Tales from Dargo Island: The Complete Trilogy (13 page)

Astrid stepped
into the hot tub and I stood directly in front of her. We stared into each
other’s eyes, and I could tell she was as nervous as me. We joined hands as
Estevan stepped up next to me.

“Are you
ready?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

I looked at
Estevan. “You?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” I said,
taking a deep breath. I’d never leached anyone without coming close to death,
but I tried anyway. I had to learn to control my power once and for all.
Perhaps I could keep from using it even if I was dying. If it was my time to
go, it was my time. I couldn’t continue to take other people’s lives, even by
accident.

“Oh!” Astrid
gasped. It had begun.

“Okay,” I said,
trying to comfort her. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

Astrid’s eyes
grew wide and her face paled. The green in her eyes even lost some color. I
hated seeing her this way and worried I wasn’t doing it correctly. My body grew
numb and I started gasping as well. I couldn’t breathe.

“It’s okay,” I
managed to say once again. It was one of the most difficult things I’d done. I
was so weak. I could barely even stand anymore.

And then I
dropped to one knee, barely holding on to Astrid’s hands.

“It’s okay,”
she said to me, barely a whisper.

Everything went
dark.

Aneela looked
on from her palace as the surviving islanders rebuilt the plaza. The sea had
washed most of it away, but not all. When she had returned from Nalke’s realm,
she had been devastated by the destruction the island had suffered. Before
Rockne arrived, Dargo suffered occasionally rough weather, and the waves had
battered the coasts. Her father told her the weather seemed to get worse after
Rockne put up his magical barriers.

Once they went
down after Rockne’s death, Dargo was nearly washed away entirely. If not for
Nalke’s help, the island would be gone.

She smiled when
she thought of the nature demon. She had tried to stay neutral during his and
Rockne’s war, the same way her father had. She was glad she’d taken a side.

Nearly half of
her people died in the battle with Nalke’s vampire army. Though she was
saddened by this, she understood; they had been protecting Nalke. They weren’t
to blame, Rockne was. Nalke had lost his entire army in the battle.

So much loss,
but some good had come from it. Astrid had been reunited with her father, and
Rockne was gone.

Aneela grew sad
as she thought of Astrid. Josh’s intentions to help Astrid had been noble.
Unfortunately, his plan failed. Astrid was still cursed, and Nalke was still
weak. He would never be at his strongest while his daughter lived. He was
perfectly fine with that, however. With his brother gone, he had nothing to
fear.

And poor Josh….

Aneela tried
not to dwell on him right now. She had work to do. She walked through the
courtyard, approving construction and designs. Her people smiled at her, and
she smiled back.

Later, she
visited the Village. The gatehouse had been torn down and the neighborhood was
now open to anyone who wanted to visit. Aneela went to Rockne’s house, where
Shae now lived with Astrid. Shae offered Aneela tea, and they sat and talked in
the dining room. Astrid joined them, once again an old woman with blue hair.

Another person
joined them: an old man.

His hair was
also blue.

Victor and
Champagne came over, and the group of friends shared laughter and food. Once it
got late, Champagne excused herself and made to return home. Before she got to
the front door, she turned to the old man and said, “Have a nice night, Sugar
Bee.”

He smiled and
waved at her.

As Aneela made
her way to her car, she heard laughter behind her. When she turned she saw the
young Astrid holding hands with a young man. It was Josh.

“I’m sorry
about what happened to you,” Aneela said to him for the twentieth time. She
didn’t know if she’d ever stop apologizing, even though she had nothing to do
with his condition.

“Not every
story can have a perfect ending,” he replied. “But I am happy. It could have
been much worse. Maybe some day we’ll find a way.”

“I agree.”
Aneela sighed. “Dargo will always be your home, for as long as you wish.”

He hugged and
thanked her. Then he took Astrid’s hand again, and they danced in the street under
the large, bright moon. A gentle, sweet-smelling breeze blew through the
Village, and Aneela laughed.

“They’ll be
fine, Nalke,” she said. “They’ll be just fine.”

