‘Once there was a girl who had a magic drake,’ March had said. ‘Every night at sunset, the girl would take the drake to the creek and sing to him, and while she sang, the drake paddled through the water. Behind him, he left a trail of brilliant colours. When the colours faded, the fish multiplied, and the water became more abundant, and the town lived in prosperity along its banks.
‘Until one day, when two thieves passed through by night. They were very hungry and seeing this fat, well-fed duck, they killed and ate it, leaving the bones beside their cooking fire. The girl found the bones there the next morning. But to the townspeople’s surprise, at sunset the girl went out to the creek’s edge and began to sing, even though her drake was not there to swim in the water. No colours came, no fish multiplied. The town didn’t prosper as it once had. But each day at sunset, the girl still went down to the water and sang.
‘Every day this continued. And then, a woman who had lost her child was crying in her home and she heard the girl singing. And the woman walked down to the bank and joined her, singing along. The next day, an old man who never married the woman he loved walked down and joined the song.
‘Every day, another person would hear something in the girl’s song and be reminded of their own grief. More and more people came down to the banks of the river, until the town stood empty.’
That was the end of the story. It had made Whim sad when she heard it as a child, the loss of her mother still visible on Aelred’s face. But recalling the story as she watched the ducks on the water – the stench of mildew on her unwashed clothes, hunger in her belly, hollowness in her chest – it cast a sliver of light.
That was when Whim heard the bee. It flew right above her, hovering by her nose. Whim winced as she got to her feet and followed as the bee skidded away. It stopped here and there to land, disappearing and reappearing on its path away from the water. More and more bees joined it.
‘Finchy?’ Whim said. The bees swarmed a bush in the distance, and as she approached, Whim saw that their boxes of hives had been set up amongst the gnarled branches. And there was an odd little shelter, too, set up beside it. A shelter made of familiar tablecloths and lace curtains.
‘Finchy?’ Whim ran. ‘Finchy?’ When she reached the shelter, she drew back the lace door. Crouched in the darkness was the old woman holding a heavy stick.
‘Don’t you dare think I’m a coward,’ she whispered, small eyes red, leathery face defiant. ‘My bees. I had to protect my bees.’
‘Finchy…’ Whim began, emotion welling up in her.
‘Hush,’ she said. ‘Do you have ears, girl?’
Whim was quiet. And at first she heard nothing but the bees, the red-winged blackbirds, the quarrelling squirrels. Then, faintly, in the distance, she heard it. Voices, two voices, calling for Elwyn.
Elwyn.
Whim ran before Finchy could stop her. She only half-heard the hoarse whispers of the old woman ordering her to come back. She couldn’t. She tried to shout Elwyn’s name, but her throat wouldn’t open. She just ran towards the voices, ran with weak knees.
The voices grew louder and louder, then stopped entirely. Whim looked around, recognising where she was immediately as the place where she first heard the trucks go by, the trucks that had started everything. The weight of the memory froze her in place. She almost thought she could hear them still, the ghosts of the automobiles still living inside her. But then a voice stirred Whim from her recollection.
‘Quick,’ the voice said. ‘It might be a demolition crew, and we can’t just let them by. Help me drag this, in case. It will block the road, at least for a while.’
Whim peered through the bushes to see Hestia Rhoad and a woman who looked like a sharp and slender version of Mirth Bramble. They were dragging a log, their hair dishevelled and their good clothes creased and dirty-hemmed. Whim held back, keeping hidden, watching. Hestia and the woman dragged the log across the puddle-and-mud-covered road, then hid themselves on the other side.
By the time they finished, Whim realised that it wasn’t her imagination recalling the sound of vehicles. Coming down the road was a yellow truck, large and splattered with dirt. Whim ducked deeper down into the bushes, hiding from what she thought could be officials coming to check on progress at the mining site. Her heart was in her throat.
