Tatsania's Gift by Kim Falconer

Author:Kim Falconer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Voyager
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Once Kali was placed on the B ops team, the work was regular and considerably less thrilling than she thought it would be. She and Nell went on basic recons, sometimes with several others from her team but often on their own. It wasn’t very interesting — watching the guard rounds and shift changes, reporting what a certain scientist did on Saturday night — but it kept her in Oben’s good books.

‘Is there a mission coming up?’ Nell asked. They’d finished another hard training session and were packing to go.

‘None mentioned,’ Kali said, ‘but I’m leading target practice tomorrow.’ She smiled. Hand to hand was fun but guns were exhilarating.

On the way home that night, clouds gathered thick and oppressive. Lightning cracked through the black thunderheads, lighting up the entire hillside for an instant then plunging it back into darkness. Kali and Nell hunched against the wind, and were soaked by the time they reached the front door of the rabbit hole. Their glamour was tattered but, from habit, they didn’t let it fall until they were inside. There they took off their muddy boots, unbuttoned their coats and rubbed the circulation back into their limbs.

In the kitchen the kettle boiled and Nell made a pot of beetroot tea.

‘It sounds like a big storm,’ Kali said.

Bess went to the front door and had a look. Lightning zapped through the clouds and hit the ground not a stone’s throw in front of her. The look on Bess’s face was more frightening than anything the woman could have said.

‘Come back inside!’ Jen yelled over the wind.

Bess slammed the door against the wind and they all huddled near the hearth — a rare occurrence. The storm raged around the hill all night and didn’t let up.

‘Will the walls hold?’ Nell whispered.

Kali looked up at the ceiling. The wide beams overhead were flexing and creaking. ‘I hope so.’

After a day and a night, they ran out of fuel. The storm did not lessen. The shelter became cold and dark; they could spare only one lantern. Two more days went by. A ceiling beam cracked, rain trickled down the walls and water pooled under the door. Toby sent images of being drowned in a hole. It did nothing to reassure any of them.

They had weathered storms before this one — torrential rains and gale force winds that kept the girls from their classes until the fury passed. They survived them by plugging the cracks in the mud walls, sealing the windows and digging culverts to divert flash floods. This storm was different. It tore the door out of Auntie Bess’s hand and bent its hinges when she went to check outside. A deluge rushed down the hallway before she could pull the door back and wedge it shut.

The girls spent the night on the kitchen table, water swirling around its legs, chairs submerged like sunken ships glinting in the orange lantern light. The aunties’ room was higher but there was still a foot of water lapping their bed frames.

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