Book of Dreams (20 page)

‘I have much to be thankful for,’ Kyle realised. He was not compelled to deny how he felt about the woman at his side; quite the contrary.

‘If Tim had changed the course of your life, Kyle, you and Zoe would not have met under such favourable circumstances,’ Arika pointed out and Kyle was rocked to discover that there was a silver lining to his life’s story.

‘You’d be on opposite sides of the fence doing battle over this mountain, most likely,’ Arika continued.

Kyle turned and looked into Zoe’s eyes and found she was also rather teary. ‘Then my youth alone was a small price to pay,’ he told her and was pleasantly surprised when Zoe collapsed in a flood of sentimental tears and kissed him.

‘Well, that’s the great-great-grandchildren taken care of,’ Arika jested, which got the couple’s attention very quickly. ‘Just kidding … Maybe?’ she teased, cocking an eye questioningly. ‘Is your curiosity now satisfied?’

‘How rude of us,’ Zoe said, as her question regarding ‘being seen as Kyle’s wife’ seemed to have answered itself. It was lovely to think that they were destined to be together. ‘Here we come all this way to hear your story and we’ve asked about everything but!’

‘Please forgive all our questions, Matong Bargi Arika.’ Kyle handed the book back to its author, whereupon the otherworldly creatures dispersed from the cover and the book dematerialised. ‘I for one am
dying
to hear the history of Turrammelin mountain.’ He made himself comfortable next to Zoe to hear the tale.

Arika smiled to make it clear she was not offended. ‘Then I shall tell my story one last time.’

In 1905 Arika was born into a land that was only sparsely populated by those white people who owned or had been granted large portions of land to develop for farming. Her tribe had lost ownership of the mountain many years before her birth, but her people had been allowed to live around their sacred land in return for the work they did on the sugar cane farm which had spread out around the mountain since their dispossession.

Zoe’s great-great-grandfather, Barnett Nivok, had owned and run the property at the time. Both the Europeans and the Aboriginal locals saw him as a fair, hardworking man. Some of the other landowners had considered Barnett too fair in allowing blacks to live on his land. They warned that he should drive them off or remove them to reserves, because they were not fit to work and live alongside decent white folk. Barnett laughed off their racist ideas, saying, ‘But then I’d have to find extra farmhands, and feed them, and house them … it works better for everyone this way.’

Barnett had two sons: Parker, who was ten years old, and Lance, who was born earlier in the year that Arika was born. Through living in such a remote location, those at the Nivok homestead rarely had visitors, or themselves went visiting, and thus the children of the Turrammelin tribe had grown up with the Nivok children. Lance and Arika were virtually inseparable before the age of ten, after which time both Arika’s parents and the Nivoks made a concerted effort to keep them apart. All the adults saw it coming and although Barnett was considerate of the local people in his employ, he would not tolerate his son fraternising with a black girl lest the worst happened.

Just before Arika’s sixteenth birthday, the worst did happen. Arika fell pregnant and Lance told both their parents that he wanted to marry her. His proposal was rejected by all, and the young lovers were dragged their separate ways home.

Having predicted this reaction, Lance and Arika had arranged to meet at the sacred pool at the base of the mountain two days hence. They planned to run away together; Lance had been wielding an axe since the age of five and held no fear of not being able to carve a home out of the wilderness for Arika and himself. Arika had all the knowledge of the land passed on from her people, so they would not starve to death, or want for medicines.

They had picked this spot to meet because they thought it would be the last place anyone would expect to find them. All through their childhood Arika’s parents had told them scary tales of the creatures who frequented the waterhole and ate little children. As teenagers, they felt that the purpose of these tales was to prevent children going near the deep waterhole and possibly drowning. The site was considered a sacred male place, so none of the locals ever swam there or used it as a water source — there were other little streams and pools that ran off the mountain which were preferred.

Unbeknownst to Lance, he and his family had angered the guardian of the mountain by their slaughter of the trees in its territory. When the lad was the first to arrive that evening, it was right on Turramulli’s hunting time.

