That brittle night they danced they danced they danced, their knees on springs on feet on wings. Gerda and Kai, naturally high. Their breath came out in cumulus clouds as the ramshackle house sucked people in and out through its large damp lungs. Faces blurred, simple sentences fractured and slurred. They clung on and spun, giddy to rhythms that couldn’t keep up. They screeched and giggled and fizzled and sparked. Gerda thought someone in the corner nodded at Kai, but Kai just looked blank and shrugged: I don’t know anyone, either. As long as they were together, Gerda felt safe. She didn’t even know whose party it was, which suburb they were in. They came with some people who knew some people, but all of them had vanished. The house was half renovated, with excisions and entrails in odd little rooms. People looked up accusingly, as though you’d burst in.

Gerda shivered, inhaling the chill of the house. She caught a boy looking her up and down, dark and intense and that cool bit older. Their looks snagged and he glided up beside her. He was swarthy and shadowed and the creases in his face made him more man than boy. Close up he touched her fingers thrillingly and tried pulling her away to where he’d been sitting. Gerda made a spastic stumble, avoiding someone’s empty stubbies. Then he offered something up, his fingers cradling the bulb in a way that reminded her of handling a pigeon. She saw it was a pipe: a pipe made of glass. She shook her head emphatically. Don’t smoke, she mouthed over a burst of electric guitar. Suit yourself, his shrug said, and his face closed up. His attention switched to Kai, who was hovering close.

Gerda did a double take as Kai took a pull – they never touched drugs – then sank onto the couch. The man offered the pipe again, and Gerda felt the clamour of her own urge to please. He had a face that was hungry for something. She took a few quick puffs, trying not to think too much. But a wrong feeling needled her: the man’s hair was greasy and his collar was dirty. A wave of noise was breaking and she was tugged out on the tide. Then her mind just changed channels – she was off on a rollercoaster ride, avoiding a million collisions.

They danced they danced they danced, hurling themselves into hypnotic rhythms she’d never fully felt, never truly heard. The music spiralled around and above them, pulsing over them and through them, pumping out their arms, animating their legs and thrusting through their hips. The dark man breathed unbearably close, his eyes darting everywhere and blocking her way. He danced like burning newspaper and his smell hung sharp on the air. Exit – no exit – she’d better find a toilet and hide. The dance floor was suddenly crowded with her critics, eyes piercing Gerda’s poise. Body slick, breathing hard, she tried pushing through the crowd to find her way to Kai. But Kai was somehow disconnected in a way that made her nervous, not seeking her out or meeting her eye. The shadow man was suffocating with his skin-crawler hands. Gerda felt all the lights exploding, and fireworks hailing down. She slid to the ground abruptly, spittle stringing from her mouth. Her shadow was behind her, lifting her too intimately under the arms. She pushed him away, panic roaring.

‘Bitch!’ she heard, and sensed the man raise a hand.

Gerda ducked her head and slid under some other bodies, finding her way through them with desperate precision. Kai? Why so far away? Gerda saw the man hovering, hard-angled on the edge of the dancers. She scanned for Kai. He was there, catatonic near the centre of the floor. Gerda saw he was staring into the eyes of a very tall girl, a girl that nobody crowded. She was a stunning white-blonde creature with the long-legged look of a deer. The albino of some exotic species. No. Not a deer. Some lean kind of predator.

Eyes like a snow wolf, the thought jumped into her mind. Then she wondered . . . a snow wolf. Does such a thing exist?

Gerda saw the way Kai was looking at the girl, how his face seemed wreathed in starlight, some illusion of the room. Her eyes were slanted almonds, cheekbones high and broad and flat, her long hair fluffy dawn-clouds, snowy white. She stood lithe and elegant and still, inside a blizzard of swirling bodies. Gerda saw that Kai was her captive. She was glad the girl had kept him in the room. Gerda sidled over and touched his shoulder.

‘Earth to Kai,’ she said.

Kai nodded, saying nothing.

Gerda looked from Kai to the girl, and a thought leapt uninvited into her brain. The snow girl’s eyes glittered like two bright stars. Gerda was aware of a strange churn of thoughts.

‘Kai . . . introductions?’ Gerda heard herself say, quite loud. The girl stared down an aristocratic nose. Still Kai said nothing: it must be the stuff.

Snow weighs heavy on branches in the laden silence of the night. Pine needles prickle the air, bright moonlight shivers silver on deep drifts. As you stop to listen harder than the hammer of your heart, a high faint keening carries on the air. Hugging your coarse cloak, you feel your feet stinging inside freezing leather. Gradually the ululation takes shape in your brain, hardens and intensifies into a howl. Pine needles carpet the wolf pack’s approach. Fear tears at your belly. Legs leaden and brain burning, you stare up at the pines, straight and unadorned as sentries. They seem impossible to climb.

When the snow girl looked at Gerda, there was neither curiosity nor interest, but when she looked at Kai . . . it was as if a cold scatter of stars lit the brittle midnight sky.

‘Anya, this is Gerda,’ Kai shouted, finally, putting his new friend first, Gerda noticed. He should be introducing her to me.

Gerda nodded, and saw that there was neither rest nor peace in those eyes. She looked back at Kai and shivered. The thread between them told her he was scrabbling to get back inside his body. He was no match for this snow wolf.

‘Anya’s from Norway,’ Kai yelled suddenly over the music, as though this ought to impress her.

Gerda caught herself feeling a stab of . . . what? Jealousy? No! Since they were little, they’d been best friends. They’d lived in next-door terraces all their lives, and gone everywhere together.

Kai and the girl . . . they just didn’t plait. The girl looked somehow otherworldly in her exquisite fur-lined coat, whereas everything about Kai was average. But did people less familiar see him differently? He had blond board-rider good looks, but so did every third boy in the city. A chill of insight told Gerda that the snow girl wanted something specific, yet she couldn’t have said what it was. The snow girl seemed to stand at the centre of a storm of white bees, and Gerda saw that Kai was spellbound.

Don’t be uncool, she told herself. Leave him to his one-night stand. The snow wolf might maul him for a while – but she’d leave his carcass in the snow. Gerda wanted to giggle hysterically. Should she take a taxi home?

But she knew Kai would never leave her on her own and not quite in control. Gerda still felt high and strange and shattered, and wondered if the stuff was making her see the girl as some kind of ice queen, when she was perhaps just quiet and contained. Maybe even shy.

Kai was valiantly trying the conversation thing, in a way he never needed to with her – they’d always been in tune. Gerda decided to keep watch from a distance. She wandered into a group discussing the American pariahs, trying to keep Kai in sight.

‘The terrorists don’t even have to do anything anymore,’ a tall, red-headed guy was saying, jabbing the air with his finger. ‘The environmental disasters and the food riots. They’re imploding all on their own.’

Kai and the snow girl were drifting down a hallway sardined with bodies, and Gerda was about to lose sight of him. She slid along behind them, keeping her distance, feeling more a spy than a friend. The snow girl had taken his hand possessively. They slipped into a small side room, a bathroom: damn. Gerda couldn’t follow without being obvious. She hovered in the doorway, the weight of prowling bodies pressing in.

Kai stood with the girl, holding up a bag of white stuff they’d been handed by two men who were watching them intently. One plucked the bag back from Kai and shook some kind of powder onto the vanity, then gave Kai a straw. The powder sparkled, dirty little diamonds under the light. To Gerda the men seemed hovering hawks, watching for prey with a raptor’s intensity. The ice girl stood stock-still, an accomplice. Gerda took a deep breath and stumbled in, fake drunk. Kai looked up angrily but the snow girl’s ice-blue eyes were unreadable. Gerda was stung.

‘Kai, please take me home,’ Gerda whined, in a way she never did, desperately hoping he’d understand. Kai hesitated, and Gerda could see he was torn. She stumbled again deliberately, and this time Kai stepped forward to steady her. But he bumped the mirror above the vanity and it crashed to the floor, scattering the coarse grimy crystals. Everybody jumped back, and Gerda gasped. The look that came from Kai was . . . pure loathing.

Gerda burst into tears, hating herself. Hating herself for crying in front of the ice girl who had no compassion in her eyes, in front of the cruel men who hadn’t even blinked. They only had eyes for the powder. The cheap-shit mirror lay shattered at their feet in ten thousand ugly shards. Kai had blood on his shirt and a red bubble mushroomed in his eye.

‘Kai – you’re hurt!’ Gerda heard herself shriek.

‘Come on,’ Kai said, jerking her arm, ‘you bloody idiot.’

They crunched out of the bathroom and he pulled her this way and that, dodging an army of bodies, down the stairs and out onto the street. Gerda tripped down the last step and the blast of cold air felt so intense she couldn’t catch her breath. She was sniffing and the tears kept snailing down her cheeks, but his face was red and rigid with anger.

She knew she’d done right but to him it was wrong. Somehow someone had stolen the old Kai away. The snow wolf, the ice girl from Norway.

