Tales from Dargo Island: The Complete Trilogy (15 page)

Astrid’s mom,
Shae, was in the kitchen. Since she was a doctor, I told her about my symptoms
(headache, nausea, joint pain), and she gave me a quick examination in the
living room.

“You don’t
think I have the plague, do you?” I asked her.

“You haven’t
told me much about this plague, but from what I do know, it takes a week to
kill. Besides, you said you’ve been feeling bad since the curse started. Since
you weren’t born with it, it might be affecting you differently than Astrid.”
She looked to her daughter, who sat next to me on the couch. “We should visit
your father.”

“In his realm?”
Astrid asked. “It’s been a few days since I was last up there.”

“I think it’s
time you went back.”

Astrid bit her
lip, nervous. She nodded.

“Let’s head up
there, then,” Shae said, standing up. She looked nothing like her daughter, which
was probably why it took me a while to realize they were related.

Since we didn’t
have Rockne to take us to Nalke’s realm anymore, Nalke devised a way for us to
get there ourselves. We walked to a closet at the end of the hall, behind the
kitchen. It was a room that had never been used, even when Rockne owned the
house.

We stepped
inside the dark closet. Shae flipped the light on, and I saw the room was
barely big enough for three people.

“Ready?” Shae
asked us. We nodded. Astrid had to help me stand; the pain had gotten worse
since waking up.

Shae flipped
another switch, one hidden behind a picture of a tornado. Despite my pain, I
grinned. I would never forget my first encounter with Nalke, and his tornado
that killed me. Temporarily.

The room slowly
got dark, and the sound of wind seemed to come out of nowhere. I was reminded
of a haunted house I went to years ago.

Astrid grabbed
my hand and squeezed it.

The closet
brightened again, but instead of being surrounded by close walls, we were
surrounded by clouds and a bright blue sky. We were thousands of feet in the
air, standing on a solid cloud, and a plane’s tail actually passed through the
cloud like a shark’s fin through the water’s surface. I still couldn’t believe
the clouds were solid enough for us to walk.

As soon as the
plane flew away from us, I looked back at Astrid with a huge grin on my face.

The grin
vanished when I saw her, though. Her blue hair and wrinkles were gone. Astrid
was young again.

*
 
*
 
*

Shae walked up
to her daughter, cupping her now-young face. “I don’t believe it.”

Astrid looked
at the two of us, embarrassed. “Yeah, I wanted to tell you guys but didn’t see
the point.”

“You’re young
again,” her mom said, dumbfounded.

“I know.” She
looked at me. “Dad said it only works for me, because I’m his daughter. Or some
convoluted mess like that.”

Shae looked at
me as well. “We’ll talk to Nalke and see what he says.”

“Talk to me
about what?” a voice asked.

Shae spun
around, revealing Nalke. The nature demon looked like what you would imagine a
wizard to be, with a long white beard that went down to his stomach. I noticed
for the first time that there were swirls of blue in the beard. His eyes grew
wide when he saw his daughter.

“Oh, my,” he
said quietly. “That’s an unexpected surprise. It’s been days since you were
here. After last time, I didn’t think you’d ever return.”

Astrid released
herself from her mom’s grasp and walked over to her father. “Hello, Dad.”

“Sweetheart.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting your return to my realm.”

She looked
around. “It feels weird, being so high up. I still haven’t gotten used to it. I
think that’s why my training doesn’t go so well.”

“Why does she
turn young again?” I asked.

“This is her
home. She’s safe up here, which might explain why the curse doesn’t affect her.
I used a significant amount of energy to curse Shae when she was pregnant with
her. That energy must disperse when Astrid is in my realm.”

“And if I leave
again?” Astrid asked. “Like, when I step on the ground.”

“You’ll most
likely grow old again.”

She looked at
me. “We’re here because Josh is feeling sick. It’s like he’s aging faster every
day. We were wondering if there is something you can do for him.”

Nalke walked up
to me. “How old do you feel?” he asked.

“A hundred.”

