The Wish Kin (20 page)

The three of them, then, break open the remaining cells, release, among others, the twins, their faces burning with growing understanding, and the weeping woman, weeping no longer but feverish to get to the sea. ‘Sea Singer,' Colm thinks he hears her say. When her voice joins with those of the others, when together they coax Colm and Moss and urge them, ‘Hurry, hurry,' he knows that these are the voices he heard as he travelled back and forth along the tunnels. And as they head at last to the engine room, these few need little prompting, know well the way to go. Tired though they all are, as Colm and Moss and Lydia waiting for them now at the mouth of the exit and all of them are, there is a brilliance to them, a burning fire, that lights their minds and their hearts and their faces as they step through the opening, as they make their way together to the top of the tunnel. It is the fire of knowledge and of place, and it burns in the soul of each of them as they emerge to the softness of sand, to the vast stretch of sea, to the quieting mist, to the rain.

The grass is moist and cool beneath his feet, the sky still grey from night. Colm crosses the yard and takes the short cut between the houses to the beach. Derry trots alongside him, bounds forward when they reach the stretch of sand. His barks are high and sharp, joyous in the Inner Speech.

Boy and dog run in pelting wonder to the sea. They swim side by side, paddle towards the blood of light on the horizon. A scrabble of rocks, a jagged island, and they haul themselves out, sit together looking east, Colm with his knees up under his chin, Derry with his paw resting on the boy's foot.

The sky lightens, the air grows warmer. The sea presses as a shimmering silvery skin about them; but they are safe, sure on their scratch of rock, their island.

Father was unlike any man you have ever known,
says
Colm, and the dog looks at him, licks his brown salty shin.
He was clever, so clever. And wise with it. He could see what would happen, trained us to bear it, to survive. It is because of him that I live today.

A gull circles above them, lands on a rock near their feet. Colm reaches into the pocket of his shorts, tosses a soggy rip of bread into the air. The bird lifts briefly upwards, its neck craned, arched, and catches the bread smartly in its red beak. Several more gulls appear in the sky, screech and call over the sound of the sea. Colm pulls more bread from his shorts, throws it all high.

The two swim back and take the beach northward. Derry runs ahead, then back, runs in circles around his boy then off again. Colm drifts slowly through the path of sea on sand towards the ruins that are the airport.

It is almost a year since Colm and Lydia led the prisoners through the torrent to the safety of the raining world above, almost a year since Moss ran through the tunnels unlocking the cells to release those incarcerated within. It is almost a year since Colm saw his father frail and weak on the floor of the flooded cell, since he saw him there with his hollow eyes, his sunken cheeks, his stretched and worried skin. And so, too, it is almost a year since Colm drew the great cloud, since the torrent of water that fell from its belly rushed into the cell and pulled his father under. It is almost a year since his father died.

Colm stops at the cyclone-wire fence that stretches from the waterline up into the sand dunes. This is as far
as he can go; to go any further is unsafe. He heads away from the beach and into the dunes, climbs to the top so that he can see further north, can see that sunken, ruined ground where once the airport lay.

It is a strange sight, desolate, yet in possession of a ghostly presence that hints at earlier times of activity. The airport buildings have gone, swallowed up into the thirsty earth, so thirsty that even when its channels and tunnels were running with water it was still not enough, it still had to collapse into itself so that great chasms were made in the roof top, so that more of the new-falling rain could tumble in without hindrance. It was the rushing, the running of the water through the tunnels that wore the patience of the walls, that irritated them so that they broke, crumbled, their great stony segments carried off in the torrents, carried off so that more was troubled, so that more walls were irritated, worn down, so that even the great walls supporting the roof of the cavern could hold out no longer and instead had to give, to break in, to relinquish, so that in turn the marvellous arch that was the ceiling of this astonishing place also gave way, buckled, and collapsed, crushing the machinery below, swallowing the buildings above.

Now only the occasional block stands on the very edge of what had been the tarmac, as a scrap of memory of what the place was like not so very long ago. Everything else is broken, in pieces, and Colm looks at it, feels a thousand emotions in his chest.

The Clan is crushed, its plans thwarted by the deluge of water that fell upon the earth a year ago, the rain that was called by Lydia from clouds drawn by Colm. At the same time, the raging underground fire that started in Wonding so very long ago was doused, quenched thoroughly both here and across the country.

