The Island

Chapter 17

Where are you going? The wind hisses past my ear. It seems to be pushing me back to Neptune's Crown, back towards home.

I tug even harder at the oars, watching my tiny muscles strain in an unwinnable battle. The rocks of the shore loom above me; I am not even twenty feet away from where I started, and a half-hour has already passed. The winds of the North are simply too strong for a lone girl to overcome.

I have no destination in mind. I only want to get away from this island. I refuse to stand still while the final storm creeps up on me.

But the wind is only playing. It whirls this way, then that. South, then East, then West, never North—it comes from the North. The wind is an all powerful, omniscient deity, and I am only flesh and blood. Not the flesh and blood of a hero, but of a traitor who violated a most ancient and sacred right.

Turn back, it snarls through my left ear, as a blast of cold leaves me trembling.

The waves rock my boat, too. They slosh in an unruly manner and my wooden lifeboat is thrown along with it. The nausea I felt before rises again. This time, however, instead of feeling an urgent desire for liberation, it is my body betraying me, wanting to give up this spirit of determination.

I feel nothing, only the burning agitation in my arms, the sore displacement of my legs, which are huddled against the edge of the raft. I battle the constant feeling of instability, knowing that one false move risks flipping the raft over. There is also a sense of despair, but that is a long drawn out war of attrition.

My eyes are fixed on the northern horizon; in it, I see a world that is different from mine. If I can only cross the line where the Guardian rises, then perhaps I will find the Sea God. And once I find him, I will grab him, and I will not let go until he promises to bring the fish back.

You will never find me, the wind retaliates with a reeling force that nearly sends me tumbling out of the boat.

I falter for only an instant, trying to regain myself after nearly being shaken off. But in that instant, the wind sends the boat flowing straight back to the rocks. The wood crashes against the shore with a thud!

Nothing is broken, but I start to feel the futility of it all. Who am I to think that I can lift the curse? I am nobody. I am the daughter of nobody living in a town, that, according to Terry, nobody has ever heard of in the world. According to Terry, my life will come and go without anyone ever thinking about it. I will be flesh and blood for a mere second in the scope of the breadth of humanity. If only I had gone with Terry.

In a stroke of pure desperation, I shrug my shoulders and put my back into the pull of the oars.

Where are you going? The wind prompts again, right before hurling me back.

I let out a scream that is lost in the wind. Why can't I ever just go where I want to go?

Because I don't know where I'm going. I never have. Just a few weeks ago, I was still doubting.

Terry had said that he was going to leave on the Wednesday of the next week. Somehow, I remembered that from our conversation. I remembered other things too. I remembered the image of a sprawling city with lights that shared the sky with the stars.

Could such a place exist? If it did, then it must have been on the other side of the world somewhere, as far away as possible from this lonely town.

But no. Terry said that New York was also right next to the Atlantic. I looked out to the right and saw a boundless realm. It seemed as if all the lands of the world were next to the Atlantic. Only... it made me wonder what the Atlantic looked like from New York.