Goldenscale

Sunday 5 March

16

‘Where are you going?’ Her mother sat on her banana lounge, a hand shading her eyes. ‘Are you wearing sun cream?’

‘Yes, Mum. Just to the shops.’

‘Oh. If you see Sam, lunch is at one.’

Beth pedalled into town as if pursued velociraptors, stopping outside Hale’s Locksmith and Shoe Repairs.

‘I want a lock,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’ said the attendant. Thin and tall, His beard and moustache were wispy. ‘Too easy. What sort?’

‘Strong. It’s for a door.’

‘Totally. I’ve got a few sweet little numbers.’

He pointed to shelves festooned with silvery deadlocks.

‘Sorry, not that sort of lock. A padlock!’

‘Oh yeah. With ya now.’ He led her to the next aisle.

Beth took her time, ignoring any locks that looked flimsy. Her eventual choice was heavy, the locking bar clicking home with impressive finality. The body was brushed steel and the shackle was matt black. She parted company with thirty-five dollars, and smiled faintly. Jo would just die if she saw good money wasted on something so practical.

Beth unlocked her bike. With this on the cellar door, she’d be safe. Her only challenge was to lose the key somewhere she could find it again.

‘Did you get me an ice cream?’ asked Nick, pulling weeds in front of the house. He had created a pile of vanquished weeds about a metre high.

‘It would have melted.’ Better to tell him now. ‘I bought a padlock for the cellar.’ She pulled the unit out of her bag and offered it to him.

Nick wiped his hands on his overalls and peered closely at it.

‘Why?’

‘Like you said. Sam’s been going down there. It’s too dangerous for him. I know you’ve been busy, so I thought I’d help you out.’ Such an easy, shameful lie. I’m getting better at them.

He nodded. ‘Little rotter. Always with the crazy plans.’

I had the guts to put my hand down that hole! Not Sam. Be proud of me, not him!’

‘Has to be done,’ he said. ‘It is dangerous, even if he thinks it’s fun.’ He removed his gardening gloves and turned back to her. ‘Did you need any money?’

‘It was on special.’

She followed Nick out to the shed, where he collected tools, and then back into the house. He bolted an anchor to the door frame, and another to the door, threaded the padlock through, and closed it. He palmed the key and smiled at Beth. ‘Fort Knox. He’ll have to come to me, now.’

Beth departed before she could witness her father hiding the key.

17

Sam arrived at one minute past one. His forehead featured a long scratch, and Abbie fussed over him. ‘Mum! It’s stopped bleeding.’

‘What did you do?’ Beth asked.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said. ‘Ken’s sword broke when it hit my shield. I already killed him. He was cheating.’

‘Lunch,’ called Nick.

Freddy moved into position.

‘Why’s there a lock on the cellar?’ Sam asked.

Beth almost choked.

‘Just a precaution,’ said Nick, steepling his fingers. ‘We need to keep clear of it until I can get a building inspector over.’

Sam glanced at Beth, but said nothing.

‘Beth, Dr Graydon said you paid his laboratory a visit the other day,’ said Abbie.

‘Did he call you?’

‘Just to say he was impressed at your interest.’

Beth grimaced. ‘I only went for a few minutes. He said anyone from school could go. And I did.’

‘I told him he could come over,’ Abbie said. ‘To see things first hand.’ She looked significantly at Nick

‘What’s the point?’ said Beth. He couldn’t detect the quakes on their records. Not a flicker.’

Nick shook his head. ‘As long as he calls before he comes over. Don’t want him poking around without us there.’

18

As the sun began to slide down the sky, Beth’s fear returned in small increments.

She wished she could go back to her usual life, dreams and disappointment and friends. Now the house she lived in seemed threatening.

Was it possible that Sam really was behind all of this? She thought that was unlikely. Firstly, his practical jokes usually required instant gratification, and secondly, he lacked the resources to engineer the events that had followed her discovery of the object.

Just before dusk, they all took Freddy for a walk, and watched the sun set behind the Bul Bul Plains. Billabongs and creeks glowed silver, the grasslands a deep reddish gold.

‘This is why we came here,’ said Abbie.

‘And why the developers love it.’ said Nick.

Dinner was quiet. No squabbles, intermittent conversation and a generally distracted atmosphere. Sam was unusually pensive, chewing at the end of a pencil until it was splintered. Waiting for something, Beth thought. We’re waiting for the next tremor.

But the evening passed without a single rattle.

Since I heard the voice, there have been fewer tremors.

On the way to her bedroom, Beth detoured to touch the padlock, reassuring herself. If the voice had been real, what had it been asking her? She undressed, put on an old shirt and thermal underwear and crawled into bed. For half an hour she scribbled in her diary, trying to set down all of her disordered thoughts. No use.

