The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

  She tried to turn but couldn’t.

  Had they followed her? Or had they waited and watched from some hiding place in the tea tree grove?

  Flooding her mind in split-second flashes were grimy images of news headlines...her mother at home weeping...the yobbo occupants of the flame-painted vehicle seeking revenge for her impulsive comments...

  The grip on her shoulders tightened.

  Izzie began to scream.

  * * * *

  ‘Help!’ Izzie shouted.

  The breath of her pursuer was rasping. His hands continued to grasp. If she squirmed enough she might be able to wriggle free.

  She cried out again.

  The hold on her loosened.

  Propelled now from a frozen state to one of frenzied fighting, Izzie thrashed her head and shoulders from side-to-side and shrieked: ‘Get away from me!’

  The hands fell away.

  Like a bird released from its cage, Izzie fluttered forward.

  She ran and ran, not seeing, not hearing, a slave to the rhythm of her steps with no other thought than to reach the safety of the esplanade where subdued lights dotted the distance. Her hands and feet were numb, but her heart was pow-powing with machine-gun velocity.

  ‘Is-o-bel!’ A voice from behind was calling to her. The voice, croaky and old, had broken up each syllable with a gasp.

  Was someone here to help her? But who? Who? She couldn’t look back. It might be a trap. She had to push on and escape.

  ‘It’s only me,’ rasped the voice.

  She continued to run.

  ‘And I’m sorry! Really sorry!’

  It was as though her legs couldn’t stop. Haltingly urging her­self to­wards the streetlights, Izzie ran on. In an impulse of curiosity, she sup­pressed her fright and looked over her shoulder. She glimpsed two arms—encased in light-coloured sleeves—waving above a hooded head, which the esplanade’s dazzle of traffic blocked out.

  The faceless hooded one shouted, ‘Help me, Izzie. I need—’Gasp! ‘Your—’ Gasp! ‘Help!’

  With the realisation that she might now be at a safe enough distance to observe the person who knew her name, Izzie turned again. The traffic glare cleared, the face fell into clarity, and Izzie felt incredibly foolish.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she called.

  He was leaning over. Another car wound around the cliffs, and the light it shed revealed the faint sparkle of silver and red snow boots, con­firming to Izzie that this was Glorion with the hood of his jacket pulled over. No-one else wore footwear like that.

  How could she have been so stupid? It was more than likely he would return to her. But those hands! They’d been grasping and threatening and had compelled her to take off. Still charged with the distress his touch had infused, Izzie contemplated whether she was safe to go to Glorion. After all, he’d acted strangely from the time they’d left the supermarket, and she didn’t know this guy from a bar of Pears. What reason had he given her to trust him?

  Glorion straightened from his lunge forward and wheezed. ‘Can’t breathe, Izzie. Can’t...’

  Asthma! Izzie dashed towards him. She cupped her hands and pummelled Glorion’s doubled-over back, the way she’d seen a First-Aider at school treat someone who didn’t have Ventolin.

  ‘Tiny breaths, Glorion,’ she ordered. ‘Try to relax and don’t breathe too deeply.’ Glorion’s back was taut with tension. His chest was heaving. Choking sighs escaped from his throat. ‘No, no, no! Glorion, you must relax!’

  ‘Izzie,’ he groaned. ‘I’m—’

  ‘Shush, shush, shush! Just concentrate on breathing gently.’

  ‘Izzie, I’m sorry.’ His voice exploded into a series of coughs. ‘Sorry to scare.’

  ‘Not a problem! Just let me help you sit down here, and we’ll breathe together.’

  Glorion sank down beside her onto the damp sand. He reached into a pocket of his jacket.

  ‘You’ve got a puffer,’ Izzie said, relieved.

  But it wasn’t the grey and navy chunk of plastic she’d hoped to see. He handed her something smooth and jagged that felt like a chiselled icicle. It was a stone. A clear stone. A crystal. No ordinary crystal though. Mostly colourless, with sparks enlivening its core: sparks like gas flames, blue and bright.

  ‘Hold...hold above me,’ Glorion told her, and she did so immediately.

  ‘Wave from temple to temple,’ Glorion said, his voice less clouded with restriction.

