Tomorrows Child (7 page)

I carried the
baskets of fruits and vegetables along the winding path through the
strip of forest that separated our property from Phoenix and his
family. The path was wide enough for two, but I followed Libby, ten
paces behind, filled with excitement and hesitation in equal
measure. Fear fluttered in my chest and the air seemed thick and
unbreathable. I stopped walking and forced myself to breathe.

“Come on,
Psyche, you’ve met everyone already. There is no need to be
nervous.”

It was true, we
had many visitors in the first days after we arrived, but that was
months ago. When Mum was sick, Libby imposed a quarantine on the
house and no one visited. Since then, I don’t know who came to
visit and I simply didn’t care. Lon’s visit yesterday didn't count
because everyone was too busy with talk of raiders and governments
to take any notice of me. Today would be different. I knew I was
being stupid and making a big deal out of nothing, but I couldn't
help it.

We arrived at
the end of the path in less time than it took me to overcome my
anxiety. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before stepping
out of the forest. Phoenix and his family were our nearest
neighbours, but this was only the third time I had ventured beyond
Libby’s boundary.

The garden was
astounding. Row upon row of fruit trees grew on slopes that rose to
the east behind the house. Fences protected vegetable plots and
herbs grew in circular gardens closer to the house. Further down
the slope, a creek flowed and wound past more trees and gardens. I
could see why Lon wanted Ruben as a partner – he needed this.

“Impressive
isn’t it?” Libby stood beside me and admired the garden. “Come on,
Psyche, the bread will go stale if I wait for you all day.”

I walked beside
Libby toward the house. Phoenix’s mother, Tahinah, was standing
with three other women.

“Greetings,
Psyche, Libby,” Tahinah smiled and nodded, “It’s wonderful to see
you’re feeling better. Come, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
Tahinah was beautiful. She had long chocolate-coloured hair and
golden honey skin; her smile glistened in her eyes. Her warmth and
beauty lifted my fear like morning mist on a sunny day.

The women stood
at long wooden tables, cutting vegetables and slicing bread.
Tahinah put her arm around me and drew me close. “Everyone, this is
Psyche,” even her voice was sweet and flowed like honey, “Psyche,
meet your tribe.”

“Or at least
the female half of the tribe. Hi, I’m Emily, and this is Trinity,”
a woman said as she pointed to a small pixie girl next to her.
Trinity looked up and squinted as if I were standing in the sun.
Then she nodded and smiled a little and went back to cutting
bread.

“And I’m Lilly,
I’m Lachlan’s partner. I think you’ll remember him from the
markets,” she smiled.

There were
others, Abigail and Yale, carrying baskets of food; Selene, tending
to a crying child; Luke, supervising a group of teenage boys. I
couldn’t remember everyone’s name, but in time, these people would
become my family.

Libby handed me
a knife and pushed a basket in front of me. I began cutting
tomatoes and listened to the women chat while the children played
in the yard. I hadn’t considered any other small children besides
Phoenix’s sister, Jalani, but I suppose there was a lot about this
community I hadn’t expected.

There were
children everywhere, playing and running around the garden. Quite a
few looked too young to attend school, if schools still existed. A
handful looked not much younger than I, and others who looked
somewhere in between.

I finished the
salads, peeled the vegetables and scrubbed the yams, amazed by the
amount of food on the table. There was no sign of starvation
here.

The only man
present sat on a reclining camper chair, just beyond the fire pit,
which was still a pile of cold, grey ash. Basil was Libby’s oldest
friend. They both grew up in Mount Misty, went to school together
and still lived in their childhood homes. Basil was one of the few
people I actually knew well.

“Hello, Basil,”
I sat beside him on a sawn log seat, “how are you?” Small talk was
pretty much all I had to offer.

“Oh, Psyche,”
he sighed, “as good as one can expect, these days.”

“I guess,” I
said.

“I’ve had a
good life, you know, and seen many changes. When I started school,
we rode horses because no one owned cars. Now all these years
later, we’re back to where we started. It seems the progress we
made was simply time wasted.”

