Josephine was a wizen fruit, long past the point of any residual softness. She reminded Virgil of a small hunched Asian man in her navy-blue mandarin jacket, loose pants and soft cloth hat, except her fierce single-mindedness was peculiar to the matriarch.
“Got your mind up top too soon, Virgil Roberts. Long as we’re still beneath, we’re just one mistake away from being buried alive.” Jos’s voice got that molasses quality it always did when she wanted to aggravate him for kicks. “Nothing certain in love or geological exploration, I promise you. By the time we break surface, chances are Carrie- Anne will’ve hooked up with Preacher Richards’ son. Great strapping lad, all thighs and neck and buttocks like quartz boulders. Or Jeffrey’s boy. Part store keeper, part donkey.”
“In place of a lab rat that spends his time parked behind the arse of some old dame,” Virgil shot back. His mouth twisted. Jos sure liked to tease, but part of him guessed she might be right. Why was Carrie-Anne laying down with a freak like him? He’d spent so much time underground this past year. His eyes had a skim on them like spoilt milk. Likewise, his skin was colourless through lack of sunlight. Danger was, sooner or later, he’d fade right out.
Even without seeing his face, Jos was astute enough to know what he was thinking. “You’re okay, Virgil Roberts. Wouldn’t choose you for my bedfellow but Carrie-Anne’s got the right to.”
“It bother you if I said I wouldn’t choose you for a bedfellow either?”
The old gal snorted. Any retort was cut short by a tremendous scraping noise. The steel undercarriage bucked beneath their feet, the motion immediately offset by the concertinaing of the Burrower’s riveted steel roof plates. It was a filthy, stinking, terrifying ride, thought Virgil, but Jos’s design was immaculate. The torpedo-shaped main carriage had a dual layer of modular pneumatic tiles, or ‘scutes’ as Jos called them in homage to her greatest muse as a bioengineer, the horn-coated dermal bones of the Armadillo. As a geo-engineer, she’d applied similar tessellation logic to the rotating bit of the twelve foot Tungsten Carbide plated nose cone, likewise the corrugated neck frill that funnelled the spoil out behind as they pressed forward on sharpened steel tracks. The unstable nature of the terrace deposits was counteracted by gills in the outer walls that released a fine mist to solidify the sand. Hot, thin, rust-scented air was siphoned into the cabin from the tunnels. Water bladders were grouped at the backend of the machine like egg sacks.
The turbulence abated.
“Five minutes more. Just time enough to make yourself look pretty for my niece.” Jos adjusted in her seat. She handed a metal pot over her shoulder. “And to empty the piss pan.”
Carrie-Anne plunged forward in the rocking chair and stood up. She rested her hands against the corner strut of the porch then leant her whole body into it to better feel the vibrations. The keen of ruptured earth was just audible. Dust misted the field beyond the garden.
“Wesley!”
The boy was already at the swing door.
“Momma knows, Miss Valentine. Says she’s drawing Miss Splitz’s bath and fixing Mister Robert’s Gin Sour.”
“Good.” Carrie-Anne stared at the dry field, littered with entrance and exit wounds inflicted by the Burrower. “That’s good,” she repeated softly.
The ground shook. There came a sudden explosion of brilliance in the centre of the field as sunlight touched the tip of the emerging nose cone. A geyser of dark sand erupted. The cacophonic whirring of the engine ripped through the air. The Burrower wormed up from below like a giant silver maggot castor.
I shall not run to his side, not this time, thought Carrie-Anne. I will be the lady of the house, patiently waiting on the porch, lemonade glass in hand.
Though it was hard to stand still as the terrific machine sledged up into the air, slammed back down and coasted forward, its twin steel tracks sending up two great tides of dust. The engine sound changed to a discordant chug. Steam spurted from the side valves.
“Want me to run down to them, Miss Valentine?” Wesley stared up at her in round-eyed innocence.
