I was standing at the end of Catching’s hospital bed. Words rushed out of me: ‘Catching, there might be Fetchers around – Fetchers who’ve come into this world. Some people have died—’
‘I heard. It’s all the nurses can talk about.’
‘—and there was a witness who heard wings beating in the air, too big for a bird, and I think they might be coming for you.’
Catching held up a hand. ‘Slow down, Teller. It’s not Fetchers.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep.’
‘Are you really—’ I substituted a more useful question: ‘How can you be sure?’
‘No one’s coming to get me. Promise.’
She sounded absolutely positive. Maybe Dad was right and there weren’t such things as Fetchers. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was truth in Catching’s story. Either way, I felt dizzy with relief now the threat was gone – or, okay, it seemed the threat had never actually existed, at least not in this dimension. But I’d thought it had.
Catching pointed to the end of the bed. ‘You’d better sit before you fall.’ I sat, and she added, ‘Thanks anyway. For coming to help me.’
‘Yeah, well. It’s what fr—’ I caught myself on the word. Catching wouldn’t want to be called my friend.
But to my astonishment, she said, ‘Guess it is what friends do.’
‘Um. Are we friends, then?’
She regarded me with an expression that said I’d failed to understand something. ‘I told you what I thought about your dad, didn’t I?’
I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. ‘Yeah.’
‘So we’re friends. Because friends always tell each other the truth. Even when it hurts.’
That was a very … Catching definition of friendship. But I’d take it. I grinned at her. She didn’t exactly return the smile, but one corner of her mouth pulled up. Close enough.
She shook her head at me, still with the almost-smile lingering on her lips. ‘You’re an idiot! If there were Fetchers here, what were you gonna do? Haunt them?’
‘I don’t know! I probably should’ve waited for my dad. I’m pretty sure he’ll follow me here, by the way. Oh, and I haven’t told him that you can see me. I didn’t want … that is, I …’
‘You didn’t want me telling him he’s sad? I think he already knows.’
‘I don’t want you reminding him!’
‘Relax, Teller. I won’t tell him I can see you.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. I told you what I think, because that’s what friends do. Now I’ll keep your secret. That’s what friends do too.’
I wondered if Catching had a list of rules written down somewhere of how to be friends. I’d never met anyone like her. I didn’t think there was anyone like her. ‘Thanks.’
She nodded, her gaze turning inwards. ‘I had a friend. In the beneath-place. She used to tell me true things. Or true as she saw it.’
‘Things that hurt?’
Catching’s almost-smile vanished and her hand clenched into a fist, bunching up the sheet where she was gripping it. I’d spoken without thinking, and I felt terrible. Her friend had told her things that hurt.
I was more convinced than ever that Catching had been through something awful – and apparently she hadn’t been alone. But her friend wasn’t here now, and the fact that Catching hadn’t mentioned her before made me worry about her fate … and about whether Catching herself was still in danger, whatever she said.
‘I know you haven’t exactly seen my dad at his best,’ I told her, ‘but he’s the person I’d call if I was in trouble. He can help you. You just have to give him a chance.’
‘I’m not telling you what happened to ask for help,’ she said.
‘Then why are you telling it?’
Catching drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. ‘To be heard.’
I was silent for a moment, thinking about that. Then I said, ‘Well, that kind of sounds like asking for help. And even if it isn’t, just because you’re not asking doesn’t mean you don’t need it.’
Catching said nothing; she just watched me out of those fathomless brown eyes. But it wasn’t uncomfortable sitting here together. In fact, it was nice to sit quietly with someone out of choice, instead of doing it because they didn’t know I was there. It had been nice to have a normal conversation, too. Well, okay, not totally normal – but Catching telling me I was an idiot had been an ordinary thing for one friend to say to another.
I suddenly found myself missing the cousins. They were the ones who usually teased me over my mistakes. And they defended me, if anyone outside the family dared to laugh at even the stupidest things I did. Like the time I’d thought I could sing. I’d been ten years old and halfway through my big performance at the school assembly when I’d realised the teachers were wincing and the kids were clapping their hands over their ears. It had been such a shock; Aunty Viv had always said I had a lovely voice! It wasn’t until the horrible moment on the stage that I’d remembered she’d said the salt cake was lovely too. I’d stuttered into silence. Kids had begun to giggle, and I’d almost burst into tears. Then the cousins had started shouting.
First Dennis: Shut up and let her sing!
Then Trisha: Like any of you could do as good!
Angie: None of you are better than her!
And finally six-year-old Charlie: None of you are better than any of us!
Catching and I sat in comfortable silence that was broken only by footsteps in the hall outside. I recognised my father’s brisk tread and stood up just as he came bursting through the door.
‘Hi, Dad. No Fetchers after all. Sorry.’
