“If you don’t eat, they make you. Sometimes bread, sometimes meat. Sometimes sleep—but not always. Only when they want you for the Feed.”
She waits more. I’m still silent.
Crow stamps her foot. Long nails rake the ground.
“What could I do? What can you do? Fetchers are never caught. They are never stopped. We have no claws or wings or bite. We can’t get away. No one gets away.”
No one gets away…?
I push words through my hurt throat. “There are other girls?”
“The Fetchers fetch. The Feed is fed. The girls come but never go.”
Crow’s voice is heavy. Sad.
The other girls are dead.
That’s not going to be me.
I sit up. “I’m getting out.”
“I know how.”
“Tell me, then!”
“You must become a dead girl. A not-feeling girl.”
Dead inside? Stupid idea.
I slam my hand on the bed.
“Tell me how to really escape!”
“That is how! And you must be dead soon. Then you won’t mind being a gray girl.”
I stand. Glare. “I’m not going to be gray, Crow!”
Her mouth turns down. “Foolish not-a-dead girl.” She points to my arm. “You already are.”
I look at where she points.
There are finger marks on my wrist. Where the Feed first touched me.
The marks are gray.
I scratch.
Dig.
But I can’t claw the horrible from myself.
I can’t make the color come back.
“It doesn’t come off,” Crow says. “It is your gray. Like mine, but not. Everyone’s gray is their own.”
She leans closer and adds, “You wouldn’t mind so much if you were a dead girl.”
“Get away from me!” I snap.
Crow jumps back. “Fine! Put all your screams upon your shoulders and let them crush you.”
She hops into her corner.
I stare at my hand.
I want a knife. To cut it out of me.
That’s dumb.
If I get a knife, I’ll use it on the Feed.
The Feed took from me.
Left his mark on me.
Everyone can see it.
I don’t know how to stand this.
Only I do know.
The names.
Granny Trudy Catching…
Nanna Sadie Catching…
Grandma…Linda?
I can’t remember.
I’m glass thrown against rock.
My connections are broken.
I grab hold of bits of myself.
Push pieces back together.
Granny Trudy Catching…
Nanna Sadie Catching…
Grandma Leslie Catching…
Grandma Leslie Catching.
My mother’s mother.
Mum’s voice speaks:
The law that let the government take Aboriginal children lasted for generations. They came for your Grandma when she was a kid, just as they’d come for her mum before her. But your Grandma didn’t get away.
They put her in a bad place. One of the worst places. She thought her mum would save her. Until an older kid told her how it was. The mothers weren’t told where their kids had been taken to. And the government never gave anyone back. That was when your Grandma knew she’d have to live through hard day after hard day. She worried she couldn’t do it. That she wasn’t tough enough. Then she remembered the rocks of her homeland. Old rocks. Rocks that had lived for millions of years.
Your Grandma made herself strong like rock. She survived hard times. She survived hard years. She got through until she was grown up. Then she went looking for her mum, who’d never stopped looking for her.
Your Grandmother knew how to endure.
I’m not glass thrown against rock.
I am the rock.
I can endure.
As long as I remember where I come from.
Who I come from.
Crow can help me with that.
I can’t tell her the names out loud.
But I don’t have to.
Just who they are to me.
“Crow? I need you to do something.”
Silence.
“I need you to say some names with me.”
More silence.
“Come out and help!”
“I did help.”
She’s sulking.
Because I didn’t like her twisted idea.
She’s messed up. But I need her.
“Crow? I’ll think about being a dead, not-feeling girl.”
She bounces out of the shadows. “Really?”
No. “Yes. So long as you learn some words.”
“I am good at words!”
I say the names.
She repeats them.
We say them together.
“Granny…” Trudy Catching.
“Nanna…” Sadie Catching.
“Grandma…” Leslie Catching.
“Mum…” Rhonda Catching.
“Me.”
Even if I forget again, Crow will remember.
I’ll endure.
Until I get away.
Until the Feed knows fear.
That fear will wear my face.
Speak with my voice.
And I’ll be terrifying.
Catching went silent.
Dad didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. No words would come out of my mouth. I was too shocked. Too horrified. Too enraged.
My father was angry too. I could see it in the tightness around his mouth and the glint in his eyes. But his voice was gentle when he spoke to Catching: “If someone has harmed you, I can protect you. I can protect your friend.”
“Trying to save me?” Her face was stony and remote. Like the rock that endures. “Too late.”
Dad tried again. “If your friend is in trouble…”
“She’s not.”
That had the ring of truth to it. But I was convinced now that everything Catching said was true in some way.
Dad took his card out of his pocket, placing it on the nightstand beside the bed. “This is my number. You can call me anytime.”
“Yeah, I’ll so be doing that.”
He sighed. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’d like to tell me?”
Catching flopped back against her pillows and closed her eyes. Dad took the hint. “I’ll let you rest.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and we can talk again, if you’d like.”
