State of Grace (20 page)

Arms out to my sides like wings, I’m circling around laughing when it hits me that I should run to the wall and back again, just to see how far away it is from here.

I run and run until my bare toe hooks something metal hammered into the rock. I pitch forward and land with a crack that sounds like it should feel really prehealthy but somehow totally doesn’t.

Eye level with the ground, I see there’s more than one metal thing in the rock. There’s an entire row of them, strung together with a wire that has little tags attached. Words are printed all over them.

Shepherd Corporation Shepherd Corporation Shepherd Corporation

I lift my face from the rock just high enough to see that ahead of me are more lights, only these ones are rushing past and making a kind of whooshing as they go. And between me and them, there’s nothing apart from a thin, straggly row of trees.

26

I
FIGURE
I
’LL
tell Blaze straightaway. But things don’t turn out like that at all. When I turn up on Dennis’s balcony, Blaze doesn’t even let me speak. He steers me inside, checking all around in case anyone saw me standing out there in the open.

I ooze down into the chair he’s pulled over and when I’m sitting down I realise how much I needed to be doing that exact thing. Blaze’s chair is across from mine, close but definitely not so close that we might accidentally end up touching.

‘Guess what?’

The silence that follows isn’t a long one, but it’s enough time for me to decide and undecide and re-decide a million times.

Tell him and he’ll want to leave straightaway. Don’t tell him and he’ll stay for a bit longer and I’ll have a little bit longer before everything turns completely upside-down.

‘What?’

But instead of words, what comes out of my mouth is a jet of liquid complete with half-chewed newfruit. I guess you’ll understand what state I’m in when I say the sight of Blaze’s dripping legs and feet actually makes me laugh.

‘Sorry! Oh my Dot … I mean … sorry!’

Dennis has been awake this entire time and he’s laughing too. Loudly.

‘How many did you eat?’

‘Um, a lot. You were totally right about them.’

Blaze is over at the wardrobe. I can see him manoeuvring out of his stained sungarb and sliding on a fresh one, managing the entire thing without showing me more than the quickest glimpse of skin. He sponges off his feet and the floor before he sits down again.

‘What were you going to say?’

The smile on my face feels loose and sloppy.

‘Hang on. Just wait.’

I blink while the hut whizzes around me. Too late. My mouth is filling all over again. I’m going to …

Blaze jumps up. His chair clatters. Dennis is laughing so hard he’s literally curled up in a ball. I release more chewed-up newfruit but this time Blaze is out of range. By the time it’s over, I think Blaze has forgotten I had something to tell him but he hasn’t.

He asks me again, ‘What is it?’

‘I know how to get out.’

I hear Blaze telling Dennis to get up and make room for me to lie down. It sounds like he’s a long way off, under the surface of the lagoon or something. He has to lead me to the bed. Well, he half-carries me, to be totally accurate. I roll myself into a ball.

Blaze brings me water and sits down beside me and I tell him about climbing the escarpment and what’s at the very top. Or really, what
isn’t
there.

‘There’s no wall.’

‘Sure about that? You’re not thinking too clearly, you know.’

I stifle a belch.

‘Swear to Dot.’

‘No need for one,’ Blaze says, seemingly to himself. ‘Not if we all believe we’re not allowed to climb too high.’

Then he turns to Dennis, who is sitting at the table, listening. He’s as ready to leave as Blaze is.

‘How far away’s Woodend?’ Blaze asks.

‘It’s close. You can walk. It’s basic to find it. There’s nothing else around.’

‘Those sounds she heard –’

‘Probably just the road.’

‘Cars,’ Blaze says suddenly.

In my head I immediately get a picture of a long, straight black stretch filled with
cars
.

‘So, um, we can leave whenever we want,’ I say.

And straightaway Blaze asks, ‘Who’s we?’

‘You, me and Dennis. Tomorrow. As soon as it’s prelight.’

Blaze holds the glass up to my mouth and I take a drink.

‘You’re coming?’

‘I’m coming.’

Tomorrow night’s completion. The dotliest night in all of creation, the one I’ve dreamt about for three-hundred-and-sixty-four days. But now, all my little plans, wearing one of Fern’s garlands and maybe being chosen for a special purpose, seem to be pointless.

And instead of going to creation’s biggest party, I’ll be leaving my entire reality behind. I guess I’m committed now.

