A car motor rumbled in the distance, bringing me back to the present. As it got louder, I silently prayed that the vehicle would keep going, speed past and continue travelling along the road and away. But the rumbling increased as the car slowed and turned into the Corbins’ driveway. Moments later a door slammed.
I got to my feet. I could see Lil in my mind’s eye, tall and graceful, striding in that confident way she had, climbing the verandah stairs and rattling her key in the lock, pushing open the back door, calling Joe’s name. And then I saw the young girl Roy Horton had described, bruised and vacant-eyed, weeping in the dirt beside her sister’s grave.
‘Oh, Lil,’ I whispered, hugging the diary against me. ‘What happened to you?’
She was under one of the tall pine trees, collecting washing off the line, bundling it under her arm. She turned around, and when she saw me she waved. Her soft pink dress flattered her figure, and the hint of lipstick and powder she wore made her seem pretty and youthful.
‘Abby, darling. I saw your car and wondered where you were. It’s Saturday, what are you—’ She dragged off her sunglasses and squinted at me. She must have seen the book in my hands, or noticed the wooden-legged way I walked towards her, because her smile faltered. The clean clothes tumbled to the ground. ‘Oh no, Abby. No . . .’
My legs were stiff from sitting on the ground for so long, and as I approached her, I stumbled and almost fell. I was still clutching the diary against my chest, my thoughts reeling from what I had read in it. The threat Lilly posed to her sister, and to Ennis – and the terrible danger that it had put her in.
‘You told me that Frankie and Ennis dropped you at Gundara and then went off together. But that’s not true, is it? Frankie never went with Ennis, did she? She ended up at the reserve. With you.’
Lil reached for the diary. ‘Give it to me, Abby. You had no right to read it.’
I sidestepped her. ‘Ennis killed her, didn’t he? He killed Frankie. And I understand why you’d lie to me about that, Lil, I really do. I understand how it would have pained you to talk about it. But why didn’t you ever tell the police what he’d done? You might have helped them catch him, made him pay for what he did to you both . . . for what he did to Frankie.’
‘I’ve told you already. Ennis loved my sister, he would never hurt her. He and Frankie packed up and left Ravensong to start a new life together. They dropped me in Gundara and then went on their way. Whatever it is you think you’ve discovered about me, you’re mistaken.’
‘Lil, do you remember the day Harry Horton took you to Gundara police station? You were distressed, weren’t you? Do you remember why?’
‘Frankie and Ennis left me alone on the roadside. They went off and—’
‘No, Lil. Harry Horton told the duty officer he found you wandering along the reserve road, but that wasn’t true, was it? You were in the forest when he found you. Filthy and distressed, your neck so badly bruised that you could hardly talk. Something happened in the reserve that day, didn’t it? Something bad happened to Frankie.’
Lil squeezed her eyes shut, and rubbed her fingers across her forehead. ‘No more,’ she whispered, almost to herself. ‘Please, no more.’
I took a step towards her. ‘Did Frankie come after you with the knife? Did you fight back when she tried to hurt you? Is that how she died?’
Lil blinked and shook her head.
‘My sister couldn’t bring herself to do what Ennis asked. Ennis should have known that Frankie would never hurt me. But he wasn’t the most rational person on the planet. His faith in my sister was strong. They were both dreamers, and sometimes their dreams were absurd. The pair of them, peas in a deluded little pod. I suppose that’s how we ended up at Ravensong in the first place – Frankie and her wild romantic dreams.’
A long pause, and then she sighed. ‘My friendship with Frankie died long before she pocketed Ennis’s knife. Long before she formed the intention of . . . well, of solving the problem I’d become. Our relationship suffered too many betrayals to survive our confinement at Ravensong. Five years in close proximity will do that to any relationship, no matter how strong. But we were still sisters. And no one, not even Ennis, could break that bond.’
‘She changed her mind?’
‘Ennis had left the doors unlocked for Frankie so she could come downstairs after she’d done the deed. But she wanted to help me escape. So she distracted Ennis while I crept out of the house. I ran through the garden and away into the bush. I ran and ran. When I couldn’t run any more I crumpled and slept where I’d fallen. When I woke, I ran some more. I must’ve staggered around for days, thirsty and hungry. I fell and cut my knee. It was sore, I had trouble walking. So I found a boulder and just sat there. A man found me. He and his boy were cutting wood nearby, their truck parked along an old service road. The truck was full of fresh-cut logs and reeked of pine sap. The man, I don’t remember his name, dropped me at the police station. Next morning I got on the train for Sydney. I went home to Stanley Street, where a policewoman found me, and—’ She scraped a fingernail over the back of her hand. ‘Later, I learned that my mother had died. I went to stay with a kind lady called Mrs O’Grady. Her husband was a carpenter. He let me watch him build things. Pencil boxes, a tea tray, nothing too fancy. He taught me how to work with wood. Not very ladylike, I know.’ She glanced up. The skin around her eyes was white, but the tips of her ears glowed scarlet. ‘Mrs O’Grady encouraged me to keep busy. She said working with my hands would help me untangle the knots in my mind.’
‘Did it help?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And Frankie?’
Her eye twitched and she rubbed it with her thumb. ‘I never saw her again.’
Cicadas shrilled in the distance, probably at the billabong where, almost two weeks ago, we had laughed at Joe’s antics with the swans. Lil glanced down the hill; was she remembering too?
‘Lil, do you know a girl called Shayla Pitney?’
Lil took out a hanky and dabbed her face. Then she examined the thin fabric and began to pick at a frayed corner. After a while, she tucked the tattered remnant back into her sleeve. ‘Should I know her?’
‘Shayla disappeared four weeks ago. Do you think you could help me find her?’
‘How could I do that?’
‘Because I think that when you have your turns, you go back to the place where Harry Horton found you.’
