Sanguine

by Carolyn Denman

  ‘It’s worth a lot. You might be amazed at how good it can feel to have the opportunity to apologise to someone you’ve wronged. It’s good for everybody. Even if she doesn’t forgive you, it still allows you to start moving on. That’s pretty important.’

  He had a point.

  ‘Can I ask you something else?’ he enquired tentatively.

  I shrugged.

  ‘Why do you keep saying you killed her? It was the sword that did the killing. I seem to remember you trying to pull her away from it, actually.’

  The temptation to replay the scene over in my mind rose yet again, but I swatted it away. I remembered it now so there was no point in torturing myself with it.

  ‘It didn’t matter that I wasn’t holding the sword. I knew what would happen the moment our skin broke contact. I deliberately made that happen, and I could feel the sword’s commitment to justice. It was unyielding and … merciless.’ My stomach roiled at the memory. ‘I’m not trying to sound over-dramatic when I say I killed her. It’s almost as if the Cherubim inability to kill is balanced by the sword’s … pitiless … judgement. By releasing her to it, I condemned her to die. I guess it’s like when a commanding officer kills a soldier he orders onto a mission that has no hope of survival.’

  Understanding and compassion shone from his eyes. ‘I see. Thank you for explaining.’ He held my hand in both of his, and kissed my knuckles. ‘Just so you know, I think it takes a brave leader to take responsibility for sending someone on that sort of a mission, even if it’s unavoidable in order to save thousands of lives. I would follow that leader anywhere.’ He smiled his beautiful quirky smile. ‘I’d follow her right into the fire, or even under a bed. On one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That she learns to trust her instincts.’

  Tucked into the frame at the top corner of the bed was a pencil. I used it to write some new words on the slat above my nose. ‘Bed. You’re fired. Bane gives better advice.’

  Chapter 47

  Nicole brought Dallmin back splattered head to foot with mud. It was a relief to see him smiling again. Like me, he’d been on an emotional roller coaster from the moment he’d set foot on this side of the Boundary. I wanted to send him home, but he wouldn’t even talk about it now. He told me to wait until after the baby was born. I couldn’t work out if that was because a birth was such a rare and precious event for him that he refused to miss it, or because he thought something might go wrong with it. It was a real and frightening possibility that shadowed us all like a dark roiling hail cloud that no one was willing to talk about.

  ‘You’re not coming in like that, Dallmin. You either, Nic. You’ll get mud over everything,’ Aunt Lily complained, blocking the doorway to the kitchen. Dallmin didn’t hesitate to start stripping off while Nicole watched on, delighted. My aunt caught Dallmin’s wrist just as he was going for his fly. ‘Okay, stop, I take it back. Come in. Just try not to touch anything.’ She stood aside, trying not to look annoyed.

  Tim was sitting next to me at the kitchen table, pretending to read a farming magazine. ‘Hi, guys, did you have a nice ride? I like your four wheeler, Nic, it reminds me of the ones we use in army training, don’t you think, Bane?’ His voice was a little too nonchalant.

  ‘It’s exactly like the ones we use, Tim. Same model and all,’ Bane replied with a hint of his adorable sideways smile.

  ‘Is that all you get to do? Ride ATVs? Or do they let you drive tanks and stuff as well?’ Nicole’s olive eyes lit up as she reached for the fruit bowl for a snack.

  ‘Oh yeah, we drive tanks. Big ones. With guns.’ Tim leant back in his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

  ‘Guns? Like the one that Jake had?’ Dallmin asked.

  Tim sat up straight again, looking sheepish. ‘Ah, sort of, I guess. But we’re not maniacal drug addicts, thankfully. We only use guns for good purposes.’

  Dallmin’s soft brown eyes were filled with confusion.

  Not a discussion for now, I signed to him. Great. Now I was going to have to explain gun ethics to an elf.

