The Island (5 page)

Dazed, I shake my head. “
Colin, this is insane. Why are we still listening to Saul? No one particularly likes him. We can all see he’s a dishonest creep. And yet, we let him take charge.”

My brother
looks conflicted. “Because he’s the strongest. And you know what The Book says – we need a strong leader. Someone who teaches us how to survive.”

“No, that’s
not
what The Book says. At least, that’s what Mara told me. And Andy told her.”

Ami
shakes her head in denial. “If you don’t like someone’s leadership, you have to step up and become a leader yourself. But if you can’t, there’s nothing you can do about it. Well, you can file a complaint with the parents in Newexter, but who in his right mind would want that? You’d make yourself dependent on them. You’d disconnect from your own Force.”

Sometimes, I wish I
could
find shelter in my mother’s arms whenever times are tough. I’d never actually say that out loud – that would truly make me an Unbeliever, like Walt had called me – but I’ll never forget that warm feeling I always got as a child when my mother rushed over to comfort me when I was crying. It felt…
natural
.

Instinctively, I reach for the necklace I’m wearing, but the
jagged edges of the cracked walnut press painfully into my palm. “It’s broken,” I mumble flatly, holding out the pendant to Colin. “Mother’s necklace.”

Colin
takes the pendant from my hand and lifts the beaded necklace over my head. “Did you fall when you ran away?”

“
Yes. I’m sorry.” I know Colin has always been a bit jealous of the fact that I got a gift from our mother, and now I’ve gone and broken it.

He turns the walnut around in his hands to check the damaged
side and his eyes narrow. “Hey, wait a minute. There’s something inside.” Very carefully, he breaks off a piece of the shell and then picks out a very tiny piece of paper that looks like a note.

Old, yellowed paper like the paper used in The Book.

“What
is
that?” I whisper. Have I been carrying a secret message all these years?

Could it be that
mother left it for me and Colin?

With shaking hands,
Colin unfolds the note. His eyes skim the lines.

“
Colin, what does it say?” I hiss when he doesn’t read it out loud. I’m so impatient I want to slap him for keeping silent.

“It was written by grandmother
,” he quietly replies.

A message from the past?
Grandmother’s been dead for a long time. One fateful autumn day, she drowned in the sea when she went swimming too far offshore.

My brother passes me the note. Old-fashioned handwriting stares
up at me.

Dear
Maya,

When you read this, I will have sent you away. According to the
Newexter laws. But according to the laws of Hope Harbor, where I come from, I should have never let you go. Parents and children do not separate. You have been taught that my people are Fools, and I once agreed with them – I left them because I thought it foolish to sit out my days waiting for salvation that will never come, but they were right about one thing. A mother’s love never dies.

Know your roots. Know that there is more to life than our own, small world. When you come
back to me and you are open to my love for you, we will cross the Wall together.

Faith
, hope and love,

Your mother
Toja.

I feel like somebody has just hit me on the back of the head with an enormous bat.

My grandmother
was a Fool. And my mother never knew. She didn’t know she was supposed to open the walnut, and so she never read the message.

My
eyes linger on the words that stand out to me most within the short text: a mother’s love never dies. Sudden tears pool in my eyes.

“Grandmother
and mother never had the chance to talk when mother came back to Newexter,” Colin says in a muffled voice. “Grandmother drowned before mother came back from the manor.”

“She was from
Hope Harbor,” I whisper. “That village in Fool’s Land.”

“How
do you know?”

I
remain quiet. The words are locked in my throat. For some reason, I want to keep Walt to myself. Besides, Colin might get angry with me if I tell him I handed over our most precious Book to a total stranger – an outsider. “Because Saul is keeping a man prisoner who claims he’s from Hope Harbor,” I tell him a half-truth. “I spied on Saul and Ben when they locked him up in the cellar. After that, I stole The Book and ran away in order to hide it somewhere close to the Wall.”

“
Saul is keeping a
Fool
in his cellar?” Colin looks gobsmacked. “Why?”

“I think this man was trying to tell him things
Saul didn’t want to hear. Things he doesn’t want
us
to hear either.”

Colin
blinks for a moment, then nods curtly. “Okay. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll go and talk to Andy first thing in the morning. He knows more about Saul and he’s one of the strongest in our group. If there is
anybody
who can take on Saul, it’s him.”

I nod too
. “And I’ll go back to the hiding place tomorrow so I can read The Book. I
have
to find those pages Andy mentioned. If it turns out Saul isn’t sticking to the rules, everybody here will revolt.”

We quietly stay inside until the racket outside finally dies down. Ami crawls forward and peeks out of the door. “The coast is clear,” she whispers.

Colin and I sneak out and quickly cross the lawn, running toward our tents. We are well on our way when all of a sudden, Ben appears out of nowhere and stops us.

“Where were
you
?” he demands, his index finger jabbing forward and almost grazing my breast.

I stagger back. “I was with
Mara,” I improvise. I can’t very well say I was with Ami, because he and Saul have checked her hut twice.

Ben’s eyes narrow. “She said she was alone in her tent.”

“Well, I was there.” I look at him fiercely. If only my glare is angry enough, he just might believe me.

“Why were you there?” Ben continues his interrogation.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I retort. “Mara is my best friend.”

His lips quirk up in a humorless smile. “
Yeah, right. And why exactly would she be…” He stops mid-sentence. His eyes look at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Hiding you,” he finishes in a monotone. A dim realization grows in his eyes – I don’t have a clue what he suddenly thinks he’s discovered, though.

