Songlines

by Carolyn Denman

  Throughout the day there had been maybe twenty of us playing at any one time. Some would come for just one turn, some stayed longer to perfect a new trick. Often I noticed people getting out of the water with a slight limp or nursing a bruised elbow. They didn’t look upset at all; they just wandered over to one of the plentiful Trees of Life and ate a piece of Fruit, or just rubbed the sore spot with a leaf. I was used to having Bane heal me so it seemed perfectly natural now to see so many healings take place before my eyes and I was very tempted to try some of the Fruit myself just to ease my bruises, but Harry’s warning made me wary. If he refused to eat it, then I would follow his lead.

  I tried to imagine what it would be like if these Trees existed in the world across the boundary, but my mind just refused to go there. Tainted humans being able to live forever? That held too many ramifications for my intellect to even begin to absorb. It was simply not permitted. Every fibre of my being, and every instinct that I had agreed. No matter how much I wished it could be otherwise.

  An iridescent dragonfly danced for my entertainment as I lay in the shade of a giant fern. Who needed holidays when this place was so much better than anything I had even heard of back home? It was good to know there would be some perks to being a Cherub if I was compelled to stay in Nalong my whole life. But what about the Guardians? What did they get in return for all the restrictions they had to put up with?

  Thinking of them made me remember the many questions I had been longing to ask Harry. Many of them were answered now that I’d experienced Eden for myself, but not all. I took the chance while I had it.

  ‘Harry, will you come home with us?’ I thought I’d start with an easy one, but he sat silently for so long that I reassessed my assumption.

  Finally he nodded. ‘Yeah. I won’t abandon you just yet. Especially not with Kolsom still a potential risk to our secret. Besides, you and Noah haven’t had a chance to finish growing up yet. There’s plenty for you to experience of the world before you get bound to Nalong too tightly.’

  I had a feeling it was already too late for that, but I didn’t argue.

  ‘So we’re the only ones? No other Cherubim I don’t know about yet?’ I was pretty confident of the answer, but thought it was worth checking. He smiled ruefully. ‘No others, I’m afraid. No duty roster either, sorry.’

  ‘And what about the Guardians? How tightly are they linked to us? You seem to manage all right without one. Do they have the freedom to choose their own path?’

  Harry froze, his face lined with grief and a longing that I had never before glimpsed in him. Clearly I had touched a nerve. I so badly wanted to know what had happened to his Guardian but at the same time the impulse to only do what made him happy wouldn’t allow me to ask anything else that might upset him, so instead I sat quietly and waited.

  He ran a finger along my bracelet, reading the inscription, and his voice was rough when he finally answered. ‘We are bound very tightly to our Guardians.’ He glanced over to where Annie was teaching Noah another way to fly by doing backwards twists off a rock. ‘Forever. Even if they die. You don’t want to know what it’s like to have to live without your soul mate. You really don’t.’

  Disturbing thoughts swirled through my head, but I didn’t try to stop him as he left to grieve in solitude. Harry was obviously still very much in love with his lost Guardian, and Annie had all but lost her mind when my dad had died. The idea that Harry could have been my father now seemed ludicrous. Those were thoughts that belonged in another world. In this world people fell in love, and bonded for life. No matter how long or short those lives were. I was beginning to accept that without Bane I would be as lost as my mother, and I had to assume that it would be the same for him. We were supposed to be together. The idea that I wasn’t attractive enough, or clever enough, or that I somehow wasn’t worthy of him—those ideas also belonged to a fallen world. Enough was enough. If by some remote chance he still wanted me, then I was his. Forever. The decision settled into my heart with a soft bump, like a boat coming home to the pier. This was easy. This was right.

  As I drifted off to sleep my mind was filled with the image of Bane’s light grey eyes, bright with the profound joy I’d seen only twice.

  Chapter 39

  At two o’clock, when Bane opened the door to the waiting room yet again, the mechanic practically threw him the bill and his keys. He had to force himself to drive away slowly.

  Lainie was not stupid, but this time she was just plain wrong. She didn’t trust his feelings for her, and he didn’t blame her for that one bit—not after so many years of having to deal with his vicious temper. He understood why she kept pushing him away. That girl had proven repeatedly just how well she understood him, and she was far wiser than she let on—their ridiculous fight over the fencing had taught him that—which was why he had agreed to her proposal. Deep down he knew that she wasn’t just being a silly teenager suffering from low self-esteem, although he had damaged her enough in the past for that to be a contributing factor. The truth was, she was being uncompromisingly rational in ways that he just didn’t have the courage for. What he felt for her was so foundational, so consuming, that he had to be absolutely certain of its validity before it was too late to turn back. They both did.

  That was not what she had been wrong about. She had simply been wrong to think there was any chance that it wasn’t already too late.

  Two days, he’d promised her, but it had only taken a day and a half to find out for certain what he already knew. His place was with her. It always had been. It had never done him any good to try to fight it, and he was heartily tired of trying. He now knew it wasn’t just the compulsion, either. He craved her company. Her insane practical jokes. Her unreserved and undeserved friendship. The sight of her mischievous smile and golden eyes and out of control hair. He even missed her constant grazing on whatever fruit happened to be within reach. He had known since the first steps of that fateful dance. He was hers, whether she wanted him or not. He would keep his distance if she asked, but he wanted more. Much more.

