THE RUNES
Mia Leanne Gallard
We hadn’t spoken all day. I was stuck watching Helia’s ginger hair as she led us through the dense bushland. My sleeping bag dangled from the drawstrings as I sulked along behind her, struggling to keep my eyes open. I felt so groggy, it was a wonder I could keep up at all.
She held the Runes out in her palm. Her eyes flicked between the little ebony pieces and the trail ahead.
I was itching now more than ever to jump on her and steal them back. The longer we kept walking without the slightest glimpse of familiar territory, the more I lost faith that Helia still knew how to use Runes properly. It must have been years since she’d last touched a set.
At last, I said, ‘Are you sure I shouldn’t do it?’
Helia didn’t look at me. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Just saying… I understand if you’re out of practice—'
‘You’re not touching these Runes.’
‘They’re my Runes, remember?’
‘They’re confiscated.’
‘No, they’ve been borrowed. You can’t confiscate my Runes.’
‘Can too.’
‘Can’t.’
‘Can.’
I clenched my fists. ‘Helia. Give me the Runes.’
‘No.’
‘Give me my Runes!’
‘I said no! If you’ve forgotten—you’re the whole reason we’re in this mess—'
‘You’re so immature,’ I muttered.
‘And you’re a pain in my ass. Now shut up and let me handle it.’
We kept our distance after that.
When we stopped again for the night, Helia silently closed her hand around the Runes and put down her rucksack. She started building the fire, and I wordlessly went off scavenging for dinner.
Though I’d prefer sandwiches to miscellaneous birds and rodents, skinned and roasted on a makeshift spit, we’d already eaten everything Helia had packed. She obviously hadn’t expected to be wandering for more than a day.
The fire was already going when I came back with a couple of bush rats. I skewered them on some sticks and rested them on my lap, curling my fingers, ready to skin them in two seconds flat—
‘Honestly, Elara,’ said Helia. ‘Just use the knife.’
I cut her a glare. ‘Why should I? I think they’d notice a fire more than a small skinning spell.’
‘And that is exactly the kind of attitude that almost got you burnt at the stake.’
‘It was a court trial.’
Helia poked at the fire distractedly with a large stick, sending up embers. ‘They were building a pyre outside when I got there.’
My throat went tight. ‘What?’
‘Come on, Elara, you know witch trials have always been bullshit. These days they’re just a photo op, so they can pose as benevolent protectors.’
I stared down at the bush rats, playing with their tiny blades of fur. ‘I didn’t know.’
Helia tossed her stick in the fire. ‘Did you honestly think you wouldn’t attract attention, living the way you do? You can’t just go around using magic on everything you can think of—'
‘I wasn’t advertising it, okay?’ I snapped. ‘It was little bits here and there, just to get by.’
She gave me a withering glare. ‘You were hypnotising your landlord to get out of paying rent.’
‘Okay—but he charges a ridiculous rate.’
‘Elara, the witch-hunters are everywhere. They sit in cafés, on buses, walk through supermarkets, waiting for someone to slip up. Don’t you realise how long they must’ve been targeting you, building up support in the media, to make a coordinated attack like that? The police can’t stand up to an entire city turned against you.’
‘Look, if I’d known it was that bad—'
‘Then what? You would’ve caved and thrown out all your spellbooks? Don’t be ridiculous.’
I didn’t say anything. How could I? I hadn’t seen Helia in years—but she still knew me better than anyone else in the world. We were sisters, as far as the coven was concerned. Born on the same night, under the same moon’s light. We’d spent our childhood being told we were linked by some ancient, untameable magic.
I kept playing with the bush rats’ fur.
‘Are you going to skin them or what?’ said Helia.
‘I’m not using the knife,’ I grumbled. ‘It’ll take forever.’
‘Then let me do it.’
‘The Runes for the rats, then.’
‘Seriously?'
‘Yes, seriously,’ I said. ‘Helia, look around us! Do you recognise any of this? If we were going in the right direction, we would have at least seen the creek by now!’
‘I know how to use a set of Runes,’ she said through her teeth.
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘Fine!’ she yelled. ‘Fine, skin the rats with a dumb spell!’
‘First, give me my Runes.’
‘Give me the rats.’
‘No.’
‘Fine.’
*
In the morning, I kicked the fire pit apart with all the crabbiness of an empty stomach. The bush rats lay abandoned and festering at the base of a nearby tree, a swarm of March flies buzzing around their corpses.
The stench, at least, was keeping me awake. I hadn’t shut my eyes all night—again.
As soon as I put my head down to sleep, I was back in my apartment, back in the courtroom. Dozens of masked faces stared up at me, each figure toting a shotgun to match. I remembered the paralysing terror of standing there, watching them back, knowing not even my strongest curse could save me…
Helia and I packed up in silence. She stuffed her sleeping bag in its case, and I snapped my fingers and watched mine neatly roll up and slip itself home. Helia shook her head.
We kept moving. Helia kept the Runes settled in her open palm, and I trailed along without a word, feeling us drift further and further from where we were meant to be.
