The Things She's Seen

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  I looked down at my feet. “I don’t know. I just didn’t.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  I shrugged.

  “Well,” Dad said, “I suppose I could always ask Catching why you didn’t—”

  My head whipped up. “Don’t do that!”

  “If you tell me, I won’t have to.”

  I couldn’t have Catching saying to Dad that I was wasting my eternity trailing around after a sad old man. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll be nice to him because she’s my friend. But I couldn’t be sure of that. For all I knew, Catching would think she was doing me a favor by telling Dad the truth as she saw it.

  I had to find a way to say it that wasn’t as harsh as how she’d put it.

  “I…I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to talk to Catching about me,” I said in a small voice. “She—well, she thinks I should move on.”

  He frowned. “Is there somewhere for you to move on to?”

  I opened my mouth to say, No. Of course not. There’s only here. Except the second I did it, the colors flashed into my mind and the words died in my throat. I couldn’t bear to say that the colors weren’t real.

  I looked away from Dad, blinking back the traitor tears that had sprung into my eyes.

  “Beth. Is there a place?”

  I nodded. “It’s full of colors.”

  “Is your mother there?”

  I didn’t answer that. He didn’t ask again. Instead, he sat there in silence, watching me with that same steady regard. Waiting me out. “Yeah. She is.”

  Dad made a choked, hurt noise. I hurried to reassure him. “But I’m not going. I’m staying here. With you.”

  Except he didn’t seem reassured. If anything, he seemed worried. “I never thought you were choosing to stay here! I thought this was just where you were. If there’s a better place, a place with your mother, then isn’t that somewhere you’d like to be?”

  No. I like it here. But it was too big a lie to say, and it stuck in my throat.

  Dad stared at me for a moment and then whispered, “You’re staying because of me. Beth. I’ll be okay.”

  I shook my head.

  “I will, I promise you I—”

  “You won’t, Dad! You aren’t. You’re sad.”

  Dad’s face crumpled a little around the edges. And I didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to leave him until he was okay, and there was nothing he could say that would change my mind. It was just hurting us both to talk about it.

  “I’m going inside to see Catching,” I told him. “To talk about the case. Are you coming?”

  “We can see Catching later! I think we should—”

  I left the car, running right through the door and then the hospital walls until I reached Catching’s room. I found her sitting on her bed, as always, and spoke in a rush: “Dad’s coming, and he knows you can see me. I already told him what you think—about moving on, I mean—so you don’t need to say anything to him about me leaving and him being a sad man, nothing at all!”

  I’d just managed to get the last word out when Dad burst in. “Beth, we have to talk about this.”

  “We really don’t.”

  Unexpectedly, Catching spoke: “No, you don’t. Not now, anyway.”

  We both turned to look at her. She’s different. Except she wasn’t. It was the same old Catching, only…brighter? Her eyes seemed a little browner, her hair a little darker, and all her edges a little bit more pronounced.

  “You didn’t come here to fight with each other,” Catching said. “You came for the story. You’ll have to sit down, though. It’s not a small ending.”

  We were finally going to find out about the fire? Dad had been right when he’d said we needed to see Catching, although I couldn’t see how he’d known she would get to the end of her story today.

  I settled onto the bed. Dad stayed where he was. “You may as well sit,” I told him, “because I’m not talking about the other stuff, and if you keep trying to, I’ll just leave.”

  He stared at me. I stared back until Dad sighed and gave in, pulling a chair out from the wall.

  Catching waited until he was sitting by the bed. Then she rested her chin on her knees and started speaking, in a soft, contemplative tone that I hadn’t heard from her before: “When I was in the beneath-place, it was stories that got me through. Stories that brought me home.”

  She tilted her head to one side, studying me and Dad. “But I don’t know where the end of this story is going to take you two.”

  Outside, the wind began to gust, throwing dust into the air and blocking out the sunlight. As the room grew darker, the wind grew stronger, swirling past with a sound like rushing water. Weirdly, the sound seemed to be coming from all sides, as if the wind had somehow encircled the room and was blowing inside the hospital.

  And Catching began: “People can time travel…”

  People can time travel inside their heads.

  Remember into the past.

  Imagine into the future.

  But sometimes you can’t escape the now.

  I’m being carried like a piece of meat.

  First has my wrists.

  Second has my ankles.

  My head tips. My body’s limp.

  Can’t run. Can’t fight. Only endure. Like always.

  They put me on the table. The one made of sticks.

  They leave.

  I’m not alone. Never alone.

  There’s breathing in the shadows.

  Low, heavy breaths. The Feed.

  Something about him is different.

  I don’t know what.

