There Will Be Lies (13 page)

Get behind me, says Mark.

We watch the leaves, trembling. We see branches pushing out towards us, a section of the forest seeming to bulge, as something begins to emerge. I begin to edge around behind Mark, my eyes always on the trees, and the wolves that are about to come out.

Then …

A spiked stick appears, I think for a moment it’s a weapon, and
then I realise that it’s an antler. The branches part, and an elk moves out of the shelter of the trees. I recognise it from the rock paintings Luke took us to see.

Mark breathes out a sigh of relief and his body relaxes, a fist unclosing. Oh, he says.

The elk approaches us, big gentle eyes full of fear, its step trembling. It’s afraid, but curious too. It stays a safe distance from us, but keeps its eyes on us.

People, it says, its words echoing within the walls of my head. In the Dreaming.

Yes, says Mark. Greetings, elk.

Greetings, man. Greetings, woman.

Uh, greetings, I say. To an elk. In a dream world. While my mom is screwing Luke in the real world. Then the elk comes a little closer and I look into its huge brown eyes and I am back in the moment again.

We are well met, says Mark to the elk, in that weird formal voice he used with the foxes.

Yes, we are well met, says the elk.

But where are your kin? says Mark.

The elk turns back to the forest. There’s a loud sound of hooves passing over twigs and through leaves, and then a whole herd of them step out on to the dry brown grass of the prairie, some small and some large, their antlers twisting up into the night sky.

The wolves were chasing you, says the first elk, who seems to be the leader. Then they were gone.

Yes, says Mark.

You used some kind of human magic? says the elk.

Something like that, says Mark.

We are grateful, says the elk. The wolves were preying on our young.

Mark frowns. But why were you in the forest, where the wolves have their home? he says. Why do you not run on the prairie, as elks should?

No grass, says the first elk. We entered the forest because we thought we could reach the leaves of the trees … But elks do not climb.

The elks look up at the brown leaves of the trees, and their eyes are big with sadness. I notice then that their ribs are showing through their flesh, striations of bone, so each elk is like a punctuation elk, like this:

:“))))?

They are terribly, terribly thin. I didn’t see it so much with the first one, because he was close to us, and facing us, but when they turn to look at the forest and I see them from the side it is unmistakable. These elks are starving.

See? says Mark to me. It is because there is no rain. They have nothing to eat.

I look up and see green leaves in the trees above us. Leaves the elks cannot reach. Can they eat those? I ask.

Mark nods.

Well, I can climb, I say, surprising myself.

Your leg –

We’re in the Dreaming, though, right? I ask.

Mark sighs. You have more important things to do. It’s dangerous to –

As dangerous as bringing me to some world where there are wolves that want to kill me?

His shoulders slump. Be fast, he says. Be careful. Use your knife. I reach into my pocket and it’s there, with its bone handle, the shape of an antler still imprinted in it. I test the edge with my thumb, and the knife slicks with blood. It’s so sharp it’s like it’s greasy.

Ouch, I say.

It’s a knife, says Mark in a withering tone.

I walk over to the nearest tree. I lean back, looking up – there are leaves right at the top, in the, what do you call it, the canopy. It’s a long way up. I put my hands on the raspy trunk. There are easy holds, thick branches at even intervals. It doesn’t look like any tree I know; an oak would be closest, maybe. I’ve never climbed a tree before, but how hard can it be?

Hard.

It can be hard.

I slip, about twenty feet up, and fall –

Crunch

Crash

And … catch.

I swing from a branch, my hands and arms burning. Muscles tense, I pull myself up until I can get my left knee over the branch, then I straddle it, panting. I can hear Mark calling from below but I ignore him. I keep going, hand over hand, trying to use my right foot as little as possible – it isn’t hurting, but even in the Dreaming, it must still be broken.

Finally, I look up, and I’m in green, starlight filtering through; the feeling it gives me is something like the word ‘sacrosanct’, made into a picture. I slow my breathing, and start cutting the branches above me, choosing ones that will fall without striking me. The knife goes through them like a steak knife through meat.

