Song for a Scarlet Runner

by Julie Hunt

  A sob rose in my throat. I couldn’t imagine leaving Shadow behind.

  ‘We’ll go another way,’ I said. ‘We’ll go by land.’

  ‘The river is the way to the marshes.’ Mother shook her head, and Shadow howled again. I went to him and pressed my face against his neck.

  ‘Lovely hound,’ I whispered. ‘We will be lost without you.’ Then I took a deep breath and told myself to be strong. What had Siltboy said in my song – bold-brave?

  ‘Goodbye, Great Hound.’

  He gave me a lick that almost flung me into the river.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ I said.

  Siltboy had the same look of misery on his face as the dog. ‘I’m sorry, Peat. I cannot leave my Shadow.’

  ‘What! Must I go alone?’

  ‘You’re not alone,’ Siltboy said. ‘Sleek is with you.’

  The sleek jumped into the water and out again, making irritable clicking sounds.

  ‘Please, Siltboy.’ I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t come.

  Siltboy looked at the flourbag in his hands. ‘I is ham-stringed,’ he said. ‘Half my heart is roped to my hound and the other to my friend. I is pulled split-ways.’

  Mother Moss came to his rescue.

  ‘You can’t be in two places at once, Siltboy,’ she said kindly. ‘If you wish to stay here with Shadow, I could certainly use your help.’

  Siltboy brightened. ‘I can chop wood and work the bread furnace,’ he said. ‘My grandmother has need of me!’

  I wanted to say I had need of him as well, but the sleek fixed me with a stare that made me bite my tongue.

  ‘You is keen, Peat. Be stout and steady.’ Siltboy handed me the food bag.

  ‘Go well, my dear,’ Mother Moss said. ‘Your sleek is waiting. He has no patience for long farewells. May the river carry you safely, and may your return be swift.’ She put her arms around me and I sank into her soft belly. ‘And if you ever need a grandmother, I’m yours, just as I am Siltboy’s.’

  ‘I do need one,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Mother Moss.’

  I turned to Siltboy. ‘I’ll see you soon, my friend. We’ll go to the Plains and meet Marlie and Longreach and Wim, then we’ll travel on with the cattle.’

  ‘Peat, friendship is forged, but I’ll not sally forth for the herding life. I would stay with Grandmother and work the bread-forge. When she grows small, I will grow big.’

  He held out his hand and I shook it like I had when we’d first met on the far side of the Silver River.

  ‘Fare you well,’ he said. ‘You have your luck and your sleek. We will be friends forever.’

  I put the flower at the front of the boat and the sleek sat next to it. As Mother Moss gently pushed us away from the shore the current took the boat, and I was carried around the bend in the river before I knew it.

  When I turned to wave, all I could see was the woe tree leaning over the water, its grey leaves trailing in the breeze.

  THIEF OF TIME

  ‘No back-looking,’ I told myself as I was carried downstream. It began to rain and I couldn’t help imagining Mother Moss and Siltboy cosy in the hut.

  The sleek jumped in and out of the boat. He didn’t care about the rain – he was glad that we were on our way. He glided along beside me, then he scrambled onto the prow and crouched there, leaning into the wind with his fur blown back. He looked perfectly happy.

  ‘It’s all right for you, Sleek. You haven’t lost anything,’ I said.

  We passed Mother Moss’s beehives, and I watched the trees on the bank change from a solid wall of dark pines to open forest. I wondered how long it would take me to get to the marshes and tried to remember the trip paddling upstream with Eadie. The current was so strong, I didn’t know how we’d managed it.

  Once or twice the reed-boat got caught in an eddy and was swirled around so that we were facing the wrong way. I tried to keep near the bank but I didn’t have much control, so in the end I put the paddle down and let the river take me.

  The rain grew heavier, and sometimes the bank disappeared in grey mist. I wondered what time it was. I would need to find shelter and a place to sleep before it got dark. When I saw a spot on the riverbank where I could land I paddled towards it, but the sleek didn’t approve. He spat at me, and when I ignored him he jumped onto the shaft of the paddle, ran down to the blade and clung there, making paddling impossible. The spot where I could have stopped sailed past.

