Ghost Species

by James Bradley

  ‘Is your mum here?’ she asks, and Sami shakes his head, his face darkening. ‘Nah. I’m with Dad now. I thought you knew.’

  Eve nods, but before she can ask him anything more she notices a figure behind him. Like Sami he is dressed in dark clothes, yet where Sami is soft-faced he is all angles, narrow black jeans protruding from a battered army jacket.

  ‘This is Lukas,’ Sami says.

  If Lukas is surprised by her appearance he gives no sign of it. Instead he stares at her with a directness she finds uncomfortable. Eve looks down, embarrassed. ‘Hi,’ he says.

  ‘Are you still living where you were?’ Sami asks.

  Eve nods. She feels thick-limbed, awkward, painfully aware of her stumbling speech. ‘Yes, same place,’ she says, gesturing behind her. Sami follows her gaze, his stare distant, unfocused.

  ‘Up on the mountain road?’

  ‘Just past there.’

  Sami nods. ‘There’s a party up that way tonight. You should come.’

  Eve looks uncomfortable. ‘Where? In the forest?’

  ‘Up one of the old logging trails. I can send you the details.’

  Eve can feel Lukas staring at her. Her mother’s warnings about outsiders replay in her mind. ‘I don’t know,’ she says.

  ‘Come on,’ says Sami. ‘Meet us.’

  Eve takes a step back. There is something childlike in Sami’s face, a lack of focus. It makes her anxious, but still, it is exciting.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she says.

  She rides back along the highway, ignoring the cars and trucks as they roar by. She cannot stop thinking about Sami’s invitation. She has come across the traces of parties in the forest before – discarded bottles and empty cups and still-smouldering fires, the stink of spilled beer and piss and marijuana – and she once watched one from the trees, marvelling at the fire dancers and the thump of the music, but she has never stepped into their circle, never joined them. Yet seeing Sami again has made her wonder whether there is something she is missing out on, whether her isolation is really loneliness.

  Kate is out when she arrives home. She locks her bike in its place under the overhanging eave, steps into the house. Once, when she was younger, Kate made a point of never leaving her alone, meaning the house was never empty: even when Kate was working and it was quiet Eve knew she was there, her silent presence filling the house. But recently Eve has come to enjoy her mother’s absence, the sense she is unscrutinised.

  In her room she pulls off her jacket and lies on the bed. Closing her eyes, she reaches inward, calls up Sami’s smell, the warm friendliness of him. It was good seeing him again even if he seemed different. Is that because he is living with his father? She once asked why Yassamin did not like Sami’s father and Kate had been deliberately vague in the way she is when she does not want to talk about something.

  Opening her eyes, she rolls onto her side and stares out the window. The cloud is low, grey.

  Her phone pings. Are you coming?

  She stares at it for a few seconds. Then types. Yes. Tell me where.

  Getting away is not easy. First, Kate lingers in the living room, staring at her screen and making notes. Then, even after she says goodnight and closes the door to her bedroom, Eve can hear her moving around in her room. After she finally goes quiet Eve waits another fifteen minutes, watching the seconds tick by on the clock Jay gave her when she was eight, before slipping out the door, down the hall, and into the night.

  Out on the road the night is immense, the only sound the whirr of her tyres on the asphalt, the soft shifting of the trees and the occasional screech of a possum. She is nervous, but also excited. For a moment she tries to imagine what Kate would do if she caught her – the idea of her mother’s anger and concern pleases her, then almost immediately upsets her, and she leans forward to pedal harder, as if by so doing she can outride the feeling.

  Near the turnoff to the trail, she dismounts. In the distance she can feel the low throb of music, the occasional murmur of voices, but otherwise it is silent. Rolling her bike along the verge she looks around, her heart beating fast. Have they already left? Has she missed them? And then, up ahead, a figure detaches itself from the liquid dark of the trees and steps forward, his face pale in the moonlight.

  In the darkness behind Sami is the red glow of a cigarette, the shadowed outline of Lukas’s face.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to turn up,’ Sami says.

