by AA Bell
Adjusting her shades again, Mira found Garland’s ghost arrive by air with Lockman at her side, and she watched them, reading their lips through a similar conversation until they converged through time and space at the foot of the ghost gum.
Lockman’s yester-ghost looked up and gazed around, as if admiring all the Braille artwork on the largest boughs, and all the clean space for more amidst the budding canopy, where satellite imaging had missed seeing many of the quotes and passages.
What’s all this? he asked. It’s humming in my head like music.
Garland looked up, as if admiring the wonder of the place too. According to her old psych reports, she calls them her poet trees. This is where she grew up. It’s where her family died. It’s also where she went blind.
You recreated it? … Why?
Garland’s ghost smiled in reply, her expression softening and her eyes refocusing lower down his chest, as if she knew she’d soon be answering the same question through him to Mira.
My reasons are many, Mira read from her lips. That tree came from Melbourne, she said, pointing to the strangler fig. It needed saving; a genuine historical landmark where it was, but it had to go to make way for more lanes to a major airport. Environmentalists had no luck finding a suitable relocation solution in the appropriate area, so they’d already begun to look elsewhere. Those three Moreton Bay figs next to it came down from Brisbane and Townsville with similar stories, and the ghost gums from Sandy Creek. At the same time, Greenpeace needed a new stealth boat for their war against whaling, I needed arborists and an army of landscape gardeners. Not just workers. The timeframe dictated a need for passionate artists.
How long did it all take?
Three days around the clock. Expenses had to be kept down to that of a standard safe house, so I was running short on miracles, but as usual, if something needed to be done, the means, materials and manpower were never too far away. Such is always the way when you’re doing the right thing.
Lockman’s ghost seemed as sceptical as Mira felt. If by some miracle, she does let me bring her this far, what then? I can’t just abandon her here in the wilderness.
This is no longer the wilderness, Lieutenant. The kitchen in the tree above us is as modern as any, and stocked with enough preserved food for a year. There’s a new solar generator and fridge, and the underground spring is tapped more efficiently than it ever had been. Plastic pipes instead of lead, which were poisonous anyway, and a much bigger water tank.
Ah, but the warning on the gate says this place is a federal reserve now — so you can still kick her out if she fails to dance to your tune, right?
Not without finding new homes for those trees … Garland glared at him. Look, if I could have returned the land to her as freehold private land, I would have — but the closest I could get within the timeframe and budget was federal reserve status with her as a private caretaker. The trees will need regular visits from arborists to ensure their roots take hold … But it’s either this, or risk losing it all through the courts to developers. Garland looked around then, as if she had her own secret plans for the place, but her body language was so guarded Mira couldn’t tell if she’d just decided then, or if work had already begun. Not that it mattered, since her intentions seemed clear either way.
She’d still be alone out here, Lockman argued, and at risk from Colonel Kitching until he’s recaptured.
Security on the perimeter is all the latest in covert technology, especially down by the beach, where she can still wade in and fish. Leave her with one of our new phones for emergencies — but only if she won’t despise it for the in-built tracking device.
She’ll still be suspicious. Why go to so much trouble unless the goal is to make her indebted?
Just give her the choice, Lieutenant. If she doesn’t want it, give her my thanks and the car to ensure she’ll always have the means to come home to a safe haven.
‘Oh, great,’ Mira complained. ‘I don’t need any more help to feel beaten. I started this week trying to put all my fences behind me, and now she’s built taller ones to help me take refuge. If she really wanted to help, she should have left a rocket so I could get away fast enough.’
‘This is different, isn’t it? You’re queen of the compound now. You haven’t just escaped an institution, you’ve become one. Nobody gets in or out, unless you say so.’
She shook her head, unable to forget her brief glimpse of the future and seeing General Garland appear up there in her replicated home, as if she owned the place. Mira had no idea how far into the future that might be, or why Ben would ever choose to don that wretched uniform. She couldn’t even be sure if she’d glimpsed the one true future, or only a potential alternative, but it worried her enough to kindle a bigger fire under her suspicions.
