The Island (2 page)

“I went on a date with
Andy,” she stutters. “Right before we had to go on this hike. We were together all evening. And he told me a secret. About The Book. He says Saul is keeping things from us.”

Andy
and Mara? My heart cracks a little. Admittedly, I don’t really like anyone, but if I had to choose, it would be Andy. Eighteen-year-old Andy with his kind, brown eyes, black hair and broad shoulders. But he likes Mara. My best friend with her slender, willowy body, chestnut hair and her fifteen years. For just a split second, I taste the bitter flavor of jealousy on my tongue, but then I see the look of insecurity in Mara’s eyes. She doesn’t want to lose me over this.

“So what
did Andy say exactly?” I ask, not digging deeper about the date.

“That
Saul knows things he doesn’t share with us. Important things.”

“And how does
Andy get so smart?”

Mara
’s voice drops to a whisper. “He saw it in The Book.”

“When?”

“He couldn’t read for long. Saul had left The Book on the table after one of his speeches, that evening we had to watch the fight between Max and your brother. Andy couldn’t resist sneaking a peek.”

“
Really.” I give her a baffled look. And here I was, thinking Saul only had a say in the choice of particular chapters for certain days. Apparently, some chapters are
never
chosen.

What is he afraid of?

“The Book says that collaboration is the most crucial survival tactic,” Mara continues. “When you work together, you have the best access to the Force. We don’t need a leader at all.”

“But - but that’s not right,” I stutter.
“It’s the law of the fittest that counts.”

“No, it’s not. A group is the st
rongest if we all contribute. Someone wanting to draw all power of the Force to himself will turn evil. And all who follow such a leader will lose the light themselves.”

“In that case, we have to do something!” I hiss softly, even though there’s no one around to eavesdrop on us. “If Saul’s been lying about this…”

Mara
sighs dejectedly. “The burden of proof is on us. And we can’t prove anything. Andy only had a glance at that page – he couldn’t tear it out to show it around.”

The rest of the journey home has me dazedly put
ting one foot in front of the other without even looking. I can’t get Mara’s story off my mind. It would mean that we’ve been lied to by a power-hungry guy who sends us off into the wild looking for the Force that he himself is stealing from us. Maybe I should tell Colin about it.

***

Waiting at the gate of the fence surrounding the manor grounds is a woman. Someone from the village. Perhaps she’s here to bring us news from Newexter or to collect a letter from Saul.

It’s o
nly when she turns around that I recognize her. Brown hair. Tired, blue eyes staring at me. Six years ago, those eyes wouldn’t look at me when I left my parents’ house.

It’s my mother.

-3-

“
WHAT –
what are
you
doing here?” I stammer.

Mara
’s looking at my mother as if she’s seeing a ghost. In fact, this is about as strange an occurrence: parents
never
visit their children in the manor. Why would they? We don’t need them. We can’t rely on them anyway.

Mother
reaches for me and touches my shoulder. “Leia. You’ve grown so much.” Her gaze lands on the necklace I’m wearing. Tears pool in her eyes. “How are you?”

“Fine,” I reply stiffly.

“And how’s Colin?”

“Fine as well.”

Her eyes never leave my face. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispers. “I should never have let the two of you go.”

I blink.
“What do you mean? That’s what we do.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t believe that anymore,” she mumbles almost inaudibly.

“What do you mean, you don’t believe it anymore?”

“It’s not right.” She wrings her hands. “It
can’t
be right to let your children go so soon.”

“W
hat about father?” I ask, bewildered. “Is he going to show up next?”

“Your father is dead,” she replies in a monotone.

I swallow the lump in my throat in the silence stretching between us.

“Dead?” I repeat
lamely.

My mother nods quietly.

I wasn’t expecting this. I expected to run into my parents again in a few years’ time. I would have seen them from afar, in the market square. I would have had a courtesy chat with them in the village shop. They would never have visited. They’d never have gotten to know my own children, but they would have been around.

I will never see my father again.

“What happened?” I ask softly.

“The flu took him. He was running a high fever and the healer was at the end of his rope. There was nothing to be done.”

“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “My condolences.”

I
have gone my own way. I can stand on my own two feet. I don’t need my parents, and they won’t be there for me. The Force is the only thing we can rely on. So why do I feel so terribly sad and empty after hearing this news?

“Thanks,” my mother mumbles. “I hope you’ll come home soon.”

I nod grudgingly. “Once I’m ready to get married I’ll come back. And not a moment sooner.”

My mother looks from me to
Mara and back. “Tell me – is Saul still running the show in the manor house? He never signs his newsletters.”

“Yes,”
Mara replies, pulling an appalled face. “Together with Ben.”

Mother
frowns with worry. “So it’s true.”

“What is
?” I ask.

She looks at me seriously. “Honey,
Saul is twenty-one. He should have left a long time ago. Something’s not right.”

Twenty-one? The oldest age at which someone leaves the manor house is nineteen, and even that is
more the exception than the rule. Puzzled, I shake my head.

“It’s time for an intervention from
Newexter,” my mother continues. “I will tell the Eldest.”

“What?” I erupt. “An intervention?
No way!” The Eldest may be of high standing because he survived the longest, but that doesn’t give him the right to decide things for us over here.

