‘What do you mean?’
‘Ask him what time we’re in.’
‘How can I do that? He won’t measure time like us. We use whitefella’s time.’
‘Ask him if he’s ever seen people like us before, with our colour skin, and clothes.’
Meg paused. ‘All right,’ she said finally. She turned to Wullamudulla, and began to speak. Her voice was low, and guttural. Wullamudulla glanced at Martin, then back to Meg, as though realising that she was speaking for them both. Meg spoke haltingly at first, then faster as Wullamudulla seemed to understand. She looked different, thought Martin. He wondered if she’d grown more like Nellie as she used her language.
Wullamudulla’s attention was on Meg now. He answered her, his replies sharp and clear. Suddenly he laughed.
Meg turned back to Martin.
‘He’s never seen people with skin like ours, or with clothes like ours. He thought we were spirits at first, from the stars, mummoogang, he called us. It means sort of like spirits. But then he decided we couldn’t be, because spirits wouldn’t have been so stupid.’
Wullamudulla laughed again.
‘Wang-ang . . .’ he agreed, rubbing absently at a burn on his arm.
‘That means “fool”,’ translated Meg.
‘We weren’t stupid. We just didn’t know where to go.’
Meg nodded. ‘I tried to explain. The cave isn’t here in my time. There must have been a rock slide way back in the past. It was just boulders and trees last time I saw it.’
‘So we must be a fair way back,’ said Martin slowly. ‘Before white people came here. Maybe thousands of years back. Tens of thousands.’
Meg shivered. ‘Do you think we’ll get back to our own times?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Martin firmly. ‘All we have to do is follow the path that Ted told me and Nellie told you. That’s why Ted was so definite about what path I had to follow. It can’t be coincidence that it’s the same path Nellie told you. It doesn’t even follow the farm boundaries properly.’
Meg’s face was black with smoke and soot from burning leaves. Even the red of her hair was dulled, with a singed patch at one end. Her eyes looked scared. ‘I’m sure we’ll get back,’ Martin reassured her. ‘All we have to do is keep on walking.’
Meg nodded, still unsure. ‘I hope so,’ she said.
Wullamudulla watched them, as though trying to understand their words. He touched Martin on the shoulder again. ‘Wunda . . .’ he began, then seemed to realise it was no use. He turned back to Meg. His voice echoed in the tiny cave, clear above the crackle of dead wood as it fell outside, and the licking sounds from the last bright flames.
‘He thinks we must be from some distant tribe,’ explained Meg. ‘One that’s too far away to understand the languages round here. I don’t have the words to tell to him what’s happened. I don’t even know the word for time.’
‘Ask him what he’s doing here,’ suggested Martin. Maybe he could help them get through the blackened country till the time changed back again.
Meg spoke a few words. Suddenly Wullamudulla’s grin faded. He looked at Martin more closely, then back at Meg. He spoke sharply, angrily.
‘What is it?’ asked Martin curiously. Meg shook her head at him as Wullamudulla continued speaking. The laughter had left his face now. His eyes seemed darker, firm and serious.
Meg glanced at Martin, then spoke urgently again to Wullamudulla. He seemed to be disagreeing. He pointed out of the cave, down towards the valley, up towards the ridge. Meg spoke more vehemently, arguing.
Wullamudulla’s face set, hard as the stone of the cliff.
‘Gurragan, ngattai gulwan . . .’
‘Ngi!’ insisted Meg.
‘Gurragan,’ said Wullamudulla with great finality.
‘What’s he saying?’ demanded Martin impatiently. ‘Look, Meg, if you don’t tell me what’s going on I’m going to . . .’
‘Will you be quiet, you blue-nosed fool!’ blazed Meg.
‘Why?’
Wullamudulla said something quietly. He gestured to Martin, as though urging Meg to explain. Meg took a deep breath.
‘He’s going the same way that we are,’ she told Martin. ‘Exactly the same way. He’s come up the gorge, and he’s going to the far hill, and then to the opposite hill, except he calls it the hill of the snake’s back, then he’s . . .’
‘But that’s great!’ said Martin. ‘We can go with him. He can show us the best way to go and help us find food. He’ll . . .’
