Chapter 3 - Dangerous Haven

I went into the back of the tent, where a desk had been laid out; Winthrop sat behind it, and a seat had been left for guests to sit in. There was also some clean water in a pitcher, and two empty glasses lay waiting to be filled, accompanying this was a platter of small biscuits and snack cakes, how he managed to find such luxuries was beyond my comprehension, but it was not my position to question the origins of the food and drink here.

“Come on stranger, have a seat,” Winthrop called to me, seeing me standing at the entrance, “Would you like a drink, you must be parched after being outside in the storm last night. What caused you to be out there?” he seemed normal enough, quite friendly too; I felt I could easily engage in a casual conversation with him. “I was caught outside in the rain after my house burned down. It was my home for pretty much my whole life,” I replied, sitting down and getting myself quite comfortable. “That doesn’t sound good, losing your home. I could offer you a place here, but I have no other tents available! You could stay with Rosie until we get something set up for you I suppose,”

“That would be fine with me, but is she ok with this?”

“Oh she’ll be fine, the rules strictly state that any settler here must be ready to share their accommodation if the need arises. Now, I haven’t got your name yet, what do you call yourself?”

“Alfred, I know yours already, Rosie gave me a talk on the area,”

“Ah she did? Now, would you like some biscuits to go with your water my good man?”

“If there are any on offer I wouldn’t decline one,” I replied, smiling and feeling quite at home with this gentleman, I really didn’t see why Rosie seemed to be so bothered by him. “Here, take your pick, on the house!” He offered me the platter, and I took two digestives, which were my favourite treat before the war began; Oh how long it has been since I have eaten on of these! “Well Alfred, we should proceed with the registration procedure now; to stay here you must agree to follow all the laws of our camp, acknowledging the fact that if you break one you must accept the consequences of breaking it, whatever they may be,”

“I agree to follow the laws, and of course I can accept punishments if I break them,”

“Well that is good to hear Alfred! Take this book of rules and read them, when you have read them all just return the book to me; take as long as you want. Now go on, Rosie is waiting for you,”

As I left the room a thought occurred to me; what sort of ‘consequences’ would there be if I were to break a law? Maybe it was this that caused Rosie to be so unnerved by Winthrop; I would have to ask her later on, out of the public eyes. Rosie was waiting for me in the circle of pews; she got up as I approached, “you took your time Alfred, did you get given that rulebook to read?”

“Yes I did, and by the way I really don’t see what your problem is with him…” She covered my mouth before I could finish. “Don’t say I have a problem with him! You didn’t say anything like that about me to him did you?!”

“No! No I just said you gave me an intro talk of the local area.”

“Good, you have no idea what sort of trouble I could get into if you told him…”

“What do you mean? No one in this world is perfect,”

“It’s the rules here Alfred, come with me, we’ll talk somewhere more private,” Rosie led me out of the back door of the Cathedral, which was unguarded, despite the fact that it lead to the outside world, anyone could get in this way if they wanted to! She led me further away from the building, and into a small wooded area. We walked for a few minutes, until we reached a small pond, where we stopped and sat at the water’s edge. She turned to me once more, “look Alfred, one of the rules is that if you publically disagree with the leader or the rules in the camp, you will get ‘expelled’, or ‘punished’,”

“Why would you be expelled for doing something as minor as that?”

“I don’t know why exactly, but the rules here are ridiculous, and they have only gotten worse since Mindy and Drake left,”

“Who were those people? Did they used to live in the Cathedral with everyone else?”

“They were but two of the people who didn’t agree with the rules made by Winthrop and his minions, they formed an outcast group known as ‘The Excommunicated’. They left after being warned about causing trouble in the camp. The must have gone to the West city ruins, since they don’t seem to be anywhere nearby,”

“Winthrop seemed like such a nice guy though, maybe we have just misunderstood the situation here…”

“Trust me, the situation here is far from simple, and I certainly have not misunderstood it. I don’t know what is going on, but something is, and I think we should try and get to the bottom of it,”

“We could be undercover, like spies!” I said, with excitement in my voice. Why did I want to play spies? I’m not a seven year old anymore! “I suppose we could, but I need to wash my face first, it’s really dusty out here,”

Rosie got up and walked from where I was sat over to the pond, where she knelt down and dipped her head in the water. She kept it there for a good ten seconds before she raised it out of the water again, and began to wipe the dirt off of her face; this did remind me that now I would be able to see her face properly, since from the time I saw her at the fire her face had been covered in grime.

While she washed her face and hair I studied the surroundings; the trees were coloured with the most brilliant range of greens, oranges, reds and yellows, a clear sign that we were well into the autumn season. The ground around me was littered with various shrivelled leaves and twigs, and the air around the pond was filled with falling leaves, since the wind was particularly high this morning; the sun was out as well, the wind must have cleared away the storm from the night before, making it a perfect autumnal day, and what better person to be spending it with than Rosie!

She finished washing, got up and turned to me, smiling again showing her clean white teeth; this time however there was something else I noticed. On her face was a large scar running down across her left cheek all the way to her jaw, it was huge, and led me to question where such a scar could have come from.

“It came from Winthrop,” Rosie said, looking straight at me, “What did you do to deserve that?” I questioned again, “I was giving some food to a starving young child outside the gates, which I believed to be reasonable. To Winthrop however this wasn’t, and as a result the child was forced away and I was scarred as a punishment for me ‘crime’. Do you see what I mean? It’s madness in that place!” I looked at her, shocked at what I had just listened to; I finally began to understand the true severity of the situation here, and my playful idea of being spies went out the window. This was not a game anymore, this was personal.