

### FIRENIGHT

Reinier Krol

www.firenightsaga.com

Smashwords edition published by Reinier Krol

Copyright 2013 Reinier Krol

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication:

For my loving, patient and long-suffering Father, Mother and Sister.

For Rachel G, whose glowing humor brought me through the darkness.

And for Sophie G, for reminding me that life is precious and worth fighting for...

...no matter what it takes!

THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE

THAN TO LAY DOWN ONE'S LIFE FOR ONE'S FRIENDS.

### FIRENIGHT

# Chapter 1

When you stare at death, it stares right back at you. From that moment on, something changes. Something deep inside of you forever longs to reach beyond your worldly reality and touch again – if only for a single breath – that inevitable Afterworld glimpsed in the instant of madness. Or maybe it's just me. What I know, is on that frigid night, part of me betrayed death. Its awful vengeance has haunted me since, and yet I feel insanely seduced by it.

That night. Cruelly cold, pathetic and mentally marooned, I searched for an absolution that simply, rationally, didn't exist. I had slogged through the day languishing in the thick maple syrup of self-pity and it had tasted so yummy. The unstoppable tears had massaged my cheeks to jelly, but the self-inflicted burns on my wrists and forearms made me feel perversely and wondrously alive. Ironic, I thought, walking along the train tracks that night.

For ninety-three days, the maelstrom had gathered, slowly splintering my world to the four winds and I could take it no more. As I encroached through the muted darkness alone, I was wildly captivated by my doomed fate.

I was about to die – and I loved that idea.

Earlier in the afternoon, when mom again chose to have no recollection of her commitment to pick me up after school for a driving lesson, my exhilarating moment of liveliness was abruptly asphyxiated and I withdrew back into my hermit shell, willing my intolerable life to end.

Of course, the driving lesson itself was immaterial. If mom wasn't there to pick me up, it meant only one thing. She was with her! I hated her. Actually, I hated them both.

Three months before that night, I once more yearned to feed my obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder. My room was impeccable, but the rest of the house was obscene. I didn't care that everyone else's point of view only hissed wild accusations of hallucination at me. The house was vulgar and it needed attention.

It needed my attention.

Waking with excited anticipation, I knew I had to devise a full-scale exodus of the Baines family – my family. Extra hands would expedite my grandiose cleaning plan, but if I needed to personally check and go over every bench, tile and speck, as history proved I would, then any help would ultimately turn out to be an unwanted drain on my struggle – with the added burden of spite seeping from the sponge. No! This needed some serious solo action and the easiest way to guarantee my being alone, was to invite the entire family to help me clean.

"Oh no. I'm... we're going out for coffee."

"Really? Who's we?" I asked my sister, Mika.

"Dad and I," she answered, hopefully.

Never one to understand the subtlety of manipulation – or any human way of acting for that matter – dad simply stared blankly before he sheepishly added, "I don't remember that."

Mika clawed her bony fingers around dad's wrists and dragged him from the house like upset prey. "We'll be a couple of hours," she grunted, her voice trailing off as they made good their escape.

Mom was less impressed. "Didn't you have a big clean last month?"

"That's not the point," I said. "We should be doing this once a week."

"Sara, the house is clean."

Was it? I stepped with delightful purpose to the kitchen window and slid my middle finger the entire length of the third slat of fake-wood blinds suspended halfway down the glass. As the dust accrued on my digit, I felt a satisfying smile itching to reveal itself. I turned back to mom with my middle finger raised intentionally facing the wrong way, giving mom the bird. Oops! Finally, twisting my whole hand, I showed mom the thickness of filth.

"You see!" I snapped. "Do you know what dust is? It's mostly dead skin. Dead flakes of people skin. Urrgh!"

Mom hesitated a moment, no doubt thinking about the same vanquished exchange only a month earlier. "Fine. Whatever," she finally said, disgruntled.

"It's nothing personal," I yelled after her, as she too scrambled for the door in haste – my mission accomplished with all the finesse of an elephant.

In mom's defense, I had watched that third slat like a warmonger since my last cleaning fixation thirty-two days earlier when I first noticed its grossness. For no logical reason, certainly none that I could imagine, whenever mom thrust the feather-duster through the house, she always missed that third slat from the top. At first, I thought she was intentionally screwing with me, but ultimately, it turned out to be just another item on mom's ever-growing list of idiosyncratic annoyances, like her inability to open milk cartons. Who can't open milk cartons?

I never mentioned that third slat to her. I left it alone, as excruciatingly difficult as that was, just waiting to pounce. Boy! had it proved effective. The wait, and my pain, had been deliciously worthwhile.

One hour and three minutes into my operation – seven minutes behind schedule – I reached mom's study room. It was mom and dad's study room, but dad never ventured in. He was so fearful of technology, he believed simply breathing on mom's Hewlett-Packard laptop computer would send it into some frenzied sort of technophobe-meltdown and destroy it. Besides, mom ran her yoga business from that room and dad didn't think much of yoga. Actually, he hated yoga. The study room only reminded him of how little he still had in common with his hatha-yoga guru wife – my mother.

There was nothing exceptional about the study room. The two-foot tall statue of Buddha planted on a small pedestal table wouldn't furbish everyone's place to work, but mom often insisted The Enlightened One inspired her Samadhi – her search for inner peace. For me, it presented as little more than another spot where dead skin grappled in its last throes before eternal condemnation to oblivion.

Oh! It was tough being so passionate about cleanliness.

I twisted the feather-duster between mom's yoga book collection and the top of the stained-pine bookcase in which they were housed. The next shelf down was business management manuals, equally in need of tender caressing by feathers to remove their flaky covering. The bottom shelf stowed just two books... on tennis. Dad! They had been there when I was born, seventeen years earlier. Dust didn't discriminate against the old. Dad's geriatric books were a favorite resting place for dead skin.

Adjacent to the bookcase, stood a steel filing cabinet with three pull-out drawers of clientele information. It was crammed with beige folders, each bursting with handwritten sheets of paper recording class attendances, contact information, physical assessments, fee summaries, timetables and whatever other meaningless hocus-pocus mom could shove in there.

As I wiped the cabinet with a damp sponge in my left hand, I briefly thought about just throwing all the paper out. Hell, mom would probably kill me and then throw me out too.

Buddha was next. His immovable stare was hypnotic. It felt almost immoral attacking Buddha with a dirty sponge and cheap fake feathers. I hesitated. I don't know why because I was definitely not religious, but there was something about the cross-legged sculptured figure. The Enlightened One. Maybe mom was right. Maybe that fat, gold-crusted statue did inspire. It was almost like Buddha was talking to me. Not words, more like an irrational sense of foreboding. Maybe I had simply inhaled the smell of too many cleaning products.

Focus Sara.

All the same, the Buddha statue would not escape a clean. I gently massaged the feather-duster around the chubby sculpted likeness of the religious enlightener, strangely afraid to be my usual obsessive self.

Maybe it was that diversion from my instinctive cleaning savagery – or maybe it was simply because I was unco – but as I rounded the statue's left side, I blinked. My mind ever-so-briefly deflected to thoughts of Mika and dad having coffee and then, I clumsily dropped the feather-duster behind the Buddha. I faintly heard it bounce off the back of the statue with a hollow clang before it slid down the wall against which the table was positioned.

Crap!

I eased forward trying to locate the handle of the feather-duster, but the bloody thing had vanished out of sight. Leaning further, I embraced the statue in an uncomfortable pose and peered behind.

Nothing. Huffing and puffing in frustration, I dropped to my knees. If only mom could see me, I thought. I was literally kneeling before Buddha. It felt stranger than I would have liked.

I bowed forward ungracefully, angling my body and extending my arm under the table like an elephant trunk looking for peanuts in a dark alcove. Still nothing.

The damned feather-duster was going to be the death of me.

Frustrated, I wanted to scream, but suddenly, my search froze rigid and I sat as still as Buddha himself.

My eye-level was flush with the bottom of the statue and my forehead rested on the table top edge that extended a hand-width out on all sides from under the square base on which Buddha sat. Something peculiar registered in my mind. It was a subconscious realization at first, but as the idea developed in my head, the anomaly became obvious and even more intriguing.

The table on which Buddha sat was not facing forward!

I would have dismissed it as one of mom's irrational annoyances, but as I impulsively branched my hand along the left side of the table, my pinkie brushed something unexpected. Something metallic. I hooked my head curiously, following my left arm down to my hand and then, I saw it.

A drawer.

Beneath the delicately carved table top edge, slightly recessed and inconspicuous, I saw a small compartment. In the center of the dark-wood panel where my finger had stopped, a petite, slightly-worn copper handle protruded temptingly.

Beneath the table top on the other three sides, matching wood panels hid the drawer neatly from any eyes casually looking into the study room. My curiosity frenzied. It was the drawer that bothered me. There was something about positioning the table to hide that drawer in that way.

Mom had never hidden anything from me – nothing I knew about anyway. Even though I was tough on her cleaning and those milk cartons, I loved her. She was my mom. She awakened my passion for drawing and painting, and she drove me each week to gymnastics and proudly cheered and encouraged me even when I consistently fell from the uneven-bars. Whenever I needed a soft place to lay my head or an understanding shoulder to catch my tears, she was there for me... always.

I had no reason to doubt her or to question her or to think anything awful or suspicious. No reason at all.

And yet that oddly-positioned table and that drawer in her study room provoked a feeling I had never associated with my mother before.

Uncertainty.

My fingers had not released their grip on the drawer handle. I was still deciding in my mind whether or not to comfort my curiosity when I consciously felt the muscles in my left hand tense and pull at the petite handle. It didn't budge.

The drawer was locked.

An alien resolve possessed me. My nosiness couldn't deal with the drawer being secured and before I could blink, I categorically determined that I was getting into the hidden compartment. Why would the drawer be locked? I thought. In an instant, I forgot mom's history of soothing words and her tolerance and her patience. I wanted... No! I needed to know what was in that drawer.

Twisting my head sideways, I examined the dark-wood panel. Just above the handle there was an obscure indentation. A hole... for a key. I ran my finger along the smooth timber and over the keyhole, as if doing so would magically bring me closer to the secrets beyond. It only made me more determined.

I needed to find that key.

The door on the side cupboard of the adjacent desk opened much easier than I expected. I nearly pulled the damned thing from its hinges. The cavity revealed nothing much interesting – nothing that housed a drawer key.

There were three reams of spare white paper, another stash of beige folders and a box of blue ball-point pens, still unopened. At the very back of the cupboard was a box of 3.5 inch floppy disks. I couldn't help but giggle at mom's typical dinosaur technology, but frustratingly, there was no key inside.

I moved onto the filing cabinet and ripped through the paper like a fox on Red Bull, bringing only further bedlam to the chaos inside the steel cupboard. It felt oddly satisfying, but still no key.

Stacked against the cabinet, a handful of shoeboxes overflowed with more papers for filing. I grabbed the first box, dropped cross-legged to the hardwood floor and removed the lid.

Oh my God! How can anyone possibly run a business with such calamity in a box? The first cardboard coffer was a mix of receipts, purchase orders and more receipts. No neatness. No system. No...

Order. Buddha!

All at once, the shiny statue spoke to me again. The filing cabinet and shoeboxes had been distractions. Secrecy required forethought and some systematic planning – some order. Buddha was a beacon of harmony, of bringing things together. Mom had said so once herself. Buddha was order. If that key was going to be anywhere, it had to be within Buddha's grasp.

I was suddenly sure of it.

I slid my butt back to the pedestal table and sheepishly stared up at the gold statue. With my fingers like the inquisitive tentacles of an octopus, I sleuthed the table – every niche, every angle and every cranny. My first search uncovered nothing, only bitter frustration. I paused, looked up at Buddha again for inspiration and then felt the focus of my eyes dragged away sideways.

How had I not seen it earlier?

Underneath the top of the desk, hidden as deviously as the hallowed drawer itself and kept in place with a strip of adhesive tape, I saw it.

A key.

The key. And because it was placed so intentionally and precisely out of view, it screamed sneakiness. I suddenly, and unexpectedly, felt coldness in my bones. An argument erupted in my internal dialogue. If there really was a secret in that drawer, if mom really was keeping something from me – from all of us – did I really want to know? Did I honestly want to jeopardize my perfect little world?

Stuff it. Of course I did.

Morality or self-preservation weren't going to stop me. I twisted the key from the grip of the adhesive which clung on desperately like a loyal gatekeeper. The sound of the key tearing away made me instinctively turn and look behind me. I felt like a young child again, stealing my favorite chocolates from the kitchen pantry while mom pretended she wasn't looking. Mom wasn't there watching me in the study room. No one was, except Buddha.

There was no doubt in my mind that the key was a match for the lock guarding the drawer. I hesitated again, hating the indecision that so often crippled me. Come on, Sara.

I convinced myself I was without choice.

How bad could the contents of the drawer really be?

Why did I only think it would be bad anyway?

Why did people almost always think the worst at first thought?

The key slipped into the lock without resistance and twisted with equal ease and a soft metallic clang. My fingers trembled nervously. I took a firm hold of the drawer handle again. One last moment of indecision and then...

Part of me had expected an unnerving creaking sound as I pulled at the drawer, like in those ghost movies when the doomed guests arrive at the haunted mansion and slowly open the unattended front door.

Not the secret drawer. It slid from underneath the table like a smooth, well-oiled precision instrument. Nothing spooky about that. It was clinical. Mom's secrets, if there actually were any, weren't going to reveal themselves dramatically like a sinister cloak-and-dagger expose. No! The revelation of what hid in the secret drawer would be a cold ripple in a pond of indifference.

I only half-opened the drawer at first, waiting for the skeletons to jump out. My attraction to the dramatic literally expected tiny, bouncing constructions of bone and disrepute to reveal themselves unceremoniously.

None did.

Taking an intense breath, I grabbed hold of the drawer again and pulled it fully from its hiding-hole and into my lap. I sat motionless, staring into the depth of the drawer, a space no bigger than one of mom's yoga books. Buddha sneaked a peek as well. The fragrance of fine-wood polish tickled inside my nose and I suddenly recognized that maybe the drawer did not entertain as much covert use as I had expected – as part of me had wickedly hoped.

I snatched at the handful of papers in the drawer and examined each in turn with equal scrutiny. The first article was an unsealed envelope. As I slid its contents into the open, guilt besieged me. What was I really doing? Curiosity had always propelled me into action – and more often than not into trouble as well – but exploring mom's drawer was different. I thought about how I would feel if mom searched through my stuff as I was through hers, especially my secret things.

"Locke, Day and Eddison," I said aloud, reading from the glossy letterhead of the paper in my hand. Lawyers.

It was a last will and testimony. Mom and dad's. The coldness in my bones returned at the thought of losing either of them. Mom had issues and dad... well, dad had bigger issues, but the sickening image of being left alone and funerals and death was heartbreaking. No. I didn't want to read mom and dad's will, and I quickly refolded the paper.

Next, I located a faded receipt. The cash register ink was barely legible, but I could make out that it was from a jewelry store about a year earlier. I was not familiar with the store, but it was definitely not local. One carat gold ring with a precious stone setting. Fire-opal. $1,999.

I felt a strange, conflicted recognition. Mom didn't particularly care for jewelry herself and I couldn't recall any conversation about a fire-opal ring for anyone else and yet, I was without doubt that I had seen that ring before.

The final bundle of papers in the secret drawer was a collection of house-related odds and sods, fastened with a rusted paperclip. Scanning through, I glimpsed some power bills from way back, an invoice for when we had the in-ground swimming pool built and a valuation of the house itself by one of the local realtors. There were other documents too, but all equally without much song and dance and definitely nothing that cried an opera of secrets.

I hung my head, half disappointed, but also half comforted that mom was mom and that my life could simply resume its focus on what was important – like cleaning. A calming smile crept onto my face and radiated away any lingering concerns.

Everything was going to be fine.

Hustling the papers of various sizes into an obsessively neat pile, I then looked straight into the drawer in anticipation of returning mom's secrets back into the darkness.

And there it was.

I had missed something. In the very bottom of the drawer, flush against the back and its color oddly blending in with that of the wood on which it lay, was another envelope.

"Oh," I said, surprisingly loud.

Placing the documents still in my left hand to the side, I slowly reached for the rust-brown envelope in the drawer. There was no hesitation, confident my earlier, momentary lapse of faith in my family, was little more than a curious misconception.

Scribbled on the front of the envelope was my mother's name.

The envelope was not sealed and I buoyantly wriggled its contents free. It was a card. A birthday card. How boring, I thought.

As I spread open the unworn cardboard, I almost expected a banknote to fall free and flutter back into the drawer – it was that sort of daft card. It reminded me of nanna.

I was still smiling.

But the card contained no banknote, only a handwritten message in black pen which I read, quietly mouthing the words in silence and never blinking – not once – as my smile slowly faded...

Love of my life,

The year just past, a year of you and me,

Has shown my heart all that love should be.

We kissed, we touched, we held each other tight,

The end of your troubled days are sweetly now in sight.

My dearest love, to you I proudly say,

I'm yours alone and Happy Birthday

Love always, your Helen W.

# Chapter 2

Breathe Sara. Your lungs need air. Breathe.

I don't know how much time I lost in my comatose state, but I suddenly heard my body talking to me, screaming at me. Several more heartbeats passed before I drew my first breath of New Sara air. New Sara. That moment, that instant of reading those despicable words scribed in their evil blackness, was when my history split into two. There was Sara before that moment and New Sara since. Happy Sara and cheerless Sara. Hopeful Sara and pathetic Sara. Living Sara and...

I dropped my eyes back to the birthday message – that insidious piece of cardboard. I read the scribbled poem a second time and lingered on the last line. Love always, your Helen W.

Helen W.

It could only be one person. Helen W. Helen Wexler. Doctor Helen Wexler. Our family doctor Helen Wexler. I almost choked as the name stuck deep in the nether regions of my throat. I had known Helen all my life.

Then, other fragments of the rhyme howled off the card at me. Love of my life... you and me... we kissed... my dearest love... I'm yours alone...

OH MY GOD!

I wanted to scream louder and angrier than ever before, but my furor found no voice, muted and crippled by the sudden fading light in my eyes.

And then I saw the stars... I was about to pass out.

Flinging the empty drawer aside, I collapsed my head forward, desperate to increase the blood flow to my brain. Bowing ungraciously before Buddha, I felt the birthday card crumple as it wedged between my torso and crossed-legs.

The fortress of my emotions suddenly and totally gave way. I tried desperately to hold myself together, but tears flooded from my eyes with an unstoppable resolve. With bitter comfort, it spared me from conking out as the sudden surge of emotion seized the stars and blackness in my eyes and dispelled them to oblivion. Without warning, I found myself feverishly alive.

I sat back straight and read the card a third time through the blurriness of my tears.

Love of my life. Helen W.

As I had experienced so forebodingly before, I pictured dad having coffee with my sister. Dad. My father. My mom's husband. One of Helen's patients. When I had earlier scrutinized the initial contents of the secret drawer, relief had washed away any doubt from my body. I thought everything was going to be fine.

It couldn't be any worse.

The birthday message – the wording of it, the tenderness, the passion, the love – hidden away so precisely in mom's favorite room. Mom was having an affair with a woman!

Oh my God!

Still no voice, but my emotions continued unabated to tumble into my abyssal trench of hell. No! Worse than hell.

I had to physically wipe my face because I could no longer see beyond the tears and the intolerable darkness creeping like cancer through every vein and every artery. Hell was real. Hell was alive, and it was gushing through my body at overwhelming speed.

No matter how resolutely I tried to think, or how deliberately I tried not to, the words racing through my whole body traumatized my every capacity of human movement.

Mom was having a lesbian affair with our family doctor!

Finally, the whispers breached the crevices of my soul and nauseousness completely overpowered me. With my very last frazzle of energy, I dragged myself from the study room into the adjacent bathroom. Three monstrous steps and I bowed my head into the porcelain toilet bowl at precisely the moment puke and the bitter cocktail of pain and anger chundered from my mouth.

Most of it missed the bowl.

I gripped the cold porcelain with both hands trembling. A second wave of rejection pickled my esophagus and glamorized the white dunny-can. The taste in my mouth was awful, but it was the stench that made me want to vomit again.

My fingers ached from their vice on the bowl. I still felt morbidly feeble and feared releasing my grasp may bring back the stars and the blackness and send me crashing lifelessly to the tiled floor.

What was happening to me?

Emotions I didn't even know human beings were capable of experiencing surged through my body. The mental pain atrophied any power to physically move – to do anything other than bash my brains out. I found a position on the floor that suppressed the heartache... a little. Laying there on my side, with my legs curled high up to my chest, I endured my emotional rebirth.

The hemorrhage of thoughts was unending. My perfect world was no more. Everything I believed about mom – every confidence and hope cast in my deepest of hearts about her – was suddenly poisoned with doubt. How could she do this? And worse, how could she keep it secret?

The year just past...

I felt the muscles in my neck constrict, like the serpent of mom's betrayal slowly squeezing Old Sara from my cold and beaten body. A year of you and me... A year!

It was the first time I wished myself dead.

The pain stabbing at me as I lay on the bathroom floor was like none I could have ever imagined – none I had ever been struck by before. My body shivered as if a constant deluge of the devil's voltage flooded through me. And when I searched deep inside the nightmare to glimpse at the fiendish composer of my agony, I saw only mom – complete with horns and pitchfork. In a few diabolical breaths, she had transmuted from nurturing protector to the harbinger of death.

No matter how still I lay, I could not stop the torment. Questions queued behind one another, each wanting a cruel bite at my suffering. The most savage attack came from that fourth line of Helen's poem, the end of your troubled days are sweetly now in sight.

What did that mean?

What troubled days?

Why would it be sweet?

I could not take a breath without gulping a mouthful of hurt and uncertainty.

I clenched my knees evermore tightly to my chest. It was the worst moment of my life and I dead set imagined, in that instant, that my desolation, my pain and my blackness could crumble no further into my private hell.

I could not have been more wrong.

# Chapter 3

That night.

Three months had passed since I read those despicable words and the darkness felt more alien than any night before it. A cruel chill surfed among the midnight breeze and, as I drew breath, I tasted only the sweetness of my impending deliverance. I forced each step forward, restraint, as if I walked through a trough of gooey marshmallow.

The train tracks were deserted, as vacant as my battered soul.

My flashback to when I first discovered mom's secret in the study room flowed with dreadful ease into the nightmarish memories of the three months since. I had no way of stopping the surge of hate, the thoughts of betrayal or the flood of unending pain. I had tried everything.

Pills.

Counsellor.

Hurting myself.

There was no reprieve – no lasting solace. All had failed.

I had failed.

New Sara was an avatar consumed by torment and relentless pressure, forever besieged by choking anguish.

That night, I determined New Sara would be reunited with Old Sara – lifeless Sara – and, according to my cheap, glow-in-the-dark Cinderella watch, destiny was arriving in...

7 minutes, 30 seconds...

As I dropped my trembling arm back down and Cinderella out of sight, I stopped walking. I was captivated by the smell of freshness in the nearby trees. The delightful scent was sharpened by the recent rains and the cool air tickled my nose as I drew in the fragrant air.

I would miss that.

I saw an immeasurable number of stars glistening in the moonless dead of night above me. Their shimmers and luster were like the approving winks and smiles of an empathetic audience – and my only company that night.

When nanna had passed away years before, mom urged me to pick a star to remember nanna by. She'll always be watching over you, mom had said, comforting me with a tight hug. All you have to do is look up and she'll be there.

I reached a quivering hand to my chest and felt for a familiar comfort. I grasped at the delicate, silver cross dangling from a fine necklace. It was a present from nanna that I'd always cherished and kept with me. I missed nanna as I glanced into the starry darkness of other worlds.

I wondered with uncertainty if anyone would pick a star and think of me after that night.

6 minutes, 38 seconds...

Pulling myself from the incredulous trance, I resumed my bleak course along the deserted train tracks. I wasn't far from home, but home had never felt so distant before.

In the three months since I had discovered mom's secret – Buddha's secret – my world had decomposed with frightening ferocity. Just as mom was no longer mom, home was also no longer home. For seventeen years, no matter how terrifying or how wretched the world was around me, solace always befriended me with a soothing embrace as I walked through the front door of home. That refuge was gone and my only solidarity that night was the cold and the darkness.

The railway line writhed its way through the limestone escarpment. Walls of steep and sharp rock rose high above me on both sides of the tracks, like stadium seating for the devil's tradesmen about to witness the calamitous acquisition of their latest sacrifice.

For three months, I had pleaded with the devil for an end to my freefall, but each day, agonizing fractures gathered beneath me. No one was there to catch me, no one understood, and every hour I plummeted profoundly into the bottomless inferno of my emotional misery.

That night, I had decided I could deal with it no more.

I needed to stop falling.

4 minutes, 12 seconds...

A train was my unbending solution. The diesel locomotive of the imminent freight transport was sure to stop me, dead. I had checked the timetable on the internet. The limited information available had specified the train's arrival time at its final destination and at several transition points sporadically located along its journey. Tracing the route backwards, I calculated the scheduled time at which moment it would pass through my arena of absolution.

The mathematics had taken forever – I was seriously hopeless with numbers.

I wouldn't miss those.

The approaching behemoth was a primary coal carrier owned by Meijboom Fuel Transport. A single locomotive pulled one hundred and thirty-nine carriages filled with raw brown-coal from the mine processing station in the country's center to the shipping docks on the coast for export.

I was in no doubt that it would do the job I so desperately hungered for.

My plan wasn't much of a plan. The train would come, announced by its glistening headlights. I would sit cross-legged on the tracks, close my eyes and wait. It would be over in a breath. No more pain. No more unbearable frustration. No more wishing myself liberated from the agony.

2 minutes, 58 seconds...

The gray stones beneath my feet looked wintry-blue in the faint light reflected in the starry night sky. The stones crunched like breakfast cereal as I stepped awkwardly forward, ever closer to the end of my life.

When I last checked my watch, I noticed a soft trembling in the tips of my fingers and yet, I felt strangely calm. My body – my physical being – would, in moments, be violently torn to hundreds of fleshy, disgusting fragments, but my spirit was serene, tranquil.

The enormous freight train would barely notice the collision and all the websites I had searched about taking my own life had guaranteed no pain. I learnt that girls statistically favored an overdose on tablets of some sort as a suicide method, but I demanded no possibility of failure – as pills had apparently proved. No. A speeding train was, without question, more desirable, I thought.

Zero chance of failure.

I checked Cinderella's pointing arms on my watch again and noticed the tremors in my fingers remained feverishly apparent.

1 minute, 13 seconds...

And then I saw it. In the distance, I clapped eyes on the unmistakable headlamps of the freight train. Over the years, I had seen the train pass through many times before and I recognized those lights like an old friend at the front door. The light was tinged with a faint, but beautiful, orange hue. It made me think of the sunset.

I stopped walking. I don't remember it being a conscious decision, I just noticed the wooden railway sleepers beneath me stopped moving. There was no noise. Strange, I thought. I was certain I should have heard the locomotive, even at that distance.

The last minute of my life felt like an eternity. My knees crumpled and my legs folded beneath me. I yelped like a wounded animal as a pointy stone pricked me in the butt.

Ouch!

There was nothing glamorous about suicide, but I wasn't about to go down winning any awards for gracefulness. I was such an amateur suicide-hound.

My eyes never broke their locked gaze with the alluring light hurtling towards me. It was difficult to gauge an exact distance, but the light just got bigger and bigger as it encroached with quiet stealth upon my last breaths of human air.

I calmly grasped my hands together in my lap and forgot all about the pain in my backside – I forgot about my pain altogether. I don't remember drawing breath or blinking or even thinking. The singular reflex that reminded me I was still alive was a solitary tear that gathered, hesitated a lonesome moment, and then began a morose journey down my trembling cheeks.

As the tear escaped from my face and dropped into oblivion, I suddenly heard the mechanical pulse of the train. At first, only the heavy grunt of the locomotive pierced through the darkness towards me, but gradually, the clickety-clack of the carriage wheels, bridging the tiny gap between each length of steel track, got louder and louder.

In harmony with the escalating clatter, the radiance of light speeding towards me dispersed into two distinct beams – the two headlights of the locomotive. I knew the train driver would not see me until it was too late.

I was counting on it.

The illumination was beautiful, calming and everything I had hoped. My eyes squinted briefly in the intensity, but then I closed them altogether. I didn't need to force them shut. I was resigned and they happily sunk over my eyes as I glimpsed the last of my earthly view.

It would be all over in seconds.

The sound of the train drowned out all thought and emotion. It became deafening. It roared ferociously and, for the first time that night, I let fear creep in. It wasn't second-thoughts type fear, it was more like, Oh my god! You're about to be smashed into smithereens, Sara, type fear.

10 – 9 – 8 – ...

In my final seconds, my muscles suddenly constricted the lifeblood that had flowed so serenely through my veins. My hands gripped each other tight. My mouth fell open as I drew in my last breath. The train was close. I could sense it.

My life was over.

The sound of the train screamed violently, ready to devour me. The devil began his victory dance. 3 – 2 – ...

My eyes flicked open.

A monstrous explosion louder than any sound I had ever heard before burst around me like a thousand bombs all going off at once. The brilliant luminosity of orange, yellow and white lights engulfed the darkness and, for a moment, I believed I was floating in the epicenter of Heaven. Death was a symphony of angelic radiance, blessed with the applause of immeasurable thunder, more beautiful than I had ever imagined.

But something wasn't right.

As the fierce light of the explosion decayed, my eyes locked onto an inconceivable sight. Before me, little more than an arm's length away, was the locomotive, stopped dead on the tracks. As I sat cold and motionless and with my eyes fused on the bewitching scene so close before me, the front of the locomotive began to crumple as if the staggering strength of steel was being pushed in by the finger of God.

The metal plates folded with astonishing ease as the gray, metallic shape of the locomotive was crushed beyond recognition. Shattered glass fragments, like a thousand daggers, jabbed towards me with deadly intent, but diverged inexplicably and safely around me as if I was seated in a protective viewing bubble, casually observing the catastrophic destruction at arm's length.

As the front of the behemoth collapsed into itself like a car smashing into a cement pole, the rear of the locomotive rose into the night sky, higher and higher.

The thunderous noise of devastation was accompanied by the stinging smell of burning steel and sparks and scraping metal. My heaven of brilliant light had transformed into a blazing furor of unimaginable hell.

Then, in the darkness beyond the rising diesel engine, the train's other carriages dashed into view. The wheeled coal carts poked out from all sides behind the locomotive. One rose even higher than the engine and towered into the darkness.

The sound was excruciating, impaling the shadows without contrition. I wanted to unlock my hands – still viced in my lap like inseparable lovers – to block my ears. But I could not move. I was mesmerized, entranced by the stunning display of light and sound and absolute mayhem.

What had felt like minutes, transpired in mere seconds and the chaos of demolition and decimation abruptly gave way to an unnerving silence. As the insufferable roar of noise trailed away along the tracks, the night was swiftly blanketed by an uncanny desolation.

I felt suddenly petrified.

What was more concerning though, was that I wasn't dead. The mammoth locomotive had come and inexplicably stopped frozen on the tracks, a mere breath in front of me. Metal and fire and glass exploded around me with all the violence of total annihilation and yet, not a scratch or splinter marked my body. I had felt encapsulated in the palm of God as the devil danced around me. As the symphony of destruction had passed, I sat on those tracks alone, with carnage strewn everywhere, but I wasn't hurt or in pain or dead.

I was very much alive – and I shouldn't have been.

The confusion played tirelessly on my mind. So many questions bombarded my still-very-much-ticking brain, that I couldn't reason a single answer into reality.

How could this happen?

How did the train stop in an instant?

And why wasn't I dead?

My first movement was in my neck muscles. As if my body released from a magical trance, I suddenly felt human again – earthly – and the blood massaging my backbone inspired me to twist my head.

All around, I saw small fires sparkling in the shadow of night, creating the illusion of miniature spherical worlds in a universe of darkness. Debris of every imaginable geometry and size inhabited the alien landscape around me. Glass, metal, rubber-tubing, wheels, axles and even engine parts layered the ground like some weird science-fiction wonderland. Shreds of deformed steel – metallic limbs torn from the locomotive – crawled halfway up the surrounding escarpment, trying in vain to escape the battleground.

I had never seen such ruin.

Instinct suddenly quaked my body with strength and resolve. My intuition was telling me I needed to shift my butt into gear, but I felt sluggish, drugged by the stupor of disconcertment. I still didn't understand why I was alive. I didn't understand anything. The unbelievable seconds had passed in slow-motion and, at that moment, I also moved with lead in my bones.

My desire for gruesome self-destruction had brought me resolutely to the arena of carnage, but with fortitude renewed in my ticker, all I wanted was to bolt from the turmoil. It was the only sane idea I could wrestle from the anarchy in my head.

I pulled my hands apart, twisted my torso towards the darkness behind me and turned my back on death.

I had betrayed my own deadly sin.

My body wanted to scramble, to run away as far and as fast as my tired and leaden-legs would let me.

As I thumped my hands down and assumed a start-line position like a focused athlete in a sprint, the wooden railway sleeper that I gripped felt cold to touch. I was ready to go and I looked up the length of the track into the gloom.

And then, I saw the most unexpected sight I could never have imagined.

Only a few feet away, centered on the railway tracks, stood a presence... a person...

A man!

Both his arms were raised to chest height and extended towards me – towards the carnage. The man's gloved palms were open and his fingers spread. He wore a full-length coat that flowed with angelic grace in the stiffening breeze, like the cape of a superhero, and I wondered, for an instant, if I was dead and God was standing there and had decided to go gothic for the occasion.

Miserably, the airflow felt too chilled and the stench of wrecked metal around me was too sickening – I was definitely alive and it definitely wasn't God standing there.

The mysterious man's face was hidden by a tied fabric and a black, wide-brimmed hat pushed down to his eyebrows. The man's barely-visible eyes were the only evidence that he was, in fact, human.

I sensed those eyes were locked with my own, but I could not clearly see them in the darkness.

It was a strange feeling, surreal even.

My arms wanted to reach out towards the silhouetted man, but again, a crippling shutdown of my ability to move left me crouched like a statue, still poised to set off on my sprint. How foolish I must have looked.

A shriek of crashing metal jerked my attention away from the man's gaze and I couldn't defeat the temptation to look behind. The coal carriage that had peaked into the night sky and suspended itself perilously atop the mangled locomotive, lost its battle with gravity. It crashed to the ground and found a new nest amongst the scattered coal.

My glimpse away was for the briefest of moments, but when I turned back towards the man, he was gone – vanished. I could not see him clambering up the rocky incline or running into the darkness down the tracks. He had literally disappeared.

New and surprising sounds began to emerge from the shambles behind me, including a disgruntled, raspy voice. "Bloody hell," was the utterance, or something like that.

I turned. Towards the rear of the mangled locomotive, I saw a door swing open on a single remaining hinge. It flapped momentarily, and then tumbled onto a pile of scrap on the ground beneath it.

It was the train driver.

Instantly, I knew I had to get nicked. Guilt delayed my departure for a breath or two as I wondered if I should help the driver, but when a forceful leg kicked from the wreck, followed by a second volley of verbal abuse, I knew he was okay.

Everything started to happen faster. I not only heard the hissing and whining of the train wreck, but the sirens of distant emergency vehicles groaned louder with each flurry of cool breeze. Faint voices gathered overhead on the embankment either side of the tracks as the world around me came to view the fallout of my battle with the devil.

Move Sara, I thought.

I pushed off with one hand still on the railway sleeper and the other grasped tightly on the cold steel rail line. There weren't many options for fleeing. I could either scamper up the rocky slope or run like a rabbit down the tracks and hope the blackness of night would shroud me from the crowds.

I did a bit of both.

My gut told me to run. I hated it when it did that. I staggered into the obscuring gloom, sucking volumes of air into my lungs. All I savored was metal – tiny floating particles from the mayhem trying to escape, like I was.

After sprinting uncomfortably on the uneven railway sleepers – and unable to breathe – I crossed the gravel beside the tracks and jumped onto the embankment, clawing my talons into the beige-earth to stop sliding back down. The escarpment rose at a steep angle to the height of a house.

I had some work to do.

I urged myself on like a spider-woman and crawled upwards. The rocks cut my hands and scraped my knees, but the adrenalin gushing through me suppressed my doubts and my pain just enough.

I reached the top quicker than I expected and pulled myself awkwardly over the top.

The cool damp grass on which I found myself was a soft and relieving resting place after the rocks and the metal and glass. The air tasted crisp, pure and it soothed my throbbing lungs. Laying on my back, sucking in the pleasure, I saw the stars again and an unexpected reminder that I had come to the arena to die, metaphorically poked me in the heart.

Ouch, again!

I threw my hands to my chest to make sure I was still breathing. My lungs sucked in air like a Hoover, but something was missing. Nanna's silver-cross necklace.

I wanted to cry, but found no more strength for even that. I loved that necklace. Nanna would be so disappointed in me.

How could I lose it?

Devastated at my loss, I sat up and my grief was quickly deflected to what I saw.

For the first time, the extent of destruction I had caused became frighteningly clear. It was awful.

What had I done?

How could this happen?

How did the train stop?

A little way down the track to my right, I saw the locomotive. It was crushed at the front so extensively, that the length of the locomotive had halved, pushed into itself like a squashed marshmallow. The force of the impact must have been incredible, but I couldn't comprehend what the locomotive had collided with to cause the destruction.

Was it me? Impossible.

Behind the locomotive, the carriages lay jack-knifed, twisted and overturned. Some had broken free from their coupling and cart-wheeled up the embankment. Coal was strewn over every inch and into every crevice. It looked as if Satan had dropped his secret stash of black marbles and blanketed the ground like some twisted, dark-winter moonscape.

The faint voices I had heard, gathered into a chorus of disbelief as the shadows of people emerged from everywhere to see the incredible panorama. The bewildered train driver stood alone beside his wounded engine, scratching his bald head – his mouth agape. He looked more confused than I felt. Red and blue flashing lights strobed in the nearby tree tops, announcing the imminent arrival of fire engines, paramedics and the police. The police. I needed to get going again.

I glimpsed one more time at the metallic bloodbath and let the image sear into the back of my eye sockets. I wasn't likely to forget the view in a hurry. It was quite some view. My legs felt broken they were so tired, but somehow, I dragged myself away and let the darkness swallow me.

As I staggered aimlessly into the shadows of shrubs and trees, my perplexity about the train and the instantaneous end to its journey was overwhelmed by just one thought...

The man.

Who was he?

Where had he gone?

What role did he play in my not being dead?

I had felt his anonymous stare. I had seen his unwavering hands and yet, I knew nothing.

His mystery haunted me as I stepped sluggishly onwards into the unknown. A strange longing bewitched me as I scampered through the darkness. It wasn't the desire of a warm bath or a soft bed or even a comforting embrace from mom – I definitely didn't want that. No. New Sara wanted only one thing...

To know more about the man who had saved me from death!

# Chapter 4

Three days later, misery crawled back into my veins with frightening voraciousness and my hatred resumed. Mom refused to drive me to school because she suddenly had an appointment.

Helen. Bitch.

My hands still ached bitterly from the scrapes and bruises. I couldn't even hold a pen, and so I still had not finished my analytical essay on Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Worse, a monstrosity of a zit, the size of Vesuvius, was erupting in the middle of my forehead, transforming me into some sort of mythical beast.

Still, it should have been worse. I should be dead.

Questions continued to surge through my head like caffeine-grogged worms in a vegetable garden.

What the hell had happened?

How?

Who, or what, was the silhouette with the freaky hat?

I was no mechanical expert, but I knew trains didn't just stop dead, normally.

My eyes had stared at death, tasted its bitter solace, and stumbled within a breath of its deliverance and yet, there I was, sitting in Mr. Dobson's English class, still whole – mentally fractured, sure – but my dance with the devil had not taken my lifeblood, as I had selfishly hoped.

And as it should have done.

Secretly scrutinizing the horde of gleeful faces around me, I wondered if any of them, in their consummate and untainted private universes, had any idea of the blue-devils screaming inside my head. Not many of them liked me. I didn't really know why. Mom once told me that I failed to make enough of an effort with people.

My fifth year of High School was two days from being over. Holidays. The time had gone quick up until I discovered mom was a lying, cheating lesbian. Prior to that little gem of a find, I was averaging somewhere amongst... well... the average.

My previous essay had come back with a myriad of suggestions – improvements. But Mr. Dobson had exercised some generosity in awarding the grade. I needed him to be just as forgiving with the current work: Draw comparisons between Ridley Scott's science fiction epic and Aldous Huxley's text, Brave New World.

"Mr. Dobson? When it says draw, I'm thinking you won't let me literally draw, right?" I had asked, when I received the assignment.

"No, Sara. It's an essay!"

It's not that I was a bonehead, I was just so much better at drawing stuff. Mrs. Repich, my art teacher, loved me. She had returned each assignment of the past year with heartfelt encouragement.

"...Sara?"

It took a while for my whacked-out brain to register someone called my name. My ears were telling me it was a boy, but it took ages to for the signal to travel up to my cerebral sponge and smack my cognition.

"Sara?" he asked again, with all the confidence of a pumpkin.

I finally looked up and may have smiled, but it wasn't a conscious display of endorsement. The boy hesitated, waiting for a more resolute sign of affirmation that was never going to come.

"Do you mind if I sit next to you?" he asked.

Dillon Arkman. He was only a little older than I was, but a typical DIG – Digital Imagination Generation. He loved his computer at the expense of any social genius. Dillon was more like a character from one of his games, which I imagined was a sneer he would actually find flattering.

He loved tracksuits, but not sporty Nike or Adidas. Dillon was more into stuff that his mom made for him at home. Not that I had anything against that. Hell! At least his mom created stuff, as opposed to mine, who was more apt at destruction.

I continued to stare up at him without talking. His features were plain, like his tracksuit. He did have a tinge of boyish-charm, but his geekiness defined his character – and that of his friends.

At least he had friends. Dillon was doing better than I was in Mr. Dobson's English class.

"Sara?" he asked a third time.

"Oh, for God's sake," I snapped, "sit down already."

I thought he might run home, but like a nervous jittery-bug, he sat beside me. I saw his hands trembling, and I felt a sudden and unexpected empathetic connection. His subtle expression of fear reminded me of three nights earlier when my hands had also shuddered. Fear was a common link between all of us, no matter what brand tracksuit we wore.

"Sorry," I said, belatedly.

But Dillon did not respond.

I really was sorry. At least, I believed that I was.

As Mr. Dobson walked into the classroom with his usual authoritative resolve, I felt my familiar fear twine around me, itching to bully its roots into my veins and upset me. A tall and stocky Abraham Lincoln-esque man, Mr. Dobson spoke with antiquated eloquence and grandeur. He loved to teach. It was obvious in his voice. His passion captivated a class when he recounted one of his many anecdotes with unmatched bluster. Some days I thought he believed he was Abraham Lincoln – a scholar of the students, by the students, for the students.

The prominent English teacher placed his brown-leather satchel onto his desk and couldn't help but propel himself into a yarn. His story was interesting enough. Something about a doco that had hijacked his attention on television about the life of ants, and how it had reminded him of a Utopian society. He gave old Aldous Huxley a run for his money.

My mind should have paid more attention and fought off its desire to think about the despicable with more heroic intent, but I couldn't do it.

I sneaked a drawing-compass from my green pencil case into my right hand and then crossed my arms to hide the macabre pleasure I was about to get high on.

I pressed the sharp, metal compass point gently against the soft skin on the inside of my forearm. It didn't prick the skin. It felt more like a thorn. But the pressure was enough to frenzy the endorphins in my brain to besiege my fears.

The human body was amazing that way. It responded flawlessly to protect itself. It healed from within. If the body became punctured and broken, it regenerated blood cells at remarkable speed, and grew its own skin to heal the wound. And if the mind foundered in sadness, it released happy chemicals to take up the fight. Those happy chemicals – the endorphins – had become my best friend in just three months.

My only friend.

As the enzymes streamed through me, my mind fractured away from the English class and away from Dillon, whom I sensed was awkwardly inching closer.

Mr. Dobson's voice slowly faded to silence and, without deliberate want, I dreamed my way to being alone, back in mom's study room, three months before.

Helen's crumpled birthday card lay in the center of the room where it had fallen when I scurried for the bathroom next door. I had spent time cleaning the puke which I had projected beside the toilet bowl – New Sara had inherited the same cleaning bug – before forcing myself back towards Buddha's unchanged gaze.

I took a deep breath, tasting the sourness still clinging to my throat, before reaching for the secret drawer. I gathered up the other, not-so-life-shattering contents. The pool receipt. The will. The house papers. And I gently replaced them into the wooden compartment. I left the birthday card alone.

I didn't want to touch it. It was poisonous.

A solitary tear dribbled down my cheek as I slid the drawer delicately back into its hiding hole, beneath Buddha. I briefly placed my hand on the gold statue's left side, not knowing if it was to blame him or to thank him. My knees, still wobbly from the overwhelming hurt, twisted away from the pedestal table and I somehow staggered out of the study room.

My hands and arms skittled along the walls of the hallway as I stumbled towards my bedroom at the far end. It was my last locus of salvation.

What was I to do? I pondered.

I was without hope, without a sense of future and completely devoid of any ability to make rational decisions. It felt as if I was in a vice, being yanked by a thousand snickering devils in every imaginable direction.

In my bedroom, I paused at the cabinet beside my bed and, without realizing I had done so, pulled open the bottom drawer.

There were no secrets in that compartment.

I found only a small, woolen blanket, lovingly knitted by nanna's hands two weeks before she passed away.

I grasped the woolen comforter and then fell onto my bed, rolling nanna's blanket tenderly around myself. I couldn't understand if my sudden stoic attachment to nanna's handiwork was because it reminded me of her kindness and her beautiful smile, or because she was dead and I envied that.

My eyes fell closed and I waited for a future I did not want. I gripped the wool tighter and tighter, trying desperately to squeeze every last whisper of solace from its soft strands. But the more I tensed, the more fear I felt.

I knew mom would return home soon and discover that wretched card in the study room. What would she do? I was so afraid. I don't know how long I lay on that bed with my knees tucked high to my chest, before I heard the familiar sound of the sliding backdoor. I clenched the woolen blanket even tighter, as if I was strangling the poor sheep who had given up its fleecy luxury.

Mom was home.

I couldn't hear her voice, but my gut feeling screeched my mother's name. I knew without doubt that it was her. I wished for the bed to split in two and swallow me forever as my mind ticked over like a race car.

Would she find the card?

Would she realize I knew her secret?

How angry would she be?

Anything was better than the pain. I waited. And waited. All I heard was the ruffling of shopping bags, the filling of the kettle, and then...

To find me – to reach my bedroom – mom had to pass by the study room. On any ordinary day, she may have passed without even thinking to glimpse inside that room. She would have walked straight to my bedroom to say hello.

But that day was no ordinary day.

I sucked in gulps of air and almost choked on the butterflies that flew straight into my stomach.

Waiting. Waiting.

The electric kettle clicked off with a noisy ping and, for a moment, I believed – hoped – mom would have a cup of her chamomile tea before anything else.

But then, I heard the clear thumps of footsteps coming closer.

Four steps. Five steps. Silence. Mom had stopped walking.

I clenched my eyes shut even more, so much so they hurt. When I was much younger, I had used that trick to hide from the monsters in the dark. Sometimes they would go away. Sometimes they wouldn't. Mom was one monster that probably wouldn't.

The hush lasted so long, I thought for the shortest of moments that maybe mom had suffered a heart attack, lay stricken in the study room from shock, and had gone to join nanna.

Funny how stillness can be so deafening in the mind, I thought.

Then, ever so quietly, I heard a release of air. A whisper-soft gasp. And I instantly knew mom had found her lesbian lover's secret birthday card.

The end of your troubled days are sweetly now in sight, Helen had written. Mom's murmured gasp was her realization that her troubled days had only just begun.

She huffed and puffed again, much louder. There were muffled words that sounded as if they were trying to breach mom's hand covering her mouth. Then the thumping of limbs on the wooden floor and strange sounds of something rustling paper.

Was mom trying to flatten the crumbled birthday card?

Seriously? My fear suddenly mixed with a resurgent anger into a bedeviling cocktail. One half of me wanted to vanish into my own anguish. The other half was desperate to inflict that same anguish on my lying, cheating mother.

Then, the footsteps resumed.

They sounded more resolute, angrier than before. I hugged my body, pulling nanna's blanket around me. I squeezed my hands again and then heard the most awful, piercing voice, screeching my name. I wanted to throw my hands to my ears to block out the terrible hollering, but confusion struck me cold. It wasn't mom howling my name.

It was Dillon Arkman.

My eyes snapped wide-open. Mr. Dobson's English class was hysterical. I was inexplicably lying on the carpeted floor and Dillon was kneeling beside me, still screaming with the highest girl-like shriek I had ever heard. He was as pale as milk and looked as if he was about to pass out.

What was going on?

Frightened and confused faces popped in and out of view, staring down at me. All I could think was, why was I on the floor?

I wanted to move both my hands to my face to hide from the curious onlookers, but my left arm wouldn't budge.

"Hold still, Sara," Mr. Dobson's dependable voice said.

My right arm felt free and I instinctively pulled it to my skull. But before I could touch my burning-red-from-embarrassment face, my hand stopped moving. As soon as I caught sight of it, I froze. It was covered in blood.

The beautiful, crimson liquid meandered down the length of my arm. It hypnotized my gaze before Mr. Dobson's imposing frame reached across and eased it back to the floor.

"Keep still, please," he said, again.

"What happened?" I asked. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know. The question just popped from my open mouth.

"You've had a small accident, Sara," Mr. Dobson answered. He was unquestionably trying to downplay the peculiar drama entertaining his class.

An unfamiliar face wriggled through the throng and bounced into my view. "You stabbed yourself, dude!"

I didn't even know who the boy was. I really did need to pay more attention to others. The boy's comment was met by hushed snickers, and my mind drifted back to the thousand devils. Could my day get any worse?

"Let's get you to the nurse," Mr. Dobson said, as he sat me up straight. "Dillon. Head up to sickbay and let them know a student is coming, and that she's going to require some bandages."

Bandages? I looked down at my arms, at the same time, trying to avoid eye contact with just about the whole world. The white skin of my left forearm was covered in tributaries of carnation-red streams of blood. My blood. It felt shocking and reverent at the same, unbelievable time.

Within reach of my left arm, I saw the compass on the floor. Its acute point was sheathed in red. Darker blotches of my blood stained the carpet nearby, like a field of poppies growing in a freaky classroom garden.

Had I really stabbed myself?

Mr. Dobson was kind and gentle, and genuinely concerned for me. His large, right hand held me firmly, but sympathetically. He kept me elevated as his other hand kept pressure on my wound.

The rest of the class was less forgiving. They were amused more than concerned and when Mr. Dobson started easing me onto my feet, not one of them rushed to help.

Mr. Dobson noticed that, too. "Come on guys. Give me a hand."

Reluctantly, some of the boys stepped forward. Their mates laughed and wallowed in the hilarity of their own sarcastic remarks that followed. My faithful English teacher murmured his disapproval and disappointment, but it made little difference.

Human beings were so cruel to each other sometimes, I thought.

As I settled on my feet, the drowsiness that had flattened me to the classroom floor was more crushing than I expected. All I wanted to do was lay back down.

The same unfamiliar face appeared before me again. "Hey dude! Do you want your compass?"

Who are you? I wondered. And get nicked!

The laughter that applauded the mockery injected enough resolve into my veins for me to stay upright – permanently.

As Mr. Dobson led me from the classroom, the trailing voices hissed with a mix of derision and disbelief.

"What was that?"

"Oh my God!"

"Did you see that zit on her face?"

"Freak!"

The episode was not going to help my popularity in Mr. Dobson's English class, and I left the zest pool of cruelty behind with a relieving gladness.

# Chapter 5

Dillon Arkman stood nervously at the door leading to the school's sickbay. Mr. Dobson's hand gingerly cushioned me forward as Dillon's eyes widened further with each of my steps. The smudged blood on my arm and clothes painted a picture far more chaotic than how I actually felt.

"The... the nurse is on her way," Dillon stuttered, fretfully.

Mr. Dobson was pleased. "Thank you, Dillon," he said. "Can you stay with Sara until the nurse gets here?"

"Uhmm..." Dillon couldn't find the rest of his voice.

"I'll be fine, really," I interjected a little quicker than what the situation warranted. The last thing I needed was to sit in sickbay with Dillon Arkman holding my hand.

Mr. Dobson propelled me through the open door and plonked me on the cold, vinyl-covered mattress. "You. Sit there and keep pressure on that wound."

The teacher then turned to his other student. "And Mr. Arkman. You sit next to her and make sure that she doesn't faint a second time."

"Did I really faint?" I asked.

"Yes, Sara. You slipped off your chair and accidentally pierced yourself with a compass."

"Oh," I replied half-heartedly, content to let Mr. Dobson's explanation be the official version of what had occurred in his class. There was no way I could tell him that I had stuck the compass in my arm intentionally. Of course, I had not meant to stick it in so bloody far, or with such drama. And I never wanted to faint.

Dillon finally sat beside me with the same geek-smoothness he had mustered earlier.

Mr. Dobson washed my blood from his hands in the sink, dried himself and then left us perched like two canaries on the beige, plastic bed. The school's sickbay was a small suite close to the general office and staff room. Dillon twitched anxiously and I was certain his super-smart brain rapidly hounded every crevice of his memory for something appropriate to say and bedazzle me with.

But he never said a word.

"I'm fine, by the way," I said eventually, pre-empting the only logical question I believed he would choose sooner or later.

"That's great," he answered.

Then the silence abruptly returned.

Mounted high in the furthest corner in a sturdy, metal brace, a small television beamed the final segments of a children's education program. The three young hosts – all peroxide blondes – were trying their best to unscramble a word beginning with the letter B. The clues were flour, croissant and oven. Even with the volume on mute, the imagery of yummy bakery food was more enthralling than the conversation in sickbay, also on mute.

The sickbay suddenly exploded with a shrieking volume as the school nurse burst into the tiny room like a circus elephant in a one-animal show.

"How are you two lovebirds?" she laughed.

Dillon instantly shifted his weight sideways and away from me. Not that he was close to start with. He almost slipped off the end of the mattress.

"Don't be shy, darling," the nurse continued to rant. "You can move closer if you really want to. I won't say anything."

I was not amused and my expression must have communicated as much, because when the nurse turned to face me, her broad, fake smile, vanished. "Are you on drugs?" I asked.

A bellowed laugh projected from the obese woman. "I wish," she said.

Another female appeared in the doorway. Striking red hair flowed in curls over her shoulders. Thick-rimmed glasses drew attention to her slim face and complimented the rest of her statuesque figure. Her shoes were beautiful and rose on heels that looked pointier than the compass I had stabbed myself with. A gush of rose-like aroma flowed into the room with the woman. Then I saw the clipboard in her left hand and the woman's beauty was somehow taxed by her guise of authority.

"Hello, Sara," she said, needing to double-check my name on the clipboard. "I'm the school counsellor."

Oh, crap!

A month-and-a-half earlier, when mom no longer wanted to deal with the pain she had poisoned me with, she dumped me in the small home-office of a woman I had never met and effectively said, "Here. I don't know what her problem is. You see if you can do something with her." The woman was Alison McKinney. She was a counsellor.

Alison meant well. She listened. She asked questions that I didn't want to answer. She gave her opinion. She made me cry lots. She even put her arm around me once or twice. Problem was, I was so horrendously embarrassed that, after thirty years of marriage, my mom decided to embrace lesbianism, that I never told Alison about Helen – ever! After six weeks, Alison still believed the stress of High School was the most influential poison creeping through my heartbroken body. My next appointment was scheduled in ten days, although I feared my tango with the compass may expedite that get-together.

Dillon found himself in a trance, surrounded by three women. He looked petrified. He looked like he needed a friend.

"I'll be okay now," I said.

His face didn't turn towards me, only his fright-filled eyes. He didn't say anything, but his grip on the slippery plastic tightened momentarily and then, he jumped to his feet. He slithered out of the sickbay in total silence. He had escaped his maidenly hell. My focus followed him down the corridor and out of sight.

I wanted to get the hell out of there, too.

Nurse Plump, as I instinctively labelled her in my head, grasped my punctured forearm and yanked it level as she kicked an empty trolley underneath for support.

Ouch!

The large, intolerable woman, with her scruffy hair and stained laboratory coat, couldn't resist a dig. "You girls need to toughen up a bit. It's just a scratch."

Ignoring her, I looked at my bloodied forearm. For the first time, I was able to see the injury with clarity under the stark fluorescent lights of the infirmary. The breach in my skin wasn't big, but it hurt like hell. It looked like a little volcano, crimson lava oozed from the cone in intricate patterns in every direction.

"Sara. How's everything going?" the counsellor asked.

What does it bloody well look like? Alison had opened her account with an almost identical question that seemed just as vague and rhetorical. I wouldn't be coming to see you, Alison, if I was hunky-Dory. Would I?

The nurse beat me to an answer. "The problem with you girls is, you all think, Ooh, damsel in distress. Help me! Help me! Back in my day, girls... Oh!"

She didn't finish her tirade. Thank God. But I felt her dissatisfaction as she pushed a square, sterilized gauze-padding onto my wound.

"Here. Hold this," the nurse grunted, as she twisted my other hand like I was made of Play-Doh. She forced my palm onto the soft, white padding.

I started to hate the nurse. Her abhorrence and the medical attention combined to flash detestable memories in my head of the one other medical person I knew. Doctor Helen Wexler. I really hated her.

Astutely aware that I was deliberately avoiding offering an answer to the counsellor's earlier inquiry, I let my attention be drawn to the television screen. News. There was still no sound, but the headline images distracted me sufficiently.

The nurse reached for a wrapping bandage and almost ripped my arm from the shoulder, as she did so.

The counsellor tried a second time, just as annoyingly as the first. "Is everything okay at home?" she said.

It was as if she had picked up a book titled: 101 LAME QUESTIONS FOR WANNABE QUACKS. My eyes remained fixed on the television. I didn't answer.

I didn't have to.

"Nothing to do with home," answered the nurse for me. "Cry babies. The lot of them."

Even the counsellor looked shocked by the nurse's outburst. She quickly appreciated that I was an expert tradeswoman at building the metaphorical brick wall between us, so the counsellor changed tack and sat beside me on the mattress, gently brushing against me in a pretentious show of empathy.

One point for her.

"It's just that I spoke to your mother," the counsellor started, but then abruptly stopped when I snapped my neck away from the tube and death-stared directly at her. She realized her mistake immediately and looked genuinely frightened.

The counsellor faked a smile and then tried to cover her error. "It's just school policy, Sara. If a student gets injured, we have to ring the family."

The logic in her reasoning did little to take the sting out of my furiousness. How dare she?

She continued. "Mom told me you've been having some difficulties at home in dealing with a few changes of routine."

Changes of routine? I wanted to vomit.

Mentally fractured by the absurdity of the two women, I deliberately turned back to the television, glancing at the corridor as I did so and wishing, more than ever, that I had followed Dillon out of the mentally claustrophobic chamber. As the nurse firmly wrapped the bandage up and down my forearm, the television news sucked in my attention. The images were well known to me. Disturbingly well known. There had been a train wreck in the mountains three days earlier.

The broadcast flashed images recorded the day after the inexplicable event. The scene looked so incredibly different in daylight than how I remembered it from the night it all happened – it looked countless times worse. Wreckage covered the tracks and was strewn as far as the camera lens focused.

My trance was broken by the counsellor's voice. "So what do you think, Sara?"

"What?" I asked.

"Did you even hear my question?"

I had heard nothing. But I was already distracted elsewhere. On the trolley beside the pretentious redhead, I saw a compact, black remote control device. It had to be the television remote.

I surged across the counsellor's lap, accidentally knocking her clipboard to the ground and, at the same time, disrupting the nurse's dressing. But I got a hold of the remote. The ensuing disdain was not unexpected.

"What's wrong with you?" the nurse yelled.

"Sara. We need to talk about some of these issues."

"Talk? She needs a good—"

"I'm sure we don't need to go that far..."

I drowned out the crackling noise of their conversation by sharply increasing the television volume with the remote control. I had to increase it a lot.

"...officials are still unsure what caused the train wreck, but would not speculate on the accident. The authorities would like to speak to anyone who may be able to assist the investigation."

I waited anxiously to hear a perfectly fitting description of myself broadcast in the report. Or even worse, my name.

But the investigators were clueless. Not surprising, really. I was still clueless. The reporter's voice-over highlighted the dramatic footage beamed into the sickbay. Even three days on, it remained the most spectacular news story. From the imagery, it was obvious that the leading locomotive had smashed into something with incredible force. The impact had flooded explosively backwards, devastating the rest of the train.

Smashed into something. That something was me – whatever was protecting me.

I ached for answers, but the news report offered none. No mention of the cause. No mention of the man. Nothing.

The nurse and counsellor both failed to share my interest in the broadcast. They were too preoccupied with devising evil plans of what to do with me.

But I refused to listen to them.

The end of the reporter's story about the train wreck segued to another reporter in the same mountains area. "Thanks Alicia. I'm just two miles north of Alicia's location where police are intensifying their inquiries into twenty-year-old, Felicity Cofflin, who was reported missing in this area one week ago. Police have expressed growing fears for her safety. Her parents now face the same heartbreaking wait as those of seventeen-year-old Mary Bell Steele and twenty-one-year-old Ellie Grail, also missing in these mountains in the last four months. Police have not ruled out a connection between the disappearances amidst claims by some local reporters that this normally tranquil location is being terrorized by a serial killer. Anyone with information—"

The counsellor jerked the remote control from my fingers. "We're not here to kick back and watch television, Sara," she said, as she clicked the television to off with a tempered hush. Her frustration brewed beneath her skin. "Let's talk some more," she added.

Some more? I was yet to answer any of her attempted verbal penetrations. She wasn't getting in. One point me.

As the nurse finished with the bandage, my brain strained to comprehend my defiance. I had, all my life, been timid and non-antagonistic. In sickbay, I was disturbingly reactive. I was rude. Had mom's secret changed me so much? I didn't like it. Shy and reserved Old Sara had been reborn as malevolent New Sara, and I wasn't sure if I liked her all that much.

Desperate to reclaim some credibility, the counsellor tried one last time. "Is there anything you would like to talk about?" she asked.

With strained effort, my lips formed the semblance of an accessible smile. "Not really," I said, in what was my first official answer to the counsellor.

The red-headed woman glanced at her clipboard, upside-down on the floor. I sensed the conflict in her analytical mind. Do I stay focused and write nothing or pick up the clipboard and commit the answer to paper?

She chose wrong.

As the counsellor folded over and reached for the one signpost that validated her status, I realized that her concern was not for me, but for her. She was doing her job. She didn't actually care. She was no different to mom or to Alison McKinney. Each of them prospected only their own agendas. I was little more than a means to an end.

I jumped from the infirmary bed. The sting in my arm was nauseating, but not nearly as sour as the scorn that infected my psyche. All I wanted – all I needed – was someone to say, Sara, I'm here for you. I'll be your soft place to fall. But no one could muster it. Not mom, not Alison McKinney and definitely not the school counsellor.

"Where do you think you're going?" the nurse asked, venomously.

I turned back and faced the two women.

The nurse started with another tongue-lashing. "The problem with you girls—"

"No!" I interrupted, thrusting my hand skyward between her face and mine. "You don't get to say anything else." I almost heard her cholesterol-encased heart sputtering and conking out. The nurse gasped for air and grabbed backwards at the bed for support.

I swiveled aggressively to lock stares with the counsellor's disbelieving eyes. "And you," I said, with equal agro. "You want to write something in your stupid notes? Then write this. My mom's turned into a lesbian. I'm stopping trains with my bare hands. And I'm stabbing myself with compasses for fun. Because it makes me feel better than you ever could. Can you explain that?"

New Sara had resurfaced with a vengeance.

"No reply? I didn't think so," I said.

My words hung indestructibly like an airborne virus. Both nurse and counsellor looked shell-shocked, but clearly had not believed a word I said – shouted. I broke from my intense stare and stepped off my imaginary soapbox.

I smiled at the nurse with as little sarcasm as I could muster. "Thank you for the bandages," I said.

For the first time, the nurse was dead silent.

I glanced at the counsellor. Nothing from her, either. Two points for me. And game! I strode from sickbay with all the gusto of a battle winner, but knew my private, personal war was from over, and I felt worse than ever.

I was lonely as I hoofed it down the corridor. Worse, I felt deserving of the loneliness. The more my unbending pain and anger took hold of me, the bigger the monster I became, inside and out.

The images of the train wreck on the television made me wish myself back on those tracks – back in search of my own destruction. The monster inside me fed off my misery and it had an appetite that was becoming increasingly more difficult to satisfy.

I needed help. I only hoped New Sara had the courage to find it.

# Chapter 6

Leura was a delightful, pretty little town in the Blue Mountains. A quaint, countryside main street with heritage-style cafés and tourist establishments formed the core from which residential dwellings – both contemporary and historic – sprawled through and amongst a beautiful landscape dense with forests and plant life.

It held a purity and crispness in the air beyond description, and that tasted sweetly of a time before human beings inherited the planet.

I had lived in Leura all my life.

My family home – a hand built, pine-wood design – was a short walk from the heritage-listed main street of Leura. A little further away, the railway tracks carved their way to the city and ocean in the east and the sunburnt plains of the country's center to the west.

Leura was at the heart of the mountains, encompassed by 700,000 acres of national park with dense wilderness, velvety mist-enshrouded valleys, forests of giant trees, stranded rock formations and a stunning array of wildlife.

It was a magical wonderland.

But mom's psychological sorcery had done much to distort my perception of all the natural beauty around me. My normal journey home from school was a brisk, twenty-minute walk, but coming home after my diabolical day of school, stabbing and all, I dawdled for almost two hours.

It started with a detour as distant from the train wreck as possible.

I normally crossed the track within eyeshot of the accident location, but for the last three days, I had not ventured anywhere close. Just in case. Then, taking the scenic route, I became distracted by the trees reaching high into the sky above me. They were all around, like prison walls trapping me in an unescapable detention center of depression.

I remembered Mr. Dobson once telling our English class, "The beauty of nature fades when the eyes through which it is viewed are cracked." I could relate to that.

And it wasn't only my sight that suffered. The fragrance of sweet flowers suddenly smelled bitter and the pristine clarity of air for which Leura was well known – the air I had breathed all my life – suddenly felt heavy and besmirched.

I couldn't stop the crippling, negative thoughts. I paused on the dirt track momentarily to adjust the discomfort of my school bag, only to remain stranded there for over an hour. The fragility of my mind warped time and reality and made me drunk with sadness.

I cried the rest of the way home.

The driveway of our family home fell away from a quiet cul-de-sac, flanked by tall, evergreen trees its full length. Scars from a bushfire four years earlier, remained visible at the base of each tree. Up and until coming across mom's treachery, it had been the most terrifying episode of my life. Fire was such an awesome, destructive power.

I let gravity advance my feet along the cement path that I had walked endless times before. At the bottom of the driveway was our wooden house, deprived of its fresh aesthetics by years of exposure to the natural, biting mountain elements. Still, it was pretty.

And as I stepped slowly along the veranda to the backdoor, I needed more than ever for home to embrace me and comfort me, like old times.

"Where the hell have you been?" mom said, as she forced the sliding door open with such brute aggression that the door almost slid off the rail. Her face burned with anger.

So much for the embrace.

I didn't want to answer her, but mom was a tougher adversary than the school counsellor, than the obese nurse or Alison McKinney. Mom enjoyed a far greater interest in making me miserable.

"I went for a walk," I said, before stepping inside through the doorway with mom in tow.

Her response was quick. "Dinner has been ready for thirty minutes and..." She paused for a deeper breath and also to reload the ammunition in her voice – or maybe it was simply for effect. Then she added, "And the school counsellor called."

I wanted to stop walking and glance back at her, but conceded it would only satisfy her yearning for a reaction. I kept going and walked unfazed into the living room.

Stalking after me, mom yelled, "We have to talk about this."

I dumped my bag on the polished-wood floor and let myself fall onto the couch. Mika was there for me with concerned eyes and an embrace of sorts. I reciprocated her hug and held on tight, like a passenger on a foundering ship. In her gaze I found some solace. "Why does everyone tell me I have to talk?" I asked her, softly.

Mika smiled. "Don't worry about it," she said.

She had been my strongest ally – my only ally – during the despicable three months.

Mom marched into the room with a vengeance and towered over me like a school bully. Her fight was far from over. The constant conflict was why I hated living at home, living at all.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" mom asked.

Mika grabbed my hand firmly and took on the fight. "She doesn't want to talk," she said.

"Stay out of it, Mikayla. This has nothing to do with you."

"Nothing to do with me?" Mika said. "What?"

But mom continued without pause. "I want an explanation. I've got the school ringing me saying she's been playing with weapons. She's rude to the teacher." Mom flicked her rage my way. "What's going on, Sara?"

"How about this, mom?" Mika said, not quitting so easily. Her tone adopted the more usual Mika-cynicism. "Maybe it has something to do with you being a lying, cheating—"

"Mika!" dad yelled, as he stepped into the living area.

Silence poured into the room after him.

My father, Ron, was a dad with a golden heart and the sincerest of intention, but with a comprehensive lack of any ability to translate his will into practical, normal, social behavior. When visitors came for dinner, dad would hide in his bedroom and watch sport. He was always absent from family functions that involved people – so always – and the one circumstance he feared the most was confrontation. All he wanted in the house, in his job and in his life, was tranquility. Not so good when your wife of thirty years suddenly decides to tear your family to shreds.

Mika tried a more subtle approach. "Why don't you say something to mom, dad?"

That was never going to happen, I thought.

"We all need to calm down," he offered.

That wasn't enough for mom. "Ron, your daughter has been causing problems at school."

Of course, I was mom's daughter as well. Her telling choice of words was not lost on me.

"Dad, I'm just saying," Mika said. "Mom's stupid!"

"Come on," said dad.

My father and sister enjoyed the same strong relationship that I used to have with mom. Mika never felt close to mom and, because of the shattering revelations of three months earlier, she felt suddenly justified in that distance.

Instead, she had gravitated to dad all her life, sharing a similar freaky-weird sense of humor that no human – other than the two of them – seemed to understand or appreciate. Mika was dad's only real friend. And because of her over-the-top cynical attitude, something Mika dismissed as her comic talent, she didn't exactly sprout a garden of close friends either.

The bond between my sister and my dad now lay under siege from the same enemy within that was invading us all. Because dad refused to be angry at mom – refused to assign blame at mom's feet for ripping the backbone out of the family unit – Mika found herself at a dire impasse. She hated mom. And she wanted dad to hate mom, too. And with equal wrath. But dad wasn't like Mika in that way. It wasn't in him. At least, that's what I believed.

In the boundless conflict of the previous three months, Mika cringed at dad's endless resignation. Worse, his presence dampened the steam in her battleship, and my sister hated herself for that. Mika's drive to protect me was often encumbered by her unassailable devotion to dad – her private war in the infernal battle.

Mom walked to the oven and pulled out a plate. Mashed potatoes, a charred, chicken fillet with crisp, black, stringy bits which were once onion rings and three stalks of mushy, pale-green broccoli. She snatched a fork from the drawer beneath the marble bench top and strode back, ready for a second offensive.

Sliding Mika's empty plate and dirty cutlery aside on the coffee table in front of us, mom dumped my dinner plate down like she meant business in her follow up.

"Sara," she said, more seriously. "I want you to tell me what happened at school today."

Mika snapped angrily. "Mom!"

But mom didn't budge. Her piercing gaze failed to be drawn by Mika's outburst. I realized, as I had been forced to do so many times before in the ongoing battle, that the quickest, most painless way to end the tug-of-war was a swift, vague answer. I said, "I had an accident at school. That's all." And that's all she was getting from me.

Dad immediately stepped back into the conversation. He may have been a dufuss, but he did care – even though I would never let on that I knew that. Dad's look was one of genuine concern as I rolled my sleeve up, revealing the bandages on my forearm.

"Are you okay?" dad asked, as he sat beside me.

"I'm fine."

Mom subconsciously took a step in retreat. I'd like to think it was because she suddenly realized she had made no effort whatsoever to canvass my well-being, despite the privileged knowledge from her conversation with the school. But I could no longer be sure. My life had become a cauldron of uncertainty and I constantly found myself doubting mom's words and her motives, even any compassion she showed.

As dad fiddled with the bandages, I took in the fuss around me. My family, all in the same room. It reminded me of Christmas and of birthdays and of better days.

Our home had always been the epicenter of fun for the extended family and our friends. The house had regaled many feasts, both intimate and elaborate. When the in-ground swimming pool was completed, mom and dad invited all our neighbors and close friends. On a glorious summer's night, we played cricket, organized pool-pony races and kept the barbeque burning non-stop. Even dad made the rare social effort.

My memories of that party had always resulted in a smile on my face.

Since Buddha enlightened me about mom's betrayal, only one smoldering thought remained from that party. Helen was there. It was the first time she was invited to a social gathering at our home. No one thought anything of it. She and mom were friends. I don't know how far along their treacherous collaboration was at that instant, but any thought of their double-dealing at our house – our home – and so audaciously under all our noses, was gut-wrenching.

Nothing made me angrier.

Everything good and worthy and right, suddenly felt scourged by deceit and duplicity.

Having appeased my hunger with recollections of mom's unsavory treason, I could no longer stomach the appetite for burnt chicken and potatoes. I gave Mika a smile of appreciation, lovingly touched her skinny fingers, and got back to my feet.

Dad remained on the couch as mom's surveillance fastidiously followed my path. Curiosity killed the cat and she couldn't help herself. "Where are you going?"

I wished mom was a killed cat. "I don't feel well," I said.

"What about dinner?"

Mika butted in. "She just said she wasn't feeling well."

"Do you need to see a doctor?" asked dad.

He could always be trusted to say precisely the most inappropriate thing with the most sincere of intent.

"No, dad. She doesn't want to see a doctor," Mika answered for me.

I kept walking, wishing myself back on the railway tracks of the broken-hearted. As I stepped into the corridor, past the wicked study room, I heard mom yell words I didn't care for. "We still need to talk, Sara," she shouted.

My hands again brushed the corridor walls as I stumbled towards my bedroom. All I wanted was to close the door and shut the world away.

I heard mom's voice again, but I had already tuned out to deciphering her toxic narrative. As I closed my bedroom door, Mika and dad's voices intertwined with mom's, and so began another blistering argument between the three of them. Just like the countless many before it in the previous three months.

Dad was bound to stick it out for less than thirty seconds.

The stillness of my room was exhilarating. I flopped onto my bed and sucked the comfort of silence into my lungs. Tears itched to well in my eyes, but I resisted the temptation to let mom drive me to pieces as she had three nights earlier.

Instead, my aching eyes caught sight of the bundle of envelopes on my dresser. Most days, mom dumped any mail addressed to me in that spot. It looked like two envelopes.

I raised my sorry butt off the bed and stretched for the mail. The first envelope was a transaction statement from the bank. It was not nearly as exciting as I had imagined. When I noticed my balance had actually gone down because of bank fees, automatically withdrawn from my non-treasure-trove of wealth, it depressed me even further.

Nothing was what it used to be.

Whispers of the ongoing conflict in the living room crept underneath the door as I grabbed hold of the second envelope. It was plain and made from a heavy quality paper. I held it under my nose, but could smell nothing special. I don't know why I did that. The envelope was addressed to me – name correctly spelled – at my home address, but two distinctions trapped my attention.

No return address details were written anywhere on the bleach-white envelope. That was not so unusual. More interestingly, and I was impressed by myself for noticing, there was a stamp on the envelope but no post-mark.

The envelope had been hand-delivered and my excitement was swiftly washed away by waves of concern.

Was it something to do with the train wreck?

Did they know it was me?

How did they find me?

Crap! The heavy chains of worry forged around my brain and I was suddenly scared again, sinking into a well of angst. I considered discarding the envelope without opening it, in the hope that ignorance translated to not having to deal with it. But that would make me just like mom. No! That was no longer an option. I carefully pinched a small corner of the sealed-over flap between my thumb and forefinger and loosed the paper from the adhesive. I started slowly, but then the angst kicked in and I ripped the envelope open like a woman possessed.

It was pretty much the same way I did birthday presents. I always started unwrapping diligently, taking great care to preserve the delicate paper. About halfway through, it was always, stuff it! And tearing in.

As I slid my curious finger along the inside top of the envelope, I found no paper inside. No letter. "Huh," I said, under my breath.

Had someone delivered me an empty package?

But where I held the bottom of the envelope with my other hand, it definitely felt as if there was something there. Something solid. I gently wedged the envelope open and peered inside.

My eyes dropped from their sockets and I was certain my heart stopped beating for a cycle, before re-igniting and thumping out of my chest.

It couldn't be.

But it was. I forgot all about the argument in the living room and about mom ruining my favorite memories. The contents of the envelope transcended all the dread, for that moment, anyway.

My body tensed and small beads of perspiration swam excitedly across my forehead. I was in awe – confused awe – and my body responded by releasing all its countermeasures.

With a deep breath of excitement, mixed deliciously with anticipation, I lifted the palm of my hand up in front of me and hovered the envelope above with my other hand.

Taking maternal-like care, I upturned the package. I felt its contents shift momentarily, before sliding out into my hand.

I kept still, afraid that any movement may wake me from a dream. I had to be dreaming. But as the contents dropped into my hand, I knew that I wasn't.

In the rosiness of my palm lay my silver cross pendant and fine-chain necklace. Nanna's precious gift before she had died.

There was no mistaking it was nanna's. On the back of the small cross, etched delicately into the fine silver, were my initials: SJB.

My absolute joy instantly jumbled with questions, most of them starting with, How...?

I was without doubt that I had tragically lost the pendant and necklace in the incredible tumult of three nights earlier. Lying on the grass atop the escarpment beside the railway tracks, I had felt for the necklace, but it was gone, lost amongst the thousands of devastated train and coal fragments below.

Yet, there it was in my hand. Returned. Perfect. Mine again. The necklace wasn't broken, simply unhooked at the petite, circular lock. The necklace unhooked often and I already knew that was the reason I had lost it in the first place.

I grasped both ends and returned the jewelry to its rightful place around my neck. It felt as if some spiritual part of me, deep in my soul, had returned home. I smiled and cried at the same time. I was such a baby, sometimes. But the pressing unknown, quickly took hold in my subconscious. I was ecstatic that nanna's memorable gift had returned to me, but it harvested a field of mystery.

Who found the necklace?

How did they know it was mine?

And how did they know where to bring it?

Only one solution made any sort of sense, but I could not be sure if it was logical reasoning or because I so desperately wanted it to be the answer.

