Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina

Author:Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2018-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

I wake.

There’s a light above.

It shines on the centre of the room. Leaves shadow at the edges.

A voice speaks: ‘Hello, girl.’

I sit up. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Me is here.’

I turn towards the sound.

Corner of the room.

Too dark to see into.

The voice sings:

‘One more for the Feed.

Dead girl, dead girl.

One more in need.

Dead girl, dead girl.

Cry yourself to sleep.

Dead girl, dead girl.

Today monsters eat.

Dead girl, dead girl.’

I jump off the bed. Put up my fists. ‘Come out!’

No answer.

I take a step. Stop.

I don’t know who’s in that corner. What’s in that corner.

‘Who are you?’ I ask.

‘Who are you? A name for a name!’

One of us has to go first. ‘I’m Isobel Catching.’

‘I’m Crow.’

‘Come out where I can see you, Crow.’

‘You’ll be afraid if I do.’

I snort. ‘Yeah. ’Cause singing creepy songs in the dark isn’t scary at all.’

I hear shuffling.

Someone appears.

She’s grey.

Grey skin. Grey hair that trails to the floor.

Grey dress made from her hair.

She watches me with clouded eyes.

‘Are you afraid, Isobel-the-Catching?’

No. Relieved. I drop my fists. ‘You’re a girl. Like me.’

She comes – hops – closer. Her feet turn inwards. Her nails are too long.

‘Not like you!’ she says. ‘You have colours. So many. Soon they’ll come and you won’t be full of colours. You’ll be full of screams.’

‘Who’s coming? The Fetchers?’

‘Fetchers!’ she sniffs. ‘They are nothing. No heart, no guts, no core of self. Here, they serve the Feed.’

The boss man. ‘What does he want with us?’

‘He eats what’s inside our insides. The colours that live in our spirits. Do you think I was always a grey girl?’

Colours are not for Fetchers!

The colours are for him.

I had thought Crow was a grey girl.

But Crow’s colours have been taken.

All her colours.

‘How long have you been here?’

Crow hops about. ‘Since the Feed began. I wait. I watch.

I help those who come.’

‘Yeah? Help me, then!’

‘I am helping. I am telling.’

‘Tell me how we get out.’

Crow slashes her fingernails through the air.

‘There’s no escape. Not unless you’re a dead girl.’

Her head snaps around to the door.

It rattles.

She shuffles back to her dark corner.

The door opens.

First and Second are here.

Second throws something at me. I snatch it out of the air.

A bread roll.

I’m hungry.

But there’s only one.

I look at Crow’s corner.

She’s gone quiet.

She doesn’t want it.

Or she’s hiding.

As if they don’t know you’re here, Crow.

I tear the bun in two.

Throw her half on my bed.

Eat the other.

She speaks from the dark: ‘Sometimes bread. Sometimes meat. Sometimes sleep.’

My legs go numb.

I fall.

The Fetchers carry me out of the room.

Crow’s voice follows:

‘One more for the Feed

Dead girl, dead girl…’

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