Sophie dozed fitfully. It was much later in the morning than she intended when she packed her bags. Would she notice if she slipped away now? Maybe…maybe she had changed her mind. Sophie fingered the threads on her bracelet. Hadn’t they been close before?

Outside, the camp appeared deserted.

‘I didn’t think it was that late,’ she muttered to the sky. ‘They cannot have started without me. Hey, excuse me!’ Sophie called to one of the night shift workers staggering towards his tent. ‘Do you know where I can find Anika?’

The woman shrugged. ‘It is day, so she is probably on the rig.’

Sophie nodded and turned to face the weathered-grey beast. It was huge, four or five stories tall. Chains clinked as they hulled empty buckets out along its neck before plunging them deep into the earth. Steam wafted through the top of the monster, wreathing its body in perpetual fog. A rain of small rocks and stone cascaded from the tail. The growing pile snaked along the back side of the pond.

The bridge was alarmingly narrow. Parallel boards and a rail on the left side were all that connected land to creature. Sophie gripped the handrail and shuffled slowly across the expansive moat. The water was murky. It wasn’t deep, but there were broken rocks hidden below its surface. Where there other horrors waiting as well? Poisonous snakes perhaps?

Sophie felt her heart race as she inched forward. She exhaled deeply when both of her feet found sound purchase on the floor of the rig. It took several heartbeats before Sophie’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the cavernous interior. Massive gears turned slow rotations. Mouthfuls of earth were dumped noisily into troughs where the contents were rattled past sieves. Water was added to this mixture. The flow added to the cacophony of sound in the room.

Anika stood in the centre of the open floor. Hands rested on her hips. Even at this distance, Sophie could see the dark glower spread across her sister’s face. Sophie swallowed and took another step forward. This was Anika, her beloved sister.

‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Anika said.

‘I am leaving today. After the charm is finished, Georges said he would take me back to town. Come with me Anika. Please come home with me.’

‘Chesico is not my home!’

‘And this is?’ Sophie flung her hands wide. ‘This is … this is primitive and you hate primitive. You hate bad manners and dirty clothes.’

‘I hate poverty,’ Anika said, her voice slicing through the sounds of metal grinding into rock. ‘I hate being without while everyone else have everything.’

‘You have nothing here!’

‘I do! I will have. There is gold in this land. Wealth and power like you have never experienced. It is here for the taking.’ Sunlight spilled through a crack in the roof of the rig. It slipped between wooden boards and became lost in the dark depths of Anika’s eyes. ‘It is here to be found by those with enough courage and determination. I have that. I have strength and power. I will find it, extract it.’

‘Where?’ Sophie gestured at the tumbling conveyor system. Rock and gravel tumbled past. It mixed with water. Sieves rattled as they sorted dirt by size. Pans sloshed as mud moved around their depths. The bottom remained empty of gold. There was nothing in the earth to harvest. ‘Where is your gold, Anika? This is barely survival. Come, you are better than this. You had a steady job in Chesico. We had our own place, our own home.’

‘We had squalor,’ Anika spat. ‘A tenement with only two rooms and the memories of something better.’

‘It was bigger than your tent.’

‘It was small. It was crumbling. It was pathetic. No one would choose to remain in that dingy hole.’

Sophie took half a step backwards. Anika continued to speak. Sophie had drawn forth the words that showered down, only she didn’t want them now. She didn’t want to hear this from her sister.

‘It was a constant, heavy chain. It was prison for me. There was no future in Chesico. Why could you never see that? Our father saw it. He… he knew when to escape a lost cause.’

‘He was devastated by our mother’s death!’

‘He would have stayed, but there was no money left. He had to leave. It was only reasonable.’

‘Like you left? Two days. You were gone in only two days. Said you were going for a little while as you walked out the door! You were worse than our father. You didn’t tell me that the apartment had been given up.’

‘You couldn’t afford to keep it.’

‘Because you took all the money! I thought you didn’t realize, but you knew all along what you were doing. At least our father didn’t sell our possessions, take all the money and leave with barely a goodbye.’

‘No he drowned himself in gin before disappearing. He left us with nothing.’

‘I was there,’ Sophie whispered. Her voice struggled to be heard over the clank of the breaker rig, the sound of the earth being ripped to shreds.

‘You and all your needs. What did you ever do besides wasting hours and money on charm lessons?’

‘I helped,’ Sophie stammered. ‘I cooked and cleaned and I learned charms to help with rent.’

‘You cooked meals of beans and rice flavoured with weeds found growing between cracks. You cleaned a house that was smaller than my bedroom when we were children. You kept us chained to crumbling ruins and shattered pasts. You were nothing but a burden to me. I wasted my life looking after you. I sunk everything into you until I was a shadow of myself: sick and exhausted.’

