Stolen

  I swallowed, trying to think of something to convince you. That made me angry. I didn’t want to stoop to your level for anything, let alone ask you for something.

  “I know I can’t go anywhere,” I said eventually. “I know it’s hopeless, trying to escape. I won’t even try, I promise.” I still don’t think you believed me on that one, so I added, “Besides, I’d like to see what you do all day.”

  I even smiled as I said it. God knows where I dragged that from; I must have had some form of superhuman strength. I know my eyes weren’t smiling, though; they were boring into yours, hating you.

  Your eyes were wide as a child’s. Your fingers picked at the meat. Then, with a little birdlike jerk, you nodded quickly. I think you wanted so much to believe me, to think that I was finally coming around. You turned to face the window again. Swallowing my pride, I made one more effort.

  “Do everything you normally do,” I said. “I just want to see.”

  I heard you cough before I opened my eyes. The light was thin and grayish. You were standing at the side of the bed with a cup in your hands. I backed up, away from you. It looked like you’d been waiting awhile. The cup made a dull thud as you put it on the bedside table.

  “Tea,” you said. “I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

  For once, I drank it. You’d made it how you like it, though, with two sugars. Too sweet. I got dressed, even wore the beige clothes you’d bought for me. They smelled clean, a little like herbs. I laced up the boots, size seven and a perfect fit. Then I followed the smell of bread to the kitchen. You were waiting on the wooden crate that you used as a step, just outside the open door. I rubbed my hands over my arms, feeling the chill from a breeze. But it was good to see the world through the open door, even if it was full of nothing. The sun was bobbing on the horizon, just peeking over. Its light shimmered on the sand behind you, making your body look like it was glowing … like it had a kind of aura.

  “I made damper,” you said. “Eat.”

  You pointed to some lumps of bread resting on the countertop. I took one. It was the same size as a bread roll, but funny-shaped. It was too hot to hold comfortably. I tried shoving it in my mouth instead, but it burned my lip. You got me a glass of water.

  “You ready?”

  I nodded, stepping out into the sunlight. The heat wasn’t so intense this time, but even so, sun rays began to tickle the back of my neck. I wobbled on the wooden crate, shielding my eyes and looking out. It was so big, that view. I’ll never remember it perfectly. How can anyone remember something that big? I don’t think people’s brains are designed for memories like that. They’re designed for things like phone numbers, or the color of someone’s hair. Not hugeness.

  You kicked the gravelly sand at the edge of the crate. It was a dark red color, like rust. It was as if it had been weathered from blood instead of rocks. It was nothing like the creamy sand of a beach. You took a few steps, running your finger through the dust that stuck to the side of the house, creating a wiggly line on the wood. I jumped off the crate and followed. You walked the couple of feet to the corner of the house, which, I noticed for the first time, rested on large concrete slabs. There was a dark and cool-looking space underneath it, just about wide enough to crawl into. You bent down onto your knees, and pushed a stick into the gap.

  “Still under there,” you muttered. “He’s just too far in to catch.”

  “Who is?”

  “Snake.”

  I leaped back from the building. “What kind of snake? Can it get into the house?”

  You shook your head. “Not likely.” You glanced up. “Just make sure you’ve got boots on if you’re walking out here, OK?”

  “Why? Is it dangerous?”

  You shut one eye against the sun as you studied me. “Nah,” you said. “You’ll be all right.” You stood up, your knees reddish brown. “Just wear boots, ‘K?”

  You leaned against the house, squinting as you looked down its length. I looked, too. The building was rough and untidy, like a large piece of driftwood. You jumped up, gripping the metal roof, and hauled yourself across the planks to look at a row of shiny panels.

  “Our electricity,” you said. “Our hot water, too.”

  I squinted.

  “Solar power,” you explained, then, when I still looked blank, added, “obviously we’re not on a grid.”

  “Why not?”

