Hindsight (58 page)

Mira leapt out as soon as he cut the engine, leaving her door to swing open, and also leaving Lockman to fetch out the joey to fossick for itself through the leaf litter. Mira came to a halt, dumbstruck. The biggest branches and trunks were all sparkling with intricate patterns of Braille poetry.

‘Home?’ She barely dared to believe it. All the branches seemed uniquely different, yet the overall shape of each tree was so very close to how she remembered them. ‘How is this possible?’

‘Change your shades,’ he suggested, and when she did — rolling the tints of her new ‘hue-dunits’ slightly back into bluer-purple — she saw a blur of activity and machinery; double-rotored helicopters lowering trees into place from the sky. Cranes and dozers worked furiously with an army of landscapers — half wearing military fatigues and the rest with t-shirts that declared their identities proudly as tree huggers, many also badged as volunteers.

‘Garland did this?’

‘Her specialty is logistics. State archives keep everything, so it wouldn’t have been too hard to dig up a set of last year’s satellite surveys of the neighbouring state forest. Your place is virtually surrounded by it.’

‘All this from satellite photos? Even the Braille poetry?’

‘Yeah, amazing the details that can be seen from space.’

Mira stumbled to the left-most ghost gum, and found her favourite quatrain of Braille embossed larger than life in the silver bark using golden thumbtacks.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

At the bottom was a line to remind her it was from a poem by William Blake, and it looked and felt as fresh as the day her mother first made it.

‘To see a world in a grain of sand …’ Lockman said.

‘You read Braille?’ Mira shook herself, surprised. Ben had worked in the industry for years, but a working knowledge of Braille hadn’t been compulsory, so she’d had to teach him virtually everything.

‘My grandmother went blind. I thought I told you?’

Mira hugged the tree and caressed the quatrain, trying to make better sense of everything. ‘Why would Garland do this to me? I can’t accept it and she must know that! It’s too cruel!’

Lockman came to her side. She sensed him lean nearer and smelled his aftershave. Part of her longed for him to hold her as Ben had once done, but he stopped short of touching her, leaving the fine hairs on her arms reaching out for him. History repeating itself, the same and yet different.

‘I asked Garland the same question.’ Lockman patted the tree gently beside her. ‘I was standing right here where you are now, when she answered.’

Adjusting her shades again, Mira found Garland’s ghost arrive by air with Lockman at her side, and she watched them, reading their lips through a similar conversation until they converged through time and space at the foot of the ghost gum.

Lockman’s yester-ghost looked up and gazed around, as if admiring all the Braille artwork on the largest boughs, and all the clean space for more amidst the budding canopy, where satellite imaging had missed seeing many of the quotes and passages.

What’s all this?
he asked.
It’s humming in my head like music.

Garland looked up, as if admiring the wonder of the place too.
According to her old psych reports, she calls them her poet trees. This is where she grew up. It’s where her family died. It’s also where she went blind.

You recreated it? … Why?

Garland’s ghost smiled in reply, her expression softening and her eyes refocusing lower down his chest, as if she knew she’d soon be answering the same question through him to Mira.

My reasons are many,
Mira read from her lips.
That tree came from Melbourne,
she said, pointing to the strangler fig.
It needed saving; a genuine historical landmark where it was, but it had to go to make way for more lanes to a major airport. Environmentalists had no luck finding a suitable relocation solution in the appropriate area, so they’d already begun to look elsewhere. Those three Moreton Bay figs next to it came down from Brisbane and Townsville with similar stories, and the ghost gums from Sandy Creek. At the same time, Greenpeace needed a new stealth boat for their war against whaling, I needed arborists and an army of landscape gardeners. Not just workers. The timeframe dictated a need for passionate artists
.

How long did it all take?

Three days around the clock. Expenses had to be kept down to that of a standard safe house, so I was running short on miracles, but as usual, if something needed to be done, the means, materials and manpower were never too far away. Such is always the way when you’re doing the right thing.

Lockman’s ghost seemed as sceptical as Mira felt.
If by some miracle, she does let me bring her this far, what then? I can’t just abandon her here in the wilderness.

This is no longer the wilderness, Lieutenant. The kitchen in the tree above us is as modern as any, and stocked with enough preserved food for a year. There’s a new solar generator and fridge, and the underground spring is tapped more efficiently than it ever had been. Plastic pipes instead of lead, which were poisonous anyway, and a much bigger water tank
.

Ah, but the warning on the gate says this place is a federal reserve now — so you can still kick her out if she fails to dance to your tune, right?

Not without finding new homes for those trees …
Garland glared at him.
Look, if I could have returned the land to her as freehold private land, I would have — but the closest I could get within the timeframe and budget was federal reserve status with her as a private caretaker. The trees will need regular visits from arborists to ensure their roots take hold … But it’s either this, or risk losing it all through the courts to developers.
Garland looked around then, as if she had her own secret plans for the place, but her body language was so guarded Mira couldn’t tell if she’d just decided then, or if work had already begun. Not that it mattered, since her intentions seemed clear either way.

She’d still be alone out here,
Lockman argued,
and at risk from Colonel Kitching until he’s recaptured.

Security on the perimeter is all the latest in covert technology, especially down by the beach, where she can still wade in and fish. Leave her with one of our new phones for emergencies — but only if she won’t despise it for the in-built tracking device.

She’ll still be suspicious. Why go to so much trouble unless the goal is to make her indebted?

Just give her the choice, Lieutenant. If she doesn’t want it, give her my thanks and the car to ensure she’ll always have the means to come home to a safe haven.

‘Oh, great,’ Mira complained. ‘I don’t need any more help to feel beaten. I started this week trying to put all my fences behind me, and now she’s built taller ones to help me take refuge. If she really wanted to help, she should have left a rocket so I could get away fast enough.’

