The Wish Kin (11 page)

It is early morning. The sun is soft against the pale cliffs that rise from the earth on either side of them, tints them orange, gold. The sky is close and creamy, their footfalls quiet on the dusty ground.

‘You must sing of your own time,' says Moss. ‘Of your own knowings.'

They walk on in silence. Colm thinks of Joe, of Marla and her children, of the green brew they drank there, of the dark cellar room, of Turi, the little rat baby. He thinks of how Marla referred to the child as her lucky charm, of how she believed he brought water to the place, made the vegetables grow. He thinks of how the strange child broke away from his mother's teat and gazed upon Lydia, how Lydia in turn gazed upon the child, how there was recognition there, and quietness. He thinks of all these things until there is a beauty in the words, a solidity, a cohesion, and a small thread of sound begins to accompany them, so quiet at
first that it is almost imperceptible, then louder and louder so that it fills the words, reaches the corners of the consonants, the spaces of the vowels, wells up around them and through them, so much so that there is not room enough on the inside of him and he opens his mouth to the song that emerges.

Now it is Colm who sings, who cannot stop singing. He has never sung before, not really, and he finds that he loves it, wants never to stop. He sings in the Outer Speech as they walk through the day, sings softly as they sit about Moss's bright fires in the evening, and sings in the Inner Speech when the darkness lies over them to lull them fast into their sleep.

One day he sings a future song, the first of its kind he has tried. He sings of the gathering of the clouds at the time of the Rekindling, drawing from images he has seen in his father's books, from tales he has heard others tell. He sings of the clouds appearing as great snowy mountains, rolling in from the ocean and covering the sky above the dry land. He sings of the weight of them, of the heaviness and the bursting. And he sings of their breaking, their splitting, their letting fall from their midst the sweetest cool rain.

‘Look,' says Lydia when he has finished, and points to the sky. The three of them lift their gaze into the blueness, see there a wisp of white, a mere ribbon of cloud.

‘A sign,' says Lydia. ‘Perhaps it all will happen as you say. Perhaps clouds will come, and soon.'

They watch, and the frail ribbon gathers itself, fills out so that it is a proper little cloud, though still very, very tiny, a mere puff, and hangs before them, a guide, it seems. As Colm watches, he feels again a sense of remembering, a grasping within at something long forgotten. And Brae's shiny metal disc, which is engraved with the little white dove, grows strangely cool about his neck. He is not afraid.

• • •

They are heading north now. The ground is drier than they have yet seen, the air hotter. Sometimes in the evenings they see an orange glow on the northern horizon. They wonder if it is the great fire at the Centre.

‘We can't keep heading due north for much longer,' says Moss one day. ‘Certainly the Clan are less likely to look for us there, but it is only going to grow hotter and hotter the closer we get. We need to head northeast now, at least for a time.'

Colm and Lydia follow the diagram he is scratching in the dirt. The Centre he draws as a great pool of fire; Wonding he patterns on its eastern side with pretty waves and boats. Their current location he marks with three stick figures in an aspect of motion. The distance between this point and the place of destination seems deceptively small.

‘It's a long way really, though, isn't it?' Colm says.

‘Yes,' replies Moss. ‘A very long way.'

‘Where do you think the nearest town is, Moss?' asks Lydia.

Moss scratches about in the ground, indicating a point quite close to the walking figures. ‘Jenna's Crossing,' he says. ‘A couple of days away. But the Clan would expect us to go there – so we won't.' He indicates another spot in the dirt. ‘We'll go further on, to Kulwurra.'

‘Is that a big town?' asks Colm

‘No, it's small,' Moss replies. ‘But functioning as recently as a year ago. Not sure what it's like now.'

‘We really need to get a truck or something to take us on the next leg of our journey,' says Lydia.

‘Wait, Lyd,' says Colm. ‘We don't even know what Moss wants to do. He doesn't have to come with us to Wonding. He probably wants to head south, away from the fire.'

Moss is silent.

‘Well, Moss?' says Lydia.

