The Apprentice Witnesser_TXT.

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 First published by Allen & Unwin in 2024

Copyright © Bren MacDibble 2024

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Cover and text illustrations by Joanna Hunt

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 To all gentle hearts with deep hopes
for a kinder world. Stay true.

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 Always Hoping
The men are returning. Coming down from the hills.
Coming back to the world of women. Coming to get their
fill of town life and women’s chatter. They come in ones
and twos, every day a few more. Fathers and teenaged
sons sometimes, cloths wrapped over their faces, even
though the sickness passed on four weeks gone.
Someone has tramped up there and set the word
rolling through those vast tree-covered hills. It’s safe in the
town of Atherton once more.
We kids stop our playing, stop our jobs. I put
down the basket of wild mushrooms I been picking.
A full-grown man is a rare and amazing thing. So tall

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 and muscly, and weirdly hairy and stinky. Some carry
wild pig or goat carcasses over their shoulders, the skins
slung across their backs for use as rugs, or leather for
shoes and bags, so we can’t even tell sometimes where the
animal ends and the man begins. The hair, the stink,
the dirty skin.
It’s like these men turned to animals themselves
hiding out in the hills. Hiding from the disease that kills
full-grown men.
They grunt hello in passing, and we giggle as they
make a noise at us in their strange low voices. Some kids
poke each other and say, ‘That your dad?’
‘Nah, mine’s got a big nose!’
‘Mine’s got a big belly!’
They laugh.
No one pokes me. Mine’s long gone, like most of our
dads. Most of us just got mums and aunties and grans.
I don’t even got that much.
The town women stop and stare too, hoping they
recognise their man under the face cloths and hair and
dirt, their son or grandson. The men will go straight to
their homes and mostly stay there, fixing the house,
washing off the dirt, cutting their straggly hair, shaving it
off their prickly faces, getting to know their children again

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 for however long they got. Men around here don’t stay in
town very long. The sickness has a way of coming back
around. Soon enough they’ll pack up their hunting gear
and tents and head back up into the hills, keeping ahead
of the next wave of sickness.
Up on the edge of the market stands Lodyma Darsey,
her gold robe flapping in the breeze. She’s studying the
men coming out of the trees, hoping to see a dark boy with
green eyes, though it was ten whole years ago now she sent
him up there alone into hiding at just fifteen. Still, all this
returning’s got her hopes up, like it always does.
My heart aches for her as she stands looking out,
that white streak in her hair shining in the sun, like she’s
looking out for a ghost.
Later, she’s in the market whispering to the women
with masks over their noses and mouths, the mask of
someone whose man’s come back, asking them to ask
their man if they seen her son. Her Osmin. If they seen
his special green eyes. They nod and say they will and
squeeze her hand and go on shoving potatoes and beets
and other food chunky enough to feed up a big ol’ man
into their baskets.
Lodyma don’t say nothing to me, but I know she’s
hoping. Always hoping.

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 There’s lots of women like Lodyma Darsey still
watching the hills for men who don’t come back. The
men who left too late. The men who left sick, and died
alone in the wilds.
I wonder if what Lodyma fears most deep in the
pit of her stomach is that her boy child lay aching and
feverish up there in the bush after being sent away, and
died alone. That’s why she took me from the bush when
I was lying feverish and sick. I guess I got her heartache
for her boy to thank for that. For her saving me.
‘Thank you, Osmin,’ I whisper.

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 More Like Magic
I slap at the dust on my hat. I gotta be respectable like
Lodyma says. Slap, slap, but the dust don’t come off.
I tuck the picture of a gridded world with an eye in the
middle into my hat band, take my sandals out of my
special witnesser bag, wipe the dust off my bare feet and
put them on. I keep my shoes for best, but they’s getting
real tight, so maybe I should wear them more before
my feet grow out.
Witnesser’s apprentice, all ready to witness. Sweet.
I take a big breath and knock on Nadida Byst’s door.
The door’s made of four planks, chipped around the
edges and cracked. It wallops against the wood frame,

