V. H. King's Ink

Day 19

“Gex….Geckie….Gecko, wake up.”

Gretchen groaned into Sanders’ shoulder.  Neither of them knew how long the storm had lasted.  Silence was nothing to go by; stillness could be deceiving.  At some point though, the screamers had quieted, slinking back to wherever they were spawned.  The Ridge, maybe, or the caverns along the Western Bluffs. 

Usually it was Gretchen who woke up first, except on weekends or vacation.  Sanders smiled to themselves and kissed the top of Gretchen’s head.  Back home in their bedroom or crushed against each other on this cot, Sanders felt the fullness of their heat swell every time they got to rouse Gretchen awake.

“We’re gonna make it,” Sanders said.  “The storm’s over.”

“Radio?”

“Not yet—I think it’s still clearing out—“

“They don’t clear out to sea, they go to sleep.”

“Know-it-all.”

“Just more than you.”  Gretchen peeled themselves up from Sanders’ sticky arm and the scratchy fabric of the cot.  “My theory is that they’re strategic but slightly scrambled.  Not deceitful, they’re just…”

“Searching for a way out of a bad place?”

“I told you, they’re probably more like us than we think.”

Gretchen sighs, looking at Sanders’ side.  There was still that mess to think about, but if the two of them had to wait until the storms had died down completely, then there was still time to figure it out.  The chills weren’t so bad now.  The envelope of heat that sealed itself around Sanders’ skin had broken loose.

“The storms were good for me,” Sanders said with a half-smile.  “Great cure for stab wounds.”

“You weren’t stabbed.”

“That’s what it felt like.”

“You’ve never been stabbed before.”

“Yes I have!  Right through the heart.  Cupid got me good.”

Gretchen didn’t respond.  Instead he was looking at the dressing on Sanders’ side.  It had been a tree branch that, to hear Sanders tell it, had reached out and scratched them across the stomach.  Whether it had been the tree or a land-siren, it depended on how they wanted to tell the story.  Some things in the jungle were sentient. 

The island itself was aware, Gretchen thought; it wasn’t so far a stretch to say that Pultman himself had somehow integrated some of his consciousness into it.  How he had done it, Gretchen didn’t know.  Sanders’ wasn’t lying about feeling better.  The dressing looked bad—it was barely in place, dangling only by a few pieces of tape. 

Gretchen peeled it off and let it drop into the puddle of pus and blood beside the cot.  It looked like the wound had vomited over the side, expelling the infection that had wormed its way into Sanders’ body.  With any luck, it hadn’t seeped into his bloodstream—or if it had, his blood had finally found the strength to fight back. 

The storms…great cure…

Without a warning, Gretchen put his palm over the pink muscle and pressed down.  An icy coal sank through Sanders’ side, sucking the breath from them before they had a chance to make a sound. 

A spark sizzles, a dizzying line that zig-zags through Sanders’ side and reaches their heart and they both know that this is a promise that will never break.  Sanders’ face relaxes as the last of the pain dissipates.  Not even a dull ache remains.  For the first time in weeks, they have a body again and not a blistering fevered consciousness. 

They peek an eye open just in time to see green wafts of smoky light fade away from Gretchen’s palm as he lets them go.  Along Sanders’ side, a similar flame dance—this one blue instead of green—disappears from sight.   Gretchen looks at the dirt on the ground, not saying anything.  Sanders reaches up and tucks some of Gretchen’s stray hair behind his ears.  When they were well enough, Sanders would have to re-braid it. 

“Did you dream?” they asked quietly.

Gretchen shook his head. 

“No, I didn’t dream, I just…remembered.”

Sanders nodded, but didn’t say anything else.  Sometimes memories were worse than dreams. There was a sick feeling that came when you woke up screaming to what you had already lived through.  Survival didn’t always come with a side gratitude.  Maybe that was another reason why they had come here—to see what they still had left in them, after everything. 

“I always thought you were magic, you know.”

Gretchen scowls at the jack-o-lantern grin on Sanders’ face.

“Shut up.”

“No, really!  You talk science but really it’s all this magical mystical stuff.”

“Maybe the magic was in you,” Gretchen said.  “I like that better.”

“You never say maybe,” Sanders’ smile softened.  “I think the magic is in both of us.”

Sanders breathed deeply, savoring the air. They could feel it, feel their cells healing, regenerating, restoring themselves with a certain newness.  Peace could be a certain kind of bliss, if you waited long enough for it.  They weren’t off the island yet, but still.  It was the renewed sense of hope that it could happen.  That it would happen, and soon.

“What if this became our thing?” Sanders asked.

“Getting lost in the woods?”

“Oh come on—where’s your sense of adventure?  You’re a healer, or did you miss that part?”

“Oh, I get it—you want your own superpower.”

“What if you have to come back to like, recharge or something?  So you don’t lose it, you know?”

“If I lose it, I was meant to.  Some things only exist here on the island.”

Sanders hears what Gretchen doesn’t say.  He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life chasing a certain kind of high, or a feeling, or a moment that was only supposed to happen once.