THE HEART IS STRONG,
AS IF NEVER SORROWED;
The island is utterly unconcerned with the traditions of weather, season, or reality.
Though across the cracking bridge it is spring, warm and bright, here in the jungle even the thick, glossy canopy of trees cannot totally block out the grayness of the sky and the way rain comes hurtling down. The ground is fearfully loose; leaves and roots and hooves slides in the mud. The birds with their strange metal eyes go hurtling through the wet air, and O — small thing that she is, drenched to the bone — stands stubbornly against the gnarled body of a jelutong and tries not to shudder as the water seeps into her skin. It is not fear that twinges in her chest, but it is something like that. Who could blame her?
She has never been a quitter. The antidote to that kind of laziness runs in her blood as thick as anything else. No, even as the little forest animals go scurrying underground, as strangers flee the island for the ocean and as thunder cracks and splits overhead, O holds her ground. She is spattered with mud and scruffy from what must already be days away from home. Bexley is here, somewhere — they’d caught sight of each other near the leather-black unicorn statue — but has disappeared somewhere O is not willing to find her. No matter. She can take care of herself.
The little girl narrows her eyes, and rain goes flooding from her eyelashes down her cheeks. The jungle is empty, but it is flooded with sound. High-pitched caterwauling, hollow birdsong, the drumbeat of paws pounding over the dirt. She tosses her hurlbat in perfect circles in the humid air by her head. The sound of its sharp edge slicing through the wind is somewhat of a comfort. No matter what, she thinks, this belongs to me.
The crack of a tree bough sounds, too loud to be any more then ten yards away, and O slashes the axe out in front of her defensively, where it bobs like a ghost. She squares her shoulders. Overhead, a bird with fool’s gold for eyes watches and twitters in disappointment.