‘Come on, get going,’ was all he would say. Then she heard him mumble, ‘Technically it was still theirs. Can’t afford to pay for something I didn’t get.’

As they tramped under a streetlight, Gerda noticed the blood on his shirt, just under his pocket.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she panted, ‘the mirror . . .’

Kai turned and she saw his alarming red eye. He shook his head dismissively.

‘Hurry up. They might come after us.’

The harbour bridge would be icy. The streets were slippery and bare, and the only sound was the dripping of icicles, and the miserable march of their feet.

Gerda heard a thump through her bedroom wall: Kai’s room! Loud enough to be loud in her room. She heard a rumble of voices, and another thunck. Jesus . . . had those drug dealers followed them home? Were they trying to make Kai pay for the stuff she’d spilt? She strained to catch the words, but her heart thumped too loud to hear. Crash – was it Kai being thrown against the wall? It was all her fault. Kai. Was his grandma caught in the middle? They must be frightened out of their minds! Gerda ran for the telephone, then stopped herself, nearly falling down the stairs. If she called the police, she’d have to make a statement. Saying what? She’d stopped her best friend making a deal? And when the cops made enquiries, someone would say they’d used some . . . whatever it was. Not in the bathroom, but before. Gerda knew about druggies – they were being set up. They’d be blackmailed, or maimed, or killed. God, she couldn’t go to the cops! She remembered those men and their hard stares. There’d be no pleading. But somehow she had to help.

Now Gerda understood Kai’s rage. Somehow he’d known this would happen. She sprinted downstairs, pushed past her mother dawdling in the hallway, and was at the door of the next terrace in three seconds flat. As always she let herself in. What the hell could she do? She heard another thunck! from the top of the stairs. She felt it. She had to stop him being killed. They wanted money. She’d empty her bank account, give them her secret stash, the coins lying lost under the couch, everything. But she’d heard about drug pushers. It’d never be enough. How could she be so stupid? Kai’s grandmother stood at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes round as a possum’s.

‘Wh-who’s up there?’ Gerda said, trying to sound braver than she felt.

‘Kai . . .’ Grandma said.

Jesus, obviously.

‘He’s acting crazy,’ she said, throwing up her arms.

‘Grandma, stay down here,’ Gerda hissed. ‘Stay here, whatever happens.’

Grandma shook her head. ‘Bad, very bad,’ she said tragically.

One way to put it.

‘Go to my mum,’ Gerda said, shuddering at another thump. It galvanised her. She leapt up the stairs two at a time, thinking she needed something to defend herself with, but what? Too late . . . she burst into the room carrying a chair she’d snatched up in the hall. And almost fell over it.

Kai looked at her, astonished, nostrils flared, fist poised, knuckles white, the angry red bloom in the white of his eye. It made him look dangerous. He slammed into the wall with a bone-jarring thunck! and the plaster cracked. There was nobody else in the room.

‘Shit!’ he yelled, cradling his fist.

‘Kai! What the hell—?’ Gerda screeched. ‘What are you doing?’ She stood in the doorway panting, arm and leg muscles twitching.

His desk was upturned, electronics gear and comics strewn all over the floor.

‘Kai, what’s wrong?’ Gerda said, voice cracking into falsetto. ‘Have they gone?’

‘Have who gone?’ Kai yelled.

‘Those men. From the other night,’ Gerda said, looking around nervously. They’d trashed the room: looking for cash?

‘What men? What the fuck are you on?’ Kai spat. He could have hit her in the stomach. This wasn’t Kai, her friend forever. Her Kai had gone off with the body snatchers.

She heard the tromp on the stairs, Grandma and her anger swelling to fill the little attic room.

‘Kai, language! Gerda is your oldest friend!’ Grandma said, shrill.

But Gerda looked back at Kai – Kai, eyes blazing, who was belting holes in walls. He could knock Grandma aside like swatting a fly. Bad thought.

‘Kai, what is it?’ Gerda said, voice shaking. ‘Why punch the wall?’

Kai swung to face her, eyes dancing with rage, as if there weren’t enough words.

‘Why ask me dumb questions? It’s ugly anyway!’

Well, it was covered in his posters – girl rockers, martial arts legends, hot rods and super cars. Why didn’t he change them? But she daren’t say a word. Beside her Gerda sensed Grandma was working herself up into a rant.

‘Kai, why don’t we go to the park?’ she said, to head it off. ‘It’s beautiful there.’

‘Yes,’ Grandma said. ‘Gerda should be the one.’

The one to what? Gerda thought.

But Kai roared, ‘No it’s not! The park’s pathetic! I hate it! And I’ve got nothing to talk to you about!’

Gerda shrank from his distorted face, the ropy veins near his temples. He still wore the shirt from the other night with the blood spots on the chest, little red bullet holes. A tiny scab was forming under one eye. Feeling helpless, Gerda took Grandma’s hand: it was brittle twigs, trembling. Gerda felt close to tears as well.

Kai grabbed the end of his quilt and jerked it off his bed, scattering clothes, discs and magazines. He rummaged in his wardrobe and pulled out his backpack, shoving in everything that had sprayed off his bed.

‘Fuck you, losers! I’m going. I hate it here and I hate you!’ he said, slamming the door.

‘Kai!’ his grandmother screeched, shaking, sinking onto his bed.

Gerda looked at Grandma, who’d suddenly shrivelled to toy-size, and swallowed tears.

For two days Gerda hardly left her room. In the mirror she looked much the same, one long wheat-blonde plait resting on her collarbone, her skin softly bronzed. But the whole world had changed. As she peered into her own brown eyes, she recalled that other ugly mirror. Somehow it was all her fault. She’d made the mirror fall, which spilt the powder, which freaked out Kai, who’d known something serious must follow. She’d ruined the deal as well as his chances with the snow girl. Worst, she’d driven off her closest friend.

She watched for Kai as they’d always done, checking the attic window next door. As children they’d discovered they shared a special power: to look out along the line of bricks and find the other almost always looking back. But somehow the spell had been broken. Each time Gerda peered out she called him in her mind, but each time she tried and failed, she knew she’d weakened the magic. So she willed herself to stop looking, but still she felt compelled. As kids they made a telephone from empty tin cans joined with string. Over the years they’d had all kinds of secret codes, but in all their years as friends, they’d never used their messages to fight. They’d always been linked by an invisible thread. Now suddenly it had snapped and the magic was spent.

Gerda knew she was to blame, but she still didn’t understand. Kai was different at the party, keen to take anything offered. Was there something she didn’t know? Had he somehow developed a habit?

Gerda thought of the two men in the bathroom: their wary faces and calculating eyes. She remembered the pipe they’d shared earlier that night. A man with the same hard edges had offered it for free. But the truth was, he wanted something back. Sex or money or pain, she sensed it didn’t matter which. It wasn’t a gift . . . just a lure to trap you in their web. Did Kai leave home because he knew the men would hunt them?

Then Gerda remembered the girl from Norway, who’d watched everything unfold at the party, watched with her ice-cool stare. Was she somehow significant in this? Gerda thought of the remote, empty glitter in the tall girl’s eyes. But they flared with heat and hunger when she turned to look at Kai. Maybe that explained it all – the resentment and the tantrum and the fact he’d disappeared. Maybe Kai was off with the ice girl now . . . wrapped in her nest at the North Pole, working on getting warm! Doing mouth-to-mouth on those cold blue lips . . . bringing her back to life!

Gerda began to feel angry, playing it over in her mind. She wasn’t jealous, she was seething. Kai’s yelling had buffeted his grandma like a wind-battered tree. Grandma refused to worry out loud, to wonder where he’d gone, or why. She used the voice she used for dead friends. Kai had gone out into the world, and would come back when he was ready. Even Gerda’s own parents weren’t overly concerned. In that maddening way of adults, they seemed intent on ignoring the big questions, worrying instead that the unseasonal cold would send up the heating bills, and what they might eat for tea.

Gerda sat shivering in her room, a chilly premonition shaping inside her. As her thoughts whirled, the air itself froze, and the city turned into a snow dome. Even the swan’s wings of the Opera House were dusted white. There were power cuts and car crashes and snow had to be shovelled so you could open your front door. There’d been ice on the lake before, but never thick enough to walk on.

Beanie, scarf, gloves, two hoodies, coat, and three pairs of socks later, Gerda blundered along the path to the park, being the abominable snow girl. She went slipping and skating and purposely not thinking of Kai and whether he’d be cold. She even smiled at the makeshift sleds, and the swarms of kids learning to skate. She lumbered around the edge, throwing snowballs with littlies, the mirror-ball sun sinking and ice crystals dancing in the light. Soon the lake was lit with fireflies, kids carrying torches and glowsticks, racing and dodging and crashing. Then the fireflies parted, and Gerda rubbed her eyes. The light was indistinct, but out in the centre – surely it wasn’t real – she made out a skidoo. To think the ice was holding its weight! She knew from movie chases that they ran on snow or ice. As it glided closer Gerda saw its opalescent paint and the running surf of the rider’s hair.

