Jezebel's Sin

“Only the paranoid survive.”

My eyes opened to the blue water, shimmering beneath the midday sun.

That’s what he told me, less than eight hours before I was to be shipped off on the Malentes, a boat, hardly larger than an average kayak. It sat chained to a post on the eastern coast of the island I was raised on. The island was turning colors, from vibrant greens from the trees and pinks from the azaleas, to warmer shades of oranges and burnt reds. Autumn impacted the island of Jezebel more viciously than it impacted the mainland. We were proudly self-sufficient, and trading valuables with warmer climates wasn’t an option, even in dire circumstances. As the plants began to whither with the sudden bursts of cold weather, our crops died, unprepared for the early departure of warmth.

I wasn’t going north, towards civilization, on the small boat. I wasn’t going towards food and goods that I dreamt of on the nights when I went hungry due to a small harvest. I was going east. It was my turn to be the sacrifice, the offering to be paid. In exchange for my death, Jezebel prayed that the few crops that had survived the first chill would provide more food. 

It was my turn to be a sacrifice, one less mouth to feed. 

He was standing besides me, my best friend since childhood, my lover, desperate to spend every moment before my departure glued to my side. Trish’s hand on my lower back was a gesture meant to comfort, but the trembling of it scared me more than anything else. 

“Why is that?”

We’d been standing in silence for well over five minutes, when he looked down. 

“You said that only the paranoid survive,” I said, repeating the words he’d said before we’d both gone to our own worlds in our own heads. “Why is that?”

He shrugged a little bit. “It’s just what I’ve been told.” Trish was a part of Jezebel’s leadership. He had been the only one to try to change the decisions of the Drawing, the choosing of the sacrifice, where one person had been chosen at random. That box had sealed my fate. 

He had his reasons for protest: for one, I was to be married to him in two weeks. The council of leadership hadn’t accepted this as an excusable reason. He tried to argue that I was from a scarred lineage already, that my mother had been taken away just three years ago, and that my disappearance would cause my family more unnecessary pain. He begged the leadership to draw a new name.

They refused. 

The truth was no one relied on me, not enough for my life to not be used as a sacrifice for the “greater good.” 

Maybe, in part, it was my own fault. I had gotten my ideas into Trish’s head, persuaded him that we should have more interaction with the mainland. Everyone who considered it a potential option, people like my mom, were sent as sacrifices. The island didn’t like traitors.

“I don’t know how to live without you.”

Trish’s voice was weak, breaking as if the entirety of the day was a physical toll on him. Less than eight hours ago, we were planning our wedding, and less than eight hours from now, I would never see him again. 

He had been the voice in my head since childhood. We talked for hours, hanging from unstable branches of trees. When he wasn’t around, during long days in which he was trained to be one of the six leaders of Jezebel, he was still in my head: a companion, a moral compass. We had gotten engaged as soon as we turned eighteen, but our planning had been on hold until recently, as we put lives together, especially mine and my father’s and my little brother’s, after my mother’s disappearance to the island. Her body had been found on the shore during last year’s sacrifice, her bracelets the only thing identifying her picked-clean bones.

“It’s for the best,” I said quietly, leaning into his side, still staring out at the water, at the boat I would be sent off in so soon. “One day, I’ll see you again. In death.”

“In death,” he whispered, voice cracking, and he had to pause a moment to take a breath and pull himself back together. “In death, I will see you again. I just wish it didn’t have to be such a distant moment.” He pulled away, turning from me. I didn’t shift, letting him take a moment to pull himself back together. He never cried, and he rarely showed intense emotion other than his love, and even that was only in the privacy of one another’s embrace. He always told me that he was required to be above that, set apart by the island’s spirit as a leader, and that any emotions stronger than a smile may make people question his authority.

When we had time, and when we were alone, I got to see beyond that. I would miss both parts of him, the stoicism and the passion. 

A gust of wind feathered through my hair, and I shivered in response to the breeze. Winter was my greatest enemy. My sacrifice would bring back growth and feed our families. Whether it was all placebo due to a new attempt to fix the plants following my death, or maybe some real spiritual magic, the crops would be fixed, as I’d seen happen every few years. 

He took a few steps away from me. “Come on, then. You should be spending this time with your family as well.” He held out his hand, still not turning to face me. I walked over, taking his fingers in mine, and pressing into him softly. 

“I need you to be strong, Trish.”

He shook his head. “I’m trying.”

