Shamar

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I was dying. Again.

‘Can’t breathe.’

My lungs were being crushed. I’d already been poisoned earlier that day, and then resurrected by my best friend, Noah, who’d confused me by telling me off for eating too much Fruit while simultaneously shoving a juicy piece of it into my mouth. Then I’d scaled a cliff face with numerous failed attempts, each time waking up to the sight of Beltana’s patient smile and the taste of more Living Fruit on my lips. And now I couldn’t breathe. Enough was enough.

I sucked in a shallow sip of air and craned my neck to look at Bane. He wasn’t going to be of any use. His smile was all roses and chocolates as he leaned back against the bench with his ankles crossed and did nothing.

Since I’d climbed my way out of Eden at sunset, Bane had worn an expression that kept switching between thrilled and guilty—like someone who’d come in second but won the Cattleman’s Cup on a minor technicality. He was so happy he’d even let me drive us down the mountain on my dirt bike without a single argument. Or perhaps that had something to do with the bandage and grazes on his forearms. He’d ignored my question when I’d asked about them, just like he’d evaded my demand for my ring, mumbling something about waiting until we were alone. I hadn’t argued, secretly relieved at the thought of a proper proposal. After all, neither of us had actually mentioned the word ‘marriage’, so maybe the ring his mother had sneakily passed to him was an ordinary gift and I’d misunderstood. Things in this world always seemed to be more complicated than I expected. There was no way I was going to mention it again, just in case. I would look like a right drongo. A drongo who might need him to heal me if I didn’t get out of this bear hug soon. Tessa and Aunt Lily were too busy sterilising baby equipment to even notice my predicament, and Noah was stretching to reach the bag of chips he’d hidden on the top shelf of the pantry he thought no one else could get to, which he apparently thought was far more of a priority.

‘Please,’ I croaked. ‘I like air.’

Senior Sergeant Mick Loxwood wiped tears from his eyes as he finally loosened his grip. Holding me at arms’ length, he looked me over as if checking to see I hadn’t accidentally left any body parts in the realm of the dead.

‘Incredible, Lainie. Absolutely incredible. It really is all really real, isn’t it?’

I hoped he didn’t babble this unprofessionally when he was working.

‘Sergeant, you can’t tell anyone,’ I reminded him. Far too many people knew the truth about the Garden of Eden already and it was getting way out of hand. Noah had some explaining to do as to why he’d allowed Tim to come up the ridge with them. He’d been right there when I’d emerged from across the boundary, alive and well, making it impossible to explain away the day’s events with anything other than the truth. Just because Tim had earned Bane’s trust during their time with the Army Reserves didn’t mean it was fine to tell him about the world’s most holy secret.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Tim staring at me from the far end of the kitchen. He hadn’t spoken a word since my resurrection. What would he think if we told him it wasn’t my first? I wasn’t sure what I could do to help him so I’d been trying to give him space, only he kept following me, staring at me with those great big brown eyes.

Sergeant Loxwood stood straighter. ‘I know how to remain discreet. You can trust me. And please, Lainie, I think it’s time you called me Mick. Most adults around here do. Besides, I’m fairly certain that in the grand scheme of things you outrank me by a long way.’ He took a step back and lifted his chin. ‘You’re a holy creature. I mean, a higher being. Should I be genuflecting or something?’

‘Genu … what? No! No kneeling or bowing or anything, please. Could you imagine what Noah would be like if people started doing that to him? He’s insufferable enough as it is.’

Noah paused his salt and vinegar chip feast and smiled at the policeman. That smile. Full of confidence and mischief. It made Mick roll his eyes. ‘I see your point.’

‘Seriously, I’m still just me,’ I insisted, catching Tim’s eye in the hope that he understood too. As if on cue, Aunt Lily grabbed me from behind and peppered me with kisses like I was five years old again. It was a much more welcome way of showing me affection than the policeman’s suggestion, but she’d been doing it on and off since I’d walked in the door and it was getting sticky, so I wriggled around and hugged her back, relieved beyond words that I hadn’t left her alone again. She was my rock, and I’d abandoned her for too long already. I had no intention of leaving her to clean up my messes anymore.

