You kept punching until your undershirt changed color from your sweat. Then you steadied the punching bag and dragged your shirt up to your face to wipe your forehead. I caught a glimpse of your stomach, smooth and muscled, like ridges of sand. You moved to a metal pole attached to the side of the veranda. You fastened your hands around it, then pulled your chin up and lowered it slowly. Your biceps swelled with each lift, stretching your skin tight enough to snap. You were the strongest man I’d ever seen. If you decided to, you could kill me so easily. Just a little push from your hands and I’d be strangled; just a little punch and my brain would explode. There’d be nothing I could do. One blunt knife under a mattress was no match against you.
Later I held the knife I’d taken from the kitchen. I tested its sharpness by cutting a shallow line across my finger. I imagined it was your throat I was sliding it across. A slit of blood appeared, dropping down to stain the sheet. Then I leaned over to the wooden base and cut more notches into it. I figured about sixteen days had passed, but I made an extra one in case I’d got it wrong. Seventeen days.
You were there when I woke.
“Are you ready to see the Separates?” you asked. “I’ll take you today.”
I frowned. “I’ve seen them.”
I rolled over, trying to forget about my failed escape attempt, but you moved around the bed so you could see me wherever I turned. You were smiling as you watched me.
“You haven’t seen them properly,” you said. “Not with me.”
Then you left. When I got up, quite a long time later, you were still waiting in the kitchen. When you saw me, you opened the door.
“Come on,” you said.
So I followed you. I don’t know why really. I could say it was because I had nothing else to do except stare at four walls, or that I wanted to try escaping again, but I think there was more to it than that. When I was trapped in the house, it felt like I’d already died. At least when I was with you, it felt like my life mattered somehow…. No, that’s not really it; it felt like my life was being noticed. It sounds weird, I know, but I could tell that you liked having me around. And that was better than the alternative, that feeling of emptiness that threatened to drown me every hour of being in that house.
You led the way through the sand. At the fence you stopped to pull back the opening. You held the chicken wire away for me to step through. We walked in silence until we got to the edge of the pathway. You waited, your hand resting against the trunk of one of the trees that grew around the edge of the rocks. I hung back a little, keeping a few feet between us.
“You’re not scared?” you asked. “Of going in?”
“Should I be?” I looked away. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing, it’s just …” You shook your head quickly. “One of Dad’s stockmen told me something once. He told me there were spirits in the rocks near here, that the rocks had a reason for being, and a purpose…. He said that if I didn’t respect them, they would fall down and crush me. Scared me shitless, those stories.” You took a couple of steps until you were standing at the start of the pathway. You looked up at the boulders towering above you. “Since then I always greet these rocks first, before I enter. Take a moment to let them know I’m here.”
You touched the rocks with your finger, scraping off a little dust. Then you rubbed it between your thumb and forefinger before touching your lip. You glanced back at me before you started down the path.
After a second or two, I followed. I kept a good distance. My legs trembled a little, making me unsteady. Again I held my palms out against those huge walls, and walked with my legs on either side of the pipe. I didn’t like the low moaning of the wind whistling through. And I hated that the pathway into those rocks seemed to be the only way out, too. I felt like I was walking into a trap.
You went quickly, and were already leaning against a rough-barked tree when I got to the clearing. You were circling something small around your palm.
“Desert walnut,” you said.
You held it out to me. It felt as tough as a small stone; it looked like one, too. I tapped my nail against its hard shell.
“They talk when they’re cooked,” you said. “When their shells pop in the fire, they’re speaking to you…. That’s what people say. The first time I cooked these nuts, I thought it was the spirits from the rocks, telling me I was about to die.”
You smiled crookedly. Then you took the nut back and placed it in your pocket. You slapped your hand against the tree’s bark again as you passed.
“Turtujarti … gives you sweets, salt, nuts … shelter, too. She’s your friend out here if anything is.”
You moved across the clearing toward the two chicken cages. You pulled open the lid of the main cage and placed a handful of seeds and berries in the corner, then checked their water supply. The chickens flocked to the food. You looked for eggs, tutting when you couldn’t find any.
“They’re not healthy yet,” you murmured. “Still unsettled from the drive.”
You ran your hand down their bodies, talking softly to them. I looked at the way your fingers felt gently about their necks. Just a little more pressure from your strong hands and you would strangle them. You shut the lid. I stuck my finger through the cage and touched the feathers of the orangey one.
You checked the plants behind the chicken cages next.
“Minyirli, yupuna, bush tomato …” You spoke to them all like friends, naming them for me. You turned over their leaves and fruits, picking off insects.
Then you stood and followed the pipe toward the pool. You stepped confidently and noisily through the longer, scrubby grasses.
“Are there snakes?” I asked.
You nodded. “But if you make enough noise, they’ll go away. They’re scared, really.”
I didn’t want to, but I followed closer to you then. Every twig on the ground looked like a snake to me, until you stepped on them and snapped them.
At the pool, you leaned up against the tree arm that had caught me last time. You ran your hand over its smooth skin.
