Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) (9 page)

“I’m sure rescuers will come for us,” I reasoned. “They’re not going to just let a bunch of kids die on an island.”

“We can’t sit here watching more people die. At least we should try.” Andrew Lamar was tearing the material from clothing that had washed to shore as he spoke. “Tell the homecoming queen and her boyfriend to catch us some fish for the ride.” He motioned over at Emily and Jake who were off to the side on a boulder arguing. I wondered why only some people were different than before the sinking of the yacht while others hadn’t changed.

I looked around and saw that most people had
not changed. Lisa Sorenson and Jessica Bernstein were carrying sticks down from the edge of the jungle and dumping them in a pile. Lisa’s dark brown hair and Jessica’s sun bleached chestnut hair was just as it was before the shipwreck and they didn’t look any different than I remembered them. Though they were pretty by their own rights, Jessica was still obese and Lisa had an average, normal physique.

I saw that Logan and Andrew were
determined to build their raft and not really open to discussion. It surprised me that they didn’t say all that much about the transformations that we had apparently undergone. Sure, I, the ugly duckling, was hot now, but that was it. What the hell? “Let’s go,” I said to Savannah. “We have to build a fire to attract the rescuers.”

Savannah and I
talked a little while we were gathering branches. But we were both anxious to get the fire going. We didn’t want to be stuck on an island with a bunch of teenagers for the rest of our lives. “How did you make it to shore?” Savannah asked me as she broke a limb off one of the trees at the edge of the jungle.

I was trying to free another limb that had wedged between some boulders. “I really don’t know. From what I remember I fell into the water and saw some strange visions and the next thing I knew I woke up on the shore with all of my injuries healed.” I didn’t tell her about eating the insects. It was just too embarrassing somehow. “What about you?”
I asked as we carried our tree limbs out to an open area on the beach away from all the people.

“
As you went over the side of the yacht, one of those sexy exchange students with the long hair from France, Pascal, I think was his name, spun me around and started kissing me and wouldn’t let up. It was crazy!” Her eyes widened as she shook her head. “I struggled to get away—shocked—but he wouldn’t let me go. And then I must have blacked out because the next time I woke up I was on shore feeling like a whole new person. No injuries or anything just like you.”

“So, you didn’t see anything strange in the wat
er?” I asked hesitantly, wanting to know if she saw the people tearing apart our classmates the way sharks feed in frenzy. Probably that was just a hallucination.

“I don’t remember ever going in the water. I must have because when I came to, I was just at the edge of the shore and all wet.” Her eyes became distant as she looked back at the jungle. “We better hurry and get this fire going.”

I nodded, feeling frustrated as hell. “What the heck do you think happened to our bodies?” I bit my lower lip hard as I searched her new sparkling blue eyes.

“Hell, if I know.” She shifted her weight and looked up the beach as she spoke. “I saw my reflection in the ocean.” Her face seemed to pale just at the memory. She shook her head as a small bead of perspiration rolled off her forehead and down the side of her cheek. “We have to focus on our next step, not this crap.”

I nodded, feeling very unsatisfied. She was acting different, more aloof. I’m sure she was just traumatized by it all. “Later we’ll talk,” I mumbled as I watched her stare off.

B
ut she was right—the most important thing was getting rescued. If we got stuck on this island, we would have the rest of our lives to analyze all the strange transformations that had overtaken us.

She finally turned back to me. “Come on,” she said
already rushing up the beach toward the rainforest. At that, I hurried to catch up. She seemed more together once we got to our task, gathering and breaking more branches. We worked well as a team like that. Maybe it was because we knew each other so well. Sometimes it seemed like we were one unit and didn’t have to talk to know what the other wanted. I guess it is like that with close friends sometimes.

But while we were getting the fire going, some of our classmates went into the ocean to cool off. Jessica and Lisa were swimming around, splashing each other and making a whole bunch of irritating noise. Since my physical changes had started occurring, my sense of hearing seemed to be heightened, so I could hear every annoy
ing thing they were saying. It just didn’t seem like the time to joke around and have fun, especially with all the wounded still needing care and with all the dead bodies on the beach. But I wasn’t one to judge with all my odd behaviors.

“I think we can
get a stronger fire going with more smoke if we break down that palm tree over there,” Savannah said to me as she crossed the beach.

My eyes widened. “You think we could pull an entire tree down with our bare hands?” The idea seemed absurd.

She nodded, unfazed. “If we pull it down together, I think we can.”

I bit my lip as I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked over at the palm tree. “This is just too crazy.” My voice was laced with sarcasm.

“Come on,” she said, pulling me by the arm toward it. “The dry palm leaves up top will create a lot of smoke. “Just what we need to be spotted on this island.”

Once we got to the tree, I looked up at it with wonder in my eyes. “The trunk is pretty thick.” I pushed against it.

“Here,” she encouraged me. “Grab onto it and we can pull it out by its roots.”

That just made me laugh.

She smiled. “I’m serious.”

“All right.” I figured why not give it a try just to shut her up.

We both grabbed onto the trunk together and pulled with all our strength. To my surprise the thing actually started lifting from the ground, but before anything remarkable happened the trunk cracked and we were able to break it in half. I couldn’t believe it. The top half came falling to the ground. From across the beach I could see Emily and Jake jump down from the boulder they were sitting. They looked shocked by what we had done.

“Hurry,” Savannah encouraged. “Let’s break this up and get it to the fire.”

It amazed me how strong we were. We were able to break the trunk up into three parts. Our hands weren’t even damaged. It was as if our skin was so much thicker and more durable. When I examined my palms more carefully, I noticed that the skin had an extra strength and barely noticeable shine and texture almost like the substance of fingernails. It felt amazing to be that tough and pliable.

