The Island (10 page)

We listen to the message, over and over again. Ben, Max and Cal come outside. The men from
Newexter have put out their torches and are sitting on the lawn. When Tony finally switches off the device, some have tears in their eyes.

The Eldest clears his throat and wipes his cheeks. “Tell us what happened to them. To the people who left this behind.”

And Tony does. He tells us about his cross-country trip together with Henry, looking for the origin of the radio message they’d picked up on an old frequency one evening. It sounds like a fairytale. Their arrival in Penzance, an abandoned coastal town. The automated message that had kept playing thanks to energy from the sun. The old, yellowed logbooks and diaries they had found at the harbor, the pages filled with our history.

“There once was a group of fifty healthy children and their parents
fleeing the city of Exeter,” Tony explains. He is now using the portico as a sort of stage to address the people present. “Those parents came down to the shores of Penzance and sent their kids to Tresco by ship. It was an island that had once belonged to a very rich man who had died of the disease by then. The ship wasn’t large – it could only hold fifty people, some animals and a small selection of useful books. The captain was supposed to drop off the children and the cargo and come straight back to get the others. Or at least the adults who showed no symptoms of the disease yet. But he never came back, and there were no more ships. The childrens’ parents all got critically ill and eventually died. The very last page of the most recent diary was written by the father of a boy who had been brought to Tresco. He was the one who recorded this message, in the hopes of alerting someone to the fact that there was an island full of children waiting for their parents to show up.”

“What were his last words?” the Eldest inquires softly. “In that diary?”

“The last thing he wrote was the phrase: May the Force be with them. Probably because his little boy really loved the stories in which that expression is used.” Tony casts down his gaze. “And your Book… most likely it’s the little boy’s diary. It could be a notebook he brought with him to the island, which he used to write down his own stories about what had happened. He was making a book to give himself and the others around him courage through stories. To tell them that the Force would always be with them, even if their parents weren’t.”

I swallow hard at the word ‘stories’. “How old were those kids?”

“About six or seven years old, according to the log. But the oldest boy was ten. This man’s son.” He holds up the device.

“They had no parents,”
Colin says flatly. “They were all alone.”

Walt shakes his head. “They probably had the captain, until he succumbed to the disease. The very first Bookkeeper. The man who taught us about the importance of knowledge in books.” He looks slightly dazed.

One hundred and fifty years is a long time to wait. The children got divided. The Fools stubbornly maintained that help from outside would come, while the eldest boy started to believe his parents had abandoned him and turned into the first Unbeliever. Maybe he’d gathered a group of like-minded children and taken them to the other side of the island to live there and make a clean start. Maybe there had already been a Wall to vanish behind, or maybe he’d built one himself. And they wrote their own history. They were all convinced that parents were not to be trusted. That all children of a certain age had to fend for themselves, without the help of their mother and father. Something we’d believed up till this day.

“They were
small children,” Tony continues. “They had to survive, but it was probably also a kind of game for them. They were playful and young, so they made up their own reality. A reality with new names taken from old stories.”

And when he tells of wars between the stars, of Darth Vader and his dark past, and of
brave people who learned how to harness their powers and tap into the Force in order to do good, I cry with joy. In the darkness of the night, it’s like I hear their names for the first time, as if the story sprouts wings and takes flight again. It makes our forefathers all the more courageous and strong. And it makes us privileged. They had to go it alone, without their parents taking care of them, but we don’t. Not anymore.

We now have each other.

Epilogue

“WHAT’S GOING
to happen now?” the Eldest wants to know when we are all sitting down to a mug of beer in the Newexter village hall. The villagers have gone home, taking their children with them. We’ve closed off the manor and buried Henry on a hillside behind the house. Saul and Ben are staying in the Eldest’s home for now. The village leader said they needed someone to look after them, and I think he made a good call. Being the Eldest’s adopted sons is a far cry from being leaders of a manor, but it will help Saul and Ben cope with the transition, and keep the rest of the youngsters safe in case one of them snaps – on either side of the line. There might be youngsters seeking revenge, after all.

Tony shrugs. “Whatever you want to happen, really. Whoever wants to stay on the island is free to do so. Whoever wants to go to the mainland and see the reconstructed world can come with us. That Fool’s ship” – he smiles when he uses the now redundant expression – “looks stable enough. I’ll risk sailing with her.”

I look sideways at my mother sitting between Colin and the Eldest, looking far happier than the last time I saw her. “I wouldn’t mind sailing there myself,” I say. Mother nods at me with a smile.

I have no idea if this is a brave thing I’m doing. To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to the chaos that will erupt when our society crumbles and has to re-invent itself. Perhaps a long sea crossing is the better option here.

Walt coughs conspicuously and raises an eyebrow. “Fair enough. As long as you promise you won’t snap at me constantly.”

I smile sweetly. “Oh, is this you acting all tough again because you feel insecure? Fool.”

Tony looks from me to Walt and back again. “Gee, this should be fun.”

I burst out laughing and turn red when Walt takes my hand in his. “Who knows,” I
then say. “But I tell you, it’ll be interesting for sure.”

***

The next morning we wake up early, Walt and I. He stayed over in Colin’s old room. Together, we walk to the beach that I’ve been to so often as a child. Even then, I’d stare out over sea for hours, wondering what was out there.

“Are you curious?” he asks me softly, when we’re standing in the surf together. My hand fits his perfectly, and a warm, tingling glow spreads through my body.

I was never the most curious girl of the lot. I didn’t dare to be, because I was afraid I’d be disappointed. But now, I have enough courage. Now, I’m no longer alone.

“Yes,” I
answer him as softly. “The world is waiting for us.”

After that,
I lay my head on his shoulder and the two of us quietly watch the rising run.

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A big thank you to
the people who helped me in the process of getting The Island ready for publication! My fellow Dutchies and paranormal romance authors Anne Nicolai, Hester Stasse and Isabel Peters who helped me by proofreading the Dutch version of the story, my husband Nwel Saturay-Minkman who proofread the English  translation and had some really good advice; to all of you, thanks very much!

I’m also very grateful to all the bloggers who agreed to review this novella within one month so their reviews would fuel my book launch. You are invaluable to me and I hope we will continue to work together. Awesomeness!

Last but not least, a big thank-you to my readers. Without your support, I wouldn’t be writing with so much enthusiasm and dedication. You rock!

Jen Minkman.

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