‘Everything OK?’ I ask.
‘Oh yes, fine. We walk from here,’ says Iona, shaping her expression to a smile and talking briskly. ‘We’ll come back for the big luggage, it will be safe in the truck, just pack what you can carry for a few nights. Oh – and wear your hiking boots.’
We do as she says, throwing toiletries and clothes into our small backpacks, changing our shoes for the boots Iona sent us the money to buy. As we follow her along the path I glance back at the quad bike and wonder why it made Iona look so unsettled.
It is mid-afternoon when the path ends. Poppy has just started whispering that she has a blister and my feet feel hot and swollen in the new boots.
‘Welcome to Wildhaven,’ says Iona.
I hadn’t seen the green chain-link fence in the gloom, and would have walked straight into it. I hook my fingers through the wires, it’s about ten foot tall and the top slopes outwards, the opposite direction to animal enclosures at the zoo, designed to keep things out, rather than in. Iona presses her thumb against a small black panel and a green light flashes.
Poppy tugs my arm, whispering in my ear, ‘What sort of student camp is this?’
The door swings open, inwards. Iona meets my eyes with a reassuring smile. ‘Rambling and mountain biking are popular in the national park and with patchy GPS it’s possible to wander far off track. It’s important the study isn’t disturbed,’ she says quickly. ‘You have both been amazing. I never really noticed how far it was – I’m usually alone on supply runs.’
‘So what exactly is this ecovillage? Tents?’ says Poppy, hesitating in front of the gate.
Iona shakes her head with a smile. ‘No – all wooden huts, we only use natural materials. Don’t worry, it’s very comfortable, just set up without any technology.’
Poppy narrows here eyes. ‘By technology you mean mobiles and stuff?’
‘Mobiles, computers, TV. There’s nothing digital. We don’t have any electricity at Wildhaven.’
I’m thirsty and my head pounds. Poppy grips my arm, widening her eyes in a questioning look. And she’s right, this is a bit strange. But it’s a relief to follow Iona, to not have to think about what’s best for both me and Poppy any more.
A fresh breeze blows through the trees, lifting the escaped curls from my neck.
‘Are we near the sea?’ I ask.
‘Oh yes. Only around half a kilometre.’
Poppy loves the beach, and I feel her hand on my arm relax a little as I step through the gate, pulling her along with me. As Iona closes it behind us, Poppy slips her phone in the waistband of her jeans, hidden.
We continue along an upward-sloping path through the trees. As we reach the top of a ridge, the ecovillage appears below us, nestled in a natural hollow at the base of a valley, surrounded by thick forest. I catch a sparkle of sea over the trees at the far side. Below in Wildhaven, wood cabins are clustered around a larger circular shelter and I smell wood smoke in the air. I hear voices and the steady tapping of a tool. My eyes shift to the side of Iona’s face. Her head is tilted, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. There is something strangely intense about her expression.
A group of students race past us as we make our way down the hill. There’s five of them, two boys and three girls and they call out a greeting to Iona as they run by. I catch a waft of fresh sweat.
‘They aren’t wearing shoes, doesn’t that hurt their feet?’ says Poppy. I hadn’t noticed.
‘You’d be surprised how quickly the soles of the feet harden,’ says Iona. She pulls off her own boots and stuffs her socks inside. She shows Poppy the underside of a strong-looking foot, pointing out leathery pads of skin.
‘See?’ She grins at Poppy, who smiles back, but as soon as Iona’s back is turned, her smile morphs into a comedy grimace aimed at me. I shake my head at her. When we enter the camp the students smile their greetings.
‘We’re not into awkward introductions here, you’ll soon get to know people,’ says Iona.
