Having such access to the ship fulfilled the scientists’ greatest wish, and as far as Ishibashi knew, he’d never expressed that wish to Alex—the young leader had figured it out on his own, which made the gesture even more thoughtful.
And likely, with the long future that seemed to be ahead of the three scientists, it would give them something to fill in the endless hours. Now more than ever Ishibashi wished for a few more hours of calm each day, since the machinery on board the ship was too heavy for the three old men to dismantle and move into the shelter. They had precious little time each day to explore and marvel over the equipment they had thought they’d never see again.
On this day, Ishibashi did as he always did. He shuffled to the ship as quickly as possible, with Sato and Ito right behind, and he climbed the iron ladder up the side. Because the ship’s bottom wasn’t flat, everything tilted to one side, but Ishibashi didn’t mind. He was old, but he was nimble, and after the first couple of days, he found footholds and handholds all around to allow him to look at everything.
As Ishibashi disappeared inside the hold, Sato and Ito climbed the ladder. Sato was the slowest and weakest, so he stopped at the top and looked around the island while catching his breath.
On the barren beach, a new shipwreck caught his eye. It appeared to be part of a fishing boat, but the storm had ripped it to shreds. Sato put a hand above his eyes to shield the weak sunlight that managed to come through the clouds. His eyesight wasn’t very good anymore. He saw what looked like a sack of goods farther down the shoreline. They would have to pick it up before the storm took it again—perhaps there was something exciting in it from the other world. Sato didn’t see any people, but he didn’t expect to. Most shipwrecks lost their passengers well before they reached the shore.
Carefully he climbed into the ship, and for the next while the old men examined the contents and tinkered with the machines, trying to dry out their waterlogged guts to see if they would work again. If only they had more time! If only the storm wouldn’t drench everything again, day after day!
Instinctively, when the sky darkened and the wind picked up, the three reluctantly climbed back out of the ship and made their way carefully down the ladder to the ground. Sato told the others about the new shipwreck, and all three went to look it over before going back to the shelter.
“Another fishing boat,” Ishibashi said to the others in their language. He picked up a jagged plank and tossed it aside, then pushed on the chunk of the hull that sat on the rocky ground to see how heavy it was—it might make a good container for plants. But it was too bulky to carry with so little time left today. If the storm didn’t devour it, he would go back for it tomorrow.
Sato walked farther down the shoreline to the sack of goods. But when he reached it, he gave a shout. He knelt next to it and turned it over as the other two scientists hurried toward him. It was a young man, all curled up, covered in a paste of wet sand. The waves licked at him.
When the others reached him, Sato looked up, his expression deeply troubled. He spoke rapidly to the others.
Ishibashi reached down to feel the boy’s pulse. He shook his head. The young man was cold and unresponsive. He was most certainly dead.
Sato spoke more firmly, and began dragging the boy toward the shelter. Ito and Ishibashi helped, moving as fast as their old legs could go, with Ishibashi and Sato arguing the whole way. Ishibashi did not want to take the body of this dead stranger into their living quarters. But Sato won out.
As thunder rumbled and a sudden blanket of rain poured down on them, the scientists maneuvered themselves into the shelter and pulled the body inside the main room. Sato took one look at the victim and gasped. The rain had washed the caked sand from the young man’s face. And while bruises were evident, the young man was clearly recognizable.
“Alex-san!” Ishibashi cried. “No!” Wildly Ishibashi, Sato, and Ito scrambled to resuscitate their dear friend who had been so kind to them. How did he end up here? Had the enormous flying cheetah dropped him on the rocks to die?
Sato and Ito pounded on the young man’s chest, and as Ishibashi watched in horror, he grew more desperate the longer their friend did not respond. He gripped his hat and wrenched his clothes and begged for life to return to the leader of Artimé, but nothing was working.
Finally Sato shouted to Ishibashi in a voice that sounded like a command. Ishibashi cringed. He nodded, and with a heart full of anguish, he ran to the greenhouse, ripped open the container of glowing blue seaweed, and took the tiniest pinch. He raced back to the others and knelt down.
Ishibashi looked at the glowing seaweed between his finger and thumb. He closed his eyes, his heart ripping apart. What he was about to do went against everything he believed. Everything. Yet . . .
“Please forgive me, Alex-san,” Ishibashi whispered. With that, he plunged the seaweed into Aaron’s mouth, massaging it between his cheek and gums for several seconds. When there was nothing left to do, he slowly backed away. Sato and Ito stopped their reviving techniques and sat back too, their worried eyes darting from the young man’s face to his chest, searching for any sign of life.
Broken Souls
Three islands away, Alex joined Lani on the ice-covered lawn. And as she chanted the words from a thin spell book that would remove Gondoleery’s grip on the island, the sharp pain in Alex’s side snapped and disappeared, and the broken half of Alex’s soul that had hovered outside him for days took flight. Alex clapped a hand to his ribs and gasped. In an instant, as the rest of the islanders watched a different show orchestrated by Lani, Alex could only see the one that was happening inside himself.