  His palm presses against my stomach.

  His fingers rip my flesh.

  He digs for my soul.

  It’s harder for him to find colors.

  He’s taken so many.

  He has to go deeper.

  His hand brushes my spine. Grabs hold of a color. Yanks it out.

  A scream tears through my body.

  No sound comes out of my mouth.

  It’s all locked inside.

  With everything else.

  The pain is too much.

  My brain shuts down.

  When it turns back on, I’m in my room.

  I try to move my fingers.

  They twitch. The drug’s worn off.

  My hand is all gray.

  My arm too.

  I’m turning into Crow.

  “Why do you keep fighting?” she asks. “You should be a dead girl!”

  Makes sense.

  If I’m dead inside, I’m free.

  No.

  If I’m dead inside, I’m dead inside.

  I say the words:

  “Granny…” Trudy Catching.

  “Nanna…” Sadie Catching.

  “Grandma…” Leslie Catching.

  “Mum…” Rhonda.

  “Me.”

  Crow joins in. But she adds new words now.

  “Isobel’s Granny. Crow’s Granny.”

  “Isobel’s Nanna. Crow’s dad.”

  “Isobel’s Grandma. Crow’s friend.”

  “Isobel’s mum. Crow’s mum.”

  “Me. You. Us.”

  Her people and mine carry me into sleep.

  The door scrapes.

  I wake.

  Fetchers. Bread.

  I eat.

  But my arms drop to my sides.

  My legs give way.

  No! It’s never twice so close together.

  Then I realize what was different about the Feed.

  His eyes weren’t mirrors.


  They were chips of brown stone.

  There’s not one Feed.

  There’s two.

  I’ve got no way to track time.

  No sun.

  No moon.

  No ticking clocks.

  Just the gray that eats my skin.

  Have days gone by? Weeks? Years?

  I’m on the bed.

  Something splashes my pillow.

  A tear.

  Not mine. Crow’s. She’s hovering above me.

  She’s never cried for me before.

  “Your color’s almost all gone,” she whispers. “When there’s no more, there’s no more.”

  I close my eyes.

  Shut out the sight of my body.

  “Say the words, Crow.”

  “Granny…Nanna…Grandma…”

  We say words together until I fall asleep.

  I’m walking on a hill.

  The hill’s green.

  The sky’s blue.

  The wildflowers are red and yellow and orange and purple and black.

  Somebody’s laughing.

  I follow the sound.

  Girls are sitting in a circle.

  One looks at me. She has freckles on her nose.

  “Are you here?” she asks. “We thought you were with Crow.”

  “You know Crow?”

  They all laugh.

  “Of course we do,” says another. “She’s fighting the wrong fight.”

  “She’s not!” I snap.

  They speak together: “You can’t fight feeling with not-feeling!”

  I know who they are.

  The girls who died.

  “Am I dead?”

  “Not yet,” Freckles says. “But nearly.”

  I don’t want to be dead.

  Except…

  These girls are happy. This place is pretty.

  I’m not sure why I’m still fighting.

  Wind tears across the hillside.

  Slams into my chest.

  Lifts me off my feet.

  Spins me through the sky.

  Freckles looks up as I fly over her.

  “If you can name it, you can catch it,” she calls. “If you can catch it, you can fight it. Everything has its opposite. Remember!”

  The dream shatters.

  Crow is screaming: “Isobel-the-Catching! Isobel-the-Catching! Isobel-the-Catching!”

  I sit up. Clap my hands over my ears. “Stop shouting!”

  She stops.

  My hands fall.

  My arms weigh nothing.

  Not dead yet. But nearly.

  I’m slipping away.

  Crow slams her hand against her head.

  “I am stupid! You refuse to be a not-feeling dead girl. But you were almost a real dead girl! Why did I wake you up?”

  She slaps her head again. “Stupid Crow!”

  She’s been telling me from the start to be dead.

  She just saved my life.

  I giggle.

  “Not funny!” she snaps.

  But it is.

  I laugh and laugh.

  Crow stands under the light. Glares.

  My laughter stops.

  “Crow, your hair!”

  “What about it? It is hair.”

  I point. My finger trembles. “It’s black.”

  Not all black. But strands of darkness flow through the gray.

  Crow finds one and holds it up. “My colors are gone. My colors are taken.”

  My head spins. I lurch to my feet. “Colors can come back!”

  I smile. She doesn’t. She’s scared.

  “I do not want colors! I do not want to feel!”

  She pulls at the black. Ripping it out. “Dead girl, gray girl, dead girl, gray girl…”

  “Crow, stop!”

  I charge at her.

