A Midsummer Tale ~ Second Place
Tierney Acott
Photo Credit: Bea Pierce/Flickr (CC-by-nc)
The surf rolls in on a beach in a suburban stretch of coastline. Pinks and yellows streak the sky as the sun dawns over the ocean. A few surfers on the beach stretch and wade into the water. At the end of the strand is a small cove, surrounded by sandstone rock face. At the foot of it, three brown-skinned, brown-eyed children are pulling on snorkels and fins. The small girl, Zara, about six, is fastest and plops her way to the surf. Her brothers, Ollie and Leo, follow her.
She twists through the surf, torpedoing through each crashing wave, bubbles tickling her face and chest. A school of small, glittering silver fish pass beneath her and she waves to them, making a note to look them up in her brothers’ book. She swims all the way out until she’s level with the breakwall with the red and green lights at the end, then she pops up, searching for her brothers.
Her eyes are then drawn to another pair: atop the sandstone cliff face, amongst the bush vegetation, are two majestic, twisting Sydney red gum trees. Little white flowers cluster among their branches. She sees them every morning from her bedroom window, but in the golden glow of early morning, they look ethereal, bursting with magic.
A swish of saltwater into her open mouth brings Zara back to the present.
She swims back to shore, riding each tumbling wave.
“Hey, where are you off to?” asks Leo.
“I forgot something at home,” she calls as she passes them.
On the beach, she tugs her feet out of her fins, collects her flip flops, and scrambles up the overgrown path to the coastal road, barefoot and hobbling to avoid pebbles. She dips and dodges branches on this practiced route. She walks on the curb, balancing, until she stops in front of the Sydney red gum trees.
She gingerly runs her fingers along the trunk of the taller red gum tree. The bark of the tree is peeling away. She breaks off a piece. The tree shudders, sighs, and a few flowers fall to the ground. Then, a face emerges from the patterns in the bark on the trunk. The eyes from dark spots in the bark, and the long sloping lines gave the face a gentleness. Zara’s eyes widen.
“Oh thanks, mate,” the tall tree says with a sigh. “You’ve no idea how long that was itching. Almost makes you jealous of the trees with termites.”
“Careful what you wish for,” the shorter, more gnarled gum tree answers. It has a craggy face, like Zara’s father and his friends: skin cooked and shriveled from the sun and the fires they fight.
Zara laughs nervously.
“Look at the giggling little ankle-biter,” says the tall tree. “Oh! Manners. I’m Poppy and this is Summer.” Poppy gestures toward Summer with one of their branches.
“I’m Zara.”
“It’s great to finally meet you, Zara,” says Summer. “We’ve seen the way you treat creatures.”
Zara nods importantly. “I try not to hurt anything.”
“We’ve noticed,” says Summer, gently. “Which is why we want to give you a gift.”
“For me?” asks Zara.
“For you,” says Poppy.
The three of them stand looking at each other, Zara with her goggles pushed up on her forehead and snorkel dangling from her ear. A breeze makes its way from the scrub vegetation to the south and toward them. An aliveness sweeps across the cliffside as bushes and trees dance in the wind. When the breeze hits Summer and Poppy, they both shimmy and a flower falls from each of their trees.
“Whoa.” Zara bends down to pick them up. Attached to the flowers are seeds. “Can I plant this?”
“It’d be our pleasure.”
“We like dry sandy soil, you know, a good loam,” says Poppy. “You can take a few scoops from the sand here.”
Zara, clutching the flowers in one hand, darts across the coastal road to a red brick house with a white gate and a tall bottlebrush tree in the corner of the garden. She drops her flip flops and fins on the path and snakes round to the garage, which is filled with toys: surfboards, diving gear, a dinghy on a trailer. She finds where her mum stores the gardening stuff behind the dinghy. It is dark and shadowed—redback territory. She moves slowly, carefully. She finds a small ceramic pot and a trowel. She extracts them carefully, so as not to disturb any nesting spiders.
