Authors: Tony Shillitoe
‘
O
h there will come a time,’ he warned, ‘there will come a time when men and women will rue what they have left undone. Mark my words, this will be so.’ The elder’s ragged green sleeves hung from his spindly arms, his rheumatic fingers pointing at the crowd. He coughed up a thick gob of yellow phlegm, and spat it emphatically into the dust, while the Summerbrook village crowd hung on the impending prophecy, ignoring the afternoon heat. Samuel, older than anyone in the village, was the voice of the future. He’d seen the season of crop failure two years before it happened. He’d warned them of young Woodchip’s drowning before the tragedy. He’d told them that the kingdom would be torn apart by war, and now there was a war between the Queen’s army and the Rebels lurching back and forth across the land. It was wise to listen to Samuel.
Meg squinted against the hot sun glinting off the river water between the wood-and-thatch Bakers’ and Farriers’ buildings, and used her right hand to sweep her red locks from her sweaty forehead. The crowd had already taken the thin shade from the tall white river gums. Samuel was a guaranteed source of entertainment for the villagers when he railed against the sins of
people or foretold the end of time, but Meg had heard him too many times to find him interesting. She was puzzled as to why her mother was still fascinated by his ramblings—why so many villagers dropped their work to listen to the mad old fool.
‘Beware the coming of the Demon Horsemen!’ Samuel screamed, pointing emphatically at the clear blue sky. Meg looked up and only saw a lazy black crow drifting across the space between two stands of gum trees. ‘They will come,’ Samuel insisted. ‘It is our fate that they will come. They will purify us of our weaknesses and scourge us of our evil—two riders, as blue as ice, possessed of powers mightier than the highest kings in the greatest empires. The Demon Horsemen will ride across our lands and their horses’ fiery breath will scorch the earth. Pray you do not live to see this day. Pray you are buried deep in the earth when this terrible thing comes upon us.’
Bored, Meg prodded her younger brothers, Daryn and Mykel. ‘Time to get home. There are chickens to feed and the cow to milk.’
‘I want to listen,’ tousle-haired Daryn complained.
‘Me too,’ said Mykel, scratching his worn trouser leg.
‘He’s mad,’ she told them. ‘Living all the time up in that cave on the hill has left him with loose kangaroos in his top paddock.’
‘Show respect for the prophet,’ her mother whispered.
Meg turned to find Dawn glaring at her, and her littlest brother, blue-eyed blond Peter, sucking his thumb at Dawn’s side. ‘Mum, he’s not saying anything we haven’t heard before,’ she protested.
‘He tells us what is going to happen. It’s a Blessing.’
‘It’s a con,’ Meg mumbled, as she tugged impatiently at her green tunic laces. ‘He only does it to get free food.’
‘They
will
come!’ Samuel cried passionately. ‘And nothing, nothing can stop them when they come!’
‘I’m going home,’ Meg announced.
The road from the market, where Samuel always made his public prophecies, led over the arched wooden bridge into the village centre, past Archer’s Inn. Meg waved to the Archer children, who were laughing as they were having a water fight in the horse trough in the shade of a gum tree. For a moment, she was tempted to join them, but children’s games were no longer her province as a young woman in her sixteenth year. The narrow dirt road continued north, out of the village, but she turned westward at the junction. The grass, yellowed by the heat, crunched under her boots. As she headed towards her home, a familiar canine shape loped towards her from the farmhouse. ‘Sunfire!’ she cried. The golden dingo flattened his ears, his tail lolling from side to side as she patted his head, and he settled into stride beside her.
Her father, Jon Farmer, had built a single-roomed wooden hut when he first settled in Summerbrook, but in the intervening years had extended it to accommodate his growing family, and now it was a comfortable home, a place in which Meg felt happy—except that she wished her father was there. At the stone well, she winched a bucket up from the dark depths and guzzled the cool water. She poured a measure into a small pot beside the well and Sunfire lapped at the refreshing liquid, looking up in appreciation with his amber eyes. ‘Cow first!’ she declared, and let the rope and bucket drop back into the well.
