The Deep (6 page)

My heart skips a beat when
I suddenly hear a voice, ringing out clear above the din of the
crowd.

“Annabelle,” the voice
cries out.

I turn around, but it’s too
late to determine whoever had the audacity to claim our Goddess is
the arsonist guilty of starting the fire. The cry is adopted by
scores of others, resounding down the ranks of Phileans gathered on
the docks. “An-na-belle! An-na-belle!” they chant.

“You miserable crooks!” one
of the younger shipbuilders shouts. “Why don’t you mind your own
business?”

It only takes a few seconds
for a full-fledged fight to erupt between the progressives and the
Phileans. I hear people scream and yell. Beside me, a man stumbles
to the ground clutching a bloody nose, and panic seizes me. I’m not
ready for this, even though I am a trainee Peacekeeper. I don’t
know how to call for back-up and I didn’t even bring a club or
other weapon.

“Alisa!” A strong hand
grabs my arm and pulls me back. Just in time, it turns out, because
a flying fist narrowly misses my head.

Dazed, I turn around and
stare into Ben’s brown irises. Tears are running down his face.
“Come on,” I say in a shaky voice. “We have to find
Daryl.”

“No, we don’t. We’re going
to my place,” he says decisively. “Or you’ll be caught in an ugly
brawl. This is no place for a girl.”

I clench my fists and blink
my tears away. Ben can’t take me away, even though I’m scared. “I
don’t know what to do,” I blurt out, to my own surprise.

He says nothing. Instead,
he just drags me along toward the narrow street where his cottage
is. I don’t object, because I feel completely drained. Suddenly,
it’s all too much – the ugly, constant tension between people in
town, the naked truth we have to cope with, the destruction of the
first ship in our new fleet.

“Don’t you want to help
your colleagues?” I finally splutter when we stop in front of his
door. The flickering light of the fire in the distance illuminates
the angular planes of Ben’s face.

“We can’t save that ship
anyway,” he mumbles quietly. “No amount of fighting will bring it
back. And I’ve seen too many fights in my life as it is. I’m done
with them. I just want to find a place where I can find peace.”
Fresh tears well up in his eyes. “I thought I could find it
here.”

His words stir a dull pain
inside of me. No, we won’t find peace here yet. Our wounds are
still too fresh. People are afraid of letting go of old, familiar
lies in order to embrace new insecurities.

“We’ll get there,” I
falter. “You’ll see.”

Together, we sit down on
the quay in front of his cottage, where a few small fishing boats
are bobbing on the waves. Gradually, the sea of flames in the main
harbor simmers out. Perhaps bystanders have helped to extinguish
the fire, or maybe the ship ran a leak due to the damage and
drowned the fury of the blaze itself by sinking down into the
deep.

“We can’t keep working
here,” Ben breaks the silence. “If we do, they’ll just botch our
efforts again.”

“Well, where do you suggest
we build ships, then?”

Ben glances aside. “We have
a small harbor as well, on the east side of the island. It isn’t
used much, just to moor a few fishing boats, but the spot could
accommodate a working crew and bigger ships. And they wouldn’t draw
attention from the Phileans like that.”

I slowly nod. Ben’s idea
makes a lot of sense. But wouldn’t the easterners mind if we used
their harbor? “Let’s ask the Bookkeeper what he thinks,” I
propose.

“What, right
now?”

“No, tomorrow morning. I’m
guessing he’s rather busy right now.”

“Shall I come to your
house?” Ben asks.

“Yeah, that’s okay. Why
don’t you meet me at ten? I’m not working tomorrow.”

“Well. I think I can take
the morning off, too,” he mutters a bit sourly.

I smile, despite the dire
situation. “Good. I’ll make us breakfast. My mom baked some
delicious raisin bread yesterday. You have to try that.”

After Ben has gone inside,
I slowly make my way back to the harbor. Daryl will probably be
upset with me for not helping him, but I just couldn’t take it
anymore. The least I can do now is apologize to him.