The man. The mysterious silhouette on the tracks that night.

I could not think of any other explanation. Of course, I didn't try very hard.

As nonsensical a solution as it was, it was the only solution. In my energized, dramatic-magnet-mind, it made perfect sense. Subconsciously, I made a decision at that instant. I needed to gather answers. I needed to know I was right.

The only sensible course of action was to sneak from the house under a blanket of cool darkness and return to the scene of my crime, where I had danced with the devil and, like a demented Cinderella, left him center-stage and hungry for revenge.

One thing was for sure... My adventure was afoot.

# Chapter 7

Okay. So sneaking from the house wasn't the only sensible course of action. It was most likely the least. But that's the strategy my gut feeling pushed for and, like a rudderless juggernaut, I headed for the unknown.

It didn't start well. I waited until everyone else in the house was asleep, which didn't happen until eleven. I had hoped to get out an hour earlier.

My windows were the type that opened by turning a little, plastic handle that extended a flexible connector, pushing the window open. Of course, the window extended only so far from the sill and, as it turned out, the gap was somewhat narrower than I had anticipated.

I positioned a chair underneath the window after pushing aside my desk. God! It was noisy. Climbing on top, I then eased one leg over the sill and dangled it outside. I planned to grasp the window frame, twist my body and then, slide my other leg into the gap. A gymnastics-style backbend and I'd be able to slither myself out onto the porch below.

But my butt didn't fit through the gap.

How embarrassing! I got stuck as I lifted my other leg. My hands clawed desperately onto the wooden frame to stop my butt from wedging in tighter and ripping my black-denim jeans. If anyone had been watching at a distance, it would have made a great YouTube video.

I did eventually clamber back into my bedroom with all the noise of a stampeding rhinoceros. Afraid I had woken the entire house, I snuck back under the blankets, pretending to be peacefully asleep. I waited for the others to bustle.

All remained quiet. Just as well I wasn't being abducted.

I listened nervously. Noises were so much more pronounced when the light of day had retreated. I heard a chorus of cicada shrills – early for that time of year – along with the relentless buzzing of other bugs and a whisper of wind conversing high in the nearby trees.

It was a perfect night.

A perfect night for sneaking from the house and running amok in the blackness of night like a typical seventeen year-old. At least, that's what I was told girls my age did. I couldn't even get out of the bloody window!

Moments later, I crept along the wooden floorboards of the corridor, past Mika's bedroom on the right, and onwards to the living room. The faint creaking of the pine beneath my feet would have worried me more if not for the Sara's-big-butt episode an hour before. If the others weren't ignoring me, they must have been comatose, because I was certain even the neighbors should have heard.

Being oblivious to Sara was becoming all too common in the Baines family home.

Grabbing my favorite coat from the bench in the kitchen, I quickly found myself at the backdoor. It wasn't locked, which was not unusual in the mountains. The residents of Leura clung blindly to the old days when neighbors could be trusted and crime was a scourge that existed only in the city. I thought people who believed that were mad. I frequently had a go at dad for not locking the doors at night. I'll protect you, Sara, he would say to me with a smile. I don't think even he believed it.

I slid the door smoothly on its track and escaped into the darkness. My first breath of outside air scratched the back of my throat with its sharpness. It was much colder than I expected. The mountains were always like that – always throwing the purity of nature at you. If it was dark, it was pitch black. If the air was cold, it was frigid, like ice. If fog oozed in, it was blindingly opaque.

A crescent moon mitigated the darkness. The outlines of the trees, the driveway and the neighbor's houses, were clearly visible in its shimmer.

The growing wind nudged me gently in the back, urging me forwards as I walked the same course of three nights before. A dirt track sliced a path through the forest reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood. 'The track' – as it was inventively baptized by 'the locals' – was the quickest passage from the east of town up to the railway line.

Mountains folk weren't a very imaginative bunch when it came to labelling things.

To city people, the idea of walking a dark, secluded track amongst the trees within eyeshot of midnight would be considered foolish, reckless even. But life was a little different in the mountains. Locking the house door was one thing, but mountain locals didn't spend much time stalking victims at night or snatching bags from defenseless little nannas.

At least, they never used to.

The words and images of the news report I saw in sickbay, subliminally flashed through my brain. Three missing girls, they had said. And claims by reporters that the area was being terrorized by a serial killer...

Most locals doubted the claims. Girls in the area frequently undertook self-discovery journeys to escape from their more traditional mountain-goat upbringing. When they arrived in the Big Smoke and discovered the world, their couple-of-days unwittingly became many months, often forgetting to tell anyone – or choosing to forget – because of all the fun.

No. I still felt safe as I kicked loose stones along the well-worn forest shortcut.

Scattered beams of moonlight broke through the tree tops and waltzed in a mesmerizing symphony of luminance. The radiance was just enough to distinguish the path in the hues of deep blues and soft blacks. The shortage of light was of little concern. I had walked the stretch of hardened dirt so often, days and nights, that I could have found my way even with my eyes firmly shut. When it came to the track in the throes of night, I had no fear.

Then, a distinct, loud rustling, high in the trees scared the bejesus out of me. I ducked down instinctively. As my fingers wrestled a sizeable chunk of rock from the dirt track for protection, my mind frenzied trying to identify what had caused such a racket.

Holding firmly onto the sharp-edged stone, I glanced up, but I saw nothing.

The rustle reminded me of possums jumping from branch to branch in the tree-tops, but whatever had jumped in the trees behind me, sounded much larger than any marsupial I had ever seen.

I straightened my knees and let the spike of anxiety drain from my chest, down to my feet and away. I took a deep, soothing breath and recomposed, then focused my view skyward.

The forest canopy swayed ever-so gently in the seasonal breeze. It meant that the forest wasn't dead silent – ambient whispers flowed endlessly through the leaves and amongst the tree trunks. But what I had heard was not just the wind. Something was out there and thoughts of a delirious assassin returned to haunt me. I waited and waited, determined not to move. I barely breathed.

I cautiously checked my Cinderella watch and, as the seconds ticked over, my apprehension slowly vanished with them. I heard no further rustlings. No more movements.

As I resumed at a brisk pace, I wondered if there really had been a noise at all. The darkness enjoyed playing devilish mind tricks, and it wouldn't be the first occurrence of my imagining sounds or sights in the black of night.

On the night of my sixteenth birthday, when I sneaked my first sip of vodka and orange, I woke at three in the morning, screaming my lungs to pieces, utterly convinced someone stood at the end of my bed, watching me. Just watching. It felt so real.

Yet, when mom and dad ran into my bedroom, terrified by the high-pitched screaming, the apparition was gone. It took mom an hour to persuade me that the most terrifying moment of my life wasn't real.

I had not touched any alcohol since.

The rest of my walk through the forest was idyllic. The smell of clean air was as sweet as any chocolate milkshake and the cool moisture cloaked my skin like Mother Nature's blanket.

I wasn't absolutely sure what the hell I was doing or what I hoped to find or... what the hell I was doing. But I trusted the gut feeling that had sent me into the void.

As the forest vista divided, the railway tracks materialized in the faint light, lying forever quietly on their bed of sleepers and stones.

I clambered up the small rise and steadied myself. Centered between the two rails, I stood static on a cracked wooden sleeper, catching my breath.

I was back on the tracks.

Looking around, the scene was as still as three nights before. Only the smiling face of the moon, laughing at me from high above, cast more light than on my last visit.

I stepped forwards, intent on reaching the site of the wreck as quickly as possible.

But what would I find there? I wondered.

In my melodramatic mind, I pictured a cordon of yellow police tape. Maybe even a guard or two. The demolished locomotive probably still lay on the tracks, trying to reach its destination. A boneyard of skeletal carriages, haphazardly buried beneath a carpet of coal. And somewhere amongst the time-frozen storm walked a man with a brimmed hat and flowing coat.

Drama Queen!

As I progressed along the tracks, the forest on my left quickly rose up the escarpment and I again found myself walking between the slanted, rocky ridges into the arena of unspeakable acts.

But something was wrong.

I walked a while longer, certain the train wreck had to be in sight. But even in the dim light, I saw nothing of the carnage.

My feet began to feel like cement trucks, heavy with disappointment. As I ambled onwards, self-doubt and criticism flared in my eyes and, for a moment, I wished I was back home, warmly tucked in with nanna's blanket securely in my grasp.

A sniff of midnight breeze sneaked between my neck and the woolen collar of my jacket and crept like a spider down my spine. The chill quaked me from the stupor and I shockingly realized the gleam in my sight wasn't the manifestations of self-deprecating emotion. The lights were real. Very real.

A train was roaring towards me.

It took much longer than I was comfortable with for the realization to register in my brain. As with my last visit, I found myself staring at a behemoth of metal and destruction, hurtling towards me.

The lights grew bright, much quicker than they had last time. The train was flying! I suddenly had to think with haste, because I was going to be squashed like a belly-flopped mosquito.

Adrenalin surged through my veins and I was subconsciously driven to action. I dived into the ditch between the track and the bottom of the rocky incline. I hit my head hard on the pointy stones. My elbows scraped open along the glass-sharp gravel and I gulped the most disgusting mouthful of dirt and grime. Urrghh, a thousand times over!

The train thundered past like a million stampeding horses. The sound was unbelievable. The wind whooshed and shrieked with a bedeviled personality all its own.

Unlike three nights before, it was a passenger train. I squinted to protect my eyes from the whirlwind of fine, dark-brown dust and loose rubble, wildly jabbing at every inch of exposed skin. I could faintly make out the lights of the passenger carriages as they flashed by in a blur.

The hairs in my nostrils burnt with a funny sulfur smell and I wasn't sure if it was the train or if I'd peed my pants.

The insane ride felt like an out of control carnival roller-coaster from hell that just wouldn't stop.

I lay distraught in the ditch, spitting bits of dirt and rubbing my forehead, certain I'd cracked it open and my brains were slithering into the trench around me.

It felt like a lifetime before the leviathan finally passed.

Cool solitude recaptured the night as the resonance of the blistering passenger transport faded into the distance. All was still again so quickly, only the violent pounding of my pulse echoed in my eardrums.

Everything ached. My hands. My arms. Knees. Eyes. Back. Ego. My head had not split, but it throbbed and sizzled like someone with a blow-torch was tattooing pretty pictures on my skull. I felt for blood, but found none among the coating of sweat and dust.

My hands were stained with a sooty, dark powder.

Slowly, I recognized some strength in my arms and I pulled my torso upright. I moaned and groaned with pain and disillusion. The sulfur smell had vanished and I wasn't swimming in a warm, fuzzy liquid – all was well downstairs.

I backed myself up the inclined escarpment and out of the grubby ditch, before taking a few moments to tell myself I was okay. Halfway up the slanted rocky slope, I rested with a clear view of the railway track below me. In the dim light, the clarity of my location struck me with surprising honesty. I was in the right place – almost in the exact spot of three nights earlier.

On the escarpment opposite, deep grooves sliced through the calcified limestone and scars of unnatural colors, painted strokes in all directions. Something big had happened at that spot.

Something I caused.

The more the ache drained from my eyes, the crisper I focused on the wounds of battle. The arena was substantially compromised. A fine layer of coal-colored dust suffocated every nook and cranny – and my hands. Small chunks of brown-coal still lay scattered like fallen soldiers amongst the silver-gray railway stones. The steel rails themselves were scratched, refracting the moon's luminance in the metallic grooves and, when I moved my head from side to side, they glistened brightly.

But there was no sign of the wreck or any debris and definitely no security guards. From watching the news in sickbay at school, I knew a legion of emergency workers, monstrous machines and local volunteers began to clear the tracks almost immediately after crash investigators had surveyed the 'accident.'

The singular rail line was a critical industrial and commercial lifeline between city and country and needed to be cleared as expeditiously as possible. I had not expected the clean-up to be so efficient. Not even a placard or token gesture identified the location of where carnage had flourished so violently only seventy-two hours earlier.

It felt surreal. If not for the evidence of scrapes, paint and crevices – and the sickening taste of coal dust glued to the walls of my mouth – I may never have believed my fight with the devil had happened at all.

But it had.

My fingers brushed along the silver of nanna's cross dangling from around my necklace and I thought about what had brought me back to the railway tracks. Questions.

I tired at the thought of them. My mind constantly fluctuated from being alright to being miserable. Idle hours, the darkness, mom – all bred heinous thoughts. My counsellor, Alison McKinney, told me that severe depression was one of the most underappreciated illnesses in society. Girls and boys my age, were regularly overdosing on pills, gassing themselves in their parents' car, jumping off cliffs and throwing themselves in front of trains.

Resources to battle the epidemic were almost non-existent, government funding was farcical, the legal system was in denial and the stigma attached to so-called loonies meant most of us who needed help didn't, or couldn't, find it.

Worst of all, those closest to the loonies – moms, dads, brothers, sisters, boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers, priests – couldn't comprehend the seriousness of what was going on. To them, it was just a passing phase that was easier to turn a blind eye to. Comments like, 'Get over it, you'll be fine' and 'Cheer up, mate' were common, misconceived attempts at support that only fuelled the burning worthlessness inside.

Mom saw scratches on my arms one morning as I stepped from the shower. "What are they?" she asked. I told her, more honestly than I could ever imagine being now, that I had deliberately carved them with sowing scissors because I was sad. She stared blankly, unquestionably confused. But all I got was, "Well that's a stupid thing to do, Sara. Just be happy."

She never asked about my arms again.

For most of us besieged by the despicable monster of depression, it was a lonely battle, a solitary nightmare, often with no perceivable end in sight.

A fight against a silent serial-killer.

I understood the attraction to the pills, the cliffs, the trains – I should already have found death in them myself. The most difficult and heartbreaking feat was to have others understand. No one ever did.

It was simply easier to jump.

Sitting on the rocky incline, I began to feel cold and tired and I wanted to go home. But something within, urged me to resist.

My eyes glanced to the top of the escarpment on the opposite side of the tracks, drawn to the beauty of small, recently planted eucalyptus trees swaying calmly in the breeze. Amongst the memories of decimation and nightmares of inescapable personal pain, there was still beauty in the world.

I fixed my gaze on those trees and prepared to dream about better days, but my pupils adjusted ever-so-slightly and locked onto the shadows of denser bush land behind the seedlings.

The forest trees were much larger, older and shrouded in the darkness as midnight approached.

My rigid stare struggled to make sense of the view. Was I imagining things, seeing something that wasn't there?

I angled my head like animals did when they tried to make sense of the peculiar. The sight before me was peculiar. I forced my eyes shut, held them a moment and then flicked them open. But there was no change.

One of the trees in the shadows beyond, formed a mesmerizing outline, very untree-like. It looked to me like the outline of a person.

Again, I questioned if I was seeing the shapes I wanted to see, like people who see faces in clouds or in aerial photographs or in melted cheese on toast. Was my mind playing tricks? I remained seated, as still as the shadows of tree trunks and... whatever else. I waited.

Nothing.

Maybe my mind was playing—

Oh my God!

Movement. I gasped and couldn't get in enough air to appease my shock. The outline moved, deliberately, like a human would. Someone was there.

Someone had been watching me.

Someone was stalking me!

My breathing sharpened and became disturbingly shallow. My body shuddered with a boozy mix of fear and hysteria and exhilaration. Part of me was drunk with ecstasy that I may have found what I came for. The other part – clearly the sensible portion – was screaming at me to get the crap out of there because a predator was hunting me. An insidious killer maybe. Three girls missing. The portraits I had seen of them on the news zipped through the back of my eyeballs. Run Sara, voices yelled at me from within.

But I couldn't move. Intrigue fused me to my vantage point. I hugged myself, trying to subdue the trembling that rocked my entire body.

My stare did not break from the area around the tree trunks atop the opposite incline. I was terrified at the thought of seeing movement again and yet, Oh! I longed for that terror. I wanted movement. I needed it.

And then, it happened!

I croaked again as my mouth fell open when I saw it. The whites of my knuckles were visible in the darkness as I clenched the ground where I sat, ready to run.

Frozen like a statue, I watched the dark shape move more freely from behind one tree trunk to the next and the next. The person – the human form – deliberately sought the cover of the broad trunks to hide from me.

From me!

I don't know why I didn't run.

Fear?

Awe?

Dumb-ass stupidity?

I knew there was someone out there. I knew he could be a vile murderer. Hiding in a dark forest close to midnight and stalking victims was a skill not out of place on the resume of a deranged serial-killer. I should have escaped.

But I didn't move an inch.

If there was any noise when the shape moved, I couldn't hear it above the rustling of leaves in the wind. No footsteps. No voice. But there was no question in my mind that the form was a person. My brain crazed with competing sixth senses, arguing about the best defense to get me to safety. And then, I did the unthinkable.

"Hello!" I yelled. And my sixth senses were instantly silent, as dumbfounded as the rest of me.

I wondered for a moment if the bump on my head had knocked me literally senseless or if my death-wish had resurfaced. What was I thinking?

Again, my brain told me to run.

But once more, I remained steadfast, somehow controlling the fear snapping at every part of my body, inside and out. I suddenly understood why thrill-seekers parachuted from planes or scaled Mount Everest without surplus oxygen. There was no rush like fear.

The night remained void of any response. Was I honestly expecting one? I thought. But the shape no longer moved. I couldn't see the outline anymore and I had no idea where it was.

The voices in my head composed amplified tunes of bolting, but I wasn't so sure that running away was the answer. "No," I said to myself, hoping to suppress the chorus in my head. "I got this."

The positive attitude did little to crush the terror crawling through me. I was dead set petrified – the possibility of being hacked into edible pieces by an unhinged assassin had that effect on me.

But still, I stayed.

I tried focusing my eyes so hard they hurt, but I couldn't find the peculiar form in the shadows. And there was no movement. I felt frustration creep in. Had I let an opportunity slip or was I simply lucky that a murderous stalker had changed their mind?

An insane resolve then took hold of me. Without a second thought, I jumped to my feet and romped down the escarpment to the tracks. I left my internal harmonies in my wake. What the hell are you doing, Sara? they yelled after me. But I felt possessed.

What was the worst that could happen to me? I rationalized it in my heart. I could die. In the experiences of the last three months, that outcome no longer seemed so scary. I still starved for my own death.

Reaching the bottom of the hill, I almost fell face-first into the ditch, having picked up too much speed on the way down. I pressed hard into the rocky surface with my last step and jumped the trench that had protected me from the speeding passenger train. With my arms extended to regain my balance, I felt as if I was flying.

The crunch of rocks beneath my Adidas runners moments later, confirmed to me that I was not. Pity. I ran across the tracks and was surprised by my own enthusiasm. Maybe if I'd embraced a similar strategy three nights earlier, instead of sitting like a stunned-mullet on the tracks, I would have got the job done properly.

I was halfway up the incline before I could find a moment to appreciate the craziness of what I was doing. The random grooves in the rocks, caused by hurtling coal carriages three nights earlier, made it much easier to traverse the slope. I used the furrows like steps and clambered up like a demented monkey scurrying for bananas.

I wasn't sure what fruits I would find at the top of my climb – or what fruits may slice from the trees and do me in. I deliberately avoided thinking too much as I dragged myself upwards.

The thin, whitish-brown trunks of the eucalyptus seedlings were the first things I clapped eyes on as I reached the top. I gripped one of them and almost pulled its fresh roots from the earth as I used the young tree as leverage to heave myself up and over. Years of gymnastics had made me usefully flexible, if nothing else.

Unlike three nights before, I wasted no time to regain control over my breathing or my bearings. I was up, over and into an immense stride in a flash.

I froze at the first line of forest trees. The darkness of the woods was intense. Peering into the unknown, I was overwhelmed by the complex mosaic of shadows and outlines and dark forms that extended as far as the visibility allowed in the miniscule amount of light. The dark forest was as terrifying a monster as any hurtling locomotive or sanity-devouring depression.

It was awesome.

I finally took a deep breath and a moment to recompose. I had left the voices of doubt behind on the tracks below, but as I stood at the fringe of the unknown, even the sanity in my heart questioned what on earth I was doing.

There may be a serial killer out there, Sara, I kept repeating in my head.

I sucked in another volume of sweet mountain air and felt inexplicably drawn to nature's masterpiece before me.

Only misery waited for me at home. The sensation of fear and excitement induced feelings of captivation too powerful to fight. The dead of night craved for a decision from me.

Backwards or forwards, Sara?

Home and away to safety... or into the gloom?

I quivered with hesitation. I wanted to know what, or who, had been watching me – hunting me. Only by stepping into the dark woods could I possibly find an answer, if there was one to be found.

Yet, every rational part of my brain, and just about every other fiber in my entire body, urged me home. It was the self-preservation kicking in again.

Turning on my heels and hustling back along the tracks to get my butt back into bed was the sensible course of action. The smart choice to make. The option Old Sara would choose every day of the week and twice standing at the edge of dark woods just past midnight. Old Sara would be fast asleep already, not thinking about murderers or being murdered.

But standing at the edge of the forest, only one question blinked like a cheap neon sign in an imaginary speech bubble above my head.

What would New Sara do?

# Chapter 8

My first step into the forest fell on twigs and freshly fallen, moist leaves, but I took the stride as if I ventured onto a frozen lake at winter's end. I paused, waiting for my world to shatter. But it held.

My second step came with greater determination and, by the third, I was at the line of trees where I believed I last saw movement in the shadows.

The woods at night were like an alien planet – nothing like the track I had walked earlier. The growth around me was thick, uninviting and scary. If I journeyed forward, I could walk through the same tortured, but beautiful, environment for days and weeks, up and down hills and valleys. I stood three steps inside the unparalleled mountains National Park and I risked being lost for the rest of my life.

Pushing aside a web of narrow, leaning branches, I eased further into the woods. The wind breathed an unnerving life into the forest and I felt very much surrounded by a perfect, living creature that could swallow me whole at a whim.

As the comparatively tiny eucalyptus seedlings dissolved into the darkness behind me and out of sight, the intricacy of the massive forest creature rose from the gloom. Even in the dimness, I saw small bugs and insects crawling on trunks, busy on their daily nocturnal scavenge. Cryptic sounds pitched from all directions – nature's orchestra conducted by the ever-faithful breeze tuning each and every note.

With no hint of human-kind's machines and industry and tampering, the fragrance in the air was heavenly. I could smell a perfume of sweet eucalyptus sap and aged bark, seasoned with sprinkles of aromatic mosses and flowers. It was easy to lose yourself in the woods, in more ways than just literally.

The crazy laughter of a woken kookaburra in the tree tops above, shrieked through the murky darkness and jolted me back from the mesmerizing beauty.

Focus Sara, I told myself. I had lost count of how often I needed to command my emotions.

But it was good advice. For all its prettiness, the gut of the forest creature was a haven for danger. Disorientation. Abyssal gorges. Nocturnal predators. And spiders and snakes with venom deadly enough to kill an elephant. Despite my butt not fitting out the window, I lacked the body mass of an elephant and any venom would kill me quickly.

Most frightening, and most exhilarating at the same time, was the unknown presence that had stood afar in silence, watching me. Just watching.

Oh! And that he may be a serial killer.

As I made inroads through the outer fringes of forest, I discovered no sign or evidence of the hunter, but I could not be certain that I was alone in the woods. I never believed that I was.

And yet, I pushed on, driven by the same lunacy that had brought me out into the night to begin with. My hands pushed through the clinging spider webs and my ankles stressed constantly as my feet blindly navigated the uneven ground, scattered with broken branches, fallen trunks and rabbit holes.

I paused again, ready to turn back, but at that moment, I saw something unexpected ahead in the distance.

A light.

The bright luster was motionless, high above the ground. As I moved closer with increased speed, beams of radiance pierced through every gap of foliage and it was more difficult to see than ever. My eyes had yet to fully adjust to the darkness and suddenly, they were engulfed in a light storm. I fluttered to its source like a hypnotized moth.

On the brink of penetrating the sphere of glowing light, I pushed the last of the branches a tad too enthusiastically and they snapped with a loud cracking sound. I fell forward into the open space and landed on my outstretched hands, scraping the wounds on my palms open a second time.

I was such an imbecile sometimes.

The circular grass clearing was scarcely twenty-feet across. At its center, a metallic pole rose halfway to the forest canopy, but just like at ground level, the tree tops were trimmed back and opened a hole in the forest to the night sky.

A small light bulb, huddled beneath a cracked, plastic covering, cast a haunting glow on the woods around the clearing.

Bathed in the glorious light directly beneath the globe, a sheathed, black power cable was sturdily attached to the metal pole. Each end of the line disappeared into the darkness west and east where a narrow channel devoid of any foliage snaked through the National Park as far as I could see.

Far into the distance to my left and on higher ground, another sphere of light pinpricked the blackness. It was another power-pole. To my right, there was only darkness, but I knew from daylight hours that the terrain in that direction fell away sharply.

The sphere of luminance was a nucleus of light in a private world of darkness. Bugs in their thousands swarmed at the light globe. Mostly tiny insects. I wondered how they didn't smack into each other. A large, light-brown moth cut a glide path through the bugs and landed on the metal pole, clinging desperately to it with its tiny, glue-like feet. Almost as quickly as it appeared, the moth vanished out of sight as the cloud of swarming insects reclaimed their orbit of the globe.

Getting back to my feet and feeling rather foolish – again! – I hesitantly stepped to the out-of-place post. I raised my scratched and aching hands to the cool, slightly moist metal to rest. My eyes explored the darkness in all directions. If someone was hunting me, I had stupidly walked into a trap of light. Anyone, or anything, stalking me could easily see me from any point of the clearing's circumference.

I could see nothing.

Exposed and alone, I suddenly felt emotionally naked. I may as well have bound myself to the pole and yelled, "Serial killer, come and get me!"

Confusion beat me about the head and I was no longer sure from which direction I had flopped into the clearing. Usually, the first indication of being lost. A new sensation then clawed inside my head, trying to breach my sanity. The sensation I feared the most. Panic! There was no greater enemy in the bush than to lose control over your emotions.

My breaths became quick and desperate and the puncture wound where I had stabbed the compass into my skin itched and throbbed beneath the bandages. It was a sobering reminder that I could bleed and be hurt.

I backed myself against the pole. The coolness of the metal bought extra seconds before the inevitable breach of a panic attack. Focus Sara, I said to myself again, rather hopefully.

As I tried to maintain a grasp on my emotions, my eyes, wide with fright, searched for a familiar sign, path, tree trunk – anything to point to a way out.

And then, time jolted to a stop, as if the forest creature itself seized the world in its massive clutches. Everything seemed to stand still. I don't remember my heart pulsing, or my body breathing or my eyes blinking.

I definitely didn't blink.

My stare was frozen solid, dead ahead. Nothing else registered in my brain. Nothing else mattered. I couldn't move, even if I'd thought to do so. At the very edge of the light's reach, he was there.

The man.

He stood motionless, only his feet were engulfed in the blazing light. His body remained in the shadows, but his outline was familiar. I was overwhelmed by a sense of knowing that I had seen that person before – on the railway track, three nights before.

The figure was dressed in the same outfit as then. A wide-brimmed hat pressed down to his eyebrows, a piece of fabric covered his face and he wore a flowing, full-length coat.

Gazing upon the imposing and heart-stopping figure, I confirmed in my brain what my gut feeling already knew for certain. The man who stood behind me on the railway tracks and the outline in the shadows I had so unnervingly witnessed before were one and the same. The savior was the stalker. The stalker had become the hunter. And the hunter could be the serial killer. I waited in a state of paralysis for him to feed.

I could not draw my eyes away from him. I had craved for the moment, practically willed it into reality by foolishly entering the darkest woods. But as I stood in the spotlight, scrutinized and exposed to the precise unknown that I had pursued so recklessly, my senses abandoned me and I was no longer in control. I stood at the mercy of the hunter. The next move was his. When it came, it was most unexpected.

A deep, muffled voice echoed from the darkness. "Why are you here?"

Because I could not clearly see his face, masked by shadows and his facial covering, the penetrating voice sounded surreal, mystical, almost god-like. I was uncertain about what I had expected the man to do, but speaking was not high on my list. Even though I knew he was human, his first impressions didn't exactly scream, let's have a chat over coffee.

My lips trembled for an answer, but I found none – an increasingly more common reaction I was having to people.

Unexpectedly, the voice spoke again. "Are you not afraid of me?"

Yes.

But silently I shook my head from side to side, mentally kicking myself for being a literal doe in the headlights. Say something, Sara.

I pressed my hands back against the metal pole for support and to feel something real – to know I was still alive. My first attempt at speaking was a mumble that even I could not decipher in my ears.

I tried again. "Should I be afraid?" I asked, my voice shaky and unsure.

"Yes," the man said.

Oh God! His reply shocked me. I had hoped my question to be a little more rhetorical.

I was more confused than ever. If the man was going to hurt me – kill me – what was he waiting for? And why had he not taken my life three nights before. I would have put up less of a fight.

The voice spoke again. "You do need to be afraid," he said, "but not because of me."

Courage mustered a question from my mouth. "What do I need to be afraid of, then?"

He hesitated, I hoped in recognition of my not being a total damsel in distress. Finally, he answered, "You are strolling through a forest at midnight without a torch."

The words hung in the air for a moment as I absorbed their irony. Was that sarcasm? Even the man's tone sounded cynical as he said it.

The next question accidentally fell from my mouth. "Are you a serial killer?"

A moment's silence and then, I heard a loud and utterly unexpected burst of laughter from the man, before he realized it was a serious question.

It was a deadly serious question.

But his reaction was like an anesthetic to the forest creature's vice on stilted time. My paralyzing fear subsided and I felt strangely calm, safe even.

All at once, the world cranked into gear and began rotating again. The crisp sounds of buzzing insects and soothing whooshes of wind dancing with leaves poured back into my eardrums. And the perfumed smells returned.

But the most frightening sense of all then shocked me – my heart beat again. It thundered inside my chest.

It was difficult to contain my smile. "Who are you?" I asked.

The man didn't immediately answer.

"Did you bring this back to me?" I said, reaching for the silver cross pendant glistening in the light.

Silence.

"What's your name?" I said.

Again, nothing. Okay. So the Spanish Inquisition approach didn't work as well as I had hoped. I nervously gave it one more shot. "Do you know what happened on the rail line three nights ago?"

"Yes," the man said, to my surprise. He chose his next words with care. "You lived."

"That's not exactly what I meant," I said.

"I know," he answered, "but isn't that what matters most?"

It took a moment for me to realize my mouth was agape, as shocked by the man as by own daring. I wasn't a big fan of talking to people – to anyone – and yet, I wanted a conversation with the stranger. I wanted answers and questions asked in return.

The man was a paradox. His oddness chilled the lifeblood in my veins with the heebie-jeebies and yet, I felt strangely at ease and drawn to his madness. When he spoke, the depth in his voice oozed a sincerity that belied his outward appearance. There was a straightforwardness I had never heard from anyone before. He didn't sound like a serial killer. His voice sounded sad and lonely. I knew that tone all too well.

With each unbelievable passing second, I thought less about me and more about the tall, mysterious figure in the shadows right before me.

"Come into the light," I said, more assuredly than what I really felt. Into the light meant closer to me and I couldn't be certain that's what I really wanted. I wasn't exactly in familiar territory and, from the little I could make out, neither was he.

Maybe I asked too much of both of us.

Just as I resigned myself to the man not moving an inch, he took one stride forward into the light.

I felt my heart stutter and my lungs were forced to remind me to keep breathing. I didn't know what to think or what to believe at that point.

The man seemed nice enough, but I knew from my brief stint in journalism class a year before, that so had just about every other depraved mass-murderer. A false sense of security was the most lethal weapon in their macabre arsenal. They all got off on playing nice.

After a second step forward, the darkness no longer concealed the man. He stood with his head bowed forward, using the brim of his hat to shield his face from mine. His clothing was shockingly wretched. The fabric of his coat was stained and streaked. His jumper was torn in numerous places and his pants were ripped at the sides.

Three nights before, I had thought his hands were gloved. But they weren't gloves at all. His hands were covered in bandages – dirty, frayed strips of cloth, roughly tied and leaving only the fingertips exposed.

My sympathy rallied at that instant and I no longer believed the man to be a murderer. He couldn't be. Despite all his strangeness and mystery, maybe there was a much simpler explanation.

Slowly, reluctantly, the man raised his face into the light and into view. I could not stop myself from a gasp. I tried throwing a hand to my mouth in a vain attempt to catch it, but the man heard it loud and clear.

As with his hands, I had mistakenly believed a dress-fabric of some sort, covered the man's face. A scarf, maybe. But the same sad bandages that protected the man's hands also masked his face. The dressing was barely recognizable amidst the dark, brown stains of dirt and other filth. Loose threads hung helplessly from the bandages and swayed in the breeze.

The man reminded me of a homeless person I had seen sleeping between two discarded, cardboard boxes on my last visit to the city – as if he too, had been living on the streets for months. He was such a sorry sight and I couldn't help but feel sorrow.

In a reserved show of empathy, I released my grip from the metal power-pole and took a small step towards the man, as I thinly smiled.

"So..." I said, totally clueless about what to do next. "Is this where you normally hang out?" Smooth, Sara, I thought.

"You shouldn't have come here," the man said, very matter-of-factly, his voice deep and humorless.

All at once, my momentum forward ceased and my dread pinched me on the back of my neck like a demented mosquito with a grudge. I wanted to say something agreeable to convince the man – to convince myself – that I was in total control.

I wasn't.

The man's voice then pierced the chilly darkness like a flash of summer lightning. "It could be dangerous out here," he said.

Because of you?

My fear rose again that I had completely misjudged the man, the situation, the crazy significance of seeking this convergence of our worlds with such recklessness. I needed to be brave. At least, I needed to pretend to be.

"I'm fine," I said. "In fact, I go for walks at night all the time."

So not.

The man's eyes remained fixed firmly in my direction, void of giving away any thoughts hidden behind them.

I continued nervously making stuff up as I went along. "Tomorrow night, I'm doing Martin's Lookout straight after dark," I said. So there! I thought, but would never say so.

But I felt adrift, uncertain and afraid. My brain ticked like a cuckoo-clock on steroids trying to make sense of what the hell I was doing.

I tried to convince myself that my fear was without premise and without logic, but I quickly realized that my daredevil rendezvous was driven by something far more entrenched in my mashed-up brain.

I craved acceptance – someone telling me they gave a stuff. Didn't seem to matter anymore if that someone was a homeless dude, a night dweller or, indeed, a raving-mad, stalking serial killer.

But there was something about him that stupefied my concern. I didn't know precisely what it was. I couldn't identify or label it. He was an outcast, like I was. Okay, maybe not exactly like I was, but he knew what it was like to feel abandoned, sad and without anyone to lean on. And that was something that struck an agreeable chord.

Curiosity then stung me again. Bloody mosquito! I kept eye contact with the man as I reached both my hands to my neck and unclipped the necklace. I carefully placed it in the palm of my hand, extending it outwards towards the man. "Did you return this to me?"

The man's eyes were steadfast, not blinking once. But he remained silent.

"It's okay," I said, more honestly than I imagined the retort in my buzzing head. "I'm so glad to have it back. Was it you?" I needed to know.

The man took an unexpected step backward. It startled me and my hand began to tremble uncontrollably. Then he spoke. "What do you think... Sara?"

Hearing my name spoken by the man stunned me even further. My surprise travelled down my arm and into my already quivering hand.

I dropped the necklace and cross.

Instinctively, I broke my stare with the man and arched to the ground to retrieve nanna's gift. It wasn't hard to find as the silver twinkled in the bright, artificial light. As I grasped the jewelry, a gust of wind blew across the clearing and it instantly made me look up.

The man was gone.

I rose back to my feet, silver cross in hand, and looked around into the darkness, but all was still.

"Hello," I said, softly.

But the man was nowhere.

"Hello? Hello!"

# Chapter 9

"And so a toast to the end of another school year," Emma said, as she raised a tall, slender glass filled to the brim with golden apple cider to the center of the table.

We all followed her lead. I was the last to chime my glass against the other four. Each of us added our bit to Emma's less-than-philosophical words of wisdom.

"Here. Here."

"I'm gonna miss you guys."

"I'm not," Emma butted in, jokingly.

We were such poets. Not! Emma's jovial remark was followed by laughter, which suited me fine because I remained quiet.

"What about you, Sare?" Emma finally asked.

She loved to drop the a from my name. Emma Mullins was like that. She was the kindest person I knew and she always found ways to show her affection. For her it was in the little things – like dropping the a.

I reciprocated by calling her Em, but so did everyone else, so it wasn't quite as special.

Emma was my closest friend at school and the self-appointed leader of our clique. She was short and chubby, but in a cute way. She wasn't glamorous or sophisticated, but her personality made her virtually perfect. She was impossible not to like.

The only class I shared with her was mathematics. It was a bonus for me because she was so much better at non-linear equations, matrices and geometry than I could ever hope to be. Her beautiful spirit endlessly helped me out in that class and I only wished Emma and I shared more classes. English especially. She would have made a good ally against the mob. None of my four friends were in my English class.

Four pairs of eyes waited with great anticipation around the table as they drilled their gaze into my skull. If they were expecting something prophetic from me in the toast, they really ought to have known me better. "I'll just be glad when it's all over," I finally said.

"Only one year to go, Sara," said The Queen beside me.

Sure. I was referring to High School. Let's go with that. "Yeah," I said, with a thin smile.

Of course, there was no royalty in our group of five. Stephanie Halloway only paraded around like she was. Steph had fairy-tale-red hair and the most annoyingly attractive freckles on her cheeks. She certainly glowed with regal elegance. Her tall, perfectly shaped legs were the envy of most girls at school and the voyeuristic focus of any horny boys – basically all the boys at school. Steph got more attention than the other four of us combined. She always had. So we started calling her The Queen. And she liked it... a lot.

Steph, Emma and I had spent all our school years together. We were the core of our group. The trouble-makers. The decision-makers – with Emma's approval, of course. The three of us were also the reason our clique wasn't popular with anyone else at school. We were all outcasts in our unique ways. Steph was too gorgeous. Emma was too nice. And me, I was simply too strange. I didn't let others in very easily and that made me an unlikable social freak.

Melissa Baker and Lexie Morse completed our unit. Mel Baker, with her golden curls and quiet, introverted manner, was ostracized from the Blondes Only clique two years earlier for being, as Mel had explained it, "not blonde enough." Emma immediately felt sorry for her and asked Mel to sit with us.

Lexie was another solo-flyer. She never actually made it to any other group. The year just gone was her first at our school. On her very first day, Mrs. Kickerbottom, the Physical Education teacher and endless butt of jokes because of her unfortunate name, had introduced the new student. "This is Alexandra Mitchell Morse the Third," Mrs. K. had said. It was Lexie's real name, but the formal announcement was also her social death warrant. We had no snobbish, rich girls' clique at our school. Lexie became an instant outcast.

And so Emma adopted her as well.

"But we already have a Queen," Steph had argued, with passion and in all seriousness. She was having none of it. Steph didn't handle competition well.

From that moment on, Alexandra Mitchell Morse the Third became just Lexie – and a subordinate to our only Queen.

We sipped our apple ciders – our version of champagne – to commemorate our milestone. Only one year until graduation.

I wasn't sure if I'd even live for another week, let alone another year.

I sat quietly, watching and listening to the others talk about their plans for the holiday break. Emma had signed on to do charity work with the Salvation Army for two months to help the needy. Steph talked about learning to drive, but her heart wasn't in it.

"I don't need to learn to drive," she said. "I'll find a servant to drive for me."

By servant, she meant boy. She wouldn't have too much trouble finding one, either.

Mel and Lexie planned to spend the holidays together at Morse Mansion just outside of Leura. Mel had taken a real liking to the brunette with ocean-blue eyes. They shared a love of fashion and movies and shopping. Lexie's ridiculously wealthy parents suited those passions rather well.

My feelings towards the other girls were a mix of emotions. I was proud of Emma for her unselfish sacrifice to help others and yet, I was jealous that her life was so in order, that it gave her the freedom to do that – to not have to constantly worry about herself or her family. I was happy for the others as well. They deserved happiness because they were great girls. Great friends. But I wanted happiness too. Did I not deserve it? I kept asking myself. I envied my friends. I wanted what they had. No. I simply didn't want what I had.

In a cruel twist of irony, my friends, who would understand more than anyone, what I was going through, who would be my greatest support and who would never judge me, knew nothing about my confrontation with the train or mom's secret or even that my family was disintegrating.

I had told them nothing.

And not by choice. Mom and dad had decided they wanted to keep the maelstrom secret for the time being. None of their friends were to know. Emma's parents were mom's friends. Steph and Lexie's moms saw mine all the time at mom's yoga classes.

And everyone in the mountains knew Doctor Helen Wexler.

If I told my friends what had happened, particularly the relationship between mom and Helen, inevitably mom and dad's friends would know too. I wasn't allowed to say anything to anyone. It was so unfair. I had no one, besides Mika, who I could talk to about the greatest catastrophe of my life. And as much as Mika supported me unconditionally, I knew, deep down, that she preferred not to talk about it, either.

And so mom's treachery thrived in silence, killing me softly.

My stare had fallen away from the others and I found myself hypnotized by Cinderella's arms circling inside my watch.

2:30pm.

My mind drifted to the homeless man. I had told him I planned to be at Martin's Lookout just after dark. Of course, I had made that up, but as I sat mindlessly, I couldn't help but be drawn to the what ifs. I needed something primal to distract me from all the deception of my family devouring the perfectness of everyone else's families. I simply needed to get away from my entire life. I'd had a crappy last day of the school year.

Two periods of English class in the morning frazzled my patience to extinction. There were countless taunts about my accident the day before. Someone had written a welcome message on the board for me:

WARNING TO ALL STUDENTS

(BUT TO ONE IN PARTICULAR), LOONIES ARE BANNED FROM USING SHARP INSTRUMENTS!

"The Freak-show is down the hall," another boy cruelly said under his breath, as I walked into the classroom.

Dillon Arkman made a brave attempt to wipe the viperous humiliation from the blackboard, but after a mix of missiles – pens, erasers, books, insults – hit him in the back of the head, Dillon thought better of being a hero and he fretfully sat at a desk far away from me and from everyone else. His attempted heroism dissolved in the mob's chorus of sneers.

The two, fifty-minute classes dawdled by like two sloths navigating the earth. With the torture finally over, I walked from class. Cheers erupted amongst all of us.

One boy, Wayne O'Connor, couldn't help but throw one last insult my way. "Don't stab yourself!" he yelled.

I wish I was braver. I wish I could stand my ground and fight back. I wish...

"Do you need to be somewhere?" Steph's voice suddenly echoed in my ears.

"What?" I said, absentmindedly.

"You've been staring at Cindy for like two minutes now."

"Oh," I said, not realizing my thoughts had again taken me forever away. Why couldn't they take me to Hawaii? Or Pluto?

Steph tried baiting me a second time. "If you've got better things to do, Sara..."

"Stop it!" said Emma.

Like bored owls on a midnight tree branch, a collective Ooohhh rose in full voice.

"Is it a boy?"

"Do we know him?"

"Is it Dillon Arkman?"

What? My expression hissed with disdain.

"We heard what he did for you in English." The four of them laughed.

I laughed with them, half-heartedly. "No. It's not Dillon," I said.

Of course, they already knew that. They knew I had never been kissed, never even fallen in love.

A wild crush filled my heart for the boy next door when I was fourteen, but I could hardly concede it to be more than teeny-bopper infatuation. I craved the idea of being in love and I had often fantasized about that first kiss, that first soft touch of a boy's hands on my skin and that uncontrollable desire to want and feel wanted.

I couldn't recall Dillon Arkman being part of that fantasy.

"I think he's hot," Lexie said. "I'd... you know."

The table fell uncomfortably silent. Steph didn't need a second invitation. She drilled her eyes straight into Lexie. "Interesting you should mention sex, Alexandra," Steph said, her eyes sharpening. "Because I have it on good authority... my own... that you're about to have some."

Lexie choked on her mouthful, tears welling in her eyes as she slurped air through her nostrils.

"...And for the first time, no less," Steph added.

"What?" asked Emma, surprisingly not in-the-know.

"I say, Go Girl!" said Mel.

"You knew, too?" Emma hated being out of the loop. She was the most mature of us all, but she loved gossip.

Lexie couldn't clear her mouth quickly enough. The natural paleness of her face was now ablaze with embarrassment. She tried for words, but only managed to spray the table with half-chewed corn chips. It invited Steph back onto her stage of self-indulgence.

"My spies tell me that he's quite a stud," she said.

"Who told you?" Mel asked.

"Queen of many hearts. My loyal spies are everywhere."

Not at my house, they're not! I thought.

"There's no stud!" Lexie finally blurted out loud enough for every patron at the Paragon Café. And they all knew she wasn't talking about farm animals.

"Now that everyone in Leura knows," said Emma, "what do you mean, no... you know?"

Emma hated words like stud – anything that wasn't proper. Snob!

Steph was shocked, too. "Yes, Lexie. What do you mean no stud?" Steph had no such problem with words of that ilk.

"I just mean... there isn't anyone... yet."

"Huh?" Steph said, genuinely confounded.

Mel couldn't make sense of it, either. "I thought you told me you were going to have sex," she said.

"Do we have to keep using that word?" asked Emma.

A mother rose abruptly to her feet at the table beside ours and promptly guided her two young children out of the café, shielding their ears as she walked. The chubby woman made certain that the five of us witnessed her expression of abhorrence.

Steph noticed immediately and she loaded a volley of verbal ammunition, but Emma kicked her under the table.

"What?" Steph said. "I wasn't going to say anything."

Emma's stare was resolute. Oh yes, you were!

"That's nice, girls," said Mel, "but just back to Lexie. You told me—"

Lexie stopped her. "I told you I was ready for it," she said, her voice fading in volume and confidence by the time she got to "it."

"I never said I was about to. Just that I wanted to, and that I was ready."

"For the first time," said Steph.

"Yes, 'madam I've screwed the whole palace'. It will be my first time."

"Alexandra," Emma said, trying to calm the growing crankiness in Lexie's voice.

"She's being rude. It's a big deal for me."

Emma was empathetic. "I know, Lex. It's a big deal for all of us." She shot a stare at Steph and said, "Even those of us who claim it isn't."

Steph threw her peacock-nose skyward in protest, but knew better than to argue with Emma.

My best friend was the only one of us in a long-term, stable relationship. Emma and Tom met in her church, courted, as Emma put it formally, and had been together almost two years since. Everything in her life was grounded.

Love her. Damn her!

Steph knew relationship advice was not a contest in which she could beat Emma. Despite her pomp, Emma and I secretly believed Steph to still be a virgin, too. Not that there was anything wrong with that. I was still a virgin.

"So what was all the fuss about, then?" asked Steph. "I heard there were tears and stuff."

Lexie shrunk in her chair, but realized Steph wouldn't quit unless she got something. Lexie sucked in a deep breath and then said, "I had to go to the doctor and get the pill... didn't I?"

"So?" said Steph.

"So, I was nervous. I went with my mother. I told her I needed dietary advice."

"You're almost as thin as me," said Steph.

"I know. Why do you think I was so worried?"

"Which doctor?" I asked loudly and absentmindedly, butting into the conversation.

"What?"

"Which doctor did you go to for the pill?"

"Why?" Steph asked.

"The one everyone in the mountains goes to..." Lexie said.

A horrible sensation gripped the muscles in my entire body. I felt as if I was a defenseless passenger in a runaway car heading directly for an unforgiving wall. My emotional defenses braced for impact.

"...Doctor Wexler, of course," said Lexie. "Helen, I think her first name is."

I hit the wall hard and it stung like a thousand wasps in my throat.

"Why?" Steph asked again.

"She's great," Lexie added. "We talked for like an hour. Obviously not about what I should be eating."

"I saw her last year," said Mel. "She's lovely."

"Stop!" I yelled with excruciating loudness.

The entire café was instantly silent.

"Sara?" Emma asked, more cautiously than ever.

Even Steph looked embarrassed and that didn't happen often.

The sudden influx of attention from Emma and the stares of curious busybodies around the café, constricted my vision, my nirvana and my wanting to be there. On some level, I knew I was overreacting. It was just a name. But hearing those despicable words unlocked a prison of hateful thoughts, betrayed memories and self-destructive desires.

Images flashed through my head and blurred my imagination. I saw Buddha, the birthday card and the hidden compartment in mom's study room. The words of Helen's abominable poem echoed from ear to ear... A year of you and me... we kissed... my dearest love... your Helen W.

I thought about memories of puking in the toilet bowl, only to realize it was no memory at all. Suddenly nauseous bubbles frothed in my stomach for real.

The café interior spun in smears of unrecognizable faces, dimmed lights and flames. Flames.

Burning.

My appetite was no longer for chicken, cheese and avocado. I now wanted pain.

The monster inside awakened. Its eyes bulged, tempting me to taste its sickening reprieve. "I can't give in to the monster," I said to myself.

"You can!" a vision of mom answered back with devilish wry. The café had become mom's wicked circus of emotional torture. Only one option remained open to me.

I needed to get the hell out of there.

Pushing my chair back, I tried desperately to avoid Emma's concerned stare. And everyone else's, too. "I have to go," I said, bluntly.

"What about the food?" Mel asked.

"I... I just remembered..." But I stopped. They didn't deserve a blatant lie. I cared too much for them to treat them with the same contempt that mom had treated me with. I said, "I've got plans tonight. I've got to get ready."

It was no lie, sort of. I did have plans. They were simply one sided. "I'm sorry," I said. Gripping my chair, I forced myself to my feet, burning and choking under the engagement of countless eyes all around me.

I kept my head down, clenching my teeth in frustration, and I ran for the front door. I heard Lexie's and Steph's voices behind me, but didn't try to comprehend what they said. I cared only about hauling my butt as far away as humanly possible. I was sorry, but I was more terrified about how easy it had been for the hate to breach my self-control.

I was falling apart.

Thoughts continued to strobe through my scrambled brain as I drew in the first breath of outside air. My imagination frenzied with visions of trains, lighters and scissors.

I used the adrenalin to convince myself to go through with my insane plan to visit Martin's Lookout. I didn't need much encouragement.

I didn't stop to ask myself how an ad hoc attempt at bravery the night before had transmuted into a resolve to turn up at the lookout after dark, but as I left dancing trails of condensation in my wake, I was determined to fulfil a promise which I never made. I longed for adventure, I tried to convince myself. But I knew it was something completely different – something I had not ever experienced before.

I pulled Cinderella into view. It would be dark in a couple of restless hours and the cold wasn't helping my nerves any. My arms were speckled with goose pimples. The skies above were dark, monster-like. As I cut through the brass-monkey-weather, I gave that monster a name: Mother!

I strode with increased determination towards home. The message blinking in the back of my head was like a duet of unreasonable logic.

Would I see the man again?

And why was I lying to myself to ensure that being so?

# Chapter 10

As I neared home, I spotted a vehicle emerging from the top of our driveway. It was a maroon, four-wheel-drive and it looked awfully similar to Helen Wexler's car. I had seen it many times before.

The vehicle turned slowly onto the road and proceeded in my direction. As the dirt-covered four-wheel-drive drove past, its driver was nowhere to be seen. Hiding. Presumably leaning across at exactly that moment to reach something in the passenger foot well, before it sped away with intent. The driver then popped back up the instant the four-wheeler was well past me.

"How stupid do you think I am?" I shouted, as the car continued to pull away into the distance.

When I finally got home and into the kitchen, mom was busying herself. Cleaning. Washing dishes. Dusting. She gave her own game away all too easily.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said, in a false tone, confirming the deception that hung in the room like a drunk ghost.

I didn't answer. I didn't want another argument.

"What's wrong?" mom asked.

The question came not because I openly showed signs of trouble – I deliberately kept my emotions hidden. Or even because she cared. No! Mom's guilt tickled the back of her throat and she wanted a reaction. She needed to tell someone that she'd frolicked the afternoon away with Helen. Her Helen.

Dropping my school bag, I fled to my bedroom. I had to. I was going to be sick... or kill her... or kill myself. If any doubt remained about my crazy plan to go to the lookout, mom's treachery crushed it into oblivion.

I dropped on top of my soft, comforting doona and stared straight up, waiting impatiently for the two hours until nightfall to pass. I tried to poison my thoughts about mom and Helen and what they had been doing, by coercing my brainwaves inwards. But mom invaded those thoughts, too.

She was behaving as if everything was normal. As if nothing had changed and that any adverse reaction I was having to 'recent events' was my doing – and my doing alone. Could she not see how much I wanted to grow talons and rip myself to pieces? She was having fun in a zest-pool of ignorant denial and I was being consumed from the inside out by hate, despair and unbending misery. I wanted mom to share my dread, but no matter how much I cried, or yelled, or hurt, repudiation was a much more palatable game for her to play.

My thoughts then drifted with carefree ease to my plan to visit Martin's Lookout in the darkness and hope – and that's all it was – that the man would show himself. If I could find only malevolence in mom's heart, I would happily search the darkness for something, anything, to shield myself from her iniquity, no matter how crazy it seemed.

As the minutes ticked by slower than decaying honey, my drama-queen wits metamorphosed my plans into some weird-first-date-kinda-thingy.

Emma had often retold her 'first-date with Tom' story. We had all laughed as she spoke of neurotically watching seconds tick by as slow as slugs, simply waiting for that moment when she would see Tom.

I couldn't help but revel in the idea that I felt something similar. Of course, I wasn't doing a movie and coffee or a picnic by the river on a hot summer's day. No! I was presenting myself like a desperate guinea pig with a hopeful anticipation of meeting up with a homeless man I knew virtually nothing about. Some date. But, what the hell? It was all the same to me.

Martin's Lookout rested leisurely at the edge of a chasm a little way east of Leura and looked south over an endless blanket of misty-blue-green trees, undulating hills and valleys and stark rock formations.

The outlook itself was a stony outcrop of smoothed boulders, positioned center stage in an amphitheater of wilderness. Rustling eucalyptus trees stood all around the lookout like a captivated audience and, at the same time, served to shield it from the eyes of prying impostors.

Cinderella gave me five more minutes until six o'clock. The waiting had taken forever, but I was finally on my way, hurtling towards the precipice of my sanity. The last glimpses of light shimmered at the edge of the world in a beautiful, deep-red splendor. As I deviated from the gravel track and onto a slender bush path connecting the unmade roadway and the lookout itself, I fidgeted nervously with the plastic bag swaying in my right hand.

Like a dufuss first-dater, I wanted to do something special for the man I believed to be less serial killer and more homeless destitute. I felt an inexplicable urge to help. Maybe it was because in my time of greatest despair, no one had helped me. Or maybe it was because I really was a lunatic, desperate to prove something to myself. But with unbending resolve, I had decided that I would bring the man some food. If, by some miracle, he did show up, and I stood empty-handed, that would not be good.

What sort of a first-date would that be?

I had no firm reason to believe he would be come. No reason at all, actually. I had not asked him to come. He had not said that he would. He may not have even heard me when I pronounced my faux-plans to be at Martin's Lookout just after dark. All I had were hopeful imaginings of my cravings and, as the low-hanging branches lashed against my jeans at shin-height, self-doubt crept back into my marrow and my hope looked suddenly as bleak as the darkness cloaking in from every direction. Reality hit hard.

"Oh, well," I said to myself. "At least the walk will do me good."

In my left hand, I firmly held a small torch I'd grabbed at the last moment from the kitchen drawer.

There was sporadic lighting along the road to the lookout and I remembered a single globe at the lookout itself – a globe that almost never worked.

I swung the narrow shaft of light gently from side to side as I stepped absent-mindedly along the road, letting the truth of my unreasonableness slow me down.

Insects buzzed around me in the darkness. The occasional brave bug penetrated the beam for a closer look, but vanished in an instant, swallowed again by the blackness, as I swung the torch away.

Night time had quickly become a solemn friend I could rely on. Old Sara would never have journeyed along such a road at such an hour, but I felt quite at ease, excited by my courage and of not being afraid of my surroundings. But doubt again came knocking.

Was I so screwed up that I could no longer distinguish adventure from downright dumbassedness? I wondered.

My shopping bag contained two, cold, continental sausages from the previous night's dinner. They were wrapped in aluminum foil. Dad had apparently also taken a dislike to mom's charcoal chicken and scorched onions and cooked himself some spicy, Mexican snags after she had fallen asleep. To complement the mildly-seasoned main course, I had scooped some of my homemade potato salad into a plastic container. And for dessert, all I could think of was fruit.

What do homeless people eat? I thought.

I didn't know. It was my first homeless-man-friend. One banana. One apple. Two oranges.

The lookout was lonesome and friendless, but retained more light than I had imagined. A small globe in its last burning hours cast a soft glow around the lookout and stretched faintly into the bushes beyond. "Romantic," I said much too loudly, before checking over my shoulder for any eavesdroppers.

When I reached the lookout, I plonked my butt on a large, polished stone. A feathery-fine layer of pastel-green moss cushioned my weight.

An incredible vista sprawled out before me. Its vastness was apparent, even in the dim light. In the valley below, a fine-spun fog snaked along the ravine, blanketing the gently streaming river I knew ran beneath it. The mist looked like a big serpent slithering through a miniature brook for which the creature was a thousand times too large. The misty-ocean's hypnotic beauty welcomed me with fuddled magnetism. I wanted to dive amongst the soft and fluffy white waves and lose myself. Of course, had I jumped, I would have lost myself, literally, plummeting deep into a rocky gorge and splattering down below.

I sat quietly humming to myself, waiting for the mysterious homeless man to show. I looked across the valley trying to distract myself from the reality that I was lying to myself and would be home again in an hour – with the same bag of food, still untouched. Light rain began to sprinkle me tenderly from above. "Great!" I said, now angry at myself. "For the love of god! What are you doing, you desperate cow?"

As the water collected into bigger drops that lost their fight with gravity and streaked from the smoothness of the rocks, so too, streamed away any remaining hope that the homeless man would join me. I tied the shopping bag to keep its contents dry, just in case. Cinderella's left arm pointed to ten minutes past six, but I still couldn't stop thinking about the man. In my isolation, questions continued to burn out of control like a wildfire on the hottest summer day.

How long had the man been homeless?

Where did he sleep?

Why was he so heavily bandaged?

The previous night I had conquered fear and spider webs in a stupidly dangerous expedition for answers. I had uncovered only twice as many questions.

My struggle to escape the dark woods had not helped to subdue my love affair with the unanswered. After the man vanished, I called to him again and again, before accepting that the only way I was going to get home was by my own doing. The man's words and his speaking my name had dissolved the acidic poison of my panic. I took stock and comforted my jitters. Okay, Sara. It's just a forest, I had told myself. Think and stay calm.

And I managed to do both.

Clearer thoughts allowed me to find the snapped branches through which I had clumsily stumbled into the intense halo of another world. I cautiously slogged a path back to the rail line. I had again feared deadly animals, injury and losing my direction, but my confidence stirred and, more quickly than I could have hoped, I found myself resting beside the eucalyptus seedlings, free from the woods and staring at the railway tracks below.

But what intrigued me, and what remained unanswered, was a strange sense of not being alone. I couldn't be certain if it was my desperate need to feel protected or the craziness of the whole night plaguing my gut feeling.

Or if it was my just being a drama queen.

But as I shuffled along the railway sleepers and back along the track towards home, I thrilled with an acceptance of feeling totally safe from the unknown darkness of the forest, from any serial killers and from myself.

I felt that similar, strange comfort sitting at Martin's Lookout.

It was beyond me to explain it with reason or logic or even the frightening truth of reality, but something protected me.

Whatever force had manifested itself as my guardian-angel that night on the railway tracks as I stared at my impending destruction, enchanted my soul and I hungered to touch it, to taste it, to know it.

The crunching sound of twigs breaking beneath a deliberate footstep snapped my attention away from my thoughts and back to the soft shades of blue covering the panorama before me. I cranked my head in the sound's direction. Standing motionless on the path was the man.

He had come.

In the diminishing light, he stood dressed in the same raggedy outfit I had seen the night before. His torn bandages looked even more decrepit – his suffering more intense.

"You came," I said, trying to convince myself I was awake and not simply imagining his presence.

The man nodded without speaking.

I struggled with the predicament. To me the tension felt as thick as the settling fog in the valley below. The rational part of me that never believed the man would show, took hold of me and suddenly, I had no idea what to say or do. Reality was a bitch! I thought. I gazed up at the man, trying to gauge his thoughts. The deepness in his mesmerizing stare was profoundly attractive and it warmed me like a winter skin.

There was something about him – a power I couldn't put my finger on. Unsure and edgy, I pointed to a smoothed rock not far from me. "Sit," I said, making it up as I went along and not having any clear idea about what the hell I was doing.

The man paused momentarily to assess the invitation and then stepped forward. His full-length coat flowed as he moved. His boots were rugged. And as I observed the man in his stride, I longed to know what secrets lay beneath his hat and under his bandages.

He sat slowly and again my heart pulsed from both excitement and uncertainty. His closeness allowed me to see his eyes clearly for the first time. They were chestnut-brown like mine, their nuance was deepened by the failing light. The man's eyes cloaked an ocean of secrets. As I stared into them, I felt myself adrift, wanting to be lost further and further.

His eyes were hypnotically beautiful.

"You found your way home last night?" the man said, in his deep voice.

"Yes," I said. I paused. Should I? I couldn't help myself. With the broadest of smiles, determined to ensure that he knew my words were in jest, I added, "No thanks to you."

He stared blankly.

"It was a joke," I said, my heartbeat increasing sharply.

But still nothing from the man.

Okay. Nice one, Sara.

I tried a different approach. "I brought some food for you," I said, as I clumsily held up the shopping bag.

The man's eyes were slow to break their stare away from my eyes. He glimpsed at the bag and I sensed that he smiled beneath the dressing covering his face.

But I felt that smile disappear when I opened my mouth again. "You must be hungry," I said.

I wanted to jump straight into the valley below and end the awkwardness. I was such an amateur at making the man – anyone for that matter – comfortable in a conversation. It felt like my deranged picnic-date-thingy was rapidly skewing off the tracks. I couldn't stop myself from saying one dumb comment after another.

If it really had been a date, it would be my first and last.

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to. I just thought—"

"Last night..." the man interrupted.

But my thoughts now interrupted his words... Last night... was the scariest, most exciting night of my life and, even though I thought you were a serial killer, all I really wanted was for you to look at me and tell me everything was going to be okay... Stop! My thoughts were out of control and I had to force myself to focus on the man's voice as he continued.

"...you never answered my question," he said.

"You didn't answer any of mine."

The man's eyes looked stumped. If he hadn't thought of murdering me the night before – and that remained a big if – I was certain that he thought it at that instant.

"I'm sorry. Let's start again," I said, extending my hand. "I'm Sara."

"Yes, indeed," the man answered.

Not the response I expected. I wanted his name.

But he still shocked in a way I did not anticipate. His bandaged hand took a firm hold of mine. I had extended my hand in social-etiquette alone, not for one moment thinking the man would reciprocate.

As his frayed bandages tickled my palm, delirium buzzed through my entire body and sparked a smile to my face. His grip was tight and his hand – larger than mine – enclosed around like a comforting woolen mitten.

The exposed tips of his fingers brushed delicately at the base of my hand and I needed to consciously stop myself from a flighty gasp. His stare penetrated my self-doubt. I felt my heart go mushy and I must have blushed.

How embarrassing.

I held his gaze for as long as I could keep my fluster contained. It didn't last long. It breached with a hot glow and I was convinced steam rose from the top of my head.

My soul was on fire.

I shot my eyes away from his like a guilty child caught stealing and found my focus on our coalesced hands.

"Do your hands hurt?" I asked, sucking in a wave of moist air to douse the flames taking hold of me within.

He answered without looking down and without taking his eyes from mine. Not that I mustered the courage to look up, but I could feel his stare.

"No," he said.

"Why are your hands bandaged?"

The man hesitated and then said, "I had an accident."

I pulled my hand from the man's grasp and yanked up my sleeve to reveal my own bandages. "Me, too," I said, with an agreeable smile as my self-harming scar emblazoned my arm with a darker shade in the distorted light.

The man finally deviated from his line of sight and looked at my forearm.

And I suddenly felt stupid again. Why had I made it about me? The man's injuries looked far worse than my own. "It's no biggie," I said, trying to deflate my self-importance. I tugged my sleeve back down and sat sheepishly, not sure where to point my stare.

I felt the man analyzing me. Was I as strange a creature to him as he was to me? I wondered.

The drizzle became a light shower as we sat in a weird silence. The cool water soaked through the denim of my jeans and felt velvety on my skin beneath.

I shivered away any lingering doubts about serial killers and looked calmly at the man. Droplets of water clung for life at the rim of his hat. Streaks slithered off his coat. The bandages on his hands looked wet and sticky.

What scared me most was the realization that I was enjoying myself. I felt an alien fervor that had never rushed through my body and I didn't want it to end.

"Should we get out of the rain?" I asked.

# Chapter 11

I slid off the rock. "Come on. I know a spot." It wasn't my first time at Martin's Lookout.

The man had not confirmed that he wished to follow, only his eyes had blinked, and I took that as an agreement. Those deep brown eyes.

He followed me as I rushed into the murkiness of dark trees behind the lookout.

The forest canopy was dense and sheltered the ground from the increasing rain like nature's big umbrella.

The smell of eucalyptus and fresh moss and musky bark was alluring and I wondered if the man prized the loveliness as much as I did, even at the ungodly time to be enjoying it.

A large, resigned trunk lay dormant on the forest floor and served as a perfect sofa in the wilderness living room. Through a kaleidoscope of branches, remnants of light splintered in a merry dance and gave us some direction.

I hoisted myself butt-first onto the trunk, using my hands firmly planted on the dewy bark as leverage. The man followed my lead. As he placed his hands on the log, I peeked at his bandages and was horrified at their condition. I turned to the man as he positioned himself within arm's reach beside me. "Your bandages are soaking wet," I said, sympathetically.

"They do that," he replied, raising his hands from the bark and hoisting them to chest-height in between the two of us.

As the man stared at his hands, I looked into his eyes. They appeared sad and absent of purpose. I was relying on those eyes to tell me everything.

I don't know where the audacity came from, but I grasped the man's left hand and gingerly cushioned it between both my palms. My courage did not extend to looking at the man's reactions and I deliberately focused only on the soggy padding cupped in my hands.

The man did not flinch or pull away. Thank God. I gave him plenty of opportunity to do so as I eased my grip. But the man's reach did not feel tense or forced. He seemed content for me to explore. I still could not believe what I was doing. I couldn't recall ever having a boy's hand in mine, let alone wanting a boy to sit closer and closer.

"Are you sure there's no pain?" I asked.

"No."

As my fingers canvassed the man's hand, my feather-light touch brushed against the bare skin of his fingertips. There was something unusual about that skin. It felt pruned, like an apricot, sucked of all its moisture. I thought for a moment that it may have been the rain. I had spent enough time in the swimming pool where my hands became soft and bubbly. But the man's fingertips didn't feel like that.

I looked up at him again. Curiosity was driving my lunacy and forcing the unthinkable from my mouth. "Can I take the bandage off?" I asked.

My breathing ceased, dumbfounded by the boldness of my own question, and waiting for the man to respond apprehensively.

But the man did not pull his hand from mine in protest nor yank it free and runaway, never to be seen again – as I had expected him to do. I sensed in him only a sudden edginess. An uncertainty.

"Just to dry your hands," I added. It did nothing to dilute the ambivalence, but the man remained quiet, declaring neither his permission nor his discouragement. He left the decision to me.

My hands were as wet as his bandages. Without allowing sanity to stop me, I slid the end of the man's coat sleeve up until I spotted the elastic clip holding the dressing in place.

Again, I kept my eyes down and it suddenly hit me that I had already unconsciously, and unbelievably, made the decision to follow through. Breathe, Sara!

Slow like a sloth, I pinched the tiny, soft-metal teeth of the clasp from where it bit into the worn threads.

The man kept still.

If I wasn't so bloody nervous myself, I could have sworn the muscles in his hand relaxed ever-so-invitingly. "Tell me if you want me to stop," I said. My confidence grew, born from the man's seeming willingness to participate in my... well, I didn't know what it was that I was doing.

The bandages did not peel apart easily, glued by a cocktail of slimy dirt and grit and God-knows what else. I tried valiantly to keep my face from expressing the ickyness I felt in my fingers. Urrgh! But I also ached with genuine sorrow.

Poor homeless-man-friend of mine.

The silence between us was intense, but history had proved I could always be relied upon to say something stupid. "Haven't washed these in a while, huh?" I said. I hated history.

I hated myself for saying it, but it provoked a reaction which surprised me.

He laughed. "I guess not," he said.

The man's spontaneity caught me so off-guard that I forgot to laugh in response, but in a weird, Sara-you're-a-lunatic sort of way, I had achieved what I wanted. The ice was broken – and melting rapidly from the heat pumping nervously through me – taking my last doubts about any murderous secrets the man may harbor with it.

The last remaining loops fell loose from the wrist and, by the time my eyes dropped back down, the man's hand was fully exposed, freed from its sheath.

"Oh," I said again, but for a very different reason.

My hands had fallen away with the bandages and I found myself internally at war, questioning my own true-heartedness. My withdrawal and expression of shock came across badly, but I hesitated to return my hands to his. I felt awful for doing so and momentarily lost myself.

"It's okay," the man said, in a voice that reminded me of Emma's sweetness and caring. "It looks scary, but don't be afraid."

The man's soothing words restored my composure and I stopped being frightened because he asked me to. "I'm sorry," I said.

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

Yes, I did.

With both my hands, I carefully took hold of the man's bare skin. His hand was wet from the bandages, but more exceptional was the skin's texture and color.

In the faint light, it looked smooth and yet, was rough to touch. Wrinkly, but without discernable grooves in the skin. Moist because of the rain, but dryness flaked beneath the dampness.

The man's hand was a different color than any skin I had seen before. The eggshell-like surface was blemished, spotted with whites, liver-browns and swollen, scarlet streaks. I could see no hairs and the man's fingernails looked like little waxed, plastic beads.

When I turned the hand over, I saw a blistered scar, welled up in the palm between the middle and third fingers, writhing to the wrist and up, inside the forearm.

"What happened?" I asked. I tried to contain my consternation, but struggled to keep my mouth from gaping as I spoke.

"They're burn scars, Sara," the man said, nonchalantly.

"Wow!" was all I could come up with.

Without thought about what the hell I was doing, I grabbed at the man's other, still-bandaged hand.

He offered no resistance.

I unbound the man's right hand as I had his left. The same horrific scars and disfigurement smothered the skin there, too. Most shockingly to me, a similar, worm-like defect crawled from his palm and up the scorched skin of his right forearm.

I sat for ages holding both the man's tortured hands in mine, just looking and taking in the ghastliness. I tried to imagine the horror the man must have suffered to be so stigmatized.

Strangely, the man showed little emotion. I showed enough for the both of us.

I wanted to be strong, to show the same courage the man displayed in his demeanor of peace and acceptance.

But I couldn't do it.

The sorrow I felt for the man overpowered me and my tears flowed uncontrollably. "I'm sorry," I kept repeating, but I was unable to curb the release of sadness and I openly cried. What made me feel a thousand times worse was that I knew my tears for the man were selfishly tainted by tears for myself.

The unending build-up of the last three months – and my week of seeking death – breached the feeble walls of emotional preservation which I had constructed in that time. The gates of my metaphorical compound burst. I clung on desperately to contain the outpouring, but like a valiant gatekeeper, the touch of the stranger's skin unlocked my aching hands from around the gates, and my emotions flowed without restraint. I instantly felt too distant from any ability to rein in my anguish.

And then, the man rescued me from my torment.

Whereby I had encased the man's hands in mine, he now took my hands in his and rubbed my skin soothingly as I had tried to do for him. Despite the flaws in his make-up, the man's touch was silk-soft, tender and sweet, and it settled my tears with surprising quickness.

"I'm sorry," I said, again.

"I'm not," he replied.

How could that be?

His eyes smiled and he said, "I... I had a bit of an... electrical accident. The voltage set my limbs on fire." He spoke with calm and tolerance. He looked as if he'd been through the most horrific torture and yet, he displayed a controlled peace. It infected me with hope and my sadness receded.

"You must have felt awful pain?" I asked.

"Like none you could ever imagine. I wouldn't wish it upon even the most terrible people in the world."

"But, you seem so... I don't know. So okay with it."

"Do I have any other choice?" he asked.

Poignant. True. And remarkably matter-of-fact. I was enthralled by the man's bravery – his selfless act of comforting me, and his words, so honest and enticing.

I trusted him. But I was not prepared for his next move.

The man released my hands, gently placing them in my lap, and then he reached upwards. His left hand removed the black hat which had concealed so much of his expression. Eyes were much harder to read for their emotion without seeing the brow and fine wrinkles of the forehead.

Water streaked from the leather rim of the hat as the man placed it neatly beside him on the tree trunk.

Dark, wavy hair flowed dreamily in the moist breeze.

The man paused to absorb any reaction I exhibited to him putting his trust in me. I was clueless as to what exactly I was feeling – what was suddenly driving a confidence that had been alien to me all my life – so I knew nothing about how that unknown, metamorphosed into my facial expression. How could he discern my thoughts when I was giddily stupefied in knowing what those thoughts were myself?

I held my breath, trying literally to give nothing away.

The man raised both his hands to the back of his head. He followed the line of bandages that hid his face from below the eyes down. He briefly held his hands suspended, again pausing for a reaction I was too clueless to give.

If his eyes were wide with uncertainty, mine must have gaped from their sockets with bewildered anticipation.

He wasn't going to do what I thought he was?

But he did.

Within a few unbelievable moments, grotty, dirt-brown bandages loosed in all directions. With each rotation of unwinding, another slither of the man's face became visible.

His cheeks. His nose. And then...

My mouth hung open. The entire world around me could have vaporized and disappeared into the blackness that surrounded us, and I would never have known. My brain overloaded with thoughts, desires and questions, and simply shut down. To the man, I must have looked to be an inert shell with my eyes blinking on automatic, like a flashing, malfunction light.

As he pulled away the strip of dressing covering his mouth, the rest of the bandages fell away and I was exposed to a portrait of the man's face for the very first time.

A snapshot that would change my life forever.

His veracious brown eyes loomed even more prominently on his slender-profiled face. The man's nose was thin and angular. His lips looked worn and cracked from their constant covering. A scruffy beard spread across his face. It was not thick and bushy, but did enough to distort a clear impression of what his face truly looked like. It was a perfect fit for his homeless-man-motif.

Strands of the man's black hair framed his contours and, without being any kind of expert, I thought him understatedly good-looking – minus the beard.

I don't care much for those.

From what his coal-colored facial hair did not disguise, I resolved that his face had escaped the torturous inflictions that reviled his hands. The skin looked smooth, aggravated only by moisture and dirt from the bandages which had hidden it.

But the man's face was not without evidence of a massive, traumatic event. A scar, similar to the deformity on the man's palms and forearms, extended from the top of the man's head just below the hairline, down the side of his nose, across his parched lips and away to below the chin, parting a barren channel through the man's beard.

The scar itself was not burnt-red and blistered like the others. The line running almost perfectly down the middle of the man's face was a beige skin color that blended unobtrusively with the encompassing facial tissue. Only my being up close to the man's face and the vacant strip through the man's beard, where no hair had regrown, made the scar obvious to me.

As I eased my body forward on the trunk, I became intrigued by the characteristics of the scar. It looked glossy smooth and slightly indented into the surface of the face rather than blistering up, off the skin. The scar created a peculiar little valley, running the length of the man's mug.

Most strikingly, directly between the eyebrows, the scar kinked sideways before continuing its deformation down the face. Up close, the scar made the man's face appear cracked, right down the middle.

He dropped the bandages into his lap and sat as still as me, just watching.

Watching each other.

I don't know how long we stayed in our gaze. I was in some weird alien-planet-coma, still shutdown of thought and ability by the craziness of what I was doing. If I had told my friends earlier in the day that I had left them for plans to sit in silence and virtual darkness with a homeless man who had stalked me the night before, who had roast-pork-hands and a cracked, eggshell-like face and, despite my denial, could be responsible for the disappearance and possible butchering of three girls, they would have said... Well, they would not have stopped saying stuff! And if they had not been able to dissuade me from my killer rendezvous, then Emma, Steph, Mel and Lexie would have tied me up with no chance of escape.

And yet, all my fear had departed. Sitting in nature's playground, on the fallen trunk, I had not felt so safe in three months.

My counsellor, Alison McKinney, had told me at our last session that I may find the urge to reach out to avenues outside of my normal circle of influence. "Sara, you should try and resist such a temptation," Alison had added at the conclusion of our session. I don't think she meant homeless-man-friends, either.

Oops!

I finally broke the silence between me and the man. "It's good to see your face," I said.

He smiled.

It was exciting to see that smile. I could not pull my gaze from it. I felt possessed, driven by some unknown power that made me sizzle inside and act outwardly like a deranged clown. I wanted to reach out and touch the man's face and run the tip of my finger down the length of the man's scar. My arm muscles shuddered excitedly, infused by the electricity surging through me. I started to move, to reach for the man's face, when a piercing buzz interrupted the moment and my courage instantly stalled.

Crap! It was my phone. A new text message.

The man did not break his stare, waiting with intrigue for my next move. Frustrated, I reached into my jeans' pocket, yanked the phone free and flipped it open.

Mom.

Her text message read simply, annoyingly: 'IT'S GETTING LATE. ARE YOU COMING HOME SOON?' It wasn't as much a question as a statement.

I didn't reply.

"Time to go?" the man asked.

"I guess," I said.

The man stared back through the surrounding trees to the lookout. I followed his line of sight and suddenly realized just how much darker it had become as the sun holidayed below the horizon and the rain clouds intensified above. I had been so lost in the moment.

The man said, "It is dark."

"Yes," I said. I couldn't resist being a clown. "But I thought you liked the dark?"

The man paused for thought and then said, "I do. It's easier to hide."

He raised his hands to remind me of his social stigmata. I had seen and felt people's cruelty in English class because of an unfortunate accident. I could not imagine how a brutal world responded to the man's outward uniqueness.

I stared out through the trees again. A burst of light illuminated thick clouds in the far-off distance. A storm was coming and the blackness in the air lost all its remaining shades. Mountains-dark was real dark, especially on a cloudy, moonless night.

"I don't want to go," I said, surprising myself as much as I did the man. I got just a smile in return, but I felt suddenly and awkwardly immature for telling him that. "Do you want me to go?" I asked. My second effort wasn't much better.

"I don't want to see you get in trouble," he said.

An image of mom flashed subconsciously through my head and I blamed her for my having to leave.

Why did she have to poison every anesthetic that injected happiness into my tortured soul?

"It's okay, Sara," the man said, sensing my disappointment. "Maybe we'll happen across each other again."

But I wanted revenge. Think Sara, I urged myself.

