“That one’s name was Tickles the Sheep, I think,” she said. “I hope you feel guilty.”

  He looked back at her. “Hey! Heard anything?”

  “Maybe don’t talk with your mouth full.” She leaned closer, her head right between Isaac and Miyoko. “Be sure and sit with us at the presentation—we’ll try to save a spot. Something’s going down, and you guys have to stick with us. No matter what. You didn’t try to sneak any of the wine, did you?”

  They had a strictly enforced rule on the island that you couldn’t have alcohol until you were twenty-one. Of his friends, only Sadina and Dominic had reached that age. Because these types of gatherings were only meant for those who’d finished their schooling, Isaac and Miyoko were two of the few present who weren’t allowed to partake of the island specialty. Isaac had stolen a few cups over the years, but it gave him the runs.

  “Seems like a weird time to turn into our granny,” Miyoko said. “No, we promise we didn’t drink the wine.”

  Trish didn’t smile at that. “Good. See you at the amphitheater. Don’t be late.” She held up a hand to cut off Miyoko’s question. “No. Not here. Later. Just trust me and sit with us. Bye.”

  With that, she walked off.

  Isaac looked at Miyoko, who looked back, four eyes full of questions.

  “Let’s go,” Isaac said.

  “Yep.”

  Galileo Auditorium was an outdoor theater that had been built against a natural stone cliff, backing a semicircular grouping of benches that faced a stage and one of the quieter beaches on the island. The cliff provided uncanny acoustics. Events were held at the auditorium quite often, like today’s Congress report—which were usually snooze-fests, but today Isaac couldn’t wait for it to get started. What could Trish possibly have meant, acting all clandestine and mysterious? Something’s going down, she’d said. Really? That seemed a bit much.

  The place was filling up quickly. On the wide, wooden stage at the front, the prominent members of the Congress had assembled, comparing notes, arranging chairs—most of them looked unhappy, and a few fumed with anger. Their friendly debate over the strange lady and her boat must’ve been quite the doozy. Isaac wasn’t surprised. No one ever agreed on anything in the Congress.

  “Sadina and Trish are toward the front,” Miyoko said, pointing to the fourth row of benches. “We better squeeze in with them.”

  They maneuvered their way down, and although there wasn’t an empty spot in sight, somehow Isaac and Miyoko managed to wiggle into the sliver of air between their friends. A lady at the end of the bench yelled, “Hey, I’m barely hanging on by one cheek down here!” and everyone in range of hearing gave it a good laugh. Isaac wasn’t so sure these people understood exactly what it meant that a boat from the old world had arrived on their shores. Or maybe he was just spooked by Trish’s ominous warning.

  “Hey,” Sadina whispered into his ear. She was to his right, Miyoko to his left.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked back. He doubted she could hear him over the buzz of the place, hundreds of people jawing and speculating. They smiled at each other, then shrugged, mutually deciding that conversation had no chance over the din.

  Isaac thought about the lady from the boat. A rescue team had arrived from town shortly after she’d revealed her purpose in making the voyage to the island—to find descendants of the old Gladers, Newt and Sonya. Isaac didn’t know if they’d actually been brother and sister—he’d never read that in the histories of these very famous people. But the lady was adamant. Medjacks had taken her to the infirmary and he hadn’t seen her since, now four days gone by. But those two names had flashed in his mind over and over, like the blinking of the sun between fast-scuttling clouds.

  Newt. Sonya.

  Everyone learned the story of Newt in primary school. They had his journal, required reading as soon as kids were able to put letters together. He was almost a mythical figure—and if he had any descendants, that’d be news to every person on the island. Sonya was less mysterious but almost as legendary. She’d been one of the survivors, arriving on the island with Thomas and everyone else over seventy years ago. She’d died a few years back, but had left behind several children and grandchildren.

  A woman stepped up to the podium placed at the front edge of the stage. It was Sadina’s mom, Ms. Cowan. As First Chairperson of the Congress, the job fell on her to add stability to the wild rumors that blanketed their island.

