I scowl at him. There are white lies, and then there’s just outright lying. “Why?”
“I guess you don’t have to see for yourself. Wait here.”
“Why?” I follow him.
“Trust me. You don’t need to be haunted by it too.”
My eyes flit from the caved-in roof to the charred barn. Both buildings were small. But big enough. I could imagine living here. The mud brick walls and tin roof are falling in on the house. There’s no exact way to figure out how long it’s been here. Not without picking around in the house more. But I’ve got enough things haunting me. I’ll stay here for now.
The way things are overgrown, it’s been a long time since this was an active farm. Ten years? Maybe more. There’s a coconut tree growing in the middle of the shell of the barn that is twenty feet tall. How long does that take? I have no idea.
The house is set back far enough that I can’t see the ocean from here, but I can hear it. Calvin said there aren’t any people over here, but there’s definitely a trail that leads down to the water. Goats maybe?
I inch forward. Something rubs up against my leg. I look down at what has to be one of Pepper’s siblings. I sink into the grass and sit with my legs crisscrossed as the cat jumps into my lap. Emily’s always watching those reels and YouTube videos of people saving cats from storm drains and junkyards. They’re not born liking people. They have to be trained. This one tilts its chin up to me and demands to be petted.
Calvin’s gone for a while. I hear him cough. My eyes flick up to him.
“Yeah, I’ve got some explaining to do.”
“You think?”
Chapter 9
Departed the Ship
Dante
“You got her?” I tighten the straps on Sam’s shoulders. I would have thought Penny would have put up more of a fight, being stuffed into a backpack and clamped onto Sam’s back, but she’s got her front paws on Sam’s shoulders and her head on his.
Haley hasn’t put her backpack on yet, since Sam had to trade it back for his own. I lift it up. “What do you have in here, Sassy? Rocks? There are plenty of rocks on this side of the island.” I slip my pack off and hand it to her. “I’ll carry this one for you.”
“Wait, I want to get something out of the front pocket. For this, I have to turn Zane’s phone on. I need a picture of this.” She knows right where it is and yanks it out. “Hey, you two cuties, look at me. She takes a thousand pictures as if she’s going to put them on Instagram and needs a hundred different shots to choose from. “What?” she asks me.
“Nothing.”
“Go ahead and make fun of me.”
“I wouldn’t dare, Sassy. You’re having fun. I like fun.” I put my head next to hers, take the phone from her, and take a half dozen shots of the two of us. I turn my head and stick my tongue in her ear.
“Dante!” She laughs and steps next to Zane, then takes a few photos with him before turning the phone off and putting it away in her pack.
I put my hand out. “Let me have it.”
“I can?—”
“Of course you can, but you don’t need to.”
“Well, thank you.” She hands it over and takes mine, sliding it onto her back. “Ready?” she asks all of us.
“Ready.” A chorus of echoes follows her down the mountain.
Zane’s got the lead, followed by Haley. Sam and I are bringing up the rear now. It’s steep, and for some reason, the same size boulders Penny could jump onto she can’t jump off of.
We trudge ahead for an hour, making our way over the boulders. There isn’t really a path, but we hold a relative course with the bearing being simply down. Down to the water, down to where we hopefully find a way over to a rock outcropping that divides the two halves of this side of the island.
Zane stops, and we stop in a line behind him. “To get over Chicken Beach, we need to leave this path and head south.” He’s got a machete out, and he points to the thicket of bamboo that blocks the side near the rocky way.
“Agreed,” Sam says.
