Groaning, I turned to her. ‘Trust me. Once he sees what’s out there, he will want back in. Unfortunately, that will be exactly the point at which he won’t be allowed.’
Annie made it all the way to the sword, Bungee trailing behind her, before panic set in. She paused, staring wide-eyed at the spinning weapon, clinging to a glittering stalactite as if she was worried about getting sucked through a portal to another world. She was clearly terrified and I didn’t blame her. The last time she’d crossed over had not been pleasant. My translucent memories included fighting, bleeding, and some sort of a rock storm. I thought it might be more than that, though. She had already lost one partner in Nalong and was apparently not prepared to face losing another. Pity she hadn’t thought of that earlier. I hugged her, and stroked her hair the way Aunt Lily used to stroke mine after I woke from bad dreams. She was trembling.
‘Don’t come. It will not be good for you. I will bring Dallmin back.’
She burst into tears. ‘But I should go. It’s my fault!’
I had never heard her speak like that before. I took hold of her shoulders and gently pushed her back a couple of steps, back towards Eden. She complied. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to resist me even a little.
‘Annie? Please don’t eat the Living Fruit. We both know it will be very tempting for you again.’
She looked miserable, but nodded, hugging her elbows. ‘Lainie,’ she said, her shuffling feet betraying her indecision, ‘take care out there.’
Her words sounded like a concerned parent, even though her voice was that of a lost child. It must have been hard for her to reconcile her natural concern for me with the realisation that I was better equipped to deal with the outside world than she was.
Bungee sat down on the rippling flowstone next to her and licked his lips, his merle grey coat shimmering in the light from the sacred weapon.
‘I don’t suppose you want to come and help me round up Dallmin and bring him home?’ I asked the koolie.
He lay down, resting his jaw on Annie’s foot. Laziest, most sensible koolie on the planet. I could hardly blame him.
And so I took a really deep breath, and then plunged past the massive weapon like I was diving into icy water. As I felt the Skin of the World wrap securely around my deepest sense of integrity, I had a fleeting thought that I had no idea where Bane might be. And that was when I realised that I no longer cared that he was dead. I wanted to see him anyway.
Chapter 9
Tim tried his best to shield his friend from view, but the sound of someone being violently sick was impossible to disguise. It had been just a week since they had finished their latest stint of Army Reserve training and returned to their office jobs, and already Bane had bullied him into jogging with him each lunch time. The late April humidity was at least bearable, but it was still easy to become dehydrated very quickly, and about a third of the way around the New Farm Park loop Bane had slowed to an uncharacteristic stop before bee-lining for the nearest jacaranda tree. At least, Tim hoped that dehydration was the problem.
An elderly woman frowned at them, looking like she was about to whip a pen from her handbag and write someone a complaint letter. Apparently vomiting unexpectedly was bad etiquette. Tim gave her his most winning grandson grin. She just scowled. How come the elderly were exempt from good manners? He turned to check on Bane. Nope. Still not done. They’d shared a pizza the night before and the meat-lover’s supreme had tasted great, but now he was a bit worried that he was going to be next. Although, if it got him out of jogging …
Finally Bane leant back against the tree, shaking, and when Tim handed him his water bottle he noticed that his skin was on fire. Even more disturbing than that was his expression.
‘Okay. That’s a little creepy. Your face is as pale as an officer’s arse, but I’ve never seen you smile like that before. You almost look happy. Stop it.’
Instead of answering, Bane ducked back to the other side of the tree again.
Great. Tim thought. It must have been the salami. I’m in for a bad, bad night.
Half an hour later he had somehow managed to get Bane back to his flat. He’d tipped the taxi driver generously to make up for the less-than-healthy state of his friend, even though by then there wasn’t much left for Bane to make a mess with. It was still unpleasant though. The poor guy was as weak as a thirsty kitten but still looked hideously euphoric.
Bane fell onto the couch, clutching at his belly and chuckling.
