Dorado Read online

  ‘Why’d you come here anyway?’ Jordan muttered. ‘You should just go back where you came from.’

  Another deep breath. The count of five this time. At this rate, by the end of this trip she’d be holding her breath until she passed out.

  ‘Let’s just try to get along,’ she said. ‘Okay? For your father’s sake?’

  The eye-rolling again. Honestly, the teenager was a pro at it. But then, Teddy remembered she’d been pretty good at it, too, at Jordan’s age. Which wasn’t all that long ago, actually.

  Karel broke into the conversation. He was clutching an old stuffed dog that he’d refused to leave at home. His twin had also declined to leave her favourite toy at home.

  ‘How come you’re called Teddy?’ he asked.

  Relieved at the opportunity to change the topic and to talk to a kid who didn’t hate her guts, or seemed not to anyway, Teddy looked at the little boy and smiled. Karel was just a scrap of a thing, all knobbly knees and elbows, and hair that refused to sit flat on his head. She thought she might like the kid one day, given the chance.

  ‘Is it your real name?’ he asked, fingers plucking at the stuffed dog’s ear.

  Teddy heard Jordan’s snort but ignored it. ‘It’s a shortened form of my real name,’ she said.

  ‘What’s your real name, then?’ Karel asked.

  She smiled. ‘It’s a real embarrassing name,’ she said. ‘But it’s been in my family for years. Handed down from mother to daughter, only my mom decided she liked it enough to give it to me for a first name.’

  Karel’s eyes were wide in the creeping gloom. He had his fingers hooked in his mouth now, and she could see his spit glistening on them. Kids had some pretty disturbing habits, but she guessed that went with the territory, as she was bound to find out one day when she had her own. Maybe she should look at these guys as practice.

  Bree poked her head out of the kids’ tent and piped up. ‘I want to know what your name is too,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you asked for it,’ Teddy said. ‘It’s Theodosia.’

  Both the twins frowned over it. ‘What?’ Karel asked.

  ‘Theodosia,’ she repeated, speaking slowly.

  ‘That’s a real weird name,’ Karel decided.

  ‘Yep.’ Teddy nodded. ‘That’s why I’m called Teddy. It’s short for Theodosia.’

  The girl was trying the name on, rolling it around on her tongue. Teddy heard her whisper it a few times until she had it right. Bree was really cute for her age, was going to be a total knockout when she grew up, and everyone knew it. Probably part of the reason Jordan had such an attitude. Well, that and the fact that her father had left her mother for Teddy. Which, she guessed, kinda sucked for the kid. Not that it could be helped. You didn’t choose who you fell in love with. And Gage hadn’t loved Ling, Jordan’s mom, for a long time.

  There was a crashing in the undergrowth, and Bree’s dog, Taffy, tumbled into the clearing, making a bee-line for Teddy, aiming her tongue at her face like she always did. She held out her hands, ready to push the dog away, like she always did. She preferred cats. Gage had promised her a cat at some stage, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  ‘Guys! You gotta come and look at this.’ Gage was right behind the dog, and Teddy could see his teeth shining white in the darkness that had come on almost without her noticing.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling her heart jump again. What would be so exciting out here in the middle of the wilderness? Thank goodness there were no predators in this country. Only the sandflies. They were brutal, and she stunk to high heaven of citronella and lavender oil in an effort to keep them away from her tender, foreign flesh.

  ‘Yeah, Dad – what is it?’ Karel was staring up at his father, arms tight around his stuffed dog, while the real dog was suffering a death grip in his sister’s arms.

  Gage gestured at them. ‘Come have a look.’ He threw the shovel and toilet tissue at Teddy. ‘You got a torch somewhere there, babe?’

  She put the bathroom things beside the tent and reached between the flaps of the door for the flashlight, then handed it to Gage.

  He switched it on, aiming it at the dark of the forest floor. ‘Come on, guys, get up and come look.’

