Free The Deep by Jen Minkman Page A

be
done.”
    I can’t help but laugh too.
“Seriously? How strange. Who would do such a thing?”
    And then I think of the
Phileans, who are guilty of exactly this kind of
behavior.
    “Those people who sabotaged
your new ship,” Saul replies calmly at that moment. “You thought
Ben didn’t tell me why you came here?”
    I look up and shoot him and
Ben a semi-poisonous look. “Let me get this straight. The two of
you have been gossiping about the Hope Harborers?”
    Saul smiles faintly. “Oh,
don’t take it so hard. At least we didn’t say anything nasty about
you personally.”
    “Gee, thanks.” I resist the
urge to throw a wisp of potato peel into his smug face. Why is he
yanking my chain like that? “You know, it wouldn’t have surprised
me. If only you knew what kind of stories were being told
about your people before the Wall was torn down.”
    “Oh?” Saul cocks an
eyebrow. “Do tell.”
    “That you used to haunt the
night dressed in your dark cloaks,” I say ominously. “That you used
to snatch children away with your sharp claws, seeking them out
with eyes that glowed in the dark, so you could tear them to shreds
with your deadly talons.”
    He stares at me, the
mocking smile wiped off his face. “What a load of crap,” he
mumbles, but his voice doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s nonsense
at all.
    Saul sounds like I sank my
own talons into a sore spot he would have preferred to
hide.

    When we take off again in
the late afternoon, I ask Ben the question that’s been bugging me
all through lunch.
    “You think I hurt
Saul?”
    Ben stares straight ahead.
“Saul used to enjoy the fact that people were scared of him. But
now there’s nobody left to scare with tales about the
darkness.”
    “But that’s a good thing,
right?” I say.
    “No,” Ben looks at me with
empty eyes. “Now he can sense that the same darkness has taken him
a long time ago.”

World Across The Waters

9 – Leia

    My eyes stare unseeingly at the gray
cobblestones of the square. The crowd that had gathered to watch
Sam’s Purge has long dispersed, but I am rooted to the spot as
though I will never be able to move again.
    Walt has slipped his hand into mine. When I
finally look aside, I can see tears in his eyes.
    “What are we supposed to do?” I whisper.
    “Nothing,” he quietly replies. “Try to be as
friendly as possible to all the people we encounter. And whatever
happens, avoid getting into a fight.” His voice trembles. Not from
anger, but from fear.
    The other people in our travel party have all
poured out of the palace in the meantime. I watch as William talks
to them one by one, explaining to them in hushed yet urgent tones
what we have just witnessed. To be honest, I don’t even know what it was that we witnessed. A society touting
peacefulness as the greatest good can’t possibly think this is
normal?
    “We need to talk,” Tony says, who never left
our side.
    “We certainly do,” Walt nods, his mouth set
in a grim line.
    “Not here, though.” Tony casts a look around
the square, then walks over to William to pull him away from the
distraught islanders. They all look ashen and perplexed, and I
can’t say I’m surprised. One moment we’re guests in some kind of
charitable paradise where the horn of plenty overflows with
laughter, food and welcome, and the next we seem to have ended up
in a living nightmare.
    “Let’s meet up in front of the church
tonight,” Walt calls out to the others. “Eight o’clock. Now please,
just go with Harry and get yourselves a comfortable place for the
night. Stay calm at all times. No shouting, running, or pushing.
And no breaking the Dartmoor rules.”
    The whole Tresco group just nods obediently,
stunned into silence. They stare at the ground as they meekly trail
behind Harry, while we three remain with Tony and worriedly watch
the islanders shuffle away.
    “I want to know what’s going on right now,”
William says through gritted teeth. The look he