  Tim rallied quickly. ‘Listen, Nic, I’m only here until Saturday. Is there any chance you could show me around town? I’ll shout you a meal somewhere if you tell me the best place to eat. None of this lot seem very keen on going to town unless they’ve run out of either fencing wire or Nutella. I was hoping to see something of Nalong other than grain silos before I have to leave. Interested?’ He flashed her a smile laden with promised fun.

  Her eyes flicked to Dallmin, but he was still frowning into space. ‘Um, maybe. I should really get home and get cleaned up a bit. I’ll be back in the morning to pick you up, Dallmin. I’ll show you the two stock horse foals I bred this season, like you asked.’

  ‘Thank you. I would like that,’ Dallmin replied absently, but I could see the melancholy beginning to take him over again as he pondered the existence of machines designed to kill. Tim threw him a dirty look, which he didn’t notice at all.

  Bane sighed and squeezed my hand before getting to his feet. ‘Come on, Dallmin, you can give me a hand with the feed run since you’re already muddy. I’ll explain some of what we do in the army. It might clear some things up a bit for you,’ he said, shrugging into his coat. A burst of affection shot through me for the way Bane so generously tried to help my confused friend. He would be much better at explaining it than I would, no doubt about that.

  Tim watched them all leave, looking dejected. ‘I guess the dark and mysteriously exotic type is more Nicole’s style, huh?’ He threw the magazine across the table in disgust. It had an interesting picture of a new grain harvester on the cover but I resisted the temptation to pick it up.

  ‘Sadly, I couldn’t tell you what her style is. Although if it’s any consolation, I don’t think blonde teenage girls are exactly Dallmin’s type.’

  His head jerked up. ‘Really? I mean, right. Of course.’

  I frowned at his thoughtful expression.

  ‘Well. That changes things,’ he continued, looking very pleased all of a sudden. ‘And explains a lot. Like the singing and dancing. And the accent, I think.’

  I rolled my eyes. When was he going to learn not to jump to conclusions about people? Hadn’t he learnt his lesson after assuming Dallmin was deaf just because he used sign language? Okay, so that one was my fault, mostly. I relented and set him straight. Dallmin too, literally.

  ‘He’s not gay,’ I said. ‘It’s just that there’s someone else. Someone … a bit older.’ Not that age mattered much to someone who was hundreds of years old himself. It mattered to me more. The idea of Nicole flirting with my mother’s partner was way too creepy and I needed Tim’s help to put a stop to it. ‘You’ve only got a few more days, Tim. Will it be enough to steal Nicole’s attention away from someone who isn’t actually competition?’ I challenged.

  His smiling eyes danced. ‘Watch and learn, Lainie, my friend. Watch and learn.’

  Dr Vertan rang back that evening to speak to Tessa and Noah. She explained in a kind but firm tone that she wanted them to drive down to Melbourne the following week to prepare for the birth, just in case specialist neo-natal care was required. She had assured them repeatedly that if the trauma Tessa experienced was going to harm the baby in any way, then it would have happened within the first few days or not at all. And yet she was sending them to Melbourne. All she said was that the baby’s heart rate hadn’t remained as steady as she’d hoped.

  After the first few days following the incident, once Tessa had recovered from the initial effects of mild hypothermia, stress and shock, as well as from the deep cut on her forearm, the medical staff had only run the usual checks to monitor her health. The checks on the baby had been far more extensive.

  They packed their bags so they’d be ready to leave first thing Monday morning, or earlier if required.

  There was no singi
ng that night.

  The following day was Thursday and no one seemed to be able to get on with anything useful. Noah tried to study but kept getting up and wandering into my old room as if to check that Dallmin staying in there hadn’t disrupted any of the baby’s décor. Aunt Lily hung out half a load of washing, which I took over when I found her yelling at a fitted sheet. Dallmin kept annoying everyone by turning on all the kitchen appliances just to see how they worked, and then I found him holding Inara and looking her into her eyes, assessing whether the elderly cat wanted assistance to die. It took me a while to convince Dallmin that Aunt Lily wouldn’t appreciate eating one of her best friends in a stew, even if it did get her out of the cooking.

