Lucy felt strong arms lift her from the back of the car. Cool night air washed against one of her cheeks; the other lay warm against Tom’s chest. She could hear Jimmy Tiger and April chatting somewhere behind her. She looked up and saw Tom’s face etched against a clear, starlit sky.
The front steps of the verandah at Avendale creaked as Tom carried her into the house.
‘You’re awake at last,’ he said, as he set her down on the couch in the front room.
A fire crackled in the grate. April came racing into the room and jumped onto the couch beside her.
‘How did we get back here?’ asked Lucy.
‘The flood receded almost as fast as it rose,’ said April. ‘It was so exciting. Me and Jimmy stood on the verandah of Mrs Mollison’s and watched it. The water came right up under the house and then it was sucked back into the river. And you missed it all! You slept all afternoon while the waters disappeared and the sun came out. Everything is a bit sludgy and a bit stinky. There are piles of debris everywhere, but at sunset, Mum and Dad got the all-clear to drive home.’
In the hallway, April’s mother was guiding a sleepy looking blonde girl down the hall.
‘Our Lulu’s all done in,’ she called. ‘I’m putting her to bed.’
April bounced up and down beside Lucy. ‘Mum says you can stay with us for the night. We’re going to have so much fun. Jimmy Tiger is staying too ’cause the road to his dad’s place is washed out. Tom says where you stay isn’t far from Jimmy’s so he’ll take you both back home in the morning. And then he’s going into town to sign up.’
‘Sign up?’
‘There’s a war on, if you hadn’t noticed. Tom turned eighteen last month.’
A tingle of alarm shot through Lucy. ‘No, he mustn’t do that!’
‘I wish I could join up,’ said Jimmy Tiger, as he stood in the doorway of the living room. ‘It will probably be over before I’m old enough. Tom’s going to join the RAAF and fly planes. The lucky duck.’
Lucy stared into the flickering fire. Should she tell them that something terrible was going to happen to Tom? Would it change history for the worse? Or for the better? Surely it would be better if Tom lived.
Tom walked into the living room with his violin under his arm.
‘Enough noise from you three. Tonight, no talk of war or flood or fire or anything bad. Get on that piano stool, Jimmy. We’re going to make music.’
‘What are we celebrating?’ asked April.
‘Being alive,’ said Tom, as he folded a cloth and tucked it onto his shoulder before resting the fiddle under his chin.
Lucy clutched her hands in her lap. Tom stood by the fireplace, the glow from the flames making gold and orange reflections on the polished timber of his violin. Jimmy Tiger struck a chord on the piano and played the opening refrain of a song.
As Tom leaned forward and counted the beats, a thick dark curl fell across his forehead. The room filled with music – the undercurrent of the piano and the high, tremulous dance of notes from the violin. April tapped her hand on her knee in time to the music, and Lucy wanted to cry. It was so beautiful, and this little family was so happy, but she knew that dark things lay ahead for all of them.
Tom and April’s parents came and sat in the living room too, drawn by the music. And then, as the boys started into another piece, a small figure appeared in the doorway. Lucy turned and saw her grandmother – a girl no more than ten years old.
Lulu had thick, curly, gold hair that tumbled over her shoulders, and she smiled sleepily at the crowd of people in the living room. She looked like an angel in her white nightgown with the light shining from behind her.
And she looked like Claire.
Almost exactly like Claire.
Jimmy glanced over his shoulder and played a ripple of chords, as if signalling the arrival of a star. ‘It’s the amazing Lulu Showers,’ he announced, smiling at the sleepy child in the doorway.
‘The music woke me and I couldn’t get back to sleep,’ she said.
‘Then I’d best be making us all some hot milk and honey. There’s been a lot of excitement today,’ said their mother, getting to her feet and disappearing down the hall.
Lulu stood by the fireplace. ‘Don’t stop,’ she said. ‘It’s so lovely; don’t stop playing.’
Jimmy smiled, a smile full of warmth and affection, and turned back to the piano. The two boys segued into another tune, one that Lucy recognised from when she’d sat on the banks of the river with April and Jimmy. April Showers.
Lulu rubbed the sleep from her eyes and began to sing. For someone so small, her voice was enormous. It rose high and pure and rich over the fiddle and piano and filled every corner of the room. As she sang she looked so like Claire that Lucy felt her heart twist. How did you change fate? How did you stop terrible things from happening? If people knew their fate could they change it?
April leaned over and whispered in Lucy’s ear. ‘Isn’t she wonderful?’
Lucy saw all the love and admiration in April’s eyes. She wasn’t jealous, as Lucy had always imagined. She adored her little sister.
Tom and Jimmy played into the night. Soon not only Lulu was singing, but all of them, even Mr and Mrs Showers. They drank mugs of warm milk and honey, and Mr Showers made a plate of hot buttered toast with big dobs of delicious apricot jam.
When Tom finally put away his violin and Jimmy closed the lid of the piano, they were all ready for bed. Lulu had fallen asleep again, snuggled up beside April. Mr Showers carried her to the bedroom she shared with April, the same bedroom that Lucy slept in on the other side of time.
April put her arms around Lucy’s neck and hugged her tightly, cheek to cheek.
‘Double trouble,’ said Tom, as he stood in front of the couch gazing down at them. ‘You two look like a pair of identical bugs in a rug.’