"Why don't you..." I paused, suddenly aware that my contempt for mom was driving my decision-making – my lunacy. But it was too late. I said, "Seeing as I failed so miserably with the food tonight, why don't you... Why don't you come for dinner tomorrow night?"

I had said it, but I didn't believe it. What was I doing?

"I don't think so," the man answered.

In all my anger towards mom and in all my scheming for retribution, I'd forgotten that the man may not actually want to come. I didn't give up so easily, though. Vengeance was a strong motivator. "Why not?" I asked. I had no idea where the confidence originated.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea," he said.

"Please," I begged, rather childishly and selfishly.

The man did not respond.

"You can meet my family," I said. "They're... great."

He knew I was lying.

"Alright," I said, "but they are different. Please come."

I need you to come.

I'd never been one to abuse girlish charm to my advantage. I never believed I had any. But I really wanted the man to come. I lied to myself and convinced my brain that it was for him. It was really for me. I felt guilty, but only a little.

"I'll think about it," the man said.

I smiled and then said, "Good enough." I started blurting out my address, but the man grabbed my hand and stopped me.

"Right," I said, "you already know."

Scary. Confusing. Awesome!

Our touching of hands was a strange, goodbye handshake of sorts. I felt his skin again and committed its oddness to my thoughts. I hoped to touch those hands again.

As I walked away from the fallen trunk, I couldn't help myself from cranking my neck back towards the man – five times! On each silly turn, words fell uncontrollably from my mouth.

"See you..."

"Thank you..."

"Take care..."

"Bye..."

When I turned the final time, the man was gone.

I hated when he did that. "Please come tomorrow," I yelled into the darkness, nonetheless.

But its blackness did not reply.

Walking back along the gravel road, torch shining brightly, it was impossible to stop smiling. What was I feeling and what the hell had I done by inviting a complete stranger to my house for dinner?

"You are a nutcase," I said softly, to myself.

Many questions remained without answers. I wanted to ask the man about the train-wreck, about his hunting the night, about his homelessness, about where he would go and how did he know to call me Sara?

Yet, for all the unknowns, the crazy behavior and the terrifying scars, the man made me feel something I had never experienced before. I didn't know what it was or what it meant. All I knew, was that I felt it only when I was with him. His mystery was like a drug, and I wanted more and more and more of it. I couldn't identify it and I couldn't turn it off.

And I didn't want to.

Bringing him home for dinner was as much about mom as it was about him. And it was all about me. I was drunk with excited anticipation.

There was just one problem – one question I should have asked the man.

I didn't even know his name.

# Chapter 12

"Absolutely not," mom screamed. "Are you out of your freakin' mind?"

That was still open for debate. But if I was, it was all mom's doing anyway, so she was hardly in a position to pose the question.

"Mom, you don't understand. He needs our help." I wasn't totally convinced by my tack, but I could hardly admit to my ulterior motives.

"It's not going to happen, Sara."

Dad shuffled into the room with an empty plate and glass, both in need of a refill before hermitting it back to his anti-social cave. "What's all the yelling about?" he asked.

"No one's yelling," said mom, trying to keep control over the argument.

But she wasn't going to get off that easily. I turned to dad and said, "I've got a friend who's going through a rough time and so I invited him for dinner tonight."

I heard dad's brain tick into gear, thinking visitors meant he would, at the very least, need to show his face. That would not have appealed to him at all. I saw him silently uhmm-ing and arhh-ing to himself.

It was all the more reason his response surprised me.

"That doesn't sound so bad," he said, leaving his options open.

Mom interjected like a cobra. "He's a homeless man, Ron."

"What?"

"I'm not having some homeless man come into my house," mom added.

"Stop calling him that," I said. Only I was allowed to use that label, I convinced myself.

Dad said, "Sara, maybe your mother is right."

It made me furious. "You never stand up for me," I yelled. I was being unfair. Truthful, but unfair. And I knew it.

"That's enough," mom said.

"If you want to help out, why don't you just bring him some food?" asked dad.

I argued with guilty betrayal. "He's not a dog, you know. I'm not just going to bring him a bowl of food," I said.

Of course, that is exactly what I had done the night before. Is that what the man had thought, too? It never occurred to me. And now I found myself assaulting my very own deeds. No wonder the man didn't eat any of it. I had treated him like a stray dog.

My self-doubt raged.

"I suppose you're right, Sara," dad said. "That wouldn't be the best thing to do."

Bloody typical. The one argument dad actually agreed with me and it was the only time I wanted him to say I was being stupid.

Dad slotted his plate into the open dishwashing machine and then stepped to the fridge to refill his glass with Vanilla Coke. "Maybe he could come for a little while," he said, nonchalantly.

His vague support again knocked my senses in bewilderment.

The heat from mom's anger almost sunburnt my skin. She was livid. The perfect reason I've been having an affair, is what I believed she was thinking.

"Ron. I don't think it's a good idea at all," she started, again.

"No. Dad's right," I said. I knew that would infuriate her even more. I added, "It doesn't have to be for long."

Mom was outgunned two-to-one in a rare alliance between me and dad. A very rare alliance indeed. She had to concede. "Fine. Whatever," she said, "but I'm not cooking."

That suited me just fine and apparently dad as well.

"We can order some Chinese food," he said, with a little too much excitement.

"Sure. Why not?" mom barked with sarcastic venom. "He's not likely to have any money. Why don't we pay for a hotel room as well?" Mom looked ready to suffocate my father.

I let the moment soak in and I thrived in the delirium. "He would probably enjoy a night in a hotel," I said, with the broadest of smiles, before mom shot out of the kitchen.

"Sara," dad said, finally realizing I was exploiting our victory. "That was not necessary."

Yes, it was! But I remained silent.

"What time is your friend coming?" asked dad.

I appreciated his effort. I couldn't be sure if my gratitude stemmed from an increased respect for my otherwise indifferent father, or because, with each passing sunset, mom became easier to hate. "I actually don't know," I said, very honestly. "I forgot to give him a time."

Dad raised his eyebrows. "That was a little silly, RaRa," he said.

"Do you have to call me that?"

He didn't respond. I had always been his little RaRa since I was about four years old. Some days, I believed dad still thought I was four years old.

New snack in hand – a bag of honey-mustard potato chips – and a refilled glass of sugary heaven and dad was on his way. I checked Cinderella on my wrist. Dinner time was not far away and, finding I was suddenly alone in the kitchen, I started worrying myself into a fever.

How would my family respond to the man's scars?

What would they think of his roughness?

Would he show at all?

I fretted over what mom may say and how dad would behave. I flustered over Mika's lack of subtlety, and I was terrified about how I was supposed to act.

I'd never brought a boy home, especially not for dinner.

The homeless man was no boyfriend or anything, but I felt no less anxious than if he had been. The fact that mom already disliked him was no bonus either and only aggravated my fish-out-of-water apprehension.

When I was younger, mom always encouraged me to meet people – boys, when I was older – and bring them home. She often boasted how she had free-spirited her way through India in her early twenties where she had discovered the love of her life.

Sadly, for dad, it wasn't him.

But she stressed the importance of developing friendships. Bring them home to meet the family, she had insisted. Family is important. She spoke then, of how she and I would share such moments. A pretty dress. A little make-up. I'll plait your hair, she had said. And she promised to turn me into a princess. There was talk of mom cooking a special meal to impress my guest, and she even pledged to tempt dad from his room with a bottle of red wine and have him act normal.

In reality, now that the first of such events had arrived, mom was nowhere to be found. No braiding, no cooking and no princess. Ironically, not-so-normal dad was my greatest support. He also had to buy his own red wine since he discovered mom wasn't the love of his life, either.

Take-out Chinese and he doesn't have to stay for long, was all I had to work with.

Princess Sara would have to wait.

Looking around the kitchen, my compulsion took hold, and I suddenly realized what I had to do to calm my nerves.

I needed to clean.

Moments later, I frantically wiped benches, threw the last of a handful of dirty dishes into the dishwasher and feverishly swept and mopped the wooden floorboards. It was impossible not to feel a little excited about a boy coming for dinner.

My first.

Scaring the heebie-jeebies out of me, Mika suddenly slid the backdoor open. Her eyes, her arms, her whole body cried, I'm in a foul mood. Not good.

"Are you cleaning again?" she said, tersely.

I didn't charm her with an answer. I was more concerned about her... and how her mood was going to ruin my night – even further. "What's wrong, Mik?" I asked.

She shot a flawless stare of death in my direction. Mika was better at that than anyone I knew. Her eyes were a slender profile at the best of times, and her incisors were pointed like vampire teeth. At high school, Mika found herself, on most days, in a crowded flow down the corridor amidst shouts of "Weasel Eyes" and "Snake Freak!"

The Baines girls had never been popular at school.

I threw back a production of hurt and sisterly disappointment. Mika's blazing stare quickly simmered. My act usually did the trick.

Mika was no dummy. She knew I wasn't really upset. My performance was more about a cry for her understanding and she knew it. In the last three months, we'd developed our kindred bond, raised it to a higher level. We had to. For our sanity. For our survival.

"So?" I asked, trying for a second time to extract Mika's frustration. She wasn't a big talker. Never had been. There was no question that she was Daddy's girl.

"I just had a crappy day at work," she said, "that's all."

Mika worked the front desk of a three-star hotel. She answered phones, took bookings and occasionally cleaned rooms when the underpaid cleaning crew was on strike in fear of their safety. The hotel lift frequently stopped working and no minimum-wage cleaner was carting a trolley laden with soaps, towels and Spray-n-Wipe, up nine flights of dangerous, slippery stairs.

It always amused me that Mika worked as a first point of contact for hotel guests. Her position involved politely and professionally communicating with dozens of people every day. Mika hated people, hated communicating and especially hated being polite. But it did explain Mika regularly coming home in tears, her attraction to setting her hotel uniform on fire and her generally abusive attitude to neighbors, road-users, family, friends and pretty much everyone in between.

Dad emerged for a second time from his grotto, hearing his favorite daughter's voice. A smile beamed on his face when he saw her in the kitchen. "Hi, Mik," he said, as he clumsily attempted a bear-hug.

"Hi, daddy."

"You don't look happy."

"Daddy, I hate stupid people."

"Who's been stupid this time?"

"Everyone," Mika said, seriously.

"Maybe, you shouldn't be around so many people then, Mik," dad said, with as much cynicism as he could summon.

Mika smiled. "But then I would be like you, daddy."

Dad hugged her again.

"You're like two bloody children," I said, waving the broom at both of them. "Now get out of my way."

"What's your problem?" Mika asked.

"RaRa has got a boy coming for dinner," dad said, dipping into his cynical pot a second time.

Mika frenzied. "What? Who? When? Oh my God! Sare, why didn't you tell me?"

All her sadness and frustration with the world instantly disappeared. She took a giant leap to nudge beside me and sink her claws into my shoulder. "What's going on?'" she asked slyly.

When I didn't answer immediately, her claws dug a little deeper.

"It's nothing," I said, "I just invited a friend for dinner."

"Do I know him? What's his name?"

"Enough with the questions," I said, freeing myself from her vampire clutches.

I pretended it was Mika's inquisitiveness driving me bananas, but I actually enjoyed her focus and her attention on me. That wasn't it. I couldn't answer her question because I didn't know the man's name for myself, and there was no way I was going to let on to that little conundrum.

"Sara, don't you walk away from me. You're going to tell me right now who you're seeing."

"I'm not seeing him," I said. "He's just a... friend."

"A homeless friend, apparently," dad chipped in.

I threw dad my own rendering of an incriminating stare, but looked more foolish than rancorous. I lacked Mika's craftiness. "Thanks," I verbally had to add for any desired impact.

Mika was experiencing her own mental disturbance. "What?" she yelled. And again, "What?"

"Isn't that what you told me, RaRa?"

"Yes, dad."

Mika nosedived into confusion, so-much-so, when her mouth opened, no words came out. Mika was never lost for words. As much as she hated people, she wasn't ever short of an opinion about people.

Dad couldn't restrain his culinary excitement. "Your mom's not cooking," he said, "so we're ordering Chinese."

Mika loved Chinese food – didn't care much for Chinese people.

She shrugged free from her stupor. "Sare, talk to me."

Her eyes narrowed as she ventured a grin. She stepped back to my side and glowed with intrigue. Mika's eyes always constricted when her lips smiled. When her smile faded, her eyes reopened. It was as if her eyes and mouth were intrinsically linked. For Mika, it was most problematic in photographs. She was often the recipient of any photographer's ire. "Your eyes were closed" or "you weren't smiling!" At first, she made more effort to keep her eyes wide. Then, she ceased smiling. Mika then stopped posing for photographs altogether. Snake and Weasel portraits were quite priceless since her twentieth birthday.

"Sara?" Mika re-engaged.

"It's no big deal," I said.

But I wasn't going to get off that easily. Where could I possibly start? I thought. It wasn't as if I'd met the man at school or at a party or through a friend. My first sight of him was in the middle of the night, involved in some way in Leura's biggest ever train accident, and all while I was trying to smash my own life into a thousand pieces, literally.

What would Mika think of that?

I couldn't tell her the truth. "We just ran into each other near the track," I said, opting for vagueness. "He doesn't have anywhere to go, so I thought I would do my bit. Thought I would do something nice for someone else."

Mika looked as if she had a hundred sticky-beak questions, but dad beat her to the stage.

"The bush track?" he asked. "RaRa, I've told you it's not safe. You shouldn't—"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, dad," Mika cut in. She then drilled her cunning eyes back my way and said, "What do you mean, ran into each other?"

Mika was the one person I hated lying to. Little fibs sometimes crept in with my friends and I no longer thought twice about lying to mom, but Mika was my lighthouse. She was the last remaining member of the family I could unconditionally depend on and she deserved my honesty. It made my betrayal of that commitment such a big deal for me. "I was coming home from school a couple of days ago... and..." I needed to search my imagination. "...and I dropped my schoolbag and... and he came and helped me."

Oh god! Lame, I thought. No one was going to believe that.

Except dad, of course. "He sounds like a gentleman, RaRa," dad said. "Unusual these days."

Unusual indeed.

Mika wasn't having a bar of it. No surprise. The weasel sniffed a cover-up. "There's something you're not telling us," she said.

Something? I hadn't told her anything! Nothing that was truthful, anyway.

Mika solidified her doubt with a volley of questions, but I got annoyingly stubborn. "You can ask him yourself," became my answer to every one of her questions. I told them nothing about the man's burns and scars. Or about him returning my silver cross. Or about our crazy rendezvous in the forest.

I barely knew anything about any of those secrets myself.

Mom blustered back into the kitchen and found herself the focus of three pairs of indignant eyes. We all loathed her in our personal ways – even dad, although he would never admit it to anyone or himself.

"What's this then?" she said. "Are we having a meeting about how to turn the house into a homeless shelter?"

I wanted to fight, but backed out and stared resentfully at the woman I once called mom.

"It's my house too, you know?" mom said.

"Not for long," Mika hissed under her breath, but loud enough for mom's ears to prick with disdain.

"Keep that up, Mikayla—"

"That's enough," dad said. "We're not going to argue."

The air between mom and Mika was so dense, I could have bumped my head on it and knocked myself out.

It took a calming hand from dad on Mika's shoulder to snap her from tearing into her prey. She really was a cobra, sometimes.

I thought I'd try some sarcastic humor to tame the circus. "Well, this is going to be a happy family dinner, isn't it?" I said.

It sounded funnier in my turbulent brain. Mom definitely didn't laugh and that made me angrier than what it should have. My first boy for dinner experience looked far from being anything other than a fiasco. I already hated mom for it.

I stamped my foot to get the attention I needed and then angrily yelled, "I'm going to put on a pretty dress and... well... that's all I'm going to do. But when I come back, I want you all to be... different people... or drop dead, because this is important to me and if any of you screw it up, I'll never forgive you." I finished my rant with eyes glued to mom. Yes, you! I repeated in my head.

Within two resonating booms of my heart, I was in my bedroom. I had slammed the hallway and bedroom doors shut so firmly that the floorboards vibrated beneath my bare feet.

I wanted to scream again, but my thoughts turned to dinner and the man. I started wishing he wouldn't show. I didn't want him to see my family at war. And I suddenly turned my anger inwards for conceiving a plan fraught with such potential for catastrophe.

Stupid, Sara, I thought to myself one more time.

I tried to convince myself that the man was wiser than my stupidity, more sensible than to accept an ad hoc invitation, and more switched on than I was and realize dinner was a very bad idea.

Oh, please don't come.

But deep down in my gut, something was telling me that he would.

# Chapter 13

Six hours until midnight.

I hoped that even homeless people understood dinner normally wasn't served at the literal end of the day. Our two previous meetings occurred within whiskers of the clock striking twelve. I nervously twitched and turned on my kitchen stool.

Mika had planted her curious butt on the stool beside me and together, we waited for the man's arrival.

The last time I recalled us poised side-by-side with such anticipation was when Mika was eight and I was five. We waited eagerly for the arrival of Santa Claus at a Christmas party organized by dad's work.

The two of us sat center-stage in the hospice multipurpose room, surrounded by thirty other children belonging to various staff members and patients.

Sitting on my stool in the kitchen reflecting on what would turn out to be a significant Christmas moment, I hoped our perched positions were not a bad omen for my family dinner with the man.

The Santa Claus episode had not ended well.

Each child was to be given a few minutes on the lap of the bearded, jolly man in red, given a present paid for by a special hospice fund, and then accorded a photo opportunity.

Parents, patients and staff celebrated and ensured the annual occasion was filled with merry cheer and everlasting memories for the kids.

Mika was third in line to see Father Christmas. She was already frowning at having to wait so long for her turn. She hated waiting.

Eventually, mom and dad ushered a grumpy, young Mika onto Santa's lap. "What would you like for Christmas, young lady?" Santa's jovial voice asked.

She looked at him, glimpsed back to her proud parents, and then funneled her gaze into Santa's eyes. At that instant, he must have known he was in trouble. "That beard isn't real!" Mika yelled, to the attention of everyone in the room.

Santa Claus reached desperately for his white, costume whiskers – Mom and dad both flung themselves forward and looked suspended in gooey slow-motion, trying to reach their demanding, eldest daughter.

No one got there in time. Mika yanked the fake beard from Santa's face. It tore away with a sickening whoosh, like sticky-tape ripping from a hairy arm. Santa groaned. He had felt Mika's wrath in more ways than one. "You're not Santa!" she screamed, genuinely upset by the apparent deception.

Amidst a volley of gasps and tears from the other children, Santa's beard took the brunt of Mika's vengeance. It flew across the room faster than any reindeer-sleigh and landed on some innocent kid's head. The little boy screamed, traumatized his dream of meeting Santa was not only over – and over forever – but part of Santa now rested on his poor head.

He'd be seeing the likes of Alison McKinney for a decade.

Having destroyed Christmas for thirty kids in one fateful afternoon, the hospice never hosted a children's Christmas function again. They couldn't find anyone willing to dress in the red suit. Mikayla Baines had left quite an impression. Dad changed jobs six months later.

"What are you giggling at?" Mika asked, as she almost bumped me off the stool and onto the kitchen floor.

"Nothing," I said.

Mika wasn't a fan of being reminded of her assault on Father Christmas.

"You're not going to get stood up by a homeless man, are you?"

"Shut up," I said, playfully smacking her bony arm. "He'll be here." My voice carried more confidence than I felt. The mental tug-of-war in my brain was endless. From 'Will he come?' to 'Oh god! Please stay away!' and back again.

Then dad emerged from his cave and asked, "Should I order the food?" He was hungry, like always.

Mika answered for me. "No, dad. We gotta wait for..." She turned to me. "What's his name?"

"We have to wait," I said to dad. "I don't know what he likes..." or his name, or where he lives or his age – or anything else.

Mika laughed. "Maybe he's a vegetarian homee?"

"Don't call him a homee," I said. "I feel bad enough for him that he's got nowhere to live. We don't need to be making it sound like it's fun."

Dad had a smile on his face. He liked the label. He liked enjoying Mika's zaniness, even when no one else thought her funny. He had been the only adult in the room to laugh at the downfall of Father Christmas.

As Mika and dad were about to back-and-forth a match of jokes between them, the three of us in the kitchen heard a loud thump on the veranda.

We stopped talking.

The way our house was positioned on the land, our backdoor was the logical entry point of the home. The open-plan design encouraged entry through the sliding door, giving access to both the living room and the kitchen – where Mika and I were seated at a large, marble-top island bench. The backdoor led out to a pine-wood porch that ran the length of the house towards the driveway at the northern end.

Another thud. I was convinced they were footsteps. Very slow footsteps. Another and then another. Showtime, I thought.

Another footstep and he came into view through the kitchen window. The sensor-light had not flicked on with the man's movement and the wooden, kitchen blinds were down. Through the slats, it was difficult to see clearly out into the darkness of the night which had already settled in.

The three of us saw only streaks of blacks and glimpses of shadows move slowly along the veranda towards the backdoor. One thing was clear. Someone was definitely coming.

Dad joined Mika in anticipation. I was in a metaphorical coma.

The footsteps stopped within a hand's reach of the sliding door. The visitor had only one more stride to make before coming into complete view through the bare glass of the door window.

But he remained hidden by the doorframe and did not step forward. Instead, only a gloved hand emerged from the darkness and knocked gently on the glass. Three polite raps.

I got stuck on my stool, anchored by a cargo of nerves. I struggled helplessly as I watched dad beat me to the door.

Oh, no! I wanted to scream to him. Don't do it! But before I found timbre in my flustered vocal chords, dad's hand gripped the door handle. He coughed to clear his throat for a welcome and then, slid the door open.

A cool chill of evening air trailed inside behind a breeze of pure-smelling mountain fragrance. It snapped me from my childlike daze. My feet dropped to the ground from the elevated stool support and I was raring to go and save the man from dad's unpredictable social interaction.

But Mika clawed my thigh and held me firmly rooted to the stool. I glimpsed at her with bulging eyes. Hers said simply, it's okay, let dad do it.

Dad's wide frame filled the doorway and blocked my view of the man now face-to-face with my father.

"Hello there," I heard dad's voice say.

A familiar, deep tone then loomed from outside. "Good evening, sir."

Mika's talons sunk deeper into my bare skin below the hemline of my dress. I couldn't stop myself from turning towards her. My eyes widened even further.

"Sir?" her lips mouthed, without volume. She raised her eyebrows with surprise.

I tried to strike her with another evil stare of death, but quickly gave up. My efforts were rapidly becoming embarrassing.

"Please, come in," dad said, before stepping back to establish an inviting entry space.

Mika's fingernails scratched my leg as we both fixed an unbreakable stare at the man stepping through the open back door. Our mouths fell open, but each of us for very different reasons.

The man was dressed in black. But his clothes looked startlingly new. Gone were the scrappy trousers and filthy jumper with holes. He wore newly-pressed cargo pants. His rugged boots gleamed from a fresh polish. The decrepit jumper I had seen before had been replaced with a stylish, collared shirt and his full-length coat appeared clean and alluring.

But it was his face from which I struggled to break my concentration. I remembered a scruffy beard, hidden under grimy, frayed bandages. Both were gone.

The man's skin looked milky-soft and ecclesiastically clean. His black, wavy hair was brushed and silky. I couldn't be sure if my earlier impressions of the man bewitched my expectation, but staring at him as he gracefully strode into the kitchen, I thought the man to be even more handsome than before.

Most strikingly, he was much younger than I thought. I had imagined him thirty years of age. But in his smart outfit, complimenting his amorous face, he looked much younger.

His scar was barely visible in the incandescent kitchen lights. I knew it was there, and so desperately looked for it, but I was certain Mika never saw it at all as she nudged me excitedly with her elbow in full view of the man.

The man.

I needed a name. I finally jumped from my stool, straightened my pretty dress and stepped to dad's side. The man stood before us. Stupidly, I had failed to think about how I should welcome him. That stupidity was quickly on show for all to see.

How embarrassing!

As if meeting a boss for a job interview, I extended my hand to the man like a formal git. It wobbled nervously, suspended in the thick air between us. It was no surprise I had been rejected for three holiday jobs already.

The man needed to rescue me, again. He took my lonesome hand gingerly. "Hello, Sara," he said. "Thank you for inviting me."

He spoke eloquently and I suddenly felt more intimidated by the man than at our previous trysts. I felt as if I needed to say something smart. "You're welcome," was all I said.

Very smart.

I continued to shake his hand as I searched for more prophetic banter. The man had to wrestle his hand free when dad extended his handshake.

"Sorry," I said.

"I'm Ron," dad said. "I'm Sara's father."

"Pleased to meet you, Ron..."

A name? I held my breath. The man glimpsed at me for a single heartbeat, but then returned his focus to dad.

"...my name is Rumer," the man said. "Rumer Phoenix."

"What was it?" dad asked.

"Rumer."

"That's an unusual name."

I thought so, too. The man's eyes had already fallen back to mine. He had never told me his name and he knew that. His eyes looked to me for a reaction, but I had no idea what I needed to give him.

Instinctively, I drew his attention away from me. "And this is my sister, Mikayla," I said.

"Mika," she interjected. "Only people I don't like call me Mikayla."

Dad laughed and said, "I think it's supposed to be the other way around, Mik. People who don't like you call you Mikayla."

"Mom calls me Mikayla," she said, sharply.

Dad had no answer for her, realizing his mistake.

"Nice to meet you... Mika," said the man.

Rumer.

It evoked a strange humanistic feeling of identity inside me. The man, whom I still believed had played a role in saving me on the train tracks, who had returned my most precious jewelry, who had stalked me from the shadows and who had so courageously trusted me by exposing his scars, had always been simply, the man. His anonymity suited him. It suited me, because it afforded detachment. My brain, my body, my heart – all were in conflict about the man, but not knowing who he was made it much easier to remain confused, by choice.

Suddenly, he was Rumer.

A real person with a real name. I could no longer hide behind any naivety or pretend that the man existed only in my escapist imagination. With the removal of his mask and the revelation of a name, Rumer was suddenly all too real.

The door between the kitchen and formal lounge room swung open with intent. Dad, Mika, me and Rumer swiveled to see mom stride into the room. She was smiling, but it reminded me of the school counsellor a few days earlier. The smile was fake and I immediately worried. Deceptive grins which lacked sincerity had proved to mask ulterior motives.

"Hi there," mom said.

I tensed more. Her greeting sounded nice enough, but I also remembered that, for over a year, mom had expertly said one thing – lived one life – while secretly knowing another. Her second set of words painted a more accurate self-portrait.

"You're not exactly what I expected," she said, coldly.

Mika jumped off her stool and said, "Mom, don't be so rude."

My sister's attack was as much about standing up for my new friend as it was an opportunity – any opportunity – to let mom know how she felt.

But Rumer carried himself with grace. He appeared unafraid of the monster I hated for ruining my life. He beamed with a confidence that impressed me. Rumer looked more attractive each time he breathed. He stepped towards mom with a reserved self-belief and offered his handshake like the mature, intelligent boy I'd always hoped, in my dreams, to show off to mom and dad.

And to Mika.

Mika nudged me again. "He's hot," she whispered in my ear, a little louder than I thought comfortable.

But I didn't react, waiting only for mom's next move. It must have been obvious to Rumer that mom required encouragement.

"My name is Rumer," he said. "I'm pleased to meet you."

Mom left him hanging longer than he deserved.

Bitch.

She finally gave a little. "I'm Temperance. Sara's mother."

"Temperance," Rumer said. "That's interesting. What do you shorten that to?"

"I don't shorten it," she said, bluntly. "It's just Temperance."

Mom's fake smile oozed with escalating forgery. She never shortened her name and we all thought her a sap because of it. Life-long friends still called her Temperance. And when they didn't, and they tried something shorter, something suitably less formal, mom was scathing in her retort. It had been the cause of many upsets at parties and family gatherings.

We couldn't all be like Helen and be privileged enough to call mom: My dearest love. Despicable poem. Despicable woman. Despicable mother.

Mom's prickliness left Rumer stranded and bewildered. He must have realized Temperance was no picnic.

Welcome to my world, I thought.

Forever the diffuser of conflict, dad took it upon himself to extend the warmer welcome he had offered. He could not have appreciated the trap he was about to set for himself. "Now that we all know each other, can I offer you a drink?" dad asked, as he stepped quickly to the pantry. "Red wine?"

New Sara felt like she was seeing New Dad – a social dad, a normal dad. And it felt awesome.

And then, at the very moment dad's efforts sweetened my anxiety, mom's bitter-sting struck.

"Is that a good idea, Ron?" she asked.

"Why not?" dad replied, genuinely clueless about what drove mom's concern.

"You know," she said. She may as well have winked. "Because he's... And all those sort of people are..."

Mika wanted to have a go, sensing mom was on the warpath, but she simply stared at me. My eyes said the same as hers. What the hell was mom talking about?

Dad verbalized our thought. Mom stared at him, no doubt justifying her lying and cheating once more.

Finally, the frustration got the better of her and her pretentious grin disappeared altogether. "Oh, Ronald. For goodness sake," she said. "It's a well-known fact that all homeless people have problems with alcohol." She glanced at Rumer. "No offence," she said, and then turned her anger-filled eyes back to dad. "...and you're offering him alcohol. What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with you?" Mika barked.

Dad's fresh display of confidence evaporated. I could see it run from his body. He stepped into the pantry and was suddenly out of sight. It inadvertently cleared a path between Mika and mom.

A dangerous opening.

Still standing beside me, I felt Mika's fire raging inside her, wanting to ignite the room and literally set mom on fire.

But the most unexpected of sounds interrupted all of us and it kept Mika's blaze under temporary restraint.

We heard laughter.

Rumer was doubled over, giggling wildly to himself as if he'd silently been told the funniest of jokes. We'd all missed it, obviously. It was difficult not to laugh myself and once Mika started, I couldn't stop. I still couldn't see dad and I wasn't sure if he'd overdosed himself on wine or tunneled through the floor and escaped to freedom.

But mom was not amused. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, between snorts and chuckles.

"You're all mad," mom said, angrily.

Rumer stuck a hand in the air to attract our attention. And he got it. He composed himself enough to string a giggly sentence together. "You thought I was homeless?"

Mom's eyes shot to mine.

"I'm not homeless," Rumer said.

What?

Dad popped his head from the pantry. "Really?" he said. He looked funny-faced.

Mom hustled. "But Sara, you said..."

"You thought I was homeless?" Rumer asked, staring at me.

His brown eyes now melted something inside me and induced a scary sense of guilt at the same time. Why did it always have to be good and bad?

"I'm sorry," I said, again. I now felt stupid.

Rumer smiled at me, seeing my angst. For someone I'd known only a short time, he had the shrewdest talent for reading my thoughts. I liked that.

"Well, I'm disappointed," Mika said.

I turned to her abruptly. "What."

She said, "I've been working on homee jokes all afternoon. I can't do them now, can I?"

Emerging fully from the pantry and setting course for the safety of his bedroom, dad covertly flicked an approving smile and wink in Mika's direction.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

Dad stopped, as if I had asked the most extraordinary question. "I'm going to watch the tennis, RaRa," he said.

Mom's poison was astonishingly effective.

She verbally beat dad to worthlessness so she could have dominion over the house – over us all. For the first time, I consciously realized her reign enabled her to cloak her secret life with Helen. We had all been blinded by mom's venom. I was putting up with it no more.

"No dad," I said loudly, "you're not hiding in your room. Not tonight. We're going to have dinner." My audience remained silent, mouths agape at my outburst. "We're going to order Chinese food, like you said. And we're all going to sit around the bench and talk. We're going to pretend to be a normal family, damn it!"

No one moved. I dared not look at Rumer, but I was terrified by what I imagined he thought.

Mika broke the ice. "I bet you've never met a family like this before?" she asked, staring at the one person I couldn't.

Rumer didn't answer.

I felt angry at mom and dad, but the strongest loathing I saved for myself. Why had I exposed my new friend to such a circus of antipathy? I wanted the roof of the house to split open and a tornado of mountain air to pull Rumer and me away to safety.

Mom heartlessly made everything ten-time worse. "I told you this was a bad idea."

"Mom," I yelled, but lost the courage to add anything further.

Mika had no such problem. She screamed at mom, "Maybe if you weren't such a bitch!"

"Mikayla," dad said, flustered. I couldn't remember the last time I heard dad use Mika's full name.

"No, dad," Mika continued, "It's not enough for her to destroy my life and your life. She has to ruin Sara's as well. You need to stay and fight... for her... for me!"

For himself.

Dad searched the room with demoralized eyes. I wanted to believe he looked for a way to heed to Mika's charge, but my gut feeling knew he was looking for a rock to hide under. A very damned large rock.

"Your father doesn't have to do anything, Mikayla," mom said.

"Don't speak to me."

"This is my house and I'll speak to whoever I want."

"Dad," Mika pleaded, before reengaging mom. "You won't speak to me how you want. And this is my house, too. If you don't like it, then run to your lesbian bitch and leave us the hell alone."

"That's it. Get out of my house!" mom screamed.

"Make me!"

The horde of blue-devils, restlessly asleep beneath my skin, awakened with a savage fury. Like bugs from a deep winter's snooze slowly coming back to life, the creepy-crawlies began to busy themselves deconstructing the tiny reserves of sanity I had rebuilt.

As mom and Mika intensified their yelling match, flames of self-hate stoked in my veins, my head, my entire body.

The blue-devils were master fire-starters.

The pain grasped tight. Lava inched through every artery, pumped by a volcano of agony.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to be consumed by flames.

I wanted to die.

My vision blurred out of control. I lost sight of Rumer and I couldn't tell if dad had found that rock. Mika's voice echoed through the hollow of my ear, but I could make no sense of it. My knees began to wobble and my hands shuddered violently.

In the three months, I had been plundered so completely of my sanity only a handful of times before. The last time, a thundering locomotive could have ended it all – should have.

Again, I wished it had.

I glanced around the kitchen one last time, but everything looked alien. Everyone was exiled from recognition. I needed the screaming in my head to stop. I hungered for the one reprieve which had silenced the voices previously.

And I knew exactly where to find it.

Deserting everyone, including Rumer, I bolted from the kitchen, stalking my deliverance.

I was hunting for pain.

# Chapter 14

Shut up. Shut up!

The blue devils screeched inside my head and they wouldn't stop. Their spiked claws scratched at the interior of my skull and it throbbed like all hell.

I slammed my bedroom door shut, tears draining from my swollen eyes. Kidnapped by each breath was a moan of pain as my body subconsciously cried out. I felt disorientated and I wildly flung my arms in all directions, seeking a familiar anchor.

But I found none.

Through my smeared vision, my bedroom appeared phantasmal. Streaks of blurry colors whirled together like a mad oil-painting with a life all its own. My ears stung with an incessant buzz as if a thousand wasps nested in every crevice of my skull.

Make it stop, I begged myself.

In three months, I had discovered only one reprieve. A singular, soothing masterstroke that euthanized the devils – at least until they resurrected themselves.

Think, Sara. Where did you hide it?

I collapsed to the floor with a loud thud, pounding my knees on the wooden boards and propelling a dead-cold tremor up the length of my backbone. Like a wounded animal, I struggled on all-fours, crippled by a cursed delirium that I needed to kill.

Pulling the bottom draw from my bedside dresser, I sunk my hand into nanna's blanket, but didn't find what I was looking for.

Nanna couldn't help me now.

My body was dying a languid, emotional death. I felt poisoned, hunting in my last throes for a hidden antidote. The muscles in my arms were spongy, weak and ineffective. I couldn't find the effort to slide the bottom drawer back into its nest. With each compression of my heart, the venom atrophied my movement and strangled my hope.

I had only one chance.

I carelessly yanked at the middle drawer. It released from its guide rails and toppled clumsily, spilling its contents over the floor. Jewelry. Pens. Hair bands. A stapler. Sowing needles. The center drawer had always been my treasure-trove of useless stuff I may someday need. Paralyzed on my knees, there was something I desperately needed. I scavenged through the odds-and-ends, certain I had thrown it in that middle drawer after the last time I pillaged the black holes in my head. Where are you?

My soul wept. Tears tasted like blood. Happiness had never felt so distant.

I wanted to curl up on the floor and give up. I had tried that the last time, too, but it failed to choke the screaming voices. Letting the blue devils run amok only buoyed the little bastards and they shrieked twice as loud and clawed even more violently.

No! The only way to shut them up was to burn them into oblivion.

Rubber bands. Nail polish. An emergency box of Fleur tampons. And then, my trembling fingers brushed the smooth plastic of my trusty defender. I clamped it between thumb and forefinger, pulling it from the strewn wreckage of odds-and-sods.

I held the small object at eye level and feverishly thrilled at the pleasure that would shortly rush through my veins.

The bedroom was dark. Shadows of trees projected onto my walls as they rode the faint streaks of moonlight through the open blinds. The silhouettes twined and crawled like parasites – my whole world was infected with creepy-crawlies.

I would show them, I thought.

In the somber light, the pretty, pink plastic tool in my hand made me smile and I briefly looked down at my dress. The patchwork of flowers was pretty pink, too. It was such a nice dress and, for a fleeting heartbeat, I did feel like a princess.

But it wasn't the pink plastic to which my desire was hypnotized.

My eyes fixed on the metal part on top of the plastic. Even in the low light, it glistened invitingly, and I frenzied with anticipation.

I had found the cigarette lighter on the bush track two months earlier and, at that time, was clueless about what had possessed me to pocket it. I wasn't a hoarder – it contravened my compulsive cleaning constitution – but something forced me to reach for the half-buried lighter, brush it free from the dirt, and savor it.

A week of internet research later and I used the pretty pink fire-starter for the first time to scorch the demons.

God! It had felt so good.

With my world again invaded by intolerable sadness and torturous self-hate and worthlessness, I turned to what I knew worked best.

I dropped the lighter into the palm of my left hand and twisted the soft, milky underside of my right forearm into view and within easy reach.

Last time, I had held it aloft, but had struggled to apply sufficient pressure to thoroughly burn. Evolving in my fiendish skills, I sat cross-legged on the floor, leaned against the bed and rested my forearm in my lap.

A quick rasp of the tiny thumbwheel and a stunning, orange-blue flame rose from the lighter. As I held the small, metal release at the rear of the mechanism, I heard the faint hissing of escaping gas – that, and the pounding of my ramshackled heart.

The shadows on my wall fled speedily out of sight as a tangerine glow illuminated my bedroom. The amber radiance bowed gracefully as the flame danced wickedly in the warmth of my expelled breath.

I couldn't pull my eyes from the mesmerizing flame. Such beauty in my devastated world, I thought. Yet, as the fire burned and the luminance waltzed, it accomplished something else, too. It served my one and only need...

It heated the metal of the cigarette lighter.

After letting the flame sizzle until my thumb cramped, I returned the bedroom to its sticky blackness. Because my eyes had adjusted to the glowing light, I now saw nothing. I felt the stinging heat from the lighter and I knew where my forearm was. Nothing else mattered and no sight was necessary.

Without hesitation or concern, I sliced my left hand through the darkness and forced the scolding-hot metal of the lighter onto the tender skin of my right forearm.

The soft, white flesh hissed.

I instinctively clenched my teeth, sucking in air through the gaps between them. The first three seconds of contact were horrific.

Unbearable.

Tears welled, even as I pressed my eyes firmly shut.

Come on. I needed the goodness that I knew was coming.

The rank smell of burning, human flesh rose from my lap and impaled my nostrils like countless needles jabbing at my brain.

Using my lap as a counterpoint, I pushed the metal harder into the searing, sizzling skin. I so desperately wanted to scream. The pain was nauseating.

Burn devils! Burn!

And then, the instant I hungered for. My brain, sensing the blinding agony, released a wave of happy chemicals – enzymes designed specifically to counteract the pain.

Oh! More. More!

Like a drug addict, I drowned myself in the ecstasy. I burned with delight as the endorphins raced through my entire body, fighting heroically against the horde of evil. Last time, they annihilated the enemy with consummate ease. I hoped they would do so again.

In the darkness, I could not see the strawberry-red, blistering wound on my forearm, but I knew that's what it looked like.

I remembered.

The sadness, the worthlessness, the hopelessness – all vanished with the tsunami of comfort surging through my veins. There was no better feeling. As I soaked up the wicked delight and my body soothed itself, I relaxed the tension set firmly in my jaw muscles and even managed a thin smile.

But the army of blue-devils was not done yet.

They regrouped, discovered a tiny crack in the defenses, and poured through. The vile liquid of depression infected me again as quickly as I had suppressed the first attack. The second wave overwhelmed me with frightening ferocity.

They struck me down and I slid sideways onto the floorboards. I was no longer coherent enough to realize that I head-butted the wood. I was desperate to regroup and reload for the battle wave.

I dragged my left hand down to the floor and reignited the cigarette lighter. Its glow was so warm and pretty. The face I imagined in the light caught me by surprise.

Rumer. The man.

The night was supposed to have been my first with a boy for dinner. I was meant to be a princess with braided hair, with a little make-up and with a specially-cooked dinner.

Where had it gone?

Where was the princess?

And where was my prince?

I lay battered and burnt on my bedroom floor. I loosed my grip on the gas-release valve and my world returned to gloom. The image of Rumer vanished with it.

But the vibrant flame had reloaded my weapon. The metal part of the lighter glowed with potential fiery goodness.

Sprawled in front of my bed, I cranked my right forearm into position. I didn't need to see it – couldn't because of the dark. It only needed to be within reach.

As I thrust the lighter down, my flesh hissed again, more violently, more morbidly and more excruciatingly.

Help me! I cried out to my soul.

The skin burned and blistered almost immediately and sent the command to my brain to retaliate once more.

I sighed in a macabre rapture. My soldiers stormed the battlefield and, despite being vastly outnumbered by the satanic army of hellish misery, they conquered victoriously. Countless bits of blue-devils were splashed to the four winds inside my head.

I pulled the metal away from the burnt flesh and accidentally scraped open the pussy blister as I did so. That tickled!

But I no longer cared. I lay motionless on the floor, cloaked in diabolical pleasure. Another army had been defeated, and I knew I would be okay again – for a while.

I closed my eyes, dropped the lighter from my hand, and resigned my tortured body to the darkness. I wasn't going anywhere.

A slither of light then unexpectedly fell on my face and compelled me to open my eyes. My bedroom door slowly creaked open. An increasingly familiar silhouette broke the light streaming in from the hallway.

Rumer.

My eyes angled up to his. He heroically tried to contain his shock, but I saw the alarm of finding me stretched out on the floor in those brown eyes.

I tried to picture the view from where he stood. My eyes and face were swollen from waves of tears. My arm was burnt, blotched and blistered. I looked like a wreck. Here's your dinner host, I wanted to say sarcastically. I was in no doubt that after seeing me that way, Rumer would turn and run away.

But he didn't. Rumer stepped into my bedroom. He gently shut the door behind him as he strode gracefully to my side.

I wanted to sit up, but couldn't find the strength in my muscles. All my power had been projected into the fight.

"I'm so sorry," I said, in the quietest voice, as a final remaining tear trickled from my cheek to the floor.

"Ssshhh," he said, softly, "don't talk."

His voice sounded as elegant as a harp.

In the smelly darkness, he located the cigarette lighter. He found something else, too. Amongst the strewn contents of my odds-and-ends drawer, Rumer picked out a half-used wax candle.

He propped it securely onto the dresser top and then, used the lighter to awaken the wick. He moved with a refined touch. A fluency that felt angelic.

The candle caught alight on Rumer's third attempt and the glow of amber hues returned all around me, but they felt different. Maybe it was because the light's purpose was not to heat an instrument of destruction. Maybe it was because in the light, I saw Rumer at my side and I could reach out and touch him. Or maybe it was just because I felt like someone cared.

Rumer removed the black gloves from his hands, revealing his burnt skin.

I suddenly felt guilty that I had used fire in pursuit of comfort, but fire had caused him such immeasurable pain.

"Sorry," I said again. I couldn't tell him why.

Rumer settled himself on one knee and, with the gentlest of touches, eased me upright with my back rested against the bed. My eyes locked on Rumer's face. His scar was noticeable in the flickering candlelight, but it uttered an inexplicable beauty – an honesty he would never be able to hide.

His hands grasped mine. "You're okay, now," he said, softly. "It's all going to be okay."

At that moment, it didn't matter to me if it was or it wasn't. In that instant, everything was very okay.

He reached his left hand to his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of clean medical dressing. He arched his eyebrows, smiled, and then said, "I washed them."

It was impossible not to smile back.

Rumer gently twisted my forearm so that my burns faced upwards to the ceiling. I found it difficult to look down at what I had done to myself. The problem with self-harming was that the immediate relief was stunning, but afterwards, I always felt great shame and embarrassment. I hated the idea of others knowing I was hurting myself – defiling myself with hideous burns and scars.

Rumer had also been disfigured by the awesome power of fire, but mine had been selfishly inflicted by choice. His had not. And that mortified me.

Rumer wound the bandage delicately over my burns. It stung a little, but the concern in his eyes for me gave me courage, and I stopped myself from flinching.

His eyes glanced back-and-forth from my face to my forearm. He returned his hand to his jacket pocket and produced a petite, elasticized clip with which he secured my bandages. "Lucky for you," he said. "Not too many people come for dinner with bandages, eh?"

I struggled to find my voice. "Not too many people come for dinner and have to use bandages, either," I said. My throat was dry and raspy from the cigarette lighter and ached with each word I spoke. Rumer must have heard it, too.

He returned to his feet and, with three large strides, strode into the compact en suite attached to my bedroom.

How embarrassing, I thought. All my girlie stuff was in that room.

Fortunately, Rumer didn't switch the light on and I hoped that was enough to keep all that stuff out of view. I wasn't even sure what was in there.

Within seconds, he returned with a mug of cool tap water. "Here. Drink this," he said. "You'll feel better. Your burns are relatively small, but you'd be surprised how much fluid your body drains in trying to repair them."

He was so wise. And so caring. I felt so undeserving. I had invited him to a quiet, family dinner. Since walking through the backdoor, he'd been accused of being homeless when he wasn't, rudely spoken to by mom, charged with being an alcoholic, witnessed a family meltdown, required to perform first-aid and, as far as I was aware, had not been given a single thing to eat or drink.

"Some dinner, huh?" I said.

"It's been pretty interesting, actually."

"I'm so sorry."

"I didn't just come for dinner, Sara."

I didn't know what that meant.

He added, "I came to see you."

Without consciously realizing I had done so, I beamed with a wide smile. "Oh," I said.

A moment of tenseness held in the air. It was probably just me, but I wanted to believe he was just as scared as I was at that instant.

I forgot all about the wounds, the bandages and the devils. My eyes filled solely with Rumer's handsome, boyish looks. He could have been one hundred years-old for all I cared at that point.

I wanted to reach out and touch his face, to bedazzle myself as I ran my hands along his velvety skin and to let him feel in my fingertips that I felt something which I couldn't explain. Of course, I lacked the courage to do any of those things.

Like a deer in the headlights, I sat motionless and simply said, "Thank you."

My bedroom door then swung open a second time, more forcefully than before. Whereas Rumer's entrance had been graceful and soft, Mika stormed in like a lunatic gate-crasher.

"Jesus Christ," she said loudly. "What the hell is going on in here? Smells like you've had the barbecue going." She literally jumped into the room and slammed the door shut. "And what's with the bloody candle, dude? A little, 'how's it going?' Don't you think?"

Rumer's eyes widened as Mika planted herself on the floor beside him. I worried how he would respond to Mika. Most people didn't care for her 'tell-it-like-it-is-approach,' as she called it.

But Rumer didn't look bothered. He may have even enjoyed her zaniness. I couldn't tell for certain. He stared at her with intent and said, "You know, for someone with fangs, you bite pretty gently."

It was risky.

Mika hesitated a moment, then playfully slapped Rumer's leg. "You better watch out," she snarled with an approving smile, "I'll bite you!"

Rumer was instantly in. I was impressed. Normally, Mika liked first to alienate people to test how committed they were to any potential friendship. Her approval ordinarily took ages. The problem for Mika was that most people tired of her tests and never returned. She dismissed them with, "Well, they don't deserve to be my friend." She didn't have many.

But Rumer was different – in more ways than one – and Mika took an instant, yet reserved, liking to him.

"How's mom and dad?" I asked her.

But Mika was distracted. She finally noticed Rumer's scarred hands and face. "Jesus. What happened to you?" she said.

"Don't be rude, Mik," I said. She never knew when to hold back. It wasn't her style.

"Sara, it's okay," Rumer said. He raised his hands into the light. His scars were stunningly visible. A mosaic of colors, spots and lineation. "I burnt myself," he said simply.

"That's not exactly touching a hot stove sort of deal though, is it?"

"Mik," I said, trying to reel her in once more.

She took no notice of me. "It looks like meat lover's pizza," she said.

"Mikayla!" I yelled.

"What? It does."

"You're so bloody rude."

Rumer used his elevated hands to break the stare cemented between Mika and me. He then laughed and said, "It kinda does, doesn't it?"

Mika and I both looked at him. Mika because she was drawn to Rumer's sense of humor. I stared because I couldn't believe he let her get away with it.

"It looks pretty cool," Mika said. She pushed Rumer's hands to his lap. "Put those back in the box. I want to see this." Mika raised her hand to head height and extended her forefinger towards Rumer's facial scar. "Can I touch it?"

"No," I said, half-heartedly. It wasn't my place to stop her, but I was driven by a secret, selfish emotion. I didn't want Mika to touch Rumer's scar, because I wanted to touch it first. Back on the fallen log at Martin's Lookout, I had felt a strange craving to run my fingertip along the fracture line of Rumer's face. I'd wimped out. I didn't want Mika to be braver than the cream-puff I had been.

I was jealous.

It made Rumer's response all the more irritating to me. "Of course you can," he said.

I had no entitlement to feel narky or to be envious of my sister. If I had wilted to flaky pastry under pressure, that was my fault. Why couldn't I be more like Mika? I thought.

She prodded her fingertip into Rumer's scar, just below where it began on his forehead. "Feels weird," she said. "Soft."

I watched her with envious eyes as she followed the distinctive path of Rumer's contorted skin. She skewed her face with every imaginable expression of intrigue, trying to get a reaction from me – and from Rumer. I may have been pastry, but I wasn't stupid. I didn't bite. But damn her!

"It looks a bit like the letter S," Mika said, "the way it warps in the middle, I mean."

Rumer faintly smiled. I kept silent.

Mika couldn't shut up. "Makes me want to get a permanent marker and write ARA on your forehead."

"You think you're pretty funny, don't you?" Rumer said, with a wry smile.

"I know I'm funny. I'm the funniest person I know."

I was still playing catch-up. "I don't get it," I said, feeling stupid and left out.

"Come on, Sare," Mika said. "A big S on his face. Add to that..." she drew the last three letters of my name on Rumer's forehead with her finger.

"Oh," I said, clumsily.

Mika had to have the last word. "You're such a Galah sometimes, Sare."

She was right, but it didn't need pointing out. Especially not in front of my friend.

Is that what he was?

Is that what he thought we were?

Friends?

The last days had been the most bizarre of my life. As I sat and watched my friend interact with my sister, I thought again about all the unknowns and about all the questions to which I still needed answers.

But when I was with him, in his space, all that didn't matter as much. I just reveled in the moment. I didn't know what that meant, when it would end, or even where it headed. And I didn't care. I'd never been around someone whose presence I savored so much. As he talked to Mika, he glanced at me every other word. Those deep, brown eyes remained an ocean of secrets and I wanted to get wet. I wanted to dive in.

I wanted him.

The tantalizing thoughts beaming through my spirit must have manifested themselves in a smile on my face, because Rumer suddenly smiled back at me.

For the first time that day, I felt truly happy.

I may have looked like a fragile, burnt goose, but in every way, Rumer made me feel like a princess. He had made me happy. A feat rarely achieved by anyone in three months. Only Mika and Emma had unearthed joy in me, but the way Rumer made me feel was different to even that.

I wanted him even more.

Mika wanted something, too. Her question snapped me from my giddy daze. "How about we order some food," she said. "I'm starving."

"What do you want to get?" I asked.

Mika smiled at Rumer, looked at his hands and said, "How about some pizza?"

# Chapter 15

A week after my not so inspiring boy-home-for-dinner experience, I agreed to meet Rumer for a stroll through Leura, after dark. It was that, or a dinner with the girls.

Lexie was still chasing her first prescription for the contraceptive pill. The entire night's conversation would have been about her struggles to hide the prescription from her mother and about the source of the medicine – Helen.

I couldn't imagine anything worse. I chose Rumer, instead.

"So I left Helen's birthday card on the floor, struggled to get to my room and then jumped into bed, waiting for mom to come home," I said.

His eyes absorbed every word of the account of my emotional re-birth. Only every third or fourth step did his profound gaze dart away, intensely studying the world around us. Then, they came back at me.

The main street of Leura at night was the antithesis of its tourist persona by day. The stores were closed. Only two restaurants drew in the occasional hungry local – mostly for take-out – and winter's crippling chill ensured few people were out and about. It was the perfect place for a peaceful, night wander. But still, Rumer didn't look wholly at ease.

As we continued northwards along the tranquil street, I didn't know what I could do to make it better for him, so I kept talking. "When mom came home, I thought I was going to die or her kill me. When she finally got to my bedroom, I was hiding under a blanket. I just waited for her to say something."

"Did she?" Rumer asked.

"Oh yeah! I had tried to imagine what she'd come up with. Maybe, she'd deny it. Say that I had misunderstood. Or maybe, she would come into my room and hold me and tell me how sorry she was and how difficult it had been for her to tell me her secret. And now that I knew, she'd beg for my forgiveness."

"That's what you were hoping for?"

I hadn't given it enough thought. I had tried as much as possible to not think about that awful day altogether. To Rumer, I simply said, "I don't know."

"But there was no sorry, was there?" he asked.

"Mom yanked the blanket from me and threw it aside like she'd just skinned me alive. She waited until I looked up at her and then she started screaming. Real screaming, you know?"

Rumer kept quiet, listening.

I cleared my throat to attempt my best impression of mad-as-a-meat-axe-mom. "How dare you go through my stuff? Those are my private things! I can't believe you've done this to me, Sara! My things! she yelled at me." I stopped trying to be mom. The echo of her sardonic attack caught in my throat and I choked back my bubbling emotions. I needed Rumer to say something. Anything. And he did.

"It must have felt very unfair for her to blame you?" he said.

Empathy. Why was it so difficult for everyone else and yet, for this stranger, it was so easy?

"Yes," I said contentedly, regaining some steadiness from his consolation, "but she left her best spray for last. She leaned towards me. I thought she was going to strangle me, she looked so angry. But she stared me down and then shrieked, I'll never trust you again!"

I would never forget her words – her accusation brimming with hypocrisy.

As we strolled past the Moontree Candle Shop – a store I loved – I saw Rumer's reflection in the slanted glass window with an empathetic smile. A smile for me!

"What did your mom do then?" Rumer asked.

"She stormed out. Didn't mention it again to me for a week. It was like nothing had happened. Like nothing had changed. There was no apology. No explanation. Nothing. I was the bad daughter. She was angry at me. Like I had committed a crime."

There were no words from Rumer for half a minute, but it felt more like an hour in dog years. Finally, he said, "Is that when you first started to burn yourself?"

Straight to the point. I hated his question – and I loved it, too. My face glowed hot with discomfort a second time that night. I didn't want to talk about what a pathetic loser I was, what a weakling I had become, how I turned to hurting myself as a means to medicate my gloom. "You don't beat around the bush, do you?" I said.

But he deliberately didn't answer, waiting for me to make the decision to keep the conversation going.

I started measuredly. "No it wasn't," I said.

Again, Rumer didn't say anything. He was so annoying.

His silence compelled me to suck the darkest thoughts from my pain and then, spit them out at him. It made him a good listener. "No," I continued, "that didn't start until a month after. When mom left my room that day, I just lay there until Mika came home and I told her everything. She lost the plot, you can imagine. She ran out of the room and screamed so loud at mom that the house vibrated. The two of them haven't stopped trying to verbally kill each other since."

"How has it worked out for you?"

"The screaming?" I said.

"No," said Rumer. "The burning."

It was a difficult conversation for me. Even hearing that word, burning, tensed the muscles in my neck and down along my back. It made my forearms itch. My steps along the pavement all of a sudden felt weighted by guilt and I was certain Rumer noticed me slow. I tried to be brave. "It makes me feel better," I said, shrugging my shoulders.

It wasn't an answer you could build a house on. He didn't say so, but I knew Rumer wanted more. He needed me to be braver.

"It's hard to explain," I said, "but it makes me feel... I don't know... It makes me feel alive." I hesitated again, before throwing off on the conversation. "It's hard to talk about with you because..." I couldn't say it.

"Because why?" Rumer asked.

Damn his questions. As his gloved hand swung past mine in his stride, I grabbed hold of it and held it aloft between us. "Because of this," I said, bluntly. "I feel bad."

"Don't do that," Rumer said.

I instantly dropped his hand back to his side and added an embarrassed, "Sorry."

"No," he said. "What I mean is, don't use me as an excuse to not talk about you."

I didn't know whether to hug him or slap him. He was so irritating. And so right. Then I got lost in my thoughts. Had I really wanted to hug him?

"What are you thinking?" Rumer asked, at that moment.

I felt my face burn with redness. "Nothing," I said. "I'm sorry." I was saying that a lot.

"What are you sorry for?"

He was so annoying! I said, "I'm just not very good at this. I'm not used to someone asking me all the right questions."

He looked at me sympathetically.

I added, "I don't know all the right answers."

"There are no right or wrong answers, Sara. I'm only interested in what we can do to stop you from having to hurt yourself."

"We all have our problems," I said. "What about you? I've got like a thousand questions."

I had thrown off again. For a second time, my subconscious intentionally shifted the focus from itself to Rumer. I had no control over it. The monster inside me didn't like to be prodded and it was fighting back.

Rumer knew it, too. I could tell by his singular glance away from me. But he resisted from making a point of it a second time. I liked him for that. He made the effort to let it be, and endeared my surrender instead. "A thousand questions, eh?" he said. "Like what?"

"Like how did you stop that train?"

"What makes you think I stopped it?" he said, with a dash of cynicism in his voice.

I retorted more sternly than was necessary. I said, "Because I'm not bloody Superwoman and the damn train should have smashed me to bits. And I have no other explanation."

"Aren't you glad it didn't?" Rumer asked, firmly.

Yes! But I didn't want to tell him that. "So it was you?" I said.

He snickered. "Maybe... Or maybe it was something else. I'm only human too, Sara."

"Strange human," I said under my breath, smiling.

"Maybe it was just meant to be. Maybe there is no explanation, or there doesn't need to be an explanation. Maybe you just weren't meant to die that night."

"Maybe," I said, unconvinced.

"And isn't that all that matters?"

It left me none the wiser. Rumer's words breathed logic, but I didn't care for reasoning. The possibility that I somehow wasn't meant to die seemed too complicated for me to even think about. I had lived all my life bathed in simplicity. To go to gym class or not to go to gym class. To eat or not to eat. To live or to die.

Suddenly, the question of Why? stained my every thought and action.

Why was I still alive?

Why had mom destroyed the family?

And why was I thinking about hugging Rumer?

My absolute confusion manifested itself in the inevitable self-incrimination. "You must think I'm such a loser?" I said to Rumer.

"I don't think that at all," he said. "Why would you say that about yourself?"

Because I thought it was true, I thought.

We reached the northern end of the main street. A little further along, a roundabout turned traffic along the overpass and onto the highway beneath, west and east. The darkness was far from midnight, but I heard only the sporadic passing of a car on the highway. The beautiful night was desolate. Even the two restaurants we passed were closed earlier than the time indicated on their doors.

"Should we head back down the other side?" I said.

We crossed the moist asphalt of the road as a cotton mist seeped between the buildings at the southern end of Leura – toward where we headed.

As we continued our stroll, I tried to gauge Rumer's interest. Was he simply being polite walking with me? His eyes darted from shop to shop, down the street, across the other side, and occasionally back to me. Each time he looked at me, I blinked and skewed my eyes away. I didn't want him to know I was watching him. I felt strangely nervous. My heart beat faster than normal and I didn't know what to say. I was so worried about the silence.

At the bottom of the foggy main road, a group of three people crossed the street with such hurry that it scratched my curiosity. A man and woman holding hands followed them shortly afterwards and, like the others, pressed forward out of view behind the shops.

Rumer noticed them, too. The deep timbre in his voice then distracted me. "Looks like a bit of excitement down there on an otherwise quiet night," he said, sounding distracted.

"Yeah, you've got to watch these mountain folk. They party hard," I said, sarcastically.

Rumer gave only a thin smile.

We continued southward. I worried he was losing interest in the conversation – in me! So I retreated to my bread-and-butter.

I apologized.

"What are you sorry for, Sara?" Rumer asked.

"Everything," I said. "For the fiasco that was supposed to be dinner... For thinking you were homeless..."

He nudged my arm and said, "Sara, do I look upset?"

"No. Not at all."

"So don't worry about it."

I loved the way his words fell softly like a woolen blanket on my nervousness. I giggled each time he nudged me. Strange feelings, I thought again. Angling myself subtly towards Rumer, I asked, "So where do you live then?"

"I was wondering when you were going to ask me that question?"

Silence followed.

I couldn't help myself and, with a half-formed smile and intrepid stare into his eyes, I said, "Now who's avoiding questions?"

Then he apologized. It felt to me like a strange dance. A tug-of-war where both sides were afraid to win.

Strange indeed.

"Well," he said, "I live in a church."

"A church?"

"Yes. I was looking for somewhere to stay a little while ago. Somewhere... different. And, by chance, I stumbled onto this beautiful church with a vacant room... and I was kinda limited in my options, and the owner offered for me to stay there, and so I took it. From the rooftop, I can see the ocean to the east, the city lights to the north, the airport to the south and these mountains to the west. It's quite some sight."

"Whereabouts is this church?" I said. "It sounds pretty."

I sensed trepidation when Rumer paused in his answer. "I'm really close to the ocean," he said, simply.

His answer was vague, but I returned the favor he had shown me earlier and I didn't press for more information. I was sure he had his reasons.

Maybe he was concerned that I would turn into one of those annoying, clingy friends that dropped in at a whim every day of the week.

Mika had one of those. She let it be for three weeks, then told Monica Gubarewski if she came around again without calling first, she'd bury her alive in the vegetable garden.

We never saw Monica again.

It was only an upset phone call from Mrs. Gubarewski to mom that convinced me Monica wasn't buried beneath the tomatoes and parsley. I didn't want to be Rumer's Monica. I was happy for him to keep details of his home to himself.

We walked in silence a little way further. I tried to relax, to tell myself that Rumer didn't think me a total loser for not knowing what to say. Who would have thought boys would be so much work?

"Sara, there's something I would like you to do for me," Rumer said, finally breaking the stillness.

"Of course," I said.

"Next time you find yourself staring at your arms with a cigarette lighter or a pair of scissors or anything that will harm you..."

The faint sigh of vapor that expelled from between my lips with each breath into the frigid night air suddenly stopped.

Rumer continued, "...I want you to close your eyes. No matter where you are, just close your eyes. Then, take a deep breath. You don't want to suck the air in so that your chest moves. It has to be deeper than that. Down here has to expand."

He rubbed his gloved hand in a circular motion about his stomach. My eyes were glued to him.

"It's your diaphragm, Sara," he said. "You may want to give it a try shortly, because if you don't breathe soon, you look like you'll pass out. You're going blue."

What? But as I stared hopefully up and into his eyes, it was obvious that whispers of condensed breath came from only one direction – and it wasn't me. I wasn't breathing.

"Yes," I said simply, sucking in a much needed breath.

Rumer's left hand moved from his torso, snaked through the damp air, and contacted my coat between my belt and my chest. I really sucked in some air then. Excitable air.

"More down here, Sara," Rumer said.

"Uh-huh..."

"In through your nose and hold."

All I could think about was his hand on my diaphragm. Trying to keep my exhilaration hidden, I made a conscious effort to follow his instruction. I drew in a volume of chilly Leura air and felt the pressure of his contact with my stomach region increase as my diaphragm inflated.

"Like that?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Let me try that one more time," I said, cheekily.

I drew in another breath and felt his touch on my body intensify a second time. Breathing had never been so much fun, I thought.

Rumer's hand dropped away. "Okay," he said, "looks like you got that worked out."

I blushed.

He continued, "So, you close your eyes and draw in a deep breath. Hold it for six seconds. Just count to six. It doesn't have to be exact."

When he spoke, it was with both authority and a soothing calmness. There was an honesty that was impossible to discount. I clung to each word as if he recited a recipe to defeat death itself.

"Lay flat on your back if you can," he said. "But if you can't, you'll just have to make do. Keep your eyes closed. After six seconds, exhale for a count of ten. And keep taking, holding and releasing breaths like that. Focus only on the breathing. Try and clear your mind from everything else. Just the breathing."

Rumer demonstrated the breathing method one more time. He took in a deep breath, placing his hand on his stomach. He held it for ages and then, blew out threw his mouth. The air condensed into a misty vapor as he did so. He repeated the action. I wanted his hand to be back on my stomach.

He said, "If you can't keep your mind clear of bad thoughts, try and replace them with good thoughts."

"Replace them?" I asked.

"Yes. It takes a bit of practice to clear your mind altogether. If thoughts do creep in, say to yourself, 'No I'm not going to think about that right now, I'm going to think this.' And pick a thought, a memory, that you know will make you smile. It's best to prepare one beforehand."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't wait until the urge to harm yourself to think of something. Think of one now, so you'll always have it ready in advance. You can pull that sucker out any time you need it."

Your hand on my stomach was a good contender, I thought.

"Got one already, have you?" Rumer asked.

Oh my God! I blushed again. The expression on my face must have shrieked, how the hell do you do that?

"It's just that you're smiling... a lot," Rumer said.

"Uh-huh," I mumbled, again.

Rumer smiled back. He then said, "And lastly, tell yourself that you've got it beat. Tell yourself that this time you're going to win. You're okay. You're strong. And you've got it beat. Then, go and do something else. Distract yourself with something entirely different. Go for a walk. Paint a picture. Chat online. Call someone... Make sense?"

I had not stopped smiling.

"Sometimes, when you already have a remedy in place, a plan of attack, then the battle doesn't seem half as scary. You tell yourself, 'the sadness isn't going to get you because you know that if it does, you can defeat it anyway.'"

I stored the information away inside, like a precious gift. Its reasoning warmed me giddy as a goose. "I'll try that," I said. "Thank you."

By the time we approached the bottom of Main Street, the fog had thickened. The breeze, gusting west to east through the gaps between the shops, chilled my exposed hands, neck and face.

A large roundabout adorned with sleeping, native flowers at its center, signified the end of the shopping precinct, book-ending the roundabout at the northern end. Beyond the crossroad, the street dipped away into a residential zone where the odd home had been converted to an art gallery or a quaint bed-and-breakfast.

Rumer and I stopped at the corner beneath the one streetlight with a wonky globe. It sporadically flashed, illuminating the mist-soaked air in a cone of deep-orange hue.

We faced each other and I felt strange again, as if everything outside the intimate space between me and him was irrelevant. All that mattered to me, at that instant, was inside the foot-and-a-half void between us – a terrifying chasm I had no idea how to cross, but I knew I wanted to.

I said something stupid, of course. "I suppose I'd better be getting home soon."

"I suppose," Rumer said, distracted.

I was less than ten minutes from home with no particular reason to get there. On the contrary, I had every desire not to go home.

"What do—?"

But Rumer stepped backwards. His eyes were fixed behind me. My girlie nervousness transformed first into shock and what did I do wrong? And then, to alarm and confusion.

"What?" I asked.

Then, my eyes darted away, as well. Two locals approached from behind me, coming towards us. Their faces looked familiar, but I couldn't place their names. Myers, I thought briefly. I wasn't sure.

The vague familiarity did inject a rare confidence. "What's going on?" I asked the woman, as the couple drew near.

It was not until the woman was almost beside me that I noticed she was dressed in pajamas with a raincoat thrown over for warmth.

Her voice was raspy and excited, but at the same time, tainted with uncertainty. She said to us, "They found one of the girls." Then the woman and her companion continued westerly into the thickening mist.

I looked up at Rumer. "What do you think?" I asked.

"Sounds serious," he said.

"Maybe we should have a look."

Rumer didn't answer, but he appeared reluctant. It bothered me that I didn't know why.

"Maybe," he finally murmured.

I turned and gazed through the fog in the direction that the two locals had advanced, but I saw nothing. The couple had long since been swallowed by the haze. My curiosity stirred. I wanted to know what was going on down there, but I wasn't going without Rumer.

I swiveled back towards him. He must have read the thought screaming in my mind.

Are you coming?

# Chapter 16

The road fell away along the natural undulation of the Leura landscape. As I increased my stride in the westerly direction – and further away from home – I checked over my shoulder. Rumer was two steps behind. Then, in a flash, he was beside me, his arm brushing against mine. I kept my smile under wraps.

I relished it when he touched me.

The lower the elevation dropped, the murkier the fog. In an effort to harmonize with Leura's natural beauty, the illumination from streetlights stopped at the end of the shopping precinct. Only the occasional porch light radiated a guiding beam through the scorched blackness. Their bulbs swayed violently in the sharp headwind. I flexed my upper body forward into the gust to keep my balance, but then a sturdier crutch aided my fight.

Rumer took my hand in his and, as if by magic, my conflict against nature's breath and against my mental inclemency, ceased. His grip was firm and secure. I felt safe. I felt shielded, cushioned in bubble-wrap and confident like I could fly.

Together, we carved through the darkness and the mist. We passed the first side-street, but it looked as it should. Fast asleep. The second street was illuminated by house lights on our left side and the murky outlines of National Park forest on the side opposite. Halfway down the narrow road, an unexpected sight forced me to stop walking. My lips inched open and I expelled a silent, "Wow!"

My abrupt halt jolted Rumer back, too. He didn't let go of my hand under the strain, which struck happy chords in my head.

Through the syrup-thick air, flashes of red and blue arced like lightning in the mist. The multitude of emergency vehicles blazed a strobing halo as if we stood two blocks from a National Park disco. Reds and blues.

Another pajama-wrapped local shuffled past us, determined to reach the lightshow. "Excuse me," she said, as her shoulder propitiously nudged me sideways.

"What's going on?" I asked.

But the anonymous woman had already vanished into the mist. I felt as if I stood at the epicenter of a cheesy zombie-horror film. Because of the fog and the darkness, people suddenly materialized like zombies, walked past distracted – almost brain-dead – and were then swallowed again by the shroud. It was kinda fun.

Tightening my fingers around Rumer's glove, I said, "Come on. Let's have a look."

I had walked the residential-fringe street before, but it was virtually unrecognizable in the pea-souper. The contour of broadly-spaced family homes well back from the street, fused under the cover of black mist. A row of resident cars sat lazily beside the cement sidewalk. Mercedes. BMW. Audi. It wasn't difficult to determine the types of homeowners who lived on the forest fringe.

"Let's cross," I said to Rumer.

Not waiting for a reply and driven by my incessant curiosity, I confidently pulled Rumer with me between two luxury vehicles and we quickly deviated to the forest side of the street.

There was no sidewalk on the road edge across from the parked cars. The natural forest landscape sprawled a short distance from beneath the throng of tree trunks before being incised by the road surface. Rumer and I strode cautiously along the line of convergence between nature and Leura council's handiwork, his hand still with mine.

As we drew closer to the commotion, whispers and the echoes of random voices fluttered through the mist and amongst the leaves high in the listening tree trunks. The forest was entertained. It answered with a voice of snapping twigs, cicada shrills and swishing leaves.

The shapes of vehicles materialized out of the mist and I could visually connect the flashing emergency lights to their source. I saw one ambulance and four police vehicles. A number of other, unmarked cars were also clustered amongst the horde.

A multitude of people fashioned a semi-circle at the forest edge, staring into the great beast. A row of animated flashlights cut a distinct path to an illuminated focal point a little way into the thickening scrub where dark silhouettes busied themselves in the light.

Rumer and I stepped to the heels of other onlookers. Amongst the sea of shadowed faces, I recognized a teacher from school and the lady who owned the general store in Main Street, and also the couple whose name I thought was Myers.

A slender-built man pushed his way through the gathering on the side opposite to us. His hand clasped a small writing pad and pen which he used to part the crowd as if his instruments somehow gave him an authority above everyone else. A reporter, I thought.

Under the irritated expressions of discontent from those around him, the journalist took position beside a young, uniformed police officer standing a foot inside a boundary of bright yellow tape. It boasted a familiar authoritarian warning: DO NOT CROSS.

The reporter asked a question which I could not hear. The strong wind, the ambient forest sounds and the crackling of emergency radios echoing from inside the police vehicles, overwhelmed the reporter's soft voice.

I gently squeezed Rumer's hand and jostled him sideways towards a small gap in the crowd and closer to the emergency workers' inside the forest. The greater arc of gazers also shielded us further from the cacophonic gust. Almost immediately, the reporter's words sharpened in my ears.

"Can you confirm the identity of the victim?" the reporter asked.

The police officer looked too young to be in the position of authority – and definitely too young and inexperienced to be at the mercy of the reporter. "No comment," he said to the reporter. His voice lacked dominance.

"Can you confirm that it is the body of Felicity Cofflin?"

"No comment," the officer said, again. "Move along."

"Or Mary Steele?"

"No comment."

"Or is it the remains of sixteen year old Ellie Grail?" the reporter asked.

"Listen," the police officer said, in a frustrated voice. "I'm not going to tell you who the girl is because I don't bloody well know. Got it?"

The reporter smiled broadly, almost breaking into laughter at how easy he had trapped the inexperienced constable. "So it is the body of a girl?" the reporter said wryly, as he triumphantly put pen to paper.

"I'm not confirming anything," the officer said.

But gauging by the expression on his face, I could make out that the officer knew his mistake, knew that he'd put his foot in it and that the reporter had outsmarted him.

From the sudden increase of whispers around me, it was obvious to me that no one had known for sure if the remains were of a girl. Human even. Now, we all knew.

The pad and pen clutching journalist had one further question for the officer. "What can you tell me," he said, "about reports that the girl has been stripped to the bone?"

My hand instinctively tightened its grip on Rumer's.

The police officer didn't respond, but it was clear that the reporter was more in the know than him, in any case. I believed the reporter. So did everyone else.

Stripped to the bone. The fabled images that flashed through me were as hideous as the words had sounded in my ears.

Poor girl, I thought.

The gossip draining from the crowd was equally as grim and presumptuous.

"Skinned alive, maybe."

"It's a monster."

"A serial killer."

An anonymous voice yelled something from within the forest that I could not make out, but the uncharted opinions around me faded as it quickly became obvious to all of us that the emergency workers were ready to carry their find from the clutches of the forest beast. In the dim light, I saw five of the seven men in the creature's belly lift a black, plastic bag, the size of a human body. A girl. The men carried her in silence.

I turned to Rumer and said, "What do you think?"

"I think she's—"

He stopped dead, mid-sentence. His eyes widened and, for an insane moment, I was concerned his brown eyes may literally burst from their sockets. He didn't blink. His body didn't move. Only his lips parted thinly. He was so focused. Unequivocally focused.

But not on me.

I had not seen such an intense look of concentration on Rumer's face before. Not on anyone before. I didn't know what to do. I simply said, "What?"

Rumer finally blinked and glanced his bulging eyes in my direction. For a terrible heartbeat, I thought those brown eyes said to me, 'Leave me the hell alone.' But then, I felt his fingers scrunch around my hand. His eyes darted back in the direction which had drawn his attention so categorically an instant earlier. I mentally told myself to not follow his gaze, but before I could stop the muscles in my neck twitching, my eyes connected with Rumer's line of sight and I followed its path through the crowd.

Amongst the many faces reflected in the flashing reds and blues of the police vehicles, one peculiar man was impossible to miss on the opposite side of the semi-circled gathering. He stared directly at us. At Rumer. He mirrored the sharpness I saw in Rumer's expression. The unknown man's face was the only one not focused on the events in the forest. He appeared to care little about the girl skinned to the bone. My gut told me he wasn't there for the dead girl at all.

Even in Rumer's firm grasp, I suddenly felt frightened. The same butterflies that had messed up my stomach moments before uncovering mom's secret, took flight again.

The man suddenly eased his body to the left, breaking the weird, visual stand-off, and I instinctively swiveled my stare back to Rumer.

But he was gone, too.

It all happened so fast after that. How could Rumer be gone? I still felt his hand. I twisted further and saw he was now behind me, heading away from the crowd, and I instantly understood that the unknown man had moved reactively.

Was he chasing us?

My arm suddenly yanked backwards and to the side. I glimpsed Rumer's face, filled with a foreign determination. "Come on," he whispered, firmly. "We have to move."

"Why?" I asked. But it was a half-hearted question, lost in the darkness. I felt myself dragged away and I wasn't sure that I wanted to be. I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't stop the angst washing through me.

Fighting Rumer's momentum, I flicked my head back. I was shocked by how much distance I had already bridged without being consciously aware of it. Through the fog, I no longer saw the outlines of vehicles or the assembled crowd. Only the flashing lights connected my thoughts to where I had stood one breath earlier. But something else caught my attention, too. Something far more terrifying.

The unknown man was chasing us.

"Come on," Rumer said again, as he dragged me behind him. His voice sounded shaky, anxious even. It was the first time I considered him scared. It made me scared as well.

We ran back up the street along the forest fringe, cloaked by the thickness of fog. It wasn't until we reached the luxury vehicles I had admired earlier, that I made a cognitive choice to follow Rumer and run.

Okay. You're doing this! I shouted in my head.

I turned and looked back again. I couldn't help myself. The man was gaining on us – gaining fast! Like Rumer, the man's full-length coat flowed like wings behind him, and I convinced myself that the man was literally flying and catching us.

Move, Sara, I yelled within, a second time.

My feet pounded the bitumen. If I'd known our sentimental walk and talk was going to become a run-for-your-life-or-die sprint, I would have dressed more appropriately. Track-pants rather than denim jeans, for instance. I hoped we didn't have to run for any extended period of time. Long distance was not my forte. Running full-stop wasn't, but as I gasped the misty air to ease my screaming lungs, I had to admit that I was perversely enjoying myself.

"Keep running, Sara," I heard Rumer say.

I sensed the man was close now. Right behind us. I had heard nothing from him, but as I turned to look back again, I saw the expression on his face. He was serious.

And crap! He really was close.

My arm jolted sideways suddenly, so hard I thought it had snapped free. My body followed the same trajectory a heartbeat later. It hurt like hell, but I dared not voice my discomfort. I didn't want to disappoint Rumer. I felt like I was participating in some demented test and, at any moment, the three of us would stop and have a good laugh.

But we didn't stop. And we didn't laugh.

We ran faster.