‘All right. What’s the matter with you?’ Tim asked. ‘You’ve been laughing your guts out. Literally. It’s not normal.’
‘You’re right. This isn’t another false alarm. Hand me my phone please, Tim. I need to book a plane ticket.’
‘Now?’
Instead of explaining, Bane tried to make a lunge for his backpack. Tim grabbed it first.
‘And where exactly are you going? Some special hospital that caters for nauseated insane people?’
His friend tried to nod but passed out instead.
After Bane had almost destroyed his laptop for being too slow, Tim had suggested he call the airline instead. The woman on the phone had been very helpful but Bane had been just plain rude to her, so Tim had wrestled the phone from him and taken over the negotiations. And confiscated the laptop before Bane could be tempted to try using it again.
‘Everything’s fully booked today,’ Tim relayed. ‘The next available flight to Melbourne is tomorrow at eight am, and there’s a connecting coach that leaves a couple of hours after you land.’
‘No good. I need to be there much sooner than that,’ came the scraped reply. Sweat was pouring down Bane’s face and his throat must have been burning because he could barely speak. Tim frowned as he watched him sip some more water and then immediately clutch at his stomach again.
‘There’s plenty of room on this afternoon’s Adelaide flight but no coach service from there so you’d have to hire a car, and driving’s not really an option for you right now, is it?’ Tim argued.
‘Adelaide. Book it,’ Bane all but whispered. ‘How soon?’ He looked very intense, scowling, and his fists were clenched like he was ready to hit someone. He had been like that since he’d regained consciousness. One second he would be smiling and excited, the next he looked terrifying. It was a good thing Tim knew he wasn’t naturally violent or he would have hidden under the table at that look.
‘Two tickets on the next flight from Brisbane to Adelaide, please,’ he told the agent. ‘And we’ll need to sit together, sadly.’
Bane tried to protest and only managed a painful sounding rasp, so Tim threw a wet hand towel at him. ‘It takes a real mate to be willing to take you home when you can’t stop spewing, remember?’
His friend groaned in what he presumed was some form of gratitude, and pressed the cool towel against his forehead while Tim finalised the tickets.
They stumbled onto the plane in a fluster of flapping boarding passes and badly packed hand luggage. Tim complimented the cranky-looking flight attendant on his moustache, and then dropped everything and lunged to catch Bane as he swayed dangerously close to a woman in the front aisle seat. Bane had passed out twice more since booking the flight, and Tim didn’t trust him not to do it again in her lap. He all but carried Bane to his seat, and then had to go back for his backpack and the plastic shopping bag that contained his spare shoes.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Tim asked once he finally had everything stashed away in the overhead locker. He kept his voice down in an effort not to frighten the other passengers. ‘I still think I should be taking you to a hospital. This seems worse than normal gastro, and it hasn’t let up at all.’
‘I’m sure. This is it, Tim. It’s what I’ve been waiting for. I’m not going to let a bit of nausea stop me. I’m going home. Now shut up and let me concentrate on breathing.’ Bane’s grin looked very out of place as h
e curled up against the window.
Tim knew better than to argue with him, despite his ecstatic demeanour, so instead he turned his attention to collecting the sick bags from as many nearby unoccupied seats as he could reach, ignoring the worried sour looks from everyone who noticed. He tossed one back to Bane when it was clear that ‘concentrating on breathing’ wasn’t working.
‘Hey, look, some other dude brought a guitar on board,’ Tim said once the unhappy flight attendant had left with the used bag. ‘We could have brought yours after all.’
‘Didn’t have time for that argument with the check-in staff,’ Bane mumbled. ‘I had to check in without them noticing I was sick or they might not have let me board.’
‘Since when have you played guitar, anyway? I would never have picked you as the creative type. Why haven’t I heard you play?’
‘You wouldn’t want to hear the songs I’ve been writing. Maybe I’ll start writing better ones now that she’s back.’
