Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 907 - 909

Chapter 907: Chapter 909

Lucy touched her arm. "We all did."

Emma exhaled. "It tried to enter with the dawn steam, only we named it."

Jude put a hand on Grace’s shoulder. "Stay with me. Speak your memory: what did you see?"

Grace exhaled again and spoke softly: "It looked like my reflection in water, but as I spoke my name, its face changed. The edges blurred. It stepped away."

"When I spoke your name, it lost shape," Lucy said. "That’s our strength."

Jude looked at them. "We have three more nodes to mark. Let’s go. Climb together."

They resumed, stepping close, no one more than arms’ length apart. The trail grew steeper. Occasionally they found fungus rings, carvings in bark, spiral fractures in stone. At each, they paused to reapply offerings and pledge again.

They reached the ridge as the sun leaned toward midday. Beneath them lay the volcanic crater, rim blazing hot above living magma. A deep humming echoed beneath their feet. The island’s heart.

They allowed themselves a moment’s awe. Even now, this world felt alive, not as a dream, but as something much older, something with bones unbroken by faith. The crater’s bell rang inside their chests.

Jude gestured to the ridge’s edge. "We name ourselves here. Since first we entered this place we’ve claimed individual dreads, personal memories. Here we commit to one another. One sentence, one name to hold each other together."

They formed a circle, backs to the crater’s edge, facing each other. The heat radiated from the slope, but they stood firm. Jude looked first at Grace, then Lucy, then Emma... around to Helena that kept their line alive. Eleven voices, one at a time:

Grace: "I am Grace Matheson, wife to my love Jude, and I stand no longer lost in smoke."

Lucy: "I am Lucy Romero, guardian of the first flame, and I hold my name in memory’s light."

Emma: "I am Emma Caldwell, healer of wounds both seen and unseen, and I return to myself through give and love."

The pledges continued: Sophie, Zoey, Serena, Nefertari, Stella, Scarlett, Susan, Amelia, Natalie, each spoke. Each gave name and vow.

Then Jude, last: "I am Jude Ashmore, husband, guardian, witch once, but reborn by my wives, remembered by us all, and I bind my soul to each name, each memory, each promise. We stand together."

They linked hands at last, raising arms as a single living circle. The earth tremored, quiet, strong. Steam rose; light danced across magma edges.

A hush. Then the ridge wind moaned softly. The island exhaled. They felt it as warmth, threat, welcome. All at once.

Jude pressed his head into Grace’s shoulder. "We have named ourselves more than once," he breathed.

They held each other tight. Then stepped away slowly, moving in pairs down the slope to return.

Mid-afternoon they reached a copse of young palms and found a hidden pool, clear and still. It had been dry before, but today it brimmed, reflecting the sky. Around the rim were carvings: small human shapes dancing around circles. Spiders. Spiral carvings echoing the ones they’d made. The watchers.

Jude paused. "They left a message."

Lucy traced a spiral on the mud rim. "This is welcome."

They knelt and wrote new symbols in the clay. Grace dribbled small flowers, they carried memory, scent, colors. Natalie pressed seeds. Emma placed water from the spring. Together they wrote in the mud: All names present. Together. Remembered.

They watched the carvings. Water rippled as though stirred by unseen hands but remained otherwise undisturbed. Birds called from above.

Sophie whispered, "This place listens."

Jude nodded. "Yes, but now it hears us."

They dipped cloths in water and rose to carry back water across nodes, sprinkling at each site for each name spoken. They marked each.

By that evening, their steps led them home under a golden sky stained with echoes of pink. The forest glimmered in dying light. Paths they’d never walked before opened to them, less menacing, more welcoming. The watchers stayed silent, forms distant and respectful.

Dinner was quiet but calm. Smoke drifted lazily from the firepit. Each sister-wife shared humbly: Emma’s hands still trembled, but resolute; Grace’s eyes were bright, but soft; Lucy hummed as she poured water. Natalie tied another ribbon to the treehouse post. The wooden record box lay at the center, filled again by morning’s mapping. They circled it with small candles, still lit.

Jude stood. "Tonight, we share details: what we saw, felt, feared. We speak them aloud in trust. One at a time, no judgment, no feelings held back. We keep awake together. Then tomorrow, we make a map. A real map."

They nodded. One by one, they recounted what they’d noticed, glimpses, thoughts, emotions, hand tremors, stray shapes, dream echoes, names they couldn’t place, faces they did. Each confession drew them tighter.

Then Jude chimed in: "We have three maps now: mental vows, physical nodes, shared memory. Tomorrow we build the actual map, on bark. Then maybe, just maybe, this island can no longer hide its shapes."

They sat silent then, firelight dancing across resolve and exhaustion. The island sighed once more; breeze carried the taste of rain.

They slept little that night; the watchers came but remained outside the floodlight’s edge. Occasionally an ember drifted; sometimes every wife shifted uneasily. But they held vigil, body to body.

By dawn, the air was thick with steam and something like hope.

Jude woke Lucy with a gentle shake. "It’s time."

She nodded, sleep in her eyes, but clarity beneath. Today they made the map.

They gathered bark and charcoal, water-based pigments from crushed plants. Sophie laid out a wide sheet of bark on the wooden floor. Everyone sat around and, under Jude’s guidance, began drawing: the path they’d walked, nodes they’d named, offerings placed, carvings traced. Each wife added her symbol at each node. Each memory was inscribed: iron stake, fungi clearing, fish trap, dried circle, ridge vow, palm pool.

When a wife couldn’t remember exact position, another stepped forward. No judgment. No condescension. Only soft guidance.