The blackness reached for me, suffocating, familiar. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I just can’t.’
Fox’s face crumpled. I couldn’t stand to see him looking so sad. If Fox was sad, nobody else in the world could feel happiness. The sun wouldn’t shine, and the birds would refuse to sing.
‘Then this is goodbye.’
My chest filled with despair. ‘Already?’
A tear rolled down Fox’s cheek. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’
‘Then don’t.’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
He kissed me on the cheek and reached out to cup my chin in his hands. I drank him in – his cascade of sandy hair that fell into stormy eyes. His pale skin and rosy lips. I wasn’t sure if I could live without him.
And then he was gone.
I didn’t know where to go. To school? I hadn’t been for nearly a fortnight. I’d been deleting Helena’s voicemail messages from Mum’s phone. I knew I got a certain amount of leeway on attendance due to being a broken shell of a human, but a fortnight was stretching it. There would be questions, and meetings, and consequences, and I couldn’t face that. I couldn’t go home to Mum’s ashen emptiness and Aunty Cath’s fake cheer and false nails. I couldn’t go to the Red House, because Fox was leaving. I couldn’t go to the Wasteland, because I hated my friends.
So I stayed in the park. I wandered around the perimeter. I stood by the pond and looked for the ducks, but they were nowhere to be seen. Everything was chilled and grey, with low, threatening clouds releasing the occasional drizzle of rain. My fingers went numb. I kept walking, around and around. Joggers passed me without a second glance. A homeless man dug through a rubbish bin, and I envied him his fingerless gloves and beanie. A crow perched on a park bench, watching me with a beady black eye.
I walked, and walked, and tried not to think about what would happen tomorrow, and the next day. The dark tide rose around me once more, and I welcomed its suffocating blankness.
Minah texted after she finished school, asking if we could talk. She met me by the duck pond, her face dark with concern, her mouth twisted as though she was struggling to get the words out.
‘I get it, okay?’ she said. ‘The guy is super-hot. But he’s … he’s not all there. He’s like a little kid.’
Fox wasn’t like a little kid. He was innocent, yes. Undamaged by cynicism and bitterness. But he was also wise. He understood more about the world than I ever would. He understood people. He understood me. And the physical intensity when we were together … Fox was definitely not a little kid.
‘You don’t know him.’
‘I don’t have to know him,’ said Minah. ‘I know you. And this isn’t you.’
‘Maybe it is me,’ I said. ‘Maybe this is who I’ve been all along, but I needed Fox to show me.’
Minah shook her head. ‘What is it about these people? Why are they so great?’
I thought about it. About the Red House. The long dinners full of debate and laughter. The closeness. The trust. The honesty. The clear-headedness I had experienced over the past few weeks. The loss of it was sharp and keen, like a knife slicing through my lungs, filling them with cold, suffocating fluid.
‘I don’t know,’ I said at last. ‘They helped me to see things differently. Myself. My life. They make me feel there’s a possibility for happiness after all.’
Minah raised her eyebrows. ‘Happiness?’
I shrugged. ‘After what happened … I didn’t think it was ever going to be an option.’
And maybe now it wasn’t.
Minah bit her bottom lip and looked away for a moment, as if hesitating over whether or not to say something. Then she turned back to me, her brow wrinkled in frustration. ‘I don’t understand you at all, Ruby. You called yourself an artist. We used to talk for hours about where creativity comes from. About humanity’s extraordinary ability to channel grief and anger and oppression and turn it into something more, something outside of them. And then it happens to you – you experience tragedy, the big death and everything. And you just opt out. You don’t face your grief. You don’t turn it into something beautiful. You don’t put it on a canvas or shape it in clay or turn it into a song. You become a robot. You don’t feel anything. You pretend everything’s okay, and we pretend along with you because … I don’t know why. Because we’re a bit scared of you. And then you meet some granola-munching hippies and all of a sudden you’re signing up for their twelve-step bullshit?’
I stared at her. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I think you’re running away.’
