As they rode back along the dry dirt track, Banjo broke into a trot, anxious to reach the home paddock again. Lucy felt bounced around like a raggedy doll, but she curled her hands tightly into Banjo’s mane and tried to remember April’s instructions about holding on with her knees. Her feet kept slipping out of the stirrups and she gave up on them, letting her legs dangle loosely like April’s.
When they came to a stream, Midnight cantered through the water, sending shining droplets into the air. But Banjo stopped halfway across, splayed her legs, stretched her neck down and began to drink. It was a gentle movement, but Lucy hadn’t been expecting it. She tumbled forward, sliding down Banjo’s neck straight into the creek. It was shallow but icy cold, and Lucy squealed with surprise.
April looked back and shouted Lucy’s name in alarm. She turned Midnight around and rode back to where Lucy sat in the stream.
‘Fancy a swim, did you?’ she said, looking relieved to see Lucy was all right. ‘You know, everyone has to fall off a horse at least once before they know how to ride. Banjo was probably helping you out with an easy start.’
Lucy grinned. She wasn’t hurt, only a little surprised.
April leaned down and stretched her hand out to help Lucy up, but at that very moment, Midnight dropped his front shoulder, tipping April into the water too. She tumbled into the stream with a shout and then sat up beside Lucy, wiping her face with her hands.
Banjo had wandered on to the bank to stand beneath the branches of a golden wattle, not the least bit interested in the two girls sitting in the stream. But once Midnight had ditched his rider, he bolted. Lucy shrieked as his hooves flashed past them, churning up the water.
April and Lucy looked at each other. Then April began to laugh. For a split second, Lucy couldn’t see anything funny about their predicament. Midnight had disappeared down the long track through the bush. They were both covered in mud and icy water. But the sun was shining, Banjo was waiting patiently on the bank and April was laughing like crazy. Lucy started to laugh too.
April lay back in her soaking-wet dungarees and let the water flood over her. ‘Nothing like a creek full of spring rain,’ she said. ‘We could be like the Lady of Shalott and float all the way down to the river.’ She unbraided her hair and rinsed it in the water, picking out flecks of mud churned up by Midnight’s hooves. Then she lay down in the shallow creek, resting her head on a rock so the current swept her long gold hair out behind her. Lucy undid her plaits as well and lay cheek to cheek beside April so their hair flowed out behind them like a blonde waterfall. Tiny wattle blossoms floated downstream, catching in their hair like golden pearls.
They were still splashing in the stream like water sprites when they heard the sound of hooves galloping down the track. They both sat up abruptly, water streaming off their clothes.
A man on a chestnut mare reined his horse in at the water’s edge.
‘Crikey,’ he shouted at April. ‘What do you think you’re playing at? I thought you were lying dead and broken in the scrub when I saw Midnight galloping into the home pasture without you.’
Lucy stared. It wasn’t a man at all but a teenage boy of no more than sixteen. Though his feet were bare, he jumped down from his horse, landing lightly on the rocky bank. He looked like a movie star with his lean, tanned face and his thick dark hair curling at his temples. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing smooth, brown forearms. He strode into the creek and grabbed April by one arm, hauling her to her feet.
‘Don’t be an old lady,’ said April crossly. ‘Midnight was only being cheeky. He dropped his shoulder and dumped me in the creek.’
‘And what about your doppelganger here?’
‘My what?’
‘For a minute, I wasn’t sure which of you was which. You look like twins. She dived into six inches of water to save you, did she?’
‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘April was helping me. I fell off Banjo.’
Then the handsome boy laughed, but it wasn’t a mean laugh. It was a man’s laugh, rich and full. It reminded Lucy of her brother Jack. When the boy stretched one hand out to Lucy and gently pulled her upwards she blushed because all of a sudden, she wanted to hug him.
‘I’m Tom,’ he said, ‘April’s brother. You must be new around here.’
‘I’m just visiting,’ said Lucy. ‘I live in Sydney.’
‘Don’t you let that sister of mine lead you into mischief.’
April punched him in the arm but she might as well have been a gnat for all the notice he took of her. ‘I’m Lucy.’
‘Well if that isn’t a coincidence,’ said Tom. ‘My baby sister’s name is Lucy, though we call her Lulu. She’s much easier to manage than this great big firecracker.’ He grabbed April in a headlock and ruffled her long wet hair while April tried to wrestle free.
