The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 (volume 1)

by Paul Haines

  “Dad.”

  He didn’t stir.

  “Dad?”

  Slowly, he turned. Again, the black discs of the goggles regarded me, a giant beetle with a fiery stinger. Then, his hand holding the oxy torch swung up, the arc of a flaming arrow, right to his head, and pulled the goggles off his eyes. They fixed on me, and a slight frown folded the skin above his nose, as if he was concentrating, trying to put a name to my face.

  “Hey.”

  He was staring at me, hard, like I was some Rosetta Stone that could unlock some puzzle that had stumped him. For the first and last time in my life, I felt uncomfortable under my father’s gaze. I shifted the port on my shoulder.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded slowly. His lips were dry, and he hadn’t shaved. “Are you okay?”

  Now I was really flipping out. Dad sometimes became a bit vague when Mum went away—but I thought that was just because he missed her. This was unsettling. And I had things to do.

  “I’m going to the old house for a look. I’ve got lunch.”

  Dad nodded, and his eyes ratcheted down to the flame in his hands. He shut it off.

  I turned and stepped into the sun.

  “Michael,” he said.

  I stopped and looked back. With me in the sun and him in the dark, he was just a shadow. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was looking at me. Framing words. Important words. I waited, baking.

  “Nothing.”

  I nodded, and turned and ran.

  * * *

  The old house was just a shell perched halfway up a dusted, rocky slope that rose to a sharp outcrop above. This stony hill was the highest part of Canterbury; over the rise was a steep gully that flooded suddenly when it rained, and was treacherously spiked with broken branches any other time. But the old house was in a good spot, overlooking the plains of ruddy dirt and brown grass. Just a mile away, near a solitary grove of gums, was our red-roofed home. In the far distance, I could see a puff of red dust anchored by a shifting spot of grey-white—our sheep.

  I laboured in the sun for two hours, pulling down window frames with the hammer and chisel I’d spirited from the shed, then cut them as best I could, one foot pinning the timber to the dry-rotted verandah, one hand inexpertly hacking with a rusty saw. Twice I’d hit my thumb with the hammer. The sharp pain took my mind away from my aches.

  The old kennel, my new hive, sat beside the old house like a forgotten sedan chair surrounded by bowed, worshipful grass. I’d cut the roof away, nailed in rails, and slotted my makeshift frames into the top box. I’d pulled one slat of chamferboard from a side of the kennel, and for the hole fashioned a bottom box for the brood; somewhere dark and safe where my queen could pulse and squirt out more and more servants. And an heir.

  Lunchtime. I clawed up the rocky hillside to the skeletal remains of a tree that afforded a bit of shade. I checked for ants and sat, but the hot earth scalded my buttocks, making me wince. I removed my drink and sandwiches from the old school port and sat on it. The sides crushed with a tired sigh—the bag’s usefulness had finally passed.

  The day was at its high hinge. The sun glared down from overhead, and the horizon had cooked to a colourless plasma. I unfolded the greaseproof paper and chewed, looking over the abandoned station house. It was big, with wooden floors that must have looked quite fine before the roof thatching dislodged, and sun and rain twisted the boards. The walls were largely solid, but dark cracks grew at angry angles from the corners of doorways and windows. The view here was . . . well, breathtaking. But even when my parents had bought Canterbury fifteen years ago, the station house was already long empty. I wondered why. Why had the original owners abandoned a perfectly good house with a beautiful view?

  “Because she wasn’t s’posed to be here.”

  I yelped and jumped away from the voice at my right elbow. I lost my footing on the sharp shale and fell on one knee, bending my already wounded thumb under my hand. But that pain came later; right then, I was staring wide-eyed at a woman who’d appeared silently from nowhere.

  “Snuck up on ya?”

  She was sitting on her haunches next to my crumpled school bag. She wore a plain floral shift, and her skin was black as coal. Pureblood. Her hair had grey in it, but it was thick and, once, it would have been as black as her skin and her eyes. She seemed rooted to the ground, solid as rock. Smiling at me. Maybe laughing.

  “Come on. Not gonna bite ya.” She grinned. “Not yet.”