‘Will you shut your mouth!’ cried Meg desperately. ‘You big grey lump of chicken droppings, how can I make you understand! It’s not like that at all. We can’t go with him!’
‘Why?’ demanded Martin.
‘Because he’s walking his boundaries too.’
EIGHT
Into the Mist
A BRANCH CRACKED OUTSIDE, finally eaten through by the fire. It thudded on the flat black ground. It was hard to think that only a few hours ago it had been bark-covered, dappled with leaves and shadows. This was a world without shadows. The sun was still washed by smoke, the world too black to show up any shades of darkness.
Martin stared at Meg.
‘How can he be walking the boundaries?’ he demanded. ‘I mean, the farm doesn’t even exist in this time.’
‘It’s not the farm’s boundaries he’s following,’ said Meg. She chewed her plait as she tried to find the words. ‘It’s hard to explain. He’s following the same path as we are, but it has a different meaning for him. He says he’s following the path of one of his ancestors.’
‘Like we are,’ said Martin, thinking of Ted, and his grandfather, and Meg’s mother, and her grandmother as well. Could they be related in some way, he though — maybe if Ted . . .
‘Well, sort of.’ Meg broke into his thoughts. ‘The ancestor that he’s following was a brown snake.’
‘A what!’ Martin started to laugh.
‘It’s not funny,’ said Meg.
‘Of course it’s funny. He thinks his great-grandpa was a snake? That’s how his skin got that colour?’
‘He doesn’t think that at all,’ said Meg. She sounded angry.
Martin looked at her. ‘You don’t believe him?’ he asked incredulously.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think it matters if I do or not. He’s going to exactly the same points that we are. He says that they’re places where his ancestor rested or ate or did something or other thousands of years ago in the Dreamtime.’
‘I’ve heard about the Dreamtime,’ said Martin slowly. ‘Why can’t we go with him then?’
‘Because our ancestors weren’t brown snakes,’ said Meg.
Martin shrugged. ‘Crazy,’ he said.
Wullamudulla interrupted. He’d been watching them. Martin had the feeling he’d understood their argument, even though he didn’t know the words. He spoke urgently to Meg. She turned back to Martin.
‘He says we can’t be with him. He says he had a dream, but he can’t talk about it. He’ll have secret songs to sing, he’ll have to paint his body . . .’
Wullamudulla spoke again. His eyes held Meg’s. Meg’s voice dropped to a whisper.
‘He says: “It’s a journey of my feet and of my spirit. I have to go alone.” Those were his words.’
Wullamudulla’s face was suddenly stern. Martin blinked. For a moment the shadows of the cave had fallen on Wullamudulla’s face, so he looked almost like a brown snake too. Then the moment passed. Wullamudulla’s face was gentle again, but very firm. He bent down and wrapped up his spear — a long reed with bits of flaked rock embedded in gum along its tip — and an egg-shaped stone axe in the skins that had sheltered them during the fire. The skins were scorched, but still whole, soft and joined together by wide neat stitches. He looked at Meg and Martin as though he too was reluctant to part, but knew his duty. He said something that Martin couldn’t catch, then strode out of the overhang, his bundle at his side.
He looked much sm
aller suddenly against the dark burnt trees.
‘Let him go,’ said Martin. His heart contracted with a strange feeling of loss. ‘We can’t stop him anyway.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Meg. She sounded forlorn.
‘Come on.’ Martin turned his eyes from the figure striding away from them. ‘We’d better get going too. I bet he won’t mind as long as we’re far enough behind.’ He looked around at the smoking world, the trees like candles, the crumbling charcoal of their branches and the ashy ground. ‘We’ve got a long way to go before we get back tonight.’
He started out of the crevice. The ash crackled underfoot, and tufts of grass that were still grass-shaped puffed to nothing at a touch. Meg followed slowly behind.
‘Oww . . .’
‘Hey, what’s up?’
Meg looked nearly in tears. ‘It’s the ground. It’s too hot. It hurts my feet.’
Martin gestured at Wullamudulla, striding up the hill away from them. ‘He’s got bare feet and he’s all right.’
‘Maybe his feet are tougher than mine.’
‘Your feet seem pretty tough,’ said Martin, looking at the thick brown soles.
Meg flushed. She seemed embarrassed by her shoeless feet.
