We lay on the sweet grass, letting the sun dry us off. The sunshine here had texture. And it was kind. The others had all left, leaving just me and the girl who had hugged me. I had dressed again, grateful that my thoughtless strip down had at least saved the photos Bane had given me. The girl was still naked but it didn’t feel in the least bit strange. Thinking back, I realised that the man we had met when we first landed in Eden had also been naked. I simply hadn’t noticed at the time and I had no idea how that was possible. It just seemed so natural here. There was certainly nothing inappropriate going on. I’d just spent two hours swimming with a bunch of nude young adults and didn’t get so much as a leer. Only the completely innocent hug from this girl. It felt like we could be sisters, except I had no idea what that would be like. I peered sideways at her. She had long wild hair and dusky skin a similar colour to mine. Her eyes were much darker than my tawny speckled ones. She was pretty in a comfortable, familiar way, and looked to be just a few years older than me, but her eyes seemed more mature. They had a depth to them that spoke of something profound and hidden, maybe grief? And yet she moved with such energy and innocence that it was hard to think of her as anything other than totally carefree. She noticed me watching her.
‘Hello,’ she mumbled shyly, fiddling with the ends of her hair.
That was odd. Not just that we had spent the last couple of hours together and she was only just now saying hello, but also that she sounded shy. No one here was shy. It sounded weird. And how did she know English? She sat up straight and looked at me seriously, taking a deep breath as if trying to find extra confidence.
‘You really are Lainie,’ she announced, as if I might have forgotten. ‘I’m Annie. Harry told me you would come, but I didn’t believe him. You’re a lot older than I expected.’
And she was a heck of a lot younger. I had finally met my mother.
Chapter 37
I stared at her blankly for a few moments. My mouth opened and closed a couple of times but nothing came out. Finally a tear betrayed me as it rolled down my cheek. I didn’t know how to respond to her.
She noticed the tear. ‘I’ve made you unhappy!’ she said, looking around until her eyes rested on one of the Trees of Life. When she looked back at me her face lit up with excitement. ‘If you eat the Fruit, you’ll come back to life and then I can keep you!’
Keep me? She was halfway to the Tree before the rest of her sentence had a chance to properly filter into my brain.
‘Wait! Please! I can’t eat that. Annie … Mum, please!’
She stopped and looked at me, confused.
‘I don’t want to forget. I need to remember. Please, don’t make me eat it.’
‘Make you?’ She pondered the words as if she had no idea what they meant. ‘Oh! I want whatever you want. If you don’t want to eat, just don’t. But why would you want to stay dead?’ She came and sat back down in front of me.
‘I don’t understand what you mean. How am I dead?’
‘You came from across the Skin of the World.’ She grasped my hand as if she was breaking terrible news to me. ‘Everyone on the other side is dead.’
For a second I panicked, imagining that some worldwide catastrophe had occurred, or that maybe we were in some sort of time-distorted dimension and hundreds of years had passed without me knowing. But then reason returned. Hadn’t I just seen Bane a couple of hours ago? We had almost beaten him to the cave so time must run the same on both sides of the boundary. Otherwise how would we have been able to meet with Harry each time?
Her hand around mine felt cool and familiar, and I didn’t let her go. For a few moments we just sat there, staring at our clasped hands while images flashed through my mind. Her memories, not mine, but I felt them like they were my own. There was no deceit in her, only … something … guilt?
‘You feel hurt,’ she stated. ‘I can help take that away if you like.’
‘No, you can’t,’ I said, snatching my hand away and feeling somehow violated. ‘Because you’re the one who hurt me.’ Now why would I say a thing like that? ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’
Her smile was wry. ‘Yes, you did. There is no place for dishonesty here. In Eden, you say what you mean. That was always a tricky thing when I was here with my own mother.’
‘Why, did she leave you too?’
This was not how I had rehearsed it. Not even in the daytime soap opera version.
‘Yes.’ Her eyes kept flicking towards the nearby Tree but she tucked her feet under her and clasped her arms around her knees as if forcing herself to remain seated. ‘We all lose the people we love, and I didn’t want to put you through that.’
‘So, what, you thought you’d just leave when I was a baby so I wouldn’t have a chance to love you?’ My words felt hot as they left my chest. Dragon-breath words.
Her words bit back, snappy and sharp. ‘Lily tried to hide it, but I knew how she felt whenever I came back for you. I couldn’t be what you needed.’ A trembling breath, and then she peered up at me from under damp lashes. ‘Has she been what you needed?’
Her eyes were so full of desperation that I couldn’t deny her the reassurance she was craving. ‘Aunt Lily has been a wonderful mother.’
Her face softened.
‘But you left me for dead.’
She didn’t speak.
‘I don’t understand,’ I pushed. ‘How can I be here talking to you if I’m dead?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘You haven’t stopped yet, but you are dead. Unless you eat some Fruit.’
‘Oh. I get it. Death is inevitable outside of Eden, so anyone out there is as good as dead, right?’
