Keziah stared at the ceiling rose as she lay in bed in the attic guest room of the Haunted Farm. Time had always been her ally, allowing her to wander between past, present and future. But now, bereft of the gift she had depended on since childhood, she could no longer see any clues to the future.
In the days since her hysterical outburst in court at the announcement of Jake’s sentence, she had been drained of all emotion. She could feel nothing for the babe growing in her womb and was only remotely aware of Dr Ross’s concern about the threat of a likely premature birth, following the earlier loss of the babe’s twin.
He had decreed bed rest and insisted she stay under his direct care. How could she object? She had nowhere else to live. Her previous avoidance of the Haunted Farm and Padraic’s mulo hardly seemed a battle worth fighting.
When Daniel organised for the children to be sent to Ironbark Farm to attend school under Polly Doyle’s care, Keziah had no strength to intervene. Jake was incarcerated in Berrima Gaol, Nerida was miles away in Maitland with Sunny Ah Wei, and Keziah’s beloved horses and vardo were in Bran’s care at the forge. Keziah felt cut off from all family roots, cast adrift in a cold, nightmarish world, sleeping fitfully between draughts of some unnamed liquid to ‘quieten’ her.
A firm knock at the door was followed by Leslie’s entrance.
‘Rest easy, lass. Daniel will sleep downstairs so as not to disturb you. All Jake’s friends are joining forces to fight for his release. Joseph Bloom is expected from Sydney Town at any hour. Then we’ll see some action!’
Keziah looked warily at the glass he handed her.
‘I feel so unreal, Doctor. Is it the medication?’
‘You’ve been in a state of shock, lass. Port wine will help you sleep. Drink it down. Everything will look brighter on the morrow.’
After Dr Ross had left the room, Keziah examined the glass. She trusted the healing power of her own herbs as much as she distrusted all gaujo drugs. Did this wine contain traces of the laudanum that she had seen draw Sophie Morgan into its web? She smelled it, took a tentative sip and decided the taste was exactly like port wine. Her head soon felt light and clear, yet pleasantly drowsy. When she finished the draught she could hear Janet Macgregor whispering in the corridor.
‘That vacant expression of hers gives me the shivers, Leslie.’
‘The lass has been through a terrible ordeal, Janet. She’ll pull through, but at the moment she’s not quite in her right mind.’
When their footsteps receded Keziah digested those words. Not quite in her right mind? She examined the idea, aware that she was seeing her world through different eyes. Is this what madness feels like? she wondered.
Moonlight streamed through the window onto the bed. What if it does turn my hair white? Queen Marie Antoinette’s went white from grief. They cut off her head, so what did her hair matter?
Instead of falling asleep her mind felt totally lucid. She felt as if she was being gently sucked into a pattern of strange, colourful waking dreams unlike any she had ever experienced, beckoning her into another dimension. She became aware of every inch of the room, every knot in the timber. The wallpaper pattern revealed hidden faces. A tiny cobweb in the cornice took on a magical quality.
The darkened house lay silent. Keziah saw the full face of the moon reflected in the mirror. The dimensions of the room were strangely transformed, quivering as if she were observing them under water. Yet the next moment each object was sharply defined, the textures of wood, brass, linen and lace charged with an invisible source of energy. She could feel each one pulsing with a secret life force.
These sensations thrilled her so much she wanted to go on exploring them, but her deepest instincts struggled to gain control over this seductive excitement. She knew she must try to break free from the hold these sensations had over her or she would be lost.
Something isn’t right! Cold water! She got out of bed and crossed to the pitcher on the washstand. She felt as if she was floating. A shaft of moonlight lay like a path across the room and drew her to the mirror.
When she looked at her reflection she was overwhelmed by horror. That isn’t my face!
A shaven-headed youth stared from the mirror. The same convict she had seen beside the old well. Padraic, who had murdered his master, Barnes. Had he done the deed in this very room?
