Authors: Kelli Bradicich
Chapter Fifteen
A streak of sunlight edged across Emmy’s face waking her. Beside her, Ingrid was obviously still dreaming. Emmy looked to see if the others were asleep. Sebastian was only recognisable as a lump on his stretcher. Kristian was alone in the big bed.
Emmy sat up. “Maya?” she whispered.
Maya didn’t answer. Nobody stirred.
Careful not to disturb her mother, Emmy shuffled out of bed, slipping her shoes on at the door. Maya was up. Maybe she was feeling better. Emmy hurried to catch up with her to share a rare moment outside together. In the kitchen cabin, in the barn, by the river, anywhere but inside those four bedroom walls where sickness kept them penned in.
Even though the sun was up, the grass was still damp. At the top of the hill Emmy stopped, folding her arms across her body and scanning the paddocks. Something white in the shallows of the river caught her attention.
Holding her nightshirt high, Maya was wading thigh deep. Overnight, it seemed the river had picked up speed. It had been raining further up the valley. Water was rushing past her legs. She took a few more steps forward, her arms outstretched. Clouds thick enough to carry a tinge of grey covered the sun, and cast shadows over Maya.
Death.
Emmy bolted down the slope. The way the clouds’ shadows and the river united captivated and scared her at the same time. It was the allure. She wondered if that’s what happened with her dead relatives. Had they been drawn into the water, like Maya?
Emmy willed Maya to turn around and see her. She wanted her back on land. Emmy’s foot jarred against a rock hidden in the grass. She stumbled and fell, skidding on her knees, sliding to a stop face down in the dirt. Ants scurried in lines in and out of a tiny hole, the entry to their own little world under threat.
By the time Emmy dared to look up again, Maya had retreated to the bank. She was walking along a line of rocks on gangly legs, arms out struggling for balance. The hem of her nightgown was wet, clinging to her. The river lapped at her legs, still testing her fate. The dark cloud was inching up behind her.
“Maya
!” Emmy called out.
Maya paused and looked up at her, smiling. The cloud’s shadow circled Maya.
Emmy began to run again. When she was close enough, she saw that Maya was crying. The tears made her face shine.
“The rains are coming, Em,” Maya called out, then all life left her face. She dropped to the ground, bone clunking against rock. Unconscious, she toppled into the water.
Emmy screamed. The earth began to rock. She wasn’t alone. Kristian, Sebastian and then Ingrid, barrelled past her, reaching Maya first.
*
Maya clutched at her chest. Her coughing sounded more like choking, as Ingrid stuffed pillows behind Maya in an effort to raise her higher in the bed, helping her breathe. The gash and bruising on her forehead wasn’t the greatest source of pain.
“No
,” Maya gasped. “No more fussing.”
“It’s enough, Kristian,” Ingrid said to him.
Kristian was sitting by the bed, his face in his hands.
“The pain’s too much. She needs more help,” Ingrid added.
“She won’t go to a hospital,” Kristian moaned.
“Well, bring the doctor here. Hire a nurse. Whatever it takes to keep her here.”
Kristian looked up at Ingrid, as though he was seeing her for the first time.
“Well? Go
,” Ingrid snapped.
Kristian scrambled to his feet. On the way to the door, he tripped over the pile of muddy towels.
Sebastian sat down beside his mother on the bed. When Emmy joined him, wrapping her arms around his upper body, the bed dipped. Maya winced and began to cry.
Emmy jumped back off the bed
. “Sorry.”
“Kids, careful,” Ingrid barked
. “Give her space, please.”
Maya moaned.
Ingrid’s face reddened and she shouted as she fumbled with a pill bottle, screaming, “Kristian, get help!”
Sebastian and Emmy scrambled off the bed.
Maya cried out.
Sebastian held his hands up in what looked like surrender. Emmy grabbed at his t-shirt, her fingernails piercing the fabric as she twisted it.
Maya’s moans became cries, and graduated into long, low howls.
Emmy ran for the door first. Sebastian’s footsteps pounded after her. She leapt down the steps and bolted past the goats, over the patchy grass. Together they scaled the gate and ran down the track.
At the clearing near the lookout, Emmy bent over panting, clutching her side. “Where do we go?”
“There’s nowhere. We can’t get away from this,” Sebastian rasped.
“I can’t watch her die.”
