The Datura Institute is easy
enough to find, a short walk away at the end of Oleander Crescent. We stroll past it several times, keeping to the far footpath, before I drag Nia up the driveway and onto the porch of the house opposite. She resists the pull of my arm.
‘How do you know someone doesn’t still live here?’
‘Blank windows. Can’t smell any food cooking.’ I point at the garage, which is empty with the roller door up. ‘Car’s gone. Power lines cut.’
There’s an old-fashioned swing-seat on the porch, attached to the roof with chains. I try it out and it seems safe.
‘I can’t see properly,’ says Nia, trying to shuffle forwards on the seat, only to be shunted back on every down swing. ‘Quit making it swing.’
I’d find her irritation funny, if it was only about the chair. But it’s not. When she called I thought I’d been given a second chance. Now I can see it’s not going to be so easy. I don’t know what I can say to make her relax. I didn’t expect to be sitting in the dark outside the Datura Institute. My hand goes up to the lighter. Maybe danger doesn’t follow me. Maybe Nia chases it like a dog chases cars.
‘There’s nothing to see anyway. Just the fence.’
Everything on the street is still. No wind, no sound. It’s as if the earth itself has stopped breathing.
The Datura Institute looks like an original old-money property, perched on the hill. It’s hidden behind a fortresslike brick wall as tall as the towering eucalypts that used to line this street. There’s a single barred gate that shows a narrow path to the front door. The glimpse we got through the gate was of a grand two-storey building with lots of windows.
I look at Nia. I can’t think of her as Wildgirl now that she’s in front of me. That name belongs to that first night. She looks straight ahead, hands braced on her knees and feet pushed into the floor in case I try to make the seat swing again. Her black hair falls about her face and shoulders. Lips blood red. Eyelashes swooping. It’s unfortunate that the more annoyed she gets, the prettier she looks. I’ve thought about sitting next to her again, like this, alone and in the dark, more times than I can count. We would talk in my version, though.
‘Did you get grounded after that night?’
She answers without looking at me. ‘No. Mum was surprisingly cool about it. She knows…she knows I met someone, but I let her think that Rosie and Neil stayed with us all night, that we hung out as a group.’
‘Oh, Neil,’ I say, remembering her boss greasing me off at the Diabetic right before I ran off with his favourite employee. ‘How is Neil?’
The corner of Wildgirl’s mouth twitches. ‘No idea. I quit that job. I work at a vintage store now.’ She finally turns to me. ‘Actually, it’s a funny thing. Ortolan came into my work this week.’
‘Ortolan?’ She didn’t say anything about seeing Nia.
‘Yeah. Apparently she comes in every few months.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
‘A little bit.’
‘Oh.’ I mull this over. I thought Nia and my worlds were separate. I had no idea Ortolan made so many forays into other parts of the city. ‘Is that why you called me tonight?’
Nia doesn’t answer.
‘I babysit Ortolan’s daughter Diana all the time. She’s a great kid. You should meet her.’
Nia nods, but not very enthusiastically, and I’m an idiot for suggesting it. Ortolan and Diana are probably like TV characters to her. People and lives she heard about once upon a time and then forgot about. She looks towards the Datura Institute. I realise then that she’s bored. First I piss her off at the pub, and then we come here and I bore her.
‘Things have changed,’ I say, lamely.
‘For me too,’ she replies, but something across the road is taking the greater part of her attention. She’s getting away from me. ‘Wolfboy. Look.’
There are two people walking towards the institute, a man dressed in blue, and a younger boy wearing all black. I watch the man closely. It’s not the same guy as last night.
‘See the guy in blue? That’s what some of them wear. It’s a uniform.’
The boy drags his feet, his arms hanging limply by his side. They reach the front gate. The man looks left to right quickly before turning the gate handle. The gate is unlocked.
‘That other one wasn’t Paul, was it?’ Nia asks.
I shake my head.
‘Are they Dreamers?’ Nia asks. ‘The way the younger guy was walking was a bit Dreamer-ish.’
‘No.’ But then I remember the woman on Dreamer’s Row. She may have been dressed in blue, but she definitely lived in that house.
‘Well, at least now we know regular people can go in.’
There’s something in Nia’s tone that sends alarm bells ringing. That and the exaggerated innocence on her face.
‘No way.’
‘Try and stop me,’ she says. Before I can react she stands and pushes down on the edge of the seat, hard. I hold onto it as it rocks violently. It’s so unexpected that it takes me longer than it should to get gravity under control. Dust flies up in a cloud off the seat and porch floor. To add insult to injury I start sneezing.
