Noah drove, with Tessa in the passenger seat, leaving Bane and me to ride in the tray. I glared at him for a full two minutes before he gave in and told me what Tessa had meant.
‘There are times when the pull gets stronger,’ he finally admitted, wedging the bag of oranges behind Noah’s toolbox to prevent it from sliding away. ‘I don’t know why. Maybe you’re in more danger somehow but I don’t think that’s it. It feels less about you and more about me. Don’t worry. I can control it.’
‘Just tell me what you need, Ben,’ I said exasperatedly. ‘I know this isn’t your fault. If I make you uncomfortable just let me know what I can do and I’ll do it.’
He looked away and laughed ruefully to himself. As we hit a particularly bumpy bit of ground he fidgeted, and then sat on his hands, looking frustrated. ‘Lainie, what I need you to do is to stop calling me Ben. Everyone else calls me Bane now. I’m kind of used to it.’
‘But I—’
‘I know you think it offends me. It doesn’t. It fits. It’s who I am. I really am the bane of your life, and you still put up with me. I’m genuinely grateful for that, but I’m not sorry. I like being linked to you, it feels right.’
I thought about that for a while as we bounced across the paddock. Did he really not mind or was it just the relief of not being sick anymore? Could he even tell the difference? He had made plans for his life; surely he couldn’t throw them away so easily? And yet I’d done the same. I wasn’t going anywhere while I was needed here. Every cell in my pseudo-human body knew one thing instinctively: keeping Eden a secret was the most important thing I could ever do.
Bane waved his hand in front of my eyes, snapping my attention from trying to sense what was going on in the valley. ‘I don’t think you need to do that,’ he said.
‘Do what?’
‘Listen so hard. I mean, it’s just that if I understand it correctly, you’ll know when there’s a threat whether you’re actively paying attention or not. The people starting the fire did wake you up, after all.’
‘True, but not until it was too late. Perhaps if I’d been paying attention I could have stopped them sooner.’
‘I doubt it. You can’t predict what people are going to do in the future, only what happens in the present. Otherwise you really wouldn’t need me at all,’ he said with a wry smile.
I hadn’t fully thought that through before. He really could predict the future to a small extent, at least in regards to me, and I wondered if there might not be a better way to make use of that ability.
‘Besides,’ he said, sounding concerned again, ‘you can’t stay up all night listening for what might happen. Tell me that isn’t why you haven’t been sleeping?’ He sounded very disapproving.
‘How do you know I haven’t been sleeping well? Are you spying on me?’
‘No, of course not. Nothing like that.’ His ears turned red. ‘It’s just that I can feel when you’re awake. It doesn’t keep me up exactly, I just have a part of me that always pays attention to you and that part sort of … wakes up when you do.’
‘You mean you don’t sleep if I don’t?’ I shuddered at the thought. As if I hadn’t messed him around enough, now this too?
‘No, not exactly. I can still sleep, if I choose to. I’m not explaining this very well. It’s more like a … gentle alarm … that I can hear in my sleep. It brings me out of a deep sleep into a lighter one, that’s all. It’s fine, really. I’m sorry I mentioned it.’
The rest of the ride was pretty quiet after that.
Tessa had no problems scrambling with us through the thick scrub. She even whistled a tacky pop song as she went. Noah refused to do anything about it and Bane told me bluntly that he was my Guardian, not my hitman, and that if I wanted her assassinated I would have to do it myself. But just as my patience ran out and I was about to grab her ponytail, Bane relented and began to explain to her how he was using his precognitive intuition to steer us around the worst of the evil blackberry snares. At least it kept her interested enough to stop the whistle torture.
By the time we reached the base of the waterfall, we all peeled off our boots and socks, ready for a much needed swim, but Noah hesitated at the edge.
‘It’s not too bad if you keep your head out of the water,’ I murmured.
‘You hear the music too? Do you know what it means?’ he asked hopefully.
