by Jen Minkman
Ben is part of the night team. He works without ever taking a break and doesn’t seem to socialize a lot with his coworkers. Again, I wonder what he’s trying to hide from by slaving away like that.
One hot summer evening, I see him sitting all by himself, his legs dangling over the edge of the docks. He rubs his arm and looks unhappy, so I decide to stroll over and have a chat. So far, he’s been fending me off whenever I wanted to talk, always claiming he was too busy. That excuse isn’t going to work this time, though.
“Hey, Ben,” I greet him as cheerful as I can. “You okay?”
He glances sideways with a frown. “So-so.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Yeah. I think I might have pulled a muscle.”
“Well, no surprise there. I’ve never seen a person doing as many hammer strokes per minute as you.”
He lets out an involuntary laugh. “I guess you’re right,” he admits clumsily. “I work really hard.”
“So? Is the supervisor pleased with your work?”
“Yes. He’s given me a raise.” He grins awkwardly. “So I can pay you back soon.”
I pause to think over my next question for a bit. “Are you coming to the town square for the Feast of the First Harvest tomorrow afternoon?” I ask. It’s the seasonal holiday we celebrate in the middle of summer when the first harvest is in. “We could go together.”
“I don’t know that holiday.”
“All the more reason to go. You wanted to start a new life here, right? It doesn’t get newer than that.”
Ben scratches his chin, then nods. “Fine. What time does it start?”
“Four o’clock. That’s when you get out of bed, I suppose.”
He chuckles. “You suppose correctly. Where shall we meet up?”
“I’ll pick you up.” I scramble to my feet to get back to work and wave at Ben one more time before starting my round along the south quay.
The next day, I pass the central square on my way to Ben’s house. To my surprise, people are putting up a gigantic grandstand looking out over the square. I see women milling about carrying long garlands of flowers and banners depicting ears of corn. They use them to decorate the stage.
“Are we expecting more spectators than usual?” I ask Yorrick’s dad, who is busy giving commands to the carpenters. “We didn’t have this last year, did we?”
“I sent an invitation to the Eldest to celebrate the holiday with us. I told him he could take as many people from Newexter as he wanted. One of our traders came back last night and told me that about a hundred easterners will be attending. And of course, I want to show our town in its best light.”
“You should make sure that the Phileans don’t show up here to stir things up,” I remark sourly. “A scuffle like that would probably ruin our reputation.”
“I don’t think they’ll do that,” the Bookkeeper replies. “They want to honor the seasonal holidays so we can count the days until Annabelle arrives. But I told Daryl to send over a few extra men to keep an eye on the square anyway.”
Deep in thought, I continue down the main street toward the harbor. The turmoil in our city has taken hold of me, buzzing through the blood in my veins. Every morning after my shift ends, I walk to the beach and stare out over the sea to see whether any ships appear on the horizon yet. I used to do this once every week, as a morning greeting to Annabelle as well as Yorrick, who was waiting for me on the Island of Souls. I would hold up the white, delicate shawl Yorrick had once given to me as a birthday present, to let it flutter and dance in the breeze.
Every time I walk out into the surf now, I realize I have lost both Annabelle and Yorrick. Or is what the easterners say true – is there really a life after death because the force coursing through your body never dies? Don’t we have to give up our deceased relatives and friends, even if there is no island filled with souls beyond the horizon?
Ben is waiting for me in front of his tiny cottage. “Hi, Alisa,” he says with a smile. “Thanks for inviting me along. I’m sorry I was less than enthusiastic yesterday.”
“Well, you can make it up to me by being your most sociable self today,” I tell him teasingly. “I want to introduce you to my friend Anna, and to Samuel.”
“Is Samuel your husband?” Ben asks curiously.
“Uhm, no.” I shoot him a puzzled look. I’m not that old, but Ben seems to think I have the right age to be married already. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
“Oh.” He shrugs. “Well – people on our side of the Wall usually choose a partner when they’re sixteen, seventeen. You’re twenty, right?”
