Tomorrows Child

by Starr West

  “What if they find it?”

  “It’s only herbs. Tell them I gave it to you for pimples or to make your hair grow. Think of something that no one else would want or need.”

  We gave Heather directions to the valley, “Thank you, I promise I won’t tell anyone. Thank you for everything.” She nodded and smiled for the first time, then turned and ran down the hill toward the Sanctuary.

  Chapter 28 ~ DREAMS AND DESTINY

  “I know your feet are sore, but we’ll be there by nightfall,” Phoenix said. I was struggling to keep up. It’s hard when your feet feel like they’re on fire. Phoenix’s words were meant to be encouraging, but each step we took was a step further away from home and another step I needed to take to return to the safety of our valley. Emma Creek only marked the halfway point, not our final destination.

  One, two, three, four, I plodded along, counting my steps, trying to create a rhythm. A rhythm that would pass the time, a tempo that covered distance and made me forget the pain. We rested often; that was my choice, short breaks every hour. It seemed like a good idea, but when we stopped, I lost the rhythm.

  I mentioned this to Phoenix during our last break and now he was encouraging me to walk for two hours and have a longer break. If I walked for four hours, I would be blessed with an entire hour to rest and recover. Four hours walking was easy on the first day, but now it felt like an eternity. After two hours, I told Phoenix to keep walking. I had found a pace that didn’t aggravate my blisters and the flat terrain was easy on my muscles.

  As a crow flies, we weren’t that far from home, but the country changed quickly from dense rainforest into open savannah. The trees were tall, yet nothing as grand as the ones in our valley. The cover was sparse and blue sky filled the space between the branches. Rough, iron barks twisted toward the sky and tall, scented eucalyptus with peeling grey bark hung in shreds revealing a fresh, pink skin beneath.

  Even the smells of the open forest were different. Crisp lemony-scented gums replaced the earthy smells of the rainforest. But the energy here was much the same; clean, fresh and pure, so different from the energy at the Sanctuary. It wasn’t the energy of the earth I sensed at the Sanctuary, it had been the energy of the people. They had created an energy so dense that it overshadowed the energy of the earth.

  “My feet are fine. I was just thinking about the people at the Sanctuary.” So my feet weren’t fine, but I wasn’t sulking about them anymore. “Why is everything such a mess? How long can they live like that?”

  “They’re doing okay, considering.”

  “Considering what? They are just waiting to die. They don’t seem to do anything other than hang around and wait to eat. You should have seen the garden. The plants were sad, scrawny yellow things. I didn’t even know what they were.”

  “Very few people alive today have even basic life skills. Skills essential for survival have been lost over time.” Phoenix looked at me as if he were surprised I hadn’t considered this before. “Think about our history. Man lived a nomadic life and survived through hunting and gathering. They cooked on fires and made their own tools, weapons, shelter, even their own clothing. Who today can even light a fire without a match?” I had seen Seth light a fire with a couple sticks and was mesmerised by it, but I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just grab a match.

  “So we’re doomed, all this is really for nothing if the people can’t look after themselves.”

  “Perhaps, but there is always hope, as long as there are people still alive, there is hope.” Hope was a fragile thing at the best of times, hardly enough to sustain a struggling society. If hope was all we had, then maybe we were doomed.

  “When people settled, it was because they had learned about agriculture. It was an extension of the skills they had already adopted. But how many people know how to grow more than a tomato plant in their back yard? And who knows how much wheat needs to be planted to bake a loaf of bread?

  “Chicken Little knew. Or was it Henny Penny? But we do, don’t we? And there are other groups like ours, we could teach people to do these things.”

  “We can show a few people some things, but there are many skills that have been lost. We are organised, but that doesn’t mean we are completely self-sufficient. There are still many things we can’t do or have just basic skills. Things like blacksmithing, pottery, weaving, even making the wheat into flour will be difficult when our grain mills wear out.”

  “What are we going to do?” I could hear a voice in my head telling me not to panic, but my heart was tell me something else entirely.

