Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  When the majority of the dirt had been washed and tenderly wiped away, Ellie carried the stained bones inside, her hands outstretched before her, bearing her sacred gift. Percival followed the gruesome procession as far as the doorway to the lounge room and there he stopped, keeping his distance, ears pricked skyward, his tail whipping from side to side. Ellie laid her cargo carefully on the lounge room floor.

  ‘My darlings. My bestest friend.’ Ellie pictured Maisie smiling at her through the fence. She’d always hoped Maisie would come back. That Maisie was out there in the world and hadn’t forgotten her. Ellie’s shoulders shook in pent-up rage. A strangled wail burst from her lips as hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ She’d known that they were gone, but not like this. Not forever. Not in the backyard, so close. So very, very close. ‘You can’t be gone forever.’ Gone. Like…

  ‘Mummy.’ Ellie ran into the bedroom and grabbed her father by the shoulders. She shook his senseless form. ‘Where is she? Where is she? Where’s Mummy?’ The words came howling to surface and scratch through the soft textures of her mouth. Daddy grinned a smile of maggoty teeth that tumbled beside him. She dropped him back onto the mattress. Mummy couldn’t be dead. Couldn’t be. No. No, she wouldn’t believe it. Mummy had left. That was all. Mummy was too good to stay with Daddy and Ellie. Mummy was alive. Somewhere. Ellie tried to believe it.

  ‘I can’t do this now, Daddy. I can’t be near you.’ She backed out of the room and shut the door firmly behind her. No more Daddy. Not now. She had her babies and Maisie. They had come home.

  Ellie took the picture encyclopaedia off the shelf, fumbling as she thumbed through the worn pages. She had to fix this. Them. She found the drawing of a human skeleton and placed it before her on the sheepskin rug. Stray tears fell onto the page and she hurriedly wiped both it and her face, swiping her nose on the sleeve of her shirt. Sniffing, she looked at the diagram more carefully. It was time to put her family back together.

  Maisie first—hers the larger skull, spine, and pelvis. Ellie tried to lay out the rest of the larger bones. The thigh bones and ribs were the easiest to place; the other bones she moved around. Hands, feet, arms, and legs: she attempted to fill them out. She selected one of the longer bones and put it in position for the upper arm. It looked like a forgotten piece of flotsam that had found itself a long way from the sea, its whitish-grey crackled surface broken at one end. The edges here were sharper than the rounded curves that formed the opposite end of the bone. She could make out layers. Underneath that silky surface there was a denser whiter strip and then a hard, dried-up section like an old sponge. Space for air and emptiness to inhabit. Ellie understood emptiness.

  ‘I can’t make you right, Maisie,’ she whispered, ‘but I’m trying.’

  She tried to form the babies’ skeletons next. Their tiny skulls looked even more grotesquely out of place on the threadbare carpet.

  ‘Rock-a-bye baby,’ she crooned, ‘in the tree top…’ With tentative steps, Percival ventured closer to the bones, then sheered away, darting backwards and forwards from the edges of the room. He was spooked and uneasy. Finally, he dared to come closer, his nose twitching and whiskers thrust erect. One hesitant paw batted an infant skull. He jumped back as it tottered and rolled, his tail thrashing from side to side in angry bursts. He batted the skull once more.

  ‘No! Bad cat!’ Percival let forth a strange caterwaul, an unearthly call that sent shivers down Ellie’s spine. He retreated to the doorway, ears flattened and spine arched. Ellie reached over and gently cradled the skull in her hand. Smiling, she traced a finger around the hollowed and empty eye sockets.

  ‘My darling,’ she said as she closed her eyes and resumed her looping tune of boughs and cradles and blustery wind. When she opened her eyes, she saw a squalling newborn, cord hanging flaccid and lost. She raised the babe to her lips and kissed its forehead. When she lowered it, the baby had grown, now perfect and pink and swaddled and hers. All hers. Safe in her world.

