C Fletcher - A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

I told you they’re scared of long voyages, he said. The ones they used to take, raiding for girls.

Yes, I said. You said the three men who did them sailed away and never came back, because of a storm.

I never said it was three men, he said. Interesting you think that. No, it was two men and a woman. The woman was the best sailor, and she also put people at ease when they met them as strangers. She would talk to the girls and the men, and both would like her for different reasons. She was the one made the marks on the map.

I looked at him, betraying myself a little.

You thought they were my marks, he said. Is that right?

I still do, I said. I had seen the pencil line marking his passage to our island. I didn’t know why he would be lying about this but I was sure it’d become apparent if he carried on talking.

That map is theirs, he said. The three sailors. It shows where they went. If you were on the Falki , I would show you.

What’s the Falki ? I said.

My boat, he said. I have the other maps hidden there.

Hidden? I said.

I told you, he said, it would not be good for them to be found. But they are maps of their travels.

So they didn’t drown, I said.

He moved a little closer.

No, he said. They didn’t drown. They got to their destination safely enough. They just didn’t leave it.

And then he told me another story.

He told me it was the real truth. I don’t know if it is. The Conservators had come to the house that was his real home on the Swedish archipelago, seemingly to trade but actually to take the pale girls who were his sisters. And he and his kin had stopped them, because they were not fools.

They came, they stayed, they ate with us, they asked if we’d like to come join their settlement—and when we said no, we liked it where we were, they left friendly. And then they came back after dark, he said. Nothing friendlike in their hearts. Carrying weapons in their fists. And handcuffs. They said they just wanted one girl. They called it a “tithe”. Do you know what a tithe is?

No, I said.

It’s like a bribe, he said. Like they used to take taxes from people or they’d put them in prison if they refused to pay up. Except a tithe is for gods. These people are dangerous because they think they are doing this because a god wants them to do it. It means they don’t have to think like humans.

So you killed them, I said.

No choice, he said. Even if we’d hidden—or fought them off—they’d have come back. They now knew where we lived. We liked where we live. Still do. We didn’t want to spend our lives hiding from them, moving around, living in fear of the next time they tried, of what would happen if they brought more people to help them. We had no idea how few of them there are here. That’s why I came, the first time, to see if there was a threat. That’s when I discovered they had grown afraid when the others hadn’t returned. They turned from the sea.

And you killed them, I said again. The others.

We did, he said. My sisters are strong women. They did not take well to the idea of being someone else’s breeder. I did not take well to the idea of someone stealing my sisters. Nor did my parents. Or our friends.

Friends. Parents. He had not said there were more than the pale girls when he first told the story. Now he seemed to come from a village. I didn’t say anything, but I stored the thought away. It could have been another lie.

We knew they’d come back, because there was something extra in the men’s eyes after they had met my sisters, he said. So we waited and when they slunk back, we did what we had to do. I did not like doing it, but it had to be done. It was their choice. They could have stayed away, but they came back, with weapons and handcuffs.

All that and yet you thought you could steal my dog and no one would follow you, I said.

A dog is not a sister, he said.

No, I said. But it’s still family.

And then things went quiet between us for a long time, and eventually he walked off and lay down in his own cell across the way, and seemed to do nothing but stare at the ceiling.

You think I’m a bad man, he said after a while.

I didn’t answer. I could see no point. I was too busy trying to figure out what to do. If I told them to go and look after Jip and the horses, they would then find the map and that would not be good, because there was no way of knowing how they would react to it. It was a sort of proof that the holder of the map might well have been involved in the death and disappearance of their loved ones. But if I didn’t tell them, and I was unable to escape in time, then the horses and Jip would die, tied up and hobbled. And in this half-buried bunker with concrete walls, barred windows and a locked gate, I didn’t think an escape would be a quick thing, even if it was eventually possible.

The choice was of course not a hard one. I knew what I had to do, but the tough thinking was all about the how of doing it. I was struggling. I tried to keep believing that if I was just calm and clever enough there would be a way to do this. Without it being more disastrous than it had to be. Because Brand was right. They would believe him long before they believed me. And since it looked like I was going to have to rely on him to help me escape this place once quarantine was over, it didn’t make much sense to betray him or even make them distrust him a little bit more than they might already do. I had seen that one of the men who had brought the food liked him but that the other was not as friendly. There was no point in feeding the second one’s misgivings.

My feelings about Brand at that point could be neatly summed up by my wanting to cross the hall and slam the door on his cell tight shut, just as we had been warned not to do, locking him away behind a door that had no key. I thought it would serve him right, and I also thought I would be spared the distraction of his company. I don’t imagine many other people could have thrown themselves on a bed and stared silently at the ceiling in such an irritatingly conspicuous and noticeable way. It was almost childish, as if he—the thief—was resenting that I—the victim—had objected to the theft and had called it for what it was.

The dog jerked me from my thoughts, her excited barks immediately recognisable.

It was Jess, and she was close by and getting closer with each bark. My heart suddenly felt like it had swollen to twice its normal size and was now trying to punch its way out of my ribcage.

I scrambled up on to the ledge below the window and looked between the bars. As I said, the bunker was half sunk in the ground so that the opening was only perhaps twenty centimetres above the grass. I saw Jess and Saga and then a figure running after them, awkwardly yanking on a gas mask as they got close to the bunker. Saga was still held on a rope, but Jess was bounding across the grass towards me trailing her own long length of rope behind her. She must have caught the scent of me and pulled free of the hand holding her.

Jess! I shouted, and jammed my hand out of the window, reaching for her, my shoulder wedged between the narrow bars. Jess! Good girl!

The chasing Con managed to stamp on the end of the trailing rope and bring Jess to a sudden brutal halt. She lost her footing and yelped as she was yanked over onto the ground. The Con scrabbled for the rope and then fell and landed in a sitting position, pulling Jess towards them.

Hey, I shouted, then felt a hand on my shoulder, pulling me back.

Quarantine, said Brand, peering over my head. Can’t let the dog touch you or they’d have to do something to it to stop it spreading whatever infection you might be carrying.

The Con pulled Jess back into their arms and sat there. He or she wore a sort of glove on one hand that seemed twisted in on itself, as if the leather covered an injury, though they seemed to pay it no mind. The blank glass eyes of the mask seemed to be pointed at me, not the dog.