The old man told us of rain. We sat, the children, horseshoe in his tent. Smoke rose, slow blue, escaped into the evening. As he spoke his face relaxed; the lines smoothed, time regressed. He was our age again. Only felt it once, he said, falling water. Gravel into the canvas to mimic the sound, pattering, the last rainfall. We closed our eyes and imagined the feel: More water than we’d ever seen, matting our hair, streaming more than tears could. The taste of freshness, water without salt, a mouthful, another.
It’s still dark when I wake, the speckling of showers fading into the dream world. I stretch, sit up. No time for rest, not today. Today we leave here forever.
I hitch my skirts up, urinate into my bucket. Two or three drops. Not enough to fill a cup. It’s been weeks since we had any fresh water. I drink, pull my shawl tight and push through the tipi flaps.
Down the valley the moon has set. It’ll be dawn soon. Nan’s at the fire, the fire that never goes out, packaging dried meat for the journey. We have enough for two or three days, she said. We need to hunt as we move. Hunt for food. Hunt for water. Hunt for shelter and other clans.
Life is searching.
Time to wake Fyann. Time to finish packing. Time to say goodbye.
I think about lighting the tallow but it would be a waste. Who knows when we can make more and we’ll need light in the desert. All my life living in this tipi; I don’t need light. I go around our packs, the jumbled heap of the possessions we’ll be able to take. So many objects filled with memories, but we can’t carry them. Leave them for anyone who comes this way. If there’s anyone left.
“Fyann, time to wake. Dawn soon.”
No answer. Fyann hates mornings. I reach her bed, catch hold of the edge of her furs, a quick flick and they’re off. No response. That’s not right. She should be shrieking, calling me names. Scrabbling for the furs. I touch the bed. Empty.
“Fyann, where are you?”
Nothing.
Across the tent in three steps. Throw the flaps back. First light is breaking over the mountain. Just enough to see by. Empty. She’s gone.
Over to the shrine. The wooden figure is missing. I told her not to, but she thinks she knows everything. Nine years old and she thinks she’s full of ancient wisdom.
I grab the bicycle, push it over to the fire. The clan is asleep, tents pitched in a circle, facing in, no spaces. It’s safer this way. There are few animals left, but once in a while a pack of dogs attack. Scavenging for survival. Searching.
“Morning, Aily,” says Nan. “What’s the matter?”
“Fyann,” I say.
Nan nods. She knows Fyann. What my tone of voice means. Run off again.
“Don’t be long,” says Nan.
“I won’t.”
I light a torch in the fire, mount and ride out of the camp towards the ruins.
He told the story many times, the old man. Our parents didn’t like it: Giving us ideas, dreams we could never realise. They knew, the adults. They too had grown up hearing the stories, had dreamt of lakes and rivers and seas, but they’d reached the age of acceptance where dreams are rejected. They wanted to save us from the same disappointment.
He was the last to remember. When he died the story became a myth, a legend.We’re a small clan, only fifty or so. Many left. Years ago a large group went out into the desert to find the lake that’s rumoured to exist in the deepest canyons. Others stayed: Mostly children, the old, the sick. We couldn’t go with them. A burden. Now we must follow. The valley kept us alive as long as it could. Water gone from the surface, but down in the dark of the world streams still trickled. Carefully preserved, it kept us just this side of death. That too has gone. Nothing stays in this world. All turns to dust.
Time to go.
I pedal as fast as I can. It’s cold, coldest just before dawn, and my screechy old bike takes a lot of effort to move. I found it foraging in the Ruins at the northern end of the valley. The old city, abandoned, stripped bare. A ghost town, city of the dead. I rescued my bike from that graveyard. Named it Scrake, the first word it said to me.
Riding over the valley floor is hard work. Everything is dry, dusty, catches in my throat. With the torch in one hand I can’t pull my scarf over my mouth. Not going to stop. I need to find Fyann and get her back to camp before the dogs find us. Move fast for heat. Move fast for safety.
At the bottom of the cliff I set Scrake against a rock, pointing towards camp, ready to leave, ready to run. The sun is almost up, its light creeping along the valley, but the easiest route is in shade, in darkness still. I keep hold of the torch, keep it alight. To see by. As a weapon.
The climb is difficult but I’ve done it many times. Once with my eyes closed after Fyann dared me. This rock, that. Move my feet, my free hand, dig the bottom of the torch in, drag myself up.
