by Jen Minkman
“Holy Agnes,” Walt whispers. “Now I understand why you were so shocked by what happened to Praed in Hope Harbor.” He told me that Tony was utterly devastated after the incident, and now I get why. Henry was equally frozen with fear when Saul’s henchmen dragged him out of his cell. In all probability, these people have never witnessed or experienced real violence. The minute hostility rears its ugly head, it is nipped in the bud with a friendly smile and a merciless needle.
“But Tony!” I hiss. “Surely you don’t agree with the way things are done around here?” I shoot him a searching look. Somehow it doesn’t feel like his explanation about Gideon’s teachings are spoken from the heart.
Tony leans a bit closer. “In Bodmin, things are less strict,” he divulges in a low voice. “In my city, the mayor issues three warnings before taking action. But President Jacob doesn’t know that, and we’d like to keep it that way. Before I left for Penzance, I’d just started up a new project with the mayor to help and support teenagers and young adults with behavioral issues. I’m a youth counselor. And I think we should try to re-educate these people, not make them disappear.”
“But that’s a radical point of view,” William concludes.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why is there a fence around Dartmoor County?” I blurt out. “How does that help anyone?”
“It’s their way to keep out strangers who don’t share their ideals,” Tony replies. “And sometimes – people escape. Especially here. They run off before they can get arrested and Purged, to disappear into the poisonous lands beyond the fence. And the leaders are afraid they might be back to take revenge later on.”
“So these people willingly expose themselves to the old world full of sickness and radiation to avoid being executed here?”
“More or less.”
“Well, that’s not exactly consistent with the tenet of loving your enemies,” I remark bitterly.
Tony shakes his head. “Jesus meant to say you shouldn’t take revenge on people who sinned against you, but forgive them instead. If you don’t, things will escalate. But if someone who already signed the manifest breaks the rules, the guards are allowed to step in and take action.”
Just then, the waitress puts down a tray filled with food and we all fall silent. The friendly smile that appears on her face as she hands me my apple juice makes me shiver all of a sudden. Anything could be hiding behind that smile. For all I know she ratted out her neighbor to the guards for shouting too loudly during an argument.
“The majority of people in Dartmoor are very happy and content,” Tony says softly. “They think it makes sense to eradicate aggression this way.”
“What about the people who don’t think it makes sense?” Walt objects. “People like Sam?”
Tony casts down his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he just says. “This is how we live, and let’s be honest – there hasn’t been any conflict, armed or otherwise, since Dartmoor and Bodmin were founded. Everyone has what they need. There is no hunger, no rebellion, no crying, no pain.”
Those last few words seem to be this county’s motto. I bite my lip to stop myself from verbally attacking Tony again and tell him that Sam evidently did suffer from pain and crying when they grabbed him and put him to death. It’s no use blaming Tony for this. He didn’t come up with the idea. Besides, he’s sort of a rebel himself, trying to ease the rules together with Bodmin’s mayor.
“I want to leave this place,” I snap. “As soon as possible. Early morning. Let’s just get to Moretonhampstead and have a look at those books about the old world. I don’t feel comfortable here anymore.”
“Ditto,” Walt agrees.
“Same goes for me,” William grumbles.
Tony nods. “I’ll make sure we can leave at nine. Are you sure everybody wants to come along and leave so soon?”
“Obviously,” I mumble.
Tony should have warned us. Who in his right mind wants to stay in a city with such terrifying laws?
As it turns out, I am wrong about everybody’s right mind.
When I get to the hotel that evening and go upstairs to the room I share with Padma, she pulls me inside, her eyes shining excitedly.
“Leia!” she says, breathless. “I’m going on a date.” She flutters her eyelids.
“Huh?” I say. “Who with?”
“His name’s Jack. He works here. He said I could stay with him for free if I want to look around Dartmoor for a bit longer.”
I raise an eyebrow. “For free? Are you sure he doesn’t want anything in return?”
Padma blushes. “Come on. It’s not like that.”
I impatiently rub my forehead and sit down on the bed. “I bet Jack is a nice guy, but have you taken a good look at what this city is like? You do know what happened to that guy in the square, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.” Padma gives me a serious look. “But it seems he knew perfectly well that he was breaking the law. And it was over in a heartbeat. It didn’t hurt. I mean, if anybody broke one of Saul’s rules, he or she would be beaten and tortured for hours with an audience to watch the proceedings. And they brutally killed Henry with a sword.” She restlessly worries the hem of her dress. “I just want to live in a place without violence,” she admits, almost inaudibly. Sudden tears roll down her cheeks.
“Oh, Padma.” I get up and pull her into my arms. “I understand you’ve seen your share of fighting, but do you really think Dartmoor has found the best solution? I don’t know.”
“You can leave tomorrow, if you want. I’ll be fine. And there’s more people who want to stay. Jinn and Winda, for example.”
That shuts me up and makes me really think. Am I really the only one who feels something isn’t right about the way things are run in Dartmoor? Or am I missing something crucially beneficial about their means of keeping the peace?
