Lost Children of the Far Islands (19 page)

“Messenger!” the Dobhar-chú said.

The Bedell dropped Ila’s hand and stepped forward.

“Bedell?” Ila said shakily.

The little man did not answer her but stood before the pool with his head bent.

“I think you should kneel before your master, Messenger,” the Dobhar-chú said softly.

The Bedell dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Master,” he said, so quietly that Ila was not sure what she had heard.

“Bedell,” Ila said, frightened now. “Bedell, get up!”

The man did not move, or even look in her direction.

“One more time and a little bit louder,” the Dobhar-chú said.

“Master,” the Bedell said, and this time his voice, though it broke on the word, rang out through the forest.

“You see,” the Dobhar-chú said merrily, looking over the kneeling man’s shoulder to where Ila stood. His teeth
jostled for space in his mouth. “Everyone’s loyalty can be bought. It’s a good lesson to learn young. Consider yourself tutored.”

Ila balled her hands into fists. “What are you doing?” she said to the bowed back of the Bedell. “Get up, Bedell—we have a plan. I need you!”

“Come here, child,” the creature in the pool said. “Come stand beside my Messenger.”

Ila stepped forward. The Bedell had betrayed them, and she had followed him, straight to the Dobhar-chú. And now Gus and Leo and the Móraí wouldn’t be able to help her. She was alone.

“Good,” the Dobhar-chú purred. “Now. Let me introduce myself. I am, as you probably have deduced, the Dobhar-chú.”

“I know who you are,” Ila said. “And I know you’re stuck here on this stupid island forever. And I’m not afraid of you.” The last bit was a lie. Ila had never been so afraid in her life.

The Dobhar-chú continued as if Ila had not spoken. “I was born many, many, many years ago. My mother, alas, wished only to escape me. She didn’t get very far, though. No, not far at all …” His voiced trailed off and something like flame flickered in his eyes.

“The humans locked their doors and hid their children at the very mention of me. I took to the northern lakes, and I became the king of those waters. To be king is good, yes?”

He paused and turned his black eyes upon the Messenger, who nodded. It was just a tiny little nod, but the creature seemed satisfied.

“I was feared by all who lived. I was a story whispered around a fire. They did not dare speak my name out loud. I was alone, but I was feared. Until the Folk drove me here and imprisoned me on this rocky place. Now I am alone, and I am forgotten. No one wants to be alone, am I right, my Messenger?”

The Messenger nodded again.

“I have been looking for you, my little one, you and your brother and your sister. I had almost given up hope of getting my claws—so to speak—into you. But then your dear friend here showed up on my island! I wanted to kill him right away, but it’s so rare we get company here, I decided to let him speak. And we had such a lovely chat! It seems the Bedell has been feeling a bit left out. A bit alone, shall we say, in the world. And I know all about that, don’t I? So we made a bargain, your furry friend and I. You see, I had no way of getting to you three. I am, as you so charmingly pointed out, stuck here.”

“How could you?” Ila said to the kneeling man beside her.

The Bedell did not answer her.

“Bedell?” she said, and her voice broke a bit on his name.

The Messenger’s body shuddered.

“Oh, don’t be such a fusspot, Bedell,” the Dobhar-chú said teasingly. “Tell the girl what you will get from our bargain. Go on, tell her.”

The Bedell said nothing.

“Messenger?” the Dobhar-chú said with a bit of an edge to his silky voice.

“I bring you the child,” the Bedell said dully. “In exchange, you will bring back my family.”

“Yes!” the Dobhar-chú said. Then, turning to Ila, he added, “And now that you are here, well, let’s just say I think it will not be long before your sister and brother come looking for you.”

“You better hope they don’t,” Ila said. She was pleased to hear how steady her voice sounded.

The Dobhar-chú laughed. Two teeth, each one the size of Ila’s hand, fell from his open mouth and into the pool, sinking slowly beneath the surface. Two new teeth pushed forward from the row behind and filled the dark gaps in the monster’s mouth.

“Child, you are fun!” he said.

He paused to spit a third tooth into the pool. “I’d almost like to keep you. But, alas, bigger plans, bigger plans! Once I am rid of you and your sister and brother, nothing will hold me on this scrubby little island.”