She finished her daily chores as the sun vanished behind the purple haze of the western hills. Thin white smoke twisted from the chimney, showing that her mother was cooking their meal despite the evening’s warmth. The shadows of Daryn and Mykel dawdled towards the house, the boys having reluctantly fed the
chickens and the pigs with food scraps. She looked for Sunfire, and realised that he was probably hunting the numbats and bilbies that abounded in the hills. Meg stored her rake in the lean-to shed, and heard Dawn calling her to eat as she emerged. This Fuar season had been the hottest she could remember, full of endless days of brilliant blue, cloudless skies and cold star-sparkled nights. The ground was parched, and everyone wished for rain. The cows, pigs and sheep on the common run huddled or squatted under the thin gum tree shade to escape the scorching sun, and dogs and cats were lying in the shadows, panting. Saltsack Carter, who brought in supplies and carried out goods to sell on his wagon trips, said that the eastern villages in Western Shess were suffering cruelly from the drought conditions. Animals were dying, crops failing. They were lucky to have the river in Summerbrook.
Hearing a rustling overhead in the gum tree, Meg looked up to see the shape of a grey possum waddling along a white branch. ‘Stay off the house roof tonight,’ she warned. She’d lost count of the times her brothers and she, woken by possum grunts and growls, scrambled out of bed and pelted the creatures with stones. Yet they persistently returned. ‘If I could cast a magic spell, I’d turn you all into little stone statues.’
Her mother, Dawn, was putting plates in front of the three boys when Meg entered the house. ‘Daryn,’ Meg said abruptly. ‘You should be helping Mum.’
‘Sit down,’ Dawn insisted. ‘Leave the boys alone and eat.’
‘Give me that,’ Meg said, taking the mashed potato pot from her mother. ‘The boys should be helping you inside. They don’t do much outside.’
‘We do more than you!’ Mykel blurted indignantly.
‘Like what?’ she challenged.
‘We catch the fish.’
‘And we bring in the numbats and birds,’ Daryn added.
‘You spend all day trying to catch the fish and numbats, and don’t do anything else,’ Meg argued. ‘There’s plenty to do around the house. The barn roof needs repairing. The animals need constant water in this heat. You could be sharpening the plough blade ready for when the rains come.’ She scooped a dollop of potato onto Mykel’s plate.
‘There won’t be any rain for ages,’ Daryn told her.
‘How come?’
‘Samuel said there won’t be any,’ said Mykel. ‘He said we’re being punished for all our sins.’
‘For all
your
sins maybe,’ Meg replied.
‘Enough,’ Dawn interrupted. ‘Sit and eat.’
Meg sat, intermittently helping four-year-old Peter clean up his mess. ‘Any news of the war?’ she asked between mouthfuls.
‘Nothing,’ Dawn replied.
‘Samuel said the war would be upon us soon,’ Daryn said, excitement in his voice.
‘Well, Samuel doesn’t know everything. The war is a long way away,’ said Dawn.
‘Can we be soldiers like Dad?’ Mykel asked.
‘You’re ten,’ Dawn reminded him. ‘War is not for children. It’s not for anyone.’
‘Dad went,’ said Daryn.
‘Your father’s a man. He makes his own decisions.’
‘I’m thirteen. Two more years and I’ll be a man,’ said Daryn adamantly.
‘Let’s hope you’re a smarter man than your father,’ Dawn murmured.
‘So, no news from Dad?’ Meg asked.
‘Nothing.’
As the boys stood to leave the table, Meg said, ‘You can wash up tonight. Mum’s not doing it.’
The howls of protest from Daryn and Mykel were squashed by Dawn. ‘Go to bed. Meg and I will clean up. But you boys can organise Peter before you all climb into bed.’
‘When can I have my own room like Megen?’ Daryn asked.
‘When you’re a man in your own house,’ Dawn replied.
‘But how come she gets her own bed?’
‘I’m oldest,’ said Meg.
‘It’s because you’re a girl,’ said Mykel.
‘Go to bed now, or you’ll be doing the dishes,’ Dawn warned.
After the chaos of three boys left the room, Meg put a small pot of water on the fireplace to boil. ‘Why do you let them get away with so much?’ she asked, as she tied back her mane of red hair.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Dawn said, the question ignored.
‘What about?’
Dawn put down a grey plate from which she was cleaning scraps, and wiped her hands. ‘I want you to come with me to Samuel for a foretelling.’
‘Mum!’ Meg protested. ‘Not this stuff again.’
Dawn put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, looking up at her and noting how tall and strong she was getting. ‘You’ve grown again.’
‘I need new trousers and a new pair of boots.’
‘You should start wearing dresses like a woman.’
‘Don’t be silly, Mum. How could I do the work in a dress?’
