by Kovacs, Jase
She makes me feel safe in a way I have not felt since the fighter jets ended my childhood in fire. She makes me feel safe in a way no one has since my parents died.
And so while the wind howls and our friends fight to save their ships, I let Abigail guide my own voyage to safe harbour.
***
After an eternity, the storm falters and the rain lifts. Our ears ring at the sudden absence. We wander from our shelter to see others emerge from theirs, all of us startled by the storm's violence.
The clouds skim southwards, and the sky is a purple so deep I feel I could fall into it forever. The sun cusps the volcano, and its rays stretch out across the bay, as if God was pointing out the sails nicking the far horizon. Matty and Larry stand on the highest point of the beach, staring hard under cupped hands at the yachts.
"I'm sure the nearest is Fidelio," Larry says.
"He's six miles out at least. Sunset is an hour away. There's no way he could beat against the wind before night."
"The plan was always to have the yachts standoff overnight."
"Yes," says Matty. "But the plan was also that we would be on them."
"Hey, so your plan is half working," says Larry sardonically. "That's better than most battle plans go."
"Where's Michael?" Matty asks.
"I'll tell you if you promise not to kill him."
"No deal. Hey, Zac. You look damp."
Matty is soaked through. Her clothing clings to her like a second skin and her hair is lank and her skin pale to the point of transparency. Hot guilt that I spent the last hours huddled with Abigail fills me. "Nothing compared to you. I see Shiloh is fine."
She barely glances at the catamaran, where we can see Kev and his men labouring at the bow. "Hardly. They're aground. Kev's trying to kedge them off, but the anchors aren't setting, and we're on a falling tide."
"Which means they've got no chance of floating before the next high," says Larry helpfully.
"Ah." Now she points this out, I can see that Shiloh is rather still given the choppy bay. "So what can we do?"
"Do? Well, we can either all get in the canoes and hope to reach the other yachts before dark. But that would mean leaving Shiloh here."
"Next high tide will be about three in the morning. We could leave a skeleton crew on board to safely refloat her."
"I'm not splitting up our forces any more than they already are."
"So we're all staying here tonight?"
Matty sets her lip as she stares at Kev and his men working to set another anchor. She beats her closed fist against her thigh. "Goddamn that fool," she says to no one in particular.
***
Matty decides the waterline bungalows, raised on stilts, are our best option. They're furthest from the jungle edge and closest to Shiloh. Larry and I stand on the balcony of one and watch Matty brief our warriors and place their piquets and set a roving patrol.
"I sometimes wonder at the burden we have placed on her shoulders," Larry says. "I think we forget she's only twenty years old."
I watch her give concise direct orders to the men, some of whom are more than twice her age. Most of them had not seen her in action before today. They didn't really believe the story of the Black Harvest and were not on Woodlark where we first brought the fight against the Lost Tribe for the first time. But all of them saw her showdown with Michael. There is not a single objection or wry glance as she lays out the night's plan.
"Our community's strength lies in finding what each of us is best at. Twenty years old or not, her father—"
"Yeah, thanks, Zac. I know why she's got the job. I think she's more than capable. I still worry at its cost."
"She can bear it. I think she can bear anything."
Larry turns and looks at me, a strange expression I can't parse on his face. Then he shrugs and turns to look at the volcano. "He's up there, isn't he?"
I think back to our discussion on Aotea, of the Green Lord's nature. "That's the real question, isn't it? Are we really facing some supernatural entity that serves by a dark god that looms from an interstellar void like something in an old horror story? Or is it just a shared delusion, a diseased madman's fiction that infects his follower's minds as effectively as the plague infected the living's bodies."
"Matty believes the former, doesn't she?"
"She... has had unique dealings with two alphas. I guess that gives her a certain insight."
"You have a talent for understatement, Zac. You still have faith, don't you? In God, I mean."
I think Christ's love and the contradictions of the Old Testament and the kinship found in the Sunday services of my childhood. "I do. Despite all that has happened, I do."
