The Wish Kin

by Joss Hedley

They shoulder their packs and head for a stand of ghost gums, white against the red of the dirt, against the bright blue of the sky. The valley is hidden from here, the wreck of their home obscured by the pale trunks before them. Colm scoops up a handful of leaf litter and crushes it slowly. The dry refuse falls from between his fingers in flaky scented scales.

  ‘We’ll wait for Father until sundown as planned,’ he says. He stretches out on the shaded ground, rests his head on the pillow of his pack.

  ‘He’ll be here by then,’ his sister says, and drags her arm wearily across her face. She drops her pack beside Colm’s and lies with her back to him. A magpie warbles in the treetops. Colm’s eyelids droop.

  The sun is at its highest point when he wakes. He had not meant to sleep at all and leaps up from the ground, scans in an instant the surrounding countryside. All is still: the air hangs silvery in the heat. Colm nudges Lydia into wakedness and she stretches slowly, a whimper escaping her throat as she exhales.

  ‘We should go further up,’ he says. ‘We can’t stay here.’

  Lydia doesn’t answer. She takes a step out from under the trees and looks towards the valley, towards the remnants of home.

  ‘He won’t find us,’ she says quietly.

  ‘He will if we follow his directions.’

  Lydia is quiet. Her right hand clenches into a tight fist then opens like a starfish. There is a smear of blood along her arm.

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  ‘Am I?’

  Colm rummages in his pack until he finds a leather pouch, and takes from it a small square of fabric. He holds it under his sister’s mouth.

  ‘Spit,’ he says.

  A tiny tablet of phlegm appears on her lower lip and he presses the fabric against it, wipes the moisture in turn across the dried blood on her arm. She winces.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. He dabs carefully but has not finished when Lydia wriggles out from under his touch.

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ she says. Then, looking at the bloody square of fabric, ‘Don’t waste that. There aren’t many.’

  He nods and places the square into her outstretched hand. She smoothes it out then drops it into a pocket of her pack.

  ‘Come on then,’ she says, and walks out through the other side of the stand of ghost gums. Colm picks up his pack and follows.

  The sun burns down upon their skin. Colm stops and searches his pack for one of the shirts he knows it contains. The three of them – Colm, Lydia and their father – spent months refining the contents of the packs. Between them they had tried to conceive of every possible scenario they might come across and the tools they would need to survive. It would be a long and treacherous journey, and likely there would be times when there was very little to eat, and even less to drink. So, as well as packing dried food and flasks of water, Rafe Bell had taught his children how to live off the land.

  ‘We may be separated,’ he had said to them, ‘and then you won’t have me to help you.’ And so he had taught them to recognise which plants they could eat and which they could not, which succulents were good to snap and suck for the sticky stuff inside, which earth beetles were the least bitter and the most full of protein. He had instructed them in map-reading and rock-climbing, knot-tying and fire-lighting, had taught them how to bandage a sprained wrist or ankle and how to lessen the poison from a spider bite. He had shown them how to make shelter from bark and the lee of a rock, how to catch skinks with their hands, how to make and shoot darts at rabbits. He told them, too, of the difficulties that lay beyond the strong walls of Hirrup’s Range: of the extreme lack of water, of the scarcity of food, of the desperation of the people, and of the raiders.

  They had sorted and settled on other supplies: a map, of course, and a compass. A sleeping bag, hat, first-aid kit and a belt of coins. They decided, too, on a second set of clothes. The first set could be stolen, they thought, or destroyed. They might be needed for trade once their coins ran out, or for tearing into bandages. Or the children might be taken by surprise and forced to start their journey without proper clothing on their backs.

  Colm shrugs into a long-sleeved cotton shirt and pulls a hat down over his eyes. He feels at once the relief from the sun. Ahead of him, Lydia is trudging up the hill in her undies and singlet; already he can see her shoulders turning pink.

  ‘Lyd!’ he calls. ‘Put your shirt on!’

  She doesn’t stop but continues upwards, her head down, her eyes fastened to the rocky path at her feet. Colm pushes himself after her.