The quay close to the left
watchtower is a mess. All the gawkers are gone, but people from the
hospital are still busy taking care of the people injured in the
fight that erupted. I see Peacekeepers watching the main street,
their faces grim, while others clear away torn clothes and
smashed-up wooden crates from the pavement. The long jetty is
covered in ashes that were blown in from the sea.

“Hey, Daryl,” I mumble
softly, approaching my boss. He’s talking to the Bookkeeper and
looks crestfallen. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

Daryl turns around. “Don’t
worry about it,” he replies with a weak smile. “You’ve done more in
the past few days than interns usually get to do in an entire year.
If you want to make yourself useful, go help Carl and the others to
clean up the mess.”

I nod, but I don’t leave
just yet. “Nathan,” I quietly address our leader. I used to call
him father-in-law. I think he’s the only one who knows that Yorrick
asked me to marry him a few days before he was killed.

“Yes, Alisa?” He gives me
his best attempt at a smile.

“Ben came up with an idea.
He says the people in the east also have a harbor, so maybe our
shipbuilders should move their business there. So they can work on
our fleet far away from prying eyes.”

He frowns.
“Ben?”

“Yes. That refugee from
Newexter who works at the harbor.”

“Ah, yes.” He nods. “Well,
if that’s really an option…”

“We’ll drop by tomorrow
morning to discuss his plan,” I say. “Is half past ten
okay?”

The Bookkeeper can’t help
but chuckle now. “Well, well. I see you’ve already planned the
whole thing. Thanks for your input.” He rubs his face in a tired
gesture. Nathan must miss Walt terribly. He’s never been more in
need of an assistant, and yet Walt has picked these trying times to
be conspicuous by his absence.

“You’re welcome.” I smile.
“See you tomorrow, then.”

After our little talk, I
stay and help my colleagues by cleaning up the mess our pious Hope
Harborers have caused.

The next morning, Ben
knocks on my door just before ten. I usher him in to introduce him
to my mother. She cuts off a gigantic piece of raisin bread for our
guest. “Would you like some peppermint tea?” she inquires, shooting
a worried look at Ben’s pale, drawn face. He looks about as lively
as I feel. “It’ll wake you right up.”

Ben smiles awkwardly.
“Thank you, Miss,” he mumbles. I wonder why he sounds so
uncomfortable.

We take our breakfast into
the garden and sit silently in the morning sun. “It’s so strange to
see your mother still taking care of you,” he finally
says.

“I get that,” I nod. “Your
mom stopped doing that when you turned ten, right?”

“I didn’t have a mother.”
His words sound flat, like he doesn’t much care, but he’s not
entirely able to keep a quiet sadness out of his voice.

“At all?” I raise an
eyebrow.

Ben shrugs. “Well, once
upon a time I did, obviously. My parents worked on a fishing boat
and were both killed in a storm at sea. Saul was five years old,
and I was only one. He’s been taking care of me ever
since.”

“From the time he was
five?” I gaze at him disbelievingly.

“No. We had to live in an
orphanage. But when Saul turned ten, he took me with him to the
manor house. He didn’t feel like leaving me behind in Newexter, and
I wanted to leave. The caretakers at the orphanage didn’t like me
much. I was too short-tempered for their taste.”

And that ten-year-old boy
who had to take care of his younger brother from a very early age
made himself leader of the manor house. No wonder Saul turned into
a power-hungry dictator. He’d always been powerless against the
difficult things life had flung his way.

“So I’m having a hard time
looking at your mother being all sweet to you,” he adds softly. “I
know I can’t really miss something I never had in the first place.
But still.”

I suddenly feel the urge to
hug Ben, so I fling my arm around his shoulder. “I think your
brother loves you very much.”

“My brother is a
criminal.”

I fall silent. “Are you
afraid of him?” I ask.

Ben slowly nods. “I
think
he’s
afraid of him, too.”

We eat the rest of our food
quietly after that.