"Despite all that has happened," Larry echoes. "I envy that."
It's my turn to give a wry look. "My ability to believe in a kind and loving God, despite all evidence to the contrary?"
"No, I don't give a shit about God. Gave up on that a long time ago. What you're talking about, it isn't God. That's just a word. Call it what you want. What you're really talking about is hope. You still have hope. That things will get better."
There is nothing wry about my emotions now. "They will. They always do."
He nods, slowly. Sadly. "I envy your hope."
Matty finishes her orders. Her men split up into their teams, drifting off to their positions, exchanging witticisms and banter as they do. Matty leads her patrol of two expats and two locals, showing them the route she wants them to take. She speaks closely with the team leader, Rod. I only knew him as one of the bullies on Kev's power station team, and an instigator of the border stream crisis, so it surprises me to see the respect with which he listens to Matty as they disappear into the twilight gloom.
***
The night is cool and still and clear. The gibbous moon high overhead tells me it's halfway to midnight. The only sounds I can hear are the snores of our people around the overwater bungalows, the surf's gentle rush and the night birds calling out in the jungle. I lie on the balcony, the wooden slats a hard contrast to Abigail's soft body next to me. My feet dangle over the edge, feeling lovely and cool. I wonder what has woken me and then I hear a shift in Abigail's breath. She has her head cradled on her arm and has been watching me sleep. "Did I wake you?" she asks. "I'm sorry."
My mind is surprisingly clear as I have been turning over my thoughts in my sleep. "How long where you on Dalbarade? Ten years? More?"
"Why are you asking about that?" She keeps her voice low, to not disturb the other sleepers. "Can't you just turn off, just for a second?"
"I'm sorry. My mind just won't stop. I keep going to dark places."
"We all have been on those journeys. You have to learn to let go of the pain. I can teach you how."
"Deborah told me she preached to you and the rest of the tribe for years, that the Rapture was amongst you and you were to be raised up. And then—"
Her voice catches as she speaks, and I don't need to see her eyes to know tears gather there. "—And then, when the years passed and each year found us one year the poorer... we offered her up."
"You crucified her."
"We did. Upon the highest point on the island."
I look up to the volcano. The clouds glow orange from the hidden fire. "Up there."
"Up there."
"And then?"
"And then the Green Lord came to her, and she revealed the first of his divine revelations."
All this I know. All this I learned while I was a prisoner of the Lost Tribe, locked in a sweltering cell, waiting for the end of the day where they would lay me down and nail me to a cross. I say, "And the revelation was 'come and see.'"
"It was."
"'I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see.'"
She draws back. "I'm familiar with the Book of Revelations, Isaac."
"Then you know that the lamb will open seven seals, and the first four will be the beasts of the Apocalypse. And when Deborah listed th
e alphas, she listed four. The Pale King, the Green Lord." I close my eyes and let my mind go back to that cell. I feel the filth of that day on my skin, the deep ache of my beatings, the numb fear of coming death, all of which is subsumed by excitement as I engaged in a theological battle with Deborah. "And she called two more; the God of Rocks and Creeping Things, and the Pneuma of the Great and Empty Desert."
"Where are you going with this, Isaac?"
"Did you ever feel the touch of the other two?"
"We only saw the Green Lord. The other two... he told Deborah of them. They are allies and kings in far off lands, with whom the Green Lord seeks to unite."
"Allies. Who he would support with his army."
She nods. I look to her and her eyes shimmer with the moonlight. Is she still sad? Or perhaps something else surfaces there.
A harsh voice, addled with sleep, says, "Would you two bloody god-bothers shut up?"
For some reason this sets us off giggling like children. She collapses against me, burying her face in my chest, trying to stifle her laughter. I wrap my arm around her and hold my own smile, while at the same time trying to understand my disquieting thoughts.
I am just about to speak of one of these disquieting thoughts when a cold hand closes around my ankle. A masalai sneaking through our lines, is about to sink its diseased teeth into my leg! I jerk my leg away, pushing Abigail clear as I scrabble for my knife.