My hunger started to feel like a leaden weight as the sun moved west overhead. I didn’t care what Helia thought anymore—I’d skin the rats my way that night.
We were beginning to descend a steep slope when I heard a twig snap behind us.
I stopped and looked back. The bush was still except for the wind.
‘Did you hear that?’ I said to Helia.
‘Hear what?’ she said, uninterested. She was forging ahead downhill, staring at the Runes.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the air around us, sensing for movement, warmth—a heartbeat loud enough to belong to a human…
Or a tiny, streamlined speck, zipping through the air.
‘HELIA GET DOWN!’
I bowled us both over as the bullet whizzed overhead—we went tumbling down the slope, falling over one another, catapulting through bushes and thin branches and over small, pointed rocks. Finally, we slid to a stop at the bottom. I threw my raven hair out of my face—and spied the Runes, lying on the ground before us.
Men were yelling over the crest above, the thudding of boots moving steadily nearer.
‘DEATH TO THE DEMONS!’ they chanted.
I snatched up the Runes in one hand and grabbed Helia with the other. I hauled her up with me, and we bolted into the trees.
Hearts racing, sweaty palms clasped together, we didn’t look back as we raced ahead.
The sounds of shouting behind us grew steadily fainter—but they’d track us by our trail, no matter how long we ran. How long had they been tracking us already?
The terrain got rockier. Hills of jagged stone rose unevenly to either side of us. I slowed us down and started tugging Helia up the side of a steep ledge.
‘Hide up there and wait for me,’ I said. She didn’t argue.
Alone, I stared at the muddled trail we’d left behind. I took a deep breath, feeling the softness of the breeze around me, and gripped it tight. I twisted it until it became something more powerful—more direct—and used it to wipe away the scrapes and the footprints. I looked the other way and reached into that well of power inside, using a trickle to break some branches and rearrange some fallen leaves. Then I climbed up to join Helia in hiding.
We sat low, still, barely breathing, as we heard a group of witch-hunters at least a dozen strong drift closer. I held my breath as their yells grew nearer and nearer…
They passed us by, setting off down my false trail and disappearing steadily into the wilderness.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but Helia remained stiff and wide-eyed beside me. I shook her, trying to snap her out of it. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We need to keep moving.’
She didn’t budge.
I turned my attention to the Runes, marked with those ancient, foreign symbols. I closed them between my hands, feeling the flicker of tight-wound energy prick my skin and seep into my blood. I shook them and they clicked around in their little cage. Then I uncovered them.
I scowled. ‘I knew it—we’re going completely the wrong way!’
A pale hand clamped around my wrist.
I was so stunned, I couldn’t stop Helia from snatching the Runes back. She shoved them straight in her pocket and skulked away. ‘We’ll set up camp here,’ she said lowly.
‘What?’ I said. ‘We need to start making ground! If we move fast enough—'
‘We camp here,’ she said firmly—and I knew I wouldn’t change her mind.
*
Helia didn’t say a word to me as I skinned our dinner that night. She didn’t touch my Runes, either. I had enough sense not to push her before we put out the fire and slipped into our sleeping bags on either side of it, our backs to one another. That didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking of ways I might slip the Runes out of her pocket during the night.
I thought of the coven. How by morning, we’d be well on our way to finding them at last. How we’d be safe, untouchable, behind the wards.
I shut my eyes.
And they appeared before me: men in masks and tactical gear, armed with shotguns, ransacking my kitchen, living room, ripping my spellbooks off the shelves. I stared at the edge of the kitchen bench, trying not to tremble, as one pressed his gun—unloaded—to my temple.
‘Death to the demons.’
‘I get it, all right,’ said Helia, drawing me back to our hastily thrown-together campsite.
Her voice was so quiet—so weak—in a way I’d never heard it. It was helpless in a way I’d never thought it could be.
‘You had trouble moving away, living in a world of men. You didn’t know how to use your life if it wasn’t for witchcraft… But I figured it out. I found something else—I found travel and language and new people—a person, Elara. I found a person I wanted to be with.’
No, I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand… but my heart ached for her anyway. Then it began to unravel, thread by thread.
‘And yeah,’ she went on, ‘maybe I can’t cast spells the way I used to. Maybe I can’t use Runes properly anymore. But it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten where we came from, okay? That’s why I had to come back. Even though I didn’t want to leave him, and the life I had… I couldn’t leave you to die.’
Her sleeping bag made a rustling noise—like she was curling up. ‘I’m sorry I took your Runes,’ she said. ‘I just… I don’t know… I thought I could do it on my own. But I can’t.’
I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘I’m sorry too. For making a mess of things. And—thank you. For saving me.’
‘Always. Magic or no magic.’
The air felt lighter, then. I sank into the sensation of the breeze brushing against my skin, the crickets singing their soft lullaby. Until I fell into a quiet slumber.
*
When I woke up early on that last morning, my Runes were sitting by my head.
Mia grew up in north-west Sydney with a clingy cat and an overflowing bookshelf. Despite being a storyteller all her life, she started high school hating English classes—then went on to finish four HSC English units. The first story she ever finished was a hand-drawn stick-figure comic at age ten.
