As I walked into the clearing, my pace slowed as if I'd hit a pocket of air that was so thick I had to wade through it like mud. My mind - actually, every one of our minds - was trained to see the entire scene as simply 'wrong'. Peik was squatting down on the top of a fallen tree, his arms wrapped around his knees, presumably waiting for a few more people before he began, while a scattering of young men were peppered across the grass in front of him. There wasn't an Elder in sight, and I could see that I wasn't the only one to be put on edge by this. People were visually anxious, arms crossing over their chests, feet thumping impatiently, heads twitching to look over their shoulders at the sound of every new person that appeared from between the leaves. We were as jittery as scavengers low on the food chain, which just happened to be the first to stumble across a prized piece of carrion, white-rimmed retinas scanning the shadows around us, knowing that something bigger was bound to emerge soon.
Niels finally came into view with Mikkel, who was walking somewhat cautiously behind him. Mikkel and I had been quite aloof, if not cold with one another, in the time that followed our meeting at the vantage point. In fact, for a couple of weeks prior to that day in the clearing, we'd ceased really acknowledging each other unless we absolutely had to. But this was different. Things were not what they should've been, and he sought me out in the crowd to exchange a worried glance.
As usual, it was also Mikkel's presence that signified the beginning of things, and Peik finally stood up to speak, which prompted all of our eyes to rise with him, following his shape into the air above the log, the whispers instantly fading into silence.
But before he even began, we could see that something was wrong. He didn't look so well. His shoulders were tweaking erratically, as if he were trying to shake a number of unseen insects off his back, his face pallid, chest rising and falling with quick little breaths, beads of sweat clotted onto his forehead. He was petrified; as anyone would be really, standing in front of a throng of expectant faces, all the while trying to summon up the courage to do the stupidest thing in your life.
"Thanks for getting everyone, Niels," he said, speaking under his breath. Niels nodded and smiled, his eyes flitting in every direction, his quirky mannerisms finally matching the situation.
"Okay," Peik began, addressing us in a much louder voice than he needed to. "As you probably all figured out, I've... just Come of Age. And uh... I wanted to... speak to everyone... uh - because..." he paused to swallow and draw in a long, worrying breath, "because... it's time everyone knew the truth about the island."
My mouth dropped wide open. Instantly, everyone broke into mutters of amazement, their eyebrows raised, heads spinning to look at one another. Mikkel's posture had stiffened into a rigid stick, a look of appalled disbelief on his face.
The crowd recovered from its restlessness as quickly as it could, people shushing each other, becoming quiet, waiting for him to continue, already hanging on the claims he was about to utter. I remember noticing a few complacent grins dragging across people's faces as they realized that this was going to be well worth coming for.
"But..." he carried on, "you have to know that... what I'm going to tell you... isn't easy to hear. And that is... that..." He stopped as if to think about the right words to use, the tension quickly escalating around him, people leaning in, ready, waiting. Meanwhile, Peik had fixed his eyes on the ground a ways beneath him, thinking, straining, looking for a quick sentence that would express what he'd learned over the course of several days (because, realistically, that was probably all he would have time for). But concise words seemed to be hard to come by in his mind, and, finally, unable to find them, he shook his head at himself, let his arms drape at his sides, and decided to summarize everything as quickly and crudely as he could - and unwisely deeming it best to start from the last line, and work backwards from it. "The Elders... the Elders want to kill everyone in the world."
Silence. People stood blinking for a second or two, before an invisible hand seemed to reach out to everyone at exactly the same time and push their faces back in puzzlement.
"What?"
"Huh?"
"What did he say?"
"What the hell?"
Everyone began mumbling among themselves, shaking heads, clicking their tongues disappointedly, even giggling; a wave of letdown gestures and expressions, people realizing that they'd just taken a huge risk to listen to the ramblings of someone who was obviously mentally unbalanced, who, it seemed, 'couldn't take' Coming of Age, and so had cracked. It all hardly seemed worth their effort anymore.
For my part, I could only let out a sigh of relief. It was incredibly lucky, for all of us, that Peik had been too flustered to choose the right words; and I could easily imagine why he'd fallen apart at the last second. He'd been through a lot. Let alone had he mustered up the energy to resist every one of the Elders' arguments in his mind, he'd also managed to fool them into believing that he hadn't resisted them at all; and actually succeeded, because, as sceptical as they were, they'd felt confident enough to release him. Which could only mean that, at that exact moment, while he stood up in front of us all, after having been through the long, taxing ordeal of convincingly being two people at once under the most intense scrutiny, he probably didn't have a lot of wit left to draw from. I almost felt sorry for him.
