The room was pitch-black, so we dumped our bags and headed back out. On the way to the stairs, we passed another room. I spotted the outline of windows, but they’d been bricked up. “What’s in there?” I asked.
Jerren paused to look at the wall, which seemed odd. Surely there weren’t so many rooms in the fort that he needed to think about it. “Gunroom,” he said.
“Kind of a large room,” said Alice. “Does the colony really need that many guns?”
Jerren shrugged. “I’ve never been inside. Chief doesn’t like anyone except adults handling weapons.”
Alice tried the door. “It’s locked.”
“I just told you: Chief doesn’t like—”
“I know what you told me. It just seems strange you’ve never been inside. The fort’s such a small place.”
“Did you know every part of your colony?”
“Yes, I did.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I’ll bet you did.”
Jerren continued down the steps, but Alice didn’t follow. She was looking at the sailing ship moored to the southwest of the fort. It was smaller than ours and sleek. “That’s an impressive ship,” she said. “Whose is it?”
Reluctantly, Jerren stopped. He didn’t seem as cocky anymore. “The colony’s. Everything is shared, remember?”
Alice gave a wry smile. “Good. Then it’s ours too. I think I’ll go take it out.”
She hurried down the steps. Impulsively, Jerren reached out and held her sleeve. She shot him an accusing stare, but I wasn’t fooled. She’d baited him into doing it.
For a moment, he seemed unsure of himself. I half expected him to mumble an apology. Instead, the smirk returned. “The ship is used for rescue and reconnaissance,” he explained, still holding her arm.
“Reconnaissance of what? You ought to know this area perfectly by now.”
There was silence as each eyed the other. There seemed to be a lot in that look: mutual distrust but also mutual respect, a kind of grudging acceptance. “Reconnaissance of anything we’d like to know better,” Jerren said finally.
He let go of her sleeve then, and walked away. But not before I saw something I’d rarely seen before: Alice turning red. Blushing.
»«
I’d only just returned to my father when a man joined us and explained that Chief wanted to see me. He led me through the main gate and around the outside of the fort to the piece of land that Chief had called the peninsula. It was about thirty yards across and forty yards long, covered in tufts of grass and surrounded by rocks. Below the rocks, marshland abutted the harbor water.
The peninsula was split into two parts. On one side, cages were built around a chicken coop. On the other was the goat enclosure.
Chief was leaning over one of the cages, twisting a piece of wire. He heard me approaching and waved. “Did you get breakfast, Thomas?”
I shook my head, no.
He sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Kell was supposed to bring you some. Instead of which, he’s off playing bows and arrows with Ananias.” Chief straightened slowly, hand pressed tight into the small of his back. “Kell’s my right hand, Thomas. I couldn’t run this place without him. But there are times I think he hasn’t grown up at all.” He raised his eyebrows. “It can get a little frustrating, especially when it costs you breakfast.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
He gave me a stern look. “You’re the leader of your colony. Starving yourself won’t help.”
“I’m not the leader.”
“Yes, you are.” He sat on the cage. “You had the chance to give yourself the largest portion of gull meat yesterday; instead you took none. Kell would’ve kept most of it for himself and hoped no one noticed.” We both laughed at that. “You say you’re fine, but you’re not. So why don’t you tell me what’s really been going on these past few days.”
I wasn’t sure where to begin, or what to tell him. When I didn’t immediately answer, he handed me a tool and patted the cage. One of the strips of wire running across the top had snapped.
“After people, animals and birds are this colony’s most valuable resource,” Chief explained. “One hole and we’d lose our chickens. So what do you suggest?”
I studied the wire, grateful for the change of subject. Surprisingly, my first instinct was to join elements with Ananias—we could melt the two ends together again—but elements were out of the question. Which left me with only one choice: “We use a small piece of wire to cross the gap.”
Chief frowned. “You’re not afraid it’ll be too weak? What if it gives out?”
“It’s at the top of the cage. Unless you have really agile chickens, we’ll be all right.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And what if I tell you we’re out of wire?”
I puffed out my cheeks and looked at the cage again. The wires crossing the top seemed particularly close together. “We could just spread out the other wires so they’re equally spaced.”
“And do what with the broken wire?”
“Save it for future repairs.”
Chief clapped me on the back. “Then get on with it.”
As I began the process of detaching the wires from the ground and sliding them along, Chief took a water canister from his pack and sipped from it. “Why do you think I’m chief of this colony, Thomas?”
I moved the first wire into place and twisted it tight with the tool Chief had given me. “Because you’re experienced.”
He laughed. “Experience is code for old. Which I am, I suppose. But no—I’m chief because I care. Not about me, but about everyone.” He stared up at the fort. “I have no direct family here. The way I see it, every person on this island is my family. And I’ve discovered that the key to being a leader is the ability to listen. Listen hard enough, you might even hear things that people haven’t said.”
I stopped what I was doing. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s take your group, for example. Your father is the oldest male—natural choice for a leader, but no one refers to him that way, which means he wasn’t chief even before he got injured. Ananias would be the next logical choice, but he’s in shock. My guess is that he was connected to the girl you dropped overboard yesterday. And that’s an interesting situation too. Father and daughter die on the same day, but only one of them got a funeral.”
“He fell overboard.”
“That’s what Alice told me, yes. But she also has bruises on her neck like she’s been strangled. Still quite fresh. Two days old at most. She looks like the kind of girl who can handle herself, which means the person who attacked her was a man. And I know for sure it wasn’t someone from your family, which means it was her father. Who mysteriously died.”
I moved the next wire into place, but my hands were shaking. Chief noticed, and placed his hand on top of mine. “I’ve made you nervous. I’m sorry.” He eased the tool from me and continued what I’d begun. “You look as old as me right now, Thomas . . . carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. My father used to say ‘a burden shared is a burden halved.’ I’m not trying to alarm you. On the contrary, I’m trying to show you that you don’t need to carry the burden alone. Tell me how I can help you all. Please.”
It was the last word that got to me—the way he said it as if he craved my trust. So I told him about the pirate attack, and how we’d stolen Dare’s ship during the hurricane. How the pirates had claimed our island as their own, and Kyte had died because we were too slow to escape. How I’d heard Chief’s message and knew that it was the answer to everything, even though not everyone had been sure. I told him that Eleanor fell, and her father threw himself overboard.