I decide to tell Blaze everything.

‘I’ve seen the beach,’ I say. ‘I only said I hadn’t because …’ I take another sip, sideways, so a dribble of water runs out of my mouth and onto the sheets. ‘I don’t know why. Anyway, it’s me and this boy. Julius. He’s my
brother,
I guess. We’re walking down these really tall wooden stairs and they’re so hot. We’re holding sticks with cold sweet stuff on top.’

From over at the table Dennis says, ‘Ice-cream. It’s called ice-cream.’

I know that
, I think.
I already know
.

‘We lick it really fast but it still drips all over our fingers.’

‘That’s happened to me too!’ says Blaze.

Dennis is laughing. Now it looks like he’s going home, Dennis is happy again. Plus, it seems that to him two people not understanding ice-cream is prenormal.

‘Did you surf?’ asks Blaze.

I tell Blaze I don’t know that word. Instead I describe me and Julius, side-by-side on the edge of the water. The whole time, my brother and I are holding hands.

Just once I look back at the sand and there’s Mum in a hat, sitting on a towel and hugging her knees. She calls out things like,
Be careful!
And,
Have you got your sunscreen on?
But she’s smiling too.

‘And the other thing is,’ I tell Blaze, ‘Julius doesn’t call me Wren. No-one does. When I see things outside, everyone calls me Viva.’

‘Viva,’ Blaze repeats. ‘Suits you.’

Then he sticks out his hand and I take it and we pump them up and down. It seems hilarious to me, maybe because the last of the newfruit is still hanging around inside me. Although even Blaze is laughing.

‘Pleased to meet you,Viva. I’m Luke.’

Luke.

It’s a better name for him than Blaze. Luke sounds calm and quiet and, you know, sort of sweet. As soon as we get outside, that’s what I’m going to call him.

‘Okay, here’s a question for you. Do you think there’s ice-cream in Woodend?’

Blaze doesn’t answer in the normal way. I mean, he doesn’t use words. Instead I feel his hands in my hair. He draws it all away from my face, brushing the sticky strands off my face. He holds it in a bunch at the back of my head.

Then suddenly, with one fingertip, he touches the back of my neck. He keeps doing it. I guess maybe there’s a scratch there, or a freckle. Something Blaze has never noticed before, anyway.

After that, he lies down beside me and the two of us curl up together like bananas in a bunch.

____________________

At least the hut walls have stopped moving. Now when I open my eyes, the problem is everything’s too bright. Sounds make me feel prehealthy too. A bird singing first thing in the morning splits my head.

‘Happy completion day,’ says Blaze.

I’m pretty sure he just made a joke. Which might just possibly be Blaze’s first ever joke, that I know about at least.

I beg him for water and he gets up to bring it. He’s in a shining mood. Everything he does and everything he says seems to really mean
We’re doing it. We’re leaving, together
.

Last night, in my newfruit bliss-rush, the whole thing seemed like such a brilliant idea to me too. It’s just now it’s morning and everything’s stark and clear, I’m going to have to get used to everything all over again.

Beside the bed there’s a set of drawers, the way there is in every hut. I open the top one and there inside is a Books unit, just the way I’m expecting. All the huts have them, including the empty ones. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a good idea or the opposite but I switch the Books on and start to read.

The Book of Fun. The Book of Kindness. The Book of Acceptance.

Written down like that, our life sounds so amazing. You know, like something that really should be true.

I scroll through every page of each book from the first to the last. Sort of saying goodbye, if you can say goodbye to a bunch of words on a screen. Then I notice some words I’ve never seen before, right down the bottom of the last screen. The letters are so tiny I have to zoom way in just to read them.

© S
HEPHERD
C
ORPORATION 2018

I cover the words with my finger. When I lift it again, guess what? They’re still there.

‘Dennis?’

He looks up from the chair where he’s as asleep as anyone can be sitting upright.

‘What’s Shep-herd Corporation?’

Blaze has been lying on his back, looking at the roof. He asks, ‘Did you see something?’

I’m about to say,
No
, out of habit, I guess.

Then I remind myself we’re leaving together and that means we tell each other things. I show him the tiny words at the very bottom of the very last screen of the Books.

‘There was something about Shepherd up on the escarpment too.’

Dennis says, ‘Shepherd’s this big company.’