  

  Miriam hated Arthur’s laugh. He had a deep, grating laugh that never reached his eyes. She had heard a furious howl, an animal in pain, and then that horrible, harsh laughter. Miriam saw a blur of matted grey fur as a cat flailed madly, frantically trying to free itself from the possum trap beside which her brother now stood, prodding between the wires with a stick. Their father’s rifle lay on the ground at his feet.

  Miriam recognised the cat. It was young, a stray that came out of the bush on a regular basis. She had been trying to tame it, to coax it nearer each day with gifts of food. Now it was trapped, scared, and fighting, and Arthur was laughing.

  ‘Let it go, let it go!’ she yelled as she ran across the yard. Her cries mingled with those of the cat. She heard that jarring laugh once more as she watched Arthur prod the cat again. Miriam bent down near the cage and her eyes caught those of the cat. It was backed up against the far wall of the cage. ‘Why do you have to be such a creep? Just let it go.’ She tried to unlock the trap and the cat lashed out, scratching her hand. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Ha.’ Arthur smirked. ‘Are you sure you want me to let it go?’

  ‘Yes.’ Miriam licked the blood from the back of her hand. ‘He didn’t mean it; he’s just scared.’

  ‘Your choice.’ He opened the hatch. The cat sprang out and started to run. Arthur raised the .22 in a fluid movement, his eyes and body tracking the cat’s every move.

  ‘No!’ Miriam cried out and flew at him, trying to grab the rifle from his hands. She knocked him off balance and his shot veered wildly.

  ‘Fuck!’ The feral cat disappeared back into the bush. ‘You bitch.’

  ‘You can’t kill it, it’s just a kitten, it’s…’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do. One shot, that’s all I needed.’

  ‘You’re a…you’re a bastard.’ Miriam choked out the words. ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Like I fucking care what you think, you’re just a…’

  ‘What on earth’s going on out here? I can hear you hollering for miles.’ Their mother had stepped out of the back door, wiping her hands on the stained apron at her waist. ‘What’s all this fuss, Miriam?’

  ‘Mum, he trapped that cat, the little stray, he tried to shoot it…ah,’ Miriam gasped as Arthur twisted her arm behind her back. ‘He…’ Her voice was cut off as the pain in her arm and shoulder intensified. In this position, her teenage breasts were thrust forward and Miriam cringed as her brother sneered down at them.

  ‘Arthur?’ Their mother sounded vaguely concerned, but Miriam knew her mother would accept without question whatever explanation Arthur gave.

  ‘Just playing.’ Their mother looked at possum trap and the gun.

  ‘You know you shouldn’t use your father’s things without permission. Make sure you return them to the shed.’

  Arthur pushed Miriam’s head forward in a parody of a nod and, as her mother’s eyes swept her face, Miriam understood there would be no help. No lecture for Arthur on not hurting animals. Or his sister. There would be no rushing to her defence. There never had been when she was younger and there never would be. Just another lecture on not stirring her brother, not setting him off. When their mother re-entered the house, Arthur placed one hand down her blouse and squeezed her right breast. With his other hand he gave Miriam’s arm a final twist before shoving her forwards. She stumbled and fell to the ground. As he picked up the gun, he hissed, ‘I’m going to get you, bitch.’

  He did.

  It was days later. He held her down and tore her blouse. He tried to bite off her nipple when she struggled. He hit her so hard across the face that she saw a blood-red night in the middle of the day. The repeated blows dislocated her jaw, the sound of the dislocation audible above her cries. Her ears rang and, after that afternoon, things never sounded the same again.

  

  The grass was w
et underfoot as Ellie dumped the last of the kitty litter into the bin. There was no more left. Percival would just have to use the garden or the freshly dug soil from the grave. She wasn’t looking forward to digging. It was dreary, painful work and it was taking too long. She didn’t think she had the energy to dig much deeper or longer, but she knew she had to. It wouldn’t be as deep as it was supposed to be—the measure “six feet” kept springing to mind—but it would cover him. It had to. That soil had been good enough for the dogs, for Maisie, and for the babies. She would let the ground swallow him up. She’d made the opening; the sour earth could do the rest.