“We have to.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
“We have to. She needs us.”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
“We just need a break.”
“That’s a lot of pain.”
Sebastian walked over towards the ledge but stopped short. He gripped a low branch of a pine tree and swung off it, dropping back to the ground with a thud. He clenched his fists, bent his knees and yelled, “AAAaarrrrghhhhh
.”
His voice echoed around the valleys.
Emmy dropped down into a mat of pine spindles and threw her head back. “AAAaarrrrghhhh.”
*
Emmy and Sebastian squeezed together along the top step to let the doctor pass after her visit. “She’s ready for you kids,” she said, looking down at them.
“How is she, Miss-um-Doctor?” Sebastian asked, at the last second deciding to stand, wiping his hand and offering it to the lady.
Emmy couldn’t take her eyes off the doctor’s magenta dress, the way it swished against her legs and tied in tight around her waist. This stranger was standing in their world talking to them.
“She’s not in pain any
more. She has oxygen now. She’ll be ready for a bit of a sleep though, I imagine. Your father has the pain medication, all that I can legally give him, anyhow. The nurse will show him how to administer it.”
Sebastian nodded, his eyes wide. “Thank you for coming up here, Doctor.”
Emmy stared at the lady, unsure what to say to someone as smart as her.
The doctor spoke first
. “The river looks amazing today.”
“It’s sleeping now,” Emmy said.
The doctor glanced at her watch, gave them a nod and headed to her car.
Emmy slammed the palm of her hand into her forehead
. “It’s sleeping? How does a river sleep? What a stupid thing to say.”
“No
, you’re right. It’s not doing much else really. It’s still. Stiller than it was before,” Sebastian said.
“Rivers don’t sleep. I was just thinking about Maya standing in the river and how it seemed to come alive. Who says things like that?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t do much better.”
“You always know what to say to people.”
“I kept wanting to call her ‘Miss’. Do you call doctors Miss?”
Emmy shrugged
. “Probably not.” She followed Sebastian inside the bedroom. Maya was already sleeping. Kristian had climbed in beside her. Her chest rattled, but she seemed peaceful. There were tubes now coming out of Maya.
The nurse nodded her head to them and left them alone. It was another strange face in her home. Emmy decided she didn’t want to know her name. It would be easier to pretend she wasn’t really there.
At the window Ingrid sat rigid, staring down at the river. A tear trickled down her cheek and dripped off her chin. Kristian stroked Maya’s skin. It was skin so dead that it puckered and didn’t spring back.
Emmy sat cross
-legged in the corner of the big bed. Sebastian lay down on the other side of his mother, propped up by some pillows. Emmy followed Sebastian’s gaze down to the river. He nudged her knee with his big toe. “It does look like it’s sleeping.”
“The river tried to take her. It came alive when it saw her coming and tried to sweep her away,” Ingrid said quietly.
Emmy wanted to reassure her mother, but somewhere deep inside she suspected that it might be true.
Chapter Sixteen
Outside, a fog gathered at the windows. The air was heavy. Sitting cross-legged on the bed around Maya’s frail form, Ingrid, Kristian, Sebastian and Emmy held hands, connected in silent vigil.
To Emmy it felt as though they were blindfolded, being catapulted at full speed at a cliff face. No turning back or veering to safety. She was heading straight at something she didn’t want to happen. Maya was ready. There was no stopping it. All they could do was hold hands and wait for the end to hit them.
Time was all they had, single moments that she wondered if they would all remember differently. Life reached a level of simplicity that none of them ever had to face before. Not even Ingrid.
“It’s happening guys. Are you ready?” Kristian said.
Ingrid shook her head slowly, dropping her chin to her chest
. “No.”
“It’s okay to let her go,” Kristian said.
“No.”
“I want her to go for her but I don’t want her to for me,” Emmy said.
“No,” Ingrid said again.
Emmy couldn’t help watching Sebastian. He breathed when Maya breathed. In between breaths he held his breath out. The space between was stretching out further and further. He was growing pale.
She tapped his knee with their clasped hands. “Look at me Sebastian.” She took in a deep breath hoping he would mirror her. He did. Sharing a breath with him doubled her sadness. Her chest was so tight she feared a rib would break. The pain was deeper than she thought her body could ever withstand. It was as though the roof and walls were crushing her. She did what she could to hold the pain for both of them.
