Personal Log: Adrian Rodd

Sarah plunged an empty plastic bottle –still marked as a product of Oceanic Airlines– into the pool of fresh water, held it there until it was full, then withdrew it, dried it, and added it to the other four bottles already stacked in her backpack. She heaved the bag up, and slipped the straps over her shoulders. It was going to be a long trek back with all this water weighing her down, but she was beginning to get used to it. The spray from the gentle waterfall drifted through the air, freshening and moistening her face. The air here was cooler than on the beach, no doubt due to the combined effects of the fresh water source and the surrounding trees. She wondered whether it got cold at night. She had never stayed long enough to find out.

It had now been almost a week since a number of the survivors had moved inland, settling in a group of caves conveniently located next to a pool of clear water that Jack had discovered. Sarah, along with about two dozen others, had remained at the beach camp. They now took turns trekking through the jungle to come and fill up their bottles with fresh water. She adjusted the straps of her bag, and looked round briefly at the small community which had set itself up in and around the caves. Charlie sat on a large boulder, tweaking the strings of his guitar. She smiled, and walked over to him.

“I never see you without it now,” she said, and grinned.

“Sarah!” He looked up, stood, and, as if to prove her wrong, put down his guitar. The strange bald man had found it for him, apparently, miraculously intact. Charlie looked as if he had been reunited with everything he cherished in the world. “I didn’t see you arrive.”

“Just stocking up.” She shifted her heavy backpack.

“You need any help with that? You know” – he smiled, that characteristic, half-awkward smile of his – “if you just moved in here with us, you wouldn’t have to go out trampsing through monster territory every few days. What’s so great about a beautiful, sunny deserted beach anyway?”

Sarah laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks. Sayid’s right. Some of us have to stay with the wreck, where we’re visible from the sea and the sky, if we want to be rescued. Besides…” She smiled. “I bet it gets damp here. At least my tent is dry.”

“And full of sand.” Charlie smiled again. “You sure you’re all right carrying that back?”

“It’s sweet of you, Charlie, but yes. It’s good exercise.”

“OK…” He sounded just slightly disappointed. “Well… see you around!” By the time she had taken a few steps away and glanced back, he was plucking at his guitar again diligently, oblivious to the outside world. She smiled to herself softly, waved at the other cave-dwellers, and made her way back into the jungle, towards the beach camp.

It was bright daylight, the sun was shining with barely a cloud in the sky, and she whistled cheerfully, her spirits high. Although this was now their thirteenth day on the island –she had been keeping careful count in her diary– and any hopes of rescue had in fact all but faded, she felt remarkably relaxed. She, like the others, had begun to adapt to their new routine. She now knew almost all her fellow castaways by name, and there had been no further sign of the ‘monster’. The only dark cloud had been Joanna’s sudden death by drowning a weak earlier, and Boone’s narrow escape from a similar fate. For a while after that everyone had looked shaken. It had been a stark reminder of how vulnerable they all remained in this unfamiliar environment. Plucked from their respective towns and cities and thrust into the wild. But they had adapted, tamed their surroundings to the limited extent required to meet their needs, and had –quite literally– built new homes for themselves.

In broad daylight, the jungle did not look the slightest bit menacing. Her whistling turned to a light-hearted hum. She paused briefly to remove her backpack and rest her back, then hauled it up again and continued on her homeward trek.

Her sole night out in the jungle now felt like a distant, partly blurred memory, and strangely unreal by contrast with the current bright sunlight and green nature. And yet, on those occasions when she had had little to do but think back on what she had seen and heard, her experience had been too bizarre to dismiss out of hand – and impossible to forget. She had not spoken about it to anyone, except Ethan, and even he had only brought the topic up once, the morning after. She had considered discussing it with Charlie, or Tom, but she did not want them to think she was insane. If anyone had come to her with such a story, she would not have believed them. Especially if it came from someone she had known less than two weeks. After all… what on Earth could a silent, middle-aged woman with stony eyes be doing on a theoretically deserted island in the middle of the night? The fact that she had appeared to vanish into thin air upon nearing the light of the camp fire made her presence feel all the more like a bad dream, or a hallucination brought on by a mild sunstroke. Ethan was right: there was obviously nobody –except the forty-six castaways themselves– living on this island. So what was it she had seen? A figment of her somehow demented imagination?

