People often assumed that, because Carly was a therapist, she lived and breathed other people’s problems. That she’d automatically start analysing them from the moment they met, pulling apart their childhoods, their deeply buried neuroses. The assumption pissed her off for a whole bunch of reasons, but two in particular: firstly, the fact that it was wholly unethical, a breach of professional boundaries. To start digging around inside someone’s head, working out how they ticked, when they hadn’t agreed to it? Sometimes, yes, it happened instinctively – before she could stop herself, she’d start filling in the blanks about someone, like she had when she’d first met the others yesterday. But she nevermeantto.
And the other point was a more mundane one: people, for the most part, just reallyweren’t that interesting. When you’dbeen in the healing field for more than ten years, like Carly had, the truth was that people tended to fit into certain patterns – the same patterns, over and over – based on how they’d been treated in the first two years of their life.Anxious, avoidant or secure.
You figured out which one of those styles they fit into, and you could predict how people would behave in almost any situation. From those earliest years of life, you could work out – with terrifying degrees of accuracy – whether or not someone would be likely to become a depressed alcoholic or a healthy, happy success. Marry young and live together blissfully to old age, or go through a bitter divorce. Have secure, well-adjusted children or unconsciously pass a heap of trauma onto the next generation. That sort of knowledge took the mystery out of life a bit. It was worth it when sometimes, if you were good at your job – and Carly very much hoped that shewasgood at it – you helped someone change and find ways to be happier. But really, no wonder she’d got fed up with her job; with people in general, sometimes.It’s all so bloody predictable.
Robyn was the exception to that, of course. Fuck, she missed her so bloody much. They always had such a laugh together. They could crack each other up with a single look half the time – it was one of the reasons Carly fell for her, their sense of humour being so perfectly in sync.
It wasn’t just that, though: Robyn had intrigued her, surprised her, even. From the first day they met, as well as fancying the pants off her, Carly had wanted to get inside her head, to understand how she worked. And it was different, so different to how she’d felt about all her ex-girlfriends: usually, as soon as she got to know someone better, she lost interest.With Robyn, it was as if the more she knew, the more shewantedto know. She could never have known enough, really. That was how it felt.
Hannah was intriguing too, in a different kind of way. Her ideas about alternative medicine as the path to healing; about spiritual cures for physical and psychological ailments; everything she’d been able to create here and online to offer people that. Her charisma; the power she had over people. Carly wished deeply for a moment that Hannah were here now, so she could talk to her more about it, about everything she believed. Just like she’d said she wanted to do in the video she made.
‘Carly?’ Naya’s voice came floating towards her.
She snapped back to the present.Damn it.They were still arguing about what to do – they needed her. Someone had to make a decision, and it seemed like no one else was capable of doing it. She rubbed at the spot between her eyes. She couldn’t hang around over here, by the water, much longer; it was starting to look weird. She needed to stop worrying about whether they’d see her as therapist, friend or leader. She just had to do what needed to be done.
Carly headed back to the group. ‘Guys, we’ve got no choice,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to try and find our way back – using a different path, if needs be.’ Her voice sounded more confident than she felt, but she knew this was her role: she needed to be the one to hold it together. She looked down at the map, then back up at the clearing. The map only showed one main track, but there had to be another way back – a track that would join back onto the central pathway soon enough.
Her eyes scanned the edges of the clearing, landing upon a small break in the trees with what looked like a pathway – asmall one, narrow, but a pathway nonetheless – that seemed to veer outwards from the waterfall and turn back on itself in the direction of their original track to the pavilion and the house behind it.
‘Look, there’s another track over there, a little further down the stream – can you see? It looks like it might lead in the same direction as the one we took here.’
‘You think we should take it?’ asked Naya, walking towards her. ‘And all stick together – helping to carry Mira?’
Carly turned, felt her brows knit together. ‘I think so, yes – no, actually, I’m sure. Sticking together is way safer. And from looking at the map... I really think that’s our best shot.’ Her voice betrayed none of her internal struggle, her terrified thoughts:I don’t have a bloody clue.Don’t let them figure out this is all guesswork.
