Friday in Summer

Janice was prattling, ‘You know it’s a lot quicker leaving somewhere when you don’t have to worry about food, or clothes.’ Pause. ‘Or a first aid kit. You just pick up your feet and go.’ She was walking beside McKenzie who was still quiet even though we had been walking upstream for a good while. We had passed our first view of the cairn on the rocky tor some time ago. Since then we had been walking through a forest of trees. Janice had been trying to engage one of us in conversation for most of that time. Soon she would surely give up. She had tried talking with Jasper, but she still hadn’t quite got the tone right. There was still a hint of ownership in her voice. When she was in Grade 6 that was the tone that had put an end to our friendship. I had finally decided I did not want to be known as the friend (read ‘property’) of Janice Rhodes: Lady of the manor. Especially as she lived in a house just up the road from me.

The river to our right babbled away from us. Although we were walking uphill, it was at a very gentle pace. Suddenly the forest finished. There had been a sense of burning for some time, together with a gentle keening from the voice of the Valley. Now we could see why. We all stopped at the edge of the forest and looked at the devastation beyond.

The land itself was level. A good place for planting, as the Clan had discovered. But it was obvious that reaping had finished. In the tradition of all good farmers, returning the goodness of one year to the soil for the next, the standing stalks of the crop had been burned. There was still smoke rising from a field on the other side of the river. Rising and moving off towards the mountains. Why, I wondered, was there no smell?

Janice was shocked into silence. I could see why. It was a common enough sight in our world, but here, the burning looked savage.

Hamish spoke, in a voice that showed he was happy for anything to take his mind off what he was thinking about. ‘This is the Levels. The Clan have got what they wanted. Now they burn the rest. They really have no idea about how things work here. Even after all this time, they still burn off what would renew itself if they left it. We tried to tell them when we first came to understand the Valley, but they didn’t want to risk it. They said they didn’t want the people here getting their crops for free. Dad said they came in, saw the best piece of land for cropping and claimed it. Just that. Stood on the edge of the land and yelled: “This is ours now. Nobody else can use it!” Pretty basic. And stupid.’ We all looked in silence again at the burnt land. ‘We’ll cut across the fields to the bridge. None of the Clan will be here. They will have taken the crop back to store.’

So we set off, but as soon as I set foot on the burnt soil, I knew I couldn’t do it. Janice also jumped back from her first step.

‘Hamish.’ she called. ‘Hamish, we can’t go across. It hurts.’ Jasper hadn’t even moved. He sat at the edge of the river, waiting for us to discover the obvious.

Hamish turned, disbelief on his face. ‘What’s the matter? It doesn’t hurt your feet; just walk between the standing stalks.’

‘It’s not that, McKenzie.’ I explained, ‘We can feel the Valley’s pain. Everywhere else, the land is offering healing and comfort, but here, the Valley needs healing. Can’t you feel it?’

‘Sure, but you get used to it.’

Janice spoke: ‘I don’t think I could get used to this. It’s like …’ she stopped, searching for the right description.

‘It’s like a discordant note in a soothing melody.’ I tried.

‘A misspelled word on a page of text.’ We looked at each other, smiling ruefully. ‘But worse.’ Janice said it, but I agreed.

McKenzie stared at us intently. ‘It’s true then? You are both from the originals?’ He walked towards us, recalling information, until he was standing too close to me. ‘There was Jock and Friday. So that’s you, Douglass and Jasper. And you must be Rhodes.’ turning to Janice, but still standing way too close to me. ‘So who am I?’ He yelled this. ‘Who the hell was the thief? There was Sidebottom, Rhodes’s lackey. And Mossman, McKenzie’s betrayer. But I am not one of them. I refuse to be one of them.’ and he pushed me, with all the pent up anger that he had held in since we were kidnapped by the villagers. ‘Why should I be the thief? My name is McKenzie. Even in our world, the place is named after McKenzie. Not some non-existent Douglass.’ He was pushing me closer and closer to the edge of the river. Then he hit me, or at least he hit where I would have been if I hadn’t taken a dive for the water.

