Albert began to lose interest. His sadness dragged at his attention. The big man’s voice became monotonous, and the perpetual half-light of the interior preyed upon his nerves.
“And do you ever sail out on the lagoon?” he asked. “To visit other islands, or to fish?”
Johnny Fingers strode to a nearby window, cloaked by a shutter of old driftwood. He moved the shutter aside and gestured beyond.
“We rarely need to get in our boats at all,” he said. “Observe!”
The window opened out onto a sheer cliff face. Green-white seabirds rode the air currents and waters thwapped against the concrete many levels below. The sunlight was blinding after the interior of the isle. Not far off, two smaller concrete islands rose from the lagoon at angles—the decayed relics of other buildings. The channel between the two towers was deep and narrow; down this, the water of the lagoon was funneled, white and frothed and churning. Ropes were strung over the water race, with weighted nets dangling into the current. Men with poles and harpoons hung from swaying ladders, and Albert could see a group of women hauling a bulging net up onto one of the platforms. A precarious series of wooden ramps linked this fishing ground with the main isle.
“The shoals pass through the rapids twice a day,” Johnny Fingers said. “There are shellfish too, and fur from seals in season. We get all we need from there.” He closed the shutter gently, locking the sunlight out. “You need not fear—you will probably never need to leave the isle again till the day you die. Ah, I see the concept moves you! Good. Well, the tour is done. Let us return to our friends.”
Back at the hall, the food had been cleared away. The trustees of the isle were standing at the table, surveying an enormous rota that showed the allocated daily activities of everyone on the island. Johnny Fingers went to join them, with Albert lagging behind. His mood was flat. It wasn’t exactly that he was disappointed by the Free Isle. Of course not! To be accepted, to fade quietly into society—it was what he had always dreamed of. And they were welcoming him with generosity. And yet, when he closed his eyes…
When he closed his eyes, he saw Scarlett. Scarlett as she’d been the day before: out on the open water, hair flying in the wind, swearing like a bargeman as she sailed toward the sun….
Well, the pain would fade in time. Meanwhile, he was in his new home, and he had to make the best of it.
A thought occurred to him. He should establish the truth from the outset. He approached the bearded man once more. “Excuse me, Mr. Fingers,” he said. “I have heard that this is a sanctuary for people with…all kinds of difference. Physical ones and—and other kinds…” His voice trailed away. “I was just wondering if this was so.”
The big man gave a fruity chuckle. He smiled at Albert, so that his eyes became black slits. “Ah, that. I looked at you and wondered if it were so. You do not have any outer blemishes that might arouse the wrath of the Surviving Towns. Well, Albert Browne, be assured you are no longer on your own. Far from it! Several people here have peculiar talents—the towns would say unnatural ones.”
“Oh.” Albert’s face brightened for the first time. “Oh, that is good news.”
“Yes, Ahmed and Zoe can both make objects move a short distance. Zoe here has even been known to move a clam jar from one side of this table to another. Perhaps she’ll show us one evening after prayers.”
The tall, thin woman in the sea-grass dress scowled. “Perhaps! I’m not a performing ape.”
“Selwyn Sands here also claims to have levitated a pencil,” Johnny Fingers said, “though personally I am unconvinced….” He winked and waved his hand. “Eerie powers, all, but we accept them, for where is the harm in any of it? And you, Albert.” He rested his large hand on Albert’s shoulder. “What is your story? What talents have you?”
Albert looked away. Sudden bleakness enfolded him. “Oh, nothing much….”
“Really? You have come a long way, fleeing harsh prejudice, for ‘nothing much.’ Tell us, friend, so that your life with us can truly begin.”
Albert hesitated; he opened his mouth—
At that moment, there was a knocking at a door on the far side of the room.
It was a brisk, assertive double knock, neither loud nor soft. Everyone looked over at the door. It was made of dull gray metal and was welded into the wall; Albert had not yet seen it opened. Johnny Fingers frowned blankly. “Those are the western stairs.”
“They are ruined and unused,” the tall woman said. “Who could be out there?”
“No one. Everyone is at their work.”
The knock came again. A large ring handle midway up the door turned a little, rattled briefly, then hung still.
Johnny Fingers blinked in bemusement. “Someone is clearly on the stairs. Zoe: you are mistress of the keys, I think? Perhaps you would be so kind as to open the door.”
“It is most irregular.” The tall, thin woman’s mouth was pinched and disapproving; she took a small antique pistol from one pocket in her dress, a bunch of keys from another. Selecting one, she strode across the hall.
As she reached the door, the knocking came again.
“All right, all right!” Zoe bent to the lock. She turned the key. Everyone watched her as she opened the door. From where Albert was standing, he couldn’t see the staircase beyond. The woman’s brow furrowed. “Odd…,” she said. “There’s no one….” She lifted the pistol, stepped forward; the door swung almost shut behind her as she went on through.
“Odd indeed!” Johnny Fingers said. “Who would be roaming around outside?”
Sounds came from beyond the door. The first was a noise of sharp inquiry and alarm, almost at once cut off. The second was an unpleasant and indeterminate crack, followed by a frantic, boneless flapping. Last came a breathy, drawn-out rattle that died into a whisper.
