Breathe Read online

  Breathe

  Penni Russon

  FOR MUM, DAD, AND KYLIE,

  THANKS FOR GIVING ME STORIES

  AND FOR CAROLYN AND CHRISTOPHER,

  A STORY COME TRUE

  Contents

  Prologue

  The first time, it is late summer. The days are…

  Part One

  Trout

  Chapter One

  From her bedroom window, Undine could see the top of…

  Chapter Two

  The school day rolled by, unremarkable. Trout arrived; she watched…

  Chapter Three

  Undine skipped down the steps and knocked lightly on Trout’s…

  Chapter Four

  Trout woke as he always did, sitting up, gasping for…

  Chapter Five

  There was a particular smell in the math classroom, like…

  Chapter Six

  The weekend did not look encouraging. The clouds were gray…

  Chapter Seven

  Undine watched the progression of dates on the calendar with…

  Chapter Eight

  Undine left Trout dancing alone, his face radiant. She drifted…

  Chapter Nine

  Undine warmed herself by the small campfire Duncan had built.

  Chapter Ten

  Wisps of gray cloud drifted across the surface of the…

  Chapter Eleven

  Trout and Dan did not speak in the car on…

  Chapter Twelve

  The sun. Old fire burning. Caster of shadows, illuminating difference,…

  Chapter Thirteen

  For someone who was only going away for four weeks,…

  Chapter Fourteen

  At bedtime Trout realized that Undine no longer shared his…

  Part Two

  Trout and Max

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maxine Madden had a love-hate relationship with Tasmania. Hobart was…

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Ionian sea glittered beguilingly at Undine. She stared at…

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was early afternoon when Undine woke, starving and disoriented.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Max took charge. While Trout stood frozen, she eased the…

  Chapter Nineteen

  Trout woke slowly; he kept his eyes shut for a…

  Chapter Twenty

  Grunt propelled himself forward, swinging his torch back and forth.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Still jet-lagged, Lou and Prospero wanted to spend the day…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In a world with little certainty, one thing was for…

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Wanna come for a walk?” Sofia leaned in the open…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  That evening, when Jasper and Lou were taking a swim…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Trout lay awake in the dark. He stared at the…

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Max watched the boys haul the boat along the sand…

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The domatia was in darkness; Undine’s family slept. She let…

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Trout climbed up, up out of the darkness. He held…

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Trout.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Lou stood in Undine’s hotel room. The sheets of the…

  Epilogue

  And then there is…

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  The first time, it is late summer. The days are drawing in. Every night the dark comes like the tide: inevitably. He tries to hold it back, he clenches his mind like a fist against it, but the dark comes anyway.

  The house shifts and settles, but its occupants are silent. All the world is sleeping, except Trout. He lies awake, but sleeplessness isn’t the problem. It’s the dream, every night the same, vivid and relentless.

  Tonight he doesn’t wait for it. He gets dressed. He pads down the stairs, his feet light and soft as big cats’ paws. He eases the front door open and closed. Outside, red bricks and asphalt hold the heat of the day, but the air is light and fresh and smells of change. He walks toward the city.

  He has this thought, that he is the only person left in the world. That he is walking through an abandoned streetscape and will find every building deserted, every human heart expired. Even the stars seem cool and distant. So it is a relief when he sees, at the dark end of a small street, an old man urinating into the gutter.

  He takes comfort in the company of strangers: cleaners, night nurses, bakers, and security guards; thieves and vandals and runaways; the drunk and dispossessed; the lonely, the lost, and the angry. He imagines himself a protector of sorts, a witness. He is privy to the city’s secrets.

  In the day he is merely a shadow of his nighttime self. When sunlight illuminates the darkness within him, he fears the dark. But here, in the night, there is no fear. His future lies waiting in the city’s black heart. The night has plans for them all.

  Part One

  TROUT

  CHAPTER ONE

  From her bedroom window, Undine could see the top of Mount Wellington, iced stingily with a narrow sliver of snow. Down on the street Trout’s brother Dan lovingly poured water on his brown Datsun, sealed in a thin veneer of frost. Steam clouded upward into the brittle air.

  She bent down and folded, then unfolded, the cuff of her jeans. Year Twelve, and the only difference she could see was that they were allowed to wear what they liked. Well, not the only difference, though school had little to do with her personal transformation.

  She stood at the window, watching for Trout.

  “Undine!” Lou called up the stairs. “You’ll miss the bus.”

  Downstairs Jasper was wearing his rainbow gumboots and nothing else. He waved his toothbrush.

  “Don’t you think he looks a little…fruity?” Undine asked.

  Lou laughed. “Come here, you,” she said, but Jasper took off squealing, his boots clomping on the wooden floor.

  Undine watched his bare bottom disappear through his bedroom door. “Gotta go!” she said to Lou, heading for the front door.

