Chapter 10 Riley #3
They come out into a long room at the back of the house. Stars peer through the bare rafters, but some roof cover remains towards the back. There is something else there too – a darker scar in the blackened floor.
The woman is beginning to stir in her swaddling. She moans, low and pained.
‘Quickly,’ Noon says.
The dark scar is a circular place, sunk into the floor and through the foundations.
The fire didn’t make this, a person did.
The floor-boards have been hacked away to show the stone foundations at each side, the ground below.
It’s like a window let down to the earth.
An indoor garden. There are rocks and earth and small trees, everything covered by a riot of vines.
Some night flower has opened with the dark and its light fragrance hangs in the air, over the old scents of char and ash.
Patterns of rocks are traced around the plants in whorls, in geometric shapes, making wandering paths through the scented plants.
Five smooth round stones form a circle in front of a lilac tree which spreads its branches against the bare stone foundation.
Someone took care with this, Riley realises. It is a place with great meaning.
There is a tall wooden chair at the edge of the sunken place.
It has wizardly pointed turrets on its back.
Cal and Noon put the woman in the chair.
There are restraints on the armrests and at the foot – thick cracked leather straps, solid as steel.
Cal fastens them about the woman’s wrists and ankles.
One of the armrests is set out at an angle and slants curiously downwards.
When Cal fixes the woman’s left arm it dangles in space, hanging above the drop, the window down into the earth.
Meanwhile Noon takes a piece of cloth from her pocket and binds it about her head, covering her eyes tightly.
Dawn appears through the dim air and Riley starts.
‘I’m glad you’re home.’
Noon hugs her.
Dawn takes out the Tupperware box and puts Noon’s necklace once more about her throat. Midnight takes hers with a visible give of relief. Noon touches her shoulder.
‘You did well,’ Noon says. ‘Go and see your daughter.’ Midnight nods and runs into the dark.
Riley holds out her hand to Dawn, waiting. She’s glad to see it doesn’t shake. Cold thoughts dart through her, crazy thoughts like – maybe she won’t give it back. Maybe I dreamed that I gave it to her, she might have dropped it in the woods, could have lost it.
Dawn smiles and reaches into the Tupperware with delicate fingers. The chain and locket pool gently in Riley’s palm, a slight gleam on the old silver.
‘There’s a well out back,’ Noon puts her hand on Riley’s shoulder. ‘A pail next to it. Bring water.’
Riley jumps, heart pounding then nods. She makes her way towards the place where she can see the largest pattern of stars, where the wall gives way to the land.
The well is protected with a solid wooden cover and when Riley draws the bucket up the water tastes good – clean, almost sweet.
The moaning is louder now, Riley hears it as she makes her way back. Noon takes the pail from Riley and puts the lip very gently to the bound woman’s mouth. The woman sputters and coughs, then drinks eagerly, her throat moving up and down like a piston.
When her gulping slows, Noon takes the bucket away. She nods at Cal.
He comes forward and the moon and starlight gleam on the blade in his hand.
He makes a small nick in the woman’s arm, the one that hangs out into space.
She moans and struggles. Cal’s mouth is rigid and thin.
He holds her forearm firmly, widens the incision a little so that a narrow trickle of blood runs down her wrist, her hand, and then falls into the dark place below.
The woman’s moan builds to a scream. It shatters the air, broken and high.
‘Blood in the land,’ Midnight whispers.
Noon murmurs, ‘Blood in the land.’
Beside her Cal hangs his head. His lips hardly move but Riley feels the words, his warm breath on her bare arm. ‘Blood in the land.’
Riley opens her mouth. She hadn’t meant to. But the words come as if they’ve always been waiting in the depths. ‘Blood in the land,’ she breathes. ‘Blood in the land.’
The blood trickles from the woman’s arm. Most falls directly onto the earth below. Blood spills onto the broken boards at the edge of the sunken place, fast now, plink plink plink. It drips down onto the earth.
Riley understands that she heard the sound of the blood dripping as they walked down the corridor. Even before they tied the woman up and cut her, she heard it dripping, because here time doesn’t matter. The blood is always feeding the land.
Noon cleans the woman’s wrist with a cotton ball and antiseptic. She binds it with gauze.
‘Hungry?’ Noon asks, kind.
The woman shakes, then nods her head. Her eyes are full of fear.
Riley had been sure they were going to kill the woman, despite what Noon had told her. For some reason what they are doing feels almost as bad.
Riley tries to keep this thought down – it’s more important than ever that she keeps her mind clear – but she could have sworn, just now, as she watched the blood fall through the air and patter gently onto the earth below – Riley could have sworn she saw the earth gently rise and fall.