  I blinked, not moving. She rolled her eyes, showing pearl white, and gestured me with mock annoyance to come back. I stole a look around. My father was a mile away. Beyond him, the nearest neighbour was five or more. I was alone with her.

  “Young Michael, innit?” she asked, patting the crumpled port. I nodded and cautiously sat. She was staring out across the plain, just the thinnest sliver of eye visible under her thick lashes. My heart was pumping, and sweat was leaking out of me everywhere. But her skin was dry. Black and dry and smooth. Beautiful. Still.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me. She didn’t move, just kept watching plains below. I was about to ask again, when she spoke.

  “You’d know it if you heard it.” She turned and looked at me, and smiled. Her teeth were perfect white. “But you can call me Joan, eh? Like St Joan. St Joan d’Arc, eh?”

  I nodded. I’d read last term how the Maiden of Orléans had burned for heresy.

  “Old d’Arcy, eh? That’s me, eh? Dark? d’Arc? Geddit?”

  I watched her to see if there was meanness in her words. But her smile seemed sincere. I nodded again.

  “No, they wouldn’t burn me. I just hide somewhere black, they never find me.” She chuckled. But her eyes didn’t laugh—they were watching me carefully, the slivers of curved dark iris glinting, reminding me of something. This was the first time I’d sat with a black woman. The Aboriginal settlement was twelve miles south, and the only black kids at school were the Douglas brothers, and no one in their right mind sat with them. There were blacks in town, usually sitting in groups of three or four under the fig tree near the Great War memorial; Mum always hurried me past them. Dad had hired a black stockman when I was little. Bill. Bill had his own horse. But he’d stopped working for us by the time was five, and I’d never asked why he’d left.

  Joan hummed contentedly to herself, idly cleaning under her nails with a thorn. Then I remembered what I was thinking when she’d arrived—I’d been thinking . . .

  “About the ol’ house,” she said, and looked at me. Her eyes were black pearls. “You were oglin’ the house. She still all right lookin’, even though she’s getting’ old. Bit like me, eh?”

  Joan grinned, and I opened my mouth to answer, but couldn’t think what to say. She shook her head—don’t worry.

  “Thought I’d tell you why the white fellas give ‘er up.” She raised her eyebrows—do you want to know?

  I nodded.

  “Didn’t like the colour,” she said. She paused, then burst into deep laughter. It bounced off the rocks and carried away in the breeze. For a guilty moment, I was afraid Dad would hear it, look out, and somehow see me all this way away talking to an abo.

  “Only kidding,” said Joan.”‘No, this ain’t ground for building. This is special ground. Precious ground. You can feel it, can’t you, Michael?”

  I thought about that. “It’s got a good view,” I said.

  She laughed again, deep and good, refreshing as a waterhole. “Good view, yeah.” She sniffed. The sound echoed slightly off the rocks above and the red mud walls below. “No, this a wunona place. A place to come and sleep, dream the understanding of things. But you sleep here every night like them folk,” she nodded down at the empty house, “you see too much.”

  She pursed her lips and looked at me. I could feel her eyes testing mine, poking to see if I understood.

  “Bad dreams?” I said.

  She nodded. Good.

  “This
place gave them nightmares?”

  She shifted. For the first time, I noticed the pattern on her dress wasn’t of flowers at all, but intertwined insects, and what I’d thought were petals were their wings.

  “No, not nightmares. Just things. Things how they are.” Joan shrugged. “Seein’ things how they are, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”

  I looked at the abandoned house. When it was first built, it would have been the only structure in a hundred square miles. If every night in it were plagued by fitful dreams, how would you feel? No one to hear you cry out. Nowhere to run. Alone and haunted.

  “Where’s that postman of yours?” asked Joan.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. And my heart did a funny little drop. She knew I was waiting for the mail. How did she know? I looked at her. But, again, she was still as stone, a black sphinx watching the whipsnake dust road a mile away.

  “Oh, I know bits and pieces, Michael.” She winked at me. “I know you don’t have bad dreams.”

  My mouth was dry. The cordial had soaked into the bread in my gut, making a soggy ball that sat queasily. She was right. I never dreamed. I woke each morning in a muzzy headed malaise that lifted like fog by breakfast. I never remembered what went through my head in the night.

