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

Maybe fate knew what was coming and gave me one last good night’s sleep out of pity.

I woke to the sound of metal hitting metal in a fast and insistent rattle. I stumbled out of my cell and blinked at the figures standing behind the bars at the end of the hall. Brand emerged from the door across the way and as he did so the tallest figure stopped rattling the pistol barrel between the bars, which was the source of the noise that had woken us.

I thought they looked like judges, standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder behind the bars, their faces hidden by masks that—this close up—I could see were all different and patched with tape or stitched leather. Their voices were muffled but easily understandable. There were four of them—three tall ones—and the shorter figure of Tertia.

The next shortest figure was in the middle of the other two men, but he was clearly in charge. Despite the mask there was a kind of energy coming off him like the buzz in the beehives back in the ruined stadium a lifetime ago.

He held out the map.

Even as I saw it and tried to ready myself for what might be coming, I felt a strong sense of release, because if they had the map that meant Jip had been rescued.

You, said the man with the map, pointing at me.

My name’s Griz, I said, trying to ignore the black metal gun now hanging from his hand, pointing at the floor.

Don’t mess with him, said Brand from behind me, speaking low, for my ears only. That’s Ellis. He’s the father.

Ellis shook the map at me.

Where did you get this? he said.

I found it, I said.

Where? he said. Where did you find it?

His voice sounded like he was talking to a child who was either being stupid or impolite on purpose. Like him it was short and taut, like it might snap into something much louder and nastier at any moment.

On a boat, I said. He actually shuddered visibly with impatience.

Where? he said.

One of the figures beside him spoke. Despite being taller than him, the voice surprised me by being female.

Who was on the boat? said the woman. Who was on the boat and what did you do to them?

There was no one on the boat, I said.

And as I said it, I made a very strong effort not to look at Brand, whose eyes I could feel burning holes in the side of my face. His silence seemed to me to be as loud as any shout. I hoped they couldn’t hear it too, or begin to wonder why the normally voluble pirate was saying nothing.

It was deserted, I said. This much was true. I had after all found the map on a deserted boat. That made the lie easier to tell. I wasn’t having to make a story out of nothing. I had a truth to build on.

There was no one aboard, I said.

Liar, spat the woman, taking a step towards me as if the sudden rage that fuelled her might let her walk right through the metal bars that separated us in order to grab me and shake me.

Let him speak, said Ellis. Let him say what else he wants to tell us.

The calmness in his voice was small and hateful.

I found I had nothing to say.

They stared at me.

He’s not a boy. He’s a girl.

The silence broken by a familiar voice.

But it wasn’t Brand’s.

It was the girl. It was Tertia.

She lifted her mask off her face with her twisted glove-hand and glared at me.

My world split in two.

I had never seen this woman before. And I had known her all my life.

I had never seen the woman she was, but the girl she had once been was as much a part of me as my heart. In fact she was the deepest crack in that heart—the best-beloved broken bit we all lived with.

I had expected to be betrayed by Brand.

I never expected to be betrayed by my own dead sister.

And the hatred in her eyes widened that crack in my heart and tore me in two, dropping me to my knees so unexpectedly and so brutally that it was only Brand catching me that stopped me falling further.

Tertia! snapped Ellis. Put your mask on now !

Joy just stood and glared at me, the hostility and fury in her eyes somehow locking us together in an endless unbreakable moment. I couldn’t breathe. I don’t think she could either.

But how—? was all I could say.

They sold me, she said.

I didn’t know what she meant. Who she meant. I stumbled to my feet and stepped towards her, standing there on the other side of the bars.

They sold me to have a quiet life, she said. For the rest of you.

Who? I said.

She hit me then. Like the question I had asked was too big to answer. Her gloved fist a tight knot of bone and skin that came through the gap in the bars and split my lip and left the taste of blood in my mouth. The taste surprised me more than the impact knocked me backwards. A blow is a blow, but blood makes it personal.

Why didn’t you come earlier? she said, hard eyes shiny with tears like wet steel. You were my sister. You were a part of me. But you all let me go and be brought to this flat land…

Tertia! shouted Ellis. Your mask! Or by God I will—

The man between Ellis and Joy grabbed the mask and jammed it back over her face. We never heard what Ellis was going to do by his god or anything else. He just snapped his fingers and spluttered at her instead, like he was choking on a fury all of his own.

Take off that glove and burn it! he snarled. If you weren’t wearing it, I’d lock you in quarantine too, you stupid little bitch! Now get out before I maim your other damned hand.

I am sure it was the prospect of being made to be any closer to me that made her peel off her glove and stumble away up the stairs, as much as the vicious threat.

It got bad then.

I don’t remember the right order of things, because I was sleepwalking in shock. But this is the patchwork I do recall. They made me strip. They wanted to check that I was not a boy. It wasn’t the undressing or the way they were demonstrating their power over me, making me take my clothes down so they could see me that I minded—I have swum naked with my whole family and the Lewismen too without giving it much of a thought. They’re just bodies after all. It was the fact that the men turned away while the woman checked me that made it horrible. As if my body was a dirty thing they should not be made to see. I don’t know if Brand stole a look, because he was behind me, but being a thief I expect he did.

Then they made me sit on a chair and face them through the bars and tell them about the map and how I’d found it. I told the story again and again, the words coming haltingly over my split and puffy lip, and the more they asked the more real it became in my head, perhaps because I was building my lie on the truth of stealing from Brand’s boat, the Falki . I just added two things to the story. I told them I had found the boat washed up next to a pier like the one I had moored the Sweethope to in Blackpool. I told them I thought something must have happened at sea, because the sails were torn but still raised, and the anchors had not been dropped.

And when they asked me what had happened to the three people who they said had crewed the boat, I told them I did not know but that if they had made it ashore it might be that the wolves had got them, since that stretch of coast was teeming with them. I told them this because at that point I was still under the illusion that I might somehow escape and that it would be good if they were as afraid of the mainland behind them as they were of the sea in front of them. Then I did not know I was going to be where I am now, writing this. Trapped. Hopeless. And never going home again.

And after that they abruptly put me where I am now. In the end cell. And they closed the door until it locked itself shut.

I didn’t know they were going to close the door until they did. I shouted when I saw it about to happen, and I heard Brand’s voice drown mine as he too tried to stop them.