This is good, thinks Colm. But how can he think of that mighty deluge, now made famous in story and song, without thinking of his father? For it was this same deluge, gathered of the same rain, drawn of the same cloud, into which Rafe Bell was finally pulled.

Colm is sick at the thought, nauseated. The bile rises in his throat and his tongue goes cold. Even after a year the grief seems scarcely lessened.

He swallows, whistles to Derry, and walks away from the sea. On the other side of the dunes a cluster of Handy Homes sits on their rubber wheels. Several of them have baskets of flowers hanging from their windows. Colourful fly strips lift and flap in doorways. A cat sits, fat and contented, on a pink plastic chair. Colm skirts the little community, pushes into the stretch of scrub that separates the Handy Homes from the town, and winds his way along a sandy path.

A year ago, Colm thinks. A year ago and none of this was here. Just the dunes, the sand. Now the place is bright with summer grasses, and flowers of all colours.

The sun is up now, the earth slowly warming. Colm passes through stands of fluffy pampas grass; the last
of the dewdrops fall from the gentle blades as he brushes by. The path inclines briefly, and then he is at the town.

A year ago. He remembers the ruin, the desolation, and can hardly believe that the bright little centre he sees before him with its clean neat buildings and smooth wide roads is the same place that a year ago was empty, ghostlike, its paths and pavements cracked and burning, its nature strips torn open as scalding gates to a fiery underworld. He walks quietly down one of the smaller streets on the outskirts of town, Derry at his side, and is, as ever, amazed.

For here abounds yet further evidence of the Rekindling, here abounds yet further proof of the Wish Kin, and of their steady work for the gracing of the earth. Trees line the street, their branches leafy and green and heavy with summer fruits; garden beds are filled with pinks and purples and mauves; lawns run thick from the footpath to brightly painted doors. Colm walks slowly through colours, through sweet fragrances, across soft grasses, and again cannot believe that things are as they are: that there is ripe fruit hanging from trees for him to pluck, to consume; that there are taps all along the street that he might turn on and drink; that there is shade and shelter and rest and an ever-emerging abundance. And this is only here, in the town. The reports from further afield, from the south, from the west, and even from the north, are the same: that slowly, surely, the earth is being graced.

Boy and dog wander along the waking streets then cut through to the beach once again. The sea now is filmed with gold, and Colm can see the swell picking up, can see that it will be a good day for waves. And it is here, as they walk this last stretch of sand before home, that Colm's thoughts turn towards Jeune, that he begins again as he does every day to try to speak to her.

Jeune
, he says.
Jeune, it is Colm
. He walks slowly, dulls the sound of the waves, of the gulls, listens carefully, closely, for something else.
Jeune
, he says again.
Can you yet hear me
? The waves crash on the beach, the gulls swoop and call, and Colm tries harder to push them from him, tries harder to find clarity.
Jeune! Jeune
! But nothing, not yet anyway. And so he does as he does every morning, he speaks on as though she has heard, as though she is standing by his side, as though they are walking together, just as they did back in Burren.
There was a brief rain this morning
, he says.
Early, when it was still dark. I did not have to Draw, nor Lydia to Make. The weather, it seems, is beginning to form into patterns, beginning to find its own way without us. I am glad of this, very glad. It is the way it should be
.

He stops and looks up at the sky, brilliant in its clearness. On the horizon he sees a push of cloud, acknowledges it, watches it move closer in response. He drops his eyes to the ocean and continues.
That free fire outside of Wonding I told you of last week was Kept yesterday by Moss. Never was a better Fire Keeper, of
that I am sure! He may be heading north shortly to deal with a small outbreak; Lydia and I will join him if he needs rain
.

He continues his course, walks with the sea on his left, with Derry on his right. His heart pounds and swells, and he speaks now with fervour.
Oh, Jeune
! he cries.
Only a little longer! Only a little longer and I will come for you, will find you. But I must fulfil my duties first as Cloud Drawer, here at the place of the Rekindling. Soon, though, the gathered Kin have told me. Soon I will be free to find you. If you could just speak to me, just whisper, it would not be so hard to bear
. And he ends abruptly, sadly, missing Jeune in that sudden, unexpected way once again, in that way that is, strangely, more difficult at times than the missing of his father.