“We’ll be back soon,” I say. “Tomorrow we’ll visit the library in Moretonhampstead, but after that the plan is to go to Bodmin, and we’ll pass by here. You shouldn’t rush into any decisions about staying here.”
Padma smiles. “Okay, thanks. But don’t you think it’s wonderful, the way total strangers are being welcomed into the community here? That never would have happened back on Tresco if a whole troupe of Fools had shown up in Newexter.”
“If you stay, you’ll have to sign the manifest,” I warn her. “When you turn eighteen, anyway.”
“Manifest?” Padma repeats.
“Yes, that’s the document in which they lay down the rules you should adhere to. Every adult breaking those rules by being aggressive will be Purged.”
“Oh.” She frowns a little. “I get that. Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I’ve got a few years left to get the knack of their law system if I really want to stay here.”
I don’t know what to say. There’s little point in getting worked up – Padma is as stubborn as a blind Fool. Besides, I have no right to force my opinion on her. If this town fuels her Force, that’s too bad, but also understandable. “I’m going to sleep,” I announce. “We’re leaving early tomorrow morning. So we don’t have to wait for Winda and Jinn either?”
In my mind’s eye, I can still see their terrified faces during those organized fights on the lawn in front of the house. Attendance had been compulsory, so the twins had always been there, but as far away from the blood and pain as possible. All the way in the back. Winda had never been called forward to show his strength, but his brother Jinn had, and it had been terrible to witness. Jinn had started crying even before entering the circle to fight Max.
When Padma blows out the candles on her nightstand and wishes me good night, I can’t stop the dreams about our old life full of fear and cruelty from coming to me. When my nightmare finally allows me to run away from Saul and the manor, I end up on the Dartmoor square, where President Jacob is waiting for me, a needle in his hands and a malicious grin on his face.
10 – Leia
When Tony shows up at the gates wit
h his bus the following morning, a group of forty-three islanders is waiting for him. The seven absentees are all from my side of Tresco. Apparently, the Hope Harborers are better able to pick up on the undercurrent of danger in this town. They’re not so foolish after all.
Walt holds on to my hand tightly, looking left and right to keep an eye on his people. “I told them what Tony told us yesterday afternoon,” he says quietly. “Together with my dad. They were all there at the church.”
“And?”
“They want to get to Bodmin as soon as they can. Seems like a much better place to them. Thank Goddess Tony isn’t as strict as the people here.”
“If he were, he never would have taken us here,” I point out to him. “He knew from the start that the islanders aren’t a bunch of meek sheep. He’s probably seen more bloody mayhem in that one week he spent on Tresco than he saw in his entire life before.”
Walt’s face tightens. “He should have warned us.”
I shake my head. “I’ve been thinking. President Jacob knows we’re just guests here. We didn’t sign that manifest. And besides, Tony may not have realized his culture seems so weird to us.” I smile faintly. “Remember your reaction to me when I kept saying ‘the parents’ instead of ‘our parents’? I just didn’t understand what your problem was.”
He smiles back awkwardly. “Yeah, and you thought us stupid for building ships we never used to actually sail away. We were just biding our time waiting for a miracle.”
At that moment, William approaches us. “I got my hands on a copy of the book Gideon wrote,” he says. The volume he’s waving in front of us looks like the books they have in Hope Harbor. It says ‘New Testament’ in black letters. “There are huge piles of them in their temple, so people can buy them and read them at home. The original is in the palace under lock and key, but they make new copies all the time, that church lady said.”
Just for a split second, I feel a pang of resentment stabbing at my heart. Despite their rather extreme norms and values, the leaders of Dartmoor have no problem sharing their Book with everybody, even with people from outside of town. With us, there was just the one copy, and Saul always guarded it anxiously. And from what I heard, the people on Walt’s side of the Wall weren’t allowed free access to the Bookkeeper’s Library either. Everyone here is able to read Gideon’s book, so there are no secrets. So I wonder how things ever got to this state.
“Can I read it?” I ask eagerly.
William hands me his latest acquisition. “Be my guest,” he says. “Something to keep you occupied during our trip.”
At that moment, the front door of the bus opens with a hissing sound, and the people almost trample each other in their rush to get inside. Saying the visit to Dartmoor wasn’t the success we hoped for is putting it mildly.
Walt boards the bus after me and sits down with me in the seats at the front. “Where’s Padma?” he asks. “Wasn’t she your roommate for the night?”
I haven’t told him yet that she wants to stay here a bit longer. “She didn’t feel like coming,” I mumble. “We’ll pick her up on our way back.”
President Jacob is here to see us off. Next to him is his ailing daughter. The blissful smile on his face as he looks up at the bus windows makes me sick. I can’t look at it anymore without thinking of the murder that was committed in the square. Whether boys with grim faces and swords in their hands or composed soldiers carrying painless needles do it – it doesn’t make a difference. Henry never wanted to die, and neither did Sam. He’d been scared out of his wits. He’d begged the guards for mercy, to spare his life so he could be there for his family. Had they simply accepted his Purge afterwards – obediently nodding in agreement because Sam had signed the manifest and knew the rules? Or had they revolted too and been taken care of out of sight?
