After about an hour of crawling, they all started to get slower. There was no energy left in him, no energy to speak, no energy to move any faster than he was now. His nose was running and his body was slick with a cold, clammy sweat. They kept going, and Michael wondered what they were hoping to reach. Realistically, the best thing would be to get far enough away so the creatures couldn’t find them; so that they would die down here. Then they couldn’t be forced to help in the destruction of their families. Yet he had to hope for light, for real light. He couldn’t keep going unless he hoped for light.
Michael’s back and knees throbbed with pain. He stopped wishing for light and hoped for space instead. If he just had enough space to stand, it would be enough. If he could just stretch out his neck or his legs, he would be okay. His hands were numb now, his knees too. He was drenched: his face was covered in sweat and snot, and his clothes were saturated from the dampness of the tunnel. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t. Not because he didn’t want the others to hear, but because he couldn’t. He was too exhausted.
After a while, he stopped thinking. He stopped hoping and he stopped feeling pain. He just moved forward. Everything was numb.
Emma cried out in front of him.
‘What? What is it?’ His voice was hoarse. He knew he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. He raised his head to look in front of him. Emma was gone. The edges of the rock were slightly golden. He stopped dead and heard Tessie stop behind him. They couldn’t be back in the creatures’ cavern. Not after all this. He moved forward slowly, carefully. The light wasn’t the cold, greenish light of the cavern. He moved closer again. The light that was spilling out over the tunnel wall was pink.
He scrambled forward. The tunnel got bigger. Soon it was large enough for him to get shakily to his feet. Walking was euphoria, his muscles flexed, the feeling coming back slightly. He half-ran, clumsily moving as quickly as he could. The pink light got stronger. It burned his eyes, but he didn’t care.
Something crunched under his foot. He looked down. It was grass. There was grass under his feet, real green grass. Emma stood ahead, looking out at the rising sun. She turned when she heard him, her eyes watery. The sky behind her was a painting of orange and pink. She was covered in greenish-brown muck. Her hair was matted around her face. There was a rustle behind him and he looked back to see Tessie stagger from the entrance.
The three of them came together and held each other. He pulled them tighter, feeling the way they trembled from the cold. They had made it. He wanted to laugh, but knew if he did, he would sob and never stop. Instead, they pressed their foreheads together until the trembles ceased. They pulled away from each other; they weren’t home yet.
‘Where are we?’ asked Emma quietly.
They looked around. They were in a basin, the sky huge above them.
‘Look,’ gasped Tessie, pointing, ‘the Three Mercies!’
Michael turned to where she was pointing. There they were. The three huge rocks towered above them.
‘It’s Mercy Point!’ said Emma.
‘We’re almost home!’
They ran up together, into the glowing, swirling light.
EPILOGUE
EMMA
For one crazy, hopeful moment, Emma was sure Fabian would walk through the door of society and culture. He didn’t.
The room filled with students laughing and chatting, but Fabian’s chair remained empty. Emma looked over at Tessie, who was staring at her knees, her eyes lifeless.
‘Earth to Emma!’ Rain said from next to her.
‘What? Did you say something?’
‘Yeah, I asked if you want to come over after school. The new Tame Impala track is out and it’s awesome.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Emma, distracted by Michael walking into the room with Tom.
‘That’s nuts,’ she heard him say.
‘They must have been pretty stealthy. Nicked it right out of my garage.’
‘Sucks, man, no more joyriding for us.’
Emma watched Michael as he put his feet up on the desk and leaned back against the wall. Apart from his black eye, which wasn’t all that uncommon for Michael Brighton, he looked almost as though nothing had changed. How was it possible that this was the same guy who’d touched her hair in the dark? The guy she had kissed. The guy who just a few hours ago she’d been crawling with underground, certain she was going to die. Maybe he was just a better actor than she was.
It would almost be easy. To push the whole thing down, to pretend none of it had ever happened. To pretend it was just some terrible dream. She could just go to Rain and River’s house after school and listen to music, complain about how no one got it like they did. Things could go back to the way they were before.
Clasping her hands together, she winced. Her palms and fingers were red-raw from crawling, as well as scabbed from her fall. Her legs were covered in scrapes and bruises. There was a cut above her eye that still pulsed. It was real. It had happened.
When she’d got home that morning, she’d been ready to tell her parents everything. She came inside filthy and bleeding, almost crying with the relief of walking through her own front door. Her mum was sitting at the table with a steaming mug of coffee in front of her.
‘Mum,’ she’d said, her voice cracking, ‘we went down there. We saw them.’
Her mum stared at her for one long moment.
‘You should get back to bed.’
‘What?’ Had she not heard what Emma had said?
Her mum got up and tipped her coffee down the sink. ‘I’ve got abseiling. I should get going.’
