The Wish Kin (18 page)

The cloud is no longer out to sea. It is no longer in the distance. It is directly above the boy, and is low over his head. It is a fearful thing. There is no sky left, no sky or sun, only great grey mountains of cloud, of dense, heavy cloud. There is whispering, whispering, and pressing, pressing. Colm pushes the heels of his hands into his temples, wanting to still the growing upheaval inside, wanting to quiet the memories of voices, of words.

Remember who you are. It is up to you now. The cloud was answering you. It was responding to your words, your melody. Enough. It is not the right time. Enough. Enough. It is not the right time. It is up to you now. Your words, your melody. Only you can do it now, Colm. Remember who you are. Remember who you are. Remember who you are.

‘I am Colm Bell!' he says into the stormy sky, he says into the thick, grey humming cloud. ‘I am Colm Bell!' His voice is strong and firm. It does not waver as he unfolds the sounds of who he is, the sounds of the parts making up his name. ‘Colm Bell,' he says along the edge of the hum of cloud. ‘I am Colm Bell.'

It is not enough. The cloud wants more. The whispering and the pressing demand of him more, lure from him more. And he knows there is more, but what? What?

A shout from behind and he turns. Lydia and Moss are running towards him across the sand. Their faces are stretched, fearful. He can see that they are saying something to him, but he cannot hear them for the slow crash of waves, for the rush of wind stirring the sand into flurries. Only with this last does he realise that the air about him has become brittle, charged. It crackles his blood, twists into his heart, and he feels suddenly – profoundly – nervous.
What?
he demands, now angry, of the air, of the cloud.
What is it you want?

There is a low and unsettled rumbling – thunder? – and Colm finds himself growing mad with frustration.
I am Colm Bell!
he shouts to the blackening heavens.
That is who I am! There is no more! That is it! I am Colm Bell!
But the thunder does not desist, grows instead deeper, and the cloud thickens and lowers so that there is no light at all, so that the day seems almost like night.

A hand on his arm, and Colm sees Lydia at his side. Her eyes have the fire in them. He sees that Brae's disc is glowing bright on its cord about her neck, looks down and sees the same luminance emanating from his own. Lydia's fingers bear into his flesh.

And then, looking at the disc, feeling the push of his sister's fingers into his skin, hearing the rumble of
thunder, the whir of the wind in the dry sand, he is taken back, is taken back to Ailis's tent where first he heard of the Wish Kin, where first he listened to her tale of how they would one day gather to work with the earth to bring sweet rivers of rain, to soften the touch of the sun on the skin, to press into the soil a hope and a grace that had not been known for lifetimes. He thinks of Moss, who stands behind him now a little way away upon the beach, and of how the older boy had named for him this gathering of Kin, how he had called it the Rekindling. He thinks of Parsefal who had told him of the great fire in the Centre, and how it had started at the very place where the Rekindling was to occur, here, in Wonding. He thinks of how it was that their father had instructed them to meet in Wonding if ever they were separated, and wonders at the symmetry of it all, at the circular framing of these particulars.

Then he thinks of the images shown to him and Lydia in the holoview at the dome, of the image of the tiny cloud breaking and letting loose a scattering of water droplets over their own valley so very far away now, and wonders again how this happened, if indeed it did happen. He thinks of the few times in his life when he has seen a wisp of cloud, thinks of times more recently when it seemed to him as though he could play with cloud, as though there was something in the nature of the cloud itself that would respond to him, that somehow, perhaps, beckoned to him. He looks now at this great dark field of cloud spanning the
length, the breadth, of the sky, thinks how only a short time before it was a mere tendril on the horizon, shakes his head at the ringing that he hears making its way to his mind, the whisper, a new one, finding its way to his thoughts, shakes his head against it, does not believe it, cannot, clamps his mouth, grinds his teeth, screws up his eyes against it, but it stays, is there, is present, grows louder in fact and still louder, so that his body vibrates with the truth of it, so that his heart cracks and blooms and grows, so that his skin smoothes out like a suit of shimmering silver, a suit that covers the ringing whole of him, so that his eyes no longer stay closed but open so wide he can see the entire world in a glance, whisper whisper louder and louder so that his head is full of every piece of wonder and beauty he has heard and seen and known, so that his feet are as though there is no earth beneath him, not the softness of sand or the cool touch of sea, but rather as though it is the cloud upon which he stands, the cloud which bears him up, the cloud that forms his pattern and place, the cloud that speaks his name.