Then she quickly carries the pot, trowel, and flower back to Summer and Poppy.
“I found a pot!”
Zara carefully takes the seeds out of the flowers and sets them on the ground. Then she fills the pot two-thirds with sandy soil. She gingerly plants the seeds. She fills the rest with sandy soil and pats it gently.
“Ar, great work there, Zara,” says Poppy.
She sets the flowers down on top of the soil as an ornament. Then she stands suddenly. “I’m going to go water it now,” she says and turns to leave.
One of Summer’s branches swoops down and stops her running off. “Hold on there, little lady.”
Zara turns, and Summer’s branch retreats.
“You can water it, but don’t water it too often.”
Zara nods.
“Don’t like too much water,” says Summer.
“Makes us feel bloated,” Poppy says and chuckles.
Winter passes without its usual storms. Shelf clouds still approached from the south, dark grey and blue, and lightning still cracked and forked down to the ocean, but only a light drizzle ever fell to the earth. All the fanfare of years past, but none of the satisfying restoration. Zara, too young to remember the heavy rains of an east coast low, asked if it was going to rain anytime dark clouds blotted the sun.
Now, along the coast, the trees were brightening into a dull green and the sun a strong, golden hue. Zara, in shorts and a singlet, reads The Lorax on her bed. A sapling sits in the ceramic pot on the window ledge, watching Summer and Poppy out the window. This is Charlie.
“I want to be big and strong like those trees outside,” says Charlie, pointing at Summer and Poppy.
Zara looks up from her book. “You can’t rush it.”
Charlie winces, trying to grow faster. “Maybe if I eat more…” says Charlie.
She squints up to the strong summer sun basking through the window. Though it is late morning, the sky is not blue, but a hazy white.
Zara giggles. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Why not?”
“Well, those trees are big and strong because they grew slowly and well.”
Charlie harrumphs, sulking for a few seconds before asking, “Can we go out and see them?”
Zara closes her book and slides her legs off her bed. “Sure.”
Zara picks up Charlie and together they go downstairs and out the front door. The air is still, hot, and dry. Even with the hazy sky, the footpath is roasting and Zara hops onto the grass, crunchy from the heat.
Charlie is bouncing in excitement. Zara pats her soil, so she doesn’t fall out.
“Look!” exclaims Charlie. “There’s a bird.”
The bird caws. It’s a magpie.
“It sounds like one of Ollie and Leo’s droids,” says Charlie.
Zara laughs. “It totally does.”
As Zara crosses the street. Charlie points to the bottlebrush tree, which is in full bloom. Every branch is covered with thick clusters of vibrant, red needles. Charlie, in awe, shouts, “It looks like it’s on fire!”
Zara clamps her hand over the sapling.
“Shh!” says Poppy.
Summer hears and whispers conspiratorially, “We don’t say that word.”
“What word?” asks Charlie before— “Whoa! Look at the ocean in real life!”
Poppy and Summer exchange relieved glances.
“I want to live here when I grow up and be just as big and strong as you.”
Zara holds Charlie up to Poppy. Charlie’s little sapling leaves reach over and touch the trunk.
“Oh, wow,” says Charlie. Then she touches her own trunk and gets all misty-eyed.
All of a sudden, apropos of nothing, Summer perks up.
“Oh, oh! It’s coming,” she exclaims, then turns to Charlie. “Get ready, little Charlie.”
Poppy joins in on Summer’s excitement, the surface sand at their roots hopping with anticipation. Out in the ocean, the texture of the surface of the water sharpens and grows dark. It approaches them.
“What? What’s happening?” asks Charlie with a thinly-veiled nervousness.
“It’s the Southerly!” says Summer.
“The what?”
“It’s the Southerly wind that comes from Antarctica,” says Zara matter-of-factly.
“Oh, I’d love to go to Antarctica one day,” says Poppy.
“It seems pretty cool,” says Summer and winks at everyone.
“It’s definitely the perfect temperature. Cools us off on a beautiful hot day.”