‘Have you wondered what else Garland has planned for this place?’ she asked. ‘Oh, not anywhere visible, where it’s encroaching on me, obviously. I mean underground. Do you really think she’d go to all this trouble without also scoring her own base, finally?’ Mira could almost feel the distant rumble of heavy earthworks still going on through the ground and the trunk of the tree. ‘Did you visit the ghost town over the ridge? Or did you even wonder why the heavy equipment left tracks to the south as they left, when the entrance to this place has always been in the top north-west corner?’
‘I confess I haven’t checked there yet, but I did wonder about the tracks. I just assumed it was something to do with the fence. Easily fixed, though. Get in and I’ll go take a panel down so you can check for yourself.’
‘Don’t bother. It’s beyond my control anyway.’
Mira closed her eyes and took off the glasses, allowing time to sweep her back through the decades to a safer emotional distance. When she opened them again to the blue haze of yester-century, she saw her great-great grandmother picking fruit in the orchard.
‘You’re considering it?’ Lockman asked.
‘That depends.’ She wondered about Lockman’s plans for the future more now than Garland’s. ‘If I accept, what happens then?’
‘I’m to provide you with a supply of gold thumbtacks and the general’s apologies for not being able to recreate all of your poetry from sat-obs, but the new car is yours either way.’
‘Hilarious,’ she replied. ‘I mean really. Me driving?’
‘I didn’t say you had to drive. You could hire somebody. Or else she offered to supply a bodyguard.’
‘Oh, no!’ Mira waved her hands. ‘If I stay here, I won’t need wheels. I can subsist here forever as a hermit, right after I ban Garland from coming anywhere near me.’
‘You won’t stay here,’ he said, sounding resigned to it. ‘And it’s not just the fences, or Garland. You love him.’
Mira turned away, wavering, and leaned against the replica of her favourite poet tree. She looked up, feeling drawn to climb the ladder to the verandah and gaze out across the bay as she often did as a child whenever she had a problem, but fear of hearing the chime from an elevator was enough to keep her feet on the ground. It also smelled too much of fresh timber stain above her — and the home wasn’t really hers, unless she accepted it from General Garland.
Serenity or high security, Mira thought, like choosing between Hell and Hades. She’d faced this decision before; the same but different, and the less she cared what happened to her, the less it seemed to matter so much where she was, as who she was with — or in Garland’s case, tied to.
Sanchez, on the other hand, had always treated her as family, even when she hadn’t deserved it. She’d been the one who’d identified Mira as a special case in the first place, and hired Ben to help Mira cope better inside the closed community at Serenity. Who knew he’d have such success that they’d been able to set the goal much higher? But Sanchez barely hesitated. She’d gone to such great lengths to put an end to Mira’s status as a ward of the state and risked her own job to bend enough rules to achieve it.
Lockman came to her side again; his silence sugg
esting that he understood her conflict. Ben would have caressed her cheek gently, and then Lockman did that too.
‘Maybe you should keep the new ID,’ he suggested. ‘Or use it once — just long enough to transfer all your money somewhere else. At least then you’d have the means to live wherever you want, under any name you choose.’
‘Money to buy a new Edu-cat and hopefully get Gabby’s suspension reduced even further? I’m sorely tempted. Otherwise, I’d be just as happy camping out in a tent.’
‘I did pack one, just in case, so don’t feel obliged to make a decision any time soon, or to use the house for anything if it makes you feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t bring myself to go up there either.’
‘Why?’ She leaned away, surprised. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘A mirage.’ He leaned closer, restoring the narrow gap between them, and she sensed his hand come to rest against the tree not far from her neck; his nearness enough to cause her heart to quicken. ‘Without you it’s empty; just a shadow of you as you used to be. Until you choose the décor yourself, the atmosphere inside can only be a reflection of someone else. So no,’ he said, touching her chin and drawing her face up to his, ‘if I ever go up there, I want the first impression to be the right one. I’d want it to be all about you.’
