The Last Murder at the end of the World

THIRTEEN

Clara leaps forward, catching Hui’s flailing hand as the scree slips from under her feet and clatters over the sheer drop to her left. Clinging tight to each other, they listen to the stones bounce, then cast a quick, nervous glance at the vast plains spread out like a tatty quilt far below.

‘Nope,’ says Hui, shaking her head and averting her eyes again.

Until now, she’s never been any higher than the third floor of the barracks, so she didn’t know how much she disliked heights.

They’re not far from the volcano’s cauldron, but the goat trail’s steeper up here, the ground more treacherous. Thea is way out in front, disappearing into the heat shimmering off the ground, while Hui and Clara bring up the rear. It’s a little after midday, which is the hottest part of the day. The sun is an inch away from their blistering skin and the only shade is the one they’re dragging after them.

Clara’s coping reasonably well, but Hui’s panting hard, every step an ordeal. She needs a long rest, but she’s too embarrassed to ask. I’ve offered to tell Thea on her behalf, but she won’t let me. Normally, I’d disregard that sentiment, but Hui’s pulse is strong, her heartbeat steady, and she’s breathing freely. I’m required to keep the villagers healthy. As long as that’s taken care of, I’ll do my best to keep them happy, as well.

‘You okay?’ asks Clara, making sure Hui has her footing before releasing her arm.

‘I hate this,’ replies Hui.

‘Seems fair,’ agrees Clara, handing Hui a flask of water.

She tries to push it away. ‘We’re falling behind.’

‘It’s not like we don’t know where the top of the volcano is,’ replies Clara kindly. ‘Get your breath back. We’ll get there when we get there.’

Hui gulps from the flask gratefully, the lukewarm water spilling down her chin.

While she drinks, Clara searches the ground for the train carriage they started from, but it’s disappeared into a mass of brown and green earth. She can see an eagle circling below, riding the same warm current that’s blasting her face.

She beams in delight, giddy at everything that’s happening to her.

All of her life, she’s woken in the village and fallen asleep in the village, without ever knowing anything different. But in the last fortnight, she’s seen dark forests and golden beaches, mines filled with bats and sandy bays writhing with dolphins.

From the local flora, she’s learned how to harvest remedies for almost every ailment that afflicts the villagers. Thea’s taught them how to set broken bones, transfuse blood and tend burns. She’s taught them how to temporarily power ancient machinery with their portable solar generators, and how to read the strange symbols that pour across their shattered black screens.

Clara has never been this happy. She just wishes she hadn’t needed to fall out with her mother to get here. From the second Emory found out her daughter was taking the trials, she did everything possible to sabotage her chances, even blaming Thea publicly for her father’s death. It was mortifying.

‘She misses you,’ I say, in her thoughts.

‘I miss her,’ she admits. ‘I just wish she’d let me … Dad would have understood why I wanted to come here.’

‘He’d be standing beside you,’ I agree.

It was Jack’s fondest hope that his daughter would follow in his footsteps and become an apprentice. He dreamed about moments like this. He wanted it so badly, he was even willing to endure the shouted arguments with Emory to get it.

‘How are you able to stand there so calmly?’ asks Hui, from behind her. ‘Why are you never afraid?’

Clara realises she’s standing on the very edge of the cliff, her toes poking into the air, the wind tugging at her clothes. Her heart’s thumping, her blood racing.

She’s been like this her entire life; always the one who dived the deepest, and swam the furthest out. If there’s something to be climbed, Clara will be halfway up it while her friends are still working up the courage. She strides into the darkest tunnels as if guided by some light only she can see.

Even Thea has praised her courage, and she hands out compliments the way the moon hands out fruit.

‘After my dad drowned, I wouldn’t go near the sea, not for anything,’ she says, leaning forward to peer at the distant ground. ‘My mum let me be afraid for a couple of weeks, then, one day, she walked me out to the pier, right to the water’s edge, and told me that everything we fear finds us eventually, so there’s no point trying to outrun it. We spent an hour on that pier, then, finally, she made me jump in with her.’

‘It must have worked,’ says Hui admiringly. ‘You’re not afraid of anything.’

‘Of course I am,’ replies Clara. ‘I just jump anyway.’

Carrying on up the trail, they find Thea and a nonplussed goat waiting for them in front of a glass door cut into the rock, rivulets of steam clouding the interior from view. The goat’s munching on a sapling, regarding them solicitously. Clara gives it a friendly pat, raising dust off its pelt.

Thea presses a green button, causing the door to slide open, humidity billowing into their faces. From barren rock, they’re suddenly in a vast forest of brightly coloured plants and green trees, under a domed glass roof, supported by an intricate metal latticework. The air is thick and steamy, and it takes their eyes a second to adjust to the shocking array of colours and shapes surrounding them.

‘Welcome to the cauldron garden,’ says Thea, sweeping an arm before her. ‘Everything under this dome was created by the scientists of the Blackheath Institute, even the birds and insects. It’s from these plants and creatures that we extract the compounds required to create our more advanced medicines, and conduct our experiments.’

Thea wipes the sweat from her brow. Her T-shirt and shorts are sopping wet, but she carries herself with such dignity that the apprentices don’t notice.

‘I’m going to fetch the child,’ she says. ‘I’ll meet you at the cable-car station, which can be found by following the cauldron wall to your left. Along the way, I’d like you to catalogue five distinct plants, noting one unique feature per plant, with a reasoned guess for its adaptation.’

