A few of the boys gasped and backed away. There was a rising scent in the air, that almost-burning smell that came before a lightning storm.
A little drop of blood rolled from the corner of Peter’s mouth, but whether it was wrought by my will or his effort against me, I never knew. All I knew was that something deep and savage inside me howled, howled for more blood, said there could never be enough.
“You’re allowed this one time,” Peter said, and I had a sense that only I could hear him now. “Just this once, because you’re Jamie and I can see you’re upset. But never again. If you try to take them from me, I’ll cut off your hand.”
“Don’t ever lie to me,” I said. “Don’t.”
I didn’t threaten him, for even as that submerged piece of me raged for more of his blood, there was still a part of me that hurt when I remembered just the two of us, and how we were happy.
Peter sensed the shift, the throttling of my anger, and gave me a crooked smile as he turned away, not worried in the least that I might plunge my knife into his neck.
“I’m going to burn the Many-Eyed,” I told his back. “And leave a blood trail to the pirate’s camp, away from the forest. At least it might confuse the Many-Eyed for a time, especially since they think we have a treaty.”
Peter turned back to me, ignoring my dig, his face transformed. The light of adventure glinted in his eyes. “That sounds marvelous fun! So much better than a silly old raid. I’ll laugh myself to death if a big old Many-Eyed lumbers into the pirate camp and eats that fat pirate Captain. He’s gotten so fat he’s hardly sport at all. What do you think, boys? Shall we lay a trail for the Many-Eyed to follow?”
There followed a series of reluctant murmurs instead of the cheers of delight Peter clearly expected. Most of the new boys (and a fair number of the old) darted their eyes between the corpse of the Many-Eyed and me. It was obvious they didn’t wish a repeat of this encounter, particularly if it meant they would end up like Harry—burning from the inside with venom and bleeding out white.
“It won’t work if we all troop through the plains and the beach leaving a trail behind us,” I said. “It’s really a job for one or two.”
“Then we can be the two,” Peter said, slinging his arm over my shoulder like nothing had happened between us.
I shrugged out of his embrace, nodding my assent because I still didn’t trust my voice, not entirely. He wasn’t acting any way that he didn’t normally act, but it bothered me more than usual.
Peter pretended he didn’t notice my cut, but I knew he did. “Nod, Fog, you take the others back to the tree.”
He waved his hand, dismissing them. They all looked relieved to be going home instead of with us. The fun had gone out of the adventure for most of them when the Many-Eyed appeared.
It made me worry, again, about taking the new ones to the pirate camp. Just because we didn’t go today didn’t mean we wouldn’t go another day, when Peter got it into his head again that it would be fun to have a fight. The pirates, like the Many-Eyed, weren’t interested in mercy for small boys.
The only one who looked disappointed was Nip, whose bruises appeared worse than they had the afternoon before. The broken cheekbone had swelled and was pushing up to his eye, making it look even smaller and meaner. Someone ought to fix that, I thought, push the bones back together so they’ll heal properly. But the only person who knew how was me, and I didn’t much care to.
Nip’s good eye watched me, and I saw the waiting in it. He would wait for his chance to hurt me and then take it.
I didn’t care about that as long as he stayed away from Charlie and the others. What Nip might do to me—or, rather, try to do—was no worry to me.
I went into the cave to see if I could salvage some of the burning wood from the bonfire. The boys followed me to collect the sacks of supplies and the weapons they’d left there.
Nod jerked his head at the deer carcass they’d spitted. It was scorched on one side and dried out on the other, entirely uneatable.
“Waste of good meat,” he said sadly. “And I took it down with one shot, too.”
“Aye,” I agreed, though I wasn’t really listening.
Harry’s body had been dragged off against the wall of the cave. He looked like some rubbish that had been shifted aside so people wouldn’t have to look at it.
And that was how Peter thought of him, really, now that Harry was gone, and his big stupid face was stupid and empty now, and I wanted to weep but knew I couldn’t as long as the other boys were there. So I put that weeping feeling inside, next to the place where Peter’s lie about the Many-Eyed had burrowed into my heart and curled up there, waiting.
I carried an armful of dry wood out to where the Many-Eyed’s corpse lay, seeping fluids that steamed in the night air. It was almost impossible that it was still night, that the sun had not yet risen to end that seemingly endless darkness. It was a very long time ago that I’d woken in the night to the sound of Charlie’s cry, though a full day had not passed.
I returned back to collect some of the burning wood to use as torches. Charlie stood in the mouth of the cave, his gaze half on me and half on the other boys, shuffling his feet.
Before I could ask what was wrong, he burst out, “Can’t I go with you?”
I could just imagine what Peter might do to Charlie if we brought him along—tie him up and leave him in front of the pirate Captain’s tent when I wasn’t looking, or “accidentally” push him over a cliff, or some other horror I couldn’t imagine. No, it didn’t bear thinking about.
Besides, it would do Charlie some good to be away from me, with the other boys. It would help him find his place, and he needed to find it if he were to stay on the island.
“I won’t be gone long,” I said. “You just stay close to Del. You like Del, don’t you?”
“Not as much as I like you,” Charlie said, and then he beckoned me closer.
I put one knee down so our eyes were level, and he covered the side of his mouth with his hand as he whispered, “And I’m afraid of him.”
He cut his eyes toward Nip, who leaned against the cave wall with his arms crossed, watching us. There were burn marks around his eyes and that swelled cheek and I didn’t like the way he looked at Charlie, not at all. We’d crossed him, to his way of thinking, and he wanted his own back. He would take it out on Charlie when I wasn’t there.
Del had crossed him too, I realized, and rethought the idea of having only Del watch out for Charlie while I was gone. I couldn’t trust Charlie entirely to the twins, though, for the twins liked to run and fight and play too much—they didn’t have it in them to look after a little one.
“I can’t take you with me, Charlie,” I said. “We’ll have to move very fast, and there might be more Many-Eyed.”
“I . . . I can fight and run fast,” he said.
He could do neither, which we both knew very well, but he was trying so hard to be brave I didn’t have the heart to crush him. “There’s no shame in going back with the others,” I said. “They can run and fight too, but this is a job for just two.”
One, really, for there was no reason for Peter to come along except to pretend he knew what to do when he didn’t.
“I have to get back to it,” I said, so that he would know there would be no more discussion.
Nagging in the back of my mind was the worry that the Many-Eyed would track the smell of the dead one before I had a chance to lay the false trail. I hoped, too, that burning the corpse would keep the rest away entirely.