My heart contracts as I am reminded strongly of Mum, who hated anything fake. She never encouraged us to smile when we didn’t feel like it, or hug each other to make up if we didn’t want to. I distract myself from the lump in my throat by focusing on what I see. There are around fifteen young people, somehow less than I was expecting. The students are mostly dressed in battered-looking jeans and hiking boots, although some are barefoot. A lot of them wear tops in plain dark-green fabric, in various stages of fading, and some have leaves and leather decorations in their hair and around their wrists. One girl wears a crown of flowers. Seems like every shade of skin colour is represented here. Inside the central shelter a group are weaving grass, others are chopping vegetables into a large cooking pot, or sitting cross-legged on mats and carving wood with various tools. Iona stops to talk to a girl bringing in a basket of leaves and flowers, and Poppy and I linger next to a boy who gazes at me curiously as he scrapes a knife back and forth over a portion of animal skin, shaving off the flesh with reddened hands. He has warm brown skin and light eyes beneath thick black brows. I catch a metallic whiff of blood and when I wrinkle my nose, he copies the gesture.
‘You can help if you like,’ he says. His accent is strong, not local.
‘Not really our thing. No offence,’ says Poppy. The boy smiles and I realize that despite the strength in his arms, he doesn’t look much older than I am. When I smile back he winks at me like he’s my granddad or something. I want to ask if he has something in his eye but instead I shoot him a scornful look. Iona is back.
‘So are the students from a local university?’ I say.
‘Yes, most are international students,’ says Iona, now striding ahead. I remember what she said before, that she’s working on a study of healthy lifestyles.
Beyond the central shelter there’s a glade of trimmed grass where a boy and a girl are doing yoga, muscles glistening in the sun as they both hold a one-handed posture, legs and bodies hovering parallel to the ground until they tremble and slowly lower themselves.
‘Activities at Wildhaven are down to what individuals enjoy and are good at,’ says Iona. ‘I’ve got a few things to do. Would you two like to rest or take a look around?’
We reply at the same moment. I say I wouldn’t mind a rest, Poppy says we’ll take a look. We roll our eyes at each other.
‘Well. When you feel like going to your hut, just ask anyone, they’ll show you.’
Iona gives my arm a squeeze. Poppy’s eyes widen as she scans around. I slip my hand in my pocket and find my phone.
‘I’m sorry Aster,’ Iona says, ‘we have a no-tech policy at Wildhaven – that’s the point of the camp. Is it OK if I look after it for you? There’s nowhere to charge it anyway.’
I frown, but pass it over to her.
She turns to Poppy, eyebrows raised.
‘Mum wouldn’t let me have a phone until I’m twelve,’ she says.
God, she’s such a good liar.
Iona presses her lips together then forces them into a sad smile. I realize it’s the first time we’ve mentioned Mum and look away as my chest tightens.
‘You’re free to go anywhere you like within the camp boundary. I’ll find you later,’ says Iona.
She disappears between the huts. I can’t make my aunt out. She has this kind of aura of cheerful calm, yet nothing about her is relaxed. She particularly didn’t seem relaxed when she saw that quad bike in the forest. And I didn’t know she was involved in anything like this. There was a photo of her on our fridge at home, giving an injection to a small child in a tent in Africa, another grainy newspaper article about a team of doctors who administered chemotherapy in war zones.
But I guess we don’t know the real Iona. The whole situation of having to be our guardian might be awkward for her.
Poppy takes out her phone and snaps a photo of the students working at the central hut.
‘Don’t,’ I say, glaring at her. No one has noticed.
‘What?’ she says.
‘Poppy,’ I say in a warning tone. She gives me a fake smile but shoves the phone back in her pocket.
‘Let’s walk around the outside of the camp,’ I say.
‘Mmm, let’s,’ says Poppy sarcastically and I widen my eyes at her.
One hut is bigger, older looking, and stands a little apart from the others. We stop at the door. There’s no one around.
‘She did say we could go anywhere,’ says Poppy.
I knock on the door. No answer. I check around, then push it open a crack and crane my head around. It’s dim inside. There’s a hammock and desk with a laptop open on top, a small yellow sticky note in the corner of the black screen. I remember how Mum loved a sticky note. Get milk. That was the last one I remember. Why didn’t I keep it? My throat shrinks, hot and narrow.
Poppy holds the door, whispering, ‘So much for no technology.’
‘And no electricity,’ I say, swallowing down the memory and focusing on Poppy.
She takes a photo of the inside of the hut and this time I lunge for her phone but she snatches it away.
