by Mark Lingane
“I doubt she’ll survive the night,” said a deep male voice.
“What about the child?” said a female voice. Sebastian recognized his aunt’s whining tone.
“You’ll have to look after him.”
“Me?”
“You’re the nearest relative.”
“I don’t have the space to look after his filthy bones.”
“I’m sure no one would mind if you moved in here. There’s the matter of the estate to manage until he comes of age.”
There was a pause. “It would be particularly unkind of me if I wasn’t to offer a guiding hand at this time of trouble. It’s the least I can do for my dearest nephew.” There was another pause. “I shall arrange for my possessions to be delivered immediately.”
*
Sebastian watched his mother being lowered into the ground on a sultry winter’s day, with a solitary tear rolling down his face. He had watched her fade from an angel to a fragile shell.
He woke from his nightmare crying heavily. He got out of bed and padded to his mother’s room. She was breathing gently. He crawled into the bed and held her tight.
*
He woke in the morning soaking wet. His mother had been sweating and had saturated the sheets. Her lips were chapped and her skin was flaky.
He ran to find the doctor, who grumbled and complained all the way back about the earliness of the hour.
The doctor looked at Sebastian’s mother and sighed. “There’s nothing I can do for her. Her time is up.”
“There must be something you can do.”
“I could take her to the hospital at Toowoomba. It’s the most advanced in the region. But I don’t know if she’ll survive the journey.”
“Please take her. I can’t watch her die.”
“It’s hardly worth the effort. Really, you have to grow up and face the facts.”
“I’ll pay you.”
The doctor paused in his tracks. Greed flashed in his eyes. “How much?”
“One hundred dollars.”
“That is a most generous offer. I shall collect my things and take her forthwith.”
Within half an hour, the doctor had returned with his ambulance cart. Sebastian helped his mother down the stairs, but she had lost all bearing on the world. Her head lolled and her eyes stared vacantly ahead. They lifted her into the cart. She was so light Sebastian thought he could have lifted her on his own.
He wrapped blankets around her and placed her favorite pillow under her head. He wiped his hand over her forehead, mopping away the sweat. He started to clamber into the front of the cart next to the doctor, but the way was blocked.
“You cannot come. There is insufficient space. And by the way, I’ve arranged for your aunt to come and be your guardian.” The doctor pushed Sebastian, who fell off the cart and landed heavily in the dirt.
His mother stirred in the back.
“Now look what you’ve done, foolish child. You’ve upset her.” The doctor cracked his whip and the horse started to trudge away.
Sebastian lunged after his mother and grasped her hand. He felt it wrap around his, briefly, before she succumbed to her own darkness and let him go. He fell back again into the soil. On his hands and knees he watched his mother’s frail form being dragged from him. He folded his head into his arms and sobbed.
*
The doctor rode the cart out into the desert. He rode for a day. The next night, while making camp, he dragged Isabelle’s body off the cart and laid her down in a ditch off the main track. She lay there throughout the night as the dust and insects circled around her. When the sun rose she was alone. The day wore on. Heat and humidity started to edge toward extreme. The hum of life around her seemed distant, echoing from another land. She had ceased to sweat.
Two figures cast shadows across her face. She was too tired to open her eyes; she was too tired to even listen. She felt herself being raised up by a pair of strong but thin arms. She drifted in and out of consciousness as she was carried for mile after mile. She felt herself being lowered. She could feel cool water washing over her face.
*
Aunt Ratty turned up later that day. She instructed Sebastian to take her luggage up to her room. Its spaciousness and luxury pleased her, but she demanded new sheets and pillows be bought, and the old ones burned. She didn’t want infected linen cluttering up her new boudoir.
She sat on the bed and ran her hands over the soft sheets. She spotted an ornate jewelry box on a bedside table. She opened it and gasped at its contents. She extracted a set of delicate diamond earrings and clipped them to her ears. She moved over to the dressing table and slowly turned her head, watching her reflection as the light bounced off the fine diamonds.
“She never deserved such fine jewelry. It’s more suited to me.”
She noticed a small envelope in the box. She picked it up and read it carefully, then hid it in the base of the box, underneath the contents. She closed the lid, locked the box and hid the key in her top.
She knew the house well, but still wandered through it, rearranging the furniture to suit her requirements.
One day she opened the back door and smiled at the vista. She dragged a chaise from the far side of the room and positioned it so she could lie down and gaze out the door down into the fields below. The afternoon rain had emptied the pastures, leaving the wheat waving in the gentle breeze. A handful of farmers were making their way past the house, looking for shelter from the daily monsoon.
The Oakley boys passed by. Ratty smiled at them and twisted her long hair between her fingers. The eldest winked at her.
3
EVERY DAY BECAME routine. Sebastian rose early, trekked to the markets to collect the freshest food, prepared breakfast for Ratty and served her in bed. He was then required to clean the house as she showered and prepared for the day. He ran endless errands for her, collecting shiny trinkets and luxuries, as she sat around nibbling on various sweet delicacies from Mr. Baxter, the pastry artisan.
