by Lee Murray
It’s preening itself on the deck right now, which is something of a nuisance as I can’t let the bloody dogs out of the house lest they overwhelm it with enthusiasm and scar it for life.
Three days to go. The end can’t come soon enough. I had to let the collar out on one of the dogs – I swear it’s getting fatter. Completely unintentional on my part.
*
I have mixed reactions to Esky proving itself another vicious, bloodthirsty example of its kind (it lunged at one of the cats, and then tried to peck the dog). On the one hand, my opinion of it has downgraded because the cat is a sweetheart even if its purr is a little wet for my taste. On the other, the little ingrate is clearly getting stronger. It spends most of its time standing in one place and looking pathetic, punctuated with small explosions of violence, which is really all I can ask for.
The fussy little brute has decided it does like egg after all, but the eggs must be cooked, unlike the chicken. That it prefers raw. Perhaps this has made the difference.
*
The most violent of the flock, the one that always attacks, has developed Stockholm Syndrome.
After being variously buffeted and booted by me for being a vicious, nasty chicken, unkind to its sickly brethren, now when it sees me it runs towards me and follows me about adoringly with a stupid look on its feathery face. Little suck-up.
I believe I have established myself at the top of the pecking order.
*
One of the hens has gone broody. I only discovered this when in a corner of the garden yesterday, I found the poor thing stretched out over a nest, trying to hatch 23 eggs. Goodness only knows how warm they are…
The misguided creature didn’t get into the coop until late last night because it wouldn’t go and I felt too sorry to make it. Of course, I’d just gone to bed when the mild rain developed into full-out hailing storm. Outside, I find the broody chicken, absolutely wet through but refusing to leave the eggs. I caught it and dried it off with one of Winter’s good towels and stuffed it into the coop. I’ve got one sick chicken to deal with already. I can’t cope with the rain getting to another.
I’ve only today distracted it with treats long enough to sneak round the corner and unearth everything. I feel bad at the thought of it returning to an empty nest, but what am I supposed to do with 23 fresh little eggs? This is not something I can hide from Winter … she will undoubtedly notice near two dozen little chicks, running around and all untainted.
I think they’d be beautiful, but Winter’s house is not a place sympathetic to my understanding of beauty.
I put them in the freezer. That ought to do for them.
*
Well, I don’t know that I’ve done the right thing, but Esky is spending the night with the other chickens.
It had the afternoon with them after finding its way through the fence (it spent the morning hard up against it, staring mournfully at the little flock on the other side). It’s getting dark now, so I just went out to bring it in but Esky ran away, rounded the chicken coop and shuffled up the ramp. Its feet left tiny little bloodstained prints on the ramp, and I was almost certain I saw a gobbet of flesh fall but the light was too dim to be certain. Still, it’s left me feeling hopeful.
*
Success!
I went out first thing this morning and found all the chickens in a peaceful little flock, dragging themselves around in search of food. I rewarded (distracted) them with death’s head beetles while Esky got its poison-laced puffer fish.
Winter is back tomorrow.
*
She had better bring me a present.
*
Winter is back. I am not sorry – nor are the animals. They perked up just as she was returning, feathers falling off and teeth falling out and that was my first warning, with the cats sprouting pustules before the front door opened, and Esky looking better than it had in weeks, the last hint of shine disappearing from its eyes, the scratching desultory instead of excited.
Winter is not upset about the chicken that lived, the chicken that I buried under the front lawn. ‘I’ll dig it up later,’ she says, philosophical. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’ She sips from her cup of hellebore tea, hellebore to my pomegranate, and glances at me from the corner of her eyes. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to help yourself. You wouldn’t believe how many people at the conference suddenly became ill. There was talk of an apocalypse.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, and Winter took another sip and would not look at me. She must have known what I was picturing: outbreak and plague and the rising dead and Winter in the centre of it, trying to contain what she could not control. ‘You didn’t mean to, I’m sure. We can’t shut ourselves away. These things happen.’
‘These things happen,’ she echoed.
*
She has brought me little pots of plants as a present, cypress and magnolia and Spanish moss. They are tired, drooping, and the leaves of the magnolia are badly spotted.
I am sure that when I get them home they will soon perk up.
Hope Lies North
JC Hart
Sarah pressed her palm against the hand carved into the pōhutukawa. The bark was rough beneath her skin, but that roughness was a comfort in these days when the land shifted almost constantly, and the trees were the only things to remain unbroken.
The index finger of the carved hand was elongated and pointed the way, leading her ever North. She’d seen the signs a few days ago, noticed their increasing frequency and though she didn’t know what they meant, she had hope.
Hope. It was a fragile thing, but something she clung to now that the earth had revolted, intent on tossing the humans off its back, ridding itself of the vermin who’d treated it so roughly.
Sarah couldn’t blame it. Her. Papatūānuku. She’d started talking to the goddess, not always kind words, but with no one else to talk to it didn’t really matter. The earth might be out to get her, but Sarah knew it wasn’t personal. Papatūānuku wasn’t listening to her anyway. She tried her best, as she moved, to show the earth that she loved it – hell, she’d been such an environmentalist just weeks ago, before everything changed – but there was no indication it made a difference.
