by Cally Black
‘Antonee?’ I ask, my throat suddenly dry. ‘Is Gub here?’
Antonee laughs. ‘I tried to coax him down. He wanted to make sure it was really you first,’ he says, like he knows him well. Then he points up to a room a few steps off the hive floor.
A woman stands there with a small kid who isn’t Gub, and some guy who looks about my age. All smiling, all looking at the edge of the entrance. And then a toddler with big dark eyes peeps out from behind the wall and my heart falls out of my chest.
SHOUT YOUR NAME TO THE WORLD
‘Gub!’ I squeal. My voice cracks. All this time. All that I been through, and now, here he is.
Gub hurries to the top step, balances on the edge, right foot steps down, then balances on the next edge, right foot steps down again. And I’m proud as when I set off running towards him, to see the way he’s thinking with all his body – his little lips sucked in, cheeks out – about taking on the steps. At the bottom, he looks up, little peg teeth showing through his grin, and runs right at me. Arms and legs longer than I remember. Bare feet flattened out. When did he learn to run?
I step, dip, catch him, wrap my arms around him, haul him up and press my face into his neck to feel his warm skin on my skin, to smell him, to know he’s real after all this time. Our hearts side by side, beating together, like they shoulda been all along. If I could drink him in, I would. I’m like a hive floor, wrapped around him and crawling through his brain to know him again.
I spin him around a couple of times and he throws back his head and giggles little puffs of air. The giggles are coming straight from his belly, shaking him all over, and though they’re not out loud, they tell me my little Gub is okay.
‘Gubby,’ I breathe when I’ve got a hold of the tears streaming down my face.
He squirms like my breath tickles his neck. ‘Tamara-mawa,’ he whispers.
‘Yes, Tamiki-miki,’ I whisper back and pull back to see all of his beautiful little face, his funny button nose, flat on the end, his long lashes.
‘I finded you,’ he whispers.
‘I finded you right back,’ I whisper. I smooth the wisps of hair off his forehead, and pull the headless dinosaur out of my pocket. ‘And I found Headless.’
Gub wraps his little fingers around the toy. ‘Headiss!’ he whispers and rubs the dinosaur on his cheek.
He tucks Headless into his chest with one fist, and wraps his other arm around my neck so tight that I almost can’t speak when the woman comes to introduce herself. It’s Merrilee, of course, and she is dark-eyed and serious, just like Antonee said. The guy next to her is Daniel, the one who made the code, and he says, ‘Hiya!’ but the ‘ya!’ is a bit squeaky and his cheeks turn pink. He looks away, then grabs the kid in front of him and gives him a bit of a rattle, and grins a very nice grin and says, ‘And this is Monster. He used to have a name before he became monstrous but none of us can remember what it is.’
The kid squirms away, punches Dan in the thigh. ‘Syd,’ he squeals. ‘My name is Sydney!’
Gub giggles in tiny puffs, and all my attention is back to this heaving little heap in my arms, cos I never wanna miss a Gub giggle ever again.
Merrilee pulls Dan and Syd away to the corridor that leads back to the ship stack. ‘Dad will need help with the negotiations,’ she says. ‘We’ll leave you to catch up.’
Then it’s just me and Gub, and he yawns big and points back up the steps to the rooms that must belong to Antonee’s family.
The space is smaller than the squad rooms, but soaring ceilings and light, bright walls make it feel larger, and it’s warm. I can’t hardly believe how warm it is. I peel out of my jacket without putting Gub down and carry him from room to room, looking for his bed. He puts his head on my shoulder and sucks on Headless, like he never relaxed one minute we were apart, and his little feet bump against my thighs. The days of us silent-dancing in a cabin seem so long ago. These feet are not chubby lumps no more; these are feet in little boots on longer legs that swing when I walk.
Gub’s breaths are slow and regular. I find a room with two beds moulded out of the wall, and clothes at the end of one that are too small for anyone but Gub. I lay him down on the bed, staring into his little face with the dark lashes closed. Staring so I store all his beautiful face in my brain and never forget one bit of it ever again. I fill each of his palms with kisses, never mind he’s too asleep to feel a single one, and peel off his boots, then mine, sit them beside the bed and lie down next to him, cos I can’t leave him. I can’t put one little bit of space between us right now.
Sometime later, Antonee puts his head in the door. ‘Okay, girly?’ he asks.
‘So okay,’ I say. ‘How’s the negotiating going?’
‘All done. We are official. Their rockets are heading back to the Jolene now. Don’t you worry.’
Later still, I wake to Gub sitting on the bed, tickling my chin with scratchy tiny fingernails. He grins and snorts when I open my eyes. And it takes me a minute to realise this isn’t a dream.
I jump out of bed and the pair of us in our socks run silently through to the lounge. It feels early, cos there’s snores coming from another room. Must be Antonee.
‘Let’s make breakfast for everyone, Gubby!’ I say. I sit him up on the bench near the water spout, and spread packets and jars and tubs out on the bench next to him. ‘You know,’ I say, ‘your ma could make any food taste good.’
‘She can’t come back,’ Gubby whispers, and blinks his long lashes at me.
I nod. ‘She can’t, but whenever we make food, or do this,’ and I kiss his palm, big and smoochy, making him pull his hand away, hide it in his armpit, ‘we’ll be close to her, and she’ll be happy to know we are together.’
Gub nods.
I open a packet of noodles and give him one. He smiles and takes it, crunches on it so hard that it makes me wonder if that’s the most noise I’ve heard out of him. He’s still a silent, tiny, hiding thing, like I used to be.
‘Tamiki-miki?’ I say.
‘Tamara-mawa?’ He looks up at me, dark eyes big as on his tiny face, like I’m his whole world.
I swallow, find my voice, and say loud and strong, ‘You don’t have to whisper no more, okay? You can be loud as you want. You can shout your name to the world, cos it’s all gonna be all right.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Like a magical beacon in the wilderness, the Ampersand Prize arrived when I was stumbling around lost, to light a new path for me as a young-adult writer. I want to thank the Prize for taking a chance on a different kind of book, and Marisa Pintado, Luna Soo and the team at Hardie Grant Egmont for your constant guidance.
Thanks to family, friends and writing buddies for love, support and understanding even when I was hiding out being an anti-social hermit creature, trying to get the writing done. Thanks especially to Dee White, who read the manuscript over and over and delivered well-timed pep-talks. And to Ken for dusting off his reading skills just to be supportive.
Thanks to all the writers further down the path for your amazing stories, for sharing how you do your magic, and for letting me learn.
Cally Black’s universe is filled with stories – from her childhood on hill country sheep stations, to youthful backpacking adventures, to more recent motorbike rides across the USA – but it’s stories set in future worlds that fascinate her most. And while she loves science and technology and the way they shape our future, what really grabs her attention is the people, especially those left on the fringes of society.
Cally works in education and lives in Melbourne with her family and a slightly nutty dog. She won the Ampersand Prize for her debut novel, In the Dark Spaces.
In the Dark Spaces
published in 2017 by Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com
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A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
eISBN 9781743585030
Text copyright © 2017 Cally Black
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Cover design by Astred Hicks, Design Cherry
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