The truck stopped when it reached the log. As Whim expected, a man stepped out to move it, but when she saw his face, her breath caught in her chest. It was Cronus Rhoad, his sleeves rolled up. He was handsomer than his newspaper pictures and also fiercer. In that moment, she saw more of the man who traded along the Messipi than the man who went to fundraisers and gave speeches. Rhoad struggled with the log, cursing. When he finally succeeded and turned back to the truck, Hestia walked out in front of it.
‘Out of the way,’ he said, brushing the bark from his hands.
‘I won’t,’ Hestia said.
At the sound of his daughter’s voice, he looked up. Rhoad was silent for a moment. His shoulders relaxed with what looked like relief before anger returned to his face. That look of relief surprised Whim, and maybe it should have made her feel some small measure of pity or understanding. Instead, the love she saw briefly on his face made her livid. Who was Rhoad to feel fatherly love? Rhoad, who had taken it from her. She searched the ground around her and found a sharp stone.
‘Get in the truck, Hestia,’ Rhoad finally said.
‘No.’
‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I have lost everything. Everything, Hestia. My reputation is destroyed, my future is precarious, my wife is furious. This is not the time to cross me.’
‘I’ll get in the truck with you if you turn around. If you turn yourself over to the law and face the consequences of what you’ve done.’
‘Get into the truck,’ he said, face turning red again, grabbing his daughter by the arm. Hestia struggled, but she wasn’t as strong as her father. Whim’s stomach churned.
But then Elwyn’s aunt ran out of the woods, a thick fallen branch in her hand. ‘Let her go,’ she said, and when he didn’t listen, she sent the branch down onto Rhoad’s shoulder. He dropped Hestia’s arm, cursing.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Hestia said to her father, whose face was screwed up in pain. ‘When you were young you had to take everything you could get your hands on, fight for it. But it’s not like that any more. We have enough. We don’t need this sand mine.’
‘You still think that’s what this is all about, Hestia? About me? About greed? Have you listened to a word I’ve said? I’m saving this country.’ Rhoad shook his head. Tears of fury stood in Hestia’s eyes, and Piety stood beside her with a hand on Hestia’s shoulder. ‘You’ve seen nothing but the glossed surface of the world. We’re living in a land of abundance, but we’re crawling through it like ants. The Collective should never have become this backward, forgotten place, and it will never change unless someone changes it. That mine will be built. I have people working for me. I can lie low and manage things from a distance. It’s not ideal, but at least this country will keep moving forward.’
‘So you’re just going to sit around while people’s lives are destroyed? Hide out in one of your friends’ remote, fancy lake houses and hope that the law won’t catch up with you?’
‘Of course it won’t. No one with power cares about this, Hestia. It doesn’t affect them, so they have no reason to pursue it. You’ll see. This has cost me time, but in several years, I’ll be able to run again, and I’ll lift this country to its proper place.’
‘And on whose back are you going build this new country?’ Hestia said. ‘There will be consequences for you. I won’t let you get away with this.’
‘You think you are a righteous rebel, but you’re just a sheltered, spoilt girl. Of course there will be casualties,’ Rhoad said. ‘If you had ever spent time out on the land, you would know that the old grass sometimes needs to be burned away for the new grass to thrive.’
Anger surged in Whim and s
he snuck forward and swiftly punctured one of the truck’s tyres with the stone. It hissed, a sound like a snake. Rhoad lunged at her, but before he could reach her, she punctured another tyre. He grabbed her by the arm, face violet, and before Whim knew what she was doing, she had the stone poised above her head, ready to bring down onto his skull.
She saw a flash of fear in Rhoad’s eyes and it satisfied her. It satisfied her? Before this summer, Whim had been a stranger to anger. Now she was consumed by it. That some things had to die so others could flourish was a fact; Rhoad had come this far because he accepted that to get what you want, there had to be casualties, but Whim wasn’t Rhoad. She couldn’t accept cruel terms of life with the ease he did. Hurting him would not bring her father back. It wouldn’t put the fallen trees back in their places or put houses back together, piece by broken piece.
