River stone, p.4
River Stone, page 4
I don’t try for my mother in the same way. Not only because a part of me is still angry with her for lying, but because I know I won’t find similar memories. Smiles, yes. Laughter, no. Never anything to completely remove the sadness lying underneath, the layer of unhappiness she’s always had. She had lied about who she was before The Burning. What else hasn’t she told me? How can I make it better for her? If I come back from this journey, returning triumphantly with the drug – a heroine – will she be so proud all her past will, finally, be forgotten?
‘Maybe Theodore thought no one was good enough for his daughter? Not even Titus?’ Fatima has been thinking different thoughts.
‘Maybe.’
‘But we don’t really have that luxury,’ Fatima goes on. ‘Our small numbers require us to … breed. That’s what the Blossoming is about, after all: giving our couplings importance and reminding us of how central choosing a partner is to the continuing life of the village.’
Fatima sounds like a younger rendition of Theodore. She has always held to the belief that our leader knows best. My father has taught me to be more questioning, although even he has succumbed to the idea of the Chosen. I shiver, watching Matthew climb over a log, his hat flopping up and down.
‘How do you think they’re doing?’ Fatima asks, her voice trembling. ‘Do you think my parents are …?’
Like all of us, I know Fatima has been trying not to dwell on what might be happening back at home. It’s the only way we can keep on.
‘I’m sure they’re fine,’ I say, trying to sound convincing. It’s the only way I can keep on.
We start walking again.
We haven’t been able to find a clearing in the new forest, so we head back to the river’s edge and try to build a fire on the bank. The ground is too damp, though, and nothing takes hold.
We sit in a circle around the non-fire, focusing on the spot where the flames should be. Above us is the dark shadow of a huge boulder. It sits alone on its side, as if thrown by some great force which I suppose it was, sometime long ago. The night settles in.
‘Great, more stale bread for dinner,’ Fatima mutters.
I’m disappointed too because we’d managed to find some roots and I had been thinking about root soup all afternoon. We wouldn’t have had the special herb my father adds to it, but it would have been something warm, something to take away the chill.
‘This isn’t about you, Fatima,’ Titus replies, once again scathing to his supposed Chosen. ‘You’re not exactly suffering compared to others. Stop being so self-centred.’
In the darkness, it sounds so cruel and, although I have my problems with the way my friend is behaving, I can’t let it pass.
‘Don’t talk to her like that, Titus.’
He jerks his head up. He must be looking at me, although his face is just one black mass.
‘Like what?’
This isn’t the conversation I want to be having.
‘Like … you don’t care.’
Fatima draws in a deep breath. I have opened up something which I know, suddenly, I shouldn’t have.
Titus drops his head down again. He will speak the words – I don’t care – and there will be no going back, for Fatima or for him. The silence is like no other I’ve felt on this trip, as if we’re all tensed together, our one moment of unity.
In the moment before Titus opens his mouth, we hear the growl.
Because I have heard the sound before, I immediately know what creature is making it, and spot a silhouette crouched on top of the boulder. I don’t know whether to run or stay perfectly still. The last time I saw a cougar, it was the hunted, not me.
Slowly, we all stand and Titus and Matthew, who have their backs to the rock, turn and edge away from the low rumble emitting from the creature’s throat. In the crescent moonlight, I can just make out the shine of its eyes. It is so close, I swear I can smell the wet tang of its fur.
‘Run!’ Titus screams and, in that instant, I know it’s the wrong thing to do. We won’t be able to outpace the cat in the dark. We will stumble and be taken easily. But before I can say anything, Titus sprints into the shadows of the forest.
‘No! Get a stick, stay together!’
I can feel the hesitation in the other three. Who to listen to? Who to trust?
Matthew grabs a solid branch from the abandoned fire and dashes to my side. Emmaline quickly finds a weapon and pushes up next to Matthew. I too have a stick in my hand, though I have no memory of picking one up. The three of us huddle together, waiting.