  ‘My mum wouldn’t go to bed,’ Eve says.

  ‘Doesn’t she know you’re here?’

  Eve shakes her head.

  ‘That’s okay?’ Sami asks, and Eve nods, although she is trembling.

  ‘Cool,’ Sami says.

  Eve stows her bike out of sight among the trees and they turn up the trail. Sami walks beside her, talking rapidly, but Eve is nervous and distracted by the acrid reek of Lukas’s cigarette. She feels edgy, agitated. Halfway there they hear a whoop from behind, and three figures race past hooting and shouting. As the last one passes he slows and turns to them, his pale face and wispy beard glowing, and lifts a hand, shouting, ‘Wild, brother!’ Sami slaps his hand in response, then steps aside as the man extends his hand to Eve. She is momentarily confused but then realises what is expected of her and strikes his palm in return. A wide grin creases the young man’s face, and to her surprise Eve finds herself smiling as well. He hollers again, and leaping in the air twists away, already bounding up the path ahead of them. Sami turns to her, grinning, excitement arcing between them like electricity.

  Lukas looks back down the path towards them. ‘Come on,’ he says.

  The music grows louder as they approach, sound booming through the forest, but it is not until they step out into the clearing that the full extent of the crowd becomes apparent. There are maybe a hundred people, some dancing, some standing around a giant bonfire, others watching a group of fire dancers twirl flame above their heads. Eve hesitates, ready to bolt from the booming music, the smell of so many bodies, but before she can Sami grabs her hand and pulls her into the press of bodies.

  It is dizzying, terrifying, too much all at once, and as she stumbles on, people turn to her, grinning and talking, their faces looming out of the dark. She keeps her eyes down, but still, more than once she glimpses their startled expressions as they catch her eye then freeze and stare or look away, pretending they have not noticed her at all. At one point a bearded man with blue eyes beneath close-cropped hair fixes his gaze on her, detaching himself from the people he is talking with to stare after her, and for a few seconds Eve tenses, afraid he is going to chase after her, grab her. By the time they reach the fire she is shaking.

  Next to her, Sami is snaking his head back and forth in time to the music, his eyes darting this way and that as if he were looking for someone. He glances at her and grins.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asks, his face bright in the firelight.

  Eve forces herself to smile and nod.

  Sami grins. ‘I told you it’d be great.’

  Lukas appears beside Sami, three beers in his hands. Sami and he exchange a look, then Sami reaches into his pocket and pulls out a plastic bag full of pills. Angling his body away from Eve, he shakes one out and slips it into Lukas’s hand. Lukas lifts it to his mouth and swallows it in one quick, clean motion and washes it down with beer.

  ‘What’s that?’ Eve asks, leaning towards Sami.

  He glances at her, and for a brief moment she sees somebody else behind his eyes.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Just pills.’ Then he smiles, and the old Sami is back.

  Eve stares at him. ‘I want one.’

  Sami laughs, surprised. ‘Nah, Eve. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He straightens, and glances at Lukas, who stares at the two of them as if they were of scientific interest only.

  ‘I don’t know. What about your mum . . .’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Sami regards her for a second longer. Then he shake
s out two more pills and hands one to Eve. She sweeps it up and swallows it in one quick motion, wincing at the bitter chemical aftertaste. Lukas hands her a beer and she gulps it down, then coughs, disgusted by the sharp yeasty rush of it.

  Sami is staring at her.

  ‘What now?’ she asks.

  He grins. ‘Dunno. Let’s see who’s here.’

  At first the pill doesn’t seem to do anything. She follows Sami and Lukas through the crowd, nodding hello to the various people who greet them as they pass and pausing here and there to look around. For a while they watch the fire dancers, their bodies sweaty in the frigid air as they leap and twirl. The flames on their sticks shift and fly, leaving patterns of sparks in the sky, shifting and parting as they rise. At some point Eve realises the lights seem brighter, the sound louder. Turning, she stares through the crowd, sees people smiling at her, realises she is smiling back. Beside her, Sami catches her eye and grins, and a wave of feeling washes through her, filling her chest and hands. She closes her eyes, losing herself in it for what might be a minute or only a few seconds, and when she opens them again Sami is holding her hand.

