by Antony John
Rose didn’t answer, but when she leaned into me and rested her head against my shoulder, I knew she was wishing for the very same thing.
»«
We formed a circle around Eleanor’s body, just as we had for Kyte two days earlier. We were fewer now. With my father below deck, still too weak to move, only eight of us stood there.
I’d promised to bring everyone to safety. I’d convinced them that a better future lay ahead. But who was better off now?
All eyes turned to Tarn to offer blessings for safe passage. She couldn’t seem to find the words, though. So Rose began to speak, words of comfort and, above all, love.
Across from me, Ananias kept his eyes closed, fists clenched at his sides. When Rose was done, he stepped forward and crouched beside Eleanor. He rested his elbows on his knees, head swaying slowly from side to side. From the way he stared at her, I imagined that he was committing her face to memory, already dreading the day when he’d forget how she looked.
Alice took a seat across from him. She held her sister’s hand, turned it over and twined fingers. They’d never been as close as my brothers and me—too different from each other—but Eleanor had been patient with Alice. She’d tried to understand her sister’s quirks, and she’d been there when Joven’s temper threatened to boil over. Now a lifetime together was suddenly over.
Tarn knelt beside Alice. She placed one reassuring hand on her daughter’s back, and the other on Eleanor’s chest, right above her heart. “All of us pay for our sins eventually,” she said, though I was certain the remark was directed at us, not her daughter. Then, looking at the sky, she added, “Pity those that pay for the sins of others. Good-bye, my love. Good-bye, my Eleanor.”
A few steps away, Rose’s mother gave a series of gentle nods. She didn’t speak, or comfort Tarn, though. The two widows who had known each other for years behaved like total strangers.
Choking on her tears, Tarn wrapped an arm around Alice and eased her away. With a single nod, she gave us the signal to lift Eleanor’s body.
No one had said a word for Joven.
Rose and Griffin held Eleanor’s legs. Ananias and I held her shoulders. My older brother shook as if the load was the heaviest he’d ever had to bear. In a way, I suppose it was.
We shuffled over to the rail. Griffin and Rose placed Eleanor’s legs on it, leaving it to me and Ananias to push her over. But he couldn’t do it. And so with no other choice, I took both of Eleanor’s arms. When she left us for the final time, it was me who pushed her over.
Eleanor’s body crashed into the water and disappeared beneath the waves. A moment later, she emerged again, settling on the swell. Her tunic, rust red only moments before, appeared bright white in the morning sun. It billowed around her. With her long hair trailing behind her, she looked as beautiful as she had appeared in life, and for that I was grateful. It was how I wanted us all to remember her.
»«
The harbor appeared desolate. Gulls gave warning cries as we approached, but there were no boats on the water, or people on land. To the southwest, Fort Sumter rose fortress-like from the water. Its great brick walls pressed against the harbor swell, as if there were no island at all. A tall ship’s mast peeked above the battlements on the far side.
With a turn of the winches, the ropes and pulleys lifted the sails and tucked them safely away. The ship continued to drift forward, but it was slowing. When we were a hundred yards from the island, Griffin and I lowered the stern anchor. The massive chain links clinked as the anchor splashed through the surface and continued dropping to the harbor bed. A moment later, the ship stopped moving and swayed gently in place.
I ran to the bow to lower the anchor there too, but Alice told me to wait. At first, I was confused, but as the tide pulled the ship’s prow gently around, I understood. Always thinking ahead, Alice wanted us to face the harbor mouth, in case we needed to leave quickly.
The fort had the look of a place with history, and an unpleasant one at that. Even its location at the harbor mouth seemed threatening rather than welcoming. As the ship swung languidly around, the view shifted somewhat, but I still couldn’t see anyone on the island. Instinctively, I scanned the ground for rats instead. There were no signs of life at all.
We lowered the second anchor and the ship sat idly in the calm harbor water. I joined Rose, who was leaning against the deck rail, hand shading her eyes from the sun. In the near distance, a door opened slowly in the fort’s perimeter wall. A line of men snaked out. They strode toward the edge of the island, where a jetty protruded several yards into the water.
I was so focused on their progress that it took me a moment to notice the other faces gradually appearing above the walls: men and women, and even some children. Only their eyes and noses peeked out, as though they were curious but also afraid.
“I guess they haven’t had many new arrivals recently,” said Rose, echoing my thoughts. “They’re going to have a lot of questions.”
“I’m not sure what to tell them.”
“We could try the truth for a change.”
“That we have elements?” I glanced at my hands and thought of what they’d done. “I don’t think they’re going to trust us if they’re afraid we might burn down their colony.”
The welcoming party stepped onto the jetty and arranged themselves in a line facing us, hands tucked neatly behind their backs. One of them, a man in his late twenties, I guessed, raised a hand and shouted something to us. I couldn’t hear him, though. Again the man shouted, but we were a hundred yards away and the breeze, though gentle, smothered his words. I tried to shout something back, but he couldn’t hear me, either. Beside him, the men shifted from foot to foot, growing restless.
“They’re waiting for us to lower our cutter and row ashore,” said Rose.