Ah, yes. That’s true. Newexter sent away their children at the age of ten. “Hey, so does that mean you have a secret wife somewhere, Benny Boy?” I snicker.
His face clouds over. “No.”
“You hadn’t made your choice yet?”
This question makes him shut up completely.
“Sorry,” I say uncomfortably, when the silence threatens to suffocate me. “Come on, let’s just go to the square, okay?”
“Fine.” He still seems in a grump as we make our way to the center, his face only brightening when we get to the main road. It’s bustling with musicians playing upbeat music and vendors selling food and drinks from market stalls. Some children dressed in white and yellow dance excitedly around a flute player piping out a stirring melody.
By the time we get to the square, the place is packed. The Bookkeeper is about to do a speech to thank Mother Nature for the gifts of summer she bestowed on us. Since we no longer have priests to speak about Annabelle’s arrival, the official part is considerably shorter. I happen to know Nathan originally wanted to thank the Goddess for sending us a ship from Cornwall, but his counselors advised against it. The Phileans have many supporters, and the Bookkeeper doesn’t want to start out by rubbing half of the people on the square the wrong way.
It doesn’t take long for the procession of farmers with carts full of grain to make their appearance. With proud faces, they carry the bags onto the stage. The contents will be distributed among the Hope Harborers, who will each get a small pouch of the very first harvest. It is custom to mill the grain and use the flour to bake bread for your neighbors. They, in turn, bake something for you.
“You have to use the grain in your pouch to make food for someone else,” I explain to Ben. “You then give it to your neighbors.”
“Good to know,” Ben says. “I’m just not the best baker in town. I’m more of a meat-and-game man.”
“I can help you,” I offer.
And then, Ben stops breathing, his eyes widening as he looks at the grandstand next to the stage. “Is that – the Eldest?” he asks hoarsely. “Who is with him?”
“Some people from your former village,” I reply. Only now does it occur to me that I could have warned him. He didn’t run away to Hope Harbor for fun.
“Oh.” His eyes scan the crowd. He looks pale and anxious.
“Come on, let’s go over to the stage.” I pull him along. “We’ll just take our grain and get out of here to relax in a quieter part of town, okay?”
As we get closer to the farmers’ carts, I can hear the Newexter crowd in the grandstand getting rowdy. Apparently, they’ve noticed Ben and are now shooting him vile looks.
“What are you doing here?” a girl with bright, green eyes snaps at him. “Are you even allowed to come to parties?”
Ben doesn’t respond. Instead, he stares intently at his toes.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Her voice rises. “Piss off, you bastard. How dare you show your face here?”
“Coward,” another girl chimes in.
“Asshole,” the first girl reprises her tirade.
“Murderer,” a dark-haired guy yells at him.
I glare at the swearing youngsters. “Can you keep it down?” I shout. My voice is steady, although the easterners’ harsh words did shock me. “You’re guests in our town. We don’t want any trouble. Or bullies.”
<
br /> That seems to deter them. “I’m sorry, miss,” the green-eyed girl says. “It’s okay. He’s gone anyway.”
When I turn around, I discover Ben has indeed fled the scene.
“Go away.”
Ben’s voice sounds muffled through the cottage door.
I knock once more. I won’t be rebuffed that easily. “Ben, come out. I want to talk to you.”
“Why?” A sudden sob strangles his voice.
With an impatient sigh, I push the door open. The fishermen’s cottages in this row don’t have locks on their doors, so I could have just walked in, but I wanted to give Ben the chance to open the door for me. “Because,” I reply with a frown.
He’s sitting at the table, a glass of gin in front of him. My hand resolutely pushes the drink away as I sit down. “Spill,” I say.
“What’s there to say?” Ben looks at me both angrily and sadly. “You heard them, didn’t you? Everybody hates me. I’m a jackass and a murderer.”
