The Sentinels of Eden, Books 1-4

Chapter 36

Chapter 31

I carefully fed the rolled up fire blanket through the hole to Harry. He draped it over his head and crouched down so it gave some protection from the sword’s heat.

‘I’ve felt the boundary in a few places,’ he said. ‘It’s always right up against the cliff face, though, so there’s nowhere to go. I’ve spent all day exploring caves and tunnels with no luck. They all either stop or twist around and head back out again. I get the impression the boundary runs along the full length of the cliff. At the southern edge I felt nothing. Like a wall that just finishes where the cliff starts to descend to the river. I haven’t been to the northern end but I would guess that the same thing happens. The Event Horizon has been neatly set up to coincide with the one place that’s physically inaccessible.’

‘Except for this tunnel,’ Noah pointed out, moving my hair aside so he could see what was going on.

‘Correct, except for this tunnel, which is guarded by the sword,’ Harry confirmed.

‘Clever design, really,’ I noted, elbowing my best friend away. I had to appreciate the tidiness of the system. Although why would there be an entire stretch of boundary wall that Cherubim could pass through if there was no way for us to do it? I had a theory but Bane wasn’t going to like it. And if I was right, it would only work from this side, so there was still no way to get home again. ‘So what’s the landscape like where you are?’ I asked him, checking over my shoulder to make certain that Bane and Tessa had remained outside as promised.

‘Magnificent. Everything a garden should be. It’s quite open, but the fields are lush and green, not like home. There’s a bright river running through this valley, lined with trees so tall that you feel like an ant under them. And flowers everywhere. The air smells …’ He shook his head, at a loss for words. ‘I haven’t been out of the valley area, but I believe there’s a whole world here. I wish you could see it.’ His eyes had a new shine behind them. I had never heard him speak so effusively before, and I could hear the passion in his voice. I wanted in. And if the landscape was as open as he said, my idea should work.

‘Is there any way for you to get to the top of the cliff, Harry?’ Noah asked, making me wonder whether he had arrived at the same conclusion.

‘Not easily,’ he replied. ‘I would take me weeks. As I mentioned, the river cuts through it to the south of here. The northern end just gets higher till it joins a mountain range—a pretty spectacular one, actually.’

Noah’s gaze flickered to me. He had the same look on his face as when he had come up with the ice-blocking plan, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. Even if Harry had been able to get to the top of the cliff, he couldn’t jump off it through the boundary because it was the wrong direction, but we could. The next step would be for us to try to find out if the boundary ran vertically as well. Could we cross into Eden somewhere along the top of the ridge?

While Noah stepped back to draw himself a little map on the floor with his finger, I took the opportunity to ask Harry as many questions as I could before he disappeared again.

‘Please,’ I begged. ‘I need to know if you found her.’

His smile was sad. ‘Yeah, she’s here.’

‘But?’ I prompted. There was definitely one coming.

‘But she doesn’t believe me when I tell her you want to see her.’

‘What?’ I spluttered. ‘Why wouldn’t I want to see her? Does she think I’m angry with her?’

‘Aren’t you?’

I hesitated. ‘Well, yes. Of course I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see her.’

Harry shook his head. ‘That isn’t the problem anyway. The reason she doesn’t believe me is because she thinks you’re dead.’

I found I had somehow sat down, and Noah’s face was close to mine, full of concern. His luminous green eyes were brimming with tears.

‘Lainie, are you all right?’

‘My mother. She really is alive,’ I told him in an unsteady voice.

‘I know. Mum told me. I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up.’ He seemed a bit hurt. ‘Why didn’t you talk to me?’

My hands were trembling, but I wasn’t crying, thankfully. ‘Because I wanted to know for sure. If I’d said it out loud and then found that she was dead after all, it would have been worse.’

‘Lainie logic,’ Harry said to Noah, as if he was trying to be helpful. And Noah nodded back as if he actually had been.

‘Why does she think I’m dead?’ I asked Harry.

‘That’s a bit hard to explain. I honestly don’t have the words.’

‘Then what about if I come to her?’

He smiled. ‘That might convince her.’ He adjusted the blanket, shifting his feet about. They were bare and most likely burning. I was running out of time again.

‘And the music? Did you find out why it’s so sad?’

All three of us automatically looked over to the tiny streamlet, trickling its way between the rocks over by the wall. Poignant echoes of loss and tragedy bounced silently around the cavern, heard only in our minds.

