by Michael Earp
Where even are they? What even exists besides this?
Reg’s hands are on her face, her neck, her sides. One flutters at Amy’s waist. Slips into the front of her jeans.
The world floods.
Amy bends to it, cries out.
Is it raining? An alarm is blaring. They pull apart. How much time has passed? Their hair is wet, their shoes and clothes. Reg presses her hands flat against her ears. “The sprinklers!” she shouts above the noise of the alarm. “I remembered the alarm but I’d forgotten about the sprinklers. Come on!”
Amy runs into the hall, where the ceiling jets are spraying water onto the Persian runner, the floorboards, the expensive paintings. Her shoes squelch as she races towards the front of the house with Reg behind her. “So that’s what it does!” she shouts, and Reg grins, leaps forwards and grips her around the waist again, plants a kiss on her neck. Amy feels elation press at her chest. Reg falls back, and Amy follows the party crowd, becomes a part of the flock, tumbles out and down the front steps and into the garden that’s flooded with light from the house. She feels a sudden breeze at her right shoulder, hears a sound like the slap of a Chinese fan against air.
She turns. Where has Reg gone?
She follows the crowd down the steps. On the grass, people are milling in groups, in sodden dresses, jackets and trousers. The television crews are looking on from the edges. She finds Boz and Natalia standing together near a concrete fountain.
Boz has a paring knife in one hand, a sieve in the other. “What a palaver,” he says.
Amy skims the crowd for Reg.
Natalia is twirling, her damp apron slapping against her legs. She slows. “What’s that?” she asks and points.
Amy looks up. At the edge of the roof, a large roll of canvas perches. A tiny shadow flutters at one corner; there is a sound like a sail going stiff in the wind. The canvas rolls open and down the side of the house, blocking the two front windows.
SAVE THE REGENT HONEYEATER it says in thick, black paint.
The winged shadow takes off from the roof, a small black dart shooting upwards, until it’s swallowed by the night.
There is a flurry as the television crew scramble to their cameras.
The crowd is thinning out quickly, suddenly shy. Someone races across the lawn with a ladder, leans it up beneath the canvas and begins to scale the wall. But the crews already have what they need.
“Some party!” says Natalia brightly.
Amy laughs, suddenly fond of Natalia. “If I’d known it was going to be this much fun, I wouldn’t have turned up late.”
“That reminds me, Amy,” Boz says.
“What?”
He exhales. “You’re fired.”
“Really?”
“Definitely,” says Boz.
She tries to feel it as a blow. She can’t manage it, even though it’s terrible news. She’ll have to find another job, on top of everything else. Breaking up with Steven, for example. But all that seems distant, at least for now. The grass seems distant, and the house. Amy is not even here. She is up above the roof, drifting in the currents. The harbour’s cool reaching her belly. The news helicopters on the horizon coming at her like insects. Amy closes her eyes and breathes in, listens to the sound of the approaching choppers. The drone of their motors like one long note. A song about to begin.
It’s the look on his mother’s face as the apothecary leaves.
It’s the way she says, “Start on the wheat, Simeon, we’ll need the money.”
It’s the way she angrily whispers, “Don’t bang the door so,” as he leaves to fetch his sickle from the storehouse. It’s apparent how dire things are by glancing at his sister’s tiny frame, fevered in her bed. Yet these things drive it home.
Their land is quiet in the first blush of morning, as if it doesn’t want to disturb the family. Not that the whole family is here. Simeon’s father rode for Standville – half-a-day beyond their village – the moment the apothecary said this was beyond her skill.
In the small barn, everything is ordered as it should be. Simeon’s sickle hangs in a line with his mother’s and father’s. He’d hammered the nail in the rough wood himself the summer he’d been given his own blade. Old enough to reap, rather than only gather. The barn itself is cleared, swept and ready for storage; Simeon did not expect to fill it for another couple of weeks.
The wooden handle is familiar in his hand. Past seasons’ harvests have honed his lean body and now he’s almost as efficient as his father even if his pale skin is not as sun-touched.
He walks to the crest of the hill above their field. It’s modest, by village standards, but sufficient for their family. Larger fields require more hands. The early peep of light is yawning. Even in the small glow from the not-yet-dawned sun, Simeon can tell the wheat is the wrong colour to harvest. Still, he doesn’t question his mother’s direction.
Before he approaches the crop to begin, he crosses to where he can see Wyll’s house in the valley beyond. There is smoke rising from the chimney; Wyll’s father already preparing food for his large family. Stepping onto the usual rock, he puts his fingertips in his mouth under his tongue and gives two short whistles, followed by a longer blast. Then, he nods, he best get started.
He squeezes a head of grain, confirming what he knew from a distance. It’s too green, and weeps under his fingers. Spring and summer were kind, but cannot work miracles. He wipes his hand on his trousers and crouches to work.
Even though it has been months since the harvest of last year’s winter wheat, Simeon finds his rhythm quickly. Reaching and grabbing with his left hand, hacking low to the ground with the blade in his right. His body remembers. It knows what to do. When his hand is full, he sets it down behind him and keeps moving.
