The Seventh Day (32 page)

This day will soon be leaving, taking with it the rain, which has been falling since near dawn. Rain is all very well and necessary, but how it thwarts me at times – as the letters of my writing machine thwart my poor blind fingers.

I believe I have given them enough torment of learning for today, and like the children of my schoolroom, they now wish to play. Poor fingers, they like much better the paintbrush and the paint board – and I have a new board, wove of the flax plant and stretched tight on willow canes. It waits impatiently to accept my final painting of the old Morgan house.

From the cave mouth the house still appears to stand tall but on each visit now we find segments of the roof blown away. And how the last of it rattles in the wind, as if eager, too, to fly free. One morning I will walk from the cave mouth and find the roof fallen and the bricks begun to tumble. I am prepared for this, and though on the day of its death I will certainly feel a great sadness, I believe I will also feel more secure.

The city men know of that house. We have not seen a flying machine since the second year of my coming here, yet I fear that one day they will return. Far better if there is no house to guide them.

With great and combined labour, we have taken the city men's shed and the grey water tank, the generator, the small freezer and also the device from the shed roof which harnesses the power of the sun. In truth we have taken from Granny's house and cellar all we can carry – and made good use of our gleanings.

The old barn we can not carry. It stands strong, as it has for two hundred years. The pigeons enjoy its shelter. Perhaps in time, where there is now one pair with two fledglings, there will be many – as with the children of our valley. They are born, they grow, they join and soon there are new children to name at our meetings.

My Honey Dew is a strong girl, with long limbs, a cloud of golden hair and too much talk for a young one. Her chatter is readily forgiven for she is a favourite of many, though I do not hold her above her brothers, Lenny and Aaron, who came to join our family during the first years of my return to the valley. The fruit of my labour is very sweet. I think I may bring forth more children, though I do not wish for as many as Pieta has given to the group!

Dear Pieta, she is the last of the females who flew with Moni and her hair is grown so grey it has become a silver white – I think from the seventeen infants she has pushed into life. My mother was her last born, and all but my mother are still with the living.

Pieta has told me much of Granny, of how she left the sisterhood during the second year of their freedom when she was big with child, and near crippled by its greedy demands on her aging bones. In those first years the searchers had hunted relentlessly for the females of the Great Escape and Moni had said she brought danger to the youthful group, that this was the reason she must leave them. Pieta believes Moni never planned to live with them in the valley, but to return to the house of her people, and to her beloved books.

Pieta tells that on the night Moni said goodbye, the circle of sisterhood was formed, and again the oath was sworn, then each member, male and female, swore to die before revealing the entrance to the valley of the old gardens.

I am certain now that Granny had tried to tell me of the rock door, guarded by Aaron's white rabbit. If I had sat with her on the day she left the earth, surely she would have broken her vow. I had not sat with her so the blame is only mine.

Verney and Nate, two youthful labouring males, had assisted in the Great Escape and flown willing with the females. Both were workers in the garden of the breeding station. Verney did not live long. The searchers had taken him when he walked by night to seek news of Moni. He sleeps in the old Morgan graveyard for I have seen the wooden marker over his grave, the letters burned into the wood, as I had burned Granny's own name letters into green wood.

Nate, of the city garden, still lives, and how strong he lives. He is of my blood, for he fathered my mother. I love him very well, and love his flowers – and his apricots.

Rene, the copter flier who brought the group from the city, a knife at his throat, remained with the females and has grown old here. Unlike Pieta, Rene does not now recall much from the old days, or even from yesterday. Rowan, my father, son of Rene, speaks little, but watches me with troubled eyes. Pieta says his heart and his inner strength failed him when Honi left this life and I was lost. Rowan has not joined with another woman, thus has fathered no other child but he has taken my children to his heart and I think they are beginning to heal his great hurt.

