Tomorrows Child (34 page)

Surprisingly,
Phoenix agreed with him. I had not found Ruben to be a hard man,
but then, he wasn’t my father.

Lon continued
talking for the next hour or longer, but I had stopped listening
and only caught snippets of the conversation. I watched the people
around me. The meal appeared to be served in shifts and the faces
around the fire changed many times.

I noticed that
there were no old people, and apart from the boy that greeted us at
the gate, I had seen no children. A few of the men around the fire
were dressed in the same shade of green and wore the same style
shirts and pants, while the women’s clothes were more tattered.

Well, I’m
callin’ it a night.” Lon stood up and stretched his arms, “If you
need anything, just call Heather.” Within minutes, the firepit was
deserted and Phoenix and I were standing there alone.

Phoenix grabbed
my hand. “Hurry up, we need to get back to the tent,” he said as he
almost dragged me every step of the way.

“What the hell
was that all about?” I whispered.

“Nothing, I
just didn’t want to be standing out there like that. I felt like a
target!”

“So now you’re
the one freaking out.”

“He’s crazy,
Psyche, I really thinks he is setting up his own kingdom. These
people? He calls them the peasants. I think he treats them like
slaves.” Now Phoenix was whispering, “This is what Ruben said would
happen.” It appeared more cultlike than a kingdom, but I still
couldn’t figure why the energy was so dense.

“But I don’t
want to talk about it now. Someone might be listening. We’re
leaving first thing in the morning.”

There was only
one bed in the tent. This time we really were alone. Phoenix
removed his shirt and used the bucket to freshen up. It wasn’t as
good as a bath and there was no soap, but it was better than
nothing.

“You know, this
is really our first time alone in a real bed,” I commented. Last
night didn’t count as being alone, so this was a big deal.

Phoenix was
already in bed, but it was dark and all I could see was his shadowy
outline.

“I know.”

I washed my
face and hands in the bucket of water. The night air was cool, but
I was sticky from walking all day, I felt terrible. I climbed in
bed beside Phoenix. He reached over and pulled me close. His chest
was bare and warm and he smelled surprising good, despite not
showering.

He kissed me
then. His kisses were sweet and gentle. They were always sweet and
gentle. This could have been our night. It could have been special,
but the reality of our location crept into our minds and it was no
longer special. It was creepy.

“I love you,
Psyche.”

“I love you,
too,” I sighed and snuggled into Phoenix’s chest.

“We have plenty
of time. We’ve been given a whole lifetime to be together again.
People don’t get that and never know it when they do. There will be
a right time, but this isn’t it.”

I hugged
Phoenix tighter and fell asleep against his bare chest.

I woke as
dawn’s light seeped into our tent. Inside the doorway, beside the
bucket, were an old towel and a large cake of soap. Heather must
have supplied these during the night. Kneeling beside the bucket, I
picked up the gritty soap and attempted to form a foamy lather in
my hands. The bubbles were thin and the caustic sting of fresh soap
bit my flesh. I drew the soap toward my nose, and inhaled the
greasy scent. Time stood still as the hand of fear held me and
dragged me back to a cold stone bathroom.

The soap was
familiar, too familiar. I could be mistaken, of course, but I
probably wasn’t. I turned to Phoenix and held my trembling hand
toward him offering him the soap.

“What on
earth’s wrong?” Phoenix asked.

“This is
Volante’s soap, the same soap she gave me, when…”. The gritty
texture and greasy smell were etched vividly in my mind alongside
the other memories.

Making soap was
a craft and the signature of each artisan was left in soap they
made; it linked the soap back to them. Everyone in the valley made
soap. Emily made the best soap and I knew when I was using Emily’s
or Libby’s just as I knew this was the same soap I had used
then.

“It doesn’t
mean she’s here,” Phoenix tried to console me, “It just means that
the same person supplies soap to this camp and to Volante. You know
Lon was trying to form a type of cooperative.”

“I know.”
Phoenix might have been right, although I added, “but it means they
are connected and I want to leave. Now!”

