A/N: This is an awfully long chapter, I know. I thought about splitting it into two, actually, but it seemed unnecessary. I've been writing the story in bits and pieces, and really this chapter is the reason why chapter 3 took so long to go up - I kept writing this instead of that. Getting ahead of myself. :)
I'd like to heartily thank everyone who has reviewed so far - it really brightens my day to see reviews, and you've all been so kind. Thank you. :)
I actually have a question to pose to you, the readers. I was writing a bit from farther into the story, and I considered doing it from Jack's perspective. But then I realized that so far the third-person has been basically limited to Ralph, and maybe for the sake of cohesion I ought to stick to that. What do you all think? I'd really appreciate feedback on this. Of course, I'd appreciate feedback on any aspect of the story (and how's that for a subtle plead for reviews?).
Please forgive any crazy mistakes, as I stayed up to all hours typing this, so I'm currently too tired to read it over thoroughly and make any stray edits. Usually I would wait, but this is already taking longer than I thought it would, and I'm leaving for school soon which means updates will be even less frequent. Anyway, I'll stop typing now and let you read.
- - -
Percival Wemys Madison had not changed much since his first days on the island. His peers had judged and sentenced him to life as the underdog with cruel childish intuition. He became crushed by the weight of their ruthlessness, and he seemed to exist with a constant dew of tears in his small eyes. The older boys were impatient. Ralph was kind to him in an absent, instinctive way, and so Percival often crawled into his cave to cry miserably in Ralph's benevolent, if sometimes careless, presence.
He wasn't the only one who found himself at Ralph's sanctum occasionally, but he was the only one who did so whom Ralph accepted as an identity and not a curious shadow. Aside from Jack. Of course, aside from Jack. Ralph could recall a shadow child fretting over a painful loose tooth or a bleeding, torn nail. More rarely, there was a shadow boy with the more troubling difficulties. Hideously inflamed wounds, jagged splinters, lacerations...Ralph could recall the scores of advice he had uttered in his voice...it was his voice, but it sounded so far away and hollow to him, as if it had departed and left an echo. All of those strange, isolated sessions had the quality of unreality to both parties. In the dull glow of the cave, they were meetings with a masked shaman, never to be spoken of, secrets that were offended by the daylight.
And Ralph knew that he had no special knowledge of medicine. What he told them was common knowledge - soak the wound, keep it clean, dress it, watch where you step, keep off of it for a few weeks, at least. He had neither secret healing herbs nor marvelous modern science to offer them. That was not why they came.
So Ralph wasn't surprised to awaken to unhappy snuffles that seemed to come from his feet. He reached down sleepily to pat the child's curls. Percival, sure now that he had Ralph's attention, began to wail in earnest. Ralph rose to his knees and put a consoling arm around the boy's heaving shoulders.
"What is it, Percy?" There was no response except the swell of his sobs. Ralph sighed and pulled the child closer, rocking him as if he was a much smaller boy. The noise prevented him from hearing the soft sound of leaves displacing until Sam stood directly in front of him, panting and excited.
"Hurry, Ralph, we need you!" Ralph blinked up at him in surprise, and Sam began to pull urgently at his arm.
"What's happened, Sam?" In response, the boy began nearly babbling, falling over his words in his haste to explain. From the torrent of words, Ralph gleaned that there was a fight, someone was hurt, and Jack had summoned him. Turning to the boy who was still sniffling beside him, Ralph said, "Stay here, Percy. All right?" The boy nodded solemnly, and Ralph stood, stretching stiffly. He nearly fell off balance when Sam seized his elbow and yanked him into the open air, setting off at a gallop for the line of trees. Ralph stumbled along after him, more annoyed than alarmed. He was still half asleep, and the early morning sun blared into his eyes mercilessly. "Does this have anything to do with Percy?"
"Who?" Sam slowed slightly and shot Ralph a puzzled look. Ralph made an impatient motion with his hands.
"Percy. Percival." Sam looked blank. "The little'un."
"The scrawny one?"
"Yes."
"No, course not!" Sam said with round eyes, as if this was startlingly obvious.
"Never mind then." Ralph was aware of a low buzz of voices before they broke through a thick wall of foliage and into a clearing. It was thick with the hunters. They all fell silent and turned to stare at the newcomers. Ralph felt his skin prickle under the weight of their eyes. He fought an overwhelming rush of instinct that screamed for him to turn and flee. Come off it, Ralph. They're not hunting you anymore. He dropped his gaze. It was several seconds before he was fully aware of what he was now looking at. Hideous splashes of scarlet scarred the forest floor. Ralph moved forward, already sure of why he had been brought to the secluded grove. He saw a tan foot, twisted legs, and a torso smeared with blood. From the center of the boy's chest, a broken spear protruded. Its faint, jerky rhythm proved the figure to be - miraculously - still alive. Ralph lifted his eyes to the boy's face. "Maurice." He said quietly, sadly.
There was a stirring ahead of him. Ralph looked up as Jack pushed off the tree he had been leaning on and strolled forward, grimness hovering over every line of his body. Ralph wondered if he was still angry with him over what he had said the other day. For whatever reason, his conscience had been pricking him about it.
"This isn't by any chance your doing, is it?" Ralph murmured steadily under his breath, when Jack was close enough within earshot. Jack looked taken aback, and then he glared.
"It's Robert's." He replied coldly.
"Robert's?" Ralph's gaze swung instinctively to a different boy, a dark, scowling presence that skulked a bit behind the others. Jack smiled without humor, acknowledging Ralph's surprise.
"Yes, Robert." Ralph turned to look at him, and the boy looked back with an oddly pleading expression. He was standing apart from the others, with a strange mixture of defiance and fear, his arms soaked with blood. Ralph shook his head, dismissing him for the moment.