Keziah was sweating with fear yet she couldn’t withdraw her gaze from the apparition’s tragic young face, its eyes ringed with dark shadows, as if his soul was condemned to be haunted by grief forever. She realised how contagious her fear was when her babe moved inside her belly. Her throat dried as she spoke to the face in the mirror but backed away from it.
‘What do you want of me?’
The ghostly eyes turned in the direction of the chest of drawers. Then the mirror suddenly clouded over to a milky hue and reflected nothing more than the full moon.
Thank God he’s gone! Keziah opened the drawer that contained her reticule. She felt a surge of elation when she realised what she must do. Her mind was clear as she seated herself at the escritoire and began writing a letter.
• • •
Keziah recognised the handsome wrought-iron gates of Gideon Park were a design of Daniel’s. Tonight they were wide open to receive the Jonstones’ guests. There was a line of empty carriages awaiting their departure.
After tying the reins of Dr Ross’s buggy to the railing, Keziah hurried up the driveway. Joyful music sounded from within the mansion’s ballroom. Guests in elaborate finery danced past the French windows.
The layout of the estate was familiar to her. She had once brought Charlotte Jonstone healing herbs following another of the woman’s miscarriages. Beyond the house lay a large flagstone courtyard surrounded by farm buildings, stables, shearing sheds and the box-like sleeping quarters of Gideon Park’s assigned men. At the heart of the courtyard a group of labourers made merry around a huge bonfire, which was sending sparks rocketing into the night sky.
Keziah manoeuvred around the fringe of revellers and asked for directions from a drunken woman whose face and slop clothing were splashed with red and yellow flashes from the fire.
‘The overseer’s cottage? Over there. Why would a lady like you visit that bugger?’
Keziah did not reply but hurried to the whitewashed cottage fenced off in its own garden. She lifted the latch of the front door. Her heart thumped painfully but she controlled her fear for Jake’s sake.
The stench of rum was strong the moment she entered. Sprawled on a couch before the fireplace was the man who boasted of his title, the Devil Himself. Dying firelight cast shadows on his face – devilishly handsome one moment, sensual and dangerous the next. His eyes scanned her body with an unmistakably venal message. Keziah instinctively placed her hand across her belly to shield the babe within. From early childhood she had feared the Evil One, The Beng. Now she was face to face with him.
She had precious little time to accomplish her mission. Even if she called for help the revellers were too drunk to come to her aid. She had a strange sensation that she was standing outside her own body. Divorced from time.
Iago lifted his nightshirt to expose his naked groin. ‘This what you came for? You’ll get more than you bargained for.’
Her mouth was dry. ‘Your wife is at home?’
‘She’s busy serving the master’s guests. So come here and be friendly, girl.’
‘I watched you in court,’ she said. ‘Iago. Is that your real name?’
‘The Devil Himself goes by many names,’ he said softly, watching her face. ‘What strange eyes you have. A big, soft mouth. But you love to hate, don’t you? I recognised that Romani curse you cried out in court. I had occasion to visit Newgate prison once – a lot of your Gypsy tribe get holed up there. I sent a few vagabonds there myself.’
‘Don’t waste my time,’ she said coldly to hide her mounting fear. She tried desperately to cling to reality, hold fast to the reason she had come to face him.
Iago smiled as if they were fellow conspirators. ‘This moment has been a long time coming, eh Gypsy? There’s nothing I don’t know about you! I’ve watched you go through a lot of men, girl. A bushranger, a milksop artist, an English nob and now that lusty fool, Jake Andersen. But I took good care of him for you in court!’
Keziah held back her rage. ‘Your evidence sent an innocent man to prison. Here’s your chance to tell the truth and set him free. Read this. Then sign it.’
Although her voice was strong her hand shook as she placed the letter on the table.
‘You’ve got a man’s balls, I’ll say that for you, Gypsy. How do you intend to persuade a man like me to do your bidding?’
