The beach gets closer and closer until the sailboat bumps the sand. And, just like that, we are back at Martha’s Vineyard. I’m the first to jump out of the boat. It’s surreal to be standing on this sandy beach once more.
I stand in the shallows, water from the small waves splashing into my boots, and help the others jump down. We gather on the sand for a moment in the rapidly dwindling light.
I look at everyone earnestly. “If things don’t go as planned and it looks like we are in trouble, whoever can get out of here must leave. Just turn and run. Save yourselves. Go back to the boat and get out of here.”
“I agree,” says Philip quietly. “We’ve had enough heroics. We don’t need anyone else to die tonight.”
We turn to the forested mountain slope that stands between the West Chop Light and us. Delphine leads the way confidently over an all but invisible path. The route she takes us winds left and right over the mountainside until we reach the grassy clearing that surrounds the lighthouse.
We stand in a circle on the grass which whips and waves frenetically in the wind. The night is upon us, the sky above lit by a multitude of stars. I look up and the others follow, all seven of us staring up at the sky.
I wonder for a moment how the station people are faring since we left them in the forest. I hope that Ben and the commander find somewhere to start anew with Ada and her brother and sister. I may see them in Canada, yet. My world has certainly got a lot larger since the last time I was on Martha’s Vineyard.
“We’ve gone so far, seen so much. But here we are again,” I say wistfully.
“I’d pray to the Gods’ for our success, if it weren’t an entirely futile exercise,” says Carl. I catch his eye. We both grin.
“Edgartown, here we come,” whispers Abigail.
I know how hard it will be for her to return to the place where her mother died. I reach across the small circle and hug her. I pull her in tight and we are in the center of our small group. Soon I feel arms and bodies pressed against me as we envelope each other briefly, tightly.
When we release each other, most of us are wiping tears from our eyes. I can feel the sting of salty tears in my own eyes and use the sleeve of my tunic to wipe them away.
The depth of our connection to one another is overwhelming.
“We’ll follow Delphine to the lighthouse. If it looks deserted, she suggested we take her Grandfather’s tunnel into the forest, closer to Edgartown,” says Philip.
“Good plan,” I reply, remembering the last time I used the tunnel to flee to safety.
We step cautiously through the grass. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I’m able to make out every low thorny bush and eroded pothole. I clutch the gun tightly, my senses alert for any danger.
We reach the lighthouse and the Harbormaster’s Cottage quickly and huddle together in the deep shadows of the cottage. There’s no sign yet of anyone from the island.
“I can’t see anyone,” whispers Birch, scanning the area carefully.
“Me neither,” I say. “Delphine and Abigail, you walk around the other side of the clearing and let us know what you see. Carl and I will check the other half of the perimeter. The rest of you, stay here and keep watch.”
“Good idea,” says Abigail.
Carl and I weave our way to the edge of the clearing that circles the West Chop Light and the Harbormaster’s Cottage. We pause by the forest and listen in earnest.
“Do you hear anything?” I whisper, peering into the depths of the inky forest.
“No, nothing,” he replies.
“Let’s keep going, make sure there’s no one lurking nearby. We don’t want to be taken by surprise.”
We walk on in silence for a few moments, both of us scanning the forest and listening for any sign that there is someone nearby. “Chris,” whispers Carl. “I need to see my family. What if we split after we emerge from the tunnel? I’ll go to West Tisbury and get them.”
“We plan to go to all the villages to warn people, once we convince Edgartown,” I reply.
“I know. I’m just worried that if something happens, we may not make it to my mother and sister…”
“Nothing will happen,” I tell him. “But if you need to get them, that’s fine. You can take them to the lighthouse and wait for us. We will meet you there.”
“Will you need me at Edgartown?” he asks.
“Anything is possible, but I hope not.”
“I don’t see anyone, do you?”
“No, lets go back to the others.”
We walk back quickly and quietly to the Harbormaster’s Cottage. The others are hidden in the deep shade of the cottage, but they materialize in the dark as we approach. I’m relieved to see Delphine and Abigail are already there.
“We didn’t see anyone,” says Abigail. “This part of the island seems deserted.”
“Since Delphine left, I suppose no one has cause to come here,” I say.
“Why do you think they didn’t appoint a new harbormaster?” asks Abigail, glancing at Delphine. Delphine drops her eyes to the ground. I wonder what memories this place is evoking for her.
“It’s strange,” replies my mother. “I would have expected the elders to have done that. It’s not clear to me why they’ve left the West Chop Light dark.”
There’s a soft crack from the forest nearby—like a stick was being broken underfoot—and we all freeze for a split second before drawing our weapons. My heart is thundering in my chest and we all scan the surrounding forest carefully.
After a few moments, it’s clear it was a false alarm, and we lower our weapons.
“I know it seems like we are being especially cautious,” I say to the others in a quiet voice. “But we want to do this right. We need to speak to the people from our village without the elders present. We are bound to get through to a few of them at least. Then we leave this place for good.”
“Let’s go,” whispers Abigail, smiling at me briefly.
