Page 30 of A Girl, Unbroken
“Alvin and Owen?” I asked, not understanding.
“Alvin White, the good one, and Owen Williams, the sick one. Apollo and Mykonos,” Nathan explained, but he shook his head in displeasure. “It doesn’t matter. If the ointment is here in the swamp, either Stanton was the one who wanted to get rid of Willa or one of you.” He stood in front of me protectively as if one might suddenly pull a knife.
My gaze fell on the rasp on the floor right next to Icarus’ feet, next to which lay a saw, an axe, and many other tools they used for their carpentry work.
“The man was incredibly strong and he was tall,” I repeated for the umpteenth time as I stared at the file. I had to admit that it could only have been Pan. But that was exactly what I didn’t want to believe. Besides, I had wrongly suspected someone before.
“If Ian didn’t magically remove the ointment and didn’t do it himself, it must have been Kjertan,” Troy said now, sounding uncertain. Icarus protested, but Troy was already talking again. “But Kjertan likes Willa… Maybe we’re missing something. Maybe this isn’t even Kjertan, maybe it’s Rayk.”
Pan stared at him, aghast. “You talk nonsense like village idiot.” He said something else, but I didn’t hear it because my mind was trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Ilias despised me as much as Pan in the beginning, but I don’t know if he had ever gotten rid of that feeling even if it seemed that way after the drinking party. What if Troy was right and this was Rayk? What if he had only pretended to be in love with me to lull me andthe others into a false sense of security? What if he was simply thinking of a way to betray us to Isaac a second time? But then it would have been Ilias on the Agamemnon who had thrown me overboard, not Pan. And during the confusion on the ship after Isaac’s arrival, he must have jumped overboard as Pan. That sounded logical. Far too plausible since I already suspected Ilias, alias Rayk.
I swallowed and looked at the others. Nathan had bent down in a flash and grabbed a carpenter’s hammer, which he held in front of him like a sword. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know one thing for certain...” His voice sounded strained. “...you, whoever you are, leave this island immediately and never set foot on it again. If I run into you in the next few weeks, I swear, you better hope God has mercy on you.”
“Nathan,” Pan whispered, shock in every syllable. “I Kjertan, please. I never do Willa anything bad. I had opportunity, but never do nothing.”
“Get out of here!” Nathan’s voice filled the darkness.
“You ask me what only I know! You…”
“Go! I don’t care who you are. Leave! Now!”
As if he were breaking into a hundred pieces, Pan stood rooted in place. His eyes filled with tears and he held out his arms as if wanting to embrace me or Nathan like a rejected child. “I no harm Willa,” he said, choked up. “I love Willa. Traitor among you. I warn you, Nathan. Trust no one.”
Nathan gripped the hammer tightly as if he wanted to break the handle. “Go! Go before I do something I’ll regret!”
I held my breath. For a moment, I feared Nathan would rush Pan, but Pan turned and walked toward the dock with his head hanging.
“Take the boat,” Nathan shouted after him. “Use the compass and row north. And don’t come back! Never! Do you hear? Do you hear that, Johannsson?”
My stomach clenched in misery. Pan’s grief, or rather Ilias, seemed real, not feigned. But the ointment was here on the island, so someone had to have brought it here.
We watched Pan row away through the fog and darkness that quickly swallowed him up so that we could only hear the paddles plunging into the water. I had a bad feeling that kept buzzing in my veins. I carefully peeked at Nathan, who was still clutching the hammer as if he was about to fight.
“Good thing you sent him away!” Troy said at some point, ruffling his frayed hair, an expression of relief on his face.
“Too bad we only have one boat now,” Icarus remarked dryly.
Nathan stared into the wall of fog above the water with his lips pressed together. His emotions were as opaque as the swamp.
“Will Pan find his way back?” I asked, unable to stop thinking about his despondent expression.
Troy snorted. “First, it was probably Rayk, not Kjertan, second, he can use the old compass, the miserable ass, and third, you of all people shouldn’t care at all!”
For a while, we all stood there transfixed as if trapped in a bad dream. We seemed to be thinking the same thing. Pan, of all people—or his twin! Suddenly, I felt deeply unsettled. Six of us had set foot on this island weeks ago, now there were only four left. I was scared. Every time I felt safe, something happened that threw me back into a state of complete helplessness. “Could Pan lead Isaac here?” I asked Nathan because, at one point, I couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
Nathan took a deep breath. “He won’t. He’ll find his way back because he’ll head north and the mainland begins somewhere there, but he won’t find Lost Memories again. This is a labyrinth and he would need the exact coordinates for that.” Heenergetically shoved the hammer under his belt and pulled out his cell phone. He tapped the screen several times, then frowned and looked at me. “I need to talk to you! Alone.” He pointed to Troy and Icarus. “You two go back to the hut and keep an eye on the shore.” His gaze fell on the tools on the ground and he picked up the file. “Arm yourselves in case he does come back.”
Nathan placed the file next to the hammer, took my hand, and pulled me along the path. I knew what he wanted to talk to me about. If only I hadn’t found his cell phone, I would never have run back that way and bumped into Pan. Everything would be as it was before. It was strange how much you sometimes wish you could turn back time even though what you learned was necessary, even vital. The truth hurt. However, if Pan’s betrayal was painful for me, how was it for Nathan?
“I’m sorry,” I said after we had walked side by side in silence for a few minutes. The night was fresh, but not cold even though the fog made the air damp and my clothes sticky.
Nathan gave me a sideways glance. “What are you sorry about: that Kjertan is the traitor or that you are also a traitor?”
“Both,” I said quietly.
“It doesn’t feel good to be betrayed twice in one day, I can tell you that.” Nathan looked me over, but he didn’t seem nearly as angry as I expected. The Pan thing was obviously bothering him so much that everything else had become irrelevant.
“I didn’t mean to…” A branch cracked in the distance.
