Eden, p.28
Eden, page 28
“I killed her,” Jenn said, her voice barely a breath.
“You didn’t kill her, you saved her. You saved me.”
“I didn’t think about it. I just fell.”
“Can you walk? We need to get out.”
For a moment she did not move, staring instead at the pale shape in the scattering of ghost orchids.
“Jenn?” Dylan asked. She turned and looked at him, her eyes filled with so much grief that he took a step back.
* * *
“What have I done?”
Jenn felt sickness rising in her, not from the pain from her arm and her ribs and elsewhere across her body, but from the knowledge of what had occurred. Her mother’s corpse was stark and pale against the dark soil. She could only remember falling, not hitting, and she wished she were falling forever. She thought perhaps it would give her time to think.
Around her mother, pale ghost orchids seemed to be fading away as dusk led into night.
“She called me here, and I killed her.”
“Jenn, we have to go,” her dad said. He held her right arm and steered her towards the side of the dock. She had no idea how she could climb out. Right then, the centre of her world was her dead mother, splayed across a carpet of broken flowers. Jenn didn’t know what it meant for her or for Eden. It was a sadness heaped on deeper sadness, and she felt dizzy, nauseous and scared. The depths pulled her down, threatening to crush. It was only her father’s touch that kept her from falling into the void.
More movement caught her attention. A shape appeared above them at the side of the dock, and her heart jumped. But it was Cove. He fell to his knees and bent over, and for a moment Jenn thought he was going to tumble in.
“Lucy…” he said. “Bitten. Or stung. She’s gone.” He kept looking behind him, breathing hard. “And I ran, and something was in the shadows, something big.”
“Where is she?” Dylan asked.
Cove looked down at them, taking in the scene. When he saw Kat’s body and the orchids he froze.
“No, Cove,” Jenn said.
He switched on the penlight, and though the beam was weak, when he played it across the orchids they seemed to bloom as if luminous.
“You okay?” Dylan asked.
“Got bit. Thing went for Lucy, I knocked it away, and…”
“What bit her?”
He was still looking at the flowers. He took no notice of Kat’s body. “Look at them all.”
“We need to get the boat out,” her father said. He held Jenn close, hugging her like he hadn’t hugged her for years. She felt tears pressing at her eyes.
“We have to check on Lucy,” she said. She nodded up at Cove. He was sitting now, swaying, the light hanging from his fingers.
“He says she’s dead.”
“We have to, Dad.”
He nodded. “Okay. But you’re getting out first.” He bent down against the dock wall and Jenn stood on his cradled hands. She shoved gently down, and with one huge lift he had her up against the wall, her good arm levering on the ground above. She pushed her toes into the rough concrete, found a hole, and heaved. Her ribs hurt as she bumped against the concrete, and her left hip shone with a grinding agony.
Cove dragged her up. He looked terrible. He was sweating and shaking, his eyes wide and wet.
“I saw her die,” he said. Tears spilled but his expression didn’t change.
“Where were you bitten?”
He raised his right hand. It was swollen, the skin tight and hot.
“What was it?”
“Something small. What happened to you?”
“I fell off a crane.” Jenn turned his hand this way and that, locating the puncture mark. It might have been from a snake’s fangs, or a double strike from a scorpion. If the toxins had been powerful he’d have been dead by now, but she still had doubts about trying to suck it out.
Her dad appeared behind her and took in the scene. He rooted around on the ground and picked something up.
“Those ghost orchids,” Cove said, pointing into the dock with his bad hand. Dylan grabbed it, held it still, and sliced something across the bites. Cove flinched, but then relaxed, knowing Dylan’s intent. He bent and sucked at the wound, spat, sucked again.
“I’m checking on Lucy,” Jenn said.
“No, I’ll go,” Dylan said. “Cove, we’ve got to make sure. Kat’s dead, and the animals have gone. I think we have a little more time.”
“I saw the wolf running away,” he said. “I was afraid he was chasing one of you. And something else in the dark, something bigger.”
