Grove looks at me and I nod.
‘How do I look?’
‘OK, I guess.’ They’ll all be wearing caps in a week or two from now. Not me, of course. On principle. Though Grove does look fine in it, the bugger.
‘Hear you might be working Certain’s farm. After your time,’ he says.
‘Might at that,’ I say.
Grove nods, and slaps my back. And I know he’s genuine. ‘Was worried after your time in the city. Thought they might cast you out. But this is good news.’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Was going to miss you. Now I won’t have to!’
Only until you go to the city. Only until they groom you for those cages. But I don’t say it. Just smile back at his smiling face.
‘Nice cap, Grove,’ Mary says.
‘Better put in an order for a dozen of them,’ I say. Mary laughs but she puts a note in her big book. Something like order caps, I reckon—she closes the book with a loud clap before I can get a view.
‘And this is Thom,’ I say. ‘My replacement.’
Mary frowns.
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know,’ I say.
‘Mark, why would I pretend that? Why would I even need to pretend that? Heard you’ll be working out at Certain’s farm, can’t get rid of the likes of you. Now where’s your list? I’m guessing it’ll be a big one this time.’
I pass it to her, and it’s generous all right.
‘Lucky there’s two of you,’ Mary says.
I don’t think it’s lucky at all.
‘She seemed nice,’ Thom says as we lug all that stuff back home. Soap and flour and milk and meat and a good bag full of food headed for the coolroom. ‘And I’ll give you this, that Grove is a fine fella. Doesn’t have an drop of betrayal in him.’
‘He doesn’t at that,’ I say.
‘It’s sad,’ Thom says. ‘World’s going to eat him entire. Or you will.’
What nine-year-old thinks these thoughts, let alone says them? A kid of the Crèches, so it seems.
‘Shut your fool mouth,’ I say.
Thom repositions the bag on his shoulders, settles there dripping at the edges. ‘Truths said or not are still true.’
I give him another clip under the ear, and this time he’s not ready at all for it. Never felt more satisfied.
But it’s a brief thing, that joy, because I know he’s right.
CHAPTER 28
‘STORM’S COMING,’ SHOUTS Twitch, his bike crashing past our place, wheels twin blurs, joy and panic in his eyes. He brakes and slides, gets off, face beady, wiping at his brow, straightens his new cap on his skull. I give him a look and he doesn’t even notice. ‘Was up on Cravin Peak, clouds coming in all ways,’ he says, words all bunched together. ‘Gonna be a wild thing.’
Other bikes are converging like those thunderous clouds, and I’m wondering why we weren’t called up to the lookout. Dougie rides right next to me. I look around for Grove, but he’s not there.
‘Now that looks better,’ Dougie says, gesturing at the newly mown front lawn. ‘Was a disgrace.’
Storm’s been coming all day, as much under our skin as in the sky, feels like. The sky blue as a sky can be, and unseasonably hot. And me taking Thom all over the town, letting him draw the circle and seven. Showing him the place where I was cut by the Hunter: seemed to think it was all my fault. Would’ve hit him, but there’s truth enough in that. This day was an itch you can’t scratch: electric and flat all at once. Been building to this. That smudge of dark on the horizon. And that smudge is a spreading stain, and a tension that pulls down low and to the top of your skull.
‘Gonna hit before Sunset,’ I say.
‘Long before,’ Dougie says, scratching his scalp.
‘And it’s going to be wild,’ Twitcher repeats.
The others nod. We’re going to need to see to the safety of our Masters.
There’s a couple of roofs that need tending to, so we go in groups and start working. Hammers and nails. A riot of industry, as Dain might say.
And then in she rolls. Sudden massive thunder. Lightning forking, rain coming in sheets.
The storm’s raging when I see a girl on the road that fronts our place. I run out and see it’s Anne. I drag her in, Thom waiting at the door for us.
‘What ya doing? Out in this damn storm,’ I say, once I get her a towel.
‘Came faster than I thought it would.’ She gestures at her bag, bulging with this and that. ‘Was out doing deliveries.’
The house is creaking. Lightning cracking and beating the earth outside, like the world’s raking its dazzling fingers across the town.
‘Well, you’re just going to have to wait it out,’ I say.
‘We’ll look after you, miss,’ says Thom, and he’s standing so straight it makes my heart ache.
‘Don’t need no looking after,’ Anne says. ‘Just need cover.’
‘I’ve the stove burning,’ I say. ‘Tea’s on.’
She nods at that. And we’re soon drinking that tea, dark and sweet, and feeling the house shake.
‘They say the storms are getting fiercer.’ She takes another sip of her tea, stirs in some more sugar. ‘Like the world’s trying to rid itself of us. And them.’
‘Need worse storms than this,’ I say.