We were silent as he picked up the oars eight hours later and set out to get us to the island. It wasn’t too far, and with his strength, it took less than thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of dread, pooling in the bottom of my stomach. Thirty minutes of fear, aching in my spine as I stayed sitting upright, unwavering. 

“Next time there is a drawing,” he said, “I will volunteer.”

The side of the boat I was on raised as it hit the sand, but I didn’t move, eyes widening slightly as I looked at him.

“You can’t,” I hissed, infuriated. “You told me you’d care for my family.”

He shook his head. “You brother will be eighteen by then,” He murmured in response, rising and climbing from the boat, stepping into the knee deep water to pull the boat more securely onto the shore. He offered me a hand to help me out. I didn’t take it. He kept talking after he noticed I wasn’t moving. “I wish I had done it this year. I wish I had saved you, but after your name was drawn, there was nothing I could do.” He knelt beside the boat, taking my hand, pressing a kiss softly to the back of it. “I don’t want another’s name to be drawn. God forbid it be your father or brother. Your family has suffered enough.”

Tears welled in my eyes for the first time since I had found out it had been my name drawn. “No no Trish, please. Consider it my dying wish, my love. I do not want you to die!”

“I won’t die.” He picked up my face in his hands. “And neither will you, love.” He pressed his lips onto mine, and hope sparked in my heart. He trusted me. He had faith in me, despite the scent of death enveloping the island, despite bones of many living things scattered on the coast. I could live through this, and maybe, if he came back, I would be alive, a hut built in the woods, ready to greet him. As he pulled away and guided me out of the boat, he offered me an item: a monocular. He held one of his own up. 

“If you’re on the coast, look towards Jezebel. I’ll be there, looking for you.” 

“Okay.” I took it from him, knowing far well that I wasn’t supposed to have any items from my island here. 

“Try and build yourself some shelter. You already know how to build a fire, do the best you can to keep yourself warm in these upcoming months. The hardest part will be surviving the winter.” 

“Can you stay a little longer?” Tears welled in my eyes again as I realized: I was scared. I had been so stunned by the events of the day, that I hadn’t given myself time to understand what had happened. I would be alone, on this island, until I died. I was never allowed to leave. 

He hesitated, glancing up at the sun that had dipped but would still grant a few more hours of light. 

“Just for a while, my love. Come on, let me help you start on a shelter.”

I was on the coast when he departed, an hour later. I was broken, a shattered vase, unusable without his glue to hold me together. He had kissed me one last time, and he had promised me in a year, maybe two, he would see me again. If not, he promised me, in death. 

My small house was made of stacked logs. I had become strong, from a month and a half of cutting down trees, hunting the pigs that lived on the coast, and regularly exercising to keep my mind off of my solitude. 

“The fire is going to spread unless you add a rock onto the left side of it.”

“Right.” I wandered until I found a stone to keep my fire contained. 

It would likely be the end of me, if the house I’d spent so long building caught on fire, especially now that the month of warmth that my sacrifice had provided was coming to its end. 

“We’re not alone.” 

I snapped around, the small knife I had sharpened from a stone readied in my fist. There was no one there. 

The voice in my head, Trish’s voice, had kept me safe from every accident that took place on the island. It had warned me when there was a crocodile I hadn’t seen during my first search for fresh water. It had saved me when the stack of logs I had built too high without any stability had fallen down. 

My paranoia kept me listening to it. 

“We’re not alone,” it repeated, sounding panicked. 

I darted out of the woods, leaving the rock behind. I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything but the crackle of my fire on the shore, a short distance away. 

There wasn’t a sound. No threat behind me as I fell, but quickly pushed myself up and kept running until I was safe in my little cabin. When I realized there was nothing chasing me, after thirty minutes curled in the dirt, shaking, waiting for a monster to break down my house, I crawled out of the small entrance I had carved into it. I glanced around, on alert, but the voice stayed quiet. 

I was safe, then. 

I straightened and stretched, a bit of frustration settling in my stomach. 

Then, on the island, on Jezebel, I saw it. A light, on top of a tall building, shaking back and forth aggressively. I scrambled back into the hut, crabbed my monocular, and used it to look towards the island. Because of the distance, I could barely see more than the shape of him, but Trish was there, as he had been every night, jumping up and down, shaking back and forth, everything he could do to get my attention and wait for me to signal back, a bit of assurance that I had made it through another day on the island. 