Fatima doesn’t move. She seems to be fixed on the spot where Titus abandoned us. Alone and untethered, she looks like an easy target, just one spring away from the great cat.
From the forest, a crashing sound. Titus must be coming back, reversing his decision to flee.
When I remember it later, and I try to remember it many times, I can’t quite picture how it all happens.
It is just a mess, a flash of sounds and pictures: the cougar springs up, launching itself at Fatima, a figure emerges from the trees, the twangs of a bow, one after another, Fatima screams, the creature’s gaping mouth, arrows flying through the air, I launch myself towards Fatima, the thud of her body hitting the ground beneath me, a strange moan, the stink of the large cat’s breath, the pain of claws in my skin.
And then, stillness.
6
The stillness doesn’t last. A cacophony of voices.
‘What are the Babblers doing here? Where’s their fire?’
‘Pan! Pan!’
‘Are they alive?’
‘Is it dead?’
The last blood of the cat is running warm through its body. I can feel it on top of me, the final surge of its life force, I know it will not move again. It is at its end, no more time left in this world. Even as I realise this death has saved me, has saved Fatima, I feel a great sadness and I do not want to wiggle free, do not want to escape this strange cave of fur and teeth and claws. The creature is one with me, as long and swift as I am, and if I do not move, I will take on its soul.
‘Get it off her! Help me get it off her!’
Matthew’s panicked voice cuts through all the others and there is straining and grunting and the body of the cougar is lifted away. I am released. I roll onto my back and open my eyes. My heart is pounding so hard, I can barely breathe. Matthew kneels beside me, looking down, his face crunched up with worry.
‘Pan?’
I don’t want to see him, I want to see the stars, I want to push him aside and dive up into the blackness between the twinkling fires of the sky, to join the cat’s free spirit.
‘Pan?’
‘Leave her. Help me with the other one.’
I don’t know this voice, but I feel its power. Matthew’s face disappears and somewhere close by there is crying and hurt.
Above me, a star shoots across the darkness. I close my eyes and the line of fire in the sky is on the back of my lids. I am a streak across the night, soaring and then plummeting. I am tossed, I am held. This is an ending, and yet a beginning.
I am nothing and I am everything. I float in the darkness between the stars.
I am the stars. I am the darkness.
I am me.
Bright lights flash, then dim. Another streak of light. I fall, a rush of wind against my face, my stomach churning.
Someone, something, catches me. I am lowered onto the soft, soft earth.
I open my eyes. A cave, lit by a fire. The flicker of the flames like the stars. He is sitting across from me. My hunter, smiling. Not the small grin after I threw the river stone and made him run. A large, wonderful smile, his eyes shining with it. He reaches out and touches my cheek. I feel the heat of his fingertips on my skin. I see myself in his eyes, my star-touched face.
I shiver and, in the moment of my hesitation, he is transformed. I am no longer looking at his face. I am looking into the cougar’s eyes. It snarls, its teeth bared and its breath hot. I close my eyes, waiting for the attack. I am not afraid, only sad this will be my ending.
Nothing happens.
Only the sound of the cat breathing and then a whisper: ‘Kaplan’. I open my eyes and the cave is gone. I am the sky, looking down at all below me: the forest, my river and the mountains. And, in the distance, a shimmering, the light of the city …
‘She’s waking up.’
I sit up. The sun is rising. Hours have passed. I don’t remember sleeping. Have I been lying here all this time?
A fire is burning in a deep pit surrounded by river stones and, for a moment, I think I am back in the village; this could be one of our fire places, I could look up and see a cracked line running up to a chimney. Instead, there are faces, circled around. Some are familiar, some are not. I can’t take them all in.
