Elemental (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

T
hree canoes sat on the creek, filled with bags of supplies and fresh water in canisters—enough for an overnight stay in the hurricane shelter. Usually I'd have been dreading a trip to the smelly, sweaty shelter on Roanoke Island, two miles to the west. Not this time, though. For once I could only think of getting away—from the Guardians' stares, and my father's lies, and the colony that felt smaller every day.

With a lingering gaze at me, Rose climbed into the front of the canoe on the left. Her brother, Dennis, the youngest member of the colony at nine years old, joined her. He pressed his hands against his head as if it hurt. Rose rubbed his back gently.

Alice already sat at the helm of the middle canoe. She rolled up the sleeves of her dirty, misshapen blue tunic, and grasped the paddle tightly, eager to get moving. As her older sister, Eleanor, shared yet another embrace with their father, Alice rolled her eyes. Or perhaps that gesture was intended for her grandmother, Guardian Lora, who sat in the middle of the sisters' canoe and complained to nobody in particular that the rain was increasing. The other Guardians claimed that Lora was coming along to look after us, but we all knew it was because she was too old and frail to ride out the storm in the colony.

I followed Lora's eyes to the clouds. We'd never set off so late before. I wondered if we'd make it across before lightning hit. If I'd had the element of wind, I'd have known the answer. If I'd had the element of water, I'd have been attuned to the swell, the tempo of the incoming tide.

I had nothing.

I took my usual place at the rear of our oak canoe. It tilted from side to side, but I barely noticed. We spent so much of our lives on water that the constant movements felt as familiar as the gentle give of sand on the beach. Griffin sat in the middle and faced me so that he could communicate with his hands during the crossing.

Meanwhile, in the bow seat up front, Ananias conferred with our father. He spoke with the confidence of a boy who'd been treated as an adult for years—though he was only eighteen. When they were done, Father waded toward Griffin and me. He paused beside Griffin, but when he leaned forward, it was me he hugged. He gripped my hair between his fingers and held me tight.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered fiercely. “You have no idea how sorry I am. None of this is your fault. I need you to remember that. Always.”

I felt tense in his arms. I wanted to scream that it didn't matter whose fault it was. Was it any consolation for Griffin to know that his limp wasn't his fault? Or his deafness? Or those sinister visions that kept everyone at arm's length? No. Griffin and I were more than brothers. We were the colony's outcasts, the constant reminders that not everything is created perfect. Knowing it wasn't my fault didn't change that at all.

“I'm sorry,” he said again, breaths ragged in my ear. He was squeezing me so hard I could barely breathe. Something rushed through me then, like a message direct from his heart, begging for forgiveness. Against my will, it calmed me. I hugged him back.

“It's all right,” I said, even though we both knew it wasn't. “I'm all right.”

As soon as he let go, I knew I'd done the right thing. He looked so grateful.

Finally, he turned to Griffin. Father never held him the way he held Ananias and me, but this time was different. Still smiling, he took a deep breath and rested his hands on Griffin's bony shoulders.

Griffin's eyes grew wide in astonishment, and his face opened like a sun breaking through clouds. For a precious moment, everything seemed right.

But then the smile disappeared. His expression shifted. He looked frightened—horrified, even.

That's when the noise began.

At first it was a low sound, like waves breaking in the distance, but it had a knife-like edge that made Ananias spin around instantly. We dropped our paddles and crawled toward Griffin. He'd already grasped Father's hands and locked on. Father tried to pull away, muscles bulging beneath his dirty cloth shirt, but it was futile.

Almost everyone in the colony had seen Griffin like this before, overcome by a blind panic that gave him superhuman strength. For years I'd tried to block out the memory of those moments—or what followed—but as Griffin's voice twisted into a keening wail, I couldn't think of anything else.

I lunged at Griffin and sent him tumbling onto the hard bottom of the canoe. Father stumbled back and collapsed into the waist-deep water. With the wind knocked out of him, Griffin struggled to breathe, let alone make a sound, but I could tell he'd snapped out of the trance now. There wouldn't be any more moaning, just a faint whimpering as he curled up in a ball.

I didn't need to look around to know that we were being watched. I could literally feel the silence. Everyone in the colony remembered hearing that sound, and what had followed.

“We don't need to go,” Dennis cried, his voice high-pitched and desperate. “It's a storm, nothing more.”

Kyte shook his head. “We'll not take that chance, son.”

“Then come with us. It's not a really bad storm, I promise. That's why you didn't foresee it—”

“Enough!” Kyte was clearly embarrassed at having his weather prediction challenged by his own son. “It's time you left. Paddle evenly. Conserve your water.”

