The Deep (16 page)

Quickly I rush down the street, fingering the
letter in my pocket that Saul wrote to Ben. It’s quite a story.
Saul took his time writing it. Maybe he feels the need to share
things with his brother that he could never share before. The
distance may have brought them closer together.

Lost in thought, I pull my shawl tighter
around my shoulders. I still can’t believe Saul jumped after it.
That was sweet of him.

The unbidden thought shocks me. Saul isn’t
sweet at all. The ability to truly be nice or sweet left him a long
time ago. He is a tough, harsh, inaccessible guy. Lonely. Damaged.
He just wanted to help me because I helped Ben. One good turn
deserves another, in his world.

Despite the late hour, the hospital is still
buzzing with doctors, nurses and visitors. More people have come to
see their wounded friends and family.

“Where’s Ben from Newexter?” I ask, accosting
a nurse passing me in the hallway.

“The boy with the burns on his shoulder?” She
runs through a list of names on her clipboard. “Room number three.
I think he’s asleep. They’ve just given him a sedative against the
pain.”

When I enter the hospital ward, Ben turns out
to still be awake, however. He’s propped up against the pillows and
looks at me with a pleased face. “I was hoping you’d come,” he says
in a hoarse voice.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and pat his
knee. “Of course I’m here,” I say. Suddenly, it moves me that my
visit means so much to him. “I’m supposed to bring you mail,
right?”

His face lights up even further. “Oh,
really?”

I nod and pull Saul’s letter from my pocket.
“He used two sheets, even.”

Tomorrow I’ll get around to delivering the
letters from the Eldest and the shipbuilders in the east. This is
my only job tonight.

“I’m going to get some tea,” I announce in
order to give Ben some privacy. “Can I get you anything?”

He nods absent-mindedly. “The same.”

When I return after ten minutes holding two
mugs of herbal tea, Ben is hunched over a sheet of paper of his
own. It looks like an old newsletter.

“I’m writing back immediately,” he says. “I
want to tell him about the attack, and how well your plan
worked.”

“Should you really do that? He’ll get worried
and he might come and visit you.”

Ben shakes his head. “I already wrote to him
that I don’t want him to come here. Besides, he doesn’t want to
himself.”

I hand him his tea. “Why not?” I want to
know.

“Because leaving Newexter will mean he’s a
coward. He’s not like that.”

“What about you? Doesn’t he think you’re a
coward for moving here?”

“No.” Ben puts down his charcoal crayon. “He
sees me as a victim.” The frown on his face deepens. “I don’t think
that’s true, though. I was just as much involved in the tyranny of
the manor house as he was.”

“He just wants to protect you,” I say softly.
“He’s been doing that ever since you were kids.”

“I think you see Saul like no one else can,”
Ben observes with a pondering look in my direction.

I swallow. “Like how?”

“You can sense the silent force within him,”
he says. “And his humanness.”

Uncomfortably, I look away and stare out the
window. In the darkness, lanterns and torches illuminate the
streets. Since the riots and unrest broke out, more and more people
light them – as if we can chase away the dark like that. But fire
can burn you as well. I only have to look at Ben to realize it.

“What’s going to happen at St Martin now?” I
change the subject.

“Carl said the work will continue. It would
be suspicious if we stopped working altogether. Besides, most
people who tried to sabotage our work are currently locked up. I’m
hopeful we can actually finish that ship for real.” Ben grins
faintly.

Tomorrow, I will ride out to Newexter once
more, carrying new letters and other messages. In a way, I am
fleeing the city that I vowed to protect, but it has all become too
much for me to bear.

Maybe I am a coward too, by loving my new
task a little bit too much.

In the days that follow, I am constantly on
the move. If I’m not helping Nathan with running the city or Daryl
with keeping an eye on troublemakers, I’m at the hospital to cheer
up Ben. His injuries take time to heal. And in the afternoons I
always go to Newexter. In the meantime, I’ve seen quite a bit of
our island. The Eldest has given me a tour of the youngster school.
He told me that the large room they now use for morning assembly
used to be a dining hall. Swords used to hang above the fireplace –
the weapons Saul and his companions used to kill Henry.