Tension filled the air and Sarah cocked her head to figure out where the change was coming from this time. It didn’t matter. So much didn’t matter. She unhooked the rope from her waist and slung it around the trunk of the tree, quickly tying off the knots and shoving the claws on the toes of her boots into the bark. Her feet had just left the ground as the change hit. Wind whipped through her short black hair and she closed her eyes, though she could imagine how it looked, the sickening tide of land masses shifting. She could hear the groan of stone and roots, felt the tree tilt sideways, smelt dirt in the air, dirt and water and swamp. Oh gods. She clamped her teeth, swallowed her scream.
And then it was still.
She hung there for ten minutes, maybe more, just to be really sure. Then she pulled her claws from the trunk, her feet swinging in mid-air as she dangled over the side of the new hill.
‘Shit,’ she uttered, trying to swing back up and catch the claws in the trunk again, do something. The ground wasn’t far below her, but the weight of her body had made the knots tight. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ She let out a scream, feral and twisted, like the landscape around her, then grabbed the knife from her belt and sliced through the rope. Her last rope.
The ground was littered with stones, small and round and hard, and she slid down the hill and into the fetid swamp at the bottom, the smell embracing her, the mud spattering her arms and oozing between her fingers. She tried not to cry. Tried to hold onto that hope she’d felt before when she had seen the hand. If she could just pick herself up. Find the trees again, find the hands, follow the trail. It had to lead somewhere.
She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, remembering tho
se guided meditations she used to do, none of them applying to this situation. Breathe in (but not too deeply lest you swallow a bug, though perhaps that might not be too bad, you haven’t had a decent meal in weeks) and exhale slowly, letting the tension ease from your body as you do.
No, no release of tension. She had to get up.
Now.
The mud sucked at her hands and feet as she pried herself free, and it took all her strength not to just stay there, wallowing. She stumbled to the base of the hill, the rocks digging into her knees but feeling a little more solid. She lay back, staring at the full, round midday sun, letting it dry the mud on her skin and clothes, sink some heat into her body.
*
It had taken her hours to find the next hand, but once she found it she picked up the trail fast, and on the fourth tree bearing a print she found the words ‘The Grounded’, and she whispered them. A monotonous mantra.
The Grounded, the Grounded, the Grounded.
Could they be the ones she’d heard stories about? The ones who were attuned to the earth, safe from death and destruction. Tangata Whenua. That’s what she needed. That was what she searched for. She quickened her pace, picking out the handprints in the failing light, until she found one that wasn’t a print, but an actual hand, nailed to the tree, its index finger pointing the way.
Sarah stopped, uncertain for the first time. She wanted to reach out, to touch the hand, to see she was just imagining it. There was a ring on a finger, and creases on the skin. Worn and weathered, but not rotting. Not yet, anyway. She leaned toward it, inhaled, that sickly sweet smell. This was the real thing. She pulled away, stomping her feet in the chilling night air, nerves ticking over in her belly.
A stick cracked behind her and she twirled. Before her stood a cowled man, his back hunched, burdened with a heavy pack.
‘You wish to become Grounded?’ he asked, his voice raspy.
‘What does that mean? Are you the people who are safe? Tangata Whenua?’
‘People of the land? No, we are more than that. We are the conquerors. The ones who stand even when the earth wishes to shake us free.’ He tossed his hood back, revealing a pale face, eyes stark and blue in the light of the full moon. He had lost an ear, the skin around the hole seared as though he’d been burned. ‘And you’ve come to join us.’
‘I—’
This was what she wanted, right? She wanted to be safe. To stand tall without the constant fear of being killed. And yet at what cost did it come? A hand? Or something more…
Still, it might be worth it. ‘I’m curious. Can you show me what it means to be Grounded?’
‘Come.’ He nodded once and turned his hood up, shuffling away from her and into the woods. The land seemed to solidify under their feet as they walked. He moved with a confidence she hadn’t seen in a long time, despite his bent back and hidden face. She missed that comfort. That unquestioned security.
*
They emerged from the woods into a small town. A whole town, only the edges frayed and torn by the earth. Once they stepped over the cracked chunks of pavement and road, the concrete was flat, smooth, broken only by houses and businesses. There were no lights, though the full moon afforded enough visibility, and there in the middle of the only street were others, gathered around a bonfire.
The man walked to the nearest building and shucked off his pack, taller than Sarah had expected once he’d relieved himself of his burden. ‘I am Oak. Come.’ He beckoned her toward the flames, which drove the chill air away even from here. Sarah hurried after him, not wishing to leave the side of the only person familiar to her in this group of strangers.
‘Brothers and Sisters. We have a new arrival. Come to find the Grounded, to become one of us.’ Oak spread his arms wide, like the tree he was named after.
‘Hi,’ Sarah said. ‘My name is—’
‘No,’ Oak said firmly. ‘Your old name isn’t something we need to know. Here, you become something new. You give up everything that you were in order to become more.’