And those whispersÂ… Lifted straight from her past, and from experiences best forgotten.

She looked around. Sunlight shone gently through the leaves, bathing the undergrowth in its warm, nourishing glow. There was a thoughtful expression on SarahÂ’s face.

Had there been anything there – anything at all? She had almost succeeded in persuading herself there had not, but doubts, and the sheer inescapable strangeness of those few seconds in the darkness still preyed now and then on her mind. She nodded to herself quietly, as she stepped over a fallen tree trunk. Tomorrow morning, the first thing she would do was retrace the steps she had taken that night, and have a good, long look round. If she found nothing but the untouched wildness of an undisturbed jungle – and why would I find anything else? she told herself firmly – she could set her mind to rest. And that would be that.

Nodding to herself, pleased at having reached a decision on the matter, she continued on her way towards the beach, humming to herself restfully.

* * *

It was barely dawn when she awoke the following morning, and few of her campmates were up and about yet. She bathed, changed into a fresh set of clothes, had a little to eat, then began what few preparations she would need for her brief trip into the unknown. She retrieved a jumper, knotted one sleeve tightly, then slid a bottle of water and a bit of fruit into her makeshift bag, took hold of the spare sleeve, and slung it over her shoulder. As an afterthought, she added in some sun lotion and an insect repellant. There. That had barely taken a moment. Not nearly long enough to start changing her mind.

She left the camp quietly, slipping between the trees on the exact same ‘path’ she had taken a week earlier. The air was still cool, but it would soon grow a lot warmer. She had hoped to enjoy a quiet walk in the tropical forest, but she found herself hastening her step, keen to get this over with and return to her established routine. It was, however, something new to do, and for that reason she could not help but feel a little excited.

A few minutes later, she decided she had arrived, more or less, at the scene of that night’s peculiar ‘vision’. She could not be certain; the trees all looked essentially alike, there were no landmarks, and it had been too dark to pick out anything distinctive about the location. Well, apart from that eerie apparition itself, of course. She looked round, and it occurred to her suddenly she was not truly certain what she might be looking for, either. Ghostly footprints? The man with the knives might have been able to follow a trail, but she definitely could not.

She gave the branches and trees a cursory examination, assured herself there was nothing out of the ordinary in sight, then stood still and listened. No whispers. Smiling slightly at her own foolishness, she hesitated, then decided to press on a little further. If she wandered round a large enough area, she would have a greater chance of actually covering the right ground, andÂ… well, convince herself that there was nothing here to find. She brushed an insect lightly off her neck, and continued forward deeper into the jungle.

After about half an hour, she was no longer quite sure where she was, but her staunch decision to complete her self-assigned task muted out any worry regarding how she might find her way back again. She was quite alone now, isolated from any other human presence, but the forest today felt as secure and welcome as it had yesterday. She stopped to catch her breath, leaned against a thick tree, and took a quick swig of her water. It was still early morning, but the sun was now fully up over the horizon, and the temperature was climbing steadily. It was going to be another hot day. She took another swallow of water, for good measure, screwed the lid back on firmly, and returned the bottle to her improvised carrybag. As she straightened up again and looked up, there was the woman.

Sarah froze, standing as quiet and still as the motionless apparition herself. She was barely six or seven metres away, and in the light of day Sarah was able to get a much better look at her. She stared at her, fascinated and wary all at once. The woman stared back stonily, calmly. Sarah licked her lips, nervous.

“Hi. I was just looking for you…” She winced as soon as the words left her lips. Wrong thing to say! The woman did not react, and Sarah grinned uncomfortably. In the heavy silence that ensued, she scrutinised her face closely. The woman’s calm, almost hard expression did not vary, but a slow frown appeared on Sarah’s own face. “I’ve seen you before…” she heard herself whisper, the words seeming to come from far away…

The woman tilted her head almost imperceptibly, then began to turn. “No, wait!” Sarah blurted out, taking two quick steps forward, and dropping her bag as she did so. The woman’s face lingered blurrily before her eyes even as she began to walk away. The hazy image nagged at her memory, and gradually seemed to merge into pictures surfacing from the very depths of her mind. From pictures she had looked through years ago, pouring over them again and again as a child, before putting the album away when she had been about thirteen, and never opening it again. Now, those buried photograps seemed to jump up once more from the past. It was not exactly the same face, of course, but then, after twenty-five years… and the shape, the eyes…

The woman was vanishing into the distance, melting away between the trees, walking impossibly fast. Sarah ran after her.

