The Fiesta bumped along the rocky track, rattling over potholes and diving into washouts so deep that the car’s underbelly squealed as it struck half-buried boulders and stones. I was about to give up and turn back, when I saw a familiar car parked up ahead. Lil’s green Forester. I pulled over beside it and leapt out. The engine was still warm, but there was no sign of Lil.
Calling out to her, I went further down the track until it ended abruptly at a bank of blackthorn. And there, cutting through the bushes, was a narrow trail. I ran along the trail, searching the trees around me. There was evidence that this area had been logged a long time ago. Huge stumps pushed out of the ground, and nearby were the fallen crowns, remnants of once-magnificent trees felled for timber. This narrow track may once have been another vehicle road, that allowed logging trucks deeper into the forest. Now it was barely wide enough for a person. The trees became denser and more tangled, and soon I was ducking under limbs and shoving aside leafy boughs. Then the track widened suddenly and I burst out into a clearing.
To my right was a cluster of tall granite boulders like oversized, lopsided marbles. Undergrowth crowded the base of the rocks, forming a chaotic tangle of blackthorn and tea-tree and fallen branches. One area of growth around the base of the boulders seemed too concentrated, too tangled. Too painstaking in its wild arrangement.
As I walked over, the blood began to roar in my ears. Was that netting? Blackish-green camouflage netting snarled up in the undergrowth, like flotsam washed up on a riverbank after a flood, with leaves and branches snared in the mesh. I stopped, sensing eyes boring into my back from the surrounding woodland.
‘Lil?’
The only answer was the moan of a breeze through the casuarinas and the creak of branches. I glanced over my shoulder. Why hadn’t I told anyone where I was going? Sliding my hand into my pocket, I closed my fingers around the stone Duncan had given me. Best Day Ever. The four of us were now fragmented, but once we’d been strong, and an echo of that strength seemed to flow from the stone, through my skin and along the racing passageways that led to my heart.
Feeling somehow braver, I picked my way closer to the boulders along another, narrower trail, trying to make sense of the shapes behind the netting. Was it a dwelling of some kind? Then I saw it. Half-hidden beneath the mess of branches and leaves, was a narrow door. As I went closer, other elements emerged from the tangled mess of netting and branches – heavy plank walls beneath the low curve of a roof line – and then it all shapeshifted into what appeared to be a small cabin.
The door was latched, but an open padlock lay on the ground beside it. I knelt down and touched it – unlike the rusted iron door, it was shiny new. Lil must have been here and unlocked the cabin. Had she taken Shayla somewhere else, knowing I would follow her? With a sinking heart, I unlatched the door and gave it a shove. Metal shrieked against metal as it lurched all the way open. The black cavity breathed out a bellyful of rank moist air, and it folded around me, filling my lungs and dragging me backwards in time. My body went rigid. I was twelve again, shivering in the dark, my teeth clattering as I curled into a ball on the smelly mattress, my ears alert for the sound of footfalls outside.
Breathe, Abby. Just try to breathe.
I stepped into the blackness. ‘Lil? Shayla?’
My voice echoed off the walls. Slowly, my eyes adjusted. The single-room dwelling was the size of a smallish caravan. Unfurnished but for a bucket by the door and a grimy mattress. The walls and ceiling and floor were lined with sheets of galvanised tin, rivetted along the joins. Black streaks coursed down the walls from years of water seepage, but otherwise the metallic lining had stood up to the ravages of time; it had remained a hard and unyielding surface that no amount of scratching or scraping by small fingers could penetrate.
A muffled sob broke the stillness. I whirled to face the far corner. At first she was just a denser patch of shadow huddled against the wall. Legs drawn tight against her chest, her face buried in her arms. I let out a ragged breath, and went over.
‘Shayla?’ Reaching down, I touched her shoulder. ‘Sweetie, are you hurt?’
A skinny arm came out and slapped me away. ‘Get off!’
‘I’m here to take you home. Can you walk?’
She shrank closer to the wall. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Abby. Your mum sent me to find you.’
Another whimper. ‘Mum sent you?’
‘Yeah, she thought you went to your dad’s but when you didn’t turn up, she got worried. She said Mrs Bilby’s worried too. Don’t you want to see her?’
The girl looked up. ‘Mrs Bilby?’