“I offered to take Saul in,” the Eldest told
me then. “To officially adopt him.”

“Really?” I stared at him in surprise. “And
what did he say?”

“Oh, I asked him straight after his
dictatorship ended. But he and his brother wanted to go their
separate ways.”

“And they were at a crossroads,” I added
softly.

“Yes, they were.” He looked around the room,
now decked out with rows and rows of chairs. “I see him,
occasionally. He comes into the village to trade fish for
vegetables, or game for dried fruit. He always greets me politely.
But he keeps away from us, mostly.”

I just nodded.

At the end of every afternoon, I visit Saul.
Sometimes we just talk, but yesterday he took me to see Newmanor
and the northern beach, because I hadn’t been there yet. From a
distance, we watched the small settlement of tiny huts and
primitive tents. Saul didn’t want to come any closer than the hill
we stood on to look out over the new village.

“I heard Max and Cal run things there now,”
he said.

“And they are?” I asked.

He kept quiet for a long time. “They’re not
good guys,” he finally said, his mouth pulling up in a bitter
smile. “Just like I’m not.”

Today, I have no letter from Ben for him.
He’d already been asleep when I popped in last night, so I put
Saul’s letter on his nightstand. I still want to go see Saul,
though. It has become an integral part of my day, since Ben writes
a letter every day. Except now, that is.

When I slip out of the saddle and pat my mare
on the head – she’s technically not my mare, but I’ve come to see
her as my property despite her belonging to the town guard – Saul
is just returning from the beach. When he sees me, his face takes
on an expression I can’t quite interpret. I smile at him
hesitantly.

“Disappointing catch of the day?” I ask,
gesturing at his empty-looking shoulder bag.

Saul comes to a stop in front of me and looks
at me without saying anything. His dark eyes roam over my face, my
hands, then flash back to pin me with his gaze.

“I know who killed Yorrick,” he says, his
voice soft yet clear.

The words send a violent shiver through my
body. My stomach feels weird when I take a step backward.

“How?” I whisper hoarsely.

Saul grabs my arm and ushers me toward the
wooden bench in front of his house, the one he put together himself
a few days ago. I helped him with the finishing touches. My fingers
trace the sanded wood, touching the cracks I tried to smooth out as
well as I could, when I sit.

As he squats down to face me, he takes my
hands.

“I was sitting by the harbor with Bram,” he
starts out. “And we were talking about family. About our brothers.
I tell him about Ben sometimes, but Bram never mentioned his older
brother before. He just talked about Finn, the youngest.”

My heart speeds up. “He told you about
Praed?” So it was true. The oldest priest had killed Yorrick.

Saul nods slowly. “I told Bram about how I’d
wanted to protect Ben, but also about making him do terrible
things. Violent things. So he’d grow strong and no one would ever
be able to mess with him. I did it because I thought it was what he
needed.”

In the silence that ensues, I suddenly know
what Saul is going to tell me. “And Praed…”

“Praed ordered Finn to kill Yorrick because
it served a higher purpose,” Saul finishes for me.

“My Goddess.” I feel all the blood drain from
my face. Trembling, I sag back against the wall of the cabin.

Saul gets up and sits next to me. He slips an
arm around my shoulder. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I thought you should
know.”

My thoughts are a jumbled mess. If Finn
really committed this crime, should we send him back to Hope Harbor
so he can be put on trial? Like Praed, who was torn apart by an
outraged mob? Or should I ask the Eldest to step in and do
something – pass judgment on the murderer who thought he was
serving our gods?

Just like Saul thought he could protect his
safe world by killing Henry.

“Where is Finn now?” I ask, my voice
unstable.

Saul’s face clouds over. “We don’t know. He
hasn’t been back to the huts in two days. That’s why Bram was so
worried that he felt the need to share his story with someone else.
And that someone happened to be me.”

I slowly exhale. “I don’t know what to do,” I
whisper.

“You want to tell the Eldest?”

I shake my head almost imperceptibly.

“The Bookkeeper, then?”

