“I’m sitting here with Ami because she’s scared out of her wits,” he says softly, but indignantly. “Saul is going nuts. He woke everyone with his raging and screaming, telling us there’s a despicable thief among us, but he won’t tell us what he lost.”
“His mind, probably,” Ami quips.
Colin scoffs. “Nothing new under the sun. Why kick up a fuss over it now?”
“I know what Saul has lost,” I say.
Silence pervades the hut for a moment.
“You do?” Colin then hisses. “What is it?”
“I stole The Book,” I reply matter-of-factly.
He stares at me dumbfounded. “You didn’t.”
“Did too.” I’m sounding as smug as Walt now.
“But why?”
“Because it contains things that Saul’s keeping from us. Andy read some pages in secret. If we knew what was really in there, Saul could never be the leader that he is today.”
Colin breathes out in surprise. “Okay,” he mumbles. “If Andy said so...”
“What did you do with it?” Ami asks, looking at me in total awe.
“I hid it somewhere far away, in a place Saul will never look. I couldn’t have kept it hidden close to the house.” Letting out a deep sigh, I sit down. “Have they searched this hut yet, by the way?”
“Twice,” Colin nods grimly. “Saul would’ve loved to catch me red-handed, I assure you. He can’t stand me.”
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 yourself 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 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 damage it 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 in there 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,
By the time 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: 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’s 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’s 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 the door. “The coast is clear,” she whispers.
Colin and I sneak out and quickly cross the lawn, running toward our tents. We’re 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’s 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 laughter 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’s being turned down because of him.
“You think it’s funny?” he growls. Ben has an uncanny talent for spotting my almost-smiles.
“Yeah, 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 won’t even wonder 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 step into my tent that a sad feeling hits me. Am I unfeminine? Maybe that’s why no one has ever taken an interest in me like that. That’s why Andy’s dating Mara. Apparently, I’m an anomaly.
Do I like girls?
I don’t believe so. 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 isn’t the only reason I’m looking forward to meeting him again tomorrow.
10
“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 near 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 question 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 me, or are you going to sit there daydreaming Foolishly?”
“I wasn’t,” I protest. “I was just thinking.”
“Yeah, right. With googly eyes like that? I don’t think so, girl.” Mara pokes me in the side. “So, are you gonna share him with me? Can I see him too?”
I can’t bite back a 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 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 reaching 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 one 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.
“No, actually. I layered on the love to needle Ben.”
“Ben? How so?”
I quickly debrief Mara about Ben’s misguided ‘lesbian-lovers’ assumption. Mara’s eyes sparkle when I tell her the whole story. “Awesome! What a joke. We have to keep up the charade, you know – being all over each other in front of the others so Ben will finally leave me alone. Although I’ll have to tell Andy what’s really going on then.”
“Uh-huh. You and Andy.” I raise an eyebrow. “So, what’s up with that?”
She blushes. “Well, nothing’s up. Things are going fine. He wanted to go on another date. But if Colin is planning a rebellion with him, he’ll probably be occupied with other things right now.”
“If it feels right, don’t question it,” I say with a smile.
Slowly, we’re making our way through the forest, collecting wild plants and edible roots. It’s a good thing Saul’s ‘army’ already passed through this morning, or we would have tripped over one of his lackeys in search of The Book at every step.
Some of the blackberries are already ripe, and we pick some to quench our thirst and curb our appetite. I can hear birds scrambling around in the low shrubs, but we leave them alone, because we haven’t brought our bows and arrows. Archery isn’t my greatest talent anyway – I usually leave that to Colin. I like fishing better, and I’m good at it, too. On a good day, I can even catch fish from the river with my bare hands. We have a river running through the valley that comes from the top of one of the mountains on the island.
Two years ago, I was sitting at the summit of that mountain, catching my breath from the steep climb, when I saw a Fool’s ship sailing in the distance. Strangely enough, I couldn’t make out any sign of life on the western part of the island. Just endless trees. For a minute, I thought I saw a plume of smoke trailing up toward the sky, but for all I know it could have been my imagination. Now, I’m starting to think I was actually right about seeing that lifesign.
The Fools are a part of our world, and it’s time we open up to them
.
***
When the sun is nearing its highest point in the sky, a nervous flutter starts in my stomach. Mara and I are carrying our overflowing baskets to the spot where I talked to Walt last night. I have no trouble finding my way back – I know the trails of the forest by heart after countless hikes into the wild at Saul’s command – but I’m not so sure about Walt. Will he be able to make his way back here? Or was our encounter the previous night the last I’ll see of him?
Walt is here. He’s wearing dark-green clothes serving as camouflage in the bushes he was using to hide. I almost didn’t see him. Almost, because his light-blonde hair is clearly visible. In his hands, he’s holding a green beanie hat which he apparently took off so his head would stand out. Or maybe taking off your hat is a Foolish custom and he’s trying to be polite.
“Leia,” he calls out quietly, getting up from his squatting position and glancing sideways at Mara curiously.
“This is my best friend,” I quickly explain. “She’s okay. She knows you have The Book.”
“I understand why you wanted to keep him all to yourself,” Mara mumbles under her breath.
I ignore the flush creeping into my face and walk up to Walt. In broad daylight, his skin still looks pale, but his light-blonde hair looks shiny and more vibrant in the sun. His hair is shot through with darker strands of a color that reminds me of the golden pendant worn by the Eldest’s wife on special occasions. Walt is almost as tall and broad as Andy. His eyes look at everything around him with boundless curiosity, including me. I suddenly feel shy under his inquisitive gaze.
“Did you bring it?” I ask.
Walt pats the brown leather bag slung over his shoulder. “Of course. And I brought some news, too.”
He pulls The Book from his bag and shows us the front cover, tapping the first Luke and Leia with his index finger. “Tony knows them. Your ancestors.”
My mouth falls open. “He does?”
Walt nods seriously. “He wants to talk to you. Explain things. Don’t ask me what he meant by that, but I think it’s important you gather a few friends you trust and come see us in Hope Harbor. You think you can do that?”
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