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 setting it rattling in the mud wall with every knock. If
I gotta knock harder, the whole doorframe will fall out of
the wall and flatten me.
The door flies open and I leap back.
Nadida Byst leans out. Tiny dark eyes under heavy
folded lids look me up and down like I’m here to beg
for food.
‘Not you!’ she says and slams the door on me.
Another chip bounces off the edge of the door. I reckon
she’s slammed that ol’ door a lot.
Not so sweet, me left out here.
We’re s’posed to be respectful to elders coz getting
old takes a bit of skill, but Eld Byst makes respectful
real hard.
‘Eld Byst?’ I say, and give the rattly wood door another
tap. ‘You called for witness?’
She looked right at my hatband with her scowly little
eyes. She knows why I’m here.
‘I called for Lodyma Darsey! Not you!’ Now she’s
banging around inside her shack like she’s getting on
with stuff and I can just stand out here all day for all
she cares.
‘I work for Eld Darsey. I can take witness,’ I say to
the door.

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 ‘You’re just some grubby peanut girl,’ she barks back.
‘I want Darsey!’
‘Pah!’ I whisper. I’ve punched kids for saying less, but
Lodyma’s always telling me, Calm down and use your brain.
I take a deep breath and unroll the dirty scrap of
paper delivered to Lodyma this morning. ‘Your note here
says, I got a special chook what lays miracle eggs.’
The handwriting is so scratchy I reckon the chook
wrote it. My heart jumps at the idea of a chook that can
write. Sweet! How does she hold a pencil? Does she write
on the eggs and make them miracle eggs? What does she
write? Who taught her the alphabet?
The door pops open and Nadida’s bony hand shoots
out, yanks my shirt by the shoulder and hauls me
stumbling in. ‘Don’t say that out loud. You wanna get ’er
stolen?’ Her croaky voice is breathy in my ear.
‘No, Eld Byst,’ I say and pull my shirt loose of her
knuckly fingers.
Most adults is real gentle with kids. There’s not
many of us. We’re all treated special. But Eld Byst’s a bit
different. A bit scary, truth to tell.
The air’s all fuggy and dusty in here, and it’s dark
after being out in the sun. It’s a one-room house, bench,
sink, bed, chair, not much else. I tap my book sticking

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 out of my witnesser bag, The Naturalist’s Field Guide to
Birds and Eggs. ‘I done a lot of identifying birds and eggs,’
I say. ‘I’m Eld Darsey’s egg-spert.’
‘Humpf,’ she says, missing my joke. ‘What’s your
name?’
‘Bastienne Scull, apprentice to Lodyma Darsey,
witnesser of miracles, at your service.’ I bow like Lodyma
taught me.
Nadida Byst plonks her lumpy knuckle hands on her
bony hips and frowns. ‘I want a real witnesser, not some
manky apprentice. How old is you anyway? You don’t
look more than nine.’
‘I’m nearly twelve, and I’ve been apprentice for
three full years.’ I straighten up tall as I can. Nine! Pah!
What’s she saying? Nadida is only a bit taller than me
even though she’s the oldest person I ever met. ‘I’ll be
full witnesser by thirteen, but Eld Darsey trusts me with
all the chicken miracles already. Can you show me?’
‘You don’t even got the eye,’ Nadida says, talking
about Lodyma’s weird pale eye.
‘But I got this!’ I pull out the Instax camera from my
witnesser bag and hold it up.
The old tech makes her eyebrows lift. Old tech’s like
that. Used to be everyone knew tech, but now, without

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 factories to make batteries, run the power or make new
tech, it’s more like magic. Not so much to old women like
Nadida who remember the before times, but still it sets
her nodding.

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 A Miracle
Nadida Byst shuffles across her shack and plucks an
enormous egg from a box full of them. ‘See?’ She holds
it out to me. It covers her whole palm from half up her
fingers right down to her wrist. The surface is grainy
with a few tiny speckles, not quite as smooth as a regular
chicken egg.
‘Huge!’ I say, but one huge egg is probbly not a
miracle. I get out my measuring tapes anyway. People
wanna see proper witnessing going on or they get grumpy.
I get Nadida Byst to stand near a window, and I
photograph her from her waist up, with the egg covering
the whole of her dirt-grained palm. Then I sit the egg