  “Are you . . . are you a kadaitcha woman, Joan?”

  I’d heard that the Douglas boys had an uncle who was a kadaitcha, a medicine man. He pointed the bone at some bloke who’d sold the family a dud washing machine, and the salesman had wasted away and died just two months later. Or so I’d heard. Joan looked at me, and raised her eyebrows. Maybe impressed that I knew the word. Maybe offended.

  “Not me. Just a silly old black bitch, me, eh? Talkin’ shit with a silly young white fella.”

  She nudged me and smiled. It was a brilliant smile—pure black and pure white. I would remember it many years later, walking across the checkerboard tile floor of a hotel foyer in Marseilles. I’d broken down there, curled on the marble staircase, bawling like a toddler, unable to stop. All the other tourists shrank away.

  But then, that kiln-dry midday sitting above the old station house, everything was in equilibrium. The future hadn’t started, and the past hadn’t unveiled. Joan held the scales. Smiling.

  I smiled back.

  The air was still. No breeze wishpered sand at the dead tree trunk we sat under. No crows called their kin to meat. There was no hint, just then, of the dust storm that was brewing at the edge of the world, ready to smother this awful day. Just an ignorant white boy and a mysterious black woman, talking shit.

  “Talking shit,” I said. I think that was the first time I’d sworn in front of an adult. I turned to see if I was in trouble. Joan just smiled at me. But not at what I’d said, I now know, but at what was coming.

  “You a gamblin’ man, Mister Michael?” asked Joan.

  I blinked and frowned. Was I? I’d gambled that my parents wouldn’t learn that I’d bought stuff through the mail against their wishes. I’d gambled that they wouldn’t find my secret hive here in this special, ghostly place. I’d gambled that I could come up with a year’s worth of excuses to regularly visit my hive once it took hold.

  “I reckon,” I replied.

  Joan nodded. “Righto, then,” she said.

  Still on her haunches, she dusted her hands, like a sideshow huckster readying to display some sleight of hand. And as I watched her fingers twitch, I noticed that the pattern on her dress wasn’t made of generic insects. They were bees. Blue and green and yellow, with honeycomb wings. My jaw slid open.

  “You watchin’ my arse or my hands, boy?” asked Joan.

  She was smiling again.

  I dragged my eyes back to her hands. She held them both in front of her as lightly clenched fists. I could see the sweet gradation of her skin colour from the black back of her hand to the coffee colour on the side of her palm; I could see the stark crescents of white nails on black whorls. And, still, not a drop of sweat.

  “Two choices, Mister Michael: left or right.”

  She turned her closed fists toward me, grinning.

  If the sun heating the earth makes a sound, I heard it then. Because there wasn’t another noise. The world was deathly still.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked.

  “Well. You pick one. You pick the right one, you get another choice. You pick the wrong one, you go away from here and never come back up. Never have no bad dreams. Never have no good ones, neither.”

  Her lips pulled back further. Her eyes closed tighter—just thin slices of shining white and glistening black. And I remembered, then, what her eyes reminded me of: the Persian bee brooch, the one in the book, with its stripes of mother of pearl and polished jet. Untouched by time. Ancient, unsettling beauty. And suddenly, this all seemed very serious. My heart began to thud a little harder.

  “What if I don’t choose?”

  Joan cocked her head and laughed.

  “Oh, I reckon you’ll choose, Michael. You’re a gamblin’ man.”

  She was right. I would choose. And I did. Before I could stop myself, I tapped her right fist.

  She smiled, and uncurled her fingers. On her umber palm sat a bee. A bee unlike any I’d ever seen. At least, not with waking eyes.