The Dobhar-chú began to cough, a sharp, barking hack, opening his mouth and displaying giant snaggly teeth, and behind them, more teeth marching back in rows into the darkness of his throat. Then, as Ila stared
in horror, a second set of jaws pushed its way forward, snapping viciously within the open mouth of the creature. The Dobhar-chú bent his long neck to the pool’s surface, and as he did, the second set of jaws stretched forward and plucked a twisting, terrified striped bass from the water. The fish was huge, nearly as long as the mink, but the Dobhar-chú held the thrashing creature easily. The second set of jaws retreated, pulling the meal with it down the creature’s gullet. The thrashing lump that was the fish moved down the long neck of the Dobhar-chú, who gagged and gulped like a giant cat with a hairball, swallowed hard, and cleared his throat.

“Pardon me,” he said politely. “Now,” the Dobhar-chú said, turning his black eyes on Ila once again. “Look up at me for just a minute, little red hair.”

Ila looked down instead. She could feel her scalp prickling with the force of the creature’s gaze. She stared stubbornly at the dark water in front of her and thought of Gus, of Leo, of her parents.

“Mom, Dad, Leo, Gus,” she said, and then said it again, her voice thin and wobbling. “Mom, Dad, Leo, Gus.”

She pictured the twins, their dark eyes, Leo’s crazy cowlicks that forced his hair into spikes all over his head, the freckles sprinkled on Gus’s nose. She pictured her father’s way of smiling without moving his mouth. But when she tried to picture her mother, all there was in her
mind’s eye was a hospital bed, still and white. The white sheets were pulled tight across the empty bed, smooth and flat and final.

With a gasp, Ila opened her eyes and found herself looking into the dark eyes of the Dobhar-chú. It was like gazing into the vast night sky. Ila was smaller than a distant star, one in a multitude, all living in that dark liquid.

Then she shook her head hard, breaking the creature’s gaze.

“No,” she said hotly.

“Soon,” he answered. “See to it, Messenger.”

Without another word, he slipped down into the pool. The water closed over his head without a ripple.

Ila sprang at the Bedell. Caught unaware, he was tumbled backward by the force of her attack. She landed on him, as quick as a cat, and pounded him with her small fists, screaming with rage. The little man lay quite still and allowed her to punch him.

“You lied!” she cried in a passion of fury and grief. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

Ila flailed at the man until her arms would lift no more. And then, very gently, the Bedell sat up and took her in his arms, where she sobbed angrily and kicked at him. When even her tears were exhausted, he pulled her carefully to her feet by her wrists so that they stood facing one another next to the pool.

“I’m so sorry, Ila,” he said. “Please forgive me.”
And then the Messenger swung Ila into the air and dropped her into the pool where the Dobhar-chú had disappeared. She screamed once before the water closed over her head and pulled her down, to where the Dobhar-chú waited.

Leo opened his eyes slowly at the sound of his name. Blinking in the lamplight, he looked up into Gus’s frightened face.

“Leo,” she said urgently. She was standing over the mattress that Leo had been sleeping on. Her brown eyes were wide with panic. “You have to wake up!”

Leo sat up. “What?”

The window between the twin beds was wide open. A sharp breeze blew through, making the curtain that hung down over the window stand straight away from it. Ila’s bed was quiet and still. Only Bear, looking forlorn and forgotten, sat on top of the rumpled coverlet.

“Where’s Ila?” Leo said. “Gus, where’s Ila?”

“I checked the bathroom,” Gus answered, her voice tight and frightened. “And then I checked the kitchen—you know, in case she was hungry or something. And the living room. And everywhere. Leo, I checked everywhere! She’s gone.”

“No,” Leo said, jumping up and frantically pulling the blankets off of Ila’s bed, as though she might somehow be hiding among them.

“Get the Móraí,” Gus said. “I’ll search the house again.”

Ila was not in the living room, or the kitchen, or the small bathroom. Back in the bedroom, looking under the beds, Gus heard Leo in the living room. She found him shutting all of the windows.

