Carrier (8 page)

I wasn't sure what to expect outside as I slipped out of the room and walked down the hall like a prisoner to the gallows.

A thin tendril of smoke wafted towards me as I stepped out onto the creaky veranda. Mum had started a small fire only a couple of metres away from the house, which was odd seeing as she was always on at me about fire dangers and making sure I made them well away from the house.

But then I saw what she was burning.

‘No Mum!' I yelled, clearing the veranda in a single leap and running to her, the contents of my backpack jangling. In her thin, heavily veined hands she held Alice's journal, and one by one she proceeded to pluck a page before screwing it into a ball and tossing it into the fire.

I pleaded once more, through a veil of smoke, for her to stop, but my begging seemed to make her fingers work faster, tossing several pages at once into the hungry flames.

An animal growl tore from my throat. She may as well have been throwing pieces of Alice into the fire, toe by toe, limb by limb.

Acrid smoke coated my throat, burning my insides and making my eyes water, as I closed in on Mum, my hands groping for the journal. But before I could get it, she tossed the entire thing in.

Orange flames licked the glossy black cover and set a flurry of sparks flying. I grabbed a nearby stick and poked around the coals to get the last remnant of the diary out. But all I managed to save was the spiral binding and a single charred edged scrap of paper, which I quickly flattened between my palms.

Blinking away tears, I retreated from the dying flames, my chest aching as if it had been punched with a metal fist, as though Alice had died all over again.

‘Now I know what's gotten into your head,' Mum said, shaking her head. ‘It was Alice all along. This person, standing in front of me now, is not my Lena. Not the girl I know and love and who loves me. You're just Alice all over again, a foolish girl with a death wish.' Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving dark wet drops on her shirt.

‘I am not! I'm still Lena. And Lena wants freedom too, Mum. Everybody wants freedom.'

Mum's face was in her hands now, her bony shoulders shaking, and despite her harsh words my heart twisted to see her unravel.

‘You're all I've got, Lena,' she said, her voice a croak behind her hands. ‘I'm sorry I'm such a bitch sometimes...but I don't want you to leave me.'

It was hard to remain rigid and to restrain myself from putting my arms around her. But I knew what I had to do.

‘I love you, Mum. But I'm going.'

With a stone heart, I turned and started the long walk to the front gate, the sky above me bruised and angry.

Charlotte howled mournfully from the shed — Mum must have locked her in after the hunt — and Emma raced back and forth between me and Charlotte, yapping at us both, undecided which to protect. I whistled and knelt down and she leapt into my arms, licking my face and nuzzling my neck. I buried my face into her stinky fur before I got up and pointed back at the house.

‘You go, Emma. You go be a good girl and protect your sister. Protect Mum too.'

She blinked her small black eyes at me and ran, yapping and screeching at the rumbling sky.

I turned and continued towards the gate.

Choking down a sharp sob, I opened my cupped hands to read all that remained of Alice.

The small, fragile strip of paper fluttered between my fingers like a butterfly.

It was just the one word, but it spoke more to me than all the passages in all of the books I'd ever read put together.

‘Freedom...'

Mum had the key to the padlocked gate, but it didn't matter because I was going to scale it instead. I thought of Alice as I wrapped my fingers around the solid bars and started to climb. I pictured her cheering me on as I swung one leg over the top, being extra careful not to catch my clothes on the razor wire.

The ground on the other side of the rose to meet me with an almighty crack, jarring my ankles as though I'd split bones. But the pain was nothing beside the sense of
freedom
, which hit me from every angle like several swift whacks to my senses.

I staggered back, until I felt the metal gate pressing into my spine. Everything was so wide open, without the comfort and restraint of a boundary, and although it was liberating experience, it also came with the eerie sensation of being exposed, watched by unseen eyes.

I wanted to dash and hide behind the nearest bush, bury myself beneath the red dust, anything to take away the prickling sensation along the lengths of my arms and the back of my neck. I rooted around my back pocket for my knife just in case, though it was ridiculous to expect every diseased male in the country to be awaiting my arrival.