‘She’s your rabbit, right?’
She peered up at me with huge eyes. For a heartbeat I was staring at a younger version of myself – the shoulder-length brown hair, the round, pale face. She even wore my old denim jacket with roses embroidered down the front, the one I had tucked around her in the campground all those weeks ago.
Shayla glanced to the door. ‘Is Mum out there?’
‘No, but you’ll see her soon.’
‘I was so mad at her. I wanted to go to my dad’s. I got in the car with this lady. I was thirsty and she gave me some cordial to drink. It tasted funny. And then . . .’
‘You woke up in here?’
She nodded.
‘Come on. We’d better go.’ I held out my hand and she grasped it and got to her feet. Her legs wobbled, and nearly went from under her, so I put my arm around her shoulders and guided her across the hut and through the doorway. As she stepped through into the late afternoon light, she cringed away from the brightness and her eyes began to stream. I fished out my sunnies and let her slide them on. She peered at me.
‘RayBans,’ she remarked. ‘Can I keep ’em?’
‘Sure.’
‘Got any food?’
‘A Mars Bar in the car.’ I grabbed a roll of mints from my pocket. ‘This’ll have to do until then. They’re sugar free.’
‘Shit,’ she murmured huskily, grabbing the roll and shoving the mints in her mouth. ‘What’s the point of sugar free? Are you some kinda health freak?’
‘Not really.’ I tried to smile, but we weren’t out of the woods yet. Despite the girl’s bravado, she looked terrible. The cut over her ear was inflamed and a pink stain discoloured her cheek. Purple hollows ringed her eyes, and her skin was an unhealthy, pasty grey. ‘Let’s get going. You need to see a doctor.’
But she hovered, shuffling her bare feet in the dirt. She squashed the empty mint wrapper in her fist, then jammed it in her jacket pocket. She looked down at herself. Muck and grime covered her from head to toe, but she observed her state with no apparent reaction. Sticking out her foot, she examined it. Her feet were scratched and filthy, the nail of her big toe black with dried blood. She stared at it for a long time. Then she twisted around to gaze into the murky hole of the hut doorway. Her lips trembled. Then she softly moaned, and her shoulders began to shake. She seemed so young then, biting her lip, trying to be brave and not break down, not cry. As if she hadn’t just been to hell and back.
‘It’s okay.’ I grasped her arm. ‘You’re gonna be okay.’
It was a lie. A long time would pass before anything in Shayla’s life would be okay again. She would jump at noises, avoid the back seat of cars, sweat in cramped spaces and sleep with the light on. She would start crying for no apparent reason, and the smallest things would set her off. Worst of all, no one would understand why her behaviour was so erratic. I groped around in my mind, wishing I knew how to reassure her. To help her grasp that she was safe, and that she could stop being scared. At least until the nightmares began.
But then she barrelled into me and flung her arms around my neck, her skinny body convulsing with sobs. I held on tight and then we were both crying, her tears scalding my neck and mine soaking into her matted hair. We clung together for a long time, shivering in the dying sunlight, holding each other so tightly I didn’t think we’d ever be able to let go.
• • •
‘That’s the car . . .’ Shayla stopped dead on the deserted track, eyeing Lil’s Forester. ‘The one I got into.’ She took a step back and started gulping sharp little breaths.
‘This one’s mine,’ I said quickly, pulling out my keys and unlocking the Fiesta. The hazard lights blinked in friendly greeting, but Shayla stared around wide-eyed at the trees.
‘We’re not alone, are we?’
I searched the surrounding bushland. Was Lil out there now, watching us? I thought of the woman with cold eyes and downturned mouth; the woman I had encountered in the bush the night Lil had disappeared. Again my skin prickled with the awareness of eyes following my movements, and a shiver ran over me. ‘Hop in, kiddo. Let’s get out of here.’
She climbed into the passenger seat and a heartbeat later I was reversing away from the Forester and bumping along the potholed track. When Lil’s car vanished behind us, the tension finally wilted out of me in a long sigh. Shayla drained my water bottle and practically inhaled the Mars Bar. Then she hung her head forward over her knees.
‘Feeling better?’
‘Like a pig’s arse.’
‘You wanna lie on the back seat and try to sleep?’
