Mortal Fire

by Elizabeth Knox

  “You and Susan are going to end up hating me, and it won’t be my fault.”

  “Canny, if you keep out of our hair and do the little jobs we give you and don’t get into any trouble, then we’ll all get along fine.”

  She was about to protest again but he said, “Good night,” and poked her in the chest. She swayed back and her fingers lost their grip on the doorframe. He slammed his door.

  * * *

  IN THE DARK OF NIGHT SHOLTO CAME AWAKE with the impression that he’d heard someone knocking. He lay still and listened. The night was hushed. There was no wind, and no little native owls calling in the nearby cathedral gardens. From far off, in the port, came the sound of rail freight rolling into the booming interior of the late, freight-only, Westport-bound ferry.

  Perhaps there had been an earthquake, one of those little shivers that were always followed by a more solid silence.

  Sholto got out of bed. The air was cold on his bare chest, and the floorboards cool on the soles of his feet. He went to his door and pressed his ear to its panels to listen, as if there were something fearful out there. The hallway was quiet. He pulled the door open. The first thing he saw was a bright white object at his feet. It seemed to float an inch from the carpet but was, he saw, balanced on several of its twisted prongs. He had no idea what it was. It looked a little like a drop of hot homemade toffee shaken off a stirring spoon into a glass of cold water to test its readiness to set. The object was swirly, complex, and graceful—and it was sitting on the hall carpet, burning, and radioactively white.

  Sholto looked up at his sister. She was leaning on the wall opposite his door, her hands hidden behind her body. She was wearing an old-fashioned, full-length, white cotton nightdress. Her hair was loose and full of static, and seemed to make a hood and cloak of black smoke around her. “Sholto,” she said. She gave him a little smile. And, since she never smiled, Sholto was, for a minute, shocked into speechlessness. What could she want? She looked quite peaceful, but she made him wary. She was so poised, so womanly. It was very confusing. “What is this?” he said. It came out as a grumpy whine.

  “An artwork.”

  “You’re giving me an artwork?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you giving me an artwork?”

  “So you can look after it for me.”

  “In the middle of the night you’re giving me an artwork so I can look after it for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And does this mean I’m supposed to take it with us? Do you think I should put it in the back window of the car, with our sun hats?”

  “No, that wouldn’t do at all. I want you to keep it here, at home.”

  Sholto regarded the artwork. It seemed to smolder and float in the dark—though there was moonlight coming through the stained-glass window on the landing. The moon was so bright that the window’s colors were visible—dark red and amber and lilac. Sholto wondered whether he was dreaming. “Where am I?” Sholto said.

  “Home,” said his sister. “It’s Thursday morning, on the day before we set out, and I’ve brought you this artwork. It’s a papier-mâché sculpture made of chicken wire, and strips of newspaper, and the tissue used to wrap apples. I want you to put it away somewhere and keep it safe for me.” She didn’t move. She didn’t take her artwork and place it in his hands. She only spoke—calmly and coaxingly.

  Sholto stooped and picked up the sculpture. It was papery, surprisingly heavy, and smelled of corn flour paste. And of apples.

  Canny stayed where she was, leaning on her hidden hands. “Thank you,” she said. “I know I can rely on you.”

  “You can go back to bed now,” he said, “I’ll take this—Lady Senator’s fancy hat—and find a corner for it.” He pushed the door closed with his foot and rolled the artwork onto the top of his wardrobe. Then—because it was too burningly visible—he threw an old shirt over it.

  He went back to bed and fell asleep as soon as he’d pulled up the covers.

  3

  CANNY CLIMBED OVER THE FARM GATE and set off toward an open-sided barn packed with hay bales. The barn stood beside a sheep drafting yard, a rigid structure of silvered timber.

  Back on the road, Sholto was nursing the Austin’s radiator. It was boiling, water spluttering out through the chrome grille. He covered his hand with his sleeve to get the cap off the radiator, but still burned himself. He shook his fingers and swore. The landscape swallowed his curses and what Susan said in reply—her sympathetic words delivered in a curt tone.