Then the breath froze in her throat. It couldn’t be . . . but incredibly it was . . . the snow girl from the party. There was no mistaking her: the same aristocratic nose, the white-blonde hair, and the haughty stare. Sitting rigid as an ice queen. Gerda’s heart leapt. Maybe, maybe she’d see Kai. But the ice queen rode alone, in the stunning fur-lined coat Gerda remembered from the party, with rabbit-tail pom-poms dancing.

Out near the centre, a sledder flagged down the skidoo. A kid in bulky clothing looped a rope through a tow-ring and attached an old surfboard. Gerda strained to see the boy who’d cheekily asked the ice queen for a tow. Then the skidoo roared off, spinning its load in a dizzying rush, skaters scrambling to safety. Gerda’s heart clutched – surely the kid had to crash! But he held on gamely and they blurred through another lap. Were her eyes playing tricks? It was Kai! She stumbling along the edge of the lake towards the sledder, calling Kai’s name till her lungs hurt. The boy looked behind him once, as though in slow motion or a dream, and there was no hint of recognition. Then the skidoo slid up out of the lake, the surfboard-turned-sled bumping behind. As they sped down the icy street, the sledder turned and she saw his demented grin.

Gerda ached to howl her hurt and confusion. The magic thread in her chest was stretched taut and ready to rip her heart out through her ribs. It had to be Kai! She ran for the gates, desperate to keep them in sight. She climbed one massive stone gatepost and balanced on top, scanning the road that snaked down the valley below. The light was nearly gone, and she’d lost them. She stood there forever, teetering, freezing: frightened she’d fall if she gave in and cried. The last rays of sun caught a sudden sharp glint. She made out the white bullet and dark shape behind. It came smoothly to a large V in the road and veered south-east. They’d skirted the city and taken the highway south.

Gerda lay in bed, wide awake. South. They’d taken the highway south. Her legs were heavy as logs from blundering through the snow, but her mind shied away from counting sheep. They were heading down the coast. Finally she gave up trying to sleep, and dressed layer by layer, with the sensation of a reluctant sleepwalker. She loaded her backpack with toothpaste, hairbrush, knickers, socks, jeans, jumper, and only one personal thing: her diary. Guilt gnawing her, Gerda searched the cupboards for the two mohair rugs, whose staid patterns and colours she hated: she was taking them from her mother, who loved them. They were light and very warm. And she took a roll of garbage bags – somehow she’d have to keep everything dry. Gerda took her secret stash, saved from school lunches and excursions, hidden in her bottom drawer. She even gathered the coins from under the couch cushions. Then, stomach growling, she raided the cupboard and the fridge. Now poor Mum would have to stump down to the shops again, trying to stretch her housekeeping money until pension day.

Gerda crept out the front door, slapped at once by the icy air and the enormity of what she was doing. Sighing, she pulled the door shut. When her parents found she’d run away, they’d think she hated them. But that wasn’t true! Should she leave them a note? She hesitated but knew she must go at once or her determination might melt, a snowman shrinking in the sun. She’d find Kai and be home before her food ran out. It would only take a few days. Grandma would be overjoyed, and Kai wouldn’t hate her anymore.

Gerda walked briskly, shutting out the cold, refusing to think backwards, only forwards. To the next street corner, to the next row of shops. She counted the steps and marched. The rooftops were dusted with icing sugar, and she walked on hard, bruising ice, but her hiking boots cushioned her feet and braced her ankles when she slipped. The city at 4.00 am was foreign to Gerda, and captivating. No cars or people barging. She walked down the middle of the street, for fun. She studied the windows and shop-fronts. Some shops had ancient ornate plastering, while the newer ones had strong lines and daring colours. Gerda mused. The windows held the glamour she’d read about in fairytales. It was glamour that seduced you to go inside the fairy hill, or do the bidding of the little folk. Some shops were neglected, with cracked windows and drunken verandahs. Gerda stared into the stylised faces of shop-window dummies, thinking of the ice queen, looking for a sign . . . but all she saw were her own anxious eyes. When a face reared up at her inside a window, she shuddered. A man in a duffle coat glared at her, waving something: Piss off. It was a TV remote – he was trying to switch her off! The shop was one of the sad ones, with ‘Bargans’ scrawled on the glass. Gerda hurried away, scanning nervously. Was he a psycho shopkeeper? Or did he just live there after dark?

The streetlights were getting scarce. What would she do if . . .? Gerda was slight but fairly tall, and she knew her heavy coat bulked her up. She looked big in the windows. Her hair was pulled up under her beanie, and she thought she might pass for a man, especially in the dark. She’d heard you carried your keys between your fingers, so you could poke someone in the eyes. She wedged her keys between her knuckles, fumbling in her gloves. She imagined the news bulletin: Girl Found Frozen – Murdered? They’d say she ran away from everything, yet she was running towards it, trying to find Kai and make things right. She’d never imagined a life where Kai didn’t live next door. But was this just a wild-goose chase? She didn’t really know if she’d seen Kai, or where they might be heading, just that they’d taken the highway south. But she’d definitely seen the ice girl, so surely the sledder was Kai? A girl like that wouldn’t give just anyone a tow, Gerda guessed. She probably had some . . . igloo . . . down south, somewhere in the hills. She and Kai were probably toasting marshmallows in her snow castle right now. Gerda imagined bursting in on them, and her smirk died as she pictured Kai’s cold stare. Gerda remembered the girl’s face, and her predatory eyes. She hadn’t seen the girl smile, even when they were introduced. She tried to visualise it, but all she could see was a canine snout, a baring of the teeth. Snow wolf. The words popped into her mind again. Even if Kai ended up despising her, Gerda knew she must continue. She didn’t want to turn off the main road – something told her to head due south. Gerda yearned to believe it was a remnant of her connection with Kai – now just a frayed thread, stretched tight. She didn’t even see the body she bumped into.

‘Watch it!’ a cement-mixer voice growled, face hidden in shadow. A hard shove, and Gerda went down, her heart trying to hammer its way out of her chest.

‘Shit!’ She was an upturned beetle pinned by the weight of her pack. Her bum stung with cold. So much for self-defence. She scrambled upright, backing away from the man as light fell on his face. Or was it a woman? Gerda couldn’t be sure in the light. A woman, she decided, wearing overalls. Like Gerda, a woman trying to pass for a man.

‘What did you do that for?’ Gerda yelled, but she already knew the answer.

‘Back off – you bumped me, buddy boy,’ the woman said, stabbing the air aggressively. Her breath made cauliflower clouds.

Gerda saw the crazy way the woman’s eyes chased her own. In a flash of insight, Gerda realised the woman was frightened of her.

‘Look. I’m not trying to rob you or anything, okay?’ she said, deliberately softening her voice.

The woman peered at her, frowning. ‘You’re a girl!’ she shrieked, as though it was an enormous joke.

The woman’s hair was black with a skunk streak down the middle; dyed, wavy and swept into a bun. She was unusually tall with a strong, square chin, but Gerda found herself imagining the woman in bright tangerine lipstick with a beauty spot, right there. Then it dawned on her – she was a trannie, a transsexual. Did she live here, on the streets? Probably got belted every second night, just for being what she was . . . he, she – whatever.

‘We’ll be best friends!’

Shit, Gerda thought. Will it be like this all the way?

‘Will you be my friend, doll? I am so very much in need. I am so tired of acting, you know?’ the woman said, lifting a huge invisible bowl with her arms. ‘I’m sure that’s something you understand,’ she said, giving Gerda a wink as though they shared a secret. ‘Acceptance,’ she enunciated, to an unseen audience. ‘Companionship. Even love. Isn’t that all we crave? Any of us?’

Uh-huh, Gerda thought. If you say so. But she sensed there could be safety in numbers. If this woman – person, whoever – could wander the streets at 5.00 am then Gerda could probably learn something. She was ancient – she must have survived for hundreds of years.

‘What’s your name?’ Gerda asked.

The woman just waited. Gerda shrugged. ‘Mine’s Gerda.’

‘Gerda! I would have called you Snowdrop, or perhaps Tiger Lily,’ the woman said. Gerda noticed the floppy skin under her strong, upthrust chin. ‘Something less plain,’ she said, staring somewhere beyond Gerda’s eyes ‘. . . to offset that . . . aura of the everyday. But, Gerda it is.’

‘Hmm,’ Gerda said, feeling that same sense of quiet desperation you feel when you’re cornered by a loser at a party.

‘My name is Hyacinth,’ the woman announced.

‘Um, nice to meet you, Hyacinth,’ Gerda said. ‘What . . . um . . . where do you live?’

‘Young lady, I should be asking you that question!’ Hyacinth crowed. ‘Perhaps you think I am homeless . . .’

Gerda was.

‘Not true. I walk at nights because I cannot sleep after four o’clock. I have a lovely warm bed. Shall I show you?’

‘Ahh . . . no. I have to keep going.’

‘No, child! No! But I insist.’ Hyacinth suddenly looked a little more clued-in. ‘This is your first time away from home, isn’t it?’

