Shamar

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

‘Once when you were away, I ate half a can of condensed milk for lunch. That tin of chickpeas is much healthier. It’ll be fine.’

‘Ew, Lainie, I didn’t want to know that,’ Aunt Lily said as she reached into the scary back corner of the fridge to find something to go with the chickpeas.

Now that things had settled down, everyone was starving. Nathaniel, Noah, and I were the only ones who had eaten anything since lunchtime, and all my snacks had resulted in either a death or a resurrection. I kind of wanted to eat something boring for a change.

‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘I did the groceries a couple of days ago. All we have left is dog food. Speaking of which, Lainie, have you fed Wendy yet?’

Ah. Right. Wendy. Last time I’d seen her she’d been running around Eden with Bungee. ‘She’s in Neverland.’

Noah groaned and turned to Tessa. ‘I thought you were watching her?’

‘I got distracted,’ she defended. ‘Besides, you’re the one who locked her in the Garden. Can’t we hoist her up the cliff in a sling or something?’

‘No,’ Noah and I said simultaneously. Forcing anyone to leave Eden against their will—even a dog—was not something we could stomach even talking about. Not once they’d been allowed in.

Aunt Lily took the hint and wisely changed the subject as she pulled some end-of-season tomatoes from the windowsill. They didn’t look very ripe. ‘So what are we going to do for dinner?’

‘We still have plenty of fruit hampers left,’ I said with a grin.

‘No, we don’t. Mick just took them all away to be analysed. Would you really want to risk anyone eating them?’

Everyone seemed to have lost what little sense of humour they once had. In fact, they were all looking far too grumpy, given what a special day it was. Nathaniel’s first day at home. A rough one, maybe, but he was safe and sleepy and full of milky goodness and surrounded by family. How sweet were those tiny fingers? Clasped around my pinkie. One day those fingers would be clasped around the bar of a hang glider, and I would be right there with him, giving him an aerial view of the Garden. Well, maybe not. Taking a hang glider into Eden where the locals could see it hadn’t worked out so well last time.

Tessa gave me a tired smile as she scooped her son out of my arms and left the room to put him back to bed. The bruise on her face was starting to swell, and she looked about ready to collapse. It had been a long and eventful day for us all, although I felt great. Eden Fruit was amazing stuff.

The phone rang and Aunt Lily snatched it up before I could. It was David Ashbree. ‘Tell him to send Liam for some pizza,’ Tim suggested as she reassured our neighbour that everything was fine.

Great idea, I signed to her before remembering to speak out loud—or at least, in a loud whisper. ‘It’ll take ages, which will give us time to get our stories straight and dispose of the body, and give him an excuse to come over,’ I said. Then I grinned at Tim. ‘Did you hear that? I got to use the phrase “dispose of the body”.’

Tim nearly smiled.

My aunt nodded to me and then started to explain to Noah’s dad what Dallmin and Jake had done to Bane. I leaned across so I could listen in. Like the rest of us, he sounded incredulous at the thought of the gentle man turning on us. My aunt couldn’t explain why and so didn’t try. As she hung up, she rubbed her eyes.

‘Liam’s on his way. It’ll take an hour and a half for him to get to town and back. I hope you appreciate what it takes to pop out for pizza here,’ she admonished Tim.

Satisfied, I skipped to the lounge room to check on Bane. We weren’t really supposed to let him sleep for too long without checking he could wake up. So I checked. Fairy-tale style.

Fascinated, and more than a little bit regretful, I watched my body dissolve into thin air. No one had agreed with me that it might be wise to keep a spare one around in case I broke mine again, although I suspected Tim was imagining all sorts of possible scenarios in which we could use it to lure Jake into a trap. Unfortunately, he was still too intimidated to speak up.

‘Shameful waste of perfectly good lingerie,’ Noah mumbled as his soft powerful phrases trailed away. I stomped on his foot and Tessa didn’t even complain. On the couch, Bane stirred again so I shooed everyone back into the kitchen.

We’d spent the last half hour sharing each of our versions of the day’s events, although I was restricted on most of mine, either unable to speak or unable to remember. Tim was given a badly structured lecture on the truth behind Eden, Cherubim, and Guardians pieced together from what each of us could force ourselves to explain, and tidied up a little by Aunt Lily.

What the others had told me was overwhelming. The ancient revolving sword had been stolen by a violent drug-addict who was compelled to kill me and my best friend, and potentially his infant son. Dallmin had turned against us and then run away, and was now exiled from his home and alone out in the world with no idea how to look after himself. Jake knew about Eden and knew where it was—my mind still reeled when I thought about that—but at least Noah and Bane had partially addressed that issue by blocking up the cavern with rocks again. All in all, things were looking disastrous. It was time for comfort food. The mood in the house lifted considerably when Liam finally arrived with an armload of pizzas, even if we all shushed him the moment he entered so he wouldn’t wake Bane.

‘What was Jake hoping to achieve?’ Liam asked a little while later as he picked another mushroom off his pizza and flicked it at his brother. ‘Why lure Bane away from her and then run away?’ Confusion darkened his friendly Ashbree-green eyes.

‘He tried to poison me. Tim called an ambulance and I’m fine,’ I admitted vaguely. The deception felt like a ball of string tangling my insides, but it was a much smaller ball of string than the one I would have had if I’d tried to tell him the whole truth. ‘Sorry we didn’t tell you everything straight away,’ I continued. ‘Sergeant Loxwood wanted us to keep things quiet for a while.’ I’d spent the last half an hour practising the lie and it didn’t come out easily, so I watched Liam’s reaction rather nervously.

