When Pip woke up again she looked at the clock by her bed and blinked. It was morning. She’d slept for hours—right through the afternoon and past dinner.
She sat up gingerly, waiting for her stiff muscles to protest, but to her relief it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been the day before. She breathed out a long sigh in the shower as the hot water ran over her sore body. She washed her hair and it took a while to get herself dressed, but once she was, she almost felt like her old self again.
The house was quiet as she made her way towards the kitchen. A plate of bacon and eggs sat wrapped in foil on the bench and still felt warm as she touched it.
Noise outside drew her to the window and she spotted Chris in the yard, dragging branches into a heap out in the paddock. She hadn’t really noticed the damage yesterday, but now as she glanced around she could see the debris leftover from the floodwater—bits of grass and weed and goodness only knew what else hung like moss on the barbed-wire fencing in the paddock below.
After she ate her breakfast, Pip headed outside to find Chris.
‘Morning, sleepyhead. How you feeling?’
‘Better, I think,’ she answered, managing a small smile. ‘You’ve been busy,’ she said, nodding towards the growing pile of sticks and branches.
‘Thought I’d make myself useful. Looks like a bonfire will be happening in the near future.’
‘It made a mess,’ she agreed, noticing the driveway covered in leaves and smaller branches.
‘I was just about to go for a drive and check out the fencing.’
‘I’ll come.’ She needed to get out, and it was really her responsibility, not his. She would need to call Uncle Nev later and let him know the extent of the damage.
‘Your neighbours dropped by earlier to check on you. They heard about what happened. Said they’d call back later,’ he said, and she felt her throat close up a little at the thoughtful gesture from Anne and Pete.
‘That was nice of them,’ she managed, after clearing her throat.
‘That’s what people do around here,’ he grinned as they climbed into his four-wheel drive.
The fencing around the boundary was all remarkably intact, but there were a number of trees down, and the dam was a mess.
They had to walk down, the ground being too wet for the vehicle and littered with wire and tin carried in by the floodwater. The waterhole was now full, and there were already new kinds of birds hanging around, having arrived to take advantage of the wetlands.
‘Once everything starts to dry out, it’ll look better,’ Chris said, seeing the dismay on her face.
‘I guess so,’ she said, looking at the mud that covered what was once grass around the edge. It would slowly begin to poke its way out as it recovered, and new grass would spring up now that the rain had come. ‘Everything just needs a little time to recover,’ she added, looking up at him and seeing his expression turn tender as he lifted a hand to touch the side of her face.
‘Do you think you could give me another chance?’ he asked softly. ‘I mean, I know you need some time … but maybe down the track a bit?’
Pip felt her heart lurch at the uncertainty etched on his strong face. She knew that despite everything that had happened between them, her feelings for this man were as real and as strong as ever. ‘I think I realise now that if you find something special, you need to hold onto it, because there’s no certainty how long you might have.’
Bert and Molly thought they had all the time in the world and look what happened to them. Life was precious. Too precious to waste on waiting for the perfect time to fit it in.
Chris lowered his head, and Pip closed her eyes at that first gentle touch of his warm lips.
Pip spent the rest of the morning making calls, to Uncle Nev to assure him the place was fine, and to her parents and Lexi, giving them a censored rundown of what had happened the day before. She left out the part about being chased through the bush and the whole Butterworth connection—that would open a can of worms she wasn’t quite ready to deal with just yet. After the effort of reassuring everyone, she found herself needing to lie down for a little while and ended up sleeping for another two hours.
The sun felt warm on her skin and she tipped her head back to look up at the baby blue sky. Pinpricks of sunlight filtered through the brim of her wide straw hat and made tiny sparkles across her skin. Pip glanced down in surprise to see that she was wearing a blue and white dress, buttoned up at the front and clenched with a narrow white belt at her waist. She was sitting on a tartan rug.