  ‘We should dance,’ he says. She nods, following him across the broken ground to where dancers are moving in front of the speakers, hands above their heads as they shift and sway. Lifting her arms, she feels the same wash of feeling all over again, the music moving through her, filling her, so her body seems all sensation. For a time she loses Lukas, and then Sami, but then they are there again, and she embraces them, delighted.

  After a time they find themselves on the edge of the dancers, and as if by mutual consent they move away and sit in a space beneath the trees. Another girl has joined Lukas; she has dark hair in dreadlocks, and she smiles at Eve. Sami produces a bottle of water and takes a swig, then hands it to Eve, and she drinks, surprised to discover she is thirsty. Whatever it is the drug is doing to her is changing, she realises, the intensity dissipating, replaced by a desire to talk. Next to her Sami is staring around, his head bobbing in time to the music. Eve places a hand on his arm and he turns to her, his face filled with a look of uncomplicated happiness that makes her realise how guarded he has always seemed.

  ‘Thank you for bringing me,’ she says, and he grins.

  ‘You’re having fun?’

  ‘So much,’ she says.

  Later they dance again, and she takes another pill, then the three of them and the girl – whose name seems to be Marina – decide to head up into the forest.

  ‘There’s a house up there we can stay in,’ Lukas says. Eve and Sami and Marina laugh and talk as they follow him and the light of his torch up a path, and then there it is, a timber structure standing in a small clearing. Lukas produces a key and leans into the door, pushing it open, and they all stumble in. Lukas’s torch dances about the space, revealing bunks, a wooden floor, a camp stove, then there is a soft whoosh and a match flares into light, followed by a lamp.

  ‘They should have LEDs,’ Sami laughs, and Lukas nods.

  ‘This stuff has been here for years,’ he says.

  ‘How do you know about this place?’ Eve asks, and for what seems the first time all night Lukas looks at her.

  ‘Lukas spends most of every weekend up here in the forest,’ Sami says.

  Lukas keeps his eyes fixed on Eve as Sami speaks. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny she looks away.

  ‘I found it a few months ago. There are others further up,’ he says.

  Across the room Marina has taken her coat off and is lying back on one of the bunks.

  ‘Have you got more pills?’ she asks.

  Sami laughs and pulls the bag from his pocket. ‘Loads,’ he says. ‘Do you want one?’ But Marina waves it away.

  ‘Maybe later.’

  They settle in, talking and dancing to songs on Sami’s phone. At some point Eve finds herself talking to Lukas and Marina, when Marina takes a handful of her hair and strokes it.

  ‘You have beautiful hair,’ the girl says, and Eve smiles, blushing.

  ‘Eve has always been beautiful,’ Sami says.

  Marina looks at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Our mums were friends when we were kids. I used to go visit her in the mountains.’

  Marina looks amazed. ‘And you’re still friends now?’

  ‘Nah,’ Sami says, his old playfulness returning. ‘We just met up again today.’

  ‘Still,’ Marina says.

  Later Eve finds herself lying next to Sami on one of the bunks. She has taken another pill, and whatever they are doing to her has changed again.

  ‘Do you ever see Yassamin?’ Eve asks. Sami turns away and stares at the bunk above them.

  ‘Not really. Do you?’

  Eve shrugs. ‘She still visits from time to time. Do you miss her?’

  Sami stares up at the mattress above them, thinking. ‘I don’t know. Not really. She was on me all the time, telling me what to do, hassling me. It was too much.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He’s an arsehole, but I can stay out of his way.’

  Eve glances across at the others. ‘And Lukas?’

  Sami looks at Lukas and makes a face. ‘What about him?’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  Sami shrugs again. ‘From school. He only moved here when he was thirteen. His parents . . .’ He hesitates.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His parents were lawyers or something. They bought a place down here. But last year, they had a car accident. They were killed.’

