Alive (The Veiled World Book 1) (2 page)

In front of me was a fold out tray attached to the cabin wall and on it was a basket filled with snacks; little packaged gourmet treats like chocolate covered strawberries, nuts, lime and cracked pepper potato chips, and a little drink can, condensation beading along the Alive logo. It felt cool beneath my fingertips as I lifted it from the basket and inspected the label.

Black Magic.

It was one of the new flavours. Blackberry, maybe. I was so thirsty I couldn’t wait to knock it back despite knowing the mega dose of caffeine was going to give me an extra unwanted buzz.

The engine whirred a little louder and my stomached stirred with excitement as I stared out the window at the desolate, rural darkness I’d known my whole life, broken only by a small cluster of lights in the distance that was our town. That excitement was quickly squished by the weight of sadness. Somewhere out there, my mum and dad were sitting in our kitchen with its six-month-old linoleum floor coverings and fresh paint, brewing a pot of tea and opening a tin of homemade coconut biscuits that Mum baked this morning, while their only living child was on a plane, about to fly off to some private, remote island no one really knew the location of, with a man who wore a Buzz Lightyear costume.

I love you too, Mum and Dad.

“Ready?” Bruce beamed as he pulled the door shut and started to pull and lock a series of levers around the hatch.

He turned around and rubbed his hands together, his eyes sparkling with a school boy’s excitement. “Around twenty minutes after take-off, I’ll give you the go-ahead over the loudspeaker to unbuckle and get yourselves something to eat. Eat well, the flight is roughly fourteen hours so fill up and try to get some rest. There’s a decent-size screen on the back of each seat with a whole catalogue of movies.” He paused and looked at Jacob, who was sitting in the very front seat. “Good, you’ve found yours.” Bruce leaned towards Jacob, maybe to adjust something, before saluting us and disappearing into the cockpit.

The person sitting behind me yanked my hair. I didn’t even need to turn around to know that Reece was my tormentor. He had been hassling me since the day my brother died.

“Movies! Awesome. Maybe we can watch
Firestarter
, Amber, what do you reckon?”

Though every inch of my body stiffened, I pretended not to hear Reece’s stupid suggestion. My eyes did a quick dart across the cabin. Bella was smirking at me, but when she caught my gaze she jumped, and quickly busied herself with the task of buckling her seatbelt. I hated it when people, especially everyone from school, did that. Hated when they wouldn’t hold my gaze for more than a split second. It made me feel like a monster, when, in truth,
they
intimidated
me
with their cliques and their “you can’t sit with us” vibe. The truth was I could never and would never harm any living thing. Even when Dad sent me out to shoot the cockies, I’d fire a single shot into the sky to scare them off before I could do them any real harm.

Noah peered over the back of his seat and smiled at me.

“Maybe Reece should watch
Dumb and Dumber
,” he said, then lowered his voice to a whisper, carefully mouthing the words so that I understood over the engine hum. “Or maybe even
The Jerk
.”

I hesitated to smile, wondering why Noah, who had never said a word to me in his entire life, was being nice to me. But still, he was roasting Reece and I was more than okay with that. I leaned forward. “Is there actually a movie called
The Jerk
?”

“It came out in 1979. Steve Martin’s in it.” He popped a chocolate-covered strawberry in his mouth. “Bill Murray was actually in a scene but it was deleted before the movie made it to the big screen.”

“Cool,” I said, secretly wondering who on earth Steve Martin and Bill Murray were. The sweet scent of chocolate-covered strawberries was driving me insane so I tore open the packet in front of me and popped one in my mouth.

“Good, isn’t it?” Noah said.

I nodded before opening my can of Alive and taking a large sip. Wow. Bruce was good at what he did. It was like an explosion of flavour against my tongue.

“There’s a soirée in your mouth, right?” Noah said, grinning, his dark eyes shining beneath the chandelier above us.

Black Magic dribbled down my chin as I choked down a laugh. Noah nodded sagely, obviously pleased with his ability to humour me.