He shot me a look that said, I told you so. But he couldn’t have been sure, or he wouldn’t have come charging in like that. Dad wasn’t completely convinced he was right about Catching making everything up, no matter what he claimed.
‘Come to hear the rest of the story, policeman?’ Catching asked.
‘I suppose I have,’ Dad answered. ‘If you want to tell it.’
I remembered he’d said he wanted to talk to Catching again, back when we discovered that the person who died at the home had been stabbed. It seemed like we’d found that out a thousand years ago. It had only been this morning.
Dad pulled a chair away from the wall, placing it beside the bed and sitting down. ‘Would you like to tell me about the fire this time?’
She sniffed. ‘We haven’t got to that part yet. And the next part …’ Her gaze drifted to me for a moment and then away again before Dad could realise she was seeing me. ‘The next part is about my friend. And the grey.’
I wake.
There’s a light above.
It shines on the centre of the room. Leaves shadow at the edges.
A voice speaks: ‘Hello, girl.’
I sit up. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Me is here.’
I turn towards the sound.
Corner of the room.
Too dark to see into.
The voice sings:
‘One more for the Feed.
Dead girl, dead girl.
One more in need.
Dead girl, dead girl.
Cry yourself to sleep.
Dead girl, dead girl.
Today monsters eat.
Dead girl, dead girl.’
I jump off the bed. Put up my fists. ‘Come out!’
No answer.
I take a step. Stop.
I don’t know who’s in that corner. What’s in that corner.
‘Who are you?’ I ask.
‘Who are you? A name for a name!’
One of us has to go first. ‘I’m Isobel Catching.’
‘I’m Crow.’
‘Come out where I can see you, Crow.’
‘You’ll be afraid if I do.’
I snort. ‘Yeah. ’Cause singing creepy songs in the dark isn’t scary at all.’
I hear shuffling.
Someone appears.
She’s grey.
Grey skin. Grey hair that trails to the floor.
Grey dress made from her hair.
She watches me with clouded eyes.
‘Are you afraid, Isobel-the-Catching?’
No. Relieved. I drop my fists. ‘You’re a girl. Like me.’
She comes – hops – closer. Her feet turn inwards. Her nails are too long.
‘Not like you!’ she says. ‘You have colours. So many. Soon they’ll come and you won’t be full of colours. You’ll be full of screams.’
‘Who’s coming? The Fetchers?’
‘Fetchers!’ she sniffs. ‘They are nothing. No heart, no guts, no core of self. Here, they serve the Feed.’
The boss man. ‘What does he want with us?’
‘He eats what’s inside our insides. The colours that live in our spirits. Do you think I was always a grey girl?’
Colours are not for Fetchers!
The colours are for him.
I had thought Crow was a grey girl.
But Crow’s colours have been taken.
All her colours.
‘How long have you been here?’
Crow hops about. ‘Since the Feed began. I wait. I watch.
I help those who come.’
‘Yeah? Help me, then!’
‘I am helping. I am telling.’
‘Tell me how we get out.’
Crow slashes her fingernails through the air.
‘There’s no escape. Not unless you’re a dead girl.’
Her head snaps around to the door.
It rattles.
She shuffles back to her dark corner.
The door opens.
First and Second are here.
Second throws something at me. I snatch it out of the air.
A bread roll.
I’m hungry.
But there’s only one.
I look at Crow’s corner.
She’s gone quiet.
She doesn’t want it.
Or she’s hiding.
As if they don’t know you’re here, Crow.
I tear the bun in two.
Throw her half on my bed.
Eat the other.
She speaks from the dark: ‘Sometimes bread. Sometimes meat. Sometimes sleep.’
My legs go numb.
I fall.
The Fetchers carry me out of the room.
Crow’s voice follows:
‘One more for the Feed
Dead girl, dead girl…’
I’m taken through tunnels.
To a room.
Dropped on the floor.
Like luggage.
The Fetchers leave.
I stay.
There’s a table in front of me.
It’s made of grey branches.
The branches rise up into thin sticks.
The sticks curl open like fingers.
On the other side of it, in the darkness, something moves.
I get up. Fight. Escape.
Only I don’t. I can’t move.
Not my fingers.
Nor my toes.
I can only feel.
Only look.
The thing comes out of the shadows.
The Feed is large. White. Thin.
He has legs like broomsticks and arms that reach to his feet.
He bends to inspect me.
His eyes are mirrors.
I can see my frozen face.
I look terrified.
I am terrified.
The Feed grabs my wrist.
Drags me across the room.
My head is clutched.
Long fingers dig into my skull.
He lifts me off the ground.
I want to snarl.
Yell.
Bite.
But I can’t.
My body is placed onto the table.
The Feed brings his face centimetres from my own.
His breath is on my cheek.
His mirror-eyes peer into my brain.