Once I’ve righted myself I run to the end of the driveway and crouch behind the letterbox. Oleander Crescent is deserted again in both directions, and the fence of the Datura Institute is a faceless wall. The gate is closed. No sign of her anywhere. I slam my fists down into the dirt and swear quietly. Fuck. I let her disappear into thin air.
I bow my forehead all the way down to the dirt and try to think. Do I cross the road and go through the gate? Would she really go in there? Or is she hiding around the corner to taunt me?
Damp soaks through my jeans at the knees. I count slowly to ten. A foot digs under my shoulder, pushes me upwards. I sit up. She stands calmly in front of me. Not even out of breath.
‘You praying or something?’ she says.
I’m up in a flash, and pulling her by the arm, down Oleander towards O’Neira Street.
‘Ouch!’ she protests. ‘You’re hurting my arm.’
I let her go, but I keep walking fast, forcing her to trot to keep up. I breathe down the red wave that threatens to engulf me. It laps over me then flows away.
‘Don’t you want to know what was inside the fence?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Sorry. Your arm. Sorry.’
‘I’ll tell you anyway.’ She walks ahead of me, backwards, talking as fast as she can. ‘I go through the gate and I can’t see anything. So I stick to the path. There’s a light on in the house. I don’t know if it was an automatic thing because those guys just went through, but it was enough to see the sign next to the door. Plaque actually, gold plaque. It said: The Datura Institute—no surprise there. Then under that, Doctor Gregory, with a whole bunch of letters after his name.’
I stop.
‘Oh, come on,’ Nia says. ‘Don’t tell me you’re surprised? This has Doctor Gregory’s fingerprints all over it. From the moment you told me I knew it had to have something to do with him. And I’m not even from around here.’
‘You must be smarter than me then,’ I say. ‘Did anyone see you?’
‘No.’
‘There could be cameras.’
‘I didn’t see any.’ A long pause while she searches my face. ‘Aren’t you going to thank me?’
‘No. I’m going to get you home on time.’ I start walking again, slower this time. Why would Paul let himself have anything to do with Doctor Gregory? I told him more about that night on the roof than I told anyone else. He knows the things that Doctor Gregory said to try to manipulate me.
I sense Wildgirl looking at me, but I ignore her. We walk in silence, over the border to Panwood. I barely register the moment we cross. Up ahead there are traffic lights and cars and the station.
‘You don’t have to walk me all the way.’
‘It’s no problem.’
The station glows orange in the night. There are people waiting on the platforms, and the ticket office is open. There are still a few minutes before the train is due.
We stop in front of a circular flowerbed.
‘I’ll leave you here then,’ I say to my toes.
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
A breeze blows Nia’s hair about. She looks beautiful and golden and unknowable. Her shirt is scattered with tiny coloured stars, mirroring the sky above. ‘I did.’
‘I don’t mean after six months. Why didn’t you call me after that night?’
‘I did call you. A week later.’
‘You’re such a liar.’ She marches up the path towards the ticket gates. I chase after her, stopping her, careful not to grab her arm as tightly as before.
‘Nia, I did call you. Your mum answered and I asked to speak to you, and she said—well, she just—she said no.’
‘What?’ Her eyes are wide and incredulous.
‘I thought maybe you asked her to say that. I wanted to speak to you, but I wasn’t going to push it.’
The station lights starburst behind her. ‘I don’t believe you. Number one, my mum wouldn’t do that. She never told me anything about a phone call from you. Number two, say on the off chance that she did do that, why didn’t you keep trying? You could have called me again.’
I don’t have any answers. She stands her ground, making it clear she expects something. I open and close my mouth.
‘I’m talking to you now,’ I mumble eventually. ‘Lupe said I should call you, and—’
‘Wait. Wait!’ She holds up her hand. She’s crackling and sparking like pine cones in a campfire. ‘You called me because Lupe told you to?’
I’m tricked into nodding.
‘Wow.’ She goes very still. ‘I am really stupid. To think that you called for any other reason.’
‘But you called me tonight! You made me talk about Paul. You wanted to go to the Datura Institute. You snuck in through the gate. You like this espionage stuff.’
It’s the same as it was that first night. Wildgirl playing in the dark suburb, shaking things up like we’re in a giant snow dome, and then going back to her normal life. Leaving me in a blinding storm, not knowing which way’s up.
‘You called me tonight,’ I repeat. ‘Do you want to mess up my life?’
Nia is speechless. Her red mouth shocked open. Tears well in her eyes, but she blinks them away.
‘You don’t know what you want, Jethro,’ she says. ‘Your life is already messed up. You don’t need me to do that for you.’
If I could retrieve my words I would, grab them out of the sky and hide them where they can’t be seen. The crossing bells start to ring, the boom gates lower, and Nia turns and runs for the platform.