Authors: Jen Minkman
The Deep (26 page)
And then, our sloop is hit by a tidal wave,
which capsizes the boat. The darkness of the water gobbles me up,
threatens to pull me under. I wrestle, wrestle, and manage to
emerge only when it feels like I will never breathe fresh air
again. In a panic, I look around me. Where is everybody?
To my left is the boat, upside down in the
water. I hold on to the edge and raise my voice. “Walt! Where are
you? Alisa!”
I see two heads appear above the waves. One
blonde, one dark.
In the distance, the
Crusader
is eaten
alive by a relentless ring of fire, making the ship disappear into
the deep, dark sea.
Gasping for breath, I break the surface of
the sea. My hands blindly feel around to find the boat. They hit
something. When I open my eyes, I see Walt, Leia, and Saul hanging
on the edge of the capsized sloop.
“Where’s Ben?” I croak, holding on to the
boat for dear life.
Saul shakes his head. He doesn’t say
anything, his face a pale, drawn mask.
“Where is he?” I yell. “Have you guys looked?
Where’s Ben?” I frantically turn my head to all sides.
Walt grabs my shoulder. “We looked for you
both, but we can’t see anything in the dark.”
“He’ll come up,” I whisper. “We just need to
wait.”
I feel the coldness of the water seep into my
bones. My hand touches Saul’s. Consolingly or looking for support,
maybe both. I don’t want to think about the fact that Ben’s
shoulder was still bothering him. Why did he have to be the one to
come up with this idea? He should have stayed at home. But of
course, he never would have done that – he wanted to help his older
brother, and me. He wanted to do something good for the island,
after living a previous life of violence and fear.
When everybody starts shivering from the cold
and we still haven’t seen any sign of life, Saul takes my hand. “We
have to go back,” he says. Very quietly, very softly. “The currents
have taken Ben. If the Force is strong in him, he’ll be able to
swim to the beach.”
I know he doesn’t really believe that.
“Okay,” I mumble.
We tried turning the sloop around a few
minutes ago, and that didn’t work. So now we are leaving it behind.
Swimming in single file like a row of terns, we head for the
coast.
The swim back lasts forever. It gives me too
much time to think about everything. The tension and arguments on
Tresco. The destruction. Tony’s death. Ben, who is missing. Ben,
who tried so hard to start a new life. And now his new beginning
might be his end. It’s not fair.
Saul would probably tell me that life isn’t
fair, but more bearable when you’re not alone.
I submerge my head under water and wash away
the tears on my cheeks with salty water from the deep.
When we finally make it to the harbor, we are
more dead than alive. Nathan is waiting for us with a full-fledged
delegation of Peacekeepers. Behind him, I see Carl with a group of
people from Newexter. The Eldest has come too.
Nathan’s eyes grow wide when he sees Walt
hauling himself up onto the jetty. “Annabelle be praised,” he cries
out, pulling his nephew in an embrace so tight it makes Walt gasp
for breath.
I see a woman with dark hair rush to the
front to hug Leia, who drags herself out of the water next. Her
mother. It only takes a few seconds for a dark-haired guy to join
them. I recognize him as Colin, Leia’s sister. More boys and girls
join in the reunion happiness. All of them friends of Leia’s.
And then my parents storm to the front,
crying and laughing at the same time.
I don’t let go of Saul’s hand when my family
pulls me into a group hug and my mother almost smothers me with her
kisses. For he is alone. All alone. Nobody asks him where Ben is,
or how he’s doing. My heart breaks when I look at him and I see the
pain in his eyes, and the fear of accepting for real what has
happened.
“You belong with me,” I whisper. “Don’t be
scared.”
He shows me the ghost of a smile. “And if I
do get scared, will you hold me?”
“Of course.” I put my arms around him and
feel him shiver, from the cold, from all the emotions raging
through his body, from grief. Then I kiss him on the mouth, under
my parents’ surprised eyes. “Because I belong with you, too.”
The day after the destruction of the
Crusader
, Ben’s lifeless body drifts ashore. In death, he
looks peaceful. So different from Finn. He found peace in the arms
of the sea goddess. We bury him in the little park close to his
cottage in Hope Harbor, as is the custom in his place of birth.
Saul is heartbroken. He denies himself time
to grieve by slaving away day and night, working on a third and
fourth ship in the St Martin shipyard, and comes home late every
night. I moved into Ben’s former cottage, and Saul moved in with
me. We didn’t discuss it – it just happened, and it feels
right.
When I come home with a bag of groceries one
warm summer night, Saul is already home. He’s sitting at the table,
looking at two sheets of paper in front of him.
“Look,” he says. “I asked Walt to draw Ben.
And Tony. He does really good portraits.” He holds up the papers
for me. My breath catches in my throat as I look into Ben’s brown
eyes. They look back at me defiantly. Full of life. I bite down on
my lip to stop myself from bawling.
Tony’s portrait is different. His dark skin
shines and his eyes are gentle. Walt told me what happened in
Dartmoor, how Tony had wanted to help us and ended up making
everything worse. By sacrificing his own life he saved our people.
Just like the god he believed in.
The tide didn’t bring in his body. In all
probability, the blast from the explosion killed and maimed
everyone on board beyond recognition. Tonight, there’s a memorial
service for him, where Walt and Leia will speak a few words. And
tomorrow, we are sailing away to our new home.
