CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The boys awoke to the sun casting an orange hue over them. The shadow of the propellor went all the way across the riding area of the sky taxi, where the two lie, and they knew it was late afternoon. When they sat up, they could see the stars beginning to show on the other side of the horizon.
They both jumped from the back of the sky taxi without even looking at the surroundings first. Their feet landed softly and the brothers looked up to see an entire island composed only of golden sand. It was then that Elliott realized that “desert” was literal in the island’s name. Across the outside of the island, the continual spinning of large propellors hummed.
Hux was sitting with his head back in the driver’s seat of the taxi. He wore an apathetic look and didn’t look down at the boys or give them any direction.
“What do we do?” Oliver asked, putting his hands up in an expression of confusion.
“You just walk,” Hux said, closing his eyes in annoyance. “You just walk and see what you find. I guess there’s stuff out there.”
The boys looked at each other and shrugged before slowly walking out into the tall dunes of sand. The sand moved loosely under their feet as they walked up the steep inclines, and they slid down the dunes’ sides as they passed over them. They walked for an entire mile before Elliott stopped to observe the surroundings.
The sand glistened in the afternoon sunlight and, every so often, a gust of wind would blow a cloud of sand dust up only to lay back down on the dunes. Though they couldn’t hear the propellors’ spinning any longer at the distance they had walked, the tips of their spinning blades could still be seen scattered in the distance. The propellors mostly stood on the edges of all the islands.
“I want to go back,” Oliver moaned.
“Yeah,” Elliott returned, “I don’t really see anything here, it’s just sand. Why would there need to be a-”
He trailed off the statement as he noticed something at the peak of a distant sand dune. It was a figure. At first he thought it was Hux, but it waved and shifted like heat was warping the view of it from where he stood. Elliott squinted his eyes and the figure disappeared.
“What?” Elliott rubbed his eyes. He looked back at his brother who wasn’t paying attention to Elliott. “Oliver, I just saw someone out there.”
“Really,” Oliver was somewhat relieved to have something actually be in the desert. “Yeah,” Elliott continued, “but whoever it was went somewhere.”
Oliver, without questioning, began walking in the direction Elliott had seen the figure.
Elliott followed and they passed over several more dunes toward where it had stood. The boys were becoming exhausted.
Oliver, not finding what Elliott had seen, became frustrated at the situation. He put his hands into fists and began stomping in the sand rather than walking. He started grunting in frustration. Elliott noticed and realized that his brother was becoming triggered, “Oliver, calm down.”
“I’m not calming down!” Oliver yelled, “I don’t like this place! I’m tired and I want to leave!”
Oliver crossed his arms and put his head down. He was trying to calm himself and regain control. Elliott comforted his brother, “Ok, Oliver, we can go back. I don’t know what I saw and it may not have even been there. Maybe it was a mirage... you know, like when something looks like it's there, but it's not. Or, maybe it was some sort of-” Elliott stopped suddenly, becoming excited, “Hey what’s that?”
Oliver looked up and saw a large rock sitting at the bottom of a group of dunes. It was nearly black and stood out against the gold sand, though the entire area was covered in the shadow of the dunes. Both boys darted from their place toward the rock.
As they ran, Elliott questioned, “How did I not see that? Was it here just a second ago?”
Drawing near to the rock, the boys slowed their pace. The rock was even bigger than they had thought from atop the dune that they had left. It was triple the height of the boys and its surface was so dark in places, it seemed unnatural.
Oliver put his hands on the rock and felt it’s smooth surface. He had been looking for something interesting in the desert and was extra observant of the rock’s features as he looked for anything of interest.
“I’m going to climb it,” he said, not waiting on his brother’s response to the idea. He jumped up to grab a ledge jutting out and pulled himself up. After struggling a bit with the short edges of the rock, he managed to climb to its top.
“I’m the winner of the desert!” Oliver yelled. He expected his voice to echo with how loud he shouted, but there was none. It immediately gave him a feeling of loneliness.
Elliott approached the dark rock and began walking around its perimeter, studying the strange structure. He ran his fingers across it as he walked. Oliver jumped up and down on the top of the rock’s flat surface. He slammed his feet as hard as he could into it, but it didn’t give or shake even a little.
“This rock is really hard,” Oliver shouted to his brother. He looked back and couldn’t see Elliott. “Brother?” he lowered his voice as he called to his brother. He was beginning to get nervous, not being able to see him.
