She simply gazed at him, silent and still, her long pale hair coiling and uncoiling in the wind. The palm branches rustling overhead cast a dancing lattice of shadows over her skin. There was none of her spark, none of her drive. She seemed . . . emptier, somehow. Blank. Had they brainwashed her or something? His skin prickled; he looked at her, really looked at her, searching for clues to explain her bizarre condition. And he noticed things he’d missed before: her skin was pale—too pale. Sophie had had a very light peppering of freckles on her cheeks. This Sophie had none. Her hair was longer, her nails were longer—he remembered distinctly that Sophie’s nails had been bitten short. It was something he always noticed about people, whether or not they bit their nails, because it was a habit he always looked for in his dad. His dad chewed his nails when he was drunk, for no discernible reason, but it was always Jim’s first clue that his father was wasted.
“You . . .” He stood up and stumbled back, his mind filled with thoughts exploding like fireworks. “If you’re not Sophie . . . who are you? And where is she?”
Whoever this girl was, she seemed either to not know, or was incapable of telling him. He looked around in complete bafflement. Should he go back, look for the real Sophie? Take this one on to a hospital? Oh, God, what if she was hurt and they were helping her—and now I’ve gone and made her worse by dragging her across the island. He grimaced as he thought of the IV he’d pulled out of her arm.
“Hey. Hey, can you talk?” He lifted his hands and held them on either side of her face. “Just talk to me, okay? Say something.”“Mmm.”
Well. It was something, anyway. At least she seemed to be able to understand him. “Are you hurt?”
Her lips moved, as if she were trying to speak but couldn’t summon her voice, and her eyes fixed on his mouth.
“Hurt,” she whispered.
“What? You are hurt?”
Awkwardly, as if not quite in control of her limbs, she touched the tips of her fingers to his lips. “No. Not . . . not hurt.”
“Well, can you stand up, then? We have to get to the plane—I’m not even sure if it will fly—but we’ve got to get away from here. Do you remember what happened? What they did to you? Look, I think they knocked you out, gave you some kind of drug. I can get us out of here but I need your help—you gotta get up. There’s a boat around here somewhere. . . .” He took her hands in his, wrapping his fingers around hers. “They’re coming after us, and they took my friend. I can help you both if we just get out of here.”
“Boat.” She must have been more drugged than he thought. She didn’t show any sign of urgency, just maintained that hungry look.
“Hey. Hey, stay with me. My name’s Jim. Jim Julien.” “Jim.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” He heard a crack from the trees and threw an arm across her, his eyes darting from one shadow to the next, watching for Mary and her friends. He didn’t see anyone, but they could easily be hiding in the thick ferns and pines.
When he turned to face her, she was smiling a vacuous, contented smile. “Jim.”
Genuinely concerned now that something was very wrong with this not-Sophie, he took her hands in his and stood up. “Can you walk? Come on. We can look around. Get up.”
The smile transformed into a frown of concentration as she tried to stand. It was like watching a newborn colt struggle to find its legs. She wobbled, swayed, and trembled, and would have collapsed if Jim weren’t holding her. When she finally did reach her feet, she looked down at her legs as if surprised to see them there. A little blue butterfly landed lightly on her toes, and her face brightened with childish delight.
“That’s it,” Jim murmured, watching her warily. “Now. Let’s take a look around. The boat has to be here somewhere.”
He kept an eye on the trees as he walked across the sand, one hand holding the girl’s. She moved slowly, uncertainly, as if each step was only managed with great concentration. With every passing second, Jim’s apprehensiveness grew.
The girl looked around her with open wonder lighting her eyes. The trees, the sand, the sea all seemed to fascinate her as if she’d never seen them before. They passed a depression in the beach where the waves had left a deposit of shells, pastel clamshells and gray sand dollars and broken pieces of conch. She stopped, pulled her hand from his, and bent to inspect the collection. An ambitious wave swept up the sand, and water poured into the hollow and swirled around the shells. She made a high-pitched squeal and gripped the hem of her gown in alarm, then hesitantly extended one finger to poke at the water.
Jim watched in mute horror. It’s like she’s two years old, like they rewound her brain fifteen years. What is she? Sophie didn’t have a twin sister—he’d have remembered something like that. Was she a clone? Some kind of copy?
She began touching each shell, fascinated by the textures and shapes, completely absorbed in her little world. Jim watched the tree line nervously, wondering what he would do if Mary and the others appeared. It would help if he knew what they wanted and who had sent them. When he looked back down at the girl, she had shells clutched in both her hands, and she smiled up at him and held them toward him, as if showing off a treasure.
“Ah . . .” He cleared his throat. “Very—um—very nice.”
“Jim,” she said happily, and she picked up more shells.
“Just . . . just put them down, will you?” he said, his voice snapping from his lips, too sharply.
She stopped smiling. Her hands shot open and the shells clattered back into the pile.
“I’m sorry.” Jim sighed. “I didn’t mean to yell. Just let’s keep looking for the boat, okay?”
She stood up, still wobbling on her feet, and tried to step over the shells, but halfway through she seemed to forget how to walk, and tumbled forward. He jumped to her and caught her just in time. She lay in his arms, her eyes wide and startled, her breath shaky.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fell down,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I saw.” His heart was caught in his throat. This was beyond him. He hadn’t signed up for this. Even if he did get her back to Guam—what then? What if she didn’t snap out of this trance or whatever it was? Could he just drop her off at the hospital, tell them some story about finding her on the beach? But no. The other pilots and the bartender all knew he’d gone to Skin Island with Sophie Crue, and if anyone started asking questions, the truth was bound to come out. And then what would stop the powers behind Skin Island from coming after him? From finding this girl and finishing whatever vile experiment they’d started on her? What if the authorities thought this was Sophie and that he’d done this to her?
You could leave her, a voice hissed in the back of his mind. You don’t owe her anything. She’s not Sophie.
He ground his teeth together and helped the girl back onto her feet. Too late for that, he thought. He couldn’t leave her in this state, barely capable of speech and movement. It’d be like leaving a baby to fend for itself.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Let’s try this again.”
They continued awkwardly down the beach, Jim supporting her while she gaped at everything they passed. A pair of seagulls circled above their heads, screaming to each other, and she watched them with rapt fascination, her chin tilted up and her eyes following every wheeling turn of the birds.
“Bird,” she said, and she smiled at Jim.
Jim just looked at her. He was trying his best not to get angry, but she was making it very difficult. He saw no sign of the boat. Nicholas had motored it out of his sight when he’d taken Sophie across the channel, and all Jim knew was that they’d gone east. We’ll have to come across it eventually. It wasn’t as if Nicholas could have dragged it into the trees to hide it. There had to be a dock or a bay somewhere.