“DID YOU SEE THAT, MAMA?”
She was standing on the verandah, leaning against a pillar. She had her arms crossed, like she was cold. “Well done,” she said. “Do you think you could do it again – from back here?”
“I reckon.” He punched the air and ran after the ball, pleased with his effort. He’d opened the gate to the fire trail, and was using it as the goals. His first two kicks had sailed off course, over to the wire fence by one side of the gate post, but the last two had gone straight through. Daniel came back with the ball tucked under his arm. He put it down just by the bottom step and took a long run up from around the side of the house, kicking it skyward with the side of his foot.
“Fantastic. We might have to start calling you Harry Cool.” She rubbed her arms. “Did you learn that yesterday?”
“Uhuh,” he replied excitedly. “Mr Walker showed us when we finished practice.”
“Tom Walker?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, twisting his boot into the dirt. “He teaches Todd and James all sorts of cool stuff, and sometimes they even go to watch Victory when they play.”
“Is that right?”
“Yup.”
Mama was quiet. Ever since the other day, he’d catch her face darkening, drawn into a frown on both sides of her mouth. He wondered if it had anything to do with the big bruise on her cheek that she tried to cover with her hair. But there was something else too. She was nervous, turning at every little sound, the way his real mother did whenever his dad was around. He knew he shouldn’t have told her about him, wished he hadn’t gone and ruined everything by bringing his old life into his new one. Maybe, Daniel thought, they could just talk about other stuff.
“They said I can go with them next time,” he ventured.
She was still shifting from one foot to the other. Her hand went up to her ear, and she pressed at it, tilting her head sideways like he did when he got water in his ears after swimming. For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard.
“Can I – can I go?”
“Sorry, bub,” she said. “Yes, of course you can.”
“Awesome!” Daniel beamed, and ran to collect the ball once more.
The dog had come up from the bottom of the garden, where he’d been sniffing along the fence, and was now inspecting the rose bushes that edged the verandah. Rafi’s gaze travelled from one to another, back to the task at hand. Mama said he was happy. She said you could tell by the way he went off and did his own thing, and came back when he was done, like he knew that they would always be there. Like he knew he was safe. Daniel watched him wander over to the moonah by the fire pit where a big old possum lived.
She’d only taken a few steps when he called after her. “Where did you go?”
“What’s that?”
“Yesterday morning,” he said. “I saw you leave with Mr Walker.”
Daniel watched her cheeks go the colour of the tomatoes in the veggie patch.
“We went for coffee.”
“Mama.”
“Yes.”
“Do you like him?”
“Don’t forget to shut the gate when you’re done,” she said.
“Do you?”
He looked up at her, but she was in the shadow of the pillar, and he couldn’t make out her expression.
“Yes, I do,” she replied finally. “He’s very nice.”
Daniel hesitated, something turning over in his mind.
“You won’t leave us.” he said suddenly, his voice cracking. He pictured his dad’s face the other day at school, grinning at him with those yellow teeth. His big hands were stretched out on his legs, dirty fingernails, black and ugly. At the memory, Daniel felt his tummy turn, his chest heaving. “You won’t go away with him, will you?”
“Of course not,” she replied, startled.
She came back down the steps, crouched awkwardly, and took him by the arms. “Nobody’s going anywhere. You hear me?”
He nodded, unconvinced.
She exhaled slowly, still holding his forearm. “Tommy – Mr Walker – is my friend – that’s all.”
“Like me and Rafi?” he offered.
“Just like you and Rafi.” Then, she moved her gaze to where he’d dropped the ball, raised an eyebrow, and said: “Watch this.”
Daniel watched as she made her way across the garden.
“You watching?”
“Yes,” said Daniel.
And then she took a big run up, aiming a kick, but missed completely and ended up on the ground. A moment later, he ran over and jumped on her. Rafi came from nowhere. Piled on too. There were spindly elbows, arms and legs everywhere.
“Did you mean that?” he asked, incredulous.
“No,” she laughed. “I was trying to kick it through the goals.”
Eventually she pushed them off, shouting FOUL! in a pretend angry voice, and they laughed so much he started wheezing. The ground was cool and firm as he lay there, the dog splayed across his chest, staring up at the bright blue sky, and he slid his hand into hers and squeezed it tight.