‘And why shouldn’t I? What’s left to stick around for? My brother’s dead. My dad’s going to jail. My mum is a ghost. What reason is there not to run away?’
I saw Minah flinch. She knew I wasn’t sticking around for her. ‘Problems don’t go away because you want them to,’ she said. ‘You have to face them. Turn them into words and art and music. Work through it.’
I blinked. ‘You think my brother’s death was an opportunity. You think I should be grateful that he died, because now I get to be a genuine tortured artist.’
‘That isn’t what I meant.’
I stared at the pond, feeling fat drops splash on my cheeks, not sure if they were tears or rain. It was getting late and the light was leaching away from everything. I turned on Minah.
‘You think because you can make a sculpture out of dead animals, it means you understand death. Well, you don’t. You don’t understand anything. You talk all the time about art and pain and creativity, but you don’t feel anything either. You think emotions are for the weak. You’d rather turn rotten fruit into art than accept the fact that you’re rotten on the inside. You’re just as blank and empty as I am. The only difference is I’m trying to change.’
Minah’s jaw trembled. ‘Whatever,’ she said from between gritted teeth. ‘Throw your life away. Shave your head and call yourself Daffodil Moonblood. If you think that’s your path to freedom, who am I to stand in your way?’
She stood and walked away towards the shops. She didn’t look back.
Aunty Cath ordered pizza that night, and opened a bottle of wine, to celebrate how well we were all doing. The house stank of cheese and garlic, a smell that had once been appetising to me, but now made my stomach turn. Aunty Cath hadn’t even ordered one with any vegetables. It was all meat and cheese and flour, melded together into an oozing hideous mess.
I got myself a carrot and a handful of almonds from the kitchen.
‘You should have seen your mum today at the hairdresser, Ruby,’ said Aunty Cath. She licked grease from her fingers, and I looked away, repulsed. ‘She was amazing. Calm and poised and confident.’
I glanced at Mum, who was nibbling her pizza slice. She did look different, and it wasn’t just her newly cut and coloured hair. Her cheeks were pink again, and although she still didn’t talk much, she followed the conversation with her eyes, and responded to direct questions with soft, short statements.
‘You know what would make you feel better?’ said Aunty Cath to Mum, pouring more wine into her glass. ‘Acrylics. You should come with me tomorrow so we can get our nails done. I’ve found a great girl down at the shopping centre. She does French tips and Vinylux. It’ll be a real pick-me-up for you. Just what you need.’
I shuddered, thinking of how my eyes watered whenever I walked past a nail salon. How could anyone surround themselves with chemicals like that?
‘You should come too, Rubes,’ said Aunty Cath.
I stretched my lips in a smile. ‘I’m afraid I’m busy.’
‘Off with your friends?’
I pictured Minah and the others sitting on their hoard of rubbish at the Wasteland, and an aching bitterness rose inside me. Was that all I had left? I thought about the Red House. What were they doing right now? Probably sitting around the communal table, eating real food and talking about real things. There would be warmth and laughter. I imagined Welling and Stan getting into a debate about s
tates of being. Fox would be there too, smiling and listening and adding his own insightful thoughts to the conversation. Or had he left already? The ache intensified.
Fox. Would I truly not be able to see him anymore? Surely he’d come back to the Red House to visit occasionally.
But I knew that even if this was true, ‘occasionally’ wasn’t enough for me. I needed Fox. I needed him like air and water. He was the only thing stopping me from falling back into darkness.
Aunty Cath reached for another slice of pizza. Her chin glistened with grease and her flamingo-pink fingernails were clogged with tomato sauce. She cackled at something on the television.
I glanced at Mum. She ate mechanically, nodded in response to Aunty Cath, and answered her questions. But even though she seemed to be getting better, I could see she wasn’t really there. She was just pretending.
I remembered what Fox had said. You have to want it. Mum didn’t want to get better. There was nothing I could do or say to drag her out of her empty, blank little world, and I was scared that if I stayed, she’d drag me back down into it as well.