  In the end I told Noah to go out for a walk with Tessa, and sat Dallmin down with a cuppa and a Milo sandwich, and then explained to him what Nicole’s motives were in inviting him out so often. He was saddened when I told him she would be hurt if he let her continue to think she had a chance with him. Things were never so complicated in his world. Rejection there didn’t impact on self-esteem, not ever. When Nicole turned up on her ATV around mid-morning, Dallmin followed my suggestion and explained that he had other things he needed to do and then left the house looking confused and miserable again.

  ‘Nicole, could I please talk to you for a minute?’ I asked as she scowled at the door closing behind him.

  ‘What do you want?’ she snapped.

  Bane got the hint straight away and tugged on Tim’s sleeve to get him to follow him out, so Nicole and I could talk in private. Tim did what he was silently commanded.

  ‘I need to apologise to you,’ I began, for some reason feeling confused about where to put my hands. Had I been unintentionally using sign language every time I spoke? There were no signs for what I needed to say.

  Nicole refused to look at me and instead flipped through one of Noah’s textbooks lying on the table. ‘What for?’

  ‘Leaving.’

  She paused, but didn’t look up. ‘Where were you, Lainie?’

  ‘Backpacking,’ I lied, although I had taken a woven basket strapped to my back for some of my trips.

  She sat down at the table, intent on the book and its pictures of different wheat diseases, trying so hard to pretend that she didn’t care that her shoulders were practically shouting at me.

  ‘I covered for you, you know, at Mum’s funeral. Everyone was asking why you weren’t there and I told them you were really sick. Noah wouldn’t tell me anything so I had to make stuff up. I still don’t even know if it was true. Did you have some sort of nervous breakdown, like you just came out of?’

  I stuck my hands into my back pockets. It made it easier to lie. ‘I guess so, sort of. A bit different though. It just got too much, you know?’

  She slammed the book closed. ‘You buggered off on us.’ Finally, she looked my way.

  ‘Yeah.’

  A long minute passed in which she spoke no words, but had plenty to say to me. If sign language had swear words, her facial expression alone would have needed censoring. When it was clear she wasn’t going to articulate her feelings like she clearly needed to, I tried to do it for her.

  ‘I ditched you when I should have been there to comfort you,’ I said. ‘I was selfish. I was too scared to face up to everything that had happened and then, later on, I was too chicken to come back because I had let everyone down.’

  ‘Noah cried.’ She spat out each word, savage, and hot. ‘He never cries. And I know it wasn’t just because of Mum. Every time anyone asked about you, he would get this look … and you just dumped him. You hooked up with a guy you hated because you were jealous of Tessa and you just dumped him, and then ran away. How could you do that? You were supposed to—’ Her mouth clamped shut, and she glared out the window, but with the tears welling in her eyes, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything.

  Suddenly my knees felt wobbly, and I flopped down onto a chair. No wonder she was so mad. ‘You thought Noah and I would end up together,’ I acknowledged. ‘Nic, we were just mates. We never—’

  ‘Mates don’t ditch you. Not ever. I’m glad he found Tessa. I used to think you’d be my sister one day. Now I know you aren’t even worth having as a friend. Too bad if you end up back in hospital doing your mental breakdown thing again, I don’t care. Someone has to tell you what you did to everyone. They’re all too soft on you. You hurt everyone. Noah, Bane, your aunt. Everyone was hurt by what you did.’

  Her words stabbed and burned, but they were necessary, because sometimes you had to face the pain in order to move through it. Unfortunately it didn’t seem like that was going to get any easier with practise. Feeling less than brave, I reached for her hand but she flinched away. It didn’t matter because I saw enough with even that fleeting touch. She’d missed me, and been afraid for me, and hated me.

  ‘I hurt you, Nic. I’m so sorry. I was a terrible friend. Tessa is a much better sister for you than I would be. You can rely on her.’

  Her lips pressed together and she stared at the bowl of fruit in the middle of the table as if it was to blame. Looking anywhere except at me.

  ‘Don’t rely on me, Nicole,’ I continued. ‘I’m not as tough as I need to be. I’m going to get better, but you shouldn’t trust me.’

