A loud banging shattered the stillness. ‘Abby, it’s me. You in there?’
Groaning, I stumbled out of the shower, turbaned my hair in a towel and dragged on my terry robe. It was eight o’clock on Friday morning. My limbs tingled after my run, but today there was no happy glow. My head was full of nightmare images and my veins still pumped with adrenaline, none of which the scalding water had managed to dispel. I stumbled down the hallway, rubbing my eyes.
The fist thumped again. ‘Abby, come on. Open up!’
There was only one person who hammered like a cop instead of politely knocking.
Unlocking the deadbolt, I ushered my brother inside. ‘Jeez, Dunc. You trying to wake the whole neighbourhood?’
He thrust a brown paper parcel into my hands and barged past me to the kitchen, all lanky arms and legs, sandy hair raked into spikes. While the kettle boiled, he ransacked my pantry for chocolate biscuits – of which I had none – and loose-leaf tea. Holding up a packet of seaweed crackers, he shook them at me accusingly. ‘Seaweed? You’re kidding me, right? What happened to the girl who loved Tim Tams?’
‘She died and went to hell.’ I grabbed the crackers and elbowed him out of the way to stuff them back on the shelf. ‘Is there a reason you’re here, Dunc? If so, please tell me it’s a good one.’
‘I heard about your adventure at the reserve.’
My shoulders sagged. ‘Oh.’
‘You okay?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
The kettle began to shriek. Duncan switched it off and splashed boiling water into the teapot, gave it a swirl and shuffled from foot to foot while it brewed. ‘So this kid you found, what . . . she just hopped up and did a runner?’
‘Seems that way.’
‘Maybe she’d been partying the night before? Taken a fall and whacked her head. Some of the kids still hang out at the old campground, you know.’
‘On a school night?’
‘The wayward kids, yeah. We used to.’
‘You used to. I was long gone by then.’
He filled a mug with tea, doused the weak brew with milk, tossed back the scalding liquid like a whiskey shot, and then winced. ‘I’m sure she’s home by now. Sleeping off a raging hangover.’
‘I hope you’re right, Dunc. We searched all around, but there was no sign of her. I stayed after the ambos went. Walked down to the gorge then doubled back along the hill. She was just gone.’
Duncan seemed fascinated by his empty mug. ‘Be careful, okay? Going out there alone every morning isn’t safe.’
I glared at him. ‘Really? Because I’m a woman and it’s universally accepted that I’m a victim? Why is it always our fault when something happens to us? Maybe men and boys should just respect us, instead of everyone dumping all the responsibility on our heads.’
‘Jeez, Abby. You’re right, of course you’re right. But people are talking.’
I folded my arms. ‘What have you heard?’
‘That you might have just got spooked. Thought you saw something and wigged out. You know. After what happened.’
‘I didn’t wig out.’
‘Yeah, sis. I get that. But—’
‘I know what I saw.’
Duncan sighed, and pointed at the parcel still clutched in my hands. ‘You gonna open that, or what?’
I tore off the paper. Inside was a framed photo of us as kids. I would have been ten, Duncan six or seven. We were standing with our parents at one of Deepwater’s lesser known lookouts, high above the river. The gorge yawned behind us, the distant blue-green hills lost in a haze of afternoon light. Mum had her arm around Duncan while Dad’s hand rested on my shoulder. Our battered picnic basket sat on the ground at our feet like a faithful old dog. The picture brought a lump to my throat.
‘Where’d you find it?’
‘On Dad’s lounge room wall.’
‘Oh.’
Since our father’s funeral five months ago, Duncan had been clearing out the old house and it was taking forever. I didn’t offer to help, and Duncan didn’t ask. But he’d been bringing me little gifts every week, things Dad had hoarded for years that my brother, God love him, thought I might like. Dad’s compass, a battered copy of Great Expectations. Even a bunch of love letters Mum had sent in the early days. I’d burned those.
Duncan nudged my shoulder. ‘Cool picture, isn’t it?’
‘Um.’
‘Dad would have wanted you to have it.’
I thrust the photo at my brother. ‘I dunno, Dunc. Why don’t you keep it.’
He tucked his hands behind his back and stepped away. ‘I’ve got others. That one’s special. Check out your big smile. You used to live for our camping trips.’
Familiar faces grinned back at me from the photo, the faces of people I recognised, yet felt I didn’t know any more. We all looked so happy. And in light of what happened afterwards, it all seemed wrong.
Bundling the picture back into the paper, I went over to the bin and dropped it in.
‘Nostalgia’s overrated,’ I said with more swagger than I felt. ‘The last thing I want is a reminder of how royally Mum screwed everything up.’
‘Jeez, Ab.’ Duncan walked over and stared down into the bin. ‘There was a time when the four of us were happy together.’