‘Mum was worried sick when she saw Midnight galloping up the track without a rider. Where have you been?’
‘None of your beeswax,’ said April, shooting a warning glance in Lucy’s direction.
‘Well, you get yourself onto Banjo and ride home, quick sticks.’
‘I can’t,’ said April, straightening her dungarees and wringing water out of her hair. ‘Lucy’s riding Banjo and Banjo’s too old and tired to take both of us.’
‘Too right. That’s why Lucy is coming with me on Smoke.’ Then he grinned at Lucy and winked.
April scowled at him but Tom leapt onto his horse and reached one hand down to Lucy. ‘Swing a leg over, little stranger. We’ll double up for the ride home.’
In a moment he had lifted Lucy into the air as if she were as light as a feather and then she was settled behind him on Smoke.
April stomped out of the creek and mounted Banjo.
‘If that rat Jimmy Tiger hadn’t stolen my Blue, none of this would have happened,’ she called after them as Tom and Lucy disappeared into the bush.
Lucy felt shy about putting her arms around Tom. She tried to balance herself on the back of the horse, but when Smoke went from a brisk walk into a canter, he called to her, ‘Hang on, Lucy.’
Lucy clutched Tom’s shirt, pressed her cheek against his broad back and watched the sunlit bush go flashing past. Then they were galloping up the track to the house on the hill. Lucy glanced over her shoulder and saw that April had managed to coax Banjo into a slow canter.
By the time Tom had unbridled Smoke and turned her out into a paddock to graze, April and Banjo had caught up with them. April unsaddled Banjo and Tom led the old horse down to the paddock to graze with Smoke, Midnight and Blue. Then the girls and Tom walked up to the house.
Lucy hesitated on the steps. Being at the old house reminded her that she was out of place here. In the bush it had felt like an exciting adventure, but here at the house, she became aware again of how weird it was to be able to walk through walls.
‘Come inside,’ said April. ‘Come and meet my little sister, the other Lucy, and my mum and dad. I have the best family in the whole world. You can even meet that rotten Jimmy Tiger.’
Lucy followed April and Tom into the hall. It smelled different to the Avendale that Lucy knew. The air was sweet with the scent of baked bread and roast dinners and smoky gumleaf fires.
There was a tinkle of music coming from the front room, but Tom and April walked straight down to the kitchen. When they passed the dining room Lucy stopped and stared in through the open door. It wasn’t a dining room at all. It was a bedroom. There was a cast-iron bed, a desk cluttered with books and sheet music, and a mantelpiece covered with old-fashioned model aeroplanes. There were no murals of the four seasons, only plain, creamy white paint.
While April and Tom went ahead, arguing in cheerful voices, Lucy slipped into the room. She walked to the end where, in her world, the wall was painted with Spring. She ran her hand along the smooth plaster and a chill shot through her. What if she really was like Persephone? What if eating those aniseed sweets with April had doomed her to be caught between this world and her own forever? How would Mum and Dad cope when Big told them that she was missing?
Lucy could hear voices and laughter and someone calling her from the kitchen of the house, but suddenly, more than anything, she needed to get home, back to her world on the other side. She lifted both hands and slapped them against the wall, willing it to open for her.
She hardly needed to use such force. As if her desire was enough, her hands passed through the plaster and paper, through the lathes and timber, and she could feel the cool, still air of the night in her world. Without hesitating, she stepped forward and passed through the wall.
On the other side of the painting, Lucy wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as she stood in the darkened dining room. When she looked over her shoulder, all the light had gone out of the mural of spring. She touched it, very gently, with her fingertips and felt the rough painted surface. Then she put both her hands against the plaster and rested them there. The magic had vanished. The wall was closed to her. The outside–inside room was exactly as it always was, but the shadows looked darker and deeper, as if they hid a thousand secrets.
Lucy hurried back across the hall to her own room and jumped into bed, pulling the rose-pink coverlet up to her chin. She was too confused to sleep. She lay staring into the darkness of her bedroom.
Lucy thought she would only shut her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them again, patches of sunlight dappled the ceiling. She told herself she’d had a very strange dream. But then she sat up and ran her fingers through her damp hair. Caught in her long blonde hair and scattered across her pillow were tiny flecks of golden wattle.