The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery (7 page)

The desert floor appeared to blend into the sky and curve back upon itself, though the distance seemed so great it was hard to tell where the horizon started.

‘Where exactly are we?’ Lexington said, reaching for her notebook and discovering she had no clothes on. She yelped in surprise. ‘Where are our clothes?’

All of them were naked.

Melaleuca stared, confused at their naked bodies. ‘Have we always been naked...or......?’

The word “naked” snaked out of her mouth in big letters, split into four and then rolled around her body and moved on to Lexington.

Quixote laughed and said, ‘Hey ask this guy.’

A small figure trod toward them dragging something dark. He spied them and looked shocked, and with a burst of speed he ran for them and yelled, ‘Not now, too early, you should not be here.’ He swung his arms at them and their bodies disintegrated.

***********

Ari awoke from the dream first and felt icy air pressing against his skin. He could not move his legs and try as he may his eyes would not focus. He tried to rub them but his hand kept on hitting his forehead.

‘Easy fella,’ came a voice that sounded like Argus’s but different. ‘Take your time. Ya been asleep a while.’

The words made little sense. How did that explain his arms and legs not working? He relaxed and drew in a deep breath. Many new smells hit him - fresh smells, sharp smells, pungent smells and aromatic smells - all richly mixing together and suggesting they were somewhere other than where they had been put to sleep.

‘Where are we?’ Ari said still groggy.

‘You will see when you are fully awake,’ came Antavahni’s voice.

Melaleuca stirred and mumbled, waking to find her arms and legs did not work either. Blurry images filled her eyesight. Perturbed she tried moving her arm and managed to hit both Lexington and Quixote as they woke up.

‘Mel. It’s okay,’ said Ari, his voice sending a reassuring feeling through her. The crackle of a fire burst into life and its warmth fought the chilly air back, helping to thaw her wits out.

Over and over she repeated the word “trust” mantra-like in her head and when she felt ready, she tried to stand up though she struggled.

‘Ari help me.’

His strong hands gripped hers and he pulled her up. She leant on him and they both took in where they were.

A rugged expanse of land, devoid of trees and teeming with small yellow bushes and autumn coloured scrub, spread out before them, and an all-pervading dampness hung in the air so intense she could smell the wetness.

In one direction the land stretched as far as the eye could see - an empty distant horizon, semi-blending with the sky. In the opposite direction the land tilted up, gentle at first and then it climbed steeply into a mammoth mountain range, the tops of which were covered in rolling dark clouds.

‘Cool dream eh,’ Quixote said happy to stay lying on the ground.

‘It didn’t feel like a dream. Ari, can you work out where we are?’ Melaleuca said and cast a challenging look at Argus and Antavahni.

‘Hang on,’ he said gazing around.

‘It was too real for a dream,’ Lexington said sitting upright. ‘Which suggests we were actually there. But that cannot make sense, unless...’

‘Yes cousin,’ Melaleuca said, ‘now is the time to use your brain and work out what it was. Facts and stuff.’ She turned to Argus who stoked the fire. ‘Where are we?’

Argus bent his head toward Antavahni and nodded as if to say he had the answers.

‘Yes. I will expect a full explanation from you,’ Melaleuca said pointing at Antavahni.

Antavahni and a young looking Argus sat silent by the fire and tended it, staring into the dancing flames.

A disquieting sensation leached off the land into Ari. At first he could not name it and then he grasped what drove such emptiness in him. The scrubby plain had no sound. No birds, no animals, no wind, no far off cries, no water moving, nothing, but an eerie silence that hung over it like a great solitude.

‘This is a land of nothing,’ he said. ‘What time of day is it?’

Argus pointed to the sky.

‘Time does not matter here,’ said Antavahni.

The overhead sun sat hidden behind hazy grey clouds that filled the entire sky. Ari had never seen a sky as bleak and lacking in brilliance. God had erased meaning and sheen from it, and the longer his eyes supped on it, the more arid he felt. A shiver ran through him and he pulled his eyes away and stared at the ground. A stunted bush of jagged twigs and small leaves stared up at him.

‘Well?’ said Lexington lifting her head and blinking her eyes to focus on Ari.

Ari shook his head and Melaleuca knew what he felt in an instant.

‘Nothing. He feels nothing. We are nowhere.’

Antavahni pulled a large pot of steaming liquid off the fire and poured it into four wooden cups.

‘This broth will help you wake up.’

With eager hands they all cupped the broth, and warmth flooded through their fingers and down their arms. The rich mixture of spices and other unknown aromas tantalised them and they sipped it, discovering it tasted even better. The liquid flooded their bodies and filled their senses with wakefulness.

Antavahni stood.

‘Come, we still have a ways to go. There is little chance any one followed us but we must push on.’

Melaleuca shook her head at the others and then said to Antavahni, ‘We go no further until we have cleared ourselves.’

Rosy cheeked and with cold red-tipped noses, her cousins stood behind her and faced off with Antavahni.

‘Clear yourselves then, but be quick.’

Argus stood and stretched himself.

‘Look,’ Quixote said. ‘He’s lost his face.’

‘What happened to you?’ Lexington asked.

Antavahni pushed in front of Argus.

‘Discover it for yourselves. Get on with the clearing.’ Unsteady on his legs, he produced a walking stick and propped himself up.

‘What are they doing?’ Argus asked.

‘Watch and then you tell me,’ Antavahni replied.

