Book of Dreams

by Traci Harding

  Zoe then noticed a small stream trickling through a gully that extended from the mountain. ‘The front door?’ she guessed.

  ‘The only door,’ Tim confirmed as he, Rex and Kimba moved ahead. ‘Wait here, we’ll announce you.’

  ‘So kind,’ replied Zoe regally.

  Kyle was happy enough to wait around. He’d brought his boomerang along and the flat land only thinly dotted by trees between here and the thicker forests on the mountain proved the perfect place to have a play.

  The first thing he wanted to try was to make the boomerang return to him. ‘I have a theory about this boomerang, Ron,’ Kyle said in an aside to his guardian when the yowie sat in the shade of the trees to watch and see what Kyle had remembered.

  Really?

  ‘Yep. I believe that it has otherworldly properties and is enchanted to respond directly to the will of the wielder.’ Kyle had walked out onto the plain a little way and he looked back to see what his guardian had to say about it.

  Well, that’s a good theory, Kyron replied, as if none the wiser.

  ‘Twelve metres diameter, return,’ said Kyle, flinging the weapon off in such a way as to encourage its spinning. It completed a perfect circle and returned to Kyle’s grasp.

  ‘Yeah!’ Zoe applauded, taking a seat beside Kyron.

  ‘I knew it!’ Kyle was disappointed. ‘It’s not that I’m so talented … I have a weapon that can’t miss.’

  ‘But you cast the boomerang differently that time from how you cast it last night,’ Zoe pointed out. ‘Surely that denotes a certain amount of expertise.’

  ‘I taught him that,’ Kyron boasted proudly. ‘He was quite the prodigy too. He nearly wiped out the entire feral cat population around his orphanage. That is, until his carers deemed Kyle’s obsession with killing wild cats to be unnatural. They threatened to take the boomerang away and that’s when Kyle locked it up and threw away the key.’

  Kyle was entranced by the recollection that had been locked away with the weapon; he knew Kyron spoke the truth. ‘I was a lovely child.’ He grinned at Zoe and let the horrible memory go, for he could finally admit that he might have been a bit of a worry as a youngster. ‘But I have control now,’ he stated. As Kyron and Zoe both nodded to agree with him, Kyle spied Rex and Kimba returning. Kimba was looking at him very differently now, as if she was in silent awe of him.

  ‘Bargi will see you now. Just follow the stream to its end,’ Rex directed, forcing a smile of reassurance.

  Rex, too, seemed to treat him with a certain respect, which Kyle had not been expecting, and it made him wonder what his great-grandmother was telling everyone about him. Kyle was used to being a closet psychic cum psycho, not a Messiah.

  Zoe caught the change in mood also. As they walked into the forest, branches and foliage arching over the stream, it felt as if they were entering another world, somewhere she’d visited in fairytales, or in a dream.

  ‘It doesn’t seem quite real, does it?’ Kyle caught a glimpse of the wee bear-like beast that had once played guardian to the Book of Dreams. Then Kyle was seeing the creatures from his past everywhere, whipping in and out of the undergrowth that had almost overgrown the tiny stream. ‘Book?’ Kyle recognised the ambience of the place, and picked up his pace, eager to discover if his hunch was right.

  ‘Who is Book?’ Zoe begged to know.

  ‘I think we’re just about to find out.’

  The tunnel of trees ended in a large clearing filled with native flowers and obviously it provided a home for the local fauna. By the pool at the end of the stream stood a very large spindly gum tree and seated inside the hollow at the tree’s base was an old, withered woman. A gap in the canopy allowed soft, filtered sunlight to penetrate and dance upon the ground where the aging woman resided. Her skin was as wrinkled as the tree bark, her hair grey and wiry. Her eyes were closed and she made no movement; Kyle feared he’d come too late.

  Welcome, Matong Bakkare. You have been a long time in coming.

  Zoe and Kyle both stopped in their tracks when they heard the female voice in their minds. The old woman had not moved her mouth — she still had the appearance of a wax cast. They looked at Tim, seated near her, for an explanation.

  My physical senses left me years ago … I have remained of this world only to attend to the business of this meeting.