Paddle evenly. Conserve your water
. This is what the Guardians said every time we set off for another stay in the hurricane shelter. Following these words, we'd dig our paddles into the murky green water and watch them create eddies as the canoes slid forward. We'd laugh at our own strength and Alice's determined attempts to get to Roanoke Island first, like this was a race, not an evacuation. And we'd secretly revel in the knowledge that the only person of authority would be Guardian Lora, who was too weak to walk unaided, let alone control seven of us.

Now there was no laughing. No reveling. No one moved.

“He said go!” My father's voice lashed at us, fueled by fear and anger.

As I scanned everyone's faces, they looked away. They pitied my brothers and me, I was certain. The first time Griffin behaved this way had been nine years before, while he'd been sitting on the beach with Rose's grandparents. One moment, they'd held him fast; the next, his little hands had gotten such a grip on them they couldn't pull away. When they'd launched a sailboat that afternoon, it had taken three Guardians to hold Griffin back, even though he was only four years old. We hadn't even recovered from the shock when the meaning became clear: Rose's grandparents' boat capsized in a sudden squall. Their bodies were never recovered.

Three years later, Griffin had latched on to a boy named John as we played on a rope swing. We'd pulled Griffin away then too, and John had climbed the tree, laughing. But he hadn't gripped the rope properly, and fell. He'd been so still that we were sure he was just pretending to be injured. Then we saw the stream of blood.

After the grieving period, the Guardians had made me explain to Griffin that he wasn't to blame. I'd done as they asked, though I wasn't sure whether they were trying to convince him or themselves. It was the last day anyone had willingly touched my brother. No one wanted to be his next victim.

I knew that Griffin hadn't caused the deaths, of course; it was more like he somehow knew a bad thing was going to happen to someone before it actually did. He wasn't the first person in my family to have the ability either. I'd grown up hearing rumors about my mother's “talent” for foreseeing future catastrophes—even heard people wonder aloud if she was somehow the cause of them.

I'd always told myself that it was wrong for the Guardians to say such things when she wasn't around to defend herself. Then one night, as Griffin slept peacefully in a cot beside us, my father told Ananias and me that our mother had indeed been a seer, just like her mother before her. But all she had been able to foresee was death, and since no one had wanted to spend their final moments in fear of a fate they couldn't avoid, they were wary of her.

Like mother, like son.

Now I stared at my father, saturated and shaking. I wanted to ask him if he was as frightened as I was, but I couldn't. We had an audience, and he was determined to appear strong. Instead I knelt beside Griffin, still curled up in the bottom of the canoe. Making sure I had his attention, I placed a finger against my chest and pulled my mouth into a frown. Finally, I pointed to him:
I. Sorry. You
.

He watched each gesture with a glazed expression, and when I finished he didn't sign back. I needed to see him touch his heart, to show that he forgave me. After all, we weren't just brothers—we were confidants, fellow outcasts. Strangers in our own colony. But I knew he wouldn't—or couldn't—do it. The last time he'd had a seizure, he hadn't communicated for a full day afterward. No words or laughter, just emptiness.

I glanced at Ananias, and wished I hadn't. Gone was the Apprentice, the boy with the confidence of a Guardian. Now he looked as panicked as I felt. Neither of us was ready to go, but the Guardians wouldn't allow us to stay. Silence weighed heavily, and somehow I knew that only we could break it.

I picked up the paddle and nodded to Ananias that it was time to go. He followed me in a daze. Neither of us said good-bye to our father—it was as though the word had changed meaning, become too final. Instead, we drove our paddles into the water and propelled ourselves away. For a dozen strokes I closed my eyes and focused on the splashing sound, and the monotony helped me to forget.

But then I glanced down at Griffin, and realized he was staring at the receding figure of our father. He didn't even blink. It was like he wanted to take in as much of the man as possible before he disappeared forever.

CHAPTER 3

H
alfway across the sound—the waterway separating our colony on Hatteras Island from Roanoke Island—the rain became torrential. Heavy drops collected in pools around Griffin's legs, but he didn't seem to notice. He was as silent now as he had been loud before.

We fought our way through choppy water around tiny Pond Island and followed the hulking bridge to the eastern shore of Roanoke Island. The bridge was old and decrepit—remnant of a long-ago civilization—and a small section was missing from the middle, making it difficult to cross. The Guardians had left strong wooden planks on either side of the gap, which could be lowered in case of emergency; but walking on a long, narrow board eighty feet above the water was something only Alice wanted to try. Besides, the canoes were faster, and could carry more provisions.