Gerda nodded unwillingly.

‘Then you must be more careful,’ she said.

They walked south, so Gerda told herself it was all right. Hyacinth strode along, hiding the hint of a limp. Gerda realised she should act as well. She swung her arms, feeling looser and more relaxed.

‘Is it a boy?’ Hyacinth asked abruptly.

Gerda nodded, feeling ashes of misery settle over her again. Meeting Hyacinth, she’d forgotten Kai for a little.

‘Yeah. But not like you think,’ she said. Hyacinth had very long legs in her overalls and a high little pot belly that sat just under her . . . boobs? Hmm.

Hyacinth threw back her head and laughed a rich laugh. ‘It’s never like we think, darling!’ she said.

‘No, really,’ Gerda said. She wondered how on earth to explain. ‘We were best friends. We live next door. Then something happened . . . I don’t really know what. Now he hates everything he used to love. And he just took off; nobody knows where.’

‘Is it another girl?’ Hyacinth asked. As though she’d written the script.

‘No. Yes. I think so,’ Gerda said. ‘But really it’s not what you think.’

‘So why did you go after him, deary?’ Hyacinth asked gently.

Gerda ignored the deary. She gulped, gravel in her throat. ‘I’m not jealous. Really. He’s my best friend and I’m worried. I just want to know he’s okay.’

‘Okay,’ Hyacinth echoed dreamily. ‘Okay. I think I understand.’

For some time they’d been walking beside the tall wrought-iron fence of the botanic gardens. Without warning Hyacinth started pushing her way into a section of the fence flanked by a thick hedge. Gerda saw that she was trying to squeeze through a big hole bent in the bars. It looked as if it had been hacked out by an axe-murderer.

Old Hyacinth had a definite limp, and a wheezing kind of cough. Gerda felt certain she could outrun her if she needed to. She wriggled through the hedge and they trudged on, Hyacinth humming.

‘Hyacinth . . .’ Gerda started.

‘You’ll see, darling,’ Hyacinth said. ‘It’s not often I have company, but I feel I can trust you enough to show you my humble abode.’

Unsettling thoughts needled Gerda. Nobody else in the world knew where she was. But she couldn’t make an excuse, could she? Hyacinth would be offended if she disappeared now.

‘Hyacinth . . .’ Gerda heard her own voice, hesitant and pathetic. She spoke up. ‘Hyacinth, I really have to go, now.’

Hyacinth swung around and Gerda tensed, ready to run.

But Hyacinth looked crestfallen.

‘Gerda. Your people have obviously told you from a babe not to trust complete strangers. I can tell you come from a good family,’ she said. ‘But do humour me, eh? A poor old woman, just a remnant of the star I once was.’ Her eyes were large and liquid.

Gerda swore to herself. Excellent. Now she was trapped because she mustn’t offend the axe-murderer.

Then they were facing the statue of a man weighed down by a heavy coat, a sad-eyed man wearing one of those hats you saw on shuffling blokes in black and white movies about the Depression.

‘This section is called the Arthur Stace Memorial Garden,’ Hyacinth said reverently.

‘Who’s Arthur Stace?’ Gerda asked, wondering how such a dishevelled man had earned himself a statue. ‘Was he in the war or something?’

‘A war of sorts,’ Hyacinth said. ‘He’s the Eternity Man.’

It made no sense.

‘Let’s go in.’ Hyacinth dug away snow with a branch and heaved out a huge grey flagstone near the base of the statue. She pulled out a little torch and Gerda saw it light a black pit.

‘No—’ Gerda said, feeling her mouth go dry and her spine prickle. She could just make out the fence.

Hyacinth was trying to usher her into a tunnel.

Gerda folded her arms and planted her feet, looking Hyacinth in the eye.

‘I am not going down there,’ she said.

Hyacinth picked her up by the coat with terrifying strength. Gerda shrieked as the she-man pushed her down the hole, face first into the dirt. Staring blindly into the pit that must be her grave, Gerda shrieked and chewed gravel. Whatever tortures waited, she knew she had to fight to her last spit and dribble of strength.

Rocks punched her ribs and her body bumped down until there was nowhere left to fall. She scrabbled forwards, upwards, and burst into the mottled light of a vast green room. She was caught in a whirlpool of tropical heat, trapped in a room full of plants. A hothouse. With a lunatic.

What could she do? Knee him in the groin? Did Hyacinth the she-man have a groin to knee? Was this it, was this really the end? And Gerda thought she’d just go and save Kai!

Hyacinth came at her bellowing, face elongated, eyes fizzing like cartoon dynamite. Gerda just let her run, then stepped aside lightly and tripped her, too easily. The she-devil cannoned into a huge stone pot and Gerda heard a knuckle-crack, felt her own stomach lurch, and saw Hyacinth wobble, then drop. She lay still. Gerda’s throat filled and she was fighting vomit, or maybe tears. Had she killed her? Hyacinth’s head rested against the pot, which was cracked clean through and spilling bright bougainvillea. Gerda heaved for breath, sweat streaming off her. A worm of blood crawled out Hyacinth’s ear. Time froze. Although the head looked disconnected, it gave a long sigh. Is this murder? Gerda wondered, as if watching it happen to herself. Gerda cursed Kai to the North Pole.

At last, Hyacinth shook her head like a dog with water in its ears. Incredibly, she staggered to her knees and focused on Gerda unsteadily. Where were the exits? Now Hyacinth was on her feet, swaying. Not the tunnel – Hyacinth knew it intimately, whereas Gerda was blinded and terrified. The green room had doors at either end, but they’d be locked. Would they open from the inside?

‘Lesson one,’ Hyacinth snarled, ‘don’t ever be talked into anything you don’t want to do.’ Her tall body was shaking, but she kept her footing.

‘What? That was a lesson?’ Gerda panted, light-headed. ‘You fruit bat, are you for real?’

‘Lesson two,’ Hyacinth grunted, holding her head in pain. ‘Lesson number two. Don’t underestimate people. I could be a rapist or a murderer or just somebody wanting to cut your nipples off. You don’t know yet, do you?’ She grimaced at Gerda, seeming more man than woman. ‘Actually, you didn’t do too badly. More determination than I thought,’ Hyacinth said, half to herself. ‘Lesson three. Be open to adventures. God knows, darling, life knocks the spirit out of us quick smart. So be bold, but take care.’

She must have seen the confusion on Gerda’s face.

‘You just did it, darling!’ she shrieked, then winced and gingerly examined her head. ‘When you meet somebody new, and you don’t know anyone who knows them, you always take a chance. They could be a stalker or a sadist or an addict who’ll make your life a misery, or worse. People are difficult to read, and we all have layers and secrets.’

Hyacinth roamed to and fro, addressing her unseen audience. ‘Will the apple be sweet or rotten inside? The point is, darling, you have to bite it before you find out!’ She turned abruptly and twinkled at Gerda. ‘You need a kind of openness to really live life.’

‘So which one are you, Hyacinth?’ Gerda said, anger smothering fear. ‘An apple or . . . the evil dead?’

‘I’ve trusted you enough to invite you into my home, Gerda,’ Hyacinth said quietly, smoothing back her hair in a distinctly feminine gesture. ‘I’ve tried to show you what I’ve learned since being on my own, and how I survived after being evicted. Naturally I have been a target.’

She glided forward and touched Gerda’s cheek, examining her. Gerda flinched, but stared back.

‘There’s something special and good in you, Gerda, and I know you’ll find what you’re looking for.’

Great, Gerda fumed, silent. Now the fruit bat says it’s friendly. ‘I’m not here to hurt you, darling,’ Hyacinth said, grunting as she shrugged off her coats. ‘Just help you with a life lesson or two.’

Gerda realised she was unbearably hot, and cautiously took off some gear. It was like having sun on your skin, and she’d forgotten how much she’d been missing green.

‘Lovely weather in here, eh?’ Hyacinth said. ‘I’ll make us some breakfast. You must be starving, my darling. Not every day you fight off a madwoman, eh? My late husband loved my French toast . . .’ She bustled about, peeling off her gloves, washing her hands in a beautiful mermaid fountain.

‘Even though I was the toast of Sydney I learned to cook a couple of things. Never too posh for that,’ she prattled, pulling out a tiny camping stove and frypan from one corner of the building, where the ferns were thick and dark. ‘Hubert adored my French toast, with cinnamon and honey drizzled on the top . . . just find the extra camp bed under there, will you deary, and you can sleep on that till tonight. Just keep it well under the ferns, out of sight. Don’t snore, do you darling? We have visitors during the day, you know.’

When Gerda tasted the French toast, it melted so dreamily in her mouth she thought she might pass out with pleasure. Doesn’t matter if I die now, she thought, belly full and warm.

‘Hyacinth, how long ago did Hubert die?’ she asked, just before she slid into sleep. The poor old woman must’ve been doing it hard for a year or two, she judged.

Hyacinth was climbing into her own cot, trying to settle her persistent cough.