Abigail places her hands on my shoulders. "Zac, it's just Blong."
The boy peers up over the edge of the balcony. "You have to come," he whispers. "It's the lady."
"Matty? What's wrong?"
He shakes his head. "Come and see," he says. His expression of great fear and loving concern makes me think of a child who has discovered he cannot wake a still parent.
He runs ahead of us in the pale moonlight. My hand holds Abigail's, and we run after him. Blong's fear infects us both and we rush through the resort, past our guards, unseen as if we were invisible.
Blong stops abruptly, and I see he has brought us to the bar. Shadows loom menacingly. The spirals on every wall swirl and pulse in the gloom, as if they were blotches of ink spreading on water. My heart pounds, waiting for a masalai to drop from the sky, for a cultist with filed teeth to lunge at me with a spear.
"What's wrong, Blong?" I ask.
"Lady is..." His voice falters but his tone speaks volumes. I don't waste time, pushing past him into the dark room beyond. I stop at the threshold, my eyes adjusting to the dimness within.
Matty told me of the disturbing painting that she found in the bar, but with all the activity of this afternoon I haven't seen it firsthand.
Now I do.
Although the room is dark, with little moonlight reflected in through the open windows, the painting seems to glow with its own light, as if it was imbued with an unearthly phosphorescence. A shiver passes through me – but it is not the painting that unnerves me. It is just another of the Green Lord's visions, like those I found throughout his journals and logbooks. I have become so familiar with his madness that it no longer disturbs me. It's just a painting.
What unsettles me is Matty. She stands in front of the painting. Her back is to me. I can see every line of her body. She is naked. She stands with her back to me, and she has her arms raised up, mimicking the woman painted on the wall, as if she worshipped the woman worshipping the maelstrom.
It is Matty's nakedness that turns me away. Unarmed in a way she would never permit. What is this? Why is she here?
She sways gently, and I hear her humming quietly to herself. She sounds happy. So very happy. I look down at Blong, and I see my unease mirrored there. I understand his fear now.
I can't go to Matty. She is naked and I can't— She would never allow herself to be seen this way.
I look to Abigail, and she nods and understands. She picks up a faded towel hanging at the window and spreads it out as she approaches Matty, intending to wrap her, to restore her dignity.
But then Matty speaks. And what she says stops us all. It stills my heart and turns my bowels to ice. It elicits a low moan of despair from Blong. And Abigail looks at me with something not far from panic in her eyes.
Matty's eyes are closed as her voice lifts from her quiet hum and, in a sing song like a child's nursery rhyme, says, "Naw em shab nah caw naw em shab col na dan cah."
And then she turns to us, her arms outstretched. I avert my gaze from her immodesty but, before I do, I see she wears the blank smile of a zealot who has felt the touch of God.
CHAPTER EIGHT: MATTY
I'm surprisingly rested when I wake. I slept in the sand beneath one of the over-water rooms. Blong clings to my back, his grip like iron, his legs around my waist, as if he was a backpack. I shift, and he murmurs in his sleep. Protesting.
It’s just before dawn and the last stars flicker in the bruised sky over the volcano. I need to check the piquets, make sure the roving patrol is fine and then we need to clear the treeline. I remember Dad telling me years ago that dawn and dusk is always the most likely time for an attack. Daylight might be death to the masalai, but the Green Lord has plenty of human followers to throw at us. We can't afford to be complacent.
But Matty, says a voice I haven't heard in long while, aren't all his forces out raiding other islands?
Not now, Katie.
I try to extricate myself from Blong but his grip just gets tighter. I pry his arms away, and he wakes. "No, lady! Don't go!"
"Blong, you're too old for this! You need to let go."
"No, lady! The crying man will take you!" he wails, his voice high and panicked. "Don't go to him! Don't go!"
"Bloody hell, kid, what's got into you this morning?"
He burrows his face in my back. My shirt is damp from his tears.
