by P. J. Sky
When I’m closer it’ll work, Starla assured herself.
At first, Starla had been shocked to find herself in this cave and with this strange girl. It had taken all her effort to stop herself shaking and she was already ashamed of how she’d acted. When the tears came, she wasn’t even sure why she was crying. It was as if she’d been outside her body, looking down on herself and telling herself to calm down. Come on Starla she’d said, you are better than this, you have to take control of yourself. Now, the earlier events of the day were a blur; a jumble of events and images that all seemed far away and to have happened to someone else. Now, there was nothing she could do except endeavour to resolve the situation.
I am Starla Corinth, first daughter of the city. I am my father’s daughter.
She scratched absently at the inside of her arm. Her skin felt strangely numb.
You can do this Starla, she told herself. You can get yourself back to the city.
Smoke collected around the low roof of the cave. The oil lamp released a rich, fatty smell. Ari scratched the grubby side of her neck. She looked like she was starving. She was stick thin, her skin blotchy and dark. Her hair, shaved close to the scalp, left her almost bald.
She probably has lice, thought Starla. The cave was probably crawling with them. That’s probably why I’m scratching. A hot, prickly shiver crawled over Starla’s skin.
But I need her. She’s essential to the plan. This girl has value. And she’s from the city, she’s not an outsider. Maybe I can trust her?
Like you could really trust anyone in the city Starla.
But maybe I can?
And she doesn’t look sick, she doesn’t look mutated. Maybe the cave is safe? But what if she’s a carrier? But she can’t be, she says she’s from the city. She’d be dead by now if it wasn’t safe.
“So,” said Starla, “do we have a deal?”
Ari toyed with her fingers. Her hands were dry and calloused but they looked strong, like this girl knew how to survive. Her nails were ragged and a large, dark blood blister had formed under her left thumbnail. She sucked on the corner of her lower lip. Starla found it impossible to tell her age.
“Ya know it’ll be dangerous.”
“Honestly, the day I’m having, I really don’t doubt it.”
“Thing is, I leave ‘ere, I go with you, I gotta cash in. There’s no work for me at the city walls. Either I’m in the city or I walk. It was a hell of a journey to get ‘ere an’ I ain’t goin’ back unless I get in. Do ya see?”
“Look,” said Starla. “You seem like a reasonable person. You’re from the city, you don’t belong here. Neither of us do. Now, either you can stay here, and live in your hole in the ground, and do whatever it is you do with your days. Or, you can come with me?”
She’s tempted, thought Starla. But is she tempted enough?
“Would it help if I said please?”
Starla’s heart started to beat faster again. She thought of the dark wasteland outside. She'd no idea what time it was. Her skin began to prickle and the muscles around her spine tightened.
What if she won’t help.
Starla’s hands began to shiver again.
What’s wrong with me? I need to think straight.
Ari sucked again at the corner of her lip.
“Well?”
Ari sighed. “Okay.” She shook her head and grinned. “Well okay, I’m in.”
I have her. “We have a trade?”
“We have a trade.”
I’ve a plan, thought Starla, or something at least.
“It’s gonna be a long walk,” said Ari.
“I understand.”
“An’ ya gonna need some proper clothes.”
Starla looked down at her now ruined dress. “Yes, I guess.”
“We’re gonna need a plan,” said Ari.
“We leave tomorrow?”
“Maybe. We need supplies. Water, food, clothing. Ya know I’m gonna have to cash in all my dollars for this.”
“They’re useless in the city anyway.”
“Yeah, well, it’s taken me a long while to make ‘em.”
Starla sighed. “I’m sorry you’ll need to spend your money.”
“No worries. Look, if we’re doin’ this we’re doin’ this.”
“So we follow the road?”
Ari shook her head. “Too dangerous. Road’s too busy; full of camel trains an’ whatever else. An’ when ya sleepin’ at night, more ‘an likely you’ll get ya neck slit or worse. No, we go cross-country. Faster on foot anyhow. Shorter. We’ll have to cross the swamp but that’s okay. Better n’ the road anyhow.”