  Relieved to feel certain of himself finally, he stopped only long enough to buy a few supplies in case the stay at the cave stretched out longer than anticipated, and then he started back for Nalong.

  Driving home with the car radio up loud, he thought some more about their plan to bring the rock fall down. It was dangerous, and he didn’t like it, but he just couldn’t come up with anything better. The safest way to remove the rocks was to get the Cherubim to use their powers to clear it, and apparently that could only happen if the secret of Eden was under threat. With Sarah too far away, one of the Cherubim would have to come out to deal with the hazard. But there were too many variables. What if they didn’t believe the threat was genuine? Or found a way to deal with it without coming out? What if they fortified the rock wall instead of clearing it? Tessa had been convinced that was unlikely. There was a reason the path existed at all. God could have sealed the whole thing off permanently in the first place, but he hadn’t. He’d gone to a bit of trouble to make sure Eden could still be accessed from both sides, and guarded, so surely He wouldn’t let it be sealed off altogether.

  So the plan was simply to bring in an outsider—someone who would trigger their protective impulses but who could be convinced to leave before actually finding out anything too important. It wouldn’t take much to lure Nicole out there to nose around. The tricky part would be to get her to leave at exactly the right time, and yet make sure that she would be enough of a trigger.

  Bane gripped the steering wheel harder. Who were they kidding? Were they actually trying to trick Lainie, Noah and Harry, or were they trying to fool God himself? Neither option seemed at all likely. The only other suggestion they’d toyed with was to set off a bit of ANFO explosive—it wasn’t exactly legal to blow up tree stumps these days without a licence, but that didn’t mean that farmers had forgotten how to do it. But setting off explo
sives inside a cave? Good way to collapse the entire system, which would be somewhat counter-productive.

  It was almost four-thirty by the time he reached Nalong, but even on a sleepy Thursday afternoon he still felt very conspicuous driving through town. The place was too small to risk having someone mention they had seen him. Besides, he’d never liked the idea of leaving Tessa alone to guard everything, and so he took the road that ran through the state park behind the farm, planning to park as close to the cave as possible but still stay out of sight.

  He crossed the bridge and began looking for a place to pull off the road and hide the car. If he hadn’t been purposefully searching for such a spot he never would have seen the navy blue Land Cruiser with the Kolsom Mining logo that was nestled in the bushes.

  My dreams became increasingly restless as I slept until finally, gasping, I woke to feel my skin crawling with the sense that I was being watched. I had learnt to recognise that feeling, and I knew it meant trouble. Looking around for the others, I could only see my mother.

  When she noticed me, she reached up into one of the majestic Trees and picked a piece of Fruit, then stroked it as if trying to decide what to do. ‘Should I come?’ she asked with childlike worry.

  As tempted as I was to bring her with me, I knew she didn’t belong in Nalong anymore. ‘No, Annie. It’s my turn now.’ I hugged her tightly. ‘But I’ll be back,’ I promised.

  ‘You’d better go,’ she advised me seriously. ‘They think they are there to protect you, but they aren’t always safe either.’

  And then somehow I was running.

  I wasn’t sure exactly how to reach the cave from where I was but that didn’t hinder me in the least; I simply followed the sense of someone approaching an area they weren’t supposed to be. Like a fish in a reef, I darted through the trees, ignoring the smiles I received from the people I passed. They probably assumed I was playing a game.

  When I reached the cave I caught a glimpse of Noah just as he disappeared into it. I bolted in after him with a growing sense of threat like electricity at the base of my spine. Whatever this scheme of Tessa’s was, it was certainly working. I had a brief thought that it was too early, that we were supposed to stay for at least one more day, but the Guardians had been so careful not to let any details slip that I had to assume there was a good reason. I was so keyed up I felt as if I could smash my way straight through the rock to get to where I needed to be. They had better not have created too real a threat to Eden. Nothing was worth risking the sanctity of this place. Nothing.

  I spun around the corner, hardly noticing as my bare feet were torn by the rocks underfoot. The sword was just ahead. And it was spinning so fast that it just looked like a giant ball of flame.

  Tessa was polishing off her last packet of Twisties when she heard something that made her block up the hole in the rock fall as quietly as possible, plunging everything into complete darkness. Definitely footsteps. Echoing down the tunnel. Then a splash and a muttered curse as whoever it was must have missed seeing the puddle by the second bend.

  Bane had messaged her on the sat-phone a few hours earlier to tell her he was coming back early, and to ask if there was anything she wanted from the shops, but something primal inside her knew it wasn’t him approaching. Her bones knew it. Her suddenly tense muscles knew it. Even her teeth knew it. She was filled with a familiar but unusually fierce sense of protectiveness, despite the fact that Noah was across the boundary and the link was broken. Whoever was there was a potential threat to him. She would bet her life on it.

  A clatter of small rocks echoed down the tunnel.

