Trading with Death by Ann Girdharry Page B

stabs of pain in my chest. The air felt viscous and I
struggled to get enough of it in to nourish myself, my lungs
burning with each in-breath. A panic began to build inside as if my
life hung in a terrible balance, dependent on my feeble lungs and
their fight for air. I heard a soft voice in my ear.
    “Don’t
struggle, just wait until the pain passes.”
    The tone of
the voice helped to soothe my anxieties and in my mind’s eye, I saw
the speaker, her silver hair pulled back into a bun, her face
folding in myriad wrinkles; Grandma. She looked straight at me and
I sensed her reassurance. Gradually, the coughing subsided until I
could stand upright again and when I did, a bloody clot rose in my
throat and I spat on the ground and stared down at the red.
    I remained
leaning against my friend, the tree, with my Grandma waiting beside
me, and gazed out into the gloom. The living nature of the forest
pressed onto my senses. This was a perception I’d never had before,
as if the woods themselves were capable of communicating, maybe
even of speaking. Slowly, a realisation crystallised in my thoughts
and when it did, I may perhaps have laughed, I don’t know. I do
know that before I raised my arm, I looked up through the branches
to try to see the sky. I could feel my own heart beating, my own
pulse thundering as I stared up at a tiny blue patch, far, far away
beyond the tops of the pines. I reached behind my head and with
trembling fingers, checked the nape of my neck. Instead of my own
short, pony tail tied with a blue band, I discovered a thick plait
that hung half-way down my back. I pulled it over my shoulder. At
the end, the strands of hair had unravelled where the pink ribbon,
Dalvar’s favourite, was missing.

Part
Three
    After I retied
the ribbon, I flicked the end of my plait backwards and forwards
across my finger-tips, like a little paint brush. It was one of
Dalvar’s habits when she was puzzling over something and the
movement felt natural to me, as if my hands automatically knew the
gesture. Grandma stayed close, but gazed into the distance, her
skin shining with a silvery radiance.
    “Who am I?
Have I really changed places with Dalvar?” I asked.
    Grandma smiled
but she did not answer.
    I let the
braid fall from my fingers. The trees almost dripped gloom from
their needled branches down to the forest floor and I felt a
palpable sense of timelessness, as if we existed in a dead zone.
The weight of Dalvar’s tiredness dragged me down but I resisted the
urge to rest and instead wriggled my shoulders. A trickle of life
came back into my body. Perhaps I should try a little memory test.
What about the time when Aunt Kasie visited and Dalvar fell from
the windowsill?
    I thought
back, remembering the excitement of that morning and how we’d woken
so early the sun hadn’t yet broken the horizon. We’d stayed quiet,
talking to each other with the quilts over our heads and stifling
our giggles so we wouldn’t be told off. I thought of Aunt Kasie
arriving wearing stripy tights and picking her way across the yard
in her heels. Later, Aunt Kasie told us stories of life in the
capital city where she sold ‘ladies apparel’ and where people
worked even during the evenings and the streets were lit by
lanterns atop huge, iron lamp posts. Mother listened quietly,
preparing apples in the kitchen and as mother peeled, I was
watching the long, green peels curling one on top of the other,
when a cry rang out. A quick, high-pitched cry like a hare. The
three of us ran down the hall, my bare feet slapping against the
tiles, mother and Aunt Kasie close behind. I could see my own feet
swinging in the air, swish, swish, free and dangly, the spring air
warm on my knees, until the window sill, so solid against the back
of my legs, slipped greasily away and I fell, down, down into the
garden. I cried out, more from surprise than fear. Next thing I
knew, I looked up and saw Taka peering down at me from the upstairs
window, breathless,