Dark Confluence

by Rosemary Fryth

There was a noncommittal grunt on the other end of the line, and then silence for a moment or two. Matt finally replied, “I’ll think on it. Dad knew more about these matters than the rest of the family. You see, he accepted without question what Mum was seeing. Mum never talked about it, but after she passed he wanted to tell us what happened all those years ago.”

  He paused, “It’s hard for me to imagine this sort of thing being true, but Dad is not one for spinning a tall tale and I’d never known a lie to come out of Mum’s lips.”

  “I’m not lying either,” Jen said desperately. “Please take your family off the Hinterland, at least for a little while.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Matt said. “We’ve got the bulk of the fruit in now, so I’m sure I can arrange some time away. God knows, it has been years since we’ve had a holiday and my nephew Ben has been pestering us to visit. Perhaps this is a good time to go away and take a break.”

  Silence stretched on for a while, and then Matt asked, “What are you going to do? Are you going to leave the Hinterlands as well?”

  Jen swallowed, “I can’t. I wish I could, but I have to do something important. I’m not sure what yet, but I can’t leave. I must stay on.”

  “If you feel you must; then you must,” he answered obliquely. “I don’t know how this gift of yours works, but you have to follow your heart. That’s what Mum always said.” He drew an unsteady breath, “Anyway, I must go. If we are to leave after the funeral, then I have preparations to make, and Cathy and Fiona need to be told.”

  After that, he said his goodbye and rang off. Jen felt somewhat comforted, she liked the Delany family and hoped she had acted in time to spare them further harm. Jen picked up the local phone book; she had still a couple more calls to make.

  *

  Carma wandered listlessly about her shop. Sales had picked up, but she still was not content. Something nagged at the back of her mind, but annoyingly, she could not identify what it was. She had been feeling vague for a couple of days now, a far call from her usual crisp and decisive self. Last night’s EHGAG meeting should have angered her, but she had just accepted it. She should be grinding her teeth, yet she had resignedly shrugged her shoulders.

  Last night, five members of EHGAG had handed in their resignations. The meeting had started poorly, everyone slouching in, looking as if they hadn’t slept in a week. The younger members creeping in quietly, their eyes shadowed, seemingly jumping at the slightest noise. Then, Steve arrived and even before he sat down, he apologetically admitted that Sonja had been spooked since the gum tree had fallen on her house and that they now planned to sell their respective properties, and make a move south to Sydney.

  Then Adam, who had been silent throughout the meeting, had stood, stared witheringly at Carma and told her that he disapproved of the direction and methods of the group. He also said that EHGAG was now no longer an environmental conservation group and that Carma was corrupting their original purpose and that he had no further interest in supporting their actions. Taking his jacket, he had left without a backward glance. Of course, where Adam went, Rod would always follow, and shamefacedly, he had mumbled some pathetic excuse and left too. After that, there was silence and then young Maryanne, her face scarlet with embarrassment said that she too was leaving. She was scared about what had been happening and that morning her parents had driven up from Brisbane, telling her they wanted her home. They had been watching the news broadcasts and no longer felt that Emerald Hills was a safe place for her to live. They wanted her out by tomorrow, no argument, no questions asked.

  Carma usually did not frighten easily, if she had, then she would not have left the safe and familiar confines of university. However, she had struck out, keen to make her mark and achieve her personal ambition of power, wealth and influence. Carma really did not believe in any particular political ideology, but she did yearn for power, and had long ago identified the green progressive movement as a suitable vehicle to achieve her aims.

  At university, she had grown familiar with the activist type - young, naive, wet-behind-the-ears, all so touchingly desperate to change the world of their parents. So a few years earlier, she had moved here, started up her business and joined EHGAG - and had subsequently used it as ruthlessly as any corporate mogul would. Carma had found it so very easy to manipulate EHGAG, and as for those who were older and should have known better – they either shared Carma’s hard-nosed goals, or simply were hopelessly naive. Adam had fallen into the latter category. At his age, he should have understood what the game was about, understood what the rules were. However, up until recently he had seemed blissfully naive and unaware, believing that what the group did was environmentalism. Carma wondered dully what had changed his mind.

  Sonja was the last remaining of the stick-in-the-mud type that had resented her muscling in. However, as of last night Sonja was no longer a problem, pity then about Steve though. Carma shrugged, she had little empathy for those who fell to the side. If they did not possess the vision for the big picture, then she was well rid of them. Scruples just got in the way in this game.

  Yet all her planning and conniving seemed to matter little now. Carma had sat silent and dumbfounded during the entire episode last night. She knew she should be seething, knew she should be shouting, dragging them back, demanding proper answers. Yet, she did nothing. Que sera sera. Irritatingly, she now had that song going through her head. Her brain was like a sieve now, for a moment, she wondered if someone had slipped something into her green tea last night. Still, EHGAG was holding together they could renew from four members. They had been in worse straits before. She was only thirty-eight. She still had decades of activism ahead of her.