‘Twenty-three years this June, God rest his soul,’ Hyacinth said, crossing herself. ‘He was very rich but his family would never acknowledge me, because I was on the stage, you know. Didn’t matter that I was the most famous woman in Sydney in my day. They diddled me out of my inheritance.’ She battled another coughing fit, ignoring the trivial bit of the story about starting out life as a male. It must have been aeons before same-sex marriage was allowed.

‘Oh well, that’s life, eh, Gerda? And I reckon I’ve lived a full one. No regrets,’ Hyacinth said. ‘Gerda, where are you going? Where is that boy headed?’

Gerda sighed, because the question smacked her up against everything she didn’t know. ‘Melbourne, I think. They were heading south, out of town.’

‘God, Melbourne! Darling, that’s halfway to the South Pole!’ Hyacinth said, her cough chopping up her words. ‘Goodnight – dear. And – good – luck.’ She waved a hanky that had a dark stain on it. Was it blood? Kai’s red eye flashed into Gerda’s mind. She had to sleep. She had to go.

‘See you in the morning, Hyacinth. And thank you for helping me,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry, Gerda. Whatever tomorrow brings, you must keep on – with your – quest. Otherwise you will spend the rest of your life – searching – one way – or another.’

Gerda heard a gentle snore, and felt weirdly close to tears.

She’d slept like the statue outside, and it was twilight. A rich smell of beef and herbs wafted from the camping stove. Gerda breathed deep: nothing had ever smelled so good.

‘Wow, Hyacinth! I thought you said you could only cook one or two things. Is this number two?’

Hyacinth still had her camp bed set up: she was catnapping while the stew cooked. She wore a fine old dress of dusky silk, the neck sewn with appliqué roses and beads that looked like pale pink pearls. It was clearly expensive, and Gerda guessed it was special to Hyacinth.

‘Should I give it a stir?’ Gerda touched her hand.

It was cold.

She searched Hyacinth’s face, invisible fingers squeezing her throat. There was no sign of movement; it was at perfect peace. Gerda traced the arc of the eyebrows and the strong features. The face was almost beautiful, carved in stone: but whatever had made it Hyacinth had fled.

Gerda gathered up her things, eyes fixed on Hyacinth, checking for something she couldn’t have named. She took the stew in its billy and unlocked the hothouse door with fumbling fingers. Barging through the park at dusk her thoughts were a whirlwind: how the roses covered the dress, but didn’t bloom in a hothouse, how Kai’s grandma had given them both pot plants when they were seven, and the things Hyacinth had said. Whatever happens, continue your quest. Yes, she must. Gerda felt a sudden stabbing fear that Grandma might die before she found Kai. Gerda sobbed aloud for the two old women, and her anguish filled the gardens.

By the time she met Art she had no tears left. She was waiting at a bus stop in the wind and stinging sleet for a bus that didn’t come. Then the striking boy loitering nearby put his face up close to hers. As she looked into his dark intelligent eyes, the wind went still.

‘It’s freezing here! What say we have a hot chocolate?’ he said, flashing a brilliant grin. You’d never call him sly.

Oh yes, thought Gerda. Let’s. She just nodded: couldn’t be sure of her voice. She hoped this wasn’t breaking one of Hyacinth’s rules. The boy smiled a lopsided smile, and almost brought the sun out.

They bantered and talked, about nothing too deep, cradled in the coffee-shop glow. The owner was mopping around them, giving them pointed looks. Gerda felt out of her depth. She was needled by thoughts of what would happen next; where she’d be sleeping that night, where he might be, as well. Staring into his beautiful face, private questions made Gerda’s belly lift with butterflies. Finally they had to move on. As Art rummaged for his wallet, Gerda paid with the couch coins, stomach rumbling.

The wind had dropped and a stately white carpet coated the street. The constellations were jewels scattered on black velvet. Gerda felt drunk on the smell of him, dazzled by his lopsided smile.

‘I told you I didn’t have a place here. I lied. It’s just not really my place,’ he said.

Gerda waited.

‘But I was wondering . . . would you like to see it anyhow?’

What to do? It was late, dark, and he was a total stranger. But she’d known from the start she’d have to decide. And where else did she have to go?

You need a kind of openness to really live life.

Gerda gulped and nodded, very slowly.

‘Um . . . okaay. How bad can it be?’ she teased. ‘Cockroaches? Leaking roof?’

He looked mock-offended.

‘If that’s what you think, maybe it won’t be too bad.’

‘Okay. Let’s see,’ Gerda said, heart zinging as he clumsily grabbed her hand.

She could hardly feel her feet as they crunched the snow, her fingers burning in his. They walked south-west, so she wasn’t going far off course. She mustn’t forget about Kai. Strange . . . Art reminded her a little of the old Kai: his grin and the way you felt safe. But the two of them had never challenged friendship with anything else . . . never even thought it. And Art was completely different; he was dark and full of life.

Her nose and toes were numb again, and her heart thumped from carrying the pack, but when she slowed, Art gallantly shouldered it. She’d told him she was travelling, but not exactly why. Abruptly, they stood before an imposing façade from last century that soared skywards.

‘You live here?’ Gerda gasped.

He burst out laughing.

‘One day I might own it, if they don’t kick me out. But c’mon, we get in around the back.’

Gerda wondered who they might be.

He got the key from inside an old shoe and unlocked the security screen. It led into a kitchen dominated by what seemed to be a giant pizza oven.

Art said, ‘Shame it takes so much wood.’

He walked her into a six-sided room, where a tall bay window overlooked grounds large enough for a footy field. Near an ornate open fireplace was a nest of blankets – was there a dog? No – his bed. A side room was jammed full of newspapers, branches and cardboard boxes.

‘It’s amazing,’ Gerda breathed. Did people actually live this way?

‘Yeah, baby. It’s freezing. Can I be your blanket?’ Art said abruptly, grinning his signature grin, pulling her into his sweet-smelling chest.

Later she whispered his first thrilling words over and over.

You’re beautiful. You’re magical. You’re hot.

She loved Kai like a brother, but that wasn’t love. Just thinking Art’s name made the butterflies bat under her ribs. She struggled in her diary for the words. As they fused, pretences fell away. They thought alike, touched alike, breathed in sequence. She was soaring, diving, drowning. They didn’t sleep that first night and they couldn’t leave the bed. They swam in and out of each other’s bodies and souls. The flicker of firelight sculpted his body bronze, and when she searched his face, he mirrored her own soft eyes.

‘Baby, you’re gorgeous, you know that, don’t you?’ he whispered his little secrets in her ear. She was drunk with his known-yet-foreign shape and smell; the feel of his hard body on hers.

Hours later, stomachs rumbling, they surfaced for food. He rummaged in the cupboard and came back with chocolate bars. They wolfed them down, but it wasn’t enough.

‘Haven’t been shopping,’ he said, shrugging.

Gerda threw open her backpack and pulled out some cans. Ah – the remains of Hyacinth’s stew. It seemed a sign. She smiled to herself. He loved the little camping stove. She’d save the story of Hyacinth for later; make it special.

Hyacinth. Whatever happens tomorrow, don’t forget your quest.

Already betraying Hyacinth’s memory. And Kai’s. She mustn’t forget them, either of them.

Gerda tried to untangle her hair in the bathroom mirror. She stared into her dark-ringed eyes and wondered how Art could find her beautiful. How could she tell Art about Kai? If he really loved her, he’d understand. Perhaps they could go and find Kai together. But maybe Art would be jealous. If Art was trying to find a girl, surely Gerda would be suspicious . . . but if Art explained how he loved the girl like a sister . . . maybe Gerda would understand. Of course she’d understand. Suddenly she saw Kai’s face, a ghost materialising in the mirror. She shuddered, feeling an absence of something important, from her old life.

She couldn’t leave, just like that. One more day, Gerda bargained with herself, brushing her teeth so hard her gums hurt. One more day, then I’ll . . .

Sometime later, the back door squeaked. Gerda almost jumped out of their blanket cocoon. Four skinny men sauntered in, threw a wave and a wink down at Art and hung there above them in the room. Beside him Gerda wanted to die of shame, nowhere to hide her bare skin and what they’d been doing.

‘Howya man?’ the biggest guy said, in a tracksuit a supermodel might wear: shiny, hot pink and black. ‘You got a little friend in there?’

Gerda tensed, but beside her Art was easy and relaxed.

‘Boys, this is Gerda. Ain’t she something?’ he said, smoothing down her hair in a way that made her realise how much a dog loves pats. She’d wanted to die, but now she realised that beside him, she was proud.

The men lounged and talked a fruit-salad of words she didn’t really understand. She tried some mind control.

Please go n-ow-ow.

Finally they moved out of the room . . . their bickering and prowling reminding her of hyenas. But not out the door, only upstairs.

‘Who are they, Art?’ Gerda said, sensing the answer would be all wrong.

‘Spider ’n’ Prince and Shammy and Igor. Me mates. They live here too.’

She knew everything was too perfect. She’d thought it was just him . . . just them.

