Islands in the Sky

1.3

Sema sat, idly, as the dusk grew deeper, watching the other island in the dull red glow of the surface far below.

She should go back the village and find someone to take her place here and begin to prepare her family’s dinner. She should, but she waited a little longer all the same. The village was work, and chores, and being shouted at. It was noise and people and being too crowded, all of the time.

The island was two miles long and half a mile wide, and fifty or so people lived there. It was difficult to get away from people, except at the farthest parts of the island.

In the time of the ancients, before the rising, the island had been a village called a suburb and a forest called a park, so Sema’s grandmother said. She had explained it to Sema once, pointing to the older, squarer houses, made of old-times materials, smooth plasters and hard rooves and big wide plates of glass. She had pointed to the sticky clean mud used for roads in the old times, smooth, except on the hottest of days, and she had showed Sema the metal playground Sema had used as a child, and said that was where the old park had begun.

Now the old-times houses were built in and around with newer ones, as families sought space, and divided those houses into separate apartments, and added lean-tos and awnings to the sides. Now the spaces between houses were filled through with rainwater tanks, and animal pens, and sooty marks from the outside cooking fires that were used when a whole animal was roasted. Now the park was dug up for crops, and pigs grazed in the forest, and even the forest itself was tangled and wild and no longer groomed, as Sema’s grandmother said it had once been. Although, at least they had a forest, it was often said. That was a thing to be grateful for, that the people of their island, long ago, early in the disaster, had realized the danger of cutting down all their trees and leaving none. They hadn’t cut too many, so there were still trees, for fuel and shade, and Sema’s people were very glad of that, for there were stories of islands with shortages of trees or crops, or with the land made entirely of the old-times rock, and how difficult life was in those places.

Sema sat, thinking. She liked it out here, at the point, at the far end of the island from the village. It was quiet out here, away from other people. Quietness was something she rarely had.

All the same, she knew she ought to stand up.

She waited another few moments, until the dusk was almost done. She sat there, idly resting, glad of the chance to.

She glanced around, and was about to stand, when she saw movement across on the other island.

She saw movement, and stayed still and watched, unsure if she’d seen what she thought. There might be animals over there, she supposed. There were no people, everyone was sure of that. They had all called out, time after time, when the island first came into view. There were no people over there, everyone said, but there might still be animals.

Sema watched, still and quiet, hoping to see whatever it had been again. Hoping to bring some good news back home when she went.

She waited, and peered into the darkness, and saw movement again.

She saw movement, and saw people, and was suddenly confused.

She didn’t understand why they had hidden themselves. She didn’t understand what they were doing in the darkness, now. She saw people, and something made her keep quiet, and watch cautiously, instead of calling out.

She watched as a group of people on the other island uncovered a shape. She couldn’t tell what it was, as they worked. Something long and narrow and made of wood. Something so light it slid easily at their shoving. It been on their island’s shoreline, at the edge of the sky, beneath some trees at the edge of the crack where the island’s surface fell away. It had been covered by scrub, and possibly by some kind of green cloth, and hidden in a crevice where rainwater was finding new channels to the edge of the land.

Sema didn’t understand why they had hidden whatever it was. She didn’t understand, so she watched, uncertain, as they all pushed it out into the sky.

She should have shouted, she should have called out a greeting. She didn’t, because something seemed wrong. There was something furtive about this, uncovering hidden things in the darkness.

She watched for a moment, instead.

The group pushed their shape out to the edge of the island, and off, which made Sema think for a moment it was a funeral. That was what her island did, sliding a coffin off into the sky, to fall through the heavens to the hot surface below. She thought for a moment it was that, perhaps with some custom of silent mourning and evening burial, and that was why these people had never answered her island’s shouts.

She wondered, and watched, but soon realized she was wrong. This shape was larger than a coffin, almost as large as a whole room of a house, but it was longer and thinner than most rooms were. It was a box, big enough for all of them to sit inside, a dozen or so people, and when they pushed to the edge, and it slid off, the shape settled beside the island, in the sky. It floated, like a rock would, but was clearly something else, made of wood.

It floated, and then they began to climb inside.

Sema could hear voices. Low murmurs, as they climbed inside their box. She could hear, she realized, because the wind was blowing from their island to hers. It had changed in the last few hours, and for several days it had been the other way.

She listened, still, trying to decide what to do. She listened, hoping to hear some words to explain all this, feeling fortunate the wind had changed to let her try and listen.

The people on the other island climbed into their box, and raised a pole from the centre of it, and a cloth fastened at the top fell down and away from that pole. The cloth caught the wind, and spread it out, and suddenly their box began to move.

It floated out into the sky between the two islands.

Suddenly Sema understood. Suddenly she knew what this was. She’d seen pictures in the books she’d looked as a child, the books her grandmother had read to her.

It was a boat, she realized, and the wind would push it across to her. A boat, like pirates had. She had heard stories of those too.

Suddenly she was afraid. Suddenly she was terrified.

She looked once more, and then began to run. She ran back towards the village, as fast as she could, but she had taken too long, watching. Now it had the wind, the boat was moving far faster than she was.

She couldn’t even keep up, let alone hope to catch it.