Everything’s going to be just fine, Mama said. You hear me?
But he was still worried. His dad was there, inside his head, no matter how hard he tried to forget about him. No matter how much he pretended he didn’t exist. He was there like the mud on his soccer boots, like the clouds that hung over the bay just before a big storm. Some nights he had nightmares that they were back in the old house, just the two of them, in the dark, and Daniel had managed to crawl into the gaps in the kicked-in walls. All around him yelling and thudding, smashing glass, and he would cover his ears and wish he were elsewhere.
Mama was asking him something.
“What?”
“Do you want to go for a swim?”
Daniel sat, expressionless. “In our wetsuits?”
“Of course. Too cold otherwise.”
He nodded.
“You want me to help you get it on?”
But he’d already run off to change before she’d even finished talking.
It was something they usually did in summer, when the sky was perfect and the water like glass, but she needed to decompress. To feel connected to something limitless and beautiful and ancient.
They walked in silence for a while, taking the shortcut down to the beach. The low-hanging branches didn’t bother them as they cut their way through the marram grass, and emerged beside the dinghy racks near the jetty. They waded out to the pontoon, the boy trailing on the boogie board leashed, skinny legs kicking furiously. Rafi paddled at her side, only his small head visible above the waterline. And after about five minutes, they climbed the ladder encrusted with barnacles and seaweed, and flopped onto the wooden platform. The wind sent ripples over the water’s surface. Elena lay on her back, looking up at the mottled sky, at the seagulls gliding on the updraft. As they came in low, perhaps looking for a place to land, the dog barked maniacally until they flew off in search of safer resting spots. It had started to rain, a light drizzle that seemed to fall sideways. Around them, the bay seemed endless.
Daniel flopped down at her side, watching the sky too.
“Look at that,” Elena said.
“Pelicans,” the boy said brightly.
There were four of them, skimming over the masts of outriggers, flashes of greyish white, sounding their presence with the beat of their enormous wings. They flew without effort, languid, graceful, almost as one.
“Where are they going?” he asked.
Elena felt the twinge in her spine, the nerves pressing against each other, had to sit up properly. She pushed her arms out behind her, leant back. “Probably looking for somewhere safe to land, I’d say.”
Daniel tilted his head and looked up at her, his forehead plastered with wet hair. “They like it out here too. Because it’s safe.”
“Safe?”
“Nobody can hurt them in the sea.”
Elena sensed he was no longer talking about the birds. What on earth had this kid seen in his life? How much, she wondered, did he keep locked inside. Such boundless, private horrors.
“Is that why you like coming out here, Daniel? To feel safe?”
He was quiet.
“I’ll protect you,” Elena murmured, turning to squeeze his leg with a clammy hand. She was careful not to promise; to use the word too many adults had thrown at him, only to have it come to nothing. Time and time again. “Nothing bad will happen, I won’t let it.”
She knew that wasn’t true, despite her earnest tone, and the hope he’d believe at least some of it. After all, Anderson had already been and gone. All that was left was to pick up the pieces, trying to shape them back together in a way that might hold.
The boy was still on his back, scanning the sky. The cloud coming from the south left half of his face in shadow. She watched for a reaction, but he didn’t appear to have heard. Overhead, a lone pelican let out a long croak which carried on the air, signalling its protest at being left behind.
“What about you, mama?” Daniel asked finally.
“What about me?”
“Who keeps you safe?”
At that, Elena felt a sharp wash of grief. As unexpected as it was profound. Her eyes smarted. She felt the blood coming to her cheeks, tried not to linger on one thought: that a child – a vulnerable child – was the only thing stopping her falling into a great heap. Quickly, she turned away, her face catching the wind coming down from the bluff, and waited for the distress to pass. After a while she spoke.
“I do,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster. “I keep me safe.”
Daniel pursed his lips, didn’t reply. He was looking over to where Rafi sat at the edge of the platform, head down, utterly entranced by something in the water below. But if he was sceptical of her answer he didn’t show it.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s dangle our legs over the edge and see if any fish come to nibble on our toes.”
The boy’s face lit up with a grin.