“We only want to help you.”

I scoff disdainfully. “We don’t need your help. We can take care of ourselves.” Before she can spout more nonsense, I push open the gate and pull Mara along. Inside, I’m boiling with rage. If Saul is indeed too old to stay here,
we
will call him out on it. The parents in Newexter should stay in Newexter and let us handle it.

And t
hen I suddenly think of
her
again. Mother. She looked so lonely and pale. Was she really worried about me and Colin? Why would she?

Hesitantly, I glance back, but I don’t see her standing at the gate anymore.

***

Saul
is standing in front of the house when we walk up the path to the side entrance. His strong hands are handling a knife he’s using to cut a new arrow shaft. He’s not looking at us, but my heart starts beating faster when we approach. I can sense his eyes on us somehow. He knows we’re there.

Just as we are about to step onto the terrace next to the mano
r, he takes a deep breath. “Hold it,” he says quietly.

I stop in my tracks.
Mara glances sideways and the blood drains from her face when Saul turns around and puts his knife away. His dark eyes, dark hair and dark clothes look like a stain of ink against the backdrop of the white manor wall.

We stand there, like a pair of deer waiting for the wild hound to pounce.
Trapped in Saul’s black stare. One corner of his mouth curls up in a smile.

“You should probably make yourself useful,” he tells
Mara, still in a voice so quiet it is almost drowned out by the blood pounding in my ears.

“Use… useful?” she chokes.

“More useful than you were to my brother,” he explains, that creepy smile still lingering on his face. “If you can’t perform a woman’s most important duty, maybe you should just stick to other tasks like doing the laundry. I happen to know there’s a whole lot to be done. I expect it to be clean by tonight.”

“Okay,”
Mara whispers, staring at her feet. “I’ll get to it.”

“You do that.”
Saul’s gaze swerves to me. I wish I could stare at my feet too, but a belligerent part of me makes me meet his eyes without flinching. From the corner of my eye, I see Mara walking away. I’m left to my own devices.

“Leia.”
Saul fixes me with his stare. “You look a bit pale. Anything wrong?”

“No. I’m fine.”

He shakes his head incredulously. “Didn’t it upset you to see your mother?”

He saw us? I gasp for breath.

“Why would it?” I snap.

He takes a step forward, coming so close I can smell his breath. “Why did she come here?” he whispers.

I don’t think it was because she wanted me to know father had died. Maybe she just wanted to see me. I’m a part of him that she misses.

“To deliver a newsletter, I suppose,” I mumble, feeling increasingly alarmed by his proximity.

He lets out a little laugh. “Oh, yes. The news. In the last newsletter, I read your father passed away.”

The bile in his voice gets to me. All of a sudden, I blink back a few tears.

“Oh, sorry, how insensitive of me,” Saul continues. “Weren’t you the one looking forward to seeing him again after your time here?”

“No. That was
Colin.” My voice comes out strangled.

He keeps quiet, still not moving away from me. When he finally speaks, I wish I’d stepped backward myself.

“Your father was never there for you, and now he never will be. Don’t forget that.” He looks intently at my eyes and scoffs. “You’re not going to
cry
for him, are you?”

I shake my head. “
No,” I whisper carefully, afraid my voice will break.

“Good. Now go and help your brother in the kitchen. Maybe
he
will cry when he hears the news. Send him my best.”

His footsteps move away from me, and despite the hot summer sun, I shiver in my still damp clothes. I don’t look up anymore to meet his eyes as I hurry to the kitchen.

-4-

“
SO SHE
was here.” Colin gives me an inscrutable look.

“Yes.”

“She hasn’t forgotten about us.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “Don’t they say parents always forget about their children?”

I run my fingers along the beads of my
mother’s necklace, which I’ve worn every single day since we left. I think of Newexter. I think of the parents, going back to their quiet lives after their children move out. Who don’t have to worry anymore about getting enough food on the table. People who have never liked the responsibility for their sons or daughters. Some of them counting the days until their children leave.

But there are others, too. There was a man who lied about his son’s age after his wife died, so he could stay with
his kid for a bit longer. We all knew the numbers didn’t add up, but the Eldest of Newexter couldn’t find it in his heart to send the son away.

The woman next door who’
d sat crying on the doorstep for days after her daughter had left her, as though she was hoping her child would come back.

“
That’s what they say,” I reply softly.

“
And father has passed away,” Colin continues. “We’ve missed the funeral. Why weren’t we there?” His fist hits the kitchen table in frustration, the knife he used to gut fish jumping up as if startled.

“Most people don’t attend
their parents’ funerals,” I stutter.

“Well, I’m not most people. I would have liked to
see him one last time,” Colin snaps. “I would have liked it even better to see him alive, but hey, that ship has sailed.”

I look at my twin brother. Sparkling blue eyes and jet-black hair, just like
me. He’s tall and broad for his age. And he fancies Ami. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to pack his bags and move back to Newexter soon, taking her as his bride. He never found this place useful, always doggedly maintaining that mother and father could have taught him to survive as well.

“I know,” I whisper. “I get it.”

“No, you
don’t
get it. You have never had a single doubt about the higher purpose of us leaving them. You don’t even miss them.”