  You looked at me like I was some sort of idiot. “Out here the sun’s strong enough to power Pluto. Using anything else would be stupid. I haven’t had time to connect it all up properly yet, though.” You wiggled some wires that disappeared into the walls, checking everything was secure. “But, in time, I can put more lights in the house, if you want them, that sort of thing.”

  I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. Even though it was only early, the sun was starting to force its way through my T-shirt, making my armpits tingle. You dropped down from the roof into the sand, your feet making a soft thump.

  “Want to see the herb garden?” you said.

  You walked across the sand toward the outbuildings. I followed, my eyes scanning the landscape for anything, anyone … any sign of movement. You went to a small fenced-in area next to the four-wheel drive. The ground inside had been dug over and turned.

  “This is it,” you said. “Only it’s not working too well.”

  I looked at your collection of shriveled-up stalks. It looked like the herb garden Mum had tried to grow once, in the terracotta planters on our patio. Mum had never been much of a gardener.

  “It’s not working at all,” I said.

  I knelt and stuck my hand through the fence. I touched the ground. It was hard as concrete. I’d taken over Mum’s herb garden eventually. I’d made it grow parsley and mint … well, until the winter anyway.

  “It was stupid to put it here, really,” you said. You picked halfheartedly at the crispy brown stems. A leaf fell off in your hands. You glanced up at the rocks behind the house. “The garden in the Separates is better.”

  I looked up at those rocks, too. The sun was making shadows around them.

  “What else is in there?” I asked.

  “Vegetable patch, more herbs, lots of food … turtujarti trees, minyirli, yupuna, bush tomato … anything you could want. A few stubble quails come and go, lizard … there’s chickens, too.”

  “Chickens?”

  “Someone’d left a cage of them on the side of the road, on the way here, so I took ‘em. Don’t you remember them being in the back of the car when we drove here?” Your eyes glinted a little. “S’pose not, huh? They were half-dead, and you weren’t much better.” You reached into your pocket, took out a small hip flask, and sloshed some liquid onto the dried-out herbs. “Water,” you explained. I wanted to grab the flask and give them more.

  “They haven’t had enough,” I said.

  You looked at me sharply, but you kept sprinkling until the plants got a few more drops. You stood. “The herbs in the Separates are healthier,” you said again. “There’s shade, you know? Some water.”

  I remembered the path I’d seen leading through those rocks. I thought about what might be on the other side.

  “Can we go there?” I asked.

  Your eyes flicked over me, assessing my intent. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  You stepped away from the herbs and took a couple of steps into the sand. You looked out, away from the Separates, at that endlessness of rusty-colored land. It stretched before us in waves: a surging sea of dirt, with small green shrubs bobbing on its surface.

  “There are no other people for hundreds of miles,” you said. “Not really. Doesn’t that just make everything better?”

  I stared at you. You could have been joking, or saying something to scare me. But I don’t think you were. You had that faraway look in your eye, the look when your eyes went a bit misty and it seemed as if you were looking out even farther than the horizon. Just at that moment I wasn’t scared of you. Right then you looked lik
e a kind of explorer, looking out over the land, planning where to go.

  “What’s it called?” I asked. “This desert? Does it have a name?”

  You blinked. The corners of your mouth twitched. “Sandy.”

  “What?”

  You pressed your lips together, trying not to laugh. But you couldn’t help it. Your shoulders started shaking, and then you bent your head to the ground. Your laugh was so loud and deep, it made me jump. Your body moved with the sound, until you kind of collapsed on the sand. You picked up some of the grains and gripped them in the palm of your hand.

  “Good name for it, right?” you said, once you’d composed yourself. “It’s the Sandy Desert, and it’s sandy.” You opened your fingers and let the grains go in an orange waterfall. “All just a load of sand hills. Come and see.”

  I took a step toward you, just one. You picked up another handful and held it out to me, pushing your fingers through the grains.

  “This sand is the oldest in the world,” you said. “Even the land I sit on now has taken billions of years to form, worn down from the mountains.”

  “Mountains?”

  “Once there was a range near here higher than the Andes. This is ancient land, sacred, it’s seen everything there is to see.” You pushed the sand toward me. “Feel the heat,” you said. “This sand’s alive.”