Something shut down behind her eyes, and she became so still that for a few awkward seconds I thought maybe I’d broken her or something. She was like a toy that had just run out of batteries. But then she replied with another soft-spoken ‘Yes,’ and her voice held all the grief that I had slept with for so long. And then I knew. The sadness in the river back home had somehow come from her. Harry had told me that she’d only started to eat from the Tree when Kolsom started poking about, and I would have been willing to bet my entire music collection that the river had become sad at the same time. I needed to talk to Harry, and Noah.
I sat up urgently. ‘Do you know where Harry is? I think I’d better tell him I’ve lost Noah.’
Her smile unfurled again like a morning tulip. ‘I can always find Harry. And you can always find Noah.’
She stood up and helped me to my feet, and then confidently turned and walked off through the trees, so I followed.
The old sedan spluttered its way into the service station and Bane groaned in a mix of relief and frustration. That’d be right. He could finally make it out of town without feeling like either throwing up or passing out, and then his car goes and gets sick instead. He popped the bonnet and stared dejectedly at the steam rising from the radiator. It was a good thing Lainie had taught him a bit about engine care or he might have been stupid enough to try to open the cap. He went inside to buy a cold drink instead.
Horsham was hot and sleepy. No surprise there. But it was also a bigger town than Nalong and there were plenty of things to do. He had been many times before, of course. It was about the only town close enough to home that allowed him to be well enough to function, but he had always been uncomfortable staying for too long, and had never felt particularly eager to waste any time there. He usually came, ran the errands he needed to, and then headed back home as soon as possible. This time he would take things much slower. He had a few family friends he wanted to call on, and was considering catching a movie or visiting a music store. There might even be a local band playing somewhere if he was lucky.
Once his car cooled enough to top up the radiator, he took it to a mechanic near the centre of town and then booked himself into a cheap motel. With no clear sense of purpose, he began to w
alk along the main street, browsing at the shops, and was struck by the sheer number of options there were for him to fill his time with. There were bookstores, music stores, dance lessons and even a martial arts training facility. Which way would his life turn? What did he really want? If the world was truly open to him, what could he achieve? He didn’t even know where to start. He had assumed Lainie wanted him to explore the idea of meeting other girls, but maybe it was more than that? Perhaps she wanted him to think seriously about what else he wanted from life. Farming was great, but he probably wasn’t really suited to it after all. He enjoyed it because she was there, not because of the work itself.
Looking reflectively at a couple of tourists taking photos of a church, it struck him how little of the world he had seen. He’d always assumed he would travel one day, perhaps in the army, but not necessarily. Would he have gone through with his army plans if he hadn’t been linked to Lainie? Could he still? Lainie wouldn’t just drop her life here and stay in Eden indefinitely, would she? She had plans too. He certainly couldn’t let her sacrifice everything she knew just to let him join the army. That would be ridiculous. But the question remained, what did he want out of life? And how was he supposed to work it all out in just a couple of days?
He passed a few more shops, and loitered in the window of a small art gallery. It appeared to specialise in Indigenous artwork, which immediately sparked his interest. So much for exploring other ideas. As soon as anything to do with Eden appeared he lost all ability to focus on anything else.
The dot paintings were beautiful, full of earthy tones and swirling lines that mesmerised him. Some were contemporary, some more traditional. None looked much like the cave drawings. Those told a story, these ones were more for decoration. Suddenly startled, he noticed a familiar figure inside the shop, talking to the owner. Mr Beckinsale was smiling, obviously sweet-talking her into something. Bane moved closer to the open door to listen.
‘How can one authenticate a particular piece of work?’ he heard him ask the owner. ‘I wouldn’t want to pay for an original only to find it was done by some student out for a quick bit of cash. Nor would I want to offend anyone by trying to purchase a piece that might be considered sacred by your people. Is that ever a problem?’
The elderly lady squared her shoulders, her dark curly hair shot with grey and held back with a colourful scarf. ‘All the paintings here are genuine. I either painted them myself or they were done by members of my family or clan. They wouldn’t be offered for sale if they were sacred,’ she said, as if that should be plainly obvious.
She was right. There was only one reason that slinking fox would be asking such questions. What was he hoping to prove? That the cave paintings weren’t genuine?
‘Of course,’ he agreed humbly. ‘So if you painted these, could you tell me what sort of paints you used? The colours are amazing! Are they made from natural materials?’
She looked a little more mollified. ‘Historically most paint was made from various shades of ochre, mixed with blood or saliva. Colours were traded between tribes depending on what was available in each area. These days we mostly use acrylic paints,’ she smiled sardonically. ‘Hardly any blood.’
Turning from her to inspect the largest painting featured on the wall, the lawyer’s eyes deadened in response to her subtle condescension. ‘Thank you, you have been most informative,’ he said, far too smoothly, and turned to leave.
Bane ducked away from the door before he could be seen. After a moment he turned and watched the man order a take away coffee from a nearby café before getting back into his blue Land Cruiser and driving off. The man was planning something, surely, but what?