It was deeper than I had thought, and the current was moving more swiftly than it had appeared, so my safe option turned out to require more than a swim. Added to this was the unexpected sensation of being underwater and not needing to breathe.

We hadn’t been able to get McKenzie to talk about his experience underwater, so I was not prepared for the multitude of sounds and their clarity underwater. For the first while, I was happy to be washed downstream while I listened to the music of the water. There was a definite contemporary Celtic timbre to the music. Pipes, whistles, flutes, flowing saxophone and harmonious voices sang in my ears. I tried to experience as much as I could to take it apart musically, as I was used to doing. But then all I wanted to do was rest in the Jeff Johnson/Brian Dunning simulation, as I was rolled further and further downstream.

I had automatically closed my eyes, but after one particularly vigorous roll I opened them. I could see out of the water to where Jasper was keeping pace with me. The water was shallower here, so I sat up, the music suddenly cut off as soon as my head left the water. I wanted to plunge it back, to live underwater, but Jasper looked at me from the left bank, and I knew I had to be elsewhere. McKenzie and Janice were nowhere to be seen, but there was someone standing on the right bank of the river, looking at me. As I slowly unfolded myself and walked backwards towards Jasper, I recognised him. Hamish had said that one of the footballers from school was here, Rod Browne. It was him, and he did not look happy to see me. I was standing in midstream, up to my ankles in water.

‘Who the hell are you? Hold on you’re that Grade 11 muso: Duncan.’ He really looked shocked, but he walked closer to me through the flowing water. ‘And why is your dog here?’

I wasn’t going to correct the name, nor the ownership of Jasper. ‘Hello, Browne. How’s the season going?’

‘The season? Have you been spying on us?’ I had actually meant the footy season, but that was obviously not what he had understood. ‘My dad’ll be interested to know that you can get in here. He’ll really have you, you know. And Coles will kill you.’ This last bit was said, not as an exaggeration, but as a statement of fact, I could tell. Browne didn’t look too happy about this, but he didn’t look as though he was going to do anything about changing it.

‘I haven’t been spying. I came looking for the dog and am trying to find my way out. How do you get out of here?’

He didn’t say anything, but he looked behind me toward his right. There, not far away was the cairn. ‘Go back the way you came, lamebrain. No wait.’ and he suddenly grabbed my sleeve. ‘You can stay here until my dad gets back. We could use another transporter.’ With this he held up a woven bag. Inside I could see smaller fabric bags stuffed full with, what I supposed was grain. He pulled me towards the left bank, the same side as the tor. Jasper carefully moved further downstream, growling. The translation in my head was the same, Grrrrr. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been worried about my life.

‘You look strong enough to carry that bag yourself.’

‘Of course I can carry it, but getting it back to our place, we need transporters, and you can only really transport two of these bags at a time. Coles manages three with his big mouth.’ and he guffawed at the thought, which to me was still unclear. ‘He says if we could bring plastic bags through, we could take lots more back. But we have to make do with these cloth bags going back. They’re pretty rough though. I wouldn’t do it if Dad didn’t pay me. I get fifty bucks a bag. They taste like shit.’

The process all of a sudden became clearer than I could possibly want it to be. Browne was now pulling me towards the rocks at the base of the tor. I shuddered, and at the same time the Valley spoke. Leave. Leave now. Danger comes. And then she was moaning as the light began to pulse at the top of the cairn.

‘That’ll be Dad. Come with me.’ While he was looking up at the tor, I pulled my shirt out of his hand, ducked and ran for the other shore. Jasper was there ahead of me. He barked. Follow me.

We ran as behind us, Browne gave a loud cry. I wondered if he would follow us or go for his father first. I was banking on the latter. I hoped we had chosen the right option.