I will wait for her to finish. I don’t want this to get broken yet. It needs to fly first.
He handed the model glider over for me to inspect. It wasn’t the first one he’d made, but it looked like it might be the most sturdy so far, with well-engineered joints and finely woven cloth for the sails. A tiny woven replica of a harness dangled from the model’s frame. So this was just a small-scale prototype, then. I weighed it in one hand.
Too heavy when it’s full-sized? I asked, giving it back so I could strip some more berries from the bush.
I’ll make the spars hollow. There is a wood that is light and yet still strong that grows near another village not far away. It will only take me a few moon cycles to get there.
A few moon cycles—months of travel—and yet apparently ‘not far away’. The long-lived had a very different perspective on things than what I was used to.
And will you go? I asked.
Only if Annie wants to come with me. I enjoy her company. He tilted his head at me. You’d like me to leave?
No. Not at all. I would miss you.
But you are not comfortable with me being here. He gestured behind him, where the not-well-hidden path could just be seen through the russet foliage.
I was simply wondering why I find you here so often. No one else comes this way.
He laughed at that, his deep brown eyes shining with the same innocent optimism that pretty much defined everyone’s personality here.
Everyone knows that the cave with the pretty metal knife is the place to come if you want to talk to one of the Shamar. Don’t be restless, we all know you would rather we didn’t go and look at it. It has been like this always, Lainie. Come, let’s find your mother and test this fledgling’s wings, he said, giving his model glider a quick kiss.
Later that afternoon as I helped Annie collect up all the broken bits of the model, I asked her about the cave.
‘Are we supposed to keep him away from there? He knows about the sword. Won’t he get curious?’
She glanced up to where Dallmin was climbing down the tree from which he’d launched his ‘fledgling’. He’d paused for a moment, balanced on a wide branch, to take in the sight of a pair of eagles riding the currents near the cliff. His desire to join them showed in every line of his body.
‘I think he has his mind on other things,’ she said. ‘Flying is all he talks about.’
I waited for more. For her to tell me not to worry, or to explain what our duties were in regards to guarding the Boundary on this side, but she just continued to stare at the naked man balanced in the tree with his hair flicking around his face in the breeze.
‘I think he’s not the only one with his mind on other things,’ I said carefully.
A series of emotions crossed her face. She didn’t speak.
‘He told me he’d like to travel if you go with him,’ I pressed, studying her reaction.
‘He doesn’t need to wait for me. He can do as he pleases.’
Her voice was indifferent; however, I had a gift. Not only had I been taught to read body language as second nature now, but every time I touched her lately I was able to read memories of times that Dallmin had made her smile. They were interlaced with other flashes of memory that were fixated on a man with bright blue eyes and messy pale hair. A man I had only seen in photos. My dad looked much happier in her memories. My mother was conflicted, and still grieving, yet not lonely. If she wasn’t ready to talk about it, that was fine with me. I was hardly qualified to give my mother advice on relationships.
‘He looks like he’s about to jump off the branch, he’s so eager to fly,’ I observed instead.
‘He won’t. Only us young idiots do that for fun. I used to love free-fall when I could, you know, recover easily. Besides, his emotions are more determined than reckless right now.’ She tilted her head at me. ‘Why is your mouth hanging open? Does it surprise you that I used to jump from heights? Surely you’ve been tempted sometimes.’
‘It isn’t that. How do you know what Dallmin’s feeling?’
‘Same way you can remember things you weren’t there for. You have the same talent your grandmother did. I hope you aren’t ever as nosy about your daughter’s first kiss as she was.’
‘Damn straight I will be.’
That made her laugh.
‘So are you some sort of an empath, then? That’s kind of cool.’
‘No it isn’t,’ she said. ‘True empathy is exhausting. I’ve worked very hard to draw my gift back from empathy down to sympathy. I’ve learned to shield people’s emotions. Knowing how someone feels is enough to be able to help. Feeling the same things they do is going a giant step too far.’
‘Fine, but you’re still an Empath, with a capital E, because it sounds really cool. My mum’s an Empath.’
‘I’ll take “Sympath” over “Empath” any day,’ she argued, her eyes drifting back to the rippling muscles of the man climbing down the tree.
Did that mean she could feel what Dallmin felt for her? Did it make a difference? This was Eden. No one ever kept their feelings to themselves.
With a smile she turned back to me, and all traces of conflict were gone. ‘Lainie, do you think we could help Dallmin design something that could work? Once he’s flown he might get it out of his system and start talking about something else.’
‘Ha! The first time Noah went hang gliding he wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks. He got worse, not better.’
‘But can’t we design something that will at least stop those messy experiments he likes?’
So his crashes disturbed her too. Interesting.
‘Nalong College didn’t exactly cover Aeronautical Engineering, Annie,’ I tried to explain as I looked over the smashed remains of the model. ‘And even if it did, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to remember much, sorry.’
She looked disappointed, which reminded me that we were not really the same as the people here. Nothing ever disappointed them.
I tried to be more helpful. ‘Noah’s glider was made from modern materials. The frame was aluminium. I’m not sure how well willow and cloth will work. Perhaps we can test a wider range of materials before he tries it out again himself. Have you ever made a kite?’