  She dances away.

  “You have done this, Isobel-the-Catching! Words have done this. You have made me a not-gray girl!”

  I lunge again. Crow’s hand flashes down. Nails rake my arm.

  I yelp.

  Crow lets go of her hair.

  “I hurt you?” Her voice is small.

  I inspect the cuts. Red blood leaks over my gray skin.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “But I cannot hurt you. Cannot hurt, cannot touch, cannot feel…”

  “You’ve got a color now! You’re changing. Getting stronger.”

  She holds up both her hands.

  Stares at them as if she’s only just realized what hands can do.

  What hands are for.

  “Is there any color in my hair?” I ask.

  “No. You are all gray.”

  Crow goes back to looking at her hands.

  I slump on the bed.

  Whatever’s worked for her hasn’t worked for me.

  Everyone’s gray is their own.

  Maybe everybody’s got their own way to get colors back.

  I need to find mine.

  If you can name it, you can catch it.

  The girl in the dream said that. Freckles.

  The sentence hammers my brain.

  If you can name it, you can catch it.

  If you can name it, you can catch it.

  If you can name it…

  Freckles could’ve meant the gray.

  Except it’s already got a name. It’s the gray.

  Another name?

  You can’t fight feeling with not-feeling.

  I look down to my wrist.

  The start of my gray.

  I take a breath.

  Close my eyes.

  Remember that first time.

  My stomach heaves.

  My skin crawls.

  But I know the name.

  I open my eyes. Stare at my wrist. Say it.

  “You are despair.”

  The gray gets lighter.

  It makes the shape of long fingers.

  This piece of gray is caught.

  What I can catch, I can fight.

  Everything has its opposite.

  The opposite of despair?

  Easy. Hope.

  But I’ve got none.

  That can’t be right.

  I’ve got to have some.

  Colors can come back. That’s hopeful.

  But inside where hope should live, there’s something smashed.

  Something broken.

  Despair rises.

  The fingerprints sink back into the rest of the gray.

  A tear slides down my cheek.

  A name shines in my mind.

  Granny Trudy Catching.

  My Great-Great-Grandmother.

  Mum’s voice speaks:

  Your old Granny was born into the frontier times, when white men first came to our homeland. Terrible things happened to her. There was nothing she could do about it. All her choices got taken away. But she drew strength from her homeland. Her family. Her people. She never forgot how to laugh. She never forgot how to love.

  Your Granny knew how to hold on to who she was.

  Connections light up across time and space.

  Granny Trudy Catching.

  Nanna Sadie Catching.

  Grandma Leslie Catching.

  Mum.

  Me.

  I find my way to myself.

  To my strength.

  I know who I am.

  I know what I can do.

  Hope flickers.

&nb
sp; I stand.

  The flicker grows into flames.

  I walk to where the light glows from the ceiling.

  Flames build to fire.

  I hold my arm to the light.

  Fire blazes out from my heart, up into my wrist.

  There is a whooshing sound.

  The mark of fingers disappears.

  I stare at the part of me I’ve got back.

  My soft skin.

  The blue vein beneath.

  The little freckle on the side.

  It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.

  Crow hops over.

  Takes my wrist in a gentle grip.

  “Not a dead girl.”

  She reaches up with her other hand, to pull her hair.

  “Not a gray girl.”

  Finally: “No one comes?”

  I get it. All this time, Crow believed three things:

  The only way to stand your colors being taken is to be dead inside.

  Once you’re gray, you’re gray forever.

  No one’s coming to stop the Feed.

  Now she’s asking…

  What happens when the first two things are lies?

  I tell her. “First, we catch the gray. Then we stop the Feed.”

  Crow’s in her corner.

  I can’t see her.

  Only hear her.

  “You must become a dead girl. A not-feeling girl.”

  She giggles.

  “We have no claws or wings or bite.”

  More giggling.

  “No one gets away!”

  She laughs so hard, she falls onto the floor.

  Laughing off lies.

  I wish I could get rid of my gray that way.

  I can’t. I’ve got to name.

  Catch.

  Fight.

  My gray fights back.

  But people can time travel inside their heads.

  I catch a piece of gray: fear. And I remember.

  The playground at school.

  That bully, Billy King, stalking toward little Josie Lewis.

  Me, stepping into his way.

  Courage eats fear.

  The Feed’s handprint on my stomach disappears.

  I move to the next stain on my skin.

  This time, I go forward.

  Crow and me on the beach.

  She pushes me into the surf.

  I grab hold of her. We tumble, laughing, into the waves.

  Joy eats sadness.

  Trails made by tears on my face and neck fade to nothing.