Vicious Memories

Chapter 9

Arun and Cooper entered the cabin at noon.

They had both cleaned up since yesterday, wearing grim faces and fresh clothes devoid of dirt. The backs of their hands lacked the mud and caked on filth from the day before.

Their cleanliness only reinforced the image that this village had been here for a long time; long enough to figure out luxuries like laundry and personal hygiene. It also reminded me how dirty I was. I knew I must smell terrible, of salt and sweat and my meal the previous night.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Did you find them?"

"Best be quiet for now, mate."

"Is she really dead?"

Cooper nodded. Arun went to work on the knot around my wrists.

"I don't think you did it," he said, taking one of my arms as the rope fell away. "Truly. Gabriel called a town hall, so everyone is outside. It'll all be cleared up by arvo."

They led me out into the radiant sun. I hissed and squinted through the brightness, unable to shield my eyes because my arms were pinned at my sides.

Cabins encircled the clearing in the center of the village in two staggered lines. I blinked furiously, trying to get my eyes to adjust as the two men led me around one of the cabins in the inner circle and toward the middle clearing. My pupils contracted slowly, like tiny turtles who'd forgotten how to retreat into their shells. By the time I could see properly we were on the edge of the clearing. Little pinpricks of prismatic light continued to flit across in my vision.

I stared at the gathering before us, feeling like I had just traveled several centuries back in time.

A group of three dozen people sat around in a haphazard group, facing their village leader, expressions bordering grief and anger. Their semi-circular rows faced a large wooden block sitting in the center of the large grassy area. The villagers only took up a small fraction of the clearing, and I thought they must use it for other things like eating meals together, sporting events, or entertainment, if such a thing existed here. At this moment they just looked like a medieval town waiting for the day's hangings to start.

Accusing eyes followed my approach.

Arun brought me around the edge of the assembled group to the far corner, level with the large wood block behind which Gabriel stood.

"You sit here," he said.

"Right."

"Don't move."

"Got it."

I settled cross-legged onto the grass and Cooper took up his position behind me. Arun joined Gabriel at the block, standing a little behind him and to his right.

Gabriel glanced in my direction, but only for a moment. Then he raised his hands and the crowd clambered slowly to its feet, only to sit back down again almost immediately.

"Are we all here?" he asked, his voice carrying so well he could have been speaking into a megaphone.

Someone in the front row responded in the affirmative, tossing Gabriel an item that he plucked out of the air deftly. My first thought was that it was a strange wood carving, a foot tall, six inches in diameter, with odd wavy curves all the way around. I stared at it for a few seconds, then Gabriel shifted his grip and I realized what I was looking at. It was a deflated football.

I looked from it, to the crowd, and back, thinking about the way everyone had stood up just a moment before. There was a sense of ritual here, and what these people had been through on this island struck me fully for the first time.