He brings the duffel bag down to his chest, slowly retrieves a large nugget of gold and drops it into the water to lighten his load. He watches the glow fade in the water and his heart aches to see it disappear like that and the loss fills him with fury and the fury fills him with fearlessness and he takes another step forward across the bridge and the bridge does not crack but it cracks on his next step and it drops closer to the river, so he takes another nugget from the bag and drops it in the water and it sinks quickly to the river floor. But this does not stop the bridge from bending further and it is clearly close to its breaking point now and Aubrey is forced by instinct to turn around and run back towards the safety of the clearing’s rocky ground in the direction of the heart stone cave where the gravedigger girl stands up like a stone pillar and watches his pitiful dilemma from the safety of a hard, rocky earth. But as he does so the tree emits one final, loud, merciless crack. Aubrey Hook stops and stands upright like a figure made of stone. Motionless.
And to Molly’s eyes even the river turns to stone. The sky above him. The black wattle trees surrounding him. The birds in the air. Everything still. No more movement but for the black eyes of the shadow man in the black wide-brimmed hat turning in their sockets to find the girl who brought him here. The girl who put him on this breaking bridge. And Molly tries to understand the look upon his face but she cannot understand it because it is a look she has not yet read upon the face of Aubrey Hook, a white-faced look so far from satisfaction.
‘Molly . . .’ he pleads. And he wants to reach out for her because he wants the girl to save him. But he can’t reach for anything with such a heavy bag of gold in his arms.
And the bridge gives up. It splits in half and Aubrey Hook is just two yards from its end when he falls into the rapids and his eyes are still open underwater as the river thrashes him back and forth and upside down, and the last thing he sees before the darkness is the glowing of his gold nuggets being flung from the open duffel bag that he refuses to let go of. The glowing. The glorious glowing.
*
‘Yukio!’ Greta calls. She rushes to the pilot, kneels by his side. She’s already in tears before she sees the extent of his wounds.
Molly sees those tears and she is reminded of her own lack of them. Cry, Molly, cry. Cry from the place where it hurts. From the place where it has always hurt. But she can’t even cry for a dying friend, and she knows who to blame for this and she turns to Longcoat Bob.
‘This is all your fault!’ she screams. ‘He’s dying.’
Longcoat Bob remains still, running his eyes over the Japanese pilot. No expression.
Molly runs to him. ‘It’s your fault we’re here,’ she says. And she pulls on Longcoat Bob’s hand. ‘You’ve gotta save him now. Only you can save him now.’
*
Lying flat on the sandstone rock, Yukio Miki can see the grey sky and he can see the face of Greta Maze. She’s weeping.
‘Stay, Yukio!’ she wails. ‘You hear me. You stay right here.’
She’s wiping blood from his lips. She’s placing her hand against his wound.
He reaches his hand to her. His trembling hand. Only strength enough for this. His fingers slide across her cheek. His fingers move across her eyelashes.
Her face moving closer to his now. The warmth of her. She is a light in the grey sky. She is sun. She is fire. Her cheek against his now. So close he can feel the tears running from her eyes.
‘Stay,’ she whispers.
Her lips moving across his face. Those soft lips he would stay for. Those lips he would fight death for. Yet her lips against his will be his end. Because he can die now with her kiss.
*
Molly pulling, pulling, pulling on Longcoat Bob’s arm, trying to drag the sorcerer towards Yukio Miki. But the old man does not move.
‘Use your magic, Longcoat Bob,’ she bellows. ‘Use your magic on him.’
Longcoat Bob stands firm. His face puzzled. His face tender. ‘Ssssshhhh,’ he says to the girl.
Then a word from the mouth of Yukio Miki. ‘Molly.’
She turns.
‘Molly . . . Hook.’
Molly runs back to the pilot, kneels by his side. ‘I’m sorry, Yukio,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t change anything. I thought I could change it all. I didn’t change a thing.’
Yukio grips the girl’s hand. He lifts his head as high up as he can. ‘Molly . . . Hook . . . change . . . everything,’ he whispers. Then he lets his head fall back on the hard sandstone and his eyes are wide when he looks to the sky, when he looks to High Heaven, when he looks towards Nara.
‘Yukio leave now, Molly Hook,’ he says, smiling. Something wondrous in his eyes. The light in them. ‘Yukio . . . shoot through.’
And his eyes do not close but they do not move either.
THE FIRST SKY GIFT
THE ACTRESS AND THE POET
They dance for the stranger from Japan. They believe her when she says he fell from the sky to save her. They believe her when she says he was good.
Sam Greenway and the other male members of his family discussed the deeds of the foreign fighter pilot who took a bullet for Greta