She refused to drink the water from the rain tank, and instructed Sebastian to collect clean, fresh water from the spring. She told him to get two buckets in case they had visitors; running out of water would be the height of rudeness. And so Sebastian struggled home each day with the heavy load in the sweltering heat and humidity. By nightfall each day his limbs ached, and his hands were blistered and raw from the work.
Ratty would kick the buckets over at the end of the night, ensuring the need for a new supply when the sun rose.
As the weeks unwound, he was given a new destination to add to his morning rounds: the portly, red-nosed distiller, Mr. Haeber. Sebastian returned home each day with an ever-increasing number of cider bottles clinking in the baskets. And always he was paying out money. It flowed through his fingers like water.
The Oakleys’ eldest son, Lincoln, started to turn up through the week and would stay late into the night. Both adults would get louder and louder as the night wore on, often accompanied by the clinking of the cider bottles. Sebastian would never hear the front door close.
*
Wearing her new dress, Aunt Ratty lay on her chaise by the back door with the grand view over the fields. She had bought many new clothes, as her old ones had grown too tight. She blamed Sebastian for washing them poorly. Now she watched the farmers toiling, their rugged and tanned bodies glistening in the sun. She cooled herself with one of Sebastian’s mother’s fans as he took food he had collected from the markets into the cool room below the house.
“Child.” Her voice was distracted and distant. “I wish to see Lincoln. Fetch him for me.”
He turned to face her. “How should I know where he is?”
There was a ringing slap across his face. “Don’t answer me back, insolent child. Do as I instruct.”
He sprinted out the door with tears of fury running down his face. He ran to the Oakleys’ rundown farm and banged on the door.
John opened it and leaned lazily against the doorjamb.
“Maybe I dunno.” John replied. He smirked and looked down at Sebastian.
“I don’t want to be here as much as you don’t want me to be here, so tell me.”
John wandered out onto the veranda and gazed toward the horizon. “It’s a big place out there. And he’s a man of the world.”
“Shut up and tell me where he is.”
“No.”
Sebastian had had enough. His blood was boiling. He was exhausted from the continual menial tasks; he hadn’t seen anyone he liked even vaguely for months; and he was sick of his life being dominated by these greedy, lazy rednecks. He saw red, clenched his fists and charged at John. They both collapsed onto the dust, with Sebastian pounding on John’s chest.
“Tell me where he is,” he screamed as he landed blow after blow on the bigger boy’s body.
“All right, get off me.” John pushed Sebastian off, picked himself up and dusted off his clothes. “In the name of Joshua Richards, he went up the lake. He bought a new boat with your money.” He pushed Sebastian, who stumbled and fell over. “Now get off our property, you complete spaz.”
*
Sebastian made his way up the path out to the west of Talinga toward Lake Woleebee. He kicked the occasional rock out of frustration. He longed desperately for his mother, but it had been months and the doctor had not returned. He could only assume the doctor was taking care of her in the hospital. If she were dead, wouldn’t the man have returned by now? He took some hope from the old saying: “No news is good news.”
He followed the cart tracks in the dust as they veered off to a distant clump of trees. The lake was still fifteen minutes away. He followed the tracks down into the low valley, his hands deep in his pockets. He heard voices. He stopped and listened. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled closer until he could make out the voices.
Sure enough, one was Lincoln, and the other was a young girl he vaguely remembered from school, a few years older than him. She had disappeared for six months, only to reappear as quickly and mysteriously as she had left. He eventually remembered her name, Caroline. He recalled that some of the meaner boys called her different names, ones he didn’t understand, in unpleasant voices. None of the names seemed complimentary.
“Yeah, let’s see how many times we can jump on it before it breaks,” Sebastian heard Lincoln say.
“Isn’t that a waste?” Caroline said.
There was a rattling sound by Sebastian’s side, which made him jump. A lizard was looking forlornly up at him from inside a dusty old bottle. It was one of the tricks the mean boys did to occupy their bored, evil minds. They would pull the lizard’s legs back then squeeze it into the bottle. The lizard would be stuck inside the bottle until it died. Sometimes the boys would take the lizard-in-a-bottle home and watch it die. Sometimes they simply threw it deep into the desert.
He teased the lizard out of the bottle until he could grab its head and slide it all the way out. The lizard bit him on the finger and ran away. Sebastian turned his attention back to the voices under the trees.
“Nah, not my money,” Lincoln was saying. “Anyway, from what I can work out she’s nearly spent the family fortune. She’ll have to sell the house soon, then abandon the stupid boy and go back to her own village. But I’m making sure you and I have got some of the cash for our own place.”
“You naughty boy,” Caroline purred. “Stealing from an old lady.”
“She’s not old. Only in comparison with your lovely body.”
Sebastian could imagine Lincoln’s alligator smile as he said this.
“Mine is the one that counts,” Caroline said.
The talking stopped. Sebastian got up and ran away. He didn’t care where he was heading. It sounded like he wasn’t going to have a home soon enough so it didn’t matter. He ran and ran until his lungs hurt. He collapsed face first onto the ground. He rolled over and looked up at the blue sky, waiting until his breathing calmed down.