  ‘It’s too hot,’ he says. ‘You’ll burn.’

  ‘I just want to get to the top,’ she replies. ‘We’ll see the path from there. We’ll see Father coming.’

  The way grows steeper, the sun hotter. They come to a small cairn made of the same orange rock that surrounds them. As they pass it, Colm kicks at it and sends the rocky structure tumbling. Some of the pieces shatter as they hit the stony ground.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ asks Lydia.

  Colm stops and stares at his sister. ‘We can’t leave a trace,’ he says. ‘You know that. And you’re burning. Put your shirt on.’

  Lydia ignores him and begins to gather the scattered rock. ‘Father won’t find the way without it,’ she says, and stacks the pieces on top of each other.

  ‘Of course he will,’ says Colm. ‘He’s spent years in these hills. He only built the cairn for us.’

  Colm takes his water bottle from his pack and hands it to Lydia. She hesitates at first, then drinks, slowly, carefully.

  ‘Please, Lyd,’ Colm says. ‘We have to leave it. And you have to dress properly. You won’t make it very far in this heat if you don’t.’

  Lydia screws the cap back on the bottle and begins to dress. Colm finds her hat in her pack and hands it to her. Her chin quivers.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, and touches her cheek. ‘There’s a long way to go.’

  They climb through the heat of the day and into the afternoon, stopping from time to time for a lick of water, a dried fig. The way becomes steeper and steeper. Often Colm has to drop his pack and go back for Lydia’s. Sometimes he takes her hand and helps her up the harder sections. They both tire quickly under the merciless sun.

  The rocks glow red as the afternoon dips to evening. The sleeping creatures of the day begin to shift about, to stir. The heat sinks slowly with the light.

  Brother and sister stand at the top of the range. The last of the evening sun makes clear the path they have climbed. They are alone on the mountain. There is no one about.

  ‘We will wait until morning,’ says Colm. ‘We’ll be safe in the cave for the night.’

  They turn from the sight of the distant valley below and make their way across the flat plate that is the top of the mountain. The bare rocks are softened by occasional clumps of spongy vegetation, the leaves of which the children snap off and suck.

  The mountain range snakes north and south in a long unbroken line. A series of valleys press into the escarpment, forming little mountain after little mountain, here where they are already so high. The way down, Colm and Lydia know, is not to walk along the top of the range to its end – that would mean constant ascending and descending – but to find one of the moraines that run from the side down to the great dry plains below.

  The light drops, the way becomes less clear. They find a cairn indicating that a path be taken along a narrow ledge, one side of which falls away steeply. Lydia kicks the marker as they pass and sends the rocks skating over the edge to the emptiness beyond. The seconds pass slowly before they hear them hit the bottom.

  The lingering light is not enough for them to see by, for them to be safe by. Colm switches on his torch and takes the lead. Lydia walks closely behind. The ledge widens and they find themselves twisting their way through a maze of large boulders, each taller than a man, taller even than their father. The cooling darkness moves in like velvet about their hot, aching bodies.

  ‘It’s here, Lyd,’ breathes Colm. He is tired but happy to se
e at last the natural stone archway that marks the start of the moraine. He takes his sister’s hand and they step through together. A few minutes later they are at the foot of the little cave in which they will spend the night and, exhausted, they haul themselves up a final incline and throw their packs onto the dark stone floor. The sudden alleviation of burden makes them feel as though they will float away.

  They prepare a mess of dried potato and eat wearily from a single bowl. The night air creeps into their tired bones and they lie in spoons with their packs as pillows and settle in to sleep. The stars wink and wonder.

  And Colm, far from home, slides into his small glass box, curls himself up tightly and lets the world spin him away, spin him deep into the blackness of a quiet, whispering night.

  CHAPTER

  2

  They sleep, they wake, they sleep again. The dawn comes slowly. Colm shifts and turns on his bed of stone. His hip aches from the unrelenting hardness of the rock.