‘How are you feeling, Pan?’ A tentative enquiry from Matthew. He’s sitting opposite me. Through the smoke his skin looks grey. Next to him, Fatima is lying on the ground, her eyes closed. Matthew has his hand on her head, gently stroking her hair. One of her cheeks is swollen and there’s a gash on her forehead which seems to be coated in mud. Emmaline is seated at Fatima’s feet, sitting on her heels. She is paying no attention to our wounded friend, though, her focus is on the figure next to me.
‘You’ll feel … different … for a while.’
This is the strong voice from before – how long ago was it now? only last night? – and I turn my head to see him sitting cross-legged next to me.
Him. My hunter.
He wears a fur cloak over his bare chest. Lying on the ground in front of him is the bow, and the quiver of arrows. He has one of the arrows in his hands, rubbing it with a piece of skin which, I notice, has dried blood on it.
Next to him is another one of the Mountain People. He too is in a cloak, though I think this is made out of rabrat skin and he has a vest beneath it, his body thin and weedy compared to the other. My hunter has thick black hair whilst the other is blonde with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He looks to be only about fourteen notches on the Growing Tree. He has no weapons and glances enviously at the deadly projectiles at his companion’s feet.
‘Is she really a reader? A Babbler?’ the younger one asks.
‘Sssssh, Caro.’
He has used that word before – ‘Babblers’ – I remember it.
‘Why do you call us Babblers?’ I ask, my voice sounding strange after so much silence.
‘That is your first question?’
The hunter smiles and shakes his head.
‘Sorry, is there a better one?’
I feel the weight of everyone’s attention, the way in which they are all watching me, wary. Only he seems relaxed, as if all of this is perfectly ordinary.
‘I thought you were dead,’ Matthew says petulantly. I focus again on Matthew’s face through the smoke. His features are sharper now and I can’t help looking at his hand on Fatima’s head, my face growing hot at the intimate way he’s touching her. I am not jealous. What is there to be jealous of? Yet, I don’t understand why he is professing such concern for me whilst keeping such a distance.
‘Sorry to disappoint.’ I stand. The world spins.
‘Whoa, take it easy.’
The hunter jumps up and grabs my arm with his hand, steadying me.
‘You’ve been in a trance. You can’t just skip out of it.’
The real heat of his palm on my skin is wonderful – it reminds me of his touch in my so-called ‘trance’ – but they are all there and I want to be alone, away from them: Matthew and his demands for my emotion, Fatima and her terrible wounds, Emmaline and her untouched beauty. A surge of nausea rushes up my throat.
‘I’m going to be sick.’ I break free from his grip and sprint into the forest. As I run, I catch a glimpse of the cougar’s body, lying on its side as if sleeping.
I throw up three times, voiding all the bread and dried goateep meat of the last few days. Leaning over, I discover my entire chest is bruised and there are random scratches on my legs and arms. When I tentatively touch the shoulder blade where the brand is, my fingertips come away stained with blood from where claws have ripped my skin.
After I finish being sick, I sit at the base of one of the thin trees and wonder how I am going to face him again. What must he think of me? What kind of impression have I made? First, scaring away his kill, then throwing myself into the path of the cat. And, then, spacing out for hours. Not to mention, the awful questions and the disappearance to vomit … I can’t imagine walking back into the camp, showing my face again. Maybe I can just stay here until dark? Creep in when they are sleeping, wake up with them tomorrow as if none of this has happened?
Except, I know I have to go back. Deep inside my ‘trance’, there was something … a glimpse of what we need to know, a reminder of how we need to push on. I can’t see it right now, it’s like a shadow behind a boulder, only I know it is there, lingering. What was the word the cougar spoke?
A branch snaps and I startle, hoping to see my hunter appearing through the forest, coming to make sure I’ve recovered, full of concern. Once again, I’m wrong.
Titus appears from behind a bush, his shoulders slumped low. He coughs.
