Sanguine

Chapter 3-2

‘Lainie,’ he repeated. Narrow path.

I had no idea my name meant anything, but ‘narrow path’ seemed appropriate for the way my life had funnelled me towards my destiny. It made me smile.

‘Pallano?’ I asked, drawing my knees up.

It means new moon, he signed, pointing to the moon. It wasn’t new. It was almost full. Again I wondered how much time had passed since I had come here.

Still catching my breath, I lay back and stared at the stars. They looked the same as they did in Nalong. All the familiar constellations waved at me happily. I guessed that meant we were still on Earth, or some alternate version of it, anyway.

You dance well, Pallano said with an adorable smile, watching me with an open expression as I pretended to watch the sky.

Thank you. It’s fun. Would you like to go back and dance some more? I could teach you, I signed.

He shook his head. I would like to talk to you some more.

Propping myself up on one elbow, I tilted my head at him and waited for him to speak first.

You were not here the last time I visited this valley. Are you a new child or did you come from far away? he asked.

It was a common question. For people who lived for such a long time it was unusual to meet someone new unless they travelled very far.

Both, I guess. Sort of. How was I supposed to explain? I didn’t try. I haven’t been here for long, I replied. I had learnt early on that even Annie was still considered a fresh new arrival, despite well over a decade of residence. My short time here was nothing. Has it been a long time since you were here last? I asked.

Not really. I travel a lot. I follow the moon shadows.

Moonshadow? Like the Cat Stevens song? A giggle escaped my lips as I had a sudden vision of him dressed in hippie clothes. Maybe I could tie-dye something for him. Composing myself quickly, I had to ask. What are moon shadows?

With a gigantic grin he lay back and pointed at the moon again. That is a moon shadow. Watch closely, it is beginning.

I mentally kicked myself for being so slow as I stared up in wonder. The moon wasn’t almost full, as I had first thought—it was completely full, except for the shadow that had been creeping over its surface as we talked. Pallano had come outside to view a lunar eclipse, and his timing was impeccable.

Sometimes this world casts a shadow on the moon, and I think it is beautiful. This valley is one of the best places to see them, so I watch many of them from here, he continued. He crossed his fingers behind his head.

How did you know it would happen tonight? I asked. The calculations for predicting eclipses were seriously complex, as far as I knew.

Pallano shrugged. There is a rhythm to them. Not difficult to work out. You just need to pay attention for a few decades and you will soon see the pattern. In forty-five more season cycles the glow-star will visit again, and in just two hundred and four more cycles the sun will be completely shadowed. I will return here for that one I think.

Oh. Right. Long lives. Still not used to it.

He turned to me with a cheeky smile. When you watch the sun shadow, hold some Fruit. Last time I watched, my eyes burned and I ran straight into a Tree trying to find some. It was pretty funny.

When I watch. In two hundred and four years’ time. The next total solar eclipse. Oh boy.

For a long time we just lay there as the moon slowly deepened to a reddish glow. I had read once that the dustier the Earth’s atmosphere was, the deeper red the moon would appear, and that a volcanic eruption prior to an eclipse would make it redder. Were there any volcanoes on this side of the Boundary? Or did the volcanoes on the other side still affect the moon we were seeing now? Would pollution on the other side affect the atmosphere here in any way? What would happen if the people here ever discovered space flight? Would they pass through some Boundary in the sky and not be able to return? And why did my brain always wander off on these weird tangents?

Pallano leant on his elbow watching me, not the moon, and I started to feel strange. Not uncomfortable, exactly, just unsure of what to do. I never questioned the motivations of anyone in Eden. Everyone here was completely trustworthy, but something was making me … nervous?

With a twitch of a smile he picked up a lock of my untidy hair and tucked it behind my ear. His touch came with a sudden flashback of Bane doing the exact same thing, and I sat up so rapidly that I nearly knocked him out with my elbow. Pallano looked amused, probably wondering what new game I was about to suggest. My heart was beating a million miles an hour. He smiled again, showing his dimples, and I stared back in confusion. He would be fun to learn about. Why was I so uneasy? I didn’t enjoy feeling like this. It was messy. So I stood up and left him alone on the hill and ran towards my sleeping tree. With a last glance back, I saw him watching me. His expression was wistful, but not hurt.

The streamlet meandered towards the river, calling me to follow it, but in my usual contrary fashion I headed upstream instead, keeping my attention on the lush vegetation growing near its edge. Some little tug made me want to see the dead Tree. I’d first seen it another lifetime ago and it hadn’t changed. Its willowy branches had all broken off, leaving a silvery trunk and a couple of jagged limbs, making it look like a trendy freeway sculpture. As always, it made me shudder to think that if, as a Cherub, Annie’s few slips into temptation had killed this one Tree so quickly, then what damage would a single tainted human do to the species? If it was possible to have nightmares in Eden, that would have been mine.

Annie had stopped eating the Living Fruit once Harry had told her that she had caused the damage. Nothing was worth that, not ever. No one in Eden ever suffered from Annie’s sort of malady. Her ailment came from events that could never happen on this golden side of the boundary, which was why us ‘outsiders’ were the only ones who could sicken the Trees like this.