“Grizzly,” Jenn said. “It chased you?”
“Only until I saw the wolf running. Then I didn’t hear it anymore.”
“We found a boat.”
“You did?”
Jenn stood and started stripping off her running belt. It was difficult with one hand. She held it up. “We’ve got one good hand each. We can use this to pull it out of there.”
“I’ll be quick,” Dylan said.
“She’s still inside the church,” Cove said. “I tried to drag her away. I tried, but she was already…”
“Help Jenn,” her father said, but he was looking at Jenn when he spoke. She nodded.
“Be careful. Please, Dad.”
He smiled and then ran into the silent darkness.
* * *
Dylan felt a sickness of the soul, an emptiness at Kat’s strange death, but Jenn was still there to keep him whole and grounded. He wished he’d had time to tell her none of this was her fault.
He could not leave Eden without checking on Lucy. Cove seemed confused, and the sting or bite he’d received might have skewed his senses. Dylan had to make sure.
He ran across the old ruined town, through the falling darkness and the shadows bleeding out from their daytime hiding places, and for the briefest moment he revelled in the simple act of running.
That brief moment refired his confidence, saw away some of the darkness, and made him determined to survive. Eden was doing its best to kill them, but they were fighting back. He hoped Kat had fought back as well, as much and as ferociously as she could.
Naxford was a different place without daylight to illuminate the human elements. He was aware of the bulk of old buildings around him, but they might have been mounds of rocks and soil, or something older. When he was younger, before Jenn and even before Kat, he and a group of friends had hiked through a region of the Amazon where ancient ruins hid away from sight, echoing with stories that would likely now never be told. Passing through these sites had filled him with a sense of wonder and dread, and the feeling that these old places were observing from the past. He felt the same now. He ran, he was on his own, yet he felt the focus of an unreasonable, unknowable intelligence.
Closing on the old church, he realised his mistake. It would be pitch black in there now, and he’d forgotten to take the penlight from Cove. A few steps closer, he knew that he would not need it.
“Lucy!” She was a pale shape in the grass, pushing weakly with one good leg, pulling with her arms, movements that reminded him of his dead wife. He dropped down beside her and grabbed her arm to roll her over. She was burning hot, her skin slick with sweat. He pushed her onto her back and she let out a long, gargling sigh.
Dylan caught his breath and flinched back. Lucy’s face was swollen, eyes puffed up and almost closed, and she was bleeding from the nose and mouth. Her breathing was wet and uneven, short, desperate gasps.
“He… he…”
“Keep quiet, keep still,” Dylan said. He’d seen people stung and bitten, and knew that some poisons worked incredibly fast. Cove had said she was dead. He’d lied, but she would be soon. Dylan didn’t know what had stung her, or where, or how long ago.
“He… left me… for his… flowers?” Lucy posed it like a question, her difficult words said in disbelief. “Flowers…”
Dylan didn’t know what to do or say. He reached for her and went to pick her up, but knew it was already too late. Her breathing was shallower, her body twitching, contorting as she tried to draw in breaths past her swollen airways.
“I’m here,” he said, leaning low over her and making sure she knew he was by her side. “I’m here, Lucy.”
“Fl… flowers,” she said again. It was her last word. She struggled some more, grunted a few times, and then lay still.
Dylan sat back on his heels. Her death felt unreal, a shock piled upon shocks. Perhaps he was going mad.
He stood, looked down at his dead friend one more time, then turned and ran back towards the river. The wolf, coyote and grizzly might have fled when Kat died and her control over them faded, but Eden was still inimical to them, and it always would be.
A hundred metres from the dock he could just make out Jenn standing at the edge, silvered by moonlight emerging from behind a bank of clouds. She was leaning down and holding onto something. She stiffened and hauled the front end of the boat up into view.
Then she grew still and shouted, “Cove, no!”
The darkness surrounding Dylan tensed as Eden watched.
