The Wish Kin (16 page)

What was that, Colm?
asks Lydia.
What were you doing?

Singing
, says Colm.
What's the matter?

The cloud was answering you
, replies his sister.
It was responding to your words, your melody
. There is fire in her eyes.

Colm makes a face, bewildered.
What? What are you saying? That the cloud is alive?

Enough
, says Moss, more anxious now than before.
It's not the right time
.

What do you mean?

Come on, we've got to get back
.

Colm follows the other two up the sandy track to the road. Derry walks beside him as they hit the hot bitumen. Lydia and Moss stride ahead, not talking. The sun boils the tar to black blisters.

Colm is baffled, confused. Is it true? Did the cloud answer him? He looks up to where the cloud floats in fullness above them, and then ahead at the serious backs of Lydia and Moss, and cannot make sense of things at all. And all the while, over and over, he hears in his head the voice of his father:
Remember who you are
.

• • •

The days pass. They go every morning to the southern end of the bay and process as much water through the desalinator as they can drink and carry. They gather oysters and the large slow-witted crabs which Moss cooks slowly in a bed in the rock. Lydia makes soups from seaweed, and Colm ventures into neighbouring houses scouring pantries for unperishables. They sleep long and deep, and sit in the shade of the back verandah overlooking the sea. They stop thinking about the Clan, stop looking over their shoulder. They feel as though they are on holidays, so strong and rested and well fed are they.

Colm finds a box of books in a cupboard in his aunt's house. He is overcome. In the box he finds poetry, mostly, and some fiction. There is a copy of Patrick White's
Riders in the Chariot
, and Colm picks it up, greedy for words. He hasn't seen a book since they left Hirrup's Range.

He loses himself in it at once, in the fullness of it and the beauty. He feels as though a part of him long parched is now being slowly sated. He does not come up to breathe but stays immersed, head under. He wants to drown.

Still there is no sign of others – of their father, of Aunt Ilena, of anyone. The town remains quiet; even the planes have stopped flying overhead. They are listless, unsettled. They have energy now for activity,
but are uncertain as to what to do. They try to fill their days usefully, but cannot help feeling as though they are missing something.

We should go to the very edge of the town
, says Lydia one night. They have been through many of the town's streets over the past few days, but not to its ultimate perimeter. The outer areas, they can see, are still burning, and to venture there would not be safe. But Colm sees that Lydia is insistent, thinks he sees a flicker of flame in her eyes.

They leave the house early the next morning and walk the main road through the town. The wind blows in from the west. The sand on the streets is sharp on their shins. The desiccated palm leaves clatter above them.

They negotiate carefully the fissures and clefts etched deeply into the ground, find their way through the deepening maze of spot fires, of rising funnels of smoke. They keep close to standing buildings, hoping the ground beneath them is still stable. The air grows grey, acrid.

Funny that it all started here, thinks Colm. Just a little place, an innocuous seaside town. And from a small rubbish fire that could have been put out with a bucket of sand. Colm shakes his head. How very funny, he thinks.

They are on a small rise now looking across at the smoking plains. This area, they can see at once, is completely uninhabitable. It is torn, decimated. And it stretches far, far west, and to the south.

Colm thinks of other things, of any sort of other thing, so that he might not think of the destruction before him, so that he might not properly see it. But this is impossible in the light of such complete annihilation and Colm cannot help it: he gazes, unblinking, at the endless, aching pain of the broken land until his eyeballs dry out and scream. Then he turns and vomits onto the ground.

Later, when they are back at the house, they talk. It was good to see it, they agree, even though it hurt. They realise they have been getting soft with the sweet, plentiful water, the fresh oysters, the comfortable shelter. The brokenness of the land spurs them into action. They talk late into the night, planning, preparing, organising. They talk about returning to the airport, trying to find out more about the Clan's activities. At least they know there is someone there, some chance of finding out some information that may help them. Here, it seems, there is only themselves.

