What the plants, the birds, the rocks, the insects in the trees and the creatures below the pool have all come to see and hear today is the waterfall. Like Molly, they all made it this far through the deep country. The rocks rolled here, the birds flew, the plants crept, the insects crawled.
Molly looks up to the sky-blue roof above it all. The day sky. She walks alone around the pool to a corner of the natural hall, and she talks to the day sky in a soft voice, letting the sound of the waterfall hide her thoughts from her companions.
‘I didn’t think I’d make it so far in,’ she murmurs, elated by the waterfall’s power and finding something more than gravity in it.
‘You’ve always been able to make it as far as you wanted to go, Molly,’ the day sky says to the gravedigger girl. ‘Why wouldn’t you make it this far?’
‘I’ve always wanted to stop at some point,’ Molly says. ‘I always reached a point where I was too afraid to go any further.’
‘What were you afraid of?’
‘Everything,’ she says.
‘Everything,’ the day sky says. ‘And only one thing.’
‘What?’ Molly asks.
‘Not what, Molly, who?’
‘My uncle.’
‘Aubrey Hook,’ the day sky says.
‘But I don’t have to worry about him no more.’
‘He died back in Hollow Wood,’ the day sky says.
‘Yes, he did, didn’t he?’ Molly replies.
‘Yes, he did.’
‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’
‘No, Molly.’
‘But all you are is one big lie,’ Molly says. ‘You’re a trick.’
‘I guess you’ll just have to trust me,’ the day sky says.
‘I guess so.’
‘Like you trust the pilot.’
‘He’s a good man.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we’ll have to wait and see what comes.’
‘What do you think is coming?’
‘Danger, Molly,’ the day sky says. ‘Pain. But wonder, too, and gratitude and joy. But you’d better keep an eye on that Yukio.’
Molly looks across the plunge pool and sees Yukio drop his head and drink from its edge.
‘Careful Yukio,’ Molly calls. ‘Crocodiles.’ She snaps her arms in a chomping motion. Yukio nods, moves back from the pool edge.
They rest for an hour by the crashing waterfall. Greta washes her face and underarms. Yukio studies the plants and insects in the fringing forest. Molly sits apart by a large black boulder with a chalky rock in her hand. She scrawls a new poem on the black rock.
Yukio watches her writing. She can sense him over her shoulder. She turns and smiles at him. He sits by her side.
‘Poem,’ he smiles.
Molly nods.
‘It’s about us,’ she says.
Yukio points at a word on the rock.
‘Treasure,’ Molly says.
‘Treasure,’ Yukio repeats, smiling.
Molly points at Yukio’s chest and then she points at Greta who is now on the other side of the plunge pool, cupping water onto her hair.
‘Both treasure,’ Molly says. ‘Both gold.’
‘Goooolldd!’ Yukio whispers, his eyes fixed on the actress who is standing now, a thick beam of sunshine backlighting her emerald dress, which is wet and sticking to her body. Molly sees the way he looks at her and, soon enough, Greta catches the pilot looking at her, too, and she returns his gaze.
‘What?’ she asks.
Yukio points a finger at her.
‘Greta Maze is treasure,’ he says, nodding his head in earnest. And he stands now as though he needs to speak this truth to the whole of the forest. ‘Greta Maze is gold,’ he says.
Greta freezes in confusion, then she blushes.
And Molly stands now, too, and elbows the pilot, playfully. ‘Slow down, Romeo,’ she says.
Yukio whips his head back to Molly. ‘Romeo!’ he rejoices in his broken but improving English. ‘Where . . . for . . . art . . . you . . . Romeo!’
Molly waves him in close. She offers her wisdom with a series of backhand pats on his belly, like she’s a pub bookie giving priceless horse tips to a penniless mug.
‘Don’t go climbin’ up the balcony so quick, ya know what I mean?’ she whispers.
Yukio’s eyes say he’s not following.
‘Don’t run yer race before the gun’s gone off, ya follow?’
‘Race . . . gun,’ Yukio says.
She pats his belly again. ‘Ya gotta keep yer cards close, Yukio,’ she whispers. ‘Then lay down that king of hearts when she least expects it. Don’t go layin’ down all yer joker cards. You gotta show her yer heart without spillin’ yer beans.’
Yukio concentrates on her words while Molly turns to the edge of the waterfall and skims the rock she used to write her poem along the rippling pool. She counts the number of times it skips across the water. ‘Five,’ she says, proudly.
And from the other side of the pool Greta watches Yukio skipping stones into the water and laughing along with the gravedigger girl. And for a moment Greta wants this time in this place to slow – slow down so much the three of them could stay like this for a month, for a year, for a lifetime.
That man saved her life. He came back for her. He fought a giant for her and he nearly died in the process. And she saw his face when his neck was being strangled by the giant’s hand. His face was so serene. His eyes were sailboats on calm seas and he was sailing off to some place she knows as well as him.
It wouldn’t be so bad, she thinks. It wouldn’t be so bad if there’s nothing left. Not so bad if it’s all blown up back there, beyond the beginning of the deep country. Only three people left on earth to walk it. And it wouldn’t be so bad if one of them was him.
She’s still staring at him when he turns to find her gaze across the pool. She’s still staring at him when he gives her a kind of half-smile that tells her in the best kind of language – the noiseless kind – that he knows it makes
