by Jen Minkman
Walt grabs my shoulder. “We looked for you both, but we can’t see anything in the dark.”
“He’ll come up,” I whisper. “We just need to wait.”
I feel the coldness of the water seep into my bones. My hand touches Saul’s. Consolingly or looking for support, maybe both. I don’t want to think about the fact that Ben’s shoulder was still bothering him. Why did he have to be the one to come up with this idea? He should have stayed at home. But of course, he never would have done that – he wanted to help his older brother, and me. He wanted to do something good for the island, after living a previous life of violence and fear.
When everybody starts shivering from the cold and we still haven’t seen any sign of life, Saul takes my hand. “We have to go back,” he says. Very quietly, very softly. “The currents have taken Ben. If the Force is strong in him, he’ll be able to swim to the beach.”
I know he doesn’t really believe that. “Okay,” I mumble.
We tried turning the sloop around a few minutes ago, and that didn’t work. So now we are leaving it behind. Swimming in single file like a row of terns, we head for the coast.
The swim back lasts forever. It gives me too much time to think about everything. The tension and arguments on Tresco. The destruction. Tony’s death. Ben, who is missing. Ben, who tried so hard to start a new life. And now his new beginning might be his end. It’s not fair.
Saul would probably tell me that life isn’t fair, but more bearable when you’re not alone.
I submerge my head under water and wash away the tears on my cheeks with salty water from the deep.
When we finally make it to the harbor, we are more dead than alive. Nathan is waiting for us with a full-fledged delegation of Peacekeepers. Behind him, I see Carl with a group of people from Newexter. The Eldest has come too.
Nathan’s eyes grow wide when he sees Walt hauling himself up onto the jetty. “Annabelle be praised,” he cries out, pulling his nephew in an embrace so tight it makes Walt gasp for breath.
I see a woman with dark hair rush to the front to hug Leia, who drags herself out of the water next. Her mother. It only takes a few seconds for a dark-haired guy to join them. I recognize him as Colin, Leia’s sister. More boys and girls join in the reunion happiness. All of them friends of Leia’s.
And then my parents storm to the front, crying and laughing at the same time.
I don’t let go of Saul’s hand when my family pulls me into a group hug and my mother almost smothers me with her kisses. For he is alone. All alone. Nobody asks him where Ben is, or how he’s doing. My heart breaks when I look at him and I see the pain in his eyes, and the fear of accepting for real what has happened.
“You belong with me,” I whisper. “Don’t be scared.”
He shows me the ghost of a smile. “And if I do get scared, will you hold me?”
“Of course.” I put my arms around him and feel him shiver, from the cold, from all the emotions raging through his body, from grief. Then I kiss him on the mouth, under my parents’ surprised eyes. “Because I belong with you, too.”
The day after the destruction of the Crusader, Ben’s lifeless body drifts ashore. In death, he looks peaceful. So different from Finn. He found peace in the arms of the sea goddess. We bury him in the little park close to his cottage in Hope Harbor, as is the custom in his place of birth.
Saul is heartbroken. He denies himself time to grieve by slaving away day and night, working on a third and fourth ship in the St Martin shipyard, and comes home late every night. I moved into Ben’s former cottage, and Saul moved in with me. We didn’t discuss it – it just happened, and it feels right.
When I come home with a bag of groceries one warm summer night, Saul is already home. He’s sitting at the table, looking at two sheets of paper in front of him.
“Look,” he says. “I asked Walt to draw Ben. And Tony. He does really good portraits.” He holds up the papers for me. My breath catches in my throat as I look into Ben’s brown eyes. They look back at me defiantly. Full of life. I bite down on my lip to stop myself from bawling.
Tony’s portrait is different. His dark skin shines and his eyes are gentle. Walt told me what happened in Dartmoor, how Tony had wanted to help us and ended up making everything worse. By sacrificing his own life he saved our people. Just like the god he believed in.
The tide didn’t bring in his body. In all probability, the blast from the explosion killed and maimed everyone on board beyond recognition. Tonight, there’s a memorial service for him, where Walt and Leia will speak a few words. And tomorrow, we are sailing away to our new home.
All the ships are finished. The two in Newexter and the other two in St Martin. Combined with the Explorer, they have enough capacity to take everybody from Tresco to Lundy in one go, but not everyone is going. I know Bram is staying here, just like a number of youngsters in the new village of Newmanor. In Hope Harbor, some old people have decided to stay and wait – how fitting – to see what happens. I know some temple servants are staying too in order to support and guide the ones who stay behind. They simply want to die here, and not leave their island. I can relate to them. If I had the choice, I’d stay here too. This island is my world, but that world is now no longer safe. We have to leave.
It’s time for the biggest adventure in my life. And I don’t have to go it alone.