That night there were more disappointments. The hyenas wandered downstairs and while two went off for takeaway, the others lit a bong. Gravity rolled into the room as they passed it around. Gerda begged Art with her eyes, but he took it as though he did this every single night. But he didn’t – did he? – he hadn’t when it was just them. Gerda sat, stony. Finally she took some puffs because they ribbed her; felt herself slipping into paralysing paranoia. She couldn’t move or talk or even blink in case their attention turned to her. Even her connection with Art dissolved in the toxic air. He was distant and sluggish, and Gerda wanted to run, but her thoughts were jelly and her legs were lead. Then they brought out a pale yellow powder, a powder she’d seen somewhere before. They passed it around in tinfoil, stuck a lighter underneath and inhaled it through a straw. Gerda refused it point blank.

Now Art was looking at her hungrily, ahead of four sets of unblinking eyes. Gerda felt the thick web around her relax its grip a little, and made a mammoth effort of will. She gathered their blankets and hissed: ‘Art, get me out of here. I need a bedroom with a door that locks. I’m not sleeping here.’

Art obeyed her robotically. But alone at last, he loved her so athletically she thought he’d never stop, whispering, apologising, teasing her with his voice. Even so, nothing recaptured their first bliss: Art’s spell was broken. Finally she must have slept a little.

When Gerda woke Art wasn’t there. Maybe it was all an awful dream. But the seconds stretched to minutes and rolled away as the fog lifted. Harsh light shone in, making Gerda feel ugly and exposed. She was lost in dreams of Art, wrapped in their nest of blankets that still held his intoxicating smell. Then the powder popped into her head, and the puff of smoke and mirrors, and Kai sledding off with the ice queen. Gerda tried to work out the date from her diary, and went to count her cash. Gone. She dressed and checked the bombsite downstairs. Two hyenas still lay inert; she couldn’t remember which. Her head thudded as though it held tiny sparring partners.

Art said he loved me.

Art has taken the only money I had.

Maybe he just borrowed it? Maybe it was one of the others.

Art used me. Everything is gone.

Hyacinth’s voice barged into the argument.

People aren’t always what they seem. He might be a drug addict who’ll make your life a misery.

Art said he doesn’t need drugs when he’s with me.

But you know he does. And this great adventure is over.

Gerda gritted her teeth and shook her head, stuffing her backpack roughly. She knew the truth; she’d known it near the start. There was nothing in Art that resembled Kai. She’d tried to replace her best friend in the weakest, saddest way, with a worthless copy.

Gerda wanted to lie there and die, wanted Art to find her body and be tortured forever. But she knew she had to leave, and as she jerked at her hair in the mirror, it was Kai’s face she saw. His sad eyes implored her; he needed her. Or maybe she needed him.

The truck ride had transported Gerda into strange territory, where she didn’t know the rules. The Tranquil Coast high-rises, built to give sun-worshippers their billion-dollar views, had icicles hanging from the balconies. The beggars looked all wrong – overfed with dazzling tans, even wearing chunky jewellery. In Sydney Gerda had known which suburbs to avoid, but not here. Negotiating the street gangs was heart-stopping. So far, Gerda had been lucky: she worked out exit plans well in advance, slipping into the big stores that hired their own security, staying the permitted five minutes, or disappearing into private yards and over back fences. She’d even bolted down a side street and into a dumpster. The stink: but surely it was better than being bailed up?

Gerda trudged on. Almost without warning, she was lying in the slush, the cold crawling up her back, the contents of her pack scattered. A sharp-eyed, baby-faced girl examined her things.

‘Where’s your money? Give it here,’ she said, voice loaded with menace. Two big dogs appeared behind her. They growled in a way that made Gerda’s heart jibber.

The girl had fallen into step with her, and Gerda had turned to nod, never expecting this. She had no idea where the German Shepherds had come from. Gerda would have given the girl anything; anything to call off the dogs. Dogs had always loved her – these would rip her open on command.

‘No money,’ she whispered, cursing her own stupidity. Hyacinth was wrong – there was no one to trust on this road. ‘I’ve already been robbed.’

‘Idiot bitch! Imbecile!’ the girl said, smacking her hand to her head. She had mousy hair and seemed nondescript until you looked into her eyes, which were hazel and flinty and dangerous.

She wore a trench coat and looked to be a head shorter than Gerda. She hadn’t seemed threatening at all.

‘Moron!’ the girl yelled, and Gerda jumped. One dog let out a chilling howl. Gerda’s mind raced.

‘You got robbed already, loser? So early in the day?’ the girl spat.

Gerda noticed the way she fidgeted – her move- ments were elastic and her body never truly still. A rubber girl.

Eyes on the dogs, Gerda inched her way upright. the rubber girl snapped her fingers, and the dogs went quiet. The one that had howled dropped its head and thrust its nose at Gerda, who stiffened. But the dog nudged at her hand: it wanted a pat!

For an instant, relief made her laugh.

The rubber girl yelled at the Shepherd, eyes flicking from Gerda to the dog.

‘Useless mongrel!’ the girl screeched. ‘Here! Now!’

But the dog didn’t move. The girl aimed a kick at it, and, as Gerda flinched, the dog snarled in a way that made her head prickle.

‘Useless mutt likes you,’ the girl said. ‘Two of a bloody kind.’

Gerda rubbed the dog’s head, sensing something had turned.

‘Don’t pat it!’ the girl snarled. ‘Ruins ’em. Should slit your throat, stupid bitch.’

Cruel monster, Gerda thought. But somehow the danger seemed to be leaking away. She was wrong.

‘Right. You got no money, you can help me get breakfast another way,’ the girl said, grabbing Gerda by the throat. ‘Pick up your stuff. I got your precious diary here, so don’t even think about taking off.’

Gerda felt her face glowing. Someone else seeing all her angst about Kai, her pathetic gush of feelings for Art . . . she’d rather have her heart cut out with a rusty knife. She followed, feet dragging, eyes down. The dogs – even the friendly one – seemed to herd her.

The rubber girl stationed her in cosmetics. No matter how many times she did it, Gerda felt shame shrinking her. She was studying the most expensive mascara on display. She was picking it up, testing it, slipping it into her pocket, mumbling to herself, putting it back on the shelf again. Putting on some Sunnigloss, pulling faces for the security camera, doing her best to look deranged. Finally an enormous, bored assistant only a couple of years older than Gerda came up and grabbed her by the arm.

‘What you doing, sweetie pie? Time to move on. Go piss ’em off in MegaMart.’

‘But I want to buy some Sunnigloss,’ Gerda whined, shaking her shoulder out of the girl’s grip. ‘I could have you for assault. Go read up on customer relations, lovey, and get your hands off me.’

She deserved an acting award from Hollywood.

The girl mumbled into her headset: something about another fruit’n’nut bar.

Just about time to go, Gerda judged.

The porker grabbed her arm again, and another uniformed figure advanced down the aisle, reminding Gerda of a Dalek.

‘I’d be careful the way you’re handling me. I think you should know my mother is a barrister. What did you say your name was?’ Gerda ranted.

In her mind’s eye she saw the rubber girl in action – fingers snaking out for cheese, yoghurt, chocolate mousse and caramel sundaes, nuts, canned peaches, apples and popcorn. Her mouth watered. While Gerda staged the diversion, she’d be loading up her trench coat. Even dog food. If Gerda kept their attention long enough to satisfy the rubber girl, she’d let Gerda eat as well. Gerda’s stomach rumbled all the time – she was getting very good at this.

They were sitting in a dumpster for warmth, on a groundsheet stolen from Great Outdoors. She must have done a good job – today the rubber girl was letting her eat whatever she wanted. Even the smell of stinking rubbish didn’t put her off the food. The girl entertained herself lobbing empty cans down at the dogs, not caring that they might cut their tongues trying to lick them out. Kurt was stationed near rubber girl, Rudolph sitting directly below Gerda. Gerda’s stomach felt full and the girl seemed relaxed. But this was a serrated calm.

‘I read your diary,’ said the rubber girl, whose name Gerda still didn’t know. As always, her voice dripped scorn.

‘Didn’t know you could read,’ Gerda snapped, instantly hating herself.

The rubber girl’s eyes went wide: she was rocked.

Gerda had learned never to argue, because the girl had a sadistic, wild streak, and she vented her anger wherever she could, but especially on the dogs. Kurt just yelped and took it, but poor Rudolph cowered and whined. She drew the razor-sharp hunting knife she often traced across Gerda’s throat. Gerda knew a major dose of humiliation was coming.

‘Couldn’t keep your boyfriend, you useless dolt,’ the girl said in her nasty singsong voice.

‘I left him,’ Gerda said, despising the girl. She anticipated the sting of the knife across her neck. ‘He stole from me.’

‘Why?’ the girl asked, cocking her head.

‘You read it. Buy more drugs, I guess,’ Gerda said. She’d played it repeatedly in her mind. Surprisingly, it hurt a little less each time.