  It was large, half as big as the cardboard rolls of ten-cent pieces checkout girls crack open into their tills. Its body was gold-furred, and its eyes were sapphire. The bands of its abdomen weren’t brown and yellow, but silver and blood red, shining like a crystal. Its legs were jet black and long. And it moved. It crooked one slender leg to draw its divinely fine antenna down for preening. It was the Queen. The Queen I dreamed of, and the Queen I’d forgotten. Memories flooded back in a torrent. Memories of the weeks after I’d first seen the Persian brooch when nights were thick with dreams of starting my own hive. In those dreams, I’d wake to a golden morning and rush to the ice-white hive. Cocooned in a safe aura of sweet blue smoke, I’d crack open the brood box and find her. Not plain and bloated and wormish, as I later found real Queen bees later to appear, but gemlike and scintillating and perfect—exactly like the bee on the black woman’s palm.

  “Remember?” Joan whispered.

  I nodded, transfixed. The Queen flexed her wings: flawless mica teardrops. Her compound eyes glittered under the white sun—each a hundred eyes, watching me.

  “She’s not real,” I whispered.

  Joan shrugged. “Take her. See.”

  I stretched out my hand. She opened her other fist—empty—and with that free hand grabbed my wrist. Her skin was dry and cool, and her grip strong as iron. She dropped the bee into my palm. I could feel her weight, the touch of her fine feet on my pale, damp skin.

  “See?” asked Joan. “You do dream.”

  The Queen stung.

  Pain flared in my hand and swept up my arm—like flames, it burned, dwarfing the throbbing in my thumb, the stab in my knee, the bruises on my neck and . . .

  “And?” asked Joan.

  And the other pain.

  The pain that came at night. When I couldn’t breathe. When my head was pushed against the mattress. When Mum was away. The pain I dreamed, and forgot I dreamed.

  “No dream, Mister Michael.”

  The acid burning of the poison spread into my shoulder, up my neck, into my face—a bonfire.

  I screamed.

  But my cries were muffled by my pillow, enough so I could hear the sobbing behind me.

  The poison tightened my throat and filled my eyes. Everything burned. Fire roared in my ears. Everything was red and swollen, ready to burst. The sky, the land, everything—except Joan. Black as ash. Still as rock. She smiled.

  “Remember, now?”

  The world flooded. My eyes swam wet. My throat gagged tight. I was drowning, unable to breathe. Underwater . . . with the back door locked.

  I nodded.

  The pain stopped.

  I sucked hot air into my lungs. My heart sprinted to catch it.

  The world was silent
again, the quiet broken only by my snotty breaths shuddering in and out, echoing off the rocks.

  Joan, carved from black granite, watched the sky. Sniffing back mucus, I followed her gaze.

  A quadrant of the sky was closing over in a red-black eyelid. Dust storm coming.

  Then I remembered: the bee.

  Joan still held my left wrist, but my right palm was empty. I looked around. The jewelled bee was seated, again, on Joan’s hand. As I reached for it, her fingers closed over it—a strong obsidian cage.

  “Gamblin’ man?”

  I looked up to her face. All trace of smile was gone. Her eyes watched me, cool as the insect’s.

  “You want your daddy dead?”

  I blinked. And felt the first touch of a breeze. Air drawn from the north, down toward the hungry dust storm.

  “No.” My voice was a weak croak.

  Joan cocked her head.

  “No wonder you white folks lie so good. Start ’em early. But man . . . ”

  She looked at the bee turning itself in her hand, sparkling in the sun, red on red, white on silver. “Your dreams, they are beauties.” She looked up at me.

  “Tell you what, gamblin’ man. “Nuther shot. Left or right. Left, I let you go, you run and save your daddy. Right, you keep your dream.”

  The haze preceding the storm crept over the sun, casting a pewter pall over the plain. In the far distance, the sheep were running. The pernicious eyelid of the dust crept closer to our home. I figured ten minutes was about how long it would take to get there.

  My whisper was cracked and broken. “You are a kadaitcha woman.”

  “Whatever you want, gamblin’ man. Just choose.”

  I looked down at our farm house. So white and small under such a huge, red wave. How can so much poison come from such a little thing?

  I tapped Joan’s right hand, the hand which held the Queen bee.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, she let out a sigh, and rocked back on her haunches. The flowers of her dress were nondescript. Not bees, just flowers. Plain daisies. She chuckled, and casually dropped the bee into my palm. I quickly cupped my other hand over it.

  “Know why the real Joan Darky got all burned up?” asked Joan.