Kristian spoke again. “This is a privilege, to help her go, to be here. Not everyone gets to have this. She’s not going to die alone.”
“Witnesses to death,” Emmy said. She drew a breath in realising she’d said it aloud. “Sorry.”
“Yes we are,” Kristian agreed. “Does anyone want to say anything? It’s the last time all of us will be here together.”
They sat in silence, but Emmy felt the warmth between them. She hoped Maya did too. In her mind, she kept repeating the word, Love.
Love, love, love. Over and over again, she allowed the sound to flow through her mind, until the end of the word merged with the beginning, sounding like a heartbeat.
lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove...
Emmy’s cheeks were wet. There was no sobbing, just sadness, just tears. She was the only one in the room holding onto it in that way. She knew it was love. Sebastian held love with fear. Ingrid held her love with resistance. Kristian held his love with bravery. She held her love with tears. Emmy saw it clearly how their differences were the same.
lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove
The pulse in Maya’s neck twitched between arduous breaths. Her lungs gurgled, the sound escaping her limp mouth. She was unable to find the strength to close her pinned and empty eyes, and they bulged just like the frog
’s but appeared to see nothing. Her face was frozen in torment.
Each breath took longer and longer to come. The wait was excruciating. Grief had settled in her chest. Her muscles were tense making her joints ache.
Maya let go of one long rattling breath. They watched her chest. Emmy willed it to move one more time, but when the ache in her own heart went cold she knew it was time. Maya’s body sank into the mattress, released from pain. Although the windows were closed tight, a small breeze played in Emmy’s hair and tickled her face.
“Did you feel that?” Kristian asked.
“Yes,” Ingrid whispered.
Sebastian was shaking his head, his jaw slack.
A golden glow filled the room, bringing the warmth back. Outside, pellets of ice plummeted from low black clouds melting the instant it struck the earth. The rains started out like slow claps and grew into applause. Emmy hoped that was the sound of Maya’s welcome into Heaven.
“Thank you,” Emmy whispered.
Chapter Seventeen
When they drove Maya away through the gate for the last time, Emmy headed for the river. It was not something she wanted to see or remember. She sat in the rain watching the water run.
High above her, Kristian edged down the wet slopes to the terraces with canvas bags tucked under his arm. He plucked what he could from the grape vines. Slopping through the mud, he stripped the vegetable patch, capsicum, and cucumbers, spinach, lettuces and herbs. The rain was washing everything out. His shirt was plastered to his chest and his jeans sagged on his hips.
Ingrid sat slumped over the bottom rail on Maya and Kristian’s porch, her face buried in folded arms. She swung her legs in circles over the side. It was as though she didn’t know it was raining. Her long dark wavy hair hung like coiled ribbons, black against her pale skin. She was resting her chin on her arms. Emmy could tell even from a distance that she was shaking.
Rain pummel
led Emmy’s back. She forced her gaze away from Ingrid and Kristian. Neither of them seemed to notice or care where she was. She stood among flattened grasses at the edge of the rising river, her fists jammed into the pockets of her jersey, the hood covering her head. The rocks that Maya had fallen on were now concealed by the swell. As she watched, the levels rose until water rushed over her toes. She knew the river wanted her badly. She teased it by standing there alone.
Soaked through, Emmy took a step back, and stared into the sea of white water. With feet firmly planted, eyes hypnotised by the raging river, she came to her senses
only when the tide splashed at her feet again. Tiny fingers seemed to scrape at the earth under the soles of her feet. Two steps forward and her legs would be swept out from under her. She could close her eyes, let go and float away, as Maya may have been tempted to do days ago.
Instead, Emmy gulped in the wet mountain air, before deciding it was best to turn away. It took everything she had to trudge up the soggy hillside.
The vegetable terraces were flooding. Small murky waterfalls cascaded over the retaining walls. Kristian staggered in the mud, still unaware that she was out in the rain. He was caught up in his own panic, now saving plants. Embedded into the mountainside, the cabins stood strong on their stilts, the wood stained dark from the rain.
Her mother had spotted her. She stood tall, leaning over the railing waving madly. “Get back up here,” she called. “The tides are rising.”
Emmy stopped and stared up at her. Her mother had no idea how close she had really been. The river wasn’t visible in rain this heavy.
“Please don’t go near that waterline again,” Ingrid begged.