‘Maybe we’d better wait till the ground cools down,’ said Martin.
‘That might be hours,’ said Meg. ‘Maybe even days. We haven’t any wadyang . . . I mean water . . . or any blankets, or any food; and everything’s burnt . . .’ Her voice seemed to choke.
Martin looked at her. She was right. They couldn’t stay here. Ted was expecting him back, and Meg’s mother was expecting her. They only had the rest of the day to walk the boundaries. They had to find food, and water. He tried to think.
‘Maybe I can carry you,’ he offered.
‘You couldn’t,’ snorted Meg. ‘You’re not strong enough.’
‘Maybe you’re too heavy,’ joked Martin. ‘Anyway, I bet I can. Come on, let’s try.’
‘How?’
‘Piggyback.’ He saw she didn’t understand. ‘You get up on my back. Like this.’ He bent down.
Meg climbed gingerly onto his back. Martin straightened carefully. She wasn’t as heavy as he thought. She was much smaller than most girls he knew at school. Her bones seemed thin underneath her tatty skirt.
He began to walk. One step, two steps. The ground crunched like burnt toast. It wasn’t easy, but he could manage. Ten steps, eleven, twelve. Meg was getting heavier.
‘I can’t do it,’ he gasped.
‘You’ve got to.’ Meg’s voice was choked.
‘I can’t!’
Meg slid down his back. ‘Maybe I can make it by myself then. We’ve got to keep going . . .’ Her voice broke off in pain as her feet touched the hot soil again.
‘Malaki.’ It was Wullamudulla. He had come back. He grinned at them again, as though to say ‘stupid kids’ — but his eyes were dark with concern. He threw his possum skins on the blackened ground. ‘Malaki,’ he ordered Meg again.
Meg sat on the skins. Martin stood next to her, feeling helpless.
Wullamudulla looked around. Finally he went over to a thick-based tree, black and splintered by the fire. Tatters of black mistletoe hung like a shawl from its remaining branches.
Wullamudulla took an egg-shaped rock from his bundle, and swung it against the tree. The stone blade bit into the bark. He struck with the axe again, and again. The bark was showing brown now, under the coating of charcoal. Wullamudulla wriggled the axe blade into the cut and pulled. A long strip of smooth-backed bark peeled away, thick as a car tyre, black on one side and smooth bright yellow on the other. Wullamudulla threw it on the ground, then peeled back another strip. He reached up and hauled down hunks of mistletoe stem.
‘Uungiadghe dyunna.’
Meg held her feet out. Wullamudulla began to tie the bark across them with the vine, twisting it round her toes and up her ankles. They looked like a crazy pair of thongs. She stood up uncertainly.
Wullamudulla looked at her inquiringly. She nodded. ‘They feel good,’ she said.
‘Will they stay on?’ asked Martin.
‘I think so.’ Meg wriggled her toes. Wullamudulla gazed at them with satisfaction, then went back to the tree. He started to chop again with the small stone axe. One cut, two, another cut, and then he waited. Slowly the sap began to ooze out from the cut.
‘Jou woi.’ Wullamudulla beckoned to Martin.
Martin glanced at Meg questioningly. She shrugged. ‘Do what he says.’
Martin walked over to the tree. Wullamudulla dipped a finger in the sap. He started to spread it over Martin’s burns.
‘Hey!’ Martin drew back his hands, then stopped. The sap felt cool. It couldn’t hurt, could it?
‘How does it feel?’ inquired Meg, shuffling awkwardly on her bark thongs.
‘A bit better, I think,’ said Martin. ‘Sticky. How did he know which tree to choose when they’re all burnt? Meg, do you think he’s changed his . . .’ He broke off as Wullamudulla spoke again.
‘What’s he saying?’ whispered Martin.
‘He’s saying that we don’t have brown snake ancestors, so we shouldn’t be following in his footsteps.’
‘Snakes don’t have feet,’ objected Martin.
‘The Ancestor Snake did.’
Martin snorted. ‘How can you have a snake for an ancestor?’