"No! Listen!" he called out in an effort to redeem himself, his voice obnoxiously loud. The group of young men, some of which were already turning to leave, decided to give him their attention again; albeit reluctantly, hands on their hips, heads slanted to the side in disappointment - or pity. "I know that this sounds crazy. Okay? I know that. But just listen for a second. I... I have something. I have proof." He reached into his back pocket and brought something out from behind his back, carefully, neurotically, fingers cradled delicately around it, his face knotted with concentration, eyes focusing on his hands as they moved through the air, until he held it out in front of us. It was a rectangle of folded pages (which had evidently been sat on for quite a while). He smiled slightly, satisfied that we were all beholding the glory of this flattened, discoloured, wad of text, and then he proceeded to unfold them with meticulous care, handling them as if they were just about to disintegrate into a million illegible pieces, or burst into sudden flame. If Peik's psychological status was dubious before this little ritual, after it, there was no question whatsoever: he was most definitely 'not well'.
But at that point, a strange thing started happening to me. As he held out the sheets of paper, obscure references and details in the back of my mind started to pull together, amassing themselves into something coherent. I looked at the edges of the glossy pages, which had obviously been taken from a book. They were cleanly cut.
"See: brainwashing. Do you know what they do when we Come of Age? They program us - well... some of us anyway. And... and then... everyone else... they just tell lies to."
I turned to look at Mikkel. It was him. It was his blade that I'd used, his blade that he somehow found, then stole, then hid, all so he could leak information to Peik, sell the poor sap on his romantic notions of saving the world. This was what he meant when he mumbled something about 'wishing he'd heard of programming before going into the shelter'. In fact, had I not pounced on the stupidity of his ideas, he probably would have told me all about how he was busy 'informing' Peik - and that he was being very careful about it. Because it was clear that he'd understood the risks involved, which was why he'd found an anonymous way of handing the information over, so that, if Peik snapped, or decided to tell someone about the strange sheets of paper that probably appeared under his pillow one day, Mikkel would still be safe. I could see it all perfectly. I could suddenly understand every detail of the sequence of events that had led us all to that pathetic scene in the forest.
I glared into the side of Mikkel's face, trying to relay the fact that I'd made the connection, but more than that, trying to convey that I considered everything that he'd done to be incredibly, incredibly reckless
. But he wasn't looking at me. He was busy watching Peik, stunned, horrified. I saw him mouth a silent curse; a specific one that had been introduced into our vocabulary when one of the Elders dropped a massive log onto his hand, rendering two of his fingers forever useless. It was a curse that seemed to be reserved for the most dismal instances alone, and his lips articulated it perfectly; "Fuck."
I nodded. I couldn't have put it better myself.
Because what were we going to do now? How was this going to end? Once the Elders had the papers, they would know that someone was conspiring, and then search obsessively until they'd found him or her - or them. And that was right: I was involved here. The very fact that I hadn't told the Elders about my encounter at the vantage point with Mikkel made me a kind of conspirator. I'd promised not to tell. And helping to hide a conspiracy makes you just as much a part of it. Great.
Yet really, what could we do? How could we stop Peik from speaking? He obviously wasn't in a state to listen to reason - no; he was through with listening. And forcing him to stop, jumping up onto the log and ushering him off, would only do one of two things: through the eyes of the Elders, it would make the person look like a collaborator, one of the paper cutters trying to protect himself; or through the eyes of the crowd, it might look like part of the wild conspiracy Peik was talking about, an attempt to try and silence him, and maybe even lend some credit to the things he was saying, which, thankfully, were still being seen as madcap ravings. No, there was nothing Mikkel or I could do; though, even if we could, I don't think we would have. Peik was quickly spiralling downwards, and was going to meet with some very serious consequences in the very near future. I couldn't begin to guess what they were going to do with him: maybe imprison him in the shelter and try and talk some sense into him again, or maybe even drop him off on the nearest island to live the rest of his days, alone, and ranting of injustices to the trees. Either way, he wasn't exactly a person you wanted to be siding with, or even getting near. I understand now that humans follow the rules of all group animals, and whether it was conscious or subconscious, we all recognized Peik for exactly what he was: a limping, sickly creature inside the sprawling herd. He was choice prey, the very first one that intense hunting eyes would fall upon. None of us would risk stepping forward to protect him; instead, it seemed natural enough to back away, knowing that his stalking fate was creeping ever closer, and wanting to be at a safe distance when it pounced. (Though, still close enough to witness of course - which was, after all, why I'd gone there in the first place, wasn't it?)
"Soon... soon there will be a voyage," he continued. He was looking through the faces, his head sweeping back and forth, "and that voyage is only meant to make sure..."
And then he stopped - froze actually - suddenly gawping at the trees behind us. We all turned around at the same time, tracing his line of sight; and once we found what he was looking at, I'm sure that every one of us stopped breathing.
It was Chalmon; standing silently on the edge of the clearing, his hands clasped gently behind his back. He didn't look too happy. "Gentlemen!" he bellowed, his voice so loud that a few people took a step back. He brought a fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat before continuing in a softer tone, "I was just told to gather everyone as quickly as I could, but... obviously couldn't find any of you." He was taking the time to eye each one of us individually, as if marking our names onto a slate for later reference. "The reason I was asked to find you was to let you know about an emergency community meeting, which is being held right now. It will address some very serious issues that affect the entire island, so, needless to say, your attendance is necessary." He was so livid his voice was shaking. "So then - in light of that - I will give you one minute to be seated inside the Community Hall. Commencing now."
