Chapter Three

The Island

Waves crashed serenely onto the shore of a beach belonging to a world away from the Citadel of Destiny. The view of the ocean was perfect from Hayden Kale’s bedroom window as she sat on her bed, looking out at the morning light that reflected off the cresting waves. She loved the ocean—that was expectable from a girl who had lived on Mystic Island for her whole life—but she hated the predictability of it. The waves crashed and retreated, crashed and retreated, in a pattern that was so orderly. There would be the occasional storm, when the waves would rise in height, but that wasn’t very often. Ordinarily, there was just the predictable pattern that created a soft crashing sound that was simply background noise.

Hayden turned her focus away from the window and toward her cluttered bedroom, where her friend Keira Sparks was sitting on an uncovered spot on the floor. “I’m remembering it again,” Keira said suddenly, with no further explanation.

“What?” Hayden asked.

“You know what. Those faint…images.”

“Oh.” As interesting as it seemed, Hayden didn’t need to hear any more about how Keira was suddenly receiving faint images of events that she could barely remember. “What is it this time?” Hayden continued exasperatedly.

“Just…a room. It’s my bedroom, I think. And I’m drawing, except my mum has just come in and says she wants to tell me something.”

“And?” Hayden prompted.

Keira sighed. “That’s all.” She paused and then added, “Except the bedroom isn’t the one I have here. It’s somewhere else.”

“Like where you lived before you came here?” Hayden could still clearly remember the day several years ago when Keira and her mother had suddenly appeared on the island with no explanation of where they had come from.

Keira shrugged. “I’m not sure. I wish I knew what it all meant, though.”

“So do I. Then you’ll stop bothering me about it.”

“I’m not bothering you. Besides, if it were you, you’d do the same.”

“Yeah, probably.” Hayden flopped down on her bed so she was lying on her stomach, peering over the side of the bed to look at Keira. “What’re we doing today?”

“Going down to the water, as always. You shouldn’t even have to ask about that one.”

“Suppose not. Life just seems so—I dunno—boring here sometimes.”

“You don’t really mean that, do you?” Keira asked.

Hayden sighed. “I know you really like it here, since you haven’t lived here your whole life, and I like it too, but things are still pretty ordinary, you know?”

“Well, what do you expect? It’s a quiet place here. And I like the quiet.”

“But don’t you wish there were other places besides here?” Hayden asked. “Don’t you wish there was more?”

Keira didn’t say anything for a moment. “I guess sometimes I—” she began finally, but she was interrupted when the bedroom door opened.

“Hey,” Hayden said as her and Keira’s other close friend, Tidan Darkwater, entered the room.

“I brought breakfast,” he announced, tossing a banana each to Hayden and Keira.

“Thanks.” Keira began to peel her banana and asked, “Tidan, do you think it’s boring here sometimes?”

“Where’d that come from?” Tidan asked, sitting on the bed nearby Hayden’s feet and taking a bite of his own banana.

“Hayden,” Keira said simply, pointing accusingly at her friend.

Tidan pulled one of Hayden’s bare feet. “And why does Hayden think it’s boring here?”

“Because it’s just the same thing every day,” Hayden explained. “We wake up, he hang out together, we go down to the beach and hang out some more, we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we hang out some more, and then we sleep.”

“And what would you rather have?” Tidan asked. “Have each day involve a near-death experience?”

“If it’s interesting,” Hayden replied with a small shrug.

“Tell her she’s being crazy,” Keira said.

“I don’t think she’s crazy,” Tidan reasoned. “You’re just bored, right, Hayden?”

“Well, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about all this.” Hayden sat up and gazed absently out the window toward the ocean. “C’mon, you have to at least kind of agree with me.”

Tidan and Keira glanced at each other, saying nothing. Finally, Tidan said shortly, “Let’s go down to the docks.”

Hayden looked at her two friends, confused at their behavior. How could they think she was crazy if Keira was having sudden memories that she couldn’t identify? Hayden didn’t even see what was wrong with thinking that life on Mystic Island was dull. It wasn’t as if she disliked island life; she simply needed the thrill of the unexpected, and on the island, she could not obtain that regularly.