It looked like Nowhere was breathing. Or swallowing maybe.
Yes, like something drinking, thinks Riley, hazy, after a long drought.
She pinches her arm. She’s so tired that her vision stutters. It’s easy to get confused.
The house speaks and ticks around them, alive in the night. It would be easy to imagine a ghost here. But Riley sees that Nowhere House doesn’t remember anything human. It doesn’t care enough about people to hold on to them in that way. Riley will not see her father in this place.
Noon strokes Riley’s head. ‘Thank you for today.’ Noon sways. Her eyes close with tiredness. Dawn puts her arm around Noon.
‘I have to watch,’ Noon says. ‘It’s my place, it’s my job.’
‘Then I’ll stay with you too.’ Dawn brings out a container. The scent of mushrooms fills the air. Riley’s stomach cramps. It has been some time since she ate well.
‘Eat,’ Noon says softly to the woman. ‘We’re not going to kill you.’ Noon inserts a spoon gently into the woman’s mouth. She chokes and spits out the contents. She slumps forward, head hanging like a broken flower.
‘No,’ Cal hisses at Noon. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘Then go.’ Her voice is gentle.
Cal picks up his flashlight and turns. He goes fast back through the broken hallway. Riley runs after him, following his light.
Cal is out of the front door ahead of Riley, his light moving away through the forest. Riley peers through the dark searching for the dancing beam. ‘Cal!’ she calls. ‘Please, stop.’ The light stills.
He is leaning against a tree, face hidden in his arms. His back heaves. His flashlight lies on the forest floor, lighting the briar leaves brilliant green. Riley puts a tentative hand on his back, one, then the other. His heart beats right through his ribs.
Cal raises his head. There are tears on his cheeks but the lines of his face are fixed with anger.
It’s all through him, comes off his skin like static.
‘Sometimes I wonder if that’s where Danny went,’ Cal says.
‘Whether she took him and put his blood in the land. Maybe she put all his blood in the land.’
‘She wouldn’t do that,’ Riley says.
‘Where is he, then? Where’s my brother?’ He clenches his jaw and hits the tree with a closed fist.
‘Cal.’ Riley feels it coming, like something that needs expulsion from her body. She is going to do it. She will tell him the truth, now, she owes it to him, and whatever happens afterwards she will at least be free of this weight, the leaden knowledge she carries in her depths every moment.
‘What do you think happened to the others who were here?’ Cal says, loud and bitter.
‘There were more of us. So much blood went in the land.’ He strokes the tree as if saying sorry to it and breathes deeply.
‘No, that’s not fair. I shouldn’t have said that.
Noon did what had to be done, back then.
It was bad, before. We didn’t have any rules.
We didn’t worship. There had to be a leader.
I know that. I miss Danny, that’s all. I don’t know who I am without him.
We protect each other. You know the foster homes you have to be careful of?
The ones who make you call them Mom and Dad, like, right away. ’
Cal straightens up. ‘Sometimes I get so scared that Danny’s dead.
But I know,’ he taps his chest, ‘in here, that he’s not.
I would have felt it if he’d died. I just would.
It’s a brother thing. I don’t know what’s happening to him but Danny’s out there somewhere.
If I keep looking I’ll find him. He’s my brother. Of course I will.’
Riley can’t answer. She sees that there will never be a time when she can tell him the truth.
Instead she kisses him on the cheek. His skin is warm and rough with stubble under her lips.
She kisses him again on the corner of his mouth, and then again, touching his lips with hers.
His body loosens with surprise and Riley slips in close against him, into his warmth.
His mouth parts and she feels the edge of his warm tongue. All of her is lighting up.
Riley keeps her eyes open because she doesn’t want to miss any of it. The delicate skin of his lowered eyelids. The dark fringe of his eyelashes.
The other reason she doesn’t close her eyes is that when she does Danny is there, staring at her with the ruined, bloody tunnels of his eyes.
Riley wakes stiff and cold in the sunrise. They are curled together under Cal’s jacket. The ground is hard and uneven, every part of her aches. Both she and Cal are covered in fallen leaves as if the forest has given them a burial.
Close by, something soft and grey moves. The rabbit hops into view and sits on its hindquarters. It looks at Riley with its deep dark eye. Its ears and nose tremble. Then it moves off, leisurely, and is gone into the tangled undergrowth.
Riley shakes Cal and he groans. ‘Cal,’ she whispers. ‘The rabbits are back.’
The first drops of rain patter lightly on the forest floor.