"We have to get that spear out of the wound, but it's going to bleed badly...and to be honest about it, the shock might kill him." Jack considered this for a moment and then whirled around to face the boys.
"You, go get every spare scrap of cloth you can find and bring it here. You three, go get fresh water. Not salt water. You, light a fire here. You, go get some skins. The rest of you...oh, go find something to do. Hurry, all of you!" Jack barked. "Robert, wait." The boy had turned to obey the last command, but now he turned with a cringing expression. "You go wash off." Jack said dryly. Robert beat a hasty retreat. Ralph was kneeling by Maurice's side, feeling carefully the pulse in his neck. It was predictably weak and unsteady.
"I don't know, Jack..." Ralph felt his throat close on his fears. He could feel his veins throb in sympathy to the trickling that came from under the spears point in the boy's thin chest. He put a hand on his forehead. It was clammy, and Ralph sighed. "What happened here?"
"I don't know. I didn't even know that those two didn't get on." Jack practically growled above him.
"It seems that's putting it mildly," Ralph said quietly, his eyes on the gray wedge buried in the tanned, vulnerable chest. "They must have been arguing rather violently already for things to get so...well, violent."
"Arguing, aye, if they had only been arguing!" Ralph hid a smile - Jack was so agitated that he was slipping into some strongly regional accent, "But what in hell made him think he could just up and stab 'im?" Ralph fixed him with a hard stare.
"Jack...this can't surprise you?" Jack caught the significant accent of his words and glared.
"What do you mean now, Ralph?" He demanded in a long-suffering tone. Ralph dug his nails into the soft forest floor.
"They follow your example," Ralph said in a harsh tone quite unlike his usual voice, "it's all they can be expected to do." There was such an explosive silence that Ralph cringed slightly, unable to help himself.
"They can't do something just because I would! It's different for me, I'm chief here!" Jack fumed. Ralph laughed in disbelief.
"So it's all right for you to 'up and stab' someone, but no one else on the island can? Because you're chief?"
"Exactly!" Ralph gritted his teeth, inarticulate in his scorn. In a moment, though, it fled, and he was left with exhaustion. He wearily stroked Maurice's forehead and felt only pity. He was so absorbed that the sudden hand on his shoulder startled him more than it should have. He whipped his head around and then jerked back instinctively as Jack's face loomed closer than he had expected. "Will you stop looking like that?" Jack said thickly. Ralph lowered his gaze in confusion.
"Like what?" Jack shook him slightly in frustration.
"Like...that. You're always looking so heartbroken -" Ralph exhaled shakily.
"That can't surprise you," he said in a nearly inaudible voice. Jack's hand tightened so that Ralph could feel each individual finger's painful pressure, but Jack seemed oblivious to this, and his expression was not malevolent. It was pained. Ralph could hardly look at him.
"Ralph," he began hoarsely, before footfalls crashing through the underbrush startled Jack a safe distance away. The boys were returning with the water and rags, and Ralph steeled himself for what had to be done, willing the five throbbing points of pain in his upper arm to go away as well as the slight tremor he felt in his thighs. Quietly asking some of the boys to clean off the excess blood and dirt, Ralph began swiftly folding the ragged scraps of cloth into some semblance of a bandage. He noticed the boys glance hesitantly at Jack, who nodded sharply, before complying. Ralph's lip curled slightly at these proceedings.
"Ralph?" One of the boys ventured rather timidly. It was the first time he had spoken to his old chief for years. He may have hobbled to the cave with a wrenched ankle, but those times did not count, they belonged to the enchanted nights during which Ralph was a presence, a feeling, an advocate instead of a loser in the island's bloody games.
"Yes...?" With a cold jolt of surprise, Ralph realized he couldn't remember the boy's name.
"I had to have something ripped out of a wound once. Gruesome it was. Sharp piece of rock. It hurt like the devil, and my dad," the boy paused here, as if he had something bizarre and had to consider it, "my dad, he had to hold me still cause I was thrashing like anything." Ralph nodded, immediately appreciating the point. Maurice was unconscious, but his eyelids fluttered from time to time, and the sensation of having a spear point dug out of a raw wound might prove just the thing to jerk him back to the waking world.
"Jack," Ralph began, noting with horror the way his voice faltered a bit on the name, "could you hold Maurice? In case he wakes up? He could hurt himself more if he starts struggling, and the spear has to come out." Jack grunted and knelt by him, grasping the prone figure firmly. Ralph sat back and sighed, closing his eyes, trying to focus. He wordlessly held out a hand for a piece of cloth and soaked it in the cool water by his side, dribbling it carefully into the wound to clear it. The flesh around the spearpoint was red and inflamed - not the ideal conditions under which to remove it, but Ralph knew it could not be helped. He seized the stick that protruded into the air to steady it, and grasped the spearhead between his fingers, exhaling nervously.
It seemed to take hours to work the point out of the swollen, grasping flesh. If Maurice can stay in a faint through this, he might be worse than I supposed, Ralph thought grimly. He had thought himself ready for the blood, but when the point came loose in his hand with a jerk, the sudden flood of crimson alarmed him. He seized the bandage and crushed it against the open wound, leaning his weight on it, praying that the pressure would be enough to staunch the flow.
He was focused so strongly on the act of keeping the life from pouring out of Maurice that everything about him faded into vagueness. The air seemed to grow cold around him, as if he had been lifted up high in the air. He stared hard at the contour of his fingers, so unfamiliar to him suddenly, as they clutched the bunched fabric. It had not been very long ago since Ralph had last stood in the ocean and longed to give himself up, drain his life into the waves. It seemed foolish that now he was trying so very hard to keep Maurice from doing just that, when a part of him was snarling and laughing, pacing a corner of his mind and hissing that it was better to die than stay on this hell's playground.