‘I did,’ Harry said. ‘But that one is even harder to explain. And even harder to fix. Maybe if you come, it will help.’

As if I needed any more excuses.

Then I broached the last of my most urgent questions, the one that had been filling my brain with all sorts of panic-inducing scenarios.

‘Harry,’ I muttered, leaning into the hole again, ‘just what are we capable of, exactly?’

His eyes flicked up at me, but he didn’t answer.

‘I mean, what happened that morning, with the fire … I don’t really know how I did it. What if I do something wrong next time? We were messing with things we weren’t prepared for. Shouldn’t we have some sort of training or something? I mean, I can’t even have a pet snake without a licence, so how is it that I’m allowed to mess with the weather?’ Beside me, Noah nodded, fiddling with my braid the way he often did when he was worried.

‘Your authority frightens you.’

‘Damn straight!’ I agreed in a strangled voice. ‘How did you learn to control it all?’

‘Control it? Lainie, I hate to tell you, but I didn’t even know what we could do until I … built … this!’ he said, waving his hand at the huge pile of rocks separating us. ‘And I was terrified. I’ve never even heard of any of us doing anything so …’ He hunched deeper into the protection of his blanket.

‘Never? So there’s no precedent for any of this? But how do we know what we’re supposed to do? What if I go crazy and destroy the universe or something? Surely there are some rules, or limits, or something!’ My voice was getting unattractively squeaky, even in the hushed tone I was trying to stick to.

Harry pushed me back gently, reached through the hole and picked something shimmery and small from one of the rocks. It was a Christmas beetle—they were everywhere at this time of the year. Biting thoughtfully on his tongue, he examined it with eyes that held the very essence of peace. ‘My uncle used to love these. He used to spend ages just watching them. He was fascinated by their shine, and incredible colours. I asked him once why he wasted so much time watching bugs walk around, and he said, “When it all becomes too much to handle, I ground myself with the things of the Earth. The small things. The scent of the dirt, the feel of the rocks, the dance of the insects.” ’ Harry smiled and placed the beetle on my shoulder. ‘We belong to the Earth, Lainie-Bug. We were sent here in human form for a reason. If you don’t know what to do, then just be human.’

Right. Like that was ever a simple thing to do.

‘Eden bugs, Harry?’ I rescued the poor creature before it crawled under my collar, and he laughed at the reminder.

‘Actually, yes. After all, Eden is just a compilation of the best the Earth has ever had to offer, didn’t you know?’

I told him that if that was true, then I was going to be very disappointed if there weren’t any dinosaur-related fire-lizards.

We arranged to meet again in three days’ time. We needed a chance to explore. I also had a meeting in town to attend the following day. Councillor Lleyland had requested a meeting with the Kolsom representative. It was time for me to meet Mr Alex Beckinsale properly.

The dusty old receptionist showed us into the councillor’s air-conditioned meeting room and I poured myself and Aunt Lily a glass of water from the jug on the table. My hands trembled with uncharacteristic nervousness. There had to be a reason we were called to attend a meeting in person and it wasn’t likely to be a positive one. Humming under my breath, I fidgeted like an ant on a hot plate as we waited for Councillor Lleyland and Mr Beckinsale. The water tasted weird.

The moment they walked in together I knew we were in trouble. Not just because I recognised the lawyer as the same man I had seen in the library, but also because they had obviously just held a separate private meeting without us present.

The mining executive was again dressed in an expensive suit and tie that looked mighty uncomfortable in the heat. He looked like the sort of man that clipped his nose hair every Friday, and his chiselled features were backed up with a charming smile that would have fooled most people. I was not most people.

The councillor introduced us all politely, but as I shook hands with the young lawyer a multitude of images smashed into me that were so vivid I struggled not to react violently. As it was I held onto his hand a bit too long as I tried to absorb everything I was seeing. His smile widened, probably assuming I was being swayed by his charm, and I snatched my hand back awkwardly.