Liam’s slice of pizza slid back into the box while he stared at the table looking angrier by the second. ‘Mick gave good advice. If I’d known what was happening I would have rallied everyone to go after that moron, and I can tell you now the Victorian Police Force wouldn’t have approved of my actions if I’d caught up with him. Are we sure he’s really gone? What if he comes back? I can’t believe Mick didn’t leave someone here to keep an eye on things.’

‘He’s coming back himself later tonight. And he’s offered me somewhere safe to stay for a while,’ I said, which was true. I just didn’t tell Liam I’d refused. ‘Bane and I will leave Nalong tomorrow. I won’t have that lunatic anywhere near my family if I can avoid it. If he comes looking for me here, he’ll be out of luck.’

Liam stood and swept me up into yet another crushing embrace. Given Aunt Lily was my only living blood relative—that he was aware of—it was obvious to everyone I was including all the Ashbrees when I talked of family. Of course, what he didn’t know was that Noah was also a target now. Somehow I needed to track down Jake before he could come after my best friend. I glanced his way, and he met my gaze with barely contained frustration. Conflicted between wanting to help me retrieve the sword and needing to stay to care for his new baby and defend Eden, I could tell he was struggling to stay calm.

‘Bane shouldn’t drive for a few days at least,’ Liam pointed out. ‘Or has Mick arranged someone to take you?’

Tim interrupted so fast he almost choked on his mouthful of Meatlovers. ‘I’m driving them,’ he announced, possibly to save me from having to lie again. Was I that bad at it? Or was he worried we’d leave him behind?

Liam looked Tim over as if assessing his trustworthiness and then nodded, apparently satisfied. Then he peered around the doorway to where Bane was asleep on the couch. ‘Even so, you might want to wait a day or so for him to recover,’ he advised. ‘I remember the aftermath of the last concussion I had. A long car trip would have been torture.’

He was right. And besides, I had no idea where to start looking for either Jake or Dallmin. Perhaps some planning would be wise.

As Liam gathered himself up to leave, Aunt Lily gasped. ‘Oh! That spare fruit hamper I brought over yesterday? Don’t let anyone eat any of it.’

Looking both pale and cross, Liam nodded, gave my shoulder one last squeeze and then headed out the door.

A thick fog stifled the morning air, blocking my view no matter how hard I squinted out through the lounge room window. Our old floral curtains outlined the view like a tacky ornate frame around a blank canvas.

I turned away from the window to watch Bane sleeping with Inara curled around his elbow. A faded bruise coloured the corner of his jaw, so minor compared with his other injuries that even he probably hadn’t noticed it, and his long dark eyelashes twitched in time with some dark dream. Even so, his face still looked more serene than I had seen him for a long time. As gently as possible, I stretched out my back, hoping my stiffness wasn’t enough to disrupt his sleep. I’d spent an uncomfortable night on a blow-up mattress while he’d slept on the couch. After much arguing with my aunt, I’d convinced her to move back into her cottage and let me take the floor, as I hadn’t wanted to move my Guardian anyway once he was finally allowed to sleep properly.

Shivering in my recently conjured jeans and t-shirt, I considered finding some socks and shoes. The fire was out, even though I could have easily fed it during the night. It hadn’t occurred to me to bother, and now I felt bad because Bane was unwell and should probably be kept as warm as possible. Trying hard not to disturb him, I draped my own discarded blanket over his hips. Inara looked up at me, her tail twitching, but a quick scratch under her chin was payment enough to settle her back to sleep with her chosen companion before I turned to leave.

Despite feeling tired from waking every couple of hours overnight to check if Bane was okay, I still relished the idea of going outside to do normal morning chores like feeding the chickens and tossing out hay to the horses. Foggy mornings were my favourite, when cobwebs glistened like jewels strung between fence rails, all noises were muffled, and the farm was shrouded with mystery. Unfortunately, the mystery of what was hiding in the fog usually just ended up being unexpected sheep poo. Common sense overcame my laziness as I thought it through and turned in search of my boots.

‘Morning, miracle girl,’ Bane mumbled as he grabbed my hand on my way past the couch.

‘Good morning, Lance Corporal Millard. Did you sleep well?’

‘Not really. Some crazy angel kept waking me up every time I closed my eyes. I hated every moment,’ he teased. Given the number of kisses he’d stolen each time I’d woken him, I highly doubted that.

‘Well then, perhaps you should get a couple more hours now. I’m going out to do some chores. I won’t be long.’

He closed his eyes and tilted his head, assessing the level of danger I was in to see if it was safe enough for me to go alone.

‘Honestly, Bane. You can’t follow me everywhere.’

‘Don’t I know it. If I could, we’d both be safely tucked away in paradise playing harps or something. Never mind, I’ll just have to settle for a kiss before you go outside.’ Pulling me closer, he started to sit up and then winced.

‘Slowly!’ I scolded. ‘I don’t want Tim on my case. He’s even worse than Aunt Lily.’

‘Yeah, except I don’t think he would dare try to tell you off for anything. Not after yesterday.’ He lay back down and tentatively touched the lump behind his ear. Although it had gone down a lot, it still looked very painful.