text: By the time we got Robin back, exhaustion had replaced agony and she was wearily dragging her feet as we set foot on the boat. She slept soundly in Alessia’s bunk, while Alessia slept on the floor next to her. I felt obliged to stay and keep watch, and so I sat with my back against the wall and slept in brief naps. Dawn broke, and I stepped out from the cabin to grab some breakfast. As I did, I could see the same people I had seen on the rock when we arrived walking down the beach towards us. Undoubtedly, they had come for Robin. “Alessia,” I called out, not turning my gaze away. “We’ve got company.” Alessia came out of the cabin just as the group, two men and one woman, started walking down the jetty towards us. I could see the clenched fists of the man at the head of the group, his eyes staring straight into mine. “We have her,” I said. “She’s safe. She fell and broke her arm. We took her in.” The tension in the man’s shoulders reduced, but his fists remained ready. “She’s not a prisoner. She just needed aid.” As I finished, Robin emerged from the cabin behind me. Immediately, the man’s facial expression changed from a furrowed brow to a wide-brimmed smile. “Marshall,” Robin cried out, charging past both Alessia and I. “Hey there, kid.” Marshall smiled. He looked down to her arm. “You okay?” “It hurts like shit. But they said it will heal.” She gently rubbed the limb. Alessia interrupted, “And with all due respect, sending teenagers to stalk strangers could’ve gone a lot worse - especially if we hadn’t come to her aid. So for saving one of your crew, can you maybe tell us what’s going on?” Mashall nodded. “We should talk. But not here. I don’t think Rachel and her lot would appreciate seeing us talking.” He looked over his shoulder, scanning the beach. “We have a spot. Robin, can you show them the way?” Robin nodded, grinning with pride. “Good,” Marshall smiled. “Give us thirty minutes headstart. We’ll catch you there in a couple of hours.” Half an hour later we began the walk to the unknown location. We were on the path no more than two minutes before Robin detoured off between the trees. The brush was thick; the foliage so clumped together that it was like walking through sludge. Looking back, it was clear we were already hidden from the path. Alessia was ahead of me; her hand poised by the spot on her belt where she kept her knife, ready for an ambush. However, something about the genuine affection between Marshall and Robin gave me hope that there was nothing nefarious waiting for us. The route descended to the coast until the path emerged at the cliffs on the island’s western coast. We followed the small undulations of the hills northwards as Robin calmly led the way along the maze-like paths. With my concentration no longer taken up minding my footing in the dense forest, I took the chance to ask Robin about her relation to Marshall. “He just leads our group.” “Not a brother, or a cousin or something?” “No.” Robin shook her head. “And what about your family?” “They’re in one of the towns.” “Do they not get worried about you being off all the time?” “I don’t think they’ve worried about me for some time,” Robin sighed. “Oh,” I replied, suddenly aware of my verbal misstep. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Robin took another turn, and we headed back into a darker, thicker part of the forest. “Don’t be,” she said. “They don’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t really want anything to do with them.” Robin spoke confidently, but the words still carried an underlying sting. “Why’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked as slowly as I could, trying to detect if I was pushing the girl too far. However, she showed no signs of being affected. “They kicked me out after one too many times of them crying over the past. They used to try and talk like the people in the shows in the museum, and dress like them. I told them it was stupid. That the way they dressed was stupid, that my name was stupid, the way they talk about the good old days as if they were there was stupid. And I said that one too many times.” “They kicked you out for that?” “Yeah. Not many worse offences round here than living in the present.” Robin shrugged. “So then I took up with Marshall and the others, living outside of everything. They’ve taken good care of me.” “Good,” I replied. “But I’m sorry, life without family can be tough.” “Do you not talk to your parents?” Robin asked. “They died a couple of years back,” I said. “But we were never very close. Not ever bad... but I was always distracted by other things, too busy working to worry about them.” “What about you Alessia?” Robin called to the back of our group. Alessia didn’t look up, her eyes remained interested purely on the ground in front of her feet. “Didn’t know my dad till I was thirteen. He was at sea my whole life. He only came back when word reached my mum was ill. Then when she took a turn for the worse I took off with him. Never saw her again.” Her voice wasn’t cold, but it seemed more interested in empathising with Robin than it did with her own emotions. I felt an odd guilt to only be learning about