‘It’s everything I ever wanted,’ she confessed and walked away to hug the next tree. ‘Freedom, independence. Life as a hermit in the home I grew up in — and no wood rot!’ She laughed grimly. ‘But look what it’s cost me! When I think of all the trouble I’ve caused to Ben — and to Mel and Gabby — even Grady! I’m wiped out with misery. At least as a soldier you expect your bad days to include people shooting at you.’
He chuckled and moved closer again, the nearness of him making her feel increasingly tempted and weak, longing to reach out and latch onto his strength, if only for a moment.
‘The cost remains the same as you’ve already paid, Mira, whether you choose to live here or not … and if you choose not to, perhaps you need to ask yourself, is the cost wasted?’
‘You’re suggesting I should stay because I’ve already paid?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything. You once told me you needed a sounding board, you know, like a friend.’
‘A friend? Are you kidding?’
‘I know you still think of me as all “military”, but honestly, I’ve gone as far as I was prepared to go with the army. As far as real life is concerned, I think there’s a lot more you can teach me.’
‘Me?’ she laughed. ‘Teach you? Like what, for example?’
‘How to see things in a new light.’ He stroked her hair softly, somehow managing to make her legs feel even weaker. ‘How to appreciate more of the things that matter in life. Big things. Little things — and amazing things like this …’
He cupped her cheek and lifted her face gently, then slowly and very gently brought his lips to hers. Her body sparked with renewed excitement, and as he drew her against his chest, and his kiss became passionate, she closed her eyes and melted into him, longing for more — longing for Ben — aching … Then he broke away, leaving her gasping.
‘Did you feel that, Mira? That’s what you do to me.’
Bewildered, she reached up to read his expression with her fingertips and found him with a frown, his furrowed brows only softening under her touch. ‘Are you angry at me?’
‘I’m angry at myself. You belong to another man.’
‘I don’t belong to anybody.’
‘But you want to. Your heart’s so sweet for love, I can taste it in the air around you. I can tell you burn for more, and you make me burn, too. I came to see you today, because I had to. I tried staying away this past week and it nearly killed me.’
Mira spun away, reeling with conflicts and suspicions — needing to put space between them, but her feet failed her. ‘I thought you’d died,’ she confessed over her shoulder to him. ‘Or been transferred away …’
He came to her again and touched her hand. ‘Would it have made any difference?’
She tried to walk away again, but he pulled her back to him.
‘Would it?’ he demanded.
She closed her eyes and touched his chest as a silent plea to release her, and reluctantly, he did.
‘I don’t know … maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I know there’s a lot of things I’d love you to show me. Waking in a field of wild horses at dawn, for one, and more campfire music under a million stars. Heaven knows, Ben’s been making it quite clear how he feels about me, and whether it’s his fault or not, I need to do something to stop myself going crazy. It’s hard to imagine him wanting me near him any time soon. But I won’t use you. I’m not looking for love — I’m not! I don’t want to be dependent on anyone ever again.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to be dependent. I said it the first day I saw you on Straddie — and I recognised it straight up, the first day we met in the hall at Serenity. You’re a free spirit, Mira. A gutsy wildcat. I was happy enough just being in your company around the campfire, so if it’s all the same to you — I mean, if you have no objections — I’d appreciate the chance to get to know you better. No strings attached. No pressure. If you want me to leave, just say so.’
Fear compelled her to say so right there and then. ‘I’m not the person you think I am,’ she confessed. ‘You scare me.’
‘Me?’ he laughed. ‘I’m harmless. No uniform. No ties to the army. I don’t want to pressure you with a heavy relationship. Call me security if you need emotional distance. Home handyman, driver or whatever. I just need to know you’re safe. I need it for me until I’m done fighting my own demons. Is that too selfish?’