The first few minutes of polite chitchat were a complete blur to me as my mind frantically tried to sort and filter the information I had been hit with. Never before had I seen such vivid images of someone. Usually I only got fleeting impressions, but like a super-fast preview to a movie, I had just seen jumbled images of this man being picked on as a boy by his classmates for being too clever at school. I had seen him get drunk and cheat on his girlfriend. I had also seen an image of his father hitting his mother as he screamed in frightened outrage, cowering under the kitchen table with his toy dinosaur. Later that night his mother had bundled him up, and they had snuck out of the house as she’d rescued them both from an abusive situation. I watched him as a teenager again as he arrogantly asked the school counsellor which career would be the most likely to make him rich, then in the same moment saw a vision of him years earlier, crying because his mother had sold his computer so they would have enough money for rent. There were plenty more. Including a frighteningly familiar scene out in the bush during the night.

The vivid splattering of images was random and confusing, but they all had one thing in common. In each vision I could feel exactly what he had felt. Sitting as still as I could, I struggled not to either burst into tears of sympathy or stand up and slap him across the face. This man was incredibly ambitious—and not in a healthy way. Too many of the images contained intense feelings of either fear or fury. I had no doubt that Mr Beckinsale was capable of violence. It bubbled just under the surface, controlled more by his intelligence than any real self-discipline. I wished I could just dismiss the images as some sort of wild daydream, but they felt far too real, and I knew I was getting the information because he was a threat to the one thing I was born to protect. I remained frozen, wondering just what this man was scheming to do next. I didn’t have long to wait.

Councillor Lleyland cleared his throat. ‘Now that the shire has decided to back Kolsom’s application for a full mining licence, I believe it is my duty as a council officer to ensure the relevant landowners are fully informed,’ he announced to us with an ingratiating smile. ‘I’ll provide any assistance you require to negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement with Mr Beckinsale here.’ He was trying hard to ignore the icy glare that Aunt Lily was directing at him and I wondered what he had been offered to make him change his attitude so completely from the last public meeting he’d attended—or had he just been telling the community what we wanted to hear? Generally I tried to assume the best of people but after what I had just ‘seen’ of Mr Beckinsale I couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing any of the councillor’s dirty laundry.

‘And just what area of land are you applying to mine?’ Aunt Lily asked in a dangerously saccharin voice.

‘The area south of Mokin Road down to the southern end of the state park, and extending east to the river,’ Mr Beckinsale stated smoothly. My heart thumped wildly. That included my valley, and the caves. Even though I had known it was coming I could still feel the anger churning inside me like a waking beast. Drilling holes and extracting gas wasn’t even the real problem. The problem was simply that no one was allowed to be anywhere near that area. Ever. Narrowing my eyes, I wondered how well hard hats would protect the miners from an attack by a thousand angry cockies.

‘Here are the documents outlining the reasons we think the government should agree to the compulsory acquisition of a small part of your land, including a very generous offer of compensation.’ He slid a thick pile of papers over to her with a smile, as if he genuinely expected us to be convinced by the offer of money.

My glorious aunt looked him directly in the eye. ‘Not a snowball’s chance in Hell!’

‘Ms Gracewood, this isn’t an access agreement. There’s nothing for you to sign. This is an application to the state government for the compulsory acquisition of the land. I’m simply informing you of the process as per company policy. Our full licence will be approved in the next week or two and then mining will commence straight away.’ The electricity in his voice could have made a dead frog jump. He was not going to be at all intimidated by anything we said. Or so he thought.

‘Excuse me, Mr Beckinsale,’ I said, trying to sound demure. ‘Would you please outline the major arguments in the document for your application? I will read it all as soon as I have the chance, of course, but if you could just save us some time?’

He threw me the barest glance and then addressed his answer to my aunt. ‘We’ve discovered a subterranean gas pocket in the area that’s of a size and grade that will be a viable source of fuel for many years to come. We believe that it’s in the best economic interest of the community to mine this resource.’

‘And just how did you obtain the data on this area?’ I asked. ‘Your exploration licence didn’t permit you access, and no permission was granted to you by the landowners.’ My voice didn’t usually sound this composed when I was angry, but all I could think of was the way Bane had accused me of always storming off instead of listening.

‘Kolsom surveyors tried their best to remain in the area specified in the licence, but without appropriate signage it appears that they followed the seam too far to the east. They stopped their activities as soon as they realised, and the error was duly reported to the relevant authorities.’

Aunt Lily glared at the ‘relevant authority’, who was fiddling with his pen and pretending not to notice.

‘Nevertheless, the data collected provides sufficient evidence that there is a very large pocket in the heart of the ravine and so we felt it appropriate to submit the application to mine it.’

