Carrion
by Camille Khouri
The plan was for a proper overnight hike with tents and everything, but then the trip got cancelled and re-booked so many times – the pandemic and cyclones and cryptosporidium – that gradually the walk part got whittled down and everyone focused on the fun part: the party.
That’s how we came to Meadow Hut. It was only a 3.5km walk and we could get the place to ourselves. We could be loud, we could run around naked if we felt like it. No one would see or hear us. Or that was the plan.
But there she was. Sitting at the top of the mezzanine ladder: a girl cocooned in a shiny green sleeping bag. We had come in the hut door all talking at once, shedding our packs and grocery bags, which were clanking with bottles. The day was blue-sky perfect like only Otago can pull off and we had done the hard part. Energy was high – but seeing her was like pressing mute.
She stared down at us with possum eyes, then scampered to the back of the mezzanine out of view. We all exchanged glances.
“Hi?” I called. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” came a muffled reply.
“Um, we have the place booked. Are you heading off soon?” Jess asked in her lawyer voice, one hand gripping the ladder.
“I can’t,” the voice came back. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
“What the actual…” Sabine whispered.
“Actually, that’s not okay,” Jess started, but then Amy laid a gentle hand on her arm and shook her head. Amy was always the peacemaker in our group. Thing was, she was usually right. I gestured to the others to step outside.
“What do we think?” I said when we had shut the door and arranged ourselves around the picnic table.
“It’s a private booking,” Lucy whispered.
“Maybe we should tell the owners,” Sam said.
“She might just need to stay. We don’t know what’s going on for her,” Amy said.
“She does seem kind of harmless?” I said. “But what about our party? I mean, we have to party.”
“Oh, we’re still going to party,” Jess said. “If no one is letting me kick her out – then we’re just forgetting she’s even here.”
We all looked at each other.
“Agree?” I asked. They all nodded.
So with that decided, we got on with it, which is to say we got on it. We poured wine, unwrapped cheese and opened crackers. We popped bags of chips and cans of seltzer. We set our bluetooth speaker on the outside table and we laughed and talked and danced. At one point, Lucy cried. It’s not a party until Lucy cries. And we saw nothing of the girl apart from when she shimmied past us to the long drop sometime in the late afternoon, still wrapped in her sleeping bag.
After sunset we migrated inside. We were all pretty loose by then. Sam was trying to use the mezzanine stairs like a stripper pole. Jess and Amy were making out. I was feeling a little happy myself.
“Hey!” I yelled up the ladder. “Do you want a drink?”
But there was no answer. I climbed onto the table, trying to get a glimpse over the mezzanine balustrade but she was out of sight.
Late in the night, we spilled outside and climbed a huge tussocky rock, giggling at the danger and howling at the moon that crested over the hills. It was then that I saw her in the window. She was looking out at us, then she turned sideways and her belly looked round and high.
“Damn,” I said, probably too loudly. “Is the girl pregnant? I think she’s pregnant!”
“Woah,” Sabine said. “Maybe she’s hiding from the dad?”
“That’s sad,” I said.
But that was the last of it. We climbed down and eventually we all climbed into bed.
In the morning, we nursed our hangovers with scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee.
“That was worth the planning, my friends,” Sam said. We all nodded.
“Love you guys!” Amy said.
“Is our friend still here?” I asked. There was no sound from the mezzanine.
“Are you there?” Lucy called out. Silence.
“I’m going up!” Sabine announced as she began to climb the ladder. But the girl had gone.
We packed up and started back, our bags lighter but our bodies heavier. As we turned a corner, we saw a cast of harriers swooping over a rocky outcrop in the far distance. They were diving and circling, their calls menacing and hungry on the breeze. We all stopped and watched them for a moment, then we carried on, the wind whistling at our backs, the girl just a hazy detail in our collective memories.
– Joint third place, Open category, Anna-Marie Chin Architects Writing Competition 2023.
Copyright © 2023 Camille Khouri