A sense of dread kept her from sleep. Every shadow became an enemy, her bedside clock slowly slicing off pieces of the night. By 1 a.m., a dead, strange hour, she was going mad with worry. The house ticked and creaked. There was only one way to allow her mind rest — to check the padlock again.

She opened her door and stepped out into the corridor. Light from distant street lights leaked into the house through curtained windows. Twice she stumbled on furniture, almost upsetting an empty vase.

She could hear the fridge clicking on and off, and Freddy shifting in his wicker basket on the verandah. Her torch revealed the padlock, still in place. She hefted it, considered the thickness of the metal. I don’t believe in anything I cannot see, feel or touch. She bit her lip.

If I’m losing it, then I can explain everything easily. But I don’t think I’m mad. No-one around me questions my sanity. Yet.

Would a lunatic invent a voice which called her name and dragged her into the basement?

‘Beth,’ said the wind. ‘Beth.’

The padlock fell open in her hand — without violence, the workings defeated.

‘Help me … I need your help.’

The door swung inward so quickly she teetered on the threshold.

‘I have a place for you, Beth.’ The voice was many things, bass, full of burrs, deep as the ocean.

‘Leave me alone.’ Beth felt mean-spirited, harassed.

‘I am alone, Beth. Unless you assist me.’

‘I don’t want a part of this,’ she whispered.

‘We find ourselves in the world,’ said the other, ‘and we must act.’ It paused for a moment and Beth thought she heard frogs and crickets and seagulls, all singing from the cellar. ‘I am in a very difficult position, Beth. Asking is the only solution.’

Beth looked down at the barely visible flight of stairs leading down into the cellar.

‘What are you?’

Seconds ticked by. No return to her bedroom. She jumped when the voice sounded again. ‘You know my kind, Beth, or should I say, you once knew us. We are no longer real for you.’

19

The cellar light was on. Her left foot found the first riser, her right foot the second. ‘I can’t go down there,’ she said.

‘Destiny demands it, Beth.’

The cellar came slowly into view as she descended. A rubble-strewn floor, the naked light bulb, broken toys. She pretended she was ready to flee, but in reality her legs were far too weak.

‘You’re just the wind. A mistake in my mind.’

‘The wind has learned to speak. I have listened to all of you so very carefully. For so long.’

Beth tangled fingers through her hair, and pulled. ‘Damn this!’ she whispered. She stepped out onto the cellar floor. If the globe blew its element she would scream loudly enough to wake everyone in the house.

‘My gifts, Beth? Three golden objects. You have them in a drawer. You even carried one of them in your pocket for day or two. They were once a part of me.’

‘Why me?’ Beth asked. ‘Why not go to Sam?’

‘He is too young. Unreliable.’

Her mind felt divided between panic, fear, exultation, frustration, rage — the full spectrum.

‘I want to see what you are. I have to see you!’ Yet she feared it so much.

She wondered why she hadn’t panicked yet.

‘I’m trapped down here, Beth. Unable to move. That is why I need you.’

‘How can I trust someone I can’t see?’

‘When you took the objects out of your house, you must have touched them. And felt their heat, their life. Touch them again, Beth, and know the truth.’

‘But they’re covered with engravings. Not natural, they can’t be alive.’

‘Carved by nature, Beth, into my flesh. They are the true marks of a dragon.’

Beth’s hands fluttered. ‘A dragon?’ She laughed, a shrill sound.

‘What your kind call my kind.’

‘Too much,’ she said. ‘Sam?’ she said with hope and desperation. ‘Come on. This dragon stuff is worn out. I don’t believe it.’

‘Beth …’

‘Give it up!’ she called into the darkness. ‘I’ll make your life hell!’

‘Please lower your voice. You may draw attention.’

‘I don’t care,’ Beth mumbled. She sat down in the dust, stricken. ‘We make dragons in our heads. Like fairies and trolls. They don’t live under my house.’

‘There is something else in the place where you found my scales. It may convince you.’

’No!

‘You’re sane, Beth. Please look.’

She got up, shuffled over, peered into the hole in the wall. Something glowed dull-white in the gloom. This time she knew what it was, without being told. She tentatively reached in and drew it forth, holding it very gingerly. It was a tooth, as long as her forearm, very slender and curving to a needle-sharp point. It was surprisingly heavy and as warm as the scales.

‘Oh, crap. I don’t want it.’

‘Take it. I am what I say.’

It breathes through the hole, she thought, and that breath is the smell of all things.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.

A low noise filled the room; an inhalation. Beth backed up the stairs, clutching the tooth.

You’ve got me. I don’t know how, but you have. She knew she would be back. He is giving me himself, but I also have to give something of mine. Give.

‘Help me, Beth,’ the voice hissed, fading into silence.