Free Island of Icarus by Christine Danse

leaf bunches and tree limbs, scanning the coast for Marcus.
    I spied a large, dark shape heaving at the edge of the surf. As I approached, it resolved itself into a wooden board, apparently splintered from a ship. That was not all there was. I saw hand-sized chunks of wood, whole planks, and—farther down the shore—large, dark structures that may have been the remains of the ship itself.
    Fear clenched my belly, for certainly, Marcus was among these, searching for loot. My feet began to move quicker all on their own, leading me toward the broken shapes. I called Marcus’s name as I went.
    I came upon one of the ship’s masts, which leaned dangerously and was still attached to a broken piece of decking. A scattering of white barnacles freckled the base and the deck wood, which was dark—darker than it should have been, even under the dismal grey light of the morning. Distracted as I was with finding Marcus, I could not put my finger on why this struck me as odd.
    “Marcus!” I called, and barely had time to dance back as a breaker crashed against the shore, setting the mast to bobbing. I heard the crack of wet wood, and I knew the thing would not remain upright much longer. Suppose I walked up to it at the wrong moment, and a sudden wave swept it down over me? Or, more likely, what if it had happened to Marcus?
    I jogged along the shore, glancing through the wreckage, urgent now with worry. There, yards out from the surf, bobbed what seemed to be a section of the ship. Without a thought, I doffed my clothing and waded into dark water. The light rain fell upon my naked shoulders. Underneath my feet, the sandy bottom shifted with every swell of the ocean water.
    Perhaps I was just touched in the head, but I would like to think that it was some deep and urgent intuition that drove me to swim to that section of ship in the water, risking the violent waves and the immersion of my clockwork arm.
    “Marcus!” I cried as I reached the piece of wreckage, paddling to keep abreast of a wave. At first, I heard nothing save the sounds of the ocean, but then I heard what could have been a voice, muffled and strained.
    The next wave carried me right up to the floating wreck, and I clung to it. The cry of a human, though brief, was unmistakable now. I heaved upward at the edge of the structure with both arms—with no leverage save my treading legs—until it lifted from the surface.
    Through the grey and the shadows and the roil of moving water, I almost missed him at first: Marcus, trapped underneath a cage of rotting wood, coughing and sucking at the air. I called his name, in fear and in relief. Then, the next wave swept me sidewise, and the wreck came rolling down over him again. Ocean water swelled over me and filled my mouth and nostrils.
    I resurfaced with a gasp to find the wreck almost atop me. I caught its edge with my hands only a moment before it overwhelmed me, and was dragged along with it. I believe that only the mechanical strength of my prosthetic arm saved me from being sucked underneath as Marcus had. When the next wave pulled the wreck in the opposite direction, I kicked my legs and pushed at it with a surge of force. It toppled over, and then there was Marcus, thrashing in the water.
    I hooked my left arm around his and pulled him through the waves to the shore, then dragged him high onto the beach where the spreading water did not reach. We left a trail of blood behind us, a dark and snaking thing through the sand. I fell onto my knees beside him and held him up as he coughed spastically in my arms. There was so much blood pouring down his left side that I could not tell where it came from, his arm or his side. He choked, doubled over, and wretched into the sand. He cried out like a wounded thing and rocked back, clutching his bloodied arm.
    He looked down at his arm and held it out at an angle, clutching the fist. Rain dropped onto the blood, diluting it and also revealing the long gash on the forearm. He