I shook my head and glanced at Bane, who was listening avidly. ‘It’s the reason I haven’t been sleeping,’ I explained to them both. ‘When I do, the music takes over and it’s so sad that I can’t stand it, so I only sleep when I have to.’
‘Same here,’ Noah murmured. ‘Ever since graduation when I couldn’t stay in the water. But you couldn’t either, right? Is this normal for us? Feeling so sad about the river?’
‘Harry said the music used to be pleasant, so I think this is recent. And I think it’s not right. That’s one of the reasons why he went … away.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Noah asked. ‘Let’s go and find him.’
With utmost care we waded into the swirling current as if we had frozen glass hearts that might shatter if we didn’t gently acclimatise to the searing sound of the melodies. One tentative step at a time, we allowed the sweet sadness to reconcile with our souls—and then got shockingly doused by the icy cold fountain of water that Tessa produced when she came yodelling past us to dive bomb her way in. So much for my expectation that she would stand around in the shallows squealing with her shoulders up near her ears. Tessa Bright had always looked so thin and pale that I’d sort of assumed she wouldn’t be very tough, but then I figured that if I threw up every time I moved more than an hour away from Noah I’d look pretty thin and pale too. Maybe she would start to put some weight on now. She caught me frowning at her thin frame.
‘I’m not bulimic,’ she defended, trying to untangle her hair tie.
‘Of course not. Why would you assume I would think that?’
‘Everyone thinks that. Especially my mother,’ she replied.
Oh boy. Sliding further under the water, I eased my way over to her. ‘I’m sorry, Tess. For what you’ve had to go through. If I’d known any earlier I would have tried to help.’
‘Lainie. Stop apologising for all this. It’s not like it’s your fault, you know. And it’s not all bad either.’ She smiled, looking cow-eyed over at Noah whose headlights were on high beam from the cold water.
At least that part would be fairly straightforward for them. They seemed totally accepting of the fact that their relationship had just skyrocketed to an intense level of commitment. Noah’s eyes widened at the sight of her shaking out her wet hair. I just hoped my friend knew what he was getting himself into.
‘I’m not ready for this,’ Noah said huskily as he stared at the entrance to the cave.
‘What’s in there? Is this The Path?’ Tessa asked eagerly, putting extra emphasis on the title.
I grinned at her obvious excitement. ‘We thought you should both see the sword for yourselves. There’s a tunnel at the back of the cave that leads to a sort of chamber, which is where the rock fall is. It’s pretty cold in there though, so maybe we should wait until our clothes have dried out a bit more,’ I suggested, patting my T-shirt to try to estimate how long that would take.
Bane shook his head. ‘We don’t have all that long, Lainie. We’ll want to get home long before dark. That hike isn’t easy at the best of times,’ he pointed out.
Suddenly Noah started backing away from the entrance. ‘I’m not ready!’ He spun and stormed off into the bush. Tessa looked accusingly at us like we’d done something to upset him, and then ran off after him.
Bane and I just stared at each other helplessly.
The Sentinel greeted Harry with a hug. He’d known exactly where to find her. She’d been sitting by the River weaving a basket out of reeds. Holding her close, h
e felt as if their long years apart had just been a cruel joke. It made him feel old. He let her go a little wistfully.
‘Hello, Annie,’ he said softly.
‘Hello!’ she said with a laugh. ‘What a funny word. Why did we always say it?’
‘It’s a greeting. It means I’m pleased to see you,’ he replied. She kissed him on the cheek, making a point. So many of his words were unnecessary here, and yet back home people had considered him laconic.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Harry asked, picking up some reeds to help with her weaving. She looked confused. No point asking permission, she didn’t understand the concept—or didn’t remember it. He pressed ahead anyway.
‘I haven’t touched the Fruit but I still keep losing track of time. I need to go home but I can’t.’
‘Okay,’ she agreed.
‘No. Not okay. How do I go home?’
‘You are home, Harry. Finally.’
