The Sentinels of Eden, Books 1-4

Chapter 18

Chapter 16

The familiarity of the rendered brick farmhouse with its clipped roses and homemade garden sculptures calmed my jumpy nerves as we climbed the three steps up onto the Ashbrees’ porch the next day. It was a relief when Nicole answered the door. With a bright expression that showed she was hoping to get a reaction out of me, she told us that Noah was in town with his new girlfriend, and I could see her smugness grow as she scrutinised Bane hovering behind me. She clearly assumed there was gossip to be spread. Luckily I’d already told Noah about him coming to work on the farm.

‘It’s “Ben” now, is it?’ was all he’d said. I’d been trying hard to get used to calling him by his real name, out loud at least. Still, Noah hadn’t sounded pleased at the news and it would have been more than awkward if he’d answered the door and I’d had to ask his permission for us to go for a swim without him. Especially after the last argument we’d had. It was bad enough having to ask Nicole as it was. Luckily Mrs Ashbree found a job for Nicole to do before she could ask to come along. Naturally she assumed we wanted time alone. She wasn’t wrong, just not for the right reasons.

The Ashbree kids and I had paddled down the river on mattresses plenty of times before, but we always stopped and got out before the river got down to our fence line. This time we would need to explore a lot farther. We had brought with us a small plastic drum with a screw-on lid for our supplies, so we took off our shoes and socks and stuffed them, with our phones, into a plastic bag inside it, and then tied it to my mattress with a bit of rope. I left my T-shirt and shorts on over my bathers, having long since learnt that bikinis were not reliable when you hit the rapids. Then Bane put his shirt into the drum as well and I tried not to look but it was hard not to appreciate the view. He had really bulked up in the last couple of weeks of farm work. Possibly because he wasn’t throwing up anymore.

As I did a last minute check for air leaks, Bane eyed the mattresses dubiously. ‘Are you sure this is safe?’

Launching myself with a delighted yodel onto my mattress, I started to paddle downstream. ‘You tell me, Ben. Am I safe?’

I laughed as he scrambled to get on board his own restless mount to follow, because he made a sound like a squeaky toy when his chest hit the freezing water.

‘Please just don’t get too far ahead. I haven’t done this before, you know.’

‘Seriously?’ I spluttered. ‘How have you survived the summers here?’

‘In the river, like everyone else, just not on unsafe floatation devices. How the hell do I steer this thing?’

‘With your hands. But only if you have to. Let the river take you, it’s more fun that way … Oh, but watch out for sharp rocks.’ The current picked me up and sped me around the next river bend and I had to lean heavily to one side to avoid a huge slimy log that could have impaled my steed. I had forgotten how much fun this could be. I hadn’t done it in years. I missed having Noah there to race me. Somewhere behind me, I heard a squawk and a splash as Bane tried to figure out how to steer past the log.

Twenty minutes later we drifted slowly down a wide section of the river. We were surrounded by open paddocks and the sun was scorching, so naturally I dived off the mattress to cool down. Bane soon joined me. Bracing myself, I got ready to dunk my head underwater. Perhaps if I was prepared for the music I could prevent myself from crying like a weaned calf. Cool water drew the heat from my scalp deliciously.

Nothing else happened.

Holding my breath and pausing just beneath the surface, I could still hear the music, but it was far off, nothing like it was after graduation. It made a certain sense. The music must join the river near the cave somewhere. I could always try dunking my head in the river every few metres until I found where it started. Sadly that was the best lead I had.

We swam alongside the mattresses for a while, enjoying the feel of the insistent current. I watched Bane floating on his back, looking more relaxed than I had ever seen him before, and all of a sudden I realised I was genuinely anxious about what his reaction would be if it turned out that Eden was real. He just looked so serene and gentle, and I didn’t want him to go back to being so … hateful. It was obvious that things were easier for him now, given that he didn’t have to deal with nausea just to walk down to the shops anymore, but what was he going to say when he found out about me? About Eden? And what if I didn’t find the path at all? I was going to look like a right dork then.

Not long after our swim we reached the boundary between the Ashbree and Gracewood farms. We ducked under the token bit of wire fence and kept floating. None of the land had been cleared from here on in, until the river got much closer to our house, so I really didn’t know what to expect up ahead. We both started to look out for rocks that might puncture our little rafts. The bush gave us some shade, which was lovely, but it came with a plague of mosquitoes as payment.

A few minutes later Bane called out to me, sounding very agitated. I had been concentrating so hard on peering into the water that I hadn’t noticed the sound of rapids getting louder. These ones sounded messy, too. Within seconds he was calling me frantically so I began to back-paddle to let him catch up, and then the drum decided to take a different path around a rock than the one my mattress had taken and I was swung around with a jerk. Pulling hard on the rope, I tried to drag myself back to the rock to untangle things but the current was too strong. Still, I figured that at least it would give him a chance to get over to where I was. The rock had other ideas. The rotten thing turned out to be just slippery enough to let the rope slide over the top of it once it was pushed by enough water, and suddenly my mattress was free again. Of course, in its excitement, my wild beast of a mattress slipped out from under me and I spent the next few moments trying desperately to climb back on and failing miserably.

That was when I realised we were in real trouble.

As we came around a bend in the river the rapids got rougher and I could hear a roaring sound that was definitely unwelcome. The last thought I had as I plummeted over the edge of the waterfall was that I should have thought to bring the old bike helmets.