After breakfast, we walk to
the Bookkeeper’s residence. I don’t have to ring the doorbell,
because he’s already waiting for us outside. Daryl is there too, as
well as Carl, head of the shipyard in Walt’s father’s absence.
Nathan has clearly taken my suggestion seriously if he asked those
two to attend our meeting.

“Let’s cut to the chase,”
the Bookkeeper opens the meeting, once we’re all seated at his
round meeting table. “Ben, you said the easterners have a harbor
too, which we can use as a second shipyard. Will there be enough
material to work with? Is the place near a forest?”

Ben nods. “Trees galore.
You can cut down whatever you need.”

“Why do we need to go all
the way east to continue our work?” Carl wants to know. “We built
the
Explorer
in secret too, and we did that near St Martin.”

“Yeah, but everybody knows
about that now,” Daryl comments. “So that’s the first place Phileas
is going to look once he notices we’re no longer building ships in
Hope Harbor.”

“Why don’t we do both?” I
blurt out.

All heads turns my way.
“What do you mean?” Nathan asks.

I bite my lip. “Well, if we
really want to use the eastern part of the island to build our
ships, we need to give Phileas a bone to chew on. He won’t look
further if he thinks he’s discovered our secret, so let’s give him
one to distract him. Carl, you need to assemble a team to start
building a second ship at St Martin. They don’t have to actually do
a lot, just pretend they’re working on something. It needs to look
convincing so Phileas will take the bait. You can keep him busy
sabotaging our ‘secret’ project, while another team works on the
actual fleet on the other side of the island.”

Daryl starts to laugh. “You
devious, brilliant girl,” he grins.

“It’s a solid idea, but I
do need to consider carefully who to ask on the Newexter team,”
Carl adds, a frown on his deeply tanned face. “We only need one
Philean rat to blab to his leader and the whole plan goes
bust.”

“In that case, I’d take my
sweet time thinking about who you trust the most,” Nathan says.
“And the people who give you a bad vibe can be a part of the St
Martin work team. That way we’ll know for sure Phileas will find
out about that secret location.”

“Why don’t you install
border patrol?” Ben suggests. “So you’ll know exactly who travels
from west to east? Phileas can’t find out what we’re up to if he
can’t cross the Wall.”

“There’s a few guards
keeping an eye on the gate as we speak,” I say.

“But you need patrols
guarding the entire length of the Wall. So no one can hop over on
the sly.”

The Bookkeeper’s face
clouds over. “Just when we were so happy about the reunion of East
and West.”

“We don’t have to close off
the Scilly Way entirely,” Daryl says. “We’ve carried out a number
of arrests in the past few days. I can blacklist the Phileans who
were involved and make sure they’ll be stopped at the
border.”

Everybody pauses to ponder
the new plan. “I think it’s a good idea,” Nathan then says. He
gives me a warm smile. “Could you and Ben go to Newexter and
discuss this with the Eldest? I would go myself, but I’m needed too
much here at the moment.”

“I’ll help you,” I reply.
“Even better, I hereby offer you my services as acting assistant,
as long as Walt is still on the Other Side.”

Nathan nods briefly, a
grateful look in his eyes.

Ben clears his throat. “I’d
rather stay here, to be honest,” he admits.

“But you told us about this
possibility,” the Bookkeeper argues. “Alisa has never visited
Newexter before. You’ll be our deputy and travel to your old
village with her. Carl, can you select ten shipbuilders who can
work on the fleet in Newexter as soon as possible?”

Carl nods. “I have eight
men who live in the suburbs with their families, close to the
farms. If they’re gone, there’s hardly anyone around to notice. And
I trust them.”

“Okay. Eight it
is.”

The three men at the table
continue talking, but I get up and follow Ben when he abruptly
jumps up and leaves the room.

“Are you okay?” I want to
know.

His face looks anxious.
“Well, no. I don’t want to go to Newexter. I guess you can
understand why.”