On the Isle of Sound and Wonder by Alyson Grauer

darkness.
    Karaburan breathed heavily and shivered, ashamed of how close he was to her and of how desperately he wanted to hold her, to crawl over her, to do something terrible that his brain could not quite understand. He wanted to press his skin against hers, but he did not know why.
    The girl stirred, making a faint sound in her sleep, and he moaned in reply, terrified of his impulses. He clapped his hands over his mouth in fear, all six fingers of each hand pressing together as if to take back the sound, but she had heard him. The girl woke as suddenly as an animal, her impossibly blue eyes flying wide open in the dark and a hoarse shout issuing from her throat.
    “No!” she cried out, scrambling back, but he reached his huge arms to her and yanked her close to him. “No,” she repeated, louder and louder. “No! No!”
    Karaburan squeezed her against himself, a strange mixture of sorrow and desire blossoming within him, as she struggled and screamed, beating at him, her eyes wider than a fish’s, her mouth flapping as she begged him to stop. Just a moment more, just a little longer . . .
    Then the girl’s eyes went white-hot, like sunlight refracted sharply on the sea. The brightness blinded him, and he felt his entire body pierced by lightning. He recoiled, howling and burning, and the girl was gone. He was blind once again, weeping and shuddering in the darkness.
    Thunder rolled loudly somewhere nearby, and Karaburan woke from his nightmare with a start, tears pouring down his uneven, bulging cheeks. He bolted upright, still shaking from his dream, and found himself in the small outcrop of rocks near Dante’s cave where he had lain down the night before. He was glad to find himself in the same place—it meant he hadn’t walked in his sleep. But the dream . . . The dream was one he’d had over and over for years, and every single time, it brought him to weeping shamefully in the darkness for what he’d done.
    A storm was raging off the coast of the island. Karaburan watched the lightning flash through his tears for a moment before curling up again on the rocks, barely sheltered from the light rain that fell outside his makeshift room.
    He cried until he fell asleep again, then dreamed another dream. This time, he was playing in the springy green moss of the forest at the heart of the island. His mother was there, picking herbs and singing quietly in the language of her people.
    As he drifted off into the gentle warmth of this new dream, a chill wind fluttered past Karaburan’s rocky shelter, whipping grains of sand into tiny maelstroms which died down again shortly after they began.
    Aurael paused at the entrance of the crude outcrop of rock that served as the monster’s shelter for the moment. It was not deep enough to be called a cave, but it was just enough to keep the deformed young man dry from the rain. Aurael wrinkled his upturned nose at the fishy smell of the monster’s closeness. Even after all this time, he was not used to Karaburan’s unique stench, and although there was no one to complain to about it, he still pulled faces to himself.
    He watched the blank sleeping face of the monster and pursed his lips in thought. It hadn’t been long ago that the monster first gasped for air, pulled from his mother’s womb by Aurael’s own hands. And it was the fault of this ungrateful, foul-smelling wretch that Aurael had been banished to this isle himself, trapped in that godsforsaken tree by Ouberan as punishment.
    Aurael’s face contorted with disgust, and he tiptoed toward the sleeping Karaburan, placing an invisible finger against the monster’s bulbous forehead. I’ll help you sleep , Aurael thought with a grimace, and slipped inside the monster’s mind.
    * * *
    “Karaburan,” mused his mother, walking barefoot on the damp moss. “What do you wish for?”
    “I wish for a playmate!” cried Karaburan, who in the dream was but a child.
    “And what else?” Corvina smiled, her white