The Seventh Day by Joy Dettman

was brought here, piece by piece, in the grey men’s flying machine. Two city men, aided by many sowmen, built it. Those beasts have a usefulness when flogged into use, or so it is written in the newsprint. I did not see them. I was locked in my room during the many days of the fence-building, but at times I heard the wailing in the night, for at sunset they were chained in the barn.
    Granny would not have had such things on her land. Had she lived, her dart gun would have put the sowman beasts out of their misery, and perhaps also their keepers. She once sent a dart through a searcher’s heart when he put his craft down on our land and came with his strange shoulder pack a hop-hopping towards the barn. She did not give him the greeting Pa gave to Jonjan, but felled him without greeting – and one swift dart. So small he was, smaller than the grey men. Pa burned him and Lenny cut up his craft.
    She once put an end to a crazed sowman who fought with our old male dog, then she killed the dog, for she was afraid of city disease. Pa was not pleased. It was one of the infrequent times I heard her speak to Pa.
    â€˜If you’d been where I’ve been, boy . . . If you’d seen what I’ve seen,’ she had said to him.
    So pitiless she was, but strong. She would not have tolerated this fence; in the time before the Great Ending, all of this hill belonged to Granny’s family, all of the caves, and the place she named the falls. All of these woods had belonged to the Morgans.
    The western mountains are bare now, and further down our own hill, across the remains of Morgan Road, few trees survive. Our woods sent roots deep within the earth to the water below. This is what Granny told me, as her father had told her. ‘The Morgan woods did not give up and die,’ she had said. ‘Nor did my people.’
    Thus I will not give up my plan to escape because of a city fence.
    I walk east again, keeping the fence in sight. It takes me far from the house and deeper into the trees, but no nearer to the spring cave. For a long distance I follow that fence, seeking a break in the wires, or a tree I might climb that will offer me a branch to bridge the fence, but to no avail.
    Then the fence leaves the woods to wander open ground. This is a dangerous place with only rocks for shelter.
    The day is hot and my mouth grows dry with the knowledge of what I carry, and of what I do not carry. I did not think to bring water. My mind at times is such a misty, useless thing, but I understand well that to wet my throat with the cordial and grow drowsy and careless in the sun would be a mistake, and I know where I will find both water and shelter. Shading my eyes with my hand I look up to Morgan Hill.
    â€˜You are a city thing like the searchers and you can not climb those rocks,’ I tell the fence as I follow it onwards, speaking to it as I walk. ‘You will give up before I do,’ I say, and together the fence and I continue.
    My sandals rub with each step; I should have thought to wear my boots, but I did not think. I should have thought to bring water. This plan was ill planned. I look at a smooth rock, think to sit a while. My toe bleeds and I have a fat blister on my heel, but I shake my head and I walk on, not daring to stop, for the bottle in my basket is growing heavy with its presence. It will quench more than my thirst. Each of my muscles can taste it, my sinews cry out for it and my tongue grows thick with memory of it. ‘Later,’ I whisper. ‘Later,’ I promise. ‘Later.’
    It is in the worst of the heat that I come upon an animal track, so I leave the fence and become an animal; surely this track will take me to water.
    A scattering of twisted trees survive where it leads me, though they are little taller than I, and I could count the number of their leaves on my hands, their seeking roots cling to rock and delve beneath the rock, fight to live. Also there is ground