  Ms. Cowan held her hands up. Waited for people to notice, then quiet down. It didn’t take long.

  “Thank you,” the stately woman said. She was like a shorter, older, wrinkly version of Sadina. Everyone respected her, even when she pissed them off. That was the kind of bearing she had. “Thank you for coming. It’s been an interesting few days.”

  Sadina leaned into Isaac. Very quietly, she said, “You know Sonya only had one kid, right?”

  Isaac pulled back his head, frowned in confusion. “Huh? She had three or four didn’t she?”

  “Nope. Just one. Now be quiet and listen.”

  Sadina was always pulling crap like that, and curiosity over the whole damn thing was just about enough to drive him crazy. He’d missed the first item or two that Ms. Cowan had announced from the podium. The woman’s voice bounced off the cliff walls and seemed to come from every direction.

  “—a little disconcerting to all of us. But after several extensive interviews with our guest, we believe that what she’s told us is the truth. However, the fact still remains that this is a person who, by her own admission, drugged, shot, and killed her shipmates. That’s not a thing that we as a Congress can take lightly.”

  She paused, and murmurs rumbled across the crowd. She held several papers with notes in front of her, and stared at them now, her face betraying that she was extremely unsettled. Placing the papers down on the podium, she looked up and scanned the audience.

  “I can’t say what they told me to say. I’m sorry, but I can’t. This is absurd. This is absolutely absurd.”

  “Cowan!” a man shouted from behind her. It was the Vice-Chairperson, Wilhelm. He stood up and walked briskly to stand right behind his immediate boss. He leaned forward and whispered fiercely into her ear. Although the acoustics picked up a series of sharp S and P sounds, no words were discernible.

  Ms. Cowan swept the papers off the podium and they floated toward the stage like autumn leaves. Another member of the Congress whom Isaac did not know rushed forward to gather them up before a member of the crowd could grab them.

  “I don’t care!” Ms. Cowan shouted, having spun around to face Wilhelm. “I don’t care about the rest of the world—I care about this one!”

  She brushed past her second-in-command and had to step around the man scooping up her papers. Then she hurried down the steps descending from the stage.

  The crowd was hushed. Wilhelm stood stock-still, his face as pale as the crest of a wave. Isaac looked at Sadina, who seemed way too calm for the situation. Ms. Cowan was her mom, after all.

  “Sadina?” Isaac questioned, “What . . .”

  She looked at him. “It’s me, Isaac. They want to send me back to the old world.”

  Sadina had gotten up right after her explosive pronouncement and squeezed past the others on their bench, then taken off in a run after her mom. Miyoko had also heard what she’d said, and followed right on Isaac’s heels when he followed Sadina. He had no clue what had just transpired, with so many layers to unravel. But instinct took over and he swore to himself that he wouldn’t let Sadina out of his sight. Behind him, as he ran on to the beach, the temporary state of shock had worn off the crowd and now they were in an uproar, shouting so many things that he couldn’t make out a single word.

  “Mom!” Sadina shouted.

  “Sadina!” Isaac shouted.

  “Isaac!”

  He looked over his shoulder. Dominic. Trish was right by his side, everyone chasing someone.

  Ms. Cowan finally stopped, a good half kilometer from the amphitheater. She hunched over, hands on knees, catching her breath. Sadina reached her, then Isaac and Miyoko, then Trish and Dominic. They all stared at each other while heaving air into their lungs, waiting for someone to explain.

  Ms. Cowan surprised him with her first words.

  “Isaac, go back. Go back right now. You’re not a part of this.”

  “What . . . what’s . . . not a part of what?” He floundered like the idiot he felt like.

  “Mom,” Sadina said. “We want him to be part of it. If he wants to, of course.”

  The truth dawned on Isaac. Everyone in this little group knew what was going on. Everyone except him. He could tell by the looks on their faces. Even Miyoko, who had a sheepish, guilty expression that she couldn’t hide.