Pip felt her heart rate increase as she looked around. She was in the clearing, under the old gum tree. She looked down and saw a book in her lap with an olive-green cover—one she’d never seen before. What was happening? Why was she here? Why was she dressed like … the woman in the photo? She felt her fingers start to tingle and her head go light.
A gasp shot from her lips as she sat upright and breathed heavily against the pain.
Why was Molly back in her dreams? They had worked out how she and the ute ended up in the dam. It should be over, surely?
Beside her, Chris had risen onto one elbow to look over at her with a concerned frown. ‘What’s wrong?’
Pip shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Something’s not right.’
‘It’s understandable you’d still feel unsettled by everything, but I can promise, no one’s going to hurt you.’
‘No, not with any of that,’ she said, leaning back against the headboard. Beside her, Chris sat up too. They’d both fallen asleep on top of the bedcovers, clearly still exhausted from the previous day’s stress and events. ‘With Molly.’
‘Molly?’ he questioned, eyeing her warily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ll think I’m crazy,’ she said with a small groan as she closed her eyes.
‘Why would I think that?’
‘Because sometimes I think I’m going crazy,’ she muttered dully. ‘I just have this feeling that there’s still something unfinished about Molly’s death,’ she ended lamely with an awkward grimace.
For a moment he didn’t respond, and then he gave an offhand shrug. ‘What do you think it is?’
‘I’m not sure … yet,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘But I need to figure it out.’
Pip sat at the table a few minutes later with a coffee, and her gaze fell on the box of Bert’s belongings. She dragged it across the floor towards her. As she lifted the lid from one of the shoeboxes that contained the letters, she saw the photo of Molly on the rug and slowly reached out to pick it up.
In her dream she wasn’t wearing the same outfit as Molly wore, but the location was the same. What did it mean? She studied the photo carefully. Maybe it wasn’t about Molly herself. She stopped focusing on the woman in the centre of the photo and looked at the background. The clearing nowadays didn’t look as tidy as it did in the photo. The ground looked lightly grassed and open whereas now saplings had sprouted over the years and there were more trees and leaf litter. She needed to go back there to have a look.
She took her coat from the back hook and called out to Chris. ‘I’m just going for a walk.’
‘Hang on. I’ll come with you,’ he said, appearing at the doorway to the kitchen. ‘It’s still pretty wet and dangerous out there with loose branches and trees still falling.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what this is about?’ Chris asked as they drove across the paddocks.
‘Trust me, you really don’t want to know.’ How could she expect him to believe she thought these dreams were Molly trying to show her something? What if they had nothing to do with it? What if she were really going crazy? They climbed out of the car.
Pip picked her way past the dam and found the cattle track, mostly covered in mud and sludge but still definable, and wandered towards the clearing. Like everything else, it was a mess. The big tree remained upright, thankfully, but the floodwater had uprooted a number of smaller trees and they lay across the spot where Molly had been sitting in the photo.
She wouldn’t have recognised the place if she’d only stumbled upon it now. Pip withdrew the photo from her pocket and stared at it carefully.
‘What’s that?’ Chris asked, looking over her shoulder.
‘I think this is the spot from this photo. I’m trying to see if there’s anything different.’
‘Different how?’ Chris asked, frowning at the photo in her hand.
‘I’m not exactly sure. I just have a feeling that she’s trying to point out something.’
‘I’m not sure I follow all that. Who’s she?’
And this is why I can’t tell you about the dream.
‘Here, take a look,’ she said, absently handing him the photograph as she glanced around the clearing. ‘What do you see?’
‘Well, it seems like the same tree,’ he said, glancing up from the image as he tried to get his bearings. ‘It’s a lot more overgrown,’ he continued, telling her all the things she had already deduced.
‘Try looking for what’s in the photo that isn’t here,’ she suggested thoughtfully. Maybe she’d been looking at it back to front.
‘The rock,’ he said after a moment.
Rock? What rock? She peered at the photo in his hand.