“Big Red,” you said, as if you were introducing me. “This is the fella that helps filter the shit from our water.”
You knelt down to the pool and dipped your hand under the surface, following the pipe down. Then, in one swift movement, you took your shirt off.
“Want a swim?” you asked. “I need to check the spring.”
I shook my head quickly, forcing my eyes away from your chest. Every inch was firm and brown. I’d never seen anyone so toned, so perfect, before, but I knew this wasn’t a good thing, your strength, and it made my heart falter as I thought about what you could do with it. I looked down at the ground instead. There were large black ants crawling around and over my boots. I shook one off as it tried to crawl up onto my leg.
“You can sit there,” you said. You nodded toward the ants. “They probably won’t bite.”
You waded out into the pool. I glanced at you once more before you dived down under the surface. Your back was tanned and straight, muscles rippling with each movement.
Another ant tried to crawl onto my skin, but I flicked it away. A bird above me somewhere made a cry like a witch’s cackle. Other than that, it was dead quiet.
On the way back, the only sound was our steps on the sand. I needed something to break through the quiet, the stillness of that place.
“Can I feed the chickens?” I asked. “Sometimes?”
You looked me over pretty slowly, sort of laughed, then nodded a little.
“Why not?” you said. “Maybe you’ll make ’em lay.”
Your shirt was draped across your shoulders, your body still wet from the pool. Beads of water clung to your skin. As we walked back to the house, I went ahead. I didn’t want you to see me looking at you.
Day Eighteen. You weren’t waiting when I got up. I opened the kitchen door and sat on the makeshift step. I looked out at the sand and the sand and the sand. I waited; for what, I don’t know.
The day got hotter around me. The flies whined and buzzed about my ears. A heat haze blurred the sky.
Then, quite suddenly, a flock of tiny chattering things flew past. They pinged and squeaked, like children stepping on their plastic toys. I tried to focus on the individuals within the flock. Each bird was about the size of my clenched fist, with a gray back and a bloodred beak. They wheeled and circled around the house for a while before zipping toward the Separates. I waited for ages after that, hoping they’d return.
The next day you were waiting for me.
“Let’s go,” you said.
I followed. I was beginning to hate the silence of that house, beginning to hate the passive depression I was sinking into. But you didn’t walk toward the Separates. Instead, you went toward the outbuildings. I hung back.
“I don’t want to go in,” I said when you stopped beside the doorway you’d shoved me through before.
“Come on,” you said. “I need to show this to you.”
You opened the door and went inside. I stood on the crate step and looked in from the doorway. You walked to the far end of the room and pulled open the curtains. Sunlight flooded in, illuminating the colors in that room: all the sand and flowers and leaves and paint. It looked like a mess at first, with everything strewn everywhere. Immediately my eyes scanned for anything that could harm me. The only thing I saw was a pile of rocks in one corner. As you walked over to them, I felt myself tense, ready to run.
But you didn’t pick them up. Instead you unscrewed your hip flask and poured drops of water onto the rocks. You scraped off parts of their wet surface onto a small saucer, spitting and mixing in your saliva to make a dark brown paste.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making paint.”
There was a woven grass basket near me, containing leaves, berries, and flowers. You walked over and carefully picked out some small red berries. You ground them into a red paste. You worked quickly and methodically, taking different colored bits of the environment and turning them into paint. I could feel the sun starting to burn the back of my neck so I took a step inside the painting shed and leaned against the wall.
You sat, folding your bare legs in front of you. You took a paintbrush from behind the rocks, dipped it into a rusty-colored paste, and started painting your foot. You painted long thin lines, making your skin like the texture of tree bark. You frowned as you focused. I wasn’t scared of you with your head down, concentrating, but I still watched you carefully. Right then, I almost believed you when you’d said you wouldn’t do anything to me.
“How long are you going to keep me for?” I asked quietly.
You didn’t look up from your painting. “I’ve told you,” you said. “I’m keeping you forever.”
I didn’t believe you. How could I? If I’d let myself believe that, then I might as well have fallen down dead right then. I sighed. It was approaching the middle of the day, the time where it became impossibly hot, the time when to even walk a few feet became an Olympic event. I kept watching you.
Soon the paint on your foot stretched around your ankles and lower legs. You painted leaves on your shins and red, spiky grasses stretching up the backs of your calves. You smiled as you noticed me still watching.
“You don’t remember meeting me, do you, that first time?” you asked.
“Why should I?” I said. “It didn’t happen.”
You finished painting your spikes, then filled the space between them with black charcoal.
“It was Easter,” you began. “Spring. There was sunlight hanging in the branches. It wasn’t cold; primroses were already in the hedges. You’d gone to the park with your parents.”
“What park?”
“Prince’s Park. The one at the end of your street.”
I slid down the wall, once again shocked by what you knew about me. Your eyes were searching into mine, refusing to believe that I couldn’t remember. You spoke slowly, as if by doing so you were forcing the memory into my head.
