Watery Graves

Watery Graves

Kelli Bradicich

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Flat

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Chapter One

“Follow me,” Sebastian said to Emmy. He took her by the hand, and led her over the footbridge away from their world.

Mercy River passed beneath them. The water was so clear she could see the bottom. Weeds swayed like hair
, reminding her of dead people it had taken from her before she was born. She’d never met them, but stories of their deaths conjured up images so strong they were impossible to dismiss.

The suspension chains creaked and lurched under them.

“Careful,” she snapped. Fear might bring on a heart attack before Mercy River had its chance to get her.

Sebastian
hushed her with his hand.

Emmy pushed it away. “Don’t tell me what to do.” Still, she saw his point. She looked over her shoulder at their cabins, then down at the river bank. The site was deserted. “I don’t know if we should be doing this.”

It was a relief to hit solid ground. She didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until the trail wound away from the water, through bushes and gum trees, and the cabins were far behind.

Sebastian led her along a rough path and into a world she had never seen. Clearly he had taken jaunts like this many times before.

Tall grass made the backs of her knees itch. 

“It’s okay,” he assured her, as they wove through a grove of wattle trees.

Sebastian was a kind of brother, but not by blood. She hated it when he seemed to know about something she didn’t. Breaking the rules and crossing the river meant that whatever he wanted to show her had to be important.

The soil was different on this side. It crumbled beneath Emmy’s feet. She drew on everything she had not to turn back. Her head thumped and her breath was uneven. In front, Sebastian held his chin high. He slashed at bushes with a stick, taking the opportunity to show some muscle.

Nothing seemed to worry him. The hardest part of that for Emmy was that he was a year and a bit younger. She was sixteen. She’d been wearing a bra for two years, at least when she could be bothered. Whenever she noticed him stroke his face, searching for facial hair, she made a point of pulling her hair back and sticking her chest out. She used her breasts as a constant reminder that she’d made it to puberty first. Reaching milestones like that was the only way she could take the lead.

At times like this
she was happy to let him go first.

Intertwined low branches, sprouting new leaves, sent speckles of light across their skin. A crow, perched high, watched with glinting eyes.

Sebastian tightened his grip as they trekked into a clearing. Stones, slanted and grey, tottered over collapsed graves dotting the slope. Newer plots were marked only by plaques. Many were lost in the grass. Under her feet, Emmy sensed a presence. She stopped at a headstone, taking in the heaviness that hung in the air. Dead people lay buried beneath her. So much loss. There were no more chances for last words, a thank you, or wishes that something could be different. Graveyards marked the end, a place for a final goodbye. Grief like this permeated her mother’s memories and stories. 

A figure shifted in the distance, catching her eye.

“Sebastian?” Emmy whispered, pulling away from him.

Sebastian jerked and surveyed the graveyard
. “What?”

“Someone else is here.”

“It’s a graveyard. People visit graveyards.”

He kept walking. She fell behind.

The old lady looked up as they came near. Daisies drooped in the foil in her hands. Her eyes widened when she saw them. A sneer played at her lips. She placed the flowers on a grave and scurried off to a car.

“Good riddance,” Sebastian said.

Emmy was glad the lady was too far away to hear them. “Don’t touch me in front of people. They already think we’re weird.”

“Touching each other doesn’t mean we’re having sex.”

Emmy rolled her eyes. “Sebastian, yuk.”

He tried to grab her hand but she snatched it away.

“She’s gone. Don’t be like your mum. Who cares if people talk about us? Let them,” he said. “It’s their life that needs spice, not ours.”

“It’s like we’re diseased. That lady couldn’t get away fast enough.”

A ring of blue gums hemmed them in. Branches like arms rose to the sky in prayer. Out of respect for the dead, Emmy walked across the end of each grave keeping an eye out for any movement in the undergrowth around her feet. A lizard darted across her path; legs spread wide, its tail skidding behind like a snake.

Emmy jerked back, stumbling.

Sebastian laughed. “What are you doing?”

“You’re obviously not as scared as I am?”

He took her hand again and shook his head. “Everyone’s dead. We’re the only people here. Graveyards are safer than you think.”

“Can’t you feel them below us?” She imagined gnarly
fingers of the deceased digging through the soil and reaching up for her ankles.

“It’s all in your mind, Em.” His foot skimmed across a plaque, brushing grass back.

Emmy tried to settle her mind by reading the names silently to herself, choosing to focus on something real like dates and details of how these people died. But the words on the graves brought back her fear of death. “Let’s go back.”

“Over here,” Sebastian encouraged.

As much as she tried to stop it her voice quivered. “I don’t need to see any more.”

Sebastian slowed and pointed into the grass. His brow furrowed as he looked back at her. “I found them.”

Emmy took a step forward. As though her blood began to seep into her lungs, she laboured for each breath.

Four graves. Her young uncle, two grandparents and her father all drowned separately in freak accidents. All of them taken by Mercy River. Dead and buried before she was born. She stared at the inscriptions.

The ground under her feet seemed to buckle into waves. All her life she’d had no idea they were so close, rotting underground. Although their deaths were talked about endlessly by her mother, Emmy hadn’t taken a moment to think that their final resting place was just over the hill from her home.

“Sit down with me,” Sebastian murmured. 

She crumpled to the grass, nestling in the crook of Sebastian’s arm. He was her link to reality, her solid ground. As much as she hated it, in that moment with her dead relatives at her feet, she gave into it. She stared at the plaques. They were only metal plates with words on them. Her lungs were light enough again to take in air. “They’re all here.”

“It’s the closest you’ve ever been to your father.”

“He didn’t even know he was going to be a dad.”

“Does it feel funny to say
‘Dad’?”

She smiled but felt sad. “Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad.”

“It sounds funny coming from you.”