In the early morning they gather their belongings, fill up bottles with water, load their packs with shellfish. Derry follows them to the top of the stairs, uncertain. He knows there is something going on.
Stay, boy
, says Colm, and scratches the dog on the top of the head.
Wait here for us
. Derry licks Colm's hand in farewell and the three children descend the stairs, take the shortcut through the houses to the beach, and turn their faces north once again.

The tarmac is quiet, still. The children walk around it, on the outside of the line of blocks that mark it from the rest of the area. There is cover here, and they make use of it, following the line to the ragged prefabricated buildings on the other side of the airport. There is no one about.

They approach the first of the low grey buildings cautiously, steal around it and peer through its cheap, aluminium-framed windows. Low padded benches, slashed and bleeding inner foam, stand in crooked dereliction on a filthy floor. Criminal-eyes, torn from their sockets, hang sightless from the sagging ceiling. Chemical detectors, their skeletons of metal buckled and bent, frame the far gate.

Raiders
, says Lydia. But they all wonder at this, when they are so far north.

They make their way to the next building and the next. It is the same through all of the windows. Blinds hang wrenched from their fastenings, papers from emptied files cover the floor, tables and chairs lie hacked at and broken. The place is sad, sorry.

The final building is empty except for a large grey filing cabinet that stands against its far wall. The floor is dusty, unswept. Numerous trails of boot prints can be seen clearly in the dust. They seem to stop at the filing cabinet, do not come back to the door from whence they started. It is odd, this, and the children are bewildered by it.

Moss tries the door, the windows. All are locked. He punches in a series of numbers on the keypad by the door handle. Another series and another and another. On the seventh attempt there is good fortune. The keypad emits a soft whistle and the lock clicks. Moss pushes the door and it opens, the action blowing up a small cloud of the dust on the floor inside.

How did you do that, Moss?
asks Colm.

I am a keeper of the Clan, remember
, replies Moss.
One of the first things I was ever taught was an exhaustive series of security codes
.

Too easy, thinks Colm. This is too easy. But he does not say anything, does not listen to the secret, nervous voice.

Moss and Lydia cross the threshold and take a step or two. They notice that Colm does not follow them. They stop, and turn to the boy by the door.
Come on
, they say.

Colm shakes his head. He does not realise that he is not going to follow, just finds that he has not. Nor does he realise that he is about to speak, but suddenly the words fall from him.

It is too easy
, he says.
It may be a trap
.

The others are quiet, look seriously at Colm. Then Moss approaches his friend, lays his hand on his arm.
How is it too easy?
he asks, his face crossed and quizzical.
Which part of this trek has been too easy? When we escaped from the dome? When we were chased out of Jeune's place by raiders? When we dragged ourselves up that enormous plateau? When we lay cramped and in pain in the belly of the aeroplane? Which part exactly has been too easy?

And this is not all, Colm thinks. Their home burned to the ground, their father missing. Parsefal horribly wounded, probably dead. Colm looks at the ground, uncertain now. Moss is right, he thinks. Very little of this journey has been anything less than extremely difficult. There was Burren, though, that was lovely, and Jeune, of course. But so much else …

Moss is waiting. Lydia too. Colm inhales deeply, feels the air rush in a great draft down the back of his throat and into his chest, his torso. His ribs expand with the enormity of it, give him confidence, and he too crosses the threshold and places his feet into the dust of the floorboarded room.

The cabinet is neat, spare. A cover of dust films its surfaces. On the floor to the left of it, in the space
beside the wall, a trapdoor is outlined in the floorboards, its centre adorned with a dull brass ring. Now the children can see that it is to the trapdoor that the footprints go, and they pull on the ring to raise the door. An opening appears, a fixed metal ladder. The children barely think, do not converse, but lower themselves into the opening, down the rungs. Colm pulls the trapdoor back into place and follows the others into the deepening well.

There is no light. The walls about them are close and cool: are they in some sort of tunnel? Colm takes the rungs of the ladder cautiously. He cannot see, and it is impossible to tell how sturdy the things are without vision, although, when he concentrates, he feels that the metal beneath his hands, his feet, is solid, sure.

Gander, Lyd?
he asks his sister, who is directly beneath him on the ladder.