  “Wait!” Lou called. She tossed Undine an apple and a banana from the wooden bowl on the kitchen table.

  Undine looked down at the fruit in her hands with faint derision. “Nice parenting, Lou.”

  “Wait,” said Lou again, more seriously this time. “Let me look at you.”

  Undine rolled her eyes and spread out her arms and tilted her face back. “Go on, then.”

  Lou came over. She put both hands on Undine’s cheeks and scrutinized Undine’s face with careful attention. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Fine,” said Undine.

  “Anything happening?”

  “Look, it’s under control. I love that you care, but you don’t have to do this. I really will miss the bus.”

  Lou’s eyes held Undine’s for an extra moment. “Okay, chickadee,” she said finally, kissing Undine’s forehead. “Is Dominic coming for dinner tonight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The front door banged behind her, and Undine stood for a moment on the other side of it. She hadn’t been exactly lying to Lou; she did have it under control, but only just.

  Breathe-in-two-three-out-two-three…She focused her mind and held it in, that extraordinary power, that darkness: the magic.

  Trout woke, wearing last night’s clothes. His head ached; his neck was stiff and sore. He rolled over and looked at the clock. He would miss the bus. He closed his eyes again.

  For the second time in a week, Trout hadn’t done h
is homework. A year ago, Trout wouldn’t have known who he was if he had missed a single assignment. He was diligent with schoolwork, he studied astronomy and read Shakespeare in his own time, he sat in on the occasional university lecture in his free periods…he could even recite pi to seventy-two places. He was neither popular nor unpopular; he was liked well enough in a nerdy kind of way.

  Yep, a year ago, Trout had known exactly who he was, and by far the most important thing about him, his most distinguishing feature, the thing that dominated his unspectacular universe, was a girl: Undine Louise Connelly, the girl next door. They had been best friends. They still were, he supposed, officially anyway.

  She had not loved him, but he had loved her, and for years that had been enough, that unrequited, familiar, slightly excruciating but not especially risky love.

  But now it was all different. Oh, he still loved her. But it ate him daily, that love, leaving less and less of him behind. Where he had once been whole, he was now damaged, exposed parts. He loved her, but sometimes he hated her for it.

  Someone knocked on his door. He pulled the duvet up to his chin to hide his crumpled clothes.

  “I’m up,” he called, his voice muffled.

  “Yeah, right.” It was Dan. He stood in the doorway, jangling his car keys.

  Trout groaned. “What gave me away?”

  “How about seventeen years of undeniable history?”

  “Grumble.”

  “And they say you’re the smart one. I suppose you want another lift?”

  “Come on, you love it. Any excuse to drive that clapped-out demon of yours.”

  Dan backed out of the room. “You take that back or you’ll be walking to school. That’s a lady you’re talking about.”

  Trout rubbed his eyes and forced himself to get up. He drew back his curtain to check the day. Day cold. Big surprise.

  Undine was standing outside her front door. A wave of tiredness came over him.

  She looked so forlorn, standing there, and he felt suddenly sorry for her, uncomplicated by any other feelings. But then those other feelings intruded; the raw, injured parts of him began to throb, and the moment was gone.

  Undine lingered outside the door to Trout’s house, but didn’t go in.

  For the last seven years or so, Undine had met Trout every morning before school at his house, hurrying him along so he wouldn’t miss the bus. However, from the beginning of this school year, Trout had been ready and waiting for her at the bottom of the stepped laneway to Undine’s house.

  Then one day, Trout hadn’t been there at all. When Undine had knocked on the side door, Mrs. M. coolly informed her that Trout had left for school. He was at the bus stop already, talking to a couple of Year Eleven boys, and had hardly looked up when she joined them. Now he didn’t seem to catch the bus anymore.

  Undine had always taken Trout’s feelings for her for granted. No, she hadn’t; she had wished them away more times than she could count, and with desperate fervor. Well, now it seemed she was getting her wish: Trout was going off her. It didn’t feel good, now that it had happened. She modified her wishing, but she feared it was too late. She didn’t want his feelings for her to be messy, spilling over into romance. But she wanted them to be friends again, best friends, not these two awkward almost-strangers.

  “When did we stop talking to each other?” she asked the wintry air. Of course, they still talked. But there was so much unmentioned, every conversation was a minefield. Undine couldn’t pinpoint how certain topics had become taboo. She had once told Trout everything. Now they talked about nothing—filling the heavy silence between them with lightweight, inadequate words that tumbled through the air away from them.

  As she’d expected, Trout wasn’t at the bus stop. She sat in the shelter and waited, the absence of Trout a ragged hole inside her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The school day rolled by, unremarkable. Trout arrived; she watched from the window of her top floor classroom as he walked down the school driveway, five minutes late but in no hurry. At lunchtime she caught him outside the library.