  Teddy had the sudden urge to stay exactly where she was. Whatever it was that had Gage so excited, she didn’t want to know. She had the definite feeling she’d be better off not seeing whatever it was. They were in the middle of a forest. It was practically dark. There was no one around. Whatever he wanted them to see, she didn’t know how it could be anything good. The woods were a spooky place. She’d always thought so. Touching the side of the tent, she thought about refusing to get up and go look.

  But Gage was already hoisting his youngest daughter into his arms and reaching for Teddy. She got to her feet and avoided looking into his shining eyes. What was out in the forest in the middle of the night that was so exciting? She wanted to go home.

  4

  Jordan tagged along, reluctant, cursing the torchlight that didn’t quite reach the ground where she was stepping. It was hard walking on the uneven ground with her arms crossed in front of her chest, but when she let them swing at her sides, she felt unprotected. Stumbling, she stubbed her toe on a creeping root. Teddy caught her.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She straightened, hugging herself again. ‘Of course.’

  Her father’s fiancée looked her over in the gloom, and Jordan wondered what the woman thought when she looked at her. It pained her to wonder, because she hated the woman, and why would you care what someone you hated thought about you?

  Teddy nodded and gave her a tight smile, then turned to follow Jordan’s dad through the trees. Trees. Jordan was sick of the bloody things. She whispered the swear word. Then threw in a muttered fuck for good measure. She didn’t used to swear, but she was getting pretty good at it now, even doing it to her father’s face sometimes when she was feeling particularly brave. The words still felt a bit strange on her tongue, like she’d bitten into something sweet with rot, but damn bloody fuck she was mad, and it was the only way she could think of to make sure everyone knew. Everyone being, of course, her father and Teddy. Theodosia. Theodosia! What a stupid name!

  They were climbing to the top of a small rise, and finally the trees cleared a bit. Jordan knew forests were kind of obliged to have a lot of trees, but really, did it have to be quite so many? She had decided somewhere in the course of the day that forests this big were actually pretty spooky. Bunches of the trees were old and broken, blown down by the wind, she guessed. Except, they’d crashed into other trees on the way down, and hung in mid-air, propped up by the other trees; and really, there were just too many trees in this forest, and it was obviously a dangerous place to go. She filed it away in her mind in the folder she’d named Evidence my father is a bastard.

  Her father was chortling, pointing towards the horizon, down the river. Jordan lifted her head to see what the fuss was, then hugged herself tighter.

  ‘What are they?’ Teddy was asking.

  Something sidled up to Jordan and pressed into her side, making her jump. Taffy whined, and Jordan had to bend over to swallow her heart down again.

  Teddy’s voice again, kind of high and thin. ‘What are they?’

  Jordan looked, and Taffy bumped against her again, leaning on her.

  ‘Swamp gas, I think,’ her father said. ‘Or maybe fireflies or something.’

  ‘Fireflies aren’t that big.’ Teddy sounded as though she was having to keep swallowing her heart back down too.

  ‘Daddy, I don’t like them,’ Bree said. ‘I’m scared.’

  Her father hitched her sister higher onto his hip and tickled her under the throat. ‘Hey, don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘Lots of stuff out here seems weird when it’s really not, because we’ve just never seen it before.’

  Jordan was okay with not seeing this sort of stuff. She’d rather the warm clamour of life in the suburbs, or the green-gold paddocks and wood
s at her grandmother’s farm. Unhooking one hand, she put it on Taffy’s warm fur.

  ‘Taffy’s shaking,’ she said, then realised she’d squeaked more than spoken. Clearing her throat, she tried again. ‘Taffy’s shaking.’

  Her father ignored her, gaze focused on the horizon where the three balls of light zipped around the treetops. Teddy turned to her and even in the gloom, Jordan could see where worry tightened the woman’s eyes. She put a hand next to Jordan’s on the dog, then patted the fat yellow Labrador.

  ‘She doesn’t like the lights,’ Jordan said before she could stop herself.

  ‘Nor do I,’ Karel said. ‘I want to go back to the tents.’