  He wants to be walking. He wants to be moving further away. The dark early hours are the best for travelling, he thinks. Then it is cool and quiet. But he knows they cannot leave, not yet. They must wait for the sun to tell them when to go. They must wait and hope that their father will join them between this time and that. Otherwise, they set out from this place as they set out from the last: alone.

  Colm wishes he knew where their father was, wishes he knew of his safety. He is smart, though, thinks Colm. Once he’d been seen as the saviour of the planet! Had been admired and adored! Colm comforts himself with this thought: that the brilliance which once earned his father adulation would now keep him free from all harm.

  The sky at last lightens to grey and they peel themselves from the ground, loosen their limbs. Lydia traces her way back to the start of the moraine in the hope of spotting their father. Colm wipes clean the dinner bowl from the previous night and gathers their belongings. Ribbons of mauve and orange light unfurl across the sky.

  Lydia returns. She climbs back up into the cave and squats on the floor. She traces a stick along the veins of rock and rakes the powdery dust into neat little piles. Occasionally she glances at the sky.

  Colm feels anxiety scraping his stomach. The sky is blue now, the air still cool, but he knows it will not be long before the heat starts again. He squats beside his sister.

  ‘Lyd,’ he says softly. ‘We’ve waited too long.’

  Lydia spells out her initials in the dust.

  ‘We have to go without him.’

  A tear rolls slowly down her nose and hangs there like a little glassy stalactite. She wipes at it with her hand.

  ‘Just a bit longer,’ she says.

  Colm looks again at the sky, at the sun climbing slowly into its blue heights, and exhales.

  ‘All right.’

  He stands and shifts his weight from one leg to the other, his hand flat against his stomach. The anxiety is grinding away at his insides and he feels like he wants to be sick again. He knows he is too soft with Lydia.

  ‘Come on,’ he says roughly, and shoulders his pack. ‘Now. We have to go now.’

  Lydia gets up slowly as though reluctant to leave the marks she has scratched into the dirt. But she runs her foot over them and so leaves no trace. Their steps beat a farewell to the cave that has been their shelter and the day proclaims itself at once upon their skin.

  ‘A scorcher,’ says Colm.

  Every day’s a scorcher. He knows that. It’s just something you say when there’s nothing else. He can hear Lydia snuffling into her sleeve behind him and wishes he had something else to talk about. But he hasn’t. Just the weather.

  When their father was young they smalltalked the weather too. Only back then there were a few more options. ‘Looks like rain,’ someone might say. Or, ‘Gunna be another wet one.’ But that was before, when the seasons were still in line with the months of the year, when the rhythms of the earth and of the sky were predictable.

  Colm and Lydia were born in drought. They have never seen rain. Colm tries out the word on his tongue. ‘Rain,’ he says, softly so Lydia can’t hear him. ‘Rain.’

  His eyeballs prickle. He pulls his hat further down his forehead and walks with his gaze to the ground. He does not want to think of this, of rain and of his father. He does not want to think about the fact that now they are alone. Even though their father had warned them of such a thing a long, long time ago.

  ‘Colm!’

  He stops when he hears Lydia’s voice and looks up. The path they are on has split into two. He is standing on one, Lydia on the other.

  ‘This is the way,’ says his sister. ‘That just goes along the base of the range. This will take us to the plains, to Nurrengar and Midgin.’

  He looks in the direction she is indicating and sees the vast expanse of dry red dust. The path he is on looks more inviting: there are still scattered patches of vegetation of the type they sampled on the top of the range, as well as the occasional gum.

  ‘Father said we should walk through the towns,’ insists Lydia. ‘He said we’d be more likely to find water. Besides, he could still catch us up.’

  Colm nods and crosses over to the other path. Funny how the plans they made in the valley now seem patchy, inadequate. His instinct is to follow the range, but it is true: if they head towards Nurrengar they could stay there for a day or two until their father joins them.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘I had my head down. Wasn’t watching.’

  He lets Lydia go first and watches her suddenly buoyant steps. He is glad she feels better, even if he himself feels worse. He shouldn’t do this, walk along and think of things so that they take the wrong path, so that they lose the way. Lydia prevented that from happening this time, but he isn’t to rely on her. He needs to keep alert. He needs to think only of the moment.