40
“Yes, of course I’ve heard about the orchids. Fairytales. Wish fulfilment. Nothing more.”
Professor Amara Patel, Natural History Museum, London
Jenn knew it was a stupid idea to let Cove down into the dry dock. But he insisted, and before she could protest he’d slipped over the edge and landed in a roll. Standing, he glanced around, gaze lingering on her mother’s body splayed in the spread of orchids.
“Cove!” Jenn said. “Hurry.”
Lying on her stomach, grimacing through pain that almost made her puke, she dangled her belt down to him. He grabbed one end and she held on tight as he tied it around a bolt in the top end of the boat. They’d still not inspected it properly— it might be holed, cracked, ready to fall apart as soon as they shifted it—but one step at a time.
“Okay, pull gently,” he said. With only one good hand it was tough, but she stood, braced her legs and started pulling. She turned her body slightly, trying to position herself where the pain bit in least. Still, her head swam and sickness threatened. Her ribs hurt like hell, and her hip was ablaze. I did that killing my mother, she thought, but she could not dwell on it. That awful deed would haunt her forever, adding a weight and depth to her nightmares that might make them inescapable. For now she had to keep it at a distance. Time enough for new nightmares once they’d escaped this one.
Cove pushed as she pulled, and the boat barely moved. It was too heavy.
“Hang on,” he said. His voice sounded light and weak, but he seemed more in control than he had when he’d arrived. Perhaps he was averting the settling of his own nightmares.
While Jenn hung onto her stretched belt, Cove scooped soil from the boat with his good hand, easing its weight. With every movement she felt it growing lighter.
“That’ll do it,” she said. “Push, Cove. I’ve nearly got it.”
Nothing. She leaned over and looked down. Cove was still standing by the upright boat, but he was no longer looking at her. He was staring at Kat and the orchids, the blooms somehow still easily visible in the darkness, possessing their own strange luminosity.
“Cove!” He didn’t move. Jenn frowned. The flowers looked different now, grouped closer together around her mother’s body. It must have been an effect of the darkness. “Cove, we need to get—”
He started walking towards the body and the ghost orchids he had come here seeking.
“Cove, don’t!” she whispered. She was afraid to shout now that he was within touching distance of her mother. She wasn’t sure why.
Perhaps she was afraid of waking her.
“The flowers,” Cove said, kneeling, reaching. “The flowers are in her.”
Jenn didn’t know what he meant, and didn’t wish to know. The air thrummed as he reached lower, as if charged and ready to unleash a surge of lightning. The hairs on her arms stood on end. Her scalp tingled.
He reached across her mother’s corpse and closed his hand around an orchid’s stem.
“Cove, no!” she shouted.
He plucked it from the ground. Then another, and another, pressing them into his injured, bleeding hand and holding them tight while he picked with his good hand. He groaned, a wretched sound, almost inhuman, and it sent a spasm of fear through her.
When he froze, Jenn realised it was not Cove who had groaned.
Her mother’s limbs were moving.
Jenn felt intense relief that she had not murdered her after all, and crippling terror that she was still alive.
Cove started backing away as Kat placed one hand on the ground, delicately, ensuring it was not touching any of the plants. She pushed herself up. Her other arm hung loose, shoulder dipped and misshapen.
“Get out of there,” Jenn whispered, and her mother’s head lifted and turned almost too far on her neck. She stared upside down at Jenn. Jenn could not see her eyes, but knew that they were dark and deep.
Cove reached the boat and started pushing again, grunting as he shoved with one hand and Jenn pulled, digging her heels into the ground and lifting with all her strength. Pain flashed through her arm and shoulder, her torso and hip and hand, making her dizzy and nauseous. But she did her best to shut it off and concentrate on the effort. She was good at closing off pain. Pain was just weakness leaving the body.
Her mother was standing now, swaying back and forth as she staggered in a half-circle so that she was facing them. Everything about her was broken. She hung like a fractured marionette, her limbs moving in a jerky, pained motion as she began to walk.