I stare at him expectantly. “I want to hear your side of the story.”
Ben stares back, his face tight when I take his hand in mine and squeeze it comfortingly. Suddenly, tears are rolling down his cheeks. With a strangled cry, he pulls his hand free and hides his face in his hands, crying soundlessly. His shoulders shake with sobs and his entire body seems to collapse in on itself. It’s as if he explodes into a thousand sad little pieces. I have never seen such sadness. I’ve only felt it myself, after Yorrick died.
“I’m Saul’s brother,” he finally whispers. “The leader of the manor house.”
I inhale sharply. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He barks out a bitter laugh. “Oh.”
Again, silence pervades the room. It hangs thickly in the air while I stare at him, lost for words. Quite frankly, this shouldn’t be such a shocker. I already knew Ben had done terrible things – terrible enough to make him an outcast criminal in his own village, swapped out for Bram and Finn who went to live in Newexter. But I relegated that knowledge to the deep recesses of my mind because I’d wanted to give him a chance to start all over. The villagers from the east haven’t forgotten who Ben once was, though.
“What did your life there look like?” I inquire at last.
Ben closes his eyes and starts talking in a soft voice. “Saul had absolute power, and it made me feel safe. Nobody could touch me as long as he was there. And I had strong friends, all of them older than me.” He clenches his fists. “I looked up to my brother. I didn’t dare question his decision when he said Henry should die. And when Saul’s friends stabbed him, I forced myself not to look away, even though I wanted to. I should have said something – I knew everything was about to blow up in our faces. But the only one who spoke out was Leia.”
“Couldn’t you have backed her up?”
Ben laughs derisively. “Leia hated my guts. And rightly so – I’d convinced Saul that Mara, her best friend, should be married off to me. That night, after the execution, I would have dragged Mara to my bedroom. I’m a coward, a rapist and a murderer. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
I nod gingerly. “I wanted the truth,” I whisper.
“Well, now that you know the truth, I think you’d better leave.”
I rub my face tiredly. “Ben. You wanted to start anew, didn’t you?”
He looks away. “I can’t do it. Not yet. Maybe never.”
“But you’re here,” I argue. “You could have stayed behind, just like Saul.”
“No,” Ben mutters despondently. “I want to know who I am myself. Without him, and without that false sense of security. Without all those people who despise me.”
“Then stop despising yourself,” I say calmly. “Once you’re done doing that, you know where to find me.”
“You mean you still want to see me?” he asks in a soft, incredulous voice.
I bite my lip. “I need some time too, I guess.”
“Yes.” Ben slowly nods. “Yeah, I get that.”
“Good.” I get up abruptly. “I should be going back to the feast.”
I’ve already crossed the threshold when Ben calls after me: “Alisa?”
“Yes?” I turn around.
“Thanks. For everything.”
7 – Alisa
In the middle of the night, I am roused from sleep by agitated voices in the street, combined with the asphyxiating smell of fire drifting in through my bedroom window. I sit up with a start. Is our house burning?
“Lisa, wake up,” my father’s voice booms through the door. He’s banging his fist on the wood to stir me from sleep. “There’s a fire down at the harbor. Daryl needs you.”
Oh, no. “I’m coming,” I call back, quickly throwing on some clothes.
Within a few minutes I’m down at the harbor, standing on the main quay where a large crowd of people has gathered. My mouth falls open in horror when I see what they have come to gawk at. The ship that the builders have worked so hard on – that Ben slaved away for – is being devoured by hungry flames that seem to maliciously mock our ambitions in a dance of death. The wood of the ship’s hull is turning into a terrible, black mass.
“How could this have happened?” the Bookkeeper cries out in desperation, pointing a finger at the burning ship. He paces up and down with angry strides, scanning the spectators. “Who has done this?”
