Willa stood at the top of the veranda stairs, wondering what to do. Across the lawn, Barney was helping someone to move craft items off the display stands and bring them under cover into the main tent. People were crowded onto the veranda, exclaiming at the downpour.
She had left one of the garden club women in charge of looking after Tippy.
‘We needed this rain,’ said a woman standing on the steps beside her. ‘Just a pity it had to be now. Annabelle went to so much effort. We all did.’
‘Yes,’ said Willa. ‘Perhaps it will stop soon.’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said the woman, shaking her head.
Cars were pulling away from the paddock car park. Still, there were lots of people waiting under cover. Hopefully they would wait it out. Suddenly Willa wondered if people over at The Old Chapel gardens might need more shelter. She should probably open the house up and invite people inside. It should still be warm. She had lit the fire earlier to take the chill off, happy that she could have her own cosy base for the day. In the first week of autumn, Tasmanian weather could be temperamental.
Willa pulled up her jacket hood and bolted down the stairs and across the lawn, gasping at the cold rain. As she crossed the lane, she saw Indigo and Constance coming towards her, an umbrella swaying above their heads in the gusting wind.
‘Come into The Old Chapel. It’s closer,’ called Willa as she neared them.
‘Good idea,’ said Indigo. ‘This weather’s a bugger.’
Willa jogged up the steps and unlocked the front door, then came back to usher Constance and Indigo in ahead of her. ‘I might need to stoke the fire for you.’
She crossed to the fire in the corner of the room. The door of the slow-combustion stove was still hot, but the logs had burnt right down to embers. She threw some sticks and a handful of the tiny silver packets of instant fire-starters onto the smouldering remnants. After a few seconds, they burst into flames, and she added another log from the old copper bucket sitting on the hearth. She sat back, satisfied as the fire began throwing out heat.
‘I’ll just see if I can help move anything in from the stalls,’ she said, smiling at Indigo. ‘Make yourselves a cup of tea.’ She motioned to the kettle.
Outside, across the ocean, the clouds were a thick, swirling blackish-grey. As she was about to turn towards Merrivale, she noticed movement. A slim figure in black was standing out on the cliff, and another person was just ahead of her. In pink. Sylvia and Annabelle.
For a moment, Willa was confused as to what they might be doing out there. Then, as her mind spun, remembering Annabelle’s angst in the face of Dan’s questions earlier, she realised they were standing right at the cliff edge.
She turned her head, wondering if she should panic, wanting to ask someone, but The Old Chapel garden was empty. Indecision stopped her only for a moment, then she began to run towards the cliff, adrenalin turning her legs to wings.
As she approached them, she slowed. She realised they were just inside a wire fence. She forced herself to calm her breathing. Sylvia was making gestures with her hands, saying something she couldn’t hear. Annabelle dropped her arms to her sides and turned her head. Her shirt was plastered to her chest and her hat had blown off, leaving her curls matted and ruined. Mascara was running down her cheeks. She spotted Willa.
‘Hello, Willa. We were just having a word with the weather gods. I really can’t believe they’ve let us down so badly. Constance said she’d pray for sun.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Willa felt an acute sense of embarrassment, as if she’d interrupted something private.
Sylvia turned to Annabelle. ‘Willa is a grown woman, Annabelle. You don’t need to protect her.’
Annabelle sighed and looked back at the ocean. The silence seemed to stretch on into infinity. Eventually she said, ‘You know loss, Willa. You know how it eats you up. When I lost you, I blamed him. Then I blamed Sylvia. But I suppose they would have made me give you up anyway. So in the end, who do I blame?’
‘Who was he?’ The words formed in Willa’s mouth without a thought.
‘Andrew Broadhurst,’ said Annabelle calmly. ‘I did the wrong thing, you see. I made him look at me. Sexually. It felt wonderful, in the beginning.’ She had begun to shiver violently. She stared blankly ahead.
‘Annabelle, we need to go inside. It’s wet. You’re freezing,’ said Sylvia.
‘It was raining that night too,’ said Annabelle.
Willa and Sylvia exchanged nervous glances.
‘It was handy,’ she said, sighing. She turned towards the cliffs. ‘It covered the tracks.’