1942
The fresh blood next to the chinky apple tree attracts a pair of crows.
They perch in a tall paperbark and caw at the dawn. Once the creek mist settles, a mound of leaves catches their attention. Now, there’s nothing strange about such a mound in the bush, but this one’s out of place: it’s a little too neat, with too little foliage around it and too much heaped over it.
The first bird glides down and follows the blood with a string of hops. It climbs on top of the leaves, tosses them off and scrapes away the soil with its beak. It uncovers a bundle no bigger than a rabbit, but it’s wedged under a rock, so the bird pecks and tears at it for a while, and then flutters off.
The second bird spots something entirely different in the discarded vegetation, and swoops down. In the end it too flies away, but the fine silver chain with its swinging locket slides from its grip; the necklace rides the breeze back to the ground, and is lost in the undergrowth.