Keziah opened her reticule. ‘Either you sign it or I’ll send you down the road to hell where you belong.’
Iago stared into the muzzle of her muff pistol. ‘No need to panic, girl. I’ll read it.’
He did so very, very slowly.
‘How nicely you put it. “I wrongly identified Jakob Andersen and the horse Sarishan. I apologise to the court and Andersen for the distress my error of memory unwittingly caused.”’
He twirled his quill between his fingers, as if teasing her, making her wait.
‘You’d be silly to shoot me, little witch. You need this bit of paper badly. Let’s drink a tot of rum together to toast Her Majesty Queen Victoria.’
Keziah’s words spat out her contempt. ‘You dare to mention the queen’s name!’
He pointed at her, his fingernails rimmed with half moons of dirt. ‘I dare everything. They don’t call me the Devil Himself for nothing. You’re Jake Andersen’s whore. You cuckolded that coward Daniel Browne into the bargain. I’ve watched you and Jake. Like two dogs on heat having each other under the stars.’
Keziah went cold at the thought of those beautiful nights with Jake. He was there watching us! Iago caught her expression and laughter came from deep in his throat.
‘Your cries are delicious when you’re being rooted. But I know you, girl, you really prefer it rough. Remember that first time at the creek when you went after me with your horsewhip? Well I’m the very man to give you what you want. The master of rough, I am!’
Vivid, jumbled images flashed through her mind. The dark horseman spying on my cottage. His hand on my breast. Lifting my skirt to rape me. His laughter. ‘I’ll give you pain and teach you to love it.’ His foul lies that sent Jake to prison. I always knew the devil could take human form.
Keziah trembled so much she needed both hands to steady the pistol.
‘Easy, girl. Doesn’t matter to me if Andersen walks free. I’ll sign this letter for you, seeing as you want it so bad, but first I need to move closer to the lamp, right?’
He placed the letter on the table, lowering his voice to a gentle, confidential tone.
‘I hear that your lover Gypsy Gem drowned off Cockatoo Island. Pity. Now there was a bare-knuckle champ who turned on a great
performance. He could lick a man twice his size. Gem was the only convict alive who earned my respect.’
Keziah felt sickened to hear Gem’s name in the man’s foul mouth.
‘That’s history,’ she said, ‘just sign your name.’
‘There you are, little schoolmistress. Here’s your precious letter.’
Keziah moved to take it, but Iago twisted her wrist and freed the muff pistol from her hand into his. He tossed it from right to left as if it was a child’s toy.
‘I should have signed it the Devil Himself. Famous I am. I get more work out of my felons than any overseer in the colony. Hundreds have worked their arses off for me. Kept Jonstone in style and lined my own pockets into the bargain.’
Iago added with pride, ‘Famous for my clever use of the cat, too. It was me that broke Will Martens. Skin like a girl he had till he tasted my lash. Cried like a girl too.’
He kept on talking in that soft, reasonable voice, but the malevolence in the smile above the cleft chin overwhelmed Keziah with a wave of nausea. Everything in the room took on a surreal quality like crudely painted scenery on a theatre stage. She felt held in the horror of a spell cast by the Devil Himself’s soft voice, his fathomless dark eyes that reflected no light. His obscene words cut her to the very heart but she forced herself to watch his movements as he continued to taunt her, tossing the muff pistol from hand to hand. She seized the moment and lunged forward, catching the pistol in midair. When she squeezed the trigger the bullet seared his neck before it hit the wall behind him.
He moved towards her, excited. ‘Bad girl,’ he said, ‘I’d best teach you a lesson.’
She knew the muff pistol only held one bullet. There was no second chance. She released the secret spring of the knife blade and held the pistol like a dagger. Iago’s blood sprayed over her dress. She could not comprehend what was happening to that vile face as his mouth filled with blood.
Pistol and letter in hand, Keziah picked up the oil lamp and walked outside. She threw the lamp onto the bark roof of the cottage and watched it explode into flames.