The water slapped against the sides of the pontoon, spray breaking against their legs. There were silver fish all around them, shaped like fingers, and they watched as they turned from translucent to dark green with each change of direction. And then the school darted past them, skimmed the water in unison and swam off towards deeper waters, spooked by an unseen threat.
They stayed there until the rain began to thrum, picking up the waves and thrashing them in every direction. It was a longer swim back, against the current, with Daniel and the dog both on the boogie board, Elena pushing from behind. Back on shore, she was worn out, everything aching. Exhilarated.
The boy went ahead with the dog, trudging across the sand, maintaining the same lethargic pace. She watched them go. And as she rinsed the sand from the board, she felt restored, somehow lighter. She wanted her old life back, just the two of them, before all the drama. But it wasn’t possible. So she’d have to make do with moments like these: perfect and fleeting. She licked her lips, savoured the salt on them. Up by the bushes, there was no sign of Daniel or Rafi. Elena slid the board under her arm, then followed. Quickly. She spied them halfway up the track, and relaxed a little, a thumping in her chest, the leftover panic.
They spent the rest of the day on the couch, a little wilted by the swim, watching telly and eating Cheezels. They were still there, the three of them, late that afternoon when the sky grew stormy as the clouds dropped low over the bay and turned it into night.
Later, she sat on the edge of the bed and watched Daniel fall asleep. Then she went to get up and quietly leave the room.
“You can’t go yet,” he muttered.
Elena sat herself down. “You should sleep,” she said. But it didn’t come out with any authority. She’d said it in a flat, tired voice, the words directed more at herself than him.
Daniel looked up at her, both arms down by his sides. The position made him look like a soldier at attention. “You haven’t told me my story.”
“Do you really want one?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Nope.”
“Then give me a second – let me think of something.”
“Mama?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen the monster in the garden? Are you scared of him?”
Elena felt herself recoil a little. She had convinced herself he’d forgotten all about this imaginary friend and was reluctant to bring it back up again. For a moment, she felt his eyes on her, as if the boy could only feel safe if she did. She smiled as brightly as she could, gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “What about that story, then?”
Daniel nodded.
“The scary story? With the monster in the tunnel.”
“No, not that one,” she said, shaking her head. “It’ll give you nightmares.”
“It won’t.”
She lay down beside him, the way she always did, and the story spilled out.
It was the place where time began. A tip of land ringed by vast limestone cliffs, a glistening sea, the sky bright and clear. There were she-oak woodlands, where the earth spirits took the form of nymphs and shadows, and shore platforms teemed with marine mega fauna. At sunrise, orchids blossomed to the song of honeyeaters and scarlet robins, the carousing of rosellas. The Boonwurrung women had once used it as a birthing site. Then came the white settlers in their tall ships and the tribes scattered to the wind.
Many years later it became a national park, although by shared arrangement. The army built a base there: barracks and shooting ranges, the Quarantine Station with its white stone buildings, among them the hospital and morgue. It was a sad place – imposing, unnerving. And the memory of how magical it had once been, forgotten to all but a few of the elders. Spur winged plovers cried overhead, piercing and angry, like a warning.
Inside was no better. Stark white walls, concrete floors, the air heavy with damp. Down a flight of narrow steps there was a basement. It was a large room with bluestone walls that felt perpetually wet, and a dirt floor compacted by the heavy boots of the ammo men and the gunpowder barrels once stored there. In the far corner, its entrance lit by a solitary lamp niche, was a wooden door that opened onto a tunnel. Beyond it, an archway built of the same bluestone. Barely tall enough for a man to stand, it connected to a labyrinth of other passageways, secret rooms. To unknown realms.
The warrant officers said there were blueprints somewhere, although it hardly mattered since nobody ever went down there. Certainly not them. Nor the most hardened of soldiers: men who had fought on the Western Front, at River Plate and El Alamein; places that were like a rollcall of horror. The privates dared each other, some even wagered money on who’d take up the challenge. On its face, the bet seemed easy: run to the first fork, count to ten, then back again. Simple. Like it was nothing. But when the time came they just shook their heads, refused. Whatever lived in the tunnels, they whispered amongst themselves, was something unnatural, otherworldly, a sight to burn out a man’s eyes.
But these were just stories. The truth was something else entirely.
