‘Oh, I intend to,’ he responded, ‘so you better get practising those tricks, crazy queen of foraging!’
I rolled my eyes before heading for home, unable to repress a small smile.
Mum had boiled up leftover chicken bones and roots for dinner, and I sniffed the air hungrily as I reached our knotted-willow ladder. It was secured to our oak’s trunk with twisted twine, and refreshing it was one of my weekly chores. I’d always woken up under a green canopy, and couldn’t imagine sleeping inside a claustrophobic brick box, like our ancestors.
There was a low growl from above and I smiled. Jas was our live-in, juvenile snow leopard ‘watch-cat’. And Eli’s shadow. Perhaps his fortress of silence had been a catalyst, but no one doubted Eli had been blessed with a unique gift when it came to animals. He’d cared for injured creatures for as long as I could remember, and all kinds of wildlife had passed through the woven hospital baskets in our living area.
He and Jas had found each other when she was just a cub. She’d lost her mother, and wandered down the mountain in search of food. Eli had spotted her on the outskirts of the village, just a pitiful bag of bones. He’d insisted on hand-rearing her, despite my dad’s reservations about having a leopard in the house, and she’d turned out to be a sweet-tempered, much-loved member of the family. With her natural instincts and highly developed senses, she was also one of the best watch-cats in the world.
‘Hey, Jas,’ I whispered, pushing her tickling, soft whiskers out of my face as I climbed the ladder into our cosy nest of a kitchen above.
The uneven, aged floor was freshly swept, and Mum was seated with her back towards me, stringing her share of the afternoon’s harvest of onions and wet garlic. A crude form of crop rotation had helped the village build a useful stock of essentials, and make full use of each recovering layer of soil.
I glanced around the familiar, circular space, and felt its warmth reach out to embrace me. I’d painted the concave walls as a child, with dyes drained from crushed seeds and roots; and I loved the way my forest drawings had taken on a life form of their own as the canvas had aged and relaxed.
Thomas’s treehouse map hadn’t escaped my crude, woollen brushes either. I’d coloured and recoloured his faded pencilled vision of Arafel, until I knew it by heart. It used to be my favoured pastime when the monsoon weather came, and I’d spent countless hours pondering the location of our own tiny green home among the maze of crude charcoal markings on the floor.
‘Mum?’ I murmured, relishing the way the word hung in this space.
She spun around immediately, and relief flooded her wind-burned face as I flew across the floor to hug her.
‘Mum, it’s OK … we’re both OK.’
‘Oh, Talia! Thank Arafel! Where’s Eli? You’ve been gone so long I was beginning to … Never mind … Grandpa’s been asking for you since midday.’
It was only when I held her that I noticed she was shaking. She’d struggled since Dad left us, and become increasingly stressed whenever Eli and I took a hunting shift in the outside forest.
‘We’ve been gone the usual time, Mum,’ I murmured quietly, letting her gaze wander anxiously over my face and limbs. When she was satisfied I hadn’t incurred any injury, she nodded towards one of the gnarled doorframes.
A frail voice filtered through. ‘Is that you, Talia?’
I frowned at Mum. He sounded a little worse. She nodded brightly, but her eyes were misted and only cleared when Eli crept up and lifted her cleanly off her feet in a bear hug spin.
Despite – or perhaps because of – his silent world, Eli had the sunny energy to charm a raincloud before it cried. Somehow he always made me stronger. Drawing a breath, I stepped through to Grandpa’s room, savouring the cocooning scent of old books as I entered his snug den.
My grandfather was one of the village’s Senior Elders and held a special, weighted vote in any decision-making. He was also caretaker to Arafel’s sizeable library, created when Thomas salvaged books among the city’s ruins. It was a role he took extremely seriously. And one I would inherit one day. The collection represented a wealth of our ancestors’ general knowledge, and since no one had been permitted to return to the city since Thomas’s time, it was also a priceless asset.
‘Hi, Grandpa,’ I called, forcing a cheerful tone.
My gaze took in the proud, wan man reclining in his favourite oak chair beside the open window. His watery blue eyes leapt as they met mine, while my fragile spirits tumbled. Grandpa had been our rock since Dad had gone, and I couldn’t think about how we’d cope if he left us too.
We’d consulted all three of Arafel’s voluntary medics. Although our small community had no traditionally trained doctors, efforts had been made to record the knowledge handed down by two original defector doctors. Radiation had eradicated many of the old water and airborne diseases, so when people in Arafel died, it was usually from injury or old age. Such was the prognosis for Grandpa, they said softly, as though it would ease the pain. It was his time.
I walked towards his outstretched hands. Grandpa was the eldest resident of Arafel and one of the few remaining links back to the first days. He was a living reminder of how hard life had been compared with now, and as I grasped his hands I studied his shrewd face. Every year was carefully etched by time’s pencil; every line bearing witness to Arafel beliefs: natural order, respect for our place, and taking only what we needed to survive.
‘Close the door, Talia,’ Grandpa said softly, ‘and take a seat.’
I stared in surprise. Grandpa rarely closed his door, and almost never called me by my full name. Suddenly the air in the room seemed heavier.
I did as he wished, before scuttling to my knees in front of his chair.
‘Do you feel OK, Grandpa? Should I send for someone?’
My chest contracted like I’d dropped into the freezing water all over again as Grandpa cupped my cheeks in his hands.
‘Hush now, child. I’m as fit as anyone who’s been blessed enough to take care of Arafel for eighty-seven years. We just need a little chat, you and I, about a special task I need you to fulfil when I’m gone.’
My hackles rose instantly. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Grandpa!’ I returned a little too quickly.
‘Now you and I both know that’s not true … or possible.’ His eyes twinkled down at me and I buried my face in his warm, weathered hands, suddenly nine years old again.
‘Come, don’t let those beautiful eyes be sad for me, Talia; you must know there are others who would trade their entire lives for one day in our free world. In the end we must all know our place in nature, and time.’
I nodded, trying to swallow, and failing miserably. ‘That’s what you said about Dad,’ I whispered hoarsely, the memory of his words easing the twist in my chest.
‘Did I? Well then, it must be true.’
He smiled and let his gaze wander to the bark window frame, through which reached the last glowing arcs of evening sun. He seemed different tonight, at ease in a new way, almost as though he was freeing himself of everything that tied him to this world, and to us.
I dug deep for a smile, trying to ignore the new invisible wall growing between us.
‘You’re a special girl, Tal, and what I’m about to tell you must never leave this room. You and your brother are born survivors. I don’t worry about that, but this responsibility is different. It concerns the future of everyone we love and who lives here. It concerns the future of Arafel itself.’
I stared at Grandpa. I’d never heard him speak so seriously before.
‘Sit