Authors: Mark Lavorato
Eventually, I tucked the feather into a tuft of grass, intending to leave it there. But after I walked a few steps, I stopped, went back, and picked it up, deciding, in the end, to bring it into the hut with me. I placed it on the table, where it would become a fixture in the still air of the room, curled up at the ends, balancing delicately.
39
The life that I led on the terrace wasn't an exciting one by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that contentment rarely is. The days seemed long, unhurried, though the weeks somehow short, the months shorter. I would wake with the sun, often to the sounds of the raven gliding in and landing on the ridge of the roof with a few deep flaps, its feet scratching at the wood as it settled itself to perch. When I stepped outside it would fly away, only to return again at some point during the day, usually while I was within reaching distance of some fruit that could be cut up and thrown onto the grass. In the afternoon, when I sat down to rest and looked out over the land below, I would sometimes think about the conclusion that I'd come to with the feather, even managing to feel strangely enlightened by it at times, this understanding that we don't have it in us to be enlightened. Though, more often I would think about how I was living on time that was stolen, how I was alive and well because I had stood on the backs of others, had pushed them down, or had at least made the most of their bad luck. Yet, if anything, I think that this drove me to appreciate the time that I had even more, to hold it in my hands as assiduously as a thief should. I had become swollen with gratitude, and, for the first time in my life, I felt peaceful.
And it occurs to me now that this is where my story could have ended, that those months might have turned into years, then decades, and, slowly, like some of the Elders, I would have begun to move more languidly, to struggle a bit with getting out of bed, to squint at the details in the landscape, and, in due course, curl up and die. I might even have been expecting this to happen, might have been resolved to it in some quiet way. But that would change.
On the night that everything shifted in my life, it happened that the sky was clearer than usual, and so I'd decided to spend a little more time out on the terrace after dark. For months prior to that, I hadn't heard or seen the slightest trace of the Creatures, and had I not been standing on a section of the terrace furthest from the river, I probably wouldn't have heard them that night, either. But, suddenly, there it was, their distinctive call, the same haunting three notes that they'd always used as a warning after sighting me. Only this time they were coming from so far away that it couldn't possibly be me they were warning against. It had to be something else - another person. Other people.
It's interesting to think of my reaction, how automatic it was, how flustered. I ran back to the hut, swung the door open, ripped the blanket from my bed, threw some things inside it that I would need to sustain myself for a few days (including some of my precious dried fruit), and ran back outside. I headed upstream and had even passed the boulders before I started to admit that I was being a bit melodramatic. Finally, I slowed down enough to actually think about what I was doing.
I understand why I'd overreacted; I knew that if there were human eyes in the land below, they would be able to tell that the terrace was being cultivated, and so could assume that the hut - which was the very first thing a person's eyes were drawn to when looking up at the skyline from downstream - was inhabited. However, it was also impossible to guess at these people's (or this person's) intentions. They could have been anyone; members of another expedition that had strayed off course, or maybe only a solitary man or woman who was looking for a few different seeds to cultivate, as I had done. What if they meant no harm? Or better yet, what if they were afraid of me, and were making a point to steer clear of the hut?
Then it occurred to me that, even if it
was
a group of ruthless scavengers, if I chose to run, I would leave myself unarmed with vital information, like how many there were, whether or not they had weapons, or if it looked like they were going to pursue. It didn't make much sense to leave my secure life without even knowing what it was I was abandoning it for. Besides, I rationalized, I already had a system of escape ready, which meant that whatever they turned out to be, I could afford to wait until they were quite close - probably even close enough to gauge how dangerous they were.
Eventually, I returned to the hut. Though, wanting to be on the safe side, I didn't spend the night there, knowing that the building would be the very first place a person would inspect when they arrived. Instead, I decided to sleep on the bare and relatively soft soil under the shrubs, choosing a place that was close to the river, and therefore my escape route. I told myself that, with the first light, I would crawl out of my hiding spot and watch from the edge of the terrace throughout the day, looking for movement, waiting. I had to repeat to myself, over and over again, that I had nothing to worry about, that I had planned for this, that I was prepared.
40
"I'm sure he's long gone," Mikkel called out. His voice, which had sounded deliberately loud, came from just below the edge of the terrace, and was cut short by some quick and indiscernible retort. Then, as if it had never happened at all, there was nothing, only the crisp quiet of the morning.
I don't know what I dreamt. I don't remember anything about that night. I only remember opening my eyes to the sound of Mikkel's voice, and seeing a soft light on the knot of shrubs in front of my eyes, an ant crawling slowly and determined on the underside of one of the branches.
I shot up, my chest thumping, my breathing shallow, fast, uncontrollable, the dry taste of panic in my mouth. I swallowed to try and calm myself. I had to think. I couldn't panic. I had to be present.
I looked up at the sky. It was incredibly early.
My mind replayed Mikkel's words. I thought of how loud they'd been, how tersely they were shushed. He was trying to warn me, give me a window of time to get out of the hut and run. And that was all I had, a window of time, a sliver of it - which was only lessening with each second I thought about its length. I had to move. Quickly.
I stood up to run, but then looked down at everything that was sprawled on the ground beneath me. I couldn't afford to leave any of it. So I crouched to throw it all in the blanket: the bag of dried fruit, the knife, the plastic bottle. Then, after twirling the cloth - thorns catching on it as it spun, everything seeming to slow me down, to hinder me - I flung it around my chest and ducked under the space where I'd crawled into the shrubs the night before. Finally, I was out in the bright air of the terrace, squinting, looking around for a solution. But instead of finding one, my eyes were drawn to the hut, to the shadows cast on the grass behind it. They were moving. I looked upstream where I hoped the rope was still dangling, and did the math. If I ran, the crew would see me, and follow as fast as they could. There was no way I would make it. In fact, the chase would probably only last a minute. Maybe less.