‘I am so sorry,’ he mutters. His eyes are red from crying. I have never seen anyone look so ashamed. Of all the people, I’d never expected Titus to act like a coward. Where has he been all this time? Has he really been too embarrassed to show his face again? I can’t really blame him for running scared from the cougar. I might have done the same if I hadn’t seen one so recently.
‘It happened,’ I say. I can’t lie and say it was fine to do what he did. He could have got us killed.
‘I guess my father was right. He always said I was all muscle and no brains.’ I had never realised Atticus was this hard on him and feel guilty for thinking almost the same.
‘We should go back to the others, Titus.’
‘What will they think of me?’ he asks, echoing my own thoughts.
I shrug. I have no idea what is going on in everyone else’s minds. I can hardly figure out what’s going on in mine.
Returning to the others with Titus does get me off the hook, though. All the attention is on him when we walk out of the forest.
‘What are you doing here?’ Matthew demands, striding towards us. I have never seen him look so angry. ‘Do you think we want you back, when you’ve shown your true colours? Why don’t you go slink back to the village and see whether you can do something useful there?’
‘Calm down, Matthew,’ I say.
Matthew is not done. He shoves Titus in the chest. ‘Why should I calm down?’
Over Matthew’s shoulder, I can see Fatima sitting up, her swollen cheek almost black. I can’t spot Emmaline or the Mountain People.
‘Who do you think you are? The big and mighty son of Atticus, always looking down at us, always making out you were better than us.’ I’ve never heard Matthew speak like this. I never realised he felt this way. ‘Who’s better now, hey? Who’s the weak one now? Hey?’
He shoves Titus again. I think he expects Titus to resist. The son of Atticus has no fight left in him, though, he is in a mess, and stumbles backwards, almost falling.
‘Stop it.’ I speak quietly, hoping to cut through Matthew’s rage.
‘What kind of man runs away, leaving his women to die?’
I wonder if I could possibly have heard right. His women? This is the way Matthew thinks of us?
‘Leave him alone!’ Fatima is standing, with difficulty. Her weight is all on one leg, the other is bulging strangely at the ankle. She has probably broken a bone. She totters and we all race over to her, the fight forgotten in our need to stop her falling.
Titus gets there first and, putting his arm around her, helps to gently lower her to the ground.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Titus says again, this time to Fatima and then, again, to Matthew. ‘I’m sorry.’
It is the softest I have ever heard him talk to either of them.
Matthew ignores him. He squats down next to Fatima.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks and she nods. He walks away to sit by the river. Titus stays on the ground with his arm around Fatima.
I squat down next to Fatima as well. I can’t believe the state of her face. I realise she must have hit rock when I pushed her to the ground to protect her from the cougar.
‘Are you really all right, Fat?’ I ask.
‘Yes, Panda, thanks to you.’ I smile when she uses her nickname for me. Rama had told us about these big gentle black and white bears who happily chewed on the same plant all day. Fatima had said this sounded about as far away from me as it was possible to be and so, of course, started calling me it. ‘My ankle hurts like crazy though.’
‘Did you twist it?’ Titus asks.
‘Yes,’ I see her glance at the arm Titus still has around her shoulder. I can tell she’s pleased.
I’m embarrassed at how relieved I am when Emmaline returns by herself and, not long after, the two Mountain People emerge from a different part of the forest. I have washed myself in a bend of the river a little distance from the camp. The water ran red at first, the wounds on my shoulder reopening. I tried to rid myself of the layers of dirt and dust, tried to get my hair to look less like a matted clump on my head. I am trying to carry myself more like a woman and less like a young boy. Even as I do it, I dislike what I’m trying to do. This preening. What will it matter? He has already seen the difference between Emmaline and me – her ‘beautiful’ versus my ‘striking’ – and I’ve already seen the way she is looking at him. I can’t compete.
Still, I feel that rush through my whole body when he comes up to the fire. I am not looking at him, intent on pushing embers around with the end of a stick, so I can hardly feel irritated when he doesn’t actually speak to me.
