The Dreaming

by Barbara Wood

  Could it be that Joanna was a song-woman; that her mother had been a song-woman? Sarah knew that the book, which Joanna called a diary, contained the songs of Joanna's mother. Joanna read them every day, and Sarah believed she did this to keep her mother's Dreaming. That was how it would have been for Sarah, if she had finished her initiation—she would sing her mother's Dreaming, and add songs to it of her own, as Joanna was adding her own songs to the book, to be passed on eventually to her daughters. Of course, Sarah and Joanna had never talked about it. Joanna had never actually said that the book was her mother's Dreaming. But Sarah knew.

  She wondered if Joanna had also inherited her mother's powers. She seemed to know which plants healed, and which were deadly. She could feel a person's wrist, and tell if the heart was strong or weak. Joanna had taken Sarah down to the river, and she had shown her the herbs and flowers growing there that drove sickness away. Was that not power, Sarah wondered, a very special power?

  Sarah knew that her own mother had had the special powers of a song-woman, and she often sensed that she might have them too. But so far they were only whispers, like something brushing against her in the dark, and she wondered if, since she wasn't initiated, her powers would never be fully developed. They were supposed to come when a girl arrived at womanhood, with her first bleeding. But so far they had not.

  When Sarah and Adam reached the trees, they slowed their pace.

  "Sarah—" Adam began.

  But Sarah put a finger to her lips. "Shh, you must be quiet."

  She removed the shoes Joanna had given her, and crept barefoot into the woods. She found Joanna near the ruins, sitting on the ground beneath an ancient gum tree. Sarah saw that she was writing in her mother's book. Sarah remained very still, and watched.

  "I have exhausted Mr. Downs's book on shorthand," Joanna wrote, unaware of being observed, "and there are no systems that remotely resemble the system my grandfather used. I have written to the Shorthand Society in London. I suppose that if I could find Patrick Lathrop, there is a chance that he might be familiar with this peculiar shorthand. I need to find a key to my grandfather's life, and therefore to my mother's. I had a terrible dream last night, about the frightening bark painting I saw at Lismore. I awoke in fear and could not get back to sleep. It was a strange dream—I was standing at a cave; I was naked, and Mr. Westbrook was walking toward me. I felt intense desire for him. I wanted him to take me into his arms. But then a serpent appeared—the one in the bark painting—huge and monstrous, and I realized that it was going to kill Mr. Westbrook. I tried to cry out, to warn him. But I had no voice. I tried to run toward him, but I couldn't move. I woke then, badly shaken, and consumed by a feeling of dread. Was the dream a premonition, like the one about the Estella being becalmed? Is my presence here at Merinda somehow a threat to Mr. Westbrook? If only I could find the source of this trouble!"

  Joanna had received letters from the other colonies, with maps and reports from the Records Offices, but the maps, although highly detailed, had shown no place called Karra Karra, and the records officials reported that they had no evidence of the Makepeaces having ever lived in that particular colony. Now Joanna tried to concentrate on the elusive Patrick Lathrop, her grandfather's classmate at Cambridge.

  She resumed writing: "Mr. Westbrook has offered to contact a Mr. Asquith, who works in the Office of Aboriginal Affairs in Melbourne. He says that it is possible that a man closely associated with the governing of the natives might have some knowledge of them. I had hoped that Sarah could be a source of native information, but she remains reticent on the subject of her people. I do know one thing: Sarah grows increasingly disturbed by my presence here at the river. I think perhaps she does not like me to come to this spot by the ruins. I still catch her spying on me from a distance. Last night, when I awoke from my nightmare, I felt her watching me from the window. I wanted to talk to her about the dream, ask her about the meaning of the serpent, the cave. But then I would have had to describe the rest of the dream to her, about my desire for Hugh Westbrook."

  Joanna looked up through the trees, and she could just see, between the cluster of twisted trunks streaked gray and red and pink, the sweeping plains of Merinda, yellow now beneath the scorching sun. She searched every rise and fall of that grassy sea, taking in the solitary Murray River gums dotting the landscape, the flocks of grazing sheep, the occasional rider on horseback, and she wondered if Hugh West-brook was out there. The nightmare came back to her again, in all its intensity—the fear and the sexual longing.