Too fast. As we squeezed between the cars, I lost my footing and I was suddenly hurtling through the air, face first, and heading straight down towards the sidewalk.

I screamed.

But I didn't crash and fall and pulp my face on the pavement. At first, I thought it was Rumer holding me up, keeping me aloft. But there was no way his one hand could support my full body weight. It just wasn't possible. And yet, within a heartbeat, I was back on my feet, upright, and running like there was no tomorrow. I didn't understand how, but I was running.

"Come on," Rumer said, again.

I regained my heading as Rumer continued to drag me ever forward. He didn't seem out of breath or exhausted. To me, he looked unstoppable. And incessant.

Like the man chasing us.

Then, I felt something brush against my shoulder. It took a moment to register in my phantasmal-charged brain, but it was the man's hand which had touched me from behind. He reached out a second time to catch a hold of me.

Crap! I was a goner. We were done for. And it was all my fault.

"Rumer!" I yelled.

I saw his focused eyes glare back, past me and towards the pursuer. The hunter. We were being hunted. I thought back to the dark woods.

In my distraction, I missed a sudden flurry of disturbance behind me. I felt turbulent air push in my back and a violent crashing sound forced my free hand to cover my left ear instinctively.

It felt as if the world spontaneously exploded in my wake. I wanted to turn back and see world's end, but Rumer increased his speed, and I again struggled to stay on my feet.

I chanced one last glimpse back and was certain I saw a Mercedes sedan blocking half the sidewalk where I had run only a split-second earlier. The rear of the luxury, silver car was angled into the wooden fence of a house. Painted, timber splinters covered the sidewalk. The flashing indicator lights of the Mercedes strobed tiny orange spheres into the mist, but I couldn't hear the car alarm.

I wasn't able to stream enough rational thoughts into my brain to decipher how the car had come to be where it was.

And where was the man who was chasing us?

In my tortured glimpse, I no longer saw him. He had been so close. His hand had even touched me. And now he was gone. Vanished. I wondered if he lay underneath that Mercedes.

What the hell was happening?

The man's disappearance must have subconsciously dampened my stride because I suddenly felt the stress in Rumer's grip intensify.

"Keep going," he said.

We reached the top of the road, turned right, and continued at speed towards Leura's Main Street. I smiled briefly as a memory of our earlier chat whizzed by. How he had nudged me, placed his hand on my stomach, and how he had given me advice. I wanted to go back to that. I was as much in unknown territory then, but at least I didn't need to sprint through it.

I was now at Rumer's absolute mercy. His steadfast grip dragged me where he wished to go, his speed willed my legs to move and his reasoning unheedingly became my own. I surrendered myself to his resolve. I would go wherever he forced me, believe whatever insanity drove him to be hunted and trusted his soul to be my lighthouse.

My vision began to blur, spasmodically at first, but as we ran past Main Street and further east, the occasional streetlight and luminance from houses which we past, all began to devour each other and twist and twirl into a singular, deranged focal point.

The syrup-like fog became increasingly difficult to suck down into my lungs. I struggled to stay afoot. I felt weak, lost and confused. All I wanted was a sweet gasp of pure air, but I found none. My brain panicked and shutdown the electrical pulses that compelled movement in my aching legs – in my whole defeated body.

I was no longer having fun.

I wanted to stop and lay down. I wanted to give up. My knees then crumpled beneath me and I suddenly felt myself a deadweight in tow.

"Rumer," I said, with a resigned gasp.

Blackness surged in from all directions. The swirling, demonic lights vanished, and the last thing I saw was Rumer catching me in his outstretched arm.

I was gone.

# Chapter 17

I woke sluggishly. My eyes gradually opened, but the rest of me remained still. My mouth was dry. My head throbbed. And I was cold. Chilled. At first, I saw only blurry outlines and shapes and muted light. I forced my eyes shut back to blackness. When I reopened them, the uncertainty was gone, and I knew exactly where I was.

Tree branches dipped and bobbed in the fresh breeze. The grass where my hands rested comfortably was damp and cool. And a scarce moth cut a glide path through the halo of light. I was back in the dark woods – back at the clearing.

The choking fog was yet to reach the deep-forest void and I filled my lungs with the clearest, purest air I'd ever tasted.

I had no idea how long the blackness had kidnapped my senses, but drawing in the intense breath and smelling the sweet bark and eucalyptus perfume, I was certain my senses had returned.

As I lay in the clearing, positioned comfortably on my right side and with my arm cushioning my head off the ground, I thought about nothing other than nature itself. Imagine if you were a butterfly, I thought. Beautiful. Free. Happy.

The sound of soft steps behind me refreshed reality and my fairy-tale thoughts of autonomy were swiftly usurped by recollections of skinned-to-the-bone girls, vehicles with impossible minds of their own and running until I could no longer. Madame Butterfly would have to wait. I was not alone.

Rumer. At that moment, I recognized the weight pushing on my side was his coat, shielding me from the bitter wind and trying to keep me warm. Even underneath the heavy trench coat, frigidness still crept in, and I felt myself on the verge of shivering.

The movement behind me continued, but I was unafraid. For all the craziness, my gut was telling me, Sara, you are safe as long as Rumer is with you. I pulled my knees in, rolled on my back and then, sat up. I clenched the coat and blanketed myself from the neck down.

The wind felt even stronger on the tips of my nose and ears. My hair swirled riotously like tentacles snapping at the darkness to feed. I braced my arms around my knees, but struggled to regain the flow of warmth through my body. It was bloody freezing.

Rumer's distinct, deep voice shot from over my shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"How long have I been out?"

My muscles ached with lethargy. I was certain I'd been comatose for hours and was surprised not to see dawn breaking beyond the forest contours. My brain felt like it had been forcefully roused from the dead.

"Ten minutes," Rumer said.

"Really?"

He stepped beside me. "Yes. You fainted."

No kidding. "I feel like crap," I said. And was certain I looked it, too. I stared upward, but battled to discern Rumer's face clearly. He stood silhouetted by the silken light blazing around his frame. It was the first time I saw him without his coat, but even in shadowed profile, he looked strong and commanding. A protector. A guardian against the hunters.

Hunters. The hunted. Us. I remembered.

"What happened back there?" I asked. "Who was that chasing us?"

Rumer backed away. He was abnormally uneasy.

"Please tell me. Who was chasing us?"

"He wasn't chasing us," Rumer finally said. "He was chasing me."

"Why?" I asked, matter-of-factly.

But Rumer didn't answer. What scared me most was his conflicted expression, barely visible on his face in shadow. But it was there. He knew the answer to my question, but I could see him wage a war within, sourcing unfounded presumptions about how I would handle the truth. I had witnessed the same belligerence in mom's eyes each time I asked her about Helen. She had chosen to keep that truth from me each and every time and it deprived me of the will to live.

I prayed Rumer would not revile me with the same scorn.

He paced in and out of the light. If not for the murmuring whispers of leaves conversing in the wind, I may have even heard the soldiers advancing at opposing ends in Rumer's brain. Judging by the torment on his scarred face, it looked as if there was quite a battle going on in there.

In the wind's hush, I pushed myself off the clammy ground and up, onto my feet. My body felt like it weighed a hundred times heavier than it should and it startled me how much the fainting – the whole night – had drained my impetus.

Rumer halted his passage back and forth and faced me directly. Had the battle resolved? I wondered.

I had become so used to mom's lies, deception and denials, cloaked by a malevolent guise of protecting me, that when Rumer's truth traversed the freezing, damp air between us, my brain shuddered and I struggled to comprehend his words.

"Three months ago... I escaped from prison," he said.

My instinct screamed, what the hell? But I was paralyzed by his honesty. The genuine look in his eyes had been alien to mom's eyes ever since I discovered her secret.

Rumer continued, "The man chasing me is a detective, I think." He waited for a reaction from me, but got none. He added, "It seems he's made it his personal mission to catch me."

I searched all the way past my heart and into my soul for life's little instruction book that boasted a chapter on 'How to deal with someone you care about being a prison escapee,' but my treasure hunt was futile.

A singular, stupid, half-formed word fell from my mouth when my jaw dropped open. "Oh," I said.

"I'm surprised he's tracked me here so quickly. I never—"

"Stop! Wait!" I yelled, as blood suddenly rushed back into my cognition. The dark clearing clobbered all noise into submission. I was convinced that even the wind eased its breath. Every living thing now eavesdropped on our conversation – and our silence.

Rumer dared not speak.

"Wait," I said, again. "Back up a minute." It took a while for my brain to catch up with the shattering words seemingly passing by so haphazardly. "What do you mean, you escaped from prison?"

Rumer's expression had transmuted from conflict to genuine honesty and now, to icy defensiveness. If he had, at any time in our previous encounters thought about us, I saw in his eyes that he now concentrated mostly on him. And I realized that self-preservation was not a trait prevalent only in my veins. I couldn't blame him for that.

"There was an accident..." he said, "and by chance, when I awoke, I was... outside. Something deep inside me told me to keep going, and—"

"Yes," I interrupted, again, "but you were in prison?"

He nodded.

"So, you were like a prisoner... in a prison?"

A small smile crept onto Rumer's lips.

The question sounded stupid as soon as it left the tip of my tongue, but I needed to understand with as much clarity as possible.

And I was now in no mood to laugh.

Rumer picked up on that, too and tried to shelter his blunder. He said without emotion, "Yes, Sara. I was a prisoner in a prison."

I felt all the emotion drain swiftly from my face and barely remained upright, but I would have rather died at that moment than show any sign of Rumer's words affecting me.

A prisoner. An escaped prisoner. A hunted man.

Without thought, my perception of Rumer changed. In an instant, my memories of the train tracks, of Martin's Lookout and of our stroll through Leura only an hour before, were besieged by presumptions and judgment that screamed, you're a bad person. Standing in the impaling spotlight amongst an audience of curious trees, nothing that had gone before that moment mattered to me.

My dread sullied every word that broke free from my mouth thereafter. I asked, "Do you have anything to do with those missing girls? That girl we saw in the body bag?"

Rumer's reaction was strange and not what I had expected. He said nothing aloud, but his expression was one of authentic hurt. I read it as, how could you even think that?

I no longer knew for certain what I thought and I didn't want to try and figure it out, because I suspected that it wasn't in Rumer's favor at that moment.

His face suddenly looked meek and resigned. He said, "I should never have involved you."

"No, you shouldn't have," I blurted out. My voice was angrier than my heart. I knew in that mishmash epicenter of my emotions that I was as much to blame for that involvement as Rumer. It was just easier to reproach him.

"I trusted you," I said.

"Yes."

"I brought you to my home."

"Yes."

"My family."

He sighed dejectedly. "Sara. There's more to it," he said.

But at that point I did not care. "You should have told me," I said, trying to convince myself as much as the enigma standing at arm's reach before me.

The more I thought, the more enraged I became.

How could he do this to me?

How could he hurt me this much?

Why did he have to be so bloody honest?

Maybe mom was right. Maybe I didn't handle truth well. Damn her! Damn them both!

And then, the most obvious question flashed before me. I stared firmly at Rumer's doleful face and asked, "What were you in prison for?"

His expression changed once more. Can you really handle the truth? it said. I already braced myself for terrible news. Stealing. Breaking into people's homes. Stalking.

My money was on stalking.

"I killed someone," Rumer said, flatly.

Not a single muscle twitched in my body. I didn't blink or frown and my mouth was already agape. Inside my head, it felt as if that train of self-destruction hit me at last. My soul splashed to the four winds and all my organs exploded into a scarlet, gooey mess. I stood like a lifeless vessel, filled from bottom to top with a mashed medley of liquid blood-and-guts. Floating somewhere in the dismay, were my emotions. Anger. Disappointment. Betrayal. It was impossible to hoist any of them to the surface.

Finding the ability from places unknown to me, I dragged Rumer's coat from my shoulders. I wanted nothing of his to occupy my private space. I now wanted nothing of his to touch me. I scrunched his black coat into a careless bundle, gripped it intently and pushed it towards Rumer.

He hesitated, but knew he had no choice. His gloved hands reluctantly took hold of the coat. The tips of his gloves brushed the ends of my fingers, but it did not register as it had so excitedly the last time.

I turned away from him without connecting with his uncertain stare. I tried to convince myself I would never look at those chestnut-brown eyes again.

My feet propelled me away from the clearing and into the dark woods. I didn't care – or think – about spiders or chasms or getting lost.

I could not feel any more lost if I had tried.

I left Rumer standing in the luminance behind me. I said nothing. I didn't turn back and I knew nothing about how he reacted to my abrupt departure.

I didn't want to know.

Somehow, I would find my way home, but it wouldn't have bothered me if I didn't. Nothing mattered anymore. I was alone in the world again and I tried to persuade my soul that I would never see Rumer again.

I really tried.

# Chapter 18

My night was horrific. I managed to scamper home from the dark woods with surprising doggedness. The anger percolating in my blood proved a strong incentive. I was so upset.

The house was already quiet when I tip-toed in. Nice to see everyone was up worrying about me. There wasn't even a missed call on my phone. Dad was fast asleep on the couch. I'd like to think he'd been up waiting for me. He was shirtless, with a half glass of blood-red wine resting in his right hand. It was quite a disturbing sight. But it wasn't until I wriggled under the blanket on my bed that the real horror began.

The horror in my head.

As if I wasn't messed up enough already, I thought. I could not rest my mind. Like a whipped-up beehive, thoughts, ideas and opinions buzzed relentlessly through the cavity in my skull where my brain was supposed to be. And they stung like crazy.

I tossed. I turned. I tried to fall asleep beneath the blanket and on top of it. I then got cold. I counted sheep, which quickly grew wings, horns and a tail, and they laughed at me. I tried talking myself to sleep, but that didn't work, either. Cinderella kept popping into view. She looked inanimate. Time had died.

Cinderella had been stung by too many bees.

My anger had begun in the dark woods because Rumer failed to tell me he was a homicidal prison escapee – just a minor omission – but now, it continued to rage into the early hours of the morning for other reasons, too. By 3am, I wasn't even sure why I was still so cheesed-off.

Was I upset with Rumer for not telling me?

Or was I furious at myself because I cared that he didn't tell me?

And why did mom and Helen's faces keep darting into view?

My skin sizzled hot for one minute and then, goose pimples poked through my chilled flesh the next minute. At one point, I sweated like a farm animal, but felt cold like an ice block at the same time. I didn't know what was going on.

Dejected by efforts to not think about Rumer, I decided to give the opposite a try. I wondered about prison and Rumer in prison. I conjured detailed images in my head about how Rumer escaped. I pictured his tortured hands digging endless nights through the dirt and unbreakable rock, tunneling to an undeserving freedom.

My fairy-tales then breached with concerns of reality. I fretted about the implications of having associated with a wanted man. A hunted man. Oh my God! I had been hunted with him. I worried that the detective had recognized me, too. I worried he would track me down and throw me in prison.

I felt numb, detached from life. New Sara had become quite a handful and I wasn't sure I liked her anymore. At the current rate, New Sara would soon be inmate Sara.

Sucking in a burst of bedroom air, the fragrance of pine snuck up my nostrils and pleasantly distracted me for the briefest of moments. The coldest nights often drew out the endmost smells from the house timber. When I was much younger, the aroma lingered more intensely than it did now.

I forced my eyes shut, desperate to let the memories of better days abduct me from the night. I didn't know what to believe anymore – from anyone. Old Sara. New Sara. Rumer. Savior. Hunter. Hunted. Nothing made sense. "There's more to it," Rumer had said. His words infected me to the point where I doubted my doubt. It was strange and the more I thought about him, the more my anger mellowed and the sleepier I felt. I didn't know why.

Rolling onto my side, I explored my bedroom with heavy eyes. In my rush to be swallowed by hibernation, I had failed to close my window blinds. Ambient night luminance streaked through the gaps in the wood slats and tossed foreign shadows onto the walls, onto the wardrobe doors, and onto my desk.

The ambiguous silhouettes bobbled around and carried my memories back to the dark woods and back to Rumer. No matter what I did, it was impossible to stop thinking about him.

I pulled the blanket off my shoulders and hinged my legs out and onto the floorboards. The surprising coolness of the wood tickled beneath my toes. With one large stride, I stood at the window. Slowly, and deliberately, I wound the frame shut, trying to convince myself that's why I was at the window.

Peering between two slats, I focused my eyes through the glass and towards the line of bushes and trees beyond the lawn. The gusting breeze snaked amongst the dark outlines of the thicket, but I saw nothing unusual. Nothing and no one that shouldn't have been there. Why did that make me feel so empty inside? I wondered.

Boys sucked.

I don't know how long I stood gazing into the darkness, but when the lids of my eyes sank and my shoulders swayed in harmony with the large, white-trunk eucalyptus tree at the center of the brush, I knew I'd lost the plot.

Somehow, I tasked it back into bed. I must have been half asleep, because one minute I stood at the window, the next, I drew the blanket over my cooled body.

I worried that I was back at the beginning of the torment of thinking myself beyond sleep. But my vexed cerebral sponge had already soaked up too much fussing and it refused to absorb any further concern. My eyes felt like stones and I was without the strength or will to stop them from falling. As I departed from conscious awareness, a singular tear rolled across my cheek and flushed away the last remaining hindrance to my sleep.

And then, all was silent.

# Chapter 19

I woke with a savage startle, dead-set certain I heard alien voices. But as my wide eyes explored the bedroom, now ablaze with morning sunshine, I saw and heard nothing unexpected.

Birds called to one-and-other in the trees outside, the ever-present wind rattled loose containers on the veranda and I heard the muted growl of a chainsaw in the far distance.

But no voices.

Lazily rolling from the bed, I was clueless about what to do. I didn't care much for school holidays at the best of times. With Emma busy, charitably supporting the Salvation Army, I imagined the weeks ahead were likely to be particularly loathsome. First official day of school break and I was already bored stiff.

I thought for a moment to text Steph, but the idea of listening to her babble about quests for boys and self-praise, tired me before I could find my phone. Mel and Lexie were secondary options. I don't know why I didn't call them. I always felt more comfortable with them only when Emma or Steph were with me. Mel and Lexie were too much effort otherwise. You're so lazy with people, I thought, ashamedly.

I pulled on my favorite pair of baggy, gray track pants and matched it with a pastel-yellow hoodie. I was suddenly excited about a day of doing nothing. Kick back, watch daytime soapies on television and lull my butt in bed the whole day, making effort only to fetch drinks and snacks.

Maybe dad was onto something all along.

As I hoisted myself back into my warm, doona cave, my muscles ached from the late night rendezvous. I'd never been that adventurous or daring. I always stuck my big toe in the water before jumping in. Often, I didn't even jump in at all. Now, I was running through dark forests, being chased by the police and escaping the house at night in secret.

All that was now over, I tried to convince myself.

I hated the deception, the betrayal and the not knowing, but I couldn't deny that I'd had fun. As I scuttled my head into the fluffy pillow, I smiled, proud of my uncharacteristic bravery. Thriving in self-appreciation, it took a moment longer for the messages scratching in my eardrums to puncture my brain. Unknown voices had woken me. I heard them again. I had been right. A voice. A female voice.

And then, another.

The pinewood interior walls of the house lacked the sonic insulation of traditional plaster-and-paint walls. Most sounds, particularly voices, carried a significant length through the house. It had caused scores of arguments over the years as one family member surreptitiously discovered skeletons in the cupboard of another.

I kept still in the bed, desperately trying to identify the semi-muffled voices. It was impossible to hear exactly what was being said, but as the hushed sounds tickled my senses, I was certain it was mom. But the other voice?

I was surprised mom entertained a visitor so early. It was just after nine in the morning. My mind tangled with thoughts of what if and who? But my gut screamed only one name. I didn't want to believe it. Even mom wouldn't bring her into the house with me in the house, too. Not after Buddha's secret had been exposed.

Would she?

I threw the blanket off. All fantasies of a lazy day evaporated as quickly as the adrenalin suddenly surging through me.

She wouldn't, I thought again.

Bare-footed and in my sloth-motif outfit, I tied my hair back with an elastic and then, yanked my bedroom door open.

The voices echoed more clearly. I was in no doubt that, beyond the door to the living room, I would find two women conversing. One was mom. Standing in the hallway, I suddenly recognized the second voice with crystal clarity. My gut had been right. I had wished so much for it to be wrong.

My fingers trembled as I reached for the round door handle to the living room. One twist and they would be there – the two people I hated most. How could mom bring her home? I was in two minds, unsure whether to burst in or sneak in.

My rage demanded the first option. I caged the door handle in my hand and hesitated ever so briefly. I had thought little about what to say, what to do, or how to react.

Stuff it! I no longer cared.

The twisting handle creaked as I turned it, but it made no difference. It all happened so quickly. The door was open in a flash and my gaze penetrated into the living room with frightening haste.

My eyes clapped immediately on what my gut feeling had predicted – mom and Helen sitting on the couch. But what I saw them doing was a thousand times worse than I could have foreseen.

As if in slow motion, mom and Helen drew apart their lips from each other. I had not physically seen them kissing, but even the lifeless specs of dust floating carelessly in the sun-drenched living room knew what was going on.

Mom's cheeks blazed with a hectic flush. She looked about as guilty as a human being could. In a flash, she doubled her proximity to Helen. I'd never seen her body move so quickly. Helen showed no sign of embarrassment whatsoever, and no willingness to move even an inch away.

Bitch.

Their coupled hands were the last to separate. Lying affectionately in Helen's lap, they symbolized how mom had abandoned her family and attached herself elsewhere.

It made me sick.

"Sara," mom said, with genuine surprise, as her hands finally retreated into her own lap with a guilty resolve. "I didn't realize you were home."

Clearly.

I had not stepped into the living room. My advance faltered at the door frame from shock and disgust. My hands grasped at the wooden frame, as much to keep myself upright as to stop myself from flying towards the couch and strangling them both.

Mom reverted back to her habitual defense. She tried to cast the blame back in my direction.

"Why aren't you at school?" she said.

With teeth clenched, I said, "It's school holidays."

"I thought that started tomorrow," said mom.

"You thought wrong."

Then Helen opened her mouth. She said, "There's no need to be rude, Sara."

What? Why are you even talking to me? I thought.

I tried to ignore her and I kept my focus firmly on mom. Her eyes were wide, filled with insecurity, but there was no explanation, no apology and no shame.

I had to say something. "I can't believe you're just sitting there, pashing that..." I thought my next word ought to be bitch, hoe or slut, but couldn't find the courage to say any of them. "Pashing her... and I'm in the house."

Helen shot to her feet. Her imposing frame, short blondish hair with gray streaks and gorilla-sized hands, made her look more like a man – a large, towering man.

She'd be able to crush me like an ant, I thought.

She said, "Your mom can do whatever she pleases."

I felt the anger sizzle under my flushed skin.

Sweat beaded on my forehead and in my palms and I felt a cold, evil shiver run the length of my spine. Helen was a giant that needed slaying. "No, she can't," I said. My voice sounded feebler than I would have liked. It didn't exactly scream: I'm a giant killer!

"Sara," mom said, "I realize it's—"

"No. Don't do that, darling," Helen interrupted, as she turned her savage eyes back to me. "She's got to get over it. You're entitled to be happy."

Darling?

Helen took an enormous stride forwards and sideways, blocking my view of mom and shortening the gap between herself and me.

She scared the crap out of me.

And then, I saw it. On Helen's middle finger, on her gigantic right hand, a stunning ring glimmered in the streaks of sunlight. I recognized the stone immediately. Fire-opal. $1,999. My fears, my instinct, my gut – all had been spot on, all along. The receipt I had discovered in mom's secret drawer was further proof that mom's denials were nothing but lies. She had bought Helen that ring. They'd been seeing each other for over a year in secret.

I felt even more afraid.

And with that fear encroaching into my veins, all courage disappeared. Tears spontaneously burst from my eyes and I expelled a whimpish groan. My muscles felt suddenly weak, atrophied by Helen's killer stare that seeped into every crevice in my defeated body. I wanted to say more, to tell Helen where to go, and mom, too. But it was not a fight I could win alone. I needed Mika, or...

I needed a courage I simply didn't believe I possessed. My lips quivered for a final word, but my voice found no volume. My hands slipped away from the door frame and, like a snail being harassed on its feelers, I shrunk back into the hallway and out of sight. Tears streamed unabated as I threw the door shut.

Mom had to have seen how upset I was. But as I rushed back into my bedroom and tossed myself on the bed, mom did not follow me from the living room to check if I was okay. I needed her to show that she still cared for me on some level – on any level.

But she never came.

I heard muffled voices. Mostly Helen's. I hated her so much. I pictured her convincing mom to not come to my rescue. She's got to get over it, Helen had said.

How dare she?

Further seconds passed and I gave up on mom coming for me. I jumped to my feet, slammed my bedroom door shut with the same ferocity with which I had closed the living room door, and then, wiped away the tears from my swollen eyes.

I would show them, I thought.

My sadness gave way to a resurgent anger. I dropped myself to the floor in front of my dresser and yanked open the odds-and-sods drawer. The cigarette lighter was at the back of the compartment, hidden beneath an empty jewelry satchel.

I had deliberately placed the devilish tool there after the last time.

Lighter in hand, I forced the drawer away, and then ran the sleeve of my hoodie to my elbow.

Last time I had scorched myself out of pure sorrow. Now it would be entwined with strands of furious resentment, and I buzzed at the thought of it searing my flesh. If I couldn't punish mom because I was coward, I would punish myself.

I had no problem with that.

Scraping the thumbwheel, a beautiful flame ignited. Its halo cast a shimmering deep-orange glow on the white of my forearm and I licked my lips with morbid anticipation. They tasted salty from the tears. I clenched my teeth, took the deepest of breaths, and closed my eyes. I was ready to unleash hell on my forearm.

But instead of driving the burning-hot lighter onto my skin, I found myself counting. "One, two, three..." holding my breath and counting... "four, five, six..."

I exhaled, counting to ten. And I was as confused as all hell.

As I mechanically drew in a second wave of warm air, I suddenly pictured Rumer in the bedroom, placing his hand on my stomach. I imagined his voice. "Focus only on the breathing, Sara. Just the breathing." It was the strangest feeling, as if an unseen guardian angel guided me through the perfect storm.

Something inside of me changed at that moment.

Still primed to inflict pain with the lighter in my left hand and rolled-up sleeve on my right arm, I awkwardly clambered up onto my bed like a drunken sloth. Rolling onto my back, I kept my eyes firmly shut and sucked in another breath.

"One, two, three, four, five, six..."

And out. I thought about Leura and our walk and talk. It bred happiness then and now, as I lay on my bed. It felt hypnotic as I marinated myself in the sweet memories.

"You got this, Sara," I said to myself.

I lost count of how many times I repeated Rumer's instructions, but it didn't matter. By the time my eyes slowly opened, the urge to burn myself with the lighter had gone. I lay staring up at the ceiling and let my bruised mind wonder casually back to thoughts of the darkness.

And of Rumer.

If he was such a bad person, why had he helped me?

Saved me?

Inspired me?

I couldn't work it out. I glanced at the pink lighter in my left hand, cooled and safe. No one and nothing had gifted me a solution to my heartache. And yet, I had never felt as good about myself as I did when I was with him.

Mom had again proved her failure by not investigating my state after she had caused the devils inside my head to dance. My salvation had once more come from a person I had dismissed in my mind as being bad, because I had attached that label to him. His words echoed through my skull again. "There's more to it," he had said.

I dragged myself off the bed and planted my butt on the cushioned chair facing my desk. As the computer booted up, I convinced myself that I had been unfairly hasty in axing Rumer's connection. Part of me knew I was fooling myself. That part screamed escaped prisoner and murderer. The other part – a much smaller slice – whispered friend and protector.

I was in two minds. Probably more.

I couldn't make a firm decision either way. My gut remained uncharacteristically neutral. Then, I heard mom and Helen's voices on the veranda outside and all indecision vanished with uncomplicated resolve. I suddenly knew, with clarity, what I had to do.

Google flashed up as my homepage moments later and I typed the first words that popped into my head:

church + views + ocean + city lights

Search...

# Chapter 20

When Cinderella's arms signaled 6pm., darkness had already swamped my journey. A light drizzle blanketed the sidewalk as I stepped off the bus. The slippery footing almost landed me butt-first on the pavement.

After an hour of internet searching, I had narrowed my list of churches to seven. "From the rooftop, I can see the ocean to the east, the city lights to the north, the airport to the south and the mountains to the west," Rumer had said. It was a start, but I still felt as if I searched for a needle... in a stack of needles.

Rumer had also let slip that he was closest to the ocean and that had served as my starting point. My Google search returned 238 possible churches meeting some of the criteria I had specified. When I selected only those search results which complied with all my choices – all four views – the list was pared significantly further. I then focused on churches located close to the ocean and had my list of seven.

The first church was a magnificent cathedral. I stood awestruck in the pews, absorbing the sight of the sun-soaked leadlight windows, marble sculptures and the vastness of the church's interior. I'd never been in such a beautiful building.

A chubby, bearded man in religious robes had greeted me with a warmth long since vanished from mom's embrace. "Welcome, my child," the priest had said, softly. I felt guilty as sin when I told him the purpose of my intrusion. He looked optimistic when I said, "I'm sorry, I'm only looking for someone..." But when I added that it wasn't God, his smile faltered. I didn't have the courage to ask him if he harbored criminals in the back room somewhere, but when the bulgy religious leader forced pamphlets into my hands and ushered me towards the exit, I was convinced I was in the wrong place.

I travelled south to two protestant churches, a brisk walk apart. The first was encased in scaffolding, ready for restoration. The clock tower brickwork was punctured by gaping holes and it leaned at a precarious angle. The church itself was closed. The second of the two places of worship didn't look like a church at all. It was a plain, rectangular building constructed from no-frills concrete slabs and a flat roof. Very un-church like. If not for the polished-brass cross attached to the building's front, I would have walked straight past.

I was approached by a man in a suit. He called himself a Deacon. We exchanged pleasantries after a firm handshake and visions of my failed summer-job interviews flashed in my memory once more.

"Do you know a man named Rumer?" I asked.

The Deacon's blank expression seemed honest enough. I reluctantly explained Rumer's facial scar and his exposure to fire. The man was clueless, but said, "It sounds like your friend could use some religious guidance."

At first, I believed the man's commentary originated from empathy, but a cynical stare in his eyes convinced me otherwise. I had seen that same judgmental assessment in mom's eyes, a thousand times over.

What was it with church folk? I thought.

The mountains was home to many families entrenched in Christian lives. Going to church each Sunday was common place – except for the Baines family. At least half of those in my year-level at school regularly attended one of the numerous small-town churches in the mountains. It was weird in class when two girls argued and fought, and then suddenly quoted the bible to resolve the tension. Love thy neighbor, thou shalt not judge... and all that.

I had no problem with that. I did take issue with those same church-folk being the most judgmental people of all. They always had an opinion about everyone and everything and, if it wasn't in accord with their beliefs, those opinions usually weren't very flattering.

The Deacon, in his nice-looking suit and sky-blue tie with its Holy cross pendant, was no different. Outwardly, he greeted me with warmth and sincerity, but at the first opportunity, he pressed his judgment on someone he'd never met and knew nothing about.

The next three churches proved as futile as the first three. I missed the bus stop for one of them and my stupidity was all the more insulting when I finally reached the church – on the return journey – and I found an imposing real estate agent sign. The church was for sale, and closed.

I hunted around the building, peering in through smashed windows and unhinged doors, but I discovered the place was deserted. I briefly thought it the perfect place to hide out, away from society and from the police, but the building's interior lacked any recognizable signs of life. It was literally spiritless.

As I walked dejectedly along the sidewalk towards the last church on my list, my resolve felt weak and pointless. I convinced myself I was wasting my time and I checked Cinderella, planning my return journey home.

My trek took me from a main street of shops and buzzing restaurants, south, past a heritage-style post office, and away from the bustle of emerging night life. The glistening headlights of passing cars gave a sound indication of the path ahead. I was heading uphill. A serious hill.

Bloody hell! My night was getting much worse.

As I sucked in the air to silence my lungs, the salty fragrance of sea water travelled exhilaratingly up my nostrils. I could not see any ocean because of the darkness, but I could sure smell it. It spurred me on.

With each passing car, the whoosh of tires cutting along the wet road beside me reminded me of the increasing drizzle. I now had every reason to turn back, but the resistance tickled my stubbornness instead.

"Come on, Rumer. Where the hell are you?" I mumbled, loud enough to catch a bemused glance from an equally rain-soaked passer-by.

I reached the top of the hill huffing and puffing, feeling totally unfit. The church stood back from the road, centered in a delightful garden and with a clock tower piercing high into the darkness above. Even in the dim, rain swept light, I saw roses and tulips and walking-stick palms. Along the side of the building, towards the rear, I was certain I saw grapes in a delicate vineyard.

I wanted to look more, but a voice called out to me and caught me by surprise. "Are you coming in, Miss?" the voice said, penetrating through the weather. "Come and get dry."

Standing at the church entrance, bathed in the warm glow of interior lights, was a wiry, tan-skinned man with round-rim glasses and perfectly-combed black hair. As I looked towards him, he politely waved for me to come closer.

I had seen the same invitation at the other churches and I judgmentally held out little hope. But I couldn't resist the temptation to get dry for a moment, and so stepped forwards to get out of the increasing downpour.

The man was no taller than I was. He was dressed in a tidy shirt and dark blue suit. A clerical collar was neatly tucked under the shirt collar. The visible inch of white strip between the collar tips appeared to glow like a bulb in a lighthouse amongst the darkness.

He gently shook my hand, cupping it with his other, equally-thin hand, on the outside. "Please come in," he said. "You're just in time."

Just in time for what? I thought.

As the man encouraged me into the small, front foyer, he closed the heavy, wooden front door behind us. With the commotion of the weather and passing cars shut away outside, I suddenly heard voices. Lots of voices.

Opposite the front door, a set of double-doors led into the church proper. In each door, a thin window focused my view beyond. The church was full of people. The smiling man pulled open the door closest to him and revealed the interior. I saw the pews were filled with neatly-attired church folk.

"Oh God!" I said loudly, easing my whole body backwards.

"Let's hope so," said the man.

I felt his other hand brush against my back and I instinctively moved forward and into the auditorium. Numerous smiling faces turned to me from the seats and nodded politely and sincerely.

"Welcome," an elderly lady said.

When I heard the doors click shut behind me, my worst religious fears dawned on me. I was now participating in a church service – alone!

The man's hand pressed my back a second time. "Please, follow me," he said. "I'll find you a seat."

My dry lips moved belatedly. "I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't planning—"

"Don't be afraid," the man said.

It instantly reminded me of Rumer. He had given me the same soothing words when I felt fear. I definitely felt fear standing in the aisle.

The man guided me forward. My head remained bowed down as I shuffled forwards, my eyes fixed firmly to the passing floorboards. In my peripheral vision, I saw heads twist in my direction as I passed each row of seating. Out of embarrassment, I dared not look at them.

How far forward was he taking me?

All the way! The very front row. Was he kidding? I was incomparably mortified.

The man silently gestured to the vacant cushion on the front row pew. The seat was the first beside the aisle. I was literally, front and center.

I wanted to turn and run – and run fast. But I was too self-conscious to do anything other than sit where the man had directed me. A middle-aged couple on the next two seats along smiled at me. Everyone was so friendly. Rushing out like a spoilt, screaming child was quickly out of the question. I was stuck, glued by my own discomfort.

In a hopeful epilogue, I cranked my neck to look back one last time at the double-door exit at aisle's end. Between me and my escape, a hundred or more gleeful worshippers – and their opinions of me – blocked my path. Not a chance.

I turned back to the front. The thin, foreign man, who spoke with a subtle accent, now stood at the pulpit, facing the congregation.

The woman beside me leaned into my personal space and said, "Have you been to Pastor Crosbie's church before?"

I shook my head. No. Any volume in my voice was dormant. I hoped it would remain so.

"You'll love it," the woman said. "He always gets us to sing loud."

Sing? Oh no!

Pastor Crosbie raised both arms into the air and the congregation was instantly quiet. I wished I had that sort of power.

"Welcome, brothers and sisters," he said, with a smile. "God welcomes each and every one of you to his house."

My eyes were glued on the pastor. My mouth was agape. I had never seen or heard anything like it.

He continued, "Before we celebrate and praise God's word today, let us all welcome back Mrs. Seavers from her heart operation. Stand up, Mrs. Seavers."

The woman and man beside me looked over their left shoulder. I followed their gaze. I couldn't help myself.

A frail, gray-haired lady rose to her feet five rows back on the opposite side of the aisle. She needed the support of a much younger man to remain upright. Despite her shakiness, she looked happy and waved a thready hand of appreciation at all the eyes staring intently at her.

"The Lord has kept her safe through the operation and we are so happy to have her back," Pastor Crosbie said. "Praise God."

Mrs. Seavers returned to her seat amidst hushed praise for her.

"Praise God," the woman beside me said, softly.

Wow! I thought.

Pastor Crosbie spoke again. "I'm also informed that John and Rhiannon van Doren have been blessed with the birth of their son this afternoon. Matthew Solomon John Van Doren is reportedly healthy and, I'm told, already has the stubbornness of his mother."

The congregation laughed.

"Praise God," Pastor Crosbie said, again.

I reactively smiled. Not that I had a clue about Mrs. Van Doren or her stubbornness. Even though I felt like a petunia in an onion patch, there was something special about so much adoration amongst those people – strangers to me. The church world had always been advocated by mom as meaningless. She insisted on solitary meditation. "Happiness comes from within," she had always said. I agreed, but I saw nothing wrong with a bunch of people making you feel wanted and stirring that happiness.

"And lastly," Pastor Crosbie said, "I'd like to welcome a new member to our family..."

I was already turning my head to look behind in anticipation of the person being asked to reveal themselves. I got the hang of getting involved pretty quick, I thought. I liked seeing their smiling faces as the focus fell solely on them.

"The young lady in the front row..."

Suddenly, a hundred pairs of eyes pinpointed in my direction. Pastor Crosbie's words reverberated through my skull. It instantly felt as if it was warming. The young lady in the front row...

Oh, crap! Funny how the most obvious things can take the longest to register in the brain.

I snapped my head forward. Pastor Crosbie's arms were stretched out in my direction and his fingertips gestured me to my feet.

I vaguely shook my head, but Pastor Crosbie was having none of it. If I had wanted to run before, I now wanted to spontaneously combust. My head felt so hot from the redness, I worried that it would implode.

But somehow I found courage in Pastor Crosbie's smile. And the woman beside me, too. I stood slowly, twisting halfway to the congregation – not brave enough to fully front them – and I wisped a hand to acknowledge the welcoming faces. Everyone looked so nice... from out the corners of my eyes.

I quickly sat back down, feeling the ickiness of sweat running down my back as I pressed into the wooden pew.

"This beautiful, young woman came to us this evening through the rain and the darkness. Let us remember her in our prayers today and hope that she finds what she came for."

Strange choice of words, I thought, briefly.

But I was so proud of myself for standing and so grateful that I had been made to feel like I was part something that any curiosities quickly evaporated from my conscience.

Of course, it didn't stop me from shrinking deep into my cushion from embarrassment. I hated being the center of attention, even if it was nice attention.

As Pastor Crosbie began to talk about God stuff, I found myself distracted by the building's internal architecture. It was a classic church. A vaulted, wooded ceiling shot high up above me in a tent shape. Large, timber cross-beams were modestly decorated with the occasional cross. Nothing too extravagant.

Thin windows set high in the stone walls held traditional, leadlight glass. Behind the pulpit at the front of the church, hung a sculptured, stone statue of a man nailed to a cross.

That must be Jesus, I thought. I was no religious scholar, but even I knew that story.

The pulpit was the smallest of all I had seen that day. A simple, raised, wooden platform elevated a now-animated Pastor Crosbie a foot above the rest of us. Other than the hanging crucifix, a beautiful, hand-sewn fabric, the size of a table cloth, was suspended to the left side of the stage. Words were embroidered into the crimson material with yellow thread. I read:

I will say to the Lord, 'He is my refuge.'

Psalm 91:2

Below the decoration, a closed door matched a similar egress on the pulpit's other side. I imagined those being the entrances to preparatory rooms behind the main auditorium, out of view from the street.

The church as a whole was small compared to the others I had visited, but it made it more homely, more inviting, more peaceful. I had to admit that the church inspired an unusual and unexpected state of calm in my normally chaotic head.

Then, the woman beside me rose swiftly to her feet, pulling a soft-cover book from under her seat, as she did so. In hushed voices, I saw – and felt – the whole congregation rise behind and all around me. Each person held one of the books.

I felt beneath my seat for one, but the compartment was empty. Just my luck.

As I looked around, I saw people staring at me as I remained in my seat. They didn't exactly say, "Stand up girl," but it wasn't far off.

So, I stood up.

The woman beside me swayed in my direction again, open book in hand. "Here. We can share," she said, warmly.

A bellowing musical tune exploded from speakers attached to the walls between each leadlight window. To the right of the pulpit, a bald, elderly man had sneaked into position behind a contemporary organ. He played like a mad monkey.

"Sing it loud," Pastor Crosbie yelled excitedly, above the overture.

Was I really going to have to sing?

But as a chorus of voices rose in unison around the sandstone building, I couldn't help but mouth the words in the book being held in front of me. The woman next to me, who I started to believe was too nice to be human, helpfully pointed her finger to where we were each time I looked lost – which was often.

Halfway through, How Great Thou Art, I started to get the hang of it. There was no way in hell I was going to add any volume to my mouthing the words, but I made the effort to at least look as if I was participating and enjoying it.

Pastor Crosbie had no such self-esteem issues. He sang in full voice and with incomparable gusto. He had emerged from behind the pulpit and now, stood in full view before me. I could hear his singing voice above the entire congregation. Songbook in one hand, he conducted his flock with the other – with as much vivacity as an orchestra maestro. I had never seen such passion. It was impossible not to absorb some of his excitement.

I looked ahead in the tune. Towards the song's end, I read, 'REPEAT CHORUS' and I made the decision to actually sing – with loudness in my voice. It was crazy. I felt excited to sing a church song with a hundred strangers around me. It was no wonder mom had discouraged me. One hymn and I had turned into a church freak.

The end of the song approached much quicker than I had anticipated. I sweated with vigor. I couldn't believe I was going to do it – sing the repeated chorus aloud. It was all kind of cool. I felt good. Excited. The first run-through of the chorus finished. I knew what to do. What to sing. How to sing it. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth wide, and I sang at the top of my voice...

"Then sings my soul—"

But the music had stopped. The congregation no longer sang. Those four words sung by my voice – my loud voice – was the only sound that echoed through the church.

I choked on the abrupt silence.

"We don't normally repeat the chorus," the woman beside me whispered quietly.

Could you not have told me that a little earlier? I thought.

As we all sat down, I saw Pastor Crosbie smile at me as he returned to the pulpit.

It's not funny! I wanted to scream.

My head blazed with burning embarrassment and my thoughts wandered back to English class. Why did I always end up being the center of attention for the wrong reasons? I shrunk back into my seat. The petunia in the onion patch shriveled as the inferno inside my skull blazed.

I didn't sing again.

The rest of the service crept by like a snail. Not that Pastor Crosbie's service was boring – he was amazing. But I never recovered from my one-woman-show. We stood four more times for singing. I mouthed the words in total silence each time. We prayed. Pastor Crosbie mentioned the young lady in the front row in his prayer, which made me feel good again. I contributed fifty-five cents to the collection plate and even said, "Amen," at the conclusion of the service.

My day had sucked, I had not found what I set out in the morning to find – despite my recent prayers – and I'd endured the embarrassment of singing solo in front of more than one hundred strangers, but I could not deny an unfamiliar pleasure. My first church service had instilled a warmth and harmony that I had struggled to find elsewhere. And I was grateful for that.

As the congregation emptied from the auditorium, I remained seated a moment longer. I wasn't sure if it was because I hungered to absorb the spirited feeling of belonging for as long as possible or because I was still too self-conscious to look at anyone else's face. But as I sat there, looking at the stunning internal structure and the suspended stone cross and delicate windows, I felt connected to something. I had no idea what, but it was something.

I finally found the courage to hoof it out of the church.

As I turned from my seat, I saw an empty auditorium. Only Pastor Crosbie and a young couple stood in the aisle, talking.

I rushed for the double-doors, hoping to get out without having to engage in pleasantries with the pastor – or anyone – but I failed. Having made it halfway down the narrow aisle, I watched the young couple shake hands with the religious maestro and disappear through the exit. Only Pastor Crosbie and I now occupied the glorious, ecclesiastic interior.

Crap!

I walked past and smiled, but I didn't stop moving towards the double-doors. I knew it was rude, but embarrassment was a strong motivator. Pastor Crosbie's accented voice stopped me in my tracks.

"How did you enjoy the service, Sara?" he said.

Damn. I got so close to the doors, but now realized I had to stop and acknowledge the question. My face flushed, I turned on my heel and smiled at the kind man. "It was great," I said, "apart from me stuffing up the singing."

Pastor Crosbie smiled, but before I could reciprocate, the skin on my face ran inscrutably cool as common sense hit me like a runaway train.

"Wait a minute," I said. "How do you know my name?"

# Chapter 21

Pastor Crosbie's eyes widened.

I couldn't determine if he had let slip accidentally or if he was trying to send some sort of message.

Either way, I had never told Pastor Crosbie my name, and there was only one possibility of a church person outside of the mountains knowing what it was.

Pastor Crosbie looked me up and down and I knew it wasn't because he was checking me out for a date. "You are Sara Baines?" he asked, in a soft voice.

I hesitated, but finally answered, "Yes. I'm Sara. How do you know that?"

"Mmm..." Pastor Crosbie smiled.

Mmm? What did that mean? I thought.

He stared at me a moment longer, then swiveled on the heels of his perfectly polished, black shoes, and made his way down the aisle towards the pulpit.

I remained silent. I didn't know what to say or what to do.

Where was he going?

Reaching the pulpit stage, he deviated left towards the door I had noticed earlier. Abruptly, Pastor Crosbie stopped and turned back. He extended his hand towards me and said, "Come with me, Sara."

My brain flashed with a mosaic of thoughts – and every one of my conceits revolved around Rumer.

I stepped forward, deliberately conscious of concealing any perception of haste and devotion. My stare did not break from the pastor as my brain wondered. As I reached the back of the church, Pastor Crosbie smiled. He then stepped through the open door, leading the way. I didn't have to think twice about following.

The space beyond the door frame was dark and felt like the antithesis of the bright auditorium. If not for the light flooding in behind me, I imagined the narrow passageway would have been pitch black.

My hands snaked along the walls. The sandstone felt rough and cool. The floor was rocky and undulated. When I looked towards my stumbling feet, it dawned on me that the ground was bare earth. No floor. No timber. No carpet. I suddenly felt as if I was in some bizarre time-machine and I'd been shot back to the Middle Ages.

Even the air smelled and tasted different. Old. The corridor was only six strides long, but in the short, dark space, I found it difficult to breathe normally.

The cavernous passageway opened out into a single room, the size of my bedroom at home. Or maybe it looked small because of the clutter. At first impression, I thought it the pastor's office. It reminded me of mom's study room and my spine chilled again.

There was a desk, a filing cabinet and two book cases against the wall. On my left side, I saw another wooden door. At least there was a floor of timber boards, but they felt springier than they should have.

The room was dimly lit by two muted, electric lamps. Their radiance scattered beautifully off the fine pebbles embedded in the sandstone. The electric fan, spinning slowly from the ceiling, looked out of place in the antiquated office, but I was glad for it. The windowless space provided little air flow and was as claustrophobic as the hallway leading to it.

Pastor Crosbie shuffled across to the door, opened it, and then, vanished into the darkness beyond.

The hallway leading me deeper into Pastor Crosbie's labyrinth felt more modern, but was equally as dark. Ahead of me, I suddenly heard the sound of a striking match and the hallway glowed with a familiar orange hue.

I stepped into a large room. A gorgeous candelabrum burnt warmly and cast a flickering luminance across a leather lounge suite, a small dining table with four seats, and across more cluttered book cases.

"You live here?" I said, softly.

"Yes."

"It's beautiful."

And it really was. Magnificent paintings with stunning, heavy-looking frames adorned the living room walls. The flawless, oil-painted scenes and characters appeared to come alive in the animated candlelight. It felt surreal and looked amazing. I loved art.

The high ceiling boasted sculpted angels in a setting I imagined was a depiction of Heaven. Their smiling faces reminded me of the two church people who had glowed with comparable affection.

As I craned my head back down towards the pastor, he was smiling, too.

"Please," he said, "have a seat."

The wooden floor was carpeted with several antique rugs of various sizes. Their designs were exquisitely complex and I felt guilty for stepping on them as I crossed the room to the lounge suite. As I sat down on the comfy leather, I heard Pastor Crosbie behind me, shutting the door through which I had entered.

Several more exits led from the living room to other sections. I could not see into them, but I realized my surroundings were simply a house joined to the back of the church via the small study room. I was in Pastor Crosbie's private home.

Within moments, he sat on a large, dark-red leather lounge chair facing me. "So, Sara," he said, smiling. "What brings you to our church?"

I hunted for a tinge of sarcasm in the pastor's voice, but couldn't convince myself there was any. So I said, matter-of-factly, "I'm looking for a friend."

"Mmm..."

Again with the Mmm...? It irritated me, but then I felt guilty. He was a pastor. Was I allowed to be angry at a man of God?

When he said nothing further, I threw my etiquette to the wind and my frustration bred another wave of magnified bravery. I asked, "Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?"

"That depends on who you are talking about..."

Was he toying with me?

"...Can you describe him to me?" Pastor Crosbie said.

I felt a strange mix of emotions. Pastor Crosbie knew my name. I was certain he had to know something about Rumer.

And yet, no matter how resolutely I searched, I could not detect any hint of satire in his voice. His inquisitiveness appeared genuine.

"Well," I started cautiously, "he's taller than me. Dark, wavy hair and brown eyes." I missed those brown eyes. "He has certain... distinguishing features. Scars, actually. But not in a bad way. They're... uhmm... they're actually beautiful, in a way."

"What else?" Pastor Crosbie said.

"I've only ever seen him wear dark clothing, not that it matters. And he's pretty smart. Actually, he's annoyingly smart." My memories began to influence my words. "We met under kind of strange circumstances, but then... I don't know for sure... something happened."

Pastor Crosbie didn't say a word, but I sensed in him a tenacious commitment.

"I've been going through some... stuff," I continued, "and he just... I can't get him out of my head. Believe me, I've tried. He's just so... so annoying, but so annoying in a great way. Like I've never felt before. I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

I had become a blubbering idiot.

As I watched the pastor staring at me, I convinced myself he was toying with me. To him, it was all a game and I was certain he was goading me to ask the one question I desperately needed answered. I Hoovered in a volume of air and drilled my stare at Pastor Crosbie, trying to look serious, if nothing else.

He raised his eyebrows again.

But I didn't blink and I didn't capitulate. I said in all seriousness, "Pastor, do you know where he is?" I ran a list of possible answers through my head in the silence that followed.

No.

Who?

If I did, I couldn't tell you.

When the pastor finally answered, he said none of those. His reply shocked me so much, I almost fainted.

He said, "Yes, I do know where he is... He's standing right behind you!"

I felt for a moment as if my world stopped, hammered into failure by a thousand volts, like a bolt of lightning from God's own finger.

Maybe it was God now toying with me, I thought.

The pastor's words simply didn't register in my brain. I didn't want to believe it. And I convinced my pounding heart that I had misheard him. Truthfully, I was too afraid to believe it. "I'm sorry. What?" I fumbled from my lips.

But before the pastor could respond, a second metaphorical lightning strike shuddered through my body. It was a voice. A deep, familiar voice.

"Hello, Sara," the voice behind me said, gently.

I turned my body in slow-motion, but I already knew who I would find. That voice had become my voice of reason, of meaning, and of reprieve. It was the one voice I longed to hear.

Rumer stood tall, dressed in his usual black cargo pants and jumper. A smile crept onto his face as our stares crossed. He looked radiant in the soft candlelight.

"Hey," I said, unable to find any further words.

He stepped around the couch. Something forced me to my feet and I stood facing him as he strode within arm's length. His next move scared the crap out of me.

Rumer smiled and then, he raised his arms, curling them around me. He held me in his grasp and, at that moment, I could think of no safer place in the universe. Rumer was hugging me, and I didn't know whether to smile or cry. I'd also forgotten to mirror his embrace. By the time the palms of my hands pressed into the small of his back, it felt belated and stupid. I was certain it was why he held me even longer.

When Rumer finally let go, it still hadn't felt long enough. We sat awkwardly in unison on the couch and we faced Pastor Crosbie. I could not interrupt the smile on my face.

"So," the pastor said, "when's the wedding date?"

What?

My smile vanished and I blushed uncontrollably. Rumer shuffled awkwardly in the leather.

Pastor Crosbie quickly added, "Normally, when I have two people sitting there, like that, it's for marriage counselling."

He smiled, but I was ready to throttle him.

"Very funny," Rumer said, sarcastically.

I thought I'd better throw in my bit, too. I didn't want Rumer to get the wrong idea. "Yeah, there's no wedding here, anytime in the future," I said.

I sensed Rumer glance across towards me, but hell would have to freeze three times over before I was going to look at him. I desperately wanted to know if his look was one of surprise or agreement, but the muscles in my neck remained rigid.

"Before young Sara strangles me with her gaze," Pastor Crosbie said, "I'll leave you two alone." The pastor smiled again and then, pushed himself to his feet. "I'll be in the study," he said, as he walked in the direction of the church.

"Wait," I said. "How did you know it was me... in the church?"

"The Lord moves in mysterious ways, my child," he said, with a decent hint of cynicism as his voice faded. He vanished into the hallway and out of sight, shutting the door behind him. I was convinced he'd still be cheekily listening through the door.

Then I got nervous. I was sitting alone with Rumer on Pastor Crosbie's marriage counselling couch. I could no longer use the pastor as a scapegoat for my focus. I had to turn and face the boy I had labelled and abandoned.

"You came for me," Rumer said.

"Yes." My throat tightened as I choked on my butterflies. Rumer's stare was intense as it drilled for more information.

"Yes," I said again, "I wanted to apologize."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Sara," he said.

"Yeah, Rumer, I really do. I didn't give you a chance to explain anything. After all you have done for me, I owed you at least that. I owed you at least a chance to make me see it differently."

Rumer said nothing, but his eyes darted back and forth from mine. The silence only encouraged the butterflies, so I spoke again. "This morning..." I began, but then needed a pause to stop my growing emotions breaching my shell. "This morning, I wanted to hurt myself..."

Rumer's eyes widened with concern.

"...but I didn't do it. I couldn't. Instead, I found myself counting numbers and holding my breath until I almost passed out..."

A thin, approving smile crept onto his lips.

"...I couldn't have done that, if it wasn't for you. Look..." I pulled up both my sleeves. "...Nothing. I couldn't hurt myself because you told me not to. You told me I deserved better. You told me I was stronger than that."

He nodded.

"I only believe that because of you. I don't know what that means or why. All I know is, my world is better when you are in it..."

He smiled again.

"...so if you can't tell me what you've done or why you've done it or why you have to keep running, that's okay for now, because I trust you. I know that sounds crazy, but I trust you, and I will run with you as far and as long as you need me to run."

Rumer grasped my hands in his. He stared at me for a long time in silence.

My heart thumped and I worried he would feel the sweatiness erupting in the palms of my hands – in my entire body.

"Thank you," Rumer said. "That means so much."

I wanted to cry from relief, from happiness, from sadness – I wasn't totally sure. My eyes welled with a cocktail of happy and sad tears, but I kept them from falling. Rumer's touch gave me all the strength I needed. I wanted him to hug me again, but I surrendered to his control and we sat in the muted light like two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.

And I loved it.

# Chapter 22

I saw Rumer two more times that week and each time I stayed a little longer. I was up to fifty-eight minutes, but who was counting? I thought it better to be cautious and stay indoors. Rumer was more nonchalant.

Pastor Crosbie's private home was a bizarre mix of rooms. The living room, the pastor's bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, were Edwardian in their style – I'd studied the period in art class. It boasted a richness and detail hard to find in contemporary buildings. The remaining rooms in the house were standard, modern-day plaster-and-paint walls and featureless, beige carpet. Each time I walked through a door it was like switching worlds.

The church property backed onto an alley and I had been right about the garden. There was a small vineyard.

Pastor Crosbie said he used the red grapes to make wine specifically for a monthly service known as the Lord's Supper, but because of the cheeky grin on his face as he explained the vineyard to me, I suspected Pastor Crosbie enjoyed tasting a glass from every bottle of wine he made.

My two rendezvous with Rumer hurtled past like bats out of hell. I spent most the time bitching about mom and Helen and that kiss.

The slightest reminder catapulted my brain box back to that despicable moment. When Pastor Crosbie showed off a stunning ring he had received from one member of his grateful flock, I burst uncontrollably into tears. I couldn't find the courage to explain why I crumpled, but even if I had, I would have been too embarrassed to tell him, anyway.

I caught my mom kissing another woman in our lounge room. The very woman who destroyed our family.

Rumer had a different take on things, as always. He said, "I know it must have been awful to see..."

Hell, yeah!

"...but if it wasn't for that... for that awfulness, you may never have come to find me."

Maybe. I didn't want to think about that as a possibility. Why did he always have to be so damned right?

Two days later, I was in a completely different world of embarrassment. Norman Lindsay was one of Australia's most famous painters. Born in the Victorian goldfield town of Creswick in 1879, he bought a mountain retreat just twenty minutes from Leura, in 1913.

With his wife, Rose, and a floating population of models, artists and writers, he set about creating a dazzling artistic community on the edge of the mountains. His artistic output was amazing, including lots of works of frolicking, nude women.

He also wrote, again in a fashion which many at the time considered beyond all bounds of decency, but his most famous book turned out to be a children's classic, The Magic Pudding.

Like many treasures in the mountains, Norman Lindsay's property was owned by the National Trust and had been lovingly restored.

In addition to the living quarters and art gallery, the estate also boasted a café filled with many of Norman Lindsay's artworks. It was my favorite spot for lunch.

Mika hated it.

And she didn't mind letting me know. She didn't mind letting the other customers know, either.

"I don't know why we had to come here, Sare," she said, before deliberately increasing her patronizing volume and adding, "Norm's paintings look more like my efforts in kindergarten."

The blood rushed to my head like a volcano and I was certain it glowed lava-red with embarrassment. I didn't want to look at the people around us, but I could feel them shooting indignant stares in our direction. They must have heard. Hell! Mika was so loud, I was convinced that even Norman Lindsay's ghost probably stood to attention somewhere nearby.

Mika simply smiled with amused villainy.

I really should have known better than to suggest Norman Lindsay's Café. Mika, apparently, had news and had been so enthusiastic in the morning to tell me, she had offered, "Lunch, Sare? Anywhere you like. My shout."

She hadn't really thought that through – very un-Mika-like – and now found herself submerged in culture, artistry and a gathering of pompous regulars who besieged the café mainly to appear intellectual and arty. Exactly the sort of pretense which Mika loved to hate.

"So what's your big news?" I asked.

Mika's smile of wickedness transmuted into a twinkle of giddy and genuine delight. I could not remember the last time I had seen her fangs poke out and gleam with such enchantment. It made me want to smile.

She was about to launch, when our meticulously tidy waiter returned with two plates, each crammed with a delicious artisan-style bread roll. Mine was stuffed with smoked salmon, green capers and avocado. Mika opted for warm roast-beef with caramelized onions and barbeque sauce – lots of barbeque sauce. Despite her incomparable aversion to the Norman Lindsay Café, Mika had to confess her magnetism to its chow.

"So...?" I asked again, trying to re-engage and growing impatient and feeling my thoughts meander away to the church and to Pastor Crosbie and to Rumer.

"I'm going on a real date tomorrow night, Sare," Mika finally pronounced, eyes wide and her smile burning cheerfully.

She held that smile longer than her habitual snappy displays of joy and I instantly knew this was serious.

"That's great," I said, but without genuine conviction.

Mika didn't seem to notice. "I know, right?" she said, still smiling.

My sister had been on dates before. Two of them had ascended to boyfriend status which, in turn, cemented their destiny to conk out. Mika's prickly shell disguised a super-soft gooey interior, susceptible to easy gushing if a boy bought flowers or simply gifted her with the attention she secretly craved. Unfortunately, it also opened Mika up to being effortlessly manipulated by boys. Her mushy core unjustifiably invited these boys, who supposedly cared about her – loved her even – to treat her like she was worthless.

Paul Lowdyke rolled up to Mika's 21st birthday party a year earlier with eleven admittedly exquisite yellow roses. Long-stemmed ones. Eleven because he had used the stem of the twelfth to pry open the petrol tank of his derelict Datsun. He read out a poem on the night professed as being of his own creation and danced all lovey-dovey with Mika to Avril Lavigne's I'm With You. Mika's marshmallow had been empathetically anchored to the stick.

One week later, 'Eleven Stems,' as mom and I now called him, inadvertently sent a text message to Mika which read: My sweetest sugar bun, Lisa. Our last 6 mths 2gether has made me realize how much I luv you!!

Urghh!

The marshmallow was incinerated in the ensuing inferno. Mika blockaded herself in her bedroom for two full days, eventually emerging more uncommunicative and anti-boy than I believed was possible – even for her.

"What's his name?" I asked Mika, as she wiped the barbeque sauce from her cheek.

"Tim... Timmy."

"And how do you know him?"

Hesitation crept into Mika's enthusiasm and it agitated my concern that she was randomly plodding into another squishy disaster. She never answered my question.

My worry must have been evident to her when I shakily asked, "What are you guys doing? For the date, I mean?"

Mika went on to explain their plans for dinner, a movie and maybe a drive to Honeymoon Bridge at the Three Sisters Lookout. I was drawn to the simplicity of her romantic plans – something completely absent from my... thing.

I wanted Tim to be better than those whom had been before. I hungered for Mika to be with someone who propped her up on a pedestal and worshipped her like a princess. Someone who would praise her when she soared and catch her softly if she fell. Someone who would find a way to capture the moon and place it in the palm of her hand if she asked him to. Someone who would cry for her, lie for her and even die for her. I wanted that for her.

I wanted that for myself, too.

"How long have—"

But I got stuck mid-sentence, my eyes suddenly and uncontrollably yanked away from Mika's smile and towards a small television screen raised on the counter of the café's servery. I dropped my bread roll to the plate with an uncivil clang at about the same time that my lower chops also fell open without restraint.

Fear swamped me. Its thickness held me back from any further movement. My eyes strained in their sockets, desperately trying to shorten the distance between me and the television. What I saw, petrified me.

Feeling heavier than lead, I finally struggled from behind the petite lunch table. A peculiar stare from intrigued lunch patrons followed me sheepishly.

Mika simply said, "Sare?" Then, she too, found herself turning her head in my wake as I hoofed past her, with undeterred resolve.

She may have called my name a second time. I couldn't be sure. All my senses deliberately froze out everything and everyone around me. Like a stalker in the night, I was imperishably concentrated on the images beaming from the television screen and flashing so unwarily through the café. What seemed inconsequential to every innocent soul seated at the tables, spiked my heart and stuffed me with terror.

An unsuspecting kitchen-hand leaned across the metal servery bench to adjust the television – maybe even turn it off.

I screamed, "No! Don't touch it!"

Silence instantly swamped Norman Lindsay's Café. I had yelled much louder than the cozy interior demanded.

Much louder.

Feeling stupid, I tried to recover by adding a belated "please," but the kitchen-hand had already vanished somewhere towards the back of the food preparation area.

The freaky stillness of the café gave way to the disapproving voices of the clueless people fixated on the disturbance upsetting their trivial lunches. But I didn't care about their snickers. What I saw on the television screen trumped their disapproval a thousand times over.

My hearing tuned inflexibly into the news broadcast as I eased closer to the television.

"...We have with us, Chief Inspector Burton. Inspector what can you tell us?"

I watched with dwindling breath in my lungs as the reporter purposefully swung her microphone towards the Chief Inspector of Police. My hands fell onto the metal servery bench, trembling.

The Chief Inspector looked disturbingly uneasy. He said, "Yes. Uhm... I can tell you that we've established a special task force to investigate the disappearance of this young lady."

"So you are confirming then, that this latest disappearance is connected with..." The reporter checked her notes, before putting on ice the rebuttal on the tip of the Chief Inspector's tongue. "...Mary Steele, Ellie Grail and the disappearance last month of Felicity Cofflin?"

"I cannot confirm any connection at this time..."

"But surely three girls – now four – all of similar age, vanishing without a clue and within a twenty mile radius in these mountains would suggest a link of some sort?"

"Well, yes. We are deeply concerned about the similarities of the disappearances and—"

The reporter interjected again. "What do you make of suggestions that there is a serial killer at work here, in this area?"

"I can't make any comment on that at this time. That is something the task force will obviously be investigating."

"Can you confirm that the body recovered just south of here last week is connected to these disappearances?"

"I can't comment on that."

"There are rumors that the recovered body had been skinned to the bone. Can you comment on that?"

The Chief Inspector looked suddenly sterner. "No," he said, firmly. "I can't confirm or deny that, either."

"Just in regards to this latest disappearance, do the police believe, at this time, that this particular victim is still alive?"

A resonant blackness swallowed me up and I could not hear the Chief Inspector's answer.

A photograph of the latest missing girl splashed across the screen and instantly buried me with terror.

I knew that face.

I knew that photograph.

I had taken that photograph.

When the girls and I had picnicked at Govetts Leap Lookout over the summer, I had snapped group shots and portraits. The image on the TV was one of my snapshots.

At the same instant, the vibration of my phone yanked me from my nightmarish other-world. Its soft ringing slowly scratched in my ears. I desperately wanted to reach for it, but my hand felt glued to the bench. Like pulling bubble-gum from the clutches of my teeth, I dragged my hand from the metal in gooey slow motion to retrieve the phone.

The caller-ID only confirmed what I did not want to believe. It was Emma calling. She must have seen the news broadcast, too. It couldn't be true, I tried to convince myself.

Mika's voice suddenly punctured my gut-wrenching bubble. "What's going on, Sare?" she said. "Are you going to answer your phone?"

I felt her hand ever-so-slightly press on my shoulder. I wasn't sure if she sensed my dread, but she quickly asked, "Are you okay, mate?"

I wasn't. But I nodded my head anyway. I don't know why I didn't tell her. I don't know why I didn't answer Emma's call. My world was going insane, crackers, beyond all recognition.

It could not be any worse. I thought.

And then, the café door opened and a man with a long, flowing coat, deerstalker cap and matted-black gloves stepped inside and towards the servery bench. He strode within arm's reach beside me and I knew for certain that I had seen that horrible man before.

# Chapter 23

I instinctively twisted away from him and towards Mika, wishing she'd gobble me up and spit me out in a different world.

"Sara. What's wrong?" she asked.

But I had stopped functioning on any level of reality. The sweat on my forehead pricked my skin like a thousand frozen needles. Trickles of moisture tootled from my armpits and glued the fabric of my t-shirt to the warming flesh of my body. My world felt ablaze, burning with a bizarre fuel of fear, concern and outright terror. "Excuse me, miss?" he asked, in a weighty voice. "Have we met before?"

I dared not turn an inch towards him. I hesitated, and then said, "No!" in a deliberately unnatural tone, ridiculously trying to somehow disguise my voice.

"Are you sure?" the man asked.

Mika instantly took up my fight. God! I loved her sometimes. "Listen, weirdo," she said. "Stop hitting on my sister or I'll show you some real hitting."

Even though my eyes – wide and afraid – remained unbreakably glued away from the tall figure behind me, I heard him instinctively take a step backwards and away. Mika's loud accusations reverberating through the café and amongst the suddenly-curious patrons, probably played a part.

I wanted to stop Mika, but I was paralyzed by my own fear and so did nothing. I was in no doubt that it was the man who had chased Rumer and me at the forest fringe, the man who was hunting Rumer, the man Rumer had said was a police detective. And Mika had just threatened him and abused him.

Panic choked me stupid.

Mika's stern outburst had also attracted the immediate attention of the café staff. Mika locked stares with one of them, chucked fifty dollars on the metal bench, and yelled, "Here. This is for table twenty-five. I don't know what sort of a café this is, but I'd like to think I could come and have some lunch without being chatted up like a prostitute."

Mika. Stop! I thought, again.

Jaws dropped at tables all around the café.

"Come on," Mika said, "let's get the hell out of here."

She grasped my hand more firmly than I expected and then, she dragged me from the café. Every fiber of curiosity in my bones wanted to look back at the man in the long coat and at the shocked café patrons and at the television.

No! I didn't want to see the television.

But seeing the reaction on the faces of those whom had just witnessed the Mika Baines Show might have subdued my hammering dread.

It crept like a slimy Martian through every vein and artery. My body trembled with uncontrollable and horrible thoughts. I needed to get the hell out of the café. Out of that upsetting world. I needed to be saved.

My phone rang again the moment I sucked in my first mouthful of outside air and it jolted my distress back to a frightening sense of foreboding.

Had I really seen her face?

It couldn't be. But I knew it was. Until that moment, the notion of a madman loose amongst the serenity of the mountains – a killer no less – was a mere hunch, a macabre urban legend that no one really believed. Nothing of such sort had descended on the mountain communities in over one-hundred years. The vibe around town was a sensation more of weird excitement than outright terror.

Except, of course, for those who knew the missing girls. Their families. Their friends.

Suddenly, I now qualified for that unwanted league. The terror was straight-off very real.

"You need to answer your phone, Sare," Mika said, while continuing to drag me to her car. "It's so rude."

I knew it was, but I also knew who was trying to reach me... and why! I wasn't ready to talk about either of those predicaments. The horrible image of the body bag being dragged from the forest scorched the back of my eyeballs. The idea of that happening to – I couldn't even breathe her name – was unacceptable, unthinkable.

Mika unlocked her old Mazda 121 and we scooted in. For Mika, it was as simple as escaping an offbeat lunch, but I longed to skedaddle from eternal damnation. I wished Mika's green, little buzz-box would rise skywards and keep going. It didn't matter to me where to, anymore.

As I clicked my seatbelt into place, Mika's eyes on me pierced incessantly through the stiffening air of worry around me.

I glanced at her like a naughty child hiding a big secret that no strength on this forsaken earth was going to extract.

"Are you okay?" she asked, in a very serious, un-Mika-like tone?

Her kindness at a time when I needed kindness like air and water, whacked me with surprise, and all I wanted to do was cry.

"Sare?" she said again, as my eyes glazed over with pain. "It'll be okay."

Like hell it will, I thought.

My mouth opened barely enough to taste the salty first tear that escaped when, at that instant, my eyes snowballed so wide that my cheeks hurt. A loud thud echoed across the glass in Mika's door.

She shrieked and I'm certain her tiny butt took to the air by at least a couple of inches. Her feral squealing quickly transformed into a tirade of swear words, some of which weren't profanity in a traditional sense, but by the time Mika had injected her venom into, "Dog", "Kettle" and "Lesbian bitch!" her wrath was as offensive as any cursing I'd ever done.

The man with the long coat and deerstalker cap who had knocked on Mika's window and now stood impatiently waiting for Mika to wind it down, thought better of antagonizing my irate sister by knocking a second time.

"Oh my God!" Mika finally screeched, as her raging, wide eyes recognized the infiltrator as the man from the café. "What is this pervert's problem?"

"I think you'd better open the window," I said, sheepishly.

"Hell no. I'll run the bastard over." She cranked her neck and impaled her death-stare straight into the man. "That's right, you sicko," she screamed, at the top of her voice. "You heard right. I'll run right over you."

"Mika!" I yelled.

"No, mate. This whack-job needs to be taught a lesson."

"But..."

"He doesn't know who he's dealing with."

"Mika—"

"Quiet, Sare!"

She leaned forward blocking my view of the man as she thrust her keys into the ignition. But then, she suddenly stopped and froze rigid.

"What?" I asked, a noticeable tremble brewing in my voice.

Mika didn't say another word.

She gently dropped her hand from the ignition and eased her body backwards and into her seat.

Instantly, I saw it.

A badge. A police badge. Rumer had told the truth about that. I'd rather he had not.

Awkwardly, Mika inched the window down. She smiled half-heartedly – fangs protruding – and said, "Yes, officer. How can I help you?"

The man lowered his torso and looked into the car, past Mika, and directly at me.

I snapped my eyes forward and barely twitched. Even though I could no longer see the detective's eyes, I felt his stare penetrate my subconscious, searching like the tentacles of an octopus for any secrets hidden within. And there were plenty to be found.

Would he recognize me?

Would he identify my simmering guilt?

Would he arrest me?

From the furthest corner of my eye, I saw the man extend his arm into the car and pass something to Mika. I dared not look. I was certain the detective had not unlocked his stare from my direction.

The man's voice was succinct and in-your-face. "I am Special Agent Nico Moth..." He paused longer than was comfortable or normal. He then said to Mika, "Have her call me if she remembers anything. Anything at all."

He chose his words with deliberate resolve. There was no mistaking his message.

Mika was barely deterred. "Alright, Moth," she said, smugly, "but don't hold your breath. I'm sure my sister can't help you in any way, whatsoever."

He probably wanted to throttle her – I knew that feeling better than most – but he backed away, bobbed down curiously to catch a final glimpse of me and then, walked away.

Mika instantly splintered the silence that had rapidly settled inside the car. "Okay, then," she said. "That was weird. Are you living some fishy, double life, Sare?"

I overreacted. My head swung wildly in Mika's direction, my eyes flamed with accusation and defensiveness. I stood at the precipice of launching into a tongue-lashing about my innocence – my feigned innocence – but Mika beat me to it.

"I'm kidding, Sare," she said.

"Oh..."

"Why? Are you leading a double life that I don't know about?"

I wasn't going to repeat my error and instead, laughed weirdly. "Yeah, right," I added.

"You wish, eh?" Mika giggled.

I didn't reply.

Mika passed me the detective's card. Just a name and phone number. It should have struck me as odd at that time, but my brain was busy processing so much freaky stuff, there was no place for more absurdity.

"Does this have anything to do with those missing girls, do you think?" Mika said.

"What?"

"You know, those girls. They found one the other day... in the forest. Don't you know?"

I did know, more so than I was ever going to let on. Again the memories of the forest fringe stained my sight – an image I wasn't likely to ever forget. And now, everything had become a thousand times more terrible. I was suddenly closer to the horror than I had ever been. Than I had ever wanted to be.

Mika surprised me a second time. She said, "Did you recognize the girl on the news before?"

Tears ran back into the wells of my eyes and all courage drained from my tortured mind. I could no longer deny the truth. I would have to face it sometime.

I turned to Mika and grabbed her hand, squeezing it like I was hanging on for dear life. "Yes," I said. "I know the girl." The words clogged my throat. I battled to not fall into a weeping mess on the spot.

"It's my friend, Lexie."

# Chapter 24

At sunset the following day, Rumer waited for me on the dirt road running the back length of my school. He leaned against a small, Toyota Corolla. It was Pastor Crosbie's. The air was unusually nippy for summer holidays and, as the sun smiled upon the world for the last time that day, a chill surfed in on its last rays.

The world – the weather and everything in it – was not what it used to be. Not the way Old Sara once saw it. There no longer seemed to be any grays in the world. It was either the darkest blackness of misery with mom and Helen or the brightest and most beautiful white when I thought about Rumer.

As the fine-rock dust squeaked beneath the rubber of my soles, he finally clapped eyes on me and my dull blacks and whites instantly transmuted to rainbows.

Mom and Helen vanished in the radiance and Old Sara... she was stuffed back into a small, wooden drawer beneath Buddha's big butt.

Rumer had invited me for a driving lesson.

I was so excited. With Helen now consuming any and all of mom's free time, mom could no longer manage to find a single second to give me driving lessons. Part of me celebrated that thoughtlessness. Mom was a crappy driver. She had exchanged more fenders on one car than dad had managed his entire driving life – a fact dad did not mind zeroing in on each time mom made him call the car dealership for a replacement.

Dad had, of course, offered to teach me well in advance of mom's early efforts. My first lesson with him – my only lesson with him – lasted exactly twenty-three minutes and we never managed to skedaddle out of the driveway.

Damn those hand-brake starts!

The other, ever-ballooning part of me, sucked mom's diminishing interest in her daughter's life like a poisonous lollipop. The sweet fantasy of driving and the freedom that dangled before it like a carrot on a liberty stick, crawled down my throat like thorns.

This donkey was going nowhere.

I had stubbornly whined without end about mom to Rumer the last two times I'd seen him. Then, he offered to help. I couldn't be sure if he really wanted to or if he felt forced by a waterfall of self-pity that had gushed so freely from my gob. Either way, any opportunity to clutch and park and check mirrors was like offering me chocolate.

As we walked towards Rumer's car, I wrestled endlessly with my doubts and fears. Apprehension about Lexie ripped and tore at my insides from every direction. Poor Lexie.

Part of me still didn't want to comprehend what I had seen on the news the day before at Norman Lindsay's Café. All that afternoon, I had deliberately built a solid wall from bricks of distraction around my emotions – like thoughts about instantaneously stopping trains and about escaped prisoners. I secured the blocks with a gunky mortar of revulsion for mom and Helen. I believed no streams of horrible thoughts about one of my closest friends would seep in.

I was dead wrong.

My marbles constantly scattered to the four winds, agitated by memories of what I had witnessed on the forest fringe in Leura. Dead girl. Black body bag. Skinned to the bone. The idea that Lexie could be – may already be – the next offering in whatever-the-bloody-hell was going on out there, made me want to vomit.

By nightfall, I could no longer reject Emma's phone calls. I had already pressed the red decline-call button thirteen times before. Curiously, it had been my concern that Emma would eventually come over to my house if I continued to ignore her, that made me answer. I frenzied that the ghosts of better days now entrenched in the woodwork of our home would reveal the truth – scream it at the top of their make-believe voices – and Emma would discover my seemingly perfect family was not so perfect at all. I would be so horribly embarrassed, especially with Em, because her world was flawless.

It horrified me that I could consciously prioritize conceit about my family façade above the fact that Lexie was missing, presumably taken by the same monster which had already consumed three other victims. My soul cried. Had mom's treachery changed me that much? I couldn't decide which monster I loathed more.

"Far out, Sare," were Emma's first words when I finally answered the phone. "Why aren't you answering? I thought something had... Far out!"

Yelling cuss words popular in the 1980s was about as angry as Emma could ever muster. She had always longed to be an 80's child. The dread in her voice vibrated with a clarity that instantly provoked feelings of guilt inside me. "I'm sorry, Em," I said, simply.

After a strange, long pause, Emma finally answered. "It's okay," she said. "I was so worried."

"I'm sorry," I said, again.

"Have you seen any news today?"

I wanted to say that I hadn't, but felt too conscious-stricken already and so I answered truthfully. "Yes."