‘I don't plan to go south,' the boy says at last. ‘I plan to head north, with you.'

‘Why?' asks Colm.

‘For the same reason that I helped you to escape from the dome. For the Wish Kin. If your father is a member and he needs you with him, then I want to make sure you get there safely.'

‘Thank you,' says Colm.

Moss smiles and scrapes the stick about in the dirt. Colm suddenly feels tremendously happy.

• • •

They reach Kulwurra three days later, approach it carefully. The journey in is hard. The road is blocked by large boulders and it takes the children a long time to travel a short distance. It is difficult to tell whether the boulders are deliberately placed in order to prevent raiders entering the town, or if there has been an earthquake or some other type of natural disaster in the area.

The town is quiet, the streets deserted; not even a dog sits in the shade by the old river bank. The children walk cautiously, glancing at shuttered windows and doors firmly locked and bolted. Colm sees a curtain flutter, wonders if they are being watched.

They make their way through the eerie outskirts towards the heart of town.

‘Looks like there's no water left,' says Colm as they near the town well. Ahead of them, the well, positioned precisely in the centre of the town square, is clearly boarded over. A sign is nailed to one of the posts.
Empty
, it reads.

‘How strange that they put that there,' says Lydia.

They stand in the square for a moment looking about them, wondering where to go now, what to do. Still, there is little sign of life. A lone crow flies overhead, cawing into the silent sky. The children cross the square and push their way through sticky coloured fly strips into a dusty milk bar. The woman behind the counter looks up from her crossword as they enter.

‘Do you have any drinks?' Moss asks.

‘Nuh,' says the woman.

‘No Fantas or anything?'

‘Nuh.'

‘Any water?'

The woman lets out a long, hot breath and heaves her bulk off the stool. Her belly scrapes along the linoleum counter, dragging her crossword onto the floor.

‘Not cheap, water,' she says.

‘We can pay you,' says Colm.

The woman keeps her eyes on Colm as she lowers her arms into the cool box. ‘Three waters?' she asks.

‘Thank you,' says Moss.

She pulls out three small glass bottles and holds out her hand. Colm places three coins into her palm. When she does not respond, he places another coin and another. Only when there are six coins in a little heap on her palm does she open the bottles and slide them across the counter. The children drink the murky water slowly, uncertain.

‘Where does this come from?' Moss asks.

The woman shrugs. ‘Ask no questions, hear no lies.' She ducks down behind the counter for a moment then reappears with the crossword book in her hand. ‘Aah,' she says as she lifts herself back onto her stool. ‘Eight-letter word for “pain” beginning with
s
.'

‘Soreness,' says Colm at once, and the woman counts out the letters before marking them carefully on the page.

‘Very good,' she says without looking up.

‘Can you tell us,' Colm asks, mildly confident in the light of this small success, ‘where we might be able to find someone with a truck or something?'

‘A truck,' says the woman.

‘Yes, please.'

She ponders a moment then says, ‘Six-letter word for “out”, second letter
b
.'

‘Absent,' says Colm.

Again the woman counts out the letters before marking them on her page.

‘Seven-letter word for “irritant”, ending in
e.
'

‘Nuisance,' says Colm after a moment.

‘That's right,' says the woman. ‘You are.'

‘Oh,' says Colm. ‘So you don't know anybody with a truck, then?'

The woman lifts her head from her crossword, looks closely at the children. ‘You've come a long way by the looks of you.'

‘Yes,' says Moss. ‘And we've further to go. If you could help us out with some information we'd be grateful.'

‘Not that that'd do me much good.' The woman's mouth is turned down but they can tell she is smiling. ‘Come on, then,' she says. ‘We'll ask Will.'

They follow her back through the fly strips and into the heat of the day. She raps on the window of the shop next door and they wait, the four of them, while the bolts are slid back.

‘These kids wanna go in your truck,' says the woman to the young man who emerges. He has cropped black hair and a long, pale face. His blue eyes squint against the sun.

‘Do they?' he says. ‘Where do they want a ride to?'