  Joanna was troubled that her desire for Hugh was continuing to grow. The ache never left her, it was like an all-consuming hunger in every part of her body—in her heart, her fingertips, her thighs—the need to touch him, to feel him. She recalled how she had thought him attractive when she had first seen him on the pier, two months ago. Now she was struck by how much more handsome he had become; she would find herself studying his face, the line of his jaw, the straightness of his nose, and she would feel her passion deepen.

  Was she endangering him by staying at Merinda? she wondered. Had the dream last night been a warning that something bad was going to happen? Should she leave? She had heard that Ezekiel was going about saying that she was bad luck for Merinda, and that because of her some of the Aboriginal stockmen were leaving. Joanna had only agreed to come here to help Adam; she didn't want to be the cause of trouble. She recalled the dark look she had seen on Hugh's face when Bill Lovell had reported two more Aboriginal station hands gone. Hugh had said nothing about it to her, but when she thought about the day of Adam's party at Lismore, when she had seen Hugh and Ezekiel apparently having an argument at the edge of the garden, she wondered if she really was bringing bad luck to Merinda.

  But where would she go?

  She thought of Dr. David Ramsey, who had said, "I had the opportunity to work with the new Nightingale nurses, Miss Drury. And they are indeed elevating nursing to a very respected profession. It would behoove a physician like myself to have such a woman as his partner. And I was thinking, Miss Drury, that with your knowledge of natural remedies, and mine of medicine, you and I could make a considerable team."

  A kookaburra laughed suddenly overhead, startling her. Joanna looked up to see a sharp eye glinting down at her.

  She thought again of Hugh, and how he had appeared the day before, when he had ridden into the yard. She wondered what it would be like to be married to such a man, to know that when he came home at night, he was coming home to her.

  She heard a noise, and looked around. She held her breath and listened, searching the clearing. She could see only the trunks of old eucalypts, shedding their white-and-gray barks, and the moss-covered Aboriginal ruins. She had a strong feeling of being watched.

  A kind of unearthly stillness seemed to have fallen over the glade. Even the gurgling water in the stream seemed muted. A family of salmon-pink cockatoos fluttered about in the branches overhead, yet Joanna didn't hear them. She was aware only of the golden sunlight dappling the leaf-covered ground, and the thumping of her heart.

  "Who's there?" she called out.

  There was no reply.

  "Sarah?" she called in a louder voice. "Adam?"

  No response.

  Joanna moved forward a few steps. She saw no one, yet still she felt someone was there.

  "Who are you?" she said. "Please."

  Then there came a rustling beyond the trees, followed by a queer-sounding footstep.

  Joanna frowned. It hadn't seemed like a human sound.

  She continued forward through the trees, cautious, listening. She paused and gazed ahead, seeing before her only the rolling plains of Merinda, an ocean of yellow summer grass stretching away to the mountains. She looked to the right, toward the homestead buildings, and then to her left, where she saw—

  Joanna caught her breath and stared. "Hello," she said.

  Two large brown eyes, heavily fringed with lashes, blinked at her.

  "Hello," Joanna s
aid again, transfixed. She had never been so close to a kangaroo before.

  It was a large, blue-gray doe, almost as tall as Joanna, and she stood just a few yards away, resting back on her tail and hind legs, with her arms crossed over her chest. Peeking over the lip of her pouch was the face of a baby kangaroo, what Joanna had heard called a "joey."

  They stood frozen, staring at each other. Joanna was afraid to move, afraid she might send the animal away. She was spellbound to be so close, to see in such detail the gentle colorings, the soft grain of the fur, the twitching whiskers. She looked at the joey. He was huge and seemed barely to fit inside his mother's pouch. She watched in fascination as the pouch rippled with his movements, as if he were cramped and ready to jump out.

  "Aren't you lovely," Joanna said.

  The kangaroo blinked, then turned, languidly fell onto her front paws and loped off toward the billabong. Mesmerized, Joanna followed.

  The doe made her way slowly toward the creek, her enormous legs sweeping up and down, carrying her and her heavy burden along. When she neared the water's edge she paused. Joanna walked around her, staying well away, and watched as the kangaroo did a strange thing. She bent low to the ground, as if to graze, and reached down to the joey. The pouch seemed suddenly to give way, and the baby kangaroo came tumbling out.