She showed him how to weave as if they had all the time in the world—which was true—but he felt a little bit sad, as if each day that passed was making him lose something he wanted.
‘The Fruit makes us forget what it’s like to feel sad,’ she stated after a minute. ‘You can eat. Then you won’t be sad, and you won’t hurt!’ She stood up, looking around for the Tree that was always close by.
He shook his head regretfully. ‘I can’t eat that, Annie. I can’t afford to forget what’s going on out there. It’s important. I never should have come here.’ As he listened to her humming, something tugged at him, rippling his remaining sense of peace. ‘Lainie needs me to find a way home.’
Noah and Tessa had been gone for close to an hour and the sun was starting to ease down behind the hill, giving the air a deep golden hue. Bane and I sat back against the warm rocks near the cave entrance, feeling drowsy now that our clothes had dried.
‘So, do you think Noah’s having some sort of crisis of faith?’ I asked Bane, stacking pebbles out of sheer boredom. ‘How does that work? He helped me call a storm. He was there. It’s not like he can deny that it happened.’
‘Yes, but he was compelled to act last time. Now he has a choice. And he knows that what he sees will change everything for him. At least, it did for me.’
‘He is what he is, Bane. Whether he looks at the sword or not,’ I pointed out.
‘Of course, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Just give him some space. We can’t help him with this. He’ll have to figure it out in his own time.’
‘But time’s running out; he’s quite far away.’ I knocked over my miniature castle in a burst of redirected aggression. Noah should have known better than to just run off like that.
Bane looked annoyingly relaxed. ‘Tess will have no trouble finding him, and he would never leave her on her own out there. I’m sure they’re fine. Are they still moving away?’
‘No. I can’t feel Tess very distinctly, but Noah’s been in the same place for quite a while. They’d better come back soon.’
‘I think we should consider staying here tonight anyway,’ Bane said, standing up and brushing dust from his jeans. ‘It took us nearly two hours to get here and there’s only about half an hour of daylight left. I don’t think it would be a good idea to hike along the river in the dark.’
He helped me up and then I fished the sat-phone out of its plastic bag. It was a good thing Harry had thought to bring the canoe up here otherwise the phone would never have survived all the river crossings. I gave Aunt Lily a quick call to explain what had happened. She agreed with Bane: Noah would have to come around in his own time. It would be unhelpful to try to rush him. She promised she would have a hot meal waiting for us when we returned in the morning.
There wasn’t much we could do to prepare for the night. There was no food to cook and lighting a fire at this time of year was out of the question. The day had been bright and hot and the sky was clear, which meant that we were likely to have a chilly night ahead of us. I wondered if the cave would be better or worse than outdoors.
‘Lainie, can I ask you something?’ Bane was leaning against a tree, shredding a gum leaf into tiny fragments, obviously uncomfortable.
‘Of course,’ I replied. It would be hard to keep secrets now anyway, even if I had any, other than Eden.
‘How do you feel about everything that’s happened?’ The leaf was in tatters. He picked another one.
I thought for a little while. It was a fair question that deserved a fair answer. It was also a complex one, but eventually I turned to face him.
‘At first I was pretty angry, I guess, when Harry told me what I was. It seemed as if I hadn’t been given a choice in anything that was happening. And I felt pretty stupid for not having known what was going on. I mean, how could someone not know that they aren’t human? But I didn’t have anything to compare it to, so how could I have known?’ I picked my own leaf and started plucking at it ferociously. ‘So now I’m starting to question everything about myself. Which traits are human? Which ones are Cherub? I feel human but that doesn’t mean anything anymore. And then there’s the bushfire. I still can’t really process what happened. Just what am I capable of?’ I could feel my emotions getting rapidly out of control but I couldn’t seem to stop now that I was actually talking to someone. ‘Did you know that the moon has a massive effect on storm systems?’
‘The moon?’
‘And it’s really heavy!’
‘You moved the moon?’ His voice sounded a bit strangled.