  I took the sand. The grains burned into my skin and I dropped them all in a rush. It was the second time you’d made my skin burn that morning. You ran your fingers over the place where they’d fallen, then buried your whole hand underneath. You shut your eyes against the sun.

  “The sand’s like a womb,” you said. “Warm and soft, safe.”

  You buried your other hand, too. Your shoulders relaxed, and your body went still. It was similar to how people look when they’ve toked on a joint, totally blissed out. It was weird. I took a step backward, then another. You didn’t stop me. After a few moments you slipped off your boots, and stuck your feet under the sand, too. With all your limbs buried in it like that, it was as if the sand had sprouted you. You snuck open your right eye and looked for me.

  “You’re thinking something,” you said.

  I nodded toward your feet. “Does it hurt?”

  “Nah.” You shook your head. “My feet are tough; everything has to be to live out here.”

  The sun burned the back of my neck. I thought I could see something in the far distance slightly to my left, some sort of shadow. Maybe more rocks, maybe just a heat haze. It hurt to look out at it for long. I walked forward a few feet to get a better view, but quickly gave up. Whatever those glimpses of shadow were, they were impossibly far away. It would take hours, days maybe, to get anywhere close.

  I knelt beside one of the many clumps of grass that were dotted around the landscape. From a distance this grass looked spongy and soft, like giant balls of moss, but when I ran my fingers over it, its spikes pricked and scratched my skin. They were the needles I’d stood on when I’d tried to get away: the reason my feet had got so torn.

  I heard you move up behind me. I heard you swallow. It reminded me of how we’d met in the airport. Then, you’d been close enough to brush against me. This time I moved away. When I looked at you, your hand was raised like you wanted to touch me.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Please.”

  You touched the plant instead. You ran your fingers lightly up one of its long needle leaves. It didn’t seem to sting you.

  “Spinifex,” you said. “When it’s really dry, its leaves roll up. It closes in on itself.” You glanced back at me, your eyes so pale in the sunlight. “Pretty good survival tactic, huh?”

  I didn’t want to look at your too pale eyes, so I looked at the shadows in the distance. Heat was starting to hover over the ground, making everything look shaky and unreal … making me feel sick.

  You walked toward the outbuildings. I hesitated at your car, looking in the window to see if you’d left the keys inside. Orange rubbed off onto my clothes as I leaned against the door. The car was white beneath this dust. There were flecks of rust around the windows, a drum of gasoline or something on the backseat, and a piece of scrunched-up clothing in the front. There were two gearshifts below the dashboard. I rested my hand against one of the warm, fat tires.

  You looked bored when I caught up with you. “I don’t know why you keep trying,” you said. “There’s no way out.”

  You took a key from the pocket in your shirt and stepped up onto the crate in front of the first outbuilding. The key clunked as it went in the keyhole. You paused before opening the door.

  “I don’t want to take you in here if you’re not ready,” you said, your voice firm.

  The door dropped on its hinges a bit as you opened it. The room was dark inside and empty-looking. I could make out a few shadowy objects farther in, but nothing else. Suddenly, I didn’t want to go in. I froze, my breathing getting faster. I had this image of you killing me in there, killing me in that dark … leaving my body to rot. You had that weird smile on your face, too, like you wanted to.

  “I don’t know …,” I started to say, but you grabbed me quickly around the shoulders and shoved me inside.

  “You’re going to like this,” you said.

  I started to scream. You held me tighter and tighter, those strong arms of yours squeezing. I struggled against you, tried to get away. But your arms were fastened and solid: a python’s grip. You dragged me farther into the room. It was so dark.

  “Don’t move!” you shouted. “Be still. You’ll wreck it.”

  I bit your arm, spat at you. Somehow I loosened your grip. I fell away onto the floor, hitting my knee hard against it. You grabbed my shoulder and pushed me down, using your strength to keep me there.

  “I said don’t move!”