Anika surveyed the metal gears rotating slowly on long shafts. She watched another bucket of dirt being dumped onto the conveyor system. ‘The rig needs a special hand to keep it running. It may not look like much, but it is going to fix things.’ Anika nodded to herself. Her face set with grim determination. ‘This is going to work. Wealth is going to pour from these rocks and everything will be better. I will make it work.’ She leveled her stony gaze on Sophie. ‘I have the strength for this. No one is going to stand in my way.’

‘What are you doing, Anika?’

‘I am doing what you never could, what you never had the courage to do. I am defining my own future, not cowering pathetically behind half-sung charms. I will not be tied down any longer, while you make weak excuses for why life is terrible. No more will I suffer needlessly because of your selfish attitude.’

‘My attitude? I didn’t hold you back.’

‘You would tie me to poverty, because you are too frightened to work your charms. I always knew you were bluster but no substance, a coward. All those years of education, for what? Can you do even the most basic of charms? Or will you run away without even trying?’

Sophie could feel her blood starting to boil. ‘I will show you what I know!’ she shouted. ‘I am not something useless to be tossed aside. You will see.’

The words of the Gold Charm had been ridiculously easy, as though the charm was written by a child. The music was simplistic in its rhythm and pitch. Any beginning charmer could learn the basics of the charm in a day. Sophie was no beginner. She knew what they were trying to do, weaving six voices together for the charm.

Charms always worked best with repetition. Most charms were repeated verses, overlapping to build strength. Charmers worked the same charms over and over again, as repeated singing also lent them strength. This was the idea behind the churches. Whole congregations would renew the charms of the parish every week: increasing the potency of their charms.

Sophie opened her mouth. She focused on the core idea of the charm: like to like. Gold was found in the body of the earth, just as blood was found beneath the skin of the flesh. Earth and body were akin to each other. Bring the blood to the surface to draw the molten core through the layers of cold, solid rock. Rock to bone, heat to fire, gold to blood.

Sophie was so angry she could feel her own blood boiling beneath the solid skin of her body. Unfocused eyes stared blindly at Anika, as Sophie wished her sister could feel her anger. She wished Anika could know the pain she felt. She had been humiliated to discover from the landlady she no longer had an apartment because Anika had stopped payments. She had been terrified to journey into an unknown land in search of her sister. She had been anxious about the health of Anika. She had been so hurt by her sister’s words.

Anika had cut Sophie. Anika had been a knife drawing more than tears from her younger sister.

‘You were always too easy to manipulate,’ Anika’s voice whispered in Sophie’s ear. She could feel pressure at her wrists. There was a sharp, nearly distracting stab of pain. Then something was pressed against her wrists. Pain came in waves, while the music of the charm rose around her.

Sophie’s voice faltered, but the singing never stopped. Instead it grew in strength and determination. Waves of agony washed over Sophie as she tried to focus on Anika.

‘Blood to gold,’ her sister echoed.

Sophie forced her attention down to her wrists. It felt like an eternity getting her body to respond. Her head tilted slowly until she could see. Anika held her wrists. Her thumbs pressed down on pieces of gold, pinning the metal to Sophie’s flesh. Blood seeped up from wounded skin, red and gold mixing together in Sophie’s blurry vision.

‘What did you do?’ Sophie hissed her voice struggling with the words.

‘I need this claim to succeed. I need a future.’

‘Why? Why did you do this to me?’

‘It is just a little blood.’ Anika’s face twisted before her.

The words swam through Sophie’s mind. She grappled with their meaning. Everything was taking too long. She felt weak and confused as though she were still asleep, caught in some bizarre nightmare. It was more than blood spilling from her wrists. She could feel her life draining. ‘You’re killing me.’

Anika didn’t speak, her lips pressed together in determination. Sophie tried to catch Anika’s eye, but her sister wouldn’t look at her.

Sophie could feel the truth in her words. She was weakening, dying. Her anger flared once more. She wasn’t going to end like this. The anger twisted upon itself becoming a torrent of emotion. Around her the song was gaining in strength; she could feel it. She could feel Anika holding her in place, using her as an anchor to the charm: the focal point. She was the blood to draw the gold from the earth.

Sophie bucked. She wouldn’t be used like this. She fought the nausea and dizziness that threatened to sweep her away. Instead she focused on the charm, on the music that was tightening around them. She spun with it. Her voice joined the other charmers singing somewhere in the distance.

Gold to blood, echoed the words in her mind. Blood to blood. Sophie pushed the intent. She thought of the charm she had woven to help her find Anika: twisted threads tying them together. They were of the same parents, same blood and bone. Heat flowed through Sophie. Anika had broken their bond. She had attacked Sophie with everything she had, so Sophie pushed back. She was anger and fire. She was molten heat. The charm wove around them, tugging and pulling as Sophie redirected its focus.