I busied myself at the sink, rinsing my brother’s empty mug under the tap, upending it in the drainer, tipping tea leaves from the pot into the compost pail. ‘Yeah, Dunc. Until Dad started on the grog and Mum decided she didn’t love him any more. Or love us.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘It’s true, though.’
‘Of course she loved us. We were just too young to see how things really were between them. It can’t have been easy for her. Dad was such a pisshead.’
‘He wasn’t always.’
‘I know you think she drove him to it, but you’re wrong. Dad’s brothers were all drinkers. He had booze in his blood.’
‘Mum broke his heart.’
He shrugged. ‘Why can’t you remember how great things used to be? Mum was fun when we were little. You know, before it all went belly-up.’
I dried my hands on a tea towel, ignoring the tremor in my fingers. Duncan was wrong. How could I remember the good times, when they were so darkly overshadowed by the bad?
‘She abandoned us, Dunc. You and me. Dad. Do you ever think how things might have been if she’d bothered to hang around till we grew up?’
Duncan drew his lips against his teeth. ‘You still blame her, don’t you? For what happened to you at the gorge.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Yeah, you do. You think that if Mum had stayed around, then you wouldn’t have been at the reserve that day. That’s what drives you out there every morning, pounding the track, looking for answers. Looking for something that might or might not exist.’
‘It does exist.’ I lowered my voice. ‘At least, it did once.’
Duncan shook his head. ‘You need to move on, sis. From all of it. Stop living in the past and start enjoying the now. Life’s too short to spend every moment obsessing over ancient history. It’s just making you miserable.’
Grabbing my brother’s wiry arm, I steered him out of the kitchen and through the front door. ‘Thanks for the pep talk, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got things to get on with. And Dunc? I need a favour.’
He shrugged me off then considered me with narrowed eyes. ‘What’s that?’
‘Ask around at the hospital. See if any teenage girls come in over the next few days with head injuries or concussion.’
‘If you promise to do something for me.’
‘What?’
‘Stay away from that horrible place.’
‘You know I can’t.’
‘Seriously, Abby. What are your chances of finding it after all this time?’
‘Probably zero. But I have to keep trying.’
‘And if you do find it . . . what then?’
I shuffled my feet and looked at my brother. I wanted to tell him that finding the place would change everything. Change me back to the girl I’d been before. Before the nightmares and moodiness, the crippling anxiety. Before the darkness had swallowed me whole and trapped me without hope of escape. Even now I could taste the foetid air, feel the cold dampness on my skin. Twenty years on, the place was still so clear in my mind. But only from the inside. In reality, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for. I’d probably walk right past it, if I hadn’t already.
Duncan leaned in and kissed my cheek. ‘Just be careful, okay?’
He climbed astride his bicycle and waved to me as he coasted down the hill in the direction of town.
I stomped my bare feet on the steps, frowning after him. Neighbouring cottages along my street huddled behind pine-tree hedges, their chimneys trailing wisps of smoke. The sky was cloudless blue and the day promised warmth, but I couldn’t stop shivering. Retreating inside, I shut the door and wilted back against it. My legs were too rubbery to stand so I slid to the floor and rested my head on my knees, squeezing my eyes shut.
Stay away from that horrible place.
I rubbed my face with trembling hands, and then let my fingers climb up through my hair, behind my ear to the crown of my head. To the scar. And then I was tumbling back through time to another April day twenty years before.
• • •
Sloshing through the rain, I backtracked along the muddy bush trail the way I’d come. My favourite pink jeans clung wetly to my legs, and my feet squelched inside my battered school shoes. I peered about me into the trees, hoping to see a familiar landmark.
When I entered the reserve a few hours ago through the campground I had taken note of a tall white tree trunk to navigate by. Now all the trunks looked the same. Grey from the water and blotched with purple, like cold, bruised skin.
A branch cracked nearby. I jerked around and glared into the trees. Nothing. What a ninny. I tried to laugh, but instead hot tears popped into my eyes. I’d been lost for hours. My stomach rumbled and my skin ached from the cold. Where was the track leading back to the campground? What if I never found it? What if I just kept going in circles forever?
‘Hey, kid.’
I whipped around, expecting to see one of my classmates or a teacher. But no one was there. I staggered in a circle, my legs nearly buckling. Then I pulled up. Which way had I been heading? The narrow dirt track looked the same in both directions: scattered with mud puddles and soggy leaves, blurred behind the curtain of rain. As I gazed into the wet haze, a figure emerged from the tree shadows – a ragged young man with something clutched in his fist. Something that gleamed dully in the low light. Was it an axe?
I tried to take a step back, to turn around and run. But I had frozen in place. My limbs were icy from the rain, and my breath came out in little gasps. My heart fluttered like a startled bird.
The man’s teeth glowed white as he moved nearer, but it wasn’t until he was too close that I registered his eyes. Brilliant blue, like kingfisher feathers. The bright clear blue of an autumn sky. Gemstone blue. Almost luminous, while the rest of the world was swallowed up in the dark.