Starla smiled inwardly. Trade or no trade, this girl was getting her back to the city.
Chapter 5
Ari kept all her half-moon dollar coins in an old pot hidden out of sight behind a rock in the cave. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been collecting the coins, whenever she didn’t need to spend them, and she wasn’t so good at counting, but she'd a reasonable number of them now. Enough, hopefully, for what they needed.
That night Starla slept fitfully on some of Ari’s old salt sacks. In the cool darkness, Ari could hear Starla murmuring and rolling around on the hard floor beside her. Ari had shared her bread with Starla and Starla had struggled to swallow it. It wasn’t what she was used to but there weren’t any syntho cubes out here. “Is there nothing else?” Starla had pleaded, and Ari had to tell her this was all she had. Sometime in the night, Starla had awoken, doubled over, and clambered out of the hole. From inside the cave, Ari could hear her retching. Starla stayed outside for a while and Ari lay in the darkness, waiting for her to return or to hear the dingoes. Eventually Starla returned to the cave and sat down on the floor beside Ari.
Ari pretended to sleep, but her mind raced with images of a lost life in the city. She remembered the myriad of coloured lights reflecting on her bedroom wall. She remembered the feel of the soft, crisp blankets, tucked tightly around her. She remembered the interwoven pattern of the carpet and the smooth, endless surfaces of walls and doors and tables. She remembered not being hungry, a life without that perpetual, hollow emptiness in her gut. With these images, she drifted closer to sleep, lying on the rough material of the salt sack, her stomach starting to grumble. She never knew if Starla lay down again.
∆∆∆
After dawn, Ari gathered what few things she owned of value. Some she would keep for the journey, like the fire-starter and flint, her blade, the canteen; others she’d trade, like the oil lamp and oil. She’d trade the oil but fill the plastic bottle that held it with water.
“We’ll have to getcha somethin’ else to wear,” said Ari. “An’ somethin’ for ya head.”
“Why?”
“You’re not used to the sun. Ya won’t make it a day like that.”
Starla’s pale skin looked like it’d never seen the sun.
She won’t make it an hour, thought Ari. Not without my help and maybe not even then.
Doubt crept into Ari’s mind.
For this, I sacrifice everything; if Starla dies in the desert then it will all be for nothing.
For the first part of the journey, she’d have to carry on her back everything they’d need. Out on the plains, there wasn’t much of anything but the red dust, and Starla couldn’t carry much. And they’d have to avoid the tribesmen. Ari had heard stories about the tribesmen, stories she didn’t want to think about now.
She pulled at the seam of her pocket and felt the weight of her hard-earned coins. All those days spent toiling on the salt plains.
Am I too quick to leave this place? But how many years has it been Ari? How many seasons?
Until yesterday, returning was an impossible dream. She was an exile. Now there was hope.
∆∆∆
While Ari went into Cooper, Starla stayed hidden in the cave. She'd barely slept. For a short while she’d dozed, curled up on the hard stone floor; in her dreams, faceless attackers had chased her through the brig
htly lit streets of the city. She’d tried to find help, but the people she encountered ignored her pleas. Finally, she’d made it to the footbridge that crossed the Todd River. Now her legs were heavy and crossing the bridge was like wading through a heavy current. By halfway, she was on her knees, unable to move any further forward. Her body shook. Beneath her, the bridge began to flex and shudder. It had become a dam, holding back a great body of water, pooled on one side. The metal structure creaked painfully and tore open, sending her tumbling downwards.
Starla had struck the surface but found herself sinking in a thick, red quicksand. She was out in the wasteland, her eyes straining against the harsh light. She clutched handfuls of sand, but it slipped through her fingers and still she sank. She was up to her waist, then her shoulders, then her neck. She struggled frantically. She tried to cry out but no sound came. The sand poured into her mouth, her ears, up her nostrils. It was up to her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. The empty world prepared to swallow her.
