12

 

 

 

WHEN I finally see the first houses of Hope Harbor looming in the distance, I’m no longer running. Rather, I’m stumbling on. My feet are bleeding from hitting stones on the path in my frantic flight. Tears are streaming down my face. Even though I didn’t really believe Saul would follow me across the Wall, I still wouldn’t slow down.

I accost the very first man I encounter. “Walt,” I pant. “Where is… Walt. The Bookkeeper’s nephew.”

“My heavens, girl, what happened to you?” the elderly man asks with a bewildered face, putting his arm around my shoulders. “Why don’t you take a seat first, love? I’ll go and get Walt out of that meeting he’s in.”

I sit down on the wooden bench the man steered me toward, standing under a street lantern next to one of the houses. My heart hammers in my chest and my hair is sticky with sweat. If I could make one wish now, it’d be for hours of rest, just sitting here and letting the world go by, but I know I can’t. Walt is in some meeting – well, so much the better. He should ask all the people gathered there to help him. To help me. I have to save Colin, Andy and Pete. If they’re still alive, that is.

After what seems like an eternity, my savior comes back with Walt in tow. His eyes widen when he catches sight of me. “Leia, what happened? Are you alone? Where are your friends?”

I start crying desperately, sagging against Walt’s shoulder when he sits down next to me. “He’s dead,” I sniff.

“Who’s dead?”

“Henry. They... Saul killed him.”

Walt stops breathing. Anxious, I look up and see his jaw working. “That does it. We’re going in,” he decides. “Is your friend still there? Is Mara in danger?”

I shake my head. “Mara left earlier this afternoon. Saul wanted to force her to marry his brother, so she ran away. But my brother Colin’s still there. And Andy, and Pete – our friends. They helped me. We wanted to confront Saul with his lies, but everything got out of hand.”

“Do you think Colin...” A tell-tale silence follows.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” I whisper.

He cries out something – sounding kind of gruff, so I’m assuming he’s using a few choice words in his own dialect – and gets up. “I have to drum up some helpers. Tony will want to come too, I bet.”

“Wait,” I say. “If you want to attack the manor house and capture Saul, I suggest you ask for help in Newexter. Mara has already told my mother about what’s happening at the manor. The… I mean, our parents want to come and help us, I think. And they know their way around the manor grounds.”

He nods curtly. “We can use all the help we can get. How do we get to your village without being seen?”

I ponder his question for a moment. “We could go by ship. If you sail around the island, you can go ashore at the eastern beach and reach Newexter quite easily from there. The parents often go fishing on that beach, so there’s a road.”

“A ship? Consider it done.”

“Are we leaving now?”

He smiles reassuringly. “Yes, we are, as soon as possible. But we’ll have to tell one of the captains to prepare a ship that’s capable of carrying a lot of people first. I already have an idea which ship to use.”

“You mean the Explorer?” the elderly man inquires. He’s still standing next to us.

Walt nods and grabs my hand, taking me on my way to the salvation he’s promised me. During our walk, I tell him bits and pieces about the situation on our side of the Wall. While I talk, we walk along endless streets lined with houses that look a whole lot sturdier than the houses we tend to build. There are street lights everywhere and almost all roads are paved. And it just goes on and on. Hope Harbor is larger than Newexter… much larger.

“Just how many people live here?” I ask shyly at some point.

“About one thousand,” Walt replies.

“Oh.” All at once, I feel like a bumpkin walking around this city. I come from a village of about two hundred inhabitants, and the group living in the manor only consists of fifty-one youngsters. That’s the biggest crowd I’ve been around in the past six years. Everything here is so overwhelming.

Silently, I plod on next to the boy I pegged for a Fool only two days ago, who turns out to be much more cultivated than me.

“How are you holding up?” Walt interrupts my train of thought. “I’m not going too fast, am I?”

I shake my head. “Can’t go fast enough for me. I’m just thinking,” I reply quietly.

Walt puts his arm around me. “What about?”

“About how different everything is over here. How it is that you’re with so many, and why we’ve always lived apart from you, and each other.” I look up at Walt. “I found out I’m part Foolish myself, you know. My grandmother was born here.”

“Really.” Walt raises an eyebrow. “No wonder you seem a bit bubbleheaded at times.”

“Look who’s talking,” I throw back.

“Seems like us Fools are apparently irresistible to your kind,” Walt continues unperturbedly, “because your grandfather went on and married her in secret. Right?”

I wonder. How had they even managed to do that? Had Toja crossed the Wall one day, bumping into my grandfather like I bumped into Walt? Maybe Grandfather smuggled her into Newexter claiming she was from the manor and her parents were dead. Sometimes, youngsters change so much between the ages of ten and eighteen that nobody recognizes them anymore when they return. As far as I know, no one’s ever told my mother that her mother didn’t belong in Newexter.

“I wonder why she ran away,” I mumble.

Walt slows down. “Well, there are Hope Harborers who can’t stand the wait. They tire of waiting for a lifetime for something to appear at the horizon.”

“Is that what your people believe in?” I ask dumbfounded.

“Yes. And hey, turns out we were right all along, because someone actually did appear on the horizon. Two people on a ship from the World across the Waters, bearing great news. But one of them had to pay for it with his life.”

“I’m sorry.” Somehow, I’m ashamed of what our leader has done, even though it’s obvious he’s crack-brained.

“Hey.” Walt slows down to a stop, looking at me seriously. “It’s not your fault, okay? At least you tried to stop him.”

“I still want to,” I say fiercely. “In fact I want to stop everything. All the lies. All the misery. I want to know the truth at last. If Henry really is right and our way of life is based on lies, we should all hear it.”

“I’m not sure all your people will be ready for a truth like that. An Unbeliever isn’t easily converted.”

“So I guess it’s up to Tony to convince them. He has his work cut out for him. I mean, isn’t he supposed to be the Bearer of Great News?” My sarcasm turns my words into poison. Screw Walt and his stupid prejudices.

His eyes turn dark and his warm hand lands on my shoulder. “Look, Leia, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, indeed you shouldn’t have,” I snap. “Now, let’s just carry on, shall we?”

I shake off his apologetic hand and hurry on down the street. It still confuses me when he touches me.

 

***

 

When we finally get to the harbor this place is named after, I stop in my tracks. The incoming seawater is hugged by the rocky walls of a sheltered bay. I can make out a gigantic quay. The entire harbor is lit up by lamps and fires kept burning in stone towers erected on opposite sides of the bay.

“What are those towers?” I ask curiously.

“Watchtowers,” Walt replies. “Lookouts. So we can keep an eye on the sea at all times. They’re always manned, and the fires never die out.”

Waiting for salvation from the outside world. Forever staring out at sea, hoping that one day, something or someone will come. I suddenly get why my grandmother wanted out. The air in this city breathes inertia, a sense of futility, of people biding their time. I understand why our forefathers called them Foolish for it.

“And what’s that ship over there?” I point out a three-master completely made of natural wood, anchored next to the dock. I’ve seen a ship like this out at sea once, but of a more modest size, carrying one mast only. But this… this is a ship to sail away on, never to return.

“That’s the Explorer,” Walt explains with a broad smile on his face. “The ship my dad helped build. We were going to sail it soon.”

I stare at him. “Going where?”

He vaguely gestures at the endless sea and keeps quiet for a long time. “Past the horizon. To see what was promised to us with our own eyes,” he finally says.