‘So what about the other one . . . that Kai?’ Gerda flinched as the girl said his name. Somehow she had to get away, get back on the road.

‘Why’d he shoot through, then?’

Gerda hung her head, this time less sure. ‘Dunno, really. Drugs too, I guess. But maybe he just went out into the world.’

Could it really be that simple? All the hours she’d spent thinking had done nothing to solve the puzzle.

‘Nah, I don’t reckon he went exploring. I know about that blonde bitch,’ the rubber girl said. Gerda stared, mouth full of doughnut.

‘She sucks people in. She gets ’em hooked on this party drug and makes ’em into her little pawns. You catch her name?’

‘Anya.’

‘Anya! That’s it! Tried it on me.’

Gerda was shocked at the long speech from the rubber girl, but also that this spiky creature had herself been trapped by the ice queen.

Then she understood – no one would burn the rubber girl again.

The girl’s eyes had gone cloudy, remembering. ‘You should go now. Might be too late,’ she said, half to herself.

Gerda grabbed at the glimmer of hope. ‘So. You know where to find her?’

‘Somewhere in Melbourne. Still got the address, but it must be two years old. She’d be long gone by now.’ She unzipped one of her pockets and took out a dirty scrap of paper.

‘I’ll take it anyway,’ Gerda said. She jumped up and grabbed her backpack, snatched back the diary and said: ‘I want half the food.’

‘Take it,’ the rubber girl said. ‘You’re okay, Gerda. Take Rudolph too – he likes you. Won’t do nothing for me. But watch out. That bitch is crazy . . . you get her angry, she’s somehow . . . supernatural.’

‘So . . . how can I . . .?’ Gerda asked, hope plummeting.

The rubber girl just shrugged. ‘Dunno. Dunno how I got out, really. I don’t remember it much. My brain is still fogged from then. All I know is, before you freeze, you burn.’

The girl frowned, concentrating. Gerda waited.

‘And hot fights cold.’

Gerda hugged the girl, and was surprised to feel her tremble. It sounded ridiculous. Before you freeze, you burn. How could she solve the riddle of those words?

It was difficult getting a ride with Rudolph, but at last a dog lover stopped for them: a woman originally from Lapland. The storms continued all the way down the coast, and when the Lapp woman let them out in an industrial suburb, the gusting air chilled Gerda to her bones. She unwrapped the crumpled piece of paper from the rubber girl for the millionth time.

‘Twenty-seven Mawson Lane, Cranbourne,’ she read aloud to Rudolph. The woman had said to follow the road they were on for a few ks. She’d written down the rest of the instructions. As Gerda left the vehicle, the flat-faced woman smiled.

‘Few understand cold like Lapps. A single snowflake is a wonder, but beware. Many snowflakes wrap you in their blanket. You will sleep and fail to wake. I hope you may find your friend. Good luck, little Gerda.’ As she waved, Gerda’s throat felt full.

They plodded on, fighting snow flurries that seemed harsher and bleaker than before. Gerda shivered at the huge task ahead. It seemed weeks since she’d seen Kai – and if he wasn’t at the address she’d been given, how would she ever find him? And if he was there, how would she ever free him? It was either the ice queen’s drug factory, or her own home. Would it be guarded like a fortress? All she had was Rudolph, and she didn’t want to put the dog in any danger. He nuzzled her hand, demanding a pat. When everything seemed hopeless, the dog still made her smile. She was the luckiest person in the world, and her luck would hold. It must.

The wind rocked them back on their heels and gusted in their faces no matter which way they turned. Though her eyes watered and her cheeks stung, Gerda sweated from pushing through the biting sleet. Did people really live here? The further they walked, the fewer people they saw, except vagrants and hollow-eyed factory workers. Rudolph growled chillingly at a man attacking a stop sign, swinging a sledgehammer, screaming. They hurried on, passing factories spewing out black smoke. As she took in the maze of towers and ducts and pipes, the chimneys and vats and storage drums, Gerda knew the whole world was wrong, but she hoped like hell she could fix one tiny piece.

Cloud plumes changed colour in the west as they reached a battered street sign and turned into Mawson Lane. The high industrial fencing continued, unbroken. Gerda touched the dog’s head and they trudged on. The cutting winds whipped harder and an army of snowflakes wrapped girl and dog in a vortex.

The storm was so fierce that Gerda walked smack into a high white wall with the texture of iceblocks. Groping along it, she found a set of tall steel gates. Spy cameras were mounted high along the walls and near the gate, set to scan from about three metres out, not at the base of the wall. She knew a thing or two about spy cameras from working with the rubber girl. Gerda felt Kai’s presence keenly. Perhaps the storm might be their friend, cloaking them from watchers.

The gates were clamped shut, so Gerda considered climbing the wall, shrugging off her backpack and burying it in the snow. But she might as well try to scale an ice cliff. She searched for hand-holds, but there were none on the sheer, slippery surface. Gerda sucked her numb fingers, thinking furiously.

‘Okay. We’ll have to walk along the fence line and try to find a gap,’ she told Rudolph. She groped along the perimeter, almost certain the whole compound was enclosed by the wall of giant iceblocks. Then Gerda heard a heavy scraping sound – the gates were grinding open! It could be her only chance.

‘Drop!’ she hissed to the dog. Running low and close to the wall, she sank into the snow as close to the gates as she dared. A cloud-white sports car in snow chains throbbed through the gates. Gerda’s breath caught in her throat – the ice girl sat at the wheel. Supremely confident, apparently careless of anything in her way, she looked neither left nor right. As the car cleared the gates they began lurching closed. Gerda dived between them, just as they snapped shut. Poor Rudolph nosed and whined on the other side of the bars.

No. That was good. He was her sentry, although she wished desperately the dog was beside her.

Her stomach growled and her nose ran, and she tried to remember when she or the dog had last eaten or drunk. She approached the grand entrance, suddenly weary.

It must be a trick. The door was creaking open, slamming shut, the plaything of angry gusts. She must hurry: the ice queen had gone, but for how long? Steeling herself, Gerda slipped into the entry hall. She waited and listened, pulse thudding in the sudden quiet. The interior was vast and blinding white, the floors slick and slippery as a skating rink, opaque ice-blue. Gerda’s senses screamed, begging her back, but she was compelled to go on. It was risky, it was illegal, this breaking and entering into what must be the stronghold of criminals. The vast space offered no cover, but Gerda spotted a side door and eased through it.

She was grabbed and shoved to the floor. Just like that. Blindfolded, she felt eager fingers pawing her, then a sharp pain in her neck. The cold made her whole body rattle. Just as abruptly, they were gone, ripping away the blindfold. She had no idea who they were, or what they’d done.

Then she was caught in a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours and sounds, textures and smells, assaulting every organ, blinding her brain, massaging her body and making her heart whirr. Colours, at first soft and glowing and luminous, grew fiery and fierce. Gerda looked around her wildly, but knew she couldn’t identify any danger because her brain was being tricked. Sights and sounds shrieked too loudly for attention, and her plan to find her way out again was slipping from her grasp. She was a prisoner inside this room of sublime torture forever. She felt herself churning down a waterslide, body being flung through crazy twists and turns. She thought fleetingly of Kai and fell through another doorway that narrowed into a tunnel, leading down a darkened hallway decorated in the colours of futility, greys and fawns and black, with sharp red daubs. Nowhere led out and nothing gave hope. Needing a candle or a torch to see by, Gerda groped her way forward, trying to remember where she’d been going, and why. She hung suspended in elongated time, and struggled to remember what her dream was: to ever leave this room, or just to take another step? At last she was ejected, back onto the freezing floor, dumped with the miserable knowledge that they knew she was here, so she must have failed already. Gerda felt snowflakes settling over her and welcomed their cuddling warmth. They kissed her face and hugged her neck and wrapped her arms, gradually heating her body. She dozed and drifted, longing to travel down a tunnel into sleep. Then she jerked awake – it was a snow blanket. She remembered the Lapp woman’s warning, and knew she had to stir.

Gradually Gerda made out shapes.

Yes. This was the drug laboratory she’d expected. She heard a broadcast game in a distant room, the noise competing with music. The dazzling white of the room clashed with its dirty apparatus – filthy trestle tables and glass tubing, bunsen burners and cutting boards, more grey-stained than white. Drumloads of chemicals. Yellow anthills of powder with the glow of fake jewels or coarse crystals. Ugly sparkling bling. Yes. She had found the lair of the ice queen, and it was deserted. She hadn’t expected that.

Gerda caught a movement in the corner of her eye. Gor- illas with guns? Lethal semiautomatics? She crouched and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, warding off bedtime monsters. Perhaps they wouldn’t see her if she couldn’t see them. But nobody came. She crept on. Gerda found the room where the game was blaring, saw three goons asleep on couches, snoring, scrawled with tattoos. The room was thick with smoke or fog. Then, from a distant corner of the drug lab, came a movement faint as a flutter of wings. This time she knew by instinct – Kai. She crept towards it, picking her way through the trestles and drums and tubing.

