Beth

I pack the last few bags of seed into the linen cupboard and sweep up any chaff. Freya’s by the fire. This last hour she’s been alternating between feeding it and watching the flames through the glass door as if it’s a screen. She’s an expert fire-maker, though this could be misread, no doubt. Juvenile pyromaniac – a psychologist would make quick work of that.

A knock on the door. Freya looks up and frowns. When I explained to her over breakfast about this Lauren woman, she responded by walking over to the wall where the possum lives and pressing her ear against the plasterboard, as if the answer to her need for privacy could only be understood by a nocturnal species.

‘Must be her,’ I say, wiping my hands on my jeans.

The woman is younger than I expected, and shorter, wavy black hair tied back from a shiny forehead. A laptop bag hangs from her shoulder. She tames her long blue skirt with one hand and holds up a business card with the other. ‘Lauren Conte. We spoke on the phone.’

‘Beth Mathers.’

I take the card and step back to allow her through. Leaves scuttle in behind her and across the floorboards like beetles, collect against the hearth. Freya rocks back onto her heels, but doesn’t acknowledge the visitor, her face red from leaning too close to the glass. Lauren takes in the room – the threatened plant posters, dried grasses in jars. She’s subtle in her observation of Freya, roving glimpses, body relaxed. No doubt a studied technique.

‘I’m Lauren,’ she says to Freya, who continues to ignore her. Lauren smiles and turns to me. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’

I almost quip that it was between the devil and the deep blue sea, but Nate warned me about her earnestness. ‘So how do you want to go about this?’

‘I thought I might start by asking you a few questions, if that’s okay?’

‘Sure. Can I get you a cup of tea?’ I ask with a forced smile.

‘No, thank you, I just had a coffee at the hotel.’

I sit at the table and indicate for her to join me. She takes out a yellow notepad, the kind used in police procedurals.

‘I understand she arrived here five days ago and was in a rather poor state. Can you describe what she was wearing?’

I fill her in, including that Freya was barefoot, though I don’t mention that the shirt looked like a man’s, or that it had blood on it. The welts concealed beneath it. Withholding evidence – that’s what they called it on the shows my father used to watch. Weapons hidden in bags of flour. A note eaten or burned. Often to protect a criminal. Sometimes the innocent. Lauren nods at the delivery of each detail, her pen oscillating above the notepad as if it’s the true gauge of what’s crucial. Freya feeds the fire, taking time with each stick. She’s listening to every word.

‘She’s looking well now,’ says Lauren, a compliment to put me at ease, though there’s nothing easy about this process, or the consequences if this woman deems Freya crazy or me unfit. ‘Much better than when she arrived?’

‘Yes.’

‘The clothes she’s wearing?’ she asks, gesturing to the sweatshirt and cut-off jeans.

‘They were mine, when I was younger.’

Lauren nods. ‘And prior to her appearance, was there any connection between the two of you? Family connection?’

I shake my head. No prior link, though at the mention of such a possibility, I realise it’s hard now to imagine my life without Freya in it. But why should family be considered the only legitimate bond? I’ve had to disown my family legacy to do the work I need to do. And the evidence suggests Freya’s family is far from perfect. What’s needed are new forms of kinship.

‘Do you know her name?’

‘She doesn’t speak. But I call her Freya.’

Lauren pauses in her writing, then continues, and I realise how that must sound. She leans in closer and lowers her voice. ‘Does she have any sensitivities … loud noises, bright lights, anything like that?’

‘Not that I’ve noticed.’

‘Any issues with eating?’

‘No.’

‘Good,’ says Lauren, noting it all down. ‘Any unusual behaviours?’

Stone arrangements. Slashing of bad artworks.

‘I’m not sure how a child who’s walked out of the desert and who can’t speak is expected to act.’

‘Of course. Freya?’ calls Lauren, a quick glance in my direction.

Freya turns to face her, her expression giving nothing away, and I try to see her as another might. Stray child. Mute. Spellbound by fire. And me. Lone woman amid a seed hoard, taking in this desert offering with barely a hesitation. Guilty of the taxonomist’s need to name every new thing.

‘Could you join us, please?’ asks Lauren, putting down her pen.

Freya comes over and sits on the only spare chair on the fire-side of the table. As Lauren moves her things back to make space, she knocks her notepad on the floor, her eyes staying on Freya’s face. Freya flinches, though it’s impossible to know if it was from the crash of the notepad or the cheap trick being played on her.

‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’ Lauren waits a beat before launching in. ‘Do you know why I’m here?’

Freya opens her mouth a little, and for a moment I think she’ll speak, then she closes it again, the faintest smirk playing across her top lip. Freya’s not the only one being assessed.

‘Okay, let’s try something else,’ Lauren says, smiling.

She picks up the glass salt and pepper grinders from the middle of the table and places them in front of Freya about a ruler-length apart. She touches the salt grinder. ‘When I ask you a question, if the answer is yes, point to the salt. If it’s no, point to the pepper, okay?’

Freya tilts her head to one side, as if trying to work out the logic of the association – salt as the affirmative. She raises her left hand in front of her and with an air that could be decoded as haughty, hovers over the pepper grinder before pointing to the salt. Why didn’t I think of something like that?

‘Good,’ says Lauren, failing to hide her pleasure. ‘Are you hungry?’

Freya points to the salt again.

‘She’s always hungry,’ I confirm, and raise my eyebrows at Freya.

‘Beth, if you could let her answer.’

‘Right.’

‘In fact, tea would be nice, thank you.’

‘Any particular kind?’ I ask, trying to maintain a neutral tone.

‘Whatever Freya’s having. Do you like tea?’ she asks her.

Salt.

I go to tell her that Freya’s favourite is peppermint, but I’m riled now. As I move to the sink, Lauren returns her focus to Freya.

‘What about oranges?’ she asks her, picking one up from the fruit bowl. ‘Do you like them?’

Salt.

‘Limes?’

Pepper.

Lauren gestures to the wood heater. ‘You know how to make a fire?’

Salt.

‘To keep warm?’

Salt then pepper.

‘You came from the desert?’

Freya pauses.

‘Is that your home?’

Freya’s hand shoots out and knocks over the pepper grinder that rolls along the table, the black corns rattling inside. She stands and walks back to the fireplace, unfastens the door, the sudden rush of oxygen causing the flames to flare. Lauren writes it all down, smiling to herself as if she’s got the whole thing sussed, and I want to grab that fucking notepad from under her and hurl it into the open fire. But that’s all she’d need. Maybe she already has enough to take Freya away, and then where would Freya go? Back to whoever inflicted those horrific scars on her back.

‘She’s usually …’

‘It’s fine, Beth. I expected it would take more than one session. She did well,’ she says, the rest only reaching me in pieces – standard process, stimulus fading, selective mutism – a jumble of merciless sounds.

Over by the fire, Freya returns to the solace of the flames.