  ‘How have you remained here?’ Kyle voiced his curiosity as he took hold of Zoe’s hand and led her to a seat before his great-grandmother.

  By the grace of the Great Spirit I have been sustained in order that I could convey my story to you.

  Kyle was still frowning. ‘You can’t just live on air, though?’

  Can I not? She sounded surprised that he would think so. During your experience of detachment from the physical realm, did you hunger or thirst or feel any physical discomfort?

  Zoe looked at Kyle, confused by the question. Did Matong Bargi refer to his Near Death Experience? Kyle was grinning broadly.

  ‘You are Book,’ he concluded surely.

  ‘What?’ Zoe muttered under her breath, completely perplexed.

  I am the Book of Dreams, Arika granted, the story of dreams lost and dreams found. The telepathic voice of the old woman changed into that of the distinguished male voice that Kyle had come to associate with the book. Your next questions will be, why a book; why disguise my true heritage, sex and colour behind the guise of a white man?

  This is exactly what was running through Kyle’s mind. ‘Well, why?’

  Would you have listened to the tuition of an old coloured woman? No, I think not. I think the mentality bred into you would have made you argue every step of the way and we never would have made it past the foreword.

  Kyle was a little ashamed to concede this was quite true.

  If I had come to you in the form of a bullroarer you wouldn’t have known what to do with me. You probably would have mistaken me for a piece of jewellery and hung me around your neck!

  ‘Ah … what’s a bullroarer?’ Kyle knew he was just proving the old woman’s point, and Tim had a quiet chuckle.

  ‘It’s a divining tool,’ Tim advised his boy.

  ‘Oh.’ Kyle had figured it was something like that. ‘You understand the ways of the world very well, Matong Bargi.’

  ‘Bargi understands the ways of many worlds,’ said Tim, rising to take his leave.

  ‘Aren’t you staying for the story?’ Kyle asked, surprised.

  ‘You forget … I was made privy to the book’s secrets long ago.’ Tim smiled and looking at Arika, he clasped both hands to his stomach. ‘An ungune,’ he said to her, throwing his arms wide, then resuming his retreat.

  ‘Should I go?’ Zoe wondered if she was intruding.

  Please stay. What I have to say involves you too. Although I should warn you that my tale is sad and terrible, so if you feel compelled to depart at any time, please feel free.

  ‘I’m sorry, Matong Bargi. I know you are anxious to tell your tale,’ Kyle worried that his childish curiosity was delaying her, ‘but, I still don’t understand how —’

  How I could take the form of a book to convey my knowledge and guidance to you?

  ‘If you’re implying what I think you’re implying,’ Zoe attempted to help out, ‘that’s shape-shifting coupled with bilocation — which is a highly skilled psychic practice, but not entirely unheard of.’ She had read of spiritual masters and psychics who had been accredited with such gifts, but Zoe had never met anyone so adept herself.

  ‘It’s unheard of by me.’ Kyle admitted to being none the wiser.

  It’s just creation … it happens every day. The old woman employed her aged female voice for thought projection once more and her tone was one of amusement. Focused will creates the forms of this world and the reality we experience in it, with a lot of help from our elemental friends, of course!

  The creatures from the book’s cover emerged from tree and shrub, puddle and stone, to gather around Arika, but the creatures of the otherworld were v
ery respectful of the old woman’s person.

  Zoe’s gasp drew Kyle’s attention her way. ‘You see them?’ he asked hopefully.

  Zoe nodded, her eyes fixed on the source of her wonder. ‘And Arika is —’ Zoe lost her voice in amazement.

  Kyle looked back to his great-grandmother, who was growing younger by the second. When she had regressed in years to her prime, her eyelids parted and she looked at Kyle.

  ‘We are all just thought forms pulling matter unto ourselves to form a body to inhabit,’ she said, ‘and if you understand this, metamorphosis is possible.’

  The young woman focused on a patch of ground in front of her and chanted.

  ‘Warrawee, bimble thambaroo,’

  Come here, earth spirits,

  ‘yappulum nganauwe peggeralin,’

  enter my dreaming,

  ‘warrina yetni tumpinyeri.’

  give it life.

