“Oh,” David groaned

"Oh," David groaned. He coughed dust from his dry mouth. Gripping his head, he forced himself to sit up. What a fucking day. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but he guessed that it wasn’t for very long, because it was night—and he was still alive, obviously. His blurry vision cleared when he blinked a couple times. He finally focused on Renee, only a few feet beyond him. She was breathtaking, as always, kneeling over a small fire and preparing what smelled like some kind of seafood. That’s all that they had eaten since they got on the island: seafood.

When she saw him sit up, she smiled widely. "Hey. You hungry?"

"Oh God," David choked, kneeling over and vomiting in the yellow grass next to his blanket.

One thought surfaced in Renee’s head: Guess not.

He laid back down, the sour taste filling his mouth. Christ. He ran his tongue over his teeth. His eyes flew to his arm: healed. The Cat was back and smirking. As if a bone hadn’t poked from the middle of his two yellow eyes only hours before. An influx of alien thoughts flittered through his head, as they had since he was a child. He was like a receptor for people’s thoughts, and he had gotten used to it over the years. His head was a radio, set on two different channels: one channel was his own thoughts, and the second was everybody else’s. Unlike most radios, he could run the two stations at the same time. But he could only do it at a superficial level. If he wanted to find out something specific about someone, he could usually do it without detection. Somehow, however, Renee knew when he read her thoughts. When he probed deeper. He wasn’t used to being detected, and so it disturbed him. His secret was out now; when he sent the image of the knife into her head, he had given himself away.

But he hadn’t had a choice. She needed the knife. Renee wasn’t strong enough—yet—to effectively aim all the stones she had levitated. A battle would have ensued, and with such large boulders, she could have hit Jon. And that wasn’t a good thing, considering that his skeleton had been pulverized into powder by then. He knew that Renee would get more powerful; he had seen it in her white eyes. He wanted to find out more, but she would obviously have to tell him about it herself.

Jonathan was having a pleasant dream. He snoozed about ten feet from David, totally invisible because of the long grass. But, of course, David knew he was there.

"Looks like you’re still a bit whimsy. Here. Let me help you get closer to the fire. And maybe we can get something small into your stomach." Together, they moved his things closer to the fire. As David lay before it, he started to develop a headache, and so decided to try and stand. At first he was a bit wobbly, but with Renee to support him, he balanced his weight between his feet. As soon as he was steady again, he paced, looking at the sky thoughtfully. He secretly enjoyed Jonathan’s dream. In it, Jonathan was walking along the sidewalks of California with Renee, laughing at young children skating by on roller blades, triple chocolate peanut-butter ice cream sugar cones in their hands.

The best part of the dream was when Jonathan kissed Renee, the sweet taste of her mouth so inviting, her lips sumptuous, full, smooth. The dream was so real that David closed his eyes…

"It’s ready." She had warmed up some water and boiled the mussels. They drank some coconut juice from a shell as they ate. After they had finished, and wiped their mouths, Renee stirred the fire again. She wrapped her blanket around herself. That was when David noticed that they were on the opposite side of the ravine, very close to the precipice. She had moved them across the ravine while they were asleep. She was getting very powerful. He couldn’t only sense it, he could feel it. The evermore potent energy force lying dormant just beneath her skin.

"How long was I asleep?" he asked. He knew how long—he had received it unconsciously from her—but he wanted to start a conversation. He had become so used to asking questions that he already knew the answer to. Part of his cover.

"About four hours after I woke up. And I woke up not a moment to soon." She paused. Her warm eyes captured the light of the fire for a second, and then she added softly, "I want to thank you a lot for what you did for Jonathan. It means the world to me. You must have been in a lot of pain."

"I had to do it." He felt uncomfortable talking about his abilities. He never had before.

"I just want you to know that I really appreciate it."

He didn’t know if he should say it, but he decided to. "Renee, if anyone should be thanking anyone, I should thank you."