‘How will you get to it? That valley is inaccessible. And it’s all old growth forest so you won’t be allowed to just bulldoze your way in.’

I gasped as I suddenly realised why he’d tried to burn it. To get past the environmental restrictions. Land that had already been cleared by ‘natural’ disaster would be pointless for the environmental agency to try to protect. I knew what he’d done. And by the razor sharp look he gave me, he now knew that I knew.

‘Nothing is ever really inaccessible,’ he said. ‘We’ll find a way.’

Words buzzed just under my tongue at the threat in his voice, but they were unformed and directionless. I just couldn’t think of what to do. If we had been outdoors, he might have copped a good swoop from a magpie though.

‘I see. Well, I expect there are all sorts of hoops you still have to jump through to get this application approved. Just the Native Land Act alone would be quite a hurdle, I imagine.’

‘This area is not listed on the Aboriginal Heritage Register, so it shouldn’t take too long,’ he smirked.

My tongue flipped over a word that tasted like iron and bedrock, and the windows began to rattle in their frames. It frightened me so much I gripped the edge of the table and began to hum again to stop myself from forming any more words. Bane was right. I had to learn to calm down and stop behaving like such a drama queen before I broke something. Like a mountain. Or gravity. Aunt Lily stared at me with her mouth slightly open.

‘May I just point out that minor earthquakes are a natural occurrence,’ Mr Beckinsale said as he put a steadying hand on the jug of water. ‘Nothing to do with Kolsom’s activities, I can assure you.’ He gave a short laugh as if he expected us to be amused at the coincidence, but not even the councillor smiled.

I laid my palms flat on the table and recited the list of elements until the ground was still. And then I practised under my breath to make sure my next words would come out in English.

‘Take care, Mr Beckinsale. There are more important things in this world than money,’ I said, sliding the pile of documents back to him. ‘Aboriginal sacred sites are legally protected whether they’re registered or not. And it won’t be difficult to get this one listed regardless.’ I nodded to Aunt Lily to show them the photos. She came to my aid because I hadn’t been confident that I would be able to do it—the cave art was so close to Eden that I had felt the usual guilt just showing her. It must have been necessary though, because I had no trouble talking about it to the suited executive. That gave me some confidence that I was on the right track as to how to deal with this threat. We would have to be careful; the last thing we needed was for a host of people to turn up on our doorstep to check out the paintings. Luckily, there were thousands of sites listed on the register so hopefully one more wouldn’t attract too much attention.

The councillor looked uneasy but Mr Beckinsale exhaled like a bull about to charge. Just how hard could I push him? He had invested a lot into this project, and had already risked lives to get what he wanted.

‘We can still mine the valley and leave this site alone,’ he said.

‘But this area is full of cave systems, and the valley has been left relatively undisturbed up until now. I’m certain that my people will want to keep it that way,’ I said, to remind him of my heritage. ‘Sacred sites don’t just extend to rock paintings, you know. I expect that the remaining members of the local Indigenous community will want the whole valley registered given such evidence of cultural significance.’ Thank you, Nalong College curriculum.

He leant towards me, eyes full of malice. ‘From my understanding, there aren’t many members left. The government probably won’t act on your word alone, given the conflict of interest you have in this matter. I suppose we could consult with Harry Doolan, if he was available?’

My heart skipped a beat. If he started to ask questions regarding Harry’s whereabouts things would get tricky. He had no close family that I was aware of, but that didn’t mean that no one would investigate if we couldn’t explain where he was.

‘Harry is currently on long service leave,’ Aunt Lily piped in. ‘He’s gone Walkabout and we don’t know when he’ll be back.’

Nice one. If we could establish that the valley was one of the footprints of the ancestors that formed part of a Songline that Harry was following, it would only aid our claim to get the valley registered. The best part was that it wasn’t untrue. If the Garden of Eden didn’t count as a sacred site, and the path to it didn’t count as a Songline, then I didn’t know what would.

She continued smoothly, ‘I have no doubt that when he returns, he’ll be able to provide whatever information the Aboriginal Affairs Department need.’

The lawyer stayed silent. I could sense his fury just barely controlled. I would have liked to have felt smug or relieved that my plan seemed to be working but all I felt was dread.

And when the meeting finally finished, Bane met us just outside the door, and his eyes locked on to Mr Beckinsale’s face with a fury I had only seen in him once before. And the dog had not survived it.