“You can hear them?”
She gripped the rail. “No. But they’re getting nervous. We need to let them know we’re friendly.”
“How? We don’t have a cutter.”
The men on the jetty muttered impatiently to one another. Their leader kept his eyes trained on us. Meanwhile, parents were pulling their children away from the walls, as though they didn’t want them witnessing what was about to unfold.
We’d only just arrived and yet I could already feel the threat of what might happen if we didn’t act fast.
I climbed over the rail and dived into the murky water. I sank low, then kicked to the surface and began to swim. My tunic weighed me down, but I concentrated on one stroke and then another.
Finally, I reached the jetty. I grasped one of the wooden stilts and caught my breath. Then I raised my hand in greeting.
In response, I heard a series of clicks. When I looked up, five slender metal barrels were trained on me.
So Dare wasn’t the only one with guns.
CHAPTER 10
Who are you?” The man standing over me sounded scared rather than angry. He wasn’t as old as the Guardians, but had the weathered face and wrinkles of someone who spent every waking hour outdoors. “What are you doing here?”
The guns were only a yard or so from my face. “We heard your message,” I said quickly. “The one telling refugees to come to Fort Sumter.”
He exchanged glances with his companions. They seemed intrigued, surprised even, but didn’t move their guns. “And so you came,” he said. “Lucky for you the message was broadcasting that day. Sometimes we need the solar generators for other things.” He ran both hands over his bald head, then pulled them down, stretching the sun-damaged skin around his mouth.
“Put your guns down now!” An older man, maybe sixty, strode across the grass and onto the jetty. “What are you doing, Kell?” he shouted.
“We have guests,” responded the younger man flatly.
“And what kind of host are you?” He pushed Kell aside. “I’m Chief,” he told me. “It’s
what everyone’s always called me, so you may as well do the same.”
“Thomas,” I answered.
Chief crouched down. He flicked his head at the ship behind me. “Where’s the rest of your crew, Thomas?”
I looked over my shoulder. From here, it looked almost like a ghost ship. “There aren’t many of us. Some of the adults are weak.”
Chief’s expression shifted. The guns edged closer.
“It’s not Plague,” I added hastily. “Just injuries. Hunger.”
“What about the body you threw overboard this morning? We saw it, you know.”
Everything came rushing back: Eleanor crashing onto the deck, her broken body, the blood. I shivered. “There was a storm last night. She fell from the top of the mast.”
He sat back on his haunches. “I’m sorry. How old was she?”
“Eighteen.” The word caught in my throat.
“And you, Thomas?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen,” he repeated. “You’ve never known another world than this, you poor thing.” He offered me his hand. “Come on. I may look frail, but I can still pull you out. Especially as my men seem to have forgotten their manners.”
True to his word, he was surprisingly strong. His biceps bulged as he strong-armed me out of the water and onto the jetty. “So you’ve come as refugees, I assume.”
I nodded. “We need your help.”
He cast an eye over me. I was taller than him and some of the other men, but I must have cut a pathetic and bedraggled figure, dripping onto the sun-bleached wooden jetty. “I can see that,” he said.
He flicked his wrist and the men who had continued to point their weapons retreated. “Listen, son. We have almost fifty men, women, and children here on Sumter. We are Plague-free and self-sufficient. And the truth is, the state of your crew has me nervous.”
“It’s not Pla—”
He raised a hand to stop me. “I heard you the first time. I believe you too. You’ve got an honest face, and I’ve seen plenty of men over the years that don’t. But I need to protect these people, Thomas. They were refugees too, once. So I’m going to need to inspect your ship.” He let the words sink in. “Would that be all right with you?”
The answer was no. My father’s injuries weren’t the kind you got from an onboard accident. And locked inside Dare’s cabin were books and maps we couldn’t explain. But I knew what I had to say. “Yes. Of course.”
Chief clapped his hands and waved his men toward a cutter on the other side of the jetty. Now that the situation was resolved, faces reappeared over the battlements—not just eyes and noses, but heads and shoulders.
“Coming, Thomas?” asked Chief, motioning toward the cutter.
“Yes.” But my eyes remained locked on two faces in particular: a boy about my age, and a girl who was a few years younger. They regarded me with serious expressions, their dark skin standing out against the collection of white faces. One eye closed, the boy raised a finger and then pointed it at me as if he was taking aim. When he jerked it upward suddenly, I realized what it meant. He was pretending to shoot me, as though I was as good as dead.
»«
The cutter slipped through the water. I sat at the stern and watched Kell watching me. He hadn’t dared to cross Chief, which emphasized how powerful the older man was. It didn’t mean he trusted me, though.
Everyone except my father had gathered beside the ship’s starboard rail. It wasn’t exactly a welcoming party; more like a sign of how desperate they were to get off the ship. Griffin lowered a rope for us, and Chief removed a rope ladder from the cutter’s hold. He tied it to Griffin’s rope and shouted for Griffin to raise it. Griffin couldn’t hear, though, so I signed that he was supposed to pull it up. Chief watched the interaction with interest. I figured he’d never met a deaf person before.