A lick of warmth spread through my chest. Maybe this trip was going to be fun. I took another sip of my drink and sighed, relaxing into my seat. It was good to know I potentially had someone to talk to over the next ten days, someone who had a vocabulary beyond “murderer” or “twin killer.”

“I heard what you said, you little shit, Noah. You’re not returning from that island
alive
!” said Reece, before he tipped his head back, skolled the entire contents of his Black Magic can, smashed it against his skull, and let out a long, loud burp.

Claire, who was Reece’s current girlfriend and was sitting across from him on the other side, laughed, as did Bella and the other two guys on the right hand side of the cabin—Reuben, Red Gum’s footy star, and Kyle, the surfer dude who’d never actually surfed in his life but was obsessed with it.

Reuben followed Reece and drained his can before smashing it against his head, all the while glaring at Noah, his flared nostrils making him look like a bull. Kyle shrugged and made non-committal grunts before staring out of his window where the flashbulbs were still going off like exploding stars, illuminating his surfboard-waxed white-blond hair.

Jacob, the quietest kid on the plane, sat on the very front of my row, his dark brown hair visible over the seat. He was the tallest one here, taller than me even. His farm neighboured ours and we walked to the bus stop every morning side by side. Though we’d hardly said a word to each other and had never hung out, I knew he was a good guy.

Once, when I was late for the bus, he made the driver stop after he saw me running. Another time he was riding his trail bike past my property with groceries strapped to his back when he saw me working my way through a massive pile of wood Dad had given me to chop. He’d stopped, chopped it all up, and stacked it into a neat pile without saying a word, and when I’d started gushing “Thank you,” he’d simply raised his hands up as if to say “enough already,” and hopped back on his bike, disappearing into a cloud of dust.

But without a doubt, the most memorable time he’d helped me out was the time he told Reece to fuck off when Reece wouldn’t stop calling me “murderer” in science class. Nobody messed with Jacob, not even Reece, and so Reece had immediately eased up on me. For one day at least.

Jacob’s dad had passed away of a sudden heart attack five years ago, so Jacob had taken it upon himself to be a dad to his younger brothers. He looked after his alcoholic mum too, cleaning up her vomit and dragging her home from the pub. Once, someone said, with only her stockings and bra on.

He was good-looking. Dark brown eyes, tanned skin, and built like Channing Tatum. But none of the girls ever asked him out. He sent out a vibe so strong it was like he had a razor wire electric fence wrapped around him with a big invisible sign that screamed “
back off!
”

So everyone did.

I wondered if that would change on this trip, if we’d get to know him, if
I’d
get to know him. A vision of me, Noah, and Jacob hanging out played in my head. We were sprawled out on deckchairs under a palm tree on the island, sipping from Alive cans and watching the turquoise ocean, perhaps spotting a flipping dolphin or two.

The seatbelt light flashed, breaking my thoughts. The cabin lights dimmed before the engine made a high-pitched whining sound and I felt the plane surge forward. Noah returned his seat to its upright position and from the gap between I saw his hands clutch the armrests until the knuckles bulged white. From memory, I think it was his first flight.

My stomach, which had been rumbling earlier, now churned sickly.

Through the windows across the other side of the cabin, I watched the flashing lights of the press disappear. Darkness enveloped us, except for the slight curve of the lit-up temporary runway ahead. My own window showed only blackness and I drew the blind down because I kept thinking about my parents out there in the dark and how sad and lonely they were going to be with no kids in the house.

Snapping my eyes shut, I gripped my armrests and started to take deep breaths. There was so much excitement bouncing around inside of me, I swore I was about to implode.

We gained speed fairly quickly until the g-force pushed me flush against my seat and my stomach dipped as the plane left the ground.

Claire squealed and Bella shouted, “Oh my God!” The guys cheered and whooped—even Jacob. I wanted to squeal and whoop along with them but it felt like an intrusion on their club, so I just did it on the inside.

Wow. I was going away. I was
actually
going to an island. Escaping Mum’s and Dad’s blank eyes and depressing sighs. Escaping the sad sight of my brother’s room, completely renovated after the fire and therefore wiped clean of everything Sam. Escaping the dry, hot, dusty farm I loved at times and hated at others. Most importantly of all, escaping the silent accusation in everyone’s eyes, the
“We know you killed your brother”
look.