Arika arrived to find her lover in pieces. The beast that had murdered him was holding up the head of its victim in triumph.

Her scream was heard for miles and brought all and sundry running to the scene. The beast vanished into thin air, leaving the hysterical Arika to explain. The teenage girl cited the Turramulli as the murderer of her lover, and yet, in her heart, she felt some of the blame for Lance’s death must fall on her shoulders — she should never have challenged the taboos of her people. Arika had chosen this as their meeting place, for, in accordance with sacred belief, only the mountain that stood behind the waterhole and fed it and the waterhole itself were sacred ground. She had assumed they would be safe as long as they met around the environs of the site. This assumption proved fatal and ultimately Arika had to concede that she might have been a catalyst for all the suffering that followed.

As Lance was the golden boy of his family, the one everyone favoured, his death hit his family hard — very hard. Barnett rejected Arika’s monster story as a feeble attempt to cover for a member of her clan who must have taken revenge on Lance for impregnating one of their women. Barnett gave his workers two days to produce the murderer, and when no one came forward he handed the matter over to the local law enforcement, who had their own way of dealing with the blacks.

‘I’ll kill every one of those murdering blacks if I have to, to find who killed your son.’ And the law officer proved true to his word.

Barnett demanded that Arika be spared and taken to the local Reserve so that when her bastard child was born it would be taken away from her and she, too, would feel what it was like to lose a child.

‘My great-great-grandfather allowed your whole clan to be slaughtered?’ Zoe cried, shocked and sickened.

Arika nodded, empathetic to Zoe’s difficulty in understanding the rude truth about her ancestors. ‘They didn’t bother burying the bodies, however. They just weighted them all with stones and threw them in our sacred billabong.’

‘They’re in the pool?’ That was it; Zoe was running for a place where she could throw up in private.

‘Zoe?’ Kyle stood to go after her.

‘Stay away,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll be back in a —’

Kyle took the hint and sat back down. ‘But if Barnett was so pissed at you … pardon the language.’ Kyle had never before bothered reining in his swearing.

‘I’ve heard far worse,’ she assured him with a smile. ‘Why did Nivok grant me this land?’ She pre-empted his question, pleased that he was so interested. She held up a finger to indicate that she was just coming to that. ‘Obviously the bloodshed cursed the billabong. The guardian of the mountain was also cursed, for he had indirectly caused the massacre of the people who protected and tended to his mountain’s needs. Turramulli had never killed for any reason other than food, and in Baiame’s eyes killing to revenge the trees was killing for one’s own gratification, so the creature’s otherworldly powers were removed. Its immortality, ability to shape-shift, its glamour, super-strength and ability to move freely between dimensions all ceased to be, and Turramulli was rendered mortal, condemned to live in the material world.’

I was very angry and frustrated.
Kyron joined the conversation.
I needed someone to blame for my undoing.

‘Barnett,’ Kyle guessed and he didn’t need confirmation. The mournful look on Kyron’s face said it all. ‘You killed him, too?’

It wasn’t until several years after I’d killed his son, that I had the opportunity to unleash my frustration on Barnett. He was out walking the property alone when I attacked. The old man managed to aim and fire at me during the clash and the sound of the shot brought people to the old man’s rescue. I was forced to flee but I left a trail of blood that was easy to track, even for a white man. Barnett’s son, Parker, hunted me down, captured me and after much torture, he had me drawn and quartered.

‘Hence your fear of human beings and their realm,’ Kyle figured.

Upon my mortal death, the Great One took pity on me and returned my powers — except for my courage and strength — and confined me to his ethereal realms. To the victim in this affair, Arika, he granted otherworldly skills. We were promised that there would come a day when I would be given the chance to appease the Great Spirits, and Arika, to regain the guardianship of my beloved mountain. That opportunity came the night you were born.

