by C. T. Adams
Antoine held her hand and smoothly led her farther into the brightly lit room. When he stepped away to remove a glass from a heavily carved wet bar, she glanced out the frost-edged windows. The raging blizzard she’d seen from her bedroom window looked even worse at ground level.
She thought of Rabi lost somewhere in this storm and tears again threatened. She had to find him. But while she should be able to track in snow, she didn’t know how. Their kind came from a line where fierce winters were common, but she grew up in California. She had no skill, only instinct. Grammy hadn’t gotten that far in training before she had gotten herself…captured.
She still couldn’t believe that she had no memory of an entire month, but bits of things kept popping into her head and she couldn’t ignore the implications. There were too many memories of rancid meat being shoved through cage bars, memories of chains on her wrists and ankles and around her neck as a tiger. There were too many fragments to have occurred in one day, or even a week. She had no choice but to believe what the Sazi had said.
“Tahira? Are you all right?” She turned away from the window, startled. Antoine was holding a crystal glass half filled with pink liquid. He held it out to her. “The blush was open, but if you prefer red or white, I can uncork a new bottle.”
She took the glass from his hand, again noticing the tingling of her skin when it touched him. The air around him seemed almost electric, as though her hair should be standing on end. “No, blush is fine. Thanks.”
He nodded slightly and smiled. “Would you like to meet the others, or would you prefer to be alone for a bit? We could move to another room.”
She turned and saw two other people in the room. The woman had short honey-colored hair and bright blue eyes behind small rectangle glasses. The man who was just entering through the far doorway was carrying half a dozen beer bottles of a brand she didn’t recognize. He moved with an easy swagger and his tanned, leathery skin spoke of countless hours in the sun. He seemed to exude that same devil-may-care attitude of some surfers she knew from back home.
“No, no, you shouldn’t have to leave. But I’m really tired still, so I might just sit by the fire and listen if that’s okay.”
He inclined his head just a bit and stepped back. “But of course. Whatever you wish.” He walked over to the bar once more and removed a brandy snifter that was warming over a small alcohol heater. He swirled the small quantity of amber liquid around the wide bottom for a moment to cool it. He waved the glass under his nose and sighed.
The dark-haired man walked past her and set a beer bottle on the bar next to Antoine just as he drank down the contents. “There you go, mate. Something to wash the taste of that slop out of your mouth.”
Antoine laughed and put the glass back on the bar. He snuffed out the flame and picked up the open beer. “That ‘slop’ is hundred-year-old cognac, Matty. You know full well cognac is the main reason we even stopped in Stuttgart.”
The man named Matty flopped down on the chair and put his feet up on a low table with legs carved in the shape of dragons breathing fire. The honey-haired woman let out a strangled sound that caused him to roll his eyes and lower his feet back to the floor.
“Yeah. Some bloke found a bottle of old wine that you’re going to pay out your arse for, just to put it in a dusty vault under your house. Waste of money and good grog, mate.” He raised his bottle in salute. “You need to stick with throw-downs. Just as right for a Sunday barbie in the backyard as an arvo in front of the telly watching the footy.”
Antoine’s eyes twinkled merrily as he stepped toward the couch and swept his hand to indicate that she should precede him. “First, let’s dispense with the formal introductions. Matty, Margo, this lovely young lady is Tahira Kuric. She’s a member of the Hayalet Kabile from California. She and her brother were staying with their grandparents in Turkey when the abduction took place.” He glanced at her for confirmation. “Correct?”
She was taking a sip of the wine and lowered the glass suddenly, since he seemed to be waiting for an answer. She was startled that he remembered everything she’d told him.
“Yes…um, that’s right.” She raised her hand and gave an embarrassed wave and then bit her lip for a second when Margo smiled and smelled of amusement. She set her jaw. No, I can do this. I managed debate club and school plays, and I’m an adult member of the kabile. Time to grow up and play with the big cats.