He has nearly reached the end of his first row when Wyll appears by his side. Simeon doesn’t stop working, or even think to greet Wyll in their usual way. “Can you give me a hand?” he asks instead.
“When you called I thought maybe we’d actually go somewhere this time,” Wyll says. “You know it’s too early for harvest?” Yet he is already bending to gather the discarded wheat into sheafs. He ties each together with a loose stem.
“I know.” Simeon’s voice is tight, like he’s holding back a lake.
“Elzabe that bad, eh?” Wyll rests his hand on Simeon’s head, sliding his fingers into the mess of blond curls like a large, dusky comb.
Simeon doesn’t respond and pulls away with the movement of his work, which is answer enough.
They work in silence, save for the rhythmic slicing of blade through stems and the occasional soft grunt as they change position. The sun has been high for a while now, it may even be sinking, but Simeon has not slowed his pace. One hand is raw from wielding his sickle and the other has small slices from the leaves.
Having finished another sheaf he’s been tying, Wyll lays it down in the nearest pile.
“Simeon, come. We need a break.”
Reach, grab, swing, hack.
“Simeon–”
Still no response or pause. Wyll reaches down and puts his hand on Simeon’s shoulder. There is a moment where Simeon resists the touch – then he stands and screams. It’s a noise of rage and fear that cracks his throat. With all his strength he hurls his sickle far into the field.
Wyll keeps his hand on Simeon’s shoulder. They watch the arch of the flying blade before it disappears into the wheat near the tree line. Simeon collapses, his scream crumbling to a broken wail. Wyll catches him and together they fall to the ground surrounded by wheat harvested too soon.
He holds Simeon close, letting him cry. After some time, when the worst has subsided, Simeon tries to speak. “I don’t want–” But he can’t finish the sentence.
“I know.” Wyll strokes the other boy’s back. “I know.”
When Simeon has stopped rocking with sobs, Wyll pushes him gently back by the shoulders so they can look at each other. Simeon wipes at his hazel eyes as if they have
wronged him so he can look into the familiar comfort of Wyll’s warm-dark irises. He knows there is nothing wrong with grief. He’d witnessed it in his parents with the babies that didn’t survive before Elzabe was born.
Simeon exhales deeply. Wyll tilts in and kisses him gently on the lips. The softness reminds Simeon that he’s not alone. A familiar thing to survive the uncertainty. An act of caring that says, I’m here.
They lean back into each other, an embrace of building rather than breaking, and later stand to survey their work. More than half the crop has been cleared. It lays in sheaf-piles stretching back to the base of the hill.
Simeon faces Wyll again. “Thank you for helping.” This time he kisses Wyll, and lingers there, lips touching, for a few long breaths.
“Of course,” Wyll says when they part. “We best find your blade. Your ma won’t thank you for losing it.” Wyll takes Simeon’s hand, gently pulling him in the direction it was thrown.
They walk straight through the wheat, it feeling more like long, heavy grass than produce to be sold.
“It’ll need longer to dry, now,” Wyll says.
“We had to get started.”
“I understand.”
They near the edge of the field, the smaller trees that mark the end of their property and the beginning of the forest not far off. They break apart and search separately, pushing stalks aside, looking for a hint of metal or wood.
After several minutes, Simeon spots it at the edge of the crop. He walks towards it, saying to himself, “There you are.”
As he reaches out, he notices a stone the size of a goose egg, black and speckled like the night sky as if it contained a sea of stars. Thinking to first reclaim his sickle, Simeon grabs the handle and picks it up. The stone, however, raises off the ground, too, suspended in the air at the centre-point of the curved blade as if the tool itself is somehow invisibly holding it. The understanding that he has discovered something important douses him like a bucket of cold water. He whistles, two short and one long, and listens to Wyll’s footfalls, not wanting to take his eyes off the stone slowly spinning in the air before him.
“Great, you found it–” Wyll stops. “What is that?”
Wyll reaches out to touch it but Simeon pushes his hand out of the way and grabs the stone first. At first it resists being removed from its oscillation inside the sickle, then it falls into his hand. As it does, a voice sounds as if from the forest, the earth, the very air.
Seek the witch to save the one you love.
He drops the stone from the effort of hearing the message and it floats upwards, returning to its place suspended in the curve.
“How does it do that?” Wyll asks.
“Did you not hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“It spoke so loud. I’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“To find the witch.”
Simeon steps towards the forest, intending to start immediately. Wyll grabs his wrist.
“You’re leaving now? It’s very unlike you – to think of leaving.”
“What of it? If it means I can save Elzabe.”
Wyll pulls Simeon around harder till the two boys are facing. “And how do you know you can do that? Because a rock told you?” With his words he snatches at the stone, hanging by the blade in Simeon’s hand. As soon as it is free of its mysterious pull, Simeon sees his brow change from a deep frown to raising high with surprise. After a moment of silence, Wyll extends his hand uncurling his fingers from the stone, letting it fly from his fingers and return to its place inside the sickle.
“You heard it, too?” Simeon says, staring intently at Wyll’s dark features.
His reply is steady: “It spoke. I will go with you.”