  ‘You’re trouble, Sleek,’ I said.

  He flicked his ears and climbed back into the boat. After a while he yawned and went to sleep.

  I watched the riverbank gliding past. Feathery trees grew down to the edge of the water, and I could see that the ground was dry beneath them. When the river rounded a bend, the boat was swept out wide towards the shallows. I quietly took up the paddle and steered towards the shore without waking the sleek. As the boat came to rest, he opened one eye, then he gave a sharp cry and dived into the water. He swam back into the flow of the river, glancing over his shoulder as the current took him.

  ‘Come back!’ I yelled as he disappeared downstream.

  It was raining heavily and I was glad of the shelter of the trees. I gathered a few pieces of dry wood, but then I realised I didn’t have Siltboy’s flint, so I had no way of lighting a fire. It was getting dark. I hugged my knees and watched the grey water flowing past, and I hummed Siltboy’s song to keep myself company. I wasn’t hungry, but after a while I thought I would eat something to cheer myself up – some of Marlie’s cheese and one of Mother Moss’s honey cakes. But when I looked, the bag of food was gone.

  ‘Sleek!’ I yelled. ‘That’s so unfair!’

  I doubted that he heard me. He was long gone, and my voice was lost in the sound of the rushing river.

  It crossed my mind that the sleek might leave me. He seemed so eager to get to the marshes.

  ‘I don’t care!’ I yelled. ‘I’ll find my own way.’

  I curled up at the foot of one of the feathery trees and went to sleep.

  When I woke the next morning, it was still raining. I was cold and hungry and miserable. I got back in the boat, wishing Siltboy was with me. It was too hard travelling alone like this. I steered out into the current, and the boat was soon moving swiftly.

  At least with the sleek gone I could stop and start when I liked, I told myself. Mother Moss had said to keep near the side of the river and the current would do the rest, so I had no fear of getting lost.

  By midmorning the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to come out. The river grew wider and slowed down a bit, and when I saw some berries growing on the bank I paddled in to shore and pulled the boat onto a small, sandy beach.

  I tasted one of the berries. It was hard and bitter, and I spat it straight out. Eadie would probably have used those berries to make some special medicine, but they were certainly no good for eating.

  I wandered into some trees behind the bushes, hoping I might find mushrooms growing beneath them, but I didn’t. I began to miss the sleek. How would I eat without him?

  I told myself it wouldn’t take me long to get to the marshes, and once I was there I could eat. Olive would give me marsh cakes, and Ebb – or Nettie, or whatever her name was – might give me a fish.

  I looked up into the trees. Perhaps I could find a bird’s nest with some eggs in it. I caught hold of a low branch and swung myself up. I hadn’t done any climbing since the night I’d left the Overhang, but I found I was still good at it. Soon I was high above the river.

  I found a nest, but it was empty so I climbed down and chose another tree, a tall one with branches that reached out over the little beach. I was near the top when I saw a messy nest above me. I could tell by the bits of dry grass and leaves dangling from it that it was new and fresh, but when I reached it I was disappointed: there were three hatchlings inside. Their eyes weren’t open yet and they had no feathers, but they must have heard me and thought I was their mother, because they cheeped loudly and opened thei
r tiny beaks, waiting to be fed.

  ‘Nothing for you, little ones,’ I said. ‘And I’m not going to eat you, either.’

  I sighed and looked down through the leaves to the reed-boat resting on the little beach, then I gasped and almost lost my footing. There were footprints around the boat. Paw prints or footprints? I was too far away to tell.

  I quickly climbed down. Once I reached the ground, I crouched behind the bushes and looked right and left. There was nobody around, but as well as my own footprints leading up from the boat, there were others beside them – human footprints and dog prints.

  I ran to the boat and pushed it out into the river, paddling hard, and only when I was moving with the current did I put down the paddle and try to catch my breath. My heart was thumping in my chest and it took a long time to slow down.

  The sun came out, and the trees on the bank changed again. There were shrubs and low bushes, and in the distance I could see pale hills. By late morning the river joined up with another, bigger one.

