Alkemy woke several times in the night thinking she sensed Albert returning, but it was either the wind in the trees, the intermittent rain or shifting patterns of light and dark as heavy clouds scudded past the moon. Between each hopeful start she somehow drifted off again, sleeping in spite of her worry and disappointment. Now, studying the empty awning in the light of dawn, those snatched moments of rest felt like a betrayal.
The rain had ceased, but the sky was as grim as her mood. She retraced the steps she’d seen Albert take the night before. Walked past the Cadillac and headed up the grassy knoll on the reserve’s south-eastern boundary. At the top, she paused to look around. Here, after a short flat stretch, the ground dropped away into a shallow valley that formed the resource pit. Humans called it a rubbish dump because they hadn’t yet mastered the technology to allow them to reuse discarded things.
She surveyed the piles of junk, half-expecting to find Albert studying some piece of primitive technology, careless of the time and bemused by her concern, but all she found were gulls fighting over scraps.
To the left was the gravel track that led back to Rata Road. To the right, a long stretch of gorse that eventually gave way to rocky coastline. In between, just beyond the dump itself, lay a succession of bush-clad hills, misty and still in the morning drizzle.
She thought of his last words — ‘Won’t be long Alkemy’ — words she’d barely paid attention to. Now he was out there somewhere, lost or injured or ...
‘Hey! Hey!’
For a moment her heart skipped a beat. For a moment she thought ...
She turned to find Ludokrus running up the slope behind her.
‘What you think you do?’ He shook her shoulder, still breathless, still in his pyjamas. ‘I wake and you are gone also.’ He stood there gasping, staring at her angrily.
‘I just come to look.’
‘No. No, you do not. You do not go alone. We are only two now. Understand? Must always wait for other. Must make plan first, go careful. Not alone. Never!’
Tears started. She looked away. Ludokrus put his arms around her.
* * *
Frank was hosing down after the morning’s milking when he spied Em leaning on the rail that ran around the holding yard. ‘Gidday stranger. Been there long?’
‘Long enough to see you missed a bit by the milking parlour.’
‘And there I was, thinking you were here for the pleasure of watching a craftsman at work.’
‘Tricky is it,’ she said, ‘aiming that hose?’
‘Wouldn’t want it to run away with me.’ He gave it a flick in her direction. ‘These high-pressure things can easily slip out of your hand.’
Em narrowed her eyes. ‘So can carving knives.’
He grinned and shut off the valve. ‘Did I just see the kids heading off to the reserve?’
‘They’re getting an early start. Meeting the others at the caravan then doing a walk to Fantail Falls.’
He checked the sky. ‘Good day for it. It’ll be spectacular after that rain last night. The country air really is getting to them.’ He looked at his wife. ‘But something tells me that’s not what brought you out here. What’s on your mind, my sweet?’
‘Alice,’ Em said with a sigh. ‘She’d like a word, she says. With both of us.’
‘This isn’t about the other night is it? When she came back babbling about spaceships in the reserve and alien mice being held prisoner?’
‘I hope not. But she’s got a bee in her bonnet about something.’
‘Remind me again of the difference between having bees in your bonnet and bats in your belfry?’ Frank said as they walked back to the house.
Alice was at the china cabinet in the far corner of the kitchen when they entered. The glass door was open and she was checking and replacing the willow-pattern dinner plates one by one. When she was done, she closed the door and turned to face them, frowning.
‘Tea?’ Em said.
‘What? Oh, no. No, thank you.’
‘What’s on your mind, Alice?’ Frank said.
Alice took a moment to compose herself then settled at the dining table, gesturing they should do likewise. ‘I know you think I imagined what happened the day before last. I know you think I fell and banged my head or something. I started to think I must have imagined it too. Like an unusually vivid dream. But then other strange things started happening.
‘First there was that explosion, or meteorite, or whatever you want to call it. What a coincidence! Hours after I tell you I saw a spaceship at the reserve — poof — it’s gone. Almost as if someone was trying to cover something up. You heard what they said on the news last night. The experts reckon the chance of three meteors landing the same area in a short space of time is a billion to one.’
The kettle boiled and clicked off. Em made no move towards it.
‘The second odd thing happened yesterday morning. I come down to visit you two at least once a year, but I hardly ever go in to Rata. I haven’t been there for years. And I haven’t seen Norman Smith since he was running around in jodhpurs. And yet when I saw him yesterday, sitting out there on the back lawn, I recognised him at once. Do you know why? Because he was there too. Standing by the spaceship with the others. In my “dream”. All grown up. Exactly as he is now. That same unruly hair, the same T-shirt, everything.’
‘So ... what are you telling us all this for?’ Em said.
‘Because I’m going to speak to that reporter. I thought about it all last night. I thought about what she said about the meteorite mystery and that Latitude 51 business, and I think it’s important that people speak up and tell what they know.’
‘Well don’t involve us,’ Em said.
‘But you are involved, Em! You were the people I first told about the spaceship. Before it got blown up. Before there was any talk about meteorites or mysteries. I want you to back me up about what I said I saw. And when I saw it. Remember how I told you about it? I was standing right over there.’
‘You told us a lot of things, Alice. You were in a frightful state when you got back here. And no wonder. You must have got lost in the bush and somehow found your way out again. To be honest, the way you were talking, we thought you were a bit hysterical.’
‘I suppose you think I’m being hysterical now.’
‘Not at all.’
‘So does that mean you’ll back me up?’
‘No, because it really doesn’t prove anything. What about the other things you said?’
‘What other things?’
‘I noticed you were checking the willow-pattern plates when we came in. Those heirloom ones of Mum’s. You said one of them got broken at the reserve. That that was one of the reasons you ran off into the bush.’
Alice said nothing.
‘Did you count them?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Eight.’
‘Just like always. And do you know how I know? Because Coral returned it yesterday, with thanks from Albert and the children. It got overlooked in the subsequent excitement. I rinsed it and put it away myself. There wasn’t a mark on it.’
‘I ... I can’t explain that, but I did tell you about the ship, didn’t I?’
‘You did, yes, but it was one story amongst several. You must see how this plate business makes it look. We just don’t want to get involved.’
‘How would it involve you?’
‘I’ve seen the sorts of books you read, and I know the sort of people that follow those ... ideas. They’d be pestering us for ever and a day. We don’t want that. We just want to carry on with our quiet lives here.’
Alice pursed her lips. ‘I won’t be put off, Em. I’m going to talk to that reporter anyway.’
‘You’ve always did have a stubborn streak, but you’re a free agent. You can do as you like. Just don’t involve us. Or the children.’
‘But they are involved. They were there, standing round the spaceship.’
‘They’re still children. And they not our children. Or yours. I don’t want them caught up in this. Is that clear?’
‘But—’
‘No buts. You do whatever you see fit. But you do it on your own.’