  “At the moment, we survive by using the remnants of a very advanced society. We live in houses built by others with materials we can no longer source. Our tools were made in factories, even the food that supplements our gardens is in limited supply. When that is gone, our lives will be very different.”

  “So we are just delaying the inevitable. You’re telling me that we will eventually die as well, just slower?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that we have to work out new ways to survive. We may end up being the first real recycling age. Ryzer and Charity have already learnt this. They have collected many things from town and will eventually find new uses for a lot of things.”

  “But ornaments and board games aren’t going to cut it.”

  “Humans are creative, we will find a way. We might be unprepared and unskilled, but survival is our primary instinct. The next few years are going to be hard, but we will survive.” Phoenix was a lot more optimistic than I was.

  “And we’ll figure this out as soon as we stop clinging to old systems where the struggle for power is our primary motivation. People like Lon can’t maintain a stronghold over others while offering them nothing. Two sheets of tin and a chunk of beef may have been enough in the early days, but it won’t sustain a new society.”

  “So why does everyone hang out at the Sanctuary?”

  “They have nowhere else to go. Heather told us that even though she was desperate to leave, she had nowhere to go. Lon has used their fear as a means to control them. I don’t know what he’s thinking because he doesn’t have the skills or resources to help in the long term. Lon was a cattleman, so he is giving them the only thing he has, beef. Soon the people will realise that this isn’t enough.

  “We should stop here,” Phoenix announced. We stood on the bank of sandy creek. The creek had cut a deep ravine as it wound toward the east. The bank dropped away to a narrow stream about thirty metres below. It seemed impassable. “I need to see if there’s another way to cross.”

  Phoenix pulled out the map. “See this? We should have turned here,” he pointed to a spot we passed about an hour earlier. “We should be at a bridge now.”

  “How did we miss it? The turn, I mean.”

  “I guess we made better time than I thought and passed it without realising. If we can find a place to cross here, we’ll only be about two kilometres from Emma Creek.”

  “Only two, how is that possible?” I looked at the map, I could see our planned path took a huge sweeping curve away from Emma Creek to follow the highway and allow us an easy pass over a bridge. But the tugging in my chest pulled me forward. I had no sense that we should have been anywhere else or turned to cross the bridge.

  “That’s why the signs and images you got seemed strange. Even by foot, it’s easier to cross at the bridge. But if I had to plan the trip myself, I would have chosen this way, it makes more sense to take the shortest distance.”

  “Well there must be an easy way down.” I pointed to a cow and a calf drinking from a small pool of water below us. “Pigs might fly, but cows don’t!”

  We walked up and down the bank and found several small, well-worn paths that meandered gradually down toward the creek. The path we chose headed one way then turned and headed the other, twisting and turning, but always descending. Within a few minutes, we found ourselves standing in the sandy creek bed.