Something rustled the leaves of a shrub to my left. My stomach clenched and my hand shook but only a dugite slithered out into view, its tiny forked tongue darting out before it sped away over the orange sand like a streak of black lightening. I spluttered a nervous sigh of relief.

More thunder grumbled from the north, where smoky grey clouds came towards me like an enormous dark blanket. It was only just after midday, but the dim sky could have been easily mistaken for dusk. If I got a move on, I could make it to the waterhole by three o'clock. And then...well, I wasn't sure what my plans were. Though I'd told Mum I would be back, part of me entertained the idea of finding Patrick's house and just staying there with him and his brothers until Mum calmed down.

According to Alice's diary, if I continued north of the waterhole, I'd eventually come across Patrick's house, and hopefully, Patrick too.

Tiny shards of lightning forked the northern sky. I quickened my pace, stirring the red earth with my feet.

If darkness or the storm came before I reached Patrick's, I had to trust that the caves Dad had jotted down on his crude map of the area were really there. Then, of course, I would have to trust that those caves weren't inhabited by Carriers or wild animals.

I turned around to view my house, almost completely obscured behind fat bushes and salmon barks, and broke out into a run, whispering a ‘thank you' as I warily passed Alice's spot, which was marked by a small pile of smooth river stones Mum had stacked there.

With my eyes and ears wide open, absorbing every shifting shape, every scratching sound, and with my sweaty hand tightly wrapped around my knife, I continued on without looking back until I got a stitch some time later and had to stop for a breather.

Although the ground was still dry and dusty, thicker, greener shrubs grew in these parts, along with the occasional pale, wiry tree with paper-like bark peeling off the branches and trunks. Desert Downs was no longer in view and this lush greenery told me the waterhole was close.

I quickened my steps towards a large cluster of trees in the distance — before heading straight into a cloud of mosquitos. Screaming, I started slapping at my arms and legs. A mosquito could feed on a Carrier then pierce my skin and infect me with the disease.

I ran towards the trees to escape them, bolting flat-tack for several hundred metres until the tinny smell of the water hit my nostrils.

The humming mosquitoes now behind me, I ceased my slap-dance and stared out across the shimmering water banked by several ancient eucalypts.

The pool was a dark, shimmering black beneath the shade of the surrounding trees, more beautiful and picturesque than I had ever imagined — better than any water I'd ever seen in a book or photo album.

In crouch pose, I scoped the area, randomly stabbing at the air behind shrubs and trees with my knife until I was satisfied I was alone. My backpack fell to the ground with a soft thud. Kicking my shoes off, I stretched one foot out and dipped my toes into the water. It was surprisingly warm. I'd never had a bath before. Mum had always made me wash inside with a flannel and a bucket of water, even though she had always bathed beneath the sky in a tub. She'd said it was for my own good. That if a boy or a man came across my young, naked body he might go crazy with lust.

I smiled at my reflection in the water.

The cargo pants came off first, then the singlet, both of which I draped onto a low-lying branch by the water's edge before I waded in.

My feet slipped around, making me wobble as I moved along the slimy bottom of the pool, inch by inch, careful not to take too great a step should I find myself in over my head. A quarter of the way across, I bent forward and cupped a handful of water and, after sniffing it, wet my lips. It tasted fine — I knew it would, seeing as Mum filled our bottles and canteens with the stuff whenever our well became dry. I drank a handful, and then another, until my thirst diminished. Then I knelt in the water so that it swallowed me right up to my shoulders.

A long sigh escaped my lips.

The surrounding trees created a canopy of pale green leaves above, offering the illusion of privacy.

It was a sanctuary. No wonder Alice had come here. No wonder
Mum
came here so often. It was heaven. I closed my eyes and sloshed the water around with my arms.

‘Hey, girl, no swimming in the waterhole, this is a drinking one only!'

I froze, my pulse thudding in my ears.

My eyes snapped open and rested on a dark shadow reflected in the shimmering surface of the water. The shadow smiled and revealed a row of beaming white teeth.