Aunty Cath gave me a hug before she went to bed, enveloping me in her powdery smell. Her arms were soft and flabby around me, and I flinched. I didn’t ever want to be like her.
‘You know, Ruby,’ said Aunty Cath, trying to look meaningfully into my eyes, ‘you are the author of your own story. Your life is a book and you are the one who gets to decide when to turn the page.’
It was her usual garbage, quoted directly from whatever self-help book she was currently reading. But her words didn’t slide past my ears and evaporate the way they normally did. She was right. I was the one who got to decide how my story was going to go.
‘This pain you’re feeling – it will pass. You’re growing up so quickly. Soon you’ll be off to uni. You’ll meet someone. You’ll fall in love and have children of your own. A career. A beautiful life. And this will be a distant memory.’
I could see it. I could see myself on that path. School. Uni. My own family. Supermarkets and nail salons and new cars and summer holidays. I’d never forget Anton. And I’d never forget Fox. Never forget the possibilities he showed me, the glimpse of a bigger world. And I knew in that instant that if I didn’t go with him, I would regret it, every single day, for the rest of my inconsequential little life.
‘I know what you need,’ said Aunty Cath.
So did I.
‘You need chocolate. Tomorrow I’ll take you to this place I found where the hot chocolate is so thick you can stand your spoon up in it.’
I grimaced a smile at her. I definitely wouldn’t be going anywhere with Aunty Cath tomorrow, let alone to a place where I could coat my insides with sugar and fat and chemicals.
I went to my room and waited, lying fully clothed on my bed, until I was sure everyone was asleep. Then I left a carefully composed note on the coffee table and slipped out the front door into the night.
7
Lib opened the door in a white cotton nightgown, taking in my backpack without comment.
‘I’m so sorry to wake you,’ I said. ‘Um. Is Fox around?’
Lib hesitated and, for a moment, I feared she was going to turn me away. Then she stood back and opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in.’
She ushered me into the kitchen and handed me a bottle of water.
‘I want to go to the Institute,’ I told her. ‘I— I can’t stay at home anymore.’
‘Fox left this afternoon,’ Lib said. ‘With Welling and Stan.’
‘Am I too late?’
‘Val, Maggie and I are leaving tomorrow. I can take you with us, if that’s what you want.’
I nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ Lib’s expression was troubled, as if she were searching for something in me that she wasn’t sure she wanted to find.
‘I’m sure.’
She led me up to Fox’s room, telling me we’d be leaving first thing in the morning. I put my backpack on the floor, kicked off my shoes and crawled into the bed. The sheets still smelled of Fox. I buried my head in the pillow and breathed deeply, imagining him lying right here beside me, his fingers curling into mine, my head resting on his shoulder. We could have that, soon. At the Institute. Fox and I could be together.
Lib shook me awake just after seven, and I followed her downstairs into the kitchen, where I found Val and Maggie sitting at the bench eating bowls of quinoa. Val didn’t look up. Maggie grinned at me, and saluted me with her spoon.
‘I hear you’re going to be a sublimate,’ she said. ‘Congratulations.’
I slid onto a stool next to hers. ‘Thanks. What’s a sublimate?’
‘A new recruit. A new team member.’
‘Are you hungry, Ruby?’ Lib asked.
I shook my head. My stomach was fizzing with nerves and I wasn’t sure I could keep anything down. Lib nodded and bustled out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with Val and Maggie.
‘What’s it like?’ I asked Maggie. ‘The Institute?’
Maggie chewed thoughtfully. ‘It’s … different,’ she said at last. ‘It’s not like here. It can be a bit of a shock to the system. I know it wasn’t what I’d been expecting.’
‘When did you first go there?’
‘About four months ago. I’d been here at the Red House for maybe a month before that. Then Lib said I was ready to meet everyone, and she took me to the Institute as a sublimate. I … I didn’t like it at first, to be honest. But you get used to it.’
