There weren't actually that many Mamlish, or for that matter, many people living on Zilby. At the time that Phoenix had come into prominence, there were maybe four hundred Mamlish on the island. But at the time that Annabelle had been released from her execution, many of the Mamlish had written to their overlords to tell them about the adverse economic conditions and had consequently been recalled.

Of course, the Mamlish had sent reinforcements from the Mainland, but this fleet had famously not managed to dock with many of the souls onboard dying enroute.

Phoenix and Annabelle might not have thought that they had killed many Mamlish in total but with the low numbers to begin with and the amount they had personally killed, a significant chunk of the Mamlish population was missing.

Consequently, it was not only possible but easy for the entire Mamlish population to fit on one ship.

Veronique and Ferne walked around the island each with a team of volunteers. Ferne' started at shell beach and walked clockwise, while Veronique started at shell beach and walked anti-clockwise. The two teams set off at dawn to see if anybody could spot the Mamlish on the horizon. They meet back up together at lunch and had a picnic together before continuing their way. That way if the other team had missed anything that could be taken as evidence, then perhaps fresh eyes would see it.

But apart from some remote yet empty beach houses that served the Mamlish as holiday homes, the search teams found nothing.

Annabelle grew more and more anxious as time went on. It had become apparent that nobody knew what was going on.

"We will have to go to the mainland" Ferne' said. "We will have to make sure that they are gone."

"Does anybody know the way?" asked Annabelle.

"I do" said a teenager named Sophie. "Or at least I have looked at many maps. First you go east for 200 kms and you stop at the isle of Milchuria, which has a very large fishing industry and is famous for its glue. Then you go south for a hundred kilometres, and you will enter the city of Lexie. Which is neither their largest nor their capital city but is approximately five times the size of Zilby."

"Does anybody know how to sail?" asked Annabelle.

There was silence.

"What kind of island people are we?" cried out Madame Green. "We will be stuck on this island if anything bad happens."

"Some might say that bad things have already happened" added Annabelle.

"We should build defences and keep lookouts in case that they come back." Said Madame Green

"Good idea," said Veronique while Annabelle was still processing Madame Green's words.

"No, we should set out and find the Mamlish to make sure that they never come back" countered Ferne'

"That also sounds like a good idea" said Annabelle quick before Veronique could jump in.

"There are not enough people to do both," said Veronique. "Even with our new adult volunteers."

"Besides nobody knows how to sail a boat, "said Madame Green.

"We can't keep eating muscles and oranges forever." Said Ferne'. "It's not healthy."

"Everything that everybody is saying is so true" said Annabelle nodding her head vigorously.

"We need you to make a decision Annabelle" said Veronique.

Annabelle looked away before saying "How about we don't follow them, but if they come back - we regret our indecision."

"Why would we do something that we know that we are going to regret?" asked Ferne'.

"We follow after the Mamlish, we leave the island undefended, and we go to the mainland, even though we don't know the way" said Veronique.

"Hey, I told you I know how to get there" Sophie shouted out.

"We will surely shipwreck" said Madame Green. She closed her eyes and put her palms of her hands against the temples of her head "I see it in my mind's eye, us clinging to planks of wood, but nobody coming to rescue us."

"And I see in my mind's eye, us running out of food on this island!" said Ferne'.

"I found some honey in Mamlish complex so it's not all bad," said Annabelle. Annabelle could see that everybody was catching each other's eyes and then shifting away. "Okay, maybe we can find some wild bees and steal their supplies. Does anybody know anything about bees?"

"This is why we have to find the Mamlish. This island cannot sustain us."

"We lived on this island before the Mamlish came" said Madame Green "And we can live off it again"

"Firstly" said Ferne' "We didn't, our ancestors did. Secondly, they are our ancestors – not yours. Thirdly that was before the pollution"

'You are both right," said Annabelle. "We should stay - and we should go, that's what I have decided."

"We can't do both" everybody including Sophie cried out.

"So, we stay" said Annabelle "We stay because we don't own a boat"

As she walked off, Annabelle felt foolish. Veronique had given her good advice, but she had wanted to prove a point to everybody about Madame Green and now she didn't know where the Mamlish were.

She hoped that they were on their boat on the way to the mainland, but for all she knew they may have gone around to the back of the island and were preparing an attack on the island. She feared that they may be planning to transport the people on the island to the mainland and separate them from their family.

She doubted that they would officially become slaves. The Mamlish had too low an opinion of those who live on Zilby for that. She knew that they all had instructions to kill her on sight. News of her execution was posted on every column on the island. Now that she had escaped, the Mamlish did not see it as necessary to retrial her. Although the rebellion had torn down the posters as soon as they gotten the chance.

The place where the Mamlish kept their official documents was empty, but the boat that the Mamlish had left on was not big enough to have taken all their records, gold and supplies. They Mamlish must have hidden them and were obviously planning to come back.

But she had other problems now. All the adults who had previously worked all day and slept all night. Now milled around the island with nothing to do but cause problems. They got into fights over long-standing grudges.

She tried to recruit them into the rebellion but to no avail. "Life is too short to waste on ideology." They said to her face and then they attempted to start affairs.

She had some success though. One who worked as a cleaner in the Mamlish complex agreed to help.

"They always seemed disorganised" she said "We never could find the key to the Inner chamber whenever anybody important came around. But oddly, whenever they wanted to meet to plan the Lesser Lord George's birthday party, the keys would be hanging on the rack in the key room, neatly labelled."

"There is a key room" said Annabelle surprised. "Didn't they have a maintenance man to keep the keys"

"No, the maintenance teams are all citizens of Zilby. They never trusted anybody from Zilby with keys."

"The Mamlish were scared of their own maintenance team?" said Annabelle.

"If the toilets kept breaking who is to say that it is not deliberate sabotage" said the former cleaner. "If their tighty whities come back yellow, maybe it is a political enemy, trying to discredit them"

'Did the Mamlish not have to buy new clothes every week like us" asked Annabelle.

"Of course, they did, on paper. Which is why could never let their tighty whities be seen if they were yellow after all."

"Who was in charge of the key room" asked Annabelle "If not the maintenance team"

"Well, the head of security of course" said the cleaner.

"Who was head of security." Asked Annabelle.

"Well, the Lesser Lord George of course – when he was alive that was, but he never had time to read the reports, so actually his secretary, whose name was... oh the name escapes me. But one of the younger Mamlish – not that the secretary had the keys to the key room, oh no, those were always with the Lesser Lord George"

"Always" said Annabelle.

"Yes, even on the day you killed him, they were in his left pocket. Imagine the chaos you could have caused had you stolen them. You could have locked every door in the complex. And some of those bathrooms do not use natural ventilation if you know what I mean"

Annabelle stood silent for a moment. "No, I don't know what you mean, but please do not explain, I don't want to know"

"They say knowledge is power – You should always read the plaque."

"Well let's look for that key," said Annabelle. Then feeling bad because she had shut down someone's idea said "Unless somebody else has a better idea"

"Or we could just knock down the door" said Ferne from the back.