Antoine dropped his chin a bit in acknowledgment. “The gentleman on the couch is Matthew Thompson. He’s a large animal veterinarian from Sydney, Australia, who cares for our cats.”
Matty tipped an imaginary hat, smiled quietly, and then popped the cap on his second beer. “G’day, Tahira. Sorry our introduction isn’t under more pleasant circumstances.”
She smiled at him. His underlying scent reminded her of a summer picnic in the park and it reminded her of home. She already knew that the phones weren’t working, but she needed to contact her folks as soon as possible to let them know that she was okay and find out if they’d heard from Rabi. Maybe he’s already escaped and I’m the only one still missing.
Antoine’s voice showed a small amount of humor that made her look up. “The lovely lady at the desk with the dropped jaw is Margo Ritzman.”
Margo was staring at Matty with something approaching awe. He turned his head and regarded her with a bit of challenge in his expression.
“You spoke English! Real, understandable English!”
He laughed. “Thanks heaps! I am a uni graduate, luv, with a couple years of grad school in the States. I talk to Antoine that way because it’s comfortable and he understands it. Well…and of course, because it bothers you.” He turned to Tahira again and winked. “I’m a true blue, dinky-di cockroach, darls, but for your benefit, I’ll pretend I’m a Yank.”
Tahira laughed. She liked Matty! “We had an exchange student from Queensland when I was in school, so I’ll try to follow along.”
“A banana bender, eh? Yeah, well they’re sort of Aussie, I suppose.”
She took a sip from her wine and said with a small amount of teasing, “Strange, he said the same about people from New South Wales.” She nodded to Margo. “Nice to meet you. Are you by any chance on the internet? My parents must be frantic about me. Maybe I could send them an e-mail?” She bit her lip hopefully. Margo looked to Antoine significantly and he took a slow breath. Either he was really good at hiding his emotions, or he wasn’t concerned, because he didn’t smell of deceit.
“I think we might arrange that if we have a connection,” Antoine said, which caused a brief look of surprise on Margo’s face. She quickly turned back to the computer.
“I’ll check to see. It wasn’t up a few minutes ago. I’ve been working on some other things off-line.”
While she opened the programs to try to connect, Antoine waved Tahira to the couch. “Why don’t we sit down and be comfortable. Matty, I believe you were going to tell me about your trip.”
Tahira sat down on the couch closest to the fire with her wine and curled her legs under her. She was surprised, and slightly pleased, when Antoine sat down next to her, nearly touching her slippered feet. The clothing that had been waiting in her room when she awoke was obviously expensive, in current style, and fit fairly well. The slippers were hand-knitted and wonderfully warm. It was almost as though she had been expected, which was a bit eerie. Sort of like being around Grammy, a ruhsal who knew things.
* * *
“HOW LONG WILL you be gone?” Antoine continued. He noticed that Matty had started to put his feet back up on the table but stopped himself with a look of frustration. He tried to readjust his position on the couch, but they were for built for Charles’s massive form, not an ordinary human.
The cushions were deep but firm, and sloped a bit toward the front. Antoine noticed it was difficult to stay seated without putting his feet on something. With a wink and a deliberate smile at Matty, he lifted his feet and placed them on the table with a dull thump t
hat caused Margo to turn around viciously in her chair. Her mouth had just opened to reprimand Matty when she paled at the sight of her employer’s heavy leather boots on the table instead.
He raised his brows innocently. “Is there a problem, Margo?”
She shook her head, probably not trusting herself to speak, and turned back to her computer.
Matty mouthed the words, “Thanks, mate!” and gave a thumbs up. He lifted his feet and let them set gently on the table, then leaned back a sigh.
Antoine continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “We’ll have to arrange for someone to care for the cats while you’re away.”
“Yeah, Margo’s working on that part. I know a bloke at the Taronga Zoo who wants to get out of Oz. He might like to visit the States for a turn. The plan is to only be gone for two weeks. But you know what they say about plans.”
“Of course, it’s not my business where you take your vacation, but you seem a bit…worried about it.” Actually, he smelled worried but excited at the same time.