  He made an obnoxious, exaggerated shrug, holding it in place for a few seconds. “So. Who’s gonna let me in on the big secret?”

  The others exchanged a few glances, but eventually they turned their undivided attention to Ms. Cowan. Not only was she much older, she was literally the leader of the entire island. Well-spoken, smartest person ever, quick to anger and quick to smile. She’d always intimidated the hell out of Isaac—when he was little, he’d begged Sadina to come to his house instead of the other way around.

  The woman had focused her eyes on him. “I always liked you, Isaac. You’re a good person and you’ve gone through a lot of tragedy. I just . . . I don’t want you to—”

  Sadina interrupted her. “Mom, that’s exactly why he needs to go with us. He’s one of the few that doesn’t have any family to leave behind. We’re his family. Trish and I love him like a brother no matter how many times he bugs the shit out of us. We . . . I can’t go without him.”

  Her words were too much to take in all at once. All that came out of his mouth was, “Go? Go where?” For a few seconds, the shallow waves washing up on the sandy beach were his only answer. But then Ms. Cowan stepped closer to him. Although she was a few inches shorter, he stepped back a little. Why did this little lady scare him so much?

  “Okay, listen to me,” she said. “We had a massive disagreement in the Congress. It was split almost down the middle, but let’s just say my side lost. I honestly don’t get it. At all.” She closed her eyes and sighed, flushed with frustration. Then she looked at him again. “The woman. From the boat. Her name is Kletter. I spent hours with her—more than anyone else. I would bet the life of my own daughter—”

  “Nice!” Sadina yelped.

  “—that Kletter is telling the truth. I’ve lived a lot of years and been around a lot of people. I’ve swum through enough bullshit—pardon my language—that I’ll never get the stink out. And this woman, from that boat, is telling us the truth. And, frankly, I want to do something about it.”

  “But the things you said on the podium . . .” Isaac trailed off.

  “It was an act. Look, I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to be some super-sleuth from the old books, but this has all been a setup. Between me, those who agreed with me in the Congress, my daughter and Trish, the friends they insisted on. I wanted to spare you, Isaac, with what . . . you know, your family, the tragedy . . .”

  Isaac teared up but offset it by vigorously shaking his head. “I’ll be okay. I can go. I need to go.”

  Cowan nodded, draped with a sad look. “Then I’ve been overruled. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

  Isaac glanced over at Sadina, who gave him an encouraging nod.

  “Yes, but I don’t really know what I’m agreeing to. But . . . I . . . agree?”

  Sadina and Trish laughed, and even old Ms. Cowan cracked a smile.

  “It’s simple, Isaac,” she said. “We’re getting on that boat, with our new friend and a few others, and we’re setting sail for the old world. How’s that for a quick recap?” She patted him on the shoulder and started walking back toward the amphitheater.

  “Wait, really?” he asked, turning in a circle as the others moved to follow Ms. Cowan. “What is happening? She was just faking all that?”

  Sadina pulled him into a hug, squeezing tightly. Then she whispered in his ear.

  “Yep. And oh, by the way, they spiked the wine. But don’t worry, it only puts them to sleep.”

  Isaac had never felt like this, not once in his entire life. He’d lost his mom, he’d lost his dad. He’d lost a sister, something that broke him to a point that he had to suppress it, hide it away, train himself to stop thinking about it. To stop feeling. But through all the pain and all the anguish, he’d never felt like this.

  Groundless. Without foundation. Without gravity, as if nothing tethered him to the earth and never would again. Every step back to the Galileo Auditorium seemed temporary—like someone had slipped magic boots on his feet so that he could walk, for now. His mind was fuzzy. His feelings were fuzzy. He had that intangible sense of waking from a dream, the most realistic dream you’ve ever slipped into, that feeling that everything you know and want to keep knowing is about to fade away forever.

  When they came upon the amphitheater, he stopped, almost unable to bear what he saw. But Sadina took his arm, made sure he understood.