  Teddy nodded and straightened. She touched the back of Gage’s shirt. ‘We need to go back to the tents,’ she said. ‘The children are frightened.’

  ‘I’m not frightened,’ Jordan said, but she was lying. She didn’t like the lights that her father was staring at so intently. They dipped and dived in and out of the trees, the size of tennis balls because of the distance. Bright white, they hurt her eyes to look at.

  Her father grunted, set Bree back on the ground, and lifted the torch. He sent the light flipping out into the sky, waving it at the lights.

  ‘Gage!’ Teddy hissed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Jordan saw her father shrug. ‘Dunno,’ he said and waved the torch at the lights again. ‘Want to see if they notice our light.’

  Her breath thickened in her throat, and suddenly it was hard to breathe. Taffy barked, once, loud, then whined and lay down in the dirt, whimpering. Jordan swallowed. ‘Dad?’

  The lights had stopped their dance, and hovered in a straight line above the trees. Jordan couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d seen the light, and were looking down the valley and river, right at them. There was another whimper, but this time it was from her throat, not the dog’s.

  Her father lifted the torch to wave it again, and Karel burst into tears, followed a moment later by Bree. Jordan could feel the prickle of water behind her own lids, and her stomach was all wishy-washy. She shook her head, trying to find her voice to beg her father not to wave the torch at the lights. She didn’t want them to know they were there.

  It was Teddy who did something. In a quick movement, she snatched the torch from Jordan’s father. ‘Stop it, Gage. The kids are scared.’ She turned her back on the lights, and Jordan’s dad, and reached for Bree’s hand. Then she handed the torch over to Jordan. ‘Lead the way,’ she said. ‘We’re going back to the camp.’

  The metal torch was warm from her father’s hand, and Jordan turned, one hand on Taffy’s collar, pulling the dog to her feet, and getting her moving back through the trees towards the camp. Teddy followed, holding onto the crying twins. Jordan didn’t know if her father was coming too, and she didn’t look. At least he didn’t have the torch anymore, couldn’t signal to those strange lights that had looked so alive...

  Jordan let go of Taffy’s collar when they reached the tents, and bent down and crawled straight into the tent she was sharing with the twins. She didn’t care anymore that she had to share with them, it was better than sleeping on her own out here.

  ‘Taffy,’ she called, her voice low, and the dog pushed her snout in the entranceway, then wriggled inside the tent as well.

  ‘Jordan, can I have the flashlight, please?’ Teddy asked from outside the safety of the tent, where the twins were still snivelling.

  She pulled her backpack over, and got out her own torch. It was torch, not flashlight, didn’t Teddy know? Still, at least the woman had brought them back to the tents. That was kind of a good thing to do, and she could hear her whispering to the twins, trying to get them to stop crying. Jordan switched her own torch on, and shoved a hand outside the tent flaps. She felt Teddy take the torch.

  It was hard not to think about the lights. They could be zipping over the tops of the trees towards them right now. They could be crossing the river, to where her father probably still stood. She wondered if they burnt when they got close. They looked bright enough. Maybe her father would stagger back to camp any moment, hands tearing at blistered and burnt skin on his face, leading the lights back here to where they all were...

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she buried her face in Taffy’s fur and tried to make herself small and invisible. She wanted to go home.

  It seemed like hours later that she heard her father’s steps outside the tent, but it couldn’t have been that long, because the twins were still sniffing and making noise, and Teddy was still trying to comfort them. Didn’t she know they needed their mum?

  Teddy’s voice spoke to Jordan’s father. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked. Jordan strained to hear the reply. Her father spoke in his normal voice though, and she could hear him just fine.

  ‘Nothing. Watched them for a few more minutes, then they winked out, just like that.’

  Jordan let go of a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Her fingers unclenched in Taffy’s fur. The lights were gone. Thank goodness.

  ‘But what were they?’ Teddy asked, and Jordan wanted to get out of the tent and scream at her to let it go! The lights were gone! Don’t talk about them!