“You look like
you’re almost there, too. I don’t know what I can do for you that I haven’t
already tried. I thought I could remove the curse completely since you weren’t
born with it, but something is locking it into your essence the way it does to
Astrid’s.”

“I did absorb
some of Astrid’s essence when I tried to take her curse away,” I said,
remembering that night weeks ago.

“It’s like you
became a part of her, I suppose,” he said. “Do you become part of everyone you
absorb?”

I shuddered.
“I’ve only absorbed three people: my twin sister, some random guy and Rockne.
But I still feel like myself. I guess it’s possible.”

“I’m sorry,
Josh. There’s nothing I can do for you.” He looked at his daughter. “You, on
the other hand, are safer here than on the ground. If you stay with me, you’ll
never grow old again. And your training will go much faster.” He looked at
Shae. “I’m teaching her to use her elemental powers.”

Astrid shook
her head and grabbed my hand. “I don’t want to leave my true home. I’m sorry.”

Nalke sighed.
“No, I’m sorry. I did this to you and it’s
my
curse, I suppose, to deal
with your ire for the rest of my long existence.”

Shae grabbed
her daughter by the shoulders and steered her away. “Sorry to bother you,
Nalke. We’ll go now.”

“Not a bother
at all. I enjoyed seeing you all. Please visit often.”

Shae and Astrid
walked me back to the spot where we first appeared. We were back at the house
moments later, and Astrid was an old woman once again.

As soon as we
stepped into the hallway we heard flapping wings. A lot of wings. Astrid walked
to the kitchen window and looked out into the backyard.

“Oh, no,” she
said. “The red birds are circling the house.”

I walked over,
feeling horrible pain in my knees that wasn’t there before, and looked out the
window. I saw at least twelve birds flying in a perfect circle high above us.
Then they shot off over the house, toward the front yard. We followed, looking
out the bay window by the front door.

I gasped when I
saw Champagne and Victor standing in their front yards, watching the display.
“We told them about the birds, didn’t we!” It wasn’t a question; I’d told them
personally. Why were they outside?

Victor tried to
lead Champagne back to her house. Champagne may be nearly as old as Astrid and
me, but she was fairly spry. She ran to her open front door, but not before the
birds got to them. Victor and Champagne disappeared in a cloud of red feathers.

I wanted to run
out there and help my friends, but I knew I would be too slow, too late. Before
I could even make my way toward the front door, the birds lifted into the air
and shot out of the Village.

Champagne and
Victor were lying on the ground. They weren’t moving.

Shae, Astrid
and I crossed the street. Victor was the first to move. He sat up and looked
around. Then he helped Champagne. They stood up before we even got to them. I
saw them covered in blood.

“Well, this is
bad,” Champagne said, looking at the peck marks on her hands.

“Bad indeed,”
Victor added, wiping the blood on his face. He only managed to smear it. His
beard was nearly as long as Nalke’s.

“The hot tub!”
I shouted. We helped our injured friends to the magical hot tub in our
backyard. It was supposed to heal all wounds; that was the way Rockne designed
it, anyway, and it managed to heal me a couple of times.

Shae turned it
on as Champagne and Victor climbed in. Blue bubbles formed inside as our
neighbors dunked their heads under the surface. When they came back up, they
looked exactly the same.

“It’s not
working,” Shae said, horrified. “Why isn’t the tub working?”

“A lot of
Rockne’s inventions are quitting,” Astrid replied. “The cars, and now the tub.”

“We have to get
to the palace,” Shae said. “Maybe they’ve discovered something new.”

We hopped into
Victor’s jeep, which comfortably fit all of us, and drove out of the Village.
We rode along a cliff-side freeway, seeing the red birds flying over the sea.
They were flying away from the island, toward the Edge of the World.

“Do you think
they could fly to Dallas from here?” I asked no one in particular.

“It’s
possible,” Shae said. She was the only other person who’d been to the mainland.

We watched,
horrified, as the birds flew farther away. Suddenly, the water shot up from the
sea in a giant wave that stopped the birds mid-flight. They split off in
different directions, heading back toward the island.