“We were
civilized once,” he said, “now we are less than peasants. What will
happen to us, Psyche? What do you think will become of us?” Basil
poked a stick around in the ash causing puffs of dust to rise in
the air.

I shrugged,
“Mum said we’re parasites, sucking the life out of a living planet.
She thought this was a good thing and Mother Earth would be able to
heal herself.”

“She was a
strange girl, your mum, sweet but strange. I believe she would have
said just that.”

I had to smile,
Basil had known Mum her whole life. It’s funny he thought she was
strange.

“Your mum and
my boy, Gabe, were wonderful friends, you know. Sal and I always
thought they would marry and give us beautiful grandchildren.”

Sal was Basil’s
wife; she died of the green plague last year. During the
quarantine, they blocked the roads in and out of town, but didn’t
send in any doctors or medicines. In a town without a hospital, it
was genocide. The government did this all over the country. When
they opened the roads, those who survived, left in droves.

“Where is Gabe
now?” I asked.

“Don’t rightly
know. He rang some months ago and said he was on his way home. I
believe he was in Pakistan at the time.”

“Pakistan! How
will he get home from there?”

Basil sighed,
“Don’t suppose he can.”

I didn’t ask
any more questions after that, but made a promise that I would pray
for Gabe and hoped he made it home safely.

Basil was too
old to labour in the gardens, so the tribe made him the official
record keeper. He recorded the weather, counted the days, and
reminded us when it was the weekend or when to celebrate a holiday.
He also kept track of the seeds, made sure we planted enough, saved
enough and used up the old seeds before the fresh. Organising the
tribe was Basil’s job and he did it well.

As a Christian,
Basil observed the regular holidays like Easter and Christmas, but
he also tracked the pagan days and kept the wheel of the year for
Libby. It meant we had lots of holidays and reasons to
celebrate.

“Hey,” Phoenix
said as he arrived. I could see Tahinah’s features reflected in his
face. “Ready for some fun?”

“Go on. We’re
done here anyway,” Libby said.

Phoenix took my
hand and led me away from Basil and the women toward the creek that
flowed behind the house.

“I thought you
weren’t coming,” I said to him.

“I live here,
why wouldn’t I come?”

The creek was
crystal clear and shallow with small stones and a sandy bottom. It
flowed into a series of pools that grew deeper and larger as the
creek ran past the house. A wooden platform sat on the bank above
the last waterhole, and in the centre of the platform was a
bathtub.

“Who baths out
here?”

“Anyone who
wants to. Dad built it for Mum because we were always out of hot
water. There was never enough for everyone to have showers and
still fill the tub. The water is heated by the fire, so as long as
the fire is going, there’s plenty of hot water.”

Phoenix
explained how the fire boiled the water in the drum, but he didn’t
explain why the tub was in the middle of the yard.

“You can use it
anytime you like.”

“Gee thanks,
Phoenix, but we have plenty of hot water and I usually prefer a bit
of privacy when I bath.”

“Well, you can
always wear swimmers. Mum says everyone should bath under a full
moon.” Well, that sounded like fun. Mum would have loved bathing in
the moonlight.

Phoenix gave me
a tour of the garden, explaining the names and uses of the trees
and plants as we wandered along the rows. Just like Libby’s garden,
everything had a purpose. He held my hand as if he were afraid he
would lose me amongst the trees. He was a gentle teacher compared
to Libby. With Phoenix, I wasn’t afraid to forget, so I
remembered.

The tour ended
at the house, which was made from timber and mud brick, much the
same as Libby’s, just a whole lot bigger. Three steps led to a
large veranda that flowed into the house through a doorway that
must have been over five metres wide. Timber doors folded open
against each other and created the feeling that the house and
veranda were one. It was the same on the other side of the
house.

There was a lot
of noise coming from the yard. “Dad and Navarre are back,” said
Phoenix. We walked through the house, but didn’t pause long enough
for me to notice anything else. Standing at the top of the front
stairs, I could see that Navarre looked a lot like his mother. The
boys shared the same dark hair and honey-coloured skin. We watched
the two men walk out of the forest. Ruben held a gun and Navarre
carried a bow and a quiver full of arrows.