After a moment, Elliott finally returned, “Oliver, get down and come here - you got to see this.”
Oliver wasted no time climbing down the rock and meeting his brother, who was staring intently at the side of the rock. Oliver looked to where his brother was studying and found a strange and cryptic set of pictures. They were carved into the rock’s surface and revealed a slightly lighter hue of gray against the dark black of the rest of the rock’s surface.
“It looks like it’s supposed to mean something,” Elliott said, still studying the picture.
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It was a set of several pictures. The first was a set of four wavy lines. Next, directly to the right of it, was a square with a cross in the middle of it. The next carving was a circle with straight lines running from its center. The last picture was several circles atop long rectangles, all surrounding several lines that resembled a platform with a single circle at one side.
Oliver pointed at the last image, “Those things look like people... and they are at a table, right?” He looked to his brother for confirmation.
Elliott didn’t look away from the image on the rock, “I don’t know, Oliver. It kind of looks more like a bed... or maybe its a stage.”
“With a ball on it,” Oliver added.
Elliott turned his head to the side, “No, the circle is the same size as the ones that look like people’s heads. I think it’s a person.”
Oliver gasped, “Wait it’s not somebody’s head not on their body?”
Elliott’s eyes grew wide, but then he laughed, “I don’t think that’s what it is.” Suddenly, there was a gust of wind that sounded different from the sounds they’d been
hearing on Desert Island. There was a vibration on the surface of the island that made the sand bounce like the island was enduring a minor earthquake.
A strange feeling came over both boys and they looked at each other. Without speaking, they knew that it was something they both were feeling. It was a feeling of dread, as if something had noticed them and was watching.
Elliott frowned, “Let’s get out of here.” Understanding, Oliver began running in the direction that they had come from and the two stumbled over the sandy dunes, traveling across the distance that had taken them hours to cross, this time only in minutes.
They emerged over a large dune and could see Hux sitting on the hood of the sky taxi. Heaving and caughing, the boys ran down the final dune to meet him. They stopped before the taxi and leaned over, attempting to catch their breath.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Hux asked, a hint of aggrivation in his voice.
It took Elliott a moment to catch his breath enough to respond, “We want to leave now.” Hux stared at Elliott from the hood of the taxi. He wanted to ask what had happened but didn’t. After a moment, he shrugged and hopped off the hood and got into the driver’s seat. The boys wasted no time getting in the back of the taxi.
They laid down as Hux started the propellor of the taxi, but he hesitated to rise into the air. He turned to the boys and asked over the noise of the spinning propellor, “So, where are we supposed to go now?”
Oliver sat up from the bed of the taxi and yelled, “We want to get out of here, it’s creepy.” Hux just stared back at them.
“Where do you go to?” Elliott asked.
“Huh?” Hux’s face crinkled at the question and he repeated, “Where do I go?”
“Yeah,” Elliott returned, “where do you like to go? Can you take us there?”
Hux looked off in the distance, his facial expression softening. He responded in a lower
voice and Elliott could barely hear him over the propellor noise say, “No one’s ever asked me anything about me.” He looked back at Elliott half questioning, “I could take you to the Leaking Island if you want. It’s kind of, like, my favorite place to go.”
“Leaking Island?” Oliver asked. “Ok, yeah, I want to go there. That sounds fun.”
Hux shrugged and took off, soaring quickly upward and away from the Desert Island. Elliott and Oliver immediately felt releaved being away from the strange feeling of that island. As they glided above the clouds, their bodies began to ache from the running over the sandy dunes. The two groaned as they slunk down into the bed of the sky taxi. It was no time at all before they fell asleep, both wondering what would be “leaking” in the island they were headed to.
As they were drifting off to sleep, both boys heard the faint sound that resembled a bear roaring in the distance. It was faint to them, but they could tell that it was far away, which meant it must have been something large or something very loud.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Elliott breathed in deep. His nostrils were filled with a smell he was familiar with from camping trips in the past - it was the smell of a lake, with wildlife, evergreens, and fresh air. He smiled as he awoke, hearing the sound of calm water trickling against a rocky shore. Insects chirped all around. He opened his eyes and, as his vision went from blurry to focused, he was snapped out of his moment seeing his brother’s smiling face directly over him.
“Oliver!” Elliott said pushing him away in response. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Oliver jumped up in the bed of the sky taxi and hoped over the edge with little effort.
