Alabaster Island

Chapter One

Can you hear me? It's strange to whisper into a seashell, even a magic one. But I can't speak louder. If he catches me, he'll kill me. I have little time. A tiny moment to tell a long, strange tale.

Though I wasn't young in years when I left you girls, I was young in experience. I'd just turned seventeen and lived what seemed an idyllic life on Alabaster Island.

I was born on the island. Its rocky shores, towering date palms and warm, aquamarine waters were all I knew. For a long time, I thought I'd never want to live anywhere else. Not once did I doubt that we were the luckiest people on the planet. But I was wrong.

Twenty-two teens lived on the island aged fifteen to seventeen. If Daniel had lived, he would have been eighteen and the only child born off the island. All of our parents came from the mainland, the Outlands they called it before spitting on the ground.

My life unraveled the night of my seventeenth birthday. I'd been helping Mom translate the ancient scroll she'd found. She had made huge progress. I felt proud when she told me it was due to my help.

I ran eighty-nine spiral steps up to the lighthouse. Eight plus nine equaled seventeen and seven plus one equaled eight. This number was lucky. Here in the lantern room sat a long telescope. Mom took measurements and rotated the telescope along a precise axis, scrawling readings from her sextant. With a dented brass surface, greenish with age the telescope was one item she forbade me to use.

"The twins," she said gazing at the night sky through the window. "Gemini rises toward Pisces. An omen." She handed me the slip of paper where she'd scrawled her readings.

"A good omen?" I asked.

Mom sighed and shook her head. "I don't know."

My stomach clenched. On Binding Day the teen boys and girls on the island would be paired together. Tomorrow I had to put in a name; the boy of my choice. I felt terrified. I'd much prefer to lose myself among the sky and watch for wishing stars. Perhaps the right wish could remove the worry.

We turned back to the scroll, hunched together over a small desk. Night after night Mom and I struggled with the ancient, magical text. And sometimes even early in the morning before the sun rose.

My mind responded well to the arcane math and elaborate symbols that comprised the scroll. To understand the scroll's intricate geometric texts, we used the stars as a guide. Some nights, I unsnarled the connections between the stars, texts and arcane symbols as if they were simple tangles of yarn. Tonight the symbols fought me with a mathematical or magical code I could not break no matter how hard I tried.

"I'm sorry, I can't get it."

Mom laughed and hugged me to her soft breast. She smelled of mango and sun dried linen.

"Don't worry, you're helping tremendously. And on your birthday too. Let's call it a night."

It was a cloudless evening. Satisfied and full after double portions of mango vanilla cake, I didn't want to go back downstairs. It would make tomorrow seem that much closer. Tomorrow. A day I'd just as soon forget lay mere hours away.

Mom yawned, eyes bloodshot from her work but I could tell she felt happy with our progress. The scroll held secrets to our past and how we lost our powers. But we would learn, at least everyone hoped, how to regain Lemuria, our ancient homeland.

"Can I stay up here awhile longer?"

"It's late. Best you go to bed. You have a big day."

"But it's my birthday," I reminded her. "I won't stay long."