  Clasping the stone in a trembling fist, Izzie took it slowly to the left of Glorion’s forehead, then to the right. Intently, she watched the twisted angles of his eyebrows settle back into shape, a sign he’d begun to recover from his oxygen-starved torment.

  Crystal healing. Plenty of people were into that. A bucketload of them had their business cards pinned to the Crystal Consciousness Books & Gifts notice board. And yet, did any of these healers experience such a dramatic change in temperature? The stone, icy to the touch just moments before, was pulsating, now as warm as her hot-water bottle at home, something she’d had to prepare with increasing regularity now that autumn insisted on nightly rehearsals for winter.

  Thankfully, Glorion’s gasps subsided. All Izzie could hear now was the wail of the sea. Not convinced she should at this stage finalise the healing, she continued to wield the stone. The rapid thawing of her fingers was an incentive to continue curing her poor buddy’s breathing, relished to such an extent that when Glorion grinned and gestured for her to pass the stone back, she was reluctant to part with it.

  ‘Izzie, you’re my saviour,’ he said.

  Feeling coy, Izzie turned away and said, ‘It was nothing I did. That stone of yours is amazing.’

  ‘It is what you did.’ Glorion willed her to face him. ‘If I’d had the ability with the stone I would have used it at the onset of my attack. You were the one who accessed its power.’

  ‘I was?’ Izzie’s imagination soared.

  To herself she said: Maybe I have some kind of Otherworld magical power. Cool! I’ll have waitressing as a day job and do miracle-healing appointments on every second Saturday. Then I’ll be able to afford everything I want so much faster.

  Where had he got the stone? She was fairly sure it had done the main part of the work. She envisioned going shopping with Glorion Osterhoudt after school. He’d help her select one of these crystals for her newly launched clinic.

  ‘The stone won’t work on your own stuff. It only works if someone else treats you,’ Glorion explained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Izzie, adding hopefully, ‘Can it be just anyone? Or does it have to be someone special?’

  ‘Everyone’s special, Izzie,’ Glorion said quietly, and it made Izzie redden and feel distinctly unimportant. The megastar medicine-woman image of herself dissolved and was replaced with a greater respect for the stone. ‘Where did you get it?’ she asked.

  ‘Not from anywhere here. Izzie...about my running off...’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ The sight and sound of Glorion’s suffering had thrown things back into perspective. Whether they were friends or not, whether he’d burnt her off—out of boredom—or ditched her out of disgust, he’d needed her help. She’d given that help freely, as anyone would. She’d Stood Aside From Ego, as her mother was prone to say.

  ‘So you’re sure you’ll be okay now?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely. Thanks again, Izzie.’

  ‘’Kay. Bye.’

  Her rising to leave was punctuated by tones of surprise. ‘Where are you going?’ Glorion called. ‘Hey, Izzie! Why are you walking away?’

  Izzie shrugged and walked onward, knees still wobbly from those two major scares. What did he care? It wasn’t as though he’d had any trouble upping and leaving without warning.

  ‘Tell me where, and why, you’re going!’

  Izzie turned, glared into Glorion’s darkly bright eyes and said, ‘Like...explanations are now suddenly compulsory.’ She trudged on, realising she’d never texted home to say she was eating at Glori
on’s. Just as well. She was looking forward to dinner, even though the over-consumption of party food had made her wonder how she could ever feel hungry again.

  Glorion’s footsteps drummed behind her. Izzie marched onwards. Glorion had almost caught up. Was he about to give an explanation for abandoning her earlier?

  In typical Glorion style, he said very little. Once Izzie turned, he mumbled, ‘Just here to say goodbye back to you.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Did this dude ever communicate beyond the one sentence? Did it not occur to him that someone, right now, was mirroring his act of running off?

  Glorion watched her with outstretched hands, then dropped his arms to his sides. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he said, ‘I didn’t mean to grab your shoulders. The asthma had me doubled over. Please accept my apology for frightening you, Izzie.’

  Izzie couldn’t help smiling. He looked so adorable when he was apologetic, kind of like a sad little boy, with his hair sticking up in fluffy spikes. The hood, before falling off, had tousled it out of shape. ‘Don’t worry about it, I’m fine,’ she said. Feeling well within her rights to also receive an apology for his deserting her on a dark beach, she said. ‘Glorion, why did you run off on me before? I think it was really mean.’