I wish my mom and I had been able to do something like this before she had left. She had disappeared into the woods on day one, and I’d never seen her again.

That’s one thing I spent a lot of time doing. I wandered as far into the woods as I could, until Trish’s voice had warned me I wouldn’t be able to make it back before nightfall. 

I grabbed a torch, and lit it before going back outside to hold it up for just a moment, still looking through the monocular, until his light went out. A silent goodnight.

“Sleep well,” his voice in my head whispered. 

The winter was long and cold. Most days, I didn’t bother to crawl out of the entrance of the cabin. I had been smart enough to pile produce I had found on the island in the cabin before the weather had settled in.

I had underestimated how cold the winter would be, and how hungry I would get. Alone, with only Trish’s voice in my head for company, I spent many hours outside of my cabin, hunting whatever small mice and squirrels had been dumb enough to venture out from their hidey-holes. 

I didn’t wish Trish a good night for the first two months of cold. 

I was scrambling back to my home like a mouse being hunted when I saw it. I saw the light in the same place it had been before my absence. It didn’t shake or move aggressively as it had before in greeting. I had been fighting for my life, and I hadn’t remembered to remind him I was alive. 

I was forgetting his face.

I darted back inside, wrapped in the blanket I had made of small wild creatures and woven together with vines. It was disgusting, but it was warm. 

I grabbed my monocular, quickly looking for him through it, forgetting that I was too far away to see his face, but his form, slumped against the wall in surrender, was painful enough to my stomach that I wanted to throw up what little food I’d eaten that day. I lit a torch, and held it high. The light was snuffed out quickly, too quickly. Again, I darted inside.

“We’re not alone!”

I ignored the voice, desperate to tell Trish I was alive, to provide him some form of hope. 

The winter passed, and though I was weak and starving, I was alive. Spring brought fresh growth that I took the opportunity to dry in case I needed it for the second winter.

Especially if Trish would be here.

It wasn’t fair, I knew this, to hope Jezebel would have a second bad year after its first. I knew it was even more unfair to hope that Trish would come here, with me, to this island. Alone. Dangerous. Every time I ventured out of my house, I feared I would die. The only thing getting me through was Trish’s voice in my head, and my will, strengthened by his signals every night.

“We’re not alone.” I turned around, just in time to raise my dagger as a large cat leapt onto me, and I was barely able to defend myself, my positioning just right to push the stone into its chest. I breathed hard, falling to my knees with the now-dead cat. It was large, larger than an ocelot, smaller than a jaguar. I was shaking, tears welling in my eyes. 

“I’m tired,” I whispered, trembling. “I’m so tired of this.”

The exhaustion in my body was enveloping me whole. 

“Just a little longer.”

“I don’t want to go a little longer.”

“Just until the end of the year. Just a little longer.”

The summer was easier. In a few months, I had regained my strength, and I had prepared better for the winter days. I had plenty of time to get everything together, and when the first chill was in the air, I was ready. It was early, bringing both hope and fear into my heart. Cold weather this early guaranteed a new sacrifice. Cold weather this early might mean Trish would be here within the week, maybe even day. Or maybe it would be a different person. Maybe it would be my brother or my father.

I still greeted Trish in the evenings. He was there, steady as an oak tree, no matter the weather except the rainy days since our torches would not light. 

I understood why this was the place people went to die now. It wasn’t for the animals alone. It’s the distance from home, when on a clear day, you can faintly see the figures on the beach so far away. It’s the late nights awake, wondering if someone or something is going to come out of the woods. Death is around the corner every time you leave shelter. 

Fear lived in every breath.

“We’re not alone.”

I snapped around, my dagger not just raising, but stabbing out in preparation. 

The sound of stone in flesh…

Then deeper…

I looked up at the person, standing over me, his beautiful brown eyes that I had missed so dearly, looking down at me with the same kindness I’d always loved. 

My dagger, my stone meant to keep me safe until I could see him again had done that and had ruined our reunion. 

The light in his eyes was fading.

“No, no no,” I gasped, following him down as he collapsed. 

The stone was embedded in his heart. 

“Hey, lover,” he breathed, voice all but gone. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him as much as read his lips. 

“Trish,” I sobbed quietly. “No, Trish, please-”

His hand, barely strong enough to do so, raised and placed itself over mine atop his chest. He forced a smile. His head lulled backwards on the sand of the shore. 

His eyes fell shut.

Two words came at the same time his last breath did.

“You’re alone.”