The green leaves fall softly down, turning and bouncing, and some get caught but most reach the ground, I think. I cut and cut until my hand is aching and there’s another wolf howl, from far away in the woods, and Mark shouts in my head,
Enough
.

There’s a tone I haven’t heard before in his voice, and I choose to obey.

Climbing down is even worse, but finally I step down on to the ground. There are leaves all around me, green on the ground like emeralds in the starlight, and the elks are already noses down, eating.

About time, says Mark. We’re no longer safe. There are more wolves coming. We must go.

Go where? I say.

To the Crone’s castle.

What for?

Mark glances at the knife still in my hand. To rescue the Child, and to kill the Crone. He says this like it’s a perfectly normal thing to say.

Who’s the Child?

Mark is watching the elk eating the leaves I cut for them. He turns his head when there’s another howl from deep in the forest. But he must figure it’s far enough away, because he nods to himself. All right, he says. We have a little time. Sit. He motions for me to sit down on a tuft of grass.

I sit.

He sits too, on a rock. In the Dreaming, as in all things, there is balance, he says. He is speaking quietly so that the elks can’t hear. There is First Woman and First Man, says Mark. There is the Crone, who is the energy of destruction. And there is Coyote, who is the energy of chaos.

Coyote? I say, thinking of the coyote I saw after the car hit me, and again by the car, in the forest.

Yes. Also, there is the End, and there is the Child. That is balanced, as it should be. But the Crone has captured the Child, and this is what has given her the power to stop the rain. But by taking the Child she is hastening the End.

Which means what? I say. I don’t understand. It’s not real. This world isn’t real.

It is real, it’s just different. We must rescue the Child, and kill the Crone, to break the spell of no rain.

Or what?

Without rain everything dies, he says. The Child is very young. Defenceless. She will not survive long in the Crone’s care.

Suddenly I flash back to my recurring dream – the child in the hospital, crying for someone to come, crying for help. What if … what if the dream has been trying to tell me something? Warn me about something?

You mean the Dreaming will end? I say. If the Child dies?

He shakes his head sadly. No. The Dreaming. Your world. Your everything.

I stare at him. Are you serious?

I am very serious, he says.

I am thinking that this is all crazy – the Dreaming, talking elks, wolves baying for blood. I don’t understand him at all. But I do believe him.

What do I have to do with all of this? I say.

You’re the only one who can save the Child, says Mark.

Why?

But he doesn’t answer, because –

I snap into the room in the motel, cold liquid dripping from my face, my hair.

What the –

Then I see Mom standing over me, an empty water glass in her hand.

Sorry, honey
, she says.
You wouldn’t wake up
.

Mom! I’m soaking. What the hell?

She pulls a face.
Sorry. Sorry. Hey, when I was a Girl Guide, in Alaska, this was how they woke us up every morning at camp
.

You were a Girl Guide?

Yep
.

Wow
. I can’t imagine this AT ALL. I mean, 0 per cent. My mom is the least Girl-Guide person in the world. She’d get the cross-stitch badge no problem, but before this week, the closest she’s ever come to the outdoors is those pictures of Scotland she makes. She would never even come climb the little mountains next to Phoenix with me.

I was a terrible Guide
, she says.

Yeah, no shit
, I say.

OK, OK, my bad
, she says. She tosses me a towel.
Get dry and get dressed. It’s eleven a.m., sleepyhead. They’ve stopped serving breakfast here
.

I put on my CAM Walker and then pull my slit jeans over it, and grab my T-shirt and sweater. It’s so much colder here than in Phoenix; I can feel the air creeping through my clothes, wanting to chill the life out of me.

OK, overdramatic, but it’s what I feel. Like the cold is leaching something from me. Some force. For the first time I get what Mom means about the rain.

Anyway, I walk into the main room and Mom and Luke are standing there with their bags by their feet.

Finally, Sleeping Beauty appears
, says Luke.

I mime gut-busting laughter and Mom rolls her eyes.
We thought we’d go to a diner
, she says.
In town
.

OK
, I say.