Alessia’s past here and now. I knew very little of her life before we met, but I was grateful to have the chance to understand her a little better. “You’ve been sailing the whole time since you were fourteen?” “How do you think I got so good at it?” She briefly looked up and flashed a quick smile. “But hang on in there, Robin. I know things seem tough. But you're brave, and you seem to have people who care about you.” “Yeah, I do.” Robin said. The conversation ended as we emerged at the top of a quick gulley: a chasm between two hills worn away by a small stream. The water cascaded in a flurry down the rocks, forming a gentle flowing pool at the bottom met by the lapping tides swimming upstream. There, next to the water and built against the gulley wall, was a large house. The home was clearly built from recycled pieces of wood, cloth and metal found elsewhere on the island, but despite its odd appearance, it appeared a well-built home. As we descended down a steep path, Marshall walked out from the front door. “Welcome to our home,” he announced with his arms outstretched. Robin bounded the last fifteen metres down the path and ran up to Marshall, embracing him in a hug. “Good to have you back, kid,” he smiled. Marshall led us inside and indicated to what passed for the furniture of their front room: an old couch with no cushions, a couple of rusting folding chairs, and a few crates repurposed as seating. One small oddity I couldn’t help but notice was the way that the chairs all seemed to face broadly in one direction. No two spots sat opposite each other, instead all had a clear unobstructed view of the wall on one side of the room. “Where do we begin?” Marshall said as we all took a seat. “Let’s start with introductions,” Alessia said. “I’m Alessia, this is Ferdinand.” “I’m Marshall,” her opposite replied. “That’s Leonard, and Monica. And of course you know Robin.” He leant back in his metal chair. The old hinges creaked as he did. “So, what do you want to know?” “Why have you been following us?” I asked. “We thought you were connected to the crates coming to the islands, some extra security or something. Which leads to *my* question. Why *are* you here?” “Just exploring,” Alessia replied. “And you meeting up with Rachel?” “She approached us,” I said. However, something Marshall had said caught my attention. “You said crates. There’s multiple?” Monica answered. “They arrive every few days. Have been for the past few months. Always with the same careful procession of people, and every one taken straight up to the museum.” “So you want to know what they’re about?” “Exactly,” Marshall added. “I take it you can’t just ask?” Alessia asked. Marshall laughed. “The top lot have their secrets. Secrets they don’t want to share. And they certainly aren’t going to share with us. Rachel and her cohort, they don’t like us much.” He paused. “I mean, we don’t like them much either, but they *really* hate us.” “Why?” “Because we ask questions.” Marshall tilted his head. “We’ve been trying to figure out where the crates go,” Robin said. “But we haven’t been able to work anything out yet.” “Actually,” Marshall replied. “We may have had a bit of a breakthrough last night while you were busy getting your arm busted up.” Robin turned to Marshall. “Really?” Marshall grinned displaying a set of white teeth that seemed to reflect the light of the room back out. He repositioned himself in his chair, leaning forward to tell his story. “We were waiting for you two to come out of the museum. Rachel told us to clear out after you went in, so we did exactly what she asked - walked one minute away, turned around and came right back again. Monica went round the other side of the building, and I stayed put on the western side. I was far enough away that I couldn’t really see anything, but I just waited in silence, hoping to hear you coming out of the museum. I was there maybe twenty or thirty minutes, when suddenly I got this smell. Like... smoke.” “Smoke?” Alessia asked. “Yeah. It was soft, but there was no mistaking it. I tried to follow my nose; get a little closer. Eventually, I realized it’s coming from within the grounds of the museum. The perimeter walls were too high, but I found a log by the edge of the forest and brought it back. From there I was able to reach up and grab hold of the wall’s edge.” Marshall mimed the actions as he spoke, weaving his account and drawing us into his tale. “I hoisted myself up, lifting myself just enough to get a brief view over the wall and into the grounds on the other side. Peering down, I saw this man next to a pit. This big hole, maybe five or six meters across. I couldn’t see everything perfectly. It was getting dark and he was still a good forty metres away. But I could still see enough. One-by-one, the man was taking items out of the crate, inspecting them, and then throwing it into a fire in the pit.” “He was burning it?” I exclaimed. “Yeah. I don’t know what he was burning, or why. But there was no mistaking it. They bring those crates there to burn the contents.” “What do they need to burn?” I asked. “Who knows,” Marshall pursed his lips. “But I’d love to find out.