Tim gaped at the grown man wilting in the window seat with his knees pulled up to his chest. ‘She? Are you telling me this all has something to do with a girl?’ He plonked himself down next to his sick friend. ‘I barely even got to pack. I think I forgot socks. I can’t believe you had a bag ready to go. Was it your zombie apocalypse emergency pack? I knew I should have kept mine.’ The plane began to roll. They really had cut it fine. ‘So did you find out she was back before or after you came down with this illness? You didn’t mention anything before our run.’
Bane nearly answered, but then swallowed hard, and squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Talk about bad timing,’ Tim mumbled, opening another one of the sick bags in preparation.
‘It could have been a lot worse,’ Bane said, grinning again.
‘Shut up. And stop smiling. Everyone thinks you’re high.’
Chapter 10
Wow. Noah was taking it worse than expected. His hand was still on the handle of the fridge and he wasn’t moving. Wasn’t answering her.
‘Noah? Just a few days,’ Tessa repeated.
No response. Maybe he hadn’t heard. ‘I said my mother wants to stay here for a few days when the baby arrives. She’d like to help.’
Still no reaction. He was staring blankly into space. Her mother wasn’t that bad, was she? Tessa waddled over and placed her hand on his arm and he jumped at her touch.
She peered into his eyes. ‘What’s the matter? What can you sense? Is it the same as last week?’
He had been edgy for a while the previous Tuesday, certain that there was someone close by, but he’d said it didn’t feel like any kind of threat. Just to be certain, he had spent the afternoon riding the trails in the state park on his dirt bike, and had found nothing. They’d decided it might have just been a plane flying overhead or maybe a satellite taking pictures of the area, both of which happened occasionally. It hadn’t bothered him for long. This looked more serious.
He turned to look at her, emerald eyes sparkling, and with that smile. The one that always made her breath hitch. ‘Do you have a spare dress I can borrow?’ he asked.
Chapter 11
I could feel Noah approaching, but he was still quite far away. Although I couldn’t wait to see him again, my head was spinning and I felt too disorientated to hurry. The tiny creek that ran from the cave to the river was full of spiky reeds and tumbled rocks and it took a long time to reach the muddied embankment that cut down to the river I knew so well. One look at the dark swirling water—and the canoe that was on the wrong side of it—almost convinced me to turn back. Luckily, Eden had done nothing to take away my stubborn streak, so I wobbled my way across the mosaic of river rocks and plunged into the icy water. The river was very angry. Not even any fish came to say hello. By the time I scrambled out on the other side I felt so cold I thought my bones might crack, and everything hurt. My left knee was bleeding so I wiped it with some leaves. It didn’t help. Of course not. What was I thinking? For some reason I felt a bit guilty when I saw my blood smeared everywhere, but I couldn’t remember why. Getting hurt was normal here, wasn’t it? Not like Eden where I had to hide any injuries I received.
A kookaburra stared down at me as I scrambled up the embankment. Where was Noah? That way. I just had to get to him and then all would be well. I navigated by the comforting feel of him, like following the scent from a bakery in a giant shopping complex, because the path I was following didn’t look right. The scrub was a lot thicker than I remembered and the river was too full to be able to follow it below the embankment like we used to.
A little while later the scrub got even more tangled, with fallen branches carpeting the ground and sticking into my bare feet, and then my thigh caught on something and I could feel the skin pulling. The evil blackberry vine tried to stop me from getting to my friend and it only let go when I jerked myself free, but then my thigh was bleeding too. It hurt so much. I’d forgotten how nasty pain could be. Why were there blackberries out here anyway? This area of bushland was supposed to be pristine and unsullied. And yet human invaders had infected this land, greedy for their sweet comforts, and birds had dispersed the seeds and nothing we did now could ever really stop the spread of the taint.
Miserable, and yet determined not to stop, I fumbled my way through a stand of native blackthorn bushes and soon found that the only way through was to crawl along beneath their branches in the mud. Was it winter? Everything was wet. And so cold.