“Brother, come on! Look at this place!” he yelled.
Elliott crawled over the edge of the taxi and gasped as he looked around. The sky taxi rested on the edge of a rocky ledge and all around were thick, round trees with dark green leaves fully opened to the sky around. There were dense bushes of large leaves, ones that he’d never seen before, woven upward as if arranged specifically to attract attention. His brother had run up a path that was laid by flat stones and stood looking downward. Elliott began walking toward him, knowing there was something interesting to be found there as well.
As Elliott met up with his brother, he was in awe of the sight - a mighty waterfall fell into a great pit. The pit had no bottom and the water disappeared into cloud. Elliott followed the flow of water up to a massive lake, where the water was flowing from. There were mountains in the distance, marking the end of the lake.
“Wow,” Elliott sighed, “it’s amazing!”
Some leaves rustled nearby and Hux emerged, pushing away some loose vines. “Yep,” he said casually, “this is pretty much my spot.”
Oliver was excited. He moved closer to the pit where the water was flowing down to. “Woah, it goes really far down there.”
Elliott was nervous seeing his brother get so close to the edge and carefully pulled the back of his brother’s shirt, moving him to a safer spot.
Oliver didn’t acknowledge his brother’s pull. He had grown accustomed to his brother looking out for him so much that he often didn’t even notice it. He chuckled and pointed down into the pit. Turning toward his brother he said, “That must mean it’s raining under there.”
Elliott’s eyes grew wide. His brother had crossed a boundary they were not supposed to go. He slowly turned to see Hux making a strange face toward Oliver.
“What’s raining?” he asked.
Elliott became nervous and tried to explain, “Um, it’s just something we call water falling down, you know, back on our island - that is, the island that we are from.”
Elliott waited for Hux’s reaction and finally the young taxi driver shrugged and resumed his usual apathetic gaze.
Oliver had not realized that he had made a reference to Earth and continued, “Hey, how is all that water floating up here? Just from the propellors? Oh, maybe we’re on a mountain. Brother, do you think we’re on a mountain? Hey, Hux, do you think we’re on a mountain? Hux? Maybe all the islands are on mountains!”
It was then apparent to Elliott that Hux was becoming nervous. He glanced around and rubbed his arms in an uncomfortable gesture. Elliott stopped his brother’s questions by speaking over him, “Hey, Hux, this is a great spot. I like the water. Thank you for showing it to us.”
Hux relaxed only a little. He leaned toward Elliott and spoke in a lowered tone, “What’s wrong with you two? You can’t be curious. I don’t know why the Queen is wanting you to see more islands, because you keep asking questions. Like, dude!” he swung his arms up in frustration, “You two are going to get us in trouble!”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down. “Ok, listen, I don’t know what your island is like, but everyone knows you only get to be curious at a specific time in school and you don’t ask about anything else, it will be shown to you. If it’s not shown to you, you don’t need to know it.”
Hearing this made Elliott feel a knotted feeling in his stomach. This was against what he knew. This was even against what his teachers back on Earth encouraged. He learned through being curious. Getting bolder, he asked Hux directly, “If we can’t be curious, then how are we supposed to learn anything?”
Hux hufffed, “Why would you want to learn anything?” Elliott started to respond, but Hux started speaking before he could, “Ok, you know what? I’ll just tell you about this island and then you don’t have to ask or be curious or anything.” He was frustrated. “Yeah, it’s floating. It isn’t on a mountain, because there are no mountains below the islands, because there’s nothing below the islands but the clouds. It’s the ‘leaking’ island because it’s leaking the lake down into the clouds. But, it just dissappears into the clouds. It actually helps the clouds be, uh, clouds.”
Elliott looked back into the pit where the water was flowing into. He felt that Oliver’s explanation of it raining was much more believable than Hux’s. Hux noticed that Elliott was thinking and, not wanting to be asked another question, he started walking down the path back toward his sky taxi. Without turning back toward Elliott, he yelled, “All of our water comes from here, so why don’t you two go get a drink or something?”
Elliott turned to find his brother missing. “Oliver?” he called, glancing around. He then heard a chuckling above him and looked to see that his younger brother had climbed a tree and was chewing on some green, exotic fruit.
"Oliver, what are you doing?" Elliott called.
"I'm climbing a tree," Oliver returned, "and eating this... this thing."