  ‘That’s right. This is where the river forked,’ I muttered.

  It seemed a very long time ago that Eadie and I had been paddling upstream in the other direction. I leaned over the side of the boat and had a drink. The river was really slowing down now. Soon I would have to paddle, and I couldn’t paddle without food.

  I stopped that night at a grassy place on the bank and fell asleep immediately. I had been looking at the river all day, and now the grey water filled my dreams.

  I saw Eadie’s coat, floating by with no one inside it. It looked just like the skin of a dead animal, and when I tried to reach for it, it moved away and began swirling around, caught in an eddy. I poked it with a stick to try to catch it, but it was swept downstream, so I followed, running along the bank.

  The river in my dream grew wider, and the coat drifted to midstream and got snagged there, collecting weed and sticks until it became a small island. The fur went green, and all the seeds in the coat’s many pockets swelled and sprouted. The vine that grew from beneath Eadie’s collar took root. Shrubs and saplings followed, and one tree grew up straight and tall, right in the middle of the island. The shag from the marshes circled overhead and landed in the tree, staring at me accusingly.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ I said. ‘I didn’t make the bargain.’

  I woke before dawn and found apples in the bottom of the boat – small green apples and a pile of leafy weeds that had a sharp, spicy scent. The apples were sweet and crunchy, and once I had eaten half-a-dozen I felt able to go on.

  When the sun came up I saw the sleek swimming ahead of me.

  ‘Thank you, Sleek,’ I shouted.

  If he heard me he showed no sign. After a while he dived under the water and I didn’t see him again until late afternoon, when he scrambled into the boat with his mouth full of riverweeds. He spat them out and watched me eat them, then he lay down in the bottom of the boat and fell into a restless sort of sleep, twitching and sighing as if he was having bad dreams.

  I stayed on the river that night, paddling into the dark. No moon rose, but the flower began to give out a little light, glowing faintly at the front of the boat as if it was trying to show the way. When I closed my eyes the light grew stronger, and as I went to sleep it seemed to fill my mind.

  The boat must have drifted a long way in the dark, because when the sleek woke me in the morning I found that the river had joined a large body of water and we were far from either shore.

  It took half a day to paddle back to land, and when I got close I saw a spot where long grass grew to the water’s edge and sunflowers bloomed along the bank. Perhaps it was the place where Eadie and I had camped when she’d told me the story of Blot.

  I wanted to collect some sunflower seeds, but the sleek glared at me and hissed a warning, and when I kept paddling towards the bank he leapt onto my arm and bit it, making me drop the paddle. By the time I had fished it out of the water the sunflowers were behind us.

  Soon the river was so wide I could no longer see the other side. I kept near the bank, and when we passed the old beehives I knew we were getting close to the marshes.

  The sleek didn’t bother feeding me that day, and by evening time I was tired and weak and had a headache. I was getting blisters, too, from the paddling.

  ‘Enough,’ I said to the sleek. ‘I have to rest.’

  He gave me a sharp look, then he sniffed the air, wrinkled his nose and sneezed. He began padding around the edges of the boat, as if he was on patrol, stopping from time to time to cock his head and listen. There was no sound except insects and frogs, and every so often a fish jumping; then I heard the cry of a bird, a seagull, or perhaps it was an eagle.

  But why would an eagle be out hunting at night? I wondered as I put down my paddle and lay back with my head under the flower. A salt breeze moved over the water and the boat rocked gently beneath me. I was almost asleep when the sleek jumped on my chest. He stared into my eyes; his pupils were huge. He looked from me to the paddle and back again.

  ‘No, Sleek. I’ve had enough for the day,’ I told him.

  He growled deep in his throat, and when I closed my eyes he swiped my face.

  ‘Ah, bad Sleek!’ I went to swipe him back, but he leapt out of reach and crouched at the far end of the boat, glowering.

  ‘You’re not my boss,’ I said. ‘If I want to sleep, I will.’

  I turned my back on him and closed my eyes. I heard the water lapping softly on the sides of the boat – and there was the bird cry again, the gull or the eagle. I thought of Siltboy’s battlebird, then a strange feeling came over me . . .

