Storm Season

by Pene Henson

  Lien shrugs. “I’m happy, too. Nic’s happy. I saw to that last night.” She half laughs.

  Megan ignores her as she goes on. “I think some of it’s about being okay trusting another person. We fuck up. It’s inevitable. But it’s okay, because she’s there beside me. And I don’t mind that most nights she falls asleep before me and I have to turn out her light and lie there and listen to her breathing.”

  Lien turns away and looks out the window. She’s not hunting for that kind of thing. Definitely not.

  They're the last to arrive at the campsite. Lien climbs out of the car and stretches her legs.

  She supposes the area is beautiful, though the site itself is just grass set among gum trees and ferns and huge sandstone boulders. Everywhere she looks is thick foliage and sky. The rainforest slopes up from the site to the rushing clouds on one side. The other side opens out into a valley. Through the trees is a steep canyon, orange and creamy sandstone. Lien can hear the creek that twists through it. It’s running fast. A lone gray-green cabin is set into the hill beyond the canyon, shadowed high up near the ridge, looking out over everything.

  “Look.” She points to the cabin. “I think it's deserted.”

  “Creepy,” says Annie with a shudder.

  Lien helps Beau and Annie unload their tent. Two tents, Raf and Matty’s and Megan and Kam’s, have been set up in the campsite. Beau drops theirs on a flat grassed area. He sighs, looking the other tents over.

  “It’s like they’re taunting us,” he says. “All those taut guide ropes and neatly pegged tarpaulins.”

  It is disheartening. Raf and Matty’s tent even has an annex with a purple princess inflatable couch. Megan’s is an ordinary tent-shaped green tent but it’s perfectly set up, all clean lines and consistency, with a mat lined up with the door flap. Megan’s sharing it with her girlfriend Kam who, it seems, knows a thing or two about tents. Kam’s also wearing a hands-free headlamp thing that is not even a tiny bit fashionable but works on her. Everything works on Kam, who’s tall and boyish and Indian and doesn’t care what people think.

  Lien rubs Beau’s shoulder. The three of them clear the ground of rocks, then Lien opens the drawstring storage bag and removes the tent and the little sacks of pegs and ropes. She drops them on the ground and folds the storage bag.

  “Don’t think about it. We can do this,” she urges. They practiced once in a backyard; no wind, soft ground, the owner’s input. But she doesn’t want the others to help, not really.

  Above them, the sun is filtered, streaking as gold fingers through heavy cloud. The light’ll be gone soon; the sun will sink behind the tallest of the hills. “Okay,” Lien says. “We’d better get on with it. I’m guessing tents and ropes and stuff are harder to work with after dark.”

  By the time Beau, Lien, and Annie have set up their tent the ground is dark. The hills nearby are black, and the clouds are gray in the blacker sky above. It’s not raining yet, but it doesn’t seem hopeful.

  Everyone’s sitting in the clear space between the tents. Beau unfolds a striped rug and stretches out his long legs. He’s relaxed his usual uniform of tight jeans and is wearing a pair of pin-striped shorts with a pink T-shirt. Lien sits beside him, cross-legged on the hard ground. She sighs and shifts her weight to see if she can get comfortable. Beau pets her thigh. Raf hands her a beer.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he says.

  “I’m fine.” She doesn’t want sympathy. She wants to be somewhere with a little less silence and space and a whole lot more lounge chairs.

  Raf smiles at her. His dark eyes twinkle above the facial hair he seems to have grown in the three days since she last saw him.

  “You are a hairy man,” Lien says.

  “That I am,” Raf says. “Want to see my hairy belly?”

  “Raf, you’ll frighten the children,” says his boyfriend, though everyone knows they adore one another. Where Raf’s short and stocky, Matty’s slim and pretty. His fair hair is starting to thin, but no one would ever tell him that. He’s grown it long and streaked it with platinum in protest.

  Despite the threatening rain, it’s bushfire season, so there’ll be no campfire. Someone’s cleared a space near the electric barbecue Raf and Matty brought. It’s too warm to huddle around it.