Her arm wavered, just a little, and when Rhoad used the opportunity to grab her wrist and push her to the ground, she wasn’t afraid nor even surprised. What surprised her was what happened next: as she lay on the ground, one of Rhoad’s hands around her wrist, the other raised to strike her, Hestia threw herself onto her father, her arm wrestling his.
‘Get off, Hestia,’ Rhoad said. But Hestia didn’t. Then Elwyn’s aunt joined her, but it wasn’t they who caused Rhoad to suddenly stumble sideways. He clutched his hand to his head. Whim didn’t understand what had happened. Hestia, too, looked around, confused.
Then Elwyn pushed his way through the brush and onto the road, sling in hand. His eyes fell on his friend and didn’t leave.
‘Whim,’ Elwyn said. ‘I told you to practise with that sling.’ And he smiled, but it wasn’t the boyish smile she was used to. It was a face that was altered in a way she couldn’t quantify, but that warmed her, in a day that was damp and grey.
CHAPTER 33
Gashes
THE NIGHT BEFORE and all through the morning, Elwyn had been lost to himself. The house he had grown up in had been demolished; the town was hardly recognisable. But seeing his best friend made him feel at home. The glow Whim had when Elwyn last saw her had gone. There was an ashiness to her skin and hair. But despite that, seeing her still brought a freshness, like it was spring.
The stone had just grazed Rhoad’s head, but it left a gash in its wake. Elwyn wanted them to take him to Badfish Creek, not just to treat the wound, but to show him the place he nearly destroyed. He thought if they could show Rhoad where his house had been, the path Samuel Bramble first took to get there, the now-fallen trees that had watched it all, Rhoad might have some sort of change of heart.
‘It’s the only way we can make this end well,’ Elwyn said. ‘Having someone like Rhoad on our side, to help us rebuild, to protect us from having this ever happen again – it’s exactly what we need.’ Rhoad was quiet as Hestia and Piety used ropes from the truck to bind his hands and legs. He didn’t struggle. His clothes were still unrumpled somehow, his face civil in its silence. But as Elwyn spoke, Hestia, Whim and Piety guided Rhoad into the back of the car, watching him shrewdly.
‘It’s a bad idea,’ Hestia said.
Elwyn objected, but Whim spoke gently. ‘Your optimism is something we’re going to need, Elwyn. But not for him.’ Rhoad was sitting silently in the back of the car Hestia had driven the day before. He knew when it was worth speaking and when to keep quiet. Looking at him there, Elwyn recalled the first time he saw Cronus Rhoad. It was in a house full of light.
‘I’m going to drive him home. To the jail,’ Hestia said, filling the tank with gas and testing the lock of the door, the security of the ropes.
‘You’re going back to Liberty?’ Elwyn said.
‘I have to talk to the newspapers, lawyers. My father has to answer to the courts for what he’s done.’
‘I know but… I thought you’d stay here with us.’
‘I have to do this, Elwyn. If you want to help with the case against him, you know where to find me.’ Elwyn’s face fell, but Hestia, in a rare moment of affection, wrapped Elwyn in a hug, then turned to Whim and embraced her, too. ‘And I hope you do come, sometime. We could use witnesses at the trial.’
‘Well? Are you ready?’ Hestia said, turning to Piety, who had been quiet for some time. But Piety shook her head. ‘I’m not coming,’ she said. So Hestia drove down the muddy road with no one but her father, tied up in the back.
‘Well,’ Elwyn said. ‘I guess all that’s left for us is to go home, for now.”
‘Did you hear what Rhoad said? About having things set in motion?’ Whim looked west down the road.
‘Hestia won’t let anything more happen to Badfish Creek. She’s smart. She knows how to do everything,’ Elwyn said, and he believed it. But below that confidence were his own worries. There was a future that was now blank.
He held out his hand and Whim took it. He squeezed Whim’s hand and she squeezed back.
Piety threw herself into the work of rebuilding with a Mirth-like vigour. She raked and dug through the ground for people’s belongings. She sorted and searched for lumber. The only break she took was to put a postscript in the letter Elwyn sent to his mother. He had written to tell her that he was safe, Badfish Creek would be okay, and she should come home. Piety simply added, in her small, crisp hand, that she was eager to see her sister as well.