All Bane wanted now was to get his car fixed and head back. He had no interest in chatting up strangers. Not now, not ever. He would finish his time here as promised, but not a moment longer.
We found Noah and Harry sitting under a tree whose base was wider than Harry’s cottage. It was one of many clumped close together to form a natural shelter from the elements. The dirt underneath had been cleared of leaves and sticks and was more or less level. It reminded me of a fantasy world in a computer game—there were even elven-like people pottering around at various tasks, talking to each other in what I now realised was an intricate sign language. Every now and then I would catch one of them watching us curiously, but they seemed content to give us some space. The people here were definitely human, but different enough to what I was used to that I could happily pretend they were magical creatures who could shoot an orc at fifty paces and never need to brush their hair. And there were enough of them gathered here that I had to assume we were in some sort of village. The tree shelter was on the edge of a native bushland that looked more like a Queensland rainforest than anything else. It gave the impression that these people resided here, although I was yet to see any sort of housing.
Noah looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry for running off. I was just a bit startled but I’m okay now, I promise.’
‘I’m the one who should apologise. I didn’t even realise what I was doing until I saw the look on your face. It was all very innocent, but unfair on you, sorry.’
‘Hey. Apparently there is no right or wrong here. What you choose to do is your business. It just surprised me, that’s all.’
Wow, he really must have had a shock, seeing me hug a strange naked girl. I started to feel my cheeks turning red as my sense of propriety finally reasserted itself, and I could see Harry trying hard not to laugh at the awkward moment. Thank goodness Noah had found him; they had clearly been having a bit of a man-to-man talk.
‘Noah, this is Annie. My mother,’ I explained, trying hard to ignore the fact that she was still naked as I was introducing her. And then it was my turn to try not to laugh as his face changed from shock to confusion, and then embarrassment. As if he could possibly have known!
He stood up and glanced at Harry who nodded, and then he stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Gracewood,’ he said softly, as if he expected her to run away.
‘Mrs Gracewood! Blah! You make me sound like I should be making jam for the Nalong Show.’ She was right. It seemed a ridiculous title for someone so young looking. Then she beamed at him. ‘Noah Ashbree! I remember you. You were such an adorable baby. You had soft white curls and such bright eyes—a real Cherub!’ She giggled delightedly. ‘How are those two terrible brothers of yours? They used to love eating my chocolate chip cookies when I babysat them.’ She sounded so typically middle-aged all of a sudden that Noah and I just stared at her helplessly. The idea that this faerie-like naked girl had ever baked cookies—let alone looked after Caleb and Liam as toddlers—was difficult to assimilate.
‘Uh, they’re fine,’ Noah replied uncertainly. ‘I have a sister now, too. Nicole. She’s nearly fourteen.’
‘Yes, of course. I forgot about the baby … Wonderful! Sarah always wanted a girl. I am so pleased for her; she was pretty unhappy for a while.’
Interesting. According to Sarah it was my mother who suffered from depression. I wanted to know more but was reluctant to pry into the past in case I said something to upset her again. Obviously Noah felt the same because he changed the subject.
‘Annie, could you please tell us where we can find some food? I enjoy the fruit and all, but I was wondering if there was anything … else?’
Poor Noah. Personally I felt as though the fruit here would be more than fine for breakfast, lunch and dinner for eternity, but he would never cope.
‘Of course,’ she assured him. ‘Growing Cherubim like you need much more than fruit. Let me see what I can find.’
It seemed as though the more she interacted with us the more naturally she was able to converse, although for some reason I got the impression that she might just shatter if we said the wrong thing. I hoped we would only trigger her happier memories because I was enjoying the idea that I might have the chance to g
et to know her.
She led us deeper into the trees until we reached a sheltered clearing, where tantalising cooking smells made me reassess my earlier opinion of eating fruit forever. It appeared to be a communal dining area. The branches above had such thick foliage that it seemed unlikely that any rain ever got through at all. The trees themselves seemed to help this process by growing their branches all at the same height, crisscrossing over each other to form a stable-looking ceiling. It was as if the trees had grown that way on purpose, just to form a pleasant space for humans to gather in. A garden created for humans to dwell in. I was starting to understand just how significant that was.
Everywhere I looked I could see works of art. Mosaics and embossed clay slabs, paintings and giant sculptures, everything made from natural materials and everything made because it was beautiful, not because it was functional. Apparently the culinary arts were taken seriously as well. There were people preparing meals, shaping vegetables with short knives into tiny animals and flowers. They were laughing with each other, delighting in showing off their creations, and what they produced was being handed out freely. Harry selected a bowl for each of us and found us a large rock so we could all sit together.
‘Some of the food can be very rich if you’re not accustomed to it,’ he warned as he handed us our bowls. My bowl contained a portion of white meat with a deep red sauce and some carrots carved into perfect star shapes on the side. It was garnished with actual tiny yellow flowers too. It was far too pretty to eat.
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