Sarah woke with a stiff neck, freezing feet and no sense of place. Rough-hewn roof beams above her and warped tin walls. Lisa’s bunk, that’s where she was. Last night’s memories returned in steady fragments, while rain beat a tattoo on the rusty roof. Outside, she heard a commotion, busy sounds, people. Sarah checked her watch. Almost six o’clock, barely light. She pulled her sleeves over her hands.
Drake poked his head in. ‘Rise and shine, princess, or you’ll miss the school bus.’
Sarah climbed from Lisa’s bed. The ground was icy. A fierce wind whipped through the door, whipped through her clothes and made her shiver. She was glad for Ray’s oversized coat, and wrapped it around her as she struggled out the door and took in Camp Clementine by dawn. Grey sky, picnic chairs blown about, billowing canvas shelters. Boxes of posters and leaflets, banners and badges, weighed down with bricks. Derelict cars lay half-buried in the earth. Dozens of people filled the outdoor bush kitchen and huddled by the camp fire, eating bowls of oatmeal and toasting chunks of bread on green twigs. She couldn’t see Matt anywhere.
Drake pressed a mug of black tea and a slab of toast into her hands. ‘Get this into you,’ he said with a grin. Sarah didn’t much care for tea. Wasn’t there coffee? She took a tentative bite of the toast. Its oily black spread tasted as foul as it looked. She spat the mouthful out.
‘What is that?’
‘Vegemite,’ said Drake. ‘The health food of a nation.’ He relieved her of the toast and crammed it into his own mouth. ‘We’d better hurry.’
Sarah took his arm. ‘I need to go first. You know …’
Drake pointed her in the direction of the less-than-private composting loo with a queue. ‘It’s that or pick a tree.’ Sarah didn’t do primitive well. A tree had sufficed last night under cover of darkness. But in daylight, in this crowded camp?
‘I’ll wait until we’re down the road,’ she said, miserably, and trailed after Drake. The three children from last night stood by the jeep, dressed in neat uniforms and clutching schoolbags.
‘That’s Matt’s jeep,’ said Sarah, looking round ‘Where is he?’
‘Young Matt overdid it last night,’ said Drake. ‘You saw him. He’s in no condition to drive. He’s not even conscious, actually. In the meantime, wasn’t it you who were so concerned about these children’s education? You don’t want them to miss the morning bell.’ The kids giggled. ‘Sarah, meet Ben, Tyson and Matilda.’
They all climbed into the jeep and drove back past the battered Camp Clementine sign, back past the loggers’ equipment. ‘We want to see Dumbledore’s Wand,’ said Ben.
‘That’s what the kids call the tree I climbed yesterday,’ said Drake. ‘It has lots of names. Different things to different people. To me it’s Pallawarra, the tipping tree. Matt says we shouldn’t name it at all.’
‘Why?’
‘He says it’s like the blind men trying to describe the elephant from just a leg or a tail. They all have a point of view, and they’re all wrong. He says that it’s a vanity, that the simple fact of the tree is enough. But even he calls it Pallawarra.’ Drake spun the wheel and veered off the track. ‘Some people call it the fairy tree, or the cupid tree. To Burns, it’s Ereg T950. To the hippies, it’s the Tree of Life. The witches call it Tapio, the fierce spirit that protects the forest.’
‘Witches?’ asked Sarah.
‘White witches,’ said Drake. ‘You met one last night – Lisa. They’re perfectly friendly, most of the time.’
‘We call it Dumbledore’s Wand because it’s magic,’ said Ben.
Sarah turned in her seat and smiled at the little boy. He was so cute. All blonde hair and big blue eyes, and such an imagination. If she had a child she’d want one just like him.
Drake detoured and pulled over by the tree. Sarah could see an ancient face in its bark, with a beard of lichen and eyebrows of moss. She’d missed it yesterday, but it was plain enough now. Sarah got out and peered up Pallawarra’s trunk, leaning back until her spine hurt. The tree was so tall that, even in broad daylight, she could get no real perspective on it. A wave of vertigo turned her stomach and sent her head swimming. She closed her eyes tight to keep balance. Tangled hair whipped around her face. The wind felt different, warmer and wilder.