‘There you are.’ Iona’s voice behind almost makes us jump out of our skin. Poppy stuffs the phone in the front pocket of her hoody before we spin around.
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling my cheeks flush.
‘It’s no problem. My laptop runs on a battery pack I recharge in town. I need it for keeping in contact with a couple of colleagues at the university, and for collating the results of the study,’ she says.
I nod, avoiding eye contact, waiting for her to ask for Poppy’s phone. Poppy kicks at the ground with the toe of her boot.
‘Come on, a couple of us were about to gather some herbs. Why don’t you come along?’ says Iona, slipping her arms through each of ours. She didn’t see the phone.
Poppy sighs. ‘Mum loved picking stuff for us to eat. We used to catch a bus to the countryside on Sunday afternoons. She’d make us try flower petals and all sorts. Even nettles. We boiled them, do you remember, Ast? They were gross,’ she says. I know she’s changing the subject to cover up the phone, but she’s talking about Mum so as usual I can’t reply. I glance over Poppy’s head, across to Iona, and see something in the slowness of her blink that makes me wonder if her grief is like mine, buried and sore, like a festering splinter.
‘As you know – our parents also died young, and our mum had cancer. I understand what you are going through,’ says Iona. I look down at my boots.
There’s a pause.
‘But you got over it, didn’t you?’ says Poppy.
A longer pause. ‘I guess I found ways to live through it.’
I brace one hand against the hut, suddenly dizzy with everything that has happened. I feel Iona looking at me, but she doesn’t say anything else.
We spend the rest of the afternoon foraging, and I learn how to spot amaranth and burdock, chicory and young plantain leaves, with a tall boy and a girl who smiles a lot. She has dark-brown skin and wears her afro hair pushed back from her face by a plaited scarf. I hear the boy call her Beti. She sounds like she might be African. The boy has a pale complexion and is tall and serious with short dark hair, his accent could be eastern European and he introduces himself as Dimi. They must have a lot of foreign students at the university, but it feels rude to ask them where they are from when they don’t ask anything about us. For once I wish Poppy would shoot out her usual volley of questions, but even she seems shy around them.
The time passes quickly, and after a bowl of stew with seeded bread by the fire, Poppy and I are both yawning, although it’s barely even twilight. Iona leads us to a low hut and pushes open the door and I see our backpacks. Shadows fall into the creases across her forehead and by the sides of her mouth.
‘It would be great if you could wear these heart-rate monitors, just at night.’ She holds out her hand, offering me two black rubber wristbands. ‘I track the sleep patterns of everyone in camp as part of the study.’
I take them from her with a shrug. ‘OK.’
Mum had worn something similar for a while, tracking the number of steps she’d taken in a day; it was always a lot, as she was a nurse. I snap it on my wrist and pass the other to Poppy.
‘Sleep in as long as you like tomorrow, you’ve travelled half the globe,’ says Iona, then pauses, looking at me. ‘You can relax now.’
I smile and say a stiff, ‘Goodnight.’
The hut is bare besides two low beds with woollen blankets and rush mats on the floor, lit by a clay lamp. It smells strongly of new timber. Poppy strips off her clothes quicker than I do and pulls on a pair of pink Hello Kitty pyjamas. They are far too small for her; she’s never been good at new clothes, preferring her old favourites, even when she’s grown out of them.
‘Let’s ask Iona to take us back tomorrow,’ says Poppy. ‘Go to the hotel she said about.’
I blink at her in surprise. She’s been rolling her eyes at me since we arrived, but she seemed to have accepted Iona.
‘Why are you looking at me like that? This place is totally weird,’ she says. ‘I mean, where do they all come from, anyway?’
‘She told us. Most are international students,’ I say.
‘OK then. But I think it’s strange that none of them have New Zealand accents,’ says Poppy, planting her hands on her hips, one eyebrow raised, ‘and I’m surprised you want to stay.’
Her emphasis on the ‘you’ sparks my irritation. I remind myself Poppy is only eleven and it’s been a really long day.
‘Let’s talk about it in the morning when we aren’t so knackered,’ I say, keeping my voice level. I climb into bed. Poppy continues to stand.