Cove placed the orchids he’d picked into the boat and braced his shoulder beneath it, crouching and heaving upwards. Jenn took a step back and continued pulling, and the craft pivoted on the dock’s crumbling edge and fell towards her. She stepped aside as it struck the ground, then went back to the edge.
Her mother was moving faster now, making shambling progress. As she moved Jenn heard pounding footsteps behind her. She crouched, ready to fight. Her father skidded to a stop beside her.
“Lucy’s dead,” he said.
“Mum’s still alive!” Jenn said. She fell to her knees and reached in and down. She grabbed Cove’s bad hand and he cried out, but there was no time for pain, or for subtlety. She started to pull. “Dad?”
He was looking past her and down at Cove.
“Dad, what?”
He knelt and grabbed Cove’s good hand. Together they pulled, and with Cove helping with his feet they hauled him out of the dock.
Below, Kat hissed as she scraped claws across the pitted concrete.
Jenn and her father grabbed the front of the boat and Cove pushed from the rear, and in a few seconds it was close to the river’s edge. It was a six-foot drop into the water.
“It might just sink!” she said.
“It might.” Dylan pushed it parallel with the river’s concrete edge. It was difficult to tell exactly where the edge was because of plants hanging over and the old concrete having broken and crumbled away over the years. Jenn was sure he didn’t mean to push it too far, but the boat slipped off stern first and splashed into the river.
Then he turned to Cove.
Cove didn’t hesitate. Eyes wide, staring down at the orchids in the boat, he ran past them and leapt into the water.
Beneath the splash Jenn heard excited yelping in the distance, and then the wolf’s howl. Further away, exultant, the spine-tingling roar of the brown bear.
“They know she’s not dead,” her father said. “They’re coming back.”
The old town was now silvered by bright moonlight, so it was easy to see the grey shapes of the wolf and coyote. The wolf was around the other side of the dry dock. It paused at the edge and looked in, then started around the far end, past the crane and towards them. The coyote was approaching from deeper within the old town, the larger shadow of the bear following close behind. Most days the creatures would be sworn enemies. Now, they served a common master.
“Dad, what happened with Cove and—?”
Kat appeared over the edge of the dry dock. She moved like a spider, broken arms scrabbling for purchase, legs rising up and toes digging into the ground, pulling and dragging herself upright. She stared right at them. Her head was tilted to one side, shoulder dropped and broken.
The wolf and coyote were only metres away, and they paused and watched Kat. The coyote limped. The wolf was still bloodied, the white streak above its eye bright with moonlight. The bear held back close to the crane, pacing, guarding their retreat.
“That’s not her,” Dylan said. “We both know that.” He grabbed Jenn in both arms and hugged. It hurt. She did not complain. “Watch Cove,” he said. He squeezed her even tighter, kissed her neck, whispered his love into her ear.
Then he let her go and ran at his wife.
“Oh, Dad, no!” Jenn said. Her grief and guilt were too raw, her nightmares too deep, she couldn’t face this as well. She took one step after him, but he was already there.
Kat hissed as Dylan embraced her with both arms. His momentum carried them back, then down into the dry dock and out of sight.
The wolf and coyote switched their gazes to Jenn.
Behind them, the grizzly stood on its hind legs and roared at the moon.
Jenn balanced on a knife edge sharper than she had ever known. Forward, and she would die. Backwards, and perhaps her father might have saved her. Like a ghost orchid blooming in a precarious place, both destinies beckoned.
She took three steps back and fell into the river.
* * *
They landed on their sides, his arms still wrapped around her. The wind was knocked from him, and he heard a grunt from Kat in a voice that he recognised. There was a time when they’d been so close that they could have identified each other in the dark from the tone of a sigh, the movement of a foot over soft ground. They had been aware of each other and attuned to the tones and frequencies of their love.
The sound surprised him, and he flinched back to look into her face.