‘Do I look like a travel agent?' The woman turns and shuffles back into her shop, the fly strips falling behind her with a soft slap-slapping sound.

‘We'd like to go to Bennett's Creek,' says Moss. ‘Or in that direction.'

Will folds his arms across his chest and turns his eyes upwards. ‘It's expensive to go up there,' he says. ‘Even if I had to go that way, it wouldn't be cheap.'

Colm finds the manner of these people irritating, wonders why they can't just say outright how much things will cost.

‘Then there's that fire everyone's going on about,' says Will. ‘That's gotta be a lot of danger money right there.'

‘I'm sure we can work something out,' says Moss. He lays his hand on the young man's shoulder and the two turn away into the gloom of the shop.

Colm and Lydia sit on the side of the road and scrape their feet in the dust. Colm wishes he had a book to read. He hasn't read anything in ages. Why didn't they think to pack something? Ah, but they did, he recalls. Only they couldn't decide what. Damn. If only they'd packed
something
. Anything would have been better than nothing.

Moss reappears. ‘He'll take us out there tomorrow morning. In return we pay for fuel and clean up his shop.'

Colm and Lydia are slightly taken aback at this. ‘Right,' says Colm. ‘That sounds gander.'

They follow Moss through the street door and into the shop. The walls are lined with dark wooden shelves, the shelves with figurines and miniatures. A thick film of dust coats everything.

‘He wants all this cleaned up,' says Moss. ‘Dusted, wiped down. Thinks it should take the rest of the day. I reckon he's right.'

Lydia picks up a small rubber figure dressed in a pink leotard and mauve leggings. She has never seen such a thing before.

‘Is this a doll?' she asks.

‘Yes,' says Moss. Lydia holds the doll nervously in her hands, her arms stretched out at some distance from her. It is clear she has no idea what to do with it.

‘In past times,' Moss explains, ‘young girls would play with such a toy, dress it up and pretend to take it shopping.'

Lydia continues to stare at the doll, looking, Colm thinks, as though she really wants to understand it but can't. All she says is, ‘Shopping?'

Will enters carrying a bucket and several old cloths, then leaves them to it. They get to work clearing the shelves and wiping the dust off ceramic clowns and plastic poodles. Colm wonders at the strangeness of it
all: only a short time ago they were prisoners in a shining white dome and now look at where they are! It is all a little odd.

The work takes them through the afternoon and into the evening. There are countless of these toys, many of which are clearly some sort of storybook character from a past age, most unfamiliar to Colm. Some he knows from tales their father had told them, and a couple of others from books kept from their father's childhood. But, like Lydia, he does not properly understand them. As the room grows gloomier and gloomier, hundreds of small shadows play upon the walls; Snow Whites and Ginger Meggses and Popeyes stretch elongated limbs away from the window. Colm begins to feel uneasy among the things, begins to wish the job were over and done, begins to wish they had never agreed to such a peculiar bargain.

Will enters from the back of the shop and snaps on the light. Suddenly everything is plain again, and easy. Colm forgets at once his nervousness at Will's offer of food and they all troop past the now gleaming glass cabinets and shiny shelves to the sitting room beyond.

It is a funny room, Colm thinks later. At the time, he was happy to be away from the eerie figurines of the shop and the cold of the desert evening, happy to be drinking weak herbal tea and eating hard brown biscuits. But later that night when he is in the little bed at the top of the stairs, reflecting upon the day, he thinks how odd this room is, how anomalous, in its
charm, its quaintness, with the faded tapestries on its walls, its little worked ottoman, its neat nest of walnut tables. Everything so ancient and cared for, everything of another time, another era, when such stuff meant something, when the things that mattered weren't just finding water and food and somewhere safe to sleep. How strange it is to think of a time when beauty might mean something. How strange and how wonderful.

When Colm wakes the following morning his throat is dry and sore, his body heavy as though his veins are full of lead. He tries to get up but finds he cannot even lift his head from the pillow.

‘Could've been something in that water we drank yesterday,' says Moss after he has peered down the younger boy's throat and laid his hand against Colm's forehead. ‘I reckon it looked a bit suspicious.'

