The Family Friend, C. MacDonald [ereader for android TXT] 📗

During the day I found a Post-it. Orange, which I know now means that it’s an instruction. 4:00 a.m., Central Bus Station. And then a stick sketch of one of the indigenous women from Nourlangie. This was it.

I snuck out of the top window and had to jump the roof of the porch so I didn’t wake Mum and Craig. We arrived at Kakudu when the sun was high and the dark mass of rock stood against it like a sleeping animal. We hiked around the perimeter. We drank from pools. We ducked away from the path to walk in and out of shallow caves. I ran my hands over the drawings, depictions of love, of dedication to the perfect unity between two souls that ancient civilisations seemed to understand far better than we do. Donny’d brought food. Water. He’d thought of everything. Then we found what we’d been looking for. A wide gully of rock protected from the wind, flat, and totally private.

I drew a small circle with a piece of chalk I’d brought with the pair of compasses he packed. I placed the chunk of rose quartz I’d stolen from my mum in the middle of the circle. Then I set about smudging the area to purify it before the ceremony. We couldn’t get wild sage so Donny got a large bag of dried sage from the supermarket. I put it in a little crucible and lit it before wafting the pungent smoke into all the gully’s nooks and corners. I’ve seen from Mum how negativity can cling to relationships so I wanted to do everything I could to purge the negative energy before Donny and I start this new phase.

He’d found a ceremony in a book he’d studied – Magick in Theory and Practice by an Englishman called Crowley. We’d gone over what we had to do on the bus, but still, as we sat opposite each other and tied our wrists together with his silk scarf, it was frightening. The air felt charged, heavy like before a storm, though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind seemed to be moaning through the gully, singing to us, whispering to us. And then I laughed. And he laughed with me. It was silly, we both felt it, tethered together, a pyre built around a pink rock sitting between us. But we have created something, a connection we share that makes us more, makes us greater than everyone else. Since school ended for the summer, every time I’ve been able to get away, I’ve gone to him, and when Craig started asking questions about where I was going, Donny started coming to me, doing more odd jobs for us for a pittance. Craig was delighted. Donny’s work was good, he relished the idea that he was getting a good deal and underpaying the little city boy. I almost enjoyed those times more than when we could just be together unwatched, the stolen glances, touches behind Mum’s and Craig’s backs. The summer has been like a blissful dream, and if life were to end now, it would be enough. So with school starting up again soon, it felt we had to consecrate what’s grown between us. To make it official.

Donny lit the pyre. The kindling went up quickly. I lowered my side of the scarf into the flames, probably too quickly, because I was scared the fire would burn out and I wanted everything to go right. The silk took some time to catch, but soon we stood up, the flames having freed us of our physical bonds, but holding hands still above the fire. We took off the burning cuffs of silk and put them on top of the quartz. Then Donny stoked the sticks and I blew on the pyre we’d made and the fire began to lick the sides of the stone.

As the sun plummeted we sat across the fire from each other. Donny was silent for some time, he seemed bored, distracted. I lowered my top so he could see me, he’d never seen that much of me. He told me I terrified him. He drew me towards him and held me there, arms surrounding me, enclosing me. It felt like my whole body had been dragged inside his. He asked me to sing for him and I did and he smelt my hair and said it was the feeling of home. It felt primordial.

I had thought we might consecrate things in a different way, the way the girls in the top year are always talking about. A real wedding night. I am terrifying. The way I feel about him is terrifying. It terrifies me. He rubbed a hand over my bare midriff and whispered into my ear what an incredible mother I’d be.

Mum was furious with me when I got back but I wouldn’t tell them where I’d been. I stood silent as Craig ranted and slammed hands on tables at me. He grabbed me at one point, I think he might have hurt me if Mum hadn’t been there, but I still couldn’t stop smiling.

Now I’m in my room. Without him and with him. Always with him.

16

BRAUNEoverBRAINS

Contact: grace.fentiman@rfgtalent.com

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ERIN BRAUNE

Mum to Bobby. Salty sea-dweller. Bright up your life. Reformed thespian.

This is my waste management athleisure. Because, these days, I mostly work in waste management.

This is Bobby’s poo face. Tongue out, beetroot complexion, and even though the eyes look crossed, they somehow follow you while the deed’s being done like a painting in a horror film. Maybe eye contact helps him relax?

I’m honoured to be talking at the MotherLoving Initiative party tonight at Claridge’s. (FEARNE COTTON IS GOING TO BE THERE.) I know there are mums way more amazing than me, far more qualified to talk about the way a baby turns your life upside down and how to