Luce's laughter was a deep vibration. "Melody, you incinerated all my fantasies the moment you appeared in that white corset, you looked so hot. I was afraid to ask for anything else – anything I thought of just paled in comparison. So I surrendered to your angelic charms and my soul is still singing for joy. Listen." Faintly, she heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony drifting on the night breeze and it was her turn to laugh.
"You've been through my music collection," she admonished.
"You should have been there for its first performance in Vienna. I've heard better renditions since, with better acoustics and far more practice before the performance, but..."
Mel stared at him. "My love, I was. I never saw you in the Kärntnertortheater. But I was very much taken with the music and I wasn't working. I'm sure you wouldn't have noticed me in the crowd, even if you did see me."
"I only wish I had," Luce said, echoing her own thought. He broke the mood with a surge of hot lust. "And if I'd known you were capable of half of what you did tonight, I'd have fallen to my knees and begged the moment I met you."
"My sexy devil," Mel murmured. "Can we sit still and watch the stars for a few hours without you thinking of sex?"
"Hell no," he responded. "Not when I know you're not wearing anything. And after what you did earlier with your..."
"Shh, Luce."
Luce squinted into the windows, shading his eyes with his hand against the bright morning sun. "I can't see any furniture and it doesn't look like anyone's here. Who have we come to see again?"
Mel laughed and pulled Luce away from the old wattle and daub house. "That's because they never lived in the house. This belonged to some early European settlers. My friends lived in a cave to the south and I'll show you." She lowered her gaze and her voice. "This is...a very personal place for me. I've never brought anyone here before and it's been a very long time since I've seen it. Even the local people never came here. They told stories of a devil bird who lived in this place, which frightened away all but the most curious."
"How anyone could mistake you for a devil, I don't know," Luce said with a grin.
Mel didn't return it. "To the dark-skinned people who lived here, devils were pale. And this one was the size of a human with huge, white wings. Please, Luce, you showed me your personal place in Hell – Hell's bathroom, the beautiful cave you shared with me. I'd like to show you what the locals here once called the bathing place of the moon, Meekadarrabee."
Something in her tone caught him and his soul reached for hers. There was sadness and loss in this place for Mel, yet she longed to share it with him. Luce took her hand and her thoughts sharpened as her bubble of worry burst with relief. She feared this place held too much pain for her to visit alone and she wanted to ask for his support. But if he treated it like a joke, her pain was too raw to allow him any closer to the place and she would keep her secrets to herself. "I'd be honoured," he found himself saying.
Mel's smile was shy as she led him up the hill and into the bush.
The sweet smell of peppermint was stronger here – like that rock candy shop near the office, Luce mused. The bushes to either side of the track were dotted with butterfly-shaped flowers in purple and orange and pink. And the occasional orange butterfly, he realised as what he'd thought was an unusual patterned flower took flight.
He caught glimpses of the swift-flowing creek between the trees – the same Ellen Brook that flowed beside the house on its way to the sea.
"The path never used to be this clear," Mel murmured as her grip tightened around his fingers. "The easiest approach was to find the mouth of the stream and fly up the watercourse to the spring at its source. Of course, I could only do this at night, which earned me the name of Nyoorlam among the local people who saw me. Nyoorlam means devil bird or night hawk."
"One night, I'd love to fly beside you," Luce replied.
Mel just smiled and drew him on. She didn't stop until they reached a clearing that ended in a wall of rock with a small pool at its base. Luce could hear water trickling and he leaned over to see that the wall wasn't as solid as it seemed – it was the entrance to a cave, and the exit for the stream that fed the pool.
Mel swallowed a few times before she said, "One night, I went for a swim in the pool and I didn't realise there were curious eyes watching me. When I emerged from the water, shaking the droplets off my skin, a girl's voice told me that I didn't look as scary as a demon. More like the moon, shimmering on the surface after her bath." Her smile reappeared, but it looked watery. "I remember I laughed and told her that I wouldn't harm her, so in that, I was more like the moon than a demon. That was the extent of her courage that night. She returned to her people, who were camped nearby at a place called Mokidup.