And yet his hands fought the hot pulsing of blood, pleaded for it to hold off its return to the water.
"Ralph." Voices seemed so far away. Ralph tried to shake off his trance, but it was difficult. "Ralph." He turned his head, and Jack was there as he had been before. Ralph stared in incomprehension. "Well?"
"Well, what?" he heard himself saying.
"Is he for it?" Ralph blinked hard, and color and life rushed back into his surroundings. He looked over Maurice, gingerly lifted the bandage, and moved one hand to feel his forehead.
"If he can make it through this, he ought to be fine. But right now he's cold and sweating, and he isn't breathing well..." Ralph bit his lip. "We have to tie this bandage down, too, and...god, they're everywhere." Upon closer inspection, Ralph had discovered numerous other scratches on the boy's frame, but they paled in importance to the chest wound, and he had not even considered bandaging them yet.
"I can do that," a soft voice said from behind him. Ralph turned his head as best he could and beheld a slight blond boy holding long strips of cloth. There was one bewildering moment, and then -
"Johnny? Johnny, is that you?" It dawned on Ralph that he had not seen any of the boys by daylight since...since then. How different everything looked in the murkiness of the cave. The boy smiled, looking childishly pleased at being recognized, and then furrowed his brow and went seriously to the business of tying up Maurice's wounds. Ralph leaned back in astonishment and watched the child neatly complete the task. "Well," he said when he found his voice, "you seem like you've done that before." Johnny looked up with a thoughtful expression that faded into faint unease as he glanced towards Jack.
"My mum was an army nurse," he explained hesitantly, darting another look up at Jack, who grunted and stood.
"Let's get him back to camp, by the fire." Everyone buzzed into action at Jack's command, and Ralph noted their alacrity with some amusement. As a few boys bent to clumsily lift Maurice into the air, Ralph worriedly turned round and said, "Jack, do tell them to be careful with him..." in a low tone.
"Don't go and drop him, idiots!" Jack bellowed, causing the boys to start and nearly, in fact, drop Maurice's limp form.
Ralph deliberately lingered until the last of the boys had joined the procession to camp, following quite a bit behind them. Already he longed to be back in his cave. He had had enough of the piercing sunlight. He was tired of seeing clearly; it hurt him. But pressing worry, and curiousity, too, prevented him from fleeing.
When Ralph finally approached the circle of boys that surrounded the fire, he found Maurice deposited safely if rather clumsily on a bed of leaves that had been raked together a safe distance from the fire. Ignoring the way everyone quieted and stared when he drew near, Ralph knelt by Maurice and picked up a rag that was balled up beside a basin, dampening it and wiping the sweat from the boy's brow. Nothing much to do but wait, Ralph thought. He looked around for Jack to tell him this, and for the first time he noticed that the tenseness in the circle went far beyond discomfort with the rare appearance of their first chief.
His gaze swiveled to the figure that sat fidgeting on the other side of the fire. Outlined in flame, Jack towered above him, radiating a dark excitement that the other boys reflected, thickening the air. The effect was luridly enhanced by the sinking sun, which cast scarlet rays over a setting already bathed in firelight. Everyone seemed to be swimming in blood, waiting for it, hungry to spill it. Ralph felt himself go cold with dread.
"You know you have to be punished," Jack was saying matter-of-factly, "but the trouble is how. This hasn't happened before. For a killing, the punishment has to be severe." The sheer hypocrisy of the statement made Ralph want to laugh, except that he caught sight of Robert's face blanching, and in the crimson light the effect was ghastly. Ralph stood, but no one noticed.
Robert was saying faintly that Maurice was still alive, but Jack waved that away impatiently. "It's not from your want of trying, is it?"
"Starve him," a boy suggested eagerly.
"No, cut off his hands! That's what they do in India!"
"It is not," another boy scoffed, and a heated debate ensued. Ralph looked at them, repulsed.
"Cut off both his hands?" Jack murmured, considering. Ralph's head snapped toward him, his eyes wide with disbelief. Jack slid out his knife and began to test the blade. Roger had materialized from somewhere behind the circle, and he seized Robert, immobilizing him. Terrified tears rolled down the poor boy's cheeks, and Ralph found himself flying to Jack's side, grasping the arm that was holding the knife, keeping him back.
"Have you gone completely off your head? How can you even consider that? It's your fault; watching you do this is what's making them monsters!" Used as he was to speaking to one person at a time, it had not quite dawned on Ralph that the entire tribe would hear his reprimand. The resulting silence was suffocating.
Jack seized him unceremoniously by the arm and stormed through the circle, scattering boys who hastened out of his way like frightened sheep, breaking through the edge of trees and continuing, walking much faster than Ralph could manage. Although he struggled not to, he fell to his knees several times, and Jack stopped only long enough to haul him back to his feet. The sun had long since set, and as the pale radiance of the moon illuminated the forest Ralph could see the glinting of Jack's knife in the milky light when he swung his legs. Ralph felt sick with apprehension. After some time - it seemed to Ralph that they had walked to the center of the black forest - Jack flung him roughly against a tree and stood over him, seething.
"Why do you do that?" Jack's tone was terrifying in its quietness. Jack usually yelled and blustered - this stillness was beyond rage, it was the focus of a hunter on the prey it cornered and intended to slaughter. Ralph decided there was no safe answer to his question and wisely chose to remain silent. "If any of the other boys tried anything like that I'd beat the skin off their back." Ralph glanced keenly up at this; he could not resist the implication.