The sadness fills his chest, the pores on his skin ooze it. He shakes his limbs that he may loosen the gloom, turns his mind to things other. He considers all that has happened in the past year, and of everything that has been made plain. He has, of course, spoken to Jeune of all this. He has told her of the Clan's underground industria, of the prisoners, the deluge and the escape. He has told her of how Lydia came close to drowning there in the flooded corridors, and how it was that their father was lost.

But there is more that he has told her, over which he has troubled greatly to find the words, even in the beauty of the Inner Speech. He has told her of how he
first began to play with wisps of cloud in the sky, of how he sang to them, watched them blossom, swell. He has told her, with faults and stammers, of when he drew the cloud over the ocean, the very cloud that caused the deluge, and of how it was that he first realised he was the Cloud Drawer and so, in turn, a member of the Wish Kin. And more, of how when the prisoners were emerging from the darkness of cells into the raining light of the beach, many of them had begun to have their own realisation, their own slow and burgeoning awareness, so that now there was found not only the Cloud Drawer in Colm, the Rain Maker in Lydia, and the Fire Keeper in Moss, but there were Christian names too for the Storm Holder, the Sea Singer, the Wind Breather, the Sun Tender, the Earth Bearer, the Water Joiner, the River Bringer, the Tarn Catcher, the Plant Yielder, the Tree Watcher, the Wound Healer and the many other members of the Wish Kin that made their appearance daily. Still they were realising and still they were being named, this last by that member of the Wish Kin, the Name Giver. All of it happening slowly over time, and quietly, secretly, in the opening hearts of the Kin, many of whom had had little inkling of their gift, their place. So Colm has told only what has come to him, what has been given him, but told it he has to his love Jeune, and told it, he believes, faithfully.

Yesterday
, he says,
something wonderful. You remember I told you of the boy Brae, he who looked like
the old man? He who gave Lydia and I the metal discs that hang about our necks? At midday, as we were sitting to eat, he arrived with his grandmother, Ailis, who declared him to us as the Wish Kin's Metal Carrier! They told us of how he found seams of ore running across the desert. And even in the short time that he has been here, he has located a deposit of gold lying just outside Wonding! Who would have thought that anything of such beauty would come forth from the earth once again
!

Colm is quiet, awed. The sound of the rising waves crashes anew into his thoughts. He thinks of Brae, thinks of how it was when he and Lydia met him so long ago now in the desert. He thinks of how Lydia was with the boy, and how the boy was with Lydia, thinks of how there was some sort of knowing between the two of them. There is much now about Lydia that makes sense in the light of her special place in the Wish Kin, not only as Rain Maker, but as one who has strong powers of Kin recognition, and of insight. Things like the way his sister dealt with the snake in the tunnel, the way she led the two of them from the fire at Nurrengar, the way she knew not to go down into Midgin. It seems to Colm that Lydia was always more aware than he was that there was a greater story unfolding, and more aware, too, of the part that she must play in it. And this with Brae? Is this something similar?

Another moment comes to his mind: when Lydia
met Marla's rat baby. Again, something of recognition, of knowing. But what was it that Lydia was recognising? He remembers Marla telling him there in the dark depths of her basement, the child Turi suckling at her breast, of how her baby was like a lucky charm, of how since his birth she had been able to feed and water her family, of how plants had grown where they had not for years. He ponders, Colm does, wonders. Brae with his knowing, his recognition, and he ends up being a member of the Wish Kin. Could this be the same for Turi as well?

A year, and Colm is different, he knows it. A year, and his life has changed. A year and the town has been graced, the state, the entire nation. It is good, all of it, though ever enmeshed in things still painful.

Father
, Colm whispers.
Oh, Father
!

It is the small cloud ahead that answers him, that comforts him with its trueness and calm. He walks towards it, this thing of which he is in some strange way a part, and stops beneath it at the sea's shallow edge. The cloud blossoms and fills, softens him, soothes him. He looks outwards and upwards, sees the warm whiteness of the cloud open and embrace, feels his heart heal a little more, quietly, in its dark hollow. The sun, gentle now and warm, filters through the cloud's fair wisps and settles on his skin. The water washes in foaming frills about his feet, recedes, and the sand is left breathing through small bubbly holes emerging in the ocean's wake.