‘Anything to do with nudist resorts?’ Blaze asks.

‘Nah, they make medicine. Like, for sick people and stuff. You know, drugs.’

Drugs
.

The exact same word that gorgeous guy in my vision used when he gave me that capsule. I tell Blaze an edited version. And I share everything I know – or think I can remember – about drugs. Some are like medicine. Other drugs people just take for fun, to make them feel happy or whatever.

The way newfruit made me and Dennis feel.

‘Drugs can be really freaky,’ Dennis adds. ‘I saw this guy on the news once who thought he had worms under his skin.’

Now Blaze says to me, ‘So a drug could make you believe something that isn’t true.’

I get it. He’s talking about Dot. He thinks one of Shepherd’s drugs could be why we believe.

‘For this long, though? Don’t drugs wear off?’

Blaze shrugs. ‘Might depend on the drug.’

‘If any company could make a drug that powerful,’ says Dennis, ‘it’d be Shepherd. They’re so important they practically run the world.’

____________________

Later, the whole thing with Gil happens.

It starts when I hear Gil out on the path, thumping up and down the stairs of all the huts, heaving the doors open and shouting at whoever’s inside.

He yells, ‘Everyone out. Right. Now.’

On top of that, there’s the crashes of wardrobes falling and tables splintering on wooden floors.

Brook’s voice comes next. ‘I can do this,’ he says. ‘You shouldn’t be …’

‘You took them!’ By now, Gil’s shout is a bawl. ‘I can tell from the look on your face.’

Shutters bang and a girl’s voice cries out.

‘I didn’t!’ It’s Luna.

‘You put them down your sungarb and hoped I wouldn’t notice.’

‘No. I’d never!’

Something smashes. A jug? A mirror? Then the door slams and soon Gil’s stomping down Luna’s stairs and into another hut.

‘There’s newfruit buried under all these flowers. Fern? Isn’t there?’

‘They’re my garlands. For completion. Don’t, Gil. Be careful.’

Me and Blaze are standing up by now. It’s all too fast for me, too loud. There can’t be anything left inside me to bring up, but that doesn’t stop me trying. I keep on dry-heaving as I figure out what’s happening and why.

The stripped newfruit trees. The trampled fruit on the ground. Gil and Brook noticed. I mean, of course they did.

‘Oh my Dot,’ is all I can think to say.

Dennis goes, ‘Shit.’ He looks sideways as though someone might tell him not to use that particular word. ‘Nathe always says shit when things go wrong. Mum says he shouldn’t but …’

‘Shit then,’ I say. ‘Shit shit shit shit shit.’

Further down the path, another door bangs.

Gil’s voice demands, ‘Wren?’

I guess he’s on the balcony of my hut, where I should be.

‘Gil’s not coming down here to the empty huts,’ I say to Blaze, as though saying it will make it true. ‘I mean, there’s no reason for him to –’

Brook’s voice sounds from outside, cutting across me. ‘Hut’s empty. Wren’s not here.’

Then comes Gil. ‘Find everyone. Look everywhere until every person and every missing newfruit is found.’

‘Let’s go.’

The way Blaze says it, it’s like we can just stroll out of the empty hut and tell Gil and Brook that actually yes, we have seen the missing newfruit since he asked. In fact, I ate it.

Oh and by the way, have they met Dennis?

‘Go where?’ I ask him. The escarpment? Now? Even if we went through the orchard and then the fringe, we’d never climb all the way up there without someone seeing Dennis and chasing us down.

Then I think of something.

‘The roof. I’ve climbed the roof of my hut before. We’ll go out the window, round the back where they can’t see us from the path.’

There it is, our whole plan, thought up in approximately two seconds. Then there’s this kind of flurry as the three of us scoop up everything that’s ours.

Sungarb, Dennis’s device. Anything that might tell Gil and Brook exactly who has been inside the so-called empty hut.

I go first. I forget about my foggy head and shove open the shutters. With both hands on the window frame I haul myself up until I’m standing on it. Next I grab the lip of the roof. Another big lift and I’m lying flat on the sloping roof panel facing away from the path, my body pressed against the wood, already hot in the morning sun.

Blaze’s head pokes up over the edge of the roof about the same time as Gil’s voice, out on the path but much closer now, says, ‘Check the empty ones.’