Then I see her glance over at the still-f coffee cups of wine on the table.
Luke, you want to take the bags to the car?
she says.
We’ll follow
.

He nods with that kind of oh-yes-girl-stuff nod and picks up the bags, leaves the room.

Mom goes over to the cups and takes them to the bathroom – I see her tip them into the sink, then rinse them out. Weird. She comes back into the room and claps her hands together, like, let’s go.

I’m sure the maid would have got those
, I say.

Yes, yes
, she says.
I don’t like to leave a mess. I was a Guide, remember?

She smiles but I don’t. I’m looking at the bottle of wine, the still half-f bottle of wine that she has left on the table, like she doesn’t consider that to be mess. What gives?

There’s something obvious here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Then Mom puts HER fingers on my arm and steers me out of the room, and then down to the car.

Luke drives us back into town and we find a parking spot on the main drag opposite the Western Frontier diner, close to the corner with Gene’s Western Wear on it. He gets out and inserts coins into an old-fashioned parking meter and we walk to the diner – or rather Mom and Luke walk, and I do my elegant CAM Walker shuffle.

We go in and get a booth close to the entrance. Luke tosses the car keys on to the table, and they slide to a stop by the ketchup, which comes in a bottle shaped like a tomato. Mom orders me a strawberry milkshake and burger, and a hot dog for herself. Luke goes for home fries and a steak.

Our server’s name is Candy, and she has a smiley-face button on her uniform. She doesn’t have a smiley face on her FACE, though. She looks like we just ran over her cat. Who knows, maybe we did. Or maybe she’s met Luke before, and she thinks he’s going to tell her a story about attending a scene in a diner where someone chopped off their hand.

I almost want to show him the scars all over my legs, and say, You ever see anything like that?

Anyway, my shake comes, and it’s good.

Leaves blow past, outside.

Candy brings us our food, and just about holds herself back from spitting in it in front of us. She hands Luke a steak knife and takes away his normal knife.

And then Luke’s mouth drops open, and doesn’t close.

He’s facing the other way to me and Mom – we turn in our seats and see the TV mounted on a bracket on the wall. It’s on mute, you can see from the little red symbol in the corner of the screen, a speaker with a line through it. But that’s not really what I’m looking at.

No, what I’m looking at is footage from the hospital CCTV
cameras, of me and Mom leaving Phoenix General, me in my wheelchair. Closed captions flash up.

You’re not going to believe this, Veronica
, says the male anchor,
but police think these images may just show An
–

I turn around as I feel Mom moving very quickly. She has Luke’s steak knife in her hand, like it just jumped there from the table, all of its own accord.

I’m so sorry, Luke
, she says.

Then she brings the knife down like a hammer, and it goes through Luke’s hand like, well, like you know what. It sticks in the table too, because when she takes her own hand away it’s standing up like a flag in a burger bun.

Luke stares down at it, and his mouth goes, O-O-O-O-O-O.

I’m guessing his scream is loud. But I’m deaf. I only hear like 10 per cent of it. That 10 per cent is bad enough for me, though. I feel like my stomach is falling out through a hole in my pelvis. I guess that’s shock.

Mom grabs the car keys and my arm, and pushes me out of the booth and then out of the door. Candy is rushing to Luke, behind us, who is still just staring at the blood gushing out of his hand like a whale’s blowhole spraying red, and all this is happening but only like half a second has gone by.

If anyone chased us, we’d be screwed, because I’m going as fast as I can on my CAM Walker, using the weird rocking gait that you have to use with it, not knowing why Mom did that and why we’re running, and Mom is not an athlete. But we get to the Honda without anyone stopping us, and I guess that’s because they’re freaking
out about Luke’s hand and trying to help him, and then a little scary voice at the back of my mind says, Yeah, she knew that would happen, that’s probably why she did it.

And then I’m in the car, and Mom shuts my door and gets in the driver’s seat and pretty much floors it, and the tyres smoke as we gun it out of there.

YOU’RE Anya Maxwell?
I say as we drive out of Flagstaff and on to I-17 again.