Marks where Fyann came before me. Her fingers. Her feet. I was right. She came here. I forbade her but she never listens. Only one she ever listened to was Father. Since he died she’s been wild.
I scramble up the last bit of cliff and raise my head over the summit. Far below the camp is small, empty. The valley stretches for miles, lightening. A weak breeze passes. It’s going to be a hot day: There’s no other kind.
Father is in Afterlife. Mother too. In water, at peace. No more searching. She died first, while Fyann was still a baby. Fyann never knew her. I remember. Remember her sick. The coughing. The blood. So weak she couldn’t hold my hand. Slipped from mine dry as leather, light as wool. Father stayed longer. Two years ago. He knew he was going, the same cough. Every day he taught us, taught us survival. Hunting, killing, skinning, making, fixing, We had to learn because he wouldn’t always be there to look after us. Then, one day, he wasn’t.
He never taught me how to look after Fyann.
She’ll be at the castle. The castle is ruins, but not like the other Ruins. The Dead City. When the Dead City was alive, the castle was already ruined. Destroyed by people rather than by time and the arid air. No ghosts, nothing to salvage.
Beautiful it must have looked in ancient times, a stone fortress high above the valley. Proud. A chief surveying his land. The valley wasn’t a valley back then, the old man said. It was a lake. Water, dark and cold, from the edge of the castle all the way down to the camp. I don’t believe it. Can’t imagine it. The old man told many stories. They can’t all be true.
Fyann and I used to come here when we were younger. When we had time for play, less duties than now, now we’re grown up. Hiding games, battle games, children clambering over the collapsed walls, the hollow towers, bursting out startling each other, the laughter, the cries. Maybe there are ghosts here.
When Father died, Fyann came here. Sat up in the tallest tower, legs hanging over the edge. Three days she sat there. Nothing would make her come down. Stared out over the valley three days and nights. Lost to the real. Her mind in the dream world, trying to find Father. Where he’d gone. At night the dogs came, circled her, howling, slavering, but they couldn’t climb. Couldn’t reach her. On the fourth day she came down, came back to camp. She was different. Older. Ancient almost. She never smiled.
While up in the tower she’d been busy. With her knife and a piece of wood she made an icon, a statue of Father. Long and thin, gaunt as he’d been in the end, the grain of the dark wood streaking his face, his body like tears. Two nuggets of quartz for eyes, white and sharp, looking out at us. A shrine in the tipi, Father’s effigy watching, protecting. Fyann the Priestess of her own religion.
That’s where she was now, up that tower. I’m at the wrong side, behind her, so I can’t see, but I know that’s where she is. Something magical about that spot for her. She’ll be up there. Saying goodbye.
Keeping close to the cliff edge I move towards the castle. Originally it would’ve been surrounded by a colossal wall but most of that has fallen. Shaped rocks lie where they fell, like bodies after a battle. There’s a gap near the cliff edge I can pass through. I want to stay at the edge in case there are any dogs. I can go over, climb down. My escape route.
I reach the wall, touch it’s cold flatness. Old friend. Lean through. Dogs. Fyann. Both where I knew they’d be. Her on the tower, legs hanging. Them circling, spittle and snarls. I have to chase them off. Get her down. Back to camp. Get moving. It’s light now, the camp will be awake. Breakfast, packing. How long would they wait? Not three days and three nights, that’s for sure.
Scale the wall, above the dogs. Five of them. Maybe more nearby but probably not. Packs are smaller these days. We hunt them, they hunt each other. The weakest picked off long ago these five will be strong, cunning. They are gaunt, skinny. I can see their ribs, hide almost transparent. Starving. They haven’t noticed my approach, so intent on their prey. I have three weapons: surprise, height and fire.
Along the top of the wall. Uneven, crumbling, I pick my way until I’m directly above them. Torch down. Raise a hefty rock, judge, wait for my moment, hurl it down so hard I almost lose my footing.
A direct hit. The rock snaps the dog’s spine. Its yelps frighten the others. They back off, aware now of a new danger. They see me. See the fire. They know fire. Fear it. I throw a few more rocks, missing each time. Wave the torch, scream at them. They cast jealous looks at Fyann, hungry looks at their dead partner, but they get the message, retreat. They won’t leave, not now there’s the twice the prey. They’ll regroup, find a new strategy. We have to come down sometime.
Jumping gaps I make my way to Fyann’s tower, slip in through a window hole, jam the torch into a good, safe crack and climb. It’s more difficult than the cliff, and I’ve only done it once before, back then when Fyann was here. I came to get her down but she wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence. I couldn’t drag her down, not without killing us both. I pray it’s not like that again.
