The Convoy (sample)

 

 

Oo’ll be warm ‘n all apart

Oo’ll be walkin’ through your heart

Don’t be wary, just be quick

A-runnin’ through the forest thick

 

Oh, thing thingeree, thing garoo

Our thingeree thinks straight through you

A-bom bomalee, stepping through

dim dimalee, watch us do

 

Where colours bleed, o’course we ain’t

Warm ‘n red, our livin’ paint

Oil ‘n water, slippin’ through

Oo’ll be me ‘n they’ll you be you

 

Oh, thing thingeree, thing garoo

Our thing thingeree thinks straight through you

A-bom bomalee, stepping through

Dim dimalee, watch us do

 

- Sung by erstwhile convoys, origin unknown

 

1

 

Wind howls through the settled streets, licks over walls and under eaves, whips around rickety doors and unlatched windows, rattles through the loose planks of the storage shed door in which the young girl huddles with her baby son.

It was rash to run away.

Shivering, the girl pulls the thin blanket tighter to create a breath cave. She can’t help but hear malicious spirits in the howling wind. At least the babe’s wheezing seems less. Each laboured inflation of his tiny lungs had caused her to hold her own breath for fear it would be his last.

She thinks of her parents, who have sold them. Considers the journey to come, the promise of a new life as a married woman, and wonders if the arranged husband will be handsome, or at least kind. The babe’s tiny body moves against her with steady rhythm, sleeping at last. She shifts with a wince, the floor harder each passing moment. Now that her anger has dissolved, all she wants is her warm bed and one last night beneath the roof she has called home her whole life. To have her mother kiss her on the cheek and hear her father pacing in thought behind his thick study door.

She closes her eyes and rests her chin against the top of her son’s tiny head. She will not abandon him, but she cannot love him, nor will she name him.

Not yet.

 

2

 

The convoy gathers at the outer gate. Open wagons, restless horses, nervous passengers, tearful farewells. A crowd looks on with a mixture of curiosity, jealousy, apprehension, and laughter.

The girl stands in line accompanied by her mother, who had been waiting for them since dawn. She had apologised through tears and fussed over the babe and the girl, then offered fresh buns from a basket. The girl eats and wonders if she will ever forgive her parents. Her mother is as much a victim to the will of her father, so she allows herself to be hugged and kissed and even approaches the edge of tears herself.

‘You are a strong girl,’ her mother says. ‘You will survive and be a good mother and we will make it somehow to see you, once things settle down.’

They both know it is an empty promise. No one ever travels on whim. It is too dangerous and costs too much.

As the person before them approaches a man standing on a crate with a list and pencil, the girl’s mother heaves a great sigh and squeezes them in a sobbing embrace. She places a final kiss atop her grandson’s head.

The girl scans the crowd for any sign of her father. His absence hurts more than his signing of her conveyance. With her mother’s tearful urging, she approaches the man in charge, who gives her an expectant look. He asks her name with eyes on the list, pencil hovering, ready to tick.

The babe offers a thick cough. The man glances up, confused, looks down at the babe and shakes his head.

‘Name?’

She gives it.

‘This should have been communicated to us earlier. The child entitles you to a cabin, which makes the rest of my morning a real pleasure. Make sure you are prepared for what may need to be done. Caravan seven.’

‘For what should I be prepared?’

He answers with a sad look at the babe. It is known. New-borns do not survive long in this world, no matter what is done.

She is prepared, but not ready, to bury her son.

 

 

3

 

The girl recognises no one, which is not surprising given that she has lived beneath her father’s strict purview. Indeed, her pregnancy resulted from such scrutiny and pressure, a renegade night of passion’s folly. She had worried that the babe’s father might also be travelling with the convoy, but a look over the passengers calms her fears. They have not spoken since she told him of her condition.

The passengers are mostly young. Crisp clothes. Clean hair. Odd spark of jewellery. The caravans are not berthed in order, so finding number seven requires her to examine the painted symbols in faded black on the wooden sides of each carriage. Number seven looks the same as the others, domed and bulging, with patient horses hitched in front and a line of thick rope connecting to the caravans ahead and behind. Coloured flags hang from the rope, fluttering in the wind, a precaution to help confirm that time is passing correctly while travelling. It would be her home for weeks, while months or years passed for the rest of the world, the exact passage impossible to predict. She recalls stories told to her as a child of convoys appearing so long after they departed that no one knew or remembered those who emerged from the green. And of never reaching their destinations at all. Thankfully, such happenings had settled in recent decades.

She finds the caravan empty and, moving to the rear where there is a private cabin with a door, she is pleased to find a spacious, private den. She stows her bag and wanders back outside.

Two triggermen patrol the line, stopping to speak to the drivers. The older one considers the organised chaos with a sigh, kicks at the ground and adjusts his broad hat. The second triggerman is of middle age and handsome in a simple, stone-carved way. He watches the emotional departures around him with no readable expression.

In the inevitable way that people sense being watched, his gaze lands on the girl. He offers a polite nod. Eyes her bundle as openly as she does the weapon at his side. Dark leather holster, filigreed metal bonded to worn and chipped bone. The history of such dark magics rests in legend and myth, where the battles between warring nations was decided by harnessing and wielding death itself. After some time, he approaches the girl, offers a reassuring smile.