Cloud Drawer!
it says, in a voice of thunder and sky.
Cloud Drawer! Cloud Drawer!
And he cannot escape it, cannot turn from it, and does not, knows he cannot for it is not separate from him, is not something other, and he does not wish to turn from it, but listens to the voice of thunder and sky, feels all that he feels, thinks all that has happened before and is happening now and does not want to do anything other than that which is
bidden of him, that which is meant for him now to conclude, to begin, to continue, to unpeel and remember, and so he remembers, with that dark sea and sky, and so he speaks out for the first time his name, speaks it out to the air, to the black cloud above him,
Cloud Drawer, Cloud Drawer
, in the kind Inner Speech, kind, kind, so his fear is not all,
Cloud Drawer, Cloud Drawer
, and then in the Outer, in the way that the cloud would beseech him, he says it, so small, a young teenage boy on a planet of sand. ‘I am the Cloud Drawer,' he says to the earth, to the sea, to the great, massing cloud.

‘I am the Cloud Drawer.'

The air, so charged and brittle, seems strangely to break. Brae's metal disk glows yet brighter on Colm's breast. He feels a fire in his chest, wonders if it is in his eyes as he sees in Lydia's right now. His sister's hand is still on his arm, her fingers pressing still into his flesh. She is having her own remembering, it seems to Colm. She is staring into his eyes with her own wild and fiery ones. Her body trembles: small convulsions against the enormity of recognition.

But Colm feels strangely light now, feels oddly relieved. He looks again at the sky, and at the great and beautiful cloud that is its face, sings softly to her in the Inner Speech. The cloud billows further as he sings, seems to welcome his drawing, blooms joyfully into it. There is contentment between them, between the cloud and her boy.

Lydia's fingers tighten their grip on Colm's arm and he looks again at his sister. Her eyes are intent now upon the great bank of cloud, her lips working silently, working over and over. Colm tunes his listening to hear, tunes out the din of the crashing waves, of the flurrying sand, of the electric resonating air, listens carefully to the movement of his sister's lips, to the breath coming out from between them. ‘I am the Rain Maker,' he hears her say. ‘I am the Rain Maker.' Her lips open to a sigh and the answering word falls as a drop of water on her face.

And so it rains. Two quiet chords of recognition, of remembering, bring the clouds to the sky, bring the weight from the clouds, and the rain falls upon the thirsty earth, falls and falls, so that the skin of the earth is softened, is sated, so that dry riverbeds begin to thicken to mud, begin to gather to pools, so that the cracks in the bare plains fill with water and smooth out, an unbroken sheet now of gleaming brown, so that the shrivelled succulents that occasion the dirt fatten, swell with moisture, so that glassy droplets run from the bark of trees, from the spindly leaves, run fast into the jagged roots, so that the air is filled with a sound long forgotten, with a sound never heard by many, a sound thought lost to the aging memory: the sighing of the contented earth.

Colm, Lydia and Moss stand still and silent beneath
the falling rain. Their bodies are wet, their faces shining. They turn their mouths to the sky and swallow the sweet water, gasp with the rush of it, the substance of it. Their arms float gently upwards, lifted with the joy of their exalting flesh. The pores on their skin open, spew out the dust of years, and drink and drink.

They stand there for days, it seems, or months. The hours rush and collide and fall over each other as the rain pours down from the sky, as the wind drives it into the wet sand in arrows and small spears, as the vast Pacific swell of ocean is pockmarked by it and pimpled. The tide moves slowly in; everything is surrendering itself to water.

Behind them, Colm hears a sound, familiar but not at once recognisable. He turns to find the source of the sound and sees great sheets of water rushing off the sloping edges of the blocks encircling the tarmac. He remembers then the irrigation system their father had constructed back in Hirrup's Range, recalls that this is the same sound as when the sluice gates opened and the water raced down the deep wooden channel and into the spreading pipes. It is the sound of abundance, of plenty.

Moss moves beside him, Lydia takes his hand. The three of them walk back up the beach to the shelter of palms. Their footprints do not last but fill at once with water.

They are quiet as they walk. There is enough, they think, with the rain and the rising ocean and the wet
sand and the low growl of thunder. There is enough here with their quenched skin and the tines of distant lightning and the sound of water falling quickly on water.

The rain is heavier now, the cloud darker. Colm wonders how the whole weather process works: does the cloud have a certain amount of rain inside it, which it has to let fall before it disappears? If that is the case, why is the rain heavier now? Shouldn't it be a bit lighter? It has been raining for some time, after all. And do clouds indeed disappear? Or are they just left like empty ethereal bladders in the sky ready for refilling?

A shout, and they turn to look. There is movement across the tarmac at the airport buildings. The rain has brought out the Clan.

