“Climb!” she shouted, her voice panicked. “Try to reach my hand!”
But the chain was oily, and as the woman spoke, Luca’s fingers slid further and further down the slippery links.
“I can’t…” He struggled to hold on.
“Try!” The woman begged. “You have to try!”
But Luca’s fingers slipped again, only inches from the end of the chain now.
The woman leaned over as far as she could.
Then something slipped out from her cloak, something from around her neck.
A delicate necklace. A small silver cross on the end of it. The same silver cross as the one Luca had worn around his neck his entire life, until the day it was lost forever in the molten rivers of Vulcano.
Luca gasped. His fingers slipped from the chain completely. He fell into the air.
The woman’s eyes opened wide in sheer horror. She looked down, saw the acrobats, and shouted as loud as she could over the applause of the audience, “
Shamus!!!
”
Standing on a ledge, one of the Flying Fitzpatricks somehow heard his name above the crowd. Instantly, almost instinctively, he looked up and saw a man falling from the rig, about to plunge right through the middle of the acrobats to his death.
“Liam! Devlin! Aidan!” Shamus Fitzpatrick shouted desperately to his brothers. At the same time he launched himself off his ledge and swung toward Luca.
As Luca plummeted into full view of the entire stadium, a spotlight swung on him. Spectators gasped and the circus crew on the ground immediately started to unravel an emergency net. “Faster, faster!” someone shouted.
With a
whoosh
, Shamus soared into the middle of the ring, swinging upside down by his knees now, reaching out as far as he could with both hands.
As Luca plunged he saw Shamus coming toward him out of the corner of his eye. He tried to grab for the acrobat’s hands. He clipped his fingers, but missed by an inch.
Then suddenly Luca had the wind knocked out of him by Liam, swinging in from the opposite direction and crashing straight into him. Liam almost fell from his swing but held on tight with one hand, his other hand grabbing the back of Luca’s shirt.
The shirt ripped and slid straight off Luca’s back.
The young Italian continued to fall, but was suddenly flipped upside down as Devlin, the youngest Fitzpatrick, flew in from the side, grabbing Luca by the shoe.
They swung over to the far side of the tent and back again, but as Devlin tried to inch his grip higher to grab Luca’s ankle, the shoe slipped off completely and Luca flew in an arc, heading straight for the audience.
Just then, Aidan, held by Liam, held by Shamus, came flying across in the human pendulum formation, grabbing Luca’s wrist and snapping him back before he could crash into the crowd. They looped back toward the center of the arena, then, as surely as Aidan had grabbed Luca’s wrist, he suddenly let him go.
Luca fell straight into the emergency net, now stretched tight over the ground. He bounced once, twice, then sank into the net on his back, startled and breathless.
As the crowd let out a thunderous roar and the circus crew lowered the net to the ground, Luca looked up and saw, far above, Elena still leaning over the gangplank. Her teary eyes filled with relief as she quickly stood.
Something red and green fell from her cloak as she vanished from sight. It fluttered through the air toward Luca.
As it neared, he saw it was a rose. A single red rose. He took it in his hand.
As the circus crew charged across the net toward him, Luca quickly searched for any signs of Elena, in the rigging, on the ladder, in the crowd. But she was gone.
At that moment the circus crew seized him by the arms, hoisted him to his feet, and brusquely hurried him away so the show could go on. High on their ledges, the Flying Fitzpatricks bowed to a standing ovation from the crowd.
Outside the big top, Luca landed facedown on the cobblestones. The circus crew grunted angrily at him, dusted their hands clean, and returned to the activity inside the tent.
Over the cheers and applause of the crowd inside, Luca heard the faint ring of his cell phone. He sat up, pulled the phone from his jeans pocket, checked the caller ID, and answered it quickly. “Shane?”
“Luca, we need you back here right now! Somethin’ bad has happened. Somethin’ real bad. You gotta get to San Francisco as fast as you can.”
IV
The Island of San Sebastián, Caribbean Sea
A NEW YORK STREET KID LIKE SAM HAD NEVER SEEN THE sun shine so bright, never seen sand so white or a sky so blue or an ocean so vast, stretching all the way to the far horizon. It was, indeed, the perfect day.
The only thing spoiling it was the huge islander with the three-day stubble and the bitter coffee breath. The man was hauling him backward by his backpack, kicking, past the paying customers on the small, island-hopping boat, who leaned across each other to get out of his path.
“No ticket—no ride!” the big man bellowed.
“Get your goddamn hands off me!” Sam argued, his arms flapping like the wings of a captured bird. “I told you, I can pay you at the other end. I have a friend on San Sebastián. He’ll pay for my ticket!”
The burly man scowled. The kid was talking about the new owner of the little plantation island. “If he’s as mean as the last bastard who lived there, I’ll be lucky if he pays me with coconuts!”
With a forceful shove and a boot up the ass, Sam was jettisoned off the boat, landing flat on his face on the wooden plank wharf.
He didn’t take it personally. Since catching ride after ride down the East Coast to Florida, then stowing aboard a trawler and spending a night undetected in its oil-stinking hull till it arrived on Grand Cayman, he knew his luck was bound to run out sooner or later.
As he picked himself up off the wharf, he heard the motorboat drone away. Then he heard laughter coming from somewhere above him. It was a relaxed, amused laugh.
Sam rolled over and shielded his eyes from the sun to see a young Caribbean man standing over him, wearing nothing but a pair of crisp white shorts, a necklace of seashells, and a huge grin of white teeth. His body was black and toned, skin glistening in the bright sunlight. Sam could see every muscle in his taut stomach ripple as he laughed.
“You have a splinter in your chin,” the young man observed. With an easy air, he put down the rod and sack he was carrying, squatted beside Sam, and plucked a long sliver of wood from Sam’s chin.