No one answers, but we all know who’s responsible for this – Phileas and his religious zealots. They don’t believe we should leave the island, so nobody is allowed to leave. For days on end, they’ve organized protest marches near the harbor, claiming we should stop building new sailing ships like the Explorer, and finally someone has plucked up the courage to take this bold step and set fire to the thorn in their side. Maybe Phileas even did it himself.
My heart skips a beat when I suddenly hear a voice, ringing out clear above the din of the crowd.
“Annabelle,” the voice cries out.
I turn around, but it’s too late to determine whoever had the audacity to claim our Goddess is the arsonist guilty of starting the fire. The cry is adopted by scores of others, resounding down the ranks of Phileans gathered on the docks. “An-na-belle! An-na-belle!” they chant.
“You miserable crooks!” one of the younger shipbuilders shouts. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”
It only takes a few seconds for a full-fledged fight to erupt between the progressives and the Phileans. I hear people scream and yell. Beside me, a man stumbles to the ground clutching a bloody nose, and panic seizes me. I’m not ready for this, even though I am a trainee Peacekeeper. I don’t know how to call for back-up and I didn’t even bring a club or other weapon.
“Alisa!” A strong hand grabs my arm and pulls me back. Just in time, it turns out, because a flying fist narrowly misses my head.
Dazed, I turn around and stare into Ben’s brown irises. Tears are running down his face. “Come on,” I say in a shaky voice. “We have to find Daryl.”
“No, we don’t. We’re going to my place,” he says decisively. “Or you’ll be caught in an ugly brawl. This is no place for a girl.”
I clench my fists and blink my tears away. Ben can’t take me away, even though I’m scared. “I don’t know what to do,” I blurt out, to my own surprise.
He says nothing. Instead, he just drags me along toward the narrow street where his cottage is. I don’t object, because I feel completely drained. Suddenly, it’s all too much – the ugly, constant tension between people in town, the naked truth we have to cope with, the destruction of the first ship in our new fleet.
“Don’t you want to help your colleagues?” I finally splutter when we stop in front of his door. The flickering light of the fire in the distance illuminates the angular planes of Ben’s face.
“We can’t save that ship anyway,” he mumbles quietly. “No amount of fighting will bring it back. And I’ve seen too many fights in my life as it is. I’m done with them. I just want to find a place where I can find peace.” Fresh tears well up
in his eyes. “I thought I could find it here.”
His words stir a dull pain inside of me. No, we won’t find peace here yet. Our wounds are still too fresh. People are afraid of letting go of old, familiar lies in order to embrace new insecurities.
“We’ll get there,” I falter. “You’ll see.”
Together, we sit down on the quay in front of his cottage, where a few small fishing boats are bobbing on the waves. Gradually, the sea of flames in the main harbor simmers out. Perhaps bystanders have helped to extinguish the fire, or maybe the ship ran a leak due to the damage and drowned the fury of the blaze itself by sinking down into the deep.
“We can’t keep working here,” Ben breaks the silence. “If we do, they’ll just botch our efforts again.”
“Well, where do you suggest we build ships, then?”
Ben glances aside. “We have a small harbor as well, on the east side of the island. It isn’t used much, just to moor a few fishing boats, but the spot could accommodate a working crew and bigger ships. And they wouldn’t draw attention from the Phileans like that.”
I slowly nod. Ben’s idea makes a lot of sense. But wouldn’t the easterners mind if we used their harbor? “Let’s ask the Bookkeeper what he thinks,” I propose.
“What, right now?”
“No, tomorrow morning. I’m guessing he’s rather busy right now.”
“Shall I come to your house?” Ben asks.
“Yeah, that’s okay. Why don’t you meet me at ten? I’m not working tomorrow.”
“Well. I think I can take the morning off, too,” he mutters a bit sourly.
I smile, despite the dire situation. “Good. I’ll make us breakfast. My mom baked some delicious raisin bread yesterday. You have to try that.”
After Ben has gone inside, I slowly make my way back to the harbor. Daryl will probably be upset with me for not helping him, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. The least I can do now is apologize to him.