He walked out of the room with slow steps, giving her the chance to call him back. But she didn’t speak or move until the door swung closed behind him. Then her eyes flicked open and she sat up.
I wanted to say…I didn’t know, something, although everything I could think of seemed shallow and stupid next to the awfulness of her experience. I spoke anyway. “I know you don’t want Dad’s help, but if I can do anything…”
She gave an impatient shake of her head. “You want to help somebody, Teller? Try yourself.”
“I’m fine!”
“You’re so not. You don’t want to move on to what’s next? Fine. Be stupid, and don’t. But you can’t go back. Your dad can’t either.”
He can! I can! But those words sounded ridiculous even inside my own head. I’d died. I was different. Dad was different. I couldn’t reverse that.
I don’t know why I hadn’t known it until this instant.
Catching studied my face, and whatever she saw i
n my expression made the half-smile return to her mouth. She lay back, apparently feeling she’d made her point. “Get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I left, drifting out of the hospital into the darkening light of the late afternoon. My father was pacing back and forth by the car, talking on his phone. He hung up just as I reached him.
“Break in the case?” I asked.
“No, just getting someone to take a look at that rehab facility Catching was in.” He cast a worried glance back at the hospital. “I think someone really hurt her. Maybe at that facility. Or maybe before then. It’s hard to tell, with the way she’s mixing everything together.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, there are limits to what I can do if she won’t give me more to go on.”
“I think the story might be all you get, Dad.”
Because Catching didn’t want to be helped. Only heard. And while I hadn’t believed that at first, I was starting to. She obviously thought she could look after herself. And I supposed it was no surprise she didn’t want to rely on anyone else, when there’d been no one to come the time she’d needed it most.
Dad’s phone rang. He pulled it back out and looked down at the name of the caller. Aunty Viv.
I rolled my eyes as he shoved the phone into his pocket. “You’re not going to be able to ignore her forever. Grandpa Jim’s birthday is coming up, you know.” Mum’s dad was going to be eighty-two in a month. “What are you going to do, avoid Aunty Viv for the entire party? Because that will be weird.”
“I’m probably not going,” Dad said.
Just like that. As if it was nothing.
“What do you mean, you’re not going? You have to go!”
“No. I don’t.”
“Of course you do, y—”
“Leave it, Beth!” he snarled.
I took a startled step back. Dad’s gaze dropped to the ground. He shifted uncomfortably and mumbled, “Sorry. Um. Guess we should be getting back to the hotel.”
He went to the car and opened the passenger-side door. It was a thing he did sometimes, opening doors for me as if I couldn’t phase right through them. It usually happened when he most wanted to pretend I was still alive. I was supposed to let him pretend, the way I always did. That meant getting into the car and shutting up about Aunty Viv.
I flashed back to being outside this hospital with Dad yesterday. The only thing I’d cared about then was him not being sad. I would have let go of Grandpa Jim’s birthday, thinking I could always talk to him about it another time.
Yesterday was a different world.
Today I did something I’d never done before.
I walked away.
Dad called after me. But I sped up, running back to the hospital and right through its walls, then through building after building in the streets behind. When I felt sure Dad wouldn’t be able to find me, I shifted onto the footpath and slowed to a stroll, going nowhere in particular except away from my father.
I couldn’t believe Dad. This was Grandpa Jim. My Grandfather with the big white hair. The man who’d taught me card tricks, and who hadn’t spoken a single word for a full three days after I’d died. The parent who’d always treated Dad like one of his own sons.
It had never occurred to me that Dad wouldn’t go to Grandpa Jim’s birthday party. Aside from anything else, it was the first family birthday since my death. Everyone would be sad and happy at the same time—or at least trying to be happy. And they’d all expect Dad to be there.
I could just see Aunty Viv, her eyes darting constantly to the front door as she waited for Dad to walk through it. When she finally realized he wasn’t coming…when they all realized he wasn’t coming…I knew exactly how it would be.
Aunty Viv would deflate like a balloon with all the air let out of it. Aunty June would stomp around, muttering under her breath. Uncle Mick and his husband would try to cheer Grandpa Jim up with a card game, but Grandpa wouldn’t really be having fun, no matter how many times they let him win at rummy. And Uncle Kel and his wife would go cook something. But not even Kel’s best stew or Marie’s most chocolatey pudding would comfort the cousins, who’d go quiet the way they only ever did when something was really wrong. It would be awful, and I wasn’t sure Dad would ever be able to make up for it.
There was a queasy sensation in my stomach. Had I been getting things wrong, all this time? I’d been focused on getting Dad back to who he’d been before I died. Now I was thinking I should have been helping him go on to become a person who knew how to live in a world where I wasn’t alive. A person who’d go to Grandpa Jim’s birthday.
I had no idea what to do anymore.
I also didn’t know when it had become night.