  “Trout, I—”

  For a moment it seemed he might stop, but then Dominic appeared from nowhere, his arm sliding around her shoulders.

  “G’day, Montmorency,” Dominic said, affably enough, to Trout.

  Trout smiled vaguely. “Gotta run,” he said, tapping his wrist, though he wasn’t wearing a watch. “See you on the bus after school.”

  Undine watched Trout go; Dominic twisted his finger in her hair.

  Later, as Undine got on the bus, she saw Trout through the crowd of students jostling for the several buses that queued in the school’s driveway. He looked straight through her, as if she were made of glass.

  He climbed on a different bus from hers, one heading for the city. Without Trout’s company, the trip seemed interminably long, the crowded bus stuffy and overheated. Undine didn’t get a seat and stood in the aisle, buffeted by the lurching motion of the bus.

  There was a letter waiting for Undine when she got home. There was also one for Lou, with the same handwriting on the envelope. Undine was far more curious about Lou’s letter than her own, though she opened the one addressed to herself and read it standing just inside the door.

  Beach Road

  Bay of Angels

  Dear Undine,

  As I write, Flopsy and Mopsy chase insects outside, batting their paws against the windowpanes. Cottontail and Peter fight in the hallway, stalking each other’s long tails. Mother cat still refuses to come in, but I am working on her…this morning she drank some milk from a bowl just inside the back door. As a thank you, she left a rat on the step. That kind of gratitude I can live without. Ariel is groaning doggily in her sleep; perhaps she is dreaming of a past day, when she was queen of her domain, and there were no blasted cats.

  You haven’t seen the bay in winter yet: the sea is wilder now. The angels are buffeted by the wind and waves, ground by salt and sand, but still they stand, rigidly holy, bearing witness to the tide.

  Did you know that Alastair and his university cronies will be diving the wreck in August? I have given them permission to use my land. Alastair will live in the house and care for the animals. I will be heading for warmer climes for the duration.

  Best,

  Prospero

  It was a fairly typical letter from her father, with little outward sentiment. He did not mention the magic, at her request. She had told him she would not be using it and that she would not discuss it. He had protested, but faintly, diminished by his shame.

  She read the letter again, skittering over the references to Alastair—she wasn’t ready to think about him again. What did Prospero mean by warmer climes? She couldn’t imagine her elderly father in shorts and a T-shirt on the Gold Coast, with a beer in his hand and zinc cream on his nose.

  Undine was in the middle of homework when Lou and Jasper came home. Jasper went straight into his room and emerged moments later, stripped bare, wearing his rainbow boots and carrying his beloved toothbrush. He scavenged a cookie and headed into his corner of the lounge room, where his blocks and toys were kept, and set about with absorbed industry.

  “You’ve got a letter,” Undine told Lou.

  Lou picked it up and turned it over a few times in her hands. “What does he want?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Well, I doubt it’s triggered to explode,” Undine teased. “Go on. Open it.”

  “I will if you make me a cup of coffee,” bargained Lou.

  As the kettle came to a boil, Lou exclaimed out loud, “No! Absolutely not! Over my dead body.”

  Undine hurtled from the kitchen. “What?”

  “What did he say to you? Did you know about this? Oh, Undine. I can’t believe you would…”

  “Unless it’s something to do with kittens, I know nothing about it. What?”

  “He wants you to go on holiday with him,” Lou choked out. She said it with the same incredulity as if Prospero wanted to take Undine
to the moon.

  Undine’s eyes lit up. She could do with some of those warmer climes herself. “Really? Cool!”

  “No!” said Lou. “Not cool. You are not going. I’m not letting him drag you to the other side of the world, to the armpit of…”

  “The world?” Undine asked. “Armpit? Where does he want us to go?”

  “Doesn’t he know how important Year Twelve is? You’d have to take two weeks off school in addition to the term holiday. It’s just not practical.”

  “But I could catch up. I could take work with me,” Undine pleaded. “It would be good for me.” She picked up Lou’s letter, scanning it quickly. “Corfu! Fantastic!”

  “He says,” Lou said as she flopped back on the couch, “he wants you to discover your roots.”

  “Roots are good. Family is very important.” Undine regarded Lou. Actually, Lou had run away from home when she met Prospero and her family had refused contact with her since, so maybe this wasn’t the angle to take. But Lou surprisingly agreed.

  “Family is important,” she said softly. Then she rallied again. “So is Year Twelve, Undine. Your education has to come first.”

  “And it will, Lou. I promise. But I really want to go.”

  Lou took Undine’s hands. “Don’t you see, my girl? I can’t let you go. I can’t let you be that far away. I can’t let you go with him. We’ve got a deal, remember?”

  “I know. But you can trust me. I wouldn’t use the magic, I promise.”

  “I do trust you,” Lou said, but Undine thought she heard a trace of doubt. “I don’t trust him. And he can be so persuasive, so charismatic…”