  Glorion reached out and patted her shoulder in a distracted way.

  Silence.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, I had to go to the little room in a hurry. There were people in it. I got rid of them, did what I had to do, then ran back to you as fast as I could.’

  Little room? Little room! Did he mean the little boys’ room? Disenchanted with this confession, Izzie snorted. And this was the same boy who’d argued for a better world in the upstairs debating section of the school library?

  Her time spent with Glorion that evening had felt more like a chat with a three-year-old. Rushing off to the loos in the middle of a conversation was far from cool. As for ‘getting rid of people’ who also had a right to the beach’s amenities...Huh! Could Glorion be any weirder?

  Could it really have been Glorion who’d described, so effortlessly, his altruistic dream for a world where each and every person experienced a rewarding work life that was both ‘purposeful and pleasurable’? Probably not his own words. Probably got bookish Alexander Whitford to write the speech.

  At least she’d got to see the real Glorion Osterhoudt. For a while there her rose-coloured glasses had misted her discernment, but she’d since concluded that the boy standing opposite her was not a normal fifteen-year-old. Thank goodness she hadn’t blabbed to friends about her fascination with him. How stupid would she look if Glorion’s space-cadet strangeness became common knowledge? The snow boots had been the giveaway. Nearly every other sensible girl was put off by those, but Izzie had been blindly determined to like him.

  ‘So could you forgive me for that too? I’m sorry about it. Really. Then we can go and have something to eat.’

  The thought of dinner was tempting. The idea of stewed, fried, boiled or roasted asparagus, however, did not appeal.

  ‘Thanks anyway Glorion, but I think I’d better get home instead. It’s been a big evening.’ Big because of all the trying emotions he’d put her through.

  Once more, Glorion reached out to her. This time his hand rested on her elbow and slid over her forearm with a certain amount of tenderness that she couldn’t deny felt lovely. Glorion’s fingers glided over the top of hers. The action of his arm falling back to his side was like an invisible rope willing her to move closer. Without thinking, she let her body fall towards him, the dreamy need for his nearness radiating from every pore. The feelings were so powerful they cancelled out any concern over Glorion’s mentality. Being in physical proximity of him was exhilarating beyond belief, something she could very easily get used to if given the chance.

  She regained her balance, turned, and stood beside him. Glorion watched her, awaiting the decision. So he was a little bit backward. So what? It reminded her of a book by Colleen McCullough—wherein the smart American heroine crushed on a guy with the mind of a primary-schooler—and of the subsequent film that starred a magnetic Aussie actor. Inspired by the recollection, Izzie de­cided that going out with Glorion, despite what other kids might say about her, could still be done. Sophistication wasn’t everything. Good looks and a calm tempera­ment and a knowledge of healing were important factors too. ‘Okay,’ she heard herself say. ‘Let’s go and eat.’

  Allowing him to steer her to face the cliffs, she trudged alongside him and breathed in the refreshing salt air. She regarded Glorion with a long sideways glance and smiled at him. He returned her gaze and looked down, dimples forming in his cheeks.

  She was completely at ease now. Glorion wanted her to stay! Perhaps a small spark of superiority had replaced her need to convey maturity or a sparkling wit, unnecessary to someone who neither had nor valued these qualities. Discovering Glorion’s deficiencies had definitely been a good thing.

  The path along the cliffs wove through of boatsheds painted in shades that individualised each. The older ones could have even been built in the late nineteenth century.

  While they walked, Glorion told Izzie his parents didn’t live with him. ‘I’m an exchange student,’ he said.

  ‘So what’s your host family like?’

  ‘Terrible.’ Glorion shook his head. ‘I’m not with them anymore. I had to leave.’

  ‘Then who do you live with now?’

  ‘Um...no-one. It’s lame, I know.’

  Wondering how Glorion could get away with leaving his allocated guardians and continuing his education in Australia without being called back to The Netherlands, Izzie asked if he rented a place on the beach.

  ‘Kind of. Here it is now.’