Finally, I get away from him. He turns away from me, refusing to answer my questions. He tucks himself into a foetal sulk.
My shirt feels funny as I get up. I lean over, dust the sand off my pants before I run my finger around the neckline. My shirt's on backwards. Weird. I have the vague memory of fiddling with my clothes after turning in last night – maybe I pulled it off when I got hot in the night, then pulled it back on again when it got chilly before dawn. Whatever. I have more important things to worry about.
The bay is still and quiet, golden in the early morning light, its surface barely riffled by the gentle breeze. Shiloh bobs serenely in the anchorage. A pair of crewmen fish from her back deck. There are no sails out in the offing, but I am not concerned. Enzo may have taken the yachts behind the headland, working his way up against the prevailing winds when they dropped in strength, as they often do in the morning.
"She's looking good, ain't she?" says Rod. He stands on the beach, grinning at me. He wears a pair of old army pants and crude tattoos of manta rays and sharks cover his tight chest, arms and back. He has his rifle, an old World War Two Lee-Enfield, across his shoulders, his arms draped over the weapon like it was some sort of yoke.
"Who the fuck are you, Jesus Christ? Carry your weapon properly."
"Righto, sorry." He looks chastened as he adjusts the sling so he can carry the rifle over one shoulder. Then he raises his eyes to me and flashes a cheeky smile, that shows me he isn't taking this seriously. He's a bit of a good looking bloke and probably thinks he's charming.
Time to disabuse him of that notion.
"You'll be fucken sorry when you accidentally shoot a mate. You can't carry a weapon properly, you don't deserve to carry it. I'll give it to someone responsible, like Blong. You'll get a stick if that's all you can be trusted with. A blunt one, in case you poke yourself in the eye. Got it?"
"Shit. Well, yeah. I get ya."
"Good. And another thing – I gave orders I be woken before high tide so I could supervise Shiloh refloating. What happened there?"
"Uh. Ya see, Kev kinda told us not to bother you. Said you need some sleep."
"Did he? Who gave you the order to wake me? Me or him?"
"And who do you work for, me or him?"
"Well, I kinda work for both of you."
"Does this look like the powerhouse to you? Is that a spanner in your hand? I don't see any bloody solar panels. Do you?"
"Ah, nah, boss, I don't."
"Then you work for me, right now, don't ya?"
"Yeah."
"Fucken hell, as if I don't have enough to do, I've gotta snap blokes who can't stay in their lane. Right. Come on then. Get the other lads in your team. We've got a clearing patrol to do."
As I watch Rod lope away to get his mates together, I can't help but hear, in the back of my mind, my father saying "Good drills, kiddo. Maintain."
Cheers, Dad.
I run my hand over my face and dust sand off my cheek. I go back under the room and pick up my shotgun. I rack the slide five times, ejecting a fat red shell each time. Satisfying action. But I'd swap this shotgun and a dozen like it to have my M4 back. But, for want of a new firing pin, my best weapon is out of action. It's what I've always said; you can have the best skills, the tightest drills, but if you don't have spare parts, you won't last.
I check the working parts of the shotgun. But there's little to clean and no maintenance to be done. Compared to my M4, the shotty's inner workings are as simple and subtle as a hammer. I slide the shells back in and chamber one.
Time to go.
Zac comes down the stairs and stops when he sees me. He looks awkward, his eyes sliding away from mine. Typical. Gets himself a girlfriend and can't talk to me. He's such a kid at times. "Morning, Zac. You ready for a stroll?"
"Now?"
"I reckon we'll step off for the village in about an hour. Got to do a clearing patrol first."
"How do you feel? Not too tired?"
"What sort of question is that?"
"I'm just asking."
"No, mate, I feel great. Top night's sleep. Thanks for caring."
"No dreams?"
I'd been going through my belt kit (personal medkit, snacks, water bottles, navigation equipment and so forth) and look up when asks this. Now he is looking at me, carefully, as if he is judging my answer.