What would Nathan do if he knew this – would
he want to avenge his son’s death?

Saul’s eyes bore into mine. “You want me to
do it for you?” he says.

“Do what?” I ask dazedly.

“Take care of him.” His jaw tenses. “I can do
it. He trusts me, so I can get close enough to kill him.”

Sudden tears well up in my eyes. I look at
Saul through a blur. “Please don’t,” I beg him.

“Why not? You don’t think he deserves
it?”

A part of me longs to do it myself. To tie
Finn up and drag him along until he teeters on the edge of the same
abyss that Yorrick disappeared into, and then give him that final
push. But if I did that, I would have to toss Ben and Saul over the
same edge. They’ve done the exact same thing. Yorrick is never
coming back, no matter how many people I throw off the cliffs.

My fingers find Saul’s hands, balled into
tight fists in his lap. For just a moment, his aggression really
frightens me, but it doesn’t stop me from opening my mouth to talk
to him.

“Because all that violence will tear you
apart,” I say, my voice clear and undisputed. “You don’t need to
prove yourself. You can’t turn back time and stop Finn’s crime from
happening. You can only help me to look forward.”

His dark eyes don’t leave mine. “Promise me
you’ll tell Yorrick’s father,” he demands.

A few days ago, I’d told him how Walt had
kept from Nathan what he had witnessed, and his suspicions
afterwards, for too long. How much that had upset me.

“Of course,” I promise. “As soon as I get
home.”

Saul gives me one last, probing look, as
though he can imprint his wish on me that way. “Did you bring me
anything?” he goes on to ask.

I shake my head. “Ben was already asleep. But
I just wanted to…” See you, I finish silently. As soon as I think
it, I wish I could take it back. Because I can’t explain why I want
that. Surely I can’t justify it.

He raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Bring you some news,” I continue. “I come
here every day, so I thought it would be weird not to show up.”

Saul smiles. “Thank you.”

I quickly tell him about Ben and the latest
developments in Hope Harbor. It has been quiet around the ‘secret’
shipyard after the attack, but something’s brewing. I can sense
it.

As I ride off, Saul watches me with his dark,
impenetrable look. I will tell Nathan what I know and leave all
criminal proceedings to him. I’m not about to take the law into my
own hands, and I’m definitely not putting it in Saul’s.

His rough, gravelly voice telling me he could
kill Finn for me won’t leave my mind, not even when I’ve reached my
own city.

It’s late when we finally get back to the
hotel. William is waiting for us in the dining room, his face
worried and pale. “Where have you been?” he asks, leaping up from
his chair to shoot Walt a scolding look before pulling him into a
relieved embrace. “I couldn’t find you anywhere! No one knew where
you two were.”

“We took the bus,” he replies. “To
Dunsford.”

William’s eyes grow wide. “Have you – that’s
near Exeter, right? Did you see anything of the city?”

We sit down at the table. Nobody else is in
the restaurant, not even any waiting staff. That’s too bad, because
I can hear my stomach growl. “We were
in
Exeter,” I say, so
softly that William has to lean in to hear me. “And we visited the
cathedral.”

“And you’re still alive?” William shakes his
head in confusion. “I thought everybody who leaves the county gets
sick?”

“Maybe they’re just saying that to keep
people inside,” I mumble defiantly. “Nothing’s wrong with us.”

“What about all those dead pilgrims?” Walt
argues.

“Well, they were already close to dying
before the guards even allowed them to go to Exeter.”

“But Tony wouldn’t lie to us,” William pipes
up. “If he says that the city is dangerous, I believe him. Without
question.”

He does have a point. Our new friend from
Bodmin wouldn’t knowingly deceive us. An overconfident thought
flashes through me – could it be I actually tapped into the Force
to stop myself and Walt from getting sick? But how could I have?
Our ancestors weren’t real, and so the Force can’t be real. I don’t
get it. My head is spinning with all the day’s impressions.

“I’m going upstairs,” I announce, yawning
loudly. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Walt asks. “Because I
am.”

“The kitchen is closed, but we still have
some cakes in our room,” William reminds him.