Zara looks at the trees as if they’re out of their minds. “You know Antarctica is a land entirely of ice and—”
“Here it comes!” shouts Summer.
The Southerly wind floats across the scrubland along the coast, rippling branches as it makes its way toward them. When it hits Summer and Poppy, they dance and rollick, whooping and cheering. Charlie giggles and joins in. Zara holds Charlie’s pot high above her head, so she can get as much breeze as possible.
“This feels amazing!” says Charlie.
“Doesn’t it?” says Summer.
“It’s the best part of every day,” says Poppy. “Especially the scorchers.”
In the biggest window of the house, a Christmas tree is visible. Handmade ornaments hang on the branches. Zara and her brothers open the gifts scattered at the base of the tree. Outside, Poppy and Summer watch the festivities. Halos surround the morning sun and the sky is orange and hazy.
That afternoon, as the sun slides west, it takes on a red glow. The front door squeals open and Zara steps out. Her brothers run out in their swimmers and head down to the ocean. Zara pulls the door closed and hurries over to Summer and Poppy, holding something behind her back.
“Summer, Poppy. What are you up to sarvo?” says Zara.
“Happy Christmas, sweetheart!”
“Thanks, you too!”
Summer leans down to murmur to Zara. “Tell me, Zara. Why do you have a decapitated tree in your living room?”
Zara’s eyes widen, then her face crumples in confusion.
“Means the Christmas fir tree,” says Poppy.
“Oh. It’s fake.”
Summer sighs in relief. “Oh, thank God.”
“I have gifts for you.” Zara reveals what was behind her back: a pair of red ribbons. “They’re ribbons,” says Zara.
Poppy and Summer swoon, flattered.
“Oh wow,” breathes Summer. “Gorgeous.”
“They’re beautiful,” croons Poppy.
“I gave Charlie a little one too. See?” she says and points to her window. Charlie sits on the windowsill of Zara’s bedroom looking outside. She has a small red ribbon around one of her little branches. “That way, no matter what, even if she’s still in a pot inside, you guys know that you’re family.”
Zara ties the ribbon around a branch of Poppy’s. Then she ties a ribbon around a branch of Summer’s. Summer gets emotional. Red sap oozing from her bark. It looks alarmingly like blood.
“Don’t go weeping, Summer,” says Poppy. “We need all the water we can get.”
Zara frowns. “I thought you hated water.”
“We don’t like a lot of it,” says Poppy. “But we haven’t had a rain in months. We’re parched all the time.”
“I can help!” says Zara and runs back across the street to her house. She goes around the side of the garden, where the hose lies coiled on the ground like a red-bellied black snake. She turns on the tap and runs across the street, dragging it behind. She stands in front of Summer and waters her roots. Summer gasps and sputters as her roots drink the water up. Zara begins to do the same for Poppy. Poppy also feverishly drinks the water.
The front door bangs open. Zara’s mum, a woman with dark hair and brown eyes, looks aghast.
“Zara!”
Zara innocently turns toward her mum. The stream drifts away from Poppy.
“Wait, no, bring it—” gasps Poppy.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” says Mum through gritted teeth as she marches across the garden. She pushes open the fence gate with enough force it swings round and slaps the other side. When she reaches Zara, she takes the hose from her and folds it in half, stopping the flow.
“We’re in Level 3 water restrictions!”
Zara’s eyes fill with tears.
“You can’t be using the hose for anything! Only Tuesday and Saturday mornings. That’s it,” says Mum. “Do you understand me?”
Zara nods.
“We can get in serious trouble. Lucky none of the neighbors saw you.”
Mum takes the hose back across the street. Zara turns to Summer and Poppy.
“I’ll come back Saturday morning.”
“Ah, don’t stress yourself over it, love,” says Poppy.
“Just make sure the little one gets enough water,” says Summer.
Zara sighs and slumps down next to Poppy. She leans against her trunk.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” says Poppy.
Zara looks down at the waves crashing below.