  They eat vegetables that have been crisped on the barbecue and lamb kebabs or tofu. It’s not complicated food, not what Lien’s used to from the restaurants near their place, and there’s a leaf in it, but it tastes pretty good with a beer.

  “Where’s your girlfriend?” Matty asks Lien.

  Lien rolls her eyes. “She’s honestly not my girlfriend.” No one responds. “If you mean Nic, I invited her. But she was working.” She did invite Nic, but she wasn’t particularly encouraging. Nic isn’t herself with Lien’s friends. Maybe they find her difficult. Her focus is physical stuff: sports and yoga and how to take your body to new levels of excellence. And Lien and her friends, they’ve all known one another for a long time and they understand the same world: music and fashion, all the best venues and DJs and promoters.

  “Any insider tips on the bands at Rivers Fest?” Kam asks.

  “Of course. Yeah.” Lien runs over some of the bands she’s excited about. “And I’m following Stickler about for a day. They’re going to be big. They play the Saturday night.”

  The barbecue’s turned off, and the night is cooling. Despite the heat of the day, the air is crisp. Lien rummages through her bag inside the tent. She pulls on a little cardigan. It’s lemon yellow and pretty. It’ll get dirty out here. It was probably a silly choice. But it’s so cute, and she’s warm now so she can’t bring herself to mind.

  “They’re predicting a nasty storm tonight. Seems like it’s coming in already,” says Kam as Lien settles down beside Beau. Lien nods. The air’s heavy and electric. The wind’s unpredictable. Up above, the clouds are taking more defined shapes and dashing to cover the moon.

  “Hope everyone’s got the tents up properly,” says Megan. She stands to check on the guides and pegs. Kam stretches her legs and goes to deliberate with her.

  The consensus is that the tents should all hold together, even Beau, Annie, and Lien’s, but it might be a tough night. Between them, they put the barbecue and other equipment in the cars. Raf lets down the couch. The pink and purple princesses collapse as the couch deflates.

  It’s only just after ten. At this time they’re usually heading out for the night, but Lien’s tired. Annie’s playing cards with Matty. Lien doesn’t join them. She’s not sure she’ll sleep here.

  The storm hasn’t broken.

  Beau kneels to open the flaps of their tent. Lien pauses. Beau transitioned five years back. He’s confident of himself and he’s lived with Lien for three years, but he likes to keep some level of privacy. The tent doesn’t offer a lot of that once they’re all inside.

  “I’m going to take some pictures,” says Lien, “before the storm breaks. I won’t be too long.” She doesn’t want to bump into anything dangerous, but she would like to get some photos to put up on Instagram. “No one online will believe I was here otherwise. There was lots of chat about whether I’d even come. Bastards.” She pauses then asks, “Are there dingoes out there?”

  Beau meets her gaze blandly. “Um, no. There aren’t any dingoes. Watch out for the drop bears though.”

  Lien narrows her eyes. “Drop bears?”

  “Carnivorous koalas, honey. They can smell an outback tourist. One of them might take a nibble on you.”

  “As if,” says Lien. She hesitates. “There’s no such thing as carnivorous koalas.” She glances at him and is reassured by his amusement. “I’m done listening to you, Beau, you’re as much a city kid as I am.”

  “Fine.” His grin is bright in the moonlight. “But us city kids managed to pitch a tent, so I’m proud of us. I’ll get dressed and see you in a minute or two.
Thanks.” He kneels as he zips up the tent door.

  Lien steps away from the tent. The bush spreads out around her, tree after tree to the end of the world. Without her friends’ conversation to distract her it’s foreign: wide and overwhelming. The wind eddies above. Occasionally a noise sounds from the trees, the call of some unfamiliar animal, maybe a bird or frog or giant insect or platypus. Lien stands still, turns back to the tent, hesitates. She doesn’t need to take photos now. That can wait.

  In the torchlight, Beau’s silhouette pulls his shirt over his head.