“I feel close to Maya down there.”
“No
.” Ingrid shook her head. “No you don’t. That river is out of bounds. This is when we all stay away from it. I’m not going to lose anyone else.”
Emmy winced. Her face was numb. The cold wet clothes sent shivers deep into her bones. She hung her head and climbed the last part of the slope, still in need of finding some trace of Maya.
In Maya’s room, Emmy stripped off her clothes and left them in a pile on the floor. It would always be Maya’s room. She dried her face and hair and wrapped herself in the softness of Maya’s pink towelling robe, taking a moment to draw in the vanilla scent.
Emmy found Sebastian across the hall in his room and slid into bed beside him. His back was to her. She nestled in behind him and kissed his neck. He reached back for her arm and pulled it over him
, cuddling it to his chest. His nose was pressed into the sleeve of the gown.
“Happy birthday, Sebastian.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m here as long as you need me,” she said.
“That’s too big a promise, Em,” he muttered.
“Things are going to feel different now. I know it’s going to be hard.”
“Don’t say that.”
“We all have to feel we can say anything we need to, or this is going to hang over us forever.”
“I can’t imagine ever feeling it’s never going to hang over me. She’s not coming back.”
Outside, the rain continued feeding Mercy River.
*
From the open doorway of the kitchen, Emmy witnessed her mother hug Kristian, gripping his sodden shirt. Her knuckles were white. The sobbing was silent. It was only the sharp intake of breath and the grief catching in the back of her throat that made any noise. Goat milk was splattered across the floor. The dropped glass, still intact, rolled to a stop near the leg of a wooden chair.
Sebastian held himself up against the sink. The sink was filled with dishes that no one had the energy to wash. His head sagged and his arms locked tight. Emmy walked over to him and traced the muscle in one of his arms until it slackened. His face held a question she could never find a reasonable answer to. She understood what he meant now. It was hard to imagine ever feeling like the pain would leave.
Emmy knew what Ingrid had been through when the people she loved had died one after the other. It would have felt like the inner shattering would never stop. No wonder she was the way she was. No wonder she huddled up on this mountain top and hid from life. She was young then too.
*
The door to her bedroom squeaked as it opened and clicked closed below her. Emmy sat up and hugged her knees. Footsteps up the spiral wood stairs were slow and purposeful.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
The footsteps stopped. “It’s me.”
“Sebastian?”
“Yeah. Me.”
She flopped back onto the bed. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“It doesn’t feel right being in my bed tonight anymore. I haven’t slept there since before - everything.”
“I can’t sleep either,” Emmy said, casting her eyes over the emptiness on her mother’s side of the bed.
Emmy flattened out so that Sebastian could crawl across her and l
ie down in Ingrid’s pillows. Their eyes met for a moment, before she turned back to the clouds floating outside the round window.
“They’re in my mother’s bedroom,” Sebastian said. “Together.”
“Is the door shut?”
“It’s locked.”
Emmy nodded. “It’s the first night that Maya’s gone. They need comfort.”
“I need comfort, but I don’t need a locked door to get it.”
Emmy turned to look at him. His gaze hadn’t shifted from her face. Her lips parted, but then clamped tight. Instead, she rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around him. She gave him a gentle squeeze. Mercy River rushed through the valley below. Emmy listened to its hushed tones, its gasps and sighs, thinking again of Maya.
“Do you think Kristian and Mum can hear the river?” Emmy asked.
“Not unless they’re as quiet as we are,” Sebastian said, flatly.
“Mum gets flashbacks when it rains like this.”
“Dad will be there for her.”
“
She and my own father were driving home in rain like this when he lost control on the town bridge. The car plummeted into the river. She was pregnant with me. But I don’t know. Sometimes I think I can see it so clearly in my head I had to be there watching. Mum came up, coughing and splashing. It seemed a long, long time before they dragged my dad’s body out. But it was as if I was there. I think I saw it all.”
“You’ve heard the story way too many times and you have imagined it all.”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t think Ingrid is thinking about that right now anyway. I think she’s trying to do everything she can to not think about anything.”
“My dad died in the rain and a flood. My little uncle died in a flood after rain. Maya died today in the rain. I know it’s going to flood.”
“It’s going to flood big time.”
“It’s as though the river is purging itself.”
“It’s not that bad an idea, Em. Mercy River may be smarter than we think.”