  The road was unpaved, though the map said it was the main route onto the Peninsula. They’d been driving for over an hour since the last turnoff and had met no other traffic. They’d seen hawks, and swamp hens, and sheep of course—the land on both sides of the road was part of the vast Mount Ruth Run.

  Canny jumped over the green crease of a water race. Apart from the water race everything else was dusty dry. The pasture had been grazed down to nubs. Most of the sheep had been moved on. But there were rabbits, and as Canny went up the slope it came alive in front of her. The rabbits were the same color as the ground, beige brown, and they only became visible when they moved, bolting this way and that, some surging up over the nearest hill, others disappearing into a bank honeycombed with burrows.

  She glanced up the valley toward the pass. The mountain range had a few patches of snow along its crest. The mountains were dark, both their rock and vegetation—thorn bushes and thyme. All afternoon the Palisades had presented the same even profile, a near black wall, crests rippled rather than peaking. There was a wind, but Canny could only hear it teasing her ears, for there was no foliage near her for it to sing, or sough, through.

  Susan and Sholto were now at the water race, pressing the turf and then dipping his felt hat into the brackish puddle they’d made. Canny watched this, heaved a sigh, and turned back to the car to fetch her soap-holder from her bathroom bag. She offered it to Sholto, who frowned at her but took it.

  “I hope it’s not going to be all like this,” Canny said.

  “Could be. Sholto’s no Boy Scout,” Susan said. “We should have been carrying a can of water.”

  “You didn’t think of it either,” Sholto said.

  Canny said, “I don’t mean the trip, I mean the landscape. I hope it’s not all like this.” There was so much air between the valleys, they felt airless.

  “It’s dry this side of the mountains, and rain forests the other, and the two valleys in the arms of the range are just right apparently, like Baby Bear’s porridge.”

  “You didn’t tell me it would take three days to get to Massenfer,” Canny said. “Every time I repack my tent it seems to have swelled.”

  Sholto headed back to the car, carrying the two full halves of the soap dish carefully level. But then of course he discovered he could only tip one at a time into the radiator while the other half spilled.

  “You should tear that in two,” Canny said.

  “I didn’t know I was allowed to,” he said, but Canny knew he hadn’t thought of it. She was always being surprised at the many more steps it took other people to do things, just because they didn’t think them through first.

  Sholto tore the container in half and thrust one half into her hands. “Get on with it,” he said.

  Susan said to Canny, in a mild, inquiring tone, “Are you going to continue to be surly?”

  “Can I ride up in front with Sholto?”

  “No,” said Susan and Sholto together.

  They had gotten the radiator a third full when a stock truck pulled up behind them and its driver came to their aid. He had a water can. While he was filling their radiator, he told them that they might want to stay this side of the pass tonight. “It’s raining the other. Quite heavily.” He drove away. They all climbed back into the hot car. Susan said, “We’d have room for a water can if Canny hadn’t brought so many books.”

  “Leave it, Sue.” Sholto started the car and they rattled off.

  * * *
<
br />   CANNY HAD SPENT THE NIGHT before they left making phone calls. She rang the girls from her school who had been with her on the day Marli first came up from the isolation ward. The girls who had stood with her by the iron lung, their faces filled with pity and polite terror. She said the same thing to each girl; that she was being made to leave town for four weeks. She’d got some Mary O’Hara books out of the library and had left them on Marli’s ward. Could they take turns to go in and read to Marli?

  The first girl said of course she would. Her family wasn’t going away till after Christmas. The second sounded reluctant but said she’d try to find the time, and wouldn’t Marli rather listen to Peyton Place? The third said sorry but she’d started a job at the switchboard of Southland Mutual Assurance. The fourth was silent for a time then said, “Agnes, I hope you know that Marli isn’t going to get better.” She didn’t pause for a reaction, but forged on. “My mother is a physiotherapist and she says that if Marli had any chance of recovery she’d be out of that iron lung by now for at least part of the day. Almost every patient from the epidemic is in rehabilitation. You know—massage, hydrotherapy, that stuff. Or they’re being measured for calipers. Didn’t you wonder when the polio ward slowly emptied, and then they shifted Marli to a room of her own?”