  Every weary muscle in her body protested the rise and fall of the dirt, as she cursed the hard, rocky soil. Her previously hollow days confined indoors were forgotten with each steady thud of freshly turned earth. She grunted as she forced the shovel into the callous earth and groaned as she added each meagre load to the slowly growing pile. Thoughts of stopping, of lying down in the dirt for a rest occurred to her, but she forced herself to ignore them. She could not stop. Would not stop. Not yet.

  It was hours later, hours that had passed like years, when the shovel slid out of her grip and she watched it drop to ground. As she bent over to pick it up, a burning pain seared her spine.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She looked around her. Ellie wasn’t sure how deep the grave was or how long it was exactly, but it was deep enough that if she stood in it, the level of the ground came almost to the middle of her thighs. ‘Keep going.’ She wanted to cry at the effort it took to fling the soil against the wall. Dirt clung to her clothes like a second layer of skin. Ellie willed herself to ignore the weeping blisters underneath the gloves. She wasn’t going to stop. She had to be sure there were no more bones. Her fear wouldn’t allow her to form coherent thoughts, but Ellie knew she could not stop digging. There was something else, someone else, she needed to find. Or not find. She had to be sure.

  A breeze had come up from the ocean and between the soughing of the branches and leaves moving above, Ellie could hear the clanging song of the wind chimes next door. She revelled in listening to them during those wild, windy nights when their sound travelled all the way into her room, even though Daddy would mutter and moan about their ‘infernal racket’. When the neighbours first put them up one summer, and then returned to their real home after their holiday, Daddy had gone next door and taken them down. With a smirk, he’d told Ellie he’d thrown them around the yard.

  ‘They’ll think they blew off in a storm,’ he’d said. ‘I should have smashed them all.’ That hadn’t stopped them though. Since then, the neighbours had tied them on or screwed them in somehow. Daddy wasn’t able to get them down. He’d curse whenever he heard them.

  Ellie had often wondered what they looked like. She dropped the shovel against the side of the hole and stiffly clambered out. Every muscle in her body ached. Just a little break, and then I’ll come back. She made her way over to the side of the yard and sidled between the wall of the shed and the fence. It was more overgrown than ever. Daddy had made a compost heap here once and he used to spread something on the garden, something with a smell that wafted right into the locked house. Bloody bones, no, blood and bones. She shuddered. That was it. She moved some of the ferns out of the way and peered through a gap in the palings. There was a high railing along the top of the neighbours’ back verandah, and there the chimes hung. She squinted. They were handmade, constructed out of rough twine, shells, and driftwood. One chime glinted with polished glass, like the glass that she had seen on the beach. Trash reworked by the sea into beauty. She wished she dared go next door and ask the woman how she made them. Maybe her neighbour could show her how to create one, or even make one for her, but it would never be. She could not be seen. She was too disgusting for the outside world, especially the daylight world; she knew that. The neighbour lady would recoil in horror.

  Ellie lowered her eyes, backed out from the side of the shed, and crossed the yard to the enclosure. It was time to resume digging. She knew who she was looking for. She was looking for her mother.

  

  ‘What on earth have you done now?’ Miriam cupped her jaw in her hands and looked up at her mother. It hurt so badly. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but a wave of sickening pain threatened to knock her down. Her mother bustled her into the bathroom and started running water in the basin. She pulled Miriam’s hands down and pursed her lips.

  ‘I…it hurts…’ Miriam tried to speak through the pain. Her head was throbbing, her jaw, between her legs, and yet she also felt strangely numb. Apart from it all. It couldn’t have happened, but it had. She moaned and fell against her mother. Her mother pushed her upright.

  ‘Take off this shirt; you’ve ruined it. What were you doing?’

  ‘He…’ She didn’t know how to say the words. To say his name. She bent over the sink and vomited.