“Mom?!”

* * *

Sarah read the letter again, her eyes moving slowly over the thin paper, the neat, flawless handwriting. The second reading did not help her make additional sense of it. She frowned, utterly confused, and lowered it into her lap, glancing briefly at the airline tickets on the coffee table as she did so.

“I don’t understand, Dad,” she admitted at last, the puzzled frown still creasing her forehead.

“No, neither do I,” her father said, and scratched the side of his head thoughtfully. “And she’s left no contact details. No phone number, no address, no e-mail… Not even a photo. I hope she’s holding a sign up at the airport, because I don’t know how else you two are going to even recognise each other.”

“She doesn’t even say why she wants to see me. This just arrives, out of the blue…” She stood, placing the letter over the tickets on the small table. “I’ll make some tea.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry I dragged you back here from your friend’s at this hour…”

“No problem, Dad. I’m glad you called me. This is… well…” She too trailed off, and found temporary refuge in starting to boil some water. From the kitchen area, she glanced back across the smallish room at her father. “Is this… like Mom? I mean… doing the unexpected. It’s… downright weird.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Paul Ng gave a brief, mirthless laugh. He looked distinctly preoccupied. “But asking you to hop on the plane and dash across the world… Last time she saw you, you were six months old. Barely. She threw a sort of party for your half-birthday. That was typically her… If you can say anything was ‘typically her’. Then, a few days later, she was off. And that’s been it, until now. She never called back. Never asked about you… You know, I didn’t even know she was living in the States, until I read that letter.” He nodded his chin towards it.

Sarah smiled softly, kindly, and walked over towards him. She sat on the arm of his armchair, and took his hand in hers. “You have a right to feel bitter, Dad…” she said, gently. “I do, and I didn’t even know her. I grew up without a mother, and I never knew why. I assumed you’d quarelled…”

Paul shook his head. “Not even that.”

“So I do feel… hurt,” she went on. “Confused, mainly. And she wasn’t the stranger to you that she has been to me.”

Her father gave another quick, bitter laugh. “Don’t you be so sure about that. I never did understand your mother. They talk about women being a whole other species… Cassandra was a species of her own.”

Sarah smiled faintly. “Well… I’ll find out when I see her. But you wanted to tell me about her?” she probed curiously. The boiler clicked, and she stood, returning to the kitchen area to prepare the tea.

“There’s not much to– D’you know what she said when she left?”

“What?” Sarah poured the tea, stirring it in. She kept her own voice calm, to soothe him. Her father was beginning to sound a little agitated. Not that I can blame him…

“That it was in your own best interests. That she had to leave, for you.” Paul’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “I pointed out to her that, y’know, a child being brought up without her mother… But no. It was all for your sake. She said it once or twice, and then wouldn’t say a damn thing more. Christ, she’d only just given birth to you! You were, what, this small… Thanks,” he said, taking the cup of tea she handed him. She noticed his hand was shaking, almost imperceptibly. “I spent years trying to figure it out… I wondered if she thought she was going to be a bad mother. I wondered if she was just a coward.” Another mirthless laugh.

“Maybe she was,” Sarah said quietly. She warmed her hands round her teacup. “Maybe she didn’t know how to cope with a baby. Maybe she panicked.”

Her father shook his head again. “I never saw your mother panic. She was the cool-headed one. Reasonable. Pragmatic.”

“How long had you known her?” Sarah settled back in a chair, sipping her hot tea, and looking at her father intently. It was a strange conversation to be having, but then this was turning out to be no ordinary night.