In the distance she could hear screaming. She could feel the blaze of emotion burning brightly around her. The molten core rose, erupting from skin and rock. Gold and blood mixed.

The song became a charm with a force of its own, releasing the singers. Voices shouted. Sophie burned until the heat was unbearable. Her body was in agony. Every inch of her flesh was on fire. Some small corner of her mind knew she needed to end the charm. She needed to cool down. Like liquid metal she needed to cool the surface; make it solid and stable once more.

Sophie swayed on her feet. Her vision was streaks of red and gold; liquid flames wavered before her. She blinked trying to clear it. People talked in cracked, worried voices. Their words were a blur, a mash of noise without sense or meaning.

Gradually, the fire seeped out of Sophie. She could still feel its effects. Sweat poured down her back. It dripped from her forehead, stinging her eyes. The pain eased throughout her body, except her wrists which continued to burn.

A swollen tongue licked dry, cracked lips. The agitated shadows were resolving themselves into figures with faces. Sophie stared at them blankly. She struggled to connect names with those who stood before her. She looked from one to the next, searching for one who would always be familiar. When she didn’t see Anika, Sophie dropped her gaze to her wrists. They still danced with gold and red flames in her twisted vision. The flames licked forward singeing the flesh of hands still connected to her body. Anika lay crumpled at Sophie’s feet. Her face contorted with pain and fear. Her hands locked to Sophie’s wrists.

Sophie jerked back. She wretched her arms free of Anika’s fingers. She screamed as pain flared through her wrists. Anika continued to stare unseeingly up, her eyes flat as though the colour had been burnt from them. She didn’t move. Sophie looked up at those gathered around her. She saw the fear in their features. She saw tears streaking their faces.

Sophie turned and ran. She stumbled across the bridge. She tripped over roots and stones. She ran blindly until she came to a small creek. There she thrust her aching wrists into the frigid water. Steam rose and her vision blurred once more. As the pain numbed, Sophie wiped the tears from her eyes. She sat back on the damp, muddy ground and hugged her knees.

It couldn’t be real, she thought over and over. But she couldn’t make herself return. She couldn’t face the truth of what she had done to her sister. Anika had lied, but Sophie… Sophie turned and emptied her stomach onto the ground.

A twig snapped behind her. Sophie turned. Georges stood a dozen paces away, watching. His eyes were glassy as they stared at her, at her wrists.

Sophie followed his gaze. Her skin looked strange in the dappled light. It was no longer a violent red. Instead it looked… it looked… Sophie twisted her arms before her. Light glinted off bands of gold that encased her lower arm. Gingerly she touched the area. It felt smooth like new skin.

Trembling, Sophie turned back to Georges. He still watched her, his face a mix of emotions: horror, fear, sadness and something almost hungry lurking in its depths.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ Sophie faltered.

‘Anika is dead,’ Georges replied slowly. He looked from her wrists to her eyes. ‘You killed her.’

‘No!’

‘She burned from where she touched you.’

‘I didn’t, I couldn’t…I have to leave!’

‘I don’t think so, Sophie.’ Georges voice was soft and steady. ‘You seem to have a unique gift.’ His eyes drifted back to her wrists. ‘An even greater affinity for gold than we had ever thought. No, you still have your use, I think.’

‘I can’t. I won’t. Please, please let me go home. I can’t go back there. I can’t.’

‘Anika will be gone by the time we return.’

‘What did you do to her?’

Georges frowned. ‘She will be buried, as would anyone who dies on my rig. You will take her place.’

‘I know nothing of mechanicals.’

‘But you do know charms,’ Georges said with a predatory smile. ‘A talent I think we can work with. Come Sophie, you have nowhere else to go. You will never find your way back to Dawn city without me. There is either the claim or death in these wilds.’

‘People have survived in the wilds.’

‘You are a city girl. It won’t be an easy death.’ Georges stood there, watching and waiting. He didn’t move as she debated with herself. How could she ever live with what she had done? Perhaps death was the better option.

Sophie looked up, but Georges just stood there waiting. He shifted into a more comfortable position. Arms crossed over his chest he watched her. Nothing was said. For a long time Sophie sat and wondered when he would turn and leave. But he never did.

Finally, Sophie got to her feet. She wobbled; her legs unsteady. She swatted away Georges silent offer of help. She stumbled into the woods half dozen paces before she spoke. ‘Are you going to lead us back? Because I certainly don’t know the way.’

Georges said nothing as he took the lead. He set a slow, gentle pace.

‘I am a coward,’ Sophie muttered as she followed. She moved to finger the charms on her bracelet. Her fingers brushed against golden skin, strangely pliable and warm. She no longer had her bracelets, the charms from her family. Sophie swiped at more tears as she staggered forward.