by Julie Hunt
It was Eadie’s voice. She sounded weak but angry. I put my hand on my cow charm and picked up the flower. What had Mother Moss said? What you’re holding is not Eadie’s life but her death.
I had no idea what I was going to do. I sat in the boat and listened.
‘We’re doing our best to help you, and all you do is complain!’ said a voice I didn’t recognise.
‘It’s all right for you, Ivy. You think you can throw your weight around now you’re the new Great Aunt, but you can’t tell me what to do. Will you lot stop that wretched wailing!’
‘If we don’t sing, you’ll go the wrong way when you die. You won’t find your way to the Churn.’ That was Flo’s voice.
‘Don’t you fools realise that I can’t die! If I could die, your dreadful singing would have killed me years ago!’
The singing went on over the top of the argument.
‘Give her some more Healbane soup.’
‘I don’t want your soups and your potions!’
‘We’ve sung ourselves hoarse for you,’ Nettie said in a croaky voice. ‘You don’t appreciate a single note.’
‘Shut up!’ yelled Eadie.
The singing stopped.
‘Ah!’ Eadie groaned. ‘It makes no difference. Your thoughts are still crashing through my mind like a herd of bog rats through the undergrowth. Can’t you still your minds?’
‘No,’ they said. ‘Our minds are always busy.’
My boat glided under the hut and stopped there. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but what else could I do?
‘Light my pipe,’ Eadie demanded.
‘No. It stinks, and it’s not good for you.’
‘She’s a difficult patient.’
Two pairs of legs suddenly dangled above the ladder. One pair was thick and ended in reed shoes that looked like little boats. The other legs were fine and pale; the feet were bare, and the toenails were painted a shimmering lime-green.
‘Eadie has always been difficult. She’s been in a foul mood for fifty years.’
‘What was she like before that?’
‘Bad-tempered.’
A third set of legs joined the others, thin and scrawny with ankles that were bony and shoes made of plaited rope or seaweed.
‘The marshes will go to rack and ruin while we spend all our time looking after Eadie.’
The sleek jumped up and spat at the legs, and the conversation stopped. Three heads peered down at me.
‘It’s the swamp waif!’ cried Lily. ‘She’s returned!’
‘Little swamp waif.’ Flo clapped her hands. ‘Praise be to the marshes. We are saved!’
‘The waif is back,’ Nettie called. ‘She’s come to look after Eadie!’
‘Your marsh auntie is dying,’ Lily sighed.
There was movement above and a face I didn’t know looked down at me. ‘What are you waiting for? Come up at once. Don’t bring the snide. We’ve got enough vermin in the hut already.’
I took the everlasting daisy and climbed the ladder.
Eadie was lying on the bed. She looked tiny inside her enormous coat. Her hair was silver and her coat had gone grey as well. She was ancient and frail, but her eyes were bright.
‘Peat!’ she gasped.
Another marsh auntie I hadn’t seen before helped Eadie to sit up, and pushed some pillows behind her back.
‘I didn’t expect to see you, Peat. Never again.’ Eadie started coughing, and she struggled to get her breath.
Perhaps I should have felt sorry for her, but I didn’t.
‘Eadie, you tricked me.’
She looked down and patted her coat pockets.
‘Trickery,’ she wheezed. ‘I believe there’s a cure for that – what’s it called – Honesty? I don’t seem to have it in my collection.’
‘I could have been trapped forever in the world of the Siltman,’ I said.
Eadie’s eyes met mine. ‘I’m sorry, Peat. I shouldn’t have used you like that.’
‘What in the marsh are they talking about?’ Flo asked.
‘Don’t tell them,’ Eadie hissed. ‘They always want to know everybody’s business. Give me my pipe.’ Then she added, ‘Please.’
Her pipe was sitting on the table and I lit it with a stick from the stove.
‘We don’t think smoking is good for her,’ Lily said. ‘But you’re in charge of her now.’
Eadie sucked on the pipe and blew out a smoke ring that landed around Lily’s neck like a lasso. Lily sniffed. Olive broke into a fit of coughing.
‘A dreadful habit,’ Myriad muttered.
‘Well, we’ll leave you to it then,’ Flo said cheerfully.