"The following night, she returned. She was stealthy, but I was expecting her. She sat on the bank of the stream and announced that she'd told her grandmother about me. Her grandmother was an elder, and her response was to tell the girl she was cursed for daring to find the bathing place of the moon. I said I didn't know of any curse and she was welcome to join me if she wished, but she didn't.
"Instead, she just sat on the bank of the stream, swinging her legs as I listened to the stories that spilled from her lips. She told me of caves and forests and secret places she'd found as she explored. And then...she rose and ran off."
A gust of wind caught the branches above, sending down a cascade of tiny white flower petals and a whiff of peppermint. Mel laughed, lifting her face to the sky.
Luce's mouth went dry. His precious angel, haloed in sunlight as the petals drifted down like snow. Heaven. He was in Heaven just watching her.
Mel's fingers slid between his. "Come on. I want to show you the waterfall before I tell you the rest of the story." Dazed, he followed her, as he knew he always would.
They stopped abruptly at an official sign that informed them that the track was closed due to severe erosion. Luce couldn't help laughing – the danger sign and caution tape were wrapped around the framework of a bridge across a muddy creek. The severe erosion had carried away the whole damn bridge and the new one was nowhere near finished yet.
He shrugged. "I've learned my lesson. Last time I ignored one of these signs I ended up on my arse in a cold creek. Guess we'd better head back." He turned to lead the way.
Mel's fingers tightened around his. "No. I've never needed a bridge to reach the falls and there is a bridge – look." She pointed at some mud-encrusted planks laid across the shallow creek. "We'll be fine." When Luce didn't move, she tugged on his arm. "Trust me, Luce. I'll even go first."
Of course he trusted her. But where she'd cross the creek as clean as if she'd taken the non-existent bridge, he'd probably slip and end up starting a legend of a mud monster here.
Mel winked. "I'll break out my wings and carry you across if you're scared, Luce."
His eyes on the mud, Luce felt a grin spreading across his face. "I trust you, but if I do end up in the creek, I want your promise that this afternoon we'll be mud wrestling." Just the thought of their bodies twined together, slipping and sliding in the slick mud, was worth whatever trouble he got into beforehand.
Mel laughed, a musical sound that was picked up by hidden birds overhead. "Sure, my love. But I get to be on top." She trotted gracefully down the bank and across the first plank, then the second. Her fingers curled around a sapling before Mel sprang up the opposite bank, resting her hand on one of the bridge supports. Balancing carefully on the other end of the bridge frame, she called, "C'mon, Luce. The falls aren't much further."
His eyes firmly fixed on his angel, Luce stumbled and slid down the slope. The first plank sent up small splatters of mud with every heavy footfall, but it didn't throw him into the water. The second plank was laid across only slightly damp soil, so Luce figured he was in the clear when he realised there was a third plank. This was barely visible above the mud and sank deeper with each step, but he made it across that one, too, with only slightly muddied shoes. Hidden by ve
getation, the steep slope on the other side had seemed deceptively easy for Mel's ascent, but Luce found it the most challenging bit. Mel's sapling threatened to bend right over beneath his grip and he barely managed to grasp the next one before he slid back down into the creek.
Strong fingers caught his flailing hand and his feet finally found purchase on the slope. He reached the level patch of mud beside the bridge frame where Mel was precariously balanced on a beam before he dared to breathe again. With his first exhalation, he thanked her.
"You know I'll lift you when you fall, my love. Every time." She hopped from beam to beam until she landed on the path again, as agile as the bird the native people had named her.
Luce placed his bigger feet carefully on the beams, making sure each would take his weight before he moved to the next one. He felt unusually proud of himself when he reached Mel's side on the overgrown track.