Navarre also
carried an assortment of birds and small animals tied to a stick,
draped across his shoulders. The dead animals dripped blood and
coated him in every place imaginable. His smile was a contradiction
to the death that surrounded him, but I understood that hunting
provided essential protein. The only alternative was to butcher our
own animals, which were stock bred and kept to provide other
necessities, like milk and eggs.

“Oh, that’s
really disgusting. How come you didn’t go?”

“Navarre is a
very good hunter. I guess it’s in his blood,” Phoenix answered.
Tahinah was Native American, or at least her grandfather was and
Ruben was a soldier.

“But it’s in
your blood, too.”

“I suppose, but
I’m not very good. Navarre can shoot three arrows before the first
hits its target. He is aiming for six. There are legends that say
that some Apache warriors could fire seven arrows before the first
hit its mark.”

“Wouldn’t it
depend on how far away the target was?” I asked.

“I guess; never
thought too much about it, really.”

We watched as
Ruben and Navarre turned the carcasses into cuts of meat. Mostly,
it was rabbit, but a few pheasants and a couple of wild turkeys lay
on the table as well. I’d eaten many rabbits since my arrival and
still had trouble separating the idea of fluffy bunnies from our
meal. This made my life just a little more difficult. As a rule,
they never caught small native animals whose lives were still more
endangered than ours were.

“I think Ruben
plans to turn us all into warriors. He hasn’t stopped worrying
about what we saw in town or what Lon had to say, but we’re not
really prepared to defend ourselves.”

“I don’t think
I’ll make much of a warrior.”

“Ruben still
has to convince Libby; and I would be surprised if she agreed to
you trading magick lesson for weapons training.”

The idea that I
could trade one for the other was suddenly exciting. I didn’t hate
magick; I just didn’t understand it. Hunting, shooting guns, firing
arrows, defending against an enemy – that was basic and something I
could understand.

Tahinah looked
around, “Has anyone seen Raven?” No one had seen her since we’d
been here, which was now hours. “Phoenix? See if you can find her
please.” Worry creased Tahinah’s brow as she headed toward the
house.

“She won’t be
far. It’s not her style to go wandering off and she isn’t a baby
anymore.” Phoenix wasn’t overly concerned about his sister, but he
searched for her anyway just to ease his mother’s worry. We checked
in and around the house and in parts of the garden we hadn’t
explored earlier.

Raven was
sixteen, just a few months younger than I. When we first met, I
thought we may have become friends, but she barely spoke to me on
the way to town, even though she sat beside me. When we arrived
there, she quickly found friends to spend the day with. I wasn’t
offended, just surprised.

We eventually
found Raven sitting in the old bus shelter at the end of the
driveway beside the road.

“Where have you
been?” Phoenix demanded. She didn’t answer. “Mum’s been looking for
you.”

“So... It took
her long enough to realise I was missing.” Raven didn’t smile, she
just stood up, stomped off and left us trailing behind her.

“Well, she’s a
nice girl,” I said, unable to hide the sarcasm.

“Yeh, she used
to be, I don’t know why she is being such a bitch. Teenage girl
thing, I guess.”

“Hey, I’m a
teenage girl!” I nudged him with my elbow.

Phoenix paused
and looked at me. He squinted and his brow wrinkled in the centre,
then he smiled and shrugged. “Yeh sure, I forget sometimes,” he
added as he grabbed my hand and dragged me back along the
driveway.

The aroma of
cooking meat and roasting vegetables drifted toward us as we walked
down the drive of the house. The sweet smoky smell made me forget
my misgivings about eating fluffy bunnies, as it always did. The
group now gathered around the fire as the sun slipped behind the
horizon. The wind had picked up a little, rendering the air fresh
and crisp.

I stood
watching the flames flicker and grow brighter as the sun set.
Roasted meat and yams, along with pots of stew were carried to the
tables. I smiled at the children who ate with happy faces and the
adults who hovered nearby, tending to their needs. I was happy for
the first time in months, I felt safe and peaceful. Tahinah looked
up across the fire, then smiled and gave a little nod as Phoenix
reached out and took my hand.