Reminded of messes, I turned back to the burly officer.

‘Um, Mick, what happens now? Who thinks I’m dead? What did I miss and what do I need to do?’

The sudden silence in the room was very disconcerting.

The sergeant gave a little cough and brushed his fingers across the badge on his shoulder, as if it might help him switch back to reality. ‘Well, there are really only the two ambos who worked on you, I think. They declared you as deceased. What would you like us to tell them? I mean, do you want to stay officially dead? We could do it if you like because Noah, well, he … made a copy of your … corpse.’

My eyebrows rose about as much as Noah’s eyes suddenly lowered. It was hard to stay focused. What exactly did I want? My first thought was of my mother. I’d grown up thinking she was dead, and all the logical reasons in the world would never make up for what that had cost me.

‘I don’t want to be dead,’ I decided. ‘It’s not as exciting as it sounds—at least, I don’t think so, it’s a bit hard to remember … My point is that I want to live, properly, with my family and friends. No way am I going to hide away for the rest of my life.’ Bane’s smile began to slip, so I kept talking before he could argue. ‘Listen, my job is to protect Eden so, presumably, the reason Jake’s compelled to kill me is to prevent me from doing that. So clearly I need to be alive. End of discussion.’

Tessa handed me a glass of water. ‘Can we tell the paramedics Noah revived her after they left? They did see him insist on continuing the CPR. It’ll freak them out a lot, but it’s still the most logical explanation there is—not to mention it’s actually the truth.’

The senior sergeant peered at me, considering. ‘They’ll expect you to still be very sick though, with traces of cyanide still in your system. They’ll insist on running all sorts of tests in hospital. Will you be able to fool them?’

I winked, but Bane cleared his throat. His hands gripped the bench so hard that a spot of blood blossomed through the bandage on his forearm.

‘Traces of cyanide? How will you fool them, exactly?’ And just like that his elusive smile was gone again.

It was a fair question. How was I going to fool the doctors? Dose myself with a small amount of poison and let Bane heal me once the hospital was satisfied? That didn’t sound like fun, even though I couldn’t remember much about my last experience of it. The details seemed too irrelevant to dwell on, but it felt as if I had died in a game and then re-spawned and kept going. It made me wonder how many lives I had left and whether I could collect some little spare-life hearts somewhere in case I ran out. Perhaps it would be best to avoid recontaminating my body with cyanide after all.

‘Well, maybe I could avoid the issue altogether. I’ll tell them I’m going to Melbourne for a “proper” check-up and disappear for a while. Maybe that will make it harder for Jake to track me.’

Across the table, Tessa opened her mouth to say something, but Bane glared at her so icily she snapped her mouth shut again. There was more going on than anyone had been game to tell me. I decided to be patient until I could pester each of them individually. Much better chance of getting the whole truth that way.

Once again Mick Loxwood came to our aid. ‘Leave the paramedics to me. The coroner was never called so you were never legally dead. I’ll write in my report that you were revived and if anyone asks, I’ll make sure they leave you alone and stay quiet about everything that’s happened.’ He sounded overly confident, like he was trying to suck up to one of his superiors. It felt weird to have him sound so deferential.

‘What about the Ashbrees?’ Aunt Lily asked as she rummaged around the fridge for some leftovers to heat up. ‘They’ve been calling all afternoon. I avoided telling them about the poison, but they know something’s up. It might be worth letting Liam swing by to reassure him you’re okay.’

I nodded. ‘And also let him know you can all stop patrolling. I assume Jake did a runner once he realised I was dead?’

