by Joss Hedley
‘We tracked them as far as the western lake at Glen Isla,’ says Wyn to his mother as she stamps down the soil with her bare feet, ‘but lost them over the rocks. We hope they’ll appear at the lake again tomorrow.’
‘Is there water in the lake?’ Colm whispers to Ailis when she enters the hut later.
‘A little,’ she says. ‘A very little. And it’s thick with salt.’
The men rest and unravel the day. Brae sits sombrely beside Wyn. The man’s hand rests from time to time on the boy’s shoulder. There is a sense of tiredness, of despair.
Are there any other women?’ asks Lydia of Ailis. ‘Or children?’
Ailis bows her head and speaks softly as though to the ground on which she sits.
‘There was a death three days ago,’ she says. ‘A little girl, born to my son Wyn and his wife Ula. It was my duty as grandmother and woman-elder to attend to the burial rites of the babe and to care for the men until the first stage of grieving has passed. The women and children, as part of this tradition, move south of the camp to the old riverbed. As the river passes, so life passes.’
Lydia and Colm are quiet. Then Lydia asks, ‘But what of Brae? He is a child. Why is he not south with the women?’
Ailis looks across to where the boy, his face wizened and lined, sits with pride among the men.
‘Brae is different,’ she says.
Later, when the poteroos are cooked, Brae comes into the tent and sits with Colm and Lydia. He hands them each a small hunk of meat and a flap of smoky bread. The children eat with relish, licking the grease from their fingers and grinding the bones with their teeth. Brae turns his face to each of them, smiling. When Ailis makes up beds of sacks on the floor, Brae lies between them, snoring like an old man.
Colm sleeps badly that night. His dreams are troubled and he wakes frequently. The light from the moon fills the little hut and spreads its glow on the strange boy beside him. Brae, too, is restless in sleep. His face is further crumpled and his hands press hard against his temples. Images of the wizened face on the little boy’s body creep into Colm’s dreams. He shakes them away and wakens yet again. The bed beside him is empty. He raises himself on his elbows in time to see Brae disappearing into Ailis’s room. He hears the gentle sound of quiet steps on dust, the gentle murmur of Ailis’s voice. Then silence. Colm lies down again and listens to the settling of the empty air. Tiredness overcomes him and he sleeps.
CHAPTER
5
The sound of the men preparing for another day of hunting wakes the children in the little hut. They eat the porridge Ailis has prepared for them and watch through the doorway as the men set out to the west. The men walk boldly, their heads high, their chests expanded, full of the hope that a new day brings: today will be different, today will bequeath them luck. They carry with them spear-like implements and flat-bladed hooks fashioned from the offerings of the mechanical mound. Ailis does not watch but keeps her back to the doorway and busies herself with pots and meal.
‘Where is Brae this morning?’ Colm asks when the men have passed from sight.
‘He’s not well,’ replies Ailis. Her face looks tired and ashen. ‘He’s in my bed now, sleeping.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ asks Lydia.
‘He gets headaches,’ says Ailis. ‘They’re so bad you can see the veins at his temples throbbing with the pain. Sometimes they last for days.’
‘Has he had porridge?’ Lydia asks. ‘Maybe porridge will help him.’
‘You could be right,’ says Ailis. She fills a bowl and hands it to Lydia. ‘Go quiet now,’ she says. ‘Don’t disturb him if he’s still asleep.’
Lydia takes the bowl and passes softly through the curtain into Ailis’s sleeping area. Colm looks through the doorway again at the charred remains of last night’s cooking, at the mound of rusting mechanical parts, at the bare brown ground stretching all the way to the horizon. The old man sits with his unlit pipe blowing invisible smoke rings into the air.
‘Where is the nearest town?’ asks Colm.
Ailis shrugs. ‘Not sure,’ she says. ‘There used to be one to the north, Gowan, about three days’ journey on foot. But that was a long time ago. It may be deserted now.’
Colm’s brow creases. ‘How long have you lived here?’ he asks.