We paddled hard along one of the channels that cut into Roanoke Island. At the end, we tethered the canoes to a pontoon. Alice and Eleanor unloaded their supplies as Lora muttered curses.

“Let me rest,” the old woman groaned. She was standing knee-deep in the water, fragile arms clinging to the pontoon. “I believe you would have me die out here, Alice.”

Alice caught my eye. As gusts of wind whipped at her tunic, I'd swear she smiled a little. “I hadn't thought of that, Lora,” she said. “Not until now, anyway.”

Eleanor cast her sister a warning glance, but it was pointless. Despite their physical similarities—they were both tall and
willowy—their temperaments were as strikingly different as their hair: long, curling brown locks for Eleanor, and unkempt raven-black hair for Alice. Where Eleanor glided with gentle grace, Alice carried the energy of an all-consuming storm. Where Eleanor seemed to look through people to the weather beyond, Alice stared at them with a blazing intensity that dared them to look away. Everyone adored Eleanor. Alice counted me as her only friend. Then again, she frustrated the Guardians even more than I did. How could I not have liked her?

Lora picked up on Alice's defiant tone, and cocked her head. “What was that? What did you say, child?” She emphasized the word
child,
as if she weren't completely at Alice's mercy.

Alice just smiled. She would be turning sixteen in a few months. Her element was unusually weak, but she'd still be honored with the title Apprentice of the Fire. There would be a celebration. A feast. She certainly wouldn't suffer through a halfhearted meal passed in cold silence, as I had done. She wouldn't have to press her hands against her ears to block out her father's tirade. She wouldn't be granted an additional year to discover her element—simply putting off the moment when the Guardians would acknowledge she had no element at all.

“Thomas. . . . Thomas!” Ananias stood over me. Rain ran down his face. “Can you help Griffin?”

It wasn't really a question, but I nodded anyway. “Are you all right?” I asked.

Ananias secured our canoe to the pontoon with deliberate slowness. He knew what I really meant. “Griffin could be wrong.”

“He's never been wrong before.”

“But Father knows there's danger now. He'll be on his guard. So will everyone else.” He spoke earnestly, like he really wanted to believe what he was saying. But behind the stubble and the serious brows, he looked concerned.

I turned to Griffin. He hadn't moved at all. One side of his body was submerged in rainwater.
We go,
I signed.

Griffin blinked, but he didn't reply.

We go,
I repeated. I waved my arm in a wide arc above my head to signify the weather.
Storm
.

He sat up, shivering.

I pulled off his saturated cloth shirt and gave him the spare from my canvas bag. I knew he'd be drenched again before we reached the shelter, but I just wanted him to stop shaking for a moment. He pulled on the shirt without looking at me.

Ananias took my bag so I could stay with Griffin. But Griffin either didn't need my help, or didn't want it. Without even a glance in my direction he crawled out of the canoe and onto the pontoon. Then he followed the others along the cracked road, fighting wind and rain, his weak right leg sliding through dirty puddles.

Finally only Alice and Lora remained. “Come on,” grumbled Lora as I approached. She didn't look up. “Alice has me propped up against this pontoon like a ship's figurehead.”

“Or a lightning rod,” offered Alice cheerily.

When I drew close, Lora's expression shifted. “Oh, it's you,” she said, startled. “Where's Ananias?”

“Carrying our bags.”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but sighed instead. “Well, you can carry my bag, then.”

“Don't you need support?”

“Alice's help will be enough.” She fixed me with her withering gaze. “I'm not an invalid yet.”

I stared right back. For once, it was Lora who looked away first.

We trudged along the half-mile stretch of road that led to the hurricane shelter. To either side, marsh gave way to scrub grass, and then the ground was littered with rubble, the remains of a bigger settlement. No one knew precisely when the area had been abandoned, or why, but it was impossible not to marvel at what the colonists had accomplished: buildings of smooth stone, and bridges that soared for a mile or more across the waterways. And a hurricane shelter that was still miraculously intact after who knew how many years?

Near the shelter the crumbling road intersected with another, equally battered one. The buildings still stood here, in various states of disrepair. I'd named the place Skeleton Town after them; they reminded me of the rotting fish that sometimes washed ashore on the beach. The name had stuck ever since.

I wondered how Lora felt, returning here now. Her husband had died in one of the buildings—fell through a rotten floorboard and slid deep into a hidden shaft. The walls had collapsed on top of him. The Guardians had attempted to pull him out with ropes, but it was no use. He was completely trapped. Lora had passed him food and water and talked to him until, finally, he'd stopped answering.

Every one of us had been hurt here at some point: mostly from the broken glass littered around the buildings. The safest place was the center of the road. No one deviated far from it.