  She whipped her head up. ‘You’re leaving again?’ The fury in her eyes made me flinch.

  ‘No! I mean, I’m not planning to. I just … it’s complicated.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. How dare you even consider leaving? You have no idea what you put them through last time. What was the point of apologising if you’re just going to do the same thing again?’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Then why can’t I rely on you?’

  ‘Because I’m bat-crazy, remember? Who knows when I’ll fall apart next? I don’t exactly plan for these things to happen, you know.’

  Nicole stood up so fast that her chair fell over. ‘I’m not asking you to have your shit together the whole time, Lainie. All you need to do is be here. No one’s asking any more from you than that.’

  A sound came from the other room, behind the door, and I could hear Tim telling Bane to sit down. He sounded almost as grumpy as Nicole.

  I buried my face in my hands, leaning on the table. Nicole was right. I had a role to play here, and not just as a Sentinel of Eden, and yet how could I promise not to return to the Garden? She had no idea what she was asking of me.

  When I couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, she picked up the chair and thumped it back in place, and then opened the door to the lounge where Tim and Bane were pretending to watch telly.

  ‘Hey, Tim. I need to head back home. Did you want to tag along and give me a hand with making up feed for the mares? If the weather stays good, I might even take you for a ride up to check on the top dam.’

  ‘Ride? You mean ATV or horses?’ he asked.

  ‘Dirt bikes.’

  ‘I’m in.’

  As they walked back through the kitchen, Nicole shot me the briefest glance, full of derision.

  Chapter 48

  After lunch, Tessa started to have stronger Braxton-Hicks contractions than she had ever felt before, which sent everyone into a bit of a spin. Dr Vertan came to check her out, but by then they’d settled down so she told us all not to worry. We did anyway. Especially Bane, who spent most of the afternoon pacing around the farm. He kept looking at me funny and couldn’t explain why. I told him he was probably just having Braxton-Hicks contractions too. He didn’t laugh.

  Later that day, when Aunt Lily found Inara curled up on the pile of clothes Dallmin had just ironed for her, she totally lost the plot. There were a lot of people crammed into the house and she had offered Bane and I her cottage, so she was squishing in with everyone else. It was clearly starting to wear thin.

  All of those things paled into insignificance, however, when Sergea
nt Loxwood arrived in his police Landcruiser.

  We offered him a coffee, which he refused. He stood in the kitchen holding his hat, waiting until everyone came in. Only Tim was missing as he was still at the Ashbrees’.

  ‘Jake Evans has been released from hospital in Melbourne, and this morning he attended his first preliminary hearing,’ he stated, looking grim.

  We knew he had been transferred by air ambulance from Nalong to Melbourne once the surgeons had realised the extent of damage Bane’s knife had done to his shoulder. The fact that he was suffering withdrawal from various narcotics hadn’t simplified his situation either.

  ‘He was released on bail an hour ago.’

  Noah’s coffee mug slipped from his grasp, and Tessa grabbed it before it could splash boiling coffee on him, but then she hurled it at the wall so hard that it gouged a chunk out of the plasterboard. Dallmin looked to me, confused.

  He means that Jake is not held by the blue sentinels any longer. He is free to return here if he chooses, I explained silently amidst the shouting.

  Dallmin closed his eyes for a moment, and then got up and walked out. I wished I could do the same.

  ‘Mick, how is that possible?’ Tessa cried, standing in front of Noah in protective reflex. ‘How could anyone possibly justify setting that idiot loose to come after us again? If I see him again, I swear I will kill him.’

  Bane stood behind my chair and locked his hands onto my shoulders, as if he was about to throw me over his shoulder and run for the hills. I wasn’t entirely certain that wasn’t his plan.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tessa, I honestly have no idea,’ the sergeant said. ‘I know our justice system isn’t perfect, but this just defies all logic. It was a clear-cut situation, I can’t tell you what went wrong.’ He sat down in the chair Dallmin had just vacated and frowned at the hat in his hands.