Starla had awoken startled. She’d sat up and doubled over, a round pain in her stomach. She’d crawled out of the hole, fallen to her knees and vomited.
It was dark and silent outside the cave. The jagged shapes of rocks and the low hill leading up from the cave were just discernible in the thin moonlight. Starla inhaled deep lungfuls of the cool air. Sweat poured from her clammy skin. For a while she sat, bent over, nursing her stomach.
I must get home, she’d told herself. I should be there now; I shouldn’t be here. None of this makes any sense. Maybe I’m getting sick?
Headaches, nausea, vomiting.
Her head thumped. She shivered and began to scratch the inside of her arm.
This is all a mistake. I’ll be rescued soon. They’ll find me somehow. But no one ever leaves the city Starla. No one leaves and no one returns. But I’m the mayor’s daughter, they’ll have to come for me. Won’t they?
Not if you’re infected Starla.
Finally, Starla had crawled back down into the hole and sat down next to Ari. In the darkness, she’d seen the sickening look in the old man’s eyes as he’d licked his lips and inched towards her. Her heart began to race.
She could smell his sour stench; she could smell it all over herself; acidic and rotten. She wanted to scrub her skin clean and she scratched again at the inside of her arm. She felt the small welts coming up where she’d been scratching. Red blisters. She tried to inspect her arm, but in the pitch darkness, she couldn’t make out anything.
The old man licked his lips, gloating, his black eyes wide.
Starla had shut her eyes tight and willed the image away. Instead, she’d seen the glimpses of red wasteland through the dusty windows. Her skin had begun to prickle. Night had fallen and she wasn’t home. Her gut twisted. She was trapped outside the wall.
Starla shivered in the cave. She was alone now. A thin daylight intruded around the tarp. The air was heavy but Starla feared leaving the cave alone. Her head swam, her face hot, and it hurt every time she swallowed. Red marks had formed on the inside of her arm.
Why has this happened to me? This isn’t fair. I must be dreaming. This is all some terrible nightmare and soon I will wake. Perhaps I’ve gone mad? Perhaps I’ve not left the city at all, but instead I’m trapped in some kind of asylum. Is all of this some kind of elaborate fantasy, conjured from years spent staring out across the wall and into the wasteland?
But the cave seemed all too real.
She inhaled slowly, letting the stale air of the cave fill her lungs. She could still smell the fatty scent of the oil lamp.
Maybe I should be going into town and seeking help there?
But it was too dangerous. Now, every time she closed her eyes, she saw the old man licking his lips and inching closer.
She flexed out her fingers, feeling the tendons stretch.
I am Starla Corinth, first daughter of the city. I cannot show weakness. When the outsider returns, I will take control of this situation.
∆∆∆
In the bazaar, Ari traded the oil and the lamp for more plastic bottles and she sold her buckets and yolk for a few extra coins.
Even early, the market thronged. Stalls pressed together along narrow streets. Strung overhead between the buildings, threadbare canvases shaded the walls from the heavy sun. The air was thick and humid. Sellers of clothing and food found their places next to counters piled high with bits of scavenged metal, or plastic of every shape and colour, its original purpose long forgotten. Troves of it was pulled from the desert and hauled into town on camels, yet much of it was worthless. There were counters full of rusty keys to long forgotten doors, the shells of clocks whose innards were repurposed and forgotten, and books that Ari couldn’t read with splitting spines and faded, yellow pages now crumbling to dust. Ironmongers worked in the street, shaping tools and hammering at bits of old machinery that might pump up water or work a pulley in a mine. Or they were making carts from junk with rubber wheels, to haul down to the salt plains or to hitch to a donkey.
Between the traders and customers pressed the big fella’s men, recognisable by their red armbands and the large, heavy looking guns they carried. They were meant to keep the peace, but no one wanted to catch their attention. These were the people you paid for protection, and the people you needed protecting from. They collected debts you didn’t know you owed, sometimes in money, more often in blood. People disappeared; they never came back. If they were alive, they were probably in the ore mines.