"Why are you different with me, then?" The answering silence was so freezing that Ralph sincerely regretted speaking and pressed back instinctively against the rough bark. "I mean," he continued, faltering although he fought not to, "since I'm the prisoner and all," Ralph could not stop the venom from slipping out with his voice, in spite of his fear of the way the thick darkness hid Jack's eyes from him as if it were obeying the red-haired boy's bidding, "shouldn't it be the other way round?" Jack stepped forward so that he practically stood on Ralph's toes, and Ralph flinched back with a sharp exhale.
"Do you want me to beat you, Ralph?" His voice was quieter still; it sent tendrils of fear uncurling in Ralph's stomach, reaching throughout his body. And yet, Ralph found that he could answer him still.
"Of course not. I'm not trying to make you angry, Jack. But I'm not stupid, either," Ralph spoke as steadily as he could manage, "or unobservant. I know that you've been more violent towards the other boys than me." For the most part, anyway. "It's always been that way. You make it obvious how much you hate me, but then you never do anything about it." Ralph broke off, unable to fully articulate the feeling, the simple intuitive knowledge that had awoken in him. Jack said nothing. Ralph stared down at the forest floor, frustration and unease prickling across his skin. He knew that Jack's egomania was only one reason why he hated being questioned; perhaps more importantly, he was horrible at explaining himself and took pains to avoid doing so.
But Ralph refused to have it.
"Damn it, Jack. Will you just give an answer?"
"An answer?" Jack hissed, his blue eyes scorching, "Do you really want one, Ralph? I doubt you'll be liking it." Ralph doubted it, too.
"It hardly matters. I'm tired of not having them."
"All right, then." Jack's hand flashed out and curled painfully around Ralph's upper arm. "I do want to hurt you. For being right all the time. For being so righteous. For the way you make me feel. But most importantly, just because I do. I want to tie you up, make you afraid, hurt you, hear you whimper." Jack had seized the other arm, and Ralph was close enough so that Jack's hot breath seemed to be burning the humiliating words into his skin. It occurred to Ralph that instigating this was a mistake and that if he could somehow calm Jack down they could return to their previous bizarre, tacit truce and leave their relationship unmuddied with honesty. It also occurred to him that Jack's earlier taunts were more accurate than he knew; Ralph began to suspect himself of masochism, perhaps an unfortunate consequence of his need for truth that he could not seem to suppress, even when it was a question of Jack's violent displeasure.
And so Ralph asked rather breathlessly and frankly against his better judgment, "Then why don't you?" There was a moment of agonizing stillness and silence, and then Jack sighed wearily and seemed to fold into himself in the darkness.
"Because..." Jack was clearly struggling to get his words out, "because...at the same time, I would never let anything like that happen to you. I'd kill anyone who tried it." Jack's gaze had fallen, and now it lingered on some invisible point below Ralph's chin. "I'd hate to see you hurt. I'd hate to hurt you. Even though -"
Ralph pressed his lips against Jack's.
He could have been subconsciously trying to prevent the reiteration of Jack's earlier rage. But that did not explain why he had been leaning forward slowly since Jack began to speak, or the unexpected, unexplainable melting warmth swelling in his veins that heated to a boil as Jack responded hungrily to the soft invitation.
"And I thought you dragged him out here to kill him, finally." A gravelly voice rose out of the darkness. Ralph twisted his head away in shock and embarrassment, suddenly aware of the wild pounding of his heart, his uneven breath, and his shaking limbs. Jack swore with vehemence.
"So you came to watch, did you?" He snapped back, recovering himself, although he did not let go of Ralph, whose thighs were caught on either side of Jack's leg. They both felt, although they could not see, Roger's answering smile.
"Yeah."
"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not going to kill Ralph," Jack glared down at the aforementioned, although the real malevolence had vanished, "today."
"I can see that." Roger shifted in the darkness - Ralph could not tell just where he was standing, and that thought unsettled him. "Are you going to give him to us when you're through with him?"
Ralph made an involuntary noise, halfway between a gasp of shock and a whimper of fear, shrinking back as best he could, a terror deeper and more wrenching than he had felt before taking hold of him. Jack let out a snarl of rage, for once a comforting noise.
"Get away, Roger! No one's touching him."
"Obviously someone is," was the dry reply, but footsteps hastened away. Any fool could hear the ferocity in Jack's voice.
Alone again, Ralph felt Jack draw breath to speak and hastily said, "Please, Jack, I'm tired...let me go." He could not hide the tremor in his voice. After a moment, Jack silently stepped back and took Ralph by the arm. The trek back through the forest was gentler than before, with Jack leading instead of forcing, adjusting his pace to Ralph's weary, more careful steps. Jack turned round to Ralph at the mouth of his cave, and Ralph thought he might kiss him again. Instead he muttered,
"Don't worry yourself bout Roger, aye?" and loped off. Ralph watched after him long after he had disappeared into the darkness, and then crawled into his sanctuary. Percival was still curled in a corner, dozing and sucking on his thumb, and the cave had gained yet another occupant. Robert was propped against the cave wall, sleeping but with a pinched, frightened expression. Relief washed over him. The other boys must have allowed him to flee to sanctuary after Jack dragged Ralph off, supposing that another victim had been substituted for him, like a sacrificial lamb. Ralph flung a warm skin across the boy's knees, and then stretched out on the hard, cold floor of the cave.
The boys came to Ralph with their pain under the cloak of night because his eyes were still capable of pity, however faint, however hopelessly waning; he could still be sorry for bruised flesh where the others, the lost, would bruise it further. They came to feed off of his strength, and when they departed Ralph was always exhausted in body and spirit. He would lay and try to fathom the darkness of the cave with his eyes.