When the nights came, the soldiers listened to the wind whistling through the Norfolk pines, to the nocturnal foraging of the wallabies, the familiar creak of the wooden barracks. There were hoots from the masked owls. The bush had its own melody. But every full moon, many swore they could hear another noise too. It was a low rumbling like the movement of the earth’s plates. They didn’t understand it, couldn’t comprehend such a sound in this isolated place, and would whisper to each other in the darkness, “Did you hear that? What is that?” Sometimes they would sneak out to investigate, but could never find the source.
Back in their beds, they contemplated what it might be.
“Ghosts,” said a young voice thick with sleep.
“Aliens,” came the reply.
“Shut up, idiots,” someone else muttered.
Finally, they slept. The rocks beneath them soughed, as though in conversation, sending ripples like the gentle rocking of waves to the surface. There came more shudders until everything was still once more.
But what they didn’t know was that the answer was right beneath their feet. It happened at midnight, where the main tunnel came to an end, that a crack appeared in the impregnable blue stone. Wide enough to step through, it revealed a narrower passageway, at the end of which was an archway. Light shimmered beyond it, hazy and emerald, beckoning those who might have ventured that far. But none ever did.
“Sure you wouldn’t like another story?” Elena ventured. “Something nicer.”
Daniel shook his head slowly, heavily.
She chewed her lip. It was perplexing to her that he would be so fascinated by this tale of death and misery when his own past had been marked by such brutality. It was, she suspected, nothing compared to his own life. And that was what worried her the most, this skewed reality, so familiar to him. The weight of it. She didn’t argue the point, though. Just gave a soft sigh. But there wouldn’t be any more story. There was no need: Daniel had already fallen asleep.
“Right, then,” she said.
As if by design, he grunted, and stretched.
“I’m still here,” Elena whispered.
She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, the boy snoring now. Then she pressed her fingertips to Rafi’s head. He snuffled and sighed his happy sigh. And just for a moment – for the second time that day – she felt like everything was perfect.
It was pitch dark when Elena went downstairs and headed for the kitchen. She fumbled for the light switch. The light flickered a moment, old wires warming up, a shudder from the old house. Elena went over to the counter to pour herself some wine and looked out at the darkness. There were hoots from the tawny frogmouth, unseen among the trees. For a second, she thought she saw something, a movement followed by a lurch in her chest, then overtaken by tiredness, decided it was nothing. But she didn’t move. The air seemed to leave her body; her fingers gripped the cool subway tiles. In a moment she’d fumbled open the drawer, and found what she was looking for. It was long and heavy, with a solid titanium shell, more a weapon than a torch. Just in case, she thought to herself. She pushed back from the sink, towards the door.
In the garden she walked slowly, splicing the darkness with the torchlight, as the sharp wind stung at her face and legs. She kept her gaze ahead. She turned around only once, to check the door was shut. Up in the trees, a multitude of flickering red dots, like a code, the possums. Their eyes reflected in the light.
“It’s nothing,” she said, her voice thick with reproach. “It’s just possums.”
And that’s when she saw something. A bright, flickering light. Emerald green, like a precious stone. Elena stopped in her tracks. She squinted and saw it again. Her heart began to pound.
Who’s there?
At the gate, a furred shape materialised, large green eyes, the long thick tail of a kangaroo. She wondered, with horror, holding the torch in a vice grip, if this was Daniel’s monster. Or just a product of her exhausted mind. Elena couldn’t be sure. She thought it must be her imagination.
Elena shut her eyes. The wind made a howling sound through the trees.
Don’t be afraid, she almost heard it say.
She opened her eyes, and rubbed them hard. Squinted again. But by then it was too late. Whatever it was had vanished into the night air. Elena stood there for a long minute. At last, she turned, scanning the horizon once more, and walked back inside.
She was still awake long after the clock showed twelve and, aching, got up and crossed the room, opening the window to the frigid night air. Back in bed, she lay on her back, careful not to move her head, and willed sleep to come.
She had made it worse by kicking the ball across the garden, a show of distraction for Daniel, when the fear of every foster child – that they might be abandoned at a moment’s notice – had suddenly surfaced. But, still, it had been worth it, for the expression of pure joy he’d worn when they’d ended up in a breathless pile on the ground. She’d felt the world swim, and smiled through it. By evening she could barely stand, had made her way upstairs by skirting along the walls, long pauses to ready herself for the next step.