It only took
seconds for me to collect my things and stand ready to leave. Lon
was already at the fire, watching water boil in huge pots over
glowing coals when we arrived, packed and ready to go.

“You won’t stay
for breakfast?” he said.

“No, thank you,
we must get going. We still have a long journey ahead of us.” While
Phoenix thanked Lon for his hospitality, the hum of an engine drew
close. A four-wheeler came into view and pulled up at the edge of
the encampment.

I knew who it
was even before she arrived at the fire. Phoenix pulled me close
and whispered in my ear, but the words were lost to the humming
that droned in my head.

“Ah, we have
visitors!” said Lon and we watched as two people approached.

Lon reached out
and took Volante’s hand. “Welcome my dear, what has bought you to
the Sanctuary today?”

She had arrived
with a stocky, grey-haired man. He stood lifelessly beside her,
nothing more than her lackey and possibly the man who carried me
when I was too drained to walk.

Lon introduced
us and I winced as he spoke my name. My actions today would decide
my fate. Was this a trap or a coincidence? Could Lon and his
Sanctuary be a feeding ground for Volante? Or perhaps it was as
Phoenix suggested, they were all part of a cooperative.

“Psyche, what a
surprise to see you looking so well”, Volante said. Her eyes burned
with desire, but she wasn’t surprised to see me. “Hmm, I see you
have come into your power, how wonderful.”

My power. She
could see it just as I could sense hers. This new awareness grew
and filled me with tension and seized my heart. I could see the
truth now, in her lifeless eyes, but I neither spoke nor responded.
I was shocked that she didn’t look the same as in my memory and the
pretence of youth and glamour faded as my awareness peaked.

“And Phoenix,”
she held her hand toward Phoenix and smiled. “I wondered if I would
ever meet the mysterious Phoenix.”

Phoenix turned
toward Lon, “Thank you again for your hospitality, but we must be
going,” he said. I wasn’t sure we could escape so easily. And we
would make no friends by ignoring Volante.

Phoenix held my
hand and I looked back only when we reached the top of the ridge.
Heather was running along the road toward us. We were at the gate
when she reached us, red-faced and out of breath.

“Please, take
this,” She handed me a small blue stone. “Pretend that you are
thankful, that this is something you lost.” I took the blue stone
and hugged her just as she suggested.

“Please, tell
me where you live. I need to leave this place, but I have nowhere
to go.” Tears of fear glistened in her eyes.

“Come with us
now,” I said. Heather had been quiet and detached from her
surroundings until now, but the energy in the camp was dense and
the depression, thick as smoke when we arrived.

“No, they would
stop me. You would be in danger,” she said, “I have a child, a
little girl; I need to find her.”

“They can’t
stop you, Heather. It isn’t a prison. Come with us now.”

“You don’t
understand, we are meant to have babies. He wants to repopulate the
new world. He said it is our responsibility. They make us…” her
voice trailed off without explanation, but I knew what she was
going to say.

“Oh, oh, that’s
horrible,” I began rummaging through my bag. “Here take this; just
a pinch is enough, every morning. You won’t get pregnant.” I pushed
the calico bag into her hand. “I really don’t know if it works for
sure, but I think it will.”

“What if they
find it?”

“It’s only
herbs. Tell them I gave it to you for pimples or to make your hair
grow. Think of something that no one else would want or need.”

We gave Heather
directions to the valley, “Thank you, I promise I won’t tell
anyone. Thank you for everything.” She nodded and smiled for the
first time, then turned and ran down the hill toward the
Sanctuary.

“I know your
feet are sore, but we’ll be there by nightfall,” Phoenix said. I
was struggling to keep up. It’s hard when your feet feel like
they’re on fire. Phoenix’s words were meant to be encouraging, but
each step we took was a step further away from home and another
step I needed to take to return to the safety of our valley. Emma
Creek only marked the halfway point, not our final destination.

One, two,
three, four, I plodded along, counting my steps, trying to create a
rhythm. A rhythm that would pass the time, a tempo that covered
distance and made me forget the pain. We rested often; that was my
choice, short breaks every hour. It seemed like a good idea, but
when we stopped, I lost the rhythm.