  Joanna stood motionless as she watched the joey wobble around on ungainly legs. The doe hovered protectively over her young, watching its every move. It bent down, trying to graze on the marsh grass, and fell over. It got up again, but didn't seem to know how to coordinate its cumbersome tail with its legs. The joey looked at Joanna, but remained very still.

  Joanna smiled. Plucking a handful of the rich grass, she held it out. She took a step toward the joey, and then another. She came close enough to touch it. She dropped the grass and stepped back. The joey looked at it, then he nibbled it.

  Finally the doe made a series of gentle clicking sounds, and the baby came to her. She licked his fur and scratched him between the ears, and helped him climb back inside the pouch. Then the kangaroo fell onto her front paws and loped away through the trees.

  Joanna watched them go, unaware that other eyes, hidden behind the trees, were fixed on her.

  Sarah, wide-eyed and trembling, still holding Adam's hand, slowly backed away.

  When Joanna saw Hugh in the yard, saddling his horse, she came down the veranda steps.

  "I'm leaving for Melbourne now, Miss Drury," he said, as he strapped saddlebags to the horse. "I'll be back in two weeks, in time for Christmas. Is there anything you need from the city?"

  She hesitated. She wondered if she should talk to him about leaving Merinda. Last night's dream continued to trouble her, her fear that it might be a premonition. But she said only, "No, thank you. I can't think of anything."

  "I'll stop in at the city library and see what I can find. There is also a legal firm there I have dealt with before, I'll ask them about your deed. Will you be all right, Miss Drury, here alone?"

  "I'm hardly alone, Mr. Westbrook. I have Adam and Sarah, and Mr. Lovell." She looked around. "Bill, have you seen Sarah?"

  "Not since this morning, miss."

  Joanna frowned, "She's never disappeared for this long before. I wonder where she's gone?"

  Adam came running down the veranda steps. "Joey! Saw a joey!"

  Hugh caught him up and swung him in the air. "What's this about a joey?" Hugh said.

  "We saw a baby kangaroo down by the river this morning," Joanna said.

  He looked at her. "All by itself?"

  "Oh no, with its mother."

  "I hope you didn't get too close."

  "Very close, as a matter of fact. I gave the baby some grass to eat."

  He stared at her. "Miss Drury, you could have been killed. Did the mother see you?"

  "Oh yes. And she did a curious thing. She let the joey out of her pouch, and then she took him back in, although he seemed far too big."

  Hugh exchanged a glance with Lovell. "You saw a joey being born?"

  "Oh, he wasn't being born, he was quite grown."

  "Miss Drury, kangaroos are born twice. The first birth is the same as for other animals, but then the joey stays in the pouch for about eight months of suckling. When the mother decides he's ready, she lets him out of the pouch and helps him into the world a second time. You witnessed that second birth."

  "Did I?" she said.

  "I saw it, too!" Adam said.

  Bill scratched his head and said, "I don't reckon I've ever met anyone who's seen that. And I know men who've witnessed some strange sights."

  Hugh scowled and finished strapping down his saddlebags. "I don't want you doing things like this again, Miss Drury. When a kangaroo feels threatened, it will attack. Especially a mother with a baby. Those hind legs can be lethal."

  He looked at her; she had come outside without her hat. He smiled and said, "Just promise me you'll be more careful."

  She stood back and watched him ride off.

  Bill Lovell removed his hat, wiped the inside with a handkerchief, replaced it on his head and said, "Well, I'd better get over to the stable, I've got a mare about to foal. If you need me—"

  "Foal!" said Adam. "Let me see!"

  "I don't know—" Joanna began.

  "It's all right, Miss Drury, let him come and watch. Come on then, Adam. Would you like to come, too, miss?"

  "Yes, of course. Let me go and get my hat."

  Back inside the cabin, Joanna paused. The way Hugh had looked at her when she had told him about the kangaroo ...

  A shadow suddenly filled the open doorway, and Joanna turned. "Sarah!" she said. "Where have you been?"