‘Except I’ve grown bigger than Lucy since she was here last year.’
‘I reckon you really could be twins anyway,’ said Tom. ‘Sometimes one twin is bigger than the other. We should call you Big and Little.’
‘Big and Little had a race, all around the fireplace. Big said it wasn’t fair because she lost her underwear,’ chanted Jimmy Tiger.
‘Oh shut-up, Jimmy,’ said Tom, Lucy and April at exactly the same moment.
Tom reached down and tweaked Lucy’s cheek. ‘We could call you “Lit” for short. After your last visit, I kept thinking of you as the girl who “lit off” like a firefly.’
Lucy blushed. She was relieved when Mrs Showers rescued her from the conversation by coming into the room.
‘That’s enough banter for one evening. It’s time you all went to bed. This little heroine needs some rest. She’s going to sleep nice and quiet in here so that April doesn’t keep her awake with chatter all night. Jimmy, I’ve made up the bed in the back bungalow. April and Tom, off you go to your rooms.’
She shooed the boys out, but April lingered, plumping up the pillows as Mrs Showers tucked the quilt around Lucy.
‘Tomorrow, Tom will take you back to your parents,’ said Mrs Showers. ‘He says the road to their house is still flooded, but he left a note for them with Mrs Mollison, in case they come to town to look for you. She’ll let them know you’re safe and well. They must be worried sick. It’s straight home for you first thing in the morning.’
April lingered behind the couch as her mother turned down the kerosene lamps.
‘April, time for bed!’
‘I have to say a proper goodnight,’ pleaded April, waiting for her mother to leave.
‘Two minutes,’ warned her mother.
As soon as Mrs Showers left the room, April jumped under the covers with Lucy. ‘I wish you didn’t have to leave tomorrow. I’ve never had a friend like you, Lucy. You must come back to Avendale. You simply must. I want us to be friends forever and ever.’ She planted a big kiss on Lucy’s cheek and then slipped out from under the quilt.
‘Goodnight, Big,’ said Lucy.
April laughed. ‘Sweet dreams, Little.’
Lucy snuggled down deeper into the warmth of the couch and gazed into the embers of the fire. She wondered what Tom had told his family about her disappearing on the day of the fires. As she lay in the darkened room, she longed for her own family, for Mum and Dad and Claire and Jack. She imagined her mother at Claire’s bedside in Paris, tucking her in tightly, hoping and praying that Claire would come back to them. On the other side of the world, on the other side of time, Claire was fighting for her life. Lucy stifled a sob and fought down a wave of homesickness.
When all the lights were out and the house fell silent, Lucy threw off the quilt and tiptoed down the hall. She stopped in front of the outside–inside room and pressed her ear against the door. It was strange to think of it as Tom’s bedroom. Was he asleep or awake? Very quietly, she turned the doorknob and peered into the room.
Moonlight streamed in through the window. Tom lay sleeping on his bed, his face serene. Holding her breath, Lucy slipped into the room and turned to face the white wall surrounding the door. She reached out one hand to touch it but knew she couldn’t go yet. She had to tell Tom not to sign up. As she turned to cross the darkened room to wake him, his eyes flew open and he stared at her.
‘You owe me an explanation, Little Lucy,’ he said. He struck a match and lit the kerosene lamp on his bedside table. Then he sat on the edge of the bed with his arms folded across his chest, gazing at Lucy sternly.
Lucy squirmed, shifting from foot to foot. How on earth could she explain herself?
‘Cat got your tongue?’ asked Tom. ‘It had mine too. I couldn’t tell anyone I saw you disappear into the wall of my room. They’d think I’d lost my marbles. I had to make up a cock-and-bull story about taking you back to your parents in the skiff on the day of the fires. Maybe you really are April’s doppelganger.’
‘I’m not her doppelganger. I’m her great-niece and this room is magic, not me. In my time there are paintings of the valley on every wall of this room, and I don’t know why but I can walk into them.’
‘Are you saying that you’re from the future?’
‘Yes!’ said Lucy. ‘I am. And that means you have to listen to me. You mustn’t join the air force tomorrow. Something terrible might happen to you.’
‘Might? It’s a war, Lucy. Of course something “might” happen. You don’t sign up to defend your country without understanding that you might get hurt. Tell me something I don’t know.’
Lucy frowned. ‘I know that you don’t live forever.’
‘I don’t need a visitor from the future to tell me that, kiddo,’ said Tom. ‘If you really are some sort of time-traveller, tell me what’s going to happen to me?’
‘Actually, I’m not exactly sure, but I don’t think you should fight in this war.’
She could see by the look on Tom’s face that she hadn’t convinced him of anything. He was smiling at her as if she’d just told a lame joke.
‘I don’t believe you’re from the future at all. Sometimes I think I imagined you walking into that wall back on the day of the fires, that the smoke made me hallucinate. Maybe you just jumped out the window and lit off, took some canoe that you’d hidden and paddled home. Maybe you’re a right little trickster.’
‘I didn’t! I’m not!’ said Lucy, hotly. ‘I can prove it. Then you’ll have to listen to me. Stay right there. I’ll be back in one minute!’
Lucy felt her heart beat faster as she stepped over the skirting board and into the wall.