I needed to get to Noah. He would know what to do. Maybe he had already found Dallmin and we could go back straight away so I wouldn’t have to think too much about Bane being dead. That was when I started to cry. Two wants. I wanted to hide from the truth. He was lost to me. I had let him go so he could be happy. That should have made me happy, but I also wanted to see him again because I was selfish. Wasn’t I supposed to be untainted? Nayn had told me I would understand when I worked out what I desired most. I hoped so because I really didn’t like feeling this confused. Or this hungry. I looked around for some food—of course there was nothing. Not even blackberries. So I breathed in some deep, smelly breaths, unhooked my hair from yet another branch, and kept crawling.
When the blackthorn bushes finally let me go I dragged myself back up to my sore feet and tried to straighten my clothes, but they were so badly torn they still looked wiggly. The delicate cloth was too fine for this place, and too thin. It did nothing to keep me warm, especially as it was soaked from crossing the river. I kept it on anyway. I remembered enough to know that Noah wouldn’t approve if I took it off. With great discipline I began to walk more resolutely. I just had to get my brain into gear properly. That shouldn’t be too difficult. I had lived in Nalong for much longer than Eden. I would manage perfectly well.
It started to rain.
Before long I gave up trying to get anywhere. The rain was pelting the ground into slippery muck and the birds had gone into hiding, so I decided to follow their wisdom. I hunkered down next to a rock to watch some bull ants try to evade the raindrops. Poor things, I knew how they felt. I tried to help them. It didn’t go well.
That was when Noah found me, howling like a baby and sucking on my bitten finger. He put his arms around me and rested my head against his heaving chest. Had he run the entire way out here to meet me? He was so warm and familiar. Somehow, he managed to drag me over to a thicker clump of trees so we could get out of the rain, but the trees weren’t being very helpful. The rain came straight through their branches. They weren’t even trying. Mean trees. Mean river. Mean ants. I wanted to go home.
Noah sat me down on a fallen log and pulled some things out of his pack. He wrapped a plastic coat around me, putting my arms into the sleeves like I was an infant. Then he pulled out a thermos, unscrewed the lid and held it to my lips. I breathed in and felt my tears dry up in seconds. Hot chocolate. It burned my tongue but I didn’t care because it was hot chocolate. I drank it down, feeling the warmth spre
ad through my chest and my shivering begin to settle, while Noah pulled out his phone.
‘I’m sending Bane a text. He’s probably in no condition to talk right now. I’ll just let him know you’re okay.’
Over the rim of the thermos I peered at him. ‘You can get reception here?’
He looked smug. ‘New tech, Lainie, called a sat-sleeve. You have a lot to catch up on.’
True enough, although phone technology wasn’t particularly high on my list.
His dimples shone through the miserable weather. ‘I always knew you’d come back. What took you so long?’
I made a face at him.
‘I’ve missed you, Lainie. More than you know.’
He hugged me again, with an embrace so strong I thought I might have to lodge a written application just to take another breath. By the time he let me go my shivering had almost stopped.
‘I brought some of Tessa’s clothes for you,’ he said at last, sounding suspiciously emotional. ‘At least they’re dry. Do you think you can manage?’ He pulled out a few items, including underwear. As if I would wear someone else’s undies! I giggled. He had no sense of propriety.
‘I’ll be fine. I don’t need those.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Well, I’m not going to force you into them, that’s for sure. Can you walk?’
‘Are we going home? I need to see Bane. And Aunt Lily. And everyone. I’ve missed them.’
‘Yeah. We’ll go home now. Tessa is waiting and your aunt is on her way back from an appointment in town.’ He glanced back at his phone. ‘Apparently Bane’s on his way too but he’ll take quite a bit longer. Let’s try to get you cleaned up a bit before he gets here, okay?’
I looked down at my arms and legs covered in freezing mud and smeared blood. ‘Yes. Clean me. I don’t want to get him muddy.’
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