“Looks like
Nalke’s watching over us,” Shae said with a smile.

The wave chased
the birds toward us and then became a still wall of water, just in case the
birds tried to escape again. Instead, the birds flew in the direction we were
going. They looked like they were heading toward the palace.

As soon as we
passed under the stone arch that led into Dargo Plaza, we knew things were bad.
The birds shot through the shopping district like a strong wind. The islanders
unfortunate enough to be outdoors screamed as they were assaulted. The palace
soldiers shot at the birds and threw nets, but they only managed to stop a
couple. I couldn’t tell how many until Shae parked in a lot down the street. We
stayed in the jeep.

“Looks like
they got two of the birds,” Astrid said from the front seat.

“How are you
feeling?” I asked Victor and Champagne. They sat next to me in the back seat.

“I’m fine,
Sugar Pumpkin,” Champagne replied. The wrinkles in her skin looked even deeper
than usual, her face paler.

“Dwarves are
very tolerant of disease,” Victor said. He looked healthier than Champagne, at
least.

“My species can
hold its own as well,” she said with a grin.

“Your species
can read and affect emotions,” I couldn’t help saying. “Can that help you in
some way?”

“No, but I can
read my own emotions right now. I’m very angry.”

I laughed, and
then coughed. I used to cough after a laugh if I’d just done a lot of cardio.
That was back when I was “young,” though. Laughing now seemed to hurt all the
time.

The birds left
the plaza and headed toward the palace. Shae pulled out of the lot and
followed. The soldiers were also in pursuit.

“I feel so
helpless,” I said as we pulled up outside the palace gate. The birds circled
above.

“The guards are
handling the situation just fine,” Astrid said, looking back at me.

“So many people
are getting infected, though.”

“We have a week
to find a cure, Josh. Everything will be fine.”

She reached
back and I took her hand. I looked at Victor and Champagne and smiled as best
as I could.

“We’ll be
fine,” Victor said.

We heard more
shots fired from the palace courtyard, though we couldn’t see the soldiers
because of the gate. We did see some of the birds drop from the sky, however.
Only five remained, and they flew away from the palace. I lost track of them a
few seconds later.

We got out of
the jeep and entered the palace gate. Aneela and her soldiers stood in the
courtyard, looking down at the birds they’d killed. She looked up at us as we
approached.

“We’ve gotten
half of them,” she told us proudly.

“Victor and
Champagne were infected,” I told her. Her face changed with this news.

“We may be able
to find a cure,” Aneela said. “Something has happened.”

“What?”

“Follow me.”

She led us behind
the palace, toward a cliff that overlooked the sea. I came here once with
Aneela, before I was cursed, and she’d nearly fallen off this cliff. I barely
caught her in time. The last time I was here, there was nothing but sea that
stretched on forever.

Now there was a
landmass.

“Where did that
come from?” I asked. The shock was noticeable.

“It appeared
this morning,” Aneela said. “Commander Rhys noticed it first. We have no idea
where it came from.”

The mass was
small, about as big as our neighborhood. Basically, it was a tiny island. It
was covered with tropical trees, with sand lining the edge.

“I doubt it
just grew overnight,” Aneela said. “It must have been there all along and was
hidden from us somehow.”

“Maybe the
birds have something to do with it,” I guessed.

“The birds
escaped a week ago, at least,” Astrid said. “The island showed up this
morning.”

“What happened
between then and now?” Aneela asked.

It only took my
old brain a second to figure it out. “I took that crystal from Dargonius’s
chamber last night.”

“That must be
it,” Aneela said, turning to her palace. “I’m going with some soldiers to check
out the island. Care to join?”

Astrid and I
said yes. I was a little afraid of what we might find there, but at the same
time I was excited. My pain lessened. Shae went with Victor and Champagne to
the palace’s sick ward to treat their wounds. Shae told her daughter to be
careful and kissed her on the cheek.

Aneela grabbed
the crystal from a secure display case she kept in an unused chamber, and then we
were on boats half an hour later. We headed toward the mysterious island.