Dawn poured a bucket of cold water into the wooden washing tub, saying, ‘It’s time Daryn took more responsibility. He
is
almost a man.’
Meg snorted contemptuously. ‘Nothing would get done if it was left to him. He’s a lazy little slime. All he
does is fish and hunt. He still doesn’t know how to harness the bullock to the plough.’
‘Then show him. He can do it this year.’
‘I’m not wearing dresses to be a pretty girl, Mum. I want some new trousers.’
‘Will you come with me to Samuel?’
Meg threw up her arms in frustration. ‘Mum, I don’t have a Blessing. You know that. We’ve been to Samuel before.’
‘Three years ago. You were a child. Emma says that the Blessing sometimes doesn’t mature in some the way it does in others.’
Meg lifted the boiling water from the fire and carefully poured it into the large wooden washing tub, and began humming a ballad. As she put down the pot, she saw her mother’s plaintive expression, and sighed. ‘All right. I’ll come. But I don’t believe in all this magic and foretelling. It’s not real.’
‘It
is
real,’ Dawn replied.
‘Have you ever seen any real magic, Mum?’ Meg challenged.
Dawn hesitated, her silence an answer, but she quickly added, ‘That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. I’ve heard a lot of stories about it happening. The Queen’s Seers can use magic.’
‘Mum, you believe fantasy stories. People make them up.’
Dawn shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I still want you to see Samuel.’
The worst part of sleeping was also the most fascinating. She had dreams, strange dreams, dreams that made no sense because she found herself in places she’d never been with people she’d never met. Every night, as she settled into her pillow, she wondered what dream would visit her. Some nights
she had no dreams at all—at least nothing she could remember in the morning. Other nights the dreams were so clear that she woke wondering whether or not what she thought she had dreamed had really happened.
Knowing that her mother was insisting on her seeing the crazy old man made sleeping difficult that night, and she felt as if she would never fall asleep. When she did, she slipped into a dream that seemed new and yet familiar.
The place was cold and dark, so dark. Yet somehow, in the absence of light, she could see clearly and that only made this dream more eerie than the others. She was in a dark place and yet she could see. And she could hear his voice. He was always whispering something, but the words were never clear in the dream, just a tone that compelled her to search for him. Even in the dream, she knew she’d dreamed what was happening before. There was a dark corner ahead and she knew he was somewhere in the darkness just beyond it, waiting for her, calling to her. Yet she never turned the corner.
A shiver raced along her spine the moment she entered the cave. Smoke drifted in the flickering torchlight, irritating her nose and eyes, from a half-consumed cigarette teetering on the edge of the stone table. Samuel was the only person in the village who smoked. Others had experimented with the strange foreign habit, and rejected it. ‘What’s the sense in sucking smoke into your lungs?’ Dawn asked. ‘You might just as well stand over the fireplace and breathe it all in.’ Meg saw no sense in the habit either. Also on the table, a shiny black bush rat was engrossed in cleaning its whiskers, as if it considered the humans irrelevant.
Bush rats are brown
, Meg noted.
Why is this one black?
‘Five people,’ the old man announced, as he stared into a sliver of amber crystal resting on the grey stone. ‘There will come five people. Their lives will be inextricably linked with your own. One will be a thief. One a killer of men. One a young woman of beauty and low virtue. One will be in business. And one will be a king-in-waiting. You must beware the king-in-waiting. He will be your nemesis.’ Samuel raised his brown eyes, and when he licked his cracked lips a gob of spittle lodged in a hairy wrinkle by his mouth.
Don’t ever let me get old and disgusting
, Meg thought, fighting the gorge welling in her throat.
The old man grinned, revealing his rotting yellow teeth and sunken gums where other teeth had once been. ‘You will grow very old,’ he told her, ‘and with it you will gain great wisdom.’ Ignoring her gasp of surprise, he returned his attention to the amber crystal. ‘Before all of these there will come others,’ he continued. ‘One will be a soldier and he will bring you great happiness and greater sorrow. One will test you. One will take you to a great city in a foreign land. One will tempt you with impossible promises. Two will be your loves. One will be your greatest threat and your greatest hope.’
‘Are these the same people?’ Meg interrupted.
The soothsayer looked up and shook his head. ‘Much is hidden,’ he said in his croaky voice, ‘but be patient, girl. There is something else here, something powerful.’ He looked down again.