  The cow mooed and nuzzled
her calf, annoyed that we were interrupting their afternoon.

  ~~~

  We arrived at Emma Creek hours earlier than we planned, giving us plenty of time to explore.

  It was almost spring, still the dry season, and the rain still weeks away, so the water in the creek was reduced to a small narrow stream. The water was crystal clear and cool. Pushing through the pain, I walked into the knee-deep stream. My blisters screamed and my muscles tensed against the cold water, but it was soothing and a welcome relief from walking.

  “We need to find a safe spot to set up our camp.” Phoenix picked up my backpack and tossed it over his shoulder. He made it look lightweight.

  Deep within, I felt the tug, drawing me further up the creek. It wasn’t something tangible or something I could convey to Phoenix, so I just walked. But I was learning to trust myself, so I walked towards the magnetic pull and Phoenix followed.

  Breathing deeply, I watched the world dissolve around me. Colours faded and muted into misty greens and grey. A beat pulsed loudly, as sure and steady as my heart, but not my heart. It was stronger, more alive, more alive than even I, standing in the creek, breathing with the earth’s energy flowing through me.

  I saw a light, radiating from the bank of the creek, as bright as the sun. In this moment there was nothing else, just the pulsing light and me. I stood there, suffused in a ray of pure light, allowing myself to feel the energy and knew for certain that I had found my way.

  The pulse stopped and the light faded. My world returned to normal and I stood before a grey and dusty riverbank. Water had eroded the earth and gnarled roots protruded into the air. I wondered why I had been drawn here. I looked at Phoenix and shrugged.

  “This must be it, Psyche. You just walked over five hundred metres, so whatever it is, it must be important.”

  I reached out and dusted the grey dirt away to reveal a few clear stones. I scooped away more dirt and revealed thousands of tiny clear stones. Small sparkles caught in the light of the fading afternoon sun. The stones were square. Perfectly square. I dug with my hand and watched as hundreds and thousands of them flowed from a hole carved in the bank of the creek. As the stones fell, they grew bigger, still square but smoother on the edges. The stones slowed to a trickle and I reached deep into the hole to scoop more away.

  The stones became larger and smoother as I reached into the bottom of the pit. The pulsing returned. The pit was dark, but a glow emanated from the depths and the stones were warm to touch. One stone pulsed stronger. Guided by an unknown, but familiar force, I reached for the stone. I drew my hand into the light revealing a stone as large as my palm.

  “Psyche, that’s a diamond!” Phoenix said, “They’re all diamonds.”

  I looked down, surrounded by a pool of glittering brilliance. I’d been mesmerised by the task at hand, immersed by duty and absorbed in the moment. I never questioned what I was doing. I didn’t wonder what the stones were. It didn’t matter.

  “This is it, Phoenix! This is why we came,” I breathed. “This stone! This one is special.” I knew each stone was special in its own right, each stone beat with life beyond my own and separate to the earth, but the one I held in my hand had a purpose.

  “This stone is part of me, I can feel it.” It wasn’t mine, at least, not as one possesses a diamond, but the stone pulsed and my heartbeat felt connected to it, as one.

  A year ago, I would have placed every stone in my backpack, knowing that my future was secure and wealth assured, but not now. I returned the stones to the pit, the largest first and then the smaller ones and finally the tiny square stones, until every last one was returned to its home on the bank of the creek. All except the stone that had called to me. That one I held in my hand and pressed to my heart.

  By the time I finished, the air was cool, the horizon was alight and the trees silhouetted by a fireball as the sun slipped out of sight. Phoenix had set up camp and I was thankful for the warmth of the fire. As I sat, I realised how exhausted I was. Part of me was energised, but my body felt heavy and dull. It was as if two separate entities resided within the same body.

  “You’re glowing, like a fire in the night.” Phoenix was smiling and looked at me the way he did when we first met. “Your aura’s changed, too. It’s brighter, clearer, more alive than ever.”

  I didn’t have words that could explain how I felt, so I just smiled and said nothing.

  “There’s a deep pool of water behind those rocks, if you want to take a swim.” I did. Three days without a real bath had left me stinky and sticky. Phoenix held my hand and led me to the water. In the cover of night, I stripped to my underwear and plunged into the pool.

  The water was cool and refreshing and as it washed away the dirt, it also washed away the daze that hovered since I first sensed the stone. A tiny breeze caused ripples on the water and glistened in the moonlight. I shivered as goose bumps travelled down my arms in waves.

  “We’ve got to get home now,” I said as my chin trembled with cold. Phoenix drew me close.