Her eyes lit up and she bounced away to enlighten Dallmin on the art of kite flying. Her enthusiasm was contagious, or perhaps I was just feeling buzzed at the discovery that my mother was a Sympath.
Chapter 6
‘Plan B isn’t working too well,’ Hayden complained in a loud whisper to Tim.
Bane suppressed a smile at his friend’s poor attempt at subtlety.
‘Has it ever?’ Kate grumbled, forcing her bleary eyes to focus on her watch. ‘Anyone ready to share a taxi yet? Mr Botox isn’t going to crack tonight, guys. I give up.’
‘Mr what?’ Bane asked.
‘Botox. It takes all the expressions off your face,’ Kate replied with inebriated innocence. ‘Your face doesn’t look drunk. In fact, it never shows any emotion.’
Hayden squinted at him, studying his face. ‘Ish being drunk an emotion?’
‘Of course,’ Tim replied. ‘A gently swaying motion.’
It must have looked like some kind of a magic trick to them, Bane thought as he finished off another beer. Which it was. When he’d been caught giving the waitress a generous tip, Tim had accused him of having made some sort of arrangement with her, and from then on had insisted on collecting the drinks himself. Of course, that hadn’t made any difference. According to his friends’ slurred complaints, all they knew was that they were all struggling to see straight while he looked like he could thread needles while riding a unicycle. Bane had assumed they would have learnt by now.
‘If you want to know something, you could just ask. You don’t need to use me as an excuse to all get drunk,’ he said.
Tim sat up a litt
le straighter. With a slight lean. ‘You mean if we ask you a question, you’ll answer it?’
He shrugged. ‘Probably not.’
But Tim wasn’t sober enough to be deterred. ‘We just want to know what it is that has you bound so tightly to your past. You have your whole life ahead of you, mate. Whatever it is, it’s time to move on. Maybe if you talk—’
‘Bound?’ he interrupted, unable to hide the despair that rose up in his throat. ‘I’m not bound to anything, Tim. I’ve been cut free. There’s no more gravity, nothing at all for me to hold on to. I’m free to drift aimlessly among the bloody stars forever.’
Hayden turned to Kate and frowned. ‘I’m confused. Are we the stars?’
Tim waved his finger at him, concentrating hard as if he wanted to make some important point. ‘Mate. ADFA will only hold you for a few years, and then you’ll be free again. Free to leave Brisbane and fly all around the globe on missions, and—’
‘Do you have any idea how painful it is to live without gravity? How hard it is to get anything done? How impossible it is to get close to anybody? How devastating it is to be cut off from everything that matters in the world?’ The realisation that he was saying too much only made him feel angrier. He had never come close to hitting his school counsellor when she’d tried to get him to open up, but the pitying look in Tim’s eyes was making his fingers twitch. With a deep calming breath, he made himself unclench his fists under the table. ‘Kate, could you please call a taxi for us as well?’ he requested as politely as he could. ‘If Tim’s starting to tear up then that’s my cue to take him home.’
Bane paid and dismissed the driver, planning to walk home later. His apartment was a couple of suburbs away from Tim’s, but he needed some air.
‘For the Troops and With the Troops,’ Tim declared to the sky. ‘Isn’t that the Military Police motto? You should join them, Bane, and I don’t mean as a Reserve. You live like that naturally. Loyal to your squad, I mean. Protective.’
‘Yeah, well the troops aren’t generally throwing up to the point where they can’t make it to their own front door without help,’ Bane replied, dragging his best friend’s lanky frame up the steps.
Tim chuckled too loudly as he fished around in his pocket for his keys and made a valiant yet doomed effort to let them both in. ‘Yeah. It takes a real mate to be willing to take you home when you can’t stop spewing. Maybe I can return the favour someday.’
The keys clattered as they hit Tim’s shoe and it took a fair amount of skill for Bane to retrieve them without releasing his grip on Tim’s swaying shoulder. He unlocked the door, dropped the keys onto the coffee table and his friend onto the couch.
Tim’s face looked clammy as he picked up one of the cushions and clutched it like a teddy bear. ‘Why didn’t you drink tonight?’ he asked. ‘You got something on tomorrow or is it a Christian thing?’
‘I did drink. It takes a bit more to knock me over than a few beers. Besides, last time I got drunk I ended up like you. I didn’t like it,’ Bane explained as he put the kettle on. In fact he had thrown up once and his addled brain had gotten so excited he’d found himself on the phone trying to book a ticket home on the next plane. When he’d realised the truth, he’d become so depressed he had shut himself away for nearly two whole days. He couldn’t allow himself to live like that.
After making them each a coffee, Bane sat down to wait and see if his squad mate would recover enough to be able to put himself to bed. Apparently Tim’s natural sense of caution was still out of action, which wasn’t a great sign.
‘What’s with the girly bracelet anyway, Bane?’ Tim slurred when he caught him fiddling with it again. ‘Did some girl back home give it to you? We all want to know.’ He gestured grandly around the room as if the whole squad was there.