She grabbed his hand, the energy of her eagerness fizzing through the contact, and it was all he could do to keep up with her as she led the way through the pile of lumber that presumably waited to complete the bridge and the mess of clinging branches that tried to squeeze the track out of existence. Pushing aside one more armload of whippy branches, they stepped into the final clearing where the falls cascaded down the mossy stones.
Mel led Luce to a bench beside the falls and sat, waiting for him to squeeze in beside her before she said, "And now the part I've never told a soul."
"A few years later, I returned, winging my way from the sea, wanting nothing more than peace after the conflicts I'd seen elsewhere. The moment I descended below the canopy, I knew I was being watched, but I had no need to hide my wings then as I do now. The water was cool from its time in the cave and so refreshing that it was all I could think about, yet the watching eyes hadn't left. I rose from the pool and faced the girl I'd seen on my previous visit, though now she'd grown into a woman. And she wasn't alone. A young man stalked the shadows behind her.
"I wondered whether to warn her, but she beat me to it, beckoning the boy to the bank by her side. She told me her name was Mitanne and Nobel was her beloved. They lived here at Meekadarabee – the bathing place of the moon – because their tribes wouldn't allow them to be together. He usually hunted at night, but the devil bird flying through the skies tonight had frightened everything into hiding. He'd need to travel further afield if they were to eat tomorrow, he said, before he kissed her goodbye and headed off into the bush. It was...sweet to see them together. How tenderly he touched her for just a moment, yet that moment held so much love..." Mel closed her eyes and sighed. A tear slid down her cheek. "I'm telling this wrong. Please...let me show you the memory?"
Luce nodded and she cuddled up to him, taking his hands in hers. His eyes snapped shut as he reached for her soul and was surprised at the clarity of Mel's memory.
He watched the scrub fly past as if he was running through it, following a track through the underbrush that only he knew. A game trail, perhaps. The sun sank and the stars started to prick the darkening sky. Wings above obscured the stars for a moment before they were gone, silent flight carrying the creature away, but still she followed it, increasing her speed. A flash of white ahead made her slow her pace before she sank to her knees on the edge of the clearing. Before her, glowing faintly in the starlight, a pale female form stood waist-deep in the water. Her wings faded from sight and she sighed, stretching out to float on her back on the rippled surface.
Luce recognised Mel in the water and confusion jolted him halfway out of the memory. If the memory was Mel's, then why was she seeing herself?
"The memory is Mitanne's, as she shared it with me. You see?" Mel murmured.
Luce watched his perfect angel bathing in the distant past and became aware of the dark-skinned hands pushing the bushes aside as Mitanne emerged from her hiding place. Her heart had swelled just as Luce's did at Mel's sweet smile. Luce longed to join her in the water, but the girl remained resolute on the bank. She believed Mel to be the moon herself, come to Earth to grace this place with her light, and the girl wasn't worthy to share such a sacred place.
The girl spoke in words Luce didn't understand, but the images in her mind were clear. As she described places to Mel, she recalled the plants and animals, rocks and watercourses she'd encountered. The beady black eye of a striped numbat, the musical cry of a hundred black cockatoos as they sailed overhead, the quiet drip of water in a cave beside bones too big to belong to any creature she'd ever seen, tingle trees so huge their trunks were large enough for a whole tribe to shelter inside, the sweet smell of peppermint bushes here and the flash of ocean-blue in the trees as a tiny bird with bright blue feathers darted between branches. And the echo of Mel's remembered laughter in the clearing as she said she brought no curse.
Luce felt a shiver as the girl's deeply held beliefs whispered that she was cursed, no matter what the friendly devil bird said, edged by Mel's sorrow at the memory.
The scene changed. The bushes were thicker and higher, and the girl's fingers were longer as she pushed the leaves aside to reach Mel's pool. She brushed a fly off her perspiration-beaded breast, longing to feel the coolness of the cave water on her skin. The water only came to her thighs, for without winter rainfall to swell the pool, it was much shallower in the baking heat of summer, but she plunged in again and again, sharing the moon's love for her private bathing place.