Once the rope ladder was tied to the rail, I climbed aboard. Kell and Chief followed me and explained to everyone what was happening. Finally, three other men boarded the ship. Watching them standing there, I began to worry. If they decided to take control of the vessel, we wouldn’t be able to stop them.
Or was I just being paranoid? After all, if that was their plan, they would have brought their weapons.
They inspected the deck quickly but thoroughly and went below. Splitting up, they made their way along the corridor, stopping in every cabin.
“My father is in this one,” I said.
Chief nudged the door open but didn’t enter straightaway. I could tell he was anxious from the way he peered around the door before pushing it open completely. I waited for the inevitable questions about what had happened to my father, but Chief just bowed his head. “I’m sorry for his injuries,” he said. “Voyages take a toll on all of us.”
He closed the door behind him and leaned in close. “Is he the worst off, Thomas?”
“Yes,” I said. “Everyone else is just exhausted.”
As Kell caught up to us, he shifted his weight from foot to foot like a tethered animal straining against a rope. With a single nod, Chief unleashed him, and he continued his inspection of the rooms to either side of the corridor.
Finally, we reached Dare’s cabin. The door was locked, of course, and Kell didn’t force it. “What’s in here?” asked Chief.
I didn’t want to jeopardize our situation, but if I let him in, the others would know what I’d been hiding from them. How would Rose respond? Ananias?
“We don’t know,” I answered.
Both men responded with quizzical, doubting looks. “It’s at the stern,” said Chief patiently. “It’s likely to be the captain’s cabin. But you’ve never seen it?”
“We don’t have a key.” I tried to stay calm as a lie took shape in my mind. “Our captain, Kyte, fell overboard a week ago. We were never allowed in, and the key seems to have been lost with him.”
Kell obviously had more questions, but Rose had joined us now. “Thomas is telling the truth,” she said. “My father is lost to the sea, and that door has always been locked.”
There was a long silence. Chief faced the corridor, no doubt mulling over everything we’d said and deciding how much to trust us. Finally, he turned to me and gave a tired smile. “Tell everyone they’re free to disembark. We can offer a little food, and water is plentiful. We’ll also administer aid to you as we are able.”
He strode away, Kell in his wake.
“Thank you,” I said. Then louder: “Thank you so much.”
Chief acknowledged me with a raised hand, but didn’t say a word. It seemed impossible, but the few of us that remained were going to be all right. As if to emphasize how perfect everything was, Rose twined her fingers with mine. My pulse was slow and my body was relaxed, and she didn’t pull away.
CHAPTER 11
Rescuing my father from the cage had been difficult; getting him ashore was almost as hard. Kell strapped a harness to him and with Ananias’s help, they lowered him into a waiting cutter. People on the battlements watched it all unfold. They must have realized that we’d be a burden on their colony until everyone returned to full health.
If that ever happened.
With everyone ashore, Griffin and I tethered the cutter to the jetty and approached the main gate. Even though we were on solid ground, I imagined I could still feel the earth undulating beneath my feet, as if I carried the ocean with me.
I kept Griffin close by. I figured that most of the Sumter colonists wouldn’t have met a deaf person before. He kept his head low, eyes peering through matted hair. The canvas bag he carried on his back looked heavy.
Need. Help? I asked.
He shook his head and pulled the strap higher.
The fort’s brick walls, striking from the harbor, seemed to grow more imposing with every step. Even the main door looked impregnable: solid wood, oak perhaps. It was small and well seale
d, not a barrier against humans but something altogether smaller.
Rats.
Inside the fort, the harbor breeze ceased and the air smelled musty. I stood in the shade of the giant battlements and realized, finally, that this was our new home. It was the reason we’d undertaken the voyage, but until now, I’d been half afraid it might not exist at all. Now I remained rooted to the spot, savoring the quiet.
The door closed, startling me. It filled the space of the frame precisely, as impregnable as the rest of the fort.
“Impressive place, isn’t it,” said Chief, joining us. Ananias was right behind him. “So old, but as strong as ever. A simple design too: a pentagon, pointing to the north.” He gestured to a large two-story black building about thirty yards away. “That’s the battery. Runs the full width of the fort—divides it into two parts. On the other side is the esplanade. This area in front of us are the parade grounds.”
I checked that I’d heard him correctly. “Parade grounds?”
“It’s a military term. An old-world thing.” He smiled. “The children want me to change the name, but I won’t. I think it’s important to keep a connection to the past. Especially when the future’s so bleak.”
Chief led us to the middle of the parade grounds. “To the right there are the barracks,” he said, indicating a maze of crumbling walls. “Used to house officers, back when the fort was in military use. We have a rainwater harvester over there now. It’s where we clean clothes, tools . . . even ourselves. There are a couple holes in the ground for toilets too. Everything runs through a sewer, but if you can wait for high tide we’d all appreciate it. The place can get pretty smelly otherwise.” He chuckled to himself.
I took a moment to point things out to Griffin. He was as fascinated as I knew he’d be.
“He’s deaf,” said Chief when I finished.
“Yes. Do you have any deaf people here?”