‘You’re OK with her taking your phone and monitoring us when we’re sleeping? Because that’s not creepy at all.’
‘I didn’t want any of this, either.’ My voice comes out snappier than I mean it too.
‘I get it. Iona is our guardian now, so what I think doesn’t matter. You don’t have to look after me any more, so that’s a relief for you,’ she says.
I close my eyes. On the rare occasions we argue it always escalates too quickly.
‘She’s not our mum, Aster,’ says Poppy. Her words are a thump to my chest.
I grind my teeth together to stop myself saying anything back because I’m suddenly hot with fury, but my anger isn’t at Poppy. She just wants to talk to me about Mum, but I can’t and I hate that. I hate it all.
Poppy wriggles under the woollen blankets, pulls them to her chin and turns away from me. When I hear her sucking her thumb my anger deflates like a burst balloon.
Poppy gave up sucking her thumb when she was seven.
I’m in my bed. Mum’s still at home.
‘Mummy!’
It’s Poppy, her voice panicked and muffled, she sounds too far away.
I spring up, immediately alert. What’s happened?
When I push open Mum’s bedroom door, I see she’s not in bed. The oxygen tube she wears nearly all the time lies abandoned on her crumpled covers, hissing.
‘Mum?’
Poppy is sobbing but I can’t find her. I run through the flat, flinging open doors, searching.
Mum and Poppy both gone—
My eyes spring open into the here and now, and reality streams in like the moonlight through the cracks in the hut. Despair drapes over me, a suffocating blanket, and the hiss of Mum’s oxygen machine lingers in my ears. My whole body battles the truth with rasping breaths, fingers tingling, heart hammering in my throat.
Poppy turns in her bed, blinks, and springs out to kneel next to me. She brushes a hair from my cheek.
‘Ast? Do the breaths. Three in, six out. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Come on, count. In two three. Out two three four . . .’
Poppy is mimicking what Mum would say and I count with her, until my breathing slows and I feel nearer to normal. We caught the panic quick enough, before it could develop into a full-blown attack. I’m
able to think again, and shame sweeps through me. I should be taking care of my younger sister, not the other way round.
‘Sorry, Pops.’
Poppy shrugs. She climbs into my bed without asking and turns to the wall. I curve around her, shivering; a panic attack always leaves me cold and hollowed out. I remember the wristband is monitoring my heart rate and wonder what Iona will make of that little episode. I sigh. But I don’t take it off.
‘It will be OK,’ I say.
Poppy doesn’t reply.
‘Night, Astronomer,’ she says finally, voice slurred around her thumb.
‘Night, Popstar,’ I say.
Poppy rests her cold feet against my shins and I don’t complain. My face is inches from the back of her neck and her hair smells like a baby animal. She still has her plaits in; I never remind her to brush her hair and I always forget to check she’s cleaned her teeth. I hear her suck her thumb again, and I close my eyes, swept with a desperate fear that something bad will happen to Poppy because I can’t look after her properly.
Iona will never be our mum, but I need her.
Ihadn’t expected to get back to sleep, but must have fallen deeply. I wake to the sound of voices from outside. For less than a second – less than a tenth of a second – Mum is alive, and it was all a bad dream. Then my limbs are made of lead and my heart is forced back into the laboured rhythm of living without her.
Dust motes spin in rays of sunlight through cracks in the hut walls. Poppy is not in my bed and hers is empty. My panic attack in the night comes back to me with a hot sick feeling, and I recall what Poppy said before we fell asleep, about wanting to leave. I don’t know what to do if she really hates it here. Everything is so exhausting without Mum. Sitting on the side of the low bed, I stretch and wish she’d woken me and we’d gone out there together. I dress quickly and rummage around for my comb but can’t find it, so attempt to scrape my fingers through my curls, give up, and bundle my hair into a loose ponytail. I slip off the heart-rate monitor and leave it on the bed, then head out of the hut, blinking in the sunshine.
‘Aster,’ calls Iona. She’s sitting at a long bench, Poppy beside her. Faces turn to look at me but don’t linger and I return a few polite good mornings.
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