She glanced at me with panicked eyes. ‘I’m fine here. With you.’
‘You sure? It’s over an hour back to town.’
She crossed her arms and glared through the windscreen. ‘You’re just like Mum, always trying to get rid of me.’
‘Is that why you ran away?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t get along?’
‘Nah. We’re at each other all the time, you know?’
We were quiet for a while. The Fiesta rattled back along the potholed track, scraping its belly over stones, its wheels skidding on the loose gravel. We turned onto the weedy stock route road, and then nearly forty minutes after leaving the cabin, we were back on the New Forest Road. Shayla slumped forward and started sobbing into her hands. Nothing I said seemed to bring her any comfort. But then when we reached the turnoff back to town she perked up and started singing to herself, her forehead resting on the passenger window as she watched the passing scenery fade into twilight with wide, tear-bright eyes.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Next time you feel like running off, do me a favour?’
‘What?’
‘Come and stay at my place. Or even just pop in for a visit. You can bring Mrs Bilby.’
‘Really?’
I nodded. ‘And if you want to visit your dad, then we can do that too. Together, if you want.’
She frowned. ‘You’d do all that for me?’
‘Course I would.’
‘Why?’
‘Because hitching to the coast by yourself is a pretty messed-up idea, don’t you think?’
‘Tell me about it.’
At Gundara Hospital, I found a park in the visitors’ emergency bay and as we hurried towards Admissions, I rang Coral Pitney and explained where her daughter was. Then I waited with Shayla while they checked her over and filled out forms. When they wheeled her upstairs to the ward, I walked beside her. I wondered if anyone had called the police yet. I hoped not. It would be better if they didn’t arrive until after I had made myself scarce.
I glanced at the exit, wondering how fast I could get to Lil’s. And what I’d say once I got there. Would Lil remember what she’d done? Would she even believe me?
As a nurse tightened a blood-pressure cuff around Shayla’s arm, Shayla grabbed my sleeve. ‘Stay with me, Abby.’
‘You’ll be fine, sweetie. You’re in good hands now.’
‘You promised to keep me safe. To take me to the coast if I wanted. Now you’re fobbing me off on these jerks?’ She glowered over her shoulder at the nurse checking the heart monitor, then leaned nearer to me and took my hand. ‘Please, Abby. I’m scared.’
‘I’ll stay until your mum gets here.’ I lowered my voice so the nurse wouldn’t hear. ‘But there’s something I have to do. Then I’ll come back and see you.’
‘Promise?’
‘You bet.’
She sagged, nodding, and kept her eyes on me.
She looked so small and vulnerable in the bed, with her grubby feet and grazed knuckles, and her pale, wide-eyed face. ‘Trouble’ her mother called her. A problem best ignored, according to Kendra. But all I saw was a smart, brave kid who needed kindness and love, and most of all acceptance. Someone to teach her how to act and behave, how to create healthy boundaries. We learn so much from others, Lil had said. But if the conduct of those we learn from is unhealthy, then how are we supposed to know what’s right?
I settled on the bed beside Shayla and slipped my arm around her, remembering the moment I’d seen her in the hut, struck by her resemblance to a younger version of me.
‘Hanging in there, kiddo?’
‘Hmm.’ She buried her face in my shoulder. ‘Did you mean what you said? About me coming to visit?’
‘Sure thing.’
‘And Mrs Bilby too?’
‘Mum says I’m trouble.’
‘Yeah. My dad said exactly the same thing about me.’
We fell into silence. I got off the bed and went over to the doorway and gazed along the corridor, wondering what was taking Coral so long. Surely nothing could be more important right now than being here for her daughter? Seeing with her own eyes that the girl was all right, giving her the reassurance she so desperately needed. Soft shoes whispered on the lino. Hushed voices, the discreet beep of monitors, the clang of a steel trolley. But still no Coral.
I glanced back.
A nurse was attending Shayla’s head wound, applying a wad of sterile dressing. He must have pressed a touch too hard for her liking, because she swore loudly and elbowed him in the ribs.
I bit my lips together and tried not to smile. After what she’d been through, that tiny act of defiance gave me hope. I wasn’t sure why, but as I went back to my place beside her, I knew that despite what Coral or Kendra or anyone else said, the Shayla Pitneys of the world would get along in life just fine.