At this, she winced slightly. The subject was touchy for her as well. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many things running through her mind, that it took a conscious effort for him to not poke around. She spoke slowly. "I wasn’t even aware of what I was doing. To be honest."

"I didn’t know that you were that—powerful."

She turned to face him again. "But you know a lot of things, don’t you?"

He nodded reluctantly. "Yes."

"Is that what I feel sometimes? Is that—you?" She tapped her head, just above her eyebrow.

All he could do was nod again.

"This is really fucked up."

David didn’t hear her. "You moved Jonathan, me, and all of our stuff across that twenty-foot ravine less than an hour ago. And that’s after you levitated me twenty feet upward, carried your luggage about two miles with your mind, healed two wounds, threw a knife and a dozen boulders at a snake, and finally reconstructed your husband’s body from a pile of goop." He inhaled.

She refused to look at him. "I haven’t used It in such a long time. But now, I do. It’s getting—easier."

"I know."

"David, just how often do you read my—"

"Renee, I only do it to you because I’ve done it to everyone I’ve known for my entire life. I’m used to it. I’m doing my best not to do it to you, but there are certain things, like when you use your power, that I can sense immediately. I’m so sensitive to it. From now on, I won’t pry." The conversation was over. They were both tired. Jonathan didn’t stir as David picked him up. Renee moved all of their blankets together and they huddled close, Renee this time wrapping an arm and leg around Jonathan, to keep him warm. David stayed up for a long while after that, just thinking, looking at the stars. And, occasionally, tapping into Jonathan’s empty dreams, some more interesting than others.

People are astounded when they hear that humans have an average of ten dreams a night. David knew for a fact that people had far more than that. Late into the night, he guiltily joined Renee in one of her dreams. He couldn’t help himself; he knew it was wrong; he had promised not to. But it was such a wonderful dream.

She was dreaming about the Cat. Again.

……………………………………………………………………………………

The next day, when Jonathan finally awoke with a splitting headache and aching bones, not remembering what had gone on the day before (David had made sure he didn’t), they struggled on. By that time it was about noon, and the sun in the valley was unrelenting, the dry grass that they walked through cutting them with each footstep. Renee’s shoes had been losing their soles, wearing themselves out. She had bought them at Payless for ten dollars; she was quite parsimonious, even at her young age: she had been determined not to spend a lot of money, regardless of the millions her husband made out on the road. She had promised herself to make it clear to him (and herself) that she didn’t just love Jon for his money. So she always went to thrift stores; always looked for deals, always bought things that were just a little bit cheaper, as she had done before she met him. Jonathan had encouraged her to buy better quality things that were a bit more expensive, but she didn’t listen.

But now, struggling to survive, her cheap shoes providing no comfort when her toe stubbed on a pebble through the thin Ked’s fabric, she wished she had been a bit more vain when she could have been. It was too late now.

They made it to the edge of the precipice. A cool sea breeze flowed through Renee’s long black hair. She pushed her locks back to look as David leaned over the edge. Indeed, there was something a few miles beyond. A mirage of land that David hypothesized was about six or seven, maybe even eight—he couldn’t tell—miles from where they were.

"Maybe it’s where we were going, maybe we were that close," Jonathan whispered. His voice was dry, his tone parched. "We were that close, when—this— happened."

"I never even thought of that." Renee was quiet for a moment, thinking. David’s eyebrows lifted as the thoughts raced through her head, so jumbled he grimaced. When she thought so loudly, so frantically, he couldn’t help but perceive it. "Maybe those are the Bahamas. And when he descended for a landing, something went wrong—something stuck—he got distracted somehow—and we landed here, instead."

David had an idea of his own. "Or maybe he started drinking. He might have mistaken this island for the Bahamas, and started coming in for a landing. But when he realized that there wasn’t a landing or anything…we were lucky that he landed on land, and not in the water. If something had stuck, chances are that we would have landed in the water." He spoke on with more confidence. "He mistook this island for that other one. He had tried to land here, but didn’t pull back until it was too late." This was a revelation. Thinking aloud, he mumbled to himself that he would have to check that distant shadow out. After some deliberation, they decided that they would, indeed, check it out.

