The enclosed verandah on the eastern side of the house was long and narrow, with a bank of windows running along the exterior wall. The first time I saw it I claimed it, but Mum wasn’t keen. She said it would be draughty with all those windows, that it wasn’t properly insulated, that it would be too cold in winter.
‘We probably won’t be here in winter,’ I said.
She flicked me with a towel. ‘Don’t be a smartybum,’ she said. After I’d won the towel-whipping duel, she’d helped me move my bed and chest of drawers in, as well as my rickety fold-up bookshelf and the little pine table that I used as a desk.
The windows faced east, so they copped the summer sun from five in the morning. The owner must have lived there at some point, judging by the quality of the block-out curtains. In my experience, landlords didn’t usually bother with anything so fancy. Tissue-thin, cheap prints, that’s what I was used to, and to be honest, the special block-out curtains were a bit wasted on me.
I have this thing about light, you see. I don’t like paying for it, and am forever opening curtains and turning off light switches.
Pounding the footpaths, delivering pamphlets, has cured me of my power-wasting ways. Hours and hours of walking the streets before and after school, slotting junk into people’s letterboxes just to pay an electricity bill, really focuses you on what is and isn’t necessary.
After the first lot of blisters, I started turning appliances off at the wall.
After the second, I began adding a low-wattage compact fluoro to the weekly grocery shop. When we left the last house, I unscrewed every last one of them, put back the old power-hungry ones, and took the energy-savers with me. They were our investment in a lower-cost future, and no way was I leaving them behind.
As well as saving on power, I liked to take advantage of whatever light was going for free, be it natural or council-provided. So my curtains were always open, to take advantage of the streetlights flooding in from outside. Tonight a full moon was adding its two cents’ worth, hanging like a giant silver coin over the treetops.
I didn’t need to turn on the light. I could see well enough to pull off my school clothes and find shorts and a T-shirt to sleep in.
I was about to crawl into my bed when a rustle of footsteps directly outside my open windows made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
An unfamiliar scent drifted in on the night air. Sweet and musky, like the scented candles Mum lit in the bathroom when she needed to soak away her cares.
I froze for a moment, before reason kicked in.
The old Queenslander we had rented was set high on wooden stumps, so whoever was out there would need a ladder to get in through my open windows. The thought gave me enough courage to slide up to the window and take a peek outside.
There were three of them, all dressed in black from head to toe. Standing not two metres away, in the front yard of the house next door. Two men and a woman, their faces pale ovals in the moonlight.
The men couldn’t have been more different: one tall, gaunt and slope-shouldered with long, dark hair curling past his shoulders; the other squat and misshapen, damaged in some way I couldn’t identify in the half-light. And between them a woman twirling in high-heeled boots, her handkerchief skirt flying in an uneven dance about her.
She spun to a halt, wrapping her arms around herself.
‘Caleb, it is perfect,’ she said, her voice shivery with excitement. ‘Is it true that there is even a place for our coffin?’
The tall man nodded, tilting his head in my direction. I shrank back, my heart clanging against my chest. A coffin?Who were these people?
The light caught his spectacles, turning them into twin silvered disks that obscured his eyes. ‘I wanted you to see it in full moonlight, Vee.’ A pale hand traced a path in the darkness. ‘The shadows cast by that weeping fig. The old lead-lights in their original casements...’ His soft voice faded as he turned back to the house. ‘Beautiful, don’t you think?’
Until this moment, I hadn’t spared a thought for the vacant house on our left. An early Californian bungalow, Mum had said, nearly a hundred years old. Taking on a whole new sense of creepy, right at this moment.
The woman moved towards the tall man, linking her arm through his. ‘We shall make a home without parallel ... When do we move in?’
My gasp must have echoed in the clear night air. The short, squat man swivelled his head and stared right up at my window. I slunk down further, and after a moment he turned back to his companions. I thanked my tight-fisted ways that I hadn’t switched on a light, or he’d have spotted me for sure.
The tall man dug in a pocket of his trousers. ‘All is prepared. The windows in your room have been blacked out–’ he produced a set of keys and jangled them in the air, ‘–and Manny and I have packed the truck–’ The misshapen man bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘We move in first thing tomorrow.’
She leaned into him, her lips and eyes dark, almost black, against the pale oval of her face. ‘I am sorry I cannot be of any help to you, during the hours of daylight.’
He nodded and looked away. ‘I know. It doesn’t matter. I’ll have everything ready for you by nightfall. We can celebrate then.’
‘You are good to me, Caleb.’ She turned and placed long, black-tipped fingers on the short man’s arm. ‘And you too, Manny. Your reward for toiling while I sleep will be a full coffin, I think.’ She looked from one to the other, her inky lips stretched in a smile. ‘It is the least I can do, no?’
The tall bloke she called Caleb hesitated. ‘You don’t have to do that, Vee, but if that’s what you want...’ She patted him lightly on the cheek, her voice husky with promise. ‘It will be my pleasure ... and tomorrow night, we celebrate.’
An icy finger travelled up my spine.
The one they called Manny turned his thick neck and squinted once more in my direction. I sank down below the window frame, back to the wall, heart hammering.
A crackle of peeling paint scratched against my neck – proof that I wasn’t dreaming. Yet, what I’d seen and heard seemed impossible. Black-clad strangers talking of coffins. And moving in next door. Tomorrow.
Geez, I had to warn Mum.
I scrambled back onto my knees and peered over the windowsill.
The yard next door gaped back at me, still and silent in the moonlight. The mysterious strangers had disappeared, as suddenly as they had arrived. I waited a few moments, listening hard, then stuck out my neck, craning as far as I could to the right, to the left, then back again. Nothing.
They were gone.
I sank back onto the bed, relief and fright making me giddy and confused. I should wake Mum. But the strange trio was gone now, and she had an early start in the morning. She needed her sleep, but I was too hyped to even close my eyes – was there any point in both of us spending the night freaked out and sleepless?
I checked the next-door yard one more time. Still nothing. Whoever they were, they had gone and they’d said it themselves, they weren’t coming back until morning.
That made up my mind. It was better to let Mum sleep; I’d wait and tell her first thing tomorrow.
I pulled the windows closed, folded my thin pillow and propped myself up against the wooden shelf of my bed. I didn’t want to take any chances; I’d stay up all night, just to be on the safe side.
I had nothing important to do tomorrow anyway. Just another day at Perpetual Suckers. Being jerked around by Joey Castellaro and clawed at by the catty girls in Grade Seven. Falling asleep during the breaks might just help get me through the day.
I turned round, punched my pillow – twice, for good luck – then settled back, my arms folded against my chest. Listening to the dull roar of traffic on the six-lane road at the end of our street.
Brooding, waiting for the dawn.