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 on the bench, lay out the measuring tapes and a regular-
sized egg beside it and take a picture to show the size.
Nadida stands hovering, watching everything like
she’s waiting for me to make a mistake.
I pull the two photos out of the camera and flap them
to dry. ‘Can I take this egg to show Eld Darsey?’
Nadida nods. ‘I got more.’
‘Can I take two then in case Eld Darsey wants to
open one to investigate?’ I ask.
Nadida shrugs, so I slide two eggs into the camera
pocket of my bag. I hold the photographs up so she can
see how the pictures turned out. ‘Can you show me the
chook they came from?’
Nadida throws open a back door to a yard, bordered
by side walls of other houses and an old car turned into
a chook house at the end. This place was most likely an
alley between buildings originally. There’s a long veggie
patch fenced off with rickety patched wire netting, and
a skinny duck with grubby feathers asleep in the shade.
A mob of chickens is scratching about in some yellowing
cornstalks.
I set off down the yard towards them, pulling my
scarf over my face in case of bird flu. Some say the disease
came from birds, some say cows, some say pigs, which is

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 why most people don’t keep livestock no more. ‘Which
one is she?’ I ask.
Nadida points at a speckled winged chook with a tail
that’s long and downwards, not upright like a chicken’s.
If a bush turkey and a chicken got together, they might
make a bird like this. She has a stripe of speckles down
the centre of her chest and pale grey feathers either side.
I line up my camera. ‘Where did you get this chook,
Eld Byst?’
‘She just flew in over the roof one day and started
pecking about. Miracle from the sky.’ Nadida squints up
into the relentless blue like more giant egg-laying birds
will rain down on her.
I click my tongue so the bird stops scratching and
lifts her tiny head to look at me. I snap my shot. Gotta
get shots right first time. Don’t waste film, Lodyma always
says. The bird’s feet are way bigger than a chicken’s, and
her head’s smaller.
I put my camera under my arm and pull out The
Naturalist’s Field Guide to Birds and Eggs. I flick straight
to the page on the malleefowl, Leipoa ocellata. I’m real
pleased to see I guessed right first off, and hold the page
up to Nadida Byst. ‘This chook is not a chook. She’s a
malleefowl.’

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 ‘She is a chook! Look at her head!’
Nadida is a lot right now!
I hold out the book and point to the tail and the feet.
‘Did she dig a hole to lay her egg in, throw some sticks
on top?’
Nadida nods, frowns and folds her arms. ‘So miracle,
or nah?’
‘Eld Darsey’ll decide.’ I pull the photo out of the
camera.
Nadida narrows her squint on me like I’m a useless
witnesser.
‘Amazing a malleefowl came out here and decided
to move in with your chooks. That might be a miracle,’
I say, trying to make her not so grumpy.
‘Knew I should’ve waited for Lodyma!’ she grouches,
like it’s my fault her big chook isn’t a chook.
She looks like the type of old woman who gives kids
slaps across the head if they’re cheeky, so I hurry through
her shack to get back to the street. ‘Thanks for your time,
Eld Byst,’ I yell.
Nadida stomps after me and slams the door behind
me. A door plank flops onto the dusty street.
I snort without meaning to, kick off my sandals, pick
them up and take off before she can see me laughing.

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 Up the street, the fruit seller is picking out less-than-
perfect veggies and putting them into the bag of a skinny
woman with two grubby kids hanging off her shirt.
The woman has that hungry look of someone who gives
all their food to their kids like my ma used to have,
but way less angry about it. Maybe they just arrived in
Atherton. I’ve not seen them before.
‘Thank you, kind sister,’ the woman says. ‘Your heart
is gold.’ And the gratefulness in her smile is something
I never saw in my ma. This same fruit seller used to give
me fruit too.
I remember being shoved forwards. Grab it before she
changes her mind! Ma would grouch. Making me snatch
it, just in case. But I’d smile and wave at the fruit seller as
my ma hauled me off.
Ma said the village women was mean. And there was
mean times right at the start when people was arriving in
long trudging lines from the coast towns. But I never saw
the meanness once things settled down.
The fruit seller hands the woman the bag, turns
back to her fruit stand, picks two perfect mangoes and
holds them out to the two kids. Their faces change from
shy to big bright grins as she slides the mangoes into

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 their hands. They pull the perfect yellow, green and pink
fruit up to their noses and breathe them in. Sweet!
The fruit seller grins too. I lift the camera and snap.
Maybe I caught a miracle after all.

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