‘Why aren't
we
sick, then?' asks Lydia.

Moss shrugs. ‘Just lucky.' He wipes Colm's face gently with a damp cloth. ‘You're probably not fit to travel, are you?'

‘I'm gander,' Colm replies, his voice a whisper. ‘I really am.'

‘Don't be silly, Colm,' says Lydia. ‘You're far too sick to be going anywhere.'

‘Well, I can't stay here, can I!'

‘I'll fix something up with Will,' says Moss. ‘Don't you worry.'

‘I don't mean just because of Will,' croaks Colm. ‘I mean because of the Clan. Won't they be searching for us?'

‘Maybe.' Moss looks out the window, worried, Colm thinks through his haze.

‘You can't travel,' insists Lydia. ‘You need to rest.'

‘Will's got a truck, hasn't he?' asks Colm. ‘Can't I just lie on the back seat?'

So an hour later, after a breakfast of powdered eggs and oatcakes, they set out in Will's hundred-year-old truck. The woman from the milk bar sees them off with half a loaf of bread and a can of Fanta.

‘Heard the young fella was sick,' she says. ‘Thought the drink might cheer him up.'

They watch through the rear window as she salutes the tail end of the truck and passes her bulk back through the faded fly strips.

‘My sister,' says Will over the roar of the engine. ‘Janet. She's wanted me to clean up the place for ages. Must be pretty happy with you lot for getting it done.'

‘Where did all that stuff come from, Will?' asks Colm.

‘Belonged to an aunt of ours. She died about five years ago, not long before the raids started heading south.'

‘But you've not been hit?'

‘Nup! Been pretty lucky so far,' says Will. ‘For some reason – so small a town, or just a little further out of the way – the raiders gave us a miss.'

‘What about all the boulders on the road in?' asks Moss. ‘That must have had something to do with it.'

‘Sure,' says Will. ‘More trouble than the place is worth. But they've only been there the last two or three years, after an earthquake we had. Us townsfolk decided against moving them, for the natural protection they offered.'

‘But you can still get in and out?' asks Lydia.

‘Some of us can,' grins Will. ‘Raiders – they can't. Haven't got the know-how. So that means at the very least our buildings are still standing. And we've had good contact with the outside as far as supplies are concerned. It's only just recently that things have started to go downhill.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, communications have pretty much stopped in the last six to eight months. We were able to use the teletransmitter until recently, but not any more. And there's been no sign of our suppliers for a few weeks now. Everything's beginning to run pretty low. We're all on rations now.'

‘Do you know much about the underground fire?' asks Moss.

‘Not much,' says Will. ‘Only that it exists. ‘Or they say it exists. Haven't met anyone who's actually seen it.'

‘You think it's a rumour?'

‘Why not? You hear so many things these days and there's no way of verifying any of them. Rumours are created all the time with the telecommunication system as it is. Half the country thinks one thing is happening, half something else. None of us really know anything at all. And rumours are strengthened over time, become mythologies. Before you know it you're believing in fairytales, like the Wish Kin, the Rekindling!'

‘You don't believe in the Wish Kin?' asks Lydia.

‘The very fact that you ask it like that!' laughs Will. ‘Like you're asking me if I believe in Santa Claus! Or the Tooth Fairy!'

Lydia is shocked. ‘How can you not believe in them?' she asks, stunned. ‘Without them there is no hope.'

Will laughs. ‘That's right,' he says. ‘There's no hope. We've been left with a planet totally ransacked by our forefathers. Any idea of a Wish Kin is madness! All it does is take away responsibility from those who believe such a thing. It's always been the problem: everyone keeps waiting for someone else to fix things and in the end nothing is done and this is what we are left with.' He gestures to the exhausted land.

‘Perhaps you don't properly understand the idea of the Wish Kin,' says Moss. ‘The Wish Kin will
begin
to work with the land, but the bulk of what is to be done will be carried out by all of us.'

