A decapitated bird twisted in the outside washing line of the caravan. Its wings still flapping.
Lucia bawling. Truly distraught.
I didn’t do it, she said. I didn’t…
All around, flowing from the tower to the cliff edge high above the ocean, a streak of impossible colour and feeling. Seeping out of the ground. Where Hedy had been digging earlier that day, and beyond.
The bird’s guts spilling out everywhere. Twisting in ghastly loops. The wings stopped flapping as it finally died, like the memory of an innocent world.
A smashed remnant leg of the Dramolite, the rest of the instrument gone, stolen. The decapitated bird. A word carved into the caravan door: LEAVE.
• • •
He finally tucked Lucia, delicate and shivering, onto the mattress inside the caravan. The man gathered firewood and Hedy lit a fire.
She’s not your daughter, Hedy said.
Why you say that?
I just do, Hedy said, and she was right.
I’m her guardian, he said.
Self appointed? Hedy said.
Something like that, he said.
Where’d you find her?
Somewhere broken.
I’m going to go out on a limb and so you’ve got your hands full, there.
You’ve no idea, he said. No idea.
• • •
They buried the bird amid the earthen shapes on the clifftop, its stringy guts black in the firelight reflecting off the tower.
It’s a memory garden, Hedy said quietly. These diggings. Something else my Mum showed me. We came here when I was young.
I’m sorry about your Dramolite, the man said. You’ll get it back.
You’re goddamn fucking right I will, Hedy said. If I have to burn this entire town to the ground.
• • •
Two plastic chairs looking over Tempest Bay. The man felt drunk. He could see Hedy did too. The long day’s journey, the shiver in the pub, the bird, the theft, everything.
I recognise you, you know, Hedy said. I know who you are.
So you’re going to push me off this cliff?
Maybe, she said. Maybe.
Lights stringing the town. A constellation. A maze, perhaps. He shuddered at the thought.
There’s something coming, he said. Everywhere.
I believe so, she said. Question is what’s to be done about it.
You don’t negotiate with the weather, he said.
We’ll find out either way soon enough, she said.
Long silence in the firelit dark.
I’m obsessed and a little trapped, she said. Help me come down off this clifftop.
He looked through his own mind for a moment. Found a signal there.
Three days, the man said. Then the girl and I are headed south again.
Three days, Hedy said. How generous.
It is.
• • •
He crawled into the caravan. It smelt musty and cramped with a hint of stale alcohol. Hedy did not come in there with him but stayed outside by the fire. It wasn’t that kind of relationship, and would not be.
Lucia rolled and turned over and moaned then flomphed again on the mattress. He gently took a duvet off the side and made a go of it on the floor.
He listened to Hedy scratching around in her memory garden outside until very late. Went to sleep feeling the shifting dreams of the place and the tower above and the far, far reached of the sea.
He dreamed that night and woke in the early morning light feeling like he had once, many years ago, when he first lost himself…