As he did now.
I'd like to heartily thank everyone who has reviewed so far - it really brightens my day to see reviews, and you've all been so kind. Thank you. :)
I actually have a question to pose to you, the readers. I was writing a bit from farther into the story, and I considered doing it from Jack's perspective. But then I realized that so far the third-person has been basically limited to Ralph, and maybe for the sake of cohesion I ought to stick to that. What do you all think? I'd really appreciate feedback on this. Of course, I'd appreciate feedback on any aspect of the story (and how's that for a subtle plead for reviews?).
Please forgive any crazy mistakes, as I stayed up to all hours typing this, so I'm currently too tired to read it over thoroughly and make any stray edits. Usually I would wait, but this is already taking longer than I thought it would, and I'm leaving for school soon which means updates will be even less frequent. Anyway, I'll stop typing now and let you read.
Percival Wemys Madison had not changed much since his first days on the island. His peers had judged and sentenced him to life as the underdog with cruel childish intuition. He became crushed by the weight of their ruthlessness, and he seemed to exist with a constant dew of tears in his small eyes. The older boys were impatient. Ralph was kind to him in an absent, instinctive way, and so Percival often crawled into his cave to cry miserably in Ralph's benevolent, if sometimes careless, presence.
He wasn't the only one who found himself at Ralph's sanctum occasionally, but he was the only one who did so whom Ralph accepted as an identity and not a curious shadow. Aside from Jack. Of course, aside from Jack. Ralph could recall a shadow child fretting over a painful loose tooth or a bleeding, torn nail. More rarely, there was a shadow boy with the more troubling difficulties. Hideously inflamed wounds, jagged splinters, lacerations...Ralph could recall the scores of advice he had uttered in his voice...it was his voice, but it sounded so far away and hollow to him, as if it had departed and left an echo. All of those strange, isolated sessions had the quality of unreality to both parties. In the dull glow of the cave, they were meetings with a masked shaman, never to be spoken of, secrets that were offended by the daylight.
And Ralph knew that he had no special knowledge of medicine. What he told them was common knowledge - soak the wound, keep it clean, dress it, watch where you step, keep off of it for a few weeks, at least. He had neither secret healing herbs nor marvelous modern science to offer them. That was not why they came.
So Ralph wasn't surprised to awaken to unhappy snuffles that seemed to come from his feet. He reached down sleepily to pat the child's curls. Percival, sure now that he had Ralph's attention, began to wail in earnest. Ralph rose to his knees and put a consoling arm around the boy's heaving shoulders.
"What is it, Percy?" There was no response except the swell of his sobs. Ralph sighed and pulled the child closer, rocking him as if he was a much smaller boy. The noise prevented him from hearing the soft sound of leaves displacing until Sam stood directly in front of him, panting and excited.
"Hurry, Ralph, we need you!" Ralph blinked up at him in surprise, and Sam began to pull urgently at his arm.
"What's happened, Sam?" In response, the boy began nearly babbling, falling over his words in his haste to explain. From the torrent of words, Ralph gleaned that there was a fight, someone was hurt, and Jack had summoned him. Turning to the boy who was still sniffling beside him, Ralph said, "Stay here, Percy. All right?" The boy nodded solemnly, and Ralph stood, stretching stiffly. He nearly fell off balance when Sam seized his elbow and yanked him into the open air, setting off at a gallop for the line of trees. Ralph stumbled along after him, more annoyed than alarmed. He was still half asleep, and the early morning sun blared into his eyes mercilessly. "Does this have anything to do with Percy?"
"Who?" Sam slowed slightly and shot Ralph a puzzled look. Ralph made an impatient motion with his hands.
"Percy. Percival." Sam looked blank. "The little'un."
"The scrawny one?"
"Yes."
"No, course not!" Sam said with round eyes, as if this was startlingly obvious.
"Never mind then." Ralph was aware of a low buzz of voices before they broke through a thick wall of foliage and into a clearing. It was thick with the hunters. They all fell silent and turned to stare at the newcomers. Ralph felt his skin prickle under the weight of their eyes. He fought an overwhelming rush of instinct that screamed for him to turn and flee. Come off it, Ralph. They're not hunting you anymore. He dropped his gaze. It was several seconds before he was fully aware of what he was now looking at. Hideous splashes of scarlet scarred the forest floor. Ralph moved forward, already sure of why he had been brought to the secluded grove. He saw a tan foot, twisted legs, and a torso smeared with blood. From the center of the boy's chest, a broken spear protruded. Its faint, jerky rhythm proved the figure to be - miraculously - still alive. Ralph lifted his eyes to the boy's face. "Maurice." He said quietly, sadly.
There was a stirring ahead of him. Ralph looked up as Jack pushed off the tree he had been leaning on and strolled forward, grimness hovering over every line of his body. Ralph wondered if he was still angry with him over what he had said the other day. For whatever reason, his conscience had been pricking him about it.
"This isn't by any chance your doing, is it?" Ralph murmured steadily under his breath, when Jack was close enough within earshot. Jack looked taken aback, and then he glared.
"It's Robert's." He replied coldly.
"Robert's?" Ralph's gaze swung instinctively to a different boy, a dark, scowling presence that skulked a bit behind the others. Jack smiled without humor, acknowledging Ralph's surprise.
"Yes, Robert." Ralph turned to look at him, and the boy looked back with an oddly pleading expression. He was standing apart from the others, with a strange mixture of defiance and fear, his arms soaked with blood. Ralph shook his head, dismissing him for the moment.