The marsh aunties began clambering down the ladder. They were eager to leave.
‘It’s been a nightmare trying to look after her,’ Lily whispered. ‘We had to hobble her hut, because it kept running away. And Eadie kept trying to escape down the ladder.’
‘I wanted to go and collect the buds of Heednot so I could use them as earplugs,’ Eadie interrupted. ‘I’ve been a prisoner here, Peat.’
I grabbed Lily’s hand as she went out the door. ‘Thank you for the Swoon, Lily.’
‘Oh, the Swoon?’ Lily paused and twisted a strand of hair around her finger. ‘I’m afraid I made a tiny mistake with that one. One sniff can lay a creature low for years. Best not to open it.’ She flicked her hair behind her ear and climbed down the ladder. ‘But I’m working on a new collection,’ she said. ‘Splash, it’s called. Or maybe Flourish.’
‘We’ll be back, Eadie. Behave yourself.’ Nettie pushed past me and followed Lily.
‘Don’t hurry,’ Eadie said.
‘Peace at last,’ Eadie said once they’d all left. She turned to me and looked me over.
‘I may be ancient, Peat, but I can still hear your thoughts. Hand it to me.’
I was holding the plant behind my back.
‘You don’t want to, but you must.’ She sank back into her pillows.
At that moment the sleek appeared in the doorway. He raced past me and jumped on the bed.
‘Sleek!’ Eadie smiled. ‘Soon you will have the place to yourself.’
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.
‘Come on, Peat, don’t keep me waiting.’
I passed Eadie the plant and she snapped off the flower head and slipped it inside her coat.
‘Good waif,’ she whispered. ‘Now I am ready.’
‘Ready for what?’
‘The Churn. Can you help me down to the skiff?’
I nodded, but my chest felt tight.
‘What happens when you go to the Churn?’ My voice was small. I think I already knew the answer.
‘You die,’ Eadie said.
I took her hand. ‘Eadie, I don’t want you to die.’
‘I can’t live well anymore,’ she said. ‘Besides, there are worse things than death. How would you like to live forever with that mob singing over you?’
She laughed a wheezy laugh. ‘It took them a while to catch me,’ she said. ‘They had to chase my hut halfway across the marshes. Now give me a hand up.’
When I helped Eadie stand, I could see that she had definitely shrunk. Her coat trailed on the floor. She staggered and would have fallen back on the bed if I hadn’t caught her. She was so light – the only weight was in her coat.
I picked her up and carried her down the ladder, remembering how she had carried me when my leg was broken. Then I laid her gently in the craft.
‘You’d better get the shroud Olive embroidered for me. She’ll be offended if I don’t use it. It’s under the bed.’
I went back up the ladder.
‘And get one of those flowers from the bunch on the table,’ Eadie added.
A piece of cloth was folded up under Eadie’s bed. I shook it out and saw all the colours of the swamp – greys and greens and blues. It was a map of the marshes, sewn in a thousand tiny stitches. There were names on it – the Far Reaches, the Reed Hut, the Islands of Floatweed, the
Hermit Islands. Currents were marked out in shiny blue thread, and the centre was embroidered with a spiral labelled ‘The Churn’. I would have liked to study the map for longer, but Eadie was calling from below.
‘Come on. I haven’t got forever.’ She sounded quite happy with the idea.
I chose a flower from the table on the way – a little red bud with white tips.
Eadie seemed to have grown older and smaller in the short time I had been in the hut. I leaned over her and tucked the cloth behind her head. Her eyes were clouding over. I could see the sky in them.
‘Goodbye, Peat,’ she whispered. ‘Push the skiff out. It will find its own way.’
The sleek skittered down the ladder and stood with me on the walkway while I did as she asked.
We watched Eadie drift out over the water. Within a few seconds, she had caught a current and was moving swiftly away.
The sleek and I stood there for a long time. We saw the shag fly past. He followed Eadie’s craft until it was a dot on the horizon. Then we saw him circling overhead. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw smoke from Eadie’s pipe, a long twist of smoke rising in a spiral.
‘Goodbye, Eadie,’ I said under my breath.
The sleek made a rattling sort of sigh and scrambled back up the ladder, leaving me alone.