And there’s a burst of thunder that makes me jump, and a crash of something heavy that doesn’t help with the jitters either. Thom laughs, and I give him a look, but I can see that he’s as spooked as I am.
A girl coming out of the storm, even if it’s a girl we know, seems awful suggestive of odd things to come. And Anne, if I’m true about it, scares me more than anything. Even if it’s the sweetest sort of fear.
‘Storms bring monsters,’ Anne says.
‘The monsters are already here,’ Dain says, making us jump. He likes an entrance. ‘Miss Anne, I am sorry, but it’s true. The monsters have been here for quite some time. This is just a storm. Now, you may stay the night. If there is no mischief.’
Anne blushes at that; there’s some heat in my cheeks, too.
‘Or I can accompany you home through this storm. Don’t worry, you will be quite safe.’
‘Will I now,’ Anne says.
Dain’s face shifts in ways I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it shape. He folds his arms across his chest: all careful and considered. Protecting himself, or her, or both of them.
‘Your mother and I have an agreement.’ His voice is soft. ‘And I am a man of my word.’
Anne looks at me over her teacup. ‘Well, you raised him proper. And that goes in your favour,’ she says, and I realise that these two had scarcely ever said a word to each other. And that that goes for most of the town. That what they’re used to, and what I am, are such different things we might be in different towns. ‘I’ll spend the night here, thank you. But if you would let my mother know? I know you’ll be out in this, all of you will.’
Dain nods his head. I can see the storm in his eyes, his pupils w
ide. The Masters are men of moods and heights emotional. And he stands there, body electric with the wild air.
‘There’s a piano in the living room,’ Dain says, as though she doesn’t already know it. ‘If you would do us the honour.’
Anne smiles. ‘The honour would be mine.’
I’m glad now I’ve kept it dusted. Not that Dain would allow anything else.
Anne plays a few dancing notes then looks up at Dain. ‘You keep this well tuned.’
‘I tune it myself,’ Dain says, and there’s more than a hint of pride in his words.
‘So it’s true what they say about you?’
‘We hear the notes, perfect, yes.’
‘Then I better play perfectly.’
‘I would never think to pressure you so,’ Dain says.
Anne laughs, and then she plays, music I’ve heard, and music I haven’t. It’s a beautiful sound. Dain seems to relax; more than relax, he’s transported. But it’s Thom that surprises, he has the biggest purest smile I’ve ever seen on his face. After nearly an hour she stops. Dain’s eyes have less of the storm in them. He is still as stone. Anne looks at me, as if to ask if that’s what he’s always like.
I shake my head. Takes a lot to drive the storm out of a man like him. And all too little to draw it back.
‘My mother will be worried, Master Dain.’
‘Yes; yes she will,’ Dain says, like he’s just woke from a dream, and I guess he has. His pupils expand, and his head swings towards the door. It’s calling him again.
Thom clears his throat. ‘I’m to bed,’ he says.
I raise my eyebrow; get the arch good, I can feel it.
‘You’ll be sleeping on the lounge, I guess,’ Thom says.
Dain looks at me with those storm-lit eyes, lightning and thunder, the threat and the echo of it, and I feel myself wilt, my eyes wander.
‘Yes, course I am,’ I say.
So it’s decided, Thom to his bed and Anne to have mine.
Dain’s there till the others are abed, and me dragging stale cushions from the linen cupboard to place on the three-seater. He watches me make up the couch good and proper. ‘You will be a gentleman,’ he says.
‘Course I will,’ I says. ‘When am I not?’
Dain snorts. ‘Then I best give Mary a visit.’
I can see he wants to be in the middle of that storm, that he wants to run with it.
‘You best,’ I say.
He’s already gone.
And I spend the night a-toss and a-roll on that damn lounge, leather stuffed with bricks, I reckon. My head on cushions smelling of dust and age, it seems to have shrunk some because I can’t get myself to sleep. And I’m thinking of Anne and Thom in the other room.
I wake early, it’s still dark but I must’ve got some sleep: Dain’s staring over me. The storm is quietening, but for the rain’s soft breath and fall.
I sit straight up, blinking, confused. Is it day, is he up in the day?
Dain raises his hand, gestures for me to lie back down. He’s soaked to the bone, his eyes glowing, but he looks like the night’s done for him well. He looks restful, calm almost, if any of his kind were capable of calm.
‘No need for you to rise just yet,’ he says. ‘There’ll be work for you to do in the morning.’
‘I was a gentleman,’ I mumble ruefully.
‘You always are,’ Dain says with a chuckle. ‘You always have been. Now sleep, long day ahead.’