There is one male here, Merle, first of the freeborn. He is of Lenny's years and he bears a notable physical likeness to Lenny and Pa. It is said that Merle is the son of Riva and Verney, the lost one, but I dare to believe that information inaccurate. I have a great liking of Merle and how I love to watch him eat, for Lord, he eats just as Lenny.

From their earliest days in the valley it has been the habit of my people to collect and heal the maimed. Some lived, many died. Old Notalk was accepted here thirty-seven years ago. A labourer who escaped the city, a follower of Moni, he and two companions had searched for and found her promised land. They had no speech. The city men took their tongues, as they took the tongue of any who had spoken the name of Moni. Notalk fathered five sons and two daughters, and it was he and his mute companions who taught the hand method of speaking. The other labourers have long left this life, but Notalk lives strong and his mind is young. He is given much respect.

Sern, the searcher, was carried here, as was Jonjan. Sern's craft fell from the sky in the summer of nine years ago. Sorely injured and near death during the ninety days of his confinement, no one believed he would survive, and few cared. A tiny, bird-like male, dark of hair and complexion, his eyes are huge. But his legs! They are stick-thin and will not carry him far from his chair. Jemma, the small one, agreed to join with him, and already in nine brief years, Sern has fathered seven sons, who are dark and bird-like, but strong in leg and advanced in progress.

In my first year in the valley I could not look upon that searcher, nor did I trust my back to him. But slowly I learned to respect his great love of my books; he reads and writes very well. It was later I learned also to respect his knowledge of city technology. It was he who extended the sun harvester, he who joined the wires which set the generator's heart to beating and the freezer to freezing. He it was who claimed the old printing tool I had discovered in the room of Aaron Morgan's journal.

How the searcher worried that machine, how he frowned over it, and how many pieces he made of the inside of it. For a hundred days I thought the pieces of use only for the dump-hole. But he understood the melting of metal drips which joined small wires, as he understood the putting of the pieces back again into one.

And he made the letters again print strong!

Then Jonjan gave to him my light-gun so he might make it again shoot its purple fire!

I was much unsettled by this. Was Sern not a searcher? Did the gun not come from one such as he? My voice rose high and fast when talk came to that gun and to that searcher, and my words were harsh.

‘It is very well and fine to name him
the frekin searcher
, Honoria, to treat him with distrust and allow the gun to gather dust and rust – if you wish us to sit with bowed head and in silence when the evil ones return and find our valley. Or will you wish to protect our daughter, Honoria, to use what means we have to protect our golden one?' Jonjan had asked me.

What use is a gun not loaded with fire? Mrs Logan had made such a gun fire and she had saved her daughter, Dallas. Though memory of the grey men will not fade, though my eyes can not yet be stopped from scanning the sky for that silver glint of the searcher's craft, though I will never, not ever forget, I can strive to forgive. And certainly I can feel compassion.

It is our habit at the meetings in the Great Hall to first speak our given names when we are called on, or wish to speak. Nate will always be Nate of the city garden. Pieta will always be Pieta, who flew with Moni. And how proudly they speak these names and how much respect they are shown. Jonjan will always be Jonjan, man of the city, as Sern was always Sern, the searcher.

Never had I heard him speak at the meetings. Never had he raised his hand to ask a question. I had not previously noticed this until the evening Jonjan and I walked to the ravine and sat together in the place of the shell-like overhang where that nameless one had set his leg, had fed and cared for him.

Our talk had turned to names.

‘Perhaps to wear forever a cruel name, Honoria, is worse than to wear no name at all,' Jonjan said to me.

So we began to make a play, Jonjan and I, as we watched that light-gun become the many pieces, then watched it again become one, and I think we were like the
Shakespeare
of Granny's old stories.

At the next meeting, Jonjan stood and spoke with great haughtiness. ‘Sern, the searcher, for the benefit of those who are here tonight, will you make report on your reconstruction of the city gun?'

Sern offered the gun to Jonjan then bowed his head, his large eyes closed.

And it was my turn. I stood and spoke my name proudly. ‘I am Honoria, she who will not be silenced, and I ask the respected assembly, does Sern still fly the silver flying craft? I have not seen it here.'