The house is dark, despite the mid-afternoon sunshine, all the shutters are closed. Simeon is as quiet as he can be when he enters. Even so, Ma jumps from her stool by the sickbed. She is shorter than her son, made worse by the hunch of tense fatigue; so far removed from her usual spritely vigour. Her greying plait is frayed and messy.
He grabs the small satchel that hangs by the door and heads straight for the larder. There’s nothing major he can pilfer. He takes some carrots and the last of a loaf of bread, a small hunk of cheese. When he turns, he’s met by his mother.
“How goes it?” she asks first, her voice small, as if any noise could be the undoing of her daughter.
“Well enough. Slow without you and Pa, but Wyll came and helped me gather.”
“He’s a good lad, that one. A keeper, you hear me?”
Even with the mood in the house and the weight of that stone on his mind, hidden temporarily in the barn with his sickle, Simeon feels a smile tug at his mouth. Wyll has become everything to him. They’ve always been close friends, and for the last two years they’ve become inseparable for more reasons. The smile’s gone as quick as it arrived when he hears Elzabe’s laboured breathing.
“What are you doing with that food?” Ma asks.
He snatches a handful of dates from the small sack they’re kept in and drops them into his bag. “I’m going straight back.” There is a sinking in his chest as the tiny lie bubbles between them. He’s had no reason to lie to her before, save for childish embarrassments of broken things or minor wrongdoings.
He is saved from further inquisition when Elzabe moans in the bedroom. His mother is quick to return to her side. He leaves the house with that moan weighing so much heavier than any journeying pack could be.
The sickle lies where he left it; its strange passenger a mysterious omen – a small hope.
Wyll waits for him where they found the stone. He has a bag over his shoulder and a crease in his brow. As Simeon approaches, Wyll holds out his hand and Simeon gladly takes it with his free hand. He has pushed aside his doubt and is barely controlling his fear. A panic has been rising in him since he found the stone and heard the voice. He has wished he could do something to help since the fever descended in earnest, but to go searching for the witch? He can’t believe it of himself.
The witch is not someone to be trifled with. They live on their own terms and stories of their power are traded like treasures among the children of the village. Simeon has never seen them, and he knows that Wyll hasn’t either. The witch only comes to the village at night when needing to trade. The stories say that shopkeepers and traders will hear a knock on their door close to midnight.
Once, the blacksmith’s daughter Char said she had heard the knock and was too scared to get out of bed. Her mothers had answered the door together and the witch had said, “I need your sharpest blade. I will give you this.” The witch had presented a poultice that heals the worst of burns in a matter of days.
Marilee, the blacksmith, had swallowed the affront to her skill; she had not burned herself at her forge since she was an apprentice. You should not start a row with the witch. “I’ll go to my workshop,” she had said.
“You misunderstand,” came the reply, “I need the sharpest blade in your kitchen.”
It is well known that Marilee refused to have any inferior metalwork in her home. The trade was made, and the poultice sat untouched for nearly a week. Then, in an accident, Char fell into the kitchen fire and severely burned her arm. What the witch had given them eased the pain and healed the wound.
Foresight or not, these types of trades with the witch happen in erratic regularity. The items are always things the recipients either need urgently or discovered they needed within a week. All trades are fair, even if they don’t seem so at the time. And it’s known to never seek the witch yourself. There are reasons for making a home deep in the forest. All anyone knows is the witch heads west when they leave.
Now, Simeon and Wyll cross the tree line, heading west. This part of the forest is familiar. They ran through these trunks as children, building forts and inventing games. Sometimes banding with, other times against, Wyll’s five sisters. When they were young they had to stay within sight of the field, the hill with Simeon’s hou
se on it. When they got older they explored further, wanting more privacy – especially after their relationship shifted.
Simeon remembers when they were twelve, running and hiding from Wyll’s eldest sister, who was enraged by the frog she found in her bed. They crouched together in the tiny space between those two boulders. It surprised them both to discover they had clasped hands in their fleeing, but neither let go. More than a year passed before they kissed for the first time. A tiny, stolen thing that only hinted at what was in store for them.
In less than an hour, they reach the creek that has always been the border of their explorations. Simeon cannot maintain conversation because his thoughts trip on Elzabe. He takes his sweaty hand back from Wyll and makes quick work of jumping the small stretch of flowing water, his eyes wary of the blade in his hand.
Wyll laughs once.
Simeon finds his footing, turns. “What’s funny?” He can’t place such a sound on an afternoon like this.
Wyll’s face is open, compassion mixed with humour. “How many times have I tried to get you to venture further than this creek? Your parents’ rules and your own contentment stopped you. And now you’re leading the charge.”
Simeon feels like he fell in the cold creek. “You think this is easy for me? You think I want to be walking recklessly into a forest?”
Concern and regret knot their way onto Wyll’s face. “I did not mean to make light, only lighten the mood. I know what’s at stake.” He deftly leaps the creek dividing them and takes Simeon’s free hand in his.
“You think it’s a good thing we’re going to find the witch when none have before?”
“Simeon, listen to me.” Wyll locks eyes with him. “I am here with you, and we are not walking recklessly. You’ve been so focused on making progress you haven’t noticed we have a guide.”