‘Right,' says Will, grinning sarcastically. ‘Why would people start doing things now when there have been
generations and generations before us who barely lifted a finger? Human beings are selfish.'

‘The Rekindling will be very powerful,' says Lydia. ‘And the influence of the Wish Kin very strong.'

‘They've been evolving for generations,' says Moss. ‘Their forefathers were philosophers, artists and inventors. The Wish Kin are not the first point of advancement: they are the culmination.'

Will hardly responds. He laughs through his nose, a kind of snort. ‘Keep an eye out for somewhere we can get some fuel,' he says. His manner is careless, offhand.

‘Why do you find it so difficult to believe that people can develop in this way?' asks Lydia. But Will isn't listening, won't hear. He pushes his foot hard on the accelerator, attacks the open road as though it is an enemy. Dust fills the cabin of the truck, coats their nostrils, stings their eyes until they weep. Colm starts to cough. The dust thickens his phlegm and turns it red in his hand. His lungs ache.

‘Slow down, Will,' says Lydia. Will hollers into the swirling dust and increases his speed. The road presses itself flat with fear.

‘Will!' shouts Moss. ‘Slow down!'

‘I'm evolving!' Will bellows. ‘I'm part of the evolution of Homo Sapiens into Mean Speed Freaks! Nothing can stop us! We are invincible!' And he accelerates yet further, his teeth bared in a maniacal grin, his knuckles white on the wheel. He lets out a loud, bearlike roar and brakes suddenly, sending the truck into a
spin. He releases his grip from the steering wheel, throws his hands in the air as the vehicle veers off the road and towards a steep embankment. Moss hurls himself across Lydia and grabs the wheel, swings it towards him and wrenches the vehicle back to the side of the road. They stop.

‘What do you think you're doing?' Moss shouts, furious. ‘You could've killed us!'

Will is laughing. His head is thrown back against the seat and his arms are clasped about his middle.

‘Oh, that was good,' he laughs. He heaves for breath through his laughter. ‘That was really good.'

‘You're an idiot,' Moss says. He opens the door and he and Lydia climb out. ‘Are you gander?' Moss asks Lydia.

‘Yes,' replies Lydia. ‘Colm, how are you?'

Colm is coughing, he doesn't feel well. ‘I hit my head,' he says.

‘You're bleeding,' says Lydia. She and Moss tend his wound – a cut across the forehead – and give him water to drink. He sits up slowly, orientates himself, looks about.

Will is leaning on the bonnet gazing along the stretch of road. His face still wears a grin. He snorts from time to time.

Moss goes up to him. ‘What the hell was that?' he demands.

Will turns his grin to the boy. ‘Bit of fun,' he says.

‘I want no more.'

There is silence in the face of Moss's firmness, rigidity. Colm watches Will blanch, kick idly at a stone
on the road and climb back into the truck. Moss's face has a look similar to Lydia's when she was face to face with the brown snake in the tunnel, only more so: it is the look of fire and of thunder.

Will starts the engine and they set off again. They do not speak. From time to time Colm coughs and tries to roll over. The continual movement of the truck rocks him towards sleep. He does not fight it.

When he awakens it is night. Will is turning off the road into a service station. It looks deserted, but the sound of their engine brings a girl about Moss's age to the door of the shop. She is barefoot, unarmed, and approaches the truck as though she has never known fear in her life.

‘Fill 'er up?'

‘Yeah, thanks,' says Will.

The three of them in the cabin climb out, stretch their legs. Colm picks the crust from his eyelids and sits up, coughs.

‘Need a room for the night?' the girl asks. ‘We're a motel as well.'

The others confer. ‘A room would be great,' says Moss. ‘If it's not too much trouble.'

The girl grins at him. ‘No trouble,' she says.

‘There's my brother as well,' says Lydia. ‘He's sick.'

The girl peers in the back window and smiles. Colm gives a shy half-smile back.

‘Come on, then,' says the girl. ‘Let's get you all sorted out.'

