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vague trail on the other side of it. He stepped aside to let me pass, and then closed the bush-like door behind us. The trail continued, walled with thick vegetation, until finally, it opened up into a tiny clearing high on the slope of a rise. I could see that there was something manmade that we'd come to visit, as there was a vaulted archway leading into the hillside, and a rectangular piece of grass missing from the hill itself, further away from us, which could only have been a kind of opening from the building underground. The archway had the same incredibly thick walls as the Great Hall, and a single metal door that barred the entrance. (As a rule, the architecture on the island belonged to only one of two schools: rustic and wooden, created directly from the raw materials around us, or fortified bastions made of thick concrete; this new building, obviously, being one of the latter.) I also noticed that there was a small panel of metallic buttons on the wall beside the door, which, as far as I would ever know, didn't have any function at all.
    "What is this place?" I asked.
    "I don't think it would make a lot of sense to you right now, but we can explain it later if you'd like." Harek looked at me and could see that the answer he'd given wasn't quite enough, and, though they usually didn't care if we were left in the dark, he seemed to suddenly sympathize. "Well, I can tell you it's something our ancestors made. How's that?" He looked up at the thick concrete, which had several different colours of moss clinging to its side. "Something to protect themselves
from
themselves," he added, as if to himself.
    "What?"
    "As I said, I can explain later if you'd like. But for now, let us go inside." He leaned in and started yanking on the door to open it, which, to my surprise, was as thick as my chest was wide, and from the looks of it, also incredibly heavy. As I passed through the doorway, I ran my hand along the volume of the metal, amazed, and then looked inside. It was a simple cemented corridor that was dimly lit with electrical lighting, a thing that was extremely rare on the island. Harek shut the massive door behind us, and after the darkness had echoed with a deep crash, we continued down the corridor, which eventually opened up into a large empty room. There was a single bench that lined the walls, and which almost continued around the entire perimeter, being interrupted only twice by other metal doors.
    "Please, have a seat," he opened up his palm to point at the bench. I sat down, smoothing the creases in my pants more than I needed to, and watched him walk into the centre of the room. I seemed to be feeling a million things at once; I was nervous, afraid, excited, mesmerized. I couldn't believe that, finally, I was there, I was going to be included into the ring of secrecy. This was it. Everything I'd been waiting for.
    "Do you know what Coming of Age is all about, Joshua?"
    "Uh..." This caught me a little off guard. For some reason, I hadn't expected to be very involved. I thought it would be about listening, not speaking. I looked at the bench beside me, wondering what to say.
    "Let me rephrase that question. Have you ever heard any rumours about it, made any guesses with the others?"
    "Um... no, not really."
    Harek cleared his throat, swallowed. He seemed to mark me on the bench with his line of sight, lowering his head slightly, as if he were aiming one of the slingshots we'd made as children. And indeed, it felt like his words were being fired at me; they were sharp, loud, quick. "Wrong. That is completely false. And not only is it wrong, it is the absolute worst answer that you could have possibly given me. And I will tell you why: we are going to be honest with each other, Joshua. We are going to be so honest with each other that there will not be a single secret between us. I will tell you things that are of the harshest, truest nature imaginable, and you will agree to do the same, or we cannot even begin