The cousins play-acted out all the events they could remember since being attacked. Over some events they went back and forth until everyone could agree on what had happened. However, Quixote acted out what he wanted to do, not what had actually happened. In his version he rode the Kockoroc and whipped off thousands of miles away to discover new lands. This annoyed Lexington, and while Melaleuca and Ari were normally amused by his antics, this time they found them a little irritating also.

Half way through it, Ari turned to Melaleuca and said, ‘This used to be quick and simple.’

‘Just keep going. Much has happened.’

Over their hills they pretended to run. Questions were thrown at Argus. The forest chased them down the hill. Lexington balked at telling them about her inner voice and nearly revealed it. Instead she merely explained she needed a new way of working things out. Melaleuca acted out her feelings, sharing for the first time that doubt had crept in and that now she resolved to trust her instincts.

Quixote had more forays into his wild-west imagination. Amongst the facts he had held Argus’s pistol and had tracked down the men who had attacked them and defeated them. The other cousins persisted in the actual facts of what happened, which seemed only to fuel Quixote’s far flung ideas even more. Like a match to spilt petrol Quixote’s recounting of events got wilder and further from the truth until the force of his imagination covered all the past events with possibilities that seemed highly impossible, though amusing.

‘...and then with their pants down they couldn’t walk. They tripped up over their legs, fell, splat in the mud and rolled around like babies...’

And on he went until the cousins burst into laughter and even Lexington giggled a little though felt slighted. She normally analysed what they had done. This frivolity, as enjoyable as it was, did not answer any of her questions.

Argus cracked a bemused smile.

‘So they tried to act everything out. So what?’

‘Have you never cleared yourself?’ Ari said.

‘It looks like something groupies would do,’ he said back and earned a ‘shhh’ from Antavahni.

Already Melaleuca could see a shift in her cousins as if a small weight had been lifted off them. Strange, she had never thought of their “clearings” as a tool to make them feel better. She had only seen it as a...

‘Okay now let’s act out the possibilities,’ Lexington announced as she peered up from writing in her notebook.

...as a tool to re-run what they had just played.

Argus leant into Antavahni.

‘There’s more?’

‘By running over recent events they stop what has afflicted mankind.’

‘Uh yeah, what’s that then?’

‘Sympathetic resonance.’

‘Sympa - What?’

‘The holding on to experience. It gums up the mind, ages people. By running over recent events it helps their mind digest experience so that their soul can communicate freely with their mind.’

Argus frowned at Antavahni.

Armed with her notebook Lexington said to Melaleuca, ‘I should like to re-run the bit where your mum told you private things.’

‘No more re-runs,’ Melaleuca said flatly.

Confused Lexington became as cross as her gentle face could manage. ‘But we always re-run. It’s how we come up with, well, how we come up with all the stuff we come up with.’

‘Lex.’

‘Am I the only one who has forgotten our parents disappeared with no explanation?’

Ari grabbed Lexington’s arm and squeezed it. ‘It’s okay Lex. Just wait and listen.’

He motioned to Melaleuca.

‘It is time I tell you what Mum said. She said that if they were not back within a day that it may be months before they return and that someone would come for us and to trust.’

‘Why didn’t you just tell us?’ Lexington said exasperated.

‘Wait,’ Melaleuca motioned, ‘there’s more. She also said the key was to keep moving forward. Think as little as possible. Just keep moving forward.’

She stopped and let her words hang in the air for them to dwell on.

‘That is why today...there is no re-runs. We will follow Antavahni to where-ever he takes us.’

The boys accepted this with little questioning though Lexington looked upset.

‘But all my questions…..and…and you held this from us.’

Melaleuca shuffled across to her. Her sharp face gazed into Lexington’s soft round face.

‘Think and analyse while we move,’ she commanded and then as soft as Melaleuca could manage, added, ‘I know you can do it. If anyone has the brains to work out how to do it, then you do Lexington.’

Melaleuca stood, a commander of pre-adult years. She knew that before them lay the unknown and that wherever their parents were now they could not help them. She felt this to be true.

‘Antavahni. You will now explain,’ Melaleuca said.

‘Ahem,’ Lexington said clearing her throat. ‘I would still like some answers still.’ She directed her question at Antavahni staring past Melaleuca.

Antavahni knelt before them and with a gentle voice and a shimmering face, said, ‘No answers will be provided for you. It is for you to now work this out. Many trials will accost you. Through all this you must remain who you have been. Change for no one but yourselves.  You must solve this for yourself. No one will help you. You will be on your own yet you will have each other.’

Quixote became distracted and looking at Argus said, ‘What did happen to your face?’

‘I’m just younger now, that’s all.’

Antavahni grabbed Quixote’s head and turned it back to him and said, ‘Imp. Did you hear me?’

‘Yup.’

Argus snorted in sarcasm.

‘50,000 years alive and that’s your wisdom.’

‘50,000? That’s impossible,’ Lexington said.

Antavahni stiffened and stared harshly at Argus.

Argus shrugged, caring little. ‘Won’t happen again.’

Quixote smirked and pointed at Antavahni while looking at Lexington. ‘Anything is possible.’

Lexington frowned at him.

‘In play you can imagine anything. Reality, however, is garbed with the laws of physics.’

Melaleuca squeezed the back of her own neck, making a “tsk” noise.

‘Mmm…yes. About that. Mum did say something more.’

‘What,’ Lexington asked. ‘What else did she say?’

‘She said, keep moving forward...and keep playing. That playing was most important of all.’

‘What? That makes no sense at all. This is real. We should act like it is real.’

‘I don’t understand it but I trust if we move forward it will become clear. Use your brain to work it out. But we will follow her instructions.’ Lexington put her hand to her chest, feeling the medallion under her clothes.