His face contorts into a grimace. “Ah, so you’re one of
those
girls,” he says with disdain. “But I never thought Mara… oh well, at least that explains…”

I almost burst into laugh
ter when I understand what Ben’s thinking. That I was hiding in Mara’s tent out of shame for being with her
like that
. That Mara and I are lovers. That she doesn’t want him because he’s a man and she’s not into them. Never have I encountered bigger delusions of grandeur in a person. Ben just can’t accept the fact that he is being turned down because of
him
.

“You think it’s funny?” he growls. Ben has an uncanny talent for spotting my almost-smiles.

“Yes, kind of,” I reply. “You don’t, then?”

I’m not even waiting for his response. Without another word, I pass him and pull
Colin along. With a little luck, Ben will be so pissed at me now that he is not even wondering why I came from the opposite side of the field, not from the area where Mara has pitched her tent.

It’
s not until I’ve said goodbye to Colin and stepped into my tent that a sad feeling hits me. I’m unfeminine. Maybe that’s why no one has ever taken an interest in me like that. That’s why Andy is dating Mara. Apparently, I’m an anomaly.

Do I like girls?

I don’t believe that. Once I’m lying on my mat in the dark, staring up at the canvas, I see Walt’s strangely illuminated face in front of me, and I feel his hand on mine. Even though, admittedly, I found him both annoying and interesting.

The Book is not the only reason I’m looki
ng forward to meeting him again tomorrow.

-
9-

“SO
YOU
were the reason for all the commotion last night.” Mara looks at me almost reverently. “Saul was completely cracking up, and now I get why. He lost The Book. Well, serves him right, after what he’s done to Andy.”

This morning,
Saul had still been anything but calm. He’d gathered all the strong, older boys to help him search the camp and the grounds around the manor house – his minions, as Colin always snidely calls them. The buff boys who lack the strength or intelligence to seize power themselves and blindly follow the leader who’ll give them a sense of importance.

Mara
bumped into me on her way to the kitchen this morning, and now we’re sitting under the old oak in front of the house, having breakfast and whispering softly to each other. I’ve filled her in on a lot of things already – my discovery of the man in the manor’s cellar, The Book, my grandmother’s letter – but I haven’t told her about the most important thing yet. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“I have to tell you something
big,” I hiss, cautiously looking around one more time before I say the words. “You see, I didn’t hide The Book at the Wall. I ran into a Fool in the forest. He was our age. And he took it with him; he promised to keep it safe for me. It’s in his village now, where Saul will never be able to find it.”

Mara
nearly chokes on her smoked-fish sandwich, staring at me wide-eyed. “You what? Seriously? What did he look like? Was he scary?”

“Well, uhm,” I start out, pondering her que
stion and staring ahead. I have to concentrate to remember his face and determine whether my best friend would think it was a scary face. I know
I
don’t think so. His brown eyes looked gentle in that strange light he was carrying with him, and there’d been a dimple in his cheek when he smiled. He had light-blonde hair. No one on our side of the Wall has hair that light. He definitely looked nice, albeit a bit arrogant.

“Ahem,” Mara coughs, looking sideways with a wide grin on her face. “Are you going to answer that, or are you just going to sit there daydreaming
Foolishly
?”

“I wasn’t,” I protest. “I was just thinking.”

“Yes, right. With googly eyes like that? I don’t think so, madam.” Mara pokes me in the side. “So, are you gonna share him with me? Can I see him too?”

I can’
t bite back my smile. “Sure you can. He looks very different from the boys around here.” Before I’ll be caught starry-eyed again, I jump up. “It might be a good idea to go together, actually. We’ll grab some baskets from the kitchen and tell everyone we’re gathering roots and leaves today. Which we are, by the way. We won’t meet up with Walt until noon.”

“Walt,”
Mara repeats after me. “Sounds good.”

His name or my plan? I don’t bother asking, but get up and make my way to the kitchen to get two big baskets from the cupboard.

When I get back outside, Ben and Saul are watching Mara, standing a few yards away. She’s turned away from them and is seemingly undisturbed, eating the last few bites of her sandwich. Smart girl. This way, they won’t be able to see her hands shake.

“There you are,” she exclaims in relief when she sees me approach, jumping up from under the tree quickly.

“Where do you think you girls are going?” Saul inquires gruffly, his dark-brown eyes boring into mine from between his black, greasy fringe.

“To the forest in the west,” I reply. “
To gather food.” I hold up the baskets in explanation.

His frown deepens.
“Together?”

Mara
turns around and glares at Saul. “So?” she snaps, taking a step toward me and reaches for my hand.

“Well, off we go,” I say, smiling triumphantly when I catch Ben looking at our intertwined fingers as if he’s about to chop off our hands. Before he can do anything – such as offering his ‘protection’ and tagging along – we walk down the hill toward the gate together. I look back on
e more time and beam at Ben before sliding my arm around Mara’s shoulders. That’ll teach him for harassing her.

“Wow, aren’t you all cuddly today,”
Mara giggles. “Practicing for your encounter with Walt this afternoon?”

I sigh. “Knock it off. It’s strictly business. He has something I need.”

“Uh-huh, I bet he does,” Mara chuckles, diving away from the punch I’m trying to land on her back. My best friend has been giddy ever since she admitted to liking Andy. It’s getting tiresome.