Her skin prickled as she felt eyes on her and she rose from the water, scanning the vegetation until she met the gaze of her unseen watcher. He rose from the bushes, placing his spear butt-first against the stone beside him. "Are you the devil bird who bathes in this pool?" he demanded, showing no fear.
She admired his courage, but she laughed and asked him what he would do if she was.
He stood straighter and replied, "I would impale you on my spear and carry your body as a trophy to my people. Then all would only speak of me in whispers, of how powerful a hunter Nobel must be, to have conquered the demon."
Her memory sparked with faint images of a boy her own age from another tribe, who she'd occasionally seen when their tribes were both in the same region. He had been something like a playmate then, but nothing like the strong man he had become. Perhaps this fearless hunter could carry her away from the curse her grandmother had placed on her – her betrothal to a tribal elder, a great honour she didn't want. She shivered whenever the elder looked at her, his eyes filled with a fire of longing that frightened her.
She told him her name and her tribe – names that were meaningless to Luce – before he felt a stirring of lust that was both familiar and alien. The girl's reckless desire drove her to cast caution to the wind and she invited Nobel to join her in the pool. He impaled her, all right, but he left his wooden weapon on the bank as the two made love in the water. She begged him to sneak into her camp under the cover of darkness and steal her away.
Some nights later, after her people had moved on and set up camp much further away, she was woken by a hand over her mouth to silence her. It took her a moment to recognise the young man from the pool and quell her fear enough to creep out of the camp and away with him. They ran all night and into the next day before they reached Mokidup. Instead of living in the camping place alone, they slept in the cave, hunting the rich lands here and bathing together in the pool to slake their desire. Their combined laughter echoed off the rocks, banishing the curse that lay over her, or so the girl thought.
And then the moon maiden appeared again, the pale devil bird who had given Mitanne permission to visit this place. Luce tasted the girl's cocktail of emotions – fear, bravado, protectiveness and desire for the boy, who'd hidden from the strange winged woman. Mitanne had told Nobel about the true devil of the pool and she didn't want him to be cursed for offending her. So she lied about there being no game here and how he needed to hunt away from here that night, her eyes begging him to understand. Relief flooded through her when he nodded and set off across the ridge to hunt.
Luce's phone
trilled, jerking him halfway back to reality. He shoved his hand in his pocket and jabbed at the power button, holding it down until the trilling faded to silence. To Hell with the outside world of the present – he was busy with Mel.
Mel's memory seemed edged by sadness now, he realised as he focussed on the long-ago night time scene. Uneasily, he wondered whether the girl or the boy was going to fall victim to the imaginary curse.
The scene blurred until the sky was streaked with pink from the approaching dawn. Distant shouts carried on the wind. Mitanne's panic sent her sprinting toward the sound, along the trail Nobel had taken east to hunt in the lee of the ridge, leaving the devil bird far behind. She heard them before they noticed her – a band of hunters from her tribe, clustered around Nobel, accusing him of crimes against her tribe for which the punishment was death. Crossing into lands and hunting grounds that were forbidden. Theft of the elder's bride, kidnapping her and keeping her from her rightful husband and tribe. Trespassing on the sacred ground at the waterfall. He shook his head and denied all of it. He was on permitted land now, hunting as he'd been ordered, not land that was forbidden or sacred. And where was this bride he'd supposedly carried off? Did they have her?
Mitanne heard it all and faded into the bush, barely daring to breathe in fear that they might discover her hiding place, for the elder had sent her tribe's best hunters in pursuit of her.
She watched in horror as one of the men picked up Nobel's own spear and thrust it through the boy's body, pinning him to the sand. His agony was written clearly across his face, but Nobel didn't make a sound, such was his courage. The hunters pointed toward the sea and the cave where she and Nobel had made their home, then set out along the trail for the coast.
Holiday From Hell Page 14