“If I could just sleep,” she whispered, half in prayer and half in desperation. “Then everything would be OK.”
She dozed, then woke with searing pain in her ear, a knife, sharper and sharper. It happened a few times, each time worse than the last, until finally she sat up. Breathing slowly, the thudding eased. But she would not sleep. Not tonight anyway. There was no point in getting up, she thought. Better to lie still and wait it out. She pulled the covers up, eyelids heavy, and stared out at the dark room. After a while, she fell into a semi-sleep, hearing a faint fluttering. It sounded like the flap of a butterfly’s wings. She thought she was dreaming. But it came again. This time louder, more insistent. Elena flinched, awake. Something caught her eye, made her reach for the lamp switch.
For a moment Elena thought she was seeing things, that she’d sunk into an inevitable delirium. “Where did you come from?” she said, pausing a moment to rub her eyes.
A tiny butterfly had landed on her foot, gossamer wings held aloft in the pale light, its body unnaturally bright, glowing, the air around it pulsating like an aura. She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, rubbed again. When she opened them, it was still there. Only now, it had fluttered up her leg and was turning in circles around her knee. Elena had heard of the budyabudya, the spirits of peace, white butterflies which lived only a day, visiting people during their darkest times. Sometimes it was one, half a dozen, even hundreds that came like a great white cloud of hope, offering the solace of their startling beauty. But she had no idea what to make of this one. She felt wretched and exhausted. Could barely comprehend what she was seeing.
It flew off. She tilted her head to watch it go, waiting for the moment she could shut the window. The exquisite creature brought her no comfort, no consolation in the grim hours, only distraction from her desperate need for sleep. But it returned. Another half a dozen times, drawing increasingly frantic circles around her head, a path to the window and back again.
Elena got up, unease in her gut like strained muscles. She took her dressing gown from behind the door, found her slippers on the landing, and went downstairs. The house was as silent as a tomb. She headed for the kitchen, made it to the table, and slumped into a chair.
Outside, the wind was sharp, merciless. She had no idea what she was doing other than a need to follow the budyabudya to wherever it went.
Shivering, she walked across the garden, towards the gate, and out to the track. The trees screened the bay beyond them, the vast stretch of water which was once a lush valley of rivers and streams. And to her right, the butterfly, spectral against the darkness, beckoning in the near distance. She went towards it, and kept walking until she reached the bottom of the hill, where a smaller path veered off towards the beach car park. Elena stopped and looked around, noticing the ground was alight with a phosphorescent haze. But the butterfly was nowhere to be seen. She turned, felt a wash of pain throughout her whole body, the ache coming up from her toes. She stood motionless for a long time, and waited for the wave to pass.
There came a growling from within the brush.
Elena had her hands at her throat, the cotton robe pulled tight, useless against the cold. She felt her heartbeat race. The noise came again, this time from thin air, directionless. “Who’s there?” she said sharply, hoping to sound courageous. “Who is that?”
The creature appeared from behind a gnarled She-oak, as if floating, a colossal shape approaching through the mist.
“Don’t be afraid,” it said in a voice as old as stone. “I mean you no harm.”
She recognised it immediately, couldn’t blink this one away, as she had tried with the budyabudya. And she wondered what it was doing here. Again.
“Who are you?” Her own voice more cautious than afraid. She shifted her weight onto her back foot, twisting it in the direction of home, just in case.
“Come closer,” it motioned with a bow.
A long pause. At that moment Elena wanted to turn and run, but something made her hesitate. The creature could have easily killed her by now with a swipe of one jagged-sharp claw. Yet it hadn’t. Perhaps this was all a game, she thought, a preamble of sorts. The way a cat played with a mouse right before devouring it. Or perhaps it was that when she looked into its eyes, beyond its horrifying appearance and the stench of decay, she saw something reflected in them – and this was what kept her there – an odd feeling that it spoke the truth.
I mean you no harm.
And despite her fear, Elena took a step forward.
