10.
We arrived home at sunset, pleasantly exhausted from our day. Blackheath went on another fruitless Ally hunt and the rest of us got dinner and cleaning up underway.
Towards the end of dinner, a dog-like noise began. It wasn't quite a bark, but you could tell it was meant to be. The noise was intermittent at first, but quickly grew more and more insistent.
"What is that?" I asked.
"That's Ally's dog, Tingo," Bhask answered. Blackheath was already making for the door, knife hidden in one hand. I didn't even see where he got it from. Dorsey ushered me silently up the stairs, and we listened on the landing in the darkness, hearts in our mouths.
"I'd be obliged if you'd call your dog off?" a voice came from out the front, and we snuck to a window til we could just make out a posse of hard looking people in the light spilling from the open front door.
"Not my dog," Blackheath replied with remarkable disinterest.
"Right. Well, someone better teach him; if he doesn't back off he'll get shot."
We heard Ally called her dog frantically and there was silence.
"Seems our little Maddy paid you a house call the other night," the voice said, and this time I found its source, an older man in the centre of the group. I listened for any sound from Bhask or Alex, but the house may as well have been empty.
" So?" Blackheath replied finally.
"Creates tensions with my people, see. Chet isn't the sharing type."
"Don't see how this is my problem."
"That's not very neighbourly."
"We're not neighbours."
"Not yet, no."
They eyed each other, neither backing down.
"Don't see what I can do about it. While she's on your land she's your responsibility," Blackheath shrugged.
"Exactly." The older man seemed to find this acceptable. Another did not.
"If I find her here again she's fucking dead! You're all fucking dead!" This must be Chet. I had the distinct impression of menace. Blackheath ignored him.
"Please excuse my nephew," the older man said eventually, "He hasn't yet learnt to hold his tongue."
"Your nephew should learn not to make enemies he doesn't need," Blackheath said quietly.
"You took the words right out of my mouth," the older man said, very slowly, very clearly. "He should, it's true. If we were all fighting against the Souls together we'd push them into the sea. We'd be able to walk the streets of our own cities again."
"I've no argument with you there," Blackheath replied.
"Good. Glad to hear it."
"So we're done?"
The other man nodded, "Thank you for your kind hospitality."
And they disappeared into the blackness.
We waited another few minutes til we could be sure they were gone, then scrambled down the stairs.
"Let her alone, she's trouble," Blackheath was warning Bhask.
"She'll be in trouble if I leave her-"
"She'll definitely be in trouble if you go near her," Alex chipped in. Bhask backed down under their combined front. Dorsey put her arm around his shoulders and squeezed sympathetically.
But in less than half an hour Tingo was back on the job, yelping out a warning, but this time the intruder ran onto the verandah and banged vigorously on the door. Blackheath opened it warily but a girl pushed right past him and Bhask met her halfway.
"Maddy what are you doing here! They'll kill you!" he said in fright, gazing into her eyes.
"I knew they were coming here. I took the last car. I'm leaving. I'm running away!" her voice was filled with giddy hope and fear, her eyes locked on his, and the rest of us didn't seem to exist.
"Maddy, if they find you…"
"They can't go to the cities. Let's go there! They won't be able to get either of us."
"Why not just come home with me then?"
"I can't be so far away from my family, if something happens…"
"If something happens, you can't go back anyway. Diaz will still be furious."
"Things change quickly here…"
"Well, when they change, come back then."
The flow of conversation slowed, as both began to realize they were pulling in different directions.
"Don't you want to be a part of changing things?" Maddy asked him, "You're really happy to just sit back and wait?"
"I'm helping people back home-"
"Who needs your help more? Us or them?"
"Maddy…"
"I want to be with you Bhask. But I don't want to leave here."
"Well you can't go back now; Diaz will kill you."
"I know," she said after a pause, seeing that the answer she wanted was not in his eyes. He picked up her hands and squeezed them a little, staring rigidly at her hip.
"Goodbye Maddy," he whispered.
She shook free her hands and wrapped her arms around him in a single burst of movement, holding him desperately for the last time. But there was nothing more to be said, or that could be said without tears, and she ran back to the car. We listened in silence as its engine noises were engulfed by the night.
***
Bhask didn't even last 24 hours.
"I have to go," he said, hugging me hard by the front door, his bag at his feet and the car waiting.
I hugged him back just as hard. He didn't need to convince me.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered.
"Don't be sorry. You're doing the right thing."
"Say goodbye to George for me? And Margie?"
"You're not exiled, you goof, you can visit," Dorsey said.
"Yeah…"
We watched them drive off from the shadows of the verandah, my heart heavy with loss but equally swamped with joy too to see my son going after the woman he loved, finding his own happiness in their togetherness.
When all that was left was his dust trail disintegrating in the evening light, I turned to Alex and pulled the pendant out of my pocket, eyeing him knowingly.
"You remembered?"
"I remembered," I replied gravely but with a touch of satisfaction, "It means we'll never be apart."
As I tied it around his neck he leant in and kissed me like he was welcoming me home from a very long trip away.
And then we went home.
Home…
I walked around, my fingers or my gaze touching everything, photos, furniture, clothes. We drove around the city, visiting Falling Smoke's old house, the Healing Centre, the opera, Melts Blue Ice, Diane, Cara, Margie and her people, the city walls still standing though the gates were never shut. We made a trip to see George, visiting Edie's grave, walking up the hill where Blackheath had finally got together with Dorsey, through the forest where I had seen the wolf, down to the river where Bhask had fallen in after the first snows, so many years ago. And everywhere we went I felt little things slip into place, the flow of memory dislodge obstructions and flow freely until I finally felt I was me again.
And now, Kim Turner had woken up and found she had missed the past six years of her life, and I knew just how she had felt.