Albert stood motionless. None of the trustees of the Free Isle stirred.
There was a thump against the door. It swung open. Zoe’s body tumbled back through it, landing with dull finality. She lay with dress disordered, her thin, pale legs jackknifed, head lolling to the side. She still had the unused pistol in her hand.
Albert made a soft hissing between his teeth.
Another woman walked through the door. She was small, fair-haired, and weaponless. Her black shoes tapped a neat rhythm on the stone. She looked around the room and smiled.
“Hello, Albert,” Dr. Calloway said.
She hadn’t changed. Albert had rarely seen her outdoors, let alone several hundred miles from Stonemoor, but she had not let her journey across England affect her in any way. She wore, as she always did, a black, knee-length dress, shaped, elegant, and sober, and the long black coat she used in her occasional strolls on the prison grounds. Her polished black shoes were the same too, as was the leather bag that hung on a strap across her shoulder. He knew that bag and what it would contain: a restraint, the pills, the flail, the goad.
He had never tried to guess her age. At Stonemoor, that would have been an impertinence—and also meaningless, for she existed as Stonemoor itself existed, inseparable from its corridors and chains. Here, in the half-light of the chamber, he realized with a shock how slight she was, a neat, compact woman with bone-white skin. Her expectation of control began with her own body. A dark velvet band ran through her hair, pulling it back severely from her broad, smooth forehead. Her skin was wrinkle-free, her lips bright red; she moved briskly, taut with purpose and command.
Albert drew himself up. This was the end. He had never been able to evade her, never truly outguess her. And now, to prove it, she was here.
Dr. Calloway stepped past the woman she had killed. She came to a halt, lifted a hand. Through the door behind her came four armed men. Unlike their leader, they had the look of people who had just made their way across a lagoon and up several flights of ruined and abandoned stairs. Their tweed jackets and bowl
er hats were scuffed and marked with dirt and rust, and one of them was limping. But their revolvers seemed in good order, and they held them ready. They arranged themselves on either side of Dr. Calloway in a rough half circle and waited for her word.
Nobody moved.
Faintly Albert recalled Johnny Fingers’s brave prediction about the awful destiny that awaited any invaders on the isle. Without much hope, he glanced aside at him. As he had expected, the big man seemed to have diminished. His bluster was gone, his fur cape sagged on sloping shoulders; he made brief twitching motions with his hands. The rest of his company were like waxworks in a furnace, visibly dwindling where they stood. Albert turned away. He couldn’t blame them. They had never before encountered someone with Dr. Calloway’s ferocity of intent. And they were transfixed by the broken woman on the floor.
No help for it. He was alone.
He took a slow step forward. “Go away,” he said thickly. “You know what I’ll do.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing the men flinch back. Dr. Calloway, naturally, spoke just as if she were sitting at her desk. “I know what you’ve already done, Albert Browne. You spent your power last night on the lagoon, and now you’re weak. You have nothing left this morning, or you would have already killed us all.”
Well, it was nearly true. The physical sensations were present and correct: the speeding heart, the sweating palms; the way his innards had become a nest of snakes, swiftly coiling and uncoiling in his belly. The hallmarks of the Fear. But he could not access it. As she said, he had spent his terror and rage on Shilling, and there was no strength in him now.
But even with his strength, would he have killed them? He could feel his willpower shriveling, to see her there before him, and the old helplessness swelling in its place.
“I thought you’d drowned,” he said.
“Me?” She looked at him with her soft black eyes.
“I thought your boat was sunk.”
“Oh, it was.” Dr. Calloway tucked a strand of flaxen hair behind her ear. “It was torn quite in two and my men were lost. But the prow floated, and I clung to it, and was driven by your homemade storm halfway across the lagoon. Fortunately, I had other teams out searching on the water. And now, Albert Browne, I’m back for you.”
Her voice was deeper than Scarlett’s, quieter, and very calm and intimate. It made even the most elaborate threat feel like a whispered confidence. Already Albert sensed the familiar patterns reasserting themselves, his resistance draining, her habitual authority enfolding him…. In the ordinary way of things, he would fall silent now, shrink back into himself, and wait for her verdict—and whatever punishment she would choose.
Instead, he spoke. “I am a citizen of the Free Isles now,” he said. “You have no jurisdiction over me, Dr. Calloway. I will stay here. I promise I will never leave. I will do no further harm.”
“No harm?” Her left eyebrow twitched in scorn and pity. “Who is in charge here?”
There was a silence. Albert pointed to Johnny Fingers. “He is.”
The big man gave a start; he coughed, his eyes darting side to side. “Well, technically, of course, this community is a collective, in which even the meanest is equal to the rest, and we all exult in the same freedom. Generally, all important matters are put to a weekly vote of the trustees, which—”
“If you’re not in charge,” Dr. Calloway said, “I’ll kill you at the end of your sentence.”
“—which I, being leader, naturally have the authority to overrule.” He swallowed painfully. “Yes. It’s me.”
“Good. Your colleague, this ectomorph, this grotesquely long, thin female lying dead here, sought to prevent us entering the room.” The black eyes gazed at Johnny Fingers coolly. “I hope none of the rest of you are so unwelcoming?”