‘Oh, Abby.’ She almost smiled, her brows furrowed. ‘Why on earth would I go back there?’
‘Because that’s where Frankie is buried.’
Lil shook her head, as if on the brink of denying this again, but then she stopped and seemed to wither into herself, her shoulders bowed, her body slumped. Her fingers came up and clamped over her lips, her wedding band gleaming gold against her freckled skin, her smile replaced by a frown as she stared back with blank, glassy eyes.
A deadweight settled over me. I had pushed her too far. She looked so frail and lost, so unlike her usual self. Was she on the brink of having a turn? I slipped the diary into my bag, and took a step towards her.
‘The grave is near an old logger’s cabin,’ I said carefully. ‘The Hortons used to go there, and I want to see the hut for myself. I have a hunch that Shayla could be inside. And I think you know how to find it.’
Lil shut her eyes, and when she finally looked back at me, her lips trembled, and her pupils were huge and black. ‘Has it got something to do with my nightmares?’
‘Yeah, Lil,’ I said gently. ‘I think it might.’
‘But I don’t know where that place is.’
‘Maybe if you looked at a map, it would jog your memory?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then we’ll go for a drive, you might see something that—’
‘No.’
‘I think Shayla is in danger. You can help me find her. Help me to save her.’
‘Danger?’
‘I’m worried someone has trapped her in the logging cabin. I think they mean to let her die there. You’re my only hope of finding her alive.’
Lil clamped her fingers over her mouth. ‘Oh, Abby. You’re too late. The shadows . . .’
‘Too late? Lil, what do you mean, too late?’
‘Oh, dear. My pills.’ She patted her hips then twisted around and looked at the house. She took a step towards it, but faltered, and then just stood there. She began to blink rapidly, her chest rising and falling as if she were struggling to breathe. ‘I’m afraid I’m unwell. My pills, would you get them for me?’
‘Of course, Lil. Where are they?’
The colour had drained from her face, leaving her skin doughy and pale. She squinted, as though against a bright glare, her eyes small and dark. ‘In the kitchen. The little dresser behind the door. Hurry, please.’
I ran up the stairs into the kitchen and found the white cabinet. I rummaged in the drawers, and then tugged open one of the glass-fronted doors. On the top shelf was a large array of packets and pill bottles. I leaned closer to scan the labels. Many had Joe’s name on them. I chose two, then went to the door, but Lil was no longer in the yard. Had she come inside after all? I hurried along the hall to where the bedrooms were.
‘Lil?’
A car motor roared outside. In the lounge room, I crossed to the window. Out on the road, a glimmer of metallic green flashed past, barely visible between the trees. For almost a full minute, I stood in the stillness, listening to my heart thundering in my ears as I fought to stay calm. No, please no. Not her. It couldn’t be her. I took a step towards the door, then stopped again, both hands clasped over my mouth. Not her. There must be another explanation. But my gut was in a knot and I kept seeing her face just now, under the trees outside, the hollow emptiness in her eyes. And I knew. Somehow, I knew. Rushing through the back door, I went down the steps and along the path. The driveway was empty. Lil’s Forester was gone.
• • •
Twenty minutes later, I pulled onto the roadside near the turnoff where we’d found Lil’s car the night she disappeared into the forest. Getting out, I called to her, and walked a little way into the bush, but there was no one around, and no sign of her car. Back in the driver’s seat, I took out my map and spread it out across the wheel.
Roy Horton said he and his father drove north out of town along the reserve road, where I now sat, otherwise known as the New Forest Road. From there they turned onto a narrow track and travelled west. Roy said the track was bumpy and went on for a long time, but that could describe any of the old logging tracks that crisscrossed the gorge reserve.
I trailed my finger over the map, north along the reserve road, until the dense terrain opened into farmland. At the furthest point of the kidney-shaped forested area, tucked into a bend in the river, was Ravensong. I found a pen in the glovebox and marked its location with a small blue cross. Then I examined the area surrounding it.
I ran and ran, Lil had said. And when I couldn’t run any more I crumpled and slept where I’d fallen. How far had Lilly Wigmore travelled? For days she had trekked through dense bushland, over hostile and unfamiliar territory. Lilly was a city girl, and had spent the last five years trapped in an attic. She would have been disoriented, frightened, not used to the sort of physical exertion needed to navigate the harsh terrain. She couldn’t have travelled far. Ten kilometres a day, fifteen at most? So in two days, she might have travelled thirty. I drew a thirty kilometre radius around Ravensong, but it still left a large gap between the possible position of the loggers’ hut, and where the hikers had found me.
On a whim, I drew a straight line between Ravensong and Pilliga’s Lookout.
At the midpoint, a vehicle track crossed the line at right angles. The track curved westwards, but not from the reserve road. There was another road, perhaps part of the now-defunct travelling stock route. This secondary road ran southwest off the New Forest Road but then seemed to peter out at a creek, reappearing a few kilometres later, where it intersected with the west-running trail. It looked promising, but it was a long way from Ravensong. It would have taken Lilly more than a couple of days to walk it.
Back on the road I sped north. Bushland crowded both sides of the roadway, but to my left was the Deepwater Gorge Reserve. For weeks I had been driving between Ravensong and town, and had passed several narrow dirt trails leading off this road, which I’d thought were old forestry trails or little-used driveways. The country roads around here were full of bushy lanes that led only to abandoned farms or quarries, or one-time fossicking areas. But I recalled one track that I’d passed, that seemed in more frequent use than the others.
Was that where Lil was heading? Did it lead to the place where Harry Horton had found her all those years ago as a lost and frightened young girl? Covered in dirt and badly bruised, crying beside the grave she had dug for her sister? And where now, a few short kilometres away, an old logging cabin held a caged nightingale of its own.