Mira closed her eyes, longing for something so similar, but a small voice inside her continued to resist, and the vision of Ben in an army uniform continued to haunt her. It had to be her worst fear trying to manifest. She knew enough about Freddie’s predictions to know the future could be edited with sufficient willpower, means and opportunity, and Lockman could certainly help her with all of that to prevent that part of the vision from ever coming true. But every time she’d worked that close to Lockman, she’d weakened and succumbed to him personally — and then something bad always happened.
She could imagine the real Ben on his way home from hospital by now with Gabby and Mel — their lives going on without her, no doubt wishing they’d never crossed paths with her in the first place. How swiftly hope for a fresh life had turned to despair for all of them. And now here was Lockman, a virtual stranger, offering a fresh handful of hope. Armfuls of it, and she needed hope more than anything; yearned for it like a drowning swimmer burning for air.
‘Lieutenant …? Oh, now I don’t even know what to call you.’
‘How about Adam?’
‘Is that your real name? Or a code name?’
‘It’s real enough.’
Trembling, she offered her hands to him. ‘Oh, Adam. Please …?’ She needed him to understand the difference between who she was and who she wanted to be, and she tried desperately to be as strong as he believed her to be, knowing herself to be so weak, but he swept her into his arms and kissed her, whispering her name and dissolving through her emotional defences as if she no longer needed them.
And then a phone rang.
He let it ring again and again in his back pocket, disentangling himself from her only with great reluctance.
‘I have to take this,’ he said, withdrawing further away from her, then he spoke in low tones, giving only yes or no responses, but Mira could tell from his shift in mood that whatever bad news he’d received, it involved her.
‘This phone was meant to be yours,’ he said as he came back to her. ‘The one Garland suggested you might want to keep here for emergencies. I didn’t think you’d want it but—’
‘You’re a good boy scout, I know.’ Mira sighed and removed her glasses to clean them on the hem of her skirt. ‘What did she want this time?’
‘Just a message from her surveillance unit,
and it’s not so much a string as a catch.’ He stroked her arm as if that might help soften the coming blow. ‘If you want to run away right now, just say the word and pick a direction. I may not be a specialist in escape and evasion, but I know a few things.’
‘You may not have noticed,’ she said, summoning a smile for him, ‘… but I’m blind. Direction makes little difference to me. My life keeps turning in circles anyway.’
He chuckled. ‘Yeah, I was beginning to suspect that.’
‘Then you should know I can’t run from anything until I understand the full shape of things — and if there’s one thing Ben taught me, it’s that I have to face my demons or else they just keep haunting me. Looking back now at that first day near the bridge, I can see the longer I leave it, the worse it gets for everybody around me.’
‘It’s already bad though,’ he said, placing a steadier hand on her shoulder.
‘Yeah, I was beginning to suspect that. Just give me the dot points.’
He caressed her cheek and sighed, but sounded resolved, not defeated. ‘Twenty minutes ago, General Garland lost contact with the civilian phone she’d been tracking aboard the rogue Delta III. That’s Kitching’s Russian-made submarine. Two minutes before that, from an estuary near the border, a text message was sent from that phone to the national emergency centre — specifically, the emergency number: one-zero-six. I believe you’re familiar with that?’
She nodded, already fearing the shadows, and among them the longest that stretched like elastic all the way back to Serenity. ‘It’s the emergency number for people with disabilities.’
‘The message was one word: Help.’
‘And the sender?’
‘Matron Madonna Sanchez.’
Snap!
Mira’s final ties to Serenity whipped out into the world to bite her. With hindsight, it seemed inevitable, and yet she shook her head in disbelief. When the snap came, she’d expected to be the one flung back into a life of captivity. Instead it was Sanchez, a prisoner now, and at the mercy of the same murderous colonel who’d shot Ben and tortured Lockman.