We run to the lighthouse one at a time. The distance is only about three chains from the cottage. Delphine is first and opens the door quickly. She stands and holds it for the rest of us as we slide through the opening, before closing it quietly behind us.
As the door closes behind us we are plunged into darkness. My eyes adjust quickly. We are inside a circular room with a spiral staircase built around the inside wall. The ceiling is high and the room is cold and musty, as though no one has inhabited this space for a long time.
There are only miniscule amounts of light entering the inner chamber of the lighthouse from the stairwell above us. But as we stand whispering to each other, I can see flashes of white teeth as the others whisper to each other in low tones. Birch finds me in the darkness and our fingers entwine.
Delphine moves to the center of the room and carefully opens the trapdoor that leads to the underground tunnel. We drop through the hatch one at a time. Once inside, I reach up to close the trapdoor, the reverse of a movement Delphine and I did many lifetimes ago.
Once the trapdoor closes, Philip switches on the lamp that we foraged from the vehicle. The light is blinding and illuminates the length of the tunnel until it twists around a corner.
I reach out and touch the familiar damp earthen walls. The tunnel is narrow and the ceiling low. At regular intervals, timber risers on each side support timber beams that span the ceiling.
“Who built this?” asks Birch.
“It was Delphine’s grandfather,” I say, my eyes on Delphine. She nods her confirmation and seems pleased that I remembered.
“This place makes me anxious,” says Abigail. “It feels like it could fall in on us at any moment and we’ll be buried alive in here.”
“I’m sure it’s safe,” says my mother, her tight, nervous smile illuminated in the bright light.
We traverse the length of the tunnel easily with the lamp. Just as it was the last time I was in this tunnel, the air is stale and just beyond our line of sight, creatures scuttle away into th
e dark. But it’s somehow rendered more tolerable when I’m able to see the way laid out before me.
We walk in a tight, determined pack and reach the end of the tunnel quickly. I place my hands on the rotting wooden door that leads to the forest beyond. I pause, “I have faith we’ll be able to convince them. These are our friends and neighbors. It’s going to be okay.” I look over my shoulder and the faces behind me nod their agreement.
“Time for lights out,” says Philip, switching off the lamp.
I push the door open a crack and listen. There’s no noise, so I push the door all the way open and a pile of tangled goat willow branches fall on me. I push the branches aside and step up and out into the forest. I take a huge lungful of air. It’s good to be out of that tunnel.
“Come on,” I whisper, reaching back into the tunnel to take Birch’s hand. I pull her through the space and she lands lightly beside me. I’m reaching down to help Mother when I hear it. There is the click of a shotgun being reloaded and a muffled cough from somewhere close by.
My heart begins hammering in my chest.
“Run!” I whisper urgently to my mother. “Run back the way you came. There’s someone out here in the forest.”
I turn to grab Birch’s hand to pull her into the tunnel when I spot my father. The sight makes the blood freeze in my veins. He’s about ten cubits away, a shotgun pointed at Birch who stands like a frightened deer, her hands held out before her in surrender.
“Hello there, Chris,” he says to me. “You’ve been gone a while. Unfortunately for you, you’re far too predictable for your own good.”
“How did you find us so quickly?” I ask, hoping to buy some time for the others to escape. I glance furtively at the tunnel.
“Oh don’t worry, they won’t get far,” he says, a cruel smirk on his face. “I’ve got people waiting back at the lighthouse. You’ll see those blasphemous traitors soon enough.”
I strangle the cry that rises in my throat. My father hears the sound and laughs.
“To answer your question, we’ve had lookouts posted since you left. I knew you would come back. We saw your boat and watched you come ashore.”
At his words, a group of men materialize between the trees. Some of the faces are familiar and I look at them beseechingly, searching for a friend or ally. Brutal anger is all that stares back at me. I feel Birch shrink against me.
“It’s okay,” I say to her softly.
She’s tense, as though about to flee. I’m sure she’s thinking about her treatment by Yanx’s men before we rescued her from the camp near Canada.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” I say softly.
“Take them,” orders my father.
A man slips a rope around my wrists and takes my gun. He ties the ends of the rope together tightly and finishes with a complicated knot. I’m grateful they don’t search us.
I hear a cry and see Birch being roughly bound in the same manner. She is crying and won’t meet my eye when I softly call her name.
“Birch,” I whisper again. “It’s okay. Look at me. It will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Be quiet,” roars my father, as he smashes his gun against my head. The pain is excruciating but I grit my teeth and stand taller.
This time my father is the one tying a rope to the bindings around my wrists, in a perverse reversal of our last encounter on the island. He loops the longer rope around my wrist bindings and then does the same to Birch. He seems to take great pleasure in pulling me—as we once pulled him—through the forest like a beast of burden.
I glance at Birch but she seems to be shutting down. She stumbles through the forest next to me with her head lowered. I know how she feels. We never imagined we would be caught so quickly.
“What are you going to do?” I rage at my father. “Are you going to put us in the pit? You won’t stop us. We are going to bring you down.”
My father laughs. “You’ll see what we have in store for you soon enough, my dear son.” He spits out the final word like it’s something offensive. Like I am something offensive.