  The Book of Dreams began to materialise as the forest’s otherworldly inhabitants, quite literally, threw themselves into the Matong Bargi’s creation. When the book contained numerous entities and was completely solid of substance, Arika clasped both hands to her stomach and said:

  ‘An ungune.’

  Thank you.

  She threw her hands away from her stomach before lifting the book. ‘I appear youthful to you now because that is what I will you to perceive. My physical body has not changed, only your perception of the illusion of form that I am presenting.’ She handed the book to Kyle.

  ‘It seems I still have much to learn.’ Kyle conceded as he took possession of the familiar item. The book was solid and just as he remembered it.

  ‘You never had a problem, Kyle.’ Arika smiled, ‘You have been given a gift and should learn to use it.’

  ‘Why me?’ Kyle asked the question that had plagued him most of his life.

  ‘Because the night your weapon,’ Arika pointed to the boomerang Kyle had laid down on the ground beside him, ‘was fed to the flame in offering, you were the one amidst those gathered who the Great Spirit chose to bless with the gift that might save the land which once belonged to our people. I know this, because Baiame assigned the banished guardian of the mountain the task of guiding his chosen warrior towards this destiny. Turramulli found himself hindered by your despair, and as I had a vested interest in your development I agreed to aid the creature that had been the beginning of my woes. By so doing, I began to heal the wound that this land and I have shared for over half a century. I brought forth my Book of Dreams, devised decades before to open the eyes of a non-believer —’

  ‘Tim,’ Kyle granted.

  ‘And a most worthy recipient of sacred knowledge he has proven to be,’ she assured Kyle. ‘He never stopped agonising over your separation and it was only when I assured him you would return to the mountain of your own accord that Tim refrained from retrieving you too soon.’

  Kyle felt the old resentments rising in him, but rather than fly into a fit of rage to protest at how hard done by he had been, Kyle allowed his tears to flow. ‘It was tough, Bargi,’ he told her, although he was sure she knew all that he’d endured.

  ‘Now you are tough,’ she stated proudly, ‘and you have as much of my wisdom as your psyche can stand. You are healthy, strong, extremely psychic and in love.’ She motioned to Zoe, who had placed an arm around Kyle as soon as his tears had started to flow.

  ‘I don’t feel very tough.’ He brushed away the tears, but Arika reached out and stayed his hand.

  ‘It is tough to release the past and forgive, for then you have no one to blame for your failures.’ Arika’s glance touched briefly on Kyron, for the creature appeared to be experiencing the emotional turmoil of his charge. ‘By taking responsibility for our own actions, thoughts and aspirations, we find the courage to believe in our own ability to create a better life, for ourself and for others.’

  ‘I have much to be thankful for,’ Kyle realised. He was not compelled to deny how he felt about the woman at his side; quite the contrary.

  ‘If Tim had changed the course of your life, Kyle, you and Zoe would not have met under such favourable circumstances,’ Arika pointed out and Kyle was rocked to discover that there was a silver lining to his life’s story.

  ‘You’d be on opposite sides of the fence doing battle over this mountain, most likely,’ Arika continued.

  Kyle turned and looked into Zoe’s eyes and found she was also rather teary. ‘Then my youth alone was a small price to pay,’ he told her and was pleasantly surprised when Zoe collapsed in a flood of sentimental tears and kissed him.

  ‘Well, that’s the great-great-grandchildren taken care of,’ Arika jested, which got the couple’s attention very quickly. ‘Just kidding … Maybe?’ she teased, cocking an eye questioningly. ‘Is your curiosity now satisfied?’

  ‘How rude of us,’ Zoe said, as her question regarding ‘being seen as Kyle’s wife’ seemed to have answered itself. It was lovely to think that they were destined to be together. ‘Here we come all this way to hear your story and we’ve asked about everything but!’

  ‘Please forgive all our questions, Matong Bargi Arika.’ Kyle handed the book back to its author, whereupon the otherworldly creatures dispersed from the cover and the book dematerialised. ‘I for one am dying to hear the history of Turrammelin mountain.’ He made himself comfortable next to Zoe to hear the tale.