I stopped, puzzled; I hadn’t noticed the light changing. Then I realized I could see twilight in the distance. It wasn’t night. But I was enveloped by a huge shadow with curving shapes at the edges. As if some big, clawed thing loomed at my back…
I spun around, heart pounding. There was nothing there.
Maybe the shadow was the big, clawed thing.
And I was inside of it.
I sprinted for the twilight, reached it, and kept going. But the shadow followed, streaming over the earth to flow at my heels. I ran faster. The shadow flowed faster. I pulled every last scrap of speed from my body, my arms and legs pumping until my chest was tight and my limbs were trembling. I couldn’t keep this up! And the shadow was still coming.
Maybe I could escape it by reshuffling the world. I tried focusing on Dad. But my mind couldn’t seem to grab on to him. I tried thinking of Catching instead. That didn’t work either, and my legs were rubbery and weak and slowing down. The thing was almost upon me, and I’d reached the limits of my body’s endurance.
Except that I didn’t have an actual body. I was dead.
With that realization, I burst through limits that weren’t there anymore and ran as I’d never been able to before. The shakiness in my arms and legs vanished. The pain in my chest vanished. Only the joy of motion remained—my hair whipping back from my face, the thud of my feet on the earth, the cool sting of the wind on my skin. I was faster than the shadow. I was faster than anyone or anything. I’d never felt more…alive.
Something shining flashed into existence in front of me.
I skidded to a halt, casting a glance back over my shoulder. But the shadow was gone. There was only what lay ahead: a sea of colors brighter than any I’d ever seen. I took a curious step forward. The shining, writhing coils were a strange sight, and yet I wasn’t afraid. Somehow, I knew these colors; more than knew them—loved them and had missed them, although I hadn’t known it until right now. A fierce longing overtook me. I wanted to go home.
I bounded forward. Then I realized what I was seeing and feeling, and stopped.
At least, my brain decided to stop. But my legs kept on moving, carrying me to where my heart wanted to go.
I focused my will and staggered to a slow and reluctant halt.
The colors were the place I’d glimpsed right after I’d died. The other side. And they were singing, or someone was. I couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded like a welcoming song. The kind a mother might sing to her child.
I’d finally found Mum. Except she’d been with me all along, because I knew the sound of her voice. I’d heard it a thousand times, only I’d thought it was my own voice. She was the part of me that said Everything will be all right, and You did great at that, and It’s going to be an amazing day. Mum had been there my whole life, helping me be a butterfly girl.
Maybe all hopeful thoughts were just someone who loved us, reaching out from another side. Which meant I could be there for my family even after I’d crossed over!
Joy bubbled up in me and I leaped forward, rising into the air. Then I thought of my father and fell back to earth.
I couldn’t go. Becaus
e while the rest of the family could have a relationship with who I was now, Dad could only manage one with who I’d been before. He needed me to be here in the same way as I had been when I was alive, or as much like it as was possible.
I took one last, long look at the colors, and sucked in a steadying breath.
Then I turned my back.
There was a popping sound. The whole world turned dull. The colors were gone. I fell to my knees, sobbing into the skirt of the stupid yellow dress I’d wear forever.
I sat there until my tears ran out and the world grew dark. It was really night this time. The shadow hadn’t come back. Maybe it had been my own death, chasing me to where I was supposed to go. I didn’t know, and I didn’t have the strength to care. Turning away from the colors had taken everything I had.
I lurched up. It seemed to take a lot of effort. Maybe I should sit again? Except I was already on my feet. I took a step, another step, a third. Now it seemed easier to keep on walking than not, so I kept going, making my way to the hotel.
The light was on in Dad’s room, shining through a crack in the curtains; he was still awake. Unless he’d fallen asleep with the lamp on again, but it seemed too early in the evening for that. I squared my shoulders, bracing myself to find him crying, and walked into the room.
He wasn’t crying. He was sitting in a chair with his back to me, staring at a wall filled with sticky notes grouped under three headings: ISOBEL CATCHING, SARAH BLUE, and THE HOME.
I blinked in surprise. “Dad, you made one of your thinking walls?”
“Beth!” He leaped up. “You’re back! I didn’t know when— You’ve been crying.”
My eyes felt red and gritty. Stupid, Beth. I was usually so careful to make sure he never knew I cried.
“I’m sorry,” Dad rushed on, “so sorry I snapped at you. I didn’t mean to; I just…I’m sorry.”
I wanted to tell him I hadn’t been crying because of that. Except I didn’t want to talk about the colors. “S’okay.”
Dad didn’t seem to know what to say, and I couldn’t find any more words either. Finally he waved at the wall. “I’ve been mapping everything out. Seeing if anything connects.”
He paused in a hopeful kind of way.
You want us to be friends again, Dad? Promise to go to Grandpa Jim’s birthday.
The Things She's Seen Page 8