  Izzie spun round to look for Glorion’s house. There was nothing before them but a jumble of glossy vines trailing over the cliffs.

  ‘Come on Izzie, it’s this one over here.’

  ‘Over where?’

  Glorion fumbled in his pocket for a bunch of keys. To see which was which, he held them up to catch the moonlight. Unless he was some kind of magician with an invisi­ble cottage, the sight of him about to unlock a non-existent door did not add up.

  It’s either him or me, but I’m guessing one of us is crazy, she decided.

  Glorion turned and, astounding her, unlocked one of the boatsheds, flicked on a light to reveal a sofa of yellow and aqua, gestured to the indoors and said, ‘Welcome to my little room.’

  The ‘little room’. Not a public restroom at all! Little room was a perfectly logical description for where Glorion lived! Izzie continued to stand at the door, wondering whose boatshed Glorion had emptied out and taken over and whether the police might arrest them during their asparagus entrée / main course / dessert.

  Glorion leapt firstly up one step and then into his boatshed, the type of home that only a teddy bear crammed into a dolls’ house could envy. He emerged with a plastic bottle filled with pink liquid. ‘Here’s something to drink, Izzie. Catch!’

  The bottle hurtled towards her. She grasped it and checked the label. ‘Fresh watermelon juice from the fruit shop! My favourite!’ The coldness of the bottle had her puzzling over where Glorion might have refrigerated it. Apart from sorely lacking in space, the boatshed appeared to have no connection for electricity. That light he’d switched on was a campers’ lamp for sure.

  He disappeared back into the boatshed calling, ‘So are you gonna let me cook you dinner? Or are you still recovering from taking in the immensity of my castle?’

  Irony! A sprinkling of reasonable vocabulary! She liked that. Maybe she’d judged him too harshly. English, after all, was not Glorion’s first language.

  ‘So what’s with you serving me drinks? Is it the butler’s day off?’ She hopped up to the single step and skipped in. It could have been a one-person dormitory belonging to an army cadet. The three-seater—which would have also doubled for Glorion’s bed—was nestled beside a mahogany, gilt-edged coffee table. A
jungle of potted palms lined the end wall.

  Glorion was standing at a small waist-height table to the left of the shed. He was slicing onions and singing a Boyd Levanzi favourite. Noticing Izzie’s confusion at spotting the indoor palms, he nodded towards them. ‘We don’t have tropical trees where I come from.’

  Izzie’s gaze moved from the palms to a picture on one of the timber walls. The picture seemed to emanate ripples of silver and gold as though it had an aura. Strangely, as she neared it, the mysterious overlay disappeared. In its place was a depiction of a black boy and white girl around the same age as Izzie. The boy’s eyes were deep. They emanated a liveliness that Izzie found to be mesmerising. The girl beside him had long blonde hair, a light tan and huge blue eyes.

  Izzie moved from one corner of the room to the other, trying to comprehend the artwork’s holographic effect. ‘Amazing! Who painted this?’

  Glorion gave a modest shrug.

  ‘Did you paint this Glorion?’

  ‘Yup. In art class the other week.’

  Glorion was an artist! Not just an artist but an art genius!

  ‘This is too cool for words.’ Izzie ran across to the painting again. ‘Really beautiful! Who are they?’

  ‘They’re very, very ancient. The girl married someone who...Have you ever heard of Adahmos and Eid?’

  ‘Is that Dutch for Adam and Eve?’

  ‘No. Just a variation.’ He gestured to the sofa. ‘Sit down, Izzie, and I’ll tell you a story.’

  ‘About how someone of your age manages to run away from their guardians and live in a furnished boatshed? Legally?’

  Glorion continued chopping. Still concentrating on the onions, he shook his head. Even though he was turned three-quarters away from her, Izzie could tell from the dimples denting his cheeks that Glorion was smiling, possibly even laughing. ‘Not right now. The story about the silver boy and the golden girl.’

  Right now Izzie didn’t care what he talked to her about, as long as he talked to her. She was falling for him again, and everything about him—his voice included—had lulled her into a giddy sense of awe. ‘Silver boy and golden girl,’ Izzie echoed. ‘Any relation to Obamos and Weed?’