Chapter 4 Riley #3
The stables sit by an orchard. They have most of their roof and the rest is patched with plywood, corrugated iron and a refrigerator door.
Tumbledown but not weird. It doesn’t have a pulse, like the spider house Riley saw in the trees.
The stable still smells faintly of long-ago hay and horses, their friendly warm breath, as if the building itself remembers them.
As they go down the row of loose boxes, she peers over an open half-door.
Inside the stall the floor is covered with bits of carpet like the samples you find in warehouses and showrooms. There’s a bedroll in the corner.
Strings of lights run across the ceiling, glowing red.
They’re shaped like chilli peppers. Pictures torn from magazines are Scotch-taped to the wooden walls.
‘They’re ok,’ Cal says, defensive. ‘They were for horses but they’re big bedrooms now.’
‘It’s great,’ Riley says, meaning it. ‘Everyone together.’
She hears the crying then, the unmistakable sound of pain. Oliver. Everything else goes from Riley’s head. She runs down the aisle towards the sound, flings a door open at the end of the stables.
Oliver lies on an old metal table. He’s tied down with climbing rope and Riley’s heart hammers; she can see where the rough plastic fibres cut into his legs and arms.
The girl in green, Noon, stands over him holding a needle and thread in a white-gloved hand. She starts as Riley crashes in. A smile spreads slow across her face.
‘I’m glad you made it,’ she says.
Riley goes to her quickly. She puts herself between Noon and her brother, making her body a shield.
‘What are you doing to him?’ Even though she can see what Noon is doing.
But Riley can never think straight when Oliver’s hurt.
She unties him, fingers trembling. Noon watches, her expression sympathetic.
Oliver clings to Riley. ‘Where did you go?’ His throat is dry with crying. ‘I woke up and you weren’t there!’ He sounds a lot younger than seven. Riley feels a terrible twist inside – he’s hurt and tired and little and he didn’t ask for any of this.
‘It’s ok, Oliver Olive,’ Riley says. ‘I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere ever again.’
Noon puts the needle down carefully in a metal kidney dish.
She looks more normal in daylight but only a little.
Riley finds it difficult to see what her face is really like because her expressions move so quickly, like there are lots of people in there all taking turns.
She isn’t beautiful or anything. She looks like a stalk of wheat.
Tall, hair almost the same colour as her tan skin.
She wears a t-shirt and pants, both of faded green.
Noon’s clothes may be old and fraying but Riley can tell that she’s in charge.
You learn to work stuff like that out quickly if you’ve been in the system.
‘How did that happen?’ Noon nods at Oliver’s leg.
‘Stray bullet from a hunter,’ Riley says. ‘It was bad luck.’ Oliver’s arms tighten on her. He hates it when she lies.
‘So, what do you want to do about it?’ Noon’s voice is neutral.
Riley takes a deep breath. She lets Oliver hold her a moment longer.
She sees that one of his feet is shoved into his sneaker, bare.
From the other ankle the Nana sock dog grins, its yellow face stained with blood.
Riley wishes fiercely that he had two socks.
She’s doing a bad job at caring for him.
Riley takes a deep breath and looks Oliver firmly in the eye.
‘You let her sew you up,’ Riley tells him.
His face begins to collapse once more.
‘You’ve got to be fixed. Do it brave or do it crying, it has to be done.’
He hiccups, swallows his tears. ‘I’ll do it brave.’
Her heart hurts but it doesn’t matter. There’s no time for him to be a kid right now.
‘I’ll hold your hand and tell you a story,’ Riley says to Oliver. ‘You don’t look at the needle or at her. You look at me. It’ll hurt. You make as much noise as you like. But if you move we’ll have to tie you down again, you hear?’
He swallows again and nods, trusting her.
In the end she can’t tell a story, Oliver is crying too loudly for that. Riley holds his hand tightly and listens to his pain. The needle moves, silver then red.
‘You want a drink?’ Noon asks, leaning on the metal table. She holds out her hand level, watching it. It was steady while she held the needle but now it trembles. ‘Blood makes me feel weird,’ she says, and Riley sees she’s pretty close to tears too.
Oliver groans in her arms. ‘I can’t leave him.’
‘He’ll sleep now,’ Noon says, and she’s right, Oliver’s nearly there already, eyes closing. ‘Nature’s anaesthetic. Put him down in the end stall. It’s Danny’s, he’s away out on the range right now.’