Drawing my blind up for a quick peek, I stared through the small window at the tiny disappearing dot of light that was Red Gum.

In fourteen hours’ time I’d be on Bruce Harvey’s island.

I was Charlie Bucket with the golden ticket.

And maybe, for once, my life was looking up.

Chapter 2

Axel

Veiled World

I turned the corner and started down the hallway to the library, but instantly wished I hadn’t after seeing King Cyril marching towards me. We hadn’t had any visitors “drop in” from the Unveiled World for quite some time and I knew this was causing the king great distress, resulting in more crazed behaviour than usual.

“Axel!” he shouted, despite me being only a meter or so away. “Did you hear? They’re coming! They are finally coming!”

“Good news,” I said, trying but failing miserably at sounding excited. It was fairly hard to fake excitement when you’ve heard that “they” were coming every day for the past year.

I sighed with relief as King Cyril seemed to lose interest in me and made for the library door, but cried out as the old man about-faced and gripped me by my shoulders before slamming me against the brick wall. Though I was taller than him by at least a head, and more built, the old guy’s madness seemed to give him superhuman strength.

“Didn’t you hear me?
They are coming, boy!
This time for real. The one with the flying bird. He is bringing them. The one who visited!” He shook me, beating the back of my head against the stone wall twice. “You should be excited, you stupid fool!”

Pictures formed inside my mind of me seizing the old king by the cuff of his golden robe and tossing him down the hallway like a stuffed toy, but I shook my head to erase them. He was my king, after all, and not a bad king, truth be told. Plus, his crazy babble was music to my ears.

The old man’s watery blue eyes lit up and he laughed, revealing surprisingly good teeth but terrible breath. Did the gardener have to grow so much garlic? I held mine and twisted my face away slightly.

“He is bringing,” King Cyril lowered his voice, “
challengers.
”

My heart worked faster. If this was true, then perhaps King Cyril would send me out with them. Perhaps I would finally have a chance to get my brother back.

“Your Majesty, do you think, if they do arrive, do you th-think—”

“Stop stuttering, fool, my son is calling for you!” He spat out the word son, not hiding his disdain for his only child, then released me and disappeared down the corridor.

***

“Look, Axel!” Prince Ollie stood at the foot of the bed I was making,
his
bed, and shoved a piece of parchment in front of my face. “What do you see, boy?”

I finished tucking the sheet beneath the mattress, my hands meticulous and slow. The prince hated to wait and I enjoyed stirring the brat, especially when he called me
boy
.

“Look at it!”

Instead of raising my head, I concentrated on folding the perfect corner crease and said, “Didn’t your father, our king, ever teach you that patience is a virtue?” I moved to the other side of the bed to fold the last two corners, meeting Ollie’s gaze at the same time.

The prince’s pale, round face turned crimson. “Speak to me like that again and I’ll have you salted.”

My back prickled. My broken skin hadn’t yet healed from the last salting. Ollie was becoming more of a tyrant by the minute. I let out a long, slow sigh. It was better to be on the tyrant’s good side if what the king had said was true, that visitors were, in fact, coming.

“Give me a look, then.”

Ollie laid the parchment on the bed carefully, as if it were a baby, his pale, childish fingers fluttering over it. “It’s a drawing, my drawing. It came to me in a dream last night. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Putting a hand to my mouth, I coughed to cover my grin. This was no drawing. All I could see was a scribbly line that quite possibly resembled a…“Is it a goat?”

A frown creased the prince’s brow, but it quickly vanished and instead he laughed, musical and girlish, like he always did. “I forget your simple servant’s mind, boy.” He laughed again, his beady eyes glinting up at me like shiny black pebbles. “It is
Her
hand,” he boasted with raised brows.

My eyes narrowed at the scribble until I saw something that could possibly be a hand.

“Whose hand?”

Ollie snatched the parchment from the bed and smacked it across my face.

“The Goddess’s hand, you idiot. You do know what this means, don’t you, servant boy?”