Kyron was by now looking and sounding rather distressed, so Arika took over the telling of the tale. ‘Barnett and everyone now knew that I’d been telling the truth all along, and that my entire family had been slaughtered unjustly. Barnett only lived for little more than a day after the attack, but that was long enough to change his final will and testament. To me he left this piece of land for the duration of my days and let me know where to find the child I’d lost. For, as mad as Barnett had been about my association with his son, he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to lose track of his first granddaughter, and in his will he made provision for her. Barnett left everything else to his son, Parker. However, in a separate document Barnett decreed that Turrammelin mountain was never to be disturbed by any descendant of his family, lest they be cursed.’

‘What!’ Zoe came rushing back to the gathering. ‘That’s why my father was reluctant to allow my uncle to develop this land. He must have known about their great-grandfather’s dying wish.’

‘And do you know what else?’ Kyle posed to Zoe. ‘We’re distantly related.’

‘That’s right,’ Arika smiled. ‘Kyle is from Lance’s line and you, Zoe, are from Parker’s side of the family.’

‘So you’re like my second cousin, twice removed, or something?’ Kyle was ecstatic; he was suddenly related to everyone — even James Nivok!

Zoe’s smile had broadened too, having always been a little short on relatives herself. ‘And you, Arika, must be like my great-great-aunt!’ They all had a bit of a chuckle at this. ‘So even I am related to the Turrammelin clan by marriage.’

‘My people have a saying.’ Arika took hold of Zoe’s hand, as the girl sat down beside Kyle once more. ‘We are all black, we are all white. If you’re white now, you were black in your last life, or will be in your next. In the beginning and the end we are all one and we are all the creation of the Great Spirits of the Dreamtime, who await our return to their midst.’

They were all teary now, Zoe most of all. ‘I have always believed that,’ she told Arika in all sincerity, ‘and whatever I must do to save this mountain, you may rest assured that I shall see it done.’

‘I know.’ Arika stroked Zoe’s face and then gave her a hug. ‘I don’t doubt your ability to take on your uncle and win. You have a far stronger will than he will ever have in this life.’

Arika smelt like the Australian bush at Christmas time and this scent immediately calmed Zoe’s erratic emotions and filled her with childlike happiness. One of Arika’s little creatures, a half-marsupial, half-gnome that walked erect, approached Zoe and offered her a drink of water in a wooden handbowl and she accepted it gratefully. Knowing something of the lower orders of the otherworld’s nature kingdom, when she had drunk her fill and felt much improved, she removed one of her bracelets and gave it to the elemental, who was most delighted by the gift. He held up a finger to Zoe as if to say, ‘You shall be rewarded for this delight,’ which, from an earth elemental, would usually mean financial reward of some kind.

‘The first thing we must do is to get the guardian of the mountain reinstated.’ Arika looked at Kyle. ‘You have passed my initiation; therefore, the males of your clan will agree to a corroboree to witness Baiame’s judgement of you and your guardian. May he be pleased by your efforts and extend his otherworldly protection to the resting place of all our families.’

As Kyron stood up, Kyle assumed it was time to go. ‘Do you have any advice for when I face Baiame?’ he thought to ask before rising.

Arika smiled and shook her head. ‘You have accomplished much as a spiritual warrior of late. Your soul is very beautiful and that will speak for itself.’ She urged Kyle hither with her hands and then hugged him close with her free arm, the other being wrapped around Zoe. ‘Your ancestors are very proud of all you have endured for their cause during your short life. Know that you have their support, and the gratitude and admiration of the
Book of Dreams
and its minions.’

The wee beasts mobbed the three seated humans like a pack of domestic animals seeking their owner’s affection, and the moment was a perfect joy.

Kyle’s emotions were all over the place when he staggered along with Zoe towards the tunnel that led back to the real world. Zoe, too, was an emotional wreck. He could literally feel the tremors of awareness rushing through her petite body in intermittent trembling. At the exit, Kyle looked back once to see that age had again beset his great-grandmother’s form, which had returned to its serene, still pose.
Don’t go dying on me yet, Matong Bargi
.

I am the least of your worries,
her age-old voice replied in his mind.
This book needs a conclusion and I’m not going anywhere until I get it.