"We have to get that spear out of the wound, but it's going to bleed badly...and to be honest about it, the shock might kill him." Jack considered this for a moment and then whirled around to face the boys.
"You, go get every spare scrap of cloth you can find and bring it here. You three, go get fresh water. Not salt water. You, light a fire here. You, go get some skins. The rest of you...oh, go find something to do. Hurry, all of you!" Jack barked. "Robert, wait." The boy had turned to obey the last command, but now he turned with a cringing expression. "You go wash off." Jack said dryly. Robert beat a hasty retreat. Ralph was kneeling by Maurice's side, feeling carefully the pulse in his neck. It was predictably weak and unsteady.
"I don't know, Jack..." Ralph felt his throat close on his fears. He could feel his veins throb in sympathy to the trickling that came from under the spears point in the boy's thin chest. He put a hand on his forehead. It was clammy, and Ralph sighed. "What happened here?"
"I don't know. I didn't even know that those two didn't get on." Jack practically growled above him.
"It seems that's putting it mildly," Ralph said quietly, his eyes on the gray wedge buried in the tanned, vulnerable chest. "They must have been arguing rather violently already for things to get so...well, violent."
"Arguing, aye, if they had only been arguing!" Ralph hid a smile - Jack was so agitated that he was slipping into some strongly regional accent, "But what in hell made him think he could just up and stab 'im?" Ralph fixed him with a hard stare.
"Jack...this can't surprise you?" Jack caught the significant accent of his words and glared.
"What do you mean now, Ralph?" He demanded in a long-suffering tone. Ralph dug his nails into the soft forest floor.
"They follow your example," Ralph said in a harsh tone quite unlike his usual voice, "it's all they can be expected to do." There was such an explosive silence that Ralph cringed slightly, unable to help himself.
"They can't do something just because I would! It's different for me, I'm chief here!" Jack fumed. Ralph laughed in disbelief.
"So it's all right for you to 'up and stab' someone, but no one else on the island can? Because you're chief?"
"Exactly!" Ralph gritted his teeth, inarticulate in his scorn. In a moment, though, it fled, and he was left with exhaustion. He wearily stroked Maurice's forehead and felt only pity. He was so absorbed that the sudden hand on his shoulder startled him more than it should have. He whipped his head around and then jerked back instinctively as Jack's face loomed closer than he had expected. "Will you stop looking like that?" Jack said thickly. Ralph lowered his gaze in confusion.
"Like what?" Jack shook him slightly in frustration.
"Like...that. You're always looking so heartbroken -" Ralph exhaled shakily.
"That can't surprise you," he said in a nearly inaudible voice. Jack's hand tightened so that Ralph could feel each individual finger's painful pressure, but Jack seemed oblivious to this, and his expression was not malevolent. It was pained. Ralph could hardly look at him.
"Ralph," he began hoarsely, before footfalls crashing through the underbrush startled Jack a safe distance away. The boys were returning with the water and rags, and Ralph steeled himself for what had to be done, willing the five throbbing points of pain in his upper arm to go away as well as the slight tremor he felt in his thighs. Quietly asking some of the boys to clean off the excess blood and dirt, Ralph began swiftly folding the ragged scraps of cloth into some semblance of a bandage. He noticed the boys glance hesitantly at Jack, who nodded sharply, before complying. Ralph's lip curled slightly at these proceedings.
"Ralph?" One of the boys ventured rather timidly. It was the first time he had spoken to his old chief for years. He may have hobbled to the cave with a wrenched ankle, but those times did not count, they belonged to the enchanted nights during which Ralph was a presence, a feeling, an advocate instead of a loser in the island's bloody games.
"Yes...?" With a cold jolt of surprise, Ralph realized he couldn't remember the boy's name.
"I had to have something ripped out of a wound once. Gruesome it was. Sharp piece of rock. It hurt like the devil, and my dad," the boy paused here, as if he had something bizarre and had to consider it, "my dad, he had to hold me still cause I was thrashing like anything." Ralph nodded, immediately appreciating the point. Maurice was unconscious, but his eyelids fluttered from time to time, and the sensation of having a spear point dug out of a raw wound might prove just the thing to jerk him back to the waking world.
"Jack," Ralph began, noting with horror the way his voice faltered a bit on the name, "could you hold Maurice? In case he wakes up? He could hurt himself more if he starts struggling, and the spear has to come out." Jack grunted and knelt by him, grasping the prone figure firmly. Ralph sat back and sighed, closing his eyes, trying to focus. He wordlessly held out a hand for a piece of cloth and soaked it in the cool water by his side, dribbling it carefully into the wound to clear it. The flesh around the spearpoint was red and inflamed - not the ideal conditions under which to remove it, but Ralph knew it could not be helped. He seized the stick that protruded into the air to steady it, and grasped the spearhead between his fingers, exhaling nervously.
It seemed to take hours to work the point out of the swollen, grasping flesh. If Maurice can stay in a faint through this, he might be worse than I supposed, Ralph thought grimly. He had thought himself ready for the blood, but when the point came loose in his hand with a jerk, the sudden flood of crimson alarmed him. He seized the bandage and crushed it against the open wound, leaning his weight on it, praying that the pressure would be enough to staunch the flow.
He was focused so strongly on the act of keeping the life from pouring out of Maurice that everything about him faded into vagueness. The air seemed to grow cold around him, as if he had been lifted up high in the air. He stared hard at the contour of his fingers, so unfamiliar to him suddenly, as they clutched the bunched fabric. It had not been very long ago since Ralph had last stood in the ocean and longed to give himself up, drain his life into the waves. It seemed foolish that now he was trying so very hard to keep Maurice from doing just that, when a part of him was snarling and laughing, pacing a corner of his mind and hissing that it was better to die than stay on this hell's playground.