“No, Wesley.” She stuck out a hand as though to brace his chest. “You know better than to get near Miss Splitz’s excavating machine so soon after surfacing. It’s a big old unpredictable cottonmouth ‘til it cools some. Look!” She felt a rush of longing as jets of steam escaped the rivets of the roof hatch. “Even those inside take their time when exiting,” she murmured.
The roof hatch cranked up. Aunt Josephine was first to emerge, un-crumpling herself as she went with all the decorum of a farm hand. She dropped heavily onto the ground, agitating the dust. For a brief moment, she applied her thumbs to her spine and arched backwards. Then she made for the front of the vehicle, kicking out stiff legs as she walked.
Carrie-Anne’s gaze returned to the roof hatch. He was visible now as a coil of flesh that stretched out to become a tall, thin figure. Her heart got hot at the sight of him. He raised a hand to wave.
There wasn’t chance to respond. Her aunt was shouting and gesticulating towards the huge steaming drill. Virgil answered her and threw an arm towards the house.
Sure enough, the old maid turned heel and began to stomp towards the house.
Carrie-Anne watched Virgil slide down off the Burrower’s roof. With his shirt sleeves rolled and one suspender dangling loose from his waist, he strode up to the drill and dipped under it, one arm raised as a shield against the heat. Virgil’s in-depth mechanical knowledge made Carrie-Anne aware of her own internal workings; he seemed to grasp them too. And while she wanted to keep her eyes on him, her aunt was already at the garden gate.
“...peach of a ride ‘til we hit that friggin’ boulder. Now the damn drill’s breached. Virgil best check the depth of those gorges good and proper else I’ll be roastin’ his sweet cherry ass on old Bessie.” Aunt Josephine plonked down on the porch steps, untied her boots and kicked them off. She didn’t falter in her monologue. “...not like we weren’t prepared. Hit wet sand and Virgil was gonna switch from steam to soot mix, gloop the walls to stop them caving in. But we didn’t find one patch of moisture. ‘Course it’s bone dry up here on the surface. Just the same, no water bodies, not even fifty foot below? It’s strange. Not strange, it’s unnatural.”
The old woman stopped prattling suddenly. Her hooded gaze fell on Wesley.
“Help your momma black the stove?”
Wesley sucked his lip and nodded.
“Kept the dirt from growin’ between them fat little toes?”
The kid caught a foot up in a hand and used his fingers to scoop between the toes.
“Am all clean, Miss Splitz.”
The old woman gurned at him and he giggled.
“Here.” She held out a fist.
Wesley dropped his foot. He ran over, offering up cupped hands, and Aunt Josephine opened her fist over them.
“Thank you, Miss Splitz.” The boy eyed his prize then pocketed it.
Carrie-Anne smiled; she knew the ritual. The treasure was a mundane stone recovered from several miles below ground. Wesley would add it to his collection.
Hand on the stair rail, Aunt Josephine levered herself up. Stalking over to the front door, she paused to cut her eye at Carrie-Anne.
“Told lover boy you’d’ve shacked up with a new fella by now.” She slung her gaze over to the field where Virgil had shifted his attention to the cooling engine.
Carrie-Anne felt panic worm between her eyes.
Her aunt must’ve noticed.
“He missed you,” she relented, and shouldered the flyscreen door and disappeared inside. Wesley followed after like a child bound to a witch by invisible silken thread.
Carrie-Anne rested her forehead against the corner strut. Eyelids lulling, she watched the ghost of a man at work out in the field. Minutes passed. He became less and less solid. Late afternoon ebbed and swelled around her. A cicada soloed ahead of the insect symphony at sundown. Through the open bathroom window, she could hear Aunt Josephine’s prattle and the slow pour from a water jug as Julie endeavoured to clean up her mistress. Wood creaked; to Carrie-Anne, it was the sound of the house groaning under the weight of memories impregnating its walls. She listened past the familiar sounds of her environment, out to the dusting plateau of farmland and the