  “They’re just sleeping,” she said. Sprawled about on the benches, on the ground, many lying on top of each other, arms and legs flailed about in every direction, hundreds of them. Seemingly dead to the world. “That Kletter lady got the drug from her boat, gave it to my mom, the same stuff she used on her dead buddies. She said she didn’t want to actually kill them but ended up finishing them off with a gun, anyway.”

  “And we’re supposed to trust this lady?”

  “I trust my mom. That’s all that matters right now. And once we have time to talk about why we want to go back with Kletter, I think you’ll be on board, too. No pun intended.”

  Isaac gestured to the heaps and piles of sleeping bodies. “And these people?”

  “She said they’ll wake up in about ten hours.”

  Not everyone had taken the drug—a few members of the Congress were already speaking with Ms. Cowan, and there were a scattered few who’d decided not to have the customary wine. They looked somewhere between dazed and righteously pissed off.

  “She said?” Isaac repeated. “Some starving, murderous crazy lady who we’ve known for four days? Nice.”

  Sadina gave him a reproachful, disappointed look. “We outnumber her for one thing, and she doesn’t seem the least bit crazy. Plus, my mom took the drug last night. Said it was the best night of sleep she ever had.”

  They stared at each other for a moment. Isaac laughed first, then Sadina joined in, the two of them eventually reaching the giddy giggle of people who’re losing it. But it did make Isaac feel better.

  When it finally fizzled to a stop, he said, “So . . . what? You want me to get on that rickety piece-of-crap boat and bon voyage to the land of Cranks and the Flare? Sounds like a brilliant plan.”

  “Just wait till you hear what Kletter says. There’s no way Trish and I are leaving without you. You gotta trust us. And my mom and others have it all figured out—they’re going to make it look like Kletter herself broke out and did all this—” she pointed at the mass slumber party “—and took some of us hostage, left on the boat. That way when we come back, which we will come back, Isaac, we can say it was all her fault. Now come on.”

  She took him by the hand and dragged him toward her mom, who was barking orders like a cranky fitness coach. Isaac was glad for the connection to Sadina, to something solid like her fingers clasped around his, glad to be clutched by someone who wasn’t about to dissipate and fade from the world he’d always—and only—known.

  Kletter looked like she had gained twenty pounds as she marched behind the group. Isaac couldn’t help but take a peek back at her every minute or so. Her dark skin shone, her eyes no longer hidden inside pits of hollow despair. Hair washed, newly clothed, well-fed, she seemed an entirely different person from the weak, feeble creature Isaac and Miyoko had pulled out of the ocean. She reminded Isaac of Ms. Cowan, as if two twins of might and strength had been reunited at last. It didn’t hurt that Kletter held a large weapon that shone staticky blue in places, something never seen before on their little island. Holding it, she seemed about an even match with Sadina’s mom.

  Isaac and about a dozen others—including Carson, Jackie, and Lacey from the west side—each person holding at least two canvas bags of supplies, were walking at a steady pace toward the beach where Kletter’s ship, The Maze Cutter, had been moored. As quickly as this rug had been pulled out from under him, as quickly as his entire future had been altered by these people, Isaac felt no panic. Just that odd, uneasy, untethered feeling, too numb to process the anxiety and fear that should be pumping through his nerves.

  “Why are we letting her hold that weapon?” Isaac asked Trish since Sadina was busy getting instructions from her mom. Dominic and Miyoko were right behind Isaac. “First we let her drug our friends and now we let her walk around with some big-ass killing machine? That thing looks like it came from Mars.”

  “You know why,” Trish replied.

  “So it looks like she kidnapped us.” He said it deadpan, showing just how stupid he thought the idea was.

  “Yes, Isaac. So it looks like that. Not everyone is asleep, remember?”

  “I just think we’re trusting her too much.”

  “Amen.” That came from Miyoko.

  Trish offered a nonchalant shrug. “All I can tell you is that I’m convinced after talking to Sadina and her mom. Plus it sounds exciting as hell to go on a boat to places I’ve never been before. You wanna stay here, stay here. But you really need to hear them out first.”