  She thought about reaching for the phone, but even a sat-phone couldn’t get reception in a cave. Besides, the only people she could call for help were Bane, Lily and Sarah, and they were all too far away to help. Stumbling in the dark, she felt around and grabbed the only thing she could find that she could possibly use as a weapon. The rock was a bit too large for her to grip well, but it was better than nothing.

  As the figure rounded the last corner she crouched, silent and still. Strike now, her instincts told her. Before he knows you’re here. The man was not as tall as Bane. He moved slowly, using his torch to inspect the walls. Deep in her soul she was so certain this stranger was dangerous that she didn’t even hesitate. She threw the rock as hard as she could at the man’s head.

  It missed by miles.

  If she survived this she was definitely going to follow Bane’s advice and learn some skills, she decided, as the man spun around and shone the torch directly into her eyes.

  Bane pelted through the bush like a fox with its tail on fire. Blackberry thorns tugged on his clothes and skin and his lungs burned, but he couldn’t slow down. He was realising just how careless they had all been to let the path become so obvious. They had travelled to the cave so often lately that anyone could follow their trail. And someone had.

  He reached the base of the waterfall, hoping the man might have lost the trail there, but one look at the badly hidden canoe on the other side made that a vain prospect. There was a wet garbage bag on the other riverbank. It was obvious someone had crossed over, probably using the bag to keep something dry. He plunged into the water without even bothering to take off his shoes. There simply wasn’t time.

  ‘Just show me where the paintings are and I’ll let you go,’ the dark-haired man said to Tessa reasonably. At least it would have sounded reasonable if he hadn’t been threatening her with a large hideous looking knife at the same time. He had pulled it out of a satchel he was carrying as soon as he’d found her cowering in the dark. Then he’d cut the straps off her pack and used them to bind her wrists. Perhaps if Noah had been close she would have put up more of a fight, but the link was broken and she was terrified and alone in a dark cave with a man holding a knife.

  ‘Who are you? Are you the guy from the mining company that Lainie met with?’ she sobbed.

  He wore jeans and an expensive-looking cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked like he’d just stepped out of an R.M. Williams catalogue. Except he had obviously just swum the river and was sopping wet.

  ‘Sshhhh! Never mind who I am,’ he said in a silky voice. ‘I’m just here to see those wonderful Indigenous works of art. But who are you?’ he asked, lifting her chin with the point of the blade.

  ‘T … Tessa. I’m a friend of Lainie’s. We’re camping out.’ Should she make him think that Bane was nearby too? Would that help? She couldn’t think. ‘Why do you need to see the paintings? Are you going to destroy them? You’re too late. Lainie’s aunt has already taken the photos to Melbourne to get the site registered,’ she told him, trying to sound confident.

  He made an impatient noise. ‘I wouldn’t dream of destroying something so old and authentic. No. I just want to improve them a bit. There are some very nice modern ochre pastels I’ve brought with me to bring out the colours. I’m sure when I’m done they’ll look just like they did when they were first painted.’

  Sneaky bastard. He planned to make everyone think the paintings were fakes, as if the Gracewoods had painted them just to stop the mining acquisition.

  Messing with the paintings in any way was a federal offence. He could kiss his mining career goodbye if he was found out, which meant that he wouldn’t be letting her tell anyone. Worse still, Lainie had warned them that he was capable of violence. Her whole body trembled as she desperately tried to think of something she could do.

  ‘You can’t kill me,’ she insisted, trying to sound like the brave people did in the movies and failing badly. ‘A murder investigation would really mess up any chance you might have at getting that stupid licence.’

  He actually laughed. ‘Murder? No. Accident. It’s not like I actually need to use this knife. Perhaps a broken neck from a fall down a shaft? Or you could drown in the river. Either option is easy to fake. Lainie could get killed trying to rescue you too, if she’s re
ally around here. In fact, the search for you both might just uncover what the two of you were up to in here. Especially when the police find your art supplies in here.’

  He had thought it through far too much for her liking. As much as the idea pained her, she actually considered showing him the paintings, because if she did, there was a chance he might just do his dirty work and leave quickly. All their recent planning had been based around manipulating Noah and Lainie to use their powers to break down the rock barrier and come home, but now that there was a real threat, all she wanted was for Noah to stay right where he was. Where he was safe.

  Perhaps Bane was right. Perhaps Noah would be compelled to keep the rock fall intact in order to prevent anyone from getting through, even if they knew she was in danger. And the worst part was that she hoped that was true. The last thing she wanted was for Noah to come anywhere near the cave while this man was here. Despite the fact that she was alone. And she was probably going to die.

  As Harry crossed the Event Horizon, the anxiety he had been sensing morphed into a feeling of fury so powerful that it hit him like a slap in the face. Mere metres away. Just on the other side of the rocks. Two people were there. One was hostile. Every bone in his body screamed warning of the danger that the invader was bringing to Eden. How had they thought it would be all right to leave the area unprotected, even for a day? Outsiders were not allowed to be so close! He put his hand on the rock where he knew there would be a gap if only he could push it out of the way, but his hand stayed fixed on the wall.

  He could not reveal the sword to this stranger.