Come,
says Colm.
We must go to the prisoners.

The rain increases. It is difficult now to see. The children lower their heads, keep their eyes on the sodden sand before them. They hurry around the tarmac to approach the airport buildings from the west and avoid the Clan, running out now from an exit previously unknown to the children and onto the beach. The journey around is made long through the rain, through the wind, but they are not sorry for it. For how could three children who have never seen rain be sorry for it now that they do?

The cloud is hanging low over the buildings, seems to shroud everything.
Fog,
says Moss, and Colm nods, remembering vaguely of having once heard of this. The
fact of the fog means that they can move quickly across the short stretch of tarmac, the weather itself a shield against sighting.

The tarmac – here with the weather so low, the rain so dense – is slick with water. Great pools have gathered in the area around the buildings. The children wade through these to get to the doorway of the underground industria – thankfully still deserted – and slip quickly into the tunnel. Water is flowing under the door of the building and across the concrete floor. The tunnel walls are streaming.

As they descend, the rushing, whooshing sound of the water follows the children into darkness. They cannot hear the mechanics of the industria for the watery din, wonder in fact if it is even working at all. They descend and descend, careful now for the slipperiness of the ladder, the uncertainty of step.

They find themselves again on the ledge looking out across the cavern, but at a scene quite different from what they saw before. There is urgency now, and anxiety. The workers in their sturdy grey overalls move about in disarray, switching switches, turning wheels, shouting orders to one another across the grinding of the machinery. On the podium, the Pater stands in heated discussion with Angus and several others. He is gesticulating dramatically, his face struck with fury. The water is a grey film on the cavern floor.

A command is given and several of the workers scurry off into outleading tunnels. The Pater paces back
and forth on the podium. The others try to speak to him, Angus included, but he indicates aggressively that they refrain, that they leave him to his pacing.

‘Look,' says Moss, and indicates towards the high ceiling of the cavern. Colm and Lydia gaze upwards, see above them rivulets of water seeping through the stone and dripping down towards the floor in long silver threads. The walls too are slick with water.

The children stand and continue through the tunnel. As soon as they can, they climb into the air vent and follow the pillars of light till they are above the first of the cells. The woman they saw crying earlier has her face pressed to the stone wall. Her mouth is fast to the running water, her dry body quick to it.

In the next cell, the two young men are face down on the floor, their tongues lapping at the grey water as it seeps beneath the door. In the third cell, the muttering man lifts his face heavenward before scooping the stuff into his hands and drinking thirstily. ‘Sweet,' the children hear him say in a voice rasping and unused. ‘Sweet, sweet!'

It is the same in each of the cells on this level. Prisoners, parched and dry for so many years, quench now their long, hot thirst with the rainwater that seeps beneath the prisoning doors. Their shouts are heard along the corridors and up into the ceiling. The children hear them calling out to one another, calling out in joy at the wonder that is water.

The next level down and the water is heavier. The
floors are awash with it. The prisoners slosh about in it up to their ankles. In the first of the cells containing ten or so people, there is still a sense of jubilation at the sight of it. But when they reach the last of the cells on this level, the sense is less excitement and more concern. For the prisoners here have drunk their fill, have bathed and splashed about, and are now anxious that it is not stopping, that it continues to rise.

Further down, the children look into the largest of the cells, that in which their father is incarcerated, and see the two hundred or so prisoners within. The water here is lapping at the knees of those standing, at the chests of those sitting. Worse, the sewer trench surrounding the cell is flooded and the room is awash with excrement. There seem fewer prisoners now than yesterday. In a flush of panic Colm wonders if it is because some of them, too weak to sit up, have drowned where they lay.

‘We have to get them out!' he cries to the others, not caring to hush his voice, not caring to use the Inner Speech. And for once Moss does not remonstrate with him but nods, intent.

The three of them crawl over to the space above the cell door, look down into the corridor. The keeper is standing knee-deep in water, shifting about anxiously and throwing his gaze up and down the corridor. A band of keys hangs at his belt.

There is a horrible sound from within the cell, a deep chilling moan, and the children look to see a man
holding in his arms a woman, her body limp, her head hanging backwards on a scrawny neck. He is pumping her arms, blowing air into her mouth, but she has wilted, it seems, is without life.

Horrified, the children crawl back through the space until they find a way out through a panel and into the flooding corridor below. They feel the force of the water at once. It pushes at their legs, threatens to tumble them, to take them along in its current. They join hands, hold hard against the weight of it, the zeal of it, and make their way in the direction of the cell door.