  Lien takes a breath, steels herself. He needs his privacy. She heads into the dark. It’s rough underfoot, the tangled ferns are treacherous, and her lace-up Volleys are white and not exactly snake-bite proof. She bought them because they were cute. She walks carefully and lets her eyes adjust to the dark. She’s not happy alone with too much time to think, but she has to admit this place is beautiful. She reaches the edge of the campground and tries to get a photo of the outlook. They’re up pretty high, everything sweeping away from the site. Behind her are the tents, canvas flapping in the wind, flashlights, a shout of muffled laughter, murmurs. But ahead it’s loneliness and blackness, clouds scudding by fast and the lights from that single cabin, high on the nearby slope, flickering in and out as the great trees move.

  The isolation fills her lungs. The sky is the size of the whole world. Silence courses over her. She wants to hold onto the space—how huge and tiny she is at once. But she also wants to share it. She has a responsibility to share it. After all, she has followers. She needs to tell them all about her newfound spirit of adventure.

  She turns the flash off on her phone and sets it up for night photography. The photos are disappointing. Every one turns the scene into a wash of gray. It’s hard to trap vastness on a 5.5 inch screen. She can’t capture the layers of black ground and crowds of trees, the sky and the moving clouds and wind and scattered stars. They’re impressive in real life but on her phone they seem muted and tiny. Like nothing.

  She clambers through tangled brush and heads down the slope toward the canyon. The hills are a dark line against the sky. There don’t seem to be any wild animals, and it’s possible that snakes sleep at night. She hopes so. She breathes a little deeper and easier, getting herself accustomed to the lack of noise. This isn’t like Sydney. Here you can stand with two feet on the earth and connect with the sky. She walks on. The trees close in around her. The darkness is more complete as she gets farther from the campsite. The ground begins to drop away more steeply. She’s careful. A mistake could turn into a headlong plunge into the canyon. She holds on to a sapling and leans out over a little gully with her phone out. The creek burbles below, winding its tight path between the boulders.

  As she leans forward, her shoes slip on the dirt and leaves beneath her; the sapling bends and pulls out of the ground. She scrabbles for footing and reaches for a plant, which slices her palm and doesn’t hold. For a moment she hangs in the air, then she tumbles down the gully, almost vertically toward the creek, head over feet. An avalanche of dirt and leaves and gumnuts rains down behind her. The wind’s knocked out of her at the first blow. Her knee cracks hard against the ground. She crashes down. A log bangs against her thighs. She’s stopped by a boulder, and spills half into the creek. Her phone falls out of her hands, thumps on a rock, and lands with a disheartening splash.

  She lies still. She’s an idiot. An idiot with her ass half in a creek, gazing at the towering black trees and sky and wearing a vintage safari suit with cute shoes. Her knee hurts. And her wrist. And her hand. And her butt. She releases a shaky, shaky breath. Her head spins.

  Down here, the world seems lonely and darker. She’d better find her way back. She pushes herself to her hands and knees on the boulder. A white pain lances her right knee.

  She whimpers and rolls to take the weight off her knee. Her eyes prick with tears. Her knee has been a problem since she trashed it eight years ago in top division soccer. But it’s never done anything like this. Of course, she usually doesn’t throw herself down rocky cliff slopes in the middle of the night.

  She takes a breath and calls out. The campsite is a good distance away, up the slope and through the trees. She pushes herself upright again to try to crawl out on one knee. The rock is slippery and treacherous. She moves forward a few grueling meters, slips, and lands on her hip.

  She inhales through her teeth and calls more loudly. “Hello! Beau? Annie?”

  Her words are caught up in the swirl of wind. They echo at her from the gully banks. She slides toward the slope she plummeted down, holds onto a tree, drags herself up onto to her good foot, but she can’t put any weight on her other leg and she can hardly hop up the ravine.

  “Hey! Hi! Help!” she cries. It’s no use. The wind whips around her. They’ll realize she’s gone soon, but she’s got no idea how long it’ll be until someone can find her. Why would they think she’d wandered down here? “HELP!” She calls more loudly, but the wind steals her voice and sweeps it away.

  The dark surrounds her, burying her. The creek water is cool. The trees swirl above her head. Lien doesn’t want to cry, but her knee hurts, and she’s covered in mud and caught at the bottom of a cliff without her phone. She’s frightened she’ll fall farther. A bird or bat wheels above her near the treetops. Animals chitter off to her right. Something’s going to eat her, and no one will know. She gives in to the tears.