At first, no one moved. We only exchanged a few frantic glances, suspended in the thick air of panic like the dull herd animals we are, waiting for the first twitching signal of flight. Which came. Somebody shifted their weight forward and took a step, and that was enough. All at once, everyone bounced to their toes and began racing to the Community Hall as fast as they could, a stream of bobbing heads and flailing hair breaking through the leaves and thin branches, thumping into the distance.
I wasn't one of them. For some reason - and I don't think I'll ever really understand why - I thought I was different, thought I was an exception to the rules. After all, I knew the truth. In my mind, I was practically an Elder, so why shouldn't I stay behind? But this line of reasoning was, of course, wrong.
I stood alone between Chalmon and Peik, who had remained exactly where they were, their eyes fixed on one another. Peik was shifting his weight from his right leg to his left, the transfer increasing in speed, a kind of desperation building in his gestures, until finally, he stopped, crumpled the pieces of paper into a ball, flung them onto the grass, spat disgustedly in Chalmon's general direction, spun around, and jumped off the tree. He crashed into a bush and, untangling himself in an instant, began racing into the forest in the opposite direction of the Community Hall. I could see his hands flinging into the air to help him leap over logs, his head ducking and swerving through the branches. He looked like he was running for his life.
Chalmon watched Peik until he'd disappeared from view, then turned to face me, his hands still cupped into the small of his back. I'll never forget the sound of his voice when he spoke, the eerie, seething calm of it, "There are only forty-five seconds of that minute remaining, Joshua."
I ran. I ran as fast as my legs would take me, out of the clearing, down the trail, and straight into the Community Hall.
* * *
14
What I found when I burst through the door, wasn't an orderly meeting that involved everyone on the island, nor, for that matter, any kind of organization in the least. The only people there were the group from the clearing, scattering throughout the room in chaotic groups, gathering, then quickly dispersing again, looking around for an Elder to obey (as if this might help to lessen the disobedience we'd just demonstrated). There were whispers and rumours passing through the crowd, people theorizing what was going to happen. We all understood that a stern punishment would be dealt out, but couldn't guess if it would all fall on Peik, or if everyone would have to share it. At one point, we could hear a horn of some kind being blown in the distance, but no one was brave enough to step outside to see where it was coming from or what it meant. No, we were too busy inside, having suddenly become the epitome of compliance, the very embodiment of devoted respect for rules.
After quite some time, Dana came into the room and commanded us to sit down. He told us that we would have to wait a while, and that he could only hope, in light of our complete disregard of policy, that we had the self-possession to remain absolutely silent while we waited. He asked if we could be trusted with that one small responsibility. We nodded. But just in case, Thalia was asked to stay in the hall to make sure.
Time crept by. We watched the door for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for it to open. Then waited more. And as we passed the hours in that horrible, clothes-rustling silence, I had a clear view of the table Mikkel was sitting at, and we'd exchanged a few mutually understanding looks. He knew that he'd placed both Peik and I in an awkward predicament, and I knew that he didn't feel great about it. He hadn't meant for things to turn out this way; and he certainly hadn't meant for Peik to become so unstable that he would recklessly bring the whole thing out into the open. Yet that's exactly what happened. And now someone was going to be in serious trouble because of it. (I have to admit that there was also a juvenile part of me that wanted to wag a finger in a classic I-told-you-so taunt. This was the very reason I was so afraid of - even entertaining - dangerous ideas: it's because they have the tendency to take on a life of their own. And I just hoped that, finally, Mikkel was beginning to understand that.)
Eventually, we heard the trampling of footsteps approaching the other side of the door, and everyone in the room perked up. It was
Harek that opened it. He walked to front of the hall and stood there, waiting patiently while every last one of the remaining people on the island streamed in behind him. They found themselves a seat, legs stepping over benches mechanically, their expressions dazed, vacant. Once everyone had settled into place, and the quiet had spread throughout the room, we all faced the front of the hall, waiting for Harek to speak. But he didn't, even though he had our full and undivided attention. He waited a while, swallowing hard, thinking harder, and by the time he actually began, every neck in the community was stretched high, craning around the head in front of them to see better.
His words were slow, plaintive, "For those of you who have not yet Come of Age, I want to tell you that it is an incredibly difficult and taxing philosophical process. As you have no doubt guessed, there are serious issues that are dealt with during that time, issues that every one of us will have to bear at some point, which concern our very world, both here, and beyond the island. So I think we can all appreciate that people might feel an immense amount of mental, and even social pressure to comprehend things that are - well - extremely difficult to comprehend, to be honest. And... I imagine that it was for that reason, and through no fault of his own, that Peik reacted in the way that he did. Regrettably, it seems he simply could not cope with the mental burden that was handed over to him. Peik - as some of you had the misfortune of witnessing today - somehow... spiralled into a state of insanity and delusion, which we were not aware of this morning when we congratulated him on his completion of Coming of Age, and welcomed him back into the community."
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