought of them both as family. And they were.

"Think it's over?" asked Arcene breathlessly, peering over the rim of the basket, then standing.

"No, stay down. We're in the eye of the storm, you haven't seen anything yet. I hate hot air balloons."

"You said."

"Yeah, well, I really, really do." Fasolt's head was now tight against the rope, hair weaved as thoroughly as Arcene's pigtails, but in the stillness he managed to untangle some of the dreadlocks and Arcene gathered up those that spilled over the sides, hanging like spare tethers for if they ever got close to the ground again.

The silence intensified, the balloon dropped, and Fasolt reached to turn up the burner, trying to raise their altitude, maybe get above the storm and wait it out.