  “Not now, but I think you’ve had enough water for one night.”

  We walked up the sandy bank and toward the fire. Large round rocks jutted out of the ground and surrounded us, forming a natural circle of stones. Tall, golden grass grew to the edge of the clearing, dancing in the breeze. I took in the scene before me, huddled in Phoenix’s arms as we walked.

  Fear hit me with a jolt and the air sucked out of my lungs in a rush. I struggled to breathe as I realised this was the place of my nightmare.

  “This is the place,” I gasped. “We have to leave!”

  “I know,” he whispered and pulled me closer.

  “You know!” I yelled. I pushed my way out of his arms, ran through the clearing to the tent, and struggled to force my wet body into clean clothes. “How could you?” The jeans felt like sandpaper against my wet skin. “Why didn’t I notice this before?” Was I so caught up in duty that I had failed to see the real danger that surrounded me?

  “Don’t worry, Psyche, we have seen how this dream ends. You know that I will protect you. Some things can’t be changed, no matter how hard we try or how much we want them to be different.”

  “But to stand and face danger? That is stupid and wrong. How could you do this? When did you realise? Hell Phoenix! When did you realise?” I was angry and afraid.

  “When you were returning the stones.”

  “And you set up camp here anyway?” I looked at Phoenix, unable to believe he would put us both in so much danger. “We need to go.”

  “Think about this for a minute. You have had this dream a hundred times. We have seen it from every angle and we know what to look for. We know everything about this night. We are prepared, Psyche. If we leave now, we will be wandering around in the night and won’t know where we are. The outcome may be very different.”

  Maybe he had a point, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that continued to grow. The problem with Phoenix was that once he made his mind up, he was more stubborn than I was. So we sat and waited. We ate rice, yams, and hard biscuits and drank some mysterious herbal brew blended by Libby.

  I fell asleep beside the fire and dreamt. But I didn’t dream of the beast that hunted me, I dreamt of the stone. And finally, the stone revealed the truth.

  Chapter 29 ~ THE PURE TASTE OF EVIL

  When I awoke, the fire was burning low. Phoenix held his finger to his lips, but he didn’t need to. The air was thick with the familiar stench of death. I held my breath in the silence. Phoenix stood, his hands gripping the rifle. In the dream, there had been no rifle, but Ruben had insisted we bring it.

  In the dream, one pair of eyes had hunted me, but in the firelight, four pairs of red eyes glowed against the darkness. A low, frightening growl rumbled and one of the beasts lunged over the fire, hitting Phoenix squarely in the chest. The gun discharged and was hurled aside.

  “Run!” Phoenix screamed, but I was already running, away from the fire and from Phoenix. The man I loved w
as left to face the demons alone, but I ran on into the darkness. This had never been part of my dream. I could hear the beasts struggling, snarling, and snapping their yelps. They seemed so near. I feared that Phoenix could not have survived.

  I slowed. There was no point now. I could not outrun the hellhounds and I couldn’t fight them. If I did one last thing in this life, I would stand beside Phoenix. If he weren’t dead already, I would be by his side in the end.

  As I turned, I realised I was in the clearing at the centre of the stone circle. I felt a subtle change in energy, a denseness that I hadn’t felt before. It pressed in on me with a suffocating strangle and I struggled to take a breath. At my feet, I noticed a circle was marked on the ground that extended to the edge of the clearing, but didn’t touch the standing stones beyond that. The moon shone brightly but the light seemed to disappear; absorbed into the blackness that formed the circle. I had stood in the centre of a sacred circle before and noticed the light and energy were always more intense, as if the moon shone just for us. But this was different, this was wrong.

  Something was very wrong and I knew that this wasn’t part of my dream. Phoenix had been wrong. We hadn’t seen it from every angle and we didn’t know every move. But a dark circle?

  Instead of running away and returning to Phoenix, I retreated and stepped backward, away from the circle and out of the darkness. As I reached the black line that defined the circle, I felt the energy hold me and grip my chest, expelling any air that remained. I pushed through the pain until I stood outside the circle and pressed my body against the standing stones. I sucked in a gulp of fresh air as I tried to make sense of what was in front of me.

  The circle was marked in black crystals, maybe black salt or charcoal. The energy had been raised and the circle was complete, but this didn’t happen by accident. People raise energy and form circles. This energy wasn’t something I had ever felt in the past, not that I had much experience. It was forceful and filled with feelings of death and evil intent.