‘Many years now,’ she replies. ‘When I was a young girl, my father and his fellows left the city to form a community based on the methods and customs of subsistent cultures throughout the world. We thrived for a long time, but in the last decade or so things have become far harder for us. Especially for Brae. We used to be able to get him medicine, but now, since the raids, it’s impossible.’
‘He’s clever, Brae,’ says Colm, fingering the smooth metal disc about his neck. ‘Where did he learn to do such work?’
‘No one taught him,’ replies Ailis. ‘It is a gift he has.’ She looks carefully at Colm. Her eyes narrow to slits, then, as though seeing at last what was evident all along, open again and soften. ‘We think he is one of the Wish Kin.’
‘The Wish Kin?’ asks Colm.
‘Yes.’
Colm looks blankly at her.
‘You’ve not heard of them?’
‘No.’
‘It is said that when there is nothing left, when all has been depleted, the Wish Kin will emerge to bring grace and renewal to the earth once again. The Rain Maker will bring forth the dew from the heavens, the Wind Breather will blow freshness into the air, the Sun Tender will soften the touch of this great star on our skin, the Earth Bearer will press into the soil a hope it has not known for eons. There are many more Kin besides, some that we know of and some that we don’t. I think that Brae may be one of this number for the gift he has, for the difference we see in him. Watch him: he is unlike other children.’
‘The Wish Kin,’ Colm says again. This time he says the words slowly, rolls them around his mouth and sucks on the shape of vowels. There is something in the taste of them that is familiar, though he is certain he has never heard of them before. Or did Father speak of them once?
Ailis continues. ‘They are said to be a very special people, gifted with a compassion so great that the very earth will be renewed, and the clouds will bring forth rain.’
Colm feels a sensation as Ailis speaks, a deep burning in his chest, a thrilling of his spirit. He feels as though he is hearing the most important thing he has ever heard.
‘And then?’ he asks. ‘Will the land really be renewed?’
Ailis nods slowly. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘There will be a gradual assembling of the Wish Kin, a process called the Rekindling, in which the members of the Wish Kin will express fully their sympathy with the earth and with the elements for the very first time. But you must understand that such a gathering, such a bringing to bear of plenty, will inevitably be accompanied by the greed of those who wish to control such a thing, to fashion it to their own ends, and who will attempt to gain power over the good of it and reorganise it for evil.’
Colm is mystified. ‘Why would this happen?’ he asks. ‘Won’t it be enough for people that there will be rain again? That the land will be renewed?’
‘I hope so,’ sighs Ailis.
There is a noise from behind the curtain leading to Ailis’s room and Lydia and Brae emerge, their hands joined, their faces soft and smiling.
‘Better?’ asks Ailis of Brae. The boy nods and looks at Lydia. Her eyes are bright, fiery.
‘It was your porridge, Ailis,’ she says. ‘It fixed him at once.’
The two sit down on the rug beside Colm. Brae takes out a stack of the metal discs from a leather pouch and places them, image down, on the floor in seven rows of seven. He and Lydia touch the discs, turning them one by one, shifting them about in their positions. Ailis turns back to Colm.
‘You could try heading north,’ she says. ‘You never know, Gowan may be there yet.’
Colm looks again at his sister. She is deeply engaged in the disc game with Brae. ‘Lydia,’
he says. ‘We should pack.’
‘Just one more game,’ she replies.
It is her turn now. She moves her hand across the seven rows of discs and touches one briefly, then flips it over to reveal the image of a wolf, strong and fearless.
‘Father,’ she says, looking at the disc. She turns it face down again then passes her hand through Brae’s thin fringe of hair. ‘Thank you, Brae,’ she says, and stands. She picks up her pack and begins to stow her gear into it. Her almost empty water bottle she packs last, near the top.
‘Here,’ says Ailis, ‘have a little more.’ She fills their bottles with water from the clay urn then kisses the two of them goodbye. ‘Travel well,’ she says.