She swallowed her last mouthful of quinoa, and stood up to wash her bowl in the sink. When her back was turned, Val raised his head and looked directly at me. It was the first time he’d made eye contact. He shook his head, slowly and deliberately.
It felt like a warning.
Maggie turned away from the sink, and Val’s gaze sank back down to his quinoa. ‘Sometimes I have doubts,’ Maggie said. ‘But … I guess at the end of the day, I have more doubts about the world out here than I do about the world in there. You know? So there has to be some truth in it all.’
I stared at Val for a moment, waiting to see if he’d do anything else. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out. There was a text from Aunty Cath. I replaced the phone in my pocket without reading the message, turning back to Maggie. ‘Truth in what?’
Maggie smiled. ‘You’ll understand when you meet him.’
‘Him?’
The smile grew wider. ‘Zosimon.’
A white van was parked out the front of the Red House. Maggie, Val and I climbed in while Lib locked up. Val’s hands were cupped, holding the cicada husks he’d collected.
‘You don’t have a bag,’ I said to Maggie.
‘Nothing to put in it,’ she said with a shrug.
‘Nothing? What about underwear and books and a phone? Or did you leave that stuff behind when you came here?’
‘I don’t really have any stuff,’ Maggie said. ‘None of us do.’
I wrapped my arms around my own backpack, balanced on my knees. I hadn’t packed much – a change of clothes and some extra undies and socks. A couple of books that I thought Fox would enjoy. My phone charger. A small toiletries bag with toothbrush and deodorant, a box of tampons and a strip of condoms. I couldn’t imagine not having anything at all.
Maggie glanced out the van’s window to the Red House. Lib was still inside, checking the locks on the windows. With a furtive glance down the street as well, Maggie leaned forward and pulled up the hem of her shirt, revealing a secret pocket sewn into the seam. Inside the pocket was a gold necklace with a little jade pendant – a milky green disc engraved with whorls and waves.
‘It was my grandmother’s.’ Maggie tucked the pendant away and straightened her shirt. ‘I didn’t want to give it up when I arrived. I … I wanted to have something that was just mine, you know? Something that nobody could take away from me.’
I nodded. I hadn’t brought anything sentimental with me, because I didn’t have anything. I was going to
the Institute because the one thing I wanted was already there.
I heard the front door to the Red House close, and turned to see Lib making her way down the garden path towards us.
‘Don’t tell anyone, okay?’ said Maggie urgently. ‘We’re not supposed to have jewellery or anything.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I won’t say a word.’
Lib hauled open the van’s sliding door and glanced in at us. ‘Ready?’
We nodded.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lib, holding up three strips of dark cloth. ‘But the Institute’s location is top secret. I’ll have to blindfold you.’
I almost laughed at her. Blindfold? What was this, a James Bond movie? I glanced at Maggie and Val, but they had both already taken strips and were tying them over their eyes as if this were a totally normal occurrence. So I shrugged, and leaned my head forward so that Lib could blindfold me.
‘Here we go,’ I heard Maggie say, as the van sputtered into life and it pulled forward. ‘Down the rabbit hole.’
The van rumbled along, turning corners so often that after a while I felt rather carsick. But it was also soothing, the darkness, the vibration of the engine, the musty smell of old vinyl. We were stop-starting regularly, so we couldn’t be going far – either that or Lib was avoiding the freeway. I didn’t hear much other traffic noise, so I also guessed she was taking the backstreets. It was all so clandestine – these guys really took themselves seriously.
Maggie was silent beside me, as were Val and Lib. After a while I slipped into a half-doze, and time spooled out around me so I couldn’t tell how long I’d been in the van. My stomach growled and I regretted skipping breakfast. On the other hand, breakfast probably would have made my woozy motion sickness worse.
Suddenly the van stopped, and I started out of my nauseous reverie.
There was the sound of squealing metal – a gate opening? The van rumbled and pulled forward slowly. The metal squealed again, and the van stopped.
‘We’re here,’ said Lib’s voice.
The Boundless Sublime Page 7