  Arika smiled to make it clear she was not offended. ‘Then I shall tell my story one last time.’

  In 1905 Arika was born into a land that was only sparsely populated by those white people who owned or had been granted large portions of land to develop for farming. Her tribe had lost ownership of the mountain many years before her birth, but her people had been allowed to live around their sacred land in return for the work they did on the sugar cane farm which had spread out around the mountain since their dispossession.

  Zoe’s great-great-grandfather, Barnett Nivok, had owned and run the property at the time. Both the Europeans and the Aboriginal locals saw him as a fair, hardworking man. Some of the other landowners had considered Barnett too fair in allowing blacks to live on his land. They warned that he should drive them off or remove them to reserves, because they were not fit to work and live alongside decent white folk. Barnett laughed off their racist ideas, saying, ‘But then I’d have to find extra farmhands, and feed them, and house them … it works better for everyone this way.’

  Barnett had two sons: Parker, who was ten years old, and Lance, who was born earlier in the year that Arika was born. Through living in such a remote location, those at the Nivok homestead rarely had visitors, or themselves went visiting, and thus the children of the Turrammelin tribe had grown up with the Nivok children. Lance and Arika were virtually inseparable before the age of ten, after which time both Arika’s parents and the Nivoks made a concerted effort to keep them apart. All the adults saw it coming and although Barnett was considerate of the local people in his employ, he would not tolerate his son fraternising with a black girl lest the worst happened.

  Just before Arika’s sixteenth birthday, the worst did happen. Arika fell pregnant and Lance told both their parents that he wanted to marry her. His proposal was rejected by all, and the young lovers were dragged their separate ways home.

  Having predicted this reaction, Lance and Arika had arranged to meet at the sacred pool at the base of the mountain two days hence. They planned to run away together; Lance had been wielding an axe since the age of five and held no fear of not being able to carve a home out of the wilderness for Arika and himself. Arika had all the knowledge of the land passed on from her people, so they would not starve to death, or want for medicines.

  They had picked this spot to meet because they thought it would be the last place anyone would expect to find them. All through their childhood Arika’s parents had told them scary tales of the creatures who frequented the waterhole and ate little children. As teenagers, they felt that the purpose of these tales was to prevent children goi
ng near the deep waterhole and possibly drowning. The site was considered a sacred male place, so none of the locals ever swam there or used it as a water source — there were other little streams and pools that ran off the mountain which were preferred.

  Unbeknownst to Lance, he and his family had angered the guardian of the mountain by their slaughter of the trees in its territory. When the lad was the first to arrive that evening, it was right on Turramulli’s hunting time.

  Arika arrived to find her lover in pieces. The beast that had murdered him was holding up the head of its victim in triumph.

  Her scream was heard for miles and brought all and sundry running to the scene. The beast vanished into thin air, leaving the hysterical Arika to explain. The teenage girl cited the Turramulli as the murderer of her lover, and yet, in her heart, she felt some of the blame for Lance’s death must fall on her shoulders — she should never have challenged the taboos of her people. Arika had chosen this as their meeting place, for, in accordance with sacred belief, only the mountain that stood behind the waterhole and fed it and the waterhole itself were sacred ground. She had assumed they would be safe as long as they met around the environs of the site. This assumption proved fatal and ultimately Arika had to concede that she might have been a catalyst for all the suffering that followed.

  As Lance was the golden boy of his family, the one everyone favoured, his death hit his family hard — very hard. Barnett rejected Arika’s monster story as a feeble attempt to cover for a member of her clan who must have taken revenge on Lance for impregnating one of their women. Barnett gave his workers two days to produce the murderer, and when no one came forward he handed the matter over to the local law enforcement, who had their own way of dealing with the blacks.

  ‘I’ll kill every one of those murdering blacks if I have to, to find who killed your son.’ And the law officer proved true to his word.

  Barnett demanded that Arika be spared and taken to the local Reserve so that when her bastard child was born it would be taken away from her and she, too, would feel what it was like to lose a child.