Free Carrier by Vanessa Garden

leaving dark wet drops on her shirt.
    â€˜I am not! I’m still Lena. And Lena wants freedom too, Mum. Everybody wants freedom.’
    Mum’s face was in her hands now, her bony shoulders shaking, and despite her harsh words my heart twisted to see her unravel.
    â€˜You’re all I’ve got, Lena,’ she said, her voice a croak behind her hands. ‘I’m sorry I’m such a bitch sometimes...but I don’t want you to leave me.’
    It was hard to remain rigid and to restrain myself from putting my arms around her. But I knew what I had to do.
    â€˜I love you, Mum. But I’m going.’
    With a stone heart, I turned and started the long walk to the front gate, the sky above me bruised and angry.
    Charlotte howled mournfully from the shed — Mum must have locked her in after the hunt — and Emma raced back and forth between me and Charlotte, yapping at us both, undecided which to protect. I whistled and knelt down and she leapt into my arms, licking my face and nuzzling my neck. I buried my face into her stinky fur before I got up and pointed back at the house.
    â€˜You go, Emma. You go be a good girl and protect your sister. Protect Mum too.’
    She blinked her small black eyes at me and ran, yapping and screeching at the rumbling sky.
    I turned and continued towards the gate.
    Choking down a sharp sob, I opened my cupped hands to read all that remained of Alice.
    The small, fragile strip of paper fluttered between my fingers like a butterfly.
    It was just the one word, but it spoke more to me than all the passages in all of the books I’d ever read put together.
    â€˜Freedom...’

Chapter 8
    Mum had the key to the padlocked gate, but it didn’t matter because I was going to scale it instead. I thought of Alice as I wrapped my fingers around the solid bars and started to climb. I pictured her cheering me on as I swung one leg over the top, being extra careful not to catch my clothes on the razor wire.
    The ground on the other side of the rose to meet me with an almighty crack, jarring my ankles as though I’d split bones. But the pain was nothing beside the sense of freedom , which hit me from every angle like several swift whacks to my senses.
    I staggered back, until I felt the metal gate pressing into my spine. Everything was so wide open, without the comfort and restraint of a boundary, and although it was liberating experience, it also came with the eerie sensation of being exposed, watched by unseen eyes.
    I wanted to dash and hide behind the nearest bush, bury myself beneath the red dust, anything to take away the prickling sensation along the lengths of my arms and the back of my neck. I rooted around my back pocket for my knife just in case, though it was ridiculous to expect every diseased male in the country to be awaiting my arrival.
    Something rustled the leaves of a shrub to my left. My stomach clenched and my hand shook but only a dugite slithered out into view, its tiny forked tongue darting out before it sped away over the orange sand like a streak of black lightening. I spluttered a nervous sigh of relief.
    More thunder grumbled from the north, where smoky grey clouds came towards me like an enormous dark blanket. It was only just after midday, but the dim sky could have been easily mistaken for dusk. If I got a move on, I could make it to the waterhole by three o’clock. And then...well, I wasn’t sure what my plans were. Though I’d told Mum I would be back, part of me entertained the idea of finding Patrick’s house and just staying there with him and his brothers until Mum calmed down.
    According to Alice’s diary, if I continued north of the waterhole, I’d eventually come across Patrick’s house, and hopefully, Patrick too.
    Tiny shards of lightning forked the northern sky. I quickened my pace, stirring the red earth with my feet.
    If darkness or the storm came before I reached Patrick’s, I had to trust