Bane nodded, looking grim. No one else met my eyes and the room became even quieter. I prudently suppressed my curiosity and instead tried to cover the awkward moment by reaching for a piece of fruit, only the fruit bowl was gone. Feeling rather embarrassed, I hopped up on a clear section of the bench and sat on my hands. Time to switch topics.

‘Should I change into other clothes? I’m not sure I can explain to Liam why I would be wearing this,’ I said, regretfully poking at a tear in the diaphanous red dress Beltana had given me, which I’d ruined by spending the afternoon rock-climbing in it.

‘Why are you wearing it?’ my aunt asked.

Images of bright trees and curious animals flashed through my mind as I remembered what I’d been feeling after I’d read Bane’s stupid letter. Everything there had been so simple, so obvious. Bane had been miserable. So had I. We wanted to be with each other, and in Eden there was simply no point in trying to come to terms with why we shouldn’t be. My desire had been very strong, and so I’d needed to let him know. Simple.

‘I wanted to be clear about what I wanted,’ I explained, throwing Bane a slinky smile. Then I remembered. ‘Oh, I gave my other clothes away. I don’t even have any spare jeans anymore.’

‘Um, I made some more for you, if you don’t mind wearing something that’s been on a fake corpse,’ Noah mumbled, letting his pale hair fall forward to avoid meeting my eyes.

Everyone else in the room looked queasy, but I was incredibly curious to see what he’d done. Darting out of the kitchen, I started searching each of the bedrooms for my body and soon discovered they’d left it on the floor in the lounge room, lying on a stretcher. By the time I found it Bane was there waiting for me, looking like he’d been asked to give a speech in assembly. He was very pale. Almost as pale as my dead body.

‘Woah, it’s exactly like me. Man, that is creepy.’ I picked up my dead hand and waved it at myself cheerily. ‘Typical. Noah made my boobs too big. Hey, do you think he could do it again? You know, to me?’

‘Lainie, do you have to joke about this?’ Bane asked, tight-lipped.

‘Of course I do. I’m looking at my own fake dead body! How long do you think it will keep? Maybe we can preserve it somehow, or stuff it or something,’ I suggested, peeling back my lips to see my teeth.

Groaning, my Guardian slumped down onto the couch and buried his head in his arms so he didn’t have to watch. ‘We can’t keep it. Someone might see it,’ he mumbled from underneath his elbows. ‘Please, Lainie, can you just get on with it? I was going to help you undress it, but I honestly don’t think I can now. Can’t you find something else to wear?’

‘Oooh, tough soldier you are. Can’t even undress a corpse. Your training must have been pretty slack,’ I teased as I sat on the floor and started to tug my jeans down. Were my ankles really this bony?

‘I must have missed that demo. They probably had it right after the lecture on how to stop your girlfriend from climbing up a cliff with no safety equipment. Bad day to pull a sickie, in hindsight.’ He still refused to stop hiding.

‘Safety equipment? You still haven’t grasped the whole Tree of Life concept yet, have you?’

His head snapped up. ‘How many times did you need it today?’

‘I don’t remember,’ I evaded.

He rubbed his eyebrow and groaned like he had a whopper of a headache. Then he took a calming breath. ‘Why are you always so stubborn?’

I let the dead leg drop awkwardly to the floor and gave him my full attention. ‘Because I know what you went through last time I left. It wasn’t fair on you. You were introduced to a whole new reality when you found out about Eden, and about the role you were born for, and I cut you off from it because I arrogantly decided that was in your best interest. That wasn’t my choice to make. Just like it isn’t your choice to decide where I should live. So tell me the truth. Do you really wish I hadn’t come back?’ I tried to sort through the tangle of complex motivations that were part of this world. It was no good. The conflicts were not so much ‘tangled’ as ‘dreadlocked’.