  Canny was silent. The girl finally responded to that. “Someone had to tell you,” she said. “I know being faithful is your thing, but you can’t blackmail other people into it. We have lives to get on with. And you’ve got to get on with your own life.”

  Canny bit her lip. She thought of things she’d like to shout, but nothing to simply say. Then, suddenly, she had it. She said, “Well, if it’s inconvenient, of course you shouldn’t bother. I just thought I’d ask.” She sounded grand and placid. She sounded like her mother.

  “Be like that then,” said the girl, and hung up on her.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT A FARMER let them pitch their tents by the hawthorn hedge in his home paddock. Sholto built a campfire. Canny peeled potatoes. Susan cut up some limp carrots and then dumped them, the potatoes, and a can of corned beef into the billy. The stones of the fireplace had only just come out of the stream and were still steaming. The fire sulked and complained.

  After dinner Canny went to scour the billy at the farmhouse water tank and fetch water for their tea. There were ducks near the water tank waiting for someone to run the tap. When Canny turned it on, they came and stood under the stream and slapped their wet wings. Ducklings gathered and pecked in the mud. Canny returned to the fire. “There are ducks,” she told the others. “Various stages of duck.”

  Susan laughed. “You have odd ways of putting things.”

  “She means little ducklings, big ducklings, and ducks,” said Sholto.

  “Did you see the rooster?” Susan said. “I want his tail for a fascinator to stick in my hair.”

  Canny quite liked Susan when she said things like that.

  Sholto brewed up some faintly greasy tea. They drank it very hot, then Sholto and Susan had a whispered argument about who would have the only lamp. Sholto said, “We stopped so late that there’s no light to read by.” He glanced at his sister.

  “I’d rather imagine she was asleep, even if she isn’t,” whispered Susan.

  “Oh please! Do you think I want to imagine her lying awake listening to us? Thank you for putting that thought into my head.”

  “Sholto, I want that lamp.” Susan was definite.

  “But we don’t need it.”

  “Darling, I might want to look at you.”

  That settled it. Sholto went back to his sister and announced that he and Susan would have the lamp. After all, their tent was the one with a lamp hook on its pole.

  “I curl up around it,” Canny said. Then, “It’s only eight-thirty.”

  “If you want to read, you can use your flashlight.”

  Sholto picked up the lamp and went to the big tent. He crouched, passed it to Susan, and climbed through the flap. The tent became a yellow pavilion. The lamp was lifted and suspended, the shadows flattened. Arms rose and fell as sweaters and T-shirts were pulled off over heads. Clothes lost volume and were laid aside. The remaining solid shadows came together and lay down.

  Canny took her flashlight but didn’t switch it on. She walked away into the dark. The hawthorn was in blossom, and when she looked back it showed, foaming in the dark like a long line of surf. Canny walked on. Sholto’s tent became a little blister of lamplight. The lights in the farmhouse were off. The farm dogs must not have heard her moving, because they remained silent.

  There was a crack of blacker dark before Canny’s feet—another water race. She slid her bare toes forward and felt the wet bristles of grass, nibbled down to the roots. She jumped over it, landed safely on the far side, and walked on. She couldn’t see where she was going, only the ranges humped solidly black against churning heaps of cloud. The yellow lantern of the tent shrank and shrank. The shadows inside it shuddered like blades of grass. Canny turned away from the tents and peered into the night. There was something there she felt she belonged to—not the night, or space, but some other immensity. She leaned forward, and her lips parted.

  Someone slapped her—a sharp openhanded slap across her right cheek. The blow turned her head and knocked her off balance.

  She yelped in shock and reeled back. She was pursued, slapped once again, a hot, singeing blow. It felled her.

  The next thing she knew someone was lifting her head into their lap. Her mouth was full of blood. “It’s okay,” said Sholto. He brushed her hair from her face. He was sitting on the turf, her head resting on his knees. “Raise the lamp,” he said. The light moved, and Canny saw Susan, holding the lantern and hunched inside Sholto’s flannel shirt. Its buttons were unfastened, and her legs were bare. Susan said to Sholto, “What was she doing walking about in the dark?”