"Oh, Sare. It's just horrible. Have you heard anything further? What do you know?"

"Just what's been on TV," I said. "That there's another missing girl. They suspect it's got something to do with the others. And then, they showed that photo of Lexie which I took at The Falls during mid-year break." My emotions constricted my voice and I struggled to get my next line out. "I hope she's okay, Em."

Again, there was silence on the other end.

"I tried calling her phone," I said sheepishly, stating the obvious. I hoped to snap Emma's focus from her deafening soundlessness and back to the here and now. I needed her sane.

"Me too," she finally said, "and I left like a dozen text messages. I tried calling her mom, but couldn't get through and her brother wasn't answering, either."

Emma sounded frantic, but I was glad to hear her voice again. "What do you think we should do?" I asked.

Emma had always been the one to fix things in our group – fix everything. At the start of the year, Mel was twelve weeks into a tumultuous relationship with a guy that the rest of us didn't much care for. Charles. Charlie. Chuck. When they met at Steph's birthday party, he seemed okay. He was still Chuckles to Mel, then. But no sooner had they decided to get serious, when his persona changed. His charm and boyish shyness dissolved overnight and the skeleton that remained was a nasty piece of work.

First, it was the verbal storm. He drowned Mel in confidence-sapping insults, bombarded her with thunderously painful humiliation and took her sweet gullibility and turned it into a weapon of absolute control. "I know he's not perfect," she always said to defend him, "but I love him. He's the only boy who's ever given me this much attention."

But when Mel began missing our weekly get-togethers at the Paragon Café, we all knew there was a serious problem. A month later, Mel had her first bruise. At least, it was the first contusion we had noticed. And then, another. And another.

Despite Mel begging Emma to leave it be, Em called the police and demanded something be done. The police didn't exactly leap into all-out operation, as Emma had desired. "Your friend will need to come to the police station and make an official complaint," the officer had said. Emma went ballistic and made accusations all the way along the line of law enforcement and governance up to, and including, the Police Commissioner.

When the exasperated officer finally threatened to arrest Emma for making menacing threats about the leader of the force – apparently, an endeavor that's a big no-no – Emma assured the officer she would bring Mel in as he had so helpfully instructed.

Mel was having none of it... at first. But Emma somehow solved that problem, too. Within a month, Charles ran away to a different state, with the police feverishly in pursuit. Mel recovered and finally had to concede what a horrible bastard Chuck really was.

Her bruises slowly faded, her confidence steadily regained momentum and, with help from all of us, she rebuilt some self-respect.

But Emma had been the real hero.

She had been the one to put herself in harm's way – literally. When Charles ferreted out the news of Emma's intervention, he would sit in his souped-up car at the top of Emma's street, wait for her – or any member of her family – and then, start his deafening V8 engine, roaring the death out of it, trying to intimidate and threaten.

That all stopped when Charles did a runner.

Even though Emma had been truly scared for herself and for her family, she never diminished her resolve to help Mel and to fix that problem.

Emma's hesitation in replying to me in our phone conversation about Lexie was unfamiliar and it induced a troubling feeling deep inside me that she and I were as helpless as everybody else when it came to finding our friend.

Emma finally said, simply and matter-of-factly, "I don't know if she'll be okay, Sare."

We decided to stay in touch every couple of hours or as soon as either of us discovered something new. She rang again at ten and at midnight, but with no news.

We tried to convince ourselves that Lexie's disappearance was simply a freakish coincidence – something totally unrelated to the other missing girls – and that her having gone missing was coupled, instead, to Lexie's super-rich parents. Some wacko ransom plot... or something.

By morning, Emma and I texted almost identical messages to each other: I DON'T THINK THIS IS ABOUT MONEY. Neither of us had heard anything new all day and we both remained haunted by the unthinkable.

Learning to drive no longer seemed so indispensable and I even thought to abandon Rumer's generosity, but as he opened the driver-side door for me, I realized the distraction was exactly what my mish-mashed brain needed.

"Are you sure you shouldn't drive around a bit first?" I said, as I clicked my seatbelt in securely.

"You'll be right," Rumer said, simply. "Let's see what you can do."

"Not very much."

"I doubt that," said Rumer.

What was he expecting?

Mom had shown me the basics. Clutch. Brake. Accelerator. Check your mirrors. Hands at ten-to-two. We had driven together four times, very slowly and very cautiously. Leura on a Thursday afternoon was an unpeopled place – perfect for my first adventures behind the wheel.

I never cracked sixty clicks, almost swiped a side-view mirror from a luxury Mercedes and rolled two blocks backwards on a hill. Mom or dad, hand-brake starts were definitely my soft underbelly. Despite those minor blunders, I believed I had got hold of the whole driving thing pretty well. I was yet to hit anything or anyone. I just lacked confidence, as per usual.

"Ready?" I said to Rumer, but trying more to convince myself that I was.

Rumer said nothing. I thought I saw a mocking smile inch across his face, but it could have easily been my imagination fuelled by my insecurity and my wanting Rumer to think I was a good driver.

I depressed the clutch, forced the gear stick left-and-up, glanced again at Rumer for a reaction and then, slowly raised my left foot. I felt suddenly self-assured – cocky even – and there was no hill in sight.

The car lurched forward, made a loud and unnatural gurgling sound as if it was choking on my embarrassment and then, abruptly quit, with the engine and everything else conking out.

I squealed like a trapped mouse.

My eyes didn't deviate from the dashboard. I secretly hoped that if I stared down at the dials and numbers with enough spite, the car would magically come back to life.

Rumer finally said, "It's okay, Sara. It happens to all of us."

He tried so valiantly to conceal his amusement, but faltered right at the end of his kindness. A broad and undisguised happiness spread across his face.

I liked that smile – didn't care much for the reality that its genesis lay in my dopiness.

"I think you're in third gear," he said.

"What?"

"You didn't come across far enough with the gear stick. It's not in first. It's in third."

"No way," I said, defensively as I depressed the clutch a second time and propelled my hand onto the gear stick poking scornfully up at me from the center of the car. But as I yanked it downwards, the gear stick eased further left as if it was possessed and deliberately toying with me.

I finally found enough guts to look up at Rumer. He said nothing, but all I could hear was him thinking, I told you so!

"Stupid car," I said belatedly, feeling even sillier as I did so.

"It's no problem, Sara."

"I've never done that before," I said. "At least not on a flat road."

Rumer remained quiet.

I added, "I just don't want you to think I'm hopeless."

"I would never think that," Rumer said.

I thrust my hand on the key in the ignition and restarted the car. Clutch in and, with more exhibition than necessary, pushed the gear stick into first gear. A single butterfly escaped from the pit of my stomach as I eased the clutch out. We were on our way.

"Perfect," Rumer said.

"I know, right?" I said, smiling.

My confidence seeped down to the accelerator and, with the memories of my embarrassment vanishing in the rear-view mirror, we hustled to a mind-blowing fifty-five clicks.

"Not too quick," Rumer said.

Fifty-five clicks.

But he didn't say it in a mean way. I couldn't even be sure if he was serious or sarcastic. I eased my foot off the pedal ever-so-slightly, anyway.

At the north-eastern boundary of the school's oval, the dirt track speared away sharply through the peripheries of National Park. Immense eucalypt trunks rose to eerie heights on our left and right, cloaking the road with opaque shadows in the last throes of sunlight.

Rumer gazed keenly out the passenger-side window. He seemed distant and preoccupied, but obviously had enough faith in my driving to not be concerned. I wondered if he was regretting his foray into being a driving instructor. I wondered if he was thinking about prison or if he was worried about being caught. I wanted to ask him so many questions, but couldn't find the courage to muster even one.

"Turn here," he then said, suddenly.

I yanked the steering wheel right a little too quick and we clipped the inside curb with the rear tire as the car propelled into a narrow side street. "Oops!" I said.

"And you didn't indicate, either."

"Well... You didn't give me much notice. Did you?"

The street inclined rapidly and the car slowed of its own doing halfway up the steepest slope I had ever been on in my life.

I was in the wrong gear again.

"That'll do," Rumer said.

I glanced at him sheepishly, but I had heard him clearly and knew exactly what he was up to.

He said, "Right. Here is good."

No it wasn't.

"Hand-brake on," he said, "and first gear. Let's go, again." He didn't look at me.

I tried to convince myself it was because he was supremely confident in my hand-brake starts, but that fantasy didn't fly, even in my own brain.

I was hopeless at hill starts, as dad had so utterly proved on our driveway at home.

"It's quite steep here," I said, belatedly.

"Yes. I know."

I then saw a wicked smile materialize across his scarred face and knew he was toying with me. All fun, but I still needed to get up that bloody hill. My grip on the steering wheel loosed with the moisture precipitating on my palms. I thrust the gear stick into first and strangled a grip on the hand-brake so tightly, it creaked and moaned. I was going to do it, no matter what.

My feet felt sweaty and uncomfortable, and I nervously wobbled my knees from side to side. I hated feeling so vulnerable. I looked across at Rumer again...

It was at that precise moment that I remembered the detective staring directly at me through Mika's window the day before. His features were unwieldy, wacky even. Special Agent Nico Moth. His card – the one he had passed so resolutely to Mika – was now in my jeans' pocket.

In the morning, I had been determined to share the nightmare with Rumer. But, I was no longer sure and I couldn't really figure out why.

Was it to protect Rumer, somehow?

Was I embarrassed that the detective had found me so easily?

Or maybe I just didn't want Rumer to doubt my trust. My greatest concern was for him. I had committed to supporting him. The flummoxed sponge between my ears was yet to decide if I was right or horribly wrong, but if I was to effect Rumer getting caught, it would be more dreadful than even Buddha's secret.

I fretted that the Agent might be around every corner or watching us from a cowardly distance or mustering a team of colleagues to overwhelm us with helicopters, tear gas and guns. Rumer would have to surrender and be sent back to prison. And me?

What the hell was I doing?

Every trial now felt like I was parked on the side of Mount Everest with a slippery hand-brake loosely in my grasp.

"Well done, Sara," Rumer said, as I rolled victoriously onto the crest of the ungodly steep street. "You did it!"

"How awesome am I?" I said, cheekily.

Rumer laughed. "Looks like your dad gave up a little too soon."

I chuckled with him, but thoughts of other, more dangerous, trials continued to trouble me.

Then, my overloaded brain startled me and memories about dad and the steep driveway starts – stalls – scratched inside my skull. They segued into other thoughts, about Rumer and, without thought, the most unpredictable words fell clumsily from my dry mouth and Rumer was instantly silent.

"What about your dad? Your family?" I said. "Do you have any contact with them?"

# Chapter 25

"Okay. So your mom's last name is Phoenix, right?"

"I shouldn't have told you," Rumer said, sharply.

I tried to ignore his barbed response and swiveled my chair a quarter to the left to face the computer monitor. I had found a website that specialized in genealogy and tracking down long-lost family members. They required some basic information and searched hundreds of databases for matching criteria. As I typed P.H.O.E.N.I.X, I expected further resistance from Rumer, but he sat quietly, stewing.

After circling the school umpteen times – and the occasional hand-brake start – Rumer had said, "Alright. Do you want to drive home?"

He didn't mean my home.

Still consumed by rampant concern for Lexie and having heard nothing further from Emma, I knew there would be only a cauldron of angst waiting for me at home. A vessel that would steam for the rest of the night. Poor Lexie. I wanted to be as far away from home as possible – as far away from the mountains altogether – and so I decided to accept the challenge of driving the furthest I'd ever driven, in a car I was not familiar with and in the bloody dark.

But it had not been the freeway or the dying light or the speed which tested me most. It was the damned conversation about Rumer's family.

"I don't know where my family is," Rumer had answered earlier, as I celebrated my triumphant, first hill-start behind the school. But it wasn't until he added, "And I think I'm okay with that," when the air inside Pastor Crosbie's car became as viscous as oil.

"What do you mean, you're okay with that?"

"I don't know. I don't really care, I guess."

"You don't care?" I barked.

Rumer remained silent after that for a restless period. I couldn't work out what was going through his mind – and I really did want to – but mine was a beehive of dissension.

My family was being smashed to smithereens, splashed to the four winds by the monstrous fiend that was my mother. And it was all happening outside of my control, against my dearest wishes and definitely not by my choice. I cared. I cared very much.

"How can you not care?" I asked.

I sensed Rumer wasn't comfortable with the conversation – didn't want to have it – but my resolve was drunk with the pain mom had inflicted, and so I couldn't stop myself from stamping on the hot, white elephant in the cramped car interior a little further.

"Wouldn't they be wondering where you are? If you're okay?"

But Rumer refused to engage.

As we snaked our way down the acute bends of the mountains road towards the city, the conversation yo-yoed between the nuances which separated exceptional drivers from the ordinary and what it was like for me to grow up in the mountains.

My heart wasn't center stage in any of it. We didn't talk about family again.

My mind swarmed with thoughts about Lexie and where she was at that very moment. How scared she must be. How alone she must feel.

I thought briefly about throwing my thoughts out for Rumer to graze upon, but I childishly – and unfairly – let the whole I don't care about my family thing stop me.

But by the time I eased up the hill towards the church, I had cajoled a commitment to not give up on Rumer's family.

If I couldn't save my own family, I was sure as hell going to try and save his.

The computer monitor flashed up a message: YOUR REQUEST FOR LAST NAME 'PHOENIX' HAS BEEN RECEIVED. WE WILL EMAIL THE RESULTS OF ANY MATCHES FOUND.

I immediately opened Pastor Crosbie's email application and waited with unbridled anticipation for his email account to update with plus one in the inbox.

But nothing immediately changed.

I leaned back gingerly on my chair, which felt as if it could collapse at any moment, it was so old. Rumer and I were in Pastor Crosbie's poky study room. I felt like a diabetic in a candy store. There was so much mess. The blue devils in my skull mocked me in black-and-white maidservant outfits with brooms and feather-dusters in hand.

But I resisted the insufferable temptation to start sweeping and picking up the hundreds of loose papers and straightening the books and...

Devils be silent!

The tiny room, with its muted, soft lights, did begrudgingly grow on me. I wasn't sure if it was because I was away from my own home – and so, mother – or because Rumer was with me or because I was finally bewitched by a goal which oozed importance, but for the first time in yonks, I could loosen up.

The antique clock on the wall clicked steadily to 8pm and I delighted in the idea that mom had no idea where I was. At that moment, it didn't even matter to me whether she cared or not.

As I gazed wide-eyed from bookshelf to filing cabinet to an odd painting on the wall of two cherubs floating above fluffy clouds, posed in a position that seemed way too suggestive, my eyes fell upon Rumer like a bee to a musk rose.

"You okay?" he asked, in subdued tones.

I smiled with genuine rapture. I liked it when his focus bathed me in gooey warmth.

"I'm sorry that I didn't respond exactly the way you had hoped about my family," he said.

"That's okay," I said – forged from diplomacy alone.

"It's just... Everything is a mess at the moment. It's simply safer if I involve as few people as possible."

His logic would never conquer the disdain for my own family vicissitude, but it colored my understanding with a slightly brighter palette.

"I'm sorry," I then said. "It's not really any of my business."

Rumer's lips tried to smile, but the gravitas of his situation – which I still knew so little about – appeared to overwhelm him.

"I feel guilty enough being here with the Pastor," he said, "...and with you."

"Don't worry about me," I said, rather sheepishly.

"I do worry about you, Sara."

My face flushed red with a giddy warmth. I was such a girl sometimes. My head dropped slightly away and I hoped the depressed light in the study room would veil my bashfulness.

I wasn't so confident that it would.

So I diverted the subject away from me completely. "How did you end up here?" I asked.

The question was an eye-opener for Rumer. It was the first time I had enquired about 'the mess' he was in since his candor at the forest clearing. He shifted delicately in his chair. He crossed his arms instinctively, but quickly realized that doing so only emphasized his discomfort. He dropped them awkwardly across his lap and I followed his hands fold atop his knees.

Those deeply scared hands.

"Well..." he started slowly, testing my resolve.

"Please tell me," I said.

Please trust me!

His spirited brown eyes swallowed my gaze. I had to consciously stop myself from drifting away on their fascination as Rumer slowly, cautiously, recounted his extraordinary night...

"I woke in a pool of pungent water almost a foot deep," he began. "Fortunately, my head rested at the edge, because I imagine, otherwise, I would have drowned."

Rumer's eyes dropped for a single heartbeat. I sensed a magnitude of intolerable suffering in his memories of that night and he suddenly looked determined to shield me from that dread.

"Please tell me everything," I said.

He continued, "It was pouring with rain and, at first, I simply couldn't move. It must have been fear or shock or both. I don't really know and I had no idea how long I'd been laying in the sludge.

Then, sounds started coming back into my conscience. Up until that point, all I remember is the sound of wheezing. It was so hard to breathe."

Rumer paused again. As if haunted by the torment, he gasped a long, intense breath.

"Anyway, I started hearing sirens above the pelting noise of rain. And then, voices. Lots of them. They were yelling. I couldn't decipher exactly what they were yelling about or who at, but you know how you can get the gist of what people are on about simply by the timbre of their voice?"

I sure did! Mom and Mika's raging feuds had been unintelligible as I hid in my bedroom, but I could sure tell they weren't exactly expressing their mother-daughter love for each other.

"These guys," Rumer restarted, interrupting my own recollections, "they sounded seriously worried. Angry. Turns out they were the prison guards and they were going ape rushing around trying to account for everyone as they locked all the prisoners in their cells.

Something had happened at the prison and all hell had suddenly broken loose.

They would have locked every prisoner away. All except one. Me. I was lying outside the prison. Of course, they didn't know that, yet.

As each minute passed – which felt like hours – I was wracking my brain with what to do next. It was so hard to think rationally. And there was a constant rank smell around. At first, I could smell only smoke. There was so much of it. It streamed up my nostrils to the point where I just wanted to vomit. But then, another smell struck me. It was... the smell of burnt human flesh."

Rumer's unbreakable stare at me only seemed to strengthen as he said those words. The smell of burnt human flesh. Reflections of Rumer coming home for dinner and witnessing my nightmarish dance with the blue devils flashed through my skull until the bone ached. How horrible it must have been for him to see that? To smell my flesh burning and be reminded of his own suffering. Guilt enveloped me and I felt unstoppably unwell.

He continued, "As I pulled my hands from the muddy, stinking water, I saw strips of flesh dangling from them. My other hand, too. It was then that the pain hit me like a speeding train."

He paused. His phrasing had escaped me.

"That's a poor choice of words," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Oh," I said. It finally did hit me. "It's okay."

"Anyway, it was unbelievably painful. I guess the water and the mud must have acted like pressure bandages or something, because, despite the obvious scarring, it's all healed reasonably well."

I smiled warmly, surprised at how quickly I had become used to the discolorations.

"Somehow, I managed to quit lying on the ground and I dragged my battered self onto my feet. I knew it wouldn't be long before they realized I was missing and, if hell had already broken loose earlier, then only Armageddon was left on the horizon. Escape isn't something prisons take very kindly to."

"Obviously," I added, rather cynically.

"You know. I'm not making any excuses. It was a conscious decision to run. I could just as easily have staggered back to the front gate and claimed to be merely a victim in a horrible accident, but I didn't do that. Despite my whacked state of mind, I assessed the situation, calculated the risk and chose to move."

Rumer paused.

He searched my eyes for an absolution that I didn't know how to give. I knew that, permissibly, he had done the wrong thing, but I was with him now, enabling his fugitive status by not reporting him to the authorities. I would never think to do that. I vaguely smiled. It was no absolution, but I hoped that it would be enough... for the time being.

"At the very moment I turned to run, the scream of alarms exploded around me. They were like a starting gun for my sprint to freedom. Clearly, it had just been discovered that prisoner 447837 was no longer secure behind the prison walls.

I ran and ran, constantly fighting the most incredible pain I could never have imagined. If not for the chilled rain pounding down, I don't believe that I would have made it. My clothes were ripped like I'd been through a meat grinder. I could no longer tell what were strips of t-shirt and what were shreds of my skin. I was barefoot and it was so damn dark, I couldn't see anything. I just ran and didn't stop."

Rumer paused for breath. Tiny beads of sweat perforated the skin on his forehead on either side of his facial scar, just beneath the hairline. I felt guilty for enjoying his attractiveness, but couldn't stop my magnetism towards him, no matter how I hard I tried.

I didn't try very hard.

As he sat there, subdued by his own retelling of the most god-awful night of his life, it struck me like lightning that all those thoughts about that first boy I wanted to hold me and treat me like a princess and that first boy I wanted my lips to fall upon with careless abandon, now all involved Rumer.

I gasped as the energy running through me – from the apex of my head right down to my big toes – tickled me feather-brained.

"Sara?" Rumer asked.

"Sorry," I giggled. I threw my hand to my mouth from shear embarrassment.

"Do my stories of pain and suffering amuse you?"

"No," I said. "I'm sorry. I was thinking about..." I drew breath wanting to no longer cage my thoughts, but I chickened out. I said, more firmly, "No. It's not funny. It's not funny at all."

His arresting eyes stared a silent moment longer before he continued. "I ran two blocks of suburban streets. Then, a spotlight flashed onto my face from in front and up high. Unbeknownst to me, and no thanks to the blinding rain, I'd run alongside the prison rather than away from it as I had hoped. The spotlight was from Tower 6, which normally overlooked the prison's medical unit. I knew that all the guard towers would have immediately shot their bright lights into the surrounds the moment they were notified of any possible escape. That's exactly what I was trying to get away from. Still, it was totally unlucky that one caught sight of me. And then, everything went really crazy."

"Did you ever think to give up?" I asked.

"It's really strange. I felt... something... something inside me was very different."

"Different, how?"

"I wasn't like possessed by aliens or anything, but something had... adjusted. And it was spurring me on with such veracity that it never occurred to me to quit running, lie down and just give up."

"I don't understand," I said very honestly, prying into his vagueness.

"I didn't either... at that point," Rumer answered.

He thought a moment and I could see the tumult of reasoning running through his skull. He had more secrets – and I so desperately wanted to know what they were.

But he chose to keep them.

And he continued instead. "In the darkness ahead, I saw a side entrance to the prison, swing open and all manner of silhouettes streamed out. Guards. Dogs. A van.

I shot up a side road between two unit blocks. I wanted to jump the fence of the second unit and maybe hide, but I knew that, in the state I was in, I was never going to unearth the strength to hoist myself over the palings.

So, I scrambled past the units and unexpectedly found myself at the fringe of a park.

There were no second thoughts about heading in, despite it being almost unbelievable dark. As I ran, I felt the branches slashing across my wounds and I so much wanted to scream. But I just kept going.

Red and blue lights began flashing to the left of me and to the right. And behind me, all I could hear was barking dogs. I had no idea of knowing exactly how far or how close they were, but the whole time, I had this sickening feeling that they were going to jump me at any moment."

"But they didn't?"

"No. It's still difficult to understand, but somehow I was able to impart some distance between myself and them...

Until I got to the other side of the park.

There was this sudden whoosh of spray and swirling rain all around me, and a noise as loud as any I had ever heard.

It was a police helicopter.

And they had me. There was a guy hanging out of the side of the chopper pointing a rifle at me and a spotlight on the front, aimed directly at me. It burnt my eyes, it was so bright. The whole growling machine was like a leviathan rising from the darkness to devour me. If I'd actually stopped to assess the situation, I imagine I probably would have given up at that point.

But I never stopped to think about it.

I darted sideways and sprinted for cover between two rows of buildings. I thought, if I can just make it to those, I had a chance.

Then, there was a volcano of sound. A huge bang. It only occurred to me later that it was a gunshot. But he missed.

Considering the wind and the torrential rain, I'm not really surprised. That poor pilot must have been at the very limit just to keep the chopper hovering so close to the ground."

"Lucky for you," I interjected. Lucky for me!

"I made it to cover," Rumer continued. "All I could hear was the chopper rev its engine to gain altitude in the hope of finding me again.

I snaked between two shops, ran down one alley for a minute, then into a laneway, where I hid behind a dumpster to catch my breath. Boy, did I suck in a volume of air!

That metal monster then shot out of the blackness like a cobra and just kept swirling up and down the laneway, like it was certain I had to be there, somewhere. It was like a predator on the savannah. Its spike of light jabbed left and right, prowling up and down the length of the alley, but it was never able to pinprick me. At one point, light rays splintered all around the dumpster. I thought I was gone for sure. But he mustn't have seen me, because in a second, the tentacle of light moved onto a spot a few car-lengths away.

Then, I saw police lights flashing to my left, at the end of the laneway. I knew I had to move. I crept on my hands and knees along the cobble-stoned ground. I could see my hands again – all torn and mashed.

When I looked up, a police car was now also at the farther, right end of the narrow lane. I was stuffed, I thought. Shut in at both ends.

I wanted to scramble back to the first alley from where I'd originally come, but I was dead certain the police would have seen me. So instead, from the outermost corner of my eye, I caught sight of a cracked wooden gate and scurried to it. I knew squeezing through it meant scraping my body along the splinted wood, but I had no other choice, I thought.

It was either grating my already-torn skin across jagged, wooden panels or be captured. God, it was awful.

Anyway, I found myself in a second alleyway, clambered to me feet and ran again. Echoes of blue and red lights danced off the taller buildings either side of me and the ever-present chopper light refracted through the rain like a mad kaleidoscope. It really was a demented nightmare of fractured light and drowning rain.

After a handful of agonizing paces, I was struck by a sight that I simply refused to believe.

A wall.

A tremendous, stone wall blocked my path. I had somehow scampered into a dead end. I threw my hands onto the rough stone in desperation, but even if I had been in perfect shape – which I was far from – there was no way I was going to scale it without some sort of superpower intervention.

And I didn't have that, did I?

I turned and looked back down the slender alleyway. Beyond the broken gate through which I had slithered, I saw torch lights bobbing and weaving. The police were already blocking my only chance of escape.

The helicopter, too, was moving into position, right above me. It knew it would only be a matter of seconds before that shaft of intolerable light pinned me down.

The game was up.

I didn't make a conscious decision to give up, but I offered no resistance when my damaged body wanted to simply slide down against a sidewall and collapse on itself. I was soaked and heavy with rain, physically battered and without options. The pain stung like a hundred blowtorches focused in my direction, and I could no longer invent the energy to move. I was literally done for.

The police torches began poking through the gaps in the gate, exploring the alleyway in which I lay destitute. They began shaking at the rickety entrance and I finally, reluctant, resigned myself to being recaptured.

Then, I heard a click. The noise was too loud to be the gate where the police were. The sound came from somewhere much closer. Much closer. In fact, it was right behind me.

I dared not breathe, but something over my shoulder moved. A door. A large wooden door groaned open. Then, an outstretched hand ejected from the darkness inside and I heard a voice say, "Come. Take my hand."

Twisting my head awkwardly, I saw the gates at the end of the alleyway spill open and torch lights flood in, extending to a point just beyond where I lay.

I was about to be spotted.

From somewhere, I pioneered a last-ditch resolve. I threw my left arm wildly into the air. If I didn't catch the stranger's extension on my first attempt, there was no way on this earth there was enough left in me for a second attempt.

But I caught the hand cleanly and, just as the lights encroached upon the end of the alley, salvation pulled me to safety. By the time the police had scoured the rain-soaked laneway, the wooden door was firmly sealed, with me and the stranger locked safely out of sight. The stranger was Pastor Crosbie. The side of this house backs onto that alleyway."

"And they never came here to look?" I asked.

"They did. Briefly. But he convinced them that he knew nothing, had seen nothing and had heard nothing. He's a clergyman. They believed him. Why wouldn't they?"

I absorbed Rumer's story like sticky candy, wanting to believe that, despite the obvious affront to authority, there was a soft, sweet center to be found.

He had been so lucky. Almost too lucky, I thought.

I needed to believe it was for some grandiose reason that luck had favored him.

Indeed, if he had somehow intervened on the train tracks on the night I had sought my own salvation – and affronted the authority of death so blatantly – then Rumer's escape had already served an important purpose. I owed him, at the very least, the benefit of my doubt.

"There's still one thing I don't understand, though," I said. "How did you get out of the prison to begin with?"

There was a heartbeat of silence before Pastor Crosbie's small study room erupted in melodic tones. My cell phone rang and vibrated like a caffeine-filled ladybug.

I had placed it intentionally close by in case of news about Lexie. I hadn't forgotten about her.

Was it her?

Had they found her?

Was she okay?

# Chapter 26

I swiveled my chair towards the desk so fast, I nearly went around again. Within a breath, the phone was in my hand. But it wasn't news about Lexie.

"Hello," I said.

"Sare? Is that you?" Mika's voice said, shakily.

She was frantic. She rattled off a string of words I could not decipher. I had to stop her racket. "Calm down," I said. "I can't understand what you're saying."

I heard her take a deep breath.

Rumer touched my arm and said, "Is everything okay?"

But before I could answer him, Mika yelled down the phone again. "Can you come and get me, Sare?"

"How?" I said. I don't have a full license. I don't have a car.

"I don't know. I just really need you to come and get me."

"Mika—"

Rumer must have heard the conversation – got the gist of it. He said, "We can get her. It's okay."

My stare was blank. "Are you sure?" I said, simply.

But Rumer smiled. Yes!

"Mik. We'll come and get you," I said, into the phone. "Where are you?

She frenzied to explain that Timmy had not shown up for their date. Urghh! She was stranded and alone at the cinema complex and there were lots of 'crazy people' about, as she called them.

"Please hurry!" she howled, with genuine fear reverberating through her voice. She sounded much more scared than simply having been stood up. After all, she'd had plenty of practice at that.

"We'll be as quick as we can," I said, before hanging up the phone.

At that moment, Pastor Crosbie poked his head into the study room. "Is everything alright?" he asked, in a typically empathetic, pastorally tone of voice.

"It's my sister. She needs our help."

Rumer rose sharply to his feet. "We need to pick her up straight away."

"Oh," Pastor Crosbie responded.

Rumer glared oddly at the short, Sri Lankan man before asking, "Can we borrow the... uhm... car?"

"Yes, of course."

Pastor Crosbie smiled weirdly. I had no idea why. "Thank you," I interjected. "I really appreciate it."

The pastor's hands grabbed mine. "I'm sure your sister will be okay."

He said it with such confidence that it confused the crap out of me. There was something going on between Pastor Crosbie and Rumer that I simply didn't understand, but my thoughts acutely returned to Mika. I had never heard her so anxious. I was desperately worried.

I turned to Rumer. "Are you sure it's not going to make trouble for you?"

"I'll be fine," he said, very confidently.

He slipped past me and placed a gentle hand on Pastor Crosbie's left shoulder before disappearing out of view into the house beyond.

"He'll take care of your sister," the pastor said.

I feared that I had come across too alarmist and so tried softening the fear – my fear. "I'm sure it's nothing," I said, only to now look more sheepish than scaremonger.

Pastor Crosbie shot a soothing grin my way which landed like a newly loomed woolen blanket. I sighed, feeling inexplicably less perturbed.

Rumer speared back into view. His wide-brimmed hat sat firmly atop his handsome face and leather gloves covered his scarred hands.

At least the bandages were gone, I thought.

He swirled his arresting dark coat around his shoulders and, in a flash, his familiar black motif was complete.

"Let's go," he said, very matter-of-factly.

Rumer had already retreated into the house by the time I was on my feet. I thanked Pastor Crosbie again on my way past and had to scurry to catch up to Rumer. He was always so damned quick. It was no wonder the police were yet to catch him.

Through the kitchen. A hallway. Another gathering room. Maybe this was the 'divorce' counselling couch, I thought, cheekily.

Within in a jiffy, Rumer and I were in the garage.

Pastor Crosbie's Toyota Corolla wasn't all that much bigger than Mika's buzz-box, but it did smack of greater newness – couple of years old, at most. Rumer eased himself behind the wheel and had the engine revving before I'd clicked my seatbelt securely.

Mika's date had shipwrecked at the shopping and entertainment multiplex about forty minutes from home, at the base of the mountains. We needed almost as much time coming from entirely the opposite direction.

We shot rapidly from the garage and onto the still-rain-soaked road. Rumer's driving was smooth and fast – two characteristics glaringly oblivious from my own piloting skills. Good thing I wasn't driving, I thought. I suddenly felt confident he'd be able to shorten the time of our journey by some degree.

"This always happens to her," I said, breaking the quietness in the cabin. "She meets these guys and they just suck."

Rumer didn't immediately respond. His eyes focused purposefully on the traffic ahead.

The Corolla's headlights lanced into a particularly dark night. Sporadic oncoming cars blazed us both in bright luminance and my concern, for the minute, shifted to Rumer and him being exposed in public. Then, I got drawn to his concentration. I loved it when his eyes were pasted towards me, but he looked so captivating when his focus was elsewhere. His profile beamed with each passing car and flightiness began the devour me.

I imagined reaching out to touch his glassy skin and drawing tiny smiley-faces on his cheek. Then, down along his model-like jaw line, to the tip of his chin and up along his face, guided blindly by his hypnotic scar.

Of course, I remained as still as a sculptured figurine and my flighty ambitions hastily capitulated back to feelings of disquiet about Mika.

"I just wish she'd find someone nice, you know?" I said.

"She deserves someone nice," Rumer added. "You both do."

What did he mean by that?

Again, I wondered about what he believed was going on between the two of us. I felt straight off stupid. There I was, thinking about the beautiful subtleties of his perfect face, and he probably thought of me as nothing but a gigantic pain in the ass who deserved to be with someone nice – obviously someone other than him.

"Just someone who treats her like she's important," I blurted out, to deliberately stem the subconscious flow of worthlessness steadying between my ears. I was talking about Mika of course, but meant it equally about myself.

Rumer pressed on at a cracking pace. He was a great driver. During our driving lesson earlier in the day, he must have thought I was such a dope. I couldn't even take off without stalling. Damn third gear!

As we drew closer to the mountains – closer to home – I thought about death. Not a God! I wish I was dead! kind of reflection, but more about that night on the rail tracks. What would all the little worlds of which I was a part of, now be like?

For one, Mika would have to call someone else. The notion that my death could have resulted in her being alone when she needed a stretched out hand, played upon my mind. That night, it had never occurred to me that I was not just snuffing myself out, but wherever my insignificant life had encroached upon another, there would be some sort of impact. Some tiny and some, as in Mika's case, maybe much more profound. I wondered if maybe my being alive could, in some way, help Lexie, too.

But then, more distressing questions began to breach the crevices of my confused brain.

Was it really fair that I had to endure my pain for the sake of others?

Could they not replace me with someone else?

Was I really all that important?

And I found myself back at the beginning, adrift in a mire of self-pity and angst. It didn't take long before my doubt found its legs and metamorphosed into anger, as it had done so many times before. Damn you, mother!

I was about to seek refuge in letting my pain overwhelm me, when my cell phone rang again and yanked me away from the fury. I'd held the phone in my lap since the start of our rescue mission just in case Mika rang a second time.

As I clicked the answer button, I glimpsed outside and was shocked at how much time I had spent dazed with thoughts of self-loathing and destruction. We were much closer to the cinema multiplex than I ever could have imagined.

"Mika," I said loudly into the phone. "Are you okay?"

Her voice was a whisper. "There are people following me."

"What?" I said. "Speak up."

"There's a group of boys following me."

"What do you mean, they're following you?"

I felt myself ever-so-slightly be pushed deeper into the faux-leather of the passenger seat. Rumer had accelerated.

"How far away are you?" Mika asked.

I looked outside again to pinpoint a familiar landmark and had to stave off a second round of shock at my time-travelling departure from the here-and-now. "Probably fifteen minutes," I finally said, seeing familiar golden arches flash by on my left.

"Please hurry," she whispered, her voice contaminated with all sorts of worry.

"Mika," I said. "What's going on out there?"

She was silent for three seconds which felt more like twelve dog years, before she murmured, "I can't talk right now..."

"What?"

"They're behind—"

Faint sounds of high heels scrambling along concrete echoed from the phone and filled the thickening space between me and Rumer.

Again, I heard the Corolla's engine rev with magnified grunt. We were hotfooting it, faster than I had ever travelled in a car before.

I trusted Rumer to keep me safe.

I was a lot more frightened by the willies in Mika's voice. She never scared easily – too damn tough for her own good, most times. But, through the phone, she sounded genuinely afraid.

"Where are you?" her voice suddenly screeched in a high pitch, consumed by panic.

Rumer snatched the phone from my hand. It shocked me into immediate silence.

"Mika," he said. "It's Rumer. Remember me? Homeless guy with the pizza hands?"

My sister was crying now, I could still hear her conversation above the ever-increasing growl of the engine, but I heard a muted giggle between the tears.

"Yes," she said, feebly.

"Okay. I need you to tell me exactly where you are in the complex. Take a breath, Mika, and get the information right. Do not guess."

There was a moment of terrible quietness. My mouth was vaguely agape. My pupils fixed on the road out front of us and it sunk in just how fast we were moving.

Rumer had one hand on the steering wheel as the other secured my cell phone loosely to his left ear, just beneath his hat.

I felt bloody helpless.

Did he have to do everything?

I wanted to interrupt, but Rumer was so focused, I dared not break his determination. It wasn't as if he looked like he wasn't handling it and needed my help.

Mika finally answered. "I'm on the third floor of the car park."

"Which car park, Mika? As you come out of the cinema or the one adjacent to the shopping complex?"

He knew the place better than I did and I'd shopped there my entire life. Some help I would have been.

"The shopping center one," Mika said.

"Okay. Keep moving up. If you can, tell me about who you think is following you."

Mika's voice was a distorted mix of angst, of exhaustion and of tears. She mumbled, "They were watching me for ages when I was standing outside the..." She paused. "Hang on..."

Rumer did not pollute the line with unnecessary verbosity. He waited with steely patience. I was a nervous wreck. He sat quietly, anticipating Mika's quivering voice to return to him.

It sure didn't slow his driving any.

"Sorry," Mika said. "I was just looking where they are. They're on the level below me, but they're yelling stuff. They're yelling stuff about me. They're—"

Now Rumer did interrupt. "Mika. Take a breath. I need you to stay focused. You're going to be okay," he said. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?"

"Okay," she said very quietly, in a voice poisoned with doubt.

"Are you still heading up?" Rumer asked.

"Yes. I'm on the stairs to the top floor."

"Good. Keep going," Rumer said. "We're almost there."

We dashed off the freeway and I could see the blazing lights of the enormous shopping and entertainment complex in the not-too-far distance. God! We'd got there fast.

Rumer didn't slow his speed, despite the fact we were now off the smooth, open expanse of the freeway and were hurtling through much-narrower streets with lots more traffic.

Then, I heard a deafening scream. It was Mika. "Sara!" she howled down the phone.

"Where are you, Mika?" Rumer said sternly, but without relinquishing his self-control.

"I'm on the roof. They're right behind me. They're running up the stairs."

"Keep moving," Rumer said.

"There's nowhere left to go!" Mika screamed, frustrated. She yelled my name again.

"Mika," I shrieked. I wanted to grab the phone – yank it from Rumer's clutches and be closer to my sister's terrified voice – but then, shock struck me again.

Rumer threw the phone in my lap.

"Damn it all to hell," he mumbled under his breath.

As we screeched into the outer perimeter of the complex, Rumer slammed on the brakes. The car howled and vibrated. I nearly slammed my head into the windscreen, saved only by the absolute tautness of my seatbelt. In an instant, we were stationary.

What the hell was he doing?

"There's not enough time," Rumer said.

I was too dumbfounded to find any sort of volume in my vocal chords to protest, but thought stopping at that point was the worst of worst ideas.

Rumer grabbed my hand firmly. His eyes drilled into mine. "Sara. The car park entrance is straight ahead. There. You see it?" he said, pointing directly in front of is.

"Uh-huh..."

"Get behind the wheel and drive to the roof. Just follow the arrows. You can't miss it. Find Mika and drive her home!"

"But—"

He squeezed my hand. At any other time I would have yelped like a dog. It bloody hurt. Then he said, "Trust me!"

His eyes were solid, strong, trustworthy. Before I could respond, his door was wide open and he'd unlocked his belt. He glanced at me one last moment and, in a flash, was out of the car.

"Where are you going?" I yelled after him.

His voice was already faint when he replied, simply and only, "Mika."

I still couldn't comprehend what on earth was going on. I sat in a stupefied mini-breakdown for what felt like half a lifetime. Then, the adrenalin surged back through me like I'd been dosed with a defibrillator. I blinked wildly and images of Mika flashed all around my confused-as-all-hell brain.

"Right," I said to myself in a flustered, loud voice. "I can do this."

Flashbacks of my earlier thoughts about finding some sort of logic in my still being alive – like being there for Mika in her time of need – flooded back. I had better earn it, I thought.

I slid across and yanked the driver's side door shut, briefly searching the darkness beyond for any sign of Rumer. But I found none. I planted my hands at ten-to-two and checked my mirrors as I would have done in a driving lesson.

"Hang on, Mika," I said. "I'm on the way."

# Chapter 27

I released the clutch much more slowly than I needed to, but I was determined not to stall the engine. I would be so embarrassed. Not that I could see any living soul around me.

And where was Rumer?

Thoughts of Mika spurred me – and the car – forward. Despite my freaking out, less than a minute had evaporated since Rumer's departure. "Let's go, Sara," I said again, to myself. I was having a bit of an out-of-body experience.

The car bunny-hopped momentarily, but I found my rhythm just as I hit the ramp towards the first level. Mika was on the top level. Number five.

And she wasn't alone.

Brief thoughts about Lexie squeezed out of my cerebral sponge with bitter anxiety.

Was Mika in the same sort of danger?

But Mika had said a group of boys and no reports in the mountains had suggested the disappearances had anything to do with gangs or groups. The police favored a lone-nut hypothesis – as was more often the case with those sorts of ghastly things.

Mika was in all sorts of other problems.

"Come on," I urged myself on, again. The car park ramps circled like a corkscrew between each level. I wanted to go faster, but the constant pulling of the steering wheel to the right had me nervous.

It was quite a narrow ramp.

Concrete blocks lined the ascension, so there was no risk of driving off and into oblivion. But the idea of returning the car to Pastor Crosbie with wicked scrapes along the length of the vehicle made me ease my foot off the accelerator, ever-so-slightly.

I burst onto the straight section of level one. I was so proud. I'd never driven a car totally by myself before. Most of my friends had dabbled behind the wheel of an old ute on their family's acreages or even stacked the odd tractor or dirt bike.

Not me. This was my first.

I felt sweat crawl like an alien life form from my palms and down my forearms as I launched onto the ramp for level two.

I didn't want to release my grip from the 'ten-to-two' position I'd learnt on my first driving lesson. I also kept checking my mirrors like an imbecile.

No one was around. Not in front, not behind and definitely not to the sides because there was no room whatsoever. But I kept checking my mirrors anyway.

"Stop it, Sara!" I yelled at myself, but then looked directly into the driver's-side mirror to see the spiraling, cold concrete ramp vanish out of view, behind me.

Level two. Then, level three. Half a minute later, I was on level four. I drove faster and faster.

"Hang on, Mika," I yelled, like an out of control lunatic. "I'm coming!"

I was enjoying it all a bit too much. Then, I hit the ramp to level five – the roof. I would be up there in seconds and I suddenly fretted about what I may find. Mika had said – had screamed – that the group of boys had followed her to the roof. She was trapped with nowhere left to dash and nowhere left to hide.

"Get Mika and drive her home," Rumer had said, back on the ground level just before he disappeared. Get Mika.

I imagined in my buzzing head, screeching onto the roof level and finding Mika surrounded by a group of thugs.

But then what?

What did Rumer expect me to do?

Run them over, maybe?

I was no hero.

And I probably wouldn't screech onto the roof level either – not at twenty-five clicks as I neared the final turns on the corkscrew ramp.

What was Rumer thinking?

And where the bloody hell was he?

I felt suddenly angry. Deserted. Alone. Even with the car as protection, I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to take on a group of boys. A group. Me! I couldn't even take care of myself. If it wasn't for Mika, I may have thought about careening the vehicle right off the roof. Instead, I was expected to be some sort of savior in a four-wheeled chariot, rescuing my sister.

I had no confidence whatsoever.

Three more turns. My hands strangled the steering wheel even tighter. In that sense, I was glad Rumer wasn't there. The sweat poured like a waterfall, which probably meant I didn't smell real pretty.

Two turns. I thought I was getting dizzy, but it was the intoxication of anger, nerves and weakness.

"Come on, Sara," I said to myself, again. "Mika needs you."

One last turn. I instinctively eased my twitching right foot off the pedal.

Imagine if I ran her over, I suddenly thought.

I had no way of knowing where Mika was, no way of knowing where those boys were and no idea even if Mika was okay.

I held my breath, clenched my teeth and maybe even ejected a nervous, "Oohh!" from between my lips.

I burst onto the roof level.

It was more of a stunted hop, but I lurched forward as the car levelled out, headlights blazing across the cement car park with all the "Look out, boys! Here I am!" dazzle I needed.

But I saw nothing and I came to another abrupt stop.

Then, I angled my buzzing head and looked out the driver's-side window.

My eyes chilled to a dead freeze.

What the...?

At the most distant edge of the car park, I saw Mika besieged by a group of attackers, shielding her hands to her face. There were boys. Lots of them. I saw them clearly. But I saw something else as well. Mika was not standing alone at the epicenter of the commotion.

Curiosity forced my left hand onto the gearstick. Clutch in. Lever to the far-most left and up. Check Mirrors.

No!

"Just go!" I yelled to myself.

I jerked the steering wheel hard over to my right as I let out the clutch. The shafts of lights bursting from the headlights swiveled in the direction in which I turned, like the robotic eyes of a predator about to pinpoint its prey.

I pressed the accelerator more firmly. All the yelling at myself seemed to have injected some much needed confidence, at last.

As the light rays fell upon the pandemonium in the shortening distance, a large silhouette dashed to the concrete safety wall and was up and over it in a heartbeat – into the blackness beyond and absolutely out of sight.

Was it one of the boys escaping? I thought, briefly.

Directly in front of the safety barrier, ten, maybe fifteen, stocky boys lay stricken on the concrete. They writhed and tossed in agony on the solid ground.

They looked seriously messed up.

Each of the boys still moved, but as they struggled into a concentric circle, they looked beaten.

Standing in the middle of them was Mika with the most perplexed look I'd ever seen on her bony skull.

"Oh my God!" I said, more quietly than the insults I'd hurled at myself earlier.

As I drew closer, I beeped the horn with all the lunacy I'd mustered before. There was not a single car on the roof top other than mine as I headed directly for the carnage. I doubt Mika needed the sonic blasts to see me coming.

Focus Sara.

I pulled up just in time, almost hitting one of the boys with my front fender. I frantically wrenched the window open.

"Mika!" I yelled.

At first, she seemed dazed. Panic-stricken maybe. Or maybe she was simply deaf from all the racket I'd instigated on my approach.

But when I yelled her name a second time, her eye line connected with the car and she ran towards me faster than any weasel I'd ever seen.

She jumped over two boys, but looked away from them as she did so.

In a flash, she was at the passenger-side door, which she promptly yanked open. She bobbed her head down.

"Sara?" she said, more confused than relieved.

"Get in," I yelled.

"Sara," she said, again. "Oh my God!" The Baines girls had always been fans of the OMG! "What are you doing?" she added.

"Get in!" I yelled, more forcefully.

Finally, Mika arched her spiny back and fell into the passenger seat.

"Are you okay?" I asked, instinctively.

She looked white as milk – flushed of all reality. Her hands had a noticeable tremor and she could not stop her mouth from gaping.

"Oh my God!" she shrieked, again.

"Come on," I said. "Shut the bloody door."

Mika struggled to find her voice. "I... I can't..."

"I'm going to drive us home," I said.

Mika's eyes widened even further – quite an achievement for her at the best of times. She looked genuinely worried now.

"It's okay," I said. "I know what I'm doing." I was completely clueless.

A loud thud suddenly exploded in front of us. We both looked forward at precisely the same time. One of the boys stood directly before us, slamming his fist on the Corolla's bonnet. He didn't look real happy.

I thrust the gear stick into reverse, jumped on the accelerator and we bunny-hopped backwards like a demented rabbit. The boy instantly fell back to the ground. I wondered if, maybe, he'd been overcome by the shear embarrassment of my reversing rather than any laws of physics.

Mika finally found her voice. "Jesus. Sara!"

"Sorry," I said.

I shifted smoothly into first gear and ploughed my foot onto the accelerator. We lurched forward and, within a few short breaths, we were on our way, spiraling back down from the roof. To the fourth floor. The third...

"What just happened?" Mika asked.

She looked utterly bewildered.

"And where is your friend?"

# Chapter 28

"What are you doing?" Mika finally shrieked, as I pulled the car to a stop and wildly flung my door open on the ground level of the car park.

She had been deadly silent as we spiraled from the roof, and each level in between, at a hectic thirty clicks. I even managed to squeal the tires turning onto the ramp for the second floor. I was so proud of myself.

"I have to put my L plates on."

"What?"

I repeated my intention, but realized her dispute was probably more rhetorical. It didn't stop me from moronically adding, "I don't want to get into trouble."

I was happy to harbor escaped fugitives and crash trains into oblivion, but I wasn't driving without my learner plates.

In a jiffy, I was back behind the wheel and showing off my newfound confidence as an ace motorist. "Get to Mika and drive her home," Rumer had instructed.

Rumer. I wanted to smack my head into the driver's-side window to murder the voice screeching inside my head.

Was that him on the roof?

It had to be.

How did he get up five levels in less than a minute?

Impossible.

Where was he now?

In between my crazy, buzzing brain box and hammed-up concentration on the road ahead, I glanced curiously at Mika, convinced a plethora of questions must have been burning inside her skull like wildfire. It didn't take long for her to find her voice.

"Whose car is this anyway?" she began.

"Pastor Crosbie," I said.

"Who?"

It dawned on me that Pastor Crosbie, the church, the prison escape – everything that defined Rumer's world – may as well have been an alien planet as far as Mika was concerned.

"Pastor?" she said. "You're not in some weird religious cult are you?"

"No," I said, sharply.

"Because I'll burn them all straight to hell, Sare."

"I didn't think you believed in hell?"

"Don't you worry, mate. I'll create my own and burn the—"

"I'm not in a cult," I cut in. "Pastor Crosbie is Rumer's..." I had no idea what to say. "...flat mate!"

Flat mate?

Despite the absurdity of my commentary, it provided Mika with the perfect segue for the question she really wanted to ask. Her locution was carefully restrained, pausing in between each word as if a thousand other questions tumbled through her mind in the lulls.

"What happened to him?" she asked.

I had no idea how to answer her.

She continued, "I mean, I was talking to him on the phone when you guys were on the way, but... What? Did he stop for a drink and decide he wasn't going any further?"

"Yeah, right..." I said with no conviction, whatsoever.

"Well, Sare. It's all a bit strange, don't you think?"

I did!

I scrambled for an answer that made any sense, but found none. Fortunately, Mika wouldn't shut up, which suited me just fine, because I needed more time to think of something that didn't make it sound like I really was in a cult.

"For a moment," Mika continued, "I thought it was him up there with me, but that wouldn't be possible, right? You guys weren't that close."

I remained dead quiet.

"Sara?" Mika said. "Impossible, right?"

I waited way too long to answer. "Yes. Right!" I finally shouted, overcompensating for my guilt – and my own confusion.

"Impossible," I added.

In my baking head it was that night and the train tracks all over again.

Impossible.

We turned onto the freeway with all the bluster of someone being behind the wheel who thought they were a much more experienced driver than they really were. But there was no denying I'd improved. I sneaked in a proud smile as I depressed the accelerator until the red-lit dashboard indicator marked eighty – my L plate limit.

I could never picture myself being a rev-head, but going faster and faster was addictive. My freeway fun would last only a handful of minutes, though, before the road narrowed again, slowed and started winding its way up the mountains. We'd be home in thirty minutes. Rumer's assignment complete.

Clarity still evaded me about what happened and so I reverted to my routine strategy for dealing with it.

I quickly changed the subject.

"What do you think is going to happen with mom and dad?" I said.

Mika struggled to hide her anger towards mom. Mika was not one to show her emotions often, but the strain on her face about where our future headed was obvious.

She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. It was not a subject she got a thrill out of.

For over three months, we'd been each other's only champion – her more to me, than I'd been to her. With dad more disconnected from reality than Leura's fabled and illusive Gingerbread House, mom in unmitigated denial and none of our friends aware of mom's treachery, Mika and I had found solace in knowing we'd always be there for each other, no matter how hellish it became or how much it hurt.

But talking about it had not been part of our process.

"Do you think they'll get a divorce?" I asked, consciously knowing Mika wouldn't want to join in. "Sell the house, maybe?"

"Do we have to talk about this?" she said.

"Yes," I said, softly. "Aren't you worried about what's going to happen?"

She gave me little more than a muted snarl.

I continued, "We'll be one of those families where we do Christmas Eve with mom and Christmas Day with dad," I said.

"If it comes to that," Mika finally connected, "there'll be no Christmas Eve with mom, I'm telling you. No anything with mom."

It was my turn to struggle for the best words. "What if dad moved out and... she... moved in?" I said.

They weren't the best words.

"Are you freakin' serious?" she yelled. "Why would you even say that?"

"I'm just... It might happen, Mik."

"I'll kill them both before that happens," Mika said.

"That's not funny," I said, firmly. I couldn't tell her why her threat – even if it was half in jest – affected me so.

"I killed someone," Rumer had so forthrightly told me at the forest clearing. He was now fleeing from the law, indelibly scarred and divided from his family. Taking Helen's life, or mom's, was not something I wanted Mika to joke about. I hated Helen with as much venom as Mika did, but I didn't believe I could ever engineer enough loathing to actually want her to burn in hell.

Streaks of rain began lashing the windscreen, diffusing the headlights from oncoming cars into dazzling stars. I flicked the lever behind the right-side of the steering wheel, but set my right indicator to blink instead of the windscreen wipers to on. Those controls were apparently the other way around in mom's car.

"Oops!" I said, as I quickly rectified my folly.

"Are you okay to keep driving?" Mika asked. "I mean, dark and rain, Sare."

I sucked up the smidgen of sarcasm which touched Mika's attempt at genuine concern and I reveled in my driving artistry. "I'm good," I said, a tad too confidently. "I've been trained well by..."

I stopped. I didn't really know why.

Guilt?

Embarrassment?

Giddiness?

I had an irresistible urge to talk about Rumer. Even just thinking about saying his name made me inexplicable warm inside. Get a grip! I had to quickly convince myself.

"By?" Mika asked with all seriousness, but I was without doubt that she already knew the answer. Her fangs protruding from behind a narrow smirk gave her game away.

So I kept silent.

"Tell me what's going on with that, Sare?" Mika said. Her eyes narrowed like a snake, threatening to explode if I said nothing.

At that moment, I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted Mika to know the first time my eyes fell on Rumer that night as he stood in the shadows with carnage surging all around us. How he had returned nanna's cross. And how he had somehow animated my curiosity to search for him in the night.

The other stuff, too. How he was wanted by the authorities and how he – we – had been chased and almost been captured by that despicable detective. How I had openly condemned the deception and danger, but secretly overdosed on its exhilaration.

I wanted Mika to know how I sought him out in Pastor Crosbie's church and how he'd held me close. How I'd felt the muscles in his arms wrap around me like a winter skin as his chest pressed against mine, drowning me sensationally into a fantasy world from which I never wanted to return. The softness of his hands on mine as he wound bandages around the hideous burn marks on my forearms, bewitching the blue devils in my head to accept there was still fight left in me – that he would fight for me. That he believed there was something still worth fighting for, no matter what the cost. The way I wanted to...

"Oh my God!" Mika yelled, interrupting my silent, dreamy thoughts. "You're in love with him."

"What? No!" I said. "No way."

"Yes you are. I can see it on your face. You're in love with grandpa."

"Don't call him... I'm not in love with him," I reiterated, defensively.

In love with him. Just hearing those words made me feel gooey all over, like sweet syrup. "I'm not in love with him," I said, again.

"It's all right, mate. You're allowed to be."

I didn't feed on her cynical offering.

She continued, "He's hot. A little older than I'd expect you'd go for, but, what the hell. Who cares, right?"

"Don't call him grandpa."

"Does he know?" Mika said.

"Does he know what?"

"How you feel, dummy?"

"Oh," I said, simply, unable and unwilling to find a voice for my sugary musings. Mika's conclusions forced me to probe the thumping muscle inside my chest – the one that walloped faster each time I heard his name, or felt his skin touching mine, or remembered his calmness at times when I was without courage. I hungered for more of those moments – with Rumer.

Was that love?

I really wanted it to be.

I shoved inconvenient conundrums into that part of my brain called denial – a skill I learnt from my mother. It seemed much more romantic to think about my knock-back of those issues as being forged from some deep-seeded, besotted morality rather than simply and only from sheer stupidity. I wanted to believe in Rumer.

I just wanted to be in love.

"We're just friends," I said, sounding pathetically like a broken cliché.

"At least you have someone," Mika said, tersely. She dropped her head and clasped her hands together to hold in her loneliness.

"What happened with Tim?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders with prickly abandon. "Nothing," she said. "I don't want to talk about it." She drew in a deep breath. "I hate him."

Her voice was strained, undoubtedly from a shattered heart. I remembered the joy in her smile when she had first told me about Tim at Norman Lindsay's Café.

She just wanted to be in love as well.

"Did he at least call you?" I asked.

"I don't want to talk about it, Sare. I'm glad, in a way. It wasn't going to work between us anyway. He was much too..."

She hesitated, exploring a range of possibilities with which to convince herself that Tim wasn't the right guy. No answer ever came. Maybe she really did believe Tim could have been someone exceptional.

"I'm just over boys, mate," she said belatedly, but without belief. "Looks like we both had blokes who deserted us tonight."

But I wasn't so sure about that. Rumer had left with a purpose – some grandiose scheme that I needed to unearth more about if I was to retain any level of saneness. And, even though he was not physically with us at that moment, my gut feeling was screaming that somehow he had orchestrated Mika's successful extraction.

The questions which had plagued me on the freeway resurfaced as we drew closer to home. They began itching in the tiny space between my brain and skull. I needed some answers – something to quell the incessant slashing of the word impossible in my eyeballs.

"What happened up there, Mik?" I finally had to ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Up on the roof. With those boys? And... you know."

She shrugged her shoulders again, but then realized engaging with me was an easy way out of her loneliness. She said, "I got there real early and I waited inside at the cinema for him for ages, but then thought maybe he couldn't see me, so I moved out front. I must have looked like such a loser standing there, by myself. I kept checking my watch, pretending everything was okay and he would show up in a bit."

As she drew breath, I felt sorry for her. There was genuine hurt in her words.

No matter how thorny her approach or how irksome her relationship with people, she didn't deserve to be tormented with such sadness.

She continued, "I spotted them the moment I walked outside. About ten guys. Big guys. Looked like foreigners, but then, everyone looks like a foreigner to me."

"Oh, Mika," I interjected.

"Seriously, dude. These guys were... anyway, they were bullying a group of girls just a way from the cinema. You know, taunting them, making fun of them and stuff. It made me so angry. Of course, I wasn't feeling exactly chirpy already with T... — that bastard not showing up. So I stared in their direction like I was going to eat them alive or something and I yelled, 'Leave them alone!'"

"You did what?"

"They were pissing me off and those girls weren't going to say anything. The girls looked about twelve years old. Why they weren't home, I'll never know. Stupid, bloody girls. All done up and stuff like they're something they were clearly not."

"I can't believe you said something," I yelled. Guiding me was a strange mix of crossness and jealousy. I was angry at those boys for being such jerks and I was even angrier at Mika for yelling at them. At the same time, I envied her courage to stand and fight.

She had done the same with mom. I always ran from that confrontation – to the point of wanting to escape it permanently. It irritated me that I lacked her bravery, even if it was ill-judged.

"Their attention then shifted to me," Mika said.

No kidding!

"I started moving away, pretending it was all part of my thing. I didn't want them to think it was because I was scared. And it was fine, at first. They turned to throwing pickles from the hamburgers they were scoffing at passing motorists. But then, about fifteen minutes later, they must have got bored."

"Fifteen minutes? Why didn't you leave?"

"I don't know. I didn't think it was going to be a problem."

"You didn't think yelling at a group of strange boys was going to be a problem?"

"I was angry, all right," Mika screeched. "Give me a break."

She wasn't one to cry. I'd only ever seen it twice in my seventeen years, but I felt her frustration simmer and well in her eyes. I'd pushed a little too hard and felt guilty again. "I'm sorry," I said.

Her way of dealing with it when she found herself besieged by dejection was always to simply ignore me. And she did, again. She just kept on with her story.

"They started yelling stuff at me, so I walked in the opposite direction. That's when I rang you back. They started following me and making all these gestures with their hands."

"Is that when you went to the car park?"

"Yeah. I didn't pick that out intentionally or anything. I just found myself at the stairs on the ground floor and kept going. Pretty stupid, huh?"

I smiled empathetically. "I'm sure I would have done the same."

"I hoped they would keep walking, and I could wait a bit and make my way back to the train station to get home. But they didn't walk past. They started up the stairs instead, still carrying on, calling me a bitch and the like. I knew I was in trouble. If not for your mate talking me through it..."

"Rumer..." I said.

"Yeah, sorry. Rumer."

I liked hearing it.

Mika continued, "I was pretty scared and so I didn't know what to do. I just followed Rumer's instructions."

"But then you got to the roof." I said.

"And Rumer's voice disappeared after that, just as it started getting really serious. Those boys started saying real sick stuff. And like they meant it, too. I could hear it all the way up the stairs.

The roof was really dark and all I could feel was this super-strong wind. It was strange. On the ground, I'd felt nothing, but up there, five levels high, it was like I'd walked into a bloody tornado.

I didn't know where to go, so I thought the best thing that I could do was to get as far away from the stairs as possible. I ran across the concrete to the furthest point of the car park to a small pool of light. When I turned around, all I saw was this swarm of black shapes rushing towards me through the darkness.

I looked around, but there was nowhere at all that I could go. I was totally screwed. Maybe, if I'd run into the darkness, it would have been better. I don't know. I just froze. They came closer and closer and I suddenly saw their faces. They were like animals, Sare."

"I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants," I said. "I definitely would have."

"I could see all of them, Sare. Their faces were wild. In the faint light, the whites of their eyes looked as if they glowed. It was crazy. They all stopped just short of me, in a circle. Then, one of them stepped forward, real aggressive like, and said, 'Nothing to say now, bitch?' I'll never forget that voice. He growled more than he spoke. He sized me up like a lion, ready to pounce.

I don't remember if I said anything back. Even though I was standing in the light, everything else around was completely black. I could no longer feel the wind or hear any other voices. I couldn't smell anything. It was like my whole body just shut down. All I could think about was what they were going to do to me. Hit me. Stomp on me. Rape me. I don't know. Maybe, even kill me. They could have done anything. There was no one else around and one of me and at least ten of them. It actually looked like there were more up on the roof than I'd seen earlier."

Mika paused. It wasn't until her retelling that it looked as if it all started to hit her, how precarious the situation had been.

"My stare connected with the guy in the front and it was like something snapped in him, at that instant. Something in his face changed. Like he just summonsed the gorilla inside or something. He stopped being a boy at that moment and became all animal.

It all felt like slow-motion, then.

He lunged at me. I threw my arms up to protect my face, closed my eyes and waited for the impact. I figured I'd be smashed to the ground and so I grabbed the back of my head. He was so much bigger than I was. I knew it was going to hurt.

But then, there was this noise. And I didn't get slammed. Sounds came back into my ears. It was the boys. They were yelling. Angry. Agitated. Picking a fight. But not with me.

Something brushed up against me and then, I heard a big thud. I got bumped a bit and I heard all this thumping and smacking. I sensed there was chaos all around me, but I couldn't see a damn thing and I couldn't work out why.

Then, I realized I still had my eyes closed.

When I opened them, four of the boys were on the ground in front of me, with their hands up to their faces, writhing in pain. There was this flash of blackness which swung me around again.

It dawned on me that I was not alone. Someone was up there with me and they were kicking the crap out of those buggers. Some of them still tried to get to me, but each time one got close, there was a blur of something in and out of the shadows who'd pull the attacker away from me and back into the darkness. Then, all I heard was thumping sounds, followed by squirming and cursing."

"Did you see who it was?"

"Not really. It all happened so quickly. Too quick. And each time a boy charged for me, I'd automatically turn away and then, Wham! Bam! and he was gone. At one point, I even thought I was dead and I must have been imagining it all.

But then, I saw headlights. A car. You.

I no longer saw the man or whoever it was, but I could sure hear those blokes on the ground. They'd been taken care of, real good. The next thing I remember – but didn't want to believe – was you calling my name."

"But you have no idea who it was?" I asked, again.

"No, Sare! I thought it was a man in dark clothing who was real quick. Impossibly quick. But now I don't even know if it was human. I just don't know. It was kinda intense up there."

"Okay," I snapped back.

"Like I said, I thought it may have been your guy, but how is that possible?"

I didn't answer Mika or say anything after that and we drove in silence for ages, until we were home.

I simply didn't have an answer.

Distracted by my thoughts, I routinely pulled into the driveway, my mission finally accomplished. It was just after ten o'clock and I was dead tired.

Then, Mika's voice screeched with hatred. She struck her bony arm forward and pointed out ahead of us, down the driveway.

"What the hell is that?"

# Chapter 29

"I'm going to kill her," Mika howled. "I'm going to kill both of them."

I let Pastor Crosbie's car roll down the steep gradient of our driveway, with my foot gently tapping the brake pedal to control our descent into hell.

At the base of the slope, parked beside mom's car, was an all-too-familiar four wheel drive – Doctor Helen Wexler.

Mika's fury multiplied with uncontrollable ferocity. Her face literary blazed a crimson-red. "She's dead," Mika said, before repeating it a second time and then, a third.

At first, I wanted to try and calm Mika down, but I changed my mind. She had every reason to be mad. As did I. Mom had overstepped a line. Burnt the crap out of it! How dare she have Helen in our home at this time of night.

Helen's four wheel drive being parked in dad's car spot was also not lost on Mika. Dad was obviously at work – a late shift. The idea that mom perpetrated her tryst deliberately behind dad's back, only fed Mika's fire.

She swung the passenger door open before I was anywhere near parked.

"Mika!" I yelled after her, but no feeble words of mine were going to stop her charge. She was off through the darkness towards the back door, propelled by an undisputed hatred. I harbored genuine fear about what Mika might do.

Two weeks after I had discovered mom's secret, an argument between mom and Mika had escalated to a craziness I struggled to handle. Mom was still denying she had done anything wrong, justifying her choices by sitting me and Mika down and saying to us, "You don't know what it's like to live in an unhappy marriage for thirty years. Ron is a very difficult man to live with."

In one breath, mom had managed to tell us that she'd been unhappy for three decades and that it was all dad's fault. No doing of her own, whatsoever.

Mika's rage peaked. She screamed so loud, neither mom nor I could understand a word. It was just an explosion of noise aimed at mom.

Mika jumped to her feet, eyes wide and filled to the brim with wrath. Her bony arms floundered savagely through the air. After her first volley of unintelligible verbal poison, Mika pegged it down a notch – a very small notch. "How dare you!" she screamed. "If you weren't happy thirty years ago, why did you bother having us?"

Mom actually had an answer, but Mika barely gave her enough time to breathe, before she screamed again. "I can't believe you're blaming dad for this. You're the one running around like some freaking school girl chasing after that... You're fifty years old! You're supposed to be a mother to Sara... and you're killing her instead."

Mika had not meant her accusation literally. She could never have known that three months later I came within a whisker of it being so.

Mom instantly tired of Mika's vitriol. She was having none of it. Mom rose to her feet as quickly as the insults kept pouring from Mika's mouth.

Mika only took mom's surge up as the ultimate show of defiance.

Like a cherry-blossom in the crippling midday sun, I shriveled into the back of the lounge chair on which I was planted. I had wished it devour me altogether but, without choice, I remained an unwilling witness to the storm of words.

Mom and Mika's verbal assault rapidly disintegrated into nothing but noise as they danced their vile tango. In mom's eagerness to disengage, she inadvertently backed herself against the wall beside the pantry. Without realizing, she suddenly found her shoulders pinned against the timber by Mika's unending barrage.

Then, mom misspoke. Badly!

"You're just as bad as your father," she yelled.

Mika let up for a split-second.

Words were no longer enough.

She slammed her fist into the wall just inches from mom's face. Mika grunted with disdain, evaluating whether or not to swing a second time. Her resolve could have gone either way.

Mom gasped, but found no words with which to retaliate.

No words fit.

Mika flashed her fangs at mom, hissed and scrambled for her bedroom. Her fury still blazing, she slammed the door so hard the living room walls vibrated. "I hate you!" her muffled voice screamed from her bedroom. "I wish you were dead."

From that moment on, I would retreat to my bedroom at the first sign of any impending argument between Mika and her new arch-enemy.

Mika had not punched the wall – or anything or anybody – since, but I knew it wouldn't take heaps to unearth that restless leviathan of rage a second time.

And I was certain that Helen would hit back.

I slammed the car door shut and stood motionless, spellbound by the calmness of the dark-blue night. Soft raindrops blanketed me from above and chilled my urgency to a snail's pace. I wanted to stay there forever.

I simply didn't want to go inside.

I moved away from the car and reluctantly dragged my feet to the backdoor. I wrestled endlessly in my mind with what I would come across inside.

A screaming circus?

Helen and mom looking guilty in a compromising pose?

Mika gone ballistic – axe in hand?

The heaviness of my dread slowed me, but as I forced my first stride onto the rear decking, there was no mistaking the sound punctuating my ear drums.

It was Mika. And she was screaming.

When I got to the backdoor, I wished so much that I'd run in the opposite direction. The sliding door was wide open – the pandemonium escaping into the night air for all the neighbors to hear. Mika had her back towards me. Her arms flailed like the determined limbs of an octopus as she conducted the discharge of her rage.

Sitting haplessly on the couch before her, wide-eyed and paralyzed by powerlessness, was mom. She already looked defeated. Her hands – palms open – begged Mika for a clemency that would never come.

Not that night!

Between mom and Mika, the stocky, six-foot figure of Helen Wexler stood firm like a giant. Her left foot was poised in front of the right and she looked ready to pounce on her prey, like she was a lioness and Mika was nothing more than a tiny hyena that needed to be devoured.

Mika glanced over her left shoulder for a single heartbeat to acknowledge my presence. Her eyes locked with mine for that moment and it felt as if she sucked all the energy out of my brain to renew her assault. Mom and Helen barely drew their attention away from Mika to look at me. I clearly wasn't important enough.

"This has nothing to do with you, Mikayla," Helen screeched.

"Don't talk to me!" Mika yelled back, refusing to look at the imposing barrier poised between her and mom.

Mika angled her body to make eye contact with mom, before she spoke again. "Mom, tell her not to talk to me."

But mom never stood a chance.

Helen eased forward. "This is a decision your mom is making and you have to accept it."

While I couldn't physically see Mika's eyes, I sensed they were about ready to pop. "Mom!" she screamed, in the loudest, most guttural tone I'd ever heard from her.

Mom finally found a voice. A very weak voice. "Mikayla—"

"You don't have to make excuses," Helen cut in.

Mika stepped forward and finally drilled her eyes into Helen's skull. "Get out of my house! Now!"

"Mikayla," mom's soft voice pleaded, a second time.

"I'm not going anywhere," Helen said.

"Wanna bet?"

"This is your mom's house and—"

"It's dad's house!" Mika screamed out of her lungs, as she completely lost the plot. She began yelling random noise.

She was unhinged. Mika took three gigantic steps to the coffee table between Mom and Helen, forced her octopus arms forward and onto the magazines and other papers covering it and sent them flying into the air. "Get out of my house," she screamed. "Mom, tell her to leave."

But mom said nothing. She began to bawl her eyes out and she helplessly threw her hands to her face.

Mika turned in my direction. "Sare. Call the police. I want this freak out of my house."

I was in some weird, bizarro-world, unable to process what was happening. My entire body shivered and ached from the chaos. I felt my eyes fill with tears but had lost all sense of feeling in my skin, so I had no idea if those tears were actually flooding down my face. I clasped firmly onto the wooden house frame – I had not yet moved an inch inside. My stare was resolutely focused on Mika as she repeated her instructions.

But I had one of those moments I'd seen in the movies where everything crawled to a snail's pace and all voices were slow, deep and distorted. I couldn't understand a word Mika had said.

And I sure as hell wasn't moving.

Then, Mika rushed forward and my clasp on reality snapped back. "Fine," she snarled. "I'll do it myself."

Helen took two steps to the right and blocked Mika's path to the house phone.

"Mom. Do something!" Mika pleaded, again.

But mom was mentally ruined. She sat on the couch pathetically swaying from side to side, with her head still buried in her face. Her waling was embarrassing.

Helen had no such problems, but underneath the tough exterior, I thought I noticed a boiling frustration. I had no idea what she was capable.

"You're a spoiled brat who's had it all her own way for too long," Helen said to Mika. "Now your mom's going to do what makes her happy."

She looked happy, I thought, sarcastically.

Helen forcefully continued, "There isn't going to be anyone calling anyone else. You're just going to have to get over it." She then swiveled her gigantic feet in my direction. "That goes for both of you!"

It gave Mika just enough opportunity to step around the coffee table and encroach upon mom. Mika struck out an arm like a cobra and snapped her slender fingers around mom's right wrist. She yanked mom's arm away from her face – a face suddenly brimming with shock and surprise.

Helen scurried to the aid of her lover, but Mika thwarted her plan.

She heaved mom off the couch!

In an instant, mom lay stricken on her knees between Mika and an incensed Helen who tried to reach across to free mom from Mika's grasp.

But Mika was never going to let go. She had mom – and Helen – in exactly the right spot. "You have to choose, mom," Mika howled. "It's either her or your daughters."

Helen, still stranded and foolishly bent over trying to reach Mika, interjected with as firm a voice as she'd hollered all night. "You don't have to choose anything, darling," she said.

I expected Mika to lose the plot a second time at hearing Helen's inappropriate affections towards mom, but she remained unbroken in her ultimatum.

Mom found no strength to get to her feet – or to move at all. She carried on being helplessly crouched down on her knees. Her head was pressed to the wooden floorboards.

It was all quite pathetic.

"What's it going to be, mom? You choose. Now! This... or Sara and me?"

"Mikayla, please," mom shrieked, pitifully.

"It's one or the other."

"I'll take care of this, sweetheart," Helen finally said, at the end of her failed plan A to free mom. She retracted her bulky mass and rose like a giant into an upright position. Her plan B was to rush around the coffee table and simply yank Mika away.

Helen's first stride screamed, 'I'm coming for you, Mikayla!'

I wanted to do something. Anything.

I needed to help Mika.

But I was disabled by my inability to deal with the situation. The confidence drained from me like blood from a shark attack victim. The blue devils began biting from within. Their teeth were sharpened by the bedlam searing the back of my eyeballs.

At last, I felt the tears streaming, and they took any remaining strength of mine with them. I was as woeful as mom, I thought. And that gnawed at me more than anything.

Mika's grip on mom's wrist stiffened as Helen navigated a determined path closer. "You choose," Mika howled at the top of her voice, one last time.

"Please, Mikayla," mom begged.

Helen was three steps from mom's reach. It was now or never.

Surely, it wasn't a difficult choice, I thought.

But I could not have been more wrong.

"Don't ask me to make that choice," mom said. "I won't be forced into choosing."

The way I saw it, mom's choice was between a woman fulfilling some weird, child-like, lustful desire or her own two daughters. That was it. But by mom cowardly not choosing, mom automatically chose Helen... over her own two daughters.

I saw Mika try to quell the shock overpowering her rage. She hated mom – we both did – but she was mom. Mika was under no illusion that she could be a cow, especially towards mom. But to hear mom not choose her girls because of some other infiltrator, was life-changing, even for Mika.

I saw her fighting hard to hold back a rare volley of tears, but Mika would rather have died than show mom that her despicable decision – her indecision – had penetrated her pride. Mika was hurting more than I'd seen in a long time. Maybe ever.

I wanted to run to Mika at that moment, but Helen's boisterous voice shot a torrent of aggression in Mika's direction and stopped me dead. "Right!" Helen yelled, as she reached out to sink a firm grasp on Mika. "It's time you let go."

Mika instantly transposed back from her momentary lapse of reason, and her rage surged into gear.

She jumped in a flash to her right, just beyond the grasp of Helen's outstretched clutches. She then yanked mom's arm to waist height, turning it on a shockingly awkward angle as she did so.

Mom yelped like a wounded animal.

"You touch me and I swear I'll break her freakin' arm!" Mika shrieked at Helen. Mika gave mom's wrist an extra little tug to make sure Helen knew she wasn't joking.

She definitely wasn't joking.

It shocked me that I had no interest in stopping Mika from ripping mom's arm to pieces. I didn't even protest. I felt nothing for mom at that point. I felt nothing for anyone – except myself. All the yelling, the aggression, the hate. All had gored me and I felt myself faltering and falling away from the real world. My vision began to snap in and out of blurriness and the voices inside the house melted together into a mosaic of resonances.

Helen had not struck a second assault on Mika, but she remained braced to strike at a whim.

Mom cried out again. "Mikayla, you're hurting me."

"Tell her to leave!" Mika raged.

"Mikayla."

"Now!"

Helen's eyes narrowed. She looked ready to set Mika on fire and simply let her burn.

Mom could not bring herself to ask Helen to leave. She would rather have had Mika snap her arm in two.

Realizing there was no other option, Helen withdrew her attack. She faltered briefly, testing Mika's resolve one last time.

But Mika didn't flinch.

"Fine. Whatever," Helen said. "I'll call you tomorrow, darling." She walked to the kitchen bench and grabbed her handbag as if nothing had happened.

Helen turned in my direction to leave and I saw the strangest look in her eyes – visible even in my blurry vision. It was as if she was possessed by a heinous spirit, scratching beneath the skin, ready to unleash hell. I could have sworn that her eyes glazed over red for a single heartbeat, but I realized it had to be my visual shortcomings. It had to be.

I lurched out sideways to make room in the doorway for Helen to leave. She strode toward me with such gusto, I nearly fell over from fright. Within arm's reach of me, she hesitated, glared sharply in my direction and then, hustled onto the deck and into the darkness beyond.

I caught a last glimpse of her as she escaped the glow of deck lights and I thought I could at last calm down.

But my nightmare had only just begun. No longer supported by the doorframe, I now waivered in the damp, night air and my weakness suddenly struck me senseless. My emotions exploded inside and out. I hated everything and everybody. I hated me most of all for doing nothing – for not helping Mika.

I vaguely saw her release her grip on mom, but the fog that enveloped me took hold quicker than I expected. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to scream. I wanted to feed on my own pain.