I glanced at the buildings to either side. Where had the strange materials come from? What had destroyed the place? Why did the colonists leave? Skeleton Town was one gigantic mystery, and every time we returned I found it more fascinating.

Suddenly, there was a flash of movement in the building to my left—a person, I thought, although that was impossible. I stared through the remains of a window. Broken furniture littered the floor. Shelves dangled from the walls at awkward angles. But there was no movement. It must have been the wind and rain playing tricks on me.

When we reached the intersection, Alice whistled. “Just look at these buildings,” she said. “I reckon there were hundreds of people living here once. Why do you think they left, Guardian Lora?”

“I don't know. It was uninhabited when we discovered it many years ago.” It was Lora's usual reply.

“But you must've thought about it.”

“Well, it was probably the Plague. Like on the mainland.”

“But there was no sign of the Plague when you settled here, right?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“Hmm.” Alice paused. “Mother says Skeleton Town may have been destroyed in the storm that grounded your ship on Hatteras Island.”

“Possibly.”

“I don't think so. There's no way everyone on board would've survived a storm that was powerful enough to destroy a town.” She clicked her tongue. “Which reminds me: Why didn't Kyte predict
that
storm?”

“For the same reason he missed today's. Nobody's perfect, Alice. You of all people should be aware of that.”

Lora no doubt sensed that Alice's questions were far from over—she clamped her mouth shut and stared straight ahead. None of the Guardians liked to discuss the hazardous voyage that had brought them to Hatteras Island years before we were born. All we knew for certain was that they had taken to the ocean in a desperate attempt to escape the Plague.

They weren't alone, either. Every now and then we'd glimpse clan ships on the horizon. The crews never disembarked, but sometimes they anchored offshore and the Guardians would row out to trade with them. When they departed, the fifty or so people on board—young and old—would stand against the rail and wave to us. Those were the only times we could be sure we weren't alone in the world.

We shuffled on in a slow-moving line as clouds raced by and rain pummeled us.

“Why don't the clan folk ever stay?” I asked. “They could tell us about the ocean, and what's beyond it, right?”

“No. They'll not risk bringing Plague aboard their ship,” replied Lora, clearly more at ease with my questions than Alice's.

“But there are no rats on Hatteras.”

“They don't know that for certain. And we don't know there aren't rats on their ship. Have you forgotten what happened after John died?”

No, I hadn't forgotten. His parents had been distraught, unable to cope. So had his older sister, Elizabeth; she'd loved her brother, and when he was gone, she'd felt alone and neglected. Everyone had known it, but no one had intervened. We'd simply given the family room to grieve.

Elizabeth hadn't grieved. She'd escaped.

She'd taken a sailboat and headed for the mainland. Her parents had chased after her in a canoe, but didn't reach her until the next day. By the time they'd brought her home, she was showing early signs of Plague: chills, fever, seizures, and swelling around her groin. So they'd carried her to an abandoned cabin several hundred yards from the rest of the colony.

I remembered my father imploring them to cover their mouths and bodies, but they hadn't listened. By the following day, they had the Plague too.

I never saw them after that. My father said they had asked him to divvy up their belongings. Then they'd taken a package of food and water, and paddled over to Roanoke Island, the three of them together. Ten days later, Father had crossed the bridge. We'd stood on the shore and watched him go, saw smoke from the fire he'd started to burn their decomposing remains. He'd rowed their canoe back, alone, and hadn't spoken for a week.

I hadn't forgotten that at all.

“If the people on the clan ships won't come ashore,” pressed Alice, “how do they survive? How do they have anything to trade?”

“There are other colonies besides ours.”

“What other colonies?” I asked. For a moment I shared Alice's frustration at Lora's dead-end answers. To me, she seemed entirely full of secrets—important ones. “Where are they? Why haven't we met people from them?”

“Everyone has a place in the world,” replied Lora, “and this is ours.”

“Now, yes,” agreed Alice as we arrived at the shelter. “But what about before the shipwreck? Why won't you tell us where you came from?”

Lora stopped in her tracks, and despite her frailty, it was Alice who almost toppled over. Lora kept hold of her granddaughter, and clasped my arm too. I felt the pressure of her touch, heat that grew from her grip like a dull ache.

Lora stared at her hand, then at me. The muscles in her cheeks seemed to spasm. “You have so much to be thankful for. Don't you realize that?”

My pulse raced, but for once I refused to answer.

She pushed my arm away, but looked even more flustered now than before. “And you,” she spat, turning her attention to Alice, “you ask too many questions.”

Alice met her gaze and didn't blink. “And get too few honest answers.”