‘Are Lucky and Lisa up there?’ asked five-year-old Ben.
Drake nodded. ‘Probably tucked up, sound asleep. Getting some rest before the fun begins.’
‘Will they get blown down?’ asked seven-year-old Tyson.
Good question. How could anybody stay put up there in this howling gale? Sarah imagined Lisa’s slight form plummeting to earth.
‘No way,’ said Drake. ‘They’re roped in, snug as bugs in rugs. Nothing will get them out of that tree until they decide to come down.’
‘Dumbledore’s Wand wouldn’t let them fall anyway,’ Ben explained. ‘Coz they’re its friends. But it would be dangerous for enemies to climb up, wouldn’t it, Tilda?’
‘Oh yes,’ said ten-year-old Matilda. ‘They’d die.’
Sarah inhaled sharply. Such a strange thing to say.
It began to rain. As Drake drove back past the heavy logging machinery, all three children leaned from the window and shouted BOO at the top of their lungs. Sarah jumped. Drake took no notice.
‘What was that for?’ she asked.
‘We’re voking a deadly curse,’ answered little Ben.
‘He means invoking. It’s just a bit of fun,’ said Drake.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Ben in an indignant voice. ‘It’s real.’
‘It is real,’ said Matilda solemnly. ‘What about Scott?’
‘Stop it, Tilda,’ said Drake. ‘Scott died in an accident.’
Nobody spoke. They passed the place where Matt had shot the possum. Sarah imagined it rotting beneath the leaves. She was tired of the crying wind and the children. Tired of the granite grey sky and the brooding Lord of the Rings forest. Drake swung left through a curtain of rain, over the rickety bridge, across the swollen Charon River.
‘Why is the water so black?’ asked Sarah.
‘It’s stained with tannin, leached from button-grass moorlands higher up,’ said Drake.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Matilda. ‘It’s black because it belongs to Charon the Ferryman. He rows dead souls to Hades.’
Sarah decided she didn’t like Matilda anymore.
‘You’re clever, Tilda,’ said Drake. ‘Where did you learn about Charon?’
‘We’re doing myths and legends at school. I know the five rivers of the underworld as well. Acheron, the river of pain. Cocytus, the river of wailing. Styx, the river of hate. I can’t pronounce the river of fire. It starts with P though.’
‘Phlegethon,’ said Drake.
‘Yes,’ said Matilda. ‘And I think I’ve forgotten the last river.’
Drake laughed. ‘You must have been drinking from it then. It’s called Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.’
Matilda bounced up and down. ‘That’s it, that’s it. Lethe. But our teacher calls it the river of oblivion.’
Sarah checked her watch. This was getting creepy. Like that first dinner at Matt’s house, when Penny’s talent for making pretty jewellery turned into a bizarre obsession with taxidermy.
‘Do you have to pay the ferryman?’ asked Ben. ‘What if you don’t have any money? I don’t have any money.’
‘Then you’ll be a ghost for a hundred years,’ said Matilda, firmly.
Ben started to cry. Tyson found some change in his pocket. ‘Here, Ben. But don’t spend it at the canteen. Save it for Charon.’
Sarah looked out the window at the giant trees. They were outlandish. These children were alien. So was Drake’s easy acceptance of their superstitions. For the first time she felt homesick. Los Angeles made so much more sense.
‘Here we go,’ said Drake, as a procession of police cars, trail bikes and four-wheel-drive vehicles appeared through the sweeping windscreen wipers.
Drake pulled off the track to make a hurried call. Another phone lay on the dash. Matt’s phone? Sarah picked it up and examined it. Turned off. She switched it on. The approaching convoy halted at their parked jeep. Drake explained that they were driving the children to school in Hills End. This satisfied the officers, and the convoy moved on. Drake jumped straight back on the phone, giving an estimate of police numbers.
‘Come on, Drake,’ said Matilda. ‘We’ll be late for school.’
Matt’s phone crowed and Sarah picked it up. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Penny? It’s Sarah.’