“About ten years. Eleven, maybe. We met when we were in high school, year twelve. Cassandra Bentham… The quiet girl. Very brainy, very shy. So intelligent… I was amazed by the things she knew. She took an interest in everything. She had this… this curiosity about life that was incredibly stimulating. I sometimes wondered about her, and then she came to me. She never talked much to anyone, but she came to me… We spent so much time together after that. Getting married, and having you, seemed… well, to be in the natural flow of things. She was so happy when you were born. So excited. I’d never seen her so excited…”

His voice was choking up, and Sarah reached over to touch his arm gently, taking his hand in both of hers.

“It’s all right, Dad,” she whispered, very gently. “We don’t have to talk about her.”

“No, I…” Her father swallowed, and took a deep breath, steadying himself. “It’s ok, love. I’ve never… All these years I’ve had these memories inside me. Talking, letting them out now…”

Sarah nodded. “Then we’ll talk about her,” she said softly. But her father shook his head suddenly, and stood, his face hardening. She withdrew her hand.

“She abandoned you, Sarah. She abandoned you, walked out of your life when you needed her most of all… And now she wants you back in her life.” He drained his teacup in one long swallow, and carried it towards the sink. “Well, she can see you. Maybe she’ll realise all that she’s missed out on; I really don’t know, with her. Ten years, and I never felt I really fully knew her.” He washed his cup, and for a while there was silence, save for the sound of running water. Finally, he turned back to look at her again, and his face had softened once more. She watched him, listened, solemnly. “Give her a chance, Sarah. You have a right to be angry, too, and she was never there fore you, I know… But now she’s asking to see you. And she’s your mother. She is, still and always, your mother. Just… just try to give her a chance.”

Sarah met his gaze quietly, and held it for a long while.

“I will,” she said at last, softly, and took a hesitant sip of her tea.

Now it was her own hand that was shakingÂ…

* * *

It was nearing noon at the beach camp, when Tom lifted the flap to Sarah’s tent. “Hey, Sarah! Faith’s made some sort of fruit puree, and I thought you might like– Oh.” The tent was empty. He allowed the flap to fall back slowly from his fingers, turned, and looked over the rest of the camp. Several of his fellow castaways were having their midday meal round the (extinguished) firesite. He walked over to them, a troubled expression on his face. “Guys, has anyone seen Sarah today?”

They looked up, then at each other, and Michael finally shook his head for all of them. “Not today, man, no. Why?”

“Well, I haven’t seen her today… or yesterday. And she’s not at the caves; I was there yesterday.” He paused. He was reluctant to ask, but… “When’s the last time anyone here saw her?”

Again, there was a momentÂ’s silence.

“I saw her… three or four days ago, I think,” Michael said at last, hesitatingly.

“Three days,” Steve said, a lot more confidently. “She left the camp at dawn. I was up; I saw her. She was carrying some sort of bag…” Her fell silent for a moment, as the implications of his own words dawned on him. “I… don’t think I’ve seen her since,” he finished, more slowly.

TomÂ’s look of concern turned into one of alarm. The survivors gathered round the firesite gazed up at him, the expression on his face clearly mirrored on theirsÂ…

* * *

“MOM!”

Sarah tore through the forest, the branches scraping at her bare arms. Her mother’s figure, blurred between the leaves, was vanishing in the distance. “Mom, stop! Wait! It’s me, Sarah! It’s your daughter! I came! I’m here, Mom! I’ll talk to you! Listen… Talk to me!!”

She was running so hard that she could barely keep her balance. The sweat on her eyelids dripped over her eyes, obscuring her view of the retreating image. She could barely see her now. It made no sense for her mother to be here, on this island, but that thought barely brushed against Sarah’s mind. Nothing made sense here. That did not matter. Clearly her mother was here, and all that mattered was for her to talk to her, at long l–

Her right foot caught against something, tripping her and sending her hurtling forward. Her hand shot out, palm pressing against a tree for balance. She just had time to glance down, noticing a taut wire distended by the pressure of her ankle; she heard a sharp twang and a whizzing sound. She began to glance up –

The long, thick arrow hurtled through the air and straight into her, sinking deep into her flesh, the tip bursting out behind her in a spray of blood. For a second, all she felt was shock, as she fell slowly, her body impacting on the hard ground. Her mouth was open, but only after a second did a high-pitched scream of agony tear up into the jungle. For a brief moment her heartbeat accelerated, pumping wildly, blood spurting from her wound and soaking the ground.

Then everything stopped.