‘This is different, isn’t it? You’re queen of the compound now. You haven’t just escaped an institution, you’ve
become
one. Nobody gets in or out, unless you say so.’

She shook her head, unable to forget her brief glimpse of the future and seeing General Garland appear up there in her replicated home, as if she owned the place. Mira had no idea how far into the future that might be, or why Ben would ever choose to don that wretched uniform. She couldn’t even be sure if she’d glimpsed the one true future, or only a potential alternative, but it worried her enough to kindle a bigger fire under her suspicions.

‘Have you wondered what else Garland has planned for this place?’ she asked. ‘Oh, not anywhere visible, where it’s encroaching on me, obviously. I mean underground. Do you really think she’d go to all this trouble without also scoring her own base, finally?’ Mira could almost feel the distant rumble of heavy earthworks still going on through the ground and the trunk of the tree. ‘Did you visit the ghost town over the ridge? Or did you even wonder why the heavy equipment left tracks to the south as they left, when the entrance to this place has always been in the top north-west corner?’

‘I confess I haven’t checked there yet, but I did wonder about the tracks. I just assumed it was something to do with the fence. Easily fixed, though. Get in and I’ll go take a panel down so you can check for yourself.’

‘Don’t bother. It’s beyond my control anyway.’

Mira closed her eyes and took off the glasses, allowing time to sweep her back through the decades to a safer emotional distance. When she opened them again to the blue haze of yester-century, she saw her great-great grandmother picking fruit in the orchard.

‘You’re considering it?’ Lockman asked.

‘That depends.’ She wondered about Lockman’s plans for the future more now than Garland’s. ‘If I accept, what happens then?’

‘I’m to provide you with a supply of gold thumbtacks and the general’s apologies for not being able to recreate all of your poetry from sat-obs, but the new car is yours either way.’

‘Hilarious,’ she replied. ‘I mean
really
. Me driving?’

‘I didn’t say you had to drive. You could hire somebody. Or else she offered to supply a bodyguard.’

‘Oh, no!’ Mira waved her hands. ‘If I stay here, I won’t need wheels. I can subsist here forever as a hermit, right after I ban Garland from coming anywhere near me.’

‘You won’t stay here,’ he said, sounding resigned to it. ‘And it’s not just the fences, or Garland. You love
him
.’

Mira turned away, wavering, and leaned against the replica of her favourite poet tree. She looked up, feeling drawn to climb the ladder to the verandah and gaze out across the bay as she often did as a child whenever she had a problem, but fear of hearing the chime from an elevator was enough to keep her feet on the ground. It also smelled too much of fresh timber stain above her — and the home wasn’t really hers, unless she accepted it from General Garland.

Serenity or high security
, Mira thought,
like choosing between Hell and Hades
. She’d faced this decision before; the same but different, and the less she cared what happened to her, the less it seemed to matter so much
where
she was, as
who
she was with — or in Garland’s case, tied to.

Sanchez, on the other hand, had always treated her as family, even when she hadn’t deserved it. She’d been the one who’d identified Mira as a special case in the first place, and hired Ben to help Mira cope better inside the closed community at Serenity. Who knew he’d have such success that they’d been able to set the goal much higher? But Sanchez barely hesitated. She’d gone to such great lengths to put an end to Mira’s status as a ward of the state and risked her own job to bend enough rules to achieve it.

Lockman came to her side again; his silence suggesting that he understood her conflict. Ben would have caressed her cheek gently, and then Lockman did that too.

‘Maybe you should keep the new ID,’ he suggested. ‘Or use it once — just long enough to transfer all your money somewhere else. At least then you’d have the means to live wherever you want, under any name you choose.’

‘Money to buy a new Edu-cat and hopefully get Gabby’s suspension reduced even further? I’m sorely tempted. Otherwise, I’d be just as happy camping out in a tent.’

‘I did pack one, just in case, so don’t feel obliged to make a decision any time soon, or to use the house for anything if it makes you feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t bring myself to go up there either.’

‘Why?’ She leaned away, surprised. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘A mirage.’ He leaned closer, restoring the narrow gap between them, and she sensed his hand come to rest against the tree not far from her neck; his nearness enough to cause her heart to quicken. ‘Without you it’s empty; just a shadow of you as you used to be. Until you choose the décor yourself, the atmosphere inside can only be a reflection of someone else. So no,’ he said, touching her chin and drawing her face up to his, ‘if I ever go up there, I want the first impression to be the right one. I’d want it to be all about you.’

‘It’s everything I ever wanted,’ she confessed and walked away to hug the next tree. ‘Freedom, independence. Life as a hermit in the home I grew up in — and no wood rot!’ She laughed grimly. ‘But look what it’s cost me! When I think of all the trouble I’ve caused to Ben — and to Mel and Gabby — even Grady! I’m wiped out with misery. At least as a soldier you expect your bad days to include people shooting at you.’

He chuckled and moved closer again, the nearness of him making her feel increasingly tempted and weak, longing to reach out and latch onto his strength, if only for a moment.

‘The cost remains the same as you’ve already paid, Mira, whether you choose to live here or not … and if you choose not to, perhaps you need to ask yourself, is the cost wasted?’

‘You’re suggesting I should stay because I’ve already paid?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything. You once told me you needed a sounding board, you know, like a friend.’

‘A friend? Are you kidding?’

‘I know you still think of me as all “military”, but honestly, I’ve gone as far as I was prepared to go with the army. As far as real life is concerned, I think there’s a lot more you can teach me.’

‘Me?’ she laughed. ‘Teach
you
? Like what, for example?’