There was a faint buzzing sound nearby. He turned his head to see what insect was planning to kill him. There was nothing there. He stood up and followed the sound over a small hill. Lake Woleebee was on the other side. And lying on the edge of the water was a body, dressed in black.
Sebastian broke a branch off a tree and prodded the body. It didn’t move. He moved closer to inspect it. It looked completely dead. It lay facing the sky, its eyes open. Sebastian reached out to close them.
A hand shot up and grabbed his arm. The figure with the pale face and strange black clothing whispered something.
“What?” shrieked Sebastian.
“They come. For you,” he croaked, staring up at the young boy. “You must die.”
The figure raised up his other hand, which held a flat, black object. It had a picture of Sebastian on it, and the word TERMINATE written underneath. The image flickered and disappeared. The grip was released and the arm fell back into the mud.
Sebastian scrambled up onto the relative safety of the bank. Small jabs of lightning arced across the body and it convulsed; the arms and legs flailed wildly and water sprayed everywhere as the body thrashed. Then it let out a high-pitched cry, so loud and painful that Sebastian had to cover his ears. After several seconds the sound died away and he was left with the gentle lapping of the waves against the shore the only thing breaking the silence of the lake.
He watched and waited.
After what seemed like an eternity, he cautiously approached the body. It had such an aura of stillness that this time he was sure it was dead. Completely dead. No scary last-minute-coming-to-life dead. Dead forever. Dead.
The person didn’t appear to be much older than him. It was just another boy. It didn’t seem right to leave him here, so he dragged the body out of the water and did his best to bury it. He took the strange black object and put it in his pocket for later examination. The boy’s boots looked amazingly cool, but he felt it would be wrong to take them.
He felt something more was needed. He clasped the boy’s hands and said, “In the name of Joshua, I condemn … no, wrong word … send this body to the afterlife. May it, er, he rest in peace.”
He turned and walked back to the town, planning never to speak of the black-clad boy.
*
The next week his aunt announced she felt a little under the weather and would be spending the day in bed to recoup her appetite. She continued to instruct him in his daily duties, working him harder than ever.
The next day she did the same. And the day after. At the end of that week Ratty stated that she no longer had a desire to rise, as Lincoln had stopped coming to see her. Sebastian was to wait on her until she felt sufficiently buoyed.
The following week her voice grew hoarse. She started to sweat profusely and no amount of fanning cooled her. She beckoned him closer and instructed him to summon the doctor. Sebastian replied that the doctor had not yet returned from taking his mother to the hospital.
Ratty gave him a slap across his face. It didn’t hurt as much as it once might have. She called him a liar. He promised he had not seen the doctor. She shouted at him to look harder, or at least find someone with some medical knowledge.
He ran to the doctor’s house and knocked loudly but there was no response. He sat on the steps out front and wondered whom to call. A stallion trotted past, carrying one of the local women riding sidesaddle.
“The vet,” he whispered.
*
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She doesn’t have equine herpesvirus, strangles or kennel cough. There’s nothing I can do for her,” said the vet, young Dr. Filbert. He adjusted his glasses and began to pack up his medical paraphernalia.
“There must be something you can give her,” Sebastian said quietly, “if only to stop her nagging me.”
Dr. Filbert sighed. “I guess I could inject pig’s urine into her rump, er, backside,” he whispered.
“What will that do?”
“Injecting pig’s urine?”
“No, her backside.” He turned his attention to the sick woman. “Ma’am, you need to roll over so I can administer the medicine.”
“She’s not deaf, you don’t need to shout,” Sebastian said. “You definitely don’t need to stroke her head.”
“Sorry. Habit.”
Ratty groaned loudly as she rolled over onto her stomach. Dr. Filbert raised her nightdress and gulped. Sebastian shielded his eyes. There was another groan from his aunt.
“Okay, deed done,” said the vet. He fished a small bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Sebastian. “Give her two of these tablets, ground up in her meat, twice a day. They should return her coat to a lusty sheen.”
“What?”
“Er, they’re protein boosts. They may give her more energy.” He picked up his case and turned to leave. “Look, Sebastian, she’s in a real bad way. I don’t know what to prescribe.” He sighed again. “Good luck. You deserved better than this.”
*
The humidity rolled in over the town. As usual, Sebastian prepared the afternoon tea and delivered it to his aunt. Surprisingly, she was sleeping. Her snores echoed around the room. He shook her. Her skin was clammy and he wiped his hand on his tunic.
His mother’s jewelry box lay unattended for the first time since his aunt had arrived. He could see the end of the key poking out of the top of Ratty’s nightdress. He held his breath and slowly extracted it. The key was damp and smelled of old sweat. He grimaced and wiped it on his pants. He inserted it into the small box and turned it carefully. There was a tiny clicking sound as the catch was unlocked.
Cautiously, he opened the box. He saw an envelope with his name written in his mother’s neat copperplate script.
His aunt stirred.
He quickly stuffed the envelope in his pocket.
Ratty struggled to sit up. Her hair lay scattered around the pillow. “Help me, foolish child,” she croaked.