The woman and the middle-aged boy stand at the door of the hut waving as Colm and Lydia walk slowly from the campsite. The children pass the mound of rusting car parts and the old man sitting in its shade dreaming of happier times. As they are entering a patch of scrub they turn one last time and see their hosts looking westwards. The children shift their gaze and watch as a herd of kangaroos make their way across the scrub towards the lakes of Glen Isla.
• • •
They walk north. They are feeling well for the rest, for the good food at Ailis’s. They take careful sips of the water from their bottles and nap in the heat of the day. Lydia rolls onto her side and blows a small well of air into the red dirt. Sleep comes to her quickly. Colm lies on his back and ponders the things of which Ailis spoke. The Wish Kin. So strange. Not a power, as such. Ailis had called it a sympathy, a compassion. But it was something so strong and so deep that the earth must somehow recognise it, and respond to it. But how could such a thing happen? And how many Wish Kin were there? Who were they? Were they together now? When would the Rekindling start? Why didn’t it start soon?
His head thickens and whirls. He wants to know the answers, to understand fully. He grasps at the metal disc about his neck. It is strangely cool.
The sky at this time of day is bright, the brightest of blues. Electric blue, their father used to say. Colm gazes at it, at its brilliance, its completeness. It seems perfect, he thinks. More than perfect. How can one thing be so wholly blue, so wholly bright? He thinks of tales his father told him of how once the sky was home to thick, heavy rain clouds, great banks of them that covered the expanse like enormous weightless mountains. He thinks of the stories of the huge leaden thunder clouds; of gunmetal grey sheets rolled out across the firmament, which filled the air with charge, sent spears of current to the ground, burst and covered the earth with floods of rain. He thinks of riverbeds, dry and cracked for years, filling now with sweet brown water, thinks of it swirling and eddying in great rushes as it follows its path to the sea. He thinks of deep pools of water, dams and tarns and little lakes, and of the soft green vegetation that grows on their banks. He thinks of animals making their way slowly through the balmy evening air to drink from their depths. Lizards there’d be, geckoes and blue-tongues and frill-necks. Birds of every variety, currawongs, magpies, kookaburras. And herds of four-footed beasts, of cattle, sheep and horses. All would drink from the pools and meres and rivers and these would be full because of the great emptying of the clouds upon the land.
All this he thinks about from the things his father has told him. Few of these creatures has he ever seen himself and never has he laid eyes upon water in the way he knows it once existed. Nor, for that matter, has he ever seen rain clouds. The most he has perceived is a wisp, a small feather of cloud. Like that one there in the sky above him now, the merest thread of whiteness in the endless bowl of blue. He watches it make its way across the expanse, sees how its edges scatter and spread to tiny fibres that are left behind to dissolve into nothing. The slightly larger thread he follows with his eyes, observes as it curls upon itself with the help of an updraft, as its tail meets its head so that it looks like a smoke ring blown through the lips of some kindly giant of the sky, a smoke ring that would be the envy of Ailis’s father sitting there with his empty pipe, his empty lungs. There is an ache in Colm as he watches, and a feeling of something long, long forgotten, or of something never even known. The cloud pushes further upwards, blown by the breath of the gentle, skybound giant, blown until its edges fray once again and it dissipates: twenty tiny threads of silk disappearing into the blue.
• • •
Two days later they come to a sizeable town resting in a valley between two hills. Colm is confused, and rechecks their position against the map.
‘It can’t be Gowan,’ he says. ‘Gowan’s still a day away.’
They approach the rambling outskirts carefully, but their need for water and provisions drives them into the town’s centre. A passer-by tells them the place is called Yarran. They stop at the town well and wait in line to fill their bottles. The woman ahead of them turns and looks at them.
‘You’re not from here,’ she states. ‘You shouldn’t be in this line.’
‘Where should we be?’ Colm asks.
The woman shrugs. ‘Not here,’ she says. ‘Try asking at the transit office. Someone there should know.’
They drift out of the queue and head towards the low prefabricated hut across the road. A long line snakes through the door and along the front of the building. Colm and Lydia take their positions at the end of it.