“I wonder what it would have been like if he hadn’t died.”

“Nothing like it is now,” Sebastian said.

Emmy looked down at her father’s grave and for an instant found herself being grateful for the way things had turned out. “I don’t know enough about him to wish he was alive.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone else that if I were you.”

“I’ve always had Kristian. I know he’s your
dad and not mine. But I’ve never seen him treat me any differently to the way he treats you.”

Sebastian smiled and nodded.

Emmy ran her hand across a plaque, pulling back some of the grass. “No wonder they told us never to cross the bridge,” she said.

“Well, because of this cemetery
and
fear of the river.”

Emmy rolled her eyes at herself
. “Yeah, the river.”

Boundaries had hemmed her in her whole life: the fence in the west, the lookout in the east, the border of
Bexleys’ property in the north and three metres from the river’s edge in the south.

Their cabins where Emmy lived with her mother and Sebastian lived with his parents, sat high on a slope. They were built on a place from which they could keep a watchful eye on the river and its changes. It was a big deal to step outside of that zone. History had its stake on Emmy. Her mother had raised her to believe she had a higher chance than most of dying young if she didn’t respect the river.

“I thought they’d been cremated. How cruel, leaving their bodies to rot like this.”

“What does it change, Em? I mean really. They’re still dead no matter where or how they’re buried.”

“You have no idea what it is like to lose someone.”

“Neither do you really. It’s your mother who’s faced all the death.”

“You don’t get it, Sebastian.”

A caterpillar arched, tumbling over the inscription marking her father’s life. Black wings flapped, slapping at Emmy’s face. Screaming, she flailed. Sebastian braced his hands against his face. The black terror disappeared as fast as it started.

The caterpillar was gone. More death.

The remaining air was thick. Again, Emmy found it hard to breathe.

“It was just a crow,” Sebastian said.

Emmy cleared her throat.  “A black crow….black.” Emmy hugged her legs, scanning the trees, but the intruder had disappeared.

“So? A lorikeet could have done the same thing.”

“Green, red and blue are a lot less ominous than black,” Emmy said, aware of the returning swirl of panic inside her. “You were just as scared as I was.”

“What? You nearly punched me out.”

“It’s a sign. We shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be crossing bridges without an adult. And you shouldn’t be taking me with you.”

Sebastian grinned. “There’s no such thing as signs.”

“
That was a sign. Nature knows more than we do.”

He shrugged.

“How many times have you been here?” she asked.

He ignored the question and nudged her
. “I think it’s time for things to change. We need to find a way to get off the property more.”

“I don’t need to,” Emmy said. “I don’t want to be the next one to die.”

“Sh,” Sebastian said, cupping his hand over her mouth.

She pulled away and listened. It was faint but she heard it clear enough. “Eeeaarmeeee
! Sebastian?”

They jumped to their feet. He yanked her up the slope and through the trees. She
jerked her hand from him. It was faster to run alone.

Chapter Two

Emmy and Sebastian thudded and skidded across the ground. As soon as they broke through the bushes near the bridge Emmy looked for her mother, desperate to show her she was alive. At the same time she wished she had actually died so she wouldn’t have to face her.

There was Ingrid, on the side of the river where Emmy and Sebastian were supposed to be, her hands gripping her hair and eyes squinting, searching them out. “Emmy! Sebastiiiiaan!”

“You owe me big time, Sebastian,” Emmy puffed.

“I’ll take the blame.”

“How kind.” Emmy charged the last few metres to the bridge, gripping the edge. “It’s still me who’s going to cop it.”

Her mother saw them and rushed to the bridge.

Emmy pushed Sebastian forward
. “You go first.”

Sebastian walked across, one hand on the rail, the other holding Emmy’s.  

She hung back. Her free hand twisted his shirt.

“It’s my fault, Ingrid. I took her. We just wanted to see what was on the other side,” he explained. “We didn’t get far.”

“They’re here, Kristian!” Ingrid yelled over her shoulder.

As soon as they stepped off the bridge, Ingrid lunged at both of them, squeezing an arm each. “It’s a risk, always a risk to leave. You need to stay here. We must know where you are at all times. Stay away from the river unless you have full supervision. Go no further than the lookout and the front gate. And no one goes past the Bexleys
’ house. That’s plenty of space. I’m so sick right now I could vomit.”

“We were just...” Sebastian mumbled.

Ingrid wrenched his arm, and snarled, “It only takes one time,” but then turned on Emmy. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you swim, Emmy. Go and get changed. Show me you can do it.”

On the way up to the cabins, Emmy couldn’t help looking back. Her mother was crouched on the ground.

Emmy tugged at Sebastian. “We should go back to her.”

Maya ran from the trees near the river, her turquoise gypsy skirt flapping around her legs.

“Nup, my mother’s got it. She’ll sort it out,” Sebastian said.

Maya wrapped her arms around Ingrid, but Emmy could tell she was glancing over Ingrid’s shoulder, searching the water for a body. 

“And Dad’s on his way too,” he added.

Emmy spun around in time to see Kristian emerge from the orchard and stride through the grape vines. He jumped down onto the vegetable terraces, shaking his head when he spotted the two of them.

“He’ll make them see sense.” Sebastian grabbed Emmy’s arm, heading towards the cabins. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I can’t believe you just got me to do that, Sebastian. I should never have trusted you. I’ll never listen to you again,” Emmy said.

Half-hidden in the shadows under the stilts of the communal kitchen, she and Sebastian peered down at their parents. Ingrid flapped about, relaying the news. All three glanced up at them. It was rare for the five of them to be divided. Actually, Emmy couldn’t remember any other time. All they had was each other.  

“See that, Sebastian…” Emmy said, slapping him, “…all that pain and worry? That’s your fault.”