The living quarters behind the service station are sparse, bare. The fibro walls are still warm to the touch after a day of bright sunlight upon them, but are cooling quickly with the night. The children offload their bags then make their way to the kitchen where the girl, Jeune, is ladling soup into bowls.

‘How far have you come?' she asks when they have scraped the last of the pot.

‘From Kulwurra,' says Moss.

‘And where are you headed?'

‘Hoping to get to Bennett's Creek if we can.'

‘That's nice there,' says Jeune. ‘Or it was when I was a kid. I used to visit an aunt near there in Burren.'

Colm, sitting bundled in blankets by a small fire, is pleased that Jeune does not question them as to the purpose of their journey but, rather, begins to talk about herself.

‘My father left a couple of months ago to try to get work down south,' she says. ‘He's setting things up for me to join him in a few weeks if all goes well. He got word to me recently that he's found us a little house by a river. A river! Can you believe it? I've never seen a river.'

‘There was a river behind Kulwurra when I was a boy,' says Will. He is being charming now in the presence of Jeune.

‘Really?' says Jeune.

‘Just the remains of one,' he continues. ‘I remember the colour of the pebbles with the water running over
them. All shades of purple and orange and cream. I'd collect the pebbles by the bucket, take them home and want to keep them close to me, keep those amazing colours close to me. But they'd all go kind of greyish as they dried. I never thought to fill the bucket with water. I never thought that would keep the colours.'

Jeune is mesmerised.

‘Is that what happens?' she asks, amazed. ‘Who would have thought! Father says there are a few trees where he is, pines I think, and that on the ground grass grows prettily in small green patches.'

‘Will you be joining your father soon, then, Jeune?' Lydia asks.

Jeune becomes vague. Her eyes drift out of focus. ‘Not sure,' she says. ‘He'll let me know when things are ready.'

‘What about this place?' asks Moss. ‘What will you do with the service station?'

Jeune shrugs. ‘Dunno,' she says absently. ‘Just wait and see.'

The girl is quiet now, seems not to notice their presence. She sits and stares into the fire, flicking splinters of firewood into its orange heart. The others look at one another, unsure. Lydia gathers the bowls, the plates. Colm begins to cough.

‘Are you cold?' Jeune asks, rousing herself. She places another log on the fire and wraps Colm's blanket more closely about him. ‘How did this happen?' she asks, indicating the wound on his forehead. Colm,
uncertain how to answer, looks at Will. The blood has run from his face.

It is Moss who speaks. ‘On the highway,' he says. ‘We had to brake suddenly.'

Jeune nods. ‘You look pale,' she says to Colm. ‘How do you feel?'

‘All right,' says Colm.

‘Not gander?'

Colm puckers his face slightly, shakes his head.

‘Do well to rest.' Jeune turns to Moss. ‘Do you have to travel tomorrow? Could you stay here for a day or two?'

Colm feels anxious, troubled. He knows they have to keep on the move. ‘I'll be all right,' he says. ‘I'll be gander in the morning.'

But in the middle of the night he wakes, sweating, feverish. He throws off the covers, swings his feet to the floor. His head is pounding, the gash stinging. He walks tremulously through the rooms, looking for the bathroom. He opens door after door trying to find it. He did not realise there were so many doors, so many rooms. Only after he passes the kitchen for the third time does he realise through his fever that he has been going in circles. He stops, less and less sure of the layout of the place. He turns and tries to find the door out, the door to the road. He walks along the hallway, comes to a door heavier than the others, opens it, crosses the threshold.

The night air is cold and chills his sweating body in
an instant. The moon is distant, wan; the stars give little light. Colm follows a rough path around the side of the house and relieves himself against a withered tree. He is shivering, feels both cold and hot at once, and tries to finish quickly that he might be inside all the sooner. His head throbs more and more as he retraces his steps, as he looks again for the door. He feels his stomach chill and turn, and a sudden darkness passes over his eyes. The ground is not far from his fall.

When he wakes he is back in his bed. The other beds are made, the blind drawn. Only a small chink of light finds its way into the room via the crack beneath the door. It is enough to tell him that it is day.