I needed to run!

Everything came surging back with the force of a suicidal tornado. I hungered for its absolution. Devils had been screaming at each other inside the house. Now, they were inside my head.

In between blurry visions of Mika walking towards me and mom sitting hopelessly on her knees, images of trains, lighters and a cliff face splashed across my eyeballs.

"Are you okay?" I heard Mika's voice ask, in muddled slow-motion.

I shook my head. No!

Definitely not.

I needed to get as far away from the house as possible. My eyes sprang open as adrenalin shot through me like a bolt of angry lightning. I blinked.

When I opened my eyes again, I was already running. Mika yelled my name, but her voice was already behind me in the distance. And I did not stop running.

I knew exactly where I was going.

# Chapter 30

Echo Point was the country's most-visited lookout and the starting spot for many visitors to the mountains. It was also the place to view the region's most recognizable feature: the Three Sisters rock formation. To see the Three Sisters was to bear witness to one stage in the long and complex geological process that produced the mountains landscape. Like their cousin formations, Ruined Castle and Mount Solitary, which lay beyond in the Jamison Valley, the 'Sisters' were once part of a giant plateau that covered the area.

Dripping water then weakened the plateau's vertical joints causing spectacular rock falls and the gradual retreat of the escarpment line. During the retreat, various parts of the plateau were left behind and, over time, the elements carved out spectacular shapes in the rocks – three colossal pillars rising out from the valley below. Each massive, stand-alone pillar embodied its own characteristics, its own shape and its own spirit.

'Sister One', known as Meehni, was the pillar closest to the escarpment. A gap no wider than three car-lengths separated the outcropping from the cliff, but the breach dropped an ungodly 3,000 feet to the bottom of the ravine from which there would be no return.

Spanning the mind-boggling plunge was a tiny, steel bridge – two feet wide. It lead from the terrifying escarpment edge, across the divide to a hollowed ledge on Sister One. The void was barely deep enough for the sitting-bench that sat there, bolted into the rock, waiting for any visitor to experience one of the scariest tourist places on earth. The metal walkway, the last footing before a terminal plunge into unending hell, boasted an affectionate moniker... Honeymoon Bridge.

And it was there that I stood.

Tired. Sopping wet. And very alone. I couldn't call to mind how I'd managed to cover the three miles between home and Echo Point, but I imagined it must have involved running like a lunatic, because my feet hurt like hell.

Not that I cared about that anymore.

As I stood on the narrow, metal bridge in the darkness, with my hands firmly glued to the railing to countervail the strengthening breeze, my mind was fractured and foundering. The pain in my feet was incomparable to the hurt in my soul.

I had never felt so alone. Lost. Worse even than that fateful night on the train tracks. Then, at least, I had a plan. A macabre plan. But standing on the cold, lifeless bridge traversing the unfathomable blackness beneath, I was simply wrecked, hopeless and beyond remedy.

How could mom do this to me? I thought.

Of course, I was doing it more to myself, but I wasn't willing to entertain any of those self-analytical shenanigans.

Stifled by the increasing downpour and the cold and the languor in my legs, I closed my eyes and whispered memories into the moist air to try and keep warm.

I recounted mom teaching me about yoga. She insisted – correctly – that the stretching would make my gymnastics classes a cinch. And when there was no way I was ever going to agree to our dentist fitting braces on my teeth when I was fourteen, mom sat me down on the edge of her bed and, with the most generous empathy, explained that it would all be worth it, no matter how much the boys teased me at school. When the metal came off the night before my sixteenth birthday, mom had been spot on.

Beautiful white teeth still hadn't helped me with any boys, though.

But it was always mom's dependability that soothed my troubles. It had been easier for Mika to cope with mom's treason because she had always sought refuge in dad's bizarre ways.

I needed mom.

To witness her, twenty minutes earlier, unable to confess that she needed me too, was uncontrollably heart-shattering. Unbearable. Incomprehensible.

As the wind picked up again and abducted my whispers in its entrails, I realized that all hope of my relationship with mom ever being the way it was, had been lost.

The blue devils laughed and cheered!

And I no longer wanted to fight them.

With both hands clenched on the freezing-cold railing, I peered over the edge into the blackness below. An insane resolve possessed me. I would give my life to the screaming little, blue-bastards there and then.

I sucked in a gulp of air as if I'd been holding my breath for the last three months.

On my first attempt at suicide on the railway line, I had felt an inexplicable calmness. I had been prepared to die. Now, I felt afraid, nervous and tentative.

But no less determined.

I touched my tongue to my lips and licked the cool, fresh rainwater from them. It was tainted by the saltiness from my tears and sweat. Even something as simple as water had lost its purity.

Leaning forward one more time, I tried to focus my sight on the first point of contact with the rock-hard ground. It was way too dark and far too distant for me to see. Lighter shades of deep blue were evidence of the trees and growth lining the valley floor, but I was confident that, by the time I hit those, my momentum would be sufficient to plunge me through the foliage and slam me into the rock below.

I didn't care much for the idea of being skewered by a tree branch, but it was a risk I'd have to suck up and deal with.

Perhaps, a tortured death would be a greater punishment for mom to have to cope with and the thought of it affecting her, forced a thin smile to my cold lips.

Maybe, I had become the monster, I thought.

I leaned back one last time and closed my eyes. I couldn't stop crying, consumed by fear, betrayal and desolation. It struck me as odd that trying to kill yourself was much harder the second time around. I was without doubt that it would be the other way around.

Clearly, my suicide-hounding skills had not improved.

Was I good at anything anymore?

I did think that after my fall to freedom, they'd probably rename the bridge. Honeymooners and suicidal losers didn't really gel together.

The wind picked up even more. It swirled in the hollow of my ears. Pretty soon, I wouldn't need to jump. I could simply let go of the railing and let the wind take me on a fantastic journey to my own death. No. I needed it to happen under my control. My decision. Dying was going to be on my terms alone and I was ready.

I opened my eyes and looked directly ahead, but promptly closed my eyes again. Something wasn't quite right.

It was Honeymoon Bridge, but my hallucinations were ridiculous, I thought. I opened my eyes a second time, but the image remained.

A single, red rose at eye-level, two feet in front of me, floated in the misty gloom.

What the...?

I blinked a third time, but the image of the beautiful flower refused to disappear. It rotated on its long, slender stem. Droplets of water clung gently to its deep scarlet-red petals, tucked together as if they peacefully slept.

I pinched myself to make sure I hadn't inadvertently jumped – or fallen – and I was already dead.

Ouch!

I was still very much alive.

The mishmash of my tears blurred my vision and I felt like I had to be in some demented, hallucinogenic state.

What were those bloody devils playing at?

There was only one way to put an end to my nonsensical imaginings. With my left hand grasped firmly to the metal railing, I extended my other arm, determined to blow my fantasy to smithereens. I hesitated momentarily, repositioned my feet to improve my reach and then, I lunged for the imaginary rose. But it didn't disappear.

It moved!

It inched away as if it had a mind of its own and was mocking me silly. "Huh?" I said, loudly. I sucked in more air and thrust my hand into the blackness without pause a second time – somehow trying to catch the rose by surprise.

Had I gone completely mad? I thought.

But the elegant flower drifted sideways and beyond my reach. I stared it down – like that would help – but it continued to toy with me.

"Fine. See if I care," I said to the floating rose in mid-air, before realizing how ridiculous I must have looked and sounded had anyone stood watching.

I tired of the hallucination and turned my focus back on my annihilation. It was going to take more than imaginary, flying red roses to stop me, I convinced myself. Determined to reignite my gruesome plan of self-decimation, I spun my back on the rose and resolved to throw myself off the other side of the bridge. It would make no difference to the result.

I stepped left.

As I turned, it felt much colder facing into the wind. It was wet and more slippery. Could be helpful, I suddenly thought. But as I wiped away the thin layer of excess moisture from the railing, my eyes flicked from their focus and snapped up and over my right shoulder.

The rose. It was following me.

It swirled in front of me, but then stopped. I blinked again in some weird acknowledgement of its apparent existence. It couldn't be real? I kept trying to convince myself.

But then, the rose began moving again, to my left and towards the escarpment from where I had originally come. Against the best wishes of my gut feeling, I entertained its enchantment and let my eyes drift along with its flight path through the deepness of the night. It slowly floated across the metal balustrade and I felt myself turn with it, hypnotized by its phantasmal splendor.

I twisted my aching body ninety-degrees, facing the escarpment edge, and was ready to be swept away by the raving-mad moment. I had nothing left to lose.

But then, the rose suddenly stopped. Something gripped it.

A hand.

A gloved hand.

Its insanity snapped me from my stupor. My pupils refocused from the hypnotic redness of the rose to the blackness of the glove curled around its stem. Letting my eyes journey up the arm, a familiar, dark figure appeared from out of my blurriness and into sharp, blissful focus.

Rumer.

I shrieked. A thousand thoughts shook me so much, I almost tumbled off the bloody bridge into the ravine below. "Jesus," I screamed. "You have to stop doing that."

He smiled. His eyebrows – barely visible beneath the black rim of his hat – rose cheekily as he stared with unstoppable resolve. Then, he let go of the rose, but it did not fall and all the confusion poured back into my skull.

"Who are you?" I said, before pausing and trembling with uncertainty. "What are you?"

But Rumer didn't answer me. With an open palm he guided the rose skywards, higher and higher. He was like a musical maestro, with the rose following his every command from an outstretched hand, and I realized I had seen that incredible sight before. That night on the train tracks, three months earlier, I had seen him do exactly the same.

"How are you doing that?"

He still did not answer. There was no sound from Rumer, whatsoever. He simply stared at me. His eyes were filled with compassion. The idea that I had come there to send myself to a horrible, self-inflicted death, felt as if it washed away in the downpour.

At that moment, I could no longer confine the hurricane of emotions overwhelming me from every vein and artery.

I simply broke down.

Tears surged like a flood and I felt weak and unable to hold myself aloft. I snatched at the railing to stop myself from falling like a useless heap onto the bridge – or off it. I breathed like a maniac, almost hyperventilating. If not for the rain, I was dead-certain I would have fainted again.

Rumer stepped forward and placed his hands to my side, supporting me – saving me in every way I needed to be saved.

It was the most deranged mix of feelings I had ever experienced. I cried uncontrollably because of the hurt and the pain and the madness, but I also wept because I somehow knew, at that instant, that I would never purposely seek to end my own life again. I was crying for the loss of a good friend. Crying for the loss of my suicidal impulsion. I felt it rush from me like I'd come through an insane suicidistic exorcism.

I felt insatiably liberated. Saved.

And I grabbed onto Rumer with both arms, clinging to him to suck all the energy from him that I could muster. I pressed my wet hair onto his chest and held onto him with such might that I was certain he was unable to breathe.

Raising my face to meet his, I let myself be hypnotized by my want to be close to him – to know all about him.

His gloved hands gently encased the sides of my face as he wiped away the tears from my bewitched eyes.

"I'm not crying," I said. "It's just the rain."

I was such a liar.

He smiled and said, "Do you trust me?"

# Chapter 31

"I trust you!"

And I did, completely.

Rumer slid his right arm around my waste and pulled me in close. Real close.

Was he going to kiss me? I thought.

I spontaneously ran the tip of my tongue across my lips, only to remember they were already soaked from the tears and the rain. Idiot! I had no idea what I was doing. I'd seen people kiss on television and in the movies. They always seemed to lick their lips before a smooch – but not, of course, when it was in the pouring rain.

I must have looked so stupid to Rumer as he stared at me.

"Hold on to me," he said.

Okay. Not exactly what I expected him to say, but...

The most extraordinary feeling then enveloped me. I felt Rumer's arm tighten around my back and take my weight. My head inched backwards, making it all the more obvious that my lips were pursed in readiness for that historic first kiss.

How embarrassing!

And then, my ankles loosed and my toes angled downwards. I dared not break the link between Rumer's eyes and mine, but something felt very, very strange. My bodyweight pushing on my legs like any other human being, struck me as suddenly being almost non-existent. I felt as if I weighed less than a... than a rose.

The insanity smacked into me like a speeding train. "Oh my God!" I screamed, finally breaking my entranced stare-off. My eyes looked straight down. The muscles holding my eyeballs in their sockets strained, fighting to comprehend what I saw.

Rumer and I were no longer standing on Honeymoon Bridge. We weren't standing on the escarpment.

We weren't standing on anything!

We floated a foot above the steel platform. We were literally hovering in mid-air. It was more incredible than any kiss, and a thousand times scarier. I screamed again, "Oh my God!"

"Just breathe," Rumer said, in his deep, very composed voice. "And don't look down."

"Oh, thank you!" I shrieked, in the most sarcastic tone I could engineer. "That's very helpful." Not! Of course, I did exactly what he told me not to do. And once I looked down, I couldn't pull my gaze away.

Honeymoon Bridge fell further away from the small gap between my dangling sneakers through which my stare was unwaveringly fixed. We rose up though the rain. Streaks of water shot past us faster and faster, as we rose high into the night air. I saw all three Sisters metamorphosing from pale shades of bold blue to hues much grimmer, and finally getting lost completely in the encompassing darkness. The air temperature dropped away as quickly as terra firma below us, but the berserk adrenalin buzzing through every blood cell in my veins – and Rumer's body pressed against mine – kept me insanely warm.

From the moment my feet disconnected with the bridge, I howled random noises like I was on the craziest rollercoaster ride of my life. When I finally looked up at Rumer, he smiled. A very broad smile. He seemed amused that he was scaring the crap out of me and, at the same time, infusing me with the most awesome feeling ever.

I had to say something to curb my sheepishness, but only one question kept disturbing my senses. "How is this possible?" I yelled, above the whooshing of the wind and the rain, swirling wildly around us.

Rumer smiled again, but gave little away. He eased his left arm around my torso. I was braced by his frame and I had never felt as safe, as I caught a last glimpse of the valley below.

In an instant, we penetrated the clouds and I no longer saw anything. I looked up, straight into Rumer's eyes. Only seconds had passed since I stood ready to plunge to my own death. I was now flying like a butterfly – and I'd never felt so alive.

We rose through the misty blanket, revolving around the private universe between our embrace. My hands crept like a frightened spider around Rumer's body. His coat flapped fiercely in the windstorm, but it kept my clenched hands beneath, warm and secure. I held him tighter than I ever had before.

Streaking through the clouds felt like there were a bunch of invisible fairies spiraling with us and constantly spraying us with a gigantic atomizer. Clouds, I had to keep reminding myself – silky, wet spray or not, I was literally in the bloody clouds.

We suddenly shot free from the fluffy rain-keepers and into a magical emptiness, lit exclusively by a stunning, half-moon. The rippled cloud-line top spread for miles in every direction. It was beautiful. I struggled to comprehend that there was so much rain, darkness and turmoil beneath the woolly divide and such untroubled splendor above, where we floated like wingless angels.

Above the clouds, I reminded my blown mind again.

I felt no more wind. We'd left the rain below us. A few drops of water clung desperately to my skin before making the plunge to oblivion. Holy crap!

My arms squeezed Rumer's frame as I suddenly became very anxious that I may fall, too.

"I've got you, Sara," Rumer said.

"Do you read minds as well?" I said, nervously.

"No," he laughed.

"Please don't let me fall."

Rumer beamed a confident, comforting grin. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you," he said. "I promise." His arms pulled me even tighter. We floated – defying gravity – two miles above the earth, but I believed him completely.

I had no idea if we were still over Honeymoon Bridge, or above the Three Sisters or even anywhere near the mountains. I didn't really care. I was having my own honeymoon moment. My eyes rocketed up to meet Rumer's stare. "This is awesome," I said.

The satiny glow from the moon overhead coated us in a brilliant luminance and pitched a gazillion pale shadows across the peaks and troughs of the cloud heads. In every direction I looked, there was nothing but black sky at the faux-horizon forged by the unbroken blanket of clouds – and me and Rumer. As we rotated gently, locked in our embrace, it was as if we danced in Heaven's private ballroom.

Just the two of us.

I was barely able to suck in the air I needed to calm my giddiness. If this was being in love, as Mika had figured, then I was hooked and never wanted it to end.

"We're dancing," I said, softly.

"Yes. It's really something, isn't it?"

"It's amazing." I didn't want to think about the how or why. I just let myself be seduced by the magic and surrendered my inquisitiveness to simply letting it be what it was...

Spectacular!

As Rumer relaxed his right arm away from my torso, I fought the panic strengthening just beneath my skin. Floating mid-air, miles off the ground, had a tendency to make me a little edgy – not surprisingly, I thought – but Rumer touched his gloved index-finger to my cheek to center my gawking stare in his direction and everything felt okay again. Safe.

"Wanna go for a ride?" Rumer asked.

"It's already a bit more than a ride, isn't it?" I said cheekily, mirroring Rumer's smile.

He didn't say anything in return.

"Yes," I quickly added. I didn't want him to change his mind. I didn't want the surreality to end. "I do want to go for a ride."

"I thought you might."

I didn't think I could squeeze Rumer any tighter. My arms already ached and I didn't want to hurt him, if that was even possible. But I was ready to go, ready to soar, ready for him to take me anywhere he wanted to go.

He hesitated. "This will be easier if you're on my back," he said.

"Uh-huh..." I said, crushing my arms still tighter.

Rumer waited. What was he waiting for?

"You're going to have to step off," he said.

"What?" I thought he was joking.

He wasn't. And when I felt his grip on me loosen, I shrieked like a baby. "Please don't let go of me," I yelled.

"Sara," Rumer said, again. "I've got you."

Reluctantly, I pulled my face off his chest. I was certain the ridges of fabric from his jumper were now undulations pressed onto my skin like some weird, Phantom of the Opera-type mask. I wondered if that's why Rumer was smiling. Maybe it was just because I looked so unco, clinging onto him like a demented leech.

"You're going to have to trust me," Rumer said.

I trust you!

Hesitantly, I eased my body away from Rumer. My eyes were wide. I felt my heart clobber the inside of my chest cavity and I'm certain I stopped breathing for a stretch.

Rumer grasped both my hands with his and we locked stares. He smiled again, then he angled his head downwards. I followed his lead. We both gawped at my feet. Without realizing I had done so, I had planted them on top of Rumer's boots. I was literally standing on him. Oops!

"Step off," Rumer said, again.

"I can't."

"You can. I've got you."

"Okay," I said, my voice wobbly like jelly. Rumer's stare was solid. His persuasive brown eyes willed me to do the impossible – to do the damned scariest thing in my life.

Step into thin air, miles above the ground.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want Rumer to see the fear in my eyeballs. They were probably quivering, too. Like the rest of me. I sucked in two, full lungs of night air – my first breath in ages. Its coolness and moistness tickled my throat all the way down.

My fingers tightened in Rumer's grasp and, had I mustered the courage to actually open my eyelids to look at them, I'm sure my knuckles were glowing snow-white.

"I've got you," Rumer whispered, again.

I believe you!

The rigidity in my left leg slackened as I pulled my foot off Rumer's boot, let it dangle freely for a heartbeat and then, reluctantly coerced it backwards, as if I simply took a step away. The footing felt bizarre. Logically, my brain kept telling me I was standing on nothing and yet, practically, it felt like I was standing on a sponge – soft, but somehow, secure.

What the hell? I thought, as I let the incomprehensible force support my bodyweight. I repeated the madness with my right foot. I flung my eyes open, staring straight into Rumer's comforting stare.

"You're doing it," Rumer said.

I giggled like a goose. "Yes, I am. Aren't I?" With that, I had to drop my head and witness the impossible.

My feet were planted in mid-air. I stood on literally nothing, but I was standing. It was the most incredible feeling. "Wow!" the goose squawked, again.

Rumer seemed to enjoy being able to share whatever it was that he was doing with me. To me. As if our relationship thingy wasn't already freaky enough, now we were freaks that defied everything I'd taken for granted my entire life.

"I'm flying," I said.

Rumer tightened his grip. "Hold on." Like some whacky dance move on prom night, Rumer twisted his torso without breaking his grasp on me. He eased his body upwards and I suddenly found myself cuddled up to his back with my arms wrapped around his frame. It shocked me giddy and I expelled a stupid, girly noise. "Oohh!" I gasped, like a four-year old, tasting chocolate for the first time.

"Are you okay?" Rumer asked.

"Yes. Sorry," I said, hoping he had not heard my giddiness.

"I'm going to let go of your hands, Sara. Just hold on."

Yeah, right! Rumer leaned forward, forcing me to quickly secure a grasp around his neck and shoulders. I was worried I might choke him, but more worried that I'd plunge back to earth. He angled fully forward and, all at once, we were parallel with the clouds.

It was a terrifying feeling at first. It reminded me of Mika giving me a piggyback ride and doubling over, teasing me with the fear of sliding forward and off. Of course, I wasn't two miles in the air with Mika. Riding piggyback with Rumer was a little different.

And then, we moved – and it escalated to a whole new level of being terrifying.

I caught my scream just as it was about to break free. I swallowed hard and gulped down my butterflies. We soared ahead, keeping three or so feet above the fluffy cloud heads as we increased our speed. My brain itched to yell, "Not too fast!" but I stopped myself. I wanted nothing to bring an end to my unimaginable adventure.

I lifted my head and let the misty air coat every pore in my skin. I smelled a freshness I'd never consumed before – not even in the mountains. The air was thinner so high up. It was harder to breathe, but I was certain that had as much to do with the exhilaration spearing through my body as any decreased level of oxygen molecules.

Rumer angled his head and caught sight of me in his peripherals. "You okay?"

"This is amazing," I said, battling to contain the buzz sparking in every part of my body.

"Hang on. I want to show you something."

He was yet to finish his undertaking, when I felt my stomach rise to my throat like the massive plunge on a carnival ride.

All of a sudden, we left our private, moonlit ballroom and headed down, through the clouds, blinded by the opaqueness. I hoped Rumer knew exactly what he was doing.

Coldness poked me, but only because I suddenly thought about it in the increased dampness. I was already soaking wet. The extra pressure through the clouds pressed both my t-shirt and jumper firmly to my skin. I didn't care. There was no guarantee I would ever be able to be so free again.

I had left the nightmare of my exposure to mom and Helen and all the screaming, clinging to the cold metal of Honeymoon Bridge. I no longer cared about that either.

I did worry about Mika. The idea that I had run away and left her in the house alone with mom, played endlessly with my marbles.

I hoped Mika hadn't turned mom's head into marbles.

We suddenly dropped out of the clouds like a stalled airplane. It felt instantly warmer. The rain had stopped, but the night remained gloomy and dark. The view was out of this world.

We were south of the city and already close to the coast, having travelled a distance far greater and quicker than I was able to intellectually process. But the skyline was the most beautiful cityscape I'd ever seen. Great pillars of darkness – the silhouettes of skyscrapers – were speckled with sporadic office lights. Round. Square. Every shape and intensity imaginable. Whichever direction I angled my straining eyes, the sight was magnificent. I could not get enough. I wanted to take in every lamp, every dark realm and every brilliance.

"Wow!" I yelled. I wanted to express something more prophetic, but was dumbstruck by the incomparable grandeur.

We came in through the blackness of the southern beaches. I cranked my head left and saw magnificent apartment buildings, holiday homes, shop fronts, pubs and vast stretches of beach strips – all completely unaware that the two of us were gliding past, through the gloom, a couple of hundred feet above the water line.

Monolithic shafts of light illuminated the city's famous structures, separating them from the surrounding black expanses, as if the structures too, were other-worldly.

But Rumer had little interest in showing me a tourist brochure fly-by. He had other plans and we quickly veered off onto a north-easterly heading and away from the lights and busyness of human lives. We were in our own world again. Just me and Rumer. And I didn't mind that at all. I was having the best night of my life.

As the profusion of city sounds trailed off behind us, I squeezed Rumer a little tighter. "Where are we going?" I asked.

Rumer said, "I saw something the other night and I want you to see it."

"Out here?"

Having a conversation was difficult through the streaking wind wailing past our ears, so I didn't press Rumer when he didn't immediately answer. I let my cheek snuggle into his back and soaked up the intoxicating feelings storming through me from my rain-drenched head to my rain-drenched feet.

But I loved every second of it.

I closed my eyes and let myself become drunk in the excitement of my dream-like state. I must have tuned out – got too drunk on the pleasure – for longer than I realized, because when cognition returned, the night was brighter and the wind had stopped.

We had stopped.

The clouds had broken and that stunning spotlight which had illuminated our undisturbed ballroom high in the night sky, blazed across the rising ocean waves below us.

We hovered gently above the water, taking in the vista of ocean expanse around us. It was magnificent.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

Rumer seemed distracted. "Maybe a little further east," he said. "I'm sure we're in the right path."

Like a glider, we soared across an occasional wind gust and moved further away from the coast – not that we could see land any more, only the rise and fall of the ocean waves.

Then, Rumer's body tensed on my embrace. "There!" he yelled. "I knew it."

As per usual, I was completely oblivious to what the hell was going on.

Rumer shallowed our glide path. We were just a few feet from the surface. I could have easily jumped from Rumer's back and splashed into the open ocean without much ado.

Suddenly, a spectacular marvel breached the glistening ocean surface below us. Three enormous whales broke the water. Their awesome, glassy skins splintered reflections of light onto our own insignificant fleeces. The whales were almost noiseless, stealing volumes of air though their blowholes by perfect stealth.

Another whale breached a little farther away. And then, another. It was an entire family, migrating to cooler, southern waters, travelling quietly under the blanket of darkness. Only two pairs of human eyes on the entire planet witnessed the unequalled spectacle. I was blown away.

"They're magnificent," I whispered into Rumer's ear, not wanting to alert the stunning beasts and scare them beneath the waves and into the blackness forever. I counted seven all up. There were two calves among them – much smaller, but still stunning.

"Blue whales," Rumer said. "Really rare. This is their migratory track."

It made our one-in-a-million show even more remarkable. Blue whales were the largest creatures on earth and, because of out-of-control whaling, spotting them had become a rarity.

As I watched their unspoiled, shimmering bodies peek in and out of view above and below the waterline, I was overcome by a trembling humility. To be so close to the world's biggest, living creature made me feel overwhelmingly insignificant, despite the mind-boggling reality that Rumer and I were even there at all.

We glided covertly above the breaching pod for at least fifteen minutes. I didn't want it to end. In the last seconds, I dropped my face back onto Rumer's body and simply listened to the waves and the faint interruptions as the whales split the surface. I closed my eyes, sucked in the salty air through my nostrils and let the night's beauty imprint my soul forever.

How could I ever want to leave this behind? I thought.

No freight train or bridge possessed power anywhere near what I felt at that moment. I hugged Rumer tight and pressed myself as close to him as I could. I smiled without restraint and felt like a young girl at my first carnival with the hottest boy in town by my side.

"Let's get you home," Rumer finally said.

But I didn't answer.

# Chapter 32

Home was the last place I wanted to be and Rumer was happy to charm my wishes. After we left the whales to their own magnificent world, Rumer and I journeyed south to the Sapphire Coast. He never hesitated in picking a destination – he knew exactly where he was taking me. And what I liked.

Snuggled within the stunning collection of untainted beaches, inlets and rocky outcroppings, Tura Beach slept largely undiscovered, waiting to be romanced. Rumer swooped us in low from the ocean and piloted us to a concealed cave well above the waterline, but front-and-center to the relentless crashing of surf.

I feared touchdown could be challenging, but Rumer sheltered me from adversity and hovered backwards into the hollow, allowing me to slip gently down and find my footing in the blanket of fine sand, swept in from the encircling beaches.

The grotto was initially dark and frigid. Indistinct reflections of moonlight scattered in all directions as they bounced off the water surface, but there was barely enough illumination to see clearly. And it sure didn't warm me any.

"I'll be right back," Rumer said, before he jumped off the edge of the cave and vanished into the darkness of night.

"Okay," I added belatedly, but he was already gone. Turning my back on the beautiful view, I let my eyes adjust to the greater darkness, but still saw almost nothing. If there were any creature hiding in the hollow, I was stuffed. Fear plays funny tricks on your emotions in the dark, I thought, and I wondered if I'd stay and fight the monsters or simply jump in the water.

Rumer was back in a flash. Secured under his arm was a stack of branches, sticks and other blocks of wood. He kneeled a little way into the rocky cavern to build a fire and shield it from the fortifying wind. "Have you got any matches?" Rumer said, looking up at me.

"Uhmm... No. Is that a problem?" I asked.

Rumer extended his right hand towards the pyramid he had built. He looked intensely focused. Then, in a burst of light and crackling noise, the stack spontaneously caught fire and burned brilliantly. "No problem," he said. "I just didn't feel the need to show off."

Yeah, right!

Because I knew lots of other boys that fly out to the middle of the ocean in the darkest of nights to watch a pod of breaching blue whales.

In a breath, flickering orange hues soaked the grotto walls and, once again, my mouth was agape in astonishment. "How do you do that?" I asked, in a tone much sterner than I had intended. It certainly got the point across, even if I hadn't meant it so obtusely.

Rumer poked at the base of the fire with one of a collection of sticks and wooden blocks he saved to feed the combustion further into the night. "To be honest," he said, "I don't really know."

"Don't give me that," I pressed, unsure of where I found the confidence.

"Well, I have an idea, but I can't be certain," he said. "I'm no scientist or anything."

It was a start. I stepped closer to the fire and explored the cave with a subtle gaze for a place to plant my butt. "Go on," I said.

"I'd been in custody for a couple of years. I was pretty well behaved. The guards trusted me and let me do things and go into areas that some of the other inmates could not. Every evening, I swept the ground floor of the prison wing. Bunch of grubs. They simply threw everything out of their cells onto the floor. It was like a dog house.

Anyway, this one night, I did what I would normally do.

There was nothing special about it. I mean, there was a crazy storm outside. Lightning and deafening thunder just wouldn't stop. But, even that, didn't seem exceptional. Or so I thought.

After I swept, I normally got all the crap together, shoved it into a couple of large garbage bags and the guards let me out of the wing and into the exercise yard outside, so I could dump the rubbish in the industrial bins that had a designated spot out there.

The bins were still inside the complex, still inside the prison walls, obviously, but because they were located directly adjacent to the prison's outer wall, only trusted inmates were allowed in that area. Particularly, without supervision. I followed that same routine for well over six months without incident, so I was trusted. And there was no reason not to trust me.

I had not planned to escape that night. I'd only ever given escape a cursory thought, like every other inmate, but never actually resolved to do anything about it."

Rumer's focus remained on the fire as he spoke and not so much on me. I'd never known a fire to need as much attention as he afforded it. I studied his fidgety movement, his occasional glimmer in my direction and his eyes, cast low at the base of our heat source. I knew that demeanor all too well. Guilt.

It had been slashing my heart to pieces since I discovered mom's secret – Buddha's secret. I was in no doubt about my anger towards mom or towards Helen. There was no lessening their treachery. There was no denying Mika's fury at mom's two-timing. There was no misunderstanding about how mom had categorically betrayed dad.

But I had been the one to unlock the secret.

If Buddha had remained quiet on that otherwise ordinary day, then everything would still be the way it was. Sure, it was a lie, I realized, but the dishonesty – the unrevealed – possessed the comfort of an unadulterated Baines family. A reasonably happy family.

Mom and dad would still be shopping for cheap clothes at the market. Dad could still believe that, even though he was no George Clooney and no man of action and... well... no man of anything, at least he was still a man. A father. A husband to his wife. And Mika would still be as obnoxious to mom, but without the 'I wanna kill you!' venom in every one of her words.

That all ended the day I unleashed the truth. Folded among the lacerations of unbearable pain throughout my body was the plague of guilt – unendurable, uncontrollable and spreading like wild blackberries. Its thorns had taken hold in every artery and in every part of my body.

As I watched my guilt reflected in Rumer's own clash against his blameworthiness, that metaphorical freight train crushed me again. Had I wanted to take my own life simply to escape my own guilt? Mom may have planted the seed, but I watered, fed and pruned the damn thing to penetrate every comfort, every bit of history and everything in our family that was good and worthy and right. No wonder I wanted to die, I thought.

Maybe I deserved to die!

But then, Rumer grabbed my hand. His skin felt warm and dry from the fire. Sensing that my mind had wondered back to a garden of self-loathing, he asked, "Are you okay?"

I am now, I thought. But I simply gave him a thin smile and said, "Yes. Please go on."

He positioned two thick branches on the tingling fire before shuffling himself closer to me. I liked that very much.

"When I carried the rubbish out that stormy night," Rumer said, "it was pouring with rain. The bags were a little heavier than normal, so I couldn't move as quickly. When the guard saw the rain, he gestured me forwards and out into the exercise yard alone. There was no way he was going to step out into the downpour. I had no choice, so I went.

I looked back for the guard, but he had already relocked the door to the wing, so I was going whether I liked it or not. Then, another lightning strike slammed nearby and I remember thinking, Geez, that was close. But what could I do?

The industrial bins were sheltered under a crappy corrugated-iron construction. No walls. Just a roof bolted to four wooden posts. But, I thought, it would at least give me a little shelter. So I scurried through the rain and the wind towards the one spot of dryness in the entire prison yard – all the time dragging those two enormous garbage bags of inmate rubbish. It took me twice as long as normal, but I finally got to the bins and tossed the bags in. Standing under the flimsy covering, I couldn't take my eyes off the storm.

It was super angry, but so beautiful at the same time.

All at once, my head jolted to the left. I don't know exactly why, but I clapped eyes on the other, not-so-flimsy assembly, beside the bins. That area was where the prison gas storage was. Two huge, oblong gas tanks that served the entire complex. They were secured by a super-strong fence and no inmate had any access to that area.

Then the sky lit up. In the space of a millisecond, I turned. Luck? Instinct? I don't know. But it was a brilliant flash and I instantly knew I was in all sorts of trouble.

Lightning hit the steel cage around the gas tanks. It felt like time slowed to an inanimate pace, because I'm sure I could physically see a magnificent, furious shaft of voltage split into two, halfway down the steel cage. It must have all happened so fast, but it felt like the slowest of slow-motion. The two tentacles of pure white destruction each found a target and I knew it could only end badly and was going to hurt like nothing I had ever felt before.

Actually, I didn't believe I had any chance to survive at all.

One streak of the lightning shaft shot inwards, towards the larger of the two gas containment vessels. The other one, came straight at me.

The lightning hit me with such force, I felt like an ant run over by a steamroller. I fell backwards into the bins behind me. My body was on fire – literally on fire. The electricity shot through my chest, through my hands, through my feet, my face. It felt like there was a psychopath with a butcher's knife going ballistic on me, but from the inside out. My brain simply couldn't handle the amount of pain being sent down the lines of communication from every cell in my arms and legs and neck and stomach and...

My brain simply shorted out and I felt absolutely nothing.

Even though I was on fire.

And then, there was an explosion like a nuclear bomb going off right next to my head. The other streak of lightning raptured the gas tank and blew it to smithereens. I will never know how the debris missed me or how the force of the blast didn't kill me instantly but, I guess you hear of people who survive against seemingly impossible odds all the time on the news. I was suddenly one of those stories.

I felt the blast shockwave soar across the top of my body. It took the four, wooden posts and the corrugated-iron roof with it like they were made from paper. There was so much force in that explosion. Nothing was going to stop it.

Not even the thirty-foot granite outer prison wall.

The stone crumpled like a biscuit. I mean, it was built over one hundred and fifty years ago, so I imagine it had already lost some of its original integrity, but still. It tumbled away and left a gaping hole the size of a semitrailer. Not that I saw it at that point. I was still writhing on the ground like a tortured bug in its death-throes.

At some point, I realized that the flames had vanished from my limbs. I presume it was the downpour that doused the fire from my body, but who knows. I can't be precisely sure of what exactly happened. There was so much going on in the space of mere seconds.

Then, for some stupid reason, I thought to myself that I was totally okay – that I could simply get up and walk back to the prison wing for help. So I stood up. I took one step forward. Then, bang! A second explosion. I didn't feel it at all, but I definitely heard it.

The first explosion must have penetrated the second gas cylinder, and it smashed into a million shreds with as much ferocity as the first blast.

My last memory was seeing the ground beneath me fall away. I was airborne, blasted through the debris and the flames and the smoke by the force of the explosion.

As it turned out, it threw me directly through the gap in the prison wall and dumped me in the mud outside the prison. So, I guess you could say that, technically, I didn't actually escape. I was thrown out of prison."

Rumer giggled.

He continued, "When I woke, the night was on fire... And you already know where I went from there."

"Pastor Crosbie," I said.

"For the first two months, he dressed my wounds, talked to me, sat with me and brought me food and water. As soon as I was well enough to string a proper sentence together, I told him exactly what had happened – how I'd come to be in his alley.

But he already knew and he was okay with that.

I even went through a phase where I tried to talk him into calling the authorities, but he always said, "There must be reason why you are here," and so, he stuck with me.

"Did you tell him why you were in prison?"

"Yes," Rumer said, sternly.

When a surprise gust of wind wedged into our private hideaway, an unexpected emotional twist struck me silly.

Jealousy.

I suffered from a sudden bout of information envy. When Rumer first told me about taking another person's life, he had hopefully added, "There's more to it!" That moment in the clearing was an encounter I would always remember.

Rumer had obviously told Pastor Crosbie the more of it. I wanted to know, too. Of course, it was ludicrous that I should covet anything of Pastor Crosbie's. After all, without his intervention, Rumer's path and mine may never have entwined. Without the medical care, Rumer would probably be dead.

But still, I hungered to know more. To know everything.

It made it all the more shocking when I asked him if he wanted to talk more about his crime.

"No," he said, flatly.

I choked on a cocktail of dismay and embarrassment.

Seeing my reaction, Rumer swiftly added, "I will tell you, but all in good time, Sara. I'm sorry."

"Oh," I said, mechanically.

"Someday soon."

"I hope so."

He grabbed my hand with his thumb on top and his fingers gently massaging my palm on the flip side. He smiled softly, but said nothing further.

He didn't need to.

I was a sucker for his touch, alone. Each time his skin coupled with mine, I dreamed up a conveyance of energy between the two of us. The remnants of all the electricity which had gushed through his extremities was something I wanted to believe flowed between us at will, when we touched.

But there was one thing I wasn't going to let him pass on. I said, "I'll make a deal with you."

"Oh, yes," Rumer said, with a cheeky grin.

I didn't know from where I sucked the confidence to continue. "I'll let you keep that secret safely tucked away... only if you tell me the other one."

It wasn't like I had any way of actually making him, but I hoped my silly charm inspired him enough to share with me.

"You mean, what we did tonight?" he said.

Of course, that!

"What you did tonight," I said.

"What do you want me to say?"

My brain went into shutdown mode, like when I tried to do too many things at once on the computer – it simply shut down. So I started with something very automatic. "Was it you on the roof with Mika?"

Rumer's eyes narrowed. It felt like he tried to read my mind again. His answer didn't help to allay any concern about him actually being able to do so.

"You already know it was me," he said.

"Okay, but how is it possible that you got up those five levels in a flash...?" And then, the floodgates opened and all my curiosities streamed out. "...and take on ten big guys, and take me into the clouds and make roses have a mind of their own?"

Rumer looked at me with a singular expression. Are you done?

"Oh," I yelled excitedly, as my voice echoed through the grotto. "And how the bloody hell did you stop that train and save me from a single scratch?"

Rumer glared up at me. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything!"

# Chapter 33

"The human brain is estimated to contain over thirty billion neurons, communicating with the rest of the body through electrical transfer 'ports' called synapses. What makes the brain so special, in comparison to other organs, is that it forms the physical structure that generates largely unknown phenomena, like the mind. Scientists have studied the human brain since the earliest days of modern medicine, but it's estimated that they've identified less than twenty percent of what the brain is capable of doing and how it actually does what it does."

Rumer grabbed my hand and held it in his. I liked that. The fluttering orange hue flaring through the cave wrapped around us like a cozy blanket. If I was in literal Heaven earlier, I now found myself in the metaphorical same.

"Look, I'm no expert and I'm definitely no scientist," Rumer continued. "The only thing I know is that, when the lightning shot through me like a thousand bullets into my brain, it did something to my brain, something to all those thousands of electrical synapses. Because of all that energy surging through my brain, I can now interact with things around me on an atomic level."

"Atomic level?" I asked.

"Yes. All matter – all things – are essentially made up of the tiniest crumbs in the universe. Atoms. From the biggest buildings and vehicles, to the trees, water and air. Everything is made up of atoms."

Rumer shuffled his butt backwards, expanding the distance between us.

I didn't like that.

He thrust his right hand to the small pile of sticks and branches, spread his fingers and then, looked up at me to make sure I was focused on him.

No problem there.

Like a puppeteer, he gently drew one of the branches from the pile without actually touching the timber, as if he played a weird game of pick-up-sticks where invisible fishing lines connected the sticks to his fingers.

"I was laying on my bed in Pastor Crosbie's spare room, barely able to move from the pain, and I desperately wanted to grab the glass of water on the bedside cabinet. I just couldn't reach it. It was a Sunday morning, so Pastor Crosbie was doing a service in the church. I really wanted that water. I stretched out for the glass, but was a good foot short. Then suddenly, shockingly, the glass of water moved towards me.

I was so surprised by the movement that I flung my arm back to my side. The glass fell off the cabinet and spilled everywhere. I just remember saying out loud, 'What the hell?' It was the strangest feeling of not knowing but, at the same time, I'm like, I need to figure out what just happened and, more importantly, how. I forgot all about the water and reached for the television remote control. In my mind, I'm thinking, you're an idiot, what are you doing? What you think you just did, simply isn't possible. But the glass of water had moved. And there was a reason it shifted and fell to the floor. I stretched out for the remote control, but nothing happened. I moved my fingers like a drunk spider writhing on its back, but nothing. There was no movement whatsoever.

I thought I was going mad.

But it's a fine line between madness and success. So, I tried one last time. I focused until my eyes hurt, stretched out my arm against the wishes of my entire body and then...

The remote control moved. An inch at first. Then another. And another. I said nothing. I wasn't talking to the remote control like you call a cat, right? It wasn't like that at all. It was moving because, in my mind, I pictured it moving."

Rumer controlled the branch and elevated it between us to eyelevel, just as he had done with the rose earlier in the night. I was no less astonished. I had heard stories of people having powers that even science had difficulty explaining. In between his sport, dad often watched National Geographic channel documentaries. I watched one with him about a woman in America who could seemingly ignite fires at will. It was hard to believe and it was always so much easier to dismiss those sorts of claims as being an act of 'attention-seeking' by desperate loonies. But something was happening with the fire. While the documentary I saw could not prove that the woman was starting the fire 'telepathically', as they described it, they also could not scientifically prove what was.

As I watched Rumer gently floating the knobbly stick between us, I instantly had a newfound respect for the ostracized fire starter.

"You see," Rumer said, "it's not simply about controlling the branch, it's all about the air molecules around it."

"Right," I said, like I really knew my physics and chemistry. "Is that how you're able to, you know, dance in the clouds?"

"It's funny, actually. About an hour after the remote control incident, I was still lying in that stupid bed and I'm mucking around, floating objects in the air all around me. I'm trying to figure how many things I can control at the one time. But they're all little things. Like, I raised the glass back off the floor. And stuff like that.

At some point, I must have changed from quantity to weight. So I moved the chair first. Then, the television. And then, both of them at the same time. All I thought was, this is really cool. I was a little kid in the world's biggest toy shop with no restrictions on what I could play with. It was awesome."

"Does it get any more difficult to move stuff that's heavier?"

He smiled broadly. I sensed him relishing the moment of discovery for a second time. I remembered the first time I'd cut across the uneven bars or landed my first trampoline somersault. It was incomprehensible how those achievements, which seemed almost miraculous at the time, simply withered into the realm of taking things for granted.

"Then, the sensation of thirst came back to me," Rumer continued, "and, all at once, I thought, if I can't get the water to me, maybe I can get myself to the water. I was still struggling to even sit up at that point, you see. I hadn't been on my feet for a couple of weeks. I could barely move because of the pain. I didn't think I had anything left to lose, so I threw off the blankets. I hesitated, because if it didn't work, or worse still, worked only for a moment, I imagined myself three feet above the floor and then, falling. In my state at that time, it would not have felt good at all, so I was really nervous. Part of me was still convinced it was impossible, but hey, if you'd just been moving all this stuff through the air, wouldn't you want to try it on yourself as well?

And that's how it began. Moving stuff in Pastor Crosbie's spare bedroom. Moving myself in Pastor Crosbie's bedroom. Soon I was outside in the darkness of night going higher and higher. Further. Faster. Longer. Trying new stuff. Making sure I wasn't going to fall from the air and plummet to a rather gruesome death.

And then, one night, I found myself in the mountains and I saw someone walking along a dirt track. There's was something about the way the person was walking, that I realized everything was very wrong. Of course, that person was you."

I felt the small hairs on my neck tickle me silly and I was suddenly warm. There was a strange sense of retrospective peace knowing that, as I had looked up into the sky, wondering about nanna and about whether people would remember me after being smashed to smithereens by the train, there was someone up there, looking down on me, already working to protect me.

"To be honest," Rumer said, "I really didn't think you would go through with it. I saw you sit down and the train get closer and closer, and all the time, I'm thinking that you're going to get up and change your mind."

"I wasn't going to move," I said, sternly.

"Yes, I realized that. Just a little late, though. Right up to the last moment, I thought... but then... That took a lot of courage, Sara."

"Or stupidity," I said.

"Look, I think you're way too precious for this world to lose and I'm not saying that standing in front of a speeding train is ever the answer, but it would take unbelievable bravery to stand there and watch that train hurtling towards you, knowing it's going to hit you, and you don't move."

"There's nothing brave about suicide," I said.

The hairs prickling me with elation sank back to a stilted, depressed silence. Who in their right mind would stand in front of a thundering locomotive to meet an indescribable self-destruction? And who wouldn't twitch, even for a moment, and make a last minute effort to run? It scared me to think just how hopeless I must have felt that night. How lost and alone I had become.

"I'm sorry that I was a bit late in getting to you, that night," Rumer said. "I'm sorry I made such a mess."

There was nothing he needed to be sorry about. He had done what I could not. He had believed there was still hope in a situation where I considered there was none. He believed that New Sara still had colors with which to paint this ugly world into a better place. He still believed in me, even when no one else did, and when I no longer believed in myself.

"You're like my own personal super-hero," I said, finding a reason to cast a smile back onto my face.

"I'm no hero, Sara."

"You are to me... and the Mika. And you could be to so many more." I said.

Rumer looked away. He was troubled, conflicted. "I'm still just trying to figure all this out," he said, in a low, despondent tone.

"Yes," I pressed, "but you could do things that... I don't know. I think you could really help other people, like you've helped me."

"I don't want to be a hero, Sara. I just want to be normal."

"And by normal you mean...?"

But Rumer didn't answer. His mind – his incredible mind – ticked so loud I was certain I heard it above the wind gusting outside across the ocean. I looked at the water. It's expanse. It's freedom. And for the briefest of moments, I wondered where I would go and what I would do if I had Rumer's ability. Who would I share such an amazing ability with? Who would believe me? I tried to picture Emma's reaction as I shot the two of us through the clouds and beyond.

A swift gust of wind with a mind of its own, snuck into the hollow and yanked me back to reality. I turned to Rumer and said, "What are you going to do?"

He extended both his arms in my direction and, all at once, I felt that odd sensation which had flabbergasted me earlier in the night. I was weightless again. Airborne. I lingered only a few inches above the sandy grotto floor, but I was definitely not on it any more. The expression on my face must have been a cocktail of 'Oh my god, I'm terrified' to 'this is awesome, don't ever let me go.'

And then, I began moving closer to Rumer. I swayed gently towards him as his smile broadened. The tickling hairs were instantly re-energized and I was giddy again.

"For now," Rumer said, in playful tones, "I'm just going to annoy the crap out of you."

That was just fine by me.

He landed me directly beside him, my butt squeaking in the sand as it regained the force of my weight. How embarrassing, I thought. Rumer placed his arm around my shoulder and I shuddered.

"Are you cold?" he said.

But that's not why my body had quaked. I was exciting, like I had been at Martin's Lookout. I just liked being close to him and I didn't know how to tell him that without sounding like a complete moron.

He pulled his coat from around his shoulders and draped it over me. The last time I had felt the thickness and heaviness of his fleece, I discovered Rumer was an escaped prisoner. Someone who had taken the life of another. And yet, as I sat there, again encompassed by the incredible warmth, I felt safe and untroubled. I had witnessed something I could never have imagined to be possible. There had to be a reason for that – as Pastor Crosbie believed. I needed to believe it, too.

As the warmth overwhelmed me, so did the tiredness and desire to close my eyes. It had been quite some night. I let my mind drift on the sounds of the relentless crashing of surf just out of view below us and, for the first time in over three months, I felt utterly relaxed.

"You can sleep a little, if you want," Rumer whispered serenely in my left ear, as he snuggled a little closer and wrapped his other arm around me.

"What if the water rises into the cave?" I said.

"I'll watch over you, Sara."

"The whole night?"

He smiled with a deliberate calmness. "Yes, the whole night."

I may have responded, I don't remember. Darkness took hold and I did not open my eyes again that night. I felt his strong arms tighten around me like a happy octopus and could not decipher the moment I jumped from real-world into dream-world. It had all felt surreal to me. The muscles in my body relaxed and I let my head gently nestle beside Rumer's. The hairs on my neck tingled for the last time and, in an instant, I was in a land of fairy-tales and battling witches, ghosts and three-headed monsters.

And I loved the adventure!

# Chapter 34

Soaring through the sky at a swelling speed, I felt wondrously alive and liberated from everything that troubled me. Mom. Helen. Lexie. The sky glowed a fiery purple as the first light of day tangled with the last shadows of darkness for supremacy in the breaking dawn. Six billion years of history had proved it was a fight the darkness would never win.

At five hundred feet above the tree line, the mountains looked spectacular, as if it was a sleepy green giant in its own peaceful dream-world, sprawled across an expanse the size of a small country.

I scanned the magnificent sky to the left and to the right, but I could not see Rumer anywhere. Strange, I thought momentarily, before accepting the impossible and letting the wind carry me in its breath, deeper across the National Park. I knew the mountains as well any other who had lived there for years, but so much mystery remained. The valleys and troughs had shaped over hundreds of thousands of years, each thread of the epoch forging its own secrets.

I wanted to know them all.

With a screaming silence, the wind died instantly and my movement forward, stalled. I glanced around in a micro-second, but instantly plummeted towards the ground in uncontrollable freefall. Like a lunatic, I flapped my arms pretending to be a bird, but nothing was going to keep me airborne.

I headed straight for the tree tops and towards the ground beneath. Oh crap! No amount of wishing or hoping, thwarted my plunge. I was in deadly trouble. I closed my eyes, hoping, as I had done so often in the last three months, that the darkness would take away everything that was bad. I held my breath.

But the strangest, most unexpected resolution presented itself.

When I willed my eyes open, I found myself standing on the forest floor. Enormous eucalyptus trees towered into the gray-light all around me. I had not splattered on the ground and squished myself into a horrible death.

Okay, that's bizarre! I thought.

I checked my hands and they were fine. No scratches. Everything else was fine, too. Had I somehow landed? But again, I did not let the technicalities of real-world mechanics restrain my uncontainable desire to advance.

Within two minutes, I came upon a clearing, nestled secretly in a dome of foliage. The heavy-set trees eradicated much of the light and dropped the temperature by several degrees. I couldn't feel the cold. I couldn't feel anything. My eyes fixated on only one thing. Centered in the enclosed space was something I had heard about all my life, but never believed. Mountains people had spoken about it for decades, feared it for decades and transmuted it into myth to alienate any possibility that it was, in fact, real.

My eyes strained in the faint light.

Could it be?

Dad told Mika that people in the mountains were bored and had created the legend for a bit of excitement. Mom had always believed it to be real. My friends never spoke about it, as if doing so may awaken the possibility that it was no myth.

For seventeen years I'd heard hundreds of stories and, at that moment, I no longer believed it to be a myth. It was right in front of me, in all its sordid beauty and antiquated mystery. And it seemed very real.

The Gingerbread House.

Mr. Dobson had often recounted the tale in English class. A mysterious cottage in the woods. It was no bedtime fable, he told us. It was a place of unspeakable horrors.

It was a story he loved.

One hundred years earlier, three young sisters from what was now the city, came to live in the mountains to escape their abusive, alcoholic father.

They had hurriedly packed a suitcase, stolen horses from the police stables and rode towards a setting sun. Six days later they came across a small cottage rumored to be in the Grose Valley, to the north of where Leura now prospered.

They were welcomed with a grandiose invitation to join the women that resided in the bluestone house and assist with daily chores. Self-sufficient women living on their own property in the early 1900s was quite rare, so the three girls were instantly impressed and decided to stay.

They were lured by sweet attention.

But it soon became clear to them, that all was not what it seemed. When the young women realized they were being groomed for something far more sinister and that their lives were in danger, it was too late.

According to the legend, when fate aligned with a red moon, the young virgins were sacrificed and their blood splashed to appease a still-unknown ritual of darkness and wickedness. And there was something about a resurrection.

The police never located the so-called Gingerbread House and rumors shot through the mountains that it was all a hoax. But the legend was born and parents endlessly told – and augmented – the bedtime story to keep their kids from entering the woods.

I stood motionless, staring at the Gingerbread House. There were no sugar canes, no sweets and definitively no gingerbread. The little house looked poorly constructed from dark, bluestone boulders. It was bigger than I had imagined it when Mr. Dobson captivated the class with his retelling. Tiny, round windows punctuated the stone walls, but there was only darkness inside. At the front, a ramshackled wooden door clung to three rusted-metal hinges.

As I moved towards the house, I still felt nothing. No senses. Something was still not right and it bothered me that I couldn't work it out, because I needed all my faculties to comprehend what the hell I was doing.

Two large, square-carved boulders led to the front door. I hesitated for several heartbeats, before confidently taking a large stride across those stones to the entrance. What are you doing, Sara? I suddenly thought, as I raised my hand to the large, round, metal ring hanging at its center.

Then, I finally realized what was happening. My hand wasn't trembling, and it should have been. It always trembled whenever I faced terror. Such courage only ever showed its surreal face under one circumstance.

When I wasn't awake.

But then, horror drained the blood from every extremity. I heard footsteps behind the door and the buggered portal began to move. It inched open. It creaked and heaved and suddenly, I wasn't so sure if I was dreaming or not.

Unexpectedly, a ringing noise splashed through my brain and I couldn't turn the damn thing off. Then, my body shook. That wouldn't stop either. What the...?

"Sara," I suddenly heard a deep voice say. "Wake up. Your phone's ringing."

My stupor took a lifetime to dissipate. I felt groggy, like I had done on my sixteenth birthday when I'd consumed alcohol. My head seemed like it was spinning and that bloody ringing just wouldn't stop.

I finally opened my eyes and looked straight at Rumer. "Oh," I said. "Where are we?"

He handed me my ringing phone and said, "It's okay. We're at the church. You've been sleeping."

Absentmindedly, I accepted the phone call and must have said hello, although I couldn't recall doing so. All I heard was yelling, angry yelling. It was mom. It took ages for me to dial into the conversation. I tried to listen to her words at the same time as absorbing my surroundings. They were at such odds.

I moved the phone closer to my mouth. "Hello?" I said.

"What do you mean, hello? Have you heard anything I said?"

It was definitely mom. On any other occasion, I would have thought to make up some excuse to let her believe something other than the truth, but the sharpness in her voice drained all enthusiasm from me. "No," I said simply. "I haven't heard a thing."

"Sara, for goodness sake," mom hammered on. "Where are you? Where have you been? Why didn't you call? I'm very upset with you. I haven't slept all night."

I sat up and looked around. It was a small bedroom with very little decoration on the walls. Sparse furniture screamed practical, rather than warmth and homeliness. My butt was firmly planted on a single bed with plenty of blankets. For all the room's indifference, the bed imbued heavenly comfort.

Rumer must have left the room at some point, because when he popped his head in, I was surprised to see him. I thought he'd been there all along.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

The phone in my hand crackled like a rooster. "Who's that? Sara? Where are you?"

My brain at last sank its talons into the real world. "I'm fine, mom," I said. "I'm with..." But I stopped. She didn't deserve that much information. Her earlier comments bombarded my skull from all angles. I'm very upset with you. I haven't slept all night. Instantly, the clarity of her concern was apparent. As had become the norm in the last three months, mom's concern always began with the obligatory worry about me, but quickly dissolved into her real concern, which was all about herself.

Did mom realize her actions the previous night had again, almost driven me to the end of my life?

Did she even care about that?

And where was the apology?

My anger injected a healthy dose of honesty into my reply. "I'm good, mom. I stayed with a boy last night and he's looking after me."

"What? What are you saying?"

"Is Mika okay?" I said.

"What? Mika is fine. Where are you?"

"Well, I'm fine, too," I said, and quickly hung up. I couldn't find time to draw breath before my phone rang again, but I clicked it off, annoyed and infuriated. Mom needed to wait.

I turned to look for Rumer, but he had again disappeared. I really hated it when he did that. As I turned to place the phone on the bedside table, I froze. There was a rose on the table.

The rose.

The last twelve hours had blurred the lines between reality, the impossible and the incredible, more than at any other time in my life. Honeymoon Bridge, dancing in the clouds, sleeping in the cave, the Gingerbread House, mom. My mashed-up brain struggled to keep up. It needed something to say, 'Sara, it's okay, not all of it is out of this world.' The rose focused my thoughts like a lighthouse on a dark, stormy night, lost at sea. The rose was real.

The night had been real.

Content, and with my cerebral sponge reasonably subdued, I threw off the remaining blankets and jumped from the bed with renewed relish. I suddenly found myself staring into a full-length mirror, glued to the wall at an unusual angle, but with a familiar reflection. I was still dressed in the same jeans, t-shirt and hoodie from the previous night. Only my shoes were absent.

"Huh," I said, rather loudly. I always worried about staying overnight at other people's places out of fear of what I may look like in the morning. But, apart from scruffy hair, I looked okay.

I snuck my fingers into my left jeans-pocket and, thankfully, discovered the necessity I hungered for. A hair tie. Okay, I thought. This is good. I didn't want to look like a complete slob on my first morning waking to Rumer's judgment.

Satisfied that I wasn't a hideous beast, I swooped up the rose from the bedside table and slipped from the bedroom, finding myself instantly lost in what seemed like a labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Pastor Crosbie's home was much bigger than I remembered it.

Opening a number of doors, looking for Rumer, I discovered a storage area with at least a thousand bibles, still protected in clear plastic. There were DVDs and CDs in another room and a myriad of papers, brochures and religious literature in yet another room I stumbled into.

Finally, I turned left and found myself in the kitchen, staring again at Rumer's gaze.

"Hey," he said, quietly. "How did you sleep?"

Rumer sat at a tiny table positioned against the kitchen wall opposite the sink, oven and benches. A small television that looked older than dad, flashed images in silence.

I stepped in and smiled. "I slept okay," I said, as I sat on the chair opposite. He noticed the rose in my hand. It made me feel warm and giddy inside. "How did you sleep?" I said.

Rumer pulled an awkward face, contorting his scar into even more of an S-shape and I could not halt my brain from entertaining thoughts about Martin's Lookout, when I first set eyes on the unusual cicatrix.

"Since... the incident," he said, "I haven't been able to sleep at all. Maybe an hour here and there, but..."

"That must suck," I said.

It sure did. Rumer went on to explain that in the first few weeks after his accident – after his escape – each time he closed his eyes, harrowing pain punctured any moment of catching zeds. As the burns began to heal and motion returned to his arms and legs and neck, an hour was all the sleep he mustered, before torturous mnemonics enlivened his senses. I felt so bad for him.

I knew what it was like to be sleep-deprived. I hated it because it corkscrewed me into a horrible, nagging cow, for the rest of the day. It seemed to not effect Rumer as much as it would me.

"So..." I began slowly, "how did we end up here? Because the last I remember is us being in a cave at the beach?"

"Yeah, sorry. It all got a little cold after a while."

I didn't mind at all. I giggled and said, "It was nice waking up in a comfy bed."

"I took your shoes off," Rumer said. "I didn't want to get too carried away, but I figured you didn't want to wake up with runners under the blankets."

I laughed, but could not wrench my feverish excitement from his words. I didn't want to get too carried away. I probably wouldn't have minded a bit of carried away. Still, being awake for it – whatever it was – seemed even more exciting.

"Thank you," I said simply, hoping my undisciplined fantasies didn't exude through my feigned calm and control. Then, another thought struck me. "What about the car?" I said, sounding too panicked for the situation.

"Don't worry about it," Rumer said.

"Yes, but my mother will wonder what it's doing there and..."

"Sara," Rumer stopped me. "It's already back here in the garage."

"Oh," I said.

"After I tucked you into bed last night... I mean, you were conked out like you weren't waking in years, sleeping beauty style. So I went and got it and brought it back."

"Oh," I said again, stupidly, before molding a colossal smile and opening my mouth again. "Sleeping beauty?"

"Well," Rumer said. "You know what I mean."

No! Tell me. But my attention jerked violently towards the television. Lexie. The vision was frustratingly familiar. The location was known to me as well as my own backyard. And the story was heartbreakingly awful. I turned the volume up.

"Police have offered a fifty-thousand dollar reward for any information that may lead to the location of seventeen-year-old Mary Bell Steele, twenty-year-old Ellie Grail and eighteen-year-old Alexandra Morse, also known as Lexie."

As the reporter recapped their disappearances in details that I simply didn't want to register in my noggin, Rumer tasted my despair. It was as thick as syrup in the air.

"You know one of them, don't you?" Rumer said.

With everything else that had imprisoned my attention – Mika, mom, levitating above the most magnificent pod of blue whales – there had barely been time to tell Rumer about Lexie. I knew I had procrastinated intentionally, but if my bewildered eyes now so obviously radiated my fears and concerns, then I was certain I could keep it from Rumer no longer. "Yes," I said, simply. "Lexie is my school friend."

"Police are following a number of leads," the reporter continued, "and have confirmed that a body discovered last week is that of missing girl, Felicity Cofflin, reported missing in the same area six weeks ago."

"Oh my God!" I squawked, like an angry cockatoo. "That's the girl we saw, remember?"

"While police continue to neither confirm nor deny a direct link between the disappearances, the offer of a reward has the local community convinced that this is the work of a single, depraved psychopath and that the disappearances and possible murders will not come to end until the individual is arrested by authorities."

I sunk into my chair. The situation seemed hopeless for Lexie. I had heard nothing from Emma or from any of the other girls in the last twelve hours. I wondered if they were as dejected as I was.

Guilt besieged me from every crevice in my skin. I had been out whale-watching, dancing – although not in the traditional sense, to say the least – and consumed by the most romantic night of my life. My thoughts about Lexie only conjured images of curdling blood and creeping flesh. Maybe the existence of the Gingerbread House and all that was rumored to take place within its diabolical walls was more than simply myth and legend.

"What are you thinking?" Rumer suddenly said, his eyes penetrating my disquiet.

"I don't know..." I started, but then realized that I knew very well what was ticking nonstop through my body. "I just... I just feel so helpless and guilty and sad and... I just wish there was something I could do."

"It must be a terrible feeling knowing your friend is out there, somewhere."

"Yes," I said so softly, Rumer barely heard.

Then, Pastor Crosbie popped his head into the kitchen. "Oh, hi," he said, looking directly at me. "I didn't realize you were here."

"Sorry," I said, feeling suddenly embarrassed.

"It's no problem at all. I'm very pleased to see you." Pastor Crosbie's words were soothing, genuine, welcoming.

I saw Rumer smile. It contended my anxiety, if only for a fleeting moment.

Pastor Crosbie turned to Rumer. "You've got mail," he said.

"Me?"

"Yes. Some ancestry website sent you an email."

Rumer's eyes found mine. "It can't be," he said, with a slightest tinge of sadness. "Surely, it can't be."

# Chapter 35

"Easy on the clutch," Rumer said, as the car bounced briefly after I depressed the accelerator. "Try and hold it on that pivotal spot a fraction longer."

What he meant to say was, 'I can't believe you're making me go through with this. I told you, I didn't want to find my family.' The ancestry website flicked us an email with a last-known address for Ms. Angela Dorina Phoenix – Rumer's mother. There was no mistaking her name. The immediate recognition on Rumer's face when he saw the name, left me with no doubt.

Her last known address was a house on the outskirts of Frenchs Forest, a suburb thirteen miles north of the city. Rumer thought it a great idea to use it as a driving lesson. It sounded more like punishment to me, but I did appreciate the chance to drive again.

With L plates displayed like a sign hollering, Stay well clear! I drove cautiously and slowly. After my night of racing through the cinema car park and then, driving home from there with Mika in the car, I felt more starry-eyed about my driving ability. I still wasn't going to break the speed limit, but my hands on the steering wheel no longer dripped with sweat and white-knuckle tension.

"What do you think we'll find there?" I asked Rumer, without taking my eyes off the road.

He didn't immediately answer, but then said, "Just keep watching the traffic, Sara."

I was!

It still bothered me that Rumer was so nonchalant about locating his family. From the snippets of information he had reluctantly shared with me over the last week, I only managed to construct a vague timeline of family history.

His father had died in a car accident on the night of Rumer's eighteenth birthday. He had been a disconnected dad with little ability to express his feelings. "He never told me he loved me," Rumer had said. "To this day, I still don't know if he did, and I guess I'll never know." The sorrow in his deep, brown eyes was ample when he told me.

I realized at that moment, that his reluctance to track down his remaining family was not simply laziness or indifference, but was, instead, burdened by great sadness and regret. I knew all-too-well what it was like to have a dad who struggled with affection and compassion.

Rumer had only sporadic contact with his mom in the years leading up to his arrest. He sent her flowers on her birthday in December, but did so mechanically and from obligation, rather than a true and genuine desire to make his mother happy. After Rumer's arrest, he did not hear from his mom again. She wasn't in court. She never came to visit. She had no contact with him, whatsoever.

The first Christmas of his incarceration, Rumer organized flowers to be sent to his mom through the prison chaplaincy, but there was no confirmation whether she received the orchids or not. The address to which they were sent was not the same as the one in our possession on my private odyssey to salvage something from Rumer's family.

"Do you have any idea what you might say to her, if someone's there?" I asked.

Rumer shuffled disagreeably in the passenger seat. "You know I don't want to talk about this, right?"

"Yes, I know," I said, cheekily.

I sure did.

And I relished my discovery the night before that I had some conversational power and decided to keep exploiting it as long as the courage continued to blow air beneath my wings.

Rumer sighed. "I don't know, he said, finally. "I don't imagine we'll find anyone there."

"You mean, you hope we don't."

I'd never pushed anyone in a conversation. It wasn't my style, because I hated it when others forced me to talk about things I wanted to remain in the vault. But with Rumer, it felt different. I felt an unfamiliar comfort when I was with him.

"It's been a long time," Rumer continued, to my surprise. "My mother and I were never big talkers... even when I was still living at home."

"How long ago was that?"

"I moved out one week after my eighteenth birthday."

Nosiness scratched from inside my skin. I wanted to know about the connection between his father's death and him leaving home, but when I saw the turn off for Frenchs Forest, I thought better of it. I didn't want him to hate me.

Rumer never sat comfortably, the entire trip. He scratched at his scars with his gloved hands, kept adjusting his coat, which he didn't remove despite the comfy temperature control in Pastor Crosbie's car, and he constantly explored the surroundings.

The satellite navigation system directed us to a street where the suburb met Garigal National Park. It reminded me of home. Of Leura. Not quite as serene or tranquil, but seeing the green of the trees subdued my own strengthening nervousness. I needed it, after the GPS directions. The annoying woman's voice just wouldn't quit. Turn left in 30 yards. Turn left now. I wanted to chuck the damn thing out of window.

I slowed the car as we neared number forty-two.

"Maybe, just keep going for a bit," Rumer suddenly said. "Let's park around the corner."

"Really?"

But Rumer didn't answer. His eyes strained through the windscreen, looking up at the two-story house as we rolled past, like a snail. The block was a short one, so I kept going without making a fuss. Luckily, there was a car space, but it wasn't very big.

We had not practiced a lot of reverse parking.

"Do you want to park, or do you want me to give it a go?" I said.

"You can do it."

I wasn't so sure. I advanced the Corolla level with the parked car in front of the space, shifted into reverse and immediately stalled. Crap!

Rumer said nothing. I'd like to think he was too spellbound by the idea of seeing his mother again, but was probably too embarrassed, as I was, to say anything.

My second attempt at parking was a catastrophe. I didn't stall, but the rear of the car ended up on the footpath and I somehow engineered the Corolla to be perpendicular to the gutter.

Again, Rumer said nothing.

It was starting to annoy the crap out of me. I tried a third time and a fourth time. "Maybe you should do it," I said, finally. "I'm just not getting it."

"Don't give up," Rumer said. "You can do this."

Anything to delay going to that house, I thought. But that landed in the same unfair basket as thoughts earlier. I was just a hack at parking. It wasn't his fault.

From my starting position, I reversed two-thirds of the car length, turned the wheel to the right and temperately eased into the narrow space. I giggled like a lunatic. "I think I've got it."

With my nose still pointing into the street, I reversed a little further, yanked the wheel to full lock and squeezed the accelerator pedal a smidgen. We inched forward. I straightened up and we were in. "Yes, baby!" I yelled.

Then, my head flushed with embarrassment. "I mean... I wasn't calling you baby! It was just a figure of speech. Not that..." I fought to contain the dribble, but must have sounded like a twelve-year-old to Rumer. I gave up and dramatically changed the topic. "Did you want me to come with you?" I asked, in all seriousness.

He smiled, then opened the door immediately and was gone.

"Was that a yes?" I yelled after him. Bloody hell, I thought. I could no longer see him. Rational ideas streamed through me about privacy and family and not wanting to have some girl hanging around during what was probably the most challenging conversation Rumer and his mother were ever going to have, but none of that stopped me.

In a jiffy, I was out of the car, too. When I looked up, I saw Rumer waiting for me on the corner. Good, I thought. I read it like he did want me there. Bad luck if he didn't. I was on my way.

"Let's do this," he said, when I got to his side.

He looked smart in black pants, jumper and his long coat. I, on the other hand, looked like I'd dressed myself with items from the local two-dollar shop. "I feel a bit underdressed," I said. It was intended as a thought only, but when Rumer replied for me not to be so self-conscious, I realized my internal dialogue had squeezed the volume control to up. Oops!

We paused at the rustic, wooden fence guarding the entrance path. The home looked derelict. A handwritten "For Lease" sign sat lazily in the front window, but I saw no lights behind the half-closed curtains. There was no obvious movement and I heard no sounds coming from within. Two rusted numbers tacked loosely to a self-constructed letterbox confirmed we were at house number forty-two.

"Okay," I said. "What do you think?"

"It looks empty."

I nodded in agreement, keeping a heedful eye on Rumer beside me. I was no expert in a family crisis. The disintegration of my own family had illustrated a complete lack of coping skills. The one thing I had learnt from Rumer was the importance of just being there for someone. Even being clueless about what to say or what to do or how to act. Sometimes, just being there was enough. Of course I valued his kind words, his miraculous actions to save me again and again, but what encapsulated my heart with warmth and joy the most, was him simply being with me – and knowing he was there for me.

His hand unclipped the weather-beaten gate from its latch and it swung open without assistance, creaking all the way. Rumer stepped through, steadfastly. He'd decided there was no going back, anymore.

Before I was even through the gate, he had ascended the handful of wooden steps to the front porch, but he turned to wait for me, before proceeding.

"Sorry," I said.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be here."

Was it gladness I detected? I wasn't certain, but I wanted so much for him to find his mother. Maybe I did have my own powers of willing things into reality.

Rumer tapped gently on the wooden door, then stood back with anticipation. His body was rigid. His eyes were unbreakable from the entrance.

As I stood beside him, my desire to be a good person usurped my feeling of helplessness. Before my brain had enough time to talk me out of it, I grabbed Rumer's hand in mine and held on tight. We stood together, hand-in-hand, waiting for the door to open.

I sensed Rumer glancing down at me as I took his hand. I was petrified that I'd crossed some sort of friendship line, so there was no way I was going to look up. I'd already called him 'Baby!' in the car, by accident. If family matters were not my strong point, clearly relationships and boys were like me trying to put out a wildfire with a can of petrol.

But I stood my ground.

And when Rumer didn't pull away and didn't say anything, I secretly smiled, because I knew I'd made the best decision.

"Wait here a minute," Rumer eventually said. "I'm going to take a look out back."

"Are you sure?"

"I'll just be a minute." He took a large step, but then, turned back to face me with a most peculiar look and wry smile on his face.

"What?" I said, defensively.

His eyes dropped to our interlocked hands. He was nice enough not to add some smart-ass comment like, 'You can let go now, psycho.'

"Oh," I said, unable to hide my mortification. I snapped my hand from his and, like always, overcompensated for effect. "Just thought you'd need all the help you can get."

Rumer smiled, then strode quickly around the side of the house and out of sight – no doubt, speeding away from me as quickly as he possibly could.

"Idiot!" I reprimanded myself. And again. And again. "Thought you needed all the help... Who says that?" I was seriously narked. I'd done so well with taking his hand and I had turned it into a complete fiasco.

Stupid, Sara, I kept thinking to myself.

Noises suddenly permeated from behind the front door. It was the Gingerbread House dream all over again, I thought. I instinctively took a step in retreat and almost fell backwards off the porch. Within a couple of minutes, my unco-ness had inadvertently turned me into a one-woman slapstick show. Get a grip! I howled at myself.

The front door whined as it opened – as if woken from a one-hundred-year hibernation. Its frame creaked and squealed in chorus with the door. The house did not enjoy the awakening.

My bulk stiffened, but when Rumer's face popped out from the darkness inside the house, it came as no surprise.

"Rumer," I yelled in hushed tones, as if I'd caught him stealing toffee-apples in a candy store.

"It's okay," he said. "The place is empty."

"Yes. You know that now but..." I checked over my shoulder for prying eyes, but only saw the forest-scape across the road. I had participated in the decimation of freight trains and run from Special Agent Nico Moth – what difference was breaking into a house going to make?

I firmly shut the door behind me. As the wood squeezed back into its frame, the 'For Lease' sign fell from the adjacent window sill, as if to suggest the house was no longer empty because of our new, uninvited, presence.

The first sense that struck my attention was the smell. A moldy dew rose up from the wooden floorboards and from the walls and just about everywhere else. My stomach bubbled as I stood motionless to stop myself from puking. It was disgusting.

"You okay?" Rumer said, as he passed by the furthest end of the corridor. "You look a little white."

Considering there were no lights on anywhere, only sporadic daylight sneaking in through the gaps in the curtains, I must have looked like a milk bottle for him to notice at such a distance. "Smells good," I finally said. But Rumer was already out of sight. "Rumer?"

Containing thoughts of a Technicolor yawn as far into the depths of my stomach as possible, I encroached upon the sleepy hodgepodge of corridors and rooms. I kept my hands fastened to my sides, afraid to even think about touching anything. The walls looked literally slimy from a moisture build up, and I could only speculate how long it had been brewing away.

The floor felt soft, wobbly. At any moment, I thought I'd sink through it, quicker than broken ice on a river. Immediately to my left was a room not much bigger than my bedroom at home. A blocked, antique fireplace was the singular feature of the dark, burrow-like lounge room. There was no furniture. No carpet. And nothing left hanging on the walls. I couldn't understand why anyone would think to lease such a property, if the owner left it in a state that screamed, House of Horrors!

Two steps further and on my right, I discovered what must have been a study room. I hated those. The curtains were fully closed and, like the lounge room, the undesirable space was devoid of anything resembling warmth or comfort or humanity.

Suddenly, Rumer was beside me. I had not heard him approach and he scared the bejesus out of me. "Stop doing that," I said, only half in jest.

My hand instinctively pressed against his chest and I realized that boundaries between us were crumbling as fast as a cookie in a food processor. All those terrifying nuances I'd thought about, like touching him, being close to him, wanting him. They were no longer processes that required success through a labyrinth of indecision. I touched him without forethought, as if it was suddenly automatic. Normal. It was still as scary as all hell, I thought. Worse, I had no idea if he felt the same way, so I quickly pulled my hand away, pretended like everything was fine and that I'd not just undergone psychoanalytical warfare in my head.

"What is this place?" I said. "It's terrible. And the smell."

"I've checked upstairs," Rumer said. "It's definitely empty. Looks like no one's been here for a long time."

"Do you think your mom was ever here?"

Rumer slowly let his eyes soak in every bit of the awful surroundings. "I don't know," he said. "I hope not."

"What should we do?" I asked.

"Keep looking for a bit. Check the wardrobes. Maybe... I don't know. Anything might help."

I liked his sudden enthusiasm. We'd argued during my first driving lesson about the importance of family. He'd resisted using the ancestry website on the internet in our search for clues. And he'd shown outright aversion to coming to the house at number forty-two. But he came. Of course, I took all the credit and was pretty pleased with myself. Good job, Sara, I ran on repeat through my head each time Rumer flashed by, and in and out of the various rooms in the house.

"I'll check upstairs," I said, refusing to take hold of the staircase railing.

Spider webs were scattered in every corner and crevice. It was arachnid heaven for the critters. Judging by the smell, there had to be other vermin, rats and just about every other disgusting adversary to pleasant existence.

Each wooden plank beneath my feet moaned as I ascended to the upper level. At the top of the stairs, a solitary picture frame hung at an obtuse angle. The frame was empty, like the rest of the home. I felt an abrupt sadness and then, uncontrollable anxiety.

Is this what my family home was going to be like, soon?

With the spirit of our home contaminated beyond repair with all of mom's treachery seeping into the walls, I wondered how any of us were going to remain there. I knew Mika wouldn't. Dad would surely leave.

That left me, mom... and maybe Helen moving in. That was never going to happen. I'd burn the place to the ground before then. Our family home would be deserted, with nature it's only tenant. Vermin would eventually take control and devour the happiness and memories and good times to oblivion, forever.

Perhaps, one day, strangers would roam through the ruins, see neglected picture frames and wonder – as I was doing – about the people that once lived there.

We were all creating our own history, whether we liked it or not, to be judged by those to come after us.

What would people think of me?

Rumer jumped onto the staircase, taking two steps at a time. He could have taken them all in one leap, but seemed content to remain as human as possible. How would history judge him? I thought.

He scurried past me, gently brushing my shoulder with his as he did so. I was never going to believe anything other than him doing it deliberately.

How would history judge us?

The upper landing reflected the same ferment of abandonment as below. I still didn't touch anything. The smell was as putrid as on the ground floor, but the walls were covered in greater sprawls of mildew. The rising heat and stifled air served as an incubator for fungus and critter breeding. I felt the warmth radiating from the rotting wood on the walls.

"Sara," Rumer yelled, with a hint of excitement.