  You were hysterical, your voice on the edge. I scratched at the floor, tried to grip on anything, tried to drag myself along.

  “Don’t hurt me!” I screamed.

  I lashed out. My fist connected with something. You made a gasping noise. And then, suddenly, you let go. I was up and stumbling and running to where I thought the door was.

  “Just stop … STOP!”

  I tripped and hit the floor again. There was a wetness and stickiness against my palms, right where I landed. I crawled through it. It didn’t end. The whole floor was wet. And then there were the other things … hard things, sharp things, things scratching at my legs. There were soft lumps of material. It felt like clothing, clothing from all the other girls you might have killed in there. The sticky stuff was stuck up to my elbows. It felt like blood. Had you hit me without me realizing? I touched my forehead.

  “STOP! Please, Gemma, just stay where you are!”

  I was crying and screaming, trying to get away. You were yelling, too. I could hear you thumping through the room, after me. At any moment I’d feel a knife in my shoulder, or an axe slicing my head. I kept bringing my hand up to check if I’d been hit already. I felt my throat. I didn’t know where the door was. I slid over the floor, feeling along it, desperately searching for something to protect myself with. My shoes slipped in the wetness.

  Then you pulled open the curtains. And I saw it all.

  There were no bodies. No dead people. It was just us inside the one-room shed. And the colors.

  I was sitting in the middle of it all. There was dirt and dust, plants and rocks … all of it scattered over the floor around me. My arms were covered in blood. At least that’s what I thought at first. Everything was red, all of my clothes stained with it. I touched my forearm. It didn’t hurt, nothing did. I lifted my arm to my nose. It smelled like dirt.

  “It’s paint,” you said. “Made from the rocks.”

  I spun around quickly, found you. You were between me and the door. Your face was wild, your mouth tight and angry as you looked me over. Your eyes were dark. I started shaking. I crawled backward, reaching behind for something solid to hold between us, but all I could grab were sprigs of flowers, needles
of spinifex. I backed up until I reached the wall. Then I waited; every bit of me focused on you, on what you’d do next, on where you would move. My breath was coming in bursts. I wondered how hard I could kick you. Could I get past you to the door?

  You watched me. You were wilder than I’d ever seen you, but you were still as stone. Just the sound of my breaths, getting faster and faster, hung between us. Your hands were clenched in fists. I saw the veins sticking out on the back of them and the whiteness of your knuckles. I risked a look back at your face.

  Your eyes squinted tight, as if you were trying to fight something inside you, some deep emotion. You groaned. But the tears came anyway. They ran down your cheeks quietly, slipping over your jaw.

  I’d never seen a man cry before, only on TV. I’d never even seen Dad close to crying. Those tears looked so odd on you. It was like the strength of you just seemed to sap away. The surprise of it stopped me being so scared. I took a deep breath and looked away. The walls were painted in large streaks of color. There were bits of plants, leaves, and sand stuck to them.

  You took a step toward me, and instantly my eyes switched back to your face. You crouched down on the backs of your heels. You didn’t move into the area that I was in, the area filled with sand and stickiness. You stayed on the edge, just looking at it all … just looking at me.

  “You’re sitting in my painting,” you said at last. You leaned forward and touched a leaf. “I made all this.” You moved your hand along the edge, stroking the sand. “There were patterns and shapes, made from the land….” Your face went rigid and angry again as you surveyed the damage I’d done. Eventually you shrugged, sighing as your shoulders dropped down. “But you created a different pattern, I guess…. In a way, it’s almost better. You’re part of it.”

  I saw the line I had made as I’d crawled along the floor, the paint I’d spread everywhere. Shakily I got to my feet. A bundle of twigs tumbled from my lap. I looked at your face, with your red-veined eyes and tear tracks, at the tension in your jaw. You looked crazy then, someone mentally ill who didn’t believe in taking his pills. I ran sentences through my mind, trying to figure out what to say to get out of that room without upsetting you further. How could I get to the door without tipping you over the edge? How were people supposed to act with madmen? But you were the first to break the silence.