He met my eyes with a sigh. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Seeing you return today—so vibrant and alive—was one of the happiest moments of my life. I don’t deserve it and I’m being incredibly selfish. Maybe I should be stronger and somehow force you to stay safe in Eden. I made that choice for you earlier today when you were … when you couldn’t speak for yourself. I guess I hoped you would wake up in the Garden and forget all the terrible things that had happened here. Slide peacefully back into the life you’d built and move on.’ He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘I arrogantly decided it was in your best interest. I’m sorry. And besides, I can’t make myself let go of you again. I can’t.’

We stared at each other, both wanting more and both too afraid to be the one to move. I was still freshly Eden-prejudiced and our ‘wants’ matched all too well, so I was having all sorts of electric feelings flooding my system. I didn’t know what his excuse was, but eventually he buried his head back in his arms again with a soft whimper.

Resolutely, I finished pulling off the jeans and then stripped the body of the t-shirt Noah had conjured.

‘Noah!’ I roared. ‘Get in here now.’

Panicked by my tone, he and everyone else rushed over from the kitchen. To his credit, Tim didn’t actually faint. He did, however, take one fraught look at me sitting on the floor next to my cloned body before bolting for the bathroom, hand on mouth.

I turned back to Noah. My best friend didn’t even bother to look ashamed as I pointed to the flimsy scrap of red lace he’d conjured for my undergarments. ‘What was the point of the sexy lingerie, exactly?’

Bane exhaled and buried his head again, refusing to look.

‘Dunno any other sort,’ Noah mumbled around a mouthful of chips.

The sergeant, Aunt Lily, and I all turned to Tessa, who looked for a moment like she was scrambling for something to say. After a moment she simply grinned and winked at me.

Noah started throwing chips at Bane’s head to make him open his eyes. ‘I can try to conjure up a matching set for Bane to wear if it’s equality you’re concerned about.’

Emerging from his elbow cave like an angry dragon, Bane whacked him squarely in the face with a cushion. ‘I don’t know whose honour I suddenly feel the need to defend, or even why. I just know you need to be brought down a peg or two, Cherub,’ Bane declared, chasing him out of the room. The frivolity ended, however, when a disturbing thump came from the hall where Noah had fled.

‘Ah, Lainie?’ I heard Noah call from the hallway. ‘I think I broke him.’ This time he actually sounded contrite.

Rushing out, all I could see was Bane’s motionless form slumped against a wall, as if he’d run straight into it without even trying to stop.

‘He was right behind me and then … I didn’t do it,’ Noah insisted, shaking his blond hair away from his eyes to look at me. His emerald gaze glowed with innocence, no less powerful for the fact I knew it stemmed from his supernatural gifting.

Aunt Lily kneeled down to check over Bane’s fallen jumble of limbs while I stood frozen, feeling confused and terrified. Had Jake somehow poisoned him, too? I couldn’t lose him …

‘He shouldn’t have tried to run so soon after a concussion,’ she rebuked. ‘Tim was right; we should have had him checked out properly.’

‘Concussion?’ I asked, trying without much success to piece together my scattered memories. Being resurrected with Living Fruit—multiple times—had really messed with my recollection of the day’s events. None of what I remembered explained the bandage on my Guardian’s forearm or the raw grazes on both his wrists, but until now I’d assumed it wasn’t anything too serious because he hadn’t paid them any attention at all. So much for waiting until we were alone for an explanation. ‘What happened while I was dead?’ I demanded. ‘What did I miss?’

The awkward silence in the hall was broken after a few moments by a groan from Bane as he began to wake.

‘I’ll get some ice,’ Tessa and Noah said simultaneously as they escaped back to the kitchen.

The sergeant kneeled and checked Bane’s pupils and then stood back, looking reassuringly calm, so I took that to mean he wasn’t dying. Kneeling down, I cradled Bane’s head on my lap and it was then I felt the large lump behind his ear. No wonder he’d let me drive us down the ridge. He shouldn’t even be out of bed, let alone riding dirt bikes or chasing rogue Cherubim around the house.

‘What happened?’ he mumbled as I checked his scalp for more wounds.

