The Silent Isle (8 page)

"I'll take
care of this," Dane said to Owen and Kenzie.  "Go
on."  He took the torch from Kenzie and stepped down into the
storeroom. 

The storeroom had
a sunken floor, dug several feet into the earth like a cellar to keep it
cool.  There was a false roof formed by planks at head level and these
formed a type of attic shelf space.  He looked at the hams, the packages
of dried goods on the shelves.  No ants.  No tiny tooth marks. 
He swept the torch across the straw-littered floor.  No telltale
droppings.  Dane climbed up three rungs of the little ladder that led to
the shelf and peeked around.  No sign of vermin.  Everything was
preserved and undisturbed.  There would have been space for him to crawl
up and sit on the shelf but he did not. 

He went back
down the ladder and studied the hams.  Everything hung there in perfect
shape as thought it had been laid out for them. 
Why did that bother
him?
  Back home, rats and flies and ants had always been pests. 
Why
should he be bothered by their absence?
  He made for the door.  A
sudden gust of wind that seemed to come from the rear wall of the room swept
around him.  The blast was icy cold.  The door slammed shut in his
face.  His torch faltered and went out. 

He blinked in
the darkness.  He blundered forward, bashed his shin on the foot of the
stairs,
swore
.  A scurrying noise came from the
darkness behind him.  He spun to face it.  "Who's there?"
he demanded.  The second he had said it he knew how ridiculous it
was.  He had just been over every inch of the room.  There was no one
there but himself.  Somehow, knowing this did not slow his
breathing. 

He felt his way
up the stairs and found the door.  He pushed it but it did not open. 
He shook it so that it rattled in its frame, but it did not open.  He
paused for a minute and in the silence he heard it begin. 

It began almost
as a whisper; a soft, doleful voice. 
Gone, gone,
gone
. 
All your friends are gone.
  The sorrow of the voice took on a mocking
ring and rose in pitch and volume. 
Mine, mine, mine.
 
All your friends are mine.
 

Dane tried the
door again.  
Nothing.
 

In the next
sentence the voice rose to a crescendo, a lunatic scream. 
Dead, dead, dead.
  All your friends are dead.

Dane pounded on
the door.  His shouts were almost as loud as the voice. 

Food, food, food.
  All your friends are-

Dane threw
himself against the door.  It crashed open and he stumbled out into the
sunlight. 

He spun back
towards the gaping door, expecting something to
come
flying up the steps towards him. 
Nothing.
 
It took him a moment to realize the voice had stopped.  It had stopped the
moment he'd opened the door.  He was shaking. 
Shaking
all over.
  He sat down hard in the dirt, still facing the
door.  He heard rushing footfalls behind him.  "Captain, are you
all right?" Owen and Kenzie asked, running up to him. 

Dane looked up
at them.  He still didn't trust his legs.  "Did you hear
it?" 

"Hear
what?  You banging on the door and calling for help? 
Of course.
  What happened?" 

Dane checked
himself. 
Could it be they had not heard the voice?
 

"Sir?"
Kenzie asked. 

"Nothing
happened.  The door latched shut behind me."  He accepted a hand
as Kenzie pulled him to his feet.  "That's all."  He wiped
a hand across his brow.  "Let's finish moving in." 

He saw the rest
of the crew heading into the compound, laden with bundles.  He walked over
to Kit Forsythe, the ship's steersman.  "Is this
everything?" 

"Yes, sir.
 
Less what I kept for
our voyage."
 

"Alright,
have your men get something to eat and get some rest.  You'll set out
first thing tomorrow morning." 

"Aye, sir."
 

Dane patted
Forsythe on the shoulder and stepped past him to help unload the cart.  He
saw Bax's slave girl struggling to reach a heavy-looking bundle from atop the
heap of items on the wagon.  She had stepped up on a spoke of the cart
wheel and was stretching to reach the bag.  Dane stepped up beside her and
pulled the bundle down, catching it on his shoulder.  He stepped off the
wagon wheel and turned to face her, still holding the bundle. 

