Andrea Höst: The Touchstone Trilogy

Friday, November 23

Treed

The Grey Terriers turned up in numbers. Before today I’ve only seen them in groups of three or four, but about twenty started following me this morning. I climbed a tree. I’m not sure if they’re at all likely to attack me – it’s not like they’re all gathered around the base of the tree jumping up at me. But every so often they drift back past the tree, and there always seems to be one hanging about watching.

Don’t know how long I’ll be stuck up here, but I do have food and water – and a sore ass from sitting on this rough bark!

One week

It’s been a lifetime. The past couple of days I’ve been feeling so…annoyed. I mean, if I was going to be whisked off to spend the rest of my life stumbling around the wilderness, couldn’t it have happened BEFORE the exams? Or at least after the Schoolies cruise? I don’t even get to find out how I did. The whole HSC thing seems pretty minor now. I was going to do an Arts degree while making up my mind where to end up, since there’s nothing out there that sounds like an interesting way to earn a living. That I can do, anyway.

The Grey Terriers went away eventually. I waited a long time, not sure it was safe, and saw a new animal as my reward. It must have been hidden in a burrow. It was only the size of a kitten – for all I know it was just a baby, though I didn’t see any adults – and was like the tree fox, except smaller with shorter legs and more a creamy manila folder colour with black markings. It was so cute. It leaped about, exploring under the leaves and darting and rushing and then freezing and listening hard and then scurrying back under the tree roots where it lives.

I’m calling it a pippin, and it cheered me up for a while.

The rest of the day was more walking, and finding a rash all over my legs and on my arms. Just pinpoints, but not comfortable. And now I’m sitting here on a hill well away from the river, watching the moon rise. It’s the first time it’s come up, and if it had bothered to show itself before I would have known straight away that this isn’t Earth. It’s big, and blueish, and there’s a huge scar almost like a bullet hole, or an odd meteor crater, with lines radiating out from it. It’s about two-thirds full, and it looks like it’ll make the night a bright one. Weird, beautiful. Mum would love it.

Saturday, November 24

I am not my Mother

But sometimes I wish I was.

There was a patch where I hated Mum. My first year of high school, I went to St Mary’s. Great school, I really liked it, and April Stevenson was in my class. She was just…there’s a certain sort of person who is like a little walking sun. No party feels like it starts until they get there, because they’re just so alive. April was full of great stories and ideas and could do anything she set out to. Everyone gravitated to her, like they do with HM at my current school, but April was straightforward nice as well, and a reader, so we were always chatting in the library.

April thought science fiction and fantasy was kid’s stuff. She wasn’t nasty about it, but she couldn’t understand why anyone over ten would read it. So I peeled the fairy stickers off my folders and read other books. She invited me over to her house a few times, and everything was so sophisticated and Mrs Stevenson was like someone off TV. Then we had a parents' day at school and Mum shows up in one of her Celtic dragon t-shirts. She didn’t say anything rude, and chatted away with other parents, but I hated her for that shirt.

I said a few things to Mum that year that I can never take back. About how embarrassed she made me. How I was surprised Dad had stuck around as long as he did. Mum doesn’t like arguments. She just took me out of St Mary’s at the end of the term, and pretty much ignored everything I said for about six months.

Before that I used to think she was the best Mum in the world. When she’s not reading she makes jewellery, and eerie but cool little dolls, and sells them online. She plays computer games. She’s really bad at racing games, but she’ll even play them when Jules bugs her enough. She tries to explain when she wants us to do stuff, and she cares more about what’s right than what’s in. It’s only over the last couple of years that I realised that she wasn’t that embarrassing really. And I never got around to telling her that.

I can’t imagine what she’s doing now. I wish there was some way to at least let her know I’m alive. That no nasty old man grabbed me and did things to me. The worst part about all this is that every day I’m complaining about being Survivor Cass is a day she doesn’t, can’t, will never know.

Sunday, November 25

One long river

I’ve been following the river in a loop around the base of a big hill, which is easier than trying a straight line over the top since I get lost so easily once I’m under cover of the trees. The river is narrower and faster than I’ve seen previously – I’d only swim across it at this point if I absolutely had to – but it’s still clear without any hint of salt or tides to suggest that I’m nearing the ocean.

The soles of my feet are black, even after I wash them, and have collected plenty of bruises and tiny cuts, but there’s no way I’m putting my shoes on until the sores made by my blisters are better. The rash on my arms and legs went away quickly though. I think it was the tree which caused it. I’ve lost weight: my skirt keeps slipping down on my hips. I’ve never been the thinnest girl, though not really fat either, and I wouldn’t mind a mirror to see what I look like. Not that I’d pass up a milkshake.

Foliage overload

Another reason I’m glad to stick to the river is it offers a break from the trees. The undergrowth isn’t too bad here, but between the trees and bushes it still feels very closed in. Even when I’m up on a hill, I rarely see any distance at all, and big clearings only happen once in a while. When the river’s running straight I at least get a reasonable glimpse of what’s ahead, but I want a better idea of where I am and whether there’s anything out there I should head for.

Which comes down to climbing trees. The problem is, if I fall, if I break a leg or an arm, I’m going to have to fix it. Any accident, no matter how minor, could be fatal. Even the little scratches could get infected, and I don’t have the least idea how to make antiseptic, any more than I can figure out where soap comes from.

Anyway, I’ve found a good tree. It’s a kind of pine, I guess. One of the really straight ones anyway, basically a pole with lots of branches sticking out, and if I can use the nearest rock to haul myself to the lowest branch, I should be able to climb up far further than I can on the trees which have lots of low, dividing branches. Time to give it a shot.

View

Okay, just a few scrapes and itches for that effort. And nothing much else. I could see a fair way, but it was all what I already knew – I’m in a lot of low hills covered by trees, and a river is winding through it. Still no sign of farmland or buildings, let alone power lines. I think maybe there’s an edge of water ahead. It could just be the river widening again and turning back, but it looked flatter in that direction.

Monday, November 26

Bleaurgh

Very sick. I tried a new fruit, a kind of orange grape (granges). Only ate one, and have been sicking up all afternoon, with the added joy of the runs. I think I’ll be okay, but life without toilet paper truly sucks.