I turned around and scurried back into the cover of the bushes, realizing that the dirt I was uncovering by doing so would be another colour, would be evidence that I was there. I mouthed a curse and squatted down to watch their bobbing shadows lengthen along the grass.
Toivo was just coming into view. I eyed him, mortified, waiting for an indication that he'd seen me. But he hadn't. He was holding a spear out in front of him - a long stick with a knife that had been tightly bound to the end of it. I noticed that a pink line now divided his throat into two halves, which, apparently, was my doing. Knut was next, also holding a spear; though his was raised over his shoulder, ready to plunge. He was a little distance behind Toivo, trying to balance himself between avoiding the brunt of my potential counter-assault, and being close enough to the violence to make the calls. Niels was next, walking as guiltily as always; and then Aimil, whose wounds had healed badly and had formed a jagged scar across his face. Mikkel was the last to come into view, and, though all of them carried the same type of makeshift spear, he was the only one treating it more like a walking stick than a weapon.
They crept to the front of the hut, grouping together, waiting for everyone to gather before they rushed through the door. While they did this, I watched the grass behind the building for signs of Onni's shadow stretching along the ground, lagging behind like I could picture him doing. But the crew didn't seem to be waiting for anyone else after Mikkel had joined them, and for the first time I knew, conclusively, that Onni was dead.
A few of them nodded at each other, and Toivo's head suddenly jerked into the air as he kicked in the door, which yielded easier than he was anticipating. As it swung open, they all took a step back, crouching slightly, gripping their spears, ready for the onslaught. When nothing stirred inside, some of their shoulders slumped with disappointment. This wasn't what they'd expected. After they exchanged a few looks, Toivo took the initiative and poked his spear into the building, entering reluctantly after it, his head darting to either side of the door as he crossed the threshold, maybe fearing that he'd be bitten a second time. Knut followed closely at his back.
At the same moment, both Niels and Aimil looked over their shoulders, seeming to suspect that I was nearby, and maybe even still within eyeshot. I concentrated on keeping my chest from visibly heaving, knowing that the slightest movement or sound would give me away. And though everything in me wanted to just break out of the bushes and run, I understood that the only chance I had was to outwait them - as unbearable as that might prove to be.
The crew, seeming more than a little confused by my absence, started to mumble and spread out, beginning to either look for me, or for clues of which direction I'd fled. I was amazed with the manner in which they did this. It was unflustered, logical, and completely systematic. They knew exactly what they were doing, moving out in small circles, carefully watching where they stepped, pressing their feet into the soil beside my footprints to compare how fresh my tracks were, crouching to inspect the divots left by some of the tools that I'd been using the previous day. And this all seemed to be second nature to them, routine, which meant that they had been hunting me for a while, that they'd grown used to scouring the land for clues.
They had probably guessed that I would be along a watercourse, and had used the maps on the ship to locate all of the drainages in the area. And, after searching the closest one to where they'd landed and not finding any sign of me, they'd probably just patiently moved onto the next - and then the next. Considering the resources they had, the manpower, the information of where I'd most likely landed, along with the fact that there were no other people to muddle the clues and tracks that I left behind, finding me would be relatively easy, regardless of our being on a massive continent. And because I'd never imagined them coming to look for me, I'd even helped them out; I'd chosen to use a building in a painfully conspicuous place, and then had proceeded to loaf around there for months. And now that I was watching how delicately they picked through the clues, I could bring to mind a long list of careless evidence that I'd left behind. The squatting to rest in the soft soil beneath the trees that were just off the road, the stepping into the mud in order to better inspect some tracks that I'd seen, the walking across sheltered dirt in the settlement; all of it, slowly leading the way to the hut, a trail of my footprints - my perfectly unique and distinguishable footprints! How easy I'd made it for them! They had only to link one scattered sign of me to the next, until they eventually spotted the hut on the skyline. Then they'd moved through the deep ravine beside the river to stay hidden, sleeping as close as they could to the terrace in hopes of catching me off guard in the early morning. I'd made myself the perfect sitting duck.
Except for Knut, who stayed in front of the door, they all continued to fan out in search of fresh clues, Mikkel doing a noticeably worse job than everyone else, staying in the same spot and staring down at one of my tracks, leaning heavily on his spear, almost managing to look disinterested. Eventually, some of them came to the trees in the grove, and quickly plucked a few pieces of fruit from the branches, tossing them to others who weren't as close. They had obviously become used to pillaging, and it was then that I noticed some of the shining trinkets adorning their spears, which they must have stolen from houses and settlements along the way. None of them were wearing the clothes we'd left the island with, either; instead, they had shirts that were slightly over or undersized, along with some form of footwear, and pants that had been roughly cut to match their height. Physically, they looked exhausted, thinner, their cheekbones sharper than I remembered them being. It occurred to me that they might have had a few ordeals of their own since I'd seen them last.
I heard the shushing of the raven's wings in the air above me, and its black shape soon came into view, coasting toward the crest of the roof where it usually landed. But, when it realized it wasn't me standing in front of the building, it flinched (for lack of a better word), quickly flapping in the opposite direction, climbing higher into the air, its neck darting around to take in the rest of the crew, which it also hadn't seemed to notice until then. I was sure it was going to just turn and fly away as fast as it had come, never to return; but instead, it surprised me, and began to circle, cawing out as if to reproach these visitors that seemed to have mysteriously replaced me. When I considered that the crew were most likely the only other people it had ever seen, I could imagine how confusing it must have been for the poor bird. One human had proven to be strange enough; now there were another five.
Aimil was the first to understand what the racket was all about. He smiled up at the raven and held out his hand, as if there was something inside it.