Bane sighed. He needed to talk to someone. He felt less reluctant than usual, which probably meant that Tim was drunk enough that he wouldn’t remember the conversation in the morning. He smiled at the way the compulsions against speaking seemed to adjust to each situation.
‘Yeah. Some girl. We went to school together,’ he admitted, closing his eyes and remembering the way her feet used to bounce around whenever she raised her hand in class.
‘Oh. High school sweethearts. I love those stories. Did you make out behind the library at lunchtimes?’
‘No. I set her locker on fire and slashed her bag with a knife. I can’t believe how much time I wasted fighting it,’ he replied. Tim looked confused, and with a start Bane realised he had just hit his fist against the coffee table. It had been so long since he’d spoken about her that he’d forgotten how quickly his emotions could take over. He laid his hands carefully in his lap before continuing. ‘We didn’t really talk to each other until after graduation. All those years at school together, but because of my stupidity I only really had a few short weeks with her.’
‘What happened?’
‘She …’
She died in agony, right in front of him.
‘She left me,’ he said instead, his voice catching.
Tim hugged his red velvet cushion close to his face, big brown eyes wide with inebriated sympathy.
‘I tried to stop her, Tim, but that girl …’ He snorted under his breath. ‘She could argue with the moon itself. What hope did I ever have?’
Making a sincere effort to sit up, Tim’s expression was dismayed, and queasy. Even in the state he was in he was still clearly trying to pick up on every nuance. Usually that was something Bane appreciated in his friend.
‘She didn’t, you know, die … did she?’
A massive silvery sword, spinning and emitting so much energy that fresh flames burst from it with every revolution. The memory had not dimmed in the slightest. Bane’s eyes were filled once again with an image of Lainie pushing herself into the sharp knife at her throat in a futile attempt to pull Sarah Ashbree away from the Event Horizon. Her blood sprayed out like a million precious jewels, each one a spark of agonising appeal. She sank to the floor of the cave with blood gushing from her neck, while Noah pinned him down to prevent him from being killed by the revolving sword that guarded the way to Eden. She had died right in front of him, while he lay so close …
It took him a little while to compose himself enough to answer. ‘She’s not dead. She’s still out there somewhere.’
‘Is that why you won’t commit to the army? Do you think she might come back?’
Squeezing his eyes closed, Bane tried to shut the memories out. Lainie was living in Paradise. What right did he have to wish for anything else if he really loved her? ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘She won’t be returning.’ Picking up his phone and keys, he poured his barely touched coffee down the sink. ‘I’ll have a look at the ADFA application tomorrow. Thanks for the talk, Tim. You’re a good friend.’
Tim looked more confused than ever. His mouth opened but he couldn’t seem to put any words together, which suited Bane just fine because there was no point talking anymore. There was nothing else to say.
As he stepped out into the humid night air, Bane looked up at the dusky red moon. It reminded him of old blood, and he remembered that there was supposed to be a lunar eclipse that night. Had it been and gone, or was it still to come? He decided that he didn’t really care enough to check, and kept walking—a man without purpose, powering through the back streets of suburban Brisbane.
Lainie wasn’t coming back, and there was nothing he could do to try to move on that he hadn’t tried already. And yet he had to keep pressing forward, because if he let himself stop he would be sucked straight back to that town, and there was no future for him there.
Full-time army. Would that be enough of a challenge to keep him from falling apart? Hopefully. Would it be enough for him to leave his past behind? Never. He simply couldn’t let her go.
Chapter 7
Although the kites were fun, they were n
ot quite what Dallmin was after. He and Annie had spent a couple of weeks designing new ones, and, looking up, he decided that they had just about got these ones right. Hers was in the shape of her favourite flower, and his looked like one of the large beasts that spent their time bathing in the lake. Not as pretty as Annie’s, but it flew well. He sent it higher, to bite the clouds.
Joy-giver needs a new game, Annie signed to him, looking impressed. It was a phrase that was used when teaching a new skill to someone. It meant that he had become proficient enough to make someone smile, and so it was time to find something new to learn—a new game to play. She was right. As much as he loved building and flying the kites, he wanted to fly himself. To see what the birds saw. Just like Lainie had. Now that would be a fun game.
Ever since he had watched the strange creature with four legs and two heads glide down from the cliff in lazy circles he had thought about little else. At first he’d assumed it was an unusual type of bird, large enough to fly to the valley from a long way away, then he noticed that it only floated down. It couldn’t get back up again unless the wind lifted it. He understood even more about thermals now. He had been studying the birds and asking Lainie. She didn’t tell him what had happened to the glider she’d used. All he knew was that she and her friends had packed it away and headed towards the base of the cliff, where Annie’s cave was. They had always managed to distract him whenever he’d asked about the cave. He wouldn’t ask if they didn’t want him to, but he was still curious. Was the glider still there? Could he borrow it? Maybe Lainie wouldn’t mind if he looked at it again. What sort of material had they used to make the sail? It was cloth of some sort, he was sure. It had been decorated in bright colours. When he’d noticed it soaring through the sky it had been one of the most beautiful and intriguing things he had ever seen.
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