Gander, Colm
, he hears in reply.
Are you gander?

I'm gander
, he says. Then to Moss,
Gander, Moss?

Gander
, replies the older boy.

The darkness is like a thick blindfold over his eyes. The air in the well grows warmer as they descend. A dry, burned smell reaches Colm's nostrils. His lungs tighten with it, make him cough. His arm scrapes at warm rock.

That's it
, he hears Moss say, and several moments later feels the broadness of stone beneath his feet. He releases his grip on the metal rung, takes the hand reaching into his own. Lydia.

Moss strikes a match and a small orange glow illumines the area around them. They are in a tunnel and they walk now the way of it, still descending, growing warmer. Colm peels his sticky shirt from his body as he walks, drinks a little from his water bottle.

The tunnel opens out and they are on a ledge looking across a vast cavern: the hollowed remains of the underground fire. Great white pools of light spill from electric fittings, illuminating turbines and smokestacks and all manner of industrial workings. A huge generator hums and throbs. People in sturdy grey overalls emblazoned with the crest of the Clan move with serious intent from water cooler to windlass and along to axle. They take readings from valves and thermometers, scan in the numbers with silver tablets sitting over their hearts, hold these in turn to the light as though reading invisible ink by the flame of a candle.

Elsewhere, all along the perimeter of the cave, workers scratch at the walls, catch the powdery scrapings in anodised jars. A raised podium stands in the centre of the workings. A man and a woman sit in leather chairs overseeing the industry. Behind them stand two others. Colm recognises one of these as the tall man, Angus, who led the gang that first captured them at Parsefal's place.

Angus!
says Moss.

Colm thinks he looks shocked.
What is it?
he asks his friend.

Moss's voice is a whisper against the drone of the machinery. ‘This is safer,' he says. Colm finds it funny hearing Moss's spoken voice after so long. He hears in it now a softness, a gentleness, that he had not noticed back at the dome, or on the early part of their journey together. But he hears it now and does not find it surprising.

‘We grew up together,' says Moss, indicating the tall man on the podium. ‘He was like an older brother to me. And now … we are so far apart.'

Colm looks at the two in the chairs. ‘Who are the others?' he asks.

‘They are Pater and Mater of the Clan,' says Moss. ‘The ones, I told you, who we look to as parents. They hold the highest status of all. They are the leaders and the figureheads.'

‘And this place?'

They look again at the expanse of it, the enormity. The engines – vast, complex – drone on.

‘I am not certain,' says Moss. ‘But I think it has something to do with the Rekindling.'

Lydia gasps. ‘Yes!' she says. ‘Maybe this is how the Clan will orchestrate the Rekindling, how they will monopolise it!'

The great stack below them seems to snort in hideous agreement, and a sharp metallic smell enters the air.

They look anew at the turbines, at the great silver cylinders rising from the cavern floor. Colm feels the
sweat on his torso suddenly chill, despite the heat, the thickness of the air. He pulls on his shirt quickly.

‘That could easily be the workings of an irrigation system,' he says, pointing to a morass of industria to their left. ‘Father and I worked on one together back at home, though on a much smaller scale, of course.'

Moss nods slowly. ‘My guess is that the Clan plans to tap into the water-bringing abilities of the Wish Kin, then use this machinery to control the distribution of the water and make a fat profit.'

‘So they would charge money for water?' asks Colm.

‘I'm sure of it,' says Moss. ‘And this seems to confirm it.'

‘But the work of the Wish Kin is for everyone!' says Lydia. ‘Not just those who are powerful and rich.'

‘If this is true,' says Colm, ‘if this really is to do with the Rekindling, then the Wish Kin must be close.'

‘And maybe Father, too,' says Lydia.

They follow the path from the ledge as it threads deeper into the heating earth. The noise of the engines and turbines follows them, rings in waves and echoes through the tunnel. They are careful now, even more so than before, for fear of discovery. They walk quietly, speak neither in the Inner nor the Outer Speech.