Meg looked at him hesitantly. ‘Nellie told me, in the Dreamtime, when the world was being created, when an ancestor passed they left spirits along their paths.’ She paused again, as if wondering how much she should tell Martin. ‘Nellie said that if you’re going to have a baby you have to feel for its first kick inside you. That’s when the spirit of the ancestor joins with the baby, depending on where you are. If Wullamudulla’s mother was where the brown snake ancestor went when Wullamudulla first kicked inside her, then that would make him brown snake too.’
‘That’s crazy,’ said Martin. ‘I mean, that way we could have the same ancestor as him.’
Meg shrugged.
‘You don’t believe that rubbish?’ demanded Martin.
Meg was silent. She turned to Wullamudulla and spoke to him urgently. He shook his head. His face was gentler now, but still determined. He looked at both Meg and Martin, then strode off again up the hill.
‘We don’t need him,’ said Martin uncertainly.
‘I don’t know,’ said Meg. ‘It’d surely be easier if he was with us. But we can’t make him stay with us. Let’s let him get a bit in front. Then he mightn’t feel we’re following him. We don’t want to offend him after he saved our lives.’
‘Huh,’ said Martin. ‘We’ve every right to follow him. They’re our boundaries too.’
‘We’d slow him down,’ said Meg sadly, gazing at the figure striding up the hill. ‘Look, the mist’s coming in. Maybe it’ll moisten the ground and cool things off a bit.’
Martin lifted his head. A white mist was threading through the trees, covering the valley like a billowing white sea. It hung like a white fringe over the hill. He could just see Wullamudulla marching into it, his bundle beneath his arm, his body turning grey like the air, thinner and thinner. Then he was gone.
‘Come on,’ Martin grunted. ‘He’s far enough ahead now. He won’t be able to see us in that mist. What he doesn’t see won’t hurt him.’
Meg shuffled forward, placing her feet carefully. Martin took her arm to help her along. Even the stones were charred, like broken knives turned black and orange. Martin’s Reeboks were grimed with soot and scratched by stones. They would be ruined. He stumbled over a tussock, burnt like half-shaved whiskers. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, as Meg clutched his elbow.
They began to climb the hill. Martin could smell the mist now, cold and wet and strange. Its perfume seemed to lie on top of the scent of the charred ground, like cheese on a school sandwich.
The mist teased around his ankles. It wisped around his face, making it harder to see the still black trees around the
m, their short black branches like broken arms, like fingers reaching out for help. The mist swirled and danced around them, hiding the sun. It seemed to glow as though it spread the sunlight everywhere. The world was bright with mist. Even the sad black ground was hidden. It was as though you dropped your feet into nothingness, till the earth below caught your foot and held it.
The mist smelt different now they were inside it. Like something hot and sweet was drifting towards them; a bit like the flood the day before, but something more. Then suddenly it started to thin again, like flour drifting against their faces. The slope of the hill in front was just visible.
‘MARTIN!’ BREATHED MEG.
Martin stopped. Meg took his hand, as though she was scared to stand alone. Her fingers felt warm.
The ground was no longer black. It was green, a strange green, like bruises on your knees. It wasn’t grass at all, or like any plant he’d ever seen. It stretched like a green carpet, then humped in weird round shapes, like an animal was crouched beneath.
Something loomed out of the mist, a bush like a tree fern gone wrong. Its spiky leaves dripped with moisture. A bird screeched in the distance, unlike any bird he’d ever heard.
The world was a pattern of long sharp leaves and damp green earth, broken by tongues of brilliant red.
‘Martin,’ whispered Meg again.
Suddenly the last wisps of mist cleared, as suddenly as it had come. It was as though a curtain was pulled up to the sky. The world was much too bright. The sky was much too fierce a blue. The air smelt of steam and soap, like the bathroom after a shower.
‘Where are we?’ whispered Meg. ‘Martin, I . . .’
Then they heard the scream.
NINE
A Diprotodont Called Dracula
‘WULLAMUDULLA!’ CRIED MEG. She kicked off her thongs frantically as she gazed around.
‘No,’ said Martin. ‘It wasn’t him!’
‘Who then? Who was it?’ The scream came again, sharp and angry behind them.
‘No one.’
‘No one!’ Meg backed towards one of the tree-like trunks.
The scream was nearer now. ‘Geek! Geeeek! Geeek!’
Walking the Boundaries Page 7