Mum turns around when she reaches the fence. “Zara, this is not okay. No bickies, sweets, or TV for a week.”
Zara’s lip trembles, but she nods.
“You know better,” says Mum.
Zara draws in the dirt with a stick while Debra, a blonde-haired, tan woman and neighbor, passes by in front of the house and stops to talk to Mum across the fence.
“Happy Christmas!” says Debra.
“Oh, happy Christmas to your family too! Lovely day isn’t it?”
Debra registers the hose in Mum’s hand. “Hey, you’re not watering, are you?”
Zara looks over at Mum. A few drops of water fall from the end of the hose. Mum hides them from view with her leg.
“Oh, no. No, I wouldn’t do that. Just tidying the lawn,” says Mum.
“How’re your plants doing? All of mine are dying.”
“Yeah, the hydrangeas are looking quite pitiful. Can’t seem to hold a bloom.”
“Your parents are down near Victoria, right?” asks Debra.
“Mm. Yeah.”
“How’re they doing?”
“They’re safe at the moment.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s just hard because if it were to sweep through, you know, how fast can they evacuate?” says Mum.
Debra clucks her tongue. “I know. It’s awful. Henry’s dealing with the same thing. His parents are up near Byron. They’re in a care home. I don’t think they’ll try to evacuate at all.”
“Oh, that’s awful.”
Behind Zara, a magpie flies and lands on one of Summer’s branches. It calls out, drowning out the end of Mum and Debra’s conversation. Zara looks at the bird. It has brought food back for its chicks. She watches the parent feed the three little birds.
Poppy whispers. “Do you like our new tenants?”
“As long as they don’t swoop me,” says Zara, eyeing them warily.
“Nar. We’re teaching these magpies not to swoop. They’ll be nice magpies.”
“That’s good,” Zara says, watching Debra wave goodbye to Mum.
The magpies keep calling out to their parent, who flies away for more food. The three chicks jump around in their nest and practice flying. One falls out of the tree. It shakes its head clear, then trots over to Zara. She holds out her hand and it hops onto her palm. Zara winces slightly at first, but then relaxes.
A few minutes later, the parent magpie returns home. The chick tries to fly back into the nest, but misses it and careens into the brush.
Zara, Summer, and Poppy gasp. A moment later, the bird flies up and lands in the nest.
“He’s a wild one there,” says Poppy.
“Ah, but isn’t it gorgeous watching him take his first flight?” says Summer.
Zara wakes up. She waters Charlie with the cup on the windowsill. Charlie writhes around in the pot. She looks out the window at Summer and Poppy and the coast beyond. The sky is orange; the sun, still low in the sky, is shrouded in an aura. A few tankers troll past on the horizon. Zara checks the calendar on the wall: Saturday, December 28.
She runs out of her room, out of the front door, and around the corner of the house. She turns on the hose tap and hurries across the street, dragging the hose behind her. When she gets to the red gum trees, she unleashes a sparkling spray of water.
She waters Poppy first, then Summer. They both feverishly drink up the water. They are massively dehydrated.
After a few moments, Summer says: “Right. That’s plenty.”
“You sure?” asks Zara.
“Yeah,” says Poppy. “We don’t want to take more than our share. We’ll soak up the rest of this water over the next day or so.”
“Okay,” says Zara.
“Thank you,” says Poppy.
“You’re a real lifesaver,” says Summer.
“It’s alright,” says Zara with a shrug.
She takes the hose back to the house and puts it away. Inside, she flicks off her flip flops and walks around the corner to the kitchen. Mum sits at the breakfast bar reading the newspaper and drinking a coffee. Ollie and Leo eat four Weet-Bix with a dazed, sleepy look on their faces. Zara sits down at the table, plunks two Weet-Bix in her bowl, and uses both hands to pour milk from the carton. She looks out the kitchen window at the trees in the backyard and the clothes drying on the line. She chews methodically, wondering if those trees are alive too. Are they also thirsty?
The sky begins to darken. Zara doesn’t notice it at first, but eventually, she asks: “Is it going to rain?”
