Dark Confluence (20 page)

Reluctantly, she rolled out of bed and headed into the shower. Time to wash off the dark clinging dreams and the dried sweat; it was time too, to make some phone calls. If she was being targeted, then she had to start telling people to be careful. She was past the fear of ridicule - Tom’s death had ensured that.

Just as she was towelling herself down, the phone rang. Hastily, she pulled on a cotton robe, and dashed to the study where the landline telephone was located.

“Hello.”

“Jennifer?” the male voice seemed hesitant, tired.

“Yes, speaking.”

“Matt Delany, here, I understand you called yesterday to speak to Dad?”

Jen surprised at the phone call, started to choke up, but with effort, steadied her voice.

“I did, Cathy told me what happened. I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.”

The voice on the other end of the line paused, as if he too was finding it difficult to express words, let alone emotions.

“Thank-you,” he finally managed. “Our only consolation is that he went quickly. It would have been distressing for Dad if he had been left in a state unable to...”

His voice wandered off, Jen heard a muffled sound, and she imagined him brushing away tears with the back of his hand. “He was always a strong, independent man, you see. Hated to be a burden. He drove up to almost a year ago, until the Government told him he was too old to have a license. It was his eyes, his macula was degenerating you see.”

“How old was he?” Jen asked quietly, gently.

“He would have turned eighty-five this year,” Matt replied sadly.

There was silence for a few moments, and then he continued on, “Anyway, the funeral is scheduled for Thursday morning. Cathy said you wanted to come.”

Jen nodded, “Yes, if that is fine with the family?”

“Of course.”

He gave her the details that Jen noted down on a scrap of paper. Tom was to be buried next to his wife Anna at the local cemetery. It seemed both right and fitting. It was clear that Tom had loved her dearly.

“Jennifer?”

“Yes?”

He cleared his throat, “Yesterday, just before Dad passed, he pulled me close and whispered some words in my ear. He told me to ring you. Told me to ask you about Anna, I figured it must have been important.”

He fell silent and then with a hesitant catch in his throat went on, “Did Dad ever speak to you about Mum, about Anna and her...ehm, gift?”

“He did, I don’t know how to say this, but your mum and I...well, I’m Sighted just like she was.”

“Dad told you?”

“In a way,” Jen admitted. “However, things have been happening to confirm it. I was going to speak to Cathy about it, but since you rang...well, all the things that have been happening in Emerald Hills, all the bad things. I don’t think it’s natural. I think we’re in for a world of trouble.”

There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line.

Jen hastened to add, “I know it’s hard to accept, but you must believe me, and you must take your family away for a while.”

“Why?” His reply was almost terse.

Jen struggled to explain, “Because it’s not safe. I don’t want to upset you, Matt, but I think it’s dangerous for your family to remain here.”

There was a noncommittal grunt on the other end of the line, and then silence for a moment or two. Matt finally replied, “I’ll think on it. Dad knew more about these matters than the rest of the family. You see, he accepted without question what Mum was seeing. Mum never talked about it, but after she passed he wanted to tell us what happened all those years ago.”

He paused, “It’s hard for me to imagine this sort of thing being true, but Dad is not one for spinning a tall tale and I’d never known a lie to come out of Mum’s lips.”

“I’m not lying either,” Jen said desperately. “Please take your family off the Hinterland, at least for a little while.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Matt said. “We’ve got the bulk of the fruit in now, so I’m sure I can arrange some time away. God knows, it has been years since we’ve had a holiday and my nephew Ben has been pestering us to visit. Perhaps this is a good time to go away and take a break.”

Silence stretched on for a while, and then Matt asked, “What are you going to do? Are you going to leave the Hinterlands as well?”

Jen swallowed, “I can’t. I wish I could, but I have to do something important. I’m not sure what yet, but I can’t leave. I must stay on.”

“If you feel you must; then you must,” he answered obliquely. “I don’t know how this gift of yours works, but you have to follow your heart. That’s what Mum always said.” He drew an unsteady breath, “Anyway, I must go. If we are to leave after the funeral, then I have preparations to make, and Cathy and Fiona need to be told.”

After that, he said his goodbye and rang off. Jen felt somewhat comforted, she liked the Delany family and hoped she had acted in time to spare them further harm. Jen picked up the local phone book; she had still a couple more calls to make.

*

Carma wandered listlessly about her shop. Sales had picked up, but she still was not content. Something nagged at the back of her mind, but annoyingly, she could not identify what it was. She had been feeling vague for a couple of days now, a far call from her usual crisp and decisive self. Last night’s EHGAG meeting should have angered her, but she had just accepted it. She should be grinding her teeth, yet she had resignedly shrugged her shoulders.