Thea disappears into the forest, leaving Clara and Hui to sniff the flowers and rub the petals, marvelling at what humanity was once capable of achieving.

As they walk, they see birds with proboscises feeding from tubular flowers, and strange creatures leaping around in the underbrush, eggs sacks wobbling on their backs. Bulbous vines dangle from the ceiling pumping out a strange yellow pollen, which collects in thick drifts on the girls’ hair and shoulders.

‘What is this?’ asks Clara, holding out her palm.

‘It carries nutrients to the plants,’ I explain. ‘This garden is a closed ecosystem. Everything in here nourishes everything else.’

Clara examines the flowers in wonder, her eyes flitting between the butterflies and the birds, the zipping insects, and the strange trees with their brightly coloured blooms.

‘Where do you think the children are kept?’ asks Hui, staring into the trees longingly.

‘No idea,’ shrugs Clara.

‘Why do you think we’re not allowed to see them?’

‘If Thea thought it was a good idea for us to see them, she’d have taken us with her,’ says Clara shortly.

Birds are singing above them, their beauty immediately drawing Hui’s attention. She stops dead, her fingers twitching, trying to mimic the notes she’s hearing until they dart away. Hui watches them go with a stricken expression, only for the song to start again deeper in the garden. She follows it unthinkingly.

‘Where are you going?’ asks Clara.

‘I need to hear it better,’ she replies, striking off through the plants.

‘Thea told us to go to the cable car,’ protests Clara.

‘I’m not going far,’ says Hui, barely listening to her friend.

Clara grumbles, but doesn’t argue any further. Hui’s not really in there, any more. The world is being shovelled into a melting pot of inspiration, from which something mesmerising will eventually emerge. Until that point, Clara’s only job is to keep her from walking blindly off the mountain to better hear the wind as she falls.

The foliage grows denser with every step, and Hui’s unpredictable shifts in direction cause Clara to lose ground.

She’s distracted by a winged squirrel with antennas, which is hovering a little off the ground, trying to pull the cup of a flower towards its mouth. Sensing her attention, it stops foraging and stares at her through its glassy eyes.

For a second they regard each other.

Its antennas twitch. Its ears prick.

A snake explodes out of the undergrowth, planting its fangs into the squirrel’s back.

Startled, Clara jumps away, as the snake opens its mouth and swallows the convulsing creature whole. For a few minutes, she watches in horrified fascination as the snake’s body distends to accommodate its meal, until it finally drags itself back into the bushes.

When she looks up again, Hui has vanished.

‘Hui!’ she calls out, receiving no reply.

Humidity patters the leaves around her, the wonder of the garden replaced by a hostile alienness.

Clara, like everybody raised in the village, has never been alone. Their first memory is of me introducing myself in their thoughts, and from that point onwards they’re surrounded by love and laughter. This is the first time she can remember looking around and not being able to see a kind face.

‘You’re okay,’ I say reassuringly. ‘There’s nothing that can harm you up here.’

‘Not even the snake?’

‘Well, the snake’s not hungry any more,’ I say.

‘Which direction did Hui go?’ she asks me, in a strained voice.

‘Straight,’ I reply. ‘You’ll hear her humming.’

She stalks off into the garden, moving further away from her friend, who’s actually thirty paces to her left. If this island is to survive the week, Clara cannot be by Hui’s side in five minutes’ time. Such is the delicate scaffolding of events the future rests on. If even one piece is out of place, everybody will be crushed beneath it.

Clara pushes aside the branches, moving quickly to outrun the fear creeping up behind her.

‘You’re sure she’s down here?’ she asks, wading across a stream.

A high-pitched scream cuts through the thick foliage behind her, only to be abruptly cut off.

Clara’s head whips around, trying to find the source, but it seems to have come from everywhere.

‘Hui?’ she yells, bolting back the way she came. ‘Hui!’

Roots snag her feet, thorns catch her face, drawing tiny beads of blood. She bursts into a clearing, wiping the sweat from her brow.

‘Abi … where …’

A heavy hand clamps her shoulder.

Spinning around, she sees Hephaestus towering over her, carrying a strange conical contraption with several long antennas sticking out of it. She stumbles backwards in alarm, tripping and landing on her bum, bringing a jolt of pain.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he declares in a low rumble.

Thea emerges from behind Hephaestus, a little boy clinging to her leg. His blond hair is wet and tousled, and his brown eyes are wide and dull. He’s wearing a bright white robe, the material wet in places. He looks to be eight years old, which is the age of every child when they come to the village.

His expression is strangely empty.

Hui is standing a foot away among the trees, holding a small metal box in her outstretched arms. She’s trembling uncontrollably, her head lowered.

‘What happened?’ asks Clara, addressing Hui.

‘This is not where I asked you to go,’ interrupts Thea.

‘I heard a scream.’

‘Our young friend here suffered a misfortune,’ says Thea, gesturing to a bloody bandage on the boy’s forearm. ‘I’ve tended his wound, and we’re ready to continue our journey.’

Clara glances at the bandage, knowing it wasn’t the boy she heard.

‘It was Hui I heard scream.’

‘You’re mistaken.’

Clara reels. She can’t believe that Thea would lie to her so brazenly. Usually, if there’s something she doesn’t want to tell Clara, Thea simply ignores the question, or directs her towards another topic.

Clara’s gaze darts to Hui for support, but her friend refuses to meet her eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

‘She’s fine,’ interrupts Thea impatiently. ‘I’m fine. The boy is fine. No more questions. It’s time our young friend here met his new parents, and we’re running late.’