‘Don’t worry, miss. It works just fine. I clean it every night.’

A faraway look, as if remembering a thousand dusks carrying out the chore.

‘I’ve never seen one before.’

‘Most people have not, and they should consider themselves fortunate, but if it comes down to it, they’d be grateful to have one at hand.’ He nods at the babe. ‘If you require anything, just ask. I am Teral.’

There is no chance to continue the conversation, as his assistance is called for. Teral is a nice name, she thinks, adding it to a short list for if the babe lives.

The call goes out for all passengers to prepare for departure. There are people inside caravan seven now, chatting excitedly. They wave her in and introduce themselves. She feels a sudden moment of panic that they might feel she does not deserve the cabin, which is eased as the babe cries and they motion for her to move through their unorganised space to reach the cabin door.  She enters, sits on the cushioned bench, offers her breast to the babe, and looks out the window to take a final imprint of her birth city.

Soon, they are moving, the long caravans pulled by the largest horses the girl has ever seen. Their clopping is loud even inside the cabin, joined by all manner of creaks and groans from the caravans.

The babe sleeps, his pale face serene for a while. Conversations seep through the cabin door, along with laughter. It seems that a card game is taking place. Laughter and frustrated groans seep through the cabin walls in equal measure.

The girl scans her small, private world. There is a slim bed and storage for non-existent possessions. She goes about opening latches and looking inside compartments, harbouring slim hope that something might have been left behind. There is a collapsed table beneath the small window, with a cushioned bench beside it. The girl sits and reach down, feeling for a latch to raise the table. Something tickles her fingers, a slip of paper wedged behind. She finds the latch and pulls the table up, which allows a hinged leg to swing down. Shifting awkwardly, slung babe wriggling against the change in orientation, the girl leans sideways and sees the slip of paper has fallen to the floor. She strains to reach it. An extra stretch and her fingers find and clutch the slip. The edges are rough, as though torn from a journal. A message is scrawled messily across the small page. She reads it several times without comprehension.

Perhaps it is part of a game or prank meant to confuse. The girl folds the note and places it on the table beneath the window and wonders if she should tell Teral the triggerman about it. A glance out the window shows that they are almost at the city’s edge. The note draws her back. She opens it again, reads every word slowly.

 

Doan folow rools

Mak shor yu see

Wen is tim opin yor ies

4

 

The convoy enters the forest via an entrance that, despite arriving from that very place the previous day, is bursting with nascent growth. As the verdant mouth swallows the line, the waist-high bushes rustle and crunch beneath hooves and wheels. Green surrounds them, the forbidden colour.

The overwhelming mass takes the girl’s breath away. She has never been surrounded by green, it being a crime to grow a green plant or even allow a weed to mature. Her only exposure to plant growth has been the pink caladiums of the city square and some non-green fruits and vegetables. Even then, the existence of plants is closely monitored in case there is an attack from within. The girl has always wondered if such caution is an overreaction to stories told. However, the pure aggressiveness of the growth they now pass through sets her heart racing with fear that the tendrils will start growing and reach for them, entangle them, squeeze the life out of everyone in the convoy.

A short time later, progress is halted by debris across the path. How, the girl wonders, when it was clear the day before? Word passes down to remain inside. Now that they have stopped, the forest sways hypnotically. The tall trees are dizzying at their impossible heights. The girl wonders if she will spy an animal.

There is a knock on the door.

‘Hello? Do you have a window?’

‘What is it like?’

The girl opens the door to eager expressions. Their names clatter around inside her head, settling upon each person uncertainly. Evie, the same age as her but far prettier, and Jonan, who looks like he is lost in a wonderland. Then there is Frera, a vibrant, freckly girl with brilliant blue eyes. The final expectant face belongs to Brey, who is the youngest of them at fourteen. A fierce intelligence radiates from him and of all the girl’s new companions she finds him the most interesting. The mixing of similar age groups is necessary, and they all know the rules. They are all blood gifts, their lines to mix where they travel, to reduce the probability of inbred horrors.

‘Come, look, of course,’ the girl says.

Brey breaks past the group and peers out the window, expressing his amazement with loud inhalation. After some friendly pushing and shoving, they arrange themselves around the small portal, chatting excitedly.

‘It is so dense. And green!’

‘I can’t even see the top of that tree’

‘Is that something moving? I’m sure I saw something move.’

‘Where?’

‘There, next to the green tree.’

‘They are all green trees!’

‘There, next to the other tree.’

This earns Brey a clip to the back of his head. The girl smiles and looks down at the babe, who is alert, his large eyes appraising them without concern. Does he look less pale? The girl offers him her finger, which he grips tightly, surprising her with his strength.

‘I really should name you.’

As if saying so makes it official, it feels right that he should now be named. There is an infectious sense in the air that it might be possible for things to work out, for this child to survive and for them to find a new home.

‘Errol.’

Frera, breaks away from the window.

‘Pardon?’

‘I’m going to name him Errol.’

Frera gives mother and child a wide smile.

‘That is a lovely name. Hello, little Errol.’

Errol’s face transforms into a pure smile only babies are capable of. It spreads to them all.

Perhaps her heart is not so numb after all. Errol breaks the moment by sneezing loudly.

‘Bless you.’

For the first time, she means it.

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