I hope you
enjoyed my novella Dargo Island. I would greatly appreciate an honest review.
If you liked it, say so. If you hated it, say that as well. I’m always looking
for constructive criticism.

“Josh, take a
look at this strange bird.”

I turned to
Astrid, who was looking up at something in a tree in front of her. I tried to
walk as fast as I could, but I was still getting used to my old body. Though I
looked—and felt—seventy years old, I was actually nineteen. Astrid Albright,
who is the same age as me, had her whole life to adjust to the curse that
affected us. She was born with it.

I looked up at
the hot sun, which felt horrible on my skin. I’d been cursed two weeks ago,
when I tried ridding Astrid of it. It had been a dumb plan, but I’d been so
sure I could do it. Now I know better.

Astrid wore her
old age well. She stood up straighter than me, and her blue curly hair looked
beautiful. Her yellow dress blew in a slight wind, and I wondered if her father
Nalke was with us. He is a “nature demon,” so he controlled almost everything,
including the weather.

I stopped next
to Astrid and looked up at the tree. There were so many in the jungle in front
of us, so it took me a few moments to find hers. I saw a dark-red bird staring
right at us and figured that was the one.

“What’s so
strange about it?” I asked.

“I’ve lived on
Dargo my whole life and I’ve never seen this bird before.”

“Have you ever
been to this part of the island before?”

She looked
behind us, at the grassy hill and cliff, and shook her head. “But, still, I
would have seen this bird before. I know all about the other creatures, like
floxin and bethels. Victor and I went on a quest once, to catch a floxin.”

We were on the
opposite side of Dargo Island from where we lived. I’d seen a lot of the island
during my time here, but for some reason we’d avoided this part until now. I
wasn’t sure why; it was beautiful, though the hill on which we stood was steep
and if we weren’t careful, we could fall right off the cliff and into the
ocean.

“It’s a
beautiful bird, except for that sharp beak,” Astrid said next. “I wonder if
Aneela knows what kind it is.”

“That’s Queen
Aneela to you,” I joked.

“She told me to
just call her Aneela.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

“Her people
have been on the island longer than us. They should know.”

“Do you have
your cell phone on you?” she asked.

I felt in my
pocket and found it there. “I don’t know why I still have it. It’s not like I
can call anyone in the real world.”

“Just take a
picture,” she said, jabbing me with her elbow.

I took one of
the bird, which suddenly took flight and soared out of the jungle, over our
heads. I was glad it made us turn around to watch it, because the waves had
picked up. On Dargo, the waves got up to a hundred feet tall, maybe more.

“We should get
out of here,” I said, though Astrid was already walking toward the trail we’d
taken to get up here. I followed as quickly as I could.

*
 
*
 
*

I drove away
from the hill. We headed for the closest town, called Cocoa, to grab lunch.
We’d passed it on the way to the hill and thought it looked like a nice place
to visit. I parked in front of a building that was made out of tree trunks,
with a roof made from grass.

“I’m starving,”
Astrid said as we walked inside. There was no door.

The inside was
barely lit, and I saw the place was empty. There was a man behind a bar to our
right, wiping the bar down with a rag. We walked up to him.

“Hi,” I said to
the bartender. “Are you open?”

He looked at us
with yellow eyes. “Sure are. Just slow today. What can I get ya?”

He was sweating
and looked very sick. I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat anything he prepared. “Do
you have menus?”

He handed us
two of them. I browsed the options, looking at him every now and then. He was
breathing heavily. “Are you okay?” I asked.

He turned his
head to the right, showing us his neck. “I got pecked by a bird last week.
Haven’t felt good ever since.”

There was a
large purple bump on his neck the size of a golf ball, with dark veins shooting
away from it. They looked like lightning bolts.

“A bird?”
Astrid asked. “What did it look like?”

“Red. I’d never
seen a bird like it before.”

Astrid and I
looked at each other. “We just saw a bird like that up on the hill,” she told
him.