The day has properly begun, the valley golden, the camp alive. They’ll be looking for us. Good thing I saw Nan before I left. I swing my legs over the edge next to Fyann. Her dark hair is twisted, knotted by the wind. Green-eyed stare into the sky. What can she see? Father is in her hands, her thumbs gently stroking along the grain.
“Fyann?” I say.
She looks at me, those stabbing eyes. Acknowledgement is something.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to come here.”
I’m not her mother. Why does this role fall to me?
The dogs have come back, are ripping their colleague apart below us. I look for another rock to drop but dislodging any could bring us down with it.
“You shouldn’t have come. You don’t know these hills like I do.”
A lie. Of course she does. But it’s what parents say.
“We have to go back. We’re leaving today.”
She looks at me again, still stroking the icon she made of Father. Say something, I think. Let me know what you’re thinking. Let me in.
“You are coming with us, aren’t you?”
A pause. A nod.
“You came here to say goodbye?”
Nod.
“To Father?”
Nod.
“Fyann, why here? What’s so special about this tower? Why couldn’t you say goodbye in the tent, at the shrine?”
“It’s easiest here,” she says. “He can hear me better here. I can hear him.”
“Father?”
“Yes.”
“You can hear him?”
“Yes.”
I swallow. “What does he say?”
“Today? Goodbye.”
And she smiles. I’d almost forgotten her smile. It’s slightly squint, lifting more on the right, showing more teeth. Her green eyes sparkle like glass. I hold her hand as she holds Father. The smoke from the camp cuts abruptly. Nan has put the fire out. The pillar climbs away from the camp, breaks, drifts down the valley. There’s always been a fire in camp. All my life. Until today. Fragments follow the wind, the same direction we will go. It’s time.
Fyann leaves Father, his feet fast between two rocks, standing to attention before the sun. I retrieve the torch, it too almost extinguished. We go out the way I came in, stay high on the walls, jump the gaps. The dogs follow us, wary but more alert now they’ve eaten. We can’t rely on the last of the fire to keep them away. We’re going to have to run for it.
The end of the road. From here it’s a short run to the cliff, a short jump over it. But we’ll be in the open, exposed for interminable seconds. No mistakes.
Ready. A few well-aimed rocks to keep them back and we leap for it, run with all the strength we have. I can’t look round but I know they’re coming. A change in the air, a feeling, a smell or a sound. We’re being hunted. Reach the edge, slide on the dusty ground and tumble over, dogs jaws above our heads, our hands grasping at rocks, ground, anything to stop the fall.
Regain control. Climb down as fast as we can, feet slipping, rocks dropping. They’ll be coming, find another way. Get to Scrake, jump on the pedals, Fyann on the seat.
“Come on, Scrake, get us out of here.”
I pump my legs. Scrake rattles and shakes and screams but he holds and we close on the camp, I glance back and in the new sun see the black flash of a dog leaping from a rock, jerk my head back round, sweat in my eyes, the waste, such a waste of water, my whole body soaked. Fyann shouts, the camp, shapes appear with weapons and we’re almost safe, the crack of a shot and the barking slows behind, the dogs scared now the numbers have changed. We crash to the ground, Scrake’s wheel spinning loosely.
“Sorry,” she says.
The camp is behind us, the turn in the valley will cut our view soon. The tents in a circle, everything we couldn’t carry. Another ghost town. The dogs will be all over it, the smell of us, but there’s nothing for them.
“Thanks,” I say. “But please don’t scare me like that again.”
“You know, Aily,” she says. “You’re not my mother.”
I look at her, hurt. Scrake screeches as I push him. I’ll need to ride off soon, begin looking for tonight’s camp. For food. For water. Now we’re still in known territory, so I’m off duty.
“Look,” I say. “I didn’t ask for any of this to happen. I didn’t ask for Mother and Father to die.”
“I know you didn’t,” she says. “I wasn’t having a go. I mean, I don’t want you to try and be my mother. You’re not very good at being a mother. I want you to be my sister.”
I look at her.
“You’re very good at being a sister.”
We look back as the caravan turns the corner. The castle ruins high above the camp. The tower. Father looking after us.
“I’m glad we could go to the castle,” I say.
“Me too.”
“Why did you leave Father there? Why didn’t you take him?”
“He didn’t want to come. That was his home. All his life.”
“It’s our home too. All our lives.”
“Our lives aren’t over,” she says.