  The tent flaps parted, and the twins crawled in, both faces pale in the light from Jordan’s torch. They crouched inside the tiny tent like mini-Buddhas, Bree chewing on her nails.

  ‘I didn’t like the lights,’ she whispered to Jordan.

  ‘Shh,’ Jordan hushed her. Despite herself, she wanted to hear her father answer Teddy’s question. What were the lights? What were they?

  Her father was laughing. ‘Well, I don’t think they were UFOs, if that’s what you were thinking. Way too small. I think they were just some sort of natural phenomena.’

  Jordan wiggled over to make room for the twins and they huddled closer to her. Teddy didn’t sound as though she believed him when she replied. ‘I’ve never heard of natural phenomena that looked like that.’

  ‘Sure you have. Anyway. It’s late, better get some kip, get a good early start in the morning.’

  There was a pause before Teddy spoke again. ‘What’s kip?’ she asked, and Jordan buried her face in the dog’s fur again. What use was someone who didn’t even understand the language?

  5

  There was a root or stone or something pressing into Teddy’s hip. She shifted, trying to find a comfortable spot, but the ground was hard, unforgiving.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Gage asked from the darkness beside her. He’d tried to wind his arms around her, insinuate his hands inside her sleeping bag, but she wasn’t in the mood for that sort of thing.

  ‘How could you have waved the flashlight at those lights?’ she burst out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The kids were scared, you could see that – I was scared. We didn’t know what those lights were, and you go attracting their attention...’

  She could feel him shaking his head in the darkness. Teddy lifted a hand, but she couldn’t see it even right in front of her face. The night was solid around her.

  ‘They were just lights,’ Gage said. ‘Lights don’t have attention.’

  Teddy shook her head, furious that he wasn’t even trying to make sense. Did he think she was stupid? Or did he just not care?

  ‘If they don’t have attention,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘then why did you wave the flashlight at them?’

  There was a groan from beside her. ‘For Christ’s sakes, Teddy, I did it without thinking, okay? It was just an impulse.’

  She wasn’t mollified. ‘An impulse that could have put us in danger.’ She was hissing her words, trying not to wake the kids in the tent next to theirs. She hoped they were okay.

  Gage flung himself over onto his back. ‘We weren’t in any danger. They were just a few lights. In the distance. Way in the distance.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Teddy said, then held her breath.

  There was no reply for a long moment, then Gage sighed. ‘We’re not
going home, Teddy. We’re going to go to sleep now, and in the morning we’re going to walk, keeping the river in sight, and we’re going to keep walking until we reach Dorado, and then we’re going to camp there for a week, just like we planned.’

  Teddy swallowed. ‘Like you planned, you mean.’

  ‘If you insist. Like I planned. It’s still what we’re going to do.’

  The darkness congealed in front of her open eyes, and she imagined for a moment that the lights had found their way across the river and were outside the tents right now. She lifted her head and peered at the zippered door. There was no glow behind it.

  ‘I’ll go home anyway,’ she said.

  The pause was longer this time. ‘You don’t know the way. And the kids need you.’

  That was a joke of almost cosmic proportions. ‘The kids hate me.’

  ‘They just need some time to get to know you properly. That’s why we’re taking this trip in the first place. So we can all spend some quality time together.’ He rolled onto his side again, and when he spoke, Teddy could feel his breath on her cheek. ‘By the time we get home again, they’ll love you as much as I do; you just wait and see.’

  Teddy didn’t think she’d hold her breath waiting for that one. But who knew – maybe next time they’d see flying pigs instead of darting, diving lights. She sucked in a deep breath, let it out slow.

  ‘I still want to go home.’

  A hand reached out and stroked her cheek. ‘We’re not going home, Teddy.’ The hand turned into a light finger, tracing the outline of her jaw in the dark. It slid lower, covered the territory of her collarbone, then the palm of his hand pressed lower to cup a breast. Her breath quickened, aroused despite herself. He always had this effect on her. Sometimes it was almost annoying. His thumb stroked her nipple, and she whimpered, arching her back and pushing her breast against his hand.