“Your parents were reading papers on a bench, in front of the rhododendrons. They’d brought a scooter for you to play with, but you left it lying on the grass. Instead you went into the flower beds nearby. I could hear you, talking to the daffodils and tulips, whispering to the fairies that lived inside their petals. Each separate flower had a different family inside it.”
I hugged my legs tight to me. No one knew this. I hadn’t even told Anna about these games. You noticed my shock, and looked a little smug when you continued.
“You walked carefully through the flower bed, greeting each flower family … Moses, Patel, Smith. I found out later they were surnames from kids in your school. Anyway, you walked right through until you ducked under the heavy rhododendron buds and came into the bushes … my bushes. You found me there, curled up with my swag and half a bottle of booze, half-wasted, probably. But I’d been watching you, listening. I’d liked your little tales.” You smiled, remembering. “You asked me if I was looking for Easter eggs. We talked—you told me about your fairies and their flower houses. I told you about the Min Mins: the spirits who live in the trees around here and try to steal lost children. And you weren’t scared, like most people were of me back then…. You just looked at me like a regular person. I liked that.”
You were quiet as you drew an egg shape onto your thigh, then put little dots of brown paint in the middle.
“The robin’s egg I gave you,” you said, pointing at it. “I’d found it under an oak tree. It had a hole at the top where I’d sucked the yolk through earlier that day. I don’t know why I’d been keeping it … keeping it for you, I guess.” While I watched, you colored in the egg shape with a light sandstone color. “Fierce birds, robins,” you said. “They’ll defend their home to the death.”
I could feel my heart racing. I knew this memory. Of course I did. But how did you?
“That was a tramp in those bushes,” I said. “It was somebody thin and old and hairy and probably deranged. It wasn’t you.”
You smiled. “You said my roof of pink flowers was the nicest ceiling you’d ever seen.”
“No! That was just a tramp I stumbled across. Not you. You’ve got it wrong.”
You chewed on the corner of your thumb. “It’s amazing what living on the streets in a city can do.” You bit off a piece of your nail and spat it aside. “Anyway, you were a child then; I’d look old to you regardless, even if I was barely an adult myself.”
I wiped my palms over my T-shirt. Every part of me felt clammy. You noticed, but you kept going anyway, enjoying my confusion.
“You said it was the best Easter egg you’d ever found. You carried it in your hand like it was the most precious thing. It reminded me of what I used to be like, when I lived out here…. It reminded me of finding something wild and knowing it was important somehow, to something.” You drew another circle over your knee, then filled it in with specks. “It made me realize where I belonged … not in a city park with cheap store-bought spirits, but out here in the land I knew, with the real ones.” You covered your kneecap with more circles, still not looking at me. “The next day I found the nest the robin’s egg had come from. It was abandoned and tattered, but I knew you’d want it. Finding that, finding you … it was a sign.”
“What do you mean ‘sign’?” My throat had become so tight it was hard to get the words out. Because I did remember a robin’s nest. I’d found it on my windowsill early one morning. I’d never known where it had come from. I tried to swallow. You were watching me, nodding slightly at something you saw in my expression.
“A sign that a person could do something different …,” you continued. “That they could be hooked by a drug more wild than alcohol. I got thinking about what I really wanted then, from life. And this is it … painting the land, living here, being free …” You swept your hand around the room. A fleck of color flicked from your paintbrush and landed somewhere. “So, meeting you … I guess it was the first step to making all this happen…
. I got a job, learned to build, researched …”
A small, tight sound came out of my throat, stopping you midsentence. I clenched my fist against the floor, digging my knuckles into the wood.
“You’re sick,” I hissed. “You were obsessed with a ten-year-old girl, then abducted her six years later? What kind of freak …?”
“No.” Your mouth tightened. “That’s not how it happened. I wasn’t obsessed….” Your face was set and hard, a murderer’s face. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“I don’t want to know.”
You let the paintbrush clatter to the ground and crossed the room in three strides. I crawled back along the floor, toward the door. But you bent down and grabbed my leg.
“Let me go!”
You pulled me to you. “I’m not letting you go, and you will learn something about me.” Your voice was even and steady, your jaw tense. I could smell the sour earth scent of your breath, feel your fingers tight around me. “I’m not a monster,” you growled. “You were a child then. The moment I knew I wanted you came later.” You blinked and looked away, suddenly hesitant.
I tried again to get free. I kicked out at your kneecap. But you pressed my arms against my sides like I was some sort of bird, stopping my flight.
“I’ve watched you grow up,” you said.
I wriggled my shoulders. But you were so strong I could hardly move.
“Each day your parents pushed you into being like them,” you continued, “pushed you into a meaningless life. You didn’t want that, I know you didn’t.”
“What do you know about my parents?” I shouted.
You blinked again. “Everything.”
I gathered saliva in my mouth. I spat it at you. “You’re a liar,” I said.
Your eyes narrowed as you felt the spit slide down your cheek. Your fingers gripped tighter. They were so tight around me, I thought my ribs were about to crack. My breath came in a rasp. But you still held me there, glowering.