Oliver jumped down and Elliott took his hand to keep him from wandering. The boys walked around the waterfall pit and made it to the rocky shore of the lake. The water tasted pure, the cleanest water they had ever tasted. The water was calm and the parts near to the shore were transparent all the way to the bottom. In the distance, at the edge of the island, the propellors hummed, ominously spinning.
Elliott reminded his brother that the islands were full of the “sauce” that made things lighter. He figured that it must be a delicate balance for an island so large with so much water.
As they walked back toward the sky taxi, the two crossed what appeared to be a turtle. However, this turtle was like none they had seen, having a long shell and two additional legs. Oliver wanted to stay and play with the turtle, but Elliott was afraid that the turtle may be of the “snapping” variety. So, the two continued back to where the sky taxi had been parked. But, instead of finding Hux with his vehicle, the two found an empty landing space.
“Uh, Elliott?” Oliver asked, running toward the place where the sky taxi had landed. “Where’s Hux?”
Elliott looked all around - through the trees, higher in the sky, back toward the lake and the waterfall pit - Hux and the sky taxi were nowhere to be seen. “Uh,” Elliott was getting nervous, “maybe Hux had to go get something.”
“Like what, brother?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t know - maybe he needed to get gas.”
“Does that thing take gas?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Elliott shook his head.
“He left us!” Oliver’s head jerked down and he began crying.
“No, no, Oliver, he’s coming back, I’m sure of it. Let’s just wait here and he’ll come back and get us.”
The sun had set mostly at that point and the brothers laid down on the grass where the sky
taxi had landed. They didn’t mean to fall asleep, but the waiting made them tired and they eventually dosed off.
After what only seemed like moments before the boys fell asleep, they heard something shuffling and a rough voice whisper, “I’ll show you. You wanna mess up my things, do you? I’ll show you two, then.”
The boys both wanted to wake and discover who was speaking and what was happening, but for some reason, they could not fight the fatigue and they both drifted back into sleep.
Though his thoughts were foggy, Elliott knew someone had done something to them to make them so drowsy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The boys woke suddenly from the bouncing of turbulence in the back of a sky taxi. Neither of them could sit up from the shaking of the vehicle. But, from lying in the bed, the boys could tell they were in a sky taxi that they had not previously been in.
Oliver pulled himself up where he could see over the ledge at the front of the taxi. The wind howled louder and the turning of the propellor overhead seemed stronger with his head out of the taxi bed. The wind stung his eyes, and it was difficult for him to see to make out the driver. Finally, he could see the fuzzy coat, broad shoulders, and unmistakable cabbie hat - it was Cad.
Oliver sunk down into the bed and got near his brother, who was still lying down. “Elliott, it’s Cad. He looks angry.”
“Cad?” Elliott returned, “Why is he driving us?”
Cad seemed to hear the boys talking and yelled some angry gibberish back to the boys. They couldn’t understand it all, but he seemed to be upset about his previous sky taxi being wrecked on Capital Island and he blamed the brothers for the accident, saying they tricked him into going there.
Elliott said to his brother, “Why is he mad at us? His taxi was old and broken. We didn’t break it.”
Cad was ending a sentence with “she’s gone, all because of you two!” when the sky taxi dipped down suddenly. “Ah!” Cad yelled, “You two are bad luck, too!”
It was apparent to the boys that the jumping of the taxi was not due to turbulance, rather this vehicle. Like the other of Cad’s that crashed on the West End, this taxi was old and needed some fixing. They bounced around in the sky for a few minutes, the propellor slowing and returning to speed, before Cad announced, “Fine, I’ll get more sauce at a stop, then you’re going somewhere... somewhere bad... uh, you two are gonna see the beast! Yeah... yeah, that’s what you’re gonna do.”
This made Elliott and Oliver very nervous. They stayed next to each other as the taxi sputtered and faltered down to the nearest island. The boys didn’t see the island they were descending to until they had slammed down onto the ground. They first noticed the steep wall that climbed right in front of where they landed. Sitting up in the bed of the taxi, the boys realized that they were not on top of an island, rather parked on a cliff that jutted out of the side of one. The clouds were near to the edge of where they had landed.
Cad grunted as he climbed out of the taxi. He turned to the boys with an angry expression on his face, “Don’t you two dare move, or things will be even worse for you.” He waved his finger at the boys as he spoke. He then turned and walked toward a well that was up against the wall of the island. Next to the well, the boys both noticed a small cave opening.
Elliott whispered to Oliver, “We have to get out of here and sneak over to that cave, Oliver.”
