Five's Legacy

CHAPTER TWO

THE SUN RISES AS I WASH OFF IN THE OCEAN and think of Canada, the first place I remember living here on Earth.

I really liked Canada.

In Canada we ate butter tarts and French fries covered in gravy and rubbery globs of cheese, all served out of carts on the sides of the roads. Even when it was summer there it wasn’t all that hot. I learned a little bit of French. Rey didn’t like the cold, but I did. He was Albert in Canada, a name he’d picked after seeing Alberta on a map, thinking it would make him sound like more of a local. “Old Al” he called himself sometimes when talking to servers or cashiers. I always thought it was funny when he dumbed his personality down and pretended to be my grandfather at times like that, using words like “whippersnapper” that he’d picked up from the TV. No one questioned the kindly old man and his grandson.

I was Cody then. I liked being Cody. I was a person, not just Five. At night, Rey would tell me about Lorien and the Mogadorians and the other Garde—my kindred spirits scattered across the world—and how one day we’d bring about the glorious return of our home planet. Back then, everything seemed like a fairy tale. All the aliens and powers and other worlds were nothing but stories to get me to do my chores. Didn’t clean up after yourself? Lorien didn’t stand a chance. Forget to brush your teeth? The Mogs would get you for sure.

Then they actually came.

We’d been living up near Montreal for six months—maybe a whole year—when Rey found out they were coming for us. I’m still not sure how. All I know is that suddenly I was running through the woods behind our little cottage while a few Mogadorians tracked me. I was six years old, scared out of my mind. Eventually I’d hidden in a tree. I thought I was a goner until Rey appeared, taking out the Mogs with a broken-off shovel and a shotgun he’d bought on the black market. He’s always been good with tools.

“Albert . . .” I’d said from the tree. We always called each other by our false names, never knowing who was listening. “Are they gone?”

“Albert’s dead,” Rey had said. I knew what he meant, even though I was so young. I’d felt it in my gut. It meant we weren’t safe. It meant we couldn’t stay there, in that place I liked so much.

So we went on the move, and we didn’t stop for a long time.

Rey was Aaron after that, followed by Andy, Jeffrey, and then James. I was Zach, Carson, and then Bolt, which was the last name I got to pick before Rey started choosing them. Maybe I’m forgetting a few in there—it all seems so long ago. I know that I was Carson when Rey’s cough first appeared, along with the dark hollows under his eyes. We were camping in the Appalachians. He thought it was the cold that was making him sick, so we started moving south, making our way through the United States and towards a warmer climate. Eventually—after a few sketchy boat rides Rey arranged for us—we set up camp in Martinique, where we stayed for a while. But Rey’s cough just got worse. He kept telling me he was feeling better, but at some point I stopped believing him.

I was always the better liar.

As a kid, I thought of lies as little stories or games. Sometimes people we came across would ask questions—Where were my parents? Where was I born?—and I’d just start talking, making up these elaborate histories for Rey and me. Having secrets means you do a lot of lying. Not because you’re evil or a bad person or anything like that, but out of necessity.

Really, Rey trained me to lie about all those morning runs and hikes. I make a mental note to tell him this later.

Sometimes I wonder if Rey is crazy. Like, what if he’s just a really messed-up old guy who stole me from a loving, normal home and all of this alien stuff is simply made up? Maybe he gave me drugs or brainwashed me into having fake memories of some place that couldn’t possibly exist. All my life I’ve heard about Lorien, but the only proof I have that any of it is true is a few weird-looking guys who came after me in Canada.

Well, that plus two scars that appeared like magic on my ankle and a Chest that’s supposed to house all kinds of treasures. A Chest that doesn’t open no matter how much you prod at it—I know, because I’ve tried about a million times to find out what’s inside over the years.

The treasure of Lorien. Sure. A lot of good it’s doing out here in the middle of nowhere.

I don’t mind the beach, really. I mean, I get why people go there on vacation. When we first got to the Caribbean, we stuck to the bigger, more populated resorts, just living on the fringes. We’d watch the tourists roll in every year, their brand-new beach clothes a parade of bright colors as they sipped drinks out of giant coconuts and pineapples that weren’t even native to the islands (not that they’d have known). But when One died—when that first scar formed on my ankle—Rey flipped out. I was nine years old and it was like the final string keeping him in check snapped, and he went into full-on survival mode. No more people. We’d have to live life completely off the grid. And so he’d cashed in whatever possessions we had, bought a few supplies and a small sailboat, and headed out to find the most deserted, godforsaken place he could. Gone were the restaurants and air-conditioning. No more TV, video games, or hot showers. Just a beach and a shack. I don’t know what kind of deal Rey must have struck to find this island, but I’ll give him one thing—it must be hidden away pretty well. A few times a year people mistakenly wash ashore here, but Rey always gets rid of them fast.