‘Mum! They’re going to come up again. They want to destroy us! Don’t you understand?’
Her mum turned, her face stricken. ‘Of course I understand!’ She put her hand over her face and took a deep breath. She reached for Emma and pulled her into a tight hug, then whispered into her ear, so quietly Emma could barely hear it. ‘Pretend it never happened. Please. For me. This is so much bigger than both of us.’
She pulled away and picked up her bag. ‘Have a shower. Go to bed. You’ll feel better after some sleep.’
At lunchtime, Emma turned off her hearing aids. Everything was too loud. Laughter sounded like jeers, squeals sounded like screams. She sat with Rain and River, staring into nothing, trying not to think.
She’d been so sure her parents would fly into action. So sure that they’d call all the townspeople together, and they would go down there and rescue Fabian. She’d been certain. It was her fault he was all alone right now. She pushed the thoughts away.
River pointed at something over her shoulder. Emma turned to see. Tessie was sitting by herself on the edge of the basketball court. Silent tears inched down her cheeks. Michael was playing with some friends on the court. Emma saw him notice Tessie. Emma knew he wouldn’t go over to her; his friends would make fun of him. She knew he would turn back around and pretend he hadn’t even seen Tessie. She was wrong. He bounced the ball off into the middle of the court and went to sit next to Tessie. Rain’s and River’s faces opened up. Emma could see their laughter was cruel, even though she couldn’t hear it. Michael’s friends were staring at him, but he never looked back. He didn’t care what people thought about him and she realised that neither did she.
Emma got to her feet. She now knew exactly who she was, even though she no longer knew what she was. As she sat down on the other side of Tessie, she knew exactly where she belonged, and it was exactly where she was sitting. Emma turned her hearing aids back on and took Tessie’s hand.
‘My mum didn’t listen,’ Tessie said quietly, her eyes still looking so dead. ‘I tried to tell her, but she didn’t want to know. She kept pretending like I wasn’t even talking.’
‘We’ll figure it out,’ said Michael. ‘We’ll get him back.’
His face was so sincere, Emma wanted to reach out and touch it. The thought of it made her heart throb in her throat.
In unison, their phones pinged. It was the tone their
message board made. Tessie took hers out of her pocket.
‘Who is it?’ Emma asked, thinking maybe Sam was trying to lure them back.
The spark reappeared in Tessie’s eyes. She grinned. Emma pulled out her own phone.
The message was from Fabian.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my always amazing agent, MacKenzie Fraser-Bub. To my dream team at HarperCollins, especially Lisa Berryman and Kate Burnitt. To Alexandra Nahlous, editor extraordinaire. To Jon Cassir and Marie Maroun.
Thank you to my beautiful friends: Phoebe, Heather, Eloise, Christian, Nadine, Lou, Tim, Jacqui, Lara and so many more. Thanks to Martina Hoffmann and Joe Osborn for all their writing advice! Thanks to Isobel and Adam for living with me through the madness, and Roz for her help with ‘society and culture’.
Thank you to everyone at Kino Cinema for the hours you spent listening to me talking about mountains and caves and electromagnetic spectrums while chocking choc tops. Thanks especially to Tim Woodward who introduced me to Jenolan, Arlo Cook for his translating help and Lexa Francis who helped me think about the specifics of building a new world.
The first morsel of this idea came back in 2011 in a Writing for Children’s TV class, taught by Cameron Clarke at RMIT. Your belief encouraged me to pursue this concept. Thank you to my writers’ group — Rebecca Miller, Claire Stone, Jemma van Loenen and Kathryn Goldie — for your insight.
Thank you to Helina Stanley for her plasma ball experiment, as well as everyone who tried it out on YouTube. Thanks for setting your microwave on fire so I didn’t have to! Big thanks to Audrey, Harry and Lulu for always being inspiring, and to Lara and Shane for all your support.
Thank you to my amazing family. To Mum, Dad, Amy, David and Tess for your unwavering belief in me. Especially to Ryan, who came with me down into the dark caves of Jenolan despite his claustrophobia. Thank you for always being by my side, in darkness and light.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANNA SNOEKSTRA is an author living in Melbourne, Australia. After completing studies at The University of Melbourne, Anna wrote for independent films and fringe theatre and directed music videos. During this time, she worked as a cheesemonger, a waitress, a Christmas elf, a nanny, a receptionist, a cinema attendant and a film reviewer. In 2016 her acclaimed debut novel, Only Daughter, was published, followed by Little Secrets in 2017. Mercy Point is her first book for young adults.
annasnoekstra.com
COPYRIGHT
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2018
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
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harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Anna Snoekstra 2018
The right of Anna Snoekstra to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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