“But,” Oliver’s teeth chattered, “what if he sees us?”
“Well, we have to try.”
Oliver started shaking and grabbed onto his brother’s arm.
Elliott looked at his brother and then to Cad, whose back was turned to them as he gathered sauce from the well. Elliott inhaled deep - he had to be brave.
“Come on, Oliver,” Elliott said with determination, “let’s go.”
The two quietly moved over the back of the sky taxi and began tip-toeing around the far side
of the landing. Both boys kept their eyes on Cad, who was cursing under his breath. In order to get to the cave, the boys would have to get close to Cad and sneak right past him. They slowly approached, taking care with each step not to make a sound.
Suddenly, Cad held his finger in the air and yelled, “And, you know what? I loved her. I loved that taxi!”
There was a moment’s pause and Cad returned to the well. Elliott’s and Oliver’s hearts raced as they thought they had been caught. They inched closer to the cave and to Cad. The old sky taxi driver finished gathering the bucket of sauce from the well and started untying the knot that secured it. Elliott knew they only had a few moments more before he turned to go back to the taxi and if they were not in the cave by then, they would surely be caught. The boys inched closer and closer as Cad wrestled with the knot. Oliver reached up and took his brother’s hand following behind as close as he could without tripping his brother. Elliott reached the corner of the opening to the cave and started to slip into the cave when abruptly, Cad spun from the well and faced the taxi. Elliott and Oliver froze in place next to him. Oliver’s arms shook and Elliott’s legs became covered in goosebumps. The old man paused for a moment - what seemed like forever to the brothers. Then, he simply walked to the taxi with the bucket of sauce. His eyes were old and weathered - he had not seen the boys right next to him.
With Cad walking away from them, Elliott looked back and motioned to Oliver. The boys quickly moved into the dark cave, escaping the fate that Cad intended for them. The did not stop moving deeper into the cave until they heard the sound of the propellor starting and the sky taxi lift off.
Elliott then realized that his brother was squeezing his arm tightly and he pried from his brother’s grip. Elliott whispered, “I think he doesn’t realize we’re not in the taxi.”
The boys listened as the sound of the old sky taxi faded in the distance. After a moment of them standing in silence, the two began laughing. They were relieved to have escaped the situation.
“I don’t want to see no beast,” Oliver said, smiling.
Elliott agreed and the two studied their surroundings. It was dark, but they could see the details of the cave through the glow of thin streams of the sauce, glowing a faint blue and running through the cracks in the cave below their feet. The opening was narrow and short; however, there were stalactites hanging from every part of the ceiling and stalagmites jutted from the floor.
Oliver pointed ahead in the cave, “Look, brother, a picture.”
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The two walked ahead to find what appeared to be old cave paintings. The paintings were obviously done by hand and only had two colors: red and blue. There were lines of blue that resembled clouds and shaded areas that appeared to be the islands.
As the boys followed the painting into the cave, Oliver said, “Oh, it looks like a long picture.”
“Or a story,” Elliott returned.
The painting formed into a series of pictures that seemed to feature two figures, one in red and one in blue, that engaged in different acts. There was a picture of the two figures above an island that seemed to have a mountain on it. “That’s like Capital Island, where the Queen is,” commented Oliver. Then, there was a picture of the figures with a ball between them. Oliver again noticed, “That’s like ball-kick on the Teaching Island.”
As the boys followed the paintings, it became eerily apparent that the paintings were of them. They followed some of the notable points of their adventure in the clouds thusfar until finally reaching one that appeared to be the two sneaking into a cave.
“Uh, Oliver?” Elliott said hesitantly, “This looks like what just happened.”
Oliver pointed deeper into the cave, “Brother... there’s more painting.”
Elliott was nervous about seeing what could turn out to be a reference to the future. The two
stood for several moments looking ahead. The pictures couldn’t be seen fully from where they were, being that the cave was dark and the only illumination was the glowing liquid below.
Elliott finally gathered his courage the best that he could and slowly began toward the rest of the picture. But, as he and his brother began toward it, the cave began to do something strange. The stalagmights and stalagtights began waving slowly and the celing and floor of the cavern began moving up and down, as if the cave were breathing. The motion made both brothers feel disorented and they stumbled a bit. The two sat down on the ground, fearing that they would fall. Upon sitting, however, they became extreamly tired and quickly drifted into a deep slumber.