  He isn’t happy, though, about this path. It feels too exposed. There is nowhere to hide. He knows that anyone further up the moraine would see them without difficulty. He turns and looks back the way they have come, scans the rock, the path, for any sign of movement. That there is none does not lessen his anxiety: it is easy enough for raiders to hide on the cluttered slopes.

  They walk. The sun grows hotter. Silvery shimmering mares’ tails appear, rising from the ground before them. Their soles blister.

  It is late afternoon by the time they reach the outskirts of Nurrengar. They are exhausted and almost don’t notice the small red iron hut for the haze that covers their eyeballs. But a gust of wind blows and one section of the rickety tin roof scrapes against another. The children look over to their right and see the little hut with its garden of grit and rusting metal posts. A woman, scrawny and gnarled, stands in the doorway with a rifle pressed into the side of her chest, her head cocked, her eye steely down the barrel. Colm takes Lydia by the hand and pulls her so her step is quickened. They turn their heads from the woman and her gun and fix them hard to the brown dirt underfoot, to the scraps of spinifex and to the black ants marching steadily south.

  They pass a second hut some way down the road, then a third and a fourth. A dog is chained to the fence of the fifth and rears menacingly as they approach. It barks and pulls at its chain. White flecks of saliva fly from its mouth.

  The town opens up before them, a random collection of ruins and sheds. Rubbish lines the streets in steaming heaps; the smell of rotting garbage wrenches the gut. Welcome to Nurrengar reads a faded blue sign, many times painted over. Proud entrant of Tidy Towns 2027.

  Colm once knew this town well, though it’s been some time since his last visit. It was to Nurrengar that they would travel with their father to purchase supplies – flour, sugar, salt – before the raids began and self-sufficiency became more pressing. And before, of course, they lost their road. Now, though, he barely recognises the place for the deterioration that has set in. Entire streets seem to have disappeared. Landmarks he remembers are no longer standing. Only a few of the shops on the main street appear to be open for business. Colm and Lydi
a brush through grubby fly strips into Joe’s Emporium. The air hangs low and stagnant within.

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ says Colm.

  A large red-faced man in his fifties looks up from a tattered tide guide.

  ‘Hello,’ he says. He screws up his eyes and peers through the dusty gloom.

  ‘I’m Colm, Rafe Bell’s son. This is my sister Lydia.’

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ says Lydia.

  ‘Well, well,’ says Joe, and lets out a long, slow whistle through the gap in his teeth. ‘Rafe Bell’s kids, eh? It must be five years.’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘How’s your old man?’

  ‘He’s gander.’

  Joe whistles again, nods slowly.

  ‘We were wondering,’ says Colm, ‘where everything is. The streets and the buildings and stuff.’

  ‘Raids,’ says Joe. ‘Coupla years back now. Should do us for a while. Nothin’ much left to take.’ He looks glumly about the shop, his jaw thrust forward, the fleshy ledge of his lower lip extended. Rows of dusty wooden shelves stand empty of any recognisable wares. A cabinet set with grubby glass makes a coffin for long-dead flies. A ceiling fan hangs idle in the simpering heat.

  ‘Ya didn’t wanna buy nothin’, didja?’

  ‘No,’ says Colm. ‘You still got that room you sometimes let people stay in? We’ve got money. We can pay.’

  Joe grimaces and levers himself out of his stool. ‘You runnin’ away?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Been raids up your place?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Old man gander?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Joe shakes his head and turns to the cool box behind him. He hands the children a warm can of Fanta each.

  ‘Get that into ya,’ he says. ‘Must be thirsty after walkin’ all that way.’

  ‘Thanks, Joe.’

  ‘Sorry they’re not cold. No power for the frigidair.’

  Colm and Lydia crack open the cans and slurp desperately on the sweet, sticky liquid.

  ‘Come on,’ says Joe. ‘I’ll show you the room.’

  He leads the way out through the shop to a small bare yard. A woman of about his own age pegs a couple of dusty grey articles on a clothes line.