Chapter 18 Deryn, Debates & Spilled Whiskey #2
“Your resort sure cranked up those rates even higher there, missy!”
Moss’s campaign manager’s outburst caused commotion. Some applauded, some booed, and Judge Astor was forced to use their gavel.
“Order! Order! Mr. Moss, since there’s no penalty I can impose on you for the lack of decorum from your staff, I will simply ask you nicely not to interrupt. Am I understood?”
Deryn smiled. She had known that careful, stern voice all her life. Uncle Christian had been a mainstay in the Crowhart household since before she was born. He could deliver a scolding like no other.
“I apologize, Your Honor. It’s just that’s pretty big of her to claim the rent is high when it’s her resort that’s causing everything to go up in price.”
“I said, not another word, Mr. Moss!” Judge Astor raised his voice, and Deryn saw Victoria stand up and applaud.
“Go Judge Astor! Moss, you have zero qualifications to be speaking about any of this. A hundred islanders have jobs thanks to that resort!”
“Mrs. Crowhart-Moreau, I’m going to ask you to leave if you don’t sit down. Everyone, let’s keep this civil!”
Victoria threw an apologetic gesture and sat down, Marsha tugging on her sleeve.
“Ms. Allende, you still have your rebuttal, if you wish.” Judge Astor motioned to Paloma’s microphone, and Deryn watched as a series of emotions crossed Paloma’s face, annoyance the most prominent one. But underneath it all, she could see the rage simmering.
The goddamn injustice of it all…
“Thank you, Mrs. Crowhart-Moreau, for bringing up the hundred jobs that the Astronomy Resort has created. I would like to mention that at least half of these staff members were former country club employees, and the salaries at the Astronomy Resort have allowed them to live much better lives, since they are incomparable to what they were paid previously. In fact, a quarter of my resort employees moved to the island after getting a job at Astronomy because their salaries were sufficient to afford the rent. The rest? They are Crow’s Nest residents who had been unemployed before the resort was built.
This is all without mentioning that even in its soft opening stage, Astronomy Resort has brought twenty-five percent more tourists to the island this fall than any other year before.
” Paloma, who was glaring daggers at Moss as she spoke, visibly relaxed her jaw and turned back to the audience.
“The issue at hand is a much bigger one. The island is both cursed and blessed by its geology and geography, if you will. Dragons is small, and cannot stretch to accommodate too many people, so the construction projects on the island need to be very carefully vetted. I have seen at least five different development plans that are either out of the price range of any islander, ugly and unfit for the established architectural style of Crow’s Nest with its Tudors and Victorians, or said development isn’t residential at all.
In fact, the biggest project currently on the desk of the town architect is a museum.
It is so large that it would occupy an area which could easily accommodate over fifty family homes, or a small development that, if built three stories high, would house at least three hundred people.
The size of the proposed museum is absurd for a town as small as Crow’s Nest. So, since I have a right to ask a question, here’s mine, Mr. Moss.
Who and what motives are behind the so-called Crow’s Nest Faith Museum, and why is it already fully funded by a ‘private’ donor?
Now, don’t you wish your campaign manager’s outburst had remained an inside thought, Mr. Moss? ”
Deryn, along with the entire audience, gasped. In fact, the synchronicity of the collective gasp would’ve been comical if not for the seriousness of the question.
Seren was the first on her feet this time, beating Victoria to the punch.
“A faith museum? In the place of family homes? Now, which faith would that be, Moss? We have Christians and Muslims and Jews in Crow’s Nest.”
Not even Seren’s questioning could stop Victoria, however.
“On an island where Puritans literally burned women to death on speculation and rumor of witchcraft, you are building a museum to what, exactly? Answer the people, you coward! Who is paying for our land, land that is imbued with the blood of innocents? With the blood of my family?”
Moss was pale as a sheet, clearly taken by surprise. He coughed, drank some water, and spilled most of it on his shirt as the questions and accusations rained on him from the audience.
In the end, when he spoke, it was a feeble attempt to pacify the people.
“Nothing is approved yet, dear residents. Yes, the museum would be a monument to our values, to our past as a bastion of faith, of holding the morals—”
“What morals are those, you three-times-divorced adulterer?” Deryn bit her lip to not make a sound or let a giggle escape as Greg hurled his question and was held back by Victoria, of all people.