“Nope. Not at all. Please come in.”
“Thank you. We have no wish to spend any further time than is necessary in your company. Do what we ask and we will leave you to scuttle back into the crevices of this rock like the other cockroaches. This boy—has he become a citizen of your isle?”
“Well…” Johnny Fingers hesitated. “He’s had the tour….”
“He hasn’t been given his cup and bowl yet,” someone called. “It’s never official till you get the cup and bowl.”
Albert held up a hand. “Mr. Fingers—you said I was under your protection.”
Johnny Fingers rubbed at his beard. “It would perhaps help to clarify the situation if we knew who you are, who this lad is, and what harm he has caused….”
“I am a member of the High Council of the Faith Houses,” Dr. Calloway said. “Perhaps you have heard of what we do?”
There was a general rustling of dismay. The big man’s shoulders drooped still further. “We all know of the Council,” he said in a bleak voice. “And the boy?”
“He is a murderer, an arsonist, a robber, and a fugitive. Does that help?”
Albert felt all eyes upon him. “I deny that!” he shouted. “Well, most of it, anyhow. And could I point out that I am not the one who’s just killed this lady on the floor?”
“That’s true,” Johnny Fingers muttered. “You are also not the one whose four gunmen are currently threatening us with death.”
“Quite right,” Dr. Calloway said. “The threat I pose is real, depend upon it. But it is nothing compared to this boy. You noticed the strange tempest last night? The storm within a storm? Albert created it, with his own unnatural powers. He did so to kill my men.”
Albert looked left and right at the inhabitants of the isle. Their collective scrutiny raked across his mind.
“Unnatural powers…,” a woman said.
“Yes, and you have them too!” Albert said. “At least, one of you can eerily lift a pencil. But, friends, consider—this was no crime. It was in self-defense! Look at the wounds on my head—those men attacked me! They were Faith House operatives. You yourselves have fled the harshness of their rule. You know their cruelty and their spite.”
“What you do not know,” Dr. Calloway said, “is that death follows Albert wherever he goes. Not long ago, he destroyed the passengers on a public bus. Ordinary decent folk, braving the Wilds to travel on their daily business. Yet Albert killed them all.”
Albert shook his head. “Only because your men attacked me on that bus! First they tried to knock me out, and then they tried to stab me! That was when my powers—”
“Unnatural powers…,” someone whispered.
“—broke out,” he said. “I couldn’t help it—and it’s not my fault.”
It was no good. They were backing away from him, Johnny Fingers fastest and most nimble of all. There was a clear circle opening, with Albert at the center. He looked across it at the people of the isle. Weary as he was, the intensity of their thoughts broke through: he saw cloudy images forming against the concrete and rust of the ceiling. Images with a single focus. The details were different, but the gist was the same.
A misshapen beast stood in the center of the hall, a shunned and friendless thing.
It was crouching, cornered, vile, not quite fully human.
Even here. This was how they saw him.
“He ‘couldn’t help it,’ ” Dr. Calloway repeated. “At least now he tells the truth. His wickedness leaks from him like gas from the ground in the Burning Regions. He cannot control it. Within days, I promise you, he will begin his killing here.”
There was a short silence.
“Well?” she said.
From afar, Johnny Fingers waved a peremptory hand. “We deplore you and your methods, and we repudiate your murder of poor Zoe. We will sing sadly for her this evening when we drop her remains into the Great Fissure. But clearly this creature is not a citizen of Bayswater and has no place among us. Kill him or take him, as you please. Do whatever you wish, then go, and let us return t
o the peace and tranquility of our isle!”
There was a murmur of assent from the crowd. Albert knew that in their eyes this was his true crime: to have destroyed the sanctity of their retreat, to have brought death and danger knocking at their door. He felt their contempt beating against him. It was hard to focus—there was too much hatred. It was like the bus again, but this time he had no strength.
“You see, Albert?” Dr. Calloway said. “It’s as I always told you. There isn’t a place for you in the world. These people are themselves outsiders. They live with defects that would make any normal person’s skin crawl. Yet they look down on you.”
Yes, even here. She was doing what she’d always done, in her study, in the testing rooms, calmly carving away his self-regard. Just for a moment, something crumpled inside Albert. Truly he was a deformed, disgusting thing….
He pushed his hair out of his face. He straightened.
Scarlett wouldn’t have had any truck with that nonsense. She’d not have stood there helpless, dumbly listening. She’d have resisted.
He did so too.
He looked the woman in the eye. “It doesn’t have to be like this. You’re lying to them, like you lied to me.”
“Albert—”
“I can control it. If you leave me alone.”
Her lips compressed, became a tight, thin line. “I don’t think so. Where did you acquire this pretty notion?”
“A friend of mine.”
“You mean the bank robber? How would she know? And where, for that matter, is she?”
The question came with sudden force. The black eyes darted to scan the room and fixed back on him at once. Dr. Calloway always had a crocodilian nose for weakness. She watched the involuntary alteration in his face. “Oh,” she said. “I see. A casualty of your last loss of control. How very appropriate and sad.”
The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne Page 28