Naiyana held up the piece of paper. ‘We’ll leave a note.’
Lorcan laughed. ‘Why don’t we just bake them a pie like good neighbours do?’
She ignored his mocking. She was determined to go through with this.
‘We’ll leave a note written from all of us, to show them that we’re harmless.’
She put the paper in front of Dylan who scrawled his signature, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration, the amateurish style of the note enhancing the non-threatening nature of it.
‘I don’t know if this—’
‘We don’t want to just walk up to their doorstep, do we? A note is best. Some form of pre-emptive communication. They obviously know we’re here, they just don’t know that we know.’
Lorcan sighed. ‘As long as we aren’t in town after. We’ll watch from a safe distance and see what they do.’
Lorcan left the note pinned to the cupboard. Although wary of this plan he didn’t have an alternative. Other than running. Which he still considered the best option.
They then drove out of Kallayee, on to the small hill that overlooked the town, parking behind some trees, obscured from view as the sun went down.
When Dylan had asked what they were doing he had told him that they were stargazing. And in fact, the clear night and arrangement of stars took his mind off what was going to take place below.
But as the night pushed on, his focus turned from the sky to the tunnel to his own house, expecting to see it ransacked or go up in flames. The best-case scenario was that the miners got spooked and fled. But why would they? To them they were the intruders. And if they burnt the house down? Maybe that would be for the best. It would mean Nee had to agree to leave.
At eleven, the men rolled into town, lights off, just a shadow crawling along the street. They alighted as before. Lorcan waited for the explosion of movement. He didn’t have to wait long. The flailing torches and hurried exit from the building were a huge contrast to the military precision he had witnessed previously, suggesting discovery of the note. From this distance he couldn’t hear anything, but the waved arms and furious pacing indicated alarm. And that was troubling. Riling up the neighbours was a bad idea. Especially if you didn’t know them. And they had access to tunnels to bury you in.
Lorcan glanced over as his wife and son slept in the passenger seats. He wondered how she could be so at peace with this.