‘See there? In front of the tree? There was a rock.’
Sure enough, right where he pointed on the photo, in front of the gum tree, was a dark flat shadow that looked like a rock.
Well, that was interesting. She wasn’t sure how it related to anything but it was pretty much the only thing different she could see. They crossed to the tree and she began to drag away some of the lighter branches that had fallen onto the ground.
‘Here, let me,’ Chris said, squatting down and leaning forward to scoop away years of accrued leaf matter and sticks from the base of the tree to eventually reveal a flat, hard surface.
‘It’s still there,’ she said, surprised.
‘Any idea what that’s supposed to mean?’ he asked hopefully.
‘None whatsoever,’ she said hopelessly but stopped when it wobbled as Chris pushed on it to stand back up. ‘Wait. It moved.’
‘Yeah, it’s loose, like …’ he started, before stopping as he lifted the rock to reveal a hole beneath. ‘It’s covering something,’ he finished, peering into the dark hole. ‘Hang on, I’ve got a torch,’ he said, digging out his car keys to detach the smallest flashlight she had ever seen from the keyring. ‘It’s tiny, but it’s fairly bright,’ he said as he leaned over the top of the chasm. ‘There’s something in there.’
‘Oh God, you’re not going to put your hand in there, are you?’ she said, suddenly remembering those snakes she looked out for on her morning walks.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, flashing a grin at her, then hesitated. ‘Maybe stand back just in case,’ he added and laughed at her expression.
She did take a step back, just to be on the safe side, and listened to him give a small grunt as he reached into the hole and felt around.
‘Got it,’ he said triumphantly.
‘What is it?’ she asked eagerly, forgetting her earlier caution and moving back beside him, craning her neck to get a look at what he was bringing out.
‘I have no idea,’ he told her, placing a piece of green canvas on the ground between them. ‘There’s something wrapped inside,’ he said, carefully opening the stiff fabric to reveal a biscuit tin. Pip held her breath as Chris prised open the lid to reveal an olive-green book.
Pip felt the air leave her lungs in a rush as she sat back on the ground and stared at the open tin.
‘A book?’ Chris said, sounding surprised.
‘It’s her diary,’ Pip whispered, then glanced up at Chris. ‘It’s Molly’s diary,’ she repeated, feeling a ridiculous smile spread across her face. That’s what Molly had been trying to tell her all this time. She wanted Pip to find the diary.
‘How did you know it was there?’ he asked, soundly slightly dazed.
‘It doesn’t matter now … finally, we’ve got the last piece of the puzzle.’ She carefully lifted the book from the safety of its protective tin box and gingerly opened the cover. The front page was blank but inside was a page of beautifully cursive writing and a date: 19 April 1939. Our wedding day was written on the top line.
Pip sat down, completely absorbed.
Today, my darling Bert, we are to be married. I have waited for so long for this day and now it is finally here. By this evening I will be Mrs Herbert Bigsby, and we will embark on our wonderful life together.
‘How did it get there?’ Chris asked when they’d both read the page.
‘I’m guessing Molly put it there for safekeeping?’
‘Why would she go to all this trouble, though?’
‘Maybe whatever she wrote in there was supposed to remain private—maybe she didn’t want Bert to stumble upon it?’
Thunder rumbled overhead, and Chris gave a small, confused laugh as he stood up and dusted off his hands. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the house before another round of rain hits.’
Surely this weather couldn’t last much longer, she thought, sending a quick glance towards the grey skies, but she reluctantly replaced the diary in the tin and wrapped the canvas around it again before heading back to the house.
It did seem a strange thing to do, hiding a diary, and for it to remain there for almost a century. And yet, Molly couldn’t have known when she put it into the hole that she would never be back to get it.
‘You go and read—I’ll throw something together to eat,’ Chris told her when they arrived home.
Pip wasn’t about to argue as she propped herself on the couch. She couldn’t think about anything except what might be in Molly’s diary.