I snapped from my thoughts of vermin, fungal growth and the greater good and jumped into action – literally jumped, over a dead, upturned huntsman spider. Three leaps later, I found Rumer in a large room overlooking the street, with built-in robes and scratch marks on the wooden floor, the size of a modest bed, suggesting to me we were in the master bedroom.

"What's going on?" I said.

"Look," Rumer said, staring into the open wardrobe, his eyes focused towards the top of the cavity.

I stepped to his side and threw my stare into the clothes cupboard. There were no clothes. The wood on the floor inside the hollow was cracked and cockroaches roamed freely, despite our towering presence. A single, wire coat hanger hinted at a busier past. "What exactly am I looking at?" I said.

But before Rumer could answer, I tilted my head upwards. A large wooden plank separated the top fifth of the wardrobe, presumably for socks or shoes or storage. At the very back, barely visible because I was a good foot shorter than Rumer, were two cardboard shoeboxes, defiled like Swiss cheese, by rodents.

Rumer reached for the boxes.

"Careful," I said. "God knows what critters are in there."

He seemed less bothered. Gently dragging the boxes across the dusty plank towards us, I wondered if we would find a treasure trove of information or a pet cemetery. In the mountains, critters were common and I wasn't squeamish or afraid, but I still didn't like them. Especially if they were dead and gathered, like departed soldiers on a battlefield.

I stepped back as Rumer pulled the boxes down to chest level.

"Do you think it could be something?"

"I don't know," Rumer said. "But it's the only thing still in the house, so if there's nothing here then..."

"Let's open them," I said.

We both kneeled down at the same time, Rumer placing the boxes on the ground between us, side by side. He hesitated momentarily, but then, used the tip of his index fingers on both hands to fling the lids off simultaneously.

No dead rats.

Both boxes contained a handful of papers, bills and other documents. Instantly, my mind flashed to Buddha and the secret drawer and that awful day. I sucked in a volume of air to appease the nervousness percolating under my skin and hoped our discovery was not a cursed moment of déjà vu.

Rumer poked his finger into the boxes, inspecting what lay beneath. Three cockroaches ran for their lives, up the papers and out of the box. They were super-fast critters.

"Urghh!" I said.

"These boxes have been here a while."

"You've got the gloves on," I said. "Knock yourself out."

Rumer secured the top document between his fingertips and carefully pulled it from the shoebox. It was a phone bill for the house. $97.50 for landline and internet use. But it wasn't the service descriptions that glued our eyes to the paper.

It was the name the bill was addressed to: ANGELA PHOENIX.

"Oh my God," I said. "That's your mom."

At almost that exact moment, a car door slammed outside and Rumer interlocked our stares. What the...?

"Hold this," Rumer said, passing the phone bill to me. He rose to his feet and snuck to the window overlooking the street.

"Anything?" I said.

He raised his finger to his lips, hushing me. Something had caught his eye.

He pointed down towards the street as he hid from view behind the decrepit curtain.

"What is it?" I said, much more softly than before.

"The police."

"What?" Blood gushed to my head.

"It's the Moth. Special Agent Nico Moth."

Oh Crap!

"Rumer," I said. "I never locked the front door!"

# Chapter 36

Rumer's eyes widened.

"I didn't know we were going to have company," I said, more defensively than I thought it deserved. "What's he doing here?"

Rumer kept watch outside. "I imagine he followed your train of thought that my mother might be the best place to look for me."

"This is all my fault." I was irrepressibly annoyed at myself. I hadn't thought the idea through enough. I looked up at Rumer and said, "We're going to get caught because of me."

He smiled thinly. "We're not going to get caught that easily."

I wasn't so sure.

I heard the front gate creak open and I froze, afraid that the Moth might hear me. My stare had not snapped from Rumer. I could see him trying to work things out in his head.

"The door," I said, again.

Rumer looked at me with greater trepidation. Had he just not heard me before? All at once, the situation burst into conflict.

"Grab the boxes," he yelled, as loudly as he dared, before racing out of the room. I heard him at the top of the stairs and then, at the bottom. He never touched a single step.

I threw the lids back on the shoeboxes and stacked them together. Jumping to my feet, I shut the wardrobe doors, but then noticed the marks in the dust on the floor where Rumer and I had been. "Crap," I said, aloud. Using the edges of my runners, I dragged my feet through the dust, distorting the obvious hand and knee marks the two of us had left for all to see. I must have looked like a crazy disco dancer who couldn't string a single move together.

I was so unco.

Then, I heard a knock on the door. I instantly held my breath again. What do I do? I screamed to myself. I had to move. I had to do something.

As quietly as I could possible manage, I bent over and picked up the two boxes. I was terrified I might drop them and the noise would be the only incentive the Moth would need to attack the flame. I had no idea where Rumer was. I only hoped he'd made it to the front door. Please!

I tippy-toed from the room with the treasure troves tucked under my left arm. Like a mouse, I stealthily crept to the top of the stairs. What I wouldn't give to be able to miss all those steps as Rumer had done. I saw our footprints in the dust everywhere. Even if we were somehow able to get out, and Nico Moth somehow able to get in, he'd still work out that there was more than just the one person.

The floorboards on the stairs creaked like fireworks. "I'm sorry," I said, stupidly. No one could actually hear me. When I reached the bottom floor, I cranked my head around the wall and clearly saw the front door.

There was a second knock.

In the tiny, frosted-glass window, two-thirds up the door, I saw the silhouette of the person on the other side. The Moth. I liked him less and less.

Rumer was crouched on the inside of the door, well beneath the window. His back was forced against the wood. When he saw me, he mechanically raised his finger to his lips a second time.

Because, I'm just going to stand here and shout, didn't you know? I felt like saying. I couldn't even breathe, let alone find any volume to say anything to penetrate the door or the walls or the windows. The windows. We hadn't checked them.

The door handle rattled. Rumer froze. I was already a statue. Any more freezing from me and I'd be in a coma.

The door was so old, I worried that the handle may come off and the door simply push open, but it held and, as quickly as the deafening jarring noise began, the house interior was quiet again.

Nico Moth stepped purposefully across the front porch of the house, but not away. He moved around the side.

He wasn't going to go away that easily.

Rumer gestured me closer, but also to stay down and to check for the detective's presence in the windows before I traversed past the open doors. If the Moth sensed any movement inside the house, he had enough probable cause to break down the doors and get in.

Clinging to the cardboard boxes like my life depended on it, I crouched down and tentatively put one foot in front of the other. I paused at the first open door.

I no longer saw the agent, but I could sure hear him. He was out there, somewhere. I was tempted to drop to my knees and shuffle across like a little kid, but thought a bit of speed to be a greater asset.

Breathe Sara, I had to keep reminding myself. My getting across the doorway was more of a demented frog than a stealthy rodent. I only hoped that I'd not been seen.

Only one doorway separated me from Rumer. The study room, which faced the opposite direction to the clockwise path Nico Moth had taken around the house, but I still took no unnecessary risk and simply waited for Rumer's next instruction.

"What do we do?" I said super-quietly, as I straightened my posture and dug my fingers into the shoeboxes like a falcon.

"If he doesn't get inside," Rumer said, "there'll be no problem. We'll just wait."

We didn't really have a choice. It's not like we could escape, guns blazing. I peeked over my shoulder, down the length of the corridor, to make sure I wasn't in view of any windows. I was okay, but couldn't stop my heart from constant spasms. I was so nervous.

"This is fun, isn't it?" Rumer said, with a wry smile. "Looking for my mom and all."

"It's not my fault," I said under my breath. Of course, in a way it was. If not for my insistence, we wouldn't be at number forty-two. I eased the two cardboard boxes out from underneath my arms as if to say, 'Yeah, but it was worth it, wasn't it?'

Only time would tell.

Then, we heard rattling at the back door. Serious rattling. I drilled my gaze into Rumer. Are we still okay?

He suddenly looked worried. His hands moved from atop his knees and signaled me into the study room. "There's a wardrobe in there. If you need to hide..."

Need to hide?

"Whatever happens, I promise you, he won't find you."

"Okay," I said, but totally unconvinced by the whole situation. My gut feeling starting screaming that everything was about to get a whole lot worse.

"By the way," Rumer said. "Do you want to have dinner with me, tonight?"

"You're asking me out on a date... now?"

Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice screamed through the house. The Moth. "Hello!" he said. "Anyone home."

He was inside the house.

Rumer immediately jumped to his feet. He grabbed hold of me with both hands and threw me into the study room. I landed firmly on my butt, but was more concerned about those bloody boxes... and about the Special Agent being in the house. Probably with a gun.

My gut feeling had been right, again!

I scrambled to my knees and looked hopefully up at the wardrobe. Its door was ajar and I already knew the horror that hid behind it. Cockroaches. Spider webs. And that god-awful smell.

But all that didn't seem to matter nearly as much as the noises I suddenly heard coming from the kitchen area at the end of the corridor from which I had been ceremoniously flung. It was Special Agent Nico Moth, and he sounded deadly serious.

"This is the police," he yelled, deliberately loud. "I'm looking for an Angela Phoenix."

There was no reply. I was no longer confident of making it to the wardrobe without any noise, so I froze. I don't know how long for, but it felt as if I aged about six years. Come on, Sara, I urged myself in total silence. I needed to move. At least if I was in the cupboard, I'd be safe from a quick glance into the study room.

I decided I was never going to have a study room in any house of mine. Only bad stuff happened in them. Life-changing stuff.

Thoughts of mom sprouted a snappy rush of adrenalin and I heaved my lead-weight feet across floor. The two boxes juggled in my hands. I don't know how I managed to cling to them. I didn't stop to work it out, either. I used my foot to inch open the wardrobe.

It creaked so loud, I may as well have screamed.

"Hello?" I heard the voice from the kitchen say, with renewed resolve. And then, footsteps down the corridor.

"Holy crap!" I said, under my breath. Move, Sara!

I galumphed into the dark void and pulled the door shut behind me. It must have creaked, but I don't recall hearing it above the thumping in chest. Ba-Boom! Ba-Boom! Ba-Boom! It got louder and louder.

"Hello?"

I saw nothing, but knew Nico Moth stood in the doorway to the study room. There were no more footsteps. What was he waiting for? I streamed through all the options in my head.

Do I let him find me hiding?

Do I give up and open the door?

Do I pretend to be dead?

And what the hell was Rumer doing?

He had promised I would not be found by the agent, but I wasn't so sure, anymore. I don't know what scared me most. Being discovered or Rumer breaking a promise.

Then, the Moth stepped towards the wardrobe. I still couldn't see him – couldn't see anything – but the creaking boards got louder and I felt the floor beneath me vibrate.

He was close.

Another step. And another. There wasn't a sliver of a gap to see out. I only had my imagination, which made everything a thousand times worse. At night, I always worried about the monsters in the cupboard. Now, I was hiding in the cupboard and the monsters were outside and coming for me.

I was helpless. I couldn't move. I didn't want to breathe. I sure didn't want to think about what creepy-crawlies were cowering in the wardrobe with me. They were probably more scared than I was.

A loud thump announced Nico Moth standing directly in front of my hiding-hole. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do. He would pull that door open and I would be discovered.

What the hell was I going to tell him?

The door jarred. I braced my body for the conflict – for the embarrassment. A thread of light spilled into the wardrobe. The filament rapidly expanded to a broad shaft of light. The door was definitely opening.

"Hey," I suddenly heard a voice yell. It was Rumer.

What was he doing?

The door stopped moving. It was open enough for me to see Rumer standing in the doorway to the study. He was looking to the other side of the wardrobe door. My imagination had not lied. The Moth stood within two feet of me with only a thin, wooden door between us.

I dared not move.

A weird standoff ensued between Rumer and Nico Moth. There were no words. No movement. Nothing.

Then, I heard something unclipping. Something.

"Don't move," I heard the law enforcement agent yell.

From around the door, a black object swung into view, raised to chest height.

A gun!

Rumer instantly disappeared.

"Freeze!" the Moth yelled. He then ran out of the study room, giving chase. It was the first time I had seen the agent since burrowing into hiding. One thing was for sure. We were now in serious trouble.

Noise erupted from the rest of the house like a warzone. Yelling, which I couldn't decipher, echoed through the corridor. Doors slammed shut. And then, the stamping of feet up the staircase. I didn't know what to do. Whether to move or to stay put and keep hiding.

Things were getting way out of control.

Were they both upstairs? I thought. Maybe I had a chance to get out of the house.

What would Rumer want me to do?

I pulled the wardrobe door to within an inch of complete closure. I was going nowhere. Clinging to the cardboard boxes, I forced my knees closer into my chest and sank as deeply into the darkness as I could, making myself as small as possible.

The cupboard reverberated with the noises shrieking throughout Angela Phoenix's old home.

Nico Moth's hollering kept instructing Rumer to stop moving, which he obviously ignored completely. I could only imagine the mayhem, as they chased each other through the house.

I was wholeheartedly conflicted. Of course, I wanted Rumer to be safe and to be free. But he was an escapee and the agent was simply doing his job. I felt guilty for wanting the bad guy to win. I wanted the bad guy full stop. I never knew boys were so much trouble. I didn't know how Steph dealt with it. Although, I was certain she'd never had a boy quite like Rumer.

I then heard a loud thud accompanied by continuous groaning, like two gorillas fighting at the zoo. They were directly above me. Bang! Another thud. There were muffled voices. Desperate tones. More thuds.

The boys were fighting.

I could stand it no longer. I had to get out of that stupid wardrobe. I had to do something. I kicked open the door. It didn't bother me anymore that it creaked and thumped into the wall. Compared to the chaos upstairs, I was subsonic.

For the first time in what felt like ten hours, I let go of the cardboard boxes. I placed them neatly inside the wardrobe and shut the door to protect them. I turned swiftly, focused on the getting out of the study. It felt like I was breaking out of my own prison.

"Get off me," I heard the Moth yell.

Again, I was happy that the loudest moans came from the agent and not from Rumer, but was unsure if that's how I ought to be feeling.

I stepped undeterred to the study room door, paused briefly to crank my neck into the corridor and then, jumped out like a woman on a one-way mission to be more than a damsel-in-distress. I could handle a little action, I started to believe.

The knocks and rumbles upstairs suddenly stopped. Was Rumer okay? I instantly worried. It injected me with all sorts of emotions that I couldn't identify, but it also urged me forward. I ran to the end of the corridor, checked around the corner again, and stepped onto the first plank of the staircase.

What are you doing, Sara? the voices in my head kept howling at me, but I was like a woman possessed. I needed to prove to Rumer that he could count on me if he needed me. I needed to prove it to myself. For all I knew, they were both laying comatose on the floor in need of medical help.

I would never forgive myself if I was somehow responsible for someone else dying.

The old house stench was just as strong on my second arrival on the upper floor, but the silence which had settled on the landing, did unearth an old friend – my thumping heart. I was either really brave getting my butt upstairs or really stupid.

I stuck with brave.

My feet felt like they were glued to the floorboards. My brain was willing them to move forward, but they just wouldn't go. I forced my hands to my thighs, literally picking up my leg and repositioning it further in front. Until that moment, I never realized how paralyzing fear could be. It was my brain kicking in for a bit of self-preservation again.

Stupid brain!

I tried to ignore the fear. That didn't work. I may have even taken a step back in the confusion. My next strategy was to accept it. "Okay, Sara," I said, under my breath, "you're as terrified as all crap. It's real. Let's just deal with it, okay?"

My foot trundled forwards. Yes, I thought. Keep going! And I did. Another step and another and another.

Then, the shock of hearing Nico Moth's voice again stopped my movement mid-step. My left leg dangled in the air.

"Are you going to kill me now?" he said.

I was expecting to hear an abrupt 'No'. But it never came. I eased my foot to the ground. If the Moth was pleading for his life, surely it meant that Rumer was okay – in control. With heightened vigor, I strode to the door of the bedroom where Rumer and I had discovered his mother's documents, but then, I didn't know what to do again.

The last thing I wanted was for the agent to see me. He would recognize me instantly and I'd be in all sorts of problems. Going home would be impossible. I would be a fugitive like Rumer, which I didn't particularly want.

No, Sara, I convinced myself. Staying out of sight was my best option.

Suddenly, there was loud thump.

I couldn't resist the urge to creep closer, though. Damn curiosity! I always believed it would be the death of me, one day. My feet, overcoming the disabling fear, crept forward like a spider stalking its prey. Closer and closer to the bedroom door. Within arm's length, I stopped, but still couldn't see anything. It was such human nature to be drawn to all things macabre.

But I needed to be smart, too. I took a ginormous breath to calm every sense in my excited body. Fear was both awful and thrilling at the same time.

I leaned ever-so-slightly to my left, trying one last time to sneak a peek.

Then, Rumer burst from the room. I yelped like a wounded dog and threw my hands to my mouth to catch the noise, but was way too late. He was as shocked as I was. I'd never seen him shudder so much.

His eyes almost burst from their sockets. What the hell are you doing up here? He grabbed me firmly and gestured me back to the stairs.

"What happened? Are you okay?" I said, as softly as I could.

Scratches covered Rumer's face. Trickles of thick, red blood meandered down the track of his facial scar. His jumper was ripped and his lip cut, and dripping with blood. "I'm okay," he said. "Let's go."

We staggered down the stairs. As we neared the bottom, Rumer lost his footing and relied on me to keep him upright. He felt heavy, but I couldn't let him fall. I shot all the adrenalin gushing through me into my legs and, thanks to a few tricks I'd learnt in gymnastics, I kept both of us facing the right way up.

"Thank you," he said, in a voice so sweet that I wanted to immediately throw my arms around him and hold him, but that would demand a bravery well beyond anything I could muster.

"What about...?" I vaguely pointed upstairs.

"He won't be bothering us, any time soon."

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

As soon as I said it, I realized that even though I meant it half-jokingly, that's not how Rumer would hear it.

When he stopped in the corridor and let go of me, I knew instantly that I'd overstepped into unrequired territory. "Sorry," I said, but Rumer looked disappointed, more than angry. And that affected me more.

"No, Sara. I didn't kill him."

I was glad to hear it, if only to confirm what I already knew. But I felt terrible and I struggled to get moving again.

"We need to go," Rumer said, as he stepped past me to the front door.

I spoke absentmindedly. "Shouldn't we go out the window or something? Or, at least, out through the back door."

"We still need to head out through the front gate, Sara. It's going to look a lot more suss if someone spots us crawling out through a window to get there, right?"

But it all got too much for me. I felt my eyes well like they were in a sauna. I had pretended to be brave. Forced myself, even, to escape from my hiding spot and confront the chaos head on, as much as my sanity allowed. But I wasn't brave enough.

The nightmare of sitting in that wardrobe in absolute darkness, together with the waiting to be discovered, then the door creaking open, the sight of the agent's gun and him chasing Rumer, listening to them brawling upstairs, the thought that something had happened to Rumer and, on top of that, my irresponsible comments about death and murder – my brain overloaded.

Whereas my legs had frozen solid from fear earlier, they now felt weak and wobbly like ricotta cheese. Dark blotches again encroached on my vision. Just like the last time I had run from Special Agent Nico Moth – in Leura on the night Rumer and I witnessed the murdered girl being dragged from the belly of the forest – I wasn't sure I could make it.

The front door was only a few steps ahead of me, but it seemed like an impassable chasm.

I twisted my head to the left and then, to the right, looking for a an exit to my dread, but found only cold, decaying walls dripping with mold and memories of a horrible life. My hands needed a soft place to fall, but I sensed none in my immediate vicinity.

"Rumer," I said, in a whisper.

Then, I began to tumble backwards, my hands flailing to the sides, scratching at their emptiness to catch me. My hair rose around my face as my legs left the ground. I was in freefall towards the hard, rotting floorboards behind me.

But I didn't fall. I floated like an angel in the center of the corridor as my arms and legs searched for something material to cling to. Then, cognition took hold and I realized I no longer needed to control my movement. The air around me was already being controlled – by Rumer.

I pushed my head forward and looked down the length of my body which hovered parallel to the floor. At the front door, Rumer stood with his arms stretched towards me. The maestro held me in his spell from afar. His eyes were locked with mine. I was safe. He would never let me fall. I cried even more – a mixture of being totally overwhelmed by anarchy, sweetened by the most incredible desire to want someone, to hold someone, to love someone.

And to be loved by them.

He stepped beside me and melted away the furor raging in my head as his arms snaked beneath me and took my weight. I threw my arms around his neck and let myself be carried like a young child. In my seventeen years, I had never experienced a place of safety like the way I felt when Rumer held me in his arms.

That must be love, I said to myself.

With me firmly in his grasp, we strode to the front door, which opened without Rumer needing to touch it or let go of me.

"Wait!" I said, in a broken, tired voice. "The shoeboxes are in the study room wardrobe."

He looked at me again, his eyes more inquisitive than soulful. "Do we really need them?" he said.

"Yes. Or this will all have been for nothing."

He smiled. "You're right."

And with that, we swooped into the nearby room and retrieved the valuable boxes.

I was convinced of their importance and I loved that he respected my resolve to fight for them, to fight for him and to fight for his family... as he fought for me.

# Chapter 37

By the time Pastor Crosbie's Corolla rolled down the driveway at home in the mountains, the light had begun to fade and the rain spattered from blackening clouds. Rumer had driven from Frenchs Forest to give me a chance to recover. During the journey, I slept a little, we talked a bit about family and I kept reminding Rumer that he'd asked me out on a dinner date for the night.

"It's not necessarily a date, Sara. It's just dinner at the church."

It sounded romantic and I stuck to my date-thingy, but first I wanted to check on Mika. I also wanted a shower and a change of clothes. There was no doubt in my mind that the awful stench of number forty-two had seeped into every pore and crevice of my skin. Secretly, I wanted to be like a snake and shed every part of my dermal-fleece.

"Stop here a sec," I interrupted, the car halfway down the driveway and my eyes glued forward. "Just park on the left." I pointed to the driveway extension, which mom had insisted upon constructing two years earlier for her yoga clients. "I wonder what's going on down there."

Out front of the garage at the base of the driveway, in the increasing rain, mom stood looking lost, leaning against her car with a large suitcase positioned beside her right leg. Her arms were folded and she looked both torturously angry and incredibly sad... and wet!

"Just wait here," I said.

Rumer could resolve many things, but making mom happy probably wasn't one of them. I was concerned that if she saw me with him, it would only obfuscate whatever the problem was.

And there was definitely a problem.

I saw it in mom's bloodshot-eyes as I walked down the rest of the driveway and got closer to her.

Almost as if in a trance, she didn't notice me until I was directly in front of her.

"What's going on?" I said, pulling my hoodie over my head to shield me from the rain and the wind. "Where's Mika?"

She looked at me with defeated eyes, dazed and confused, as if trying to determine whose voice she heard. "Mikayla's gone out with your father," she said, distracted.

Then, as if insanity flicked a switch in her head, the sadness drained away from mom and she looked instantly livid. "Don't talk to me!" she screamed.

It was borderline split-personality disorder.

"What?" I said, in genuine shock and confusion.

"I don't know who you think you are," she continued, "running away. Staying out all night. That's no way to behave, Sara."

"What?" I said again, ploughing my skull for a stronger response. "You didn't want me here. You wanted... her!"

"That's rubbish, Sara." She paused for breath, but then, the barrage of insults she had built up since I uncovered her secret, spilled from her mouth. She said, "One day, when you're older and you have your own family you'll understand."

Anger began to seethe under my skin and boil away the confusion. "That doesn't make the pain any easier now, mom. It's like you're saying I have to suffer through this so I can understand it sometime in the future. What am I supposed to do with that sort of advice? From my own mother."

"We all need to move on and improve our lives," she said.

I was so tired of that fake, one-line-to-fix-everything advice. "You're the only one that's moving on, here," I said, my voice intensifying in both volume and aggression. "You're moving on and you're leaving everyone else behind."

But mom's one-line fixes continued. "Your father is getting used to the separation."

She made me so angry. I yelled, "How can our lives improve when our mother has left us behind and you're pushing dad to move on by saying he is getting more used to the separation? It's not like he has any choice."

"Sara, you don't understand."

"I do understand, mom. I really do. You want to be with Helen more than you want to be with me and you'll do whatever you need to do, lie however you need to lie, to make that happen."

"What do you want from me?" mom screamed.

"You say you are sorry for causing us pain, but so far, nothing you have done has been about finding a solution other than making yourself happy. You tell Mika I'm just a child who doesn't understand."

Mom looked away.

"Yes, mom. She told me what you said. You've told me I need to work harder at our relationship and that you've done all you can. You've lied about Helen. You lie to Helen about how I feel about her. You tell dad I will just need to deal with it, and yet, you blame dad for everything. You make excuses all the time. Even now, you're saying 'Maybe when I have my own family I may have more of an understanding.' Yet you have no idea about how I actually feel."

I felt the furor begin to overwhelm my rationality, not that anything I was saying wasn't absolutely true. It was! But it was as if the words I pulled from the deepest, most personal corners of my soul simply bounced off mom's indifference.

"When have you asked me what I want? What I need?" I said. "And yes, you can say that you have tried once or twice, but isn't it your job to find out how I feel? And if I'm not ready to do it your way, you can't just give up and blame it all on me. You are the parent. When did you sit down and ask me and Mika how we felt about it, and how it would affect our lives and our futures? When, mom? You have no understanding about how much all this has hurt me. You just want to be happy and it doesn't matter what we think or feel. I've never heard you say, 'I understand why you are angry and sad. I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you from the start.' You've never said that."

"I'm not having this conversation now, Sara?"

"What? We're in the middle of this conversation. Have you listened to anything I've said?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. My bag is packed and I'm leaving."

"To be with her?"

But mom didn't answer. She didn't have to. For all my defiance to death and murder with Rumer, I suddenly wanted to wrap my arms around my mother's neck and squeeze as hard as I could. Tears streamed down my face, lost amongst the marauding rain. But mom knew I was upset and she didn't move an inch. Not one.

"You proved last night that you don't want a relationship with me at all," she said.

"What? How?"

"You won't let me be happy, Sara. It's all about you," mom said.

I should have throttled her at that moment. The blue devils cheered and laughed at me, belting the inside of my skull with pitchforks and insults. Mom was so wrong and she couldn't see it – chose not to see it. Part of me hungered to return to the devouring pain of burning my flesh and standing in front of trains or diving into the abyss, but an unfamiliar resolve spread through me. Wherever there was a party of cheering devils, my tenacity grew like out-of-control weeds, with frightening voraciousness. Its claw-like fronds choked the little blue-bastards and gave me a strength that was as unexpected as it was empowering.

It was also the moment I became an adult.

And my churning of hate and vengefulness was melted to sorrow and maturity.

One of us needed to be the adult and salvage seventeen years of history. "I do want us to have a relationship again," I said, resolutely, "but you are asking something of me that I am not ready to accept, and I may never be. But by you making almost no effort to understand that and respect my opinion on that, you are pushing me further and further away. You are the parent, yet you are the one that's saying I don't care what anyone else feels and I'm just going to run away with someone else. That's something a seventeen-year old would do. It is unfair that you are expecting me to be the parent in this situation. I need you to understand how I feel. I need you to stop blaming me for being angry and quiet – I'm allowed to be. I need you to listen to me when I talk and when I am silent. I need you to respect the fact that I cannot accept you being with Helen. I need you to accept and understand that I think you are both responsible for our family breaking up. I want you to treat me like my opinion is important. I need you to be honest with me. I want you to tell Helen how I really feel about her. I need you to stop blaming dad... And more than anything, I need you to start being my mom again!"

I wanted to believe my words had found a way in and she was proud of my honesty, proud of my finding the most mature words I'd ever strung together and proud of the fact that her daughter was finally acting like an adult. I hated her, but she was still mom, and I knew that if she simply said how sorry she was and hugged me and told me everything was going to be okay, then I would let all the hate and anger drain from me in an instant and, somehow, I would be able to forgive her and we could go back to being mother and daughter.

I wanted that. I really did. Her pain was my torture. Her loneliness was my crucifix. It could all end with her telling me she still loved me.

But mom remained unmoved. "This is all your fault, Sara," she finally said. "I blame you for this. You've made it into a much bigger deal than it needed to be. I'm allowed to be happy, too."

My hands and feet numbed. My head hurt. My soul wept. The world was still spinning, but I'd never have known. I looked up at mom and saw only a complete a stranger.

How did it get to this? I wondered.

Lights then suddenly blazed from behind me and spread across mom's face, accentuating the lines and wear on her skin. It was difficult to imagine my mother a beautiful person when her spirit had been choked by such selfishness. As the shafts of luminance intensified, I heard the sound of a rumbling car engine and, for a fleeting moment, I wondered if Rumer had lost all patience.

That's out of character, I thought.

The car came to an abrupt stop only a few feet from me. The engine hum was much deeper than Pastor Crosbie's Corolla. As I turned, I noticed the headlights of the vehicle were at a much higher plane than an ordinary sedan. It was a four-wheel-drive.

Oh no! I said to the remaining blue devils in my head. Nicely played.

Helen Wexler emerged from the vehicle looking ready to set the world on fire. She pretended not to notice me, but the glance from her bulgy eyes was more obvious than she realized. "Are you ready, honey?" she yelled, over the revving engine and crackling rain drenching all of us. "Let me give you a hand with that bag."

Shutting the driver's side door, she squeezed her bulk between the vehicle and the row of bushes at the bottom of the driveway. I blocked her path, but not intentionally. I didn't know what to do. I froze. But it didn't stop Helen. She bumped past me, making an effort to drop her shoulder into mine as she did so.

How old are you? I wanted to scream, but opted to embrace maturity for a second time.

Helen stepped like a giant to mom's side and immediately hauled the suitcase into the air. With one eye in my direction, she said, "I've put fresh sheets on the bed. We can sleep in tomorrow and have breakfast in bed together."

God! I hated her.

There was no question she wanted me to react – wanted to hurt me – but I didn't let her get to me. Even though the devils bellowed for a feed, I put them on an instant self-imposed hunger deprivation diet.

That didn't stop Helen, of course. She said, "You girls have some nerve, you know? Kicking your mother out of her own home."

My lips pursed to speak, but I found no voice.

"Your mother has done nothing but the best for you girls and for you to now—"

But her tirade ended as abruptly as it had begun. Helen's eyes refocused away from me and into the darkness, three feet to my left. "Who the hell are you?" she said, dropping mom's suitcase back to the ground and twisting her body in the direction of her yelling.

Rumer stepped beside me with unbending confidence. His black outfit cut through the four-wheel-drive's left headlight and cast a deep shadow across both Helen and mom.

"Mrs. Baines," he said to mom, politely.

If his choice of salutation was unintentional, I loved him for its provocativeness. Mrs. That's right, mom. I wanted to say, don't forget that! Of course, I said nothing.

"Not for much longer," Helen said.

"Is everything okay here, Sara?" Rumer said, gently placing his hand on my left arm.

His figure was imposing, intimidating even. Light blazed around him like an earthbound angel. His coat swirled and danced in the wind. Streaks of rain waltzed in unison.

"Yes," I said.

"And again," Helen interrupted. "You are?"

Mom beat me to it. "This is the guy I told you about," she said. "The homeless one."

She knew all-too-well that Rumer wasn't homeless. That was a foot-in-mouth moment of mine that had already embarrassed me enough. I wasn't going to let it irritate me a second time. It only amplified mom's deliberate disregard for my happiness, for my feelings and any desire to have her in my life as a friend, a mother and a decent human being.

"I'm Rumer," he said, extending his hand towards Helen. But he already knew it wasn't going to be reciprocated.

He didn't look surprised at all when Helen raised her eyebrows. Her stare then intensified, as if she was sizing up an arch-enemy for the fight of her life.

Mom said nothing. I kept quiet, too.

Rumer didn't budge and held his stare in lock with Helen. His eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his black hat.

He gave as good as he got!

Just as Rumer turned in my direction, Helen pierced her gaze back towards him. "Do you think it's helpful for you to be giving advice to someone ten years younger than you?"

I should have jumped in, like Rumer would have done for me if the situation were reversed, but I simply didn't know what to say. Helen's aggression sapped the resolve from my tired, soaked body.

"I mean," Helen continued, "it's a bit strange that someone your age is turning a child against her mother, don't you think?"

Rumer verbalized the exact thoughts gushing through my brain. "I don't see Sara as a child," he said softly, deliberately exuding a control clearly absent from his nemesis. "In any case, I wouldn't say that I was turning Sara against her mother."

"She's getting this defiance from somewhere," mom said. "She was never like this."

I couldn't suppress my urges any longer. "Mom," I yelled. "I'm like this because of you. Not because of him. It's not his fault." I looked up at Rumer. "I'd be stuffed without him."

He smiled at me. I liked it so much I wanted to hug him, but took a rain-check instead.

Helen said, "It takes a real hero to manipulate a seventeen-year-old girl into believing she's helpless and making her dependable on you. That's all I see."

Rumer sensed my movement towards Helen and again placed his hand on me to halt my advance. I hadn't worked out what I was going to do if I got close to her, but I was sure it involved smacking and thumping of some sort.

"I guess that's all you would see," Rumer said, before he looked across to me and smiled broadly. Everything is fine, that smile said to me.

Rumer had the power to shoot Helen a thousand feet into the air and simply let her plummet back to earth – and stand a few sharp branches pointing upwards to catch her for good measure. Yet, he displayed total self-control and I envied it with glee. It also made sense to me why I wasn't the one struck by lightning. It took a special person to be empowered with his abilities. He was definitely special.

I grabbed Rumer's hand, like I would a boyfriend, and accentuated the glow on my face as much as the awfulness of our Mexican standoff allowed. "We should fly," I said, smugly.

He looked at me with bemusement.

We both heard Helen snicker, but neither of us validated her condemnation.

"Where would you like to go?" Rumer said, with deliberate grandiosity and clued into my pretense to irritate mom and Helen.

"To the moon and back," I said, matter-of-factly.

# Chapter 38

"You know it's not your fault, right?" Rumer said, as he stepped into his bedroom and brought me my first ever coffee.

I nodded, but it was hardly convincing. Rumer was right, of course, but actually having my brain believe it was, was a different matter, entirely.

We had driven from the mountains to Pastor Crosbie's church with barely a mention about our exchange with mom and Helen. Rumer attempted early on to gauge my need to talk about it, but I had been wickedly triumphant in deflecting the conversation.

I focused, instead, on what happened earlier in the day with Special Agent Nico Moth. "Do you think it will be on the news?" I had asked.

"I don't think so," Rumer said. "My... departure... from the prison was never big news. I remember seeing footage about the explosion at the complex, but they never mentioned anything about a prisoner escaping." Rumer sat on an old wooden chair in the corner opposite the bed, on which I had comfortably planted my butt. "It's odd, really," he continued. "I know the prison department is never keen on exposing any escape, but for them to actually admit on the news that night that everything was fine and that all prisoners were accounted for, that was pretty unusual."

"And untrue," I added.

"Yeah. But it's not like I'm going to ring them up and correct them though, is it?"

"Maybe they've forgotten about you?" I said, but realizing that the day's events clearly suggested otherwise. "If you were ever to get caught, wouldn't stuff like today just make things worse for you?"

"Yes," Rumer said, but nothing further.

I took my first sip of coffee and choked on the bitterness. "What the hell crap is this?" I yelled. "Urghhh!"

"It's coffee," Rumer said. "Didn't you say you wanted to try some?"

I had. I was being polite. Whenever dad made coffee at home on his flashy machine, it always smelled so good. And when I was out with my friends and Steph pretentiously ordered a latte macchiato to prove how high-society she was, its lively aroma tickled my nose with sweet delight. But Rumer gave me a cup of normal, soluble coffee with a bit of milk and sugar. It was foul.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I can't drink this." If drinking coffee was a sign of maturity, I was happy to be an infant for the rest of my life.

I returned my attention to the two shoeboxes open in my lap, as I sat on Rumer's bed. He watched me with an intensity I found exhilarating. He asked me to examine the contents of his mother's possessions. It was nice to be trusted to deal with important family stuff – something my own mother seemed to be incapable of.

The urge to draw parallels to when I scrutinized the secret drawer in mom's study room was addictive. The electricity sparking through my cerebral sponge was arcing feverishly. That expedition had not turned out so well. I hoped Angela Phoenix's private stash revealed items far less life-changing.

"Looks like this box is mostly bills," I said, as I scavenged through the loose papers.

Phone. Electricity. Gas. There was a rental receipt for $420, which I thought was pricey for the place, particularly considering it was being consumed by bugs, fungus and mildew.

Rumer's mother certainly had been methodical about her bill keeping and I wondered about her motivation for the leaving the boxes behind. It seemed strange to me to spend so much time saving the bills for a rainy day, only to abandon them. I fretted if Angela had left in a hurry or had been forced to leave or if it was, in some way, connected with Rumer's escape.

"What about the other box?" Rumer said.

I carefully resealed the lid on the chest of bills and placed it neatly on the bedside table. Rumer's stare did not break from the box. The same look of internal protest I had seen in him as we sat in the cave at Tura Beach, again inundated his face. Perhaps he and I were not so different. We both had mothers whom we publicly lambasted, but who we still considered as the person who brought us into world and, for that reason if no other, it was impossible to disown them, completely.

Trying to excavate those feelings, I said, "I hope we find something to tell us where your mother is now."

But Rumer didn't reply. As I had kept silent about my family for the duration of the drive from the mountains, it seemed absurdly unfair of me to expect Rumer to discard the lid on the candy jar simply to feed my cravings for knowing what he felt – what hid behind those brown eyes.

"Oh my God!" I said, pulling out the first few cuttings of folded newspaper. "This is stuff about you."

Rumer shifted uncomfortably in his chair. It was obvious he was attempting to come across all I don't care but, behind the façade, I sensed that he fretted about what exactly the articles disclosed.

I was unprepared for the newspaper headline:

'ASPIRING ARCHITECT TAKES LIFE OF BEST FRIEND'

My body tensed and I hoped Rumer did not see the reaction – or not take it as being something necessarily bad. He had told me the reason for him being in prison, but never any specifics. I had hungered for those details and had suddenly hit the information jackpot. I began to glance through the text.

"Are you sure you want to read that?" Rumer said.

I looked up at him.

Was he sincerely worried about me?

Was he telling me not to read it?

Wavering only for a single breath, I then realized I owed him, at least, some respect. "Do you not want me to read it?" I said.

He paused momentarily in deep thought, but then said, "I would like you to read it, Sara."

It was not the answer I had anticipated. In the cave he had expressed a definite unwillingness to talk about it. 'All in good time,' he had said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

He nodded.

I didn't need any further encouragement. The first thing that struck me – and excited me at the same time – was the grainy, black-and-white picture of Rumer. He was dressed in a suit and tie. His hair was finely and neatly combed back and there was no scar visible on his face. "Wow," I said, quite loudly.

"What?"

"You look..." I wanted to say 'hot', 'gorgeous', 'beautiful', but found the courage for none of those. "You look good. It's a poor quality photo and it's worn a bit, but it's funny seeing you without the... you know..." I simulated drawing a line on my face like a complete imbecile.

"Funny?"

"You know what I mean," I said, backtracking. "You look good. I mean, you look good now, too... but..."

I just kept digging and digging...

Eyes wide, beads of perspiration catching the subdued light of the single bulb above me and face beetroot-purple from embarrassment, I looked away from Rumer and dropped my attention back to the article.

I read it aloud. "'It was a misguided act of kindness,' Justice Olivia Hallinen said today, as she sentenced 29-year old Rumer John Phoenix to ten years imprisonment with a minimum seven year term for the manslaughter of 76-year-old, Jessica Ritter. Mr. Phoenix, an aspiring architect with the international design firm, Laxonis, told the court, under oath, that his crime had been an act of mercy after constant requests from Ms. Ritter to 'not let me go through all that pain.' The widow, who still volunteered at church fetes, had been diagnosed with..."

I looked up at Rumer.

"Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis," he said.

"...a degenerative muscle disease for which there remains no cure. Several medical experts testified throughout the proceedings that the only future Ms. Ritter could look forward to, was one of pain, immobility and ultimately, a slow and difficult death. Defense for the accused submitted that it was 'inhumane' to not grant Ms. Ritter her request to end her life while she remained coherent enough to enjoy her goodbyes. The court disagreed and expressed concerns about so-called mercy killings. Whilst the prosecution conceded that the victim's prognosis was, indeed, dire, evidence submitted suggested that, without the accused's intervention, Ms. Ritter could have lived for at least another twelve months. Justice Hallinen told the court in her finding that, 'we can't start setting a precedent where people who are still of average health and of sound mind, albeit with a poor prognosis, being systematically disposed of under the guise of claimed decency.'"

I stopped reading and looked up at Rumer. "She was dying," I said.

"Yes," he said in a quiet, solemn voice.

"I didn't... why didn't..." But I got stuck searching for the right words. "This is not what I was expecting," I finally added.

"What did you expect, Sara?"

"I..." But I had no answer to his question. The truth about his crime besieged me with a web of emotions. Empathy. Sadness. Confusion. "You were trying to help this woman," I said.

"Yes. She was a long-time family friend."

Suddenly, answers to a plethora of secret questions I had stashed away – out of mind and out of sight – presented themselves. I had always been confused by Pastor Crosbie's generosity to hide and support Rumer. After all, Pastor Crosbie was a man of the cloth, morally principled and driven by an unquestionable sense of right versus wrong. Rumer was, despite his unique characteristics, an escaped prisoner who had broken the law and who had taken the life of another human being. I was no religious professor, but I was certain murder wasn't allowed by church folk – or the law.

And yet, Pastor Crosbie had gone to surprising lengths, well beyond his calling, and taken Rumer in, healed him and even lied to the police when they asked about him. I suddenly realized it wasn't about extraordinary forgiveness. Pastor Crosbie actually supported Rumer's actions.

"What happened?" I said.

"Well, there was no question about her illness. Three separate doctors all said the same thing. The disease would kill her and it would have been a slow death, a painful death. They're not the words the doctors used, but that's what it came down to. As the illness took hold, she'd no longer be able to walk, move her arms, or talk. But it wouldn't affect her brain. So she'd be a totally coherent soul in a vessel which was slowly and torturously dying. Jess said to me that she wasn't going to go through that."

It was the saddest I had seen Rumer, even more so than the underlining sorrow of his mother. I didn't want to push, but it looked to me as if Jessica Ritter had been a very important person in Rumer's life.

"She just asked you?" I said.

"Yes. Not just once. It was every day for a couple of months. Then, she started showing signs of deterioration and it was a now or never moment. We decided on a day. The family said their goodbyes and they waited in the next room while I... well... I don't need to go into the exact details, but it was peaceful. She died with a beaming smile on her face."

"What about you? That must have been the hardest thing ever."

Rumer smiled, which was a reaction I wasn't expecting. He said, "Sometimes, Sara, you have to make decisions which, even though they're not popular or what other people may do, they're true to who you are. Obviously, it wasn't easy, but I never doubted that it was the right thing to do."

"Did you know you could go to prison because of that decision?"

Rumer flatly said, "Yes. I did."

"Oh," I murmured, shocked a second time in as many minutes.

A long silence followed as I contemplated what I would do in a similar situation.

Was it within me to take the life of another?

Would that be true to who I was?

Whose life could I actually take?

"I don't think that I could do it," I said.

Rumer hesitated. "I never thought I could do it, either. If you'd told me five or ten years ago that I was to take Jess' life and spend time in prison, I would have laughed at you."

"Things change, I guess, huh?" I said.

"Sometimes in the most unexpected of ways," Rumer said, with a growing smile.

I detected a sudden joy in his tone. His eyes gazed up at me, wide with an unexpected rapture.

Was he referring to me?

Pastor Crosbie suddenly popped his head into Rumer's bedroom. "Dinner's ready," he said.

As quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.

Our date was more of a casual dinner with Pastor Crosbie. Had it not been for Special Agent Nico Moth and the circumstances under which Rumer had asked me out for dinner, I may have imagined a fancy restaurant, some flowers and a limousine.

Who was I kidding?

I always fantasized about being deeply romantic, but I just wasn't the restaurant, roses and limo kind of girl.

Besides, I had danced in the clouds, soared along beach fronts and watched blue whales on their secret journey in the middle of the ocean.

I had nothing to complain about.

Of course, having Pastor Crosbie join us was probably not in my original plan.

# Chapter 39

My presumptions were too hasty. As Rumer and I stepped into the kitchen, we found only a large mess. Pastor Crosbie had been busy cooking since our return. I expected the three of us to squeeze around the tiny kitchen table and enjoy a couple of homemade burgers, but apparently, we weren't eating in the kitchen.

Pastor Crosbie entered with proud enthusiasm. "Come on," he said, "follow me."

He led us through the lounge room. I couldn't help but glance at the counselling couch where I had stood in Rumer's embrace after my day-long search for him. The paintings on the wall still looked as beautiful to me as they had on that day. The carpets were still as majestic. That moment, in Rumer's arms, was not an instance I was ever likely to forget.

"Where are you taking us, PC?"

PC. Pastor Crosbie. I liked it. It was impossible to not be blown away by the magic of Rumer's world, but it was the little things – the subtle shadows that made the colors so alluring – that magnetized my desire to him.

"You'll see," Pastor Crosbie said.

We snaked through the labyrinth of the church residence, across PC's tiny study and into the ancient tunnel that connected the living quarters to the church proper. As we emerged single file from the damp hallway, the vast open space of the congregational hall welcomed us with a warm glow from the many candles along its perimeter. I had never been in the church at night and wished so much that I had.

The orange hues dancing across the limestone walls and up into the vaulted ceiling was other-worldly. Light reflecting off the stained-glass in the windows made them appear alive. It was as if the entire church moved – breathed – in endless concert with the frequency of the flames. We stood inside the belly of a beautiful creature and we were about the feast on its offerings.

Centered between the pulpit and first row of pews, a long, cloth-covered table caught my immediate attention. The table was at least three times longer than our dinner table at home, but its expanse only added to the grandeur. Seven candles in grandiose candlesticks blazed from the table's center to its left edge – and seven candles to the right.

In between the rows of lights, at the table's midpoint, I saw a platter with an enormous roast chicken, with the yummiest glazed, deep brown skin I'd ever seen on a chook. The bird was surrounded by vegetables – snow peas, broccoli, asparagus, squash and butternut pumpkin. A decorated, silver bowl was filled to the brim with, what looked like, silky-smooth potato mash with grated parmesan cheese and freshly cracked pepper on top.

Three separate, smaller glass bowls abounded with fresh salad. Cos lettuce leaves were arranged like the petals of a rose and cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices and feta cheese were piled at its center. Simple, and just the way I liked my salad.

"Please," Pastor Crosbie said warmly, "take a seat."

Two sculpted-wood chairs, on each side of the table, perfectly complimented the regal setting.

"Are we expecting a fourth person to join us this evening?" Rumer said, noticing the chairs at the same time I did.

"No," Pastor Crosbie said, "but with two chairs on one side and one on the other, Sara may have felt uncomfortable in having to choose. This way she can sit where she wants and we can arrange the chairs accordingly."

I smiled at Pastor Crosbie and, for a guilty moment, I wondered why my father wasn't so in touch with other people – with me. "Thank you," I said. "That's very thoughtful."

"So Sara? Where would you like to sit? With him or with me?" Rumer said.

PC interjected. "The idea was to take the pressure away, not increase it. So stop it, at once."

But Rumer couldn't hide his smile. He was loving the idea of playing on my insecurity and my novice relationship-thingy sensibilities. With their jovial hesitation, I took a leap forward and planted my butt on the nearest chair. "I'm going to sit right here," I said. "You guys can sit wherever you choose."

"Well played," Rumer said.

Pastor Crosbie moved around the table as if that had been the secret plot between them all along, but I was pleased when Rumer slid onto the chair next to me. It would have felt weird the other way around. I smiled at him. Thank you.

"This is magnificent," I said. "I can't believe you've gone to all this trouble."

PC blazed a stare across at Rumer. "He made me do it."

"What?" Rumer said, genuinely surprised.

"You said you wanted to impress the girl and I should pray for you to make that happen."

"What are talking about?" Rumer angled his head shyly downwards, drilling his eyes across the table. He added under his breath, "What are you doing?"

PC looked at me. "I'm just kidding," he said. "Rumer mentioned dinner and I offered to throw a few things together."

"Throw a few things together?" I said. "This is awesome."

"Yes. It's very nice," Rumer said, stiffly.

The wind soared through the vaulted ceiling of the church. It sang in subdued romantic whistles. The flames around the interior danced in its overture, entertaining us with our own, spectacular light show.

"It's so beautiful," I said, again.

"Some days," Pastor Crosbie said, "particularly on windy nights like tonight, I light a few candles, lay on the ground with my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling, and just close my eyes and listen to the voices in the wind."

"It wasn't so funny when Mrs. Jongsma came in at seven in the morning and you're lying in the middle of the church in a dressing gown with your legs at an uncomfortable angle with no underpants," Rumer said.

I giggled.

Pastor Crosbie tried to remain serious, but he couldn't contain his laughter, either. "Yes," he said, "I was rather embarrassed."

"So was old Mrs. Jongsma." Rumer turned to me. "She had to sit down on a pew because she thought she was having a heart attack."

Rumer fed the banter a while longer. I smiled, enchanted by his charm. Occasionally, and with deliberate intention, my eyes fell from his and I explored the unique features of his face. That scar. Again, I wanted to reach out and touch it – as Mika had done – but worried about Pastor Crosbie's judgment. And Rumer's.

I wanted to know every freckle, every dimple and every curve. I wanted his face to haunt me in my dreams. I wanted to bottle the feeling that surged through me when Rumer held me in his arms and I wanted to get drunk on it every night of my life.

Get a grip, Sara! I had to jolt myself from my fantasy... again! What was happening to me? I thought.

We ate with reckless abandon. Our setting may have been fitting for a royal family, but our manners most definitely were not. Pastor Crosbie ripped at the chicken with his bare hands like a giant.

I chuckled as PC sprayed the pristine, white tablecloth with oils, juices and bits of chicken. There was nothing regal about the way we tore the bird to pieces.

"So," Pastor Crosbie said, suddenly. "How do you feel about Rumer now? Knowing more about what happened?"

"Do we have to talk about that?" Rumer said.

But I was more curious about Pastor Crosbie. "How do you know that I know?" I said, worried I was surrounded by mind readers.

"I can see it in your eyes."

"See it in my eyes?" I said. "What do you mean?"

"You always had a look of uncertainty about you, Sara," Pastor Crosbie said. "Don't worry. I completely understand why you would feel that way. Why you should feel that way. I felt that way, too."

"Oh," I said, feeling like I was shriveling in my seat, as I had done the last time I sat in the church.

"But I also know that look of 'Ahh!' and the absolution that comes with it. I saw it in my own reflection not that long ago." Pastor Crosbie flashed a glance at Rumer, but got no reaction. "Once I had more information, I walked differently, I talked differently and I thought differently. I see that in you now."

"Oh," I said again, sheepishly. Pastor Crosbie was on the ball, but I still felt self-conscious.

How did I walk differently?

Talk differently?

Was he watching me that closely?

Pastor Crosbie stretched across the table, through the maze of bowls, and lightly pressed his soft-skinned hand to mine. "It's okay," he said. "I think it's the right decision."

Had I made a decision? I wondered. But then, I realized that I had. When Rumer first told me he had taken the life of another person, I had been judgmental. I had labelled him a 'bad person' because there was never a circumstance, I believed, that justified stopping someone else from living. That label had burdened me ever since.

I had chosen to ignore it. I had chosen to find Rumer again and had done so in Pastor Crosbie's magnificent surrounds. I had chosen to accept his position and run with him and not worry about the details of what he had done – or why. But I had never chosen to understand it.

Until I read the articles.

I still couldn't imagine myself ever making the same choice, but I did understand. The decision I had made was to remove the label I had emblazoned on Rumer's identity. And it felt good.

Pastor Crosbie smiled at me again. "It's much easier this way, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes," I said, simply.

"Okay," Rumer interjected. "Now that we've had our Dr. Phil moment, let's talk about something more exciting."

"Like you, you mean?" Pastor Crosbie said, with a serpentine smile.

"That's not what I meant," Rumer mumbled, through a mouthful of mashed potato and pumpkin.

"Because," PC continued, "we can talk about you all you like. Isn't that right, Sara?"

I was enjoying the heckling. Fun, antics and laughter had long since left the dinner table at home. I couldn't recall the last time mom, dad, Mika and I sat down at the dinner table together and spoke openly, freely and honestly.

Before I discovered mom's secret, she and I often had lunch together at Norman Lindsay's Café. We talked about school and what I wanted to do with my life. I never gave her a steadfast answer because I simply didn't know, for sure. I wanted to be a primary school teacher, but I loved my art. I loved being in the mountains, but also wanted to see more of the world.

Emma knew what she wanted to do when she was just sixteen and never looked back. "I'm going to be a group leader for international exchange students," she said. "For one year, I'm going to America as an exchange student myself, then I'm going to come back and join the organization that sent me." She was obsessed with the idea of encouraging young people to explore the world through education.

She had her entire life planned out. That wasn't me, but I worried that I had virtually no plan, whatsoever. Mom did encourage me to pursue teaching. "It's a valuable profession, Sara," she told me at our last lunch. "You should do it. It suits you."

I didn't know what she meant by that. She often spoke in vagaries. "I'm going for a drive," mom told me frequently. Little did I know then, what she meant to say was, "I'm going for a drive to see Helen to cheat on your father and come home and lie about it later."

Sweet memories of mom were as dead as the chicken on the table.

"I heard you experienced some of Rumer's... let's say... more pleasurable faculties," Pastor Crosbie said, looking straight at me and thankfully pulling me from the precipice of my emotional abyss.

Rumer responded quickly, with growing sarcasm. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

"What would you like to call it?"

"Do we have to call it anything?" Rumer said.

Having stepped from the towering heights overlooking a vista of self-loathing, I wasn't going to let the attention bypass my need for acceptance. "Yes," I interrupted, subtly. "I did have a pretty unique experience. It's not every day you're faced with a situation where you question everything that you know to be human."

"Welcome to my world," Pastor Crosbie said.

"PC was just starting to work things out with the whole religion thing," Rumer said, "and then, I came along and suddenly, everything that was so clear and reasonable, was a mess again."

I pulled the crispy skin off the generous piece of chicken on my plate, rolled it through the velvet-like potato mash and scoffed it down. The crunch of the skin through the creamy mash was spellbinding.

"What do you think is making this all possible?" I asked Pastor Crosbie, after sliding the gooey joy down my throat and wiping away the oily residue from my lips.

He looked first at Rumer, then back at me. "Sara, it's very difficult for me. Look where we are. I've always tried to find the meaning in everything I've experienced in life by turning to the good book. The bible. Unfortunately, there's no chapter which I could reference in trying to explain human beings defying gravity. And yet, I have witnessed it."

Rumer turned to me. "Remember I was telling you about when I was moving stuff around in my room.

I nodded. How could I forget?

"PC had heard the glass fall from the bedside cabinet and was worried I had fallen out of bed. He was giving marriage counselling to a couple on the couch... You remember the couch, right?"

My head flushed with an unwanted warmth and I hoped – prayed – it wasn't as red as a beetroot. I sure did remember that bloody couch... and hearing Rumer's voice behind me... and him holding me... and...

"Anyway," Rumer continued, "after the two people left, he came to see if I was okay. What he saw was far from okay, but the look on his face was well worth it."

"I was surprised, is all," Pastor Crosbie said, trying to contain his smile.

"What did you see?" I said.

Rumer gobbled a mouthful of vegies, then rose to his feet. "PC's walked in," he said, animating his entire body in unison with his words, "and there's a chair three feet off the ground, there's papers hanging in the air, my bed sheets are hovering like a ghost in thin air and worst of all, I'm no longer laying on the bed. PC looks for me on the floor and I'm not there, either. I'm actually above him, about a foot away from the ceiling and looking down at him."

"Obviously, not where I expected to find him," Pastor Crosbie added.

"So he says to me, keeping the straightest face, 'Everything alright in here?' I'm eight feet off the ground, you have to remember, and not supported by anything or holding onto anything. So, I reply just as smugly, and tell him that everything's fine, just a bit draughty and could he put an extra blanket over me because I'm a little cold. Then, we both started laughing."

"We had to laugh," Pastor Crosbie said, "because neither of us could find the words to adequately describe what was going on. So we just kept laughing like two cockatoos."

There was genuine delight in the dynamic between Rumer and Pastor Crosbie. It was evident that the bond forged between them was as exceptional as the circumstances which forged it. I wondered if I could ever share a bond like that with Rumer.

"Things were never quite the same after that, were they PC?" Rumer said.

Pastor Crosbie looked at me. "What I saw that day, and have seen and heard about on numerous occasions since, defies any rational thought process I could attribute to it. Back in the early days of the bible, people recorded what they called 'miracles' and it would be easy for me to simply identify it as such, but that means an acknowledgement that whatever is happening with him was instigated by the God that I believe in and that there's some sort of plan. To be honest, I'm not ready to believe that, which is at odds with the very ideology that everything happens as part of that greater plan. So you see my dilemma."

"Yes," I said simply, unable to manufacture anything more prophetic.

Part of me felt strangely becalmed by Pastor Crosbie's predicament. We all faced our own divisive, inner demons, I thought. It's what made us human.

"Perhaps, one day I will understand it," Pastor Crosbie added, looking bewitched by his conflict. "But enough of that. Rumer tells me you're quite a good driver."

"What? Yes. I guess. Maybe." The mumbles more or less fell from my mouth, after that. I watched Rumer smile at me, as he returned to his seat.

"You are a good driver," he said. "Of course, you've had a good teacher."

I giggled like a leprechaun.

"Rather than some sort of ability to manipulate objects, it may have served you better to have received a bolt of modesty instead," Pastor Crosbie said, in jest.

Rumer retorted quickly. "Yes, but then, who would clean your ceilings?"

Pastor Crosbie suddenly looked like a little schoolboy who had just been told off by his teacher for the first time.

Turning back to me, Rumer said, "He gives me a feather-duster once a week and has me clean up there." He pointed to the vaulted, A-frame ceiling high above us. "The wood is over one hundred years old and it likes to collect dust. Short of rolling some heavy machinery in here, there's no other way of getting to it. So it seems having me around does serve a purpose, after all."

"Yes, you do a very good job," Pastor Crosbie said. "It doesn't mean I have to agree with the manner in which you do it."

Rumer continued, "He doesn't let me use my... well... I'm not allowed to do anything else inside the church on the grounds of principle."

"And I stand by that decision. I don't believe this to be the morally correct environment for you to be challenging my beliefs."

"Except for the cleaning, of course," Rumer said, cockishly.

"You are working in my service for the greater good." But then, Pastor Crosbie had to laugh. The humbug wasn't lost on any of us, but Pastor Crosbie stuffed a large chunk of pumpkin into his mouth, leaned back and defiantly crossed his arms – all with a broad smile.

My dinner date was the perfect antidote for the poisonous angst and disappointment after my exchange with mom and Helen. I tried to convince myself that, if I was able to sit and have meaningful conversations with the likes of Pastor Crosbie, then, surely, I wasn't such a bad person.

Mom often attacked me for not talking to her enough about what had happened – about what she had caused to happen. You never talk to me about it, Sara, she always said. How am I supposed to make you understand, if you won't talk to me? While I was no longer in two minds about the initiator of the catastrophe that was the Baines family, I always believed mom had a strong case for the lack of real conversation about it. She made me believe that I was the immature child, the irresponsible person for being only angry and not talking about it, like an adult. She made me believe that it was my responsibility to pursue such an absolution. She made me believe that I was the bad person.

But was I?

Was it unreasonable for me to be livid rather than tactile?

Was I a bad person for resenting my own mother for tearing the family apart?

As I sat with Rumer and with Pastor Crosbie, I again questioned my guilt for the way things had turned out between mom and me. Even in our last conversation, she vehemently stated that I didn't understand and that everything was my fault. "I blame you for this. You've made it into a much bigger deal than it needed to be," she said.

I no longer believed it was my fault.

Pastor Crosbie leaned across the table. "I have something for you," he said. He opened his clenched hand to reveal a small, purple-wrapped gift.

"What's this?" I said.

"I know you've had a tough time of it of late and I wanted to do something to help you remember that, even in the darkest storms, there will always be some light."

"Oh," I said, before turning to Rumer. "Did you have something to do with this?"

"No."

And he looked honestly surprised. Indeed, beneath his brown eyes, I saw a growing reservation.

"Go ahead," Pastor Crosbie said, "it's all yours. You deserve it."

Not wanting to appear greedy, I slowly reached for the present. It was pristinely wrapped in glossy paper with a crimson ribbon tied into a meticulous bow on top. Presents from my own family always came adorned with purchased, stick-on bows. For my last birthday, there had been no bow at all.

"What is it?" I said, again.

"Yes, PC," Rumer said, cautiously. "What is it?"

"Open it."

My tendency for ripping into the paper was itching beneath my skin. Show some decorum, Sara, I kept thinking. You're in a church. I gently undid the bow and smiled at Pastor Crosbie for the effort he'd taken to make my present so perfect.

"It's not my birthday, you know?" I said.

Rumer had not taken his eyes away from Pastor Crosbie, trying to figure out what was in the petite box. I glanced across to the pastor. His eyes to Rumer simply said, 'Trust me.'

In a flash, I had the wrapping paper off and was quietly pleased with myself for not totally destroying it. The box in my hand wasn't new. It was a large matchbox with an extra layer of black paper glued over four of its sides, still allowing the tray to easily slide out. The faint smell of sulfur, from where matches had struck the sides of the box, aroused the hairs in my nose and pricked at me with memories of the train wreck Rumer and I had caused.

"Classy," Rumer said, sarcastically.

Pastor Crosbie snubbed his nose at Rumer. "Don't listen to him. Slide the box open."

I pushed the thin cardboard forward. As I had always done when receiving any present, I tried to pre-empt the contents. It was a small box and I wondered what Pastor Crosbie thought I needed.

Earrings?

Pendant?

Money?

Under Rumer's careful watch, I slid the box out from its hiding spot and its contents into view. "I don't understand," I said.

Inside the box was little fanfare. No additional wrapping. No cotton wool. But there was something very unique in the box.

A key.

Rumer smiled at Pastor Crosbie with undeniable approval. Having seen the key, he knew exactly what was going on.

I remained clueless, again. "It's a key," I said.

"Yes," Pastor Crosbie said. "It's a key to the Corolla. The one you've been driving around."

"Why are you giving me a key to that car in a box?"

"Because, Sara, I'm giving the car to you."

"What?"

Pastor Crosbie's face exuded an indefatigable seriousness that I was never going to be able to conquer. "I want you to have the car."

"Why?" I said. My reaction was from shock, more than any real need to have the facts explained to me.

"I have no use for it." Pastor Crosbie glanced at Rumer. "And, obviously, he doesn't."

"Uh-huh..."

"So, Rumer told me you are going for your license soon and you'll want a car for that. This is the one you've been practicing in, so it's as good as any, right?"

"But you can't just give me a car?"

"No," Pastor Crosbie said, with a growing smile, "I'm pretty sure I can. Unless you don't want it, of course."

But I did. For months I had wondered how I was going to pay for my first car. I had sucked at getting a part-time job and my savings weren't screaming wealth, by any stretch of the imagination. I was pretty-much-broke. And yet, with all mom's treachery and the misery with which she infected our home, I knew that, once I had my license, the idea of getting into a car and escaping was magnetic and something I so desperately longed for.

I just needed an actual vehicle.

"Are you sure?" I said, trying to convince myself I shouldn't come across like I really wanted it.

But Pastor Crosbie was insistent. "Yes. Absolutely. It's yours. I want you to have it. And one more thing..."

"Uh-huh..." I said, again.

"Whatever happens at home... with your family, I mean... you are always welcome here, whenever you want. And now you'll have a way to get here."

Don't cry, Sara, I kept repeating in my head, as I held the key tightly in my hand.

In the last month, I uncovered an unexpected side-effect to my life being in a fluid state of turmoil. My environment was toxic, filled to capacity with regret, anger and resentment. It was my new normal. Even mom's words earlier in the night didn't feel like a bomb exploding inside me as it would have done months earlier. Her meanness had become the norm. Her lack of caring for me and her unbridled focus on Helen were like food and water. It no longer shocked me to the point of wanting to vomit. The downside of her callousness was any act of kindness by anyone else.

A simple hug or words of encouragement or the sharing of personal thoughts or the taking of time to be there for me or a gift of any kind, sent my emotions into uncontrollable melodrama. In contrast to mom and Helen, a kind word was like a sip of water after forty days and nights in the desert. Because those moments felt so far and few between, when anything thoughtful came my way – like the gift of an awesome car – my suppressed joy transmuted into a barrage of tears.

Sitting at the table, I felt them gathering for the storm. My heart beat faster. The temperature on my skin felt like it was suddenly marooned in that desert. My free hand trembled, ever-so-slightly.

And then, Rumer grabbed it.

"Come on," he said. "I want to show you something."

I instinctively looked up at Pastor Crosbie.

"It's okay," he said.

"Thank you," I said to him. "For more than you know."

Pastor Crosbie simply replied, "I know."

Rumer pulled me gracefully to my feet as I continued to hold the car key. I was never going to let go of that. I grabbed a last mouthful of chicken and let myself be dragged away from the table.

We strode quickly towards the door behind the pulpit on the opposite side leading to Pastor Crosbie's residence. I took one quick look behind me and felt guilty for leaving Pastor Crosbie with all the mess from dinner, but the huge contentment on his face swayed me that he was okay with us leaving.

As we reached the door, I caught a last glimpse of Pastor Crosbie and was so grateful for his decency, for his caring and for his generosity. Then, my focus returned back to Rumer.

He forced the creaking door open like we stood at the front door of a haunted house. "I think you're going to like this," he said.

As he pushed away the cobwebs that had taken hold in the doorframe, my eyes widened and the grip on the car key in my hand tightened further.

"Where are you taking me?" I said.

# Chapter 40

Rumer held my hand as we trudged through a corridor not dissimilar to the one on the other side of the pulpit, but decidedly less used. Fortunately, I wasn't in the lead, because in the dim light, I saw Rumer constantly swathing away spider webs. That was going to leave a lot of unhappy spiders in his wake.

I was in his wake.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" I said.

But Rumer looked undeterred. I felt his vice on my hand intensify, which squirted gooey delight though my body. It didn't allay my concerns about the spiders any.

Within a handful of heartbeats, which felt more like hours, the narrow tunnel opened up into another confined chamber, congested with old furniture in storage, covered in thick dust and home to a civilization of creepy-crawlies.

It was like a cleaning horror movie.

I wanted to say as much, but worried that if I opened my mouth and sucked in the air, I may suffocate from the dust floating visibly in the frail light piercing down from high above.

Really high above.

I cranked my head upwards, but found no ceiling. Through the floating particles, my eyes followed the brickwork up and up and up.

We stood at the base of the church tower. Even in its derelict state, there was something awe-inspiring about it as if we stood at the bottom of Jacob's ladder, staring up at a secret way into Heaven. "Wow!" I said. "How far up does it go?"

"I'll show you," Rumer said.

Spiraling along the wall like a vine from the heavens above, was a narrow, wooden staircase with a rickety, metal handrail. It looked to me like it hadn't been used since biblical times and I had no confidence whatsoever that it would support my weight – and definitely not both of us. The sheer embarrassment of standing on the wooden planks and breaking them was scarier than what on earth I may find at the top.

"Let's go up," Rumer said.

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"That's never going to support both of us."

"Why?" Rumer said. "How much do you weigh?"

I did not find his tongue-in-cheek comment amusing at all, and threw him my best death stare. As per usual, it didn't scream much success, because in an instant, he stood on the first step.

He bounced melodramatically and smiled. "Don't worry, Sara," he said. "It'll hold."

"I wasn't worried about my weight," I said confidently, in an effort to be smug. "I was worried about yours."

Rumer smiled and looked pleased with my growing bravery to take him on. Even if it wasn't true.

Then, I realized he still held my hand in his, and I was going up whether I wanted to or not. "Okay," I said. "Let's do this."

Rumer stepped without a care in the world. My advances were measured, tentative and full of fear. The dust particles swirled around us in the light as we disturbed their world of slumber in our ascent. I felt their faint touch press against my skin as we climbed. It was as if invisible fairies brushed feathers across my face. And they tickled.

The tower smelled mothballed and neglected. I had to consciously choose to disregard the filth. It was bloody hard!

As I looked down to the wooden planks of the staircase behind me, our footprints were clearly visible in the dust and it reminded me of photos I had seen in science class of astronauts walking on the moon and permanently leaving their stamp on the surface.

"Is this the first time you've been to the top of the tower?" I said, as I gently squeezed Rumer's hand to ensure I had his attention.

"No," he said. "But I don't normally take the stairs."

"Oh. But then, how do you..." I stopped, as the stupidity of my question struck me at the same time dust got into my mouth and down my throat. I coughed like a lunatic, but used it to hide my second bout of embarrassment. Idiot! I thought. Of course he wouldn't use the stairs.

I said nothing further until we reached the top. It was a slow climb. My fright increased exponentially with each step. You've been in the freakin' clouds, I kept saying under my breath. It was the magic of rising up from the earth which had blinded me from all reality when we soared from Honeymoon Bridge. In the tower, there seemed no such enchantment, and I felt like I could fall at any time.

That was bound to leave a permanent mark in the dust... and who would clean that up?

Two-thirds of the way to the top of the tower, the staircase connected to a timber platform spanning the width of the turret, except for a small trapdoor through which Rumer and I clambered. Unsecured, wooden boards, with gaps in between, amounted to a standing space. Without having to pop my eyes from their sockets, I clearly saw the dark void beneath us.

"Are these boards safe?" I mechanically asked Rumer.

"Come. Through here," Rumer said.

I wish he'd answer me on those damned boards!

He flicked a rusted-metal latch and pushed open a door I had not noticed. I felt like we were back in medieval times with towers and trapdoors and secret doorways. Part of me thought it was awesome. The other part of me thought I was freaking mad!

A cool rush of night air bellowed in through the opening and spiked me with an unexpected chill. The wind spiraled between the platform boards, and down the tower.

Rumer released his grip on my hand, extended his right leg through the opening, followed quickly by the rest of his body. In a flash, he was out of view and into the darkness beyond the clammy opening.

"Rumer?" I said softly, feeling suddenly alone.

Then his hand poked back into the tower. "It's okay," he said. "Come on. Step to me."

I took his hand for the second time and let him lead me out. Images of my butt getting stuck in my bedroom window kept the chills from the frigid wind company along my spine. I tried to compress every cell in my body as much as possible but, before I had a moment to pause and think about how best to negotiate the opening, Rumer yanked my arm and pulled me through the gap and onto the top of the church.

After I found my footing on the angled rooftop, I needed a moment to gather myself. The church reached much higher into the sky than I had imaged. I kept my free hand glued to the tower, its pointed roof rose still further towards the unseen stars, cloaked by an unbroken blanket of grumpy-looking clouds. The strength of the wind made it difficult to stand with any confidence. I didn't let go of the tower and I definitely didn't release my grip on Rumer's hand.

"I've got you," Rumer said. "Ease yourself down onto the join. There's enough room to sit."

I did as Rumer said, and I quickly found some comfort planting my butt on the foot-wide ridge where the two slants of the roof came together.

I brought my knees to my chest and angled my feet. After a bit of wiggling, I was able to settle down and worry less about being carried like a leaf in the headwind.

"Nice, huh?" Rumer said.

The view was stunning and it was very romantic, I thought. As I explored in every direction, I pulled Rumer's hand to the top of my knees and held it affectionately. It was a view to be shared and I didn't want to let go.

I just enjoyed holding his hand.

We saw across the rooftops of nearby houses and heard the buzzing of cars in the street at the front of the church.

Rumer pointed to the bobbing lights in the distance to my left. Boats on the ocean. And when I looked behind, I saw the lights of the city. Admittedly, it wasn't as spectacular as the previous night when we soared in above the waterline for a similar view, but it still felt equally amorous.

"Do you want to talk about what happened, tonight?" Rumer said.

A smile beamed from ear to ear. "I can't believe he would just give me the car," I said. "I don't know what to say. I feel bad that we've left him down there and..." Rumer's gaze was peculiar and so, I stopped. "What?" I said.

"I wasn't talking about the car."

"Oh. What were you talking about?"

But I already knew. I was simply being coy, and I was reluctant to admit that to him or to myself. I turned away and chose, instead, to soak up the glorious view.

The cold and the wind tingled my cheeks and ears and the tip of my nose, but I no longer cared about their bite. A sense of being on top of the world trilled warm emotional streaks through my entire body. I was happy and didn't want to ruin the moment with thoughts about mom and Helen.

Rumer embraced my private moment. He kept quiet.

At one point, I felt his arm move and I believed he was about to wrap it around my shoulders. He moved it awkwardly, held it aloft in mid-air momentarily and then, returned it to his side. I'd seen plenty of bizarre cinema couple moments where the boy stretched out his arm around the girl, but Rumer's attempt was something different altogether. It was nice to be reminded that he, too, was only human.

Of course, he may have simply been stretching his arm and I forged the rest of the hopeful script from my desire for him to hold me again, but his humanity – real or imagined – empowered me to turn back to face him.

"I just never imagined a scenario where mom moved out of the family home and into the house of someone else," I said.

Rumer stared a long time in silence before he answered. His eyes darted back and forth to mine and I felt him exploring my mind. "It must be heartbreaking," he finally said, in a soothing, empathetic voice.

"It's like she's just said that it's all too hard, it's much easier to blame everyone else and I'm going to run away and pretend like I had no other option."

"And Helen is a doctor, right?"

"Yes."

"So, you'd think she would have at least some understanding of the emotional impact on you and Mika... and your father."

"You'd like to think so," I said, sucking in a massive volume of cold air to keep those emotions in check.

"Does Helen live in the mountains as well?"

"Yes. Just on the edge of the National Park. I have been to her house. Ages ago. Mom was with me and we went for coffee. I just didn't know what was going on between them." I paused and looked up at Rumer for support. "Do you think I'm a bad person for not noticing what they were up to?"

"No," he said, flatly and immediately.

"You don't think I should have realized? I mean, I spent more time with mom than Mika and even dad, but I saw nothing."

"This is not your fault, Sara."

"Do you think there's any chance that my family can be fixed?" What I meant was, any chance that I could fix my family. I regretted asking the question as soon as it fell from my mouth because, deep down, I feared the answer and didn't want to hear it said aloud.

"There's always hope, Sara. Never give up," Rumer said.

I let my head fall to his shoulder and wanted to cry. My feelings were again as all-over-the-place as the wind swirling around us. I was so sad that the reality of a broken family inched closer to being set in cement but, at the same time, was seduced by Rumer's caring diplomacy, his understanding and his thoughtfulness.

"Thank you," I whispered, but wasn't sure if he heard me or not.

We sat for five minutes without a spoken word. I tuned in to the sounds of the gusts churning about the tower, the faint echo of waves crashing on the nearby beach and the occasional car horn reminding us we were still earth-bound.

My head rose slightly with each of Rumer's breaths and I felt close to him.

We hadn't kissed, or done anything else physical or even talked about what we actually were. And yet, I felt like he was part of me, as if I could no longer function without him – or, at least, knowing he was there for me.

Our relationship wasn't anything like Steph ever described about her interactions with boys. It also wasn't similar to Emma and Tom, whom I always believed had the perfect relationship and the kind of bond I envied and wanted so terribly for myself. Rumer and I had something different. Something very unusual. I didn't know if it was better or worse or even where it was destined to take us, but I did know I wanted every part of it, and indulge in every fascination it threw my way.

I started to believe that I was in love with him.

Of course, I didn't really know what that meant or what I was supposed to do about it or if I should tell him. What scared me most, was that I had no idea how he felt.

Then, he suddenly twitched and all the self-doubt streamed back through my veins. I instantly raised my head and snapped from my phantasmal hopes.

"I come up here most nights," Rumer said. "It's a great place to think."

I really hoped he couldn't read my mind. To be absolutely sure, I threw his psychological probing tentacles back in his direction. "What do you think about?" I said.

I expected Rumer to withdraw as he had done so often when I asked him about family or his past or pretty much anything personal. We were kindred spirits in that respect. He hated talking about himself as much as I hated talking about me.

"I just think about what all this means." Rumer said. "Why me?"

His honesty surprised me, but I dared not interrupt his resolve and so, I kept quiet and waited patiently for him to do what I had struggled with so often.

After a deep breath, Rumer continued. "I mean, statistically, what are the chances of me being at those bins, in prison no less, at exactly the time the lightning hit the gas tanks?"

He paused. Was he waiting for me to do the math? Good luck!

"Pretty remote, right?" Rumer said.

"Yes," I said with gusto, overcompensating for my complete lack of any real mathematical basis.

"And yet, I was there. I'm not a big believer in coincidences, and so I'm trying to convince myself that there has to be a reason why. And I want to know what that reason is."

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Maybe..." I stopped. My thoughts seemed suddenly self-indulgent, even if they did ring happy tunes inside my head. But it seemed somewhat logical to me and I had no better answer. I said, "Maybe, the reason has already happened. Maybe, instead of looking forward to find the answer, there's an answer looking back."

"You mean the night on the train tracks?" Rumer said.

I felt my head get warm again. "Well, it seems like a pretty damned good reason to me," I said, flustered and defensively.

"Yes. I'm sorry. You're right. That was important. Very important."

And still I felt like Rumer searched for something more. "What would you do?" Rumer said, turning to me and staring directly at me.

"How do you mean?" I said.

"If you were in my position and you could do all these wonderful things, what would you do with it? Right now?"

I was sure my brain vibrated at the thought of it, but it was Rumer's intensity that affected me most, as if he was determined to drag an answer from me. I let my thoughts fight amongst themselves and then, like a pick-a-box, I snapped one from the swirling ideas. The one that trickled from my mouth caught me by surprise as much as it did Rumer. "I would try and find my friend, Lexie," I said.

Rumer glanced down at me for the briefest of moments before returning his stare to the blackness of the night sky around us.

You asked, I wanted to say. If you're not going to like the answer, then don't ask the question. Other answers tried to escape from the box as well.

Force mom to be mom again.

Take Mika on a ride into the clouds.

Kill Helen.

I quickly slammed shut my box of thoughts, horrified at what else I may find in there. No! I stuck to my unadulterated answer. Lexie. I wanted to find Lexie.

"You know," I said, in the absence of a response from Rumer, "I had a dream this morning about finding her. Well, not exactly about finding her... I mean... I didn't find her or anything, but I dreamed about a place where she could be."

Rumer didn't turn to me as quickly as I hoped, but he did turn. I wasn't going to wait for a second chance.

