Free Salt by Maurice Gee Page B

the birds had blood on their beaks, and here, suddenly too, people were running on the beach and falling on their knees, and horsemen with lances galloped after them and over them. People fell. Women and children fell. The sand turned red. She writhed in it, screaming as a black sword fell on her. It seemed to strike, but turned into a hand that rested on her brow. She heard a voice murmur: Easy, child – Tealeaf’s voice. Sleep without dreaming. She obeyed, but felt too, before the black sweet nothingness came down, that she was obeying herself.
    Stars were shining when she woke, and fading as the moon came up. Tealeaf was sitting by a small fire, with the dog sleeping beside her. A pannikin of water steamed on the embers. Pearl watched, remembering her dreams. She did not think Tealeaf had given them to her, but suspected Tealeaf knew.
    ‘Where did you get the wood?’ she said.
    ‘They’re twigs from the ironwood tree. They burn for hours.’
    ‘You must have been here before.’
    ‘I’ve been many places, Pearl. Come and drink some tea.’
    ‘I didn’t think we brought tea.’
    ‘We didn’t. It’s from the ironwood, from the leaves. You’ll find it bitter at first but sweet later on.’
    Pearl sipped it and made a face, but found a faint honey taste after a while.
    ‘Did he have dreams too?’ she said, nodding at the sleeping boy.
    ‘Worse ones. He’s seen worse things, Pearl.’
    ‘Do we have to wake him?’
    ‘Soon. He’ll be hungry. The dog was hungry.’
    ‘He talked to the dog. He talked to me.’
    ‘Yes, I know.’
    ‘Is that why we have to keep him?’
    Tealeaf sighed. ‘Wait a while, Pearl. I’ll tell you later. Finish your tea. I’ll cook some food.’ She pulled her bag towards her and lifted out a handful of white grubs, some as long as her thumb.
    ‘What are those?’ Pearl cried.
    ‘Muggy grubs, from the Muggy moth. They grow in the ironwood roots. We’re lucky it’s the season for them.’
    ‘I’m not eating grubs.’
    ‘Then you’ll go hungry. I’ve taken off their heads and squeezed the poison out. The dog likes them.’
    Pearl wondered if she had killed them while she was having her dream of birds tearing fish apart. She watched while Tealeaf placed them carefully in the embers, and soon a smell like roasting meat reminded her how hungry she was.
    ‘Help yourself, Pearl. I’m not your maid any more.’ Tealeaf tossed a raw grub to the dog, who snapped it hungrily out of the air.
    Pearl hooked a grub from the embers and put it to cool on a flat piece of rock. She tasted it and found it more sweet than savoury, and with a spicy after-taste.
    ‘How do you know about these things, Tealeaf?’
    ‘Eat some more. I want to wake Hari, then I’ll tell you.’
    ‘Who’s Hari? Oh, him. Do you expect me to forget he killed my brother?’
    ‘I expect you to remember that your brother was going to kill him. Now eat, and leave some for him. And, Pearl . . .’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘When I do wake him, remember your dream.’
    Pearl ate another grub.
    Which part of the dream, she wondered, the good part or the bad?
    Hari’s dream took him to places so dark and violent and bloody that even he, used to violence and blood, closed his eyes and wailed in terror. He tried to turn and run, but the dream was on his back, and bursting from the ground at his feet and swooping from above – things that crawled and killed, things that flew and killed, in humped and clawed and crooked shapes, yet with men inside them. They had faces that he knew, and all of them a second face, hiding behind. He tried to turn his eyes away, but everywhere the creature sprang into life, advancing, locked into itself, wearing its contorted face, and his face too. He wept and wailed and turned and ran, but met himself everywhere. He cowered and fell to his knees and hid his eyes. A weight came down and crushed him. And slowly, under it, his terror faded until a tiny squeak of pain was all he could make. That sound