“It didn’t peck
you, did it?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I
think it—”

Before he could
finish his sentence, he threw up on the bar. Astrid and I backed away as vomit
shot from his mouth. I was horrified to see it was mostly blood. The bartender
then fell to the floor. I ran around to the other side of the bar as fast as I
could and saw the man lying there.

He was dead.

The café was
swarming with soldiers nearly thirty minutes later. They were the closest
things to cops Dargo Island had. We’d called the palace and they had come as fast
as they could, their faces painted yellow and blue—the island’s custom. They
studied the body behind the bar. There was a waiter and a cook nearby, but they
weren’t sick.

Astrid and I
sat at a table, watching. A young woman the same age as me walked into the
café, wearing a red gown and a crown of gold. I jumped to my feet and said,
“Queen Aneela.”

She turned to
me, her face painted blue and yellow like the soldiers. “Josh. How many times
have I told you to call me Aneela?”

“Sorry. What
are you doing here?”

“I heard about
what happened and wanted to know more. There has never been an illness like
this on the island.” She looked around, noticing the activity behind the bar.
“Did you talk to the victim?”

“Yes,” Astrid
said, joining us. “He said he was pecked by a red bird a week ago. We saw the
same bird before we came here.”

“A red bird?”
Aneela tapped her chin. “I’ve never seen red birds on the island.”

“Neither have
I,” Astrid said.

“Is it possible
this bird is carrying some kind of disease?” I asked.

“It’s unheard
of on Dargo, but it’s possible,” Aneela replied. “Take me to the place you
found the bird.”

She gathered a
few soldiers and they followed us back up the hill in a car. The cars on Dargo
weren’t like regular cars: They didn’t run on gasoline or a battery. They just
ran—a gift from Rockne the wizard. Well, before I killed him.

We parked and
then walked the short distance up the hill. The waves had died down again,
luckily. Astrid led the way, pointing at the tree where she’d first seen the
bird. Aneela studied the tree.

“I’ve lived
here all my life and have never been in this forest,” she said.

“Me neither,”
Astrid said.

“Me neither,” I
added, grinning.

They looked at
me, and then to each other. “How do you stand him?” Aneela asked.

“One day at a
time.”

Aneela looked
to her three soldiers. “Spread out and search the jungle. You’re looking for a
red bird. If you see one, don’t approach it. Search for only thirty minutes and
then head back here. It’s getting dark and I don’t want any of us in there once
the sun is gone.”

The three
nodded and headed in. I grinned at Aneela; she’d just become queen a month ago
but she’d taken up the role without hesitation or fear. She showed no fear now,
either, despite this new threat.

“What should we
do?” Astrid asked.

“You should
head back to the Village,” she replied, referring to our neighborhood.

As soon as the
sun went down, Astrid and I would return to our nineteen-year-old selves. I
didn’t want to leave, not without knowing more.

“Can we help?”

Aneela looked
at me, narrowing her eyes. “Your day has been pretty crazy. Do you want to
stick around?”

I looked at
Astrid, who nodded. “Sure. We’re the ones who found the bird. We might be able
to help.”

We followed her
into the jungle, heading in a direction the three soldiers hadn’t. I wanted
Aneela to stay close to us; if she died, the island would fall into disarray.
She had no successor, an issue she’d been working on since becoming queen.

We searched the
jungle for fifteen minutes before I saw something interesting. I called Astrid
and Aneela, who both had wandered a few feet away. When they joined me, I
pointed to a well surrounded by tall trees. The trees perfectly circled this
well.

“What’s that?”
I asked Aneela.

“What does it
look like?”

“I mean, have
you ever seen or heard of it before?”

We looked down
into the well but saw nothing but total darkness. I thought I heard something
down there but wasn’t sure.

“Maybe there’s
a nest down there?” Astrid said.

I heard a
flutter of wings. Aneela and Astrid heard it too.

I looked around
at the surrounding jungle. “We should board it up or something, just in case.”

Aneela nodded,
but before any of us could move, a bunch of red birds shot out of the well.
They disappeared into the sky, past the canopy of trees.

“We have a serious
problem,” I said unnecessarily.