On the Isle of Sound and Wonder by Alyson Grauer Page A

teeth seeming even whiter against her dark skin.
    “I wish for a father!” answered the child, whose fingers waggled in the air like so many worms peeping out of the soil after rain.
    His mother’s expression faded into one of hard apology. “You have none, child,” she told him, somberly. “And none you shall have.”
    “But why?” The child put his webby hands to his mouth.
    “For that you are a misshapen, ill-inclined, unlikely thing,” replied his mother, with great seriousness, “and that you were forced upon me as a curse, and now here we are upon this quiet and lonely isle with only the trees and the birds for company.”
    The child Karaburan did not know what to make of this, but his mother looked quite distraught, so he crawled across the moss toward her skirts, which were tattered and torn and faded from the sun.
    “You are a poorly formed thing, my son,” said the witch, with a sigh, crouching and setting her herbs and flowers aside to embrace him. “And yet, here we are, we two. The only two oysters in the bed.”
    “The only two birds in the sky?” asked the boy, putting his uneven, bubble-skinned face against her hair.
    “The only two crabs on the beach.”
    “The only two people in the whole wide world?” laughed the boy. His mother drew back from their lopsided embrace and looked her deformed son in the face squarely then.
    “Karaburan, we are not the only two people in the whole wide world,” she said firmly. “You know this. I have told you many times.”
    “I know, but it is much more fun this way, Mother.” He reached for a stick nearby that looked like a snake frozen in mid-slither, but could not quite reach it from where she held him still.
    “There are others out there, my boy,” fretted the witch. “And I do not know how long it will be before they find us. Or before we find them, as the case may be.” She looked worried and distant. “But someday, I feel they’ll come here, and stand on our shore, and know this isle as we do. I don’t know when . . . or who. But I have a feeling, Karaburan, and you’ll have to be ready.”
    “Ready for what?” asked her son, still reaching for the stick.
    “Listen, Karaburan!” she rebuked with a scowl. “Look at me, and listen carefully. Someday it will come to pass that a man may come to these shores, and he will be a very bad man. Do you understand? Many men are bad, but this man will be very bad indeed. You will have to be ready.”
    “But you’ll be there, won’t you?” Karaburan looked up at his mother’s scowling, worried face, his own uneven blue eyes blinking.
    “I may be, but I may not be. I cannot tell, my son.” She smoothed back his tuft of dark, unruly hair, which grew only on the right side of his head, thick and shiny. “But if I am not, you will have to be ready to protect yourself. This is your island, Karaburan. I will leave it to you, in your hands, and you will care for it and protect it, and it will keep you safe and alive. Do you understand? You are king over this island.”
    “A king, a king!” exclaimed the boy, slapping his webbed hands together excitedly.
    “Yes, and a king must have a queen,” Corvina went on, lifting her son’s chin proudly with one finger. “When you find a woman, Karaburan, you must make her your queen.”
    “What do you mean?” asked her son, his head lolling heavily to one side in curiosity. “What do you mean, a queen?”
    “The birds have their mates,” said Corvina, “and so do the fish, but you will not have one who is your true match. You must find the one who is, and you’ll know her when you do . . . Eyros’ arrow will pierce your heart, and all you must do is take her for your own. All of this shall be when you are older, of course,” she added.
    “A queen,” echoed Karaburan, pushing his hands into the dirt. “A queen for my island.”
    “Yes,” agreed his mother, turning back to her herbs. “A queen for Karaburan.”
    Then the dream