But even as they are pressing on, as they are pushing through, Colm wonders at it all. How is it possible, he thinks, that the thing they have all desired for so long, the thing he himself has desired for his entire life, and which has at last arrived, how could it bring with it not only joy and wonder and satedness and bliss, but fear and terror and destruction and ruin? No one has ever spoken of this to him, he has never heard such words – fear, terror, destruction, ruin – associated with the beauty that is water.

And for himself, that it was he who first drew this cloud, he who first stirred into wakedness that which gave birth to the rain – it is as a bitter pill. Worse, he thinks that he has done wrong in the drawing, for that act has led to this where people lie trapped, with water to their chests, in fear of drowning as, perhaps, others have drowned already.

There is a shout behind them and they hear a heavy drag and crash through the torrent: the sound of someone approaching. At Moss's command they inhale deeply and drop beneath the churning surface. They wait.

Gander?
Colm hears Moss say.

Gander,
he replies. And Lydia too responds.
Gander,
she says, though it is clear from the thinness of her Speech that she is labouring. A heavy pair of black boots charges past them, propelled, Colm imagines, by a pair of legs belonging to a keeper, or perhaps to one of the grey-clad workers. A few moments later, Moss indicates and they surface. Lydia takes in air hungrily.

Come on,
says the older boy, and they follow him along the corridor with its churning, dangerous water and into the open space beyond.

The man in black boots is in conversation with the keeper of the cell. The former has not gone all the way to the keeper – who is still some distance off, out of sight of the three – but is standing at a bend in the corridor afraid, or hesitant, reluctant. Colm sees at once that it is because he is in a hurry, disturbed by the rising, agitated water.

‘They're going now!' shouts the man in black boots. ‘You'll have to take the podium exit! They won't wait!'

‘What about the prisoners?' calls the keeper.

‘There's no time! We've got to get out! The whole place is flooding, the engine room is destroyed! We've got to go
now
!'

He turns and charges back towards Colm, Lydia and Moss, who again drop beneath the surface of the water, wait with eeking breath for him to pass. Colm sees the boots dimly through the darkening, deepening water, sees how, suddenly, they do not pass but stop right there, just a short distance away.

Go! he wills the man. Go!

The boots shift, point back towards the keeper. Colm feels his breath weaken.

Moss's voice seems faint.
Gander?
Colm thinks he hears.
Gander,
he replies, and waits for Lydia to respond. She does not.

He reaches for his sister, finds Moss searching for her too. Their hands meet hers, find their way to her face, her mouth.

Lydia!
calls Moss. His voice now is as a whisper, though Colm knows he is shouting. He sees his sister's eyes panicked and staring. Her cheeks are blown out, her lips pressed hard together in an effort not to take in water. She looks desperately at Colm, at Moss, then releases the last of her breath.

In an instant, in that brief moment when they all know that Lydia's automatic reflexes to surface will kick in or that her next breath will be her death, Moss grabs her and presses his mouth to her own, blows into her lungs his final reserve. In that same instant, the black boots shift again and turn from the keeper of the cell. They move away, disappear. A moment later the children crash up through the water's surface, suck in the steaming air.

This time
, thinks Colm,
this time I am breathing bliss
.

Lydia is shaking. Her face is a strange colour, her lips pale. Moss takes her hand, leads them along the corridor towards the door of the cell. The keeper appears before them, his face crossed with anxiety.

‘The prisoners!' he calls after the black-booted man, now long gone. He looks at the children, sees Moss in the lead. He is startled, bewildered, does not make sense of things. He sees Moss, knows that he knows him though does not stop to think from where, and begins, suddenly, strangely, almost to plead with him for help.

‘What about the prisoners?' he asks the boy. ‘What are we to do with them?'

Colm is beside Moss, looks at his friend carefully. That same fire, known well to him now, is burning in the older boy's eyes.

‘You must escape,' Moss says to the man. ‘And you must go now. But give me the keys. I will deal with the prisoners.'

The keeper spins the band of keys from his belt and tosses them to Moss. He is relieved to be given an order, to be able to relinquish authority, to be able to save his skin. Such is his fear that he does not grasp that the one to whom he has so relinquished is a ragamuffin boy half his age. The children do not watch him depart.

The door to the cell is heavy, made more so by the
weight of the water upon it. Moss turns the key in the lock, the three of them pull on the handle.

‘It won't budge!' Colm shouts. ‘The water is too strong!'

‘Keep trying!' Moss shouts back over the din of the rushing water. ‘Pull harder!'

The water is higher and higher, its churning stronger and stronger. Lydia's face is a fretted knot of focus; Colm can see the strings of muscle standing out in her neck.