Mum continues reading the newspaper. “No, I don’t think so.” She turns the page. “Wish it would.”
Her phone sits on the countertop. It buzzes silently, hidden underneath the newspaper. On the screen is a NSW government alert: Evacuate immediately. If you don’t, you will die.
“Luckily the Southerly will keep the fires west of us,” says Mum and turns the page of her newspaper.
Moments pass.
Ollie wrinkles his nose, frowns. “The smoke smell is really bad today.”
Mum abruptly looks up from the paper and out the open window. She registers the darkness in horror. Her coffee spills as she leaps from her stool and staggers to the patio door.
Outside, a fiery blaze dances on the hills on the horizon. Charcoal black smoke rises above it, blowing toward them. The scrubland and trees on the hill are heard crackling in the heat. There are high pitched noises followed by explosive booms.
“Mother of—”
“Are they bombing the fire?” asks Ollie, stepping out onto the patio.
Mum turns around. “Get in the car. Now!”
Ollie pivots and legs it out of the kitchen while Leo and Zara scramble out of their chairs. At the front door, Zara hurries up the stairs to her room. She hears the front door open and realizes how thirsty she is. Parched like Summer and Poppy. Zara lifts Charlie’s pot from the windowsill.
“Zara! Now!” Mum calls from downstairs.
Zara’s throat is sticky and she can’t call back. She rounds the corner of her bedroom door as Mum shouts again, more frantic. “You can’t bring anything! There’s no time!”
At the bottom of the stairs, Mum takes her free arm. “Hurry!” says Mum.
Zara turns toward her flip flops.
“Forget the shoes,” says Mum, pulling her out the front door.
They run out of the house to the drive. Leo and Ollie sit in the red station wagon. Zara climbs in the back. Mum reverses out of the driveway.
“Mum,” says Ollie. “You left the front door open.”
“I know,” Mum says, doing her two-footed dance switching to drive.
Zara twists around in her seat to see Summer and Poppy. They are blowing, keeling over in the strong west winds, which are sweeping black smoke out over the ocean.
“Where are you going?” shouts Summer over the roar of the wind and bushfire on the hillside.
“Take us with you!” shouts Poppy.
Zara’s eyes well with tears. She clutches Charlie tight. Finally, she manages to choke out a few words and says in a whisper, “I’m so sorry.”
The red station wagon speeds along the coastal road. It drives up a hill just outside town. As they crest the hill, they see a long snake of cars with burning red rear lights. The car slows to a stop. Mum looks to the west where the fires are quickly moving down the hillside to the shore. Embers blow well-ahead of the fires. Houses and trees distant from the fire line ignite into a battalion of smaller ones. A rogue ember blows as far as the coastal road and slides across the windscreen.
“Mum?” whispers Leo, his eyes glued to the ember where it floats out over the cliff faces. Mum chews her lip, but says nothing.
The sky grows even darker. Cars file in behind them. People honk. Zara holds Charlie close to her and watches in horror as the small fires join to make bigger fires, like water droplets on the walls of the shower. Mum squints ahead. Amidst the ever-darkening sky, she begins to make out fresh smoke plumes ahead, on the other side of the traffic jam.
She curses. Her feet tap in panic as she reverses the car and accelerates down the coastal road.
“Are we going back home?” asks Leo, his voice cracking from fear.
“We’re going to Plan B,” says Mum.
“When there’s not enough time?” asks Ollie.
“When there’s not enough time,” says Mum.
Leo and Ollie are terrified into a wide-eyed silence. Mum brings the car to an abrupt stop in front of their house, in between Summer and Poppy.
“Are you back for us?” asks Summer.
“Get out of the car,” says Mum in a frighteningly calm tone of voice. “Hurry.”
Zara exits the car and follows her brothers.
“How bad is it?” asks Poppy.
Zara stops to answer, but Mum takes her hand and pulls her ahead. She nearly drops Charlie. Zara and Mum follow Leo and Ollie down the overgrown path to the beach.