‘We just can’t risk getting stuck out here at night,’ said Scott. ‘It’s a dangerous place, the jungle, after dark.’
Oh, come on – don’t make this any harder than it already is.‘There’s no need to panic everyone, Scott – we should be back at The Hideaway in two hours tops, even if this track isn’t the most direct. And besides, humans and the wilderness have lived side by side for thousands of years,’ said Carly. ‘Please, no one listen to him – we’re far safer here than we would be in the middle of bloody Cardiff, especially with that knife in our hands!’
Scott looked shocked, and for a second she wondered if she’d gone too far. But really, she thought he must know what she was doing: trying to reassure everyone. Make them feel better. It was what she was good at.
‘That way is our best hope of getting back,’ she said,pointing to the path. She looked at the four wary faces in front of her. ‘We either all stick together, and walk this way back now, or we split up and leave some of us here. But if we do that...’
Carly’s words tailed off. She allowed a beat of silence to fill the humid air, then continued: ‘If we do that, I’m not sure I fancyanyone’schances.’
SCOTT
The air felt different after the most recent downpour; thinner, somehow. Less threatening. Scott wondered if that meant the worst of the rain was over, for today, at least. Not that he felt any safer being out here; the sight of the mudslide had reminded him of the sheer power of nature, the lethal amorality of the wilderness.
Next to him, Mira whimpered,the two of them trailing at the back of the group as Scott helped her walk. ‘Are you still finding it hard to breathe, Mira?’ he asked. She nodded weakly.Shit. They really needed to get her to a hospital; she might need some oxygen treatment or something.
Scott still wasn’t sure they’d all done the right thing, making her walk back. But it seemed like a safer option than the group splitting up.Poor Mira.What a thing to happen – the worst possible luck, and to someone who was already frail, recovering from cancer and chemo. Thank God Naya had been there and able to resuscitate her – without her, Mira would most likely be dead. But now that she was through the worst, there wasn’t much more they could do for her, not until they got back to the house.
Naya’s first-aid kit was little more than useless now: plasters, a bandage and gauzes, some tiny scissors, a few alcohol wipes. It wasn’t as if she could carry around a canister of oxygen in case of an emergency like this, or a drugstore selection of medication.
Scott thought back to the glimpse of the amphetamine he’d seen Ben carrying. He’d recognized the brand name – there’d been some talk about it on the news and social media recently, about how there was a shortage, and people who desperately needed it were having a hard time getting a prescription. Didn’t Ben have some hotshot job, though? And most likely a great health insurance plan – that would probably help.
Scott sighed; he knew far too much about health systems and prescriptions and drug shortages these days. As an only child, and with his dad long gone, the burden of care for his mum had landed squarely on his shoulders.
He saw her then: the shape of her, the smell of her. How vibrant she had been – how sharp, the way she commanded the attention of the room at her lectures on marine biology. Dementia was the cruellest illness he could imagine: the slow disappearing, the fading away, the gradual transformation of a life into a wasted, babbling shell. He couldn’t bear the way the nurses at the home looked at her. As if she were just another senile old lady, just some batty patient who needed their nappy changing.
Look at her, he’d wanted to scream, desperate to shove old photos into their faces, pictures of her swimming with dolphins on the Mornington Peninsula and standing on stage to give a talk about the preservation of marine life.This is who she is.
‘Are you OK, Scott?’ said Naya. She was walking directlyin front of him and Mira, and had paused for a beat to check on them.
He snapped back to the present, looked at Naya, though still careful not to let Mira – clutching tightly now to his right arm for support – lose her balance. Naya was smiling at him. Scott felt something stir deep within his chest; the same sensation he’d had this morning after breakfast when it had been just the two of them. Naya was beautiful, but it wasn’t just that; she’d looked at him so intensely – as if she were really seeing him, got him on some deep level and could accept him as he was. There was a warmth to her that seemed to spread outwards, to soften the people around her.
‘All good,’ he said. ‘Just want to get Mira out of here safely.’