  "Come," the girl said, taking Joanna by the hand. "Come with me."

  "What is it?"

  As they went past the stable, Joanna called to Bill that she would be back in a few minutes.

  When she and Sarah came to the Aboriginal ruins by the river, Sarah sat down, and gestured for Joanna to sit with her.

  "I saw you," Sarah said after a moment. "I saw you with kangaroo and joey."

  "Yes, I know," Joanna said. "Adam told me. Sarah, why did you bring me here?"

  "There is something I must tell you," the girl said. "Whitefella never see joey being born. Kangaroo-spirit never allow whitefella to watch. Only people of the Kangaroo totem. This place is sacred to Kangaroo Dreaming."

  Joanna looked at the stately Red River gums, the pearly surface of the billabong. She felt her surroundings shift. Something had happened—was happening.

  "You come here, to this forbidden spot, many days," Sarah said, "but you don't die. You watch joey being born, and you don't die. You walk on this spot, and Kangaroo is not angry. You have great magic, great power. You belong to Kangaroo Clan."

  Joanna stared at the girl. "But I'm not Aboriginal, Sarah. How can I belong to the Kangaroo Clan?"

  "Kangaroo-spirit come to me in a dream, tell me you have Kangaroo Dreaming. Tell me to tell you about your Dreaming. You must know your Dreaming."

  Joanna looked at the girl. "But I wasn't born in Australia," she said.

  Sarah closed her eyes, seeming to turn inward. Then she said, "All people have totems. Whitefella, too. The kangaroo gives you your sign. You see joey's birth. You are special to Kangaroo Dreaming."

  Sarah opened her eyes, and said, "Do you know ... where is your songline?"

  "My songline? I don't know. I don't think I have a songline."

  Sarah said, "Everyone has a songline. Where is your mother's songline?"

  "I don't know," Joanna said. "Somewhere here in Australia? Why do you want to know?"

  "Because you are following a songline. That is what brought you here."

  "I'm not even sure what a songline is, Sarah. How can I be following it? Explain songlines tome."

  Sarah said: "This place belongs to Kangaroo Dreaming. Kangaroo Songline runs through Merinda from there ..." She pointed north ward. "From far away. In the Dreamtime, Kangaroo Ancestress trave
led from great distance to come here, and she goes on, and she dies somewhere over there." She pointed southward. "That is what a songline is. It is a spirit-line, it is time-line. It is now-and-yesterday-line."

  Joanna stared at the girl. "Sarah, how do you know that the Kangaroo Songline comes through here? I don't see anything."

  "Look," Sarah said, pointing to a grassy hillock farther upriver. "That is where Kangaroo Ancestress slept. Do you see her great hind legs, her long tail, her very small head?"

  Joanna squinted. At first she couldn't see anything, but then she thought she could just make out the outline of a kangaroo in the hill—or imagined that she could.

  Suddenly, the girl began to chant.

  Joanna said, "What are you doing?"

  "Singing. We will sing up Kangaroo Dreaming."

  "I don't understand."

  Sarah drew in the dirt with a stick—lines and circles and dots. She said, "This is the songline of the Kangaroo Ancestress. She comes from here, you see? And she goes there. Do you see?"

  But Joanna saw only lines and circles and dots.

  The girl's voice wove a spell; the heat of the afternoon lay heavily upon the woods. Joanna began to feel herself become disembodied; the trees and river began to seem illusory. Something dream-like was settling over her. Sarah seemed somehow to grow old before her. She sang words that Joanna didn't understand, in a rhythm that invaded her; she felt it in her veins, she saw it behind her eyes, old words, older than time, chanting, telling, singing up the past.

  Joanna closed her eyes. She felt hot, heavy. She felt as if she moved in a dream. Suddenly, she saw raw red mountains and fire spewing up from the earth, and birds in flight in great massive flocks, and human silhouettes, tall and strong against the sky, loping across a bleak landscape, spears thrust up, arms swinging down in an ancient cadence. And then: gigantic creatures, leaping in graceful bounds across the scene, with great hindquarters and small heads—kangaroos in huge numbers massed across the land, blackening the horizon, sweeping, vaulting across the flat red plains. And the human figures, following, watching and revering.