  Eve looks up. Lukas is staring at her. Worried he has heard, she looks away. ‘So, he’s alone?’

  Sami nods. ‘He was supposed to go live with his aunt in Melbourne but he wouldn’t go. Instead she comes here every few weeks. The rest of the time he’s on his own.’

  Eve looks at Lukas, who is talking to Marina again. What must it be like to be alone like that?

  ‘Is that allowed?’

  Sami closes his eyes and laughs, lost somewhere in the wash of the pills. ‘I don’t know. He says he’s going to go to university when he’s finished school.’

  ‘To do what?’

  Sami laughs. ‘Lukas? What do you reckon? Politics.’

  Eve falls quiet, thinking. ‘And you?’

  Sami hesitates. ‘I don’t know. I’ll work something out.’

  All at once Eve feels a great tenderness for Sami, and turning to him she embraces him, pressing her face into his neck, the warm smell of him strong, undercut by the sharp stink of sweat, the chemical reek of the pill. He moves closer too, pressing his face into her before bringing it up so they are staring at one another. This close his face looks weird, an alien geography of bone and angle and eye. And then she closes her eyes and presses her mouth to his, slipping deep into the kiss, his body hot and close to hers, the two of them moving as one.

  She is not sure how long it lasts, only that in the ebbing wash of the drug, as Sami slips into sleep beside her she leans close to him and whispers that there’s something she needs to tell him, the words almost unbelievable when she speaks them into the world, and that while she half-expects Sami to pull away or recoil, he doesn’t, just presses her face to his neck and says, ‘Cool.’

  She wakes with no memory of falling asleep. The hut is cold and smells of ashes and timber. She feels soft, sad, and in her confusion about where she is she feels certain she has made a mistake, said something she should not have. Sitting up, she looks around. The space is dim, the only illumination the pale light leaking in through the dusty pane of glass above the door. On the other side of the room Lukas and Marina are asleep, faces turned towards the wall. By the stove Sami is pulling on his shoes. Seeing him, she remembers her words as they fell asleep last night, and a sick dread rises in her. She sits up and he glances around. He looks edgy, uncomfortable.

  ‘Are you going?’ she asks.

  He nods. ‘I need to be somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

>   ‘Can I come with you?’

  He shoots her a wary look. ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘Did something happen?’ she asks.

  Sami shakes his head. ‘Nah, nothing,’ he says. Eve begins to protest, but as she does she notices Lukas and Marina are awake. She turns back to Sami, but he is already on his feet.

  ‘Sami,’ she says. ‘Wait.’ But he just pushes past her and out the door, into the chill of the morning.

  ‘What was that about?’ Marina asks but Lukas ignores her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks Eve, but she waves him away, and grabbing her coat races out the door after Sami.

  She emerges in time to see Sami disappearing down the track. She knows she should call out or go after him, but she cannot bear the thought of him rejecting her again. Her cheeks burning she stares up at the pale sky. It is cold, the air thick with the smell of damp earth and leaf. She does not understand. Why did Sami leave? Was it what she told him? Or was it simply that he could not bear to be next to her anymore? Either way it is unbearable, a reminder of her hateful clumsiness, the coarseness of her skin and hair, her ugly face with its jutting brow and splayed nose. Who wouldn’t find her monstrous?

  And then something else occurs to her. What if he found her hideous all along? What if the whole evening was a kind of joke, a trick? What if they were laughing at her even now? She feels nauseous at the thought of her own body, its repulsiveness.

  She walks faster, pushing forward, shoving her way through the undergrowth, heedless of the way it scratches and pulls at her. At some point she slips, unable to stop herself from sliding down the hillside, landing clumsily in a bog. But she does not stop, just pushes on until finally, unable to go any further, she drops to her knees by a creek and weeps.

  Only when she is done does she sit up, look around. Cloud moves against the sky, but down here in the forest among the ferns and the trees it is cool, the forest quiet save for the fading cries of the birds, the whisper of the trees. Standing up, she begins to walk again, trudging along the stream in search of the road or a trail or somewhere she can use to find her way back to the road.