But it wasn’t Kai. Gerda gasped. A strange, shrivelled creature cowered there, covering its head with its hands. It looked like an underweight gnome or a hairless monkey, and its skin was grizzled and dull. It peered up from under its hands out of eyes that were dead tree hollows. Transparent blood vessels crisscrossed its chicken-bone arms, and its lips and fingers were blue. Its forehead wrinkled as it grimaced and she saw its receding gums. Gerda held her breath – was it going to raise the alarm? But it stayed mute. It watched her through empty eyes that would haunt her for ever after, eyes she’d seen somewhere before, but dead of hope. The same eyes as Grandma’s, after Kai had left home. Gerda felt her heart convulse in her chest – it was Kai. She reached down to help him to his feet, and he flinched away from her, his skin as cold as stone.

His fingers closed on a long, sharp icicle, and Gerda stepped back: was he so much the ice queen’s plaything that he might try to kill her? But his fingers only quivered. Perhaps it would be kinder to kill him.

‘Ugly,’ he cackled.

Gerda felt the wobbling jelly of her heart go sliding down a crevasse. She studied the icicles clustered in front of Kai. Strangely, they seemed to shape letters.

eter . . .

Was he trying to make a message?

Tears rolled down Gerda’s cheeks and the creature that was Kai stared up at her, bewildered and detached.

A tear plopped onto his face. In disbelief, she saw one eye widen and glisten, then the other. In those eyes where hope had died, a light was slowly kindling. Something glittered and echoed as it fell to the floor – a tiny shard of glass, ejected from his eye. The shattered mirror from the party! Gerda picked up the fragment and saw her own face, shockingly distorted. She caught the reflection of Kai, the well-built friend she remembered. But the same wrinkled creature stared up at her. Now she knew why her friend had hated her and fled. Lodged in his eye, that shard of mirror had distorted the way Kai saw the world. Everything beautiful had seemed ugly, and everything crooked, true.

The eyes gleamed huge. At last Gerda glimpsed the Kai she’d missed, and as her tears fell, fresh blood bloomed on his chest. His skin was mottled marble and his lips were ink-stained blue. How to warm him? Fight cold with heat. Impulsively, Gerda gathered the bird-wing shoulders and kissed Kai full on the lips. They were cold as steel.

A thin glass dagger ejected itself from his chest and fell, the sound a spoon might make. Another shard of the mirror! It had frozen all feelings from his heart.

A long sigh of recognition escaped Kai, and rosy pink crept from his lips across his face.

‘Gerda,’ he breathed.

Gradually the fragile body grew warm. A smile spread over Kai’s face, lighting it in the way that sunrise warms the world. He was testing his arms like pulleys, struggling to move the icicles, to shape the word that obsessed him.

etern . . .

Filled with a sadness she couldn’t name, Gerda wondered how she might break the spell of futility that bound him.

The inexorable growl of an avalanche approached them, growing thunderous. Gerda heard a dog bark, and all the air seemed to freeze in the room. A shape solidified out of blinding white light.

The ice queen. Gerda struggled to breathe.

Somewhere close, Rudolph growled a bloodcurdling growl.

Kai whimpered, and Gerda sensed him scrabbling near her feet, rearranging the icicles frantically. Gradually her eyes made sense of the chaos. The ice queen loomed enormous, fury sculpting her features, eyes sparking. Gerda found herself staring into the maw of the snow wolf. Her heart shrieked as she saw the ice queen lifting something – a syringe.

‘I should have known it wouldn’t work. Not on you,’ the ice queen said. Her voice was like crackling frost.

Gerda stared – the syringe was empty. Understanding flashed into her brain – she’d been caught by the goons and jabbed. She was supposed to wander the kaleidoscope room forever, or if she found the exit . . . succumb to the snow blanket.

The ice queen’s rage shimmered and she hurled the syringe away. Gerda recoiled.

The shuffling near her feet intensified. Kai’s fingers worked feverishly, shifting the icicles.

‘I promised you the world to spell out that word,’ the ice queen told him, her voice a deathly hiss.

Gerda sensed the outcome balanced on a knife-edge. Fight cold with heat. Then she understood with a certainty that made sense of everything. She heard her own strangled voice say: ‘Kai, I love you.’

He looked up at her, blinking. He’d formed the word with the icicles.

It glowed. eternity.

At last, Kai scrambled to his feet. His hand in Gerda’s felt soft and warm. A sob escaped her, because she guessed the deadly puzzle.

Eternity: she’d arrived just in time. Had Kai formed the word with his heart frozen, in the thrall of the ice queen, he’d have been hers for all time. Instead he’d spelt the word waking, and was now free. And free to love Gerda, if he chose.

Eternity, her heart sang. Now Kai might live again.

The ice queen’s scream summoned all the searing winds from the Poles, all the cutting sleet and chilling blasts. She smashed the enchanted word, snatched up an icicle and pointed her dagger at Gerda’s chest.

Gerda’s peasant heart pounded and terror jolted through her. The snow wolf was upwind and mad with her scent. She floundered through the snow, lungs burning. She leaped for a pine branch, fingers too numb to grasp. Sobbing, she slipped, her legs bleeding, and the snow wolf circled.

So this was how it ended . . . but Kai might escape.

In an eye-blink everything changed. Eerie wailing rent the air and a flurry of movement blurred Gerda’s vision. Rudolph was clamped to the ice queen’s arm. She struggled but the dog hung on gamely. Fight cold with heat.

The ice queen’s voice screamed of smashed ambition, frozen souls and broken dreams. She mobilised her infantry of battering hail and jagged icebergs, her fiercest storms and killing blizzards.

The icicle quivered between the crumple of dog and ice creature, glinting bolts of lethal white light. Noise quavered and crystallised into a wild haunting howl, and Gerda saw blood spurting blue from the ice queen’s breast. In the struggle the icicle had been rammed into the ice queen’s ribs.

Her army of snowmen faltered, and her sea glaciers groaned and fissured. The air about her keened until an aurora flamed in the sky. Before you freeze you burn. The riot of colour gradually flickered and dimmed. Rudolph lay still, red staining his ruff. A puddle of blue ink pooled on the floor. The ice queen had fled.

Gerda ran to the dog and hugged him. He scrambled up and shook himself. Gerda checked his neck and chest quickly – the wound was only shallow.

Still Kai stood stunned. Gerda peered into the room where the goons slept on, but nothing stirred, and now she realised nobody there would ever crawl off the couch.

She took Kai’s hand, knowing he still struggled to make sense of his surroundings, a sleepwalker suddenly woken. I love you, her heart sang.

But the words rang in her ears unanswered, and she saw she hoped for too much.

‘Come on, Kai,’ Gerda sighed, taking his hand, wondering if the Kai she longed for would ever come back. Would ever be capable of love. ‘Let’s go home.’

As they walked outside, she felt warmth touch her skin for the first time in weeks. The sun was out, and the snow was melting. She sensed that sometime soon, this unnatural winter would end.

At last Kai spoke. ‘Gerda, you woke me from a dream.’

She waited.

‘I dreamed I was in a long, sad queue of people, shuffling forward. The men were wearing hats. We were each given a bowl of soup. As they gave us the soup they asked: “Where will you spend Eternity?”’

Eternity. Gerda thought of the statue-man in the old-time hat. It was starting to make sense. The Eternity Man had survived the soup kitchen, and it had inspired him to save souls. You chose your own eternity, and you could go to heaven or hell.

Gerda knew she’d made her choice, but everything depended on Kai. Was she destined to spend eternity heartbroken?

Now Kai sensed the boulder she’d wedged between them. He walked beside her, his hand sweaty in hers. He must be nervous: of saying something she didn’t want to hear.

‘Kai . . .’ she started sadly, caressing the dog’s head with her free hand.

But Kai cut her off.

‘Gerda, did you mean it? What you said?’

Gerda studied the slush at her feet, face burning.

Kai lifted her chin gently. Little diamonds glinted in his eyes.

‘Gerda, I love you,’ he said. ‘I’ve loved you secretly since we were nine.’ Now everything burned, especially her ears. The snow dazzled underfoot.

‘. . . I was afraid to say anything, because I didn’t think you loved me, not like that, and it might have spoiled our friendship,’ Kai continued. ‘I thought having you as a friend would be better than not having you at all. Even if it was torture.’

Gerda wanted to laugh and cry at once. Her heart was a bird, freed from the undersize cage of her ribs. Its feathers fluffed and its wings whirred experimentally. As their lips touched, she felt the soaring fusion of their souls. Gerda whispered: ‘Kai . . . I love you too.’

They walked clasping hands, Gerda never wanting to let him go. And as Rudolph padded beside them, Gerda understood she’d become braver and wiser and older, somehow. She realised she and Kai had grown up, and she grinned as she saw in her mind’s eye how the light would go on in Grandma’s face when they came through the front door together. As they walked hand in hand, the road was crisp with jewels, and a rainbow beckoned them forward, painted over a steel-grey sky.