‘Hey, girl, what's your name? Get out of the water, silly.'

I spun around to find a tall, thin girl with dark, shiny skin and long, sun-kissed brown hair staring down at me.

‘Can't you hear or something? Are you deaf, sister? Get out of our drinking water,' she said, her brow creasing into a frown.

‘Turn around,' I said, my teeth suddenly chattering, ‘...then I'll get out.'

She rolled her eyes and turned. ‘Whatever.'

Watching her back like a hawk, I rushed out of the water, but swore under my breath when I had nothing to dry myself with. I considered my clothes, dangling nearby, but I didn't want to soak them and have to wear them all night so I did the only thing I could think of — shook my body and head from side to side like I'd seen my dingos do. It worked for them, so why not me?

But after a few seconds, the action made me dizzy and before I knew it I was face down in the soft mud of the bank.

Dirt seeped into my mouth and I spat it out repeatedly before staring up into the face of the girl who had turned back around to face me. My cheeks throbbed with the heat, with mortifying embarrassment, as I watched her smooth shoulders shaking with amusement.

‘What the hell was that?' she said, before covering her grinning mouth.

After several failed attempts at getting to my feet while desperately trying to cover my nudity with my arms and fingers, the girl stuck out a thin, heavy-knuckled hand.

‘Come on, take it,' she spluttered out between laughs. ‘I haven't got a disease.'

I stared at the proffered hand and threw her a sharp, scrutinising glance.

‘Do I look dead to you? Like I'm melting inside?' the girl said, rolling her eyes again. ‘You've sort of got no choice. Take my hand or stay there and roll around like a pig in its own shit.'

For some reason, instead of anger or shame I felt a certain warmth building up inside of me. It bubbled up my throat and out of my mouth, into something I hadn't done for a long time. I clutched at the girl's hand, but slid back down into the mud again, this time weakened with laughter.

She fell down beside me, clutching her slim stomach, the mud beneath her making a squelching sound.

‘I was watching your reflection in the water,' she said, slapping her thighs and laughing between words, ‘and you shook...like a dog...like some crazy bitch.'

The laughter made me grip my own naked stomach and fall back against the bank, the cold mud slapping against my back hard.
Ouch
.

The impending storm glowered down at me through the green canopy above, daring me to waste another minute. It would probably hit on my way to Patrick's place, but, right now, strangely enough,
I didn't care.

‘Why are you so scared of people seeing you in your birthday kit?' said the girl, her laughter now subdued into random giggles. ‘Everyone I know has seen me naked.'

I stood up and waded into the water to wash off the mud, keeping my back to the girl, but talking over my shoulder.

‘How old are you?' I asked, ignoring her question.

‘How old do you think?' She put her hands to her hips, struck a pose. The blue cotton dress she wore rode up her thighs. It was several sizes too small.

I shrugged. ‘Seventeen?'

‘Try sixteen. My cousins and I, we come here to the waterhole all the time.' She gnawed on her bottom lip. ‘And sometimes we walk around the edge of your property. We've wanted to get your attention for a long time. But my grandmother warned me how crazy your mum is with her big gun and everything so we don't get too close.'

Goose bumps prickled my wet skin as I remembered the creepy silhouettes from the night before.

‘Did you come to my bedroom window last night, with somebody else?' I asked, hoping she'd say yes.

She frowned and drew her head back like I'd slapped her.

‘Are you insane? Your mum is way too scary.'

With a nod of my head, I continued to wash the mud off my body, at the same time trying to mentally scrub the terrifying thought from my brain that two people,
strangers
, had stood at my bedroom window last night for reasons unknown.

I scrubbed faster.

‘Stop staring,' I said when I caught her looking.

She grinned, her dark eyes twinkling. ‘Sorry. Just checking you out, comparing your body to mine. I think we're even. Hottest teenage girls in the area — the only ones,' she added with a snorting laugh.

I crouched low in the water, for one last, full body rinse. ‘You don't have any sisters?'