I gazed across the marshes, and the longer I looked the more desolate they seemed to me. The sky hung low and heavy and I could feel the weight of the clouds pressing down on me.
‘I’m sorry, Eadie,’ I whispered. ‘But it was your life or mine, and you’d already had a good run. You must have been hundreds of years old, whereas I’m only nine, or maybe I’m ten now, or even eleven.’
A deep sigh came out of me, and I sat down on the landing and looked at the bud in my hand. It was more than a bud, really – the outside petals were just beginning to open. Why did Eadie tell me to choose a flower? I wondered. But it was too late to ask her now.
When Eadie’s boat came back empty, my tears began to flow. I thought of the song I had heard with her when we were outside Hub. Where the river meets the sea, you’ll meet your destiny . . .
‘My destiny wasn’t with the Siltman, Eadie,’ I said. ‘Now that your bargain is undone, he has no hold over me. I have to follow my own fate, the way you had to follow yours.’
Then I stopped talking, because I realised the boat wasn’t empty. Eadie’s story bag was sitting in the bottom. As I leaned over and picked it up I thought I heard a voice, Eadie’s voice. I wasn’t sure if it was in my mind or on the breeze – or perhaps it was in the faint smell of tobacco smoke that rose from the pouch when I opened it.
‘For you, Peat. May all your stories have happy endings. If you like that sort of thing.’
I put the bud into the story bag and pulled the drawstring. Then I tied the pouch around my neck.
‘Come on, Sleek,’ I said, calling back into the hide.
No answer.
‘Sleek. Come on!’
He poked his nose out and stared down at me.
‘What’s wrong? You can’t stay here.’
He narrowed his eyes and spat. There was something strange about the look on his face. I had got to know the sleek well in our travels together, but this was something new, a look I hadn’t seen before. His ears seemed sharper, and there was something glintier about his eyes. Then I noticed they were the wrong colour. They were yellow, not grey-green. At that moment another sleek appeared next to him, my sleek!
Both creatures began chittering, then one nipped the other and they disappeared inside. I climbed the ladder. When my head was level with the floor of the hut, I saw them both on Eadie’s bed. One was burrowing under her pillow. There was some squeaking and hissing, and three baby sleeks tumbled out and fell onto the floor. One skidded in my direction and landed on my shoulder. It stared at me in surprise then then bit my ear so hard I almost fell backwards. It leapt down onto the walkway.
‘Come and get your cub,’ I said to my sleek.
He gave a yawn and ignored me. His mate blinked and began washing herself. The tiny sleek sprang into the boat and sat there, waiting.
As I climbed back down the ladder, my old sleek came and rested his chin on the top rung, gazing at me steadily.
‘Farewell, my friend,’ I said quietly.
I stepped into the boat, and the cub gave me a questioning look as if to say, Where are we going, Peat?
‘Home,’ I said. ‘Home to Marlie and Longreach and Wim and the cows. We will travel the world, telling stories and herding cattle.’
The little sleek must have been happy with that idea, because he took his place at the prow, and when I began to row back the way I had come, hoping to catch a current that would take us out of the marshes, he jumped onto my lap and purred.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to my editor, Sue Flockhart, who helped bring this book into being and said, ‘Oh no – not the dog!’ when I thought of leaving Shadow out of the story. Thanks to the scarlet runner beans for growing so vigorously, and to the everlasting daisies for flowering all summer. Thanks to the quolls for inspiring the sleek, and to Terry for inspiring Amos Last. Thanks to Dale and Ruth for the beautiful cover, and to Angela for the idea of the marsh auntie giving the pouch to Peat – a gift at the end of the story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Hunt lives on a farm in southern Tasmania and is fascinated by landscapes and the stories they inspire. This interest has taken her from the rugged west coast of Ireland to the ice caves of Romania. She loves poetry, storytelling and traditional folktales, and her own stories combine other-worldly elements with down-to-earth humour. Her picture books include The Coat (illustrated by Ron Brooks) and Precious Little (illustrated by Gaye Chapman). She has written a three-book series called Little Else about a plucky young cowgirl (illustrated by Beth Norling), and a graphic novel called KidGlovz (illustrated by Dale Newman, who drew this book’s cover).