I’m up with first light and the rain’s still falling, lighter soaking rain, got coffee brewed and I’m sitting on the verandah, watching the rain fall. Smelling the damp in the air. Sometimes all I want is for nothing to change but those regular shifts of season, the heat into cold, the cold into heat. I want to stop time and step out of everything, and watch the world around me, as I am.
But all I get is these quiet and brief times. Me, and this dark brew, and the lightening of the day, and the ache that runs through my body like tears and laughter mixed together. I’m a young bloke but I can’t help feeling that time is running down, that it’s slipping from me. There’s nothing for it but to take some pleasure from the cup in my hands, from the world and its silence.
I’m sitting there, maudlin and watching the rain.
Hear laughter behind me.
‘There you are,’ Anne says, and she smiles at me. And I’m happy to see her, and angry at once, cause my quiet sadness is broke, and even that ache is fragile, and I’m jealous, there, I admit it.
‘He’s always up early,’ Thom says.
‘Fella can have too much sleep,’ I say, and I take my cup and brew them some more coffee, and we all sit there looking out at the rain, silent, everything silent but for the hiss of it. And Anne’s hand touches mine, and there is a rushing wild as any storm within me, but I sit still.
Until her hand lifts and it’s like it never happened, and maybe it didn’t. We stare out into the lifting gloom. And maybe I do want things to change.
Trees are down, and the light picks the wounds from the shadows one by one. Eucalypts that have fallen, bottlebrushes that have split, green apples dropped. Got axework ahead.
‘Tell me when you want to go home,’ I say to Anne.
‘Soon,’ Anne says. ‘Mary’ll be waiting.’
I look to Thom.
‘Get some umbrellas,’ I say.
We walk through the wet. Thom splashing through puddles, Anne and I walking close.
‘He adores you, you know,’ she says. ‘You keep him safe.’
‘Much as I can,’ I say. ‘Ain’t much safe in this world.’
‘We all know that,’ she says.
Mary’s standing at the door when we arrive.
‘Ma’am,’ I say.
She frowns at me. ‘You been a gentleman?’
I nod, even manage it without a smirk. Because I have been, haven’t I?
‘He saved me from the storm and all,’ Anne says.
‘Don’t know why you were out that way,’ Mary says.
And I feel a little heat again. Mary pays a bit of attention to that, but lets it pass, both of us too good at reading faces. ‘Thank you for bringing her home.’
‘Pleasure,’ I say.
‘I brought her home, too,’ Thom says.
Mary smiles. ‘Course you did. Now, I’ve bacon cooking. You all hungry? There’ll be work for you boys, no doubt.’
No doubt of that at all.
So we eat at Mary’s and by the time we’re done, the rain’s fading down, following the storm into the east, and the Sun’s up and the sky looks as though it’s been scrubbed, and we get to home and work with full bellies. Trees need breaking down and carting off. Axe and saw work, the sort that a full belly’s good for.
We cut through wood, we jump from centipedes and scorpions. And we do it in silence, mostly.
‘She’s quite the girl,’ Thom says.
‘She is at that,’ I say. ‘And don’t you get no de
signs.’
Thom don’t say nothing. Best not to, I’m the one with the axe.
They like the sea, they worship the Sun, and the music is their third love, as Dain says. Not blood, they never count it as love, it’s a base sort of thing, that desire. Music for them is a door to quiet. Music is almost as perfect as their forms. And they can sing, and they can dance—I’ve seen both—maybe play a fiddle or a flute to some jauntiness.
But music, great music, is something only we can give them. That’s why the great Orchestral Hall is near the heart of the City in the Shadow of the Mountain.
Music is close to their hearts.
And is in our blood. Whether they admit it or not, that makes us the sweetest of musicians.
CHAPTER 29
AUTUMN’S THE SEASON beset with pasts and futures. Memories hazy of both. Summer bleeds into it, then winter rears out. The first frost comes not long after that storm. I like them changes. I like the cold, until I’m sick of it. And the river that seemed inviting takes on a sombre kind of air, and grows misty as though it’s knitted itself some sort of gown.
There’s apples that need wrapping up and putting away, and fences that need mending. Storm has left its raggedy thumbprint upon the earth, and brought us a new weariness to contend with.
I don’t know how I did without Thom. I managed, I guess. Just like he’ll manage without me. But past and futures bleed.
I let him mark the doors of those my Master visits. And I watch. Soon I’ll be out of town, working the farm. Switched one labour for another.
Already I can see that Thom’s got Mastery in him even though he’s just a lad. It’s in his walk, the steadiness of his gaze. There’s nothing ill-fitting in him. He’s as blessed as Grove in his way, but he knows it, expects it even. Might set a bit of jealousy in me, but I’m too busy for jealousy.
Dougie calls a meeting. There’s a swift scratch of chalk across the door, midway to tell us roughly when. I rub it away with a thumb.
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