  Canny felt more embarrassed than frightened. She muttered that she’d had her flashlight. “It must be around here somewhere.”

  “We heard you cry out,” Sholto said. “You seem to have knocked yourself silly.”

  Canny went cold. She remembered her teammate Jonno’s description of how he’d feel before his fits came on—Jonno suffered from epilepsy, though his doctor said he might grow out of it. He’d said, “I feel as if God has put a hand down through the clouds and cupped the top of my head, to bless me, and make adjustments. Then, next thing I know, I wake up with a sore mouth—all tired and confused.”

  Canny had bitten one side of her tongue. Her lips were tacky with blood, and blood was all she could smell.

  “I’m fine,” she said, slurring. “The sheep droppings are so dry they’re like ball bearings. I lost my footing.”

  “I think she’s all right,” Susan said, impatient.

  Sholto got up, helping Canny to her feet. Susan stepped back and lifted the lamp. She pointed at Canny’s flashlight, which had landed beside a tussock.

  Sholto picked it up and switched it on, but only for a moment. He pointed it at the tents—two grayish igloos—and then switched it off and handed it to Canny. Susan walked away, the lantern at her side casting its light back. She was scolding, “If you stumble about stargazing of course you’re going to trip over.”

  Canny looked up. There were no stars—but there were embers, as if Susan were carrying a pitch pine torch rather than a hurricane lamp. Flakes of brightness swarmed up through the air, some of them the size of silver dollars. They were filmy, and some even seemed to reflect things, as if they were bits of torn cellophane. Canny saw fragments of writing—her Extra—flowing upward and curling away, all in one place, like dead leaves in water flowing over a weir, only in the air. “Look!” she breathed. She couldn’t help herself. She’d never seen her Extra that clearly before. Surely it was visible to everyone.

  She didn’t know whether they even looked. Susan’s light continued to move away. Sholto’s grip tightened. “Let’s get you wrapped up snug in your sleeping bag,” he said.
>
  * * *

  THE FARMER GAVE THEM a jerry can full of water and they tackled the pass in the cool of the morning. They went slowly, pulling over every time they spotted a plume of dust from a vehicle coming up behind them.

  Canny was quiet. She felt weak and tender, as if she was convalescing after a bout of food poisoning.

  Susan asked to hear Sisema’s story. When Sholto began to tell it, Canny realized she hadn’t known all of it. She’d almost certainly heard it told before, but she hadn’t managed to keep the details in her head. She’d probably been resisting her mother’s story because, lately, she’d begun to hear it as a countdown. “In two years Agnes will be the same age I was when…”

  * * *

  LOST LINK WAS AN OUTLYING ISLAND of the Shackle chain, a volcano, though the original cone was submerged and long extinct. Over millennia coral had built up along the remnant of the crater rim, and the island was ringed in a continuous reef with only seven passages where streams let out into the ocean. Lost Link lay ten sea miles northwest of Calvary on the South Shackle. Calvary was the only sizable town on the Shackle Island chain. (There had been another, Gethsemane, but it was destroyed by a cataclysmic eruption in 1919.) The Shackle Islands produced sugar and, lately, copper. The islands were peopled by their original inhabitants, the Ma’eu; by the descendants of cane cutters brought to the island by blackbirders in the late eighteenth century; and by the descendants of colonial settlers, most of whom had originally come from Southland. But on Lost Link there were only the original people, plus a few whites, the owners of pineapple plantations.

  One quiet Sunday in July 1942, a couple of boatloads of Japanese soldiers appeared and promptly and systematically removed every white person on the island, and every gun they could find. The news Lost Link could have done with arrived afterward. It appeared that the same thing had happened in Calvary, but on a much larger scale. Some Southlander Shackle Island families had been able to flee ahead of the invasion, but there were many people and only a few berths. The ships had stopped coming; then, after two days of silence, Zeros had been spotted overhead, then Japanese warships sailed into Calvary Harbor. The remaining Shackle Island Southlanders were immediately rounded up and impounded, then shipped off somewhere—no one knew where. The Japanese then looked for people who could go on running the town and would treat the invaders with the proper fearful respect.