‘How?’ she asked, shaking her head as she looked around. ‘How is this here? How are you here?’ She felt a niggle in her throat, wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or vomit or just fall into a heap and never get up. It was too strange, too difficult to comprehend. She barely knew who she was now anyway; the only thing that defined her was her survival.
She didn’t want to give up her name. But it seemed so meaningless, if that was all that stood between her and the shifting earth. It was only then that she noticed the details of those around her. They were missing limbs, ears, noses, the occasional eye.
‘Wha… What happened to you?’
‘We became something new.’ His voice was intense, his stance as well. Then he relaxed and smiled, though it seemed forced. ‘Sorry. We haven’t had a new recruit in a long time. I forget what it feels like to come in. We must look … like something out of a horror film. But I assure you, we’re good people. And we’re alive. You want to live, don’t you?’
Oak held out a hand. Sarah’s fingers twitched, itched to take it, to believe what he was saying. It had been so long since she’d felt like part of something.
‘You can trust us.’ He nodded, then spread his hands to indicate the rest of the group. ‘We were all lost once, and now we gather, to reclaim what was ours, what the earth has taken away from us.’
Sarah cocked her head to hold back her shake of disagreement. The earth was never theirs, not really. ‘But how? She’s shown us she won’t lie still. How can we make her?’
Might as well ask how to beat a god into submission. It was just the same.
‘We probe, deep inside her. We’re going to kill her. We’ve got bombs.’
His grin this time was sincere, feverish. But the words stopped her heart. It was madness. Not just madness, but it wouldn’t work. People had been mining deep, tunnelling into the earth for hundreds of years and it hadn’t killed her yet. Sarah looked at those around her, saw the same gleams in their eyes. They believed Oak; they believed they could do this.
Arrogance. But how the hell was she going to make it out of here? She would rather take her chances with Papatūānuku than this lot. ‘What does it take to become one of the Grounded? Is there a task, an initiation?’
Oak laughed. ‘Oh, there is. Of course. We need to be sure you’re dedicated. We don’t have the resources to keep those who aren’t.’ He flicked his hand back to her and this time she took it with no hesitation. What was that old saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
*
Sarah shook the wooden bars of the make-shift cage. So this was how they treated their new recruits. She should’ve known it was too good to be true. Should have stayed alone. They’d tied her foot to the back of the cage with thin fencing wire, and though she’d been working on bending it to break it for hours, she was still tethered.
They were talking around the fire, debating what she should lose, what they should call her.
—An eye? I don’t like the way she looked at me, it should be an eye.
—No, no I think we should take her lips so she can’t speak when I—
—God you’re so crude, is that all you think about?
—It’s not like we get many women in here. Gotta repopulate the world, right?
On it went, until she wished they would take her ears so she didn’t have to hear it anymore.
She had to get out.
Sarah retreated to the back of the cage, taking the wire in her fingers again, bending and twisting and working it, red-eyed and afraid, red-eyed and menacing. It finally started to give, thinning, and then breaking, the sharp end cutting into her palm.
She pressed her hand to her mouth, the bitter-sharp taste of metal and blood galvanising her determination. She had to get out.
Her stomach growled, hunger gnawing at her. They’d taken her
pack when they put her in here, and she needed to grab it before she left. She had to eat, had to find a place to hole up and drink. To forget this. Sarah eyed her pack longingly, shaken from her yearning when the cage bars rattled. Oak stood there, a bowl of soup proffered through the bars.
‘Here. It’ll keep you until morning, and then we’ll convene and decide your fate. Don’t worry, no one is turned away. All this,’ he gestured to the cage, ‘it’s just scare tactics, gets you in the right headspace for survival. You’re safe here, and hey, you get to sleep without fear of the earth swallowing you up.’ He smiled then, and put the bowl on the floor when she didn’t accept it.
‘If I wasn’t in the right headspace to survive, I wouldn’t have made it this far,’ she said, a mirthless laugh slipping between her lips. ‘But do you really think this is the best way?’ she asked, not even sure herself whether she was talking about the cage, or their plans for the earth.
‘We’ve tried it other ways. This works.’ He nodded and walked away, leaving her to the food and rest.
Or, at least to the food. She wouldn’t rest. Wouldn’t feel calm until she was free from this cage, this camp.
*
It was full dark and the moon hung fat and low in the sky. The fire had died down, the Grounded were sleeping. They were so secure that their way was the best, they hadn’t even posted a guard on her cage. At least something was going her way. She sliced with the sharp end of the wire, through the ropes which held her cage closed. The door creaked open, but no one stirred, and she snuck out of the cage and across to her bag, gripping the sharpened wire in her hand.
She slipped the pack over her shoulder, took one last look around the village and turned away.
‘Hey!’ someone called.
Sarah burst into a run, not turning to look. More shouts joined the first. The sound of shoes slapping against concrete filled her ears. She plunged into the forest, branches scraping against her face and arms. She stumbled over a fallen tree and clawed at the ground for purchase, forcing herself upright and on, on and on and on. Everything was a blur of motion, greens and browns swarming her vision until she burst forth into a clearing.