  Carma looked outside the shop windows and stared at the heavy mist that, days later, refused to lift. She should feel concerned, she should feel alarmed, yet did not. She recognised that the town was changing, yet felt little disquiet. Normally, she would have been out, investigating, seeing if she could turn anything different to her advantage, yet now...meh. She felt...hollowed out, a husk blown about by the will of the wind. It was as if someone else was pulling the strings, making her dance, setting the rules. It was an unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation. It was as if her desire for influence and power had drained away from her as sand through her fingers. Carma knew she should protest this change in herself, yet although she recognised the change, she could do nothing. She felt nothing but apathy.

  ‘Que sera sera...Damn!’

  *

  Below the surface of the town, the natural energies and powers that comprised the Fae path swirled. What used to flow straight and steady now spun in eddies, making the ground tremble and shudder beyond human awareness. Beyond the town, the path lay quiescent and in darkness, until much further on, the natural power reasserted itself and flowed as normal onwards.

  Moira stood with her small host of rebel Fae and watched the slow, but inexorable transformation of the town from a human construct to something else. She saw the saplings growing taller every day - soon even they would be visible to mortal eyes. She saw the still invisible cracks in buildings, as tendrils of green worked their way remorselessly into brick, tile and mortar. Eventually, they would pull even the stoutest building apart into ruin. It would not be long now and then the buildings would fall apart. For the moment, the mist and fog clouded mortal vision and deceived mortal minds, but soon even the half-blind humans would see their town disintegrating around them, and then they would know fear. Moria would love to see them panic and run, however it would be soon time for her infant court to move. The natural power was pooling here, and the last thing she wanted was to be trapped alongside the enraged Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and to face their wrath and revenge on anything that moved, even on the innocent.

  She sensed too that the forerunners of the courts were near, only days away by her reckoning. She had already sensed the Great Horned One, the Green Man and the Hunt a scarce few days, weeks prior. Those ancient elementals and powers were not
allied to any court, but they remained as primal random energies pursuing their own ends. She had tried to draw them across to her court, but with no success. They simply did not listen or care. It was as fruitless as attempting to strike a deal with the wind and the tides.

  She had sensed the Gancanagh here also, pursuing yet another mortal woman. The woman was an odd one, small, unassuming and plain to behold, yet possessing a quiescent power. It was no wonder that she drew the Gancanagh to her, for despite her unprepossessing looks, she shone as brightly as a flame to the Fae. Moira had been in two minds as to whether or not she would be a nuisance, and then coldly dismissed her, since the mortal seemed frightened of her own shadow. Even if she could act, she would not act; despite her power, she did not have the character to do so. Stupid mortals, they were so easy to control and fool. Still, she thought, the mortal was worth watching, her protections only extended so far and she might yet be manipulated through her friends and associates. It was a pity that the old mortal man had died under his own steam, it would have amused Moira to plant the seeds of despair and horror in his mind.

  Moira turned away. Soon she would be away from this human fouled place and back to the old lands where the history and essence of her kind was overlaid on every barrow and standing stone. There she could build her own court and rule over all her own kind.

  *

  Bill Anders from the Brisbane Channel Eight Network cursed as he tripped yet again on the footpath, this time almost falling flat on his face.

  “What in God’s name is wrong with this footpath?” he growled, cursing under his breath. “Geezus, either I’m going blind or the council must be lax with their repairs. That’s the fifth time I’ve tripped in the last hour.”

  “I’ve had the same problem,” said Trent. “This place is bizarre. To make it worse, I’ve been getting all these weird interferences on the audio files.”

  Bill turned around to stare at his soundman, “What sort of interferences?”

  Trent shrugged, “Well, you know that audio report we did yesterday on the tremor here?”

  Bill nodded, “Sure, you sent it back to the station this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Sure did, right on time too. Mind you, I spent most of last night trying to clean it up.” He paused and yawned, “It’s hard to tell, I mean at times I could swear I heard giggling and whispering in the background. I had to try and isolate the interferences and then edit them out, it was the devil of a job.”

  “What caused it?” Bill asked.

  “No idea, but it reminded me of the old crossed-lines problems we used to sometimes get with telephone landlines.”

  “Hey guys, take a look at this,” Deven breathlessly called across from where he had been setting up his camera equipment.

  The other two men walked over.

  “What’s the problem?” Bill asked, picking up the note of fear in the young cameraman’s voice.

  “You mentioned the problem with the footpath before, well take a look at this,” he indicated that Bill should look through the camera lens.

  Bill peered through, “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  Deven stood at his shoulder, “Tell me what you see.”

  Bill squinted, “Footpath, people tripping...good, it’s not just me. Hmmm, lots of cracks in the concrete, crap job the council are doing here. Oh, and that’s odd, the fog seems less severe looking through the camera” He looked up, “Anything else I should be seeing?”

  “No, now take a look around you. Do you see the same as through the camera lens?”