Last night, five members of EHGAG had handed in their resignations. The meeting had started poorly, everyone slouching in, looking as if they hadn’t slept in a week. The younger members creeping in quietly, their eyes shadowed, seemingly jumping at the slightest noise. Then, Steve arrived and even before he sat down, he apologetically admitted that Sonja had been spooked since the gum tree had fallen on her house and that they now planned to sell their respective properties, and make a move south to Sydney.

Then Adam, who had been silent throughout the meeting, had stood, stared witheringly at Carma and told her that he disapproved of the direction and methods of the group. He also said that EHGAG was now no longer an environmental conservation group and that Carma was corrupting their original purpose and that he had no further interest in supporting their actions. Taking his jacket, he had left without a backward glance. Of course, where Adam went, Rod would always follow, and shamefacedly, he had mumbled some pathetic excuse and left too. After that, there was silence and then young Maryanne, her face scarlet with embarrassment said that she too was leaving. She was scared about what had been happening and that morning her parents had driven up from Brisbane, telling her they wanted her home. They had been watching the news broadcasts and no longer felt that Emerald Hills was a safe place for her to live. They wanted her out by tomorrow, no argument, no questions asked.

Carma usually did not frighten easily, if she had, then she would not have left the safe and familiar confines of university. However, she had struck out, keen to make her mark and achieve her personal ambition of power, wealth and influence. Carma really did not believe in any particular political ideology, but she did yearn for power, and had long ago identified the green progressive movement as a suitable vehicle to achieve her aims.

At university, she had grown familiar with the activist type - young, naive, wet-behind-the-ears, all so touchingly desperate to change the world of their parents. So a few years earlier, she had moved here, started up her business and joined EHGAG - and had subsequently used it as ruthlessly as any corporate mogul would. Carma had found it so very easy to manipulate EHGAG, and as for those who were older and should have known better – they either shared Carma’s hard-nosed goals, or simply were hopelessly naive. Adam had fallen into the latter category. At his age, he should have
understood
what the game was about, understood what the rules were. However, up until recently he had seemed blissfully naive and unaware, believing that what the group did was environmentalism. Carma wondered dully what had changed his mind.

Sonja was the last remaining of the stick-in-the-mud type that had resented her muscling in. However, as of last night Sonja was no longer a problem, pity then about Steve though. Carma shrugged, she had little empathy for those who fell to the side. If they did not possess the
vision
for the big picture, then she was well rid of them. Scruples just got in the way in this game.

Yet all her planning and conniving seemed to matter little now. Carma had sat silent and dumbfounded during the entire episode last night. She knew she should be seething, knew she should be shouting, dragging them back, demanding proper answers. Yet, she did nothing.
Que sera sera.
Irritatingly, she now had that song going through her head. Her brain was like a sieve now, for a moment, she wondered if someone had slipped something into her green tea last night. Still, EHGAG was holding together they could renew from four members. They had been in worse straits before. She was only thirty-eight. She still had decades of activism ahead of her.

Carma looked outside the shop windows and stared at the heavy mist that, days later, refused to lift. She should feel concerned, she should feel alarmed, yet did not. She recognised that the town was changing, yet felt little disquiet. Normally, she would have been out, investigating, seeing if she could turn anything different to her advantage, yet now...
meh
. She felt...hollowed out, a husk blown about by the will of the wind. It was as if someone else was pulling the strings, making her dance, setting the rules. It was an unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation. It was as if her desire for influence and power had drained away from her as sand through her fingers. Carma knew she should protest this change in herself, yet although she recognised the change, she could do nothing. She felt nothing but apathy.

‘Que sera sera...
Damn!
’

*

Below the surface of the town, the natural energies and powers that comprised the Fae path swirled. What used to flow straight and steady now spun in eddies, making the ground tremble and shudder beyond human awareness. Beyond the town, the path lay quiescent and in darkness, until much further on, the natural power reasserted itself and flowed as normal onwards.

Moira stood with her small host of rebel Fae and watched the slow, but inexorable transformation of the town from a human construct to something else. She saw the saplings growing taller every day - soon even they would be visible to mortal eyes. She saw the still invisible cracks in buildings, as tendrils of green worked their way remorselessly into brick, tile and mortar. Eventually, they would pull even the stoutest building apart into ruin. It would not be long now and then the buildings would fall apart. For the moment, the mist and fog clouded mortal vision and deceived mortal minds, but soon even the half-blind humans would see their town disintegrating around them, and then they would know fear. Moria would love to see them panic and run, however it would be soon time for her infant court to move. The natural power was pooling here, and the last thing she wanted was to be trapped alongside the enraged Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and to face their wrath and revenge on anything that moved, even on the innocent.

She sensed too that the forerunners of the courts were near, only days away by her reckoning. She had already sensed the Great Horned One, the Green Man and the Hunt a scarce few days, weeks prior. Those ancient elementals and powers were not allied to any court, but they remained as primal random energies pursuing their own ends. She had tried to draw them across to her court, but with no success. They simply did not listen or care. It was as fruitless as attempting to strike a deal with the wind and the tides.