He keeps his gaze on mine. Rears back.
Pushes aside the clothes covering my stomach.
His fingers press below my belly button.
My flesh tears in two.
I scream.
Only my mouth doesn’t work.
He holds up his hand. Colours drip from his fingers.
As if I’m bleeding rainbows.
He eats what’s inside our insides.
The Feed swallows down a strip of green.
A faint glow fills his skin. Fades away.
He peels away another piece of me.
Then another.
My eyes leak hot tears.
My throat rips itself apart with screams I can’t scream.
The pain’s going to kill me.
It doesn’t.
I live.
I feel.
I hurt.
I’m a ball curled up.
I’m a glass thrown against rock.
Shattered. Bits of me everywhere.
I’ll never find them all.
No one will.
Crow whispers in my ear: ‘If you are a dead girl, you won’t feel. You won’t hurt.’
I turn my head into my pillow.
Say nothing.
‘Are you angry, Isobel-the-Catching? About the bread?’
She waits.
I keep saying nothing.
‘If you don’t eat, they make you. Sometimes bread, sometimes meat. Sometimes sleep – but not always.
Only when they want you for the Feed.’
She waits more. I’m still silent.
Crow stamps her foot. Long nails rake the ground.
‘What could I do? What can you do? Fetchers are never caught. They are never stopped. We have no claws or wings or bite. We can’t get away. No one gets away.’
No one gets away… ?
I push words through my hurt throat. ‘There are other girls?’
‘The Fetchers fetch. The Feed is fed. The girls come but never go.’
Crow’s voice is heavy. Sad.
The other girls are dead.
That’s not going to be me.
I sit up. ‘I’m getting out.’
‘I know how.’
‘Tell me, then!’
‘You must become a dead girl. A not-feeling girl.’
Dead inside? Stupid idea.
I slam my hand on the bed.
‘Tell me how to really escape!’
‘That is how! And you must be dead soon. Then you won’t mind being a grey girl.’
I stand. Glare. ‘I’m not going to be grey, Crow!’
Her mouth turns down. ‘Foolish not-a-dead-girl.’ She points to my arm. ‘You already are.’
I look at where she points.
There are fingermarks on my wrist. Where the Feed first touched me.
The marks are grey.
I scratch.
Dig.
But I can’t claw the horrible from myself.
I can’t make the colour come back.
‘It doesn’t come off,’ Crow says. ‘It is your grey. Like mine, but not. Everyone’s grey is their own.’
She leans closer and adds, ‘You wouldn’t mind so much if you were a dead girl.’
‘Get away from me!’ I snap.
Crow jumps back. ‘Fine! Put all your screams upon your shoulders and let them crush you.’
She hops into her corner.
I stare at my hand.
I want a knife. To cut it out of me.
That’s dumb.
If I get a knife, I’ll use it on the Feed.
The Feed took from me.
Left his mark on me.
Everyone can see it.
I don’t know how to stand this.
Only I do know.
The names.
Granny Trudy Catching…
Nanna Sadie Catching…
Grandma… Linda?
I can’t remember.
&
nbsp; I’m glass thrown against rock.
My connections are broken.
I grab hold of bits of myself.
Push pieces back together.
Granny Trudy Catching…
Nanna Sadie Catching…
Grandma Leslie Catching…
Grandma Leslie Catching.
My mother’s mother.
Mum’s voice speaks:
The law that let the government take Aboriginal children lasted for generations. They came for your Grandma when she was a kid, just as they’d come for her mum before her. But your Grandma didn’t get away.
They put her in a bad place. One of the worst places. She thought her mum would save her. Until an older kid told her how it was. The mothers weren’t told where their kids had been taken to. And the government never gave anyone back. That was when your grandma knew she’d have to live through hard day after hard day. She worried she couldn’t do it. That she wasn’t tough enough. Then she remembered the rocks of her homeland. Old rocks. Rocks that had lived for millions of years.
Your Grandma made herself strong like rock. She survived hard times. She survived hard years. She got through until she was grown up. Then she went looking for her mum, who’d never stopped looking for her.
Your grandmother knew how to endure.
I’m not glass thrown against rock.
I am the rock.
I can endure.
As long as I remember where I come from.
Who I come from.
Crow can help me with that.
I can’t tell her the names out loud.
But I don’t have to.
Just who they are to me.
‘Crow? I need you to do something.’
Silence.
‘I need you to say some names with me.’
More silence.
‘Come out and help!’
‘I did help.’
She’s sulking.
Because I didn’t like her twisted idea.
She’s messed up. But I need her.
‘Crow? I’ll think about being a dead not-feeling girl.’
She bounces out of the shadows. ‘Really?’
No. ‘Yes. So long as you learn some words.’
‘I am good at words!’
I say the names.
She repeats them.
Catching Teller Crow Page 7