Ari spent some of her half-moon coins on bread and a little kangaroo jerky. For Starla, she bought a canteen with a shoulder strap, a shirt, trousers, a jumper, a shawl for her head and an old pair of boots she hoped would fit.
At the back of the bazaar, in an open paddock, worked the animal seller. A few donkeys and camels pressed against the walls, their heads drooping, their matted bodies all skin and bone. With the last of her coins, Ari bought a dog on a cord. It with a little grey mongrel with a scrawny body and a pointed snout. It wasn’t too fidgety and Ari thought it looked like it could take care of itself. It’d be their best shot at keeping back the dingoes.
When Ari got back to the cave she found Starla hiding in the darkness, her eyes wide. For a moment, she looked like she didn’t recognise Ari. Her skin was slick with sweat and she shivered slightly. She looked so pale, even compared with earlier.
“Ya gotta drink sister.” Ari handed her a canteen. “That one’s yours.”
Starla took it and gulped heavily then choked. “That tastes horrible.”
“Well, ya welcome. Here, put these on.”
Starla inspected the garments that Ari had acquired. She wrinkled her nose.
“Look, ya not gettin’ anywhere in that dress. We got a long way to walk. Now I don’t really care what ya wear but ya gotta get me in the city right?” Ari placed the boots down next to Starla. “And ya gonna need footwear too.”
Ari looked away. She heard rustling and when she turned back Starla had changed. Starla held forward the boots.
“These are too big.”
Ari rolled her eyes. Taking her blade, and before Starla could protest, Ari cut a strip of fabric from Starla’s dress.
“Here, stuff that in the toe.”
Starla looked like she might protest at the further damage to her dress, but she did as Ari said.
Ari held out a piece of cord. “For ya hair.”
Ari rolled up some of the salt sacks that had made her bed in the cave. They would need them at night. She used one to contain the others and stuffed in her own jumper and all the plastic bottles. They would need plenty of water. She added the bread and the little jerky. She slipped the fire-starter and flint in her pocket; the blade was in its sheath on her ankle.
Starla fidgeted with her new clothes. Dark rings had formed under her eyes, which now looked a paler shade of blue than before, and her skin was clammy and grey. Ari took Starla’s jumper and pushed it into the sack. After a second thought, she added the tattered blue dress. She
looked at the coloured beads and bits of broken pottery she’d gradually collected.
I don’t need them, she thought. That junk will only weigh us down.
The jagged piece of glazed white porcelain showing part of the blue bird sat on its little rocky shelf. She reached for it, then hesitated, and drew her hand away.
She took one last look at the chalk image on the wall with the two stick figures.
This stuff only ever weighs me down.
When they got outside the cave, Ari dragging the bag, Starla saw the dog sitting patiently by the entrance.
“Hey, what’s this dog?”
“He’s ours, he’s comin’ with us.”
“You have a dog?”
“Got a dog.”
Starla knelt down and stroked its head. “What’s his name?”
“He ain’t got none.”
“He should have a name.”
Ari rolled her eyes. “He’s a workin’ dog, keepin’ away the dingoes.”
Starla looked at Ari. “Well, he should still have a name.”
“He’s called dog, right, ya wanna call him anythin’ else then ya go ahead.”
Starla looked back at the dog. It tipped its head to the side and pricked its ear. With both hands, she cupped his head. The dog didn’t seem to mind.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
“Great,” said Ari, “well you take ‘is cord then.”
Ari lumbered the bag onto her back with two cords she’d use for straps. Starla took the dog’s lead, canteen over her shoulder. They stopped by the well and filled their water bottles and canteens, and then they were moving, away from Cooper and away from Ari’s hole in the ground.
Ari paused and took one brief look back, spying the spot that for so long she’d called home, and her limbs felt oddly heavy. There was the little dip in the rocks; the tarp covering the entrance made it all but invisible.