And yet his hands fought the hot pulsing of blood, pleaded for it to hold off its return to the water.
"Ralph." Voices seemed so far away. Ralph tried to shake off his trance, but it was difficult. "Ralph." He turned his head, and Jack was there as he had been before. Ralph stared in incomprehension. "Well?"
"Well, what?" he heard himself saying.
"Is he for it?" Ralph blinked hard, and color and life rushed back into his surroundings. He looked over Maurice, gingerly lifted the bandage, and moved one hand to feel his forehead.
"If he can make it through this, he ought to be fine. But right now he's cold and sweating, and he isn't breathing well..." Ralph bit his lip. "We have to tie this bandage down, too, and...god, they're everywhere." Upon closer inspection, Ralph had discovered numerous other scratches on the boy's frame, but they paled in importance to the chest wound, and he had not even considered bandaging them yet.
"I can do that," a soft voice said from behind him. Ralph turned his head as best he could and beheld a slight blond boy holding long strips of cloth. There was one bewildering moment, and then -
"Johnny? Johnny, is that you?" It dawned on Ralph that he had not seen any of the boys by daylight since...since then. How different everything looked in the murkiness of the cave. The boy smiled, looking childishly pleased at being recognized, and then furrowed his brow and went seriously to the business of tying up Maurice's wounds. Ralph leaned back in astonishment and watched the child neatly complete the task. "Well," he said when he found his voice, "you seem like you've done that before." Johnny looked up with a thoughtful expression that faded into faint unease as he glanced towards Jack.
"My mum was an army nurse," he explained hesitantly, darting another look up at Jack, who grunted and stood.
"Let's get him back to camp, by the fire." Everyone buzzed into action at Jack's command, and Ralph noted their alacrity with some amusement. As a few boys bent to clumsily lift Maurice into the air, Ralph worriedly turned round and said, "Jack, do tell them to be careful with him..." in a low tone.
"Don't go and drop him, idiots!" Jack bellowed, causing the boys to start and nearly, in fact, drop Maurice's limp form.
Ralph deliberately lingered until the last of the boys had joined the procession to camp, following quite a bit behind them. Already he longed to be back in his cave. He had had enough of the piercing sunlight. He was tired of seeing clearly; it hurt him. But pressing worry, and curiousity, too, prevented him from fleeing.
When Ralph finally approached the circle of boys that surrounded the fire, he found Maurice deposited safely if rather clumsily on a bed of leaves that had been raked together a safe distance from the fire. Ignoring the way everyone quieted and stared when he drew near, Ralph knelt by Maurice and picked up a rag that was balled up beside a basin, dampening it and wiping the sweat from the boy's brow. Nothing much to do but wait, Ralph thought. He looked around for Jack to tell him this, and for the first time he noticed that the tenseness in the circle went far beyond discomfort with the rare appearance of their first chief.
His gaze swiveled to the figure that sat fidgeting on the other side of the fire. Outlined in flame, Jack towered above him, radiating a dark excitement that the other boys reflected, thickening the air. The effect was luridly enhanced by the sinking sun, which cast scarlet rays over a setting already bathed in firelight. Everyone seemed to be swimming in blood, waiting for it, hungry to spill it. Ralph felt himself go cold with dread.
"You know you have to be punished," Jack was saying matter-of-factly, "but the trouble is how. This hasn't happened before. For a killing, the punishment has to be severe." The sheer hypocrisy of the statement made Ralph want to laugh, except that he caught sight of Robert's face blanching, and in the crimson light the effect was ghastly. Ralph stood, but no one noticed.
Robert was saying faintly that Maurice was still alive, but Jack waved that away impatiently. "It's not from your want of trying, is it?"
"Starve him," a boy suggested eagerly.
"No, cut off his hands! That's what they do in India!"
"It is not," another boy scoffed, and a heated debate ensued. Ralph looked at them, repulsed.
"Cut off both his hands?" Jack murmured, considering. Ralph's head snapped toward him, his eyes wide with disbelief. Jack slid out his knife and began to test the blade. Roger had materialized from somewhere behind the circle, and he seized Robert, immobilizing him. Terrified tears rolled down the poor boy's cheeks, and Ralph found himself flying to Jack's side, grasping the arm that was holding the knife, keeping him back.
"Have you gone completely off your head? How can you even consider that? It's your fault; watching you do this is what's making them monsters!" Used as he was to speaking to one person at a time, it had not quite dawned on Ralph that the entire tribe would hear his reprimand. The resulting silence was suffocating.
Jack seized him unceremoniously by the arm and stormed through the circle, scattering boys who hastened out of his way like frightened sheep, breaking through the edge of trees and continuing, walking much faster than Ralph could manage. Although he struggled not to, he fell to his knees several times, and Jack stopped only long enough to haul him back to his feet. The sun had long since set, and as the pale radiance of the moon illuminated the forest Ralph could see the glinting of Jack's knife in the milky light when he swung his legs. Ralph felt sick with apprehension. After some time - it seemed to Ralph that they had walked to the center of the black forest - Jack flung him roughly against a tree and stood over him, seething.
"Why do you do that?" Jack's tone was terrifying in its quietness. Jack usually yelled and blustered - this stillness was beyond rage, it was the focus of a hunter on the prey it cornered and intended to slaughter. Ralph decided there was no safe answer to his question and wisely chose to remain silent. "If any of the other boys tried anything like that I'd beat the skin off their back." Ralph glanced keenly up at this; he could not resist the implication.