As we were carrying the palm tree
down the beach to the fire that we had built, I heard screaming in the water. It sounded like it was Lisa’s voice. Then Jessica started yelling too. There was crying. They sounded terrified. Something was horribly wrong.

My heart started pounding way too fast. What was happening? At once, I dropped the parts of the tree I carried and ran for the ocean.
Once I got to the edge, I saw Lisa’s body being pulled under the water. Her face was red from fear and she was reaching up with her arms. She kept choking and then screaming only to be jerked under the water’s surface again and again. It was like a shark was attacking her. Images of the film, Jaws, flashed in my mind.

Trying to lug her overweight body,
Jessica was swimming away and yelling for help at the top of her lungs, her voice breaking into a hoarse quality from the strain. “They’ve got her…They’ve got her,” she screamed.

I dove under, swimming out to help Lisa.
Holy crap! To my surprise, I could see perfectly under the bright blue water. Everything was crystal clear. And what I saw caused my body to coil back. There were fish people under the surface. Their upper bodies were human and their lower bodies were shimmery fish tails. These creatures were like the legends we had all heard about in mythology—mermaids and mermen! They were stunning with long, flowing hair and faces even more beautiful than the way I described Savannah’s, Andrew’s, and Logan’s. These beings looked too enchanting for this world. I had never seen such beauty. Light exuded from their bodies like celestial entities. But a group of them were pulling Lisa under and tearing her body apart in frenzy while the others swam around through the coral reefs teasing each other in some sort of game of chase. It was a terrible nightmare. If only it wasn’t true.

My nostrils flared as I grabbed hold of a boulder. Unexpected feelings rushed through my body; I wasn’t comfortable with my thoughts. The scent caused my body to shiver. Oh, this wasn’t right. I tried to hide behind the rock.
I was terrified. It was like swimming up to a school of sharks and fearing you would be dead in seconds.

It was too late to help Lisa. The blood poured forth
perfuming the ocean. I could feel the rhythms of her dying cells. Her body was in shreds. A sickened mood consumed me. But now some of the fish people were swimming toward Jessica. I got the feeling these mers thought killing was a fun game. Apparently, even with all their beauty and grace, they had no human empathy.

Jessica was swimming fast now.
My heart slammed against my chest. Maybe she would get away. She and Lisa were stupid to swim so far out, especially after everything we had experienced on the yacht with the gigantic octopus. I wanted to swim after her to help her. Oh, God. But my intuition warned me against it. How could I save her from so many ferocious creatures? Any attempt would be a suicide mission. But more than that, I felt like it would be wrong. What was with that?

And then
, as I balled my hands into fists, I realized the entire time that all of this was happening I hadn’t surfaced for air. Damn, damn, damn. How did I do that? It wasn’t possible. Was I dead or just dreaming this? I bit down hard on my tongue. That hurt. No, I was certainly awake. But I wasn’t breathing. Even weirder—I didn’t feel like I needed to breathe.

All of a sudden, I saw Savannah dive into the ocean. Bubbles streamed over her body. She was probably looking for me. Most likely she was worried because I hadn’t surfaced. But when she saw all the fish people circling Jessica, she stopped swimming. Her face grew instantly pale. One of the mermaids with white blond long hair bit into Jessica’s leg as she kicked to get away.
Blood released into the water. All the mers went wild and started tearing into Jessica’s body. And to my utter shock, Savannah joined in too.

Suddenly, Marcel Paradis grabbed my hand, a wicked grin on his gorgeous face. His body shimmered. He held out his other hand and the ocean lit up in beautiful light. Whoa. I felt myself grow unbelievably dizzy and then everything went black.

Chapter Six

Boy was I a wreck.
I must have fainted again at that point because the next thing I remember, I woke up in a tree house in the jungle. If everything wasn’t so shocking, I would have been concerned about this repetitive fainting I was experiencing. But compared to all the strange transformations I had undergone, fainting spells didn’t seem so out there.

It was evening by now. A small oil lamp was burning on the floor and m
y body was nestled a little too snuggly in a small bed made of bamboo with white sewn fabric stuffed with feathers that I supposed served as a mattress of sorts. Apparently, I was in some kind of tiny bamboo room attached to the rest of the dwelling place.

Through the open doorway, I
heard arguing. It sounded like Emily Monroe and Marcel Paradis who caused my blood to boil whenever I was near him. But there were other voices that I didn’t recognize that piped in here and there. I got out of the makeshift bed carefully, trying not to make any noise. Whatever was going on had picked my interest and I wanted to eavesdrop. I felt that with all the wacko stuff that had been happening I had the right to break some rules.

I tiptoed into a very short hall, maybe only a few feet, and looked through the separations in the bamboo that served as a wall to
the next room. Feelings of déjà vu rushed through me, like I had been there before. It was an attractive space lit with oil lamps and decorated with beautiful shell ensembles and other impressive nautical memorabilia on the walls with blue sheer curtains made of fine embroidered fabrics that had a kind of foreign look to them.

What surprised me the most was the
pool in the center of the room. It was made of some sort of gigantic shell turned upside down and filled with water. Large rocks were stacked up at the back edge in a mesmerizing manner with water trickling down into the pool. There was no way Marcel could have made this in the short time that we had been on the island. It was like a mini-paradise way up in a tree with warm golden light illuminating everyone’s perfect faces. But if that was the case, how the hell did this dream home get here?

My heart tightened.
Emily was standing at the edge of the pool arguing with Marcel while some of the other French exchange students that I recognized from school were kicking back in the water. One guy with long golden brown hair was talking to beautiful, blond Marine. I think his name was Laurent. They seemed like close friends. Of the bunch, I didn’t think he had a relationship like the others. His back was to a stunning red head with fine features; she kept glancing at him.