‘How could Ailis not know of this place?’ Colm asks Lydia.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She said that the nearest town was three days’ journey north, not two. Why didn’t the menfolk of her clan come across it in their travels?’
‘Maybe they avoided it,’ says Lydia. ‘Look at it. Can you imagine them wanting to live here?’
Colm scans the untidy street with its mean little shacks and bags of rubbish stacked up in foul-smelling piles. Crowds of people dressed in rags, their feet bound with filthy cloths, push past them. Flies swarm over market stalls that sell rotten fruit and limp brown vegetables. Flea-bitten dogs scrap over morsels of meat. Small children run naked and dirty in and out of passing trailers and barrows. Colm shakes his head.
‘So strange,’ he says. ‘They live so close to this place but are so different. It’s like they’re from another age.’
‘It’s like everyone is from an age all of their own,’ says Lydia. ‘Ailis, Marla, Nurrengar. And us. All of us making our way however we can.’
The queue moves a little and they pick up their gear and shuffle forwards a few steps. The movement ceases and they settle into standing still again. More people have joined the line, travellers like themselves, it seems, though far more ragged in appearance.
‘Where are you from?’ asks the young man behind them.
‘Windirup,’ says Colm.
The young man furrows his brow. ‘North coast?’
Colm shakes his head. ‘West,’ he says. ‘And you?’
But the young man is shocked. ‘You’re from the west coast! You’re heading south?’
‘North,’ says Colm. ‘Elan Plains.’
‘North! But haven’t you heard? The Centre has burned up. There’s nothing left. You can’t get in there. Everyone’s heading south or west to get away from the fire.’
‘What fire?’
The young man laughs, disbelieving. ‘Where have you two been hiding? Surely you know! The underground fire that’s burning its way across the country. They say it’s swallowing whole towns and setting light to mountains. There’s no going north now. The place is a furnace.’
The line begins to move again and Colm and Lydia find themselves inside the hut, out of the reach of the sun.
‘We have to change our story,’ whispers Colm to Lydia so the young man can’t hear him. ‘We can’t be going to Elan Plains if it doesn’t exist.’
‘But how do we know that what he’s saying is true? How can the earth be on fire? He could be telling us anything!’
Colm turns briefly to look at the young man, who is talking now with a family behind him.
‘He’s certainly friendly. It’s hard t
o imagine that he’s lying.’
Lydia grimaces. ‘Let’s not change our story yet. Let’s wait until we find out more.’
The line creeps slowly forward and at last Colm and Lydia are at the head of it. A woman in a heavy black mourning veil looks up from behind a ragged wooden desk. Her forehead creases when she sees them.
‘Your names, please,’ she says.
Colm is not expecting this, and stumbles. ‘Um – pardon?’ he says.
‘What are your names?’
‘Jem and Erica Windhover,’ says Lydia quickly.
The woman writes the names down slowly in small, even letters. ‘Windhover,’ she repeats.
‘Yes,’ says Lydia, and spells it out for her.
The woman looks at the name on the page, and then at the children before her. ‘We need to check all those who pass through our town,’ she says. But Colm thinks she is stalling.
‘Can you tell us where we can get water, please?’ he asks. ‘We tried at the well but were told to come here.’
‘Quite right,’ says the woman. ‘Itinerants must line up after sundown at the well behind the old quarry. Head past the town square and through the northern gates. You’ll find it about a kilometre on.’
The woman looks at them a little more closely. ‘Just the two of you?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘No father? Mother?’
‘No.’
The woman frowns slightly and flicks through a sheaf of papers. She scans a paragraph then looks up. ‘Where are you from?’ she asks.
‘Windirup,’ says Colm. ‘On our way north.’
The woman looks again at the page then whispers something to the fellow beside her. The fellow glances at the children, then twists his face into dismissal and returns to his work.
‘You’re not Rafe Bell’s kids are you?’ the woman asks as though it is an afterthought.