“For good reason, mate. Do you remember the letter I got from the barrister in Sydney before you left for the States?”
Antoine nodded. “The one that was dated months before and had traveled to a dozen different locations, following our show around?”
“Yeah. Well, I finally got hold of the bloke and it seems that I had a grandfather I didn’t know was still alive…well, actually, he’s not alive anymore. That was the point of the letter.”
A light fog of sorrow drifted to his nose from Tahira. “Your grandfather died? I’m sorry. My dad’s father died just last year.”
He nodded in thanks. “Yeah. It would have been nice to have known he was about. Mum never told me about any of my dad’s family. But the barrister told me plenty. It seems he was a jackaroo out in the bush—” He turned to Tahira and amended, “That’s a station hand at a farming operation down in the Australian outback.” He noticed Tahira’s understanding, and continued, “But he inherited a bit of land in the outback, about five hundred hectares, a click or so from Lake Mungo. He left it to me in his will.”
TAHIRA WAS SIPPING her wine and nearly choked. “Five hundred acres is a bit of land?”
Matty shook his head with a chuckle. “Not acres, luv. A hectare is about two of your acres. It’s closer to a thousand acres. And yeah, that’s a dinky bit of land in the outback.”
Margo turned on her chair. “Actually, the bequest was for 506 hectares. There are 2.47 acres in a hectare, so you inherited 1,249.82 acres.” She shrugged when he beat his fist into his forehead. “Hey, precision is what I do.” She glanced at Tahira. “Our satellite link is still down, but I’m trying to reroute through the cable television link-up to the house. There’s supposedly an internet subscription that came with it, according to Amber. I should be able to get in touch with your family in a bit.”
Antoine smiled brightly as Tahira heaved a sigh of relief. “But Matty, this is wonderful news! You’ve always said you would like to start a wild animal clinic.”
Matty took a final draw of beer from the bottle in his hand, set it on the table, and grabbed a third. “Yeah, but that’s not the whole story. The part that gobsmacked me was that a good bit of the land is part of Dreamtime and the Aborigines want it back.”
“Oh! I’ve heard of that!” Tahira sat up straighter and became more animated. “I had to do a report on Aboriginal legends in my mythology class in high school. So the land you inherited belonged to the Koori from before the time of living memory?”
Matty nodded with a pleased expression. She turned to Antoine when she caught the scent of his curiosity. “See, Aborigines have been on the Australian continent for at least fifty thousand years, and there are skeletons that have been found as old as forty thousand years. In fact, I think it was found near Lake Mungo. The tribes did pictograms but had no written language as a group. Each of the five or six hundred tribes have a different language and dialect. But the sacred lands of Dreamtime are the one thing that they all agree on.”
Realization came to her slowly and she winced as she turned to Matty. “Uh-oh! They’re going to fight tooth and nail for that. Will the courts find they have any claim? I know they’ve had a rough time reclaiming sacred property in the past.”
“Bloody hell!” Matty exclaimed. “I wish you would have been here a week ago when I was trying to find out all of this. Yeah, I guess it’s been a battle in the court for nearly a year. The QC—the Queen’s Counsel—has been arguing the High Court for free claim to the property for the heir, which is me. But they couldn’t find me, and finally the justices said that if they couldn’t find an heir, the land would revert to the tribe.”
“But now you’ve been found,” Antoine said quietly. “So what does that mean?”
“Well, one of the blokes in the firm actually got on with the grandson of a tribal elder, who had been doing translations. After we talked, the barrister told him about me and what I hoped to do with the land. Daku talked to his granddad and they offered me a deal—if I would do a walkabout on the land as my grandfather had done, then they would withdraw their claim and I could build the clinic on the part of the land that isn’t sacred. So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve got until the next corroboree ceremony to do a walkabout and perform a bora initiation.”
Tahira cocked her head and the glowing red coals made her hair shine the color of her animal. Antoine caught himself looking at the hair and her slimly muscled legs tucked up against her chest.