And if no one else wanted that, she would just have to find a way to other places where, perhaps, things were a little different.

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Although Mystic Island was in size a relatively large world, most of the world was covered by the vast turquoise ocean, whose waves lapped lazily at the shores of the islands. There were many islands scattered among the ocean, but only the largest was populated. That population, however, was of only about thirty people.

And, as Hayden had observed, life on the island was rather lazy and predictable. Of course, the young children had plenty of land to explore; the island was about two miles long and a mile and a half wide, and there was a smaller island nearby that was easily reachable by rowboat, but older children like Hayden, Tidan, and Keira had long since exhausted these areas. Now, the only entertainment they had was each others’ company—which, most of the time, was enough.

As Hayden walked alongside Tidan and Keira to the docks, she realized how much she truly did love the island—everything from the subtle swaying of palm trees in the breeze to the salty scent of the ocean. It just didn’t provide enough change for her, and she wasn’t sure if Tidan and Keira understood that. Well, obviously they couldn’t; they weren’t her and therefore couldn’t understand everything she thought.

The three of them were heading down to the docks, as Tidan had suggested, which were not far from Hayden’s house. Most of the island’s shores were sandy beaches, but there was the occasional spot where rocks covered most of the shoreline, and that was where the docks had been built. They were only used when the islanders would take boats out into the ocean, but the older children would sometimes swim there, diving off the dock into the deeper water. But what Hayden, Keira, and Tidan liked to do best was sit on the flat area of the dock that floated on the ocean, dangling their bare feet into the water and simply talking. That, presumably, was what they were going to do today.

But to Hayden’s surprise, once they had sat down on one of the docks, there was a silence that passed between the three friends. Perhaps Hayden’s earlier talk had prompted a great deal of awkwardness between them. Maybe all three of them were all thinking the same thing: were there more interesting things in the rest of the universe?

Finally, Hayden said, “Sorry for suggesting things are boring here. I didn’t know it would make such an—I dunno—impact.”

“It’s not like we’re offended or anything,” Tidan replied.

“Oh, I know you weren’t,” Hayden corrected herself. “It was more directed at Keira.” She leaned slightly to look at Keira, who was sitting on the opposite side of Tidan. She seemed to be deep in thought, staring out somewhere in the direction of the horizon. “Keira, are you listening?” Hayden asked.

Keira turned and answered, “Yeah, I was just thinking… There’s got to be ways to get to other places from here.”

“But someone would’ve found them by now,” Tidan objected. “Hayden and I have explored this entire island several times. You’d think we’d have at least found something.”

Hayden absently fingered the spot on the dock where she’d carved her name in the wood around five or so years ago. “He’s got a point,” she said. “But so do you. I mean, you had to come here somehow.”

“I wish I could remember, though,” Keira replied. “I remember meeting you two, and that wasn’t long after I came here, but I just don’t know where on the island I arrived.”

“By boat or something?” Hayden suggested. “I dunno. Ask your mum. She’d probably know.”

“I have, a few times before, but she never gives me an answer. It’s almost like she doesn’t want me to know.”

“Well, that’s got to be it, hasn’t it?” Tidan said. “You don’t even remember anything from before you came here.”

“Yeah, but that can’t be my mum’s doing.”

Hayden shrugged. “Well, whatever the reason is, it still doesn’t explain how you got here from somewhere else.” She splashed the water with her feet. “And I think that Tidan’s right; if there was a way to leave here, someone would’ve found it long before now.”

“So it’s useless to think about it, right?” Keira asked.

Hayden nodded. “I guess the three of us are stuck here, then.” She reached down to touch the water with her hand, sending a small wave of water at Tidan and Keira.

“Hey, stop that,” Tidan protested, laughing. He also bent over and splashed a larger amount of water at Hayden. Hayden gasped in mock astonishment, and before long, the three friends were splashing water at each other like playful young children, momentarily forgetting everything serious that they’d so recently discussed—perhaps even the idea of places beyond their small island home.