They were walking home—along the strip of beach, away from what Renee deemed privately "The Lair of the Serpents". When they finally reached their little strip of beach, the plane sticking into the sand, it was a rude awakening. If that island had indeed been their original destination, then they were saved. But if it wasn’t…they were screwed. And there was the possibility that it might be a mirage, some sort of fucked up illusion created by the water. They didn’t know. All they did know was that they would have to check it out, and soon. Now that they discovered the serpents, it was obvious that they couldn’t stay on the island much longer. What if those snakes followed them back to the beach? What then?

Renee knew that David had pushed Jon’s memory of the serpent far back into the bowels of his mind, so that he wouldn’t remember anything about it. Renee wasn’t sure that was the best idea. If Jon didn’t know about the snakes, he might try to go back to that precipice again…alone. Renee was starting to realize just how powerful she was, just how useful. Despite what Jonathan thought, her and David knew that she had the role of Protector. If any of them got into deep shit, she had to save their ass—no questions asked. She wasn’t sure if she liked the responsibility. But what she liked even less was the fact that Jonathan took it upon himself to volunteer to search for what could lead him to his death: the faint shadow of land they had seen that morning.

David protested immediately. They had huddled around a small fire, picking raw mussles from their shells and hungrily swallowing the chewy, salty meat. "No. I’m going, Jonathan. That’s the end of it. You stay here with Renee."

"But I’m the one who found it! Look, David—" Here he paused. "If anything ever happened to you, I would never forgive myself."

"Jon, I’m going."

"No, I’m going."

"Dammit, Jon!" David leaped up. "I have nothing left. Nothing!" He pointed to the outlook where his wife and child were buried. Then he looked beyond that, toward the other side of the island. "Going out there is the least thing that I can do for you two. I never want either of you to know what I’ve been through. If I die—then I die."

There was a pause. Then, Jonathan insisted, "David, if you had found it, I would let you go. But I found it. I’m the one. I can’t just let you do that. I’d never be able to live with myself."

"…Why don’t I just go?" They both looked at Renee. They exchanged an odd look, a look of embarrassment.

"No way are you going," Jonathan said sternly, clasping a large hand on Renee’s slender thigh. Renee pushed him away. David avoided her gaze; he knew she was the most likely to survive. To make it back if there was nothing. Yet, he said, "You can’t go, Renee." His brown eyes burned deep as he shuffled closer to her. "You’re too important. You know so much about the—wilderness, it would be stupid to send you off…"

She gasped aloud. She plopped back down hard onto the ground.

She did a double-take from David to Jonathan, then to David again. When she saw no reaction from her husband, she let loose a smaller, breathy sigh. She had heard David talking. Inside her head. This wasn’t a finger being poked into her eye; this was an airy, weird feeling, as if a yellow cloud had formed in her mind. David had talked to her without talking at all.

She stayed silent for the rest of the time that the other two argued. Why? She was simply too shocked for words.

They decided to pull a twig. The person with the shortest twig would go. Renee was too dumbfounded by David’s ESP to go collect them, so David did it instead. He came out with three bundled in his fist. Renee pulled first, then Jonathan gingerly pulled another one out of David’s firm palm, his hand shaking despite himself.

They compared to see who got the shortest stick. When she saw who had the shortest stick, Renee fainted. All she could see was the Cheshire Cat. Jonathan sat in front of the fire until the embers burned cold. David dissolved into the darkness, the twig clasped tightly in his hands. He was gone all night.

To pray in front of the makeshift gravestone of his family.

Renee and Jonathan said nothing to each other the entire night. Mechanically, they made their bed out of their soiled blankets. Jonathan fell into a troubled sleep. As his arms clasped around her tightly, Renee started to cry. One of them, tomorrow, she knew, would leave. And never come back. Ever. Two of them would be left on this damned island. With the serpents. With the hunger.

And with a false hope for the one sent out into the ocean in vain.