“Thanks,” Sam muttered, not sure what to make of the stranger’s friendly nature.
“So you need a ride to San Sebastián? Come, I’ll take you.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
The young man shrugged indifferently. “Don’t matter to me. I’m going there anyway.” He reached into the sack on the ground and pulled out an envelope. “The new residents have their first letter.”
Sam saw the sender’s address printed at the top of the envelope:
From the office of Charles Hunter, U.S. Embassy, Cairo.
He smiled. “You’re the postman?”
The young islander grinned. “It’s the perfect job. The amberjacks near San Sebastián are much bigger than the ones in these waters. Come. I’ll teach you a thing or two about how to catch a fish.”
The young man gave him his hand and with a mighty yank snapped Sam to his feet and led him to a tiny wooden boat bobbing up and down in the water, its ancient outboard motor dipping in and out of the sea.
Two hours later, Sam was standing on a different wharf—leading toward Professor Fathom’s house on the island of San Sebastián—waving goodbye with one hand to his newfound friend the postman as he putted away in his tiny wooden boat. In his other hand Sam held three large, freshly caught amberjacks.
“Don’t forget the mail!” the young postman called across the aqua-blue waters before chugging out of earshot.
“I won’t!” Sam shouted back. The letter was in his pocket. He supposed it was a good enough excuse to show up unannounced on someone’s doorstep. That and the fact that he had caught enough dinner for everyone, including Jake, who was probably still pissed at him for running away.
Sam would bet his last dollar—if he had one—that Jake was already here, waiting for him, knowing that this was where the kid would end up, in the safe haven of Professor Fathom’s care. After all, Sam and the old man had bonded in France. There was a moment, after Sam’s tantrum-throwing and the Professor’s book-throwing, when the two of them actually understood each other, if only for a brief moment. Sam had decided he liked the Professor very much. Not to mention his housekeeper, Elsa, who was a damn good cook—and right now Sam was hungry!
Taking a deep breath for courage, dreading the thought of facing Jake—although he couldn’t deny he’d missed him—Sam began striding down the jetty toward the beach.
He only got as far as the white sand before two figures came rushing out of the two-story colonial house. Through the palms, Sam instantly recognized the stout, lovable shape of Elsa as she barreled across the bright-green lawn. Beside her was an even larger woman of island origin Sam did not recognize. At first, he thought the two women were rushing to meet him.
But then he noticed the suitcases, one in Elsa’s hand, one in the other woman’s hand.
Then he noticed the look on Elsa’s face. Distraught. Frantic. Full of fear.
Sam realized she hadn’t even seen him—until now.
“Sammy? Sammy, is that you?” she shouted in her thick German accent. She was breathless, her voice filled with panic, the suitcase banging against her leg as she lumbered desperately toward him. “
Mein Gott!
What are you doing here!” With a dramatic toss of her arm she dropped the suitcase and ran to embrace him.
Sam dropped his fish. “Elsa? What’s wrong?”
“Something terrible! Eden! The Professor! Something terrible has happened, I—” At that point she began mumbling and crying and Sam couldn’t make any sense out of her.
The second woman, having picked up the suitcase that Elsa discarded, joined them and tried to translate Elsa’s emotional ramblings. “There’s been an accident. In San Francisco.”
“Jake!” Sam said, the panic spreading quickly. “Is Jake okay?”
“I’m not sure. The phone call was brief. Elsa’s on her way to California now.”
“I’m going with her,” Sam said determinedly. He grabbed the two suitcases from the island woman, who seemed a little relieved by his decision to take control.
“There’s a boat already on its way,” the second woman said, pointing out to sea. Sam turned and saw a small charter craft speeding across the water toward the wharf. “It will take you to Grand Cayman. There’s a plane leaving in two hours for the mainland.”
The woman took Elsa’s shaking hand while Sam took the suitcases, and all three of them hurried along the wharf to meet the charter boat. “Take care of her,” the woman said, helping Elsa into the boat.
“I will,” Sam said, nodding.
“My name is Big Zettie, by the way.”
“I’m Sam.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances,” Zettie said, warmly embracing Sam as though she’d known him all her life. “Don’t worry, everything will be all right. One day soon all of you will be back here, sitting around the dinner table. I’ll cook you all the biggest fish coconut curry you’ve ever seen.”
“Blargenwurst,” Elsa muttered from the back of the boat, sniffling into a handkerchief. “My boys like sausage!”
“Blargenwurst it is, then,” Big Zettie said with a smile.
Sam turned to Zettie. “I’ll take care of her.” He jumped into the boat and the driver cast off the lines.
Zettie stood on the wharf and watched the charter all the way to the horizon. She crossed herself, then quickly made her way through the palms to the island’s tiny whitewashed chapel, dedicated to the island’s saint, Sebastián. There she knelt and prayed as hard as she could for the safe return of the Professor and his boys.
V
San Francisco General Hospital, California
WILL FLINCHED AS THE NURSE GRIPPED THE CHOPSTICK with a clamp and slowly eased it out of his right shoulder. It came free with a sickening squelch, followed by a small but steady stream of blood that poured down the young man’s bare chest and stomach.
The nurse was quick with gauze, then glanced over her shoulder at Bradley Zhang, who had accompanied the Professor’s men to the hospital and was now watching squeamishly. “Are you a friend?”
“Yes,” Bradley replied, not really thinking about the question at all. He was too transfixed by the wound to take in much else.
“Then grab yourself a pair of those latex gloves over there and press down here, nice and firm.”
Bradley did as he was ordered while the nurse dropped the chopstick and clamp into a metal tray.
“I’ll be back with some sutures. Till then, sit tight. Don’t go anywhere.”