Judge Astor slammed the gavel several times before the crowd reined itself in.
“I will clear this auditorium if this continues!” He banged the gavel one more time for good measure. “Mr. Moss, do you have anything else to add?”
Moss, clearly shaken, leafed through some notes he had strewn on his podium until suddenly his eyes opened wide, and he snatched one up.
“I do! Since Ms. Allende here is so high and mighty on the issue of space for new homes, why does she want to build something so completely idiotic and useless as a women’s shelter?
Because no matter how fancy she calls it, center or organization or whatever, it’s still a highfalutin’ shelter.
I spoke to Sheriff Redding, and there have been fewer than twenty domestic violence calls in the last ten years on the island.
So, Ms. Allende, care to explain your logic?
Are you trying to push an agenda on us all?
Is this about a hit dog who will always holler? ”
Now the gasp was less loud but decidedly more horrified, and it came mostly from the women in the crowd. Deryn’s phone buzzed.
Seren aka First Twin: Did the motherfucker just call her a victim of violence and basically a dog at the same time?
Deryn nearly set the phone in her hand on fire, the rage inside her barely in check.
But as she looked at Paloma, Deryn saw none of the anger she herself was feeling. The beautiful features were almost serene. The silence was absolute.
Judge Astor broke it with, “Ms. Allende, you don’t have to answer the insinuation—”
Paloma merely smiled, and Deryn felt goose bumps. The hair on the back of her neck rose.
“Insinuations of what, Your Honor? That I am advocating for survivors of abuse because I myself might be one of them? Is that what you meant, Mr. Moss, by calling me a ‘hit dog’? Such upstanding values you have.” Paloma shook her head, and the audience exhaled.
Moss went for a chortle, but it came out forced, he was clearly uncomfortable.
“Do you think being a victim of domestic violence is something shameful? Here I thought it should be shameful to be the perpetrator of the abuse, no? What a brave man you are, shaming survivors for their pain. So edgy, Mr. Moss.”
Paloma’s mouth twisted with scorn. Deryn watched, waiting, feeling that something was about to come. Something was about to be said, something—
Moss beat everyone to the punch.
“I just think that in a town with just over two thousand residents and not even a handful of actual reports, there is absolutely no need for something like a shelter for beaten women. That’s all I meant.”
He lifted his hands, palms up, a gesture of apology, but his face was beaming with self-congratulatory glee. Deryn’s knuckles went white from tension. Yet Paloma remained unbothered.
“I would wager, Mr. Moss, that you are completely unaware of the depth of the problem, or what issues women of this island are really facing.”
Moss waved his hand dismissively.
“Ms. Allende, Paloma, please don’t embarrass yourself. I’ve spoken to Sheriff Redding, who’s sitting right there. He told me himself that there have been almost no reports—”
“I didn’t report my assault.” In the utter silence of the massive auditorium, hundreds of people held their breath as Marsha McMons stood up. She looked pale, and yet her eyes were resolute, like nothing Deryn had seen before on her usually displeased, pugnacious face.
“My husband beat me for ten years before he died. I never left because I had nowhere to go.” She almost whispered the last sentence, but Deryn heard her loud as day, the crowd completely silent.
There was an almost unbearably awkward pause, which Moss was quick to break.
“And I am sorry, Ms. McMons, but that’s one case, and you didn’t come forward for help, so nobody knew—”
“I never reported my ex-husband and didn’t leave him until he put me in the hospital. I had nowhere else to go.”
Deryn could not remember the name of the woman who had spoken up. She was certain it was one of the librarians, but the name escaped her. Moss opened his mouth but was immediately cut off.
“My father beat me so badly that he broke my arm. And I had to go to the mainland, to Camden, to escape him. I only returned three years ago after the bastard died.”
Maude Richards. One of the fishmongers. Deryn loved her stall, and they chatted often whenever she was on the island and stopped by. Next to Maude, a girl of maybe twenty got to her feet.
“It was my stepdad. And I stayed ’cause I was scared he’d kill my mom if I left her alone with him. I wish both of us had a place to go, or at least some information…”
One by one, from the front row to the back, women stood up and, in broken whispers or loud proclamations, told their stories. Goose bumps covered Deryn’s arms. Paloma’s face was a picture of sympathy. There were tears in those amber eyes.
When Victoria stood up, Deryn’s breath caught in her chest.
No, please, no…