  Bill looked around him, “Well to the naked eye the cracks aren’t that visible, and the fog is definitely heavier too.”

  Deven cleared his throat, “Now take a look at the same area with this camera.” He passed over to his boss a small hand-held digital camera.”

  Bill obediently peered at the screen and immediately swore.

  “Hell, where did they come from?” Bill lifted the camera away from his eyes, stared again, shook his head, and then looked back to the camera screen.

  “What?” asked Trent.

  “Take a look for yourself,” Bill said, handing the camera over.

  “Geezus! Where did all those trees come from?” gasped Trent.

  Bill turned to the cameraman, “You pulling our legs, mate? Is that some kind of trick camera?”

  Deven shook his head, “I wish it was a joke. The only thing different about that camera is that it is a full spectrum model; it can see both into the ultraviolet and into infrared. You see, I’ve always had a bit of an interest in the paranormal, love watching those ghost hunting type shows on cable telly. They use these types of cameras all the time, most usually at night, so I invested in one, do a bit of ghost hunting myself on the side; never been able to catch anything...until now.”

  Bill spluttered, “Are you trying to tell me, Deven, that all those trees that are tangling and tripping people up are...are…ghosts?”

  Deven shrugged, “Perhaps, perhaps not, but it does seem to be a paranormal phenomenon. You saw for yourself that they are only visible outside normal human visual range. Explain that to me.”

  Bill shook his head, “I can’t explain it.”

  Then Deven grinned, “Which gives me an idea for another angle we can do here - Emerald Hills, the Possessed Town.” He turned to the others, “What do you reckon?”

  Trent nodded, “It’s a new angle, and we can work our experience at the hotel into it. Perhaps, we can sneak back in and try to do a bit of ghost hunting ourselves?”

  Bill shuddered, his face going grey with fear, “Look, I’m all for following up on an angle, but that place really freaked me out. I’m not sure if I want to go back in there.”

  Trent stared at the normally hard-nosed reporter, “That’s not like you Bill.”

  Bill shrugged, “War-zones, fine, riots, I can handle, and when it comes to political shenanigans, I’m like a pig in mud – but this, paranormal stuff...it’s fringe. I’m not sure if the network will want to follow it up. Do we really want to go there?”

  “It seems to be where the story is, Bill.” Trent reminded him, “After all, Deven’s camera seems to give us the proof. When was the last time that a regular news team went after the paranormal?”

  “Which is my point, exactly,” Bill said. “If we do this we’re on our own. Even if we break a big story we’ll lose our serious news credentials. Do you really want to do that?”

  Trent looked at him, “I’ll follow a story wherever it leads me.”

  Bill glanced across to Deven, “What do you think?”

  Deven grinned, “I’m keen for it. This would be like a dream come true for me.”

  Bill groaned. “Ok, but first I want to run it past Mac back at the office. I know it is rare for me to go checking with a producer before we run with a story, but I’m getting the heebie-jeebies about this one.”

  Trent nodded, “Fair enough mate, let’s check and see. In the meantime we can at least do some groundwork here.”

  Deven indicated his camera, “I’ll keep filming with this. There may be other things that might turn up, not just the ghost trees.”

  *

  Chapter 18

  Jen surveyed herself in the bedroom mirror. The charcoal grey suit that she had bought for client meetings was still in good order and seemed suitable apparel for attending a funeral. Grey stockings, black low-heeled shoes, and her long dark hair tied back neatly – she presented to the world a sober, almost puritanical picture. Jen frowned in annoyance. Her face seemed paler than normal, as if she was the one being coffined today and not Tom. Inexpertly, she applied a little makeup, but that made it worse than ever, now she indeed looked as if she was the end-result of an undertaker’s endeavour. Hastily, she took a washcloth and removed the makeup. She would remain pale; after all, it was not as if she was attending a party.

  She glanced at the alarm clock, still an hour and a half before the funeral was to begin. There was time enough to drive
into town and pick up a local paper from the news agency.

  Outside the house, the mist persisted, hanging heavy and flaccid across the countryside. Already, there seemed to be a subtle change in the environment. There was now lichen growing where there wasn’t before, and a slimy, slippery surface underfoot in places where there grass did not grow or was dying off. Jen noticed more mushrooms too; most of them were the usual poisonous varieties, also other types unknown to her. The dampness clung to everything, both inside and outside the house, and Jen had spent most of yesterday scrubbing mould from the walls and other surfaces, and despite her strenuous efforts, she had awakened this morning to find most of the mould back again. At times, Jen wondered if the sun would ever shine again over Emerald Hills.

  In town, there weren’t as many people on the streets and those who were there were strangers, their faces unknown to her. It seemed as if the locals were staying home, or moving away entirely. Jen hoped for their sakes that the latter was the case. Everywhere she looked, the town seemed to be showing signs of decay or malfunction. Even the traffic lights, if they worked at all, intermittently flashed red, as if their warning extended beyond directing traffic flow, onto the world at large.