And that’s where I am now. Washing up in the ocean. A dark cloud forms around my body as I scrub the pig shit off in the clear water at the shoreline. That’s what the future holds for the great Number Five, one of the seven most important people left on the planet.

It’s not fair.

I remember watching old kung fu movies on cable right before we came out here. The main characters were always going to the tops of mountains to train with ancient masters who taught them to throw ninja stars and kill people with chopsticks and stuff. When One died and Rey moved us to the island, he told me he was no longer the grandfather he’d pretended to be, but my teacher. I’d be his disciple. And I was excited about this at the time. I thought I was going to live out one of those old movies or something. And at first, I did do the training—Rey could still walk and move well, then, so we practiced rudimentary martial arts moves. But soon he was sleeping most of the day and trusting that I was doing everything he told me to do. Life on the island turned out to be nothing like those old movies. In those, it’d only take a five-minute montage for the student to become the master. On the island, the training was brutal, unending, and above all, monotonous.

I used to dream of being taken away. That the Garde would all show up one day and tell me they’d been looking for me, and that they were going to take me to their space clubhouse or something. But for all I know, the other Garde don’t care about me at all.

“Five!” Rey calls from the shore. Here, where there’s no one, there’s no point in pretending to be who we’re not.

“What?” I yell back, still mad about this morning.

“Come here,” he says.

I glance up to see him waving me toward the shack. Instead of listening to him, I fall backwards, letting myself float in the warm water as the sun creeps higher over the horizon.

“Five, get—” but his shout is interrupted by a fit of coughing.

For some reason, this just adds to my annoyance. I’m one of the nine Garde—Lorien’s last hope—and this is who they sent to protect me? Out of all their magic and powers, he was the best they could do to keep me safe? A magic numbering system and a sick Cêpan to look after me. Thanks a lot.

A terrible thought rises in my mind, and even though I try to ignore it, it’s there, taunting me, making me hate myself not only for having it, but for thinking that it might be true: The Rey that was supposed to protect me died a long time ago. Before he got sick. When we were still in Canada, with the cold air and hot food. When I was just a little kid.

I hate this feeling—the bitterness that sometimes bubbles up to the surface when I’m upset with Rey. It’s not his fault he’s sick. I know that. But he’s the only person I have to be mad at.

The coughing continues. I crack, and I’m headed up the shore, toes digging into the sand. I shake my brown hair to try and dry it. It’s been a long time since I had a proper haircut, and my hair is long and matted against my neck. I pick up a coconut that’s fallen from a palm tree as I pass by it. We can break it open and have the sweet meat with breakfast. If I’m even getting breakfast. Rey’s no doubt about to chew my ass out and probably send me into the forest to live on my own for a few days to teach me a lesson about lying.

He’s breathing normally again by the time I reach him.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” I say. “You should be resting.”

He ignores me and holds a hatchet out. Behind him, I can hear the hogs freaking out about something. They sound spooked.

This is the give-and-take of our relationship: neither of us doing the things the other one says we should be.

“What’s this for?” I ask, hesitating to take it. He’s probably going to force me to chop wood or something to start making up for this morning. I’m sure he also would like an apology, but I’ll wait until I’m not mad about the whole “tell Five that aliens are here to murder him” thing.

“To protect us,” Rey says, pushing the hatchet closer towards me. “I’ve coddled you for too long, and now I’m afraid it’s too late.”

My face scrunches as I shove the coconut under my arm and take the tool. The hogs are still going crazy in their pen.

“What’s going on?” I ask slowly. I’m suddenly afraid he’s going to have me butcher one of the pigs. I mean, I’m totally on board with eating them; I just don’t want to have to kill them myself.

Rey nods towards the pen. The pigs are running around, snorting like mad. If they could scream, I’m guessing that’s what they’d be doing.

And then I see why. They’re telling us that something has infiltrated their home. That danger has come for them. On the other side of the pen is a coiled-up length of scales and muscles. A viper. A lance head. Nasty little bastards with a habit of making their homes a little too close to humans. Once, in Martinique, I saw a boy who was thirteen or so—about my age, now—who was being carried on a backboard to the hospital. He was suffering from a lance-head bite. Well, suffering might not actually be the right word. He was unconscious, and the bottom half of his left leg from the knee to the foot was a mess of black and green, like he’d been bitten by a zombie or something. It was the only lesson I ever needed in keeping an eye out for slithering when walking through the forest.

It’s not the first one I’ve seen on the island. Usually Rey takes care of any that wander too close to us.

“Kill it,” Rey says.

I stare at the coiled snake. The last thing I want to do is get close to it. It’s not that I’m a coward. I just don’t want to end up losing a limb. And there’s something else: I’ve never killed anything before. Nothing bigger than a spider or one of the giant mosquitoes that plague us here.