“Help me,” he said. He told her that he’d found the Móraí in the lighthouse, in the small keeper’s room. “She said to come back here and to lock all the windows and then go to your room and shut the door and wait there.”

The twins quickly did as they had been told. Leo went into his room and got dressed while Gus pulled on her blue jeans and a sweater. When Leo knocked, she let him in and shut the door behind him. They sat on Ila’s empty bed, waiting.

“Do you think it was the wolves?” Gus burst out.

“No,” Leo said quickly. “Remember, the Móraí said we were safe here. And I haven’t seen any prints, have you?”

Gus shook her head. A fresh wave of fear swept over her, and with it, a new and awful suspicion. What if Ila had run away? Her eyes met Leo’s. She could tell that he was thinking the same thing.

Just then, the door to their room burst open and the Móraí rushed in. Her previous exhaustion had faded.

“It’s my fault!” Leo cried.

“What are you talking about?” Gus said. “Of course it’s not your fault!”

“I fought with her over the stupid checkers game,” Leo said miserably. “And then I teased her about the book, about not being able to read. And then, when we Turned …”

Tears filled Gus’s eyes. Of course it was their fault. They had left Ila behind to Turn, and now she had left them.

The Móraí sat down on Gus’s bed. “It’s not your fault,” she said to them. “It is mine. She has not simply run away. She has left with someone she trusts. The Bedell is gone as well.”

“Maybe he came to get her to let her Turn,” Gus said. “You know, because she was so mad before, when she didn’t get to Turn with us.” The thought made her fear soften a bit at its edges.

But the Móraí was shaking her head. “He has taken the skidbladnin. There is no reason to take the boat unless he has a journey in mind. I fear he has taken your sister to the Dobhar-chú.”

“No!” Gus gasped. It didn’t make any sense. “The Bedell is on our side,” she said, blushing at how silly it sounded.

But Leo was nodding. “He’s helping us,” he agreed. “Why would he take Ila?”

The Móraí looked very sad. “When I made the Bedell my Messenger, I saved his life. But what kind of life did I give him? The last of his kind, alone on an island with
an old woman for company. I should have allowed him to pass away as the other sea minks had done. Instead, I made him the loneliest creature in existence.”

“But he loves Ila,” Leo said.

The Móraí nodded. “He does. But the Dobhar-chú must have promised him something that would overcome the love he bears for Ila.”

An image came to Gus then, of the Bedell being sent from the table so that the true Folk could speak in private. She knew, without a doubt, what the little man might want badly enough to betray the children that he was charged to protect.

“His family,” Leo said, speaking Gus’s thoughts. “He’s bringing back the sea minks.”

“Can the Dobhar-chú do that?” Gus asked. “Bring them back from the dead?”

The Móraí shook her head. “He cannot. But the Bedell does not know that. He thinks he is getting his family back, but I’m afraid he is only getting death, once the Dobhar-chú is done with him.”

“Where are they?” Gus said. “How do we get there? When do we leave?”

“Now,” the Móraí said. “I’d hoped to take more time to train you two, now that you are eleven, but I’m afraid we are out of time.”

Even as she spoke, a noise came from below the house. It sounded like a huge wailing creature, something out of dark stories rising from the sea. It was the wolves, howling as they swam to the island.

“I am sorry,” the Móraí said. “I am so sorry, children. They are here.”

The front door blew open, slamming against the wall, and then the little house filled with the sound of the Dobhar-chú’s wolves, like a hurricane come to tear the house to shreds.

“To the beach!” the Móraí shouted.

Leo pushed open the closed window and leapt through it. Gus followed, climbing awkwardly through the small opening and landing on her hands and knees outside. The Móraí came last, falling to the ground with a cry. Leo helped her up and she stood for a moment, her hands on her knees. “Come,” she finally said, lifting her head. “We must hurry.”

They scrambled straight down below the lighthouse, navigating around the rocks that the Móraí had warned them to avoid. Below them, the waves hissed and crashed and broke with hollow booms. The Móraí moved slowly but surely across the slick rocks. Behind her, Gus and Leo slid and fell to keep up. When they finally stopped, Gus’s hands were bleeding and her jeans had ripped where she had fallen on one knee.