I mentioned
this to Phoenix during our last break and now he was encouraging me
to walk for two hours and have a longer break. If I walked for four
hours, I would be blessed with an entire hour to rest and recover.
Four hours walking was easy on the first day, but now it felt like
an eternity. After two hours, I told Phoenix to keep walking. I had
found a pace that didn’t aggravate my blisters and the flat terrain
was easy on my muscles.

As a crow
flies, we weren’t that far from home, but the country changed
quickly from dense rainforest into open savannah. The trees were
tall, yet nothing as grand as the ones in our valley. The cover was
sparse and blue sky filled the space between the branches. Rough,
iron barks twisted toward the sky and tall, scented eucalyptus with
peeling grey bark hung in shreds revealing a fresh, pink skin
beneath.

Even the smells
of the open forest were different. Crisp lemony-scented gums
replaced the earthy smells of the rainforest. But the energy here
was much the same; clean, fresh and pure, so different from the
energy at the Sanctuary. It wasn’t the energy of the earth I sensed
at the Sanctuary, it had been the energy of the people. They had
created an energy so dense that it overshadowed the energy of the
earth.

“My feet are
fine. I was just thinking about the people at the Sanctuary.” So my
feet weren’t fine, but I wasn’t sulking about them anymore. “Why is
everything such a mess? How long can they live like that?”

“They’re doing
okay, considering.”

“Considering
what? They are just waiting to die. They don’t seem to do anything
other than hang around and wait to eat. You should have seen the
garden. The plants were sad, scrawny yellow things. I didn’t even
know what they were.”

“Very few
people alive today have even basic life skills. Skills essential
for survival have been lost over time.” Phoenix looked at me as if
he were surprised I hadn’t considered this before. “Think about our
history. Man lived a nomadic life and survived through hunting and
gathering. They cooked on fires and made their own tools, weapons,
shelter, even their own clothing. Who today can even light a fire
without a match?” I had seen Seth light a fire with a couple sticks
and was mesmerised by it, but I couldn’t understand why he didn’t
just grab a match.

“So we’re
doomed, all this is really for nothing if the people can’t look
after themselves.”

“Perhaps, but
there is always hope, as long as there are people still alive,
there is hope.” Hope was a fragile thing at the best of times,
hardly enough to sustain a struggling society. If hope was all we
had, then maybe we were doomed.

“When people
settled, it was because they had learned about agriculture. It was
an extension of the skills they had already adopted. But how many
people know how to grow more than a tomato plant in their back
yard? And who knows how much wheat needs to be planted to bake a
loaf of bread?

“Chicken Little
knew. Or was it Henny Penny? But we do, don’t we? And there are
other groups like ours, we could teach people to do these
things.”

“We can show a
few people some things, but there are many skills that have been
lost. We are organised, but that doesn’t mean we are completely
self-sufficient. There are still many things we can’t do or have
just basic skills. Things like blacksmithing, pottery, weaving,
even making the wheat into flour will be difficult when our grain
mills wear out.”

“What are we
going to do?” I could hear a voice in my head telling me not to
panic, but my heart was tell me something else entirely.

“At the moment,
we survive by using the remnants of a very advanced society. We
live in houses built by others with materials we can no longer
source. Our tools were made in factories, even the food that
supplements our gardens is in limited supply. When that is gone,
our lives will be very different.”

“So we are just
delaying the inevitable. You’re telling me that we will eventually
die as well, just slower?”

“No, that’s not
what I’m saying. It’s just that we have to work out new ways to
survive. We may end up being the first real recycling age. Ryzer
and Charity have already learnt this. They have collected many
things from town and will eventually find new uses for a lot of
things.”

“But ornaments
and board games aren’t going to cut it.”

“Humans are
creative, we will find a way. We might be unprepared and unskilled,
but survival is our primary instinct. The next few years are going
to be hard, but we will survive.” Phoenix was a lot more optimistic
than I was.