  She takes a steadying breath. And another. “Okay,” she says aloud.

  She peers upward into the dark. There are trees and thick, exposed roots up the cliff. She needs to drag herself up there. If she goes slowly, maybe she’ll be okay. As she reaches for the nearest root, the noise of the wind breaks. Through that tiny silence she hears a footstep. It’s unexpectedly close. It couldn’t be someone from the campsite; it’s on the wrong side of her, unless the fall flipped her admittedly dubious sense of direction. Another tread sounds. Human. Probably. Lien’s heart pauses; her hand slips a bit. Her nerves are at the ready.

  “Hello?” she says. Her throat is tight as she swallows. A silhouette looms out of the dark. Lien looks up, up, up farther to see a head. “Hello?” Her voice shakes.

  “Hello,” comes a low voice. The woman leans over the precipice from the shadows. “Ranger service.”

  Standing up there in the dark with the wind and the sky behind her, the ranger is superhero-tall, broad-shouldered, and solid. Lien’s so grateful she could cry. “Oh, fuck. Thank fuck.” Lien takes a breath. “Shit. Sorry, language.” She squints at the woman through the dark. “I’m genuinely so glad to see you.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” The superhero’s voice is kind but faintly amused.

  Lien goes on. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I fell and. It’s my knee. Can you—Is there any way you could—? I can’t get out.” Lien tries to get a handle on her voice but it shakes. She blinks. She has to assume the woman really is a park ranger and not someone who likes to pretend to be a ranger, there in the dark, waiting for someone to fall down a cliff like an idiot. That does seem unlikely. The superhero takes in Lien and her precarious position. She doesn’t say anything. She might be the brooding type. She leans out farther to examine the slope.

  Lien can’t help herself. “Be careful not to fall. It’s slippery.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be fine.” The woman’s tone is dry. “Okay. Right. How bad is that knee? Can you climb out?”

  “I have tried that.” Lien’s voice has an edge to it. What does the woman think she was doing here? Sitting on her ass crying about her safari suit? That’s only partly true.

  “How about with a rope to support you? I’ll help drag you up, do what I can to lift you from up here.”

  “Okay?” Lien figures she can try it.

  “We’ll need a little more conviction than that.”

  “Yeah. Yep. I can do it.” Lien injects certainty into her voice.
>
  “Good on you.” The superhero doesn’t sound as super-impressed as Lien deserves. She disappears.

  The only sound is the wind. Lien listens. She’s certain she didn’t dream up her park ranger; she’d have made her friendlier, for one thing, but the silence is not reassuring. Has the woman left her?

  “Here it comes.”

  The ranger’s voice comes from up the slope. Lien sighs with relief. A rope slithers part way down, catches. The ranger shakes it from above, and it slithers the rest of the way. It hangs near enough for Lien to reach at a stretch.

  “Loop it around your waist.”

  Lien does as she’s told, tying it as best she can. The rope goes taut and tightens around her middle. Lien makes the slow climb up. The rope partly supports her weight. When her feet slip and scrabble on the rocks, the rope holds.

  The ranger grabs Lien’s hand as she reaches the top. Lien clambers over the lip and lies on the ground, letting her thrumming heart slow down. She smells earth and eucalyptus. Beau will be impressed by how much she’s bonding with the land.

  “Thank you,” she says. She drags herself onto one knee and then pulls herself up on a tree. She stands on her good foot. “Thank you.”

  “Just doing my job,” says the ranger.

  “Can—how will I get back to the campsite? I’m staying at the Upper Creek.” Lien wants to get out of here. Maybe she can convince Beau and Annie that they should all go home or at least find a cheap hotel in town.

  “Yeah, I know. I heard you guys come in earlier. The campsite’s across there.” The ranger lifts her chin to point to the other side of the gully. And she’s right, of course. Lien hadn’t thought about it but in climbing back up from the creek, she’s on the other side of the running water.

  “Can I get back?”

  The ranger turns her head. “You want to climb back down there?”

  Lien looks with her. The ground drops away sharply to the water.

  “Is there a way around?” Lien asks.