Branches rustled overhead, filled with the grunting of the possums made visible by their russet eyes. The trees seemed to draw down, embracing them.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
It stood an arm’s reach and studied her closely. Then, paced to one side of the track, and back to the other, eyes upon her the whole time. At one point, it leaned in so close she felt its hot breath on her face. Elena had to steel herself. After a moment, it returned to its full height, towering over her once more. For a long moment, it didn’t respond. Its gaze travelled upwards to the chittering-filled trees, and back to her face. Then, finally —
“I am the sea and the sky. The wind. I am the beginning of time, before words and men. Before all of this,” it said, gesturing with an unusually graceful sweep of a clawed hand. “I am kianpraty.”
Elena looked at it, the robe still clutched tightly to her throat, her breath trapped in her chest. “A bunyip?”
It nodded slightly.
“I thought …” It took a moment to process the improbable. “I thought you were just a story.” Her words came out as a statement, an unquestioning acceptance. It was as though she had just been told the sky was blue.
Another nod.
A gust of cold hit the back of her neck, made her shudder. She didn’t speak for a long time, then her words came out in a jumble. “Daniel said he saw you – sees you at the gate. All the time. What’s going on? You wouldn’t hurt my son, would you?”
“You still don’t believe I mean you no harm?”
Elena sighed softly. “I don’t know what I believe any more. I’m just so tired.”
In the quiet, the thudding returned to her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to will it away.
“You are in pain?”
“Yes,” she said weakly. “It’s just an earache, nothing really.” She said nothing more; she didn’t want to explain what had really happened. The thought filled her with shame. The idea of not being able to protect the boy, let alone herself, swamped her whole body with cold. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t any life for him, and, for the first time in a whole year, she wondered if he wouldn’t be better off without her. Perhaps with a mum and a dad. Siblings. Somewhere else; somewhere safe. And the very thought made her scream inside – a primal scream that came from her soul – and wish for another burst ear drum to make her eyes water. Anything, anything, which might distract her from this horrible reality.
The creature’s gaze lingered on her, and she could no longer bear its gaze. As though it could see through her – right into her heart, and find it so full of hairline cracks, like an antique vase that was only one knock away from shattering into a thousand pieces. Elena half shrugged, looked past him, over to the moonahs, their branches swaying in almost perfect unison.
Then, it drew closer, and reached out to cup her ear.
“What are you doing?” she asked quietly. But she did not move – or even flinch – because in the ghostly light she caught only compassion in the emerald green of the bunyip’s eyes.
“Trust me.”
After a moment, it lifted its hand away, and Elena looked up in wonder, as though the fearsome beast had become something else entirely.
“How did you do that?”
The creature smiled, pleased.
Gently, she moved her head from side to side. No pain. She tried again, harder this time – shaking and nodding, tugging at her earlobe – but there wasn’t even a residual twinge. Nothing. And whether it was from gratitude or exhaustion, she began to cry, soundlessly, tears running down to her lips, salty to the taste. “I don’t know what you did,” she said, and her voice was little more than a whisper. “What did you do?”
There was a short silence, filled only with the sound of Elena’s shallow breathing. She watched as the beast walked to the edge of the path, where the mist dispersed into the brush, and cradled the trunk of a melaleuca with a great gnarled hand. Finally —
“You are no longer safe in this place,” it said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “If you stay here you will lose everything.”
“Anderson,” she said without knowing why.
It tilted his head in what could have been a nod or a shake.
Elena shuddered, conscious of the cold again. Suddenly, she wanted to leave the creature on the track with its dire warnings. Of awful consequences. It felt like a mockery. A faint drizzle had turned into a growing rain. She was already walking backwards when she saw the trees parting, night closing in, the blanket of silver-white mist dispersing, taking with it this apparition, leaving only the shuddering of leaves.
Elena woke with her cheek pressed to the table, sharp air on the back of her neck. It took a moment to register the door was open. Again. Her body shook with cold as she tried to get her head around the dream. It had shocked her – made her wonder what was real. But clarity came, suddenly, sharply. Without realising, her hand was holding her ear, the same all-consuming pain which had brought here down here in the first place. She stood, winced, as if her body could barely stand it. Elena looked out at the garden, pitch dark, utterly silent. After a while, she pulled the door shut, locked it behind her. “What on earth,” she said softly, her hand still wrapped around her ear.