Beth

I hang my legs over the edge of the front verandah and scroll through my text trail with Nate, the final message telling me he’ll be over around five. That was an hour ago. What’s he up to? I thought my text was clear about how important this is. I can’t stop thinking about the blacked-out page, and how desperate Pearl looked as she gripped Neme’s wrist. Owen coming to get Pearl. Over by the mallee stump, a magpie lark harasses its reflection in the mirror, its wings a reckless flurry against the glass. The day has been messy. Too much happening at once.

A dust cloud rises to the south and turns into Nate’s truck. He takes the curve slowly into the driveway, as if unsure whether he wants to enter. His face looks drained as he gets out of the cab.

‘Hey, can’t stay long, sorry. I have to get back for the dinner rush. It’s been a hell of an afternoon. Where’s Neme?’

‘She’s in the bath. Pearl’s visit kind of threw her. I’m not feeling too good about it myself.’

‘So what happened?’

I fill him in. That Pearl was waiting for us. The confusion of time. Her whispered claim that she’d hidden something – how, as soon as Neme got in the bath, I looked everywhere on the verandah just to be sure, but couldn’t find a thing. Then I tell him about the torn page with its blacked-out words. The few that remained. So haunting. Plainly all dead.

Nate nods at each new piece of information, but doesn’t seem to be taking them in. He rubs a finger along his bottom lip, stubble shadowing his chin.

‘I tried calling you several times, but it kept saying you were out of range.’

‘Yeah.’

I wait for him to tell me where he was, but he’s watching the magpie lark battle with its doppelganger.

‘Nate?’

‘I was with Henry.’

‘Henry? Where?’

‘We went to see an ex-Harvester. A young woman called Zara. She was—’

He averts his eyes. It’s unlike him to be so evasive and it’s pissing me off. Water rushes through the pipes beneath the house. Neme emptying the bath.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going to see someone from the cult?’

‘I didn’t want to worry you about it till I knew more.’

‘That’s pretty bloody patronising.’

Nate stares at me. The muscles in my back tense.

‘So, what did you find out?’ I ask him.

‘Neme’s not an escapee. At least not from the Harvesters.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I asked the woman, Zara.’

‘About Neme?’

‘Sort of.’

‘So you’ve been sharing information about her with a cult escapee.’ Sweat prickles in my armpits, the animal sense that something’s amiss. Betrayal or incompetence – neither something we can afford. Inside the house, a door closes. Floorboards shift underfoot.

‘I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. Beth, I wouldn’t …’

‘You sure?’

Nate sucks in his breath. There’s a guardedness to him that suggests he’s lying or, at the very least, not telling the whole truth, and for the first time in a long time he feels a stranger to me. A person I once knew.

‘Things are moving fast, Beth, and some of it’s really not good. That woman, Zara, she said some crazy shit. The media closing in. And the way Pearl’s been behaving.’ He shakes his head. ‘That page you found – Neme’s trying to communicate. We need to find out who she is and what happened to her. It’s her best chance. You can see that, surely,’ he says, pulling himself to his full height. ‘Have you tried asking her more pointed questions? If you take the right approach, who knows, you might even get her to speak.’

‘You know my thoughts on that. We can’t force her.’

‘She’s not one of your plants you’re trying to take care of, Beth. She’s a child.’

His words hit hard. I hear my mother’s reasoning – nurturing plants because I don’t have it in me to nurture a child. And the negation of my project. Everything I’ve tried to create. Nate glares at me, a faint smirk at the corner of his mouth. Nate. The one who never mocked me, no matter how outlandish the details of what I was hoping to realise with this place. I could say something. If he’d taken more care with Lil. I shudder, struggling to take in what’s happening.

‘Go away,’ I hiss.

‘What?’

‘I said, leave!’

‘But Beth—’

I turn my back on him, on the sinking sun. Listen to his steps, slow at first, then quickening.

Look up to see Neme standing by the front door.