The tunnel widens again and lightens. Electric bulbs are fitted to the stone walls. These are not as strong and bright as those in the great engine room, but flicker and hum, blink out from time to time then crackle and
pop back into dimness. Overhead, great snaking metal ducts blow air through vents into this stale underground world. Colm sees Moss look at these and consider.

The older boy scans the length of these ducts, the breadth. He searches the place where the walls meet the floor and up high where they join with the ceiling. As they walk through the tunnel he keeps his eye sure until he spots it: a slim metal panel over their heads, an entrance into the space between the ceiling and the floor above.

Quickly
, he says, and beckons that Colm might take him onto his shoulders. Colm quivers under Moss's weight, but is steady while the boy removes the screws and slides the panel across. And then the feeling of lightness, of his shoulders and torso ascending, as Moss lifts himself into the opening, as Colm is made free of his brief burden.

Lydia climbs then onto Colm, disappears after Moss. Colm reaches upwards, takes Moss's outstretched hand, and is hauled into the gloomy space above. The three of them crawl quietly, listen for sounds, for clues. Occasional shafts of light filter through vents into the space like small luminous pillars. The children are guided by these, follow the way of them through the liminal zone.

Ahead, the pillars of light become stronger, more frequent. The children move with insistent quietness, hover silently over one of the vents, and peer through.

Below, a woman sits in a small, bare room. She is breathing heavily, as though she has just run a long distance. But a sob breaks through her breathing and it is clear then that she is crying. The children watch her, wondering. Her hand is at her throat, her fingers distressing the fabric of her collar. After a while her breathing slows. She lies down on the wooden pallet, curls herself into a ball, and closes her eyes. Colm wonders if she knows of the small glass cube, if she knows of the beauty of it and the comfort. The woman's breath comes gently now. She slides into sleep.

They move further, peer through another of the vents. Two young men, twins, it seems, stand at the door of their room looking out through the small metal grille. Their bodies are very still, as if they are observing even with the pores of their skin. They inhale, exhale, together, their chests rising almost imperceptibly but in complete synchronicity. The fineness and stillness of their being seems, to Colm, beautiful.

In another room – again bare, furnished only with a wooden pallet, a square of hessian – a man folds his hands quietly in his lap. His lips move but no sound comes out. Colm can see that the man's eyes are closed, that his lashes flutter at times, that his eyebrows twitch. The door of his room opens and a woman enters, places a bowl of greyish gruel on the floor, then leaves. The man continues to sit with his eyes closed, his mouth moving, his hands folded quietly in his lap.

Down through the shafts of light the children see
many of these scenes. Most of the rooms have only one or two people in them, but they find themselves venturing lower, and at a level where six, seven, eight, even ten people fit into one of the small cells. The conditions here are miserable; the sour stench of hot, unhealthy bodies rises thickly through the vents. The children cover their noses, their mouths, and move on.

In one of the cells Colm thinks he sees someone he recognises. He lingers over the opening, peers long into the room.

That woman,
he says to Lydia.
Is she familiar to you?

Lydia looks down at the tall, slender woman swathed in murky green, furrows her brow. It is Moss, though, who speaks.

I know her,
he says slowly. He thinks a moment more, then says,
It is your Aunt Ilena.

The woman is wringing her hands together as though they are wet cloths. Her face is turned away now to that of another, also a woman but a little older, with hair grey, greasy, hanging in limp strands about her face. The grey-haired woman takes the wringing hands in her own still and peaceful ones, holds them till they calm. The woman who Moss thinks is Ilena smiles gently after a moment, rests her now still hands on her thighs.

Those hands. Colm sees them, long and lean and brown there against the grey-green of her gown. He knows them as perhaps he knows no others but his own. They are the same as his father's.

Ilena,
he says, and the woman, he sees, suddenly tenses.

Moss places a finger to his lips that Colm might be silent, but Colm wants to speak again, to see if the woman can hear him. Moss shakes his head, fervent, and presses his grip into the flesh of Colm's forearm. Colm feels the ache of it through his desire, is aware now of Moss's seriousness. He follows the other two away from the vent to where it is a little darker.