“Why?”

“You have to,” Rey says. “If you don’t, it’ll kill one of the hogs. Or us. Either way, we’ll be in for more trouble than is necessary.”

“I . . . I can’t. I mean . . .” But I don’t have any real argument to make. My fingers uncurl from around the hatchet I’m holding and it falls to the sandy beach. The coconut falls beside it, and I realize I’m shaking. “You do it.”

Rey mutters something under his breath.

“You’re supposed to keep me out of danger,” I argue, trying to save some face. “I mean, that’s what your job is, right?”

“My job is to help you get prepared for what’s to come,” Rey says, snatching the tool from the ground with a chastising quickness. “If you can’t kill a simple snake, what are you going to do if the Mogs discover you and you find yourself up against an actual enemy, huh? One that can think and understand you. One that’s been trained to take you out? What are you going to do when it’s just you and no one—” His rant is interrupted by another fit of coughing, and Rey buries his face in the tattered sleeve of his blue linen shirt. When he finally stops, he spits blood on the ground.

Blood.

He talks softly, more to himself than to me. “Maybe I should’ve spent more time teaching you to fight instead of hiding. I thought I could hide you away until you were stronger. But I failed to make sure you developed like I should have. I was too weak. The other Garde . . . they’ll probably have already gotten their first Legacies by now. Probably masters of all kinds of weapons and combat.”

“Hide well enough, and you’ll never have to fight,” I say, parroting one of his favorite lessons. I’m trying to make him happy now, but I just keep thinking about the fact that he’s coughing up blood. That’s bad. That’s what always happens in the movies a few scenes before a character dies.

I ignore it and keep talking.

“We can start doing more fight training again. I’ll do it, I promise. I’ll get good at it.”

Rey doesn’t respond, just nods a little bit and turns away. The hogs squeal louder. The viper’s up and ready to strike now, warning off the animals and humans around it, its body swaying slightly in the air like a constricted S.

“I’m afraid I’ve failed you as a Cêpan,” Rey says. He holds a hand out and grips my shoulder, squeezing it once. He smiles, but it’s a sad, far-off sort of expression. When did he start looking so old?

Rey turns and throws the hatchet with a flick of his arm. It sails through the air, spinning horizontally. The blade hits the snake a few inches below its head, and then embeds itself into the side of our little shack. The pigs scramble to the far side of the pen as the serpent’s body wriggles frantically on the ground, its nerves working out the last of their power.

Rey just keeps walking, hunched over, with a shuffle in his steps.

I don’t respond to Rey’s comment. I don’t think he expected me to. Instead, I replay what he said earlier about how the other Garde would probably be so much more advanced than me. So much more prepared for the future.

I feel like a disappointment.

But then, part of that is his fault, too, right? It’s not just me. It’s not my fault.

The last place I want to be is inside the hut with him now—or anywhere near the dead viper in our backyard—so I grab the coconut and get an old parasol that’s leaning against the shack and head farther down the beach, to where the trees give way to nothing but sand and crystal-blue water. I sit near the tide’s edge and plant the giant umbrella in the sand beside me, unfurling it. I burn easily, even after a few years of living in the tropics. I’m not meant for this sort of environment. I should be somewhere else.

Rey seems to have decided that if we’re out of sight and hidden, we’ll never have to fight. Which is a good thing, since I don’t think either of us could stand a chance against the Mogs.

Which also means we can’t leave. I’m stuck here, with Rey. And the hogs. And a forest full of deadly snakes and spiders and God knows what else.

I dig little ditches in the beach with my heels and sink my toes into the soft earth, cooling them down, and stare at the two scars on my ankle. I know Rey’s right. If the Mogs showed up I’d be defenseless. I’d have to rely on him to fight for me. I’m a failed Garde with a frail Cêpan. Again, I can’t help but think that Lorien has cheated me in all this. Surely this wasn’t how the Elders had meant everything to be.

In the pocket of my shorts, I find a little red rubber ball I’ve had for ages—the kind you get for a quarter in convenience store toy machines. I let it roll over the back of my hand, across my knuckles, then between my fingers, over and over again. A little sleight-of-hand craftiness.

I shouldn’t be here. The thought floats through my head again. I glance over at the little sailboat that’s tied to a post up the beach. It would be so easy to just get in, cast off, and float to the nearest civilization. Martinique isn’t far away, if I remember correctly. They have restaurants and hot showers and carnivals there. Street fairs packed with games and every type of food you could ever want. Not that far away.

It would be so easy.

I stare at the coconut as I grow more and more frustrated with the state of my life. My right hand curls into a fist at my side, shaking.

A jolt of energy rushes through me—something I’ve never felt before. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

The coconut explodes.

For a second I’m stunned, then I just stare at my hands.

Did I just do that?