I glare at him but he ignores me, instead yanking on the rope so I stumble to my knees. I push myself up with my legs quickly. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me on the ground.
We trudge through the forest with the small group of men all pointing their weapons at us until there is the sound of people and horses up ahead. We break into a clearing to find a larger group holding clay lanterns and shotguns, together with a dozen or more horses.
The new group all stand abruptly as we enter the clearing and immediately begin jeering and yelling obscenities at Birch and me. I position myself closer to Birch. “We are going to be okay. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. It’s not over yet.”
Birch cries silently and looks away. My father, seeing me close to her, pulls on the rope hard and I stumble as he forces more distance between us.
I look around the dark clearing. The light from the clay lanterns is dim and the men and horses cast long flickering shadows over the ground. In the middle of the clearing there is a wooden cart on wheels, upon which they’ve built a metal cage big enough to hold at least five people.
“Silence!” yells my father. The group stops talking immediately and stares at Birch and me.
“Is everything ready?” he asks.
One of the men nods, and my father begins to drag me towards the cage. I struggle against the bindings on my wrists; pulling back hard in the opposite direction he is pulling me.
“Watch out,” calls Birch in a fearful voice from behind me.
I turn my head around to search for the incoming hazard just as a heavy branch is swung hard at my head. The branch connects with a sickening thud, and for a moment the world is spinning as though I’m dizzy. I stagger but manage to right myself just as my father yanks hard on the rope.
I crash to the ground and end up face first in a deep pile of decaying leaf litter. There is laughter all around me, and when I look up, there is a wall of jeering faces. The wound from the branch is deep and blood pours from my scalp and down my neck.
“He’s not so clever now, is he?”
“Where’s his crazy girlfriend?”
“Burn in hell!”
My father pulls hard on the rope again and I crawl slowly forward, towards the cage. “Get up you lazy bastard,” yells my father. His words are repeated around the clearing.
I manage to right myself by the wheel of the cart. Hands behind me push me roughly against the wooden wheel. “Up,” barks someone.
But I’m disoriented and hesitate. Next thing, hands are lifting me from above, hauling me on to the cart. Then I’m pushed roughly into the cage.
“In you go,” says my father. His face appears next to the bars and he grins at me nastily. I look over his shoulder at Birch, who is also being dragged to the cart. She screams and kicks but when she sees the heavy branch being lifted in order to strike her, she falls instantly silent and crawls quickly up into the cage.
I press myself against her, trying to shield her at least psychologically from what is happening. “Birch,” I say. She looks back at me with hollow, empty eyes before staring at the base of the wooden cart beneath us. Further words fail me.
A few moments later I hear others approaching the clearing. I sit up urgently, trying to assess the new threat. But it’s our friends, who are bound and tethered and being dragged unceremoniously through the forest.
They are pulled quickly towards the cart and loaded forcefully into the cage. There isn’t much room in here once the last of us are shoved through the cage door. A man climbs on to the cart—shouts an obscenity at us—and then slams the cage door hard, before locking it with a metal key.
We sit on the base of the cart, our legs touching. “Is everyone okay?” I whisper.
“Chris, your head!” exclaims my mother. I can feel the blood continue to trickle unabated down my head and neck.
“No
talking, sinners,” snarls a man from our village. He attaches the cart to a pair of horses, and we start rolling down a path through the forest, jostled about like a wagon full of potatoes.
“We are okay,” mouths Abigail. When the light from the moon hits her face, I see a purple bruise forming over her swollen left eye.
“You need stitches, Chris,” whispers my mother. “Are you feeling okay?”
“My head wound is the least of our worries,” I reply grimly.
“Don’t despair,” says my mother softly. “We can still do this.”
Despite her words, despondency settles over our small group when we realize we are heading for the pit. The pit is located halfway between West Tisbury and Chilmark and we should reach is soon. We continue along the path in silence until we finally reach the area of forest surrounding the pit.
“Do you hear that?” asks Carl in a hoarse whisper.
I listen intently for a few moments. “Yes,” I reply softly. “I can hear voices. And look, the area is all lit up.”
We all stare in the direction of the pit and there is the unmistakable flickering glow of a fire in the clearing up ahead. As we get closer, the hum of voices grows louder.
“What are they planning?” asks Abigail. She doesn’t try to hide the tremor in her voice.
“Be quiet!” yells the man up front, smashing a long stick against the side of the cage. The sound is loud and painful to my sore head. I sit up taller, every sense alert, trying to take in each detail of our surroundings.
When the pit finally comes in to view, what I see takes my breath away. It looks as though every man, woman and child from the entire island—from every village—is in the clearing. They are hungry for blood and waiting for us.
As the horses pull into the clearing, a great roar rises up from the crowd. The jeering and heckling is deafening. Up ahead, a little boy picks up a stone. He lobs it towards us and it sails through the gaps between the bars of our cage. The stone smashes into Delphine’s arm, and she cries out in pain.
“Watch out,” I yell to the others. The boy’s stone starts an avalanche of stone throwing. We are pelted with rocks until we are bruised and bleeding and cowering with our heads lowered.
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