‘It has long been put to better use,' Jonjan replied. ‘Its metal is now used for mending.'

‘Ah,' I said. ‘So if he does not fly, but mends for us, is it not time he were given his rightful name amongst us?'

Our play raised much talk and discussion, and surely it sounded like the cackle of the hen yard. Then Pieta stood. ‘Will we wait all night for your report on this evil city weapon, Sern, the mender?'

He rose and stood small on his poor thin legs as he spoke his name. And he made his report, which was well spoken and of great interest to the group.

I believe I may grow to like Sern, the mender – in time. I like his clever hands and his direct manner of speaking. I like his dark-eyed sons and partner, Jemma, who is the daughter of Dan, the harmless book trader, who had brought my brown cloak to the house in his trading basket, who was full brother of Rowan and thus my uncle.

Lord! The complexity of family connections here! How much there is to record. And it must be done while the old ones live strong so they may tell us of all the past.

I have learned so much. I can spin a continuous thread from the wool of a sheep and I can weave the fabric of our brown cloaks, which we must wear when we are from the valley. I have watched spotted fishes swimming in a pool, heard the frogs' night song, seen a kangaroo – and certainly, as Pa had said, it appeared to have a spring in his tail. I have placed into my mouth the taste of nectar.

Ah, my greed for summer's golden apricot is near lust, and such an abundance of them there is. And the sweet fat green grape. And the tart red apple. And always the honeydew. Winter has its own abundance. There are the oranges and the lemons, their hard rind saved to flavour our biscuits. We have the old potato and orange carrots, small and sweet, and onions, milky white. And so much more. So much more.

Little was lost in this garden valley when for years the rains forgot to come. There is good water here which bubbles up from many springs, such as the one in my cave. We bathe in water, wash our garments in water, with a pure washing soap, made as Granny had made her washing soap from animal fat and ash from our fires.

Granny's tapestry now hangs in the Great Hall and it is highly valued. Many stories, woven around its creation, are told and retold at the meetings. It is said that Moni knew of this valley from her childhood, when for two years she, and the last of those from the house, had lived in the hills and caves. It is said that she led her people to this place without deviation, that she walked ahead of the group, walking with impunity through fields of blacrap, that the poisonous weeds parted allowing her to pass, then closed behind when the last of the group was through. It is said that she led her people through the old diggings of the ancient ones, as if a pathway were marked for her by God's own hand.

There is much belief in myth here. Perhaps it holds a seed of truth.

With the good, there is always the bad to record. My dogs did not like my new world so well as the old. They aged rapidly and left the earth in the year of my Aaron's first toddling steps. I think they were not so sad to leave this place behind; still, I have many paintings to remember them by, and also to remember my gallant knight, Sir Sowman.

During my first years here, I saw him often on sunless days when we walked together to steal the hens' eggs. How well he liked those eggs. Then one day I found him huddled in the cave.

I gave him the sign of the fingers crossing the breasts, and he gave it to me, as with difficulty he stood. Like Pa in the last months of his life, my knight could not move well, but we touched hands, then he shook his great head and showed me empty palms. Always before he had given some small gift to me. A golden bird one day, small as a sparrow. Together we had set it free to fly. He had offered small red berries, sweet and sprinkled with seeds. He had given me a bouquet of bell flowers of the deepest blue. On that final day I gave to him seven eggs, placing them in the old saucepan which he still had at his side, and I had sat with him so he might have companionship while he ate. I believe his hunger was great.

‘You ache, my good friend,' I said to him.

‘Aaaaah.' He had nodded.

‘I see you have no fire.'

We spoke a while, then I left the cave, choosing the western entrance to our valley, for I had promised my people that the one they named ‘the beast' would not see me enter the hidden doors. Only a little later, I had returned to the cave with fire and meat from a sheep. My old knight was not there and since that day I have seen him no more. There is a great sadness in me when I think that he died alone.