‘You ran up a wall and forgot to flip over and land on your feet,’ I explained. ‘I thought I taught you better than that. Perhaps it had something to do with the concussion you neglected to mention to me?’

‘Oh, sorry. You were dead at the time so I didn’t think to tell you. Everyone else knew.’

Just then Tim’s pasty-looking face appeared from around the bathroom door. ‘I’m sorry, Lainie, I tried to make him rest. He wouldn’t listen to me. Dallmin gave him one heck of a whack with that frypan. He really should have gone straight to hospital.’

This place was so weird. I gave a little snort at Tim’s joke, but when I looked back at Bane his eyes were sad.

‘Where is Dallmin? I assumed you didn’t get as far as finding him before you had to come back for me. What on Earth makes Tim think he would ever hurt someone? He couldn’t. Any more than you could hurt me. It would be impossible. Tell me what really happened, and don’t be embarrassed to admit you tripped in a rabbit hole or something. I know how reckless you get when I’m …’ My voice trailed off as every muscle in Bane’s face tensed up. A small shudder went through his frame, as if he was remembering the danger I’d been in.

‘Dallmin’s changed, Lainie. He betrayed us and kept me away from you on purpose while you were dying. He also tried to kill Noah.’ His voice was slurred and he was struggling to focus on my face.

‘Okay, I’ve changed my mind. Don’t talk. Rest. You’re not making any sense anyhow. I’ll get someone else to explain.’ Since Noah and Tessa had bailed, my narrowed gaze rested on my aunt’s face.

She nodded in tacit affirmation of his story. ‘Jake lied to Dallmin and tricked him into telling him about Eden. Dallmin lured Bane out to the state park and helped Jake to capture him so he could keep you both from the cave, hoping to get back home without you preventing him. Noah, Tess, and your mum stopped him, but Jake ran off with the sword. I can’t tell you much more—I don’t get given details.’

‘There’s a sword?’ Tim gasped from the doorway. His lanky frame grew a few inches and the sudden glint in his eyes reminded me of a child in a lolly shop.

‘Not anymore, apparently. Why are we all still here? Why hasn’t anyone gone after them?’ My voice was climbing higher by the second. Noah’s head, which had appeared from around the kitchen door, hastily disappeared again.

Luckily Tessa wasn’t such a chicken. ‘Jake saw Noah wielding the sword. He’s aware now that Noah is a Cherub too. I don’t want Noah going after that i***t, at least not without me. Although at the rate I’ve been going, Noah might be better off without me around at all,’ she admitted as she handed my aunt a bag of frozen peas.

‘Jake knows about Noah?’ I wailed. ‘Wait, did you say “wielded” the sword?’

She ignored me because Noah had re-emerged from the kitchen and had baled her up against the wall with only his freaky charming eyes.

‘Tessa. How can you say that? You saved my life. If you hadn’t tackled Dallmin, his knife would have gone straight through my heart. He has excellent aim, even if he’s never tried to hit a living creature before. Not to mention that you healed my punctured lung. How can you possibly think I’d be better off without you?’

‘You would have killed Jake if I hadn’t intervened,’ she replied. ‘I’m still struggling to decide if I did the right thing in preventing you. He’ll come for you. Both of you. And I don’t know if I can stop him. If Bane with all his army training can’t keep him from Lainie, then what chance do I have?’ She crumpled into his arms and clung to him as if she was trying to heal him in advance of all the wounds she imagined him receiving.

How could this have happened? I was more confused than ever. Dallmin threw a knife at Noah? Tessa tackled him? Was that why her left eye looked swollen? And how the hokey had Jake stolen a sword that incinerated anyone who got too close to it?

‘I guess it’s a good thing I came back,’ I pointed out, leaning back against the wall. ‘Clearly, I’m needed here. One lousy afternoon off duty and the whole world craps itself.’

Everyone started shoe-gazing. Except for Tim.

‘There’s really a sword?’ he asked again.

From the end of the hall came the sound of an infant’s hungry wail.