I hurled the fragments of leaf away in a flurry of confetti. ‘Of course not! That would have been catastrophic! I just told it to stop pulling so hard …’
Bane’s eyes looked a bit wild, and he opened his mouth as if he wanted to reassure me but couldn’t find any words.
‘I had the power to argue with the moon! No, that’s not quite right. I had the authority to command the moon.’ My voice was going all wiggly, and felt like it was coming straight from the pit of my stomach. ‘What if I can’t handle all this and I go crazy or something? I don’t want to end up in an asylum! How will I get psychiatric help if I can’t even talk about anything? Or what if I inadvertently destroy the planet? I’m scared, Bane. You want to know how I feel? I’m mostly just plain scared!’ There were torn off clumps of gum leaves all around my feet that looked as if they had been angrily ripped from a nearby branch. I didn’t remember doing that.
He drew me into a hug and held me while I let the tears flow. I had thought I was past all this, but no amount of logical reasoning could prevent me from reacting like a teenage girl faced with a ridiculously bewildering future.
‘This is about as human as it gets, Lainie, trust me,’ he said in a voice calmer than the summer sky, ‘and you’ll always have my help. It may not be professional, but at least you can talk to me. I won’t let you go crazy, I promise.’
Full blown panic began to subside as his comforting words soaked in. He held me until my sobs eased off and I was breathing normally again, but I didn’t want him to let go because if he did I was afraid I might just scatter into a flurry of confetti like the leaves.
He touched the bracelet on my wrist. The word Shalom sparkled in the low afternoon sun. ‘It means more than just peace, you know,’ he explained. ‘In Hebrew the root word has several meanings. It can mean “worth it” or “fully paid for”. It can also mean completeness. Wholeness. Harmony. Tranquillity. Health … safety.’ He wrapped each word in unabashed compassion and my heart began to flutter as my fear melted away with each comforting trait he was offering.
‘That’s a lot of meaning in one word,’ I muttered, unable to avoid his luminous grey eyes. I usually forced myself to steer clear of his direct gaze, but I had to see if what I felt was truly reflected there, or if he was just being kind. The honest devotion I saw pulled at me harder than the moon had.
‘It’s everything I want for you.�
�� He wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb, and then he brushed my lip very gently, healing the pain I’d inflicted on us both the day before. ‘Shalom is the way things are supposed to be.’
It summed up everything I wanted. It also summed up everything he had come to mean to me over the past few weeks. I just hadn’t wanted to admit to myself how much I’d been relying on him, and not just for physical safety. Bane had supported me through everything without hesitation, and without so much as a hint of resentment. I didn’t know how I would ever cope without him. Maybe he was right, maybe this was the way it was meant to be.
‘And what is it that you need? Will you tell me this time?’ I pleaded, pressing my fingertips carefully against his.
He drew my hand to his cheek and sighed.
‘This is what I need. Just to be touching you,’ he whispered, closing his eyes. ‘You have no idea how good this feels for me, not to have to hold back from reaching out for you. Just to be this close. It’s like an unexpected release from a headache.’ He stepped back with a twisted smile. ‘I’m sorry. As I told you, I can control it. I certainly don’t expect you to let me—’
I didn’t let him finish. I threw myself at him and kissed him soundly. He stumbled but grabbed me as securely as if I had been about to jump off the cliff. His touch was everything I had tried to make myself forget from the morning of the fire, but I hadn’t stood a chance. That kiss had become the backdrop to every thought I’d had since that day, waking or sleeping. It coloured everything gold.
This one could have burned the sun.
As if it were a dance, Bane quickly took the lead, his hands gripping the back of my neck gently as if he actually thought I might pull away. He spun me around so I was leaning against the tree. When he eventually drew back, his breath was hitched and he was watching me so warily that I was afraid to move a muscle in case I scared him off. My knees were weak. It was just as well the tree was holding me up. Actually, that was probably no accident.
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