Noon carries the metal kidney dish with her. There’s a little of Oliver’s blood at the bottom and she tips it out onto the ground as they go. She bends and whispers something to the earth that Riley cannot hear.
The last stall on the row is lit by a storm lantern.
It has a camp bed neatly made, a large jar of jawbreakers, the kind they have in old-fashioned drug stores, and a shoe box of rag-eared paperbacks.
Riley looks at the spines. They’re all mystery and adventure.
Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew. The Call of the Wild.
She puts Oliver down on the bed. He curls up tight as a snailshell and is instantly asleep. No blood seeps through the white gauze dressing.
‘Here.’ Noon gives Riley a handful of gauze and cotton wool. ‘Change the dressing once a day. Clean the wound. Put some of this on it.’ The tube of antibiotic ointment is three years expired.
‘Will he be ok?’ Riley asks. ‘Will everything be ok?’ She doesn’t know why she’s asking this person she hardly knows for reassurance. But Noon seems like she knows things.
‘I hope so,’ Noon says. ‘I left the bullet in. I didn’t think it was a good idea to dig it out.’
Noon hands Riley a flask of something from her pocket.
Whatever’s in it feels like flame and makes her scream-cough in silence, eyes streaming.
She tips her head back and empties the flask into her mouth again.
The world flickers. ‘I don’t really drink,’ Riley says, feeling a dumb smile spreading across her face.
‘I can tell.’ Noon puts a warm hand on her arm. ‘Keep the rest of it to clean his leg. Now come on. You need food.’
‘Where’s food?’ Riley is suddenly so hungry it feels like her stomach is cramping and eating itself.
Noon smiles. ‘Follow your nose.’
Riley can smell it now. Meat. Fire. She turns and stumbles out of the stable, towards the scent. A hundred feet away through the apple trees a fire burns. There are people, too, but they seem insubstantial to Riley. Only the meat is real. Behind the fire a large barn rises dark against the night.
‘This is Home Barn,’ Noon says. ‘It’s where everything happens, pretty much.’
Inside, the barn is lit with storm lanterns.
There are plastic lawn chairs scattered round, and some other kids who sneak glances at her, but they’re at least trying to do it politely, without her seeing.
That’s good. People who stare when they first meet you are bad news.
These all seem like people from a dream, anyway.
Their clothes are ragged and oddly paired.
A tall thin girl wears ski pants and a Christmas sweater with reindeer on it.
She could be leaning against a fireplace strung with festive stockings if it weren’t for the sandals on her feet.
Everett still wears his balaclava. There are other people here but Riley’s fading, she can’t seem to focus or count.
‘Sit.’ Noon pushes her gently into a chair by the big fire pit which roars red.
There are rabbits on spits, eggs bubble in pans.
Noon gives Riley a bowl with a rabbit thigh and a couple of fried eggs.
Riley scoops up a handful and shoves it in her mouth.
There are fresh herbs on the rabbit and meat juice runs down Riley’s chin.
Noon kisses her own hand and points to the east. It’s the same gesture, like a dance move, that Riley saw Everett and Cal make earlier.
Then Noon tears the rabbit with her hands and teeth.
Everyone does the same thing before they eat – they kiss their hands and release something eastwards, eyes lowered.
Riley wonders why they choose to live here, in the shadow of the house, right next to the thing they’re afraid of.
But it’s a good place, she can see that. No one will bother you here.
The food hits Riley like a drug. The night takes on a texture. People say things to her but she’s floating. She badly wants to eat everything on her plate but she forces herself to stop.
‘I’ll give the rest to Oliver,’ she says.
They must be careful, she knows that. Riley and Oliver mustn’t take too much from these people.
They have to give, not take – make themselves valuable somehow.
That’s how things work. People don’t want you if you’re no use to them.
Riley needs to be wanted, here at Nowhere.
Riley wakes Oliver gently. He starts to cry but he stops when he sees the plate of rabbit meat. She feed him scraps with her fingers. ‘Not too fast,’ she says, anxious. ‘Don’t make yourself sick.’
His head nods with exhaustion. Riley feels the familiar stab – love or worry or both, what’s the difference, really? She takes off Oliver’s sneakers and strokes his bare foot. Where are they going to get him another pair of socks?
‘Tickles, Riley, stop.’
‘Ok.’
She curls up gently behind Oliver and there’s nothing, after that.