“Zara, we need to hurry,” says Mum as Zara trots two paces behind her.
Up ahead, Leo stops his running, clutching his side. “Mum, I have a cramp.”
“Keep running.”
Zara struggles to keep up, falling further and further behind. She is barefoot and she keeps stepping on rocks. Mum backtracks, picks her up, then Mum runs down the path to the beach with Zara looking over her shoulder, watching the fireline approach the house. Leo staggers next to Mum, massaging his side.
When they reach the sand of Cove Beach, Ollie stands there, sweaty and timid, as if he had shrunk. There are a few other families down on the sand. The fear is nearly as thick as the smoke. Mum, still holding Zara, and Leo jog to the end of the path and meet Ollie.
Mum, panting, says, “To the breakwall.”
They trot and lurch down the length of the beach toward the breakwall. The boys cough, and Zara can hear a wheeze inside Mum’s chest.
The sky is now so dark it could be night if it weren’t for the glow of the inferno approaching. Loud bangs echo across the water as trees on the hillside explode. Zara watches as the magpie family flies toward them. Two fall from the dark, smoky sky, and into the surf. Two more pass overhead. They do their droid call. One of their wings is singed.
When Mum, Zara, Leo, and Ollie reach the breakwall, they travel the length of it, hopping from large boulder to large boulder. They stop at the end next to the maritime red and green light. They pant, cough, sputter. Soot and sweat cake their clothes. Mum sets Zara down and wraps her family in a hug. Ollie begins to cry—first a whimper and then as involuntarily as breathing.
They watch the fires. The fire line engulfs their house. And like a monster with an insatiable appetite, it continues. It approaches Summer and Poppy. Embers shower them. They try to lean away from it. Their red ribbons are sucked toward the fires. Their branches bow in the wind and vacuum created by the bushfire.
Eventually, the fire captures them. Zara cries and shields Charlie’s eyes as Poppy and Summer are burned.
Still the fire doesn’t stop. It sweeps down the scrubland and the overgrown path to the beach, where it stalls. The families on the beach run out onto the breakwall.
The temperatures are hellish. Everyone is sweating and covered in soot. Leo steps down onto a submerged rock to cool down. Zara watches as both Summer and Poppy’s trunks explode. She cries even harder, her tears ploughing streaks on her dirty face. She blocks Charlie’s view, so she doesn’t see.
Ash from Summer and Poppy soars into the atmosphere. It floats over the breakwall. It floats higher, across blue seas, infecting blue skies. Across New Zealand. Across the breadth of the Pacific. The ash begins to fall near the tip of Cape Horn and the Drake Passage. It lands on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Zara, a few years older, digs a hole. She is in another coastal region of New South Wales. It has a similar overlook of the ocean, but lower to the sea, without the bluffs. Next to her is a large pot with a small tree in it. Tied around its trunk is a red ribbon: Charlie.
“Is it hard to dig a hole?” asks Charlie, bending over to look in the hole.
“There are harder things.” Zara pants. After a few moments, she stops and asks, “Ready?”
Charlie nods. Zara uproots her from her pot and plants her in the ground. She pats the soil down around the trunk.
“What do you think?” asks Charlie, standing straight.
Zara smiles at her. She reaches up and, like a fussy mother on the first day of school, tightens the ribbon on Charlie’s trunk.
“I think they would approve.”
Tierney Acott is a writer primarily out of compulsion. She has written many feature and short length scripts, several of which have been shortlisted in various Los Angeles and London-based writing competitions. These include “Coupla Kooks”, a feature finalist for several festivals and selected as a table read for the Richard Harris International Film Festival 2020, and an independent comedy pilot, “The C Word,” which was inspired by Tierney’s experience with thyroid cancer. Her first novel, I, Frances, was written for her M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin and was longlisted for Britain’s Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition in 2016. Her latest novel, Nigel, was longlisted for Britain’s Comedy Women in Print 2020 Prize. Email: tierney.acott[at]gmail.com
