The Island(71)

Carolyn fumbled on the carpet until she found her coffee and vape pen. She pushed the button and the light blinked, and she sucked organic marijuana oil grown right here by her own fair hands on Goose Island. She sold it to medical-marijuana dispensaries for two hundred dollars an ounce. It had a very high THC content. She coughed for a few seconds and then sipped the cold coffee.

She noticed that there was a new voice message on her iPhone.

She played it.

“Hi, this is a message for Carolyn Moore,” an Australian woman said. “Carolyn, this is Jenny Brook, I’m one of the ICOM reps here in Melbourne. One of our speakers is Dr. Thomas Baxter. He’s got his wife down as his emergency contact and she’s got you down as her emergency contact. The Baxters aren’t answering their phones and I wondered if they’d gone to country Victoria or somewhere where there’s no Wi-Fi. We’ve got a couple of things we need Dr. Baxter to do and we’d like him to give us a call. Thank you.”

No doubt they were still at that fancy winery.

She dialed Heather’s number and it went straight to voice mail.

Could Heather be in any kind of trouble?

She didn’t think so.

But still…

It was dark outside. Melbourne was seventeen hours ahead of Seattle, if you could wrap your head around that idea.

Carolyn decided that she would sleep on it, maybe try to reach her in the morning.

If she couldn’t get through, she’d call that rep woman on Monday or Tuesday. Heather and Tom should be able to spend the weekend eating gourmet food and drinking expensive wine without anyone having to get the cops involved.





34



Her belly rumbled.

Heather strapped the rifle over her back. She threaded a shoelace through the hole in the machete handle and attached it to her belt.

Heading south, she walked across the heath.

The cut in her foot didn’t feel so bad. Her nose hurt. Jaw hurt. Shoulder ached like all hell. Everything else would do.

The temperature had dropped. She saw lightning stab at a spire on the mainland.

Silhouette of church, town, civilization, hope.

She did the count in her head.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen— There was a low rumble of thunder, which meant the storm was three miles away to the west.

The black clouds stretched to an infinity in the south. For all she knew, the tail of this low front might go all the way to Antarctica. It might be bringing hail and snow—if it snowed in Australia. She had no idea. Tom would have known. He’d read so many books; there must be one about exactly this situation.

But the bastards had killed him.

She gave the farm a wide berth and walked over the scrub to the dunes where the shearwaters were nesting. There was no moon. Venus was up. The Earth had turned on its axis, and the great sea of southern stars were coming out. The Emu. The Kangaroo’s tail.

Lights to her right. Five hundred yards away. Probably Kate riding her ATV, looking for her.

Skull on.

Headlights on.

You can find me now, Heather thought. I’m ready.

I will make a hole in the night just for you.

Cold air was rising from the ground. Critters sang in the grass. Big moths flitted through the narrow columns of starlight.

Starlight from another time.

If only she could ride it backward to two days ago.

I will take us back and I will drive the car.

Or further back and Tom could do the Australia trip by himself.

Or further back and she could warn the world about 9/11 in crayon and there would be no war and her dad wouldn’t have had to go to Iraq.

Kate drove on. Heather let her go.

She walked through the nightscape, making evanescent art in the grass, like those artists her mother loved, Andy Goldsworthy and Liza Lou, her feet following her mother’s feet through the woods, carving ley lines in the pine needles of Goose Island and the bladygrass of Dutch Island, under the moon, under the dark moon who was always there, cherishing the votives and watching over the humans far, far down below.

Heather reached the southern shore of the island in an hour. She recognized the call of the shearwaters and found their burrows and reached into the holes and gathered a dozen eggs, which she wrapped in the shopping bag that Jacko had kept his .303 ammo in.

As she crossed one of the island roads, she saw something, something dead, just down the tarmac on the edge of the sheugh. It was a koala. It didn’t smell yet and the flies weren’t a black horde. She dragged it off the blacktop and cut off its head with the machete and disemboweled it and skinned it. She saved the liver and the heart and lungs. She made a bag with her T-shirt and transferred the eggs and ammo to that and put the koala parts in the shopping bag.

She walked home in her bra and jeans. The dirt had more give. It knew the rain was coming. It dreamed of becoming soil.

A single raindrop hit her arm.

She examined the sky.

It was a deep purple-black that soon was going to baptize and cleanse the earth.

Of course it would rain after they had gotten themselves a water source.

She approached the cave looking for signs of life but saw nothing. She had rehung moss over the cave entrance, and if you got real close you could see blue smoke from the fire making its way out of the mouth. But you’d need to get within twenty feet or so.