"Why are you different with me, then?" The answering silence was so freezing that Ralph sincerely regretted speaking and pressed back instinctively against the rough bark. "I mean," he continued, faltering although he fought not to, "since I'm the prisoner and all," Ralph could not stop the venom from slipping out with his voice, in spite of his fear of the way the thick darkness hid Jack's eyes from him as if it were obeying the red-haired boy's bidding, "shouldn't it be the other way round?" Jack stepped forward so that he practically stood on Ralph's toes, and Ralph flinched back with a sharp exhale.
"Do you want me to beat you, Ralph?" His voice was quieter still; it sent tendrils of fear uncurling in Ralph's stomach, reaching throughout his body. And yet, Ralph found that he could answer him still.
"Of course not. I'm not trying to make you angry, Jack. But I'm not stupid, either," Ralph spoke as steadily as he could manage, "or unobservant. I know that you've been more violent towards the other boys than me." For the most part, anyway. "It's always been that way. You make it obvious how much you hate me, but then you never do anything about it." Ralph broke off, unable to fully articulate the feeling, the simple intuitive knowledge that had awoken in him. Jack said nothing. Ralph stared down at the forest floor, frustration and unease prickling across his skin. He knew that Jack's egomania was only one reason why he hated being questioned; perhaps more importantly, he was horrible at explaining himself and took pains to avoid doing so.
But Ralph refused to have it.
"Damn it, Jack. Will you just give an answer?"
"An answer?" Jack hissed, his blue eyes scorching, "Do you really want one, Ralph? I doubt you'll be liking it." Ralph doubted it, too.
"It hardly matters. I'm tired of not having them."
"All right, then." Jack's hand flashed out and curled painfully around Ralph's upper arm. "I do want to hurt you. For being right all the time. For being so righteous. For the way you make me feel. But most importantly, just because I do. I want to tie you up, make you afraid, hurt you, hear you whimper." Jack had seized the other arm, and Ralph was close enough so that Jack's hot breath seemed to be burning the humiliating words into his skin. It occurred to Ralph that instigating this was a mistake and that if he could somehow calm Jack down they could return to their previous bizarre, tacit truce and leave their relationship unmuddied with honesty. It also occurred to him that Jack's earlier taunts were more accurate than he knew; Ralph began to suspect himself of masochism, perhaps an unfortunate consequence of his need for truth that he could not seem to suppress, even when it was a question of Jack's violent displeasure.
And so Ralph asked rather breathlessly and frankly against his better judgment, "Then why don't you?" There was a moment of agonizing stillness and silence, and then Jack sighed wearily and seemed to fold into himself in the darkness.
"Because..." Jack was clearly struggling to get his words out, "because...at the same time, I would never let anything like that happen to you. I'd kill anyone who tried it." Jack's gaze had fallen, and now it lingered on some invisible point below Ralph's chin. "I'd hate to see you hurt. I'd hate to hurt you. Even though -"
Ralph pressed his lips against Jack's.
He could have been subconsciously trying to prevent the reiteration of Jack's earlier rage. But that did not explain why he had been leaning forward slowly since Jack began to speak, or the unexpected, unexplainable melting warmth swelling in his veins that heated to a boil as Jack responded hungrily to the soft invitation.
"And I thought you dragged him out here to kill him, finally." A gravelly voice rose out of the darkness. Ralph twisted his head away in shock and embarrassment, suddenly aware of the wild pounding of his heart, his uneven breath, and his shaking limbs. Jack swore with vehemence.
"So you came to watch, did you?" He snapped back, recovering himself, although he did not let go of Ralph, whose thighs were caught on either side of Jack's leg. They both felt, although they could not see, Roger's answering smile.
"Yeah."
"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not going to kill Ralph," Jack glared down at the aforementioned, although the real malevolence had vanished, "today."
"I can see that." Roger shifted in the darkness - Ralph could not tell just where he was standing, and that thought unsettled him. "Are you going to give him to us when you're through with him?"
Ralph made an involuntary noise, halfway between a gasp of shock and a whimper of fear, shrinking back as best he could, a terror deeper and more wrenching than he had felt before taking hold of him. Jack let out a snarl of rage, for once a comforting noise.
"Get away, Roger! No one's touching him."
"Obviously someone is," was the dry reply, but footsteps hastened away. Any fool could hear the ferocity in Jack's voice.
Alone again, Ralph felt Jack draw breath to speak and hastily said, "Please, Jack, I'm tired...let me go." He could not hide the tremor in his voice. After a moment, Jack silently stepped back and took Ralph by the arm. The trek back through the forest was gentler than before, with Jack leading instead of forcing, adjusting his pace to Ralph's weary, more careful steps. Jack turned round to Ralph at the mouth of his cave, and Ralph thought he might kiss him again. Instead he muttered,
"Don't worry yourself bout Roger, aye?" and loped off. Ralph watched after him long after he had disappeared into the darkness, and then crawled into his sanctuary. Percival was still curled in a corner, dozing and sucking on his thumb, and the cave had gained yet another occupant. Robert was propped against the cave wall, sleeping but with a pinched, frightened expression. Relief washed over him. The other boys must have allowed him to flee to sanctuary after Jack dragged Ralph off, supposing that another victim had been substituted for him, like a sacrificial lamb. Ralph flung a warm skin across the boy's knees, and then stretched out on the hard, cold floor of the cave.
The boys came to Ralph with their pain under the cloak of night because his eyes were still capable of pity, however faint, however hopelessly waning; he could still be sorry for bruised flesh where the others, the lost, would bruise it further. They came to feed off of his strength, and when they departed Ralph was always exhausted in body and spirit. He would lay and try to fathom the darkness of the cave with his eyes.
As he did now.