ISLAND-A

Claire Chambers is a brilliant rationalist scientist, contemptuous of religion and superstition. She concludes a conference about her new book, ”Empire of Reason”, by warning the public about the return of irrationality in social and political discourse.
After her conference, she is approached by a young company man in a three piece suits, Philip DeVere, who presents himself as an envoy of the Langstrom Institute, a non-profit center dedicated to funding scientific research, set up decades ago by the reclusive billionaire Dominic Langstrom.

DeVere proposes that she participates in a secret month-long field investigation in exchange for an extremely generous grant and the Institute’s full backing for all of her future endeavors.

He reveals that the investigation concerns an isolated island situated somewhere between Iceland, Scotland and Greenland. It seems that the island is impervious to certain natural laws, so the investigation will possibly veer into paranormal research. They need Claire’s brilliant scientific mind and her reputation as a champion of rationalism to give assurance and credibility to any findings.

A few weeks later, Claire attends a briefing and meets the people who are to be her teammates; Paul Straczy, a linguist and polyglot, Joan McEntire, a paranormal researcher, Jim Colombo, an illusionist and sleigh-of-hand specialist, and Steve Graysler, a security expert.
The tiny, desolate, rocky island they are to investigate is inhabited by a people descended from the ancient Celts. They have lived in quasi-total isolation for centuries on an island so far from any other inhabited land and so difficult to approach by sea that it was largely left alone by history,

The island was nominally a possession of Denmark for centuries but after a few failures to Christianize its inhabitant, they were largely left to their pagan ways.
The British army took possession of the island during WW2 so as it would not be turned into a submarine base by the Nazis. A few soldiers were posted there, and had enough contact with the population so that some of them acquired some basic English.

After the war, the soldiers left, and the problematic island was classified as a military asset and kept out of the public eye for decades, then discretely leased to Langstorm Industries as part of austerity measures.
The team is transported to the area via submarine, then paddle to the shore on an inflatable boat. Immediately, Claire notices that most of the scientific instruments she brought seems to be going crazy : the island is probably situated on a powerful magnetic field.

A few islanders notice the team’s arrival, and approach them. Bearded and long-haired, they wear heavy medieval-looking woolen clothes and carry carved staves made out of driftwood. Some wear ancient military medals and ribbons, probably given to them as gifts by the British soldiers seven decades earlier.
Straczy has already studied all that he could about their language, and has acquired a rudimentary command of it, so he makes the presentations.

As a welcome, an elder gestures over a pile of wet algae and start a strong fire, seemingly without any initial heat or dry fuel. Furthermore, the islanders seem to be able to manipulate the fire with their hands. Over the next few days, the team witnesses that, through songs and dances, they also seem to be able to quiet the wind, flatten the waves, clear fog and command the rain.
Those miracles seem perfectly natural to the islanders; they describe their capacities as a kind of favor seeking, as if a child was asking his mother for something. Colombo declares that if it is all a trick, then these people are the finest illusionists that he has ever met. He wants them to teach him their ways, so as to learn ”real magic”. Graysler discovers that his guns are completely nonoperational on the island. This unsettles him, and paranoia seems to take hold of his mind.

Straczy develops the best relationship with the islanders, they even offer him a heavy woolen cape and teach him more of their language. He has an affair with one of their women, even if Claire reprimands him for it. Like Colombo, he seems to be quickly ”going local”.
Claire is quite shaken by all this, but keeps true to scientific methodology nonetheless. She discovers that the strong magnetism seems to emanate from an area of the island that the islanders refuse to discuss or lead her to. Enlisting the help of McEntire, the paranormal researcher with whom she has had the most conflictual relationship, and Graysler, whose paranoia is quickly going out of control, she decides to find a way to trick the islander long enough as to go at the bottom of the mystery.