“I’m happy this isn’t the only city in the new world,” Walt mumbles as he dutifully waves at the president. The bus starts rolling away, and very soon, the walled city is no more than a gray stain and a terrifying memory on the horizon.
I smile bleakly. “I know. Me too.” I hold up the New Testament. “You want to read along?”
“Sure, that’d be nice.”
As the level road to Moretonhampstead is smoothly eaten away by the wheels of the bus, we read about Jesse, the bogeyman from Walt’s religion, whose real name is slightly different. I have to admit I’m very much impressed with his life and teachings, although some of the elements seem like a fairytale to me. Walt, on the other hand, becomes less and less responsive to my remarks and observations, until he turns his eyes away from the book completely.
“What’s up?” I ask gingerly.
He shrugs. “It’s just – this is difficult for me. Reading about him. We always thought Jesus represented evil temptation. How could we have gotten it so wrong?”
“Well, in here people can read his words straight from the source and they’re still getting it wrong,” I point out. “That’s just the way it is. It’s the same thing that happens in the Whisper Game. Where you sit in a circle and you whisper the message to the next person so it comes out all garbled in the end?”
Walt shakes his head. “We don’t know that game.”
“Oh.” I sigh. “Well, you get the idea. Over time, important information gets distorted to the point that it doesn’t even resemble the original message anymore. Just look at us. We thought some fairytale hero was our forefather.”
“Tony says they have images of the story in that library. So you can watch the story. A movie, I think he called it?”
With a heavy sigh, I slam Gideon’s book shut. “Yeah. I just might.”
“Might?” Walt shoots me a surprised look.
I can’t really explain why, but I realize that I don’t actually care what was told about Luke and Leia in the books and movies of yore. What we did with that knowledge has been transformed so immensely over the years that it will probably only depress me if I see the original. “You know what I would really like to see?” I say softly, yet urgently. “Exeter.”
Walt stares at me in fascination. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yes, I’d like that too. That’s where we all come from.”
I smile. “Exactly. At least that’s real.”
“You think we can go there?”
“It’s not that far from Moretonhampstead,” I say, digging up a map from my shoulder bag. I got it from the museum we visited during our tour of the city yesterday. It’s a replica of a page from an old map book they had on display – something called an atlas. According to the plaque, it was a ‘Collins Britain’ from 2023. The page replica I got from the shop shows Devon and Cornwall long before the war broke out and the world was destroyed.
Walt’s eyes skim the map. “That’s at least a half-day walk,” he protests.
“So we take one of those electric vehicles.”
“Well, if someone wants to give us a ride…” Walt gets up from his seat and leans forward to address Tony in the driver’s seat. “Hey, Tony, can we do some sightseeing in Exeter too?”
“I’m afraid not,” I hear him say to my utter disappointment. “There’s radiation hazard in the entire area. And the risk of catching the disease, of course.”
“So can’t we look at it from a distance?” Walt tries again.
“You can take a bus from Moretonhampstead to Dunsford. It’s a village close to the fence. About ten miles away from Exeter. Trust me, you can’t get any closer. All the roads leading there were either destroyed or blocked. Well, apart from the one footpath, that is.”
“A footpath?” I echo. “Why is it there?”
Tony hesitates for a few beats. “It’s for the pilgrims.”
“Who are they?” I inquire.
“Some people in Dartmoor suffer from the war disease,” our friend from Bodmin explains. “Which means they will never recover. We don’t have a cure. Sometimes, patients leave for Exeter a few weeks before their deaths to visit the cathedral and take an object from the interior to giv
e to the Dartmoor church. The cathedral is the holiest building in all of Devon and Cornwall. Sometimes, they don’t make it – they collapse from radiation symptoms before even getting out of Exeter. That’s why we always send two people at once. If one is too weak, the other person can still take the object to make a donation in the dead pilgrim’s name.”
“Does that mean there are always two people available to make the trip at the same time?” Walt wonders aloud.
“Well. Some of those people are volunteers. According to the manifest, they should be Purged, so they offer their services to the church to wash away their sins and not fear death.”
“So it’s a suicide mission,” I conclude incredulously.
“Yes.” Tony nods solemnly. “But they do it of their own free will. In case neither of the two returns, a small monument is erected for them in Dartmoor’s graveyard.”
“And Dunsford is the starting point for these pilgrims?” Walt asks.
“That’s right. But don’t delude yourself – there is no way you’ll get past the border control. Only people who are on death’s doorstep can leave for Exeter.”
“So what do they take from that cathedral?” I want to know. “What kind of beautiful trinkets are in there that make people sacrifice their lives?”
“Symbols from Gideon’s religion. Crosses and goblets, icons, books full of hymns. Every pilgrim can pick one thing to take back. But they don’t swap their lives for those objects, Leia. They do it in honor of their religion.”
I can’t help but suddenly think of a certain passage in Gideon’s book. Jesus outside the temple, overturning the tables of moneychangers and salesmen selling precious merchandise. He did it because he thought a house of worship should never get involved with accumulating wealth. And then I think of the priests in Walt’s city, whose grabby hands hid all the gifts to the Goddess in a cave far away from Hope Harbor, so they could reap the benefits themselves.