"I had
it," she said. 

Why was she
so defensive?
 
Did she think he was mocking her?  Did she
think he was like Bax?
  "Are you afraid Bax will be angry with
you for accepting help?" 

"I'm not
afraid of Bax," she said, reaching for the bag. 

He kept his grip
on it.  "Let me help you with it." 

"I don't
need your help."  She pulled the bag from him. 

"But Bax.
  How does he treat you?" 

She looked at him,
more of a glare, and then looked away. 
Did she still think he was
mocking her?
  "How do you think he treats me?"  She
hefted the bag on her shoulder.  "When he's not letting his friends
treat me the same way."  She turned to leave and then turned her head
to face him.  "Why, Captain, are you one of his friends?" 
She started walking away. 

"Can't you
see I'm trying to help you?" 

She stopped and
turned to face him again.  "Look around you, Captain.  You can't
even help yourself."

"Would you
at least tell me your name?" 

She
laughed.  He had hoped, hopeless though it was, to hear her laugh at some
point on the voyage.  He did not like the little sound she made now. 
He hoped it was not her true laugh.  "Why should that matter to you,
my lord? 
To know the name of your servant's
slave?"
 

Dane
swallowed.  He realized he had no good answer.  His father had many
slaves and servants and he had never had trouble speaking with them. 
Why
did he falter now?
 
Was it enough to say,
"Because I'd
simply like to know it."? 
Was it too much to say?
 

He was almost
grateful when the silence which stretched between them was interrupted by Bax's
voice. 
"Mara."
 

The girl
turned.  Dane turned.  Bax was standing in the doorway of one of the
houses.  "Mara," he called again and waved the girl on
impatiently.  She turned back to Dane and gave him a little half nod and
then walked towards Bax. 

"Mara."
  Dane sounded the name under his
breath.  He found he could not take his eyes from her.  He watched as
she reached Bax and Bax turned, without taking or even offering to take the
bundle from her, and stepped into the house.  Mara followed him in without
a backwards glance.  Dane felt a muscle jump in his jaw. 
Hadn't
he seen scenes like this played out a million times, between countless slaves
and masters in his father's crummy little kingdom?
 
Wasn't this
scene enacted every night in the brothels in the harbor?  Were those
girls, though Draconian-born, any freer than Mara?  So why did it bother
him now?  Was it because it was Bax or because it was her?
  From
within, someone shut the door to the house.  Though he stood thirty paces
from it, Dane felt it was being shut in his face. 

***

Josie had entered the compound with
the first group unloading the ship.  Actually, she got there before
them.  As soon as Ira and the others had returned to tell them to start
unloading the ship, Josie had grabbed her small bundle and started up the path.

“What did you find?” Josie had
asked Ira as she pushed past him.

Ira had shaken his head. 
“Nothing.
  There’s nothing there.”

Josie had not known how to take
this, but she did not wait to ask further questions.  Crossing the strap
of her satchel across her chest, she hurried up the path.  From Ira’s
comment she imagined the colony burned to the ground.  She wondered if she
would be able to find human bones among the wreckage or if they would have
burned down to ash with everything else.

She felt a brief sense of relief
when she was the walls still standing and she picked up her pace.  When
she passed through the gate, the courtyard was empty.  Dane was going
through the rooms with Owen and Kenzie and the rest of his squad was dispersed
on other errands.

Josie slipped her pack off her
shoulder and leaned it against the wall.  Then she began to wind among the
houses.  She did not know what she was looking for but near the northern
end of the settlement something caught her eye.  It was a dogcart, lying
on its side in an open space of the courtyard.  Something small and pale
lay in the dirt on the other side of it.  Josie stepped around the dogcart
and knelt to retrieve the small object.  She recognized it even before she
picked it up.  Even so, she studied it for a long time, running her hand
over it. 