But the letter never reached Mirth. The day after it was sent, a voice was heard over the morning goose-chatter. Elwyn had just woken, his body stiff with work after weeks of disuse. The sun was out, dew was underfoot, and the droplets of water vapour sparkled in the yellow light of August.
‘Elwyn!’ the voice called again. Then Elwyn could see her, pulling a heavy cart, flanked on either side by Teilo and Loew. ‘Elwyn. You have some explaining to do.’ Elwyn stepped out onto the path she walked, and Mirth set down the cart. His pants were dirty and dew-soaked, but his mother didn’t even glance at them. ‘I read what you did in a paper, and I figured I’d find you here. You can be so reckless.’ Mirth’s voice was choked with anger, but also with relief. Before she could finish, Elwyn walked towards her, and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling her son to her as if he were still a young boy, not one her own height, nearly grown. Elwyn could feel the thick, warm tears on her cheek. Her shoulders began to shake. ‘I’m so glad you’re safe,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’re home.’
‘I’m glad, too,’ Loew said, wrapping his arms around them both.
‘Mam!’ Enid said, running towards them. Her usually laughing eyes were as full of tears as her mother’s as she joined the embrace. Then Neste came. Soon all six of them were wrapped up together, a bundle of arms, torsos and wet cheeks.
‘Allun and Dewey will be coming in a few days,’ Mirth said when they finally separated, wiping her cheeks. ‘They were with Posy’s family and couldn’t get going as quickly as we did.’
‘No one could get going as fast as we did,’ Loew said. ‘Mam walked full speed all the way here. We didn’t stop once. She had us sleep on top of the cart at night while she pulled us, and only napped a bit during the day.’
‘Loew,’ Mirth scolded.
‘She never slept for long. She was worried we weren’t fast enough or safe. She had nightmares—’
‘Enid, Neste – you girls take Loew and Teilo to get some rest. There’s a lot to be done, and you won’t be any use if you don’t get some sleep.’
‘They can sleep at Whim’s house,’ Elwyn said. ‘She’s probably there now. She’ll want to see you all.’
‘Where is Aelred?’ Mirth asked after the siblings started down towards the marsh. ‘I need to speak to him. To apologise.’
‘Aelred died,’ Elwyn said. The words felt wrong, like they didn’t belong to him. Mirth was looking after her children as they walked away.
‘Poor girl,’ she said quietly. The wrinkles on her face had grown more pronounced. ‘And what about our home?’ she said after a few moments. They left the cart and Elwyn walked with his mother along the path through the thick, wooded part of the
forest to the place where the soil had been torn, houses toppled, trees felled. Mirth went where their house had been, and crouched over a piece of wood that had been part of their floor, smoothed by generations of feet.
She stared at that piece of wood for what seemed like a long time before her large shoulders began to heave. Elwyn went and knelt beside her. He was unaccustomed to his mother crying and didn’t know what to say.
‘It was your father’s house. It was the place he grew up, and when I walked those floors, cooked on the stove his mother cooked at, I remembered him,’ she said, her voice lilting. ‘My parents disowned me when I married him, so his family was my family. He was my family. And now…’ Mirth wiped the tears with her calloused hands. When she looked up, she saw her sister on the other side of the clearing. Piety didn’t see her; she was too focused on the collecting and sorting of wood she was tending to. Mirth’s body went tense.
‘Aunt Piety wanted to come back with me for a while. She helped us…’ Elwyn began, but his mother didn’t seem to hear. She stood slowly and strode towards her sister with large, deliberate steps.
When Piety saw her sister, she straightened. ‘I didn’t know if you’d want me here. But I came just the same. I came to help you,’ she said.
Mirth’s face was stony. She took a step closer, her body imposing next to her sister’s.
Then Mirth opened her arms. The two sisters embraced, and didn’t let go for a long time. They were inseparable the rest of the summer. Where one went, so did the other.
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