Abstaining from the healing power of the Fruit had been hard on my mother. Too often I’d found her sitting by the river, hugging her knees and holding back tears so the others wouldn’t see. I’d done my best to comfort her and hoped maybe I’d helped a little. Over time, the music of the river had lost its sadness, as if her grief had been washed away. The Tree had not recovered.

An unusually wise part of me suggested that maybe she needed more than the Fruit to heal her. Maybe she needed to work through her grief before she could move on. Perhaps that was what I needed too. If I’d been on the other side of the Boundary I probably would have been advised to seek professional counselling. Not that I would have been able to talk about Eden to anyone. Even here I felt uncomfortable talking about the other side. Except with Annie. And I didn’t want to talk to her about Bane because she still struggled to even think about the Guardians. I would have to find someone else.

My hand trembled a bit when I laid it on the smooth hard trunk of the dead Tree. It looked lonely, like me. It had no leaves and yet still had its own stark beauty. My memories of Bane were the same. They were addictively beautiful, but could no longer bear fruit.

A few days later I received one of the biggest surprises I’d had in a long time. Annie and I were sitting against a tree eating lunch, watching Hollie learn to canter in circles around her patient mother and less patient fellow herd members, when a grey and white streak came bounding through the grass and bowled me over.

‘Bungee?’

The dog answered by sticking his wet nose in my ear and then rolling onto his back for a belly scratch.

Bungee had been one of the two sheep dogs we’d trained up to work over the last few years, both of whom had just run off and never returned. When we’d gone back to the dog breeders for the third time in four years, they’d asked us a whole lot of questions about how we treated our animals. Harry had intervened and reassured them that they were always very spoilt, and they’d believed him. Everyone trusted Harry. I wondered how Aunt Lily was going training up the new pups he’d ordered.

‘Well, aren’t you a clever boy?’ I told the Australian Koolie, scratching his ribs with both hands. ‘You found your way to Eden before I even knew it existed. But you were supposed to help us with the sheep, you slacker.’

Bungee didn’t look at all sorry. No sense of shame at all, which was probably why it wasn’t a problem that he was here. He rolled over to give Annie the honour of being allowed to scratch his belly as well, one pale blue eye laughing.

‘Nayn must be here,’ she said, pulling at Bungee’s ears. ‘He always seems to have a dog following him around. I had a feeling it was Nayn approaching. After a while, we can learn what people feel like.’

‘Nayn is the Cherub we’ve been sensing?’

‘You’re going to love him, Lainie.’

Sure enough, a few minutes later the old Cherub walked towards us across the meadow, stopping to scratch the zebra mare’s withers along the way. With weathered dark skin and sparkling eyes he looked much more like a traditional Aboriginal Elder than Harry ever had. Maybe if this guy had been my wise mentor, I would have taken things a bit more seriously. His white hair looked out of place here, but he had a bounce in his step that made me think he would have no trouble keeping up with the youthful locals.

Unlike the wise mentors of the movies, however, the man came straight up to me and hugged me so hard that my spine cracked. He started to speak to me out loud, but I couldn’t understand a word so I signed to him instead. With unreserved laughter he signed back that he had forgotten that language on the Other Side would change. He introduced himself as Nayn. He lived a long way from the Gateway, as he called it, and had felt the presence of a new Cherub and had come to meet me. He’d already met Annie years ago and she greeted him as an old friend.

As we sat and ate together, Nayn explained that he had once been a Sentinel on the other side, and had come to Eden shortly after his Guardian had crossed over. She had been old and very tired. So tired that one day she just didn’t wake up. He left his only son to lead the community and had come to Eden. He had never gone back. I asked if it had made him sad. Except that I had no sign for sad. I made one up. He knew what I meant.

She was ready to cross over. It was not a sad thing, but I still miss her.

I asked whether he ate the Fruit to make himself feel better.

No. Not for that. Our kind must be careful of the reasons why we eat. For years I longed to show my Guardian all the beautiful things here. She assured me that she already saw this perfection reflected in every rock and tree. She always insisted that one day she would scout a new land ahead of me, so that when I joined her she would be the one to show me around. Her crossing was as much of a celebration as any crossing here. That dark whisper that tried to tell me otherwise never had a hold on me. I never felt the temptation to forget any of it. As I keep telling Annie, forgetting is not healing. His wise brown eyes looked over at my mother. She was climbing a tree with Dallmin, who had noticed Bungee running through the eating area and followed him to come and say hello. She is starting to heal now, Nayn smiled.

Astonished, I looked again at my friend Dallmin with the curly hair and flying addiction. He was cradling her as he helped her down from the tree. Annie was laughing with him like a schoolgirl. Was it possible to be happy with someone else after losing your Guardian? She certainly looked happier when she was with him than at any other time. I asked Nayn.

Cherubim and their Guardians have a life-bond. While both are alive it cannot be broken but when one is gone, the bond no longer holds. Then we are able to find another partner, but it is not the same.

Bane is gone, and our bond is broken, so why do I feel so uncomfortable at the thought of finding another? I feel so lonely and yet I don’t want to connect that way.

He patted me on the shoulder with one hand while he nicked my vegetable tart right off my plate and stuffed it into his mouth before I could react. When you discover what it is that you desire the most, he signed, you will know why.