  ‘Oh, disgusting. You couldn’t have made it to the toilet?’ Her mother let the tap keep running. ‘At least I didn’t put the plug in.’ She scrutinized her daughter. ‘You’re really in the wars, aren’t you?’

  ‘Mum.’ Miriam started to cry.

  ‘Hush now; you’ll just make yourself worse. Come on, out of these things.’ She started to unbutton Miriam’s shirt, then unzipped her skirt. Miriam clutched at her mother’s hands. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ She pushed her daughter’s hands away and pulled down her skirt. There was blood on Miriam’s thighs. Her mother gasped.

  ‘Mum.’ Miriam sobbed.

  ‘Slut.’ Her mother slapped her. ‘My daughter is a slut.’

  Miriam thought she’d pass out from the pain. ‘Mum, no. Help me. It was Arthur.’

  ‘No, no.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘You’ve gone too far this time, my girl, blaming him. No. Clean yourself up. Have…have a hot bath.’ Her mother turned away from her and walked out of the bathroom.

  ‘Mum,’ Miriam called out to her mother’s retreating back. The agony in her jaw intensified and she had to grab the counter for support. Her mother paused for a second, but didn’t turn around, merely pulled the door closed behind her. Miriam stared at the back of the door as tears streamed down her face.

  Miriam was in her bedroom later that afternoon when her mother brought her some painkillers and a glass of water. She wouldn’t make eye contact with her daughter. Miriam dropped her own gaze. She stayed in her room all night until she was sure everyone else was asleep. She took a knife from the kitchen and placed it under her pillow before moving things in front of the door so she would hear if it were opened during the night. Lying on her mattress, she let her hand rest on the knife handle. He would never touch her again. She’d make sure of it.

  The next morning her jaw looked and felt worse. It was swollen and bruised. Her parents couldn’t ignore that, but it was clear from her mother’s face that nothing else was to be mentioned.

  ‘What did you do to him? You must have set him off.’ That from her father before he gave Arthur a walloping. Arthur wasn’t allowed dessert for a week. Miriam didn’t want to believe it. That was his total punishment.

  ‘Can I be excused please?’ She stood. ‘I can’t eat. I can’t go to school today.’

  ‘Not looking like that you’re not.’

  ‘Well, if you’re staying home, don’t think you’re getting out of your chores.’

  Miriam heard her parents’ words as she left the kitchen. She sat on the edge of her bed, her hand near the knife. Waiting. She listened to the sounds of her father leaving for work and Arthur getting ready for school. She watched from behind the curtain as Arthur headed off. He turned around and waved at her. She ducked. At least she’d be safe for a few hours.

  Those mornings weeks later when she was ill and unable to stomach breakfast, her mother must have suspected. Must have seen, yet still refused to acknowledge the truth. When her stomach began to swell, her father used his belt on her. Slapped her across her rec
ently healed face, called her a slut and a whore. Miriam flinched from the words and the vehemence behind them.

  ‘Whose is it? Who have you been sleeping with you tramp? Who?’ Her father pounded the table spitting his venomous words at her. ‘Do you even know? Or is my daughter the town bike?’ Miriam, pale and trembling, looked to her mother. Her father tracked her gaze to his wife’s face.

  ‘Did you know?’ He must have read the answer for she too was slapped. Her mother staggered, but did not fall. ‘You knew.’ It was an accusation and the truth. ‘You bloody well knew she was knocked up and didn’t say anything.’ He kicked one of the kitchen chairs knocking it over. ‘Who did this?’ Miriam wasn’t sure at whom the question was directed. When her mother didn’t speak, Miriam did.

  ‘Arthur,’ she mouthed his name. She hadn’t said his name aloud or spoken to him since that day. Her father reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Arthur.’ The name forced itself through her unwilling throat. Her father stood dumbstruck. Miriam saw the incomprehension, the denial, on his face before his expression changed.

  ‘His friend, Arthur’s friend, that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’ Her father wouldn’t look at her. He stalked around the room, a caged beast maddened by enclosure. ‘What’s his name?’