Page 26 of For the Strange and Surprising

I point at a yellow and black centipede that has paused in front of us. “That one, but there are a few others too. They seem two-dimensional. This one looks flat, fake.”

“That’s the island speaking to you.” Isolde glances at me from the corner of her eye, a sly smile lifting her lips. “She usually doesn’t make her presence known, so she must be interested in your arrival.”

What the fuck does that even mean?

“The island?” I ask incredulously. “How can it speak to me? And why? Can you hear it? What the hell kind of place have I washed up on?”

My anxiety rises with each question that falls from my mouth. My chest tightens as my breathing slows. If she didn’t have a firm grip on my arm, I’d either run screaming or pass out.

“Settle down, Ada, and take one step at a time.”

Isolde turns to face me, leaning her head down, so I have to acknowledge the motherly worry in her amber gaze. She holds my hands between hers as she waits for me to collect myself.

“This isn’t a stream we’re ready to cross just yet, Ada. Let’s start somewhere else,” she suggests. “I know you must have other questions for me.”

Actually… I do. Every time she says my name, I try to recall the exact moment I told her. But I can only remember correcting her when she called me Adelaide.

“I didn’t tell you my name yesterday,” I quietly profess.

She nods as she waits for me to finish.

“How do you know it?”

“Jade told me.”

I feel my entire face scrunch up at her admittance. I don’t know a single person named Jade.

“Who is that?”

Isolde smiles excitedly as she whispers, “My kraken.”

All I can do is blink and shake my head until the realization slaps me… Much like the tentacle slapping the water yesterday.

“The gigantic octopus that attacked me is Jade?”

“She didn’t attack you. She was trying to protect you,” the queen explains.

I snort before I can stop myself. “She dragged me under the water.”

“She thought the boat was chasing you. She didn’t know it was attached to your leg,” Isolde defends as she glances around for… I don’t know what she’s looking for.

“Jade is a misunderstood creature due to her size. She’s quite the gentle giant, though,” the queen divulges. “There’s a miniature version of her running around the garden somewhere. That’s how we’ve been communicating recently.”

My eyes must be comically wide right now. I can’t even digest the absurdity of any of this. Mongrels and krakens and talking islands and—oh my god. Maybe I was the drug addict, not my sister. Perhaps all of this has been conjured up by a bad trip on psychedelics.

But drugs were never something I could get into. Penelope did enough of them for both of us.

I start to call out the bullshit around me, though one look at the massive bugs makes me stop. Everything is a contradiction. I can’t tell up from down anymore. I bite my cheek until I taste blood, and I know the pain is real. It’s the only thing I’m sure of at this moment.

Is it crazy to still think that this is all an elaborate prank that producers behind a curtain pulled? Or does it make me insane to believe that a waterspout spit me onto the coast of a new world, and I’m now walking with a queen while I have some super-healing leaf strapped to my arm?

I watch Isolde as she searches for her pint-size kraken and decide that I want to know what she knows about me. I haven’t found a single camera or cord since I got here. And I don’t care what the drugs are called; there is no way even my imagination could be this vivid and thorough.

“What do you—”

“Oh!” Isolde suddenly exclaims, as if she’s remembered something important. Then she grows serious as she turns to me.

“While you’re here, I’d like to know that you’re safe, so I’ve asked Talodus to show you self-defense.”