It was a cornhusk doll, its waist
and joints tied up with plaid ribbon.  She had bought the ribbon herself
with money she’d earned from selling apples from her family’s trees.  She
had made the doll and given it to Nelly, her niece, as a parting gift before
Gwen’s family had left for Haven.   Josie stood up, pressing the doll
to her chest.  She had made an identical doll for Chloe, Nelly’s younger
sister.  Josie righted the dogcart and walked several circles around the
area.  The second doll was nowhere to be seen.  This gave her an
idea.

She entered the house nearest her
and went through all its rooms quickly but carefully.  Then she went to
the next house.  She found the matching doll in the fourth house she
entered.  It was propped up on a pillow in a bed.  The bedspread had
been pulled up under the bed’s two pillows.  Josie sat down on the
bed.  She picked up the doll and cradled it beside its twin in the crook
of her arm.  She ran her free hand over the pillows.  She imagined
the girls there, sleeping side by side as she stroked their hair.  She knew
then the second doll was Nelly’s.  Chloe’s had been the first doll. 
Nelly, the responsible.
 
Nelly, the
fastidious.
  Making her bed and setting her doll down just so
before running out to play.  With a smile that made her eyes burn, Josie
imagined if Nelly had been in her shoes and had run away from home, she would
have remembered to pack a blanket.

“Did you run away from home, baby?”
she asked, touching each of the pillows again.  “Where did you run to?”

After a while she stood up
again.  She smoothed out the wrinkles she had made in the bedspread. 
She set each of the dolls on a pillow.  She walked into the other
bedroom.  Its bed was not made.  Clothes hung on the back of a chair
by the window.  She sifted through them. 
A man’s
shirt.
  The threadbare dress that was all she could remember Gwen
ever wearing except on special occasions.  She held this up to the light
from the window.  The light passed through it.  The tearful smile
returned.  She had always thought her sister radiant.  She folded the
dress and set it on top of the chest which sat below the window. 

She returned to the chair and found
Nat’s leather trousers.  Josie held these up and then laid them out on the
bed.  Without bothering to close the door, she slipped out of her skirt
and folded it and set it on top of her sister’s dress.  She sat down on
the bed and pulled on Nat’s pants.  They were cold and stiff but she told
herself she’d get used to them.  They were also much too big for
her.  She went back to the chair but did not find what she wanted. 
She glanced about the room until her eyes settled on it. 

Nat’s belt hung from a peg in the
wall.  She needed the belt but it was what was attached to the belt that
she really wanted.  She lifted the belt off the wall, surprised by the
weight of it.  She fastened it around her waist and positioned the object
of special interest over her right hip.  A simple leather sheath hung from
Nat’s belt.  The sheath housed a knife which Josie remembered well. 
It had been a wedding present from her parents.  She drew the blade and
found it accounted for most of the belt’s weight.  This fact pleased
her. 

The observations she’d been making
since finding the dogcart coalesced into a scene of images playing in her
mind. 
Early morning.
  The girls slipped out
to play before breakfast.  Maybe Gwen was heading to the kitchen; maybe
she was still in bed. 
A scream from outside.
 
Nat and Gwen rush out of the house, still in their nightclothes.  Nat
didn’t think to take his knife.  Why would he?  Most days a scream
would mean nothing worse than a pinched finger or a fall.  But this hadn’t
been like most days.  Whatever they’d found with their girls in the
courtyard, they’d never made it back to the house.

Josie slipped the knife into its
home.  She would not make Nat’s mistake.  She told herself that while
she was on the island, the knife would not leave her side.  Whatever
happened.
 
Whenever it came.
 
She would be ready.

***

For dinner that
night they had soup along with bread left over from the voyage.  The bread
was stale but not bad when dipped in the soup and although the soup was simple
and hastily prepared it felt so good to have a hot meal.  Dane ate with
Forsythe and the men he'd selected for the voyage around the island.  He
had thought the men would be rankled by the command to get back on the ship so
soon, but if anything they seemed pleased.  They talked and laughed more
than those who would be staying on land.  Dane imagined they were relieved
to be getting off the island.