My hands made fists, nineteen-year-old fists that wanted to smack Ollie’s eighteen-year-old mouth to make certain I’d never be called
boy
again. Instead, I remained as stoic as a statue. He was the king’s son after all, and my dead brother’s well-being depended on me being Prince Ollie’s dutiful servant.

“Whenever somebody dreams of the Goddess’s hand, visitors always arrive. She must be sending people from the Unveiled World. If she sends nine, then we’ll have enough challengers to send to the Land of Resting Souls.”

I cleared my throat, excitement pumping hot blood through my veins. Between the king and the prince, I was starting to think this might actually happen.

“And if she sends only eight, the kingdom will be one short. Perhaps you would then be kind enough to nominate me to bring your dear mother back from the d—”

Ollie raised a hand to signal the shutting of my mouth and pointed to the wine carafe by his bedside. I poured him a cup, my shaking hands spilling some of the red liquid over his nightstand. To think there was a possibility that this time I might actually get to be a challenger and have the opportunity to bring my brother back from eternal sleep.

“You clumsy fool. That wine is precious.” He shook his head and grinned again. “I’d sooner send you to shovel more dragon shit than bestow upon you the honour of bringing my dead mother back. You’re not fit to be a challenger.” He snorted. “Your little brother shall remain beneath the cold, dank earth of the servants’ graveyard for eternity it seems.”

The wooden cup trembled in my tight grip and I handed it to the prince before I crushed it with all the rage desperate to be released from my body. Instead it poured out of me via my tongue.

“That is no hand,” I said, nodding to the parchment. “My four-year-old brother of whom you speak, Goddess rest his soul, could draw better than you and you are a,” I coughed, purposely, “
man
of eighteen years. Perhaps there will be no visitors. Perhaps the drought will continue and we will be without challengers for another five years. Perhaps your mother is destined to remain de—”

Ollie’s pale face darkened with rage. “Well, if the visitors do arrive, and we send them to the Land of Resting Souls, one thing is for certain.” He crossed the room and stuck his head out into the corridor and shouted for guards before turning back to me. “You won’t be going with them.” He smiled, looking like an evil, cowardly rat, and shook his head. “Even though my father has already nominated you as a challenger should we be in need of an extra, I’ll be sure to change his mind.”

Two elderly men, who had been pulled out of retirement and reinstated as guards because all the young men of the kingdom had died en route to the Land of Resting Souls, appeared. Though their hair had greyed and their skin was deeply lined, they both bore impressive muscular physiques that were more than a match for my long and lanky frame. Instead of fighting, I merely strolled over to them to accept my fate.

“Salting first, then toss me into the dungeons, am I right?”

***

That night, after being beaten with a salt-encrusted, spiked staff, I was thrown into a cell with a stinking old man as withered as a grape left to dry in the sun. He didn’t open his eyes when I came in, but I knew he was alive because of the slow rise of his sweat coated chest. He wore only a tattered hessian slip and his skin was red where the material had rubbed his skin raw.

The next morning, when my lids fluttered open, the old man’s face hovered over mine, blackened with dirt and adopted by a family of buzzing flies. I swallowed down a scream befitting Ollie.

“Challengers!” he said simply before leaning back and pointing to the one inch of pale dawn sky we could see from our cell.

I shifted my numb body, the lower half of me near paralysed by the icy cold of the stone floor.

“How do you know?”

“Challengers coming from distant lands, in a bird with steel wings.” The old man raised his dirt-stained hand and appraised it. “Last night I dreamed of the Goddess’s hand.”

I took a good look at the old man’s face and realised who he was.

“Dream Master?” Dream Master was never wrong. In fact, he was locked up for telling the king he’d never get his beloved Telitha back as the woman she once was, no matter how many challengers were sent out to seek the Land of Resting Souls.

“How many challengers are coming?”

The old man raised nine fingers, but seemed to reconsider before reducing them to eight.

Eight.

King Cyril always sent nine.

I realised then that maybe laughing at Ollie’s drawing was probably not the smartest move to make. Because the one time I was a possible contender for the journey to the Land of Resting Souls, I was shut up in this stink hole with a man who could predict the future with his dreams.

A future that would never be mine.