Emory can’t see who’s coughing, but she knows what it means. It’s a bone-deep jamming of the gears, the sound of something broken inside. Her grandmother died the same way, buckled over in pain, specks of blood flecking her hands.
People who cough like that don’t do it for very long. Their hours are slipping away as loudly as possible.
As the hacking subsides, Adil shuffles through the door, dabbing his lips with a handkerchief. He’s hunched over, silhouetted by moonlight.
‘Hello, Adil,’ says Emory, relighting the candle.
He winces, turning his head away from the unexpected glare. She’s shocked by how frail he’s become. His face is sagging around dim, squinting eyes. His neck is scrawny, and his dark hair has gone grey, retreating up his scalp like the tide. He’s fifty-eight, but he appears much older than that.
‘How did you know I’d come here?’ he asks, looking along the balcony, in case Emory’s brought an elder.
‘Your shack didn’t have a bed, so I figured you weren’t sleeping there,’ she explains. ‘A while back, Mags told me how Sherko had started straightening all the pictures. That’s an old habit of yours, isn’t it? Once I learned you were still alive it occurred to me that maybe you’d decided on a looser interpretation of exile.’
‘The rule was that I couldn’t talk to anybody from my old life or they’d be killed.’ He shrugs those narrow shoulders. ‘As long as I’m gone before dawn, nobody gets hurt.’
He kisses Sherko on the forehead.
‘I’ve never met him, you know?’ he says. ‘I was exiled before Abi gave him to Magdalene.’
His face darkens, as another thought occurs to him.
‘You know in the old world anybody could have a child. You didn’t need permission. You didn’t need to beg for the privilege.’
‘We’re not human, though, are we?’ points out Emory, watching for his reaction, trying to work out how much he knows.
Adil folds his hands in front of him. He’s jittery, she thinks. He’s trying to hide it, but he can’t keep still.
‘You sound sad about it,’ he says, kissing Magdalene on the forehead. This is obviously some sort of tradition for him. Even in exile, he’s still a villager. Cut adrift from the routine he grew up with, he’s created a new one for himself.
‘We were lied to,’ she says, surprised by the surge of bitterness she feels.
‘Our provenance is hardly the worst of it,’ he replies, in that scholarly way she remembers. ‘One of the benefits of being exiled from the flock is that you get to watch the shepherd at work. I’ve kept an eye on the elders for the last five years, and it’s a dreadful existence. Believe me, not being human is a blessing.’
‘We die at sixty!’ she counters.
‘And most of us enjoy every day of it. Niema was over one hundred and seventy when she was murdered, and I bet she was truly happy for less than a decade. Thea and Hephaestus have this entire island at their disposal, with all of its beauty and wonder, and they’re miserable every day. Imagine being so shrivelled up inside, you can’t take joy in this place.’
There’s loathing in his voice.
‘You hate them,’ she says, taken aback.
‘Don’t you?’ he replies, raising an eyebrow. ‘Thea gave the order that damned your husband. Hephaestus nearly killed you a few hours ago, and Niema’s arrogance has unleashed the fog on this island. The elders are selfish, short-sighted and violent. Explain to me what would be lost if Hephaestus and Thea were to meet the same end as Niema?’
‘Are you threatening them?’
‘Would you stand in my way if I did?’
‘Yes,’ replies Emory, without a beat.
He takes a step closer to her chair, cocking his head. She has the feeling of being under a microscope, turned every which way to understand why she’s still wriggling.
‘Why?’ His voice is harsh. It’s not a question. It’s a demand. A challenge.
‘Because we don’t kill.’
‘We’ve never had a reason before.’
Emory’s throat is dry. It’s a struggle to keep his gaze. Nobody in the village has ever talked like this before. Until now, she wouldn’t have believed it was possible for a villager to even understand such depravity.
‘They’re the only ones on the island who know how to grow us,’ she points out reasonably. ‘If one of the pods in the cauldron garden breaks down, they know how to fix it. Like them or not, we can’t survive without them.’
Adil shakes his head, flinging an arm towards her. ‘Abi could teach us. Even if she couldn’t, I’d not accept their control as the price of our existence.’
‘You’d rather kill them?’
‘I would.’
‘And you started with Niema,’ she says, hoping to shock the truth from him. ‘Did you know it would bring down the barrier?’
She can see the lie forming on his lips, but she interrupts before he can get it out. ‘My father saw on you on the jetty last night, waiting for her.’
‘I’ll confess I went there with the intention of killing her,’ he admits. ‘Niema’s the reason I’ve spent the last five years alone, unable to see the people I love the most. I’d been following her for months, watching for an opportunity, and then, out of the blue, Abi told me where Niema would be that evening.’
He shakes his head, obviously perplexed by the entire thing.
‘I was so anxious I arrived an hour early. I was ready to do it, Emory, but then I saw your father in the boat and knew clear as day what the cost would be. If I killed Niema, everybody I loved would die. Hephaestus would make sure of it.’
He stretches a veiny hand towards her, measuring the distance. ‘I was this close, and I couldn’t go through with it. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine all that hate burning inside of you, without release? I wanted to leave, but Niema asked me to walk with her to the lighthouse. Out of the blue, she apologised for my exile, and for the way I’d been treated. She told me she wanted to live the way the villagers did, without lies or secrets between her and the people she loved. She was planning to wake everybody up when she got to the village, and lay all her secrets bare. Every sin revealed to everybody she’d wronged. She was hoping they’d forgive her, and she was starting with me. She told me I could come home that night, if I wanted.’
He slaps his hands together. ‘Five years of misery, then, suddenly, it was over. Just like that.’
He picks up the candle. ‘Do you drink tea?’ he asks, changing the subject.
‘Erm, yes,’ she replies, wrong-footed.
‘Good, I was about to make one, and it’ll be nice to have somebody to talk to for once.’ He’s walking out of the door before she can object, hunched over and shuffling onto the metal balcony. There’s a cool breeze in the air, bullfrogs calling out. Somewhere distant a wolf howls. The night is so beautiful. Emory can’t believe it’s kept for the elders.
‘I saw you outside the gate, didn’t I?’ she asks, following him down the stairs. ‘The night my grandfather died? I recognise your posture.’
‘You’ve keen eyes,’ he says, shielding the candle flame. ‘Yes, that was me. Your grandfather was an old friend of mine, and there were things about your family I thought he should know before he died. Questions that had bothered him, that I had answers to. I didn’t imagine anybody would mind, given that he was dying that night anyway.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Haven’t you seen his memory gem?’
‘It was missing. Abi said it fell into the sea.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘No.’
‘Good girl,’ he says, smiling. ‘Frankly, it’s safer if you don’t know. The secrets on this island have teeth, and they don’t like being dragged into the light.’