“Shall we put that up on the wall in our new home on Lundy?” I gingerly suggest, pointing at Ben’s portrait with a faint smile around my lips.
Saul takes my hands and gently squeezes it.
“Yes,” he simply says.
One day, he will be able to smile again. And I will still be there for him.
Epilogue – Leia
Walt and I have been invited to close the ceremony after the Bookkeeper has done a short speech. For the occasion, Walt has drawn a giant portrait of Tony which we have put up, just like in the memorial service for his friend Henry. It makes me think of Michelle. She’ll never know what happened to her husband, and likewise, Tony’s family can’t be contacted to inform them of his fate. He didn’t have a wife or children, but there have to be people on the Other Side wondering where he is. We’ll never be able to make it up to his friends, but we do have the power to give him a grand send-off and thank him for all he has done for us.
After we have stepped forward, I start out by saying the words we have agreed on together. “There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain,” I say. “For our ignorance of old has passed away, thanks to our friend Tony.” A tear rolls down my cheek.
“And we hope that Tony will see a new heaven and a new earth, now that his home is with Jesus,” Walt supplies. We don’t know how the people of Bodmin bury their dead, so we tried our very best to use words from their holy scripture in our goodbyes. It’s the least we can do.
We made him a marker – a beautiful, white slab of stone next to the temple, looking out over the sea. Slowly, people walk by the grave and put flowers and plants by his tombstone. The circle of brightly-colored petals and green leaves keeps growing. Eight hundred of us will venture out to Lundy tomorrow, so in a way, this is also a ceremony to say goodbye to our island.
Walt and I will board the Explorer once more, which was renamed Conqueror. Captain Tom will command the fleet from the Conqueror, because he still knows how to get to Penzance. But we’ll carefully avoid that harbor this time – we’re supposed to sail west as soon as we get a clear view of the Cornwall coastline. We’ll follow it westward and then north. The replica of the map I bought in Dartmoor shows us that we should eventually end up at Lundy if we keep north long enough. And on the north coast of Devon is Exmoor, a place more liberated and wilder than President Jacob’s realm, according to Tony. Who knows, we might make new friends there. And if not, we’ll be fine with just eight hundred of us. All this time, we’ve been able to rely on the Force within us, and we still can now.
When I stand by the docks with Walt early next morning, watching
the sunrise pouring over the buildings of Hope Harbor, I can’t stop my tears from flowing, despite being curious about the new island we’ll sail to. Not too long ago, Walt and I were watching the sunrise on my side of the island. Full of hope we were headed for a fantastic adventure. Only this time, I know it’s the last sunrise we will ever see on Tresco.
“Will you miss it here?” I ask quietly.
Walt nods. “Yes. I have so many memories here. But I know the memories remain even if we leave this place. I’ll keep them forever.” He turns to face me. “What about you?”
I close my eyes and think of all the things in my life that have given me meaning and focus. And I realize those moments all have to do with certain people, dead or alive. It’s not this place – it’s the people in it who have given me everything I needed to get here, and be myself.
“I will,” I reply. “But that’s okay. The world is still waiting for us, and now we can shape it any way we want. Without lies or misconceptions.”
After that, I lay my head on Walt’s shoulder and we quietly watch the world waking up around us, preparing itself for a long, new journey.
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Acknowledgements
When I wrote The Island, I had no idea I would ever write a sequel to that story. And once the sequel was there, I didn’t suspect it would convince me to write this third book. Once I was working on The Deep, my plan was to take this three-part novella series and bundle them into a collection of Island novellas, but The Deep took me for a ride – the story kept growing and growing, exploding into a full-fledged novel instead of a novella. So voila, reader, here’s the result of my imagination running wild! I hope everybody enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it (though I have to say, translating a 64,000-word book in two weeks’ time is something I’d rather not do again) and who knows, this might not be the end. I might yet write more books set in the Dartmoor/Lundy world, but I won’t commit to anything right now. To all the readers who took the time to let me know what they thought of the series by writing emails, tweets, reviews, Facebook posts and whatnot – thank you very much!
Other people I’d like to thank are all the bloggers who dutifully review my books and help me promote my work every time I publish something new, my husband who doesn’t mind if I lock myself up in my study for weeks on end in order to finish a book (hermit!), the Koffie en Kruimels and Bagels and Beans in The Hague, where I sat down with nice drinks and snacks to write the majority of this book, and Natasja Storm, who inspired me to write The Island (and consequently, the other two books in the series) by organizing a dystopian writing contest on her blog young-adults.nl.
See you next time!
Jen Minkman.
http://www.jenminkman.nl (Dutch)
http://jenminkman.blogspot.nl (English)
http://www.facebook.com/JenMinkman