“But a walkabout isn’t anything, is it? Doesn’t that just mean to wander around—sort of like a vacation?”
“Yeah, that’d be right. Except it turns out that a walkabout used to have more of a meaning. I talked to Daku, and we nutted out what I had to do. I’ll be spending two weeks hunting and gathering on the land, dropped off without food or water. I can bring with me a boomerang, a kylie, and a woomera spear thrower for getting food and for protection. There’s a billabong on the property—that’s a small pond or watering hole—so I won’t have to dig, but I’ll have to make something to carry the water in. I got the impression that I had to make and decorate the tools myself. I have to walk the boundaries of the land and do meditations so the land will accept me. Daku said the elders will know if the land accepts me. Some sort of seer stuff, I suppose. I’m learning plenty about that rubbish from being around Antoine, so cheating won’t help any.”
Tahira glanced at Antoine in surprise. He acknowledged the fact briefly with a nod of his head and then turned his attention back to Matty.
Matty shrugged and readjusted his feet so his heels were against the table edge. Margo held her breath as the table moved slightly toward Antoine and Tahira’s side of the room. Antoine lifted his feet a fraction without anyone noticing, so his heels didn’t scratch the finish as the table moved. It was one thing to put Matty at ease by letting him put his feet on the furniture. It was another entirely to have to pay for the table if they ruined it.
He noticed that Tahira was having a hard time taking her eyes off him since learning he was a seer. But she apparently was still listening, because she nodded and added, “Aborigines believe that land doesn’t belong to man—man belongs to the land. If the land rejects a person, he or she has to leave. Have you chosen a totem?”
Matty shrugged. “Daku said that it will find me. Apparently, my grandfather’s totem was the carpet snake. No surprise, I guess. Both sides of my family are Sazi. We’re all snakes. But I didn’t get the right genes, so I’m just human. I’m not much into the ‘Earth Mother’ bit, but my uncle had survival training in Nasho, and taught me a thing or two, so no worries. It’s just the carving and decorating thingos that has me feeling a galah.”
“A ‘galah’?” Margo asked.
Matty turned his head back. “A bit of a fool. I’m studying hard how to make them, but I’ll be bloody amazed if any of the things I carve will actually work. I’ve built snares and have a knife, though. As you Sazi blokes say—I’ll l
ive, even if I get my share of dingo breakfasts.”
Tahira laughed. “I’ve actually heard of that one before! A yawn, a leak, and a long look around, but no food.”
“Just right, luv. It’ll give me time to learn to play a couple of instruments, the didgeridoo and the boomerang, which apparently is a percussion instrument that keeps time with a ritual dance. I’ll have to perform at my bora initiation well enough to please my totem.” He shrugged once more. “And I’ll have to bring a gift of something I’ve hunted or gathered to the tribal elders. Daku said a few rabbits would do. So, as soon as I have all the thingos prepared, I’ll train whomever we find to care for the cats in Reno, and then catch a plane to Sydney.”
He pulled his feet off the table and spun around to rest them on the couch. He set the bottle on the table and looked at Tahira. “But, that’s enough about me, other than to know that you’ll all be putting up with sawdust around the house until I finish all this bloody carving. How about you, Tahira? What’s a knockout sheila from the States doing in a jail cell in Germany?”
Antoine cleared his throat in annoyance, and Matty flushed a bit and fidgeted. “That’s not our business, Matty. Tahira is our guest, and is not required to explain herself.”
“NO, IT’S OKAY.” Tahira smiled, a bit embarrassed at the compliment. She straightened out her legs and leaned forward to put her empty wine glass on the table. So, I’m still in Germany—not that it helps much to know.
A burst of frigid air on her neck made her shiver. A glance to the left told her why. The fire had burned down to coals and icy wind was coming down the chimney. She stood up and walked over to a hammered copper wood box and selected a few triangular pieces of pine while she spoke. “I don’t mind, because I really need to try to remember what happened and why I am here. Talking about it might help.”