All the ships are finished. The two in
Newexter and the other two in St Martin. Combined with the
Explorer
, they have enough capacity to take everybody from
Tresco to Lundy in one go, but not everyone is going. I know Bram
is staying here, just like a number of youngsters in the new
village of Newmanor. In Hope Harbor, some old people have decided
to stay and wait – how fitting – to see what happens. I know some
temple servants are staying too in order to support and guide the
ones who stay behind. They simply want to die here, and not leave
their island. I can relate to them. If I had the choice, I’d stay
here too. This island is my world, but that world is now no longer
safe. We have to leave.
It’s time for the biggest adventure in my
life. And I don’t have to go it alone.
“Shall we put that up on the wall in our new
home on Lundy?” I gingerly suggest, pointing at Ben’s portrait with
a faint smile around my lips.
Saul takes my hands and gently squeezes
it.
“Yes,” he simply says.
One day, he will be able to smile again. And
I will still be there for him.
Walt and I have been invited to close the
ceremony after the Bookkeeper has done a short speech. For the
occasion, Walt has drawn a giant portrait of Tony which we have put
up, just like in the memorial service for his friend Henry. It
makes me think of Michelle. She’ll never know what happened to her
husband, and likewise, Tony’s family can’t be contacted to inform
them of his fate. He didn’t have a wife or children, but there have
to be people on the Other Side wondering where he is. We’ll never
be able to make it up to his friends, but we do have the power to
give him a grand send-off and thank him for all he has done for
us.
After we have stepped forward, I start out by
saying the words we have agreed on together. “There will be no more
death, or mourning, or crying, or pain,” I say. “For our ignorance
of old has passed away, thanks to our friend Tony.” A tear rolls
down my cheek.
“And we hope that Tony will see a new heaven
and a new earth, now that his home is with Jesus,” Walt supplies.
We don’t know how the people of Bodmin bury their dead, so we tried
our very best to use words from their holy scripture in our
goodbyes. It’s the least we can do.
We made him a marker – a beautiful, white
slab of stone next to the temple, looking out over the sea. Slowly,
people walk by the grave and put flowers and plants by his
tombstone. The circle of brightly-colored petals and green leaves
keeps growing. Eight hundred of us will venture out to Lundy
tomorrow, so in a way, this is also a ceremony to say goodbye to
our island.
Walt and I will board the
Explorer
once more, which was renamed
Conqueror
. Captain Tom will
command the fleet from the
Conqueror
, because he still knows
how to get to Penzance. But we’ll carefully avoid that harbor this
time – we’re supposed to sail west as soon as we get a clear view
of the Cornwall coastline. We’ll follow it westward and then north.
The replica of the map I bought in Dartmoor shows us that we should
eventually end up at Lundy if we keep north long enough. And on the
north coast of Devon is Exmoor, a place more liberated and wilder
than President Jacob’s realm, according to Tony. Who knows, we
might make new friends there. And if not, we’ll be fine with just
eight hundred of us. All this time, we’ve been able to rely on the
Force within us, and we still can now.
When I stand by the docks with Walt early
next morning, watching the sunrise pouring over the buildings of
Hope Harbor, I can’t stop my tears from flowing, despite being
curious about the new island we’ll sail to. Not too long ago, Walt
and I were watching the sunrise on my side of the island. Full of
hope we were headed for a fantastic adventure. Only this time, I
know it’s the last sunrise we will ever see on Tresco.
“Will you miss it here?” I ask quietly.
Walt nods. “Yes. I have so many memories
here. But I know the memories remain even if we leave this place.
I’ll keep them forever.” He turns to face me. “What about you?”
I close my eyes and think of all the things
in my life that have given me meaning and focus. And I realize
those moments all have to do with certain people, dead or alive.
It’s not this place – it’s the people in it who have given me
everything I needed to get here, and be myself.
“I will,” I reply. “But that’s okay. The
world is still waiting for us, and now we can shape it any way we
want. Without lies or misconceptions.”
After that, I lay my head on Walt’s shoulder
and we quietly watch the world waking up around us, preparing
itself for a long, new journey.
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Liked this book? I’d appreciate a short
review!
When I wrote
The Island
, I had no idea
I would ever write a sequel to that story. And once the sequel was
there, I didn’t suspect it would convince me to write this third
book. Once I was working on
The Deep
, my plan was to take
this three-part novella series and bundle them into a collection of
Island novellas, but
The Deep
took me for a ride – the story
kept growing and growing, exploding into a full-fledged novel
instead of a novella. So voila, reader, here’s the result of my
imagination running wild! I hope everybody enjoyed reading the
story as much as I enjoyed writing it (though I have to say,
translating a 64,000-word book in two weeks’ time is something I’d
rather not do again) and who knows, this might not be the end. I
might yet write more books set in the Dartmoor/Lundy world, but I
won’t commit to anything right now. To all the readers who took the
time to let me know what they thought of the series by writing
emails, tweets, reviews, Facebook posts and whatnot – thank you
very much!
Other people I’d like to thank are all the
bloggers who dutifully review my books and help me promote my work
every time I publish something new, my husband who doesn’t mind if
I lock myself up in my study for weeks on end in order to finish a
book (hermit!), the
Koffie en Kruimels
and
Bagels and
Beans
in The Hague, where I sat down with nice drinks and
snacks to write the majority of this book, and Natasja Storm, who
inspired me to write
The Island
(and consequently, the other
two books in the series) by organizing a dystopian writing contest
on her blog young-adults.nl.
See you next time!
Jen Minkman.
http://www.jenminkman.nl
(Dutch)
http://jenminkman.blogspot.nl
(English)