  It must have been the exhaustion that caused it, because I wasn’t trying to blank my mind, it just became empty – and next thing I knew, I was gliding above the water, wheeling higher and higher until I could see forever.

  I saw a coastline, and the lacy patterns made by the waves breaking on the beach, and I saw the wide mouth of a river with a heap of grey rocks nearby – only they weren’t rocks, I realised, because they were moving. I was high above, but when I focused I could see the details: it was the Siltman and his dogs! One dog raised its head in slow motion and looked towards its master. Another staggered to its feet and took a couple of groggy steps before flopping back into the pile. The Siltman raised his hand. He was trying to wake up. I could hear the wind whistling through his teeth, then words came to me – words carried on a salty wind from the sea.

  ‘Siltgirl – thief of time – you won’t get away with this . . .’

  The Siltman’s voice was like wind blowing through the reeds. It filled my mind and I was vaguely aware of the smell of ants.

  ‘How strange that I can hear you from this distance,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Distance is nothing, Siltgirl. Rest. Sleep, and wait for me to catch up with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed, breathing in the ant smell. ‘Rest.’

  The salt wind grew stronger, until it was howling around me.

  ‘I won’t be long, Siltgirl.’

  ‘No rush,’ I murmured.

  Then I heard another voice through the howling. ‘Peat! Wake up. Time is short.’

  ‘Longreach, is that you?’ I muttered.

  ‘Take back the deed that was done!’

  That was Siltboy’s voice! It sounded small and very far away. I struggled to sit up. Although I was half asleep, I realised what was happening – the Siltman was ahead of himself. He was sending his voice the way he’d sent his footprints and the howling of the dogs. He had sent the salt wind, and he was sending the Swoon as well, to affect me.

  I heard the sleek shrieking somewhere in the distance, then I heard my own voice. I didn’t know if I was speaking aloud or if the words were in my mind. I was telling myself what Eadie had told me: The marshes are a refuge. Once you’re in the marshes, nothing can touch you.

  The howling faded, and the sound of the sleek grew louder. I held my breath and picked up the paddle. My arms were heavy as lead, but with each strok
e I felt stronger and more awake. Soon I was paddling hard and panting the ant smell of the Swoon out of my nose, filling my lungs instead with fresh, clean air.

  The sleek sat at the helm and made yipping cries, urging me on, until the boat was caught by a current and we were taken up a channel lined with reeds.

  When I saw the burnt-out hut where the shag lived, I knew we were in the marshes and gave an enormous sigh of relief. The shag was standing in his nest. He looked down at me as we passed, then he stretched his long neck in the direction we were going and honked loudly, flapping his wings as if applauding.

  The sleek stared at me with huge, frightened eyes. The tips of his ears were trembling. I put my hand on his head.

  ‘Settle, Sleek,’ I panted. ‘We’re safe, and we’re almost there.’

  A new moon rose that night. The crescent shape reminded me of the horns on my cow charm. I put my hand to the charm and lay down under the everlasting daisy. Now that we were in the marshes, its pale light was stronger.

  The sleek lay down beside me, and after a while we both fell into a deep and silent sleep.

  THE CHURN

  We woke the next morning to find ourselves in open water, far beyond the reed fields. I could see islands moving about in the distance, and there was a faint hum of insects swarming somewhere.

  The boat travelled towards the droning noise, and as we got closer I realised that it wasn’t the buzz of insects, it was singing – a strange low monotonous sort of song. The sleek scratched his ears and shook his head, as if the sound hurt him. When I put him on my lap and covered his ears with my hands, he didn’t resist.

  We drifted past the islands and I saw a stilt hut up ahead. Eadie’s hide! I could tell by the ladder and the bag hanging over the door. The singing was loud and out of tune, and the hut was swaying in time to it.

  Half-a-dozen reed-boats were tethered to the walkway below, and there were ropes around the stilt legs of the hut. Above the singing, I could hear arguing.

  ‘Leave me alone, you hags. Get out of my hide. Why can’t you give a woman some peace in her old age!’