Vicious Memories

Chapter 99 - Alice

Nobody was going to help me now.

I saw it in Ollie's face as he backed away from Arun, in the shifting eyes of my friends and family as they avoided looking at the Strangers, in the sharp promise of the spear now rising up again. No helpful spirits whispered in my ear. No breath of wind came to nudge me forward.

Whether or not to save the Strangers was my decision.

I didn't know what had happened to Ollie up on the clifftop, what change he had gone through, but for some reason he held himself back. He had wanted to stop Arun from committing murder, but in the end he couldn't or wouldn't. And nobody else seemed willing to step in.

I thought about all the small things I'd learned about myself over the last two weeks. All the things I had said when ordinarily I would have remained silent, all the things I had done when ordinarily I would have hidden, all the times I'd stood in front of the village when ordinarily I would have stood behind it. I expected to be scared, or even resentful of the fact that I was being forced into this position, but instead something strange happened.

I straightened my shoulders, tilted my chin higher. And though I forced my lips not to curve in a smile, I felt happy. Free. Free here and now, on this prison of an island, standing in the middle of death and despair. Happy not because of what had happened, but happy that I could finally be me in spite of what had happened.

Because being forced to help myself finally made me realize that in the end I didn't need somebody else to do this for me. I was capable of doing anything that needed to be done on my own, as I had been the whole time. Not just capable, but responsible. If I did nothing I would be letting myself, and everyone else, down.

It was my time.

The Strangers moved into a tightened circle when Arun advanced again. They knitted themselves together, but in the end there was nowhere left to go. They were trapped. The wood spear shone orange and white, bathed in the light of fire and stars, and Arun's face was grim as he lifted it. Several villagers closed their eyes, unwilling to watch.

"Shame on you."

It was the relative silence in the clearing that turned my voice into a shout, and for the second time Arun had to pause with his arm in the air. I took the opportunity to walk around the circle, stopping just a pace away from him, basking momentarily in the glow I felt from Ollie's relieved grin.

"Enough of this," I said. "Step back, now."

Shocked more than anything else, Arun complied. I looked around at everyone nearby.

"We won't be killing anybody else tonight. There's been more than enough death for one day. Arun, you can't tell me you meant to go through with this. You were really going to murder this man in cold blood? He's unarmed. Where's your honor?"

Arun's face twitched, but he refused to look embarrassed. "It's no more than he deserves."

"Is it? And who are you to make that kind of judgement?" I unstuck my feet from the mud and began a slow walk around the clearing. "Who are any of us to decide on the spot that these people deserve to die? We've spent the last two years of our lives railing against them for the atrocities that they committed against us. Atrocities that for the most part center around them killing people we love and care about. And now, just like that, we're going to turn the tables and do the exact same thing? We're going to become them? We'd be turning ourselves into the very thing we've hated for all this time. If we kill them now, without any sort of trial or sense of order, we'd be Strangers ourselves. Think hard about the sense of disgust you had for these people you deemed murderers, and decide whether you'd be willing to turn into that kind of monster. That's not who or what we are."

I took a nervous breath, my throat raw, and waited. I expected to hear one of the villagers speak out; I braced myself for an angry shout, a scathing retort, anything at all, really, but nothing came.

Everywhere I looked I saw chagrin and humiliation on my friends' faces, and beneath it all was the one thing I had hoped against hope to see: relief. Some hint that they didn't want this to happen, after all. The Strangers all stared up at me inscrutably.

"Shame on all of us for letting it get this far," I said. "We can discuss this calmly tomorrow, in the light of day, after we've taken care of and buried our dead. We can't kill these people in a rage tonight, without giving them a trial or a chance to defend their actions. It would be wrong, and we know it." I paused, continued. "But I can't be the one to make this decision alone. This is a community, not a dictatorship. So what say you? Do we kill them now?"

A few people shook their head back and forth, and fewer still called out, "No." I walked another half lap around the circle, believing that I would feel my walled off fear surge forward at any moment as I stood under the scrutiny of so many people. I searched for it, anticipated it, almost wanted it, but it appeared that I didn't possess that emotion anymore. I was almost sad to see it go.

"I can't hear you." I called to the village the same way I always had at the funeral services of our friends. "Do we kill them now?"

"No," more people answered.

"Do we murder these people in cold blood?"

"No!" the entire village finally shouted, and I was happy to hear Arun's voice laced into the mix.

"It's decided," I said.

We weren't the savages I was afraid we would become. As I turned to find Ollie my foot caught in a thick clump of wet earth and I stumbled, righting myself only at the last moment, wondering at the sense of dizziness I suddenly felt. Then I remembered Bev's parting words to Ollie: "I wonder if your friends will turn out to be the savages you think me to be."

Arun took charge of the group again.

We would have a trial for the Strangers tomorrow morning, to learn what we could from them, to ask why they had attacked us tonight after all this time, and to give them a chance to explain their actions. I wondered if that line of questioning would bear any fruit - considering their unnerving and disciplined silence I doubted it. I felt something off every time I looked at them, a sense of disquiet that raised goosebumps on my arms.

After a minute of discussion I finally looked back at Ollie, and felt a flush of satisfaction as he mouthed a thank you at me. I wanted to ask him why he hadn't been the one to stop Arun, but he stepped forward before I could.

"We'll move them to the cabins," he said. "Gabriel, can you help coordinate watch groups to keep an eye on them through the night?"

"Where's Bev?"

The question came from somewhere to my left and I turned to find Neema looking around quizzically. Very little escaped her keen gaze, and I was actually surprised it had taken so long for the question to come up again.

My heart skipped a beat, and I couldn't tell whether it was because I knew we'd have to explain everything to the rest of the villagers now, or because I somehow understood that saying her name aloud was the cue she was waiting for. Either way I took in a big breath. My lungs expanded to brace the inside of my chest.

A gout of flame leapt from the bonfire and the buzz of insects dimmed.

Feet whipped through wet grass from the west, in the direction of the creek.

We all turned as one, and there she was, long dirty-blond braid pulled over one shoulder. She wore a fresh black shirt with pristine white buttons and pressed black pants. Her ocean blue eyes did all the smiling for her.

When Bev stopped ten yards away from us she raised an arm and the half-dozen men behind her stopped, too.

"Who, me?" She put a mocking hand to her chest. "I'm so glad you asked."