"It's all your fault, really. The whole flying through the air thing has got my imagination all out of whack. I know it sounds crazy, but as I was..." I swallowed my embarrassment away, before continuing. "As I was... flying over the mountains in my dream." I stopped again waiting for a reaction from Rumer. He said nothing, but I saw an approving smile attempt to expose itself on his lips. I didn't need much more encouragement. "I recognized where I was or, at least, where I'd come from and I thought that, if you were going to abduct people and keep them somewhere, then this was the ideal place for it."

I was clutching at the thinnest of straws. There was no question that the landscape I saw in my dream was familiar. The Govetts Leap Lookout was unmistakable. I had swept into the Grose Valley below it along an eastern track and stumbled across the fabled Gingerbread House. Of course, there was no evidence – no reality – of anything. All I had was a gut feeling about the dense and dark forest in that inhospitable area.

To my surprise, Rumer indulged my lunacy. "What would you like to do, Sara?"

Was he serious? I thought. But I was willing to entertain every bit of fantasy in my skull for a chance to find my friend. "We could go and have a look?" I said, hopefully.

I wasn't under any allusion that it was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles, maybe even more hopeful than that. But I wanted to do something. I needed to quell the thundering helplessness pounding through my heart.

The idea of turning the television on the following day, or the day after that, and seeing a body bag being dragged from the forest on the news, was unfathomable. If I had made no attempt to contribute to finding her, no matter how small, insignificant or unreal, and particularly considering I had access to a unique method of doing so, then I would never forgive myself. It is something I knew I couldn't live with.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Rumer said.

"She's my friend."

# Chapter 41

I did not tell Rumer about the Gingerbread House or about the legend of the sacrificed girls or about how my intention was aligned with placating my helplessness, more so than actually believing we would find Lexie. But we soared through the sky together as we had on our first flight. I held a firm grip around Rumer's chest as I rode on his back.

The air was dryer than my last outing in the sky, but no less exhilarating. Gusts of wind blew us around like a rough plane ride and I worried about the limit of the conditions Rumer could handle. I gripped him even tighter.

We flew just below the thick stratus clouds hanging low in the sky. We followed the course of the freeway below us to the base of the mountains and then, watched the Great Western Highway meander to the left and right of us as we maintained its general heading into the mountains proper. It beat driving, any day!

Rumer's arms extended before him. He kept his legs spread slightly, allowing me to nestle my lower limbs in the space. Either side of me, the entrails of Rumer's black overcoat flapped incessantly in the wind, but the ride was otherwise as comfortable as I could ever expect, holding onto to the back of a human being streaking through the air.

His ability allowed him to create an updraft of air beneath us, keeping us airborne, while the air molecules behind us pushed our bodies forward, through the air.

"Do you ever worry that when you're up here, everything may just suddenly stop?" I asked, as we gained height.

"Yes," Rumer said. "All the time. I'll just have to deal with that if it ever happens."

"Oh," I said, a little shocked. It wasn't exactly the reassurance I was looking for. To distract my mind from the possibility of Rumer and me simply falling from the sky, I turned to our plan. We would attempt to recreate my dream. Even in my head, it sounded funny and far-fetched, but stranger things had happened. We were gliding through the air and we had stopped trains. I had to believe we could find Lexie, too.

As the lights of suburbia were swallowed by large swathes of dark shadows from the trees in the National Park, we slowed and began to descend.

"Wait," I said loudly, as I shook Rumer's right shoulder. "I want to check something." Growing in confidence, I held onto Rumer with only one arm. The other, I pointed towards a Shell service station below us which I recognized as the landmark where mom and I had often turned off the main highway. "See the road there," I said, "running from that intersection with the service station? Can we follow that for a minute?"

"Hold on," Rumer said.

We banked to the right and eased our way along the road's path. Our slower pace made it easy to recognize where we were. I knew all too well what was at the end of the road. It took less than a minute to reach the dead end where the road below us met the National Park.

"Slow up," I said.

"What are we looking for?"

My stare was fixed to the last house on the street. "There," I said, pointing. "That's Helen's house."

We slowed to a hover several hundred feet above the single-story, weatherboard home. It sprawled across an acre of land populated with native trees and plants. All the internal house lights were out, but that wasn't unexpected an hour before midnight.

In the driveway, I saw mom's car. The silver hatchback glimmered in the light streaking from a nearby lamppost. I should not have been surprised to see mom's car there. It was the one commitment she didn't lie about. But to physically see it, was confirmation that she had wholeheartedly departed the family home and that she had made the ultimate decision to abandon her family.

I wanted to puke. I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump down, off Rumer's back, and smash the door down and tell mom how much I hated her. "Okay," I said to Rumer. "I've seen enough. Let's keep going."

Rumer took another glance at me, hovered over Helen's house a moment longer, and then, we proceeded with our plan. We gained some height and increased our speed over the tree tops of the National Park. We aimed to follow a path off the side of the railway track past Leura and then, spear off over the thick forest, towards Govetts Leap Lookout and down along the Grose Valley.

The lookout was just east of the township of Blackheath. It was a popular spot to view the spectacular panorama descending into the valley. The girls and I had picnicked at the lookout over the summer. By day, the view was brilliant. Numerous hiking trails departed from the lookout and, on our beautiful summer day, it seemed like the perfect mechanism to burn off the fish and chips, but Steph was never going to embrace the Bear Grylls in her.

Rumer and I swept low across the tree tops. I tightened my grasp around Rumer's body. I wanted to feel the contours of his body by running my hands from his neck to his stomach, and then to the left and to the right. But as I pressed the side of my face into his back, I found no courage to openly show any affection. My thumb moved an inch up, waited momentarily for an adverse reaction from Rumer and then, moved another inch back down. It still made me feel all gooey inside.

We reached the Grose Valley quicker than I anticipated – unwittingly lost in my thumb fantasy. The valley was sculpted by the Grose River running deep along its base, mostly under a canopy of Blue Gum trees. In the dark of night, with no visible moon, it looked like a black sea. The waves of gusting wind, rustling the tops of the trees, only exaggerated the illusion. As I looked up and around, I was overcome by the beauty of our surroundings. And the unique smell of the eucalyptus trees was inexhaustible. I sucked in enough of the sweet odor to deter colds and flu for the next hundred years.

As we flew through the Grose Valley proper, I saw towering escarpments to our left and right. The valley was deep, dark and vast. As the tree tops whizzed by, I felt apprehension for the first time that night. I had failed to pay any attention to the cold air creeping down my back. Suddenly, it felt like an ice storm, smeared with an irrational sense of foreboding.

What the hell were we doing?

I thought momentarily about tapping Rumer on the shoulder and returning to the comfort and splendor of Pastor Crosbie's church, but I'd made such a deal out of my thirst to do something, we were past the point of no return. I clung tighter to Rumer, moving only my thumb again, as I did so.

Rumer suddenly angled up and scared the bejesus out of me. "Hold on," he said, about three seconds too late. My body felt like it just got shot out of a canon. We reached Govetts Leap Lookout at the top of the cliff, in a flash.

Rumer rapidly decreased speed as we approached the viewing platform – a couple of thousand feet above sea level. In an instant, we stood stationary behind the lookout's safety railing. I released my grip on Rumer and stepped securely back to terra firma. Before us, in the darkness, an immense ocean of black shadows sprawled between the rising cliff faces on both sides. It was humbling but, at the same time, confirmed the insane scope of Lexie's potential whereabouts.

"Now what?" Rumer said.

I honestly didn't know. "Have you got any ideas?" I said.

"Do you recall anything else from your dream?"

"This is the point I recognized," I said. "I didn't stop here to have a look. I went down that way." I pointed into the valley and to our left.

"Well," Rumer said. "Let's do that."

I started to feel silly, letting our path be guided by a dream. Rumer tried his best to be serious and not mock my resolve. He never said as much, but I saw it in his eyes and his demeanor. He was so nice to indulge my wishes.

"Let's go," he said. "Jump on."

In a flash, we were airborne again. We rose slowly above the lookout. I quickly grew accustomed to the feeling of weightlessness as we ascended.

"Hold on," Rumer said. "This could be a little scary."

"Okay," I said, trying to mask my apprehension.

We tilted forward rapidly. My surprise expressed itself in a weird groan. To Rumer, it must have sounded like there was a scared hyena on his back. But before I could redeem myself, Rumer streaked forward, over the railing and straight down into the valley, picking up some serious speed. The rollercoaster of quirky lunacy instantly metamorphosed into a nightmarish ride straight into hell.

I screamed the entire way down.

My stomach felt like a tennis ball in my throat wanting to shoot out. My claws were firmly entrenched into Rumer's chest and I was certain he'd find scratch marks when he next looked in the mirror. By the time Rumer levelled out over the tree tops deep in the valley, my hollering of fear had transmuted to shrieks of embarrassment.

"You okay?" Rumer finally said.

His concern bulged with a decent prescription of sarcasm. He enjoyed scaring the crap out of me. I wanted to respond with equal cynicism, but struggled to get that tennis ball out of my throat and so, couldn't find the volume to say anything.

We looked desperately for any indication that seemed out of place. A clearing or a light – and I secretly looked for the Gingerbread House. The muted light made our exploration difficult, but the clarity in our view surprised me. With the absence of artificial lights, our eyes had adjusted quickly, and we clearly saw the contours of the trees and the foliage on the ground beneath them. All manner of dark blue shades painted a beautiful nocturnal landscape.

It was almost impossible for me to believe that, amongst such splendor, could hide such bewitching evil.

After ten minutes of swooping left and right and up and down the valley, we had to concede our search was more than optimistic. I respected Rumer for trying. His efforts to humor my resolve – no matter how impossible they must have seemed to him – were an affirmation of his kindness and of his thoughtfulness. I let those emotions soak up the disappointment spilling through me.

"Okay," I finally said, with much reluctance. "I don't think we're going to find anything. Let's head back."

"Are you sure?" Rumer said.

"Yes. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"It's never a waste of time to try and help those you care about, Sara," he said.

I sighed as I laid my head on Rumer's back once more, but felt content that I had done something. But as Rumer changed course, back down the Grose Valley and towards the direction of Leura, I couldn't tear Lexie's face from my eyeballs. When I closed my eyes, her image only amplified.

Emma told me that Mel received a text message from Lexie on the morning of her disappearance. Their plan was to meet up at the Paragon Café, have coffee and then, make their way to Steph's house for a shopping day. Lexie's super-rich parents had argued the night before about an outing planned for the weekend. As she had so often done, Lexie's mom had lured her daughter to take her side with a handful of cash.

Lexie left home at a quarter-past-nine that morning. Her home was a fifteen minute walk to the center of Leura, crossing the railway line and through a connecting bush track.

She never made it to the Paragon Café.

The police had failed to find any clues, other than the obvious similarities with the missing girls. If one had already been murdered, I wondered how much time Lexie had left for us, or for anyone, to find her.

"What's that?" Rumer suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

I flicked my eyes open. "Where?" But he didn't need to point it out a second time.

In the dark shadows of forest canopy, a lighter shade of blue highlighted what appeared to be a clearing in the thick growth. The space was less than half a tennis court in diameter, but stood out for being the only visible breakage in the otherwise unadulterated expanse.

"Do you see it?" Rumer asked me, as he craned his head slightly to catch my eye line.

It wasn't the clearing itself that magnetized our attention. The tiny pocket of open space exposed something unique. Something shocking.

There was a row of lights. And they were moving!

Not swaying-in-the-wind kind of movement, but deliberate movement, like humans advancing in a procession. I counted six lights, but there could have been more. My eyes struggled to define the tiny globes of illumination after having been cloaked in darkness for so long. "What do we do?" I said to Rumer.

"Let's have a look."

My muscles tensed as he descended slowly towards the clearing – and towards the moving lights. Those lights just weren't right and a bewitching fear gripped me, fed by the foreboding which had shrilled through my body earlier.

The lights appeared to blink on and off, but I quickly realized it was only the trees sporadically blocking my view of them. Rumer's approach was cautious, slow and deliberate. We dropped to canopy height.

Then, the lights extinguished and in an instant, the view through the trees returned to blackness. What the...? I couldn't work it out. Their turning off seemed too deliberate to be a coincidence or an accident or something mechanical.

Rumer did not alter his heading and, a moment later, the canopy beneath us sprang open and revealed the clearing directly beneath us.

But there were no lights. Nothing.

Rumer descended slowly. Through my concentrated grip on his torso, I felt his body tense. We both explored the opening as we aimed for its center. I saw only rising tree trunks at the circumference of the clearing. Thick and imposing eucalypt shafts stood, watching us, as we touched down in the knee-high grass.

"Stay close," Rumer said, as he signaled for me to plant my feet on the ground.

He surveyed our surroundings like a hawk, watching and listening for any movement. Any sign of life.

I stepped to his right and did my own recognizance. I turned a full circle. My eyes were steadfastly focused on the trees around us, but I saw nothing and I heard nothing and...

Something flew through the air.

A black shape. Small. It screamed and whistled across the clearing and was upon us faster than a heartbeat. I had no time to move.

In an instant, I heard a horrific thud. Then, a groan. Fright shot through my body. Instinctively, I turned to face Rumer, but he no longer stood beside me. My eyes dropped. Rumer lay on the ground. His limbs were spread to the four winds and he wasn't moving.

"Rumer?" I said, in a whisper.

On the ground beside him lay the object I had glimpsed hurtling towards us. It was a large chunk of wood. I was in no doubt where it had come from.

The forest.

And it was no accident.

# Chapter 42

Its trajectory had been too precise to be anything other than deliberate. In shock, I jumped to Rumer's side and dropped to my knees. I couldn't stop my head nervously flicking from side to side, scanning the darkness beyond the clearance circumference. I saw nothing but a kaleidoscope of light and dark blue shadows and I felt insanely alone.

"Rumer," I said again, in a hushed voice. But there was no response from him. I placed my right hand on his side and felt his body rise.

At least, he was still breathing, I thought.

As I leaned forward and called his name again, I saw a large gash on the back of his head. He never saw the missile coming. The cut looked bad. Indecision froze my limbs in mid-air. I knew I needed to dress that wound. I needed to do something. For the first time, Rumer was depending on me to help him and I sat there like a stunned mullet. Move Sara.

I suddenly saw the blood trickling from the wound on Rumer's head and across his face and I knew we were in serious trouble. It was as if a metaphorical lightning bolt shuddered my frozen brain and kicked my systems back to life. First, I breathed. Then, I blinked. And finally, motor neurons burst with energy and I was able to find some momentum.

My first priority was Rumer. Whatever was in the forest stalking us – preying on us – had to wait.

Of course, I had no idea whether the hunter would hold off and, in the nether-regions of my sanity, I feared that at any moment, a second projectile could fly from the darkness and strike me down just as quickly.

But I had no time to think about that.

Yanking my jacket from around my shoulders, I then removed my jumper. It didn't smell real great.

Stuff it!

I eased my left hand beneath Rumer's head and, as gently as I could, lifted it enough to squeeze the sleeve of my jumper, beneath. "That's it," I said quietly, although I knew he probably couldn't hear me. "Just a little more."

I pulled the sleeves into position, ready to improvise a bandage. Ideally, I wanted to place another dressing on the wound itself and then, tie the jumper firmly around to keep it in place, but I had no such options. I worried that if I pulled the jumper onto the wound directly, it may hurt him even more or worse, compound the gash in his head.

Think Sara, I reminding myself.

I needed to stop the bleeding above all else. I dilly-dallied and thought it through too much. I looked around the clearing again, as if doing so would magically throw up the answer in a holographic first-aid bubble.

The clearing went eerily silent. The wind seemed to instantly die. I heard only my own shallow breaths and the banging of the muscle in my chest cavity. It felt as if nature pressed pause. I checked to my left. Nothing. Right. All was still. Too still.

Suddenly, I saw a bright orange light.

It was a flame.

Fire spontaneously erupted where the clearing and forest met. It shot quickly into the air, as if it had a mind of its own. The trunk behind it instantly caught fire. The flames jumped to the next tree trunk. And the next. But it didn't spread like it would in a wildfire. The flame moved much too quickly.

Like watching dominoes fall, the fire jumped from tree to tree. Dumbfounded by how the flame could move as it did, a greater horror began to overwhelm me. We were being encircled. The fire rushed around the clearing's circumference. Within a few seconds of my panicked immobility, Rumer and I were completely surrounded by flames.

And in serious trouble.

Then, the foliage on the ground in front of the trunks also caught alight. I no longer procrastinated about how to tackle his wound. I threw my arms forward and collected the sleeves of my jumper. Without a second thought, I brought them together, carefully lined up the bulk of the fabric over the gash in Rumer's skull and then, forcefully tugged the ends into a tight knot.

"I'm sorry," I said, knowing that if he could still feel anything, it would have been excruciating.

Rumer didn't make a noise.

The fire quickly sprawled across the clearing. I hoped the dampness of the night would hold back the flames, but nothing seemed to be able to stop the fire. If we didn't move, we'd be roasted in a matter of seconds.

"Come on, Sara," I said loudly. "Do something!"

I finally jumped to my feet, looking for a way out.

Smoke snaked into my lungs through my nose and mouth. Panic scratched under my skin. At any moment, I knew it could splinter my courage and root me to the ground, killing us both.

I needed to move. I needed to move both of us.

The flames seemed stronger directly in front and behind – like two walls of fire closing in on us. I turned to the right. There were flames there, too, but they looked marginally shallower. That's where I needed to go, I decided.

But as I gazed through the thickening smoke and into the flames beyond, the most unexpected sight caught my attention. I thought I saw a person on the other side of the flames.

An incredibly large person.

"Help!" I screamed. "Help us!" But as quickly as the silhouette appeared, I lost track of it and wondered if I'd simply engineered the vision in my imagination out of pure desperation.

A loud crack refocused my attention. A burning tree fell into the clearing.

The force of it, bouncing onto the ground only a few feet away, surged together with my panic, and knocked me off my feet.

I lay on my back, gasping for air. I stretched out my hand and connected with Rumer's hand. His body remained motionless.

I decided at that moment that we needed to live. We needed to get the hell out of there. Dragging myself to my knees, I struggled to get a single breath of clean air.

Come on, Sara. Come on, Sara. Come on, Sara. I kept repeating it in my head.

I rolled Rumer onto his back. His body was limp and, if not for his chest lifting and falling, I may have thought him already dead. I wriggled my right arm beneath his knees and forced my other arm around his shoulder.

Strength had never been my gift, but if I didn't lift him in that instant, he was dead – we were both dead. I gave it no more thought. With all the power in my legs, I pushed my body up as hard as I could. I yelled like a wounded animal and groaned and grinded my teeth.

Rumer's weight quickly burdened every muscle in my arms, then my back and finally, my legs. He was heavy. Too heavy. But there was no choice.

I grunted again, pulling him closer to my body, as I rose into the smoke and searing-hot air around me. I held him aloft, but knew I wouldn't be able hold him for long. Turning left without thought, I hoped for luck. There was no other escape but to walk straight through the flames. I stepped forward, carrying Rumer in my arms. I sucked every last air molecule from the horror around me. The flames were inconceivably hot and I thought we would burst into fire the moment we touched the inferno.

My skin tingled. I had burnt myself with flames and cigarette lighters before, but as I strode closer to the fire, I found myself in an entirely unlivable hell. I wanted scream. The pain was unbearable. I wanted to stop and give up.

Keep going, Sara! I repeated to myself. Move or die!

I closed my eyes as I stepped into the flames. My strides were fast and deliberate. I no longer felt my arms, but I would have rather died than let go of Rumer. The heat constricted my muscles like a viper and the fabric of my clothes felt like it was a blaze.

But I staggered through and didn't look back.

Then, I could no longer get any air. For all my resolve and defiance of panic and quitting, suddenly, I thought the decision was going to be taken away from me.

It was so unfair! I thought.

Another step. And another. My body screamed for oxygen. Just one breath. Heat burst all around me. I knew my skin was already blistered. My eyes hurt worse than ever before. I suddenly felt sure I wasn't going to make it. Rumer's weight became intolerably heavy. I fell forward. I couldn't hold him any longer and I collapsed onto the ground.

I landed outside the ring of fire.

Rumer tumbled from my arms and rolled several feet ahead of me. As I plummeted forward, I extended my arms to catch my fall, but had no strength left in them. They buckled and I went face first into the ground. Small twigs and stones on the forest floor scraped my face and cut my lip. I yelped like a dog. I reached one hand forward to touch Rumer.

He was still there.

As I rolled onto my back, the intolerable heat rose like a monster ready to devour me, but the flames were a short distance away. I had come just far enough. My body soaked with liquid exploding from the pores in my skin, desperate to hydrate the burns poisoning my throbbing flesh.

We needed to get further away.

I knew there was no way on earth I was going to be able to lift Rumer off the ground a second time, so I decided to drag him instead. I sprang to my feet and, ignoring the typhoon of pain in my body, grabbed Rumer by his wrists and began pulling him backwards. The muscles in my legs burned. It felt like my body was on fire inside and out. I had no idea where I was going. My only goal was to get as far away from the flames as possible.

After a minute of desperately pulling Rumer's body, I had to stop. Tears spasmodically streamed down my face. My hands hurt. My legs ached. My whole body was exploding in agony. I sucked in volumes of air, almost hyperventilating, but I neither cared nor stopped.

Then, I heard a thunderous crash.

Another tree fell and I looked up. My eyes strained in their sockets. My brain overloaded with the unthinkable.

It couldn't be?

The fire set itself a new course. It was following us. Flames began to jump in our direction again. "You have got to be kidding me!" I yelled at the fire, as if my verbal tirade would somehow extinguish the threat.

I pulled my hands from my knees and grabbed Rumer's wrists a second time. The radiating heat began to lash at us again. Unsure of where I found the strength, I got us moving again, one slow step backwards at a time. My legs felt like they dragged bulldozers through quicksand. I knew I wasn't going to get far.

"Give me a chance, god damn it!" I yelled, as I looked up.

Flames licked the nearby trees. The fire was very much alive. It was the hunter.

Rumer and I were the hunted.

My body suddenly hit an emotional dead end. It could no longer move, no matter how much I forced it. My legs shut down first. The incapacity spread like weeds in a rose garden.

The wildfire crawled closer like a leviathan on its knees, consuming everything in its path to get to us. I turned to look where I would fall and wait for the fire to consume us both, but my eyes clapped on an unexpected salvation. We were six feet from the start of a downward slope. Looking through the trees to the base of the gradient, I saw what I so desperately needed. The river.

I looked back at the flames. A tree rocketed through the fire and collapsed onto the forest floor, sending embers and plumes of smoke in every direction. Dante's inferno was at arm's length and I wasn't going to stick around to become a marshmallow.

I wrenched Rumer's arms into mine and stepped again. One step. Two. "Come on, damn it!" I yelled. The heat behind me intensified sharply. The flames were close, but I didn't want to look behind. Another step. And another. The idea of giving up, wrestled inside my head with unbending tenacity. The last step was the hardest. My grip on Rumer's arms was so tight, I worried I might break the bones in his limbs.

One more step!

As Rumer's center of gravity tipped the pivotal point of the incline, his weight became negligible and I tumbled backwards. We rolled together down the slope and splashed into the flowing river.

The water was ice cold, but felt incredible. My flesh sizzled as the water cooled it. My eyes, lips and ears yearned for the icy delight. I threw water into my face and swallowed a mouthful. It was fresh. Pure. The air was better, too, and I felt my senses reclaiming my body.

I lunged across to Rumer to ensure his face wasn't submerged. The river was barely a car-width across and less than a foot deep, but people had drowned in much less. Raising his head, I splashed water in his face and then, propped him up against the rocky bank. I slid the dangling sleeves of my jumper away from his mouth, nose and eyes. The sleeves were soaking wet and I used them as cool sponges on the back of his neck.

He looked in terrible shape.

With a deafening whoosh, the fire appeared at the top of the ridge. It hesitated, as if searching for us, before jumping across to the next tree trunk and starting a new path towards the river – towards us.

Rumer and I were going nowhere. I barely had enough energy to keep myself from slipping under the water. As the fire began to scream its vengeance towards us once more, I had nothing left and no idea what else to do.

"What happened?" I heard a tired voice suddenly mumble next to me. Rumer.

"Oh my God!" I yelled. "Are you okay?"

"What—" But he stopped. His eyes fixated away from me, and up the slope from where we had come. "Uhmm..." he said. "Sara, the trees are on fire."

No kidding. "Yes," I said.

"And it's coming this way."

Before I had a chance to explain anything, Rumer clambered to his feet like Lazarus rising. His large coat sprayed me with a thousand water droplets. He extended his arms in both directions, towards each end of the river. His fingers spread with authority and he looked like an incomparable eagle, ready to fight. He dropped his head slightly, but his eyes remained firmly on the fire.

"What are you going to do?" I said.

But Rumer remained silent.

The fire screeched and squealed towards us with frightening determination. It was a formidable foe.

Suddenly, the flow of water in which I sat changed direction and instantly rose into the air. Two huge spouts of liquid manifested themselves to the left and right of me. They rose as high as the tree trunks and swirled violently like tornadoes. Water sprayed in all directions and, from the river bed where I sat, it felt as if it was raining.

Rumer angled his arms towards the slope. The funnels of water followed his trajectory. Then, he took to the air, arms spread wide and in total control of the water tentacles. They began to lash at the fire and douse their venom. As the water evaporated in the heat, more liquid flooded from up and down the stream.

The water smashed around the tree trunks and extinguished the flames.

It was the most incredible sight I had ever seen. I was surrounded by living, dynamic water, flowing wherever Rumer demanded it. He rose higher and maneuvered the water tentacles across the top of the slope to put out the fire beyond.

I could no longer see Rumer after that.

To my left, water gushed upstream and formed into a funnel rising high into the sky and towards the clearing. To my right, water ran downstream and shaped into the same, magical structure. Steam rose high into the air as the radiance of bright orange slowly subsided.

The sound of hissing was intense, but I knew it could only mean that the water was winning the battle against the inferno. I staggered to my knees, splashed water on my face and stood up. Rumer's awakening had renewed the ticker in me and I clambered up the slope.

The trees on either side of me fizzled with a combination of smoke and steam. The ground still felt warmish to touch, but I could no longer see any flames. The smell of burnt wood – like the world's biggest open fireplace – crept up my nose, reminding me of moments earlier, when its toxicity had almost snuffed me out.

I looked left and then, right. The water funnels had disappeared, but water rained down all around me. It was like a super-wet fog settling in for the night. Then, through the mist, I saw a dark shape on the forest floor directly ahead and walking towards me.

It was Rumer.

His frame and flowing, long coat were unmistakable, and I had never been so happy to see him come close. My jumper was still tied around his head and soot covered him from top to toe but, to me, he looked like an angel. As he stepped close to me, he opened his embrace and hugged me. "We need to get you to a hospital," he said.

"No way," I said. "How are we going to explain all this?"

"Sara, you need medical attention."

I hesitated. I didn't want to go to the hospital. I worried that they would instantly alert the authorities and that their line of investigation would lead back to Rumer. No! I needed to protect him. There had to be another option. And there was.

"I know where we can go," I said.

# Chapter 43

"Are you sure about this, Sara?" Rumer said, as he walked up the street, carrying me in his arms.

The pain had begun to overwhelm me. I no longer felt like I could walk and I was too tired to try. Unlike our previous flights, Rumer had scooped me up and held me out front as we departed the forest clearing.

Mid-flight, I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and glued myself to feeling safe. After we landed, I had no intention to relinquish my shelter.

We flew slowly and I took the time to explain to him what had happened – or what I thought had happened. He was as clueless as I was about the lights, about the flying wood and, on my account, the ensuing fire that had tried to kill us. We were in total agreement that nothing we saw in the Grose Valley was accidental or coincidental.

I also decided that contacting the police was too risky. But something strange had definitely gone on out there and we needed to get to the bottom of it.

First, we both needed medical attention.

I had removed my jumper from around Rumer's skull. He flinched when I tore the fabric from the wound. Even in the short time, the blood had coagulated and married itself to my jumper. On closer inspection, the wound was not as bad as I first thought and it looked like the chunk of wood had luckily struck him straight on, and not at an angle. The force of it had knocked him instantly unconscious, but inflicted only superficial penetration into his skull. With a few bandages, I was sure it would fully heal.

It could have been so much worse, I thought.

I wasn't in such good shape. My jacket had holes burnt throughout from the radiant heat where the fabric had literally disintegrated. Most of my skin was red and several burn blisters had begun to materialize. Scrapes ran across my cheeks and forehead, and my lip was badly cut and stung like hell. I was tired and emotional and my muscles ached like I had acid running through my veins, instead of blood.

"Are you certain this is a better option than the hospital?" Rumer said, as we stopped outside the house.

"No. But I think it's our only option."

I didn't want to say it was because I worried about him being caught by the authorities, but I knew if I went to a hospital, I would need to explain how I came to be in such a hammered state. I would need to lie about how I got to the clearing, how I got back out and, of course, I would have to lie about Rumer.

And I wasn't a great liar.

Having Rumer caught was not something I wanted to be responsible for. No. I was determined for him to take us to the only other medical person I knew – as much as the hate of doing so, crippled my sanity.

As we stood outside Helen's house, I looked again at mom's car and swallowed my pride with a fair dose of bitterness. "Come on," I said to Rumer. "Let's do this."

He strode to the front porch, up the wooden step, and let me knock on the door. I made no effort to jump down from his arms.

The front door was open in a flash. Staring down at me with eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, was the one person I hated most in life. I hated her for ruining my family. I held her responsible for controlling mom like a lifeless puppet. I despised her for what she had done to Mika. I loathed her for her arrogance and selfishness.

And yet, she was a doctor – a good doctor from all accounts – and I needed her help.

The look of surprise on her face was complex. She was genuinely shocked but, at the same time, she seemed consumed by a wave of intrigue.

When she finally spoke, my curiosity only spiked higher. "Sara? How did you get here?" she said.

Her choice of words was as unusual as the soft and caring tone embracing her words. I'd only ever heard her snarl and bark, but she suddenly sounded empathetic.

Impossible, I thought.

Her eyes turned to Rumer and she looked at him with equal perplexity. "Are you both okay?" she asked, at long last.

Rumer spoke first. "Sara needs medical attention. She has second-degree burns on her arms, lacerations on her face and she's fatigued. Can you help her?"

Helen's eyes grew wider as she sized up the situation and battled with the unknown conflict in her head.

Then, I heard mom's voice coming from within the house. "Hel, is everything alright? Who's at the door?" A dazed-looking mom, with her hair frazzled and twined in all directions, shuffled to the doorway. It took her a moment to realize who was at the door. She looked drugged and stupid.

When she recognized my face, her eyes blinked in shock and then, the screaming started. "Oh God! What have you done to my daughter? How did this happen?"

But, to my unfathomable surprise, Helen took up our fight. "Calm down, darling," she said, before turning back to face us. "Bring her inside and let's see what we can do."

Mom's anger was incessant. Again she yelled, "What have you done to my daughter? How could you do this?"

Rumer did not respond to mom.

It only seemed to infuriate her more. Her state of stupor unfortunately wore off pretty quick. "I told you he was a bad influence. I knew this would happen. This is what happens when you don't listen to me, Sara."

I wanted to yell at mom, but couldn't find an ounce of energy, so I tuned out to her relentless howling. Rumer laid me gently on the rock-hard couch in the lounge room. The fluffed fabric smelled like mothballs and smoke. Urghh!

But I was too tired to care about that, as well. He carefully pulled my jacket off. I tried to be brave and not give him – or them – any indication that it hurt when the material scraped along my red, pulsating flesh.

Rumer then stepped back, making way for Helen and mom, who both kneeled beside me. Helen opened a modest first-aid kit she had grabbed from a nearby cupboard. Mom thought to be helpful by rubbing my leg, but it stung like her hands contained a thousand wasps.

Helen kept staring at me to the point where I felt uncomfortable. She occasionally glanced over her shoulder at Rumer. "So, how did this happen?" she said.

Rumer hesitated momentarily as the cogs of creativity turned in his head. "There was a bushfire," he said, "and we just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time."

"A bushfire?" Helen said, with a tinge of cynicism. "At this time of night?"

"Yes," I added. "It must have been all the dry undergrowth."

It had rained most of the week, I thought to myself. She was never going to buy that. But Helen didn't press in the way I expected her to. She had every opportunity to call me a liar and to give faux-credence to mom's insults about Rumer. But she didn't. Instead, her approach was absurdly inquisitive.

I couldn't figure out where she was coming from.

"Where was the... bushfire?" she said.

"Just north of here," Rumer said. "But there's no need to worry, I think it's far enough away... and no longer burning."

Helen turned sharply back to Rumer. "Oh, I'm not worried."

"Right," said Rumer.

"Do we need to get her to a hospital?" mom said.

Helen held her gaze at Rumer for a just a moment too long. Rumer and I both noticed, but neither of us had any clue what was going through that crazy woman's head. "No, darling," she finally said. "It just a few, light burns on the skin, some abrasions and dehydration. She'll be fine."

A few light burns? It hurt like hell and I looked like a lobster. So much for her concern.

"We'll put a bit of cream on it and give her plenty of water and she'll be right."

Mom was not so sure. "Maybe we can take her to the hospital just in case."

"Darling, it's not a problem."

"But there's a fair bit of red on the skin."

"And it will heal." Helen then glared up at me. "It will help if you stay away from... bushfires... from now on."

No kidding. But I just nodded.

"What if it's just for the night?" mom began again. "For observation."

A switch flicked in Helen's headspace. In an instant, I saw her turn, almost split personality style. "Temperance," she barked, "I said it was fine. I'm a doctor. Are you questioning my judgment?"

I was afraid to breathe, because it would make too much noise in the deafening silence that suddenly smothered the room. Without moving my head, I rotated my eyes to catch sight of Rumer. He, too, stood wide-eyed and statuesque. I felt the frustration knocking at the castle walls. This is what you abandoned your family for? I wanted to say to mom. Nice!

As I had witnessed in her approach at home when Mika, mom and her fought, Helen quickly tried to curtail her obvious intimidation. "I'm sorry, darling. I think I know what's best for Sara at this point."

"Okay," mom conceded.

What had my world come to where my own mother accepted that an interloper knew best what was good for me? Mom was so far gone, I barely recognized her. Her face was shrilled like a prune. Her matted hair looked old and decrepit. She looked like a dinosaur.

Her mom-ness was extinct.

"How about I call your father to come and pick you up?" mom said.

I felt Helen shift uncomfortably, which again baffled me. If I didn't know better, I may have thought she actually wanted me to stay. Her mind ticked over, but she relented, and finally agreed with mom, that calling dad was the best solution.

As mom clambered to her feet like an old woman, she couldn't resist a few last digs at Rumer. "I don't think you should see my daughter again," she said.

"Mom," I said, with a fatigued strain.

"No, Sara. Have a look at you. You're lucky to be alive."

That was matter-of-factly true.

"It's nothing," I said. "I'm fine."

She continued to gawk at Rumer with venomous eyes. I hated her for that.

Everything I wanted from her, she discarded like an empty milk carton. Everything I didn't want from her, she gladly obliged to provide. At last, she stepped to the kitchen and picked up the phone.

As Helen rubbed an antibiotic ointment onto my arms, I closed my eyes. Mom's conversation on the phone was the only sound penetrating my eardrums.

"It's me. I've got Sara here and she needs to be picked up." There was a long pause before I heard mom's voice again. Her tone suddenly encompassed a much greater urgency. "I see. Yes. He's here, too. They both are."

I looked up at Rumer.

Why did dad want to know where Rumer was? I wondered.

Mom continued, "Okay. I will. I'll see you shortly." She clicked the phone back on the base station, but she took longer to come back to the lounge room.

She looked down at me. "Your father will be here soon to pick both of you up."

But there was a quivering uncertainty in her voice. She was hiding something. It scared me how easily I was able to spot it. After a year of deceit about Helen and being clueless about her treachery, in three months, I had become an expert on deciphering mom's words and gestures.

She bumped my legs out the way to make room for her to sit. Again, she rubbed my leg. Again, it hurt. "Everything is going to be alright now, Sara," she said. "You'll see." Her tone sounded fabled and false. She glanced up at Rumer once more, pretending not to do so, but any three-year-old could have worked it out.

Helen stood up and said, "Right. That should do for you."

"Thank you," I said, consciously making the effort to not sound false, like mom. "Could I have some water?"

"Yes," Helen said. She walked into the kitchen.

Mom stood and followed her.

Rumer kneeled beside me. "Are you okay?" he said, in the sweetest, most genuine voice I had heard since when arrived.

"Yes."

Whispers emanated from the kitchen, but I could not decipher them. Then, Rumer grabbed my hand. "Sara," he said. "Thank you for what you did for me."

I liked the praise – loved it – but pretended to be modest and humble instead. "It was nothing," I said.

"It was everything."

I heaved myself up and sneaked a peek over the top of the couch. Mom and Helen were in deep, muffled conversation. I turned to Rumer. "I'm more worried about what's going on over there," I said.

"Mmm..." Rumer mumbled. "I'm sure it will be okay."

I wasn't sure at all. Despite Helen's assistance, she and mom had already proven they were a formidable team of destruction, decimation and treachery. I was certain they were up to something, and it wasn't a celebration which favored me or Rumer.

Mom and Helen both glanced at Rumer at the same time.

Rumer noticed that, too. If he was worried, he didn't show it. When my eyes caught his, he smiled warmly and broadly. He rubbed his thumb up and down across the top of my hand, in his own secret carnival of affection. He drilled his eyes to mine and he looked suddenly serious. "Sara," he said, in a deep tone. "Whatever happens, I will come for you."

I dared not move. I wanted his words to float between us for a moment longer, before I sucked them in and vaulted them in the deepest crevices of my heart.

"I promise you. I will come for you," he said, again.

Mom and Helen walked back into the lounge room. They stared at us both, but said nothing.

Rumer stood to greet them. "Thank you for your generosity," Rumer said, with authority. "I should probably go."

Was he testing them? I thought.

Mom sprang forth. "No. There's no need to go. Sara's dad will be here shortly to pick both of you up. Stay."

"Yes," Helen added, "please sit."

Rumer stared at the women, trying to work out their game plane – like I was. He then took two steps back and let himself fall into the large armchair directly opposite the couch.

I had a good view of him. And I liked that.

Mom and Helen sat in unison on the two-seater, perpendicular to Rumer and me. It was the strangest feeling. It showed all the guise of parents sitting down with their children for a lecture, but Rumer and I were hardly children. And mom and Helen were definitely not our parents. What struck me most was the total silence that followed.

The four of us sat there, without saying a word. Mom irritatingly cleared her throat on seven occasions. Helen spent most of her time staring at Rumer, which I found to be doubly odd. I struggled to stay awake. I sipped the water which Helen had brought me. We all heard it trickling down my throat, because there wasn't any bloody noise from anyone else.

What was taking dad so long? I wondered.

Then lights shone through the slits in the curtains. Mom and Helen sprang to their feet together, like conjoined slingshots. "They're here," mom said, as she peered out the window.

They?

I stared at mom as I heard the sound of a car pull up. But then, I heard another car and another. Muffled voices erupted outside and I heard footsteps rushing up to the porch and around the sides of the house.

Thin torch beams suddenly cut through the darkness outside. I saw them through the uncovered window to my left. Another shadow ran past with a light. It definitely wasn't dad.

It was the police.

I turned to the arm chair to warn Rumer, but the seat was empty. He had disappeared without any of us noticing.

Mom and Helen saw the vacant chair at the same time I did. "Hey!" mom yelled at me. "Where did he go?"

But I didn't answer her. I turned away from her in defiance and secretly smiled.

Helen opened the front door. "He's gone," I heard her say. "He was here just a minute ago. He might have run out the back."

Then, I heard a familiar voice say, "My men are already checking that." Before I had a chance to turn around, he was already beside me. His hand firmly gripped my arm.

Special Agent Nico Moth.

"You're hurting me," I said.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. He was here, but..."

"Do you know how much trouble you're getting yourself into?"

Two uniformed officers rushed in from the rear of the house. "The back is all clear, sir," one of them said, in a typical police voice of authority and seriousness.

Another voice hoisted his opinion into the lounge room. "The bedrooms are clear, too."

Mom leaned over me. "Sara, tell the officer where he is."

"Tell him to let go of me," I said.

But mom's concern for me had long since evaporated. Her demeanor convinced me it was all about her. Then, she said, "This attitude of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble."

Special Agent Moth finally released my arm. No thanks to mom! His stare was diabolical and memories of running from the forest fringe and from number forty-two, flashed through me like a surge of electricity.

"I could arrest you," he said.

"For what?"

Mom gasped melodramatically. "Sara."

"For aiding and abetting an escaped prisoner."

I stared him down. I didn't know if I was being super-brave or I was simply dead tired and no longer cared what happened to me. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Nico Moth's eyes glazed with fury. "You're telling me you know nothing about his past?"

To answer the question, I needed to lie. I wanted to draw the line somewhere, and so I kept quiet. He didn't get another word from me.

"We've searched the house, detective," one of the uniformed officers said, as he stepped into the room. "There's no sign of him."

As the realization dawned on Agent Moth that another opportunity had slipped by, his face contorted. He wanted to strangle me, I was sure of it.

It was difficult not to smile. I knew I was playing with fire. I knew that messing with the police wasn't something I should take lightly. I tried to convince myself I was being obtuse because I was numb from fatigue, but I knew, deep down, that I wanted to believe in a greater cause. A bigger picture. I believed in Rumer and I was willing to protect him at all costs because I knew he would do the same for me. I was willing to go to prison for him.

I was willing to do anything for him.

Nico Moth shot to his feet. He huddled with mom and Helen and another officer. They spoke in hushed tones, but loud enough for me to hear – and that was no accident. The Moth explained that in his 'general line of inquiry,' he had spoken to dad about Rumer, and the prison escape, and he had shown dad a photograph. My father apparently identified him immediately. When mom rang earlier, dad had instructed her to keep us at the house while he contacted the special agent.

"It's just a matter of time before we get him," the Moth said to mom. "But we will get him. Your daughter just needs to work out of she's going to go down with him or not."

"I'll talk to her," mom said.

"At this stage, I'm not going to arrest her, but she's putting me in a very difficult position. I may not be so lenient next time."

"I understand," mom said. "I'll take care of it."

Once again, she talked about how she would impose herself upon my life without once asking me what I wanted or what I thought.

"I'm sorry we weren't able to do more," Helen said. "I'll show you and your team out."

As they shuffled from the kitchen, I quickly shut my eyes and rolled over. If I had to endure mom's pep talk, then I was sure to give Special Agent Nico Moth something to really arrest me for.

One dead mother. One dead lover.

Pretending to be asleep was my best option. I felt mom step beside me. She placed her hand on my arm. I forced my teeth together to confine the groan of pain. "Sara," she said.

But I didn't respond.

I heard the faint conversation at the door between Helen and the Moth. She gave him a guarantee to stay in touch. Bitch. All her supposed kindness, her feigned concern for my wellbeing – it was all a lie.

I should have known her better.

When the front door clicked shut, I suddenly realized that I was stuck in the house of the two people I hated most in life. My own prison in hell. It was a punishment worse than anything Nico Moth could have thrown at me.

"I think she's asleep," mom said.

I kept as still as I could. My legs were pushed together and the residual heat from my burns was as uncomfortable as all hell, but I was determined to show no sign of movement. Nothing to give them an excuse to talk to me.

Light switches flicked off and doors clicked shut. Within a minute, the house was quiet again. I opened my eyes, adjusting to the sudden darkness. I heard faint noises coming from the bedroom, but they died down quickly.

Slowly, quietly, I rolled onto my back, pulling faces from the pain as I did so. I reached for my jacket on the nearby table and searched the pocket. It didn't take long to find what I was looking for.

My phone!

I scrolled through my list of contacts and picked the one I wanted, before pressing the call button.

"Come on, Mika," I said softly. "Answer your phone."

# Chapter 44

"You have reached the voicemail of Mika Baines. I can't take your call right now because I don't want to. Leave a name and number, if you have to."

I hung up and sighed. Then, I accidentally dropped my phone between the couch cushions. I had zero enthusiasm to retrieve it. Bloody hell! I thought.

Closing my eyes, I tried to distract my brain from registering the pain in my body. I felt warm from the burns on my legs and arms, and the scrapes on my face itched like crazy.

Brainwaves flew in all directions inside my aching skull. The game had changed. Everyone in my family was now aware Rumer was wanted by the authorities – that he had escaped from prison and presumably, they were up to speed with why he'd been imprisoned in the first place. I was certain they had no understanding of Rumer's reasons or the position he had been placed in. To them, he was just a murdering son-of-a-bitch and they would do everything necessary to keep me from him.

The sting in my left leg was a perfect segue for the next station on my train of thought.

Who or what had projected the chunk of wood into Rumer's head?

Who started the fires?

How did the fire move the way it did?

I felt lucky to be alive and conceded that my nonchalance with the police was forged from having faced my own mortality – and Rumer's – moments earlier. Threats of arrest and wrongdoing paled when compared to mysterious lights, flying objects and a wildfire with a mind of its own that almost killed us.

The lids of my eyes slowly raised. I may have dozed in a powernap, but I couldn't be sure. Using the back of the couch as a crutch, I pulled myself upright and instantly felt faint from the lack of sleep and unending throbbing in my limbs and head bone. The room remained dark and lonesome. Crickets cheeped outside and the wind had picked up again, whistling and whining through the trees. The house was otherwise morbidly silent.

I forced the muscles in my legs to take my weight as I stood. My mouth fell open in an extended yawn and I painfully stretched my arms into the heights of the dark lounge room. Stepping to the front window, I threw open the curtain and immediately noticed spots of rain gathering on the glass. I took in the view, despite the water droplets blurring what I could see. Helen's garden was unkempt. Mom's car still glistened in the street light. On the other side of the road, I saw the trees of the National Park swaying like a chorus on nature's grand stage. It was a beautiful sight, but it only made me think more about Rumer.

I couldn't get him out of my head.

And neither did I want to.

Picking up my glass from the coffee table, I shuffled to the kitchen. I was so thirsty. Finishing the first glass, I filled up for a second. I popped my head into the corridor leading to the bedrooms to see if mom, Helen or both were secretly spying on me, but the hallway was dark and deserted.

Letting the water soak the inside of my mouth, I moseyed through the lounge room without a purpose. I would have rather been home or, even better, asleep at Pastor Crosbie's church, but it was peaceful to be temporarily aimless, and I let my mind be free of all the bad things. The sound of the wind kept me company and blew the occasional happy thoughts about Rumer in my direction.

It was a sweet taste in my mouth.

In the furthest corner of the lounge room, I came across an antique, wooden desk, strewn with documents, stationery and other files. As I sipped my water, the business card on top of a pile of beige folders caught my eye. I picked it up in my free hand and read the name in bold typeface on the front. "Special Agent Nico Moth."

I checked over my shoulder. No need for you to have this, I thought, as I slipped the card into my jeans pocket. I had already been an obstructionist to the police, a little theft wasn't going to hurt anyone.

My thought process then stopped instantaneously. It took a moment for my senses to properly awaken from their stupor, but my eyes had already locked on a folder hidden beneath a handful of loose papers. It was a medical file. The patient's name was written in permanent marker along the top of the letter-sized dossier. My lips mouthed the individual words, but I found no volume through my intrigue.

Alexandra Mitchell Morse. Lexie!

Without making the conscious decision to do so, I shot my hand to the desk and yanked the file free from the clutches of other paperwork.

I felt my brain shudder when it sunk in that I was holding Lexie's medical file in my hand.

What was Helen doing with the file? I thought.

The rational side of my head was hammering home the argument that Lexie was a patient of Helen's – as most women in the mountains were – and Helen had, for whatever reason, chosen to examine her file away from the medical clinic where she worked. I remembered the conversation Lexie had with us girls at the Paragon Café. She had gone to see Helen about advice and a prescription for the contraceptive pill. I was sure to find that in the file. There was nothing unusual about that.

But the other side of my skull brimmed with confusion, suspicion and worry.

I couldn't work it out and it bothered me that my tired head was incapable of presenting me with an explanation that arrested my mistrust. I wondered if there was an answer to be found inside the folder, but I stopped myself at the last moment. Lexie had been violated enough, I thought. Her last inkling of privacy, no matter how tokenistic, had to be protected, at all cost. "No!" I said to myself. Lexie's file was staying closed and I slid it back neatly between the unfastened stack of other papers.

But there was something else on the desk and I couldn't pull my eyes away from it. I barely saw an inch, but it was one of those moments where I felt something deep in my gut snagging my attention. I had felt it when staring at Buddha, before discovering mom's secret. That same gut feeling had driven me into the forest where I first met Rumer.

At the back of the desk, I saw the corner of a book. A very old book. The light green cover was lined with cotton and severely frayed at the edges. I stood in silence, staring at the tiny revelation, waiting for my gut feeling to spur me into action.

It didn't take long.

Instinctively, I checked over my shoulder again to ensure I wasn't being stalked by mom or Helen. The lounge room was quiet, but I felt a rising tension as my enthusiasm took hold.

I placed my glass on the top of the desk and, using both hands, I pulled the book from its hiding place beneath a bunch of folders and papers. It looked out of place and echoed an impression that someone had forced it to the back and bottom of the pile on purpose.

Within a single breath, I had the volume in my hands and held it aloft in the faint light peering through the front window. The soft, exterior fabric wrapped around a hard cover, enclosing less than fifty pages. The book was a little bigger than half the normal size of paper I wrote on at school. Loose threads trailed around the edges from wear on the cover's cloth material. It had seen plenty of use.

The back of the book was plain, with no writing, inscriptions or other symbols. Its spine, too, was void of any markings.

When I turned the book over, I saw only two words on the front cover.

LEGENDA PYTHONISSAM

I had no idea what it meant. Languages were not my strongest point, but I was certain it wasn't English. Like the rest of the cover, there was no author's name or publisher's impression to be found on the front.

Carefully, I lifted the cover. The book had a strong, old-paper smell and, at some point, it must have been wet, because I sniffed a whiff of mildew as well. The first page simply repeated the title.

Legenda Pythonissam.

It was no clearer to me the second time.

I tried to pronounce the words, but it quickly turned into an embarrassing linguistics exercise, despite there being no one to hear me. I quit in a hurry. Maybe it was the Legend of something, I convinced myself. But I really didn't know.

The next page was blank. The one after that was a slab of text with a singular heading. Maleficarum. The text was in the same language as the heading and the book's title. I was none the wiser, and I couldn't read a word of it. I flicked through the pages, but found much of the same.

My initial excitement was quickly usurped by disappointment. Part of me hoped to find something I could use against Helen to convince the world she was the monster I believed her to be. But the book proved futile. There was page after page of incomprehensible script. Mr. Dobson had occasionally shown us in English class, early texts from the Roman period, written in Latin. I couldn't read that, either. The writing in Legenda Pythonissam looked similar. If it was Latin, I was going nowhere with it.

Mr. Dobson would be so disappointment in me, I thought.

I flipped through a few more pages in the hope of finding a diagram or picture to give me at least some indication of what the book was about, but found only text in an old-school typeface. There was no doubting the publication was ancient, but I was none-the-wiser about its contents.

My fervor disappeared with my frustration and I started fantasizing about being back on the couch with my eyes closed. I mused at how psychological my fatigue was. At the instant of excitement, I felt like I could run a marathon. The moment the exhilaration was doused, I dreamed of dreams and sleep. The mind truly was a fascinating sponge, I thought.

I looked to where I had discovered the book, flicked through one last time and then, leaned forward to return the volume to its hiding hole. Then, a small, folded piece of paper slid from the back of the book and fluttered to the floor like an innocent feather.

"Oh," I said, as my desire for sleep hit pause.

I placed the book on the desk and picked the paper off the floor. Unfolding it slowly, my first realization injected me with a truckload of frenzy. The paper was in English. The second realization annihilated any desire for sleep, altogether. On the sheet of paper, there was a map.

The final realization shocked me stupid.

It was a map of the mountains.

I recognized it instantly. It was a map of the National Park, deep inside the Grose Valley. My heart began pulsing as I tried to make connections between my discoveries. The Latin text, the map, Grose Valley, Helen.

Was Lexie's file somehow connected, too? I wondered.

It was difficult to keep a lid on my dramatized suspicions. There was no hard evidence of anything, other than circumstantial mumbo-jumbo, but that didn't seem to bother the endorphins rushing through my body. I convinced myself that something was going on. Problem was, I had no idea what it was.

I angled the paper to catch the greatest amount of light sneaking in through the front window. Below the map were short and snappy directions in an out of order list:

3. To Blackheath.

2. Right.

9. Follow.

A. Left.

1. Next hill.

3. End of road.

They were hardly GPS coordinates.

There was also a faint arrow on the map pointing to a position deep inside the forest, but it looked as if someone had attempted to erase the symbol. The shading around the line had faded. It was an effect I'd used in my pencil drawings to created subtle shades with an eraser.

Suddenly, I heard a click behind me. Someone was up. Oh, crap!

My brain trampolined into automatic. I reached straight for the book on the desk to hide it, but forgot about the piece of paper in my hands. It fluttered onto the desk, coming to rest on top of a pile of documents. Using my left hand, I jimmied up the stack of folders and wedged the book towards the bottom of the pile from where I had recovered it. I pondered for a single heartbeat whether to leave the corner exposed – as I had originally found it – or thrust it completely out of sight. I chose to hide it fully.

"What's going on in here?" I heard Helen's voice echo through the room. Her expression was no longer kind or caring or empathetic. It was cold and flat.

I turned a quarter away from the desk and refused to make eye contact with her.

Had she seen me touch her stuff?

Had she seen me put the book back?

Had she seen me with...?

The paper. My mechanical reaction had erased concern about the map, but as I glanced to the desk to distance my eyes as far from Helen as possible, I clearly saw the folded paper laying at the top of the pile – in clear view.

I sucked in air like a vacuum cleaner to mitigate the trembling in my body. If nothing else, I didn't want to look guilty.

"Nothing," I finally said. "I just can't sleep."

"So you thought you'd go through my stuff?"

"What? No. I didn't touch your stuff." It was a risky lie. If she'd seen me, I was screwed. If she hadn't, the next move was hers. Either way, I'd know if she had seen me or not. It was a tactical advantage I desperately needed.

She stepped like a giant to within a foot of my personal space and towered over me. It was awful. She smelled like morning-bedroom. I didn't need to be reminded that she shared a room with my mother.

Helen heaved like a cow and I was certain I felt spittle on my neck as she spoke. I didn't know whether to move from her overbearing shadow or to turn and face her.

When she provided no witness to my snooping, I tested her a second time. "I didn't touch a thing. I just got a glass of water. See?" I picked my glass off the desk, but my eyes couldn't help but be distracted by the folded map.

Would she see it?

I stepped from beneath her lean to get as far away from the desk – and the folded paper – as possible. "See?" I said again, forcing the glass towards her to snag her attention to it and away from her discovering my deception.

As her eyes followed me to the couch, I saw the same vile look in them I had seen on the back porch of our home a few days earlier, when she had fought with Mika. There was something behind those eyes – something two-faced and sinister – and I had no intention of meeting the ogre within. But I needed to keep those tyrant peepers on me and away from the desk.

But she didn't come after me. Her stare returned to the desk instead, exploring it with an extreme focus. Then, her hands moved across the bureau. She straightened one of the folders, before resting her fingers on the folded map.

I thought I was stuffed, for sure.

My hands visibly shook. The water in my glass swished and swirled around in the glass. So much for not looking guilty, I thought. But I couldn't help myself and I couldn't stop the shaking. I no longer wanted to look at Helen, worried that I couldn't stop my eyes from glancing at the paper, alerting her to it, and confirming my wrongdoing.

She shuffled a few papers. I heard her flick through a pile and I waited for her to start screaming at any moment. She slid out a draw beneath the desk, before slamming it shut with deliberate viciousness. I wondered if it was a sign of defeat – a confirmation that she couldn't prove my snooping.

I sat back on the couch, pretending nothing was going on. I took a last sip of water and then, stretched myself flat across the cushions. My eyes remained wide open, trying to extract as much information from the sounds around me as I could.

The rustling of papers continued for a moment longer, followed by a lengthy silence. What was she doing? I wondered, but I dared not move. The couch then bumped ever-so-slightly. Even though I couldn't see her, I knew Helen had stepped directly behind the couch – with her hands resting on its back. I heard her deep, nasally breaths much closer than was comfortable or normal. It gave me the creeps.

I was in no doubt she was staring at me from above. I wondered what was going through her head. She had told mom that life would be so much easier if I was no longer around. It had seemed a hollow and stupid threat at the time but, as I lay on the couch, without moving a hair and with Helen breathing over the top of me, I would not have been surprised to suddenly feel her hands around my neck, choking me.

I was truly afraid of her. My legs began to ache again, but I figured that was as much from the fear, as the burns on my skin. I wasn't sure how much longer I could remain still.

Just as I was ready to roll over and yell, "Listen, get away from me you bitch!" I felt Helen's grip on the back of the couch release. Her footsteps quickly faded past the kitchen and back to the corridor. The loud click of the bedroom door was the trigger for me to draw breath for the first time in a minute. There seemed no end to the volume of air my lungs screamed out for.

Then, I remembered the map.

Throwing my feet back to the floor, I sprang up in a flash. Three strides thereafter, I was back at the desk.

The folded piece of paper was still there!

Like a thief in the night, I snatched the map from the pile and forced it into my jeans pocket. I jumped back to the couch and threw my body back onto the cushions, ignoring the streaks of soreness throbbing through my limbs.

I was completely satisfied.

With my mission accomplished, I eased my head back and finally, felt comfortable enough to shut my eyes. I forced my hand to my jeans pocket to double-check the folded paper was safely tucked away and smiled when I felt the bump through the denim.

I don't remember how long it took to fall asleep, but it would not have been much longer than instant. My last thoughts were of Rumer. I hoped he was okay.

Whatever happens, I will come for you, he had said.

And I longed for that moment.

# Chapter 45

Mom dropped me at the top of the driveway the following morning. She didn't drive down or come in. If she had it her way, she would have stuck me on a bus, instead. The place she had called her home for thirty years, now seemed disgusting and alien to her. She didn't want her eyes to fall on it, which left me having to walk the length of the driveway.

In the car, mom spoke little. When she had Helen by her side, she was all gusto and aggression and moral fortitude. Flying solo, she was a rat without courage. My legs, arms and head were too sore to engage her for the sake of confirming her indifference towards me and the rest of the family. I let it be. I let the silence happily ride along as a passenger with us.

Tellingly, mom didn't ask me how I was feeling, which I thought was remarkable, because she had endlessly chastised Rumer with her 'What have you done to my daughter?' routine. She seemed to care a lot less when she actually had the opportunity to ask some questions of substance about my well-being.

I got nothing.

"Your dad should be home," mom said, as she pulled her car to a stop.

I hesitated in the hope she may express something more prophetic – more motherly. Who was I kidding? I flung the door open and swiveled out.

"Whatever," I said, bluntly.

Mom had a few things to say after that, but I slammed the door and heard only muffled consternation. I walked away from the car without looking back at her. If she wanted to yell at me, she'd have to come down the driveway and I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen.

The house was empty and quiet. No dad. No Mika. I was still upset with dad for betraying me – for calling the police the night before, without saying a word to me – so it was no disappointment that I was alone.

As I slid the back door open, I instantly thought about the house Rumer and I had visited in Frenchs Forest, searching for his mom. With no one there and with all that had happened, the Baines family home was beginning to take on similar shades of relinquishment.

I felt both helpless and sad and fought desperately to keep the guilt demons from rearing their abominably ugly faces.

I moseyed through the house as if I looked for better days that were never to come again. Opening my bedroom door, even the place where I'd had some of my best memories growing up, seemed like an alien landscape. It was overwhelming how much, and how easily, mom's – and now dad's – betrayal contaminated my mind and soul.

Everything I once loved, I now hated.

Then, my stupidity got me angry.

"Crap!" I yelled, quite loudly. It suddenly dawned on me that I had left my cell phone between the cushions on Helen's couch. It was all manner of annoying. I wanted it to contact Mika and see when she was coming home. I wanted it close in case there was news about Lexie.

And I wanted it to call Pastor Crosbie's church and find out what happened to Rumer.

Suddenly, I heard voices on the back porch. Mika and dad. They cackled and carried on like nothing in their world had changed.

Did they truly realize how everything had affected me?

It troubled me that they seemed to cope much better than I ever would. Of course, dad's strategy was simply to pretend nothing was going on. Mika felt like she'd won the war because mom was finally gone. Neither of them had ever shown talent or willingness to express how they felt. The total disintegration of our family would prove no different in their axiomatic desire to keep their emotions vaulted and pretend like they were in total control.

I knew Mika was not, but had no idea how mom had affected dad or what he would do next. To me, it was obvious that he had been betrayed more than any of us. Mom had cheated on him for over a year, had consciously lied about it and had been active in deceiving him about what was going on. Some of mom's arguments about dad not being a dynamic person or husband was no surprise to any of us, but she used that as an alibi for her treason.

I lied and cheated because your father wasn't doing it for me, was her argument. It bothered me to no end that I was the only one to demonstrate any emotions that such a position was appalling. But dad never concurred. He never spoke badly about mom or acknowledged that her argument, in addition to being an atrocious indictment on him, was untenable.

I needed him to stand up for himself and, in doing so, fight for me and Mika.

By the time I left my bedroom and arrived in the kitchen, Mika and dad were already unpacking shopping bags on the bench.

"What's going on?" I said.

Mika was happy to see me. "Daddy bought me a laptop," she said, with the broadest smile she could manage.

"That's great," I said, absentmindedly. "You'll be able to..." But I stopped. Dad's face looked white, like paper. His bloodshot eyes seemed to pulse in their sockets as he straightened his bulk and drilled his stare in my direction. "What...?" I said.

"Why are you here?" dad said, flatly.

"Mom dropped me off."

"I didn't ask how you got here, I asked why you're here?"

His tone was sharp and aggressive. It was a side of dad I had never seen in seventeen years.

What the hell was going on?

"I don't understand what you're asking me," I said.

Mika looked as confused as me. Her eyes snapped from dad to me and back to dad. When she said nothing, I knew something bizarre was happening.

"I don't think you should be here," dad said.

"What do you mean?"

He rephrased his comment to reflect what he truly felt. "I don't want you to be here," he said.

"Dad," Mika interjected.

"No, Mik. Your mom and I have spoken and we don't think it's a good idea for Sara to be here while she continues to spend time with that..."

He didn't finish the insult clearly running through his head.

Mika was torn between her confusion and her automatic response to always be argumentative. "Where is she supposed to go?" she said.

"I don't know, Mika. But your mom's right—"

"Mom's right?" Mika broke in.

"Yes. Your mom's been going through a rough time and you girls need to step up and show her some support. She's made a decision and she has a right to be happy."

I was too afraid to look at dad because I feared I may start laughing at his absurdity. Mika didn't see the funny side. Her face skewed and her eyes narrowed. She was stumped. She had heard the same words as I had, but they didn't quite register in her skull.

Dad had moved into psycho-denial.

"What are you saying?" Mika finally yelled. "Mom's done nothing wrong?"

"No," dad said, "I'm not saying that. I'm saying we all need to move on and be a little nicer to each other."

It was like a dagger through Mika's heart. She physically took a step backwards and appeared to be swallowed by outright shock. Her lips stopped moving, her shoulders dropped and she looked instantly defeated.

That wasn't Mika.

Apparently, it wasn't dad, either, but the foreign hatred in his stare frightened me. I had never seen any real aggression in dad. I'd seen him get frustrated on the tennis court when he served two double-faults in a row and I'd seen him stress lots about things that seemed frivolous to me, but there had never been any physical anger. Had mom changed him that much, too? I wondered. For the first time in my life, my father scared the absolute crap out of me.

"I want you to get your stuff and get out!" he said, with the full force of his underlying belligerence.

"What?" I said, again. "I can't."

Then, dad really scared me. He jumped towards me and grabbed both my wrists. I heard Mika scream, but it made no difference. She was anchored in her confusion. Dad pulled me forward and towards the back door.

"You're hurting me," I said, echoing my same cry with Nico Moth less than twelve hours earlier. "What are you doing?"

But I had no time to ponder.

Jamming my arms with all the intensity of squeezing the last drop from the sauce bottle, dad yanked me to the door.

His voice became a tsunami of fury. "I don't want you in this house anymore. Get it!"

"Dad!" Mika screamed again.

"All you do is bring misery to this house," dad said. "You're ruining all our lives."

And then, it hit me like a freight train. The banks of his denial had burst and, because he couldn't bring himself to blame mom, he set his wrath upon the one person he felt he could blame for his own failures.

Me – supposedly the weakest person in the house!

He continued, "Bringing the police to my house... Who do you think you are?"

But it was too late. Dad pretended his anger was about Rumer and about the Moth, but his eyes screamed a thousand different – more poignant – accusations at me. It wasn't about Rumer at all. He blamed me for his inability to keep his family together.

It was so unfair.

He used his foot to kick open the sliding door. There was so much resentment in his punt, the door almost burst free from its rails. A chilly gust of morning-mountains air followed through the opening with a decent dose of reality that dad was physically kicking me out of the house.

"Dad!" I yelled, but without any response.

His personality appeared to have split. Dad walking in with Mika and a new laptop was dad I'd known all my life. Whenever there was tension in the Baines family home, dad often bought a present for his favorite daughter. It made him feel good – fatherly. Mika's smile comforted his denial.

But Mika was no longer smiling and, as dad dragged me onto the back porch, I saw a complete stranger. And I didn't like him very much.

Mika yelled, but I couldn't decipher her words. She was hysterical. I wanted to believe it was because she was concerned about me, but I feared she experienced that same 'Who is this man?' emotion that blinked on repeat in my skull.

"I don't want to go!" I screamed.

"I don't care," said dad. "Until you sort yourself out, I don't want you in this house."

"Dad," I pleaded. "Why are you doing this?"

"You know why."

I did, but I was certain he wasn't being as honest about the answer as I was.

As I stood on the porch, facing dad's heaving bulk block my re-entry, I saw tears stream across Mika's face. First, her mom couldn't choose her over a stranger and now, her favorite dad in the whole world, had carved himself into a barbaric xenolith.

Seeing Mika struggling, I said, "I want to come back in."

"No," dad said, flatly.

But I was defiant. I took a confident stride forward.

"Do not come any further," dad said. "Mom and I have made the decision."

His reference to mom only cemented my resolve. He was suddenly in agreement with the woman who had cheated on him for over a year, who had lied to him for over a year, who had sent his daughters to the precipice of oblivion.

Where was his stand on that?

Where was his condemnation?

Where was his decision about what was wrong and right?

I forced myself forward and towards dad. He was too big to physically move out the way, so I had no clear idea about how I was getting back into the house, but...

Dad stepped forward. His left hand grabbed my arm as the rest of his body enveloped me. He threw his right arm around my shoulders and physically shoved me forward and away from the door.

"Dad!" I yelped. But the last, thin string that prevented dad from completely transforming into a brute, snapped and there was no turning back for him.

He heaved me into the air and stepped forward off the porch and onto the grass beyond. He groaned as my feet suddenly dangled in the air and accidentally kicked his shin. It only incensed him more.

I caught a despairing glimpse of his eyes. They were brutal and void of any kind of love. "Dad!" I screamed.

Mika also yelled my name as she finally found some traction and followed us outside. But there was little she could do to bridle the monstrous anger bulging in dad's hulk. She was as utterly helpless as I was.

I tried to loosen dad's grip by wriggling free from his grasp, but we both tumbled to the ground. My face slid across the cold, wet grass. I heard Mika holler my name, again.

Dad grunted.

His entire body was now on me. He had lost all control of logic and of reality and of normality. I didn't know what he wanted from me. I could no longer move. "Dad!"

He kept pushing his weight down on me. I wanted to scream that I wasn't mom – that he wasn't punishing mom by what he was doing to me. But his heaviness became too much for me and I suddenly struggled to breathe. Fear began to strike at me.

How the hell was I going to stop him?

I worried that he had no idea how aggressive he had become and that he might take his anger a step too far. His mass felt like a car crushing me out of existence.

Desperately, I craned my neck upwards, scraping the side of my face across the dirt, searching to make eye contact with Mika. I wasn't going to get out of my predicament without some help. But her face looked ghost-struck. Her weasel eyes bulged and her lips were spread as wide as an orange.

But she was no longer focused on me and dad.

Her gaze was up the hill, towards the driveway. I wanted to yell, 'Hey Mika, family death and destruction at your twelve o'clock – need some help here!' but dad's weight stopped me from uttering anything. I rolled my eyes back to dad, but my attention fell behind him, over his shoulder.

Rumer's coat spilled like the wings of a black albatross coming in to land. He spread his arms wide and pushed his legs forward as he touched down, just behind dad and me. His eyes were focused, like a bird of prey.

Dad never saw him coming. Mika obviously had.

With both hands, Rumer grabbed dad's jumper, pulling dad's heaving bulk off me with the force of lion. Dad fell sideways and rolled across the grass, coming to rest on his back. His eyes instantly made contact with Rumer, towering over him. They widened in a strange cocktail of anger and fright.

I sucked in much needed volumes of air and choked on the saliva crawling down the back of my throat. I rotated sideways and scrambled to my knees.

I needed a moment!

My first glimpse back on reality was Mika statuesque on the porch with her mouth still wide open. As I struggled to my feet, I turned and saw dad sprawled on his back, trying desperately to get up.

"Mika! Call the police!" he yelped. "Get some help!"

But his greatest battle was trying to get off the ground. He was pinned and he couldn't work out what kept him from rising.

"Don't get up," Rumer said, as he stood facing dad with his right arm stretched towards him.

I knew Rumer was keeping dad stuck to the ground. Dad looked like a ladybird on its back writhing wildly with its arms and legs going all over the place. I had to catch an unexpected giggle.

He wasn't going anywhere.

Dad called out to Mika a second time, but she found no impetus to help. Her face shone brightly with mindboggling shock.

Rumer stepped to my side, placing his hand on my shoulder and rubbing it gently. "Are you okay?" he said.

I nodded.

As Rumer strode to the porch, I saw dad stop wrestling the invisible force keeping him restrained. It was as if the confusion sucked all the anger out of him and he gave up trying to work it out.

"It was you on the roof at the cinema," Mika finally said, as Rumer approached her.

He didn't sanction her proposition. He didn't need to. "Are you hurt?" he asked her.

"Only in my head, because I suddenly realize I don't actually know the stranger who's supposed to be my father."

Rumer looked at me for agreement before he said, "We're going to go. Your dad will be fine in a couple of minutes. I'm sure he'll calm down. Do you think you'll be okay, or do you want to come with us?"

Mika battled with her emotions. She couldn't understand what had driven dad to attack me, but she felt sorry for him. His behavior was inexcusable but, as she looked at him, lying defeated on the ground, I saw her eyes swallow his pity, his loneliness, his desperation. Mom had covertly destroyed everything Ronald Baines once was. Staring at dad, sprawled helplessly – and pathetically – on the ground, unable to get up, Mika couldn't stop herself from feeling the sorrow. "I'll stay with him," she finally said. "He probably shouldn't be alone."

"I understand," Rumer said, with a warm and genuine empathy. "You can always call us." He then turned to me. "Should we go?"

My mind had no such issues about pity. "Yes," I said, forcefully.

Rumer turned and started up the hill. I took a last, reproachful look at dad. He seemed calmer and tried to make eye contact with me, but I wasn't going to let him off the hook as easily as Mika. My ribs still ached from his assault.

I was no longer his little Rara. He had beaten her out of existence, for all time.

I turned to Mika. "Whatever you saw and whatever you think you know, Mik," I said, "say nothing to anyone. Okay?"

"Uh-huh..." Her weasel eyes narrowed and I imagined she had a million questions which I would need to answer in order to buy her silence.

"I promise you I'll tell you everything, but not right now. Okay?"

She nodded.

I was convinced her silence was secure and turned to follow Rumer up the hill. I looked back at Mika over my shoulder. "Everything is going to be fine," I said. But I wasn't so sure I fully believed that, anymore.

# Chapter 46

Our drive from the mountains to Pastor Crosbie's church was consumed by my discovery at Helen's house the night before. Rumer was more interested in talking about what he had just witnessed with dad.

He had driven my car to Leura to pick me up, parking on the street, instead of coming down the driveway, because he wasn't sure if I was even home yet.

As he cautiously walked down the driveway, he heard screaming and decided walking was no longer an option. When the house came into view, he saw me and dad sprawled on the grass and Mika in shock on the porch.

"It was a choice between keeping my secret from Mika and getting to you as quickly as possible," Rumer said. "I'm always going to choose you, Sara."

It tingled me warmly, all through my insides. "We can trust her," I said.

I was too distracted to drive and so was happy for Rumer to floor it onto the freeway. "Take good care of my baby," I joked with him. My focus was on the folded map in my jeans pocket.

After taking it out, I sat in silence for ages, simply staring at the directions and at the rubbed out positional arrow, hoping it would somehow provide me with more information.

It didn't.

"What do you suppose it means?" I said.

Rumer glanced at the map as I read out the instructions.

"To Blackheath. Right. Follow. Left. Next hill. End of road." I wanted him to impress me with a rational answer – a solution even. His subsequent silence irritated me. "What about the book?" I said. Coming down the mountain I had told him about 'Legen... Pytho...' whatever it was, and that it was written entirely in Latin and looked old and ancient. That had to mean something.

"Latin is not my strongest skill, either," Rumer said. "But for all you know, it's a cookbook."

"Why are you being completely unhelpful?" I said, with more venom than Rumer deserved.

He didn't say much after that.

It wasn't until we pulled into the garage at the church that I resumed my contention. "I just think it's odd that she's got Lexie's file, some old Latin book and a forest map," I said.

Pastor Crosbie was nowhere to be found in the church or residence, which bothered me, because I was certain he would back up my suspicion. I planted my butt in front of the computer in Pastor Crosbie's study room. Rumer leaned against the doorway, watching my obsession unravel.

"I know you don't believe me," I said.

"It's not about believing you or not," Rumer said.

"Yes, it is. This could help us to find Lexie."

"Are you sure this is still about Lexie?" Rumer said.

Ouch! My eyes narrowed. "Why would you say that?" I said.

"Seriously, Sara. What have you really got?"

I felt myself sinking deeper into the rickety chair. My eyes dropped. I no longer wanted to hear what Rumer had to say.

"I mean," he continued anyway, "the medical file is not even related. Helen is her doctor. I'm sure she's got lots of medical files at home. There's nothing strange about that."

He paused for a reaction I was never going to give him.

"And she's got a book written in Latin. Who doesn't? Well... I don't. But, even if she does, it doesn't mean anything. Even if it was a Latin guide to finding missing people in the mountains, which I'm pretty sure it wasn't, even that wouldn't prove a thing. And, as for your map—"

"It's okay!" I yelled, sick of his cynicism. "You don't want to support me. I get it." I was being utterly unfair, but I didn't care. I was right and I stubbornly had no plans to accept any other point of view.

Rumer stared at me a moment longer. He got frustrated and I was certain there were a few choice words he wished to share.

But when he finally spoke, his attack speared me through the heart.

"I think you desperately want Helen to be somehow involved in all this," he said.

They were the most painful words I'd ever heard from him.

"You're so desperate to hate Helen for taking your mom away that you want to blame her for everything bad. That's not really fair, is it?"

I battled to hold the tears welling in my eyes. I would have rather died than show Rumer he affected me.

"It's not really helpful, either," he said.

"Okay! Fine! Whatever," I yelled. "She's a princess and we've all got to like her and move on with our lives and accept her and think she's just bloody God's gift to the freakin' world."

"Sara," Rumer said, very softly.

"No. It's fine. It's all in my head. Lexie's not really missing and my bloody family is doing just fine." I locked stares with him and said, "If you didn't want to be a hero, then you should have let me die on the train tracks."

Tears streamed freely and it bothered me that Rumer didn't step to my side and hold me tight. My poison went viral. "And you're hardly one to be giving me advice about family or about who is right and wrong!"

Rumer's stare held steadfast for another breath and then, he walked away. I yelled for him to come back, but the study room fell quiet. As soon as I said those despicable words, I knew I'd crossed a line.

I was still right about the other stuff, though! I thought.

As I swiveled in the chair, the study room felt cold and alien. I kept replaying my words in my head, trying to convince myself that I was somehow right. Defeating the logic of Rumer's words proved too difficult, but pride was a strong motivator for victory and I wasn't about to march to the back of the house and apologize. I wasn't even convinced I had anything to be sorry about.

Probably shouldn't have said anything about his family, I thought, but I was willing to let that little gem slide. Denial was a wonderful friend when it suited.

I flicked the computer on with every intention to let a mindless game of Solitaire distract me long enough for Rumer to come and grovel his way back.

As the computer booted, I felt the redness flush from my face as it occurred to me that Rumer and I just had our first real argument.

Why did that make me smile?

Did it mean we were in an official relationship?

Why did boys have to be so difficult?

Solitaire never made an appearance. While waiting for the slow computer to start up, the tentacles of a second wave of resolve spread through my veins. I double-clicked the internet icon and quickly found myself staring at the Google homepage. Now what? I thought.

I started by entering Helen Wexler's name and instantly wished I had not. Page after page of accolades and stories about what a magical doctor she was, flashed across the screen.

Urghh!

It was the worst possible start, and I was quickly back at Google.

As I relaxed my hands away from the keyboard, I leaned across and glimpsed into the next room, but there was no sign of Rumer.

I entered a new phrase:

OLD LATIN BOOK

154,000,000 results.

I felt stupid and frustrated – as much about my inability to use search engines, as about fighting with Rumer.

But I didn't give up so easily. I tried desperately to remember the title of the Latin book, but had no success.

I typed:

LEGEN PYTHO

Google came back with: Did you mean legend of pythons?

"No!" I said loudly to the computer monitor in frustration, before feeling foolish and again checking to see if Rumer was anywhere close.

None of Rumer, which I wanted. Plenty of pythons, which I didn't want.

I returned to the homepage again.

"Think, Sara," I said. "What's the bloody book called?" I started typing again:

LEGEND

After pressing the delete key six times, I typed again:

PYTHON

I now had snakes on the brain and was never going to get it. Pushing up and off the chair, I stretched the reptile out of me and sighed, pondering if Rumer would ever come back.

He could simply fly away and I'd never see him again. I wondered if he had a limit on how far he could go. Overseas? Paris? The Eifel Tower? My dream to sketch the Paris skyline suddenly presented itself in a completely new possibility.

If he came back, I thought.

As I sank my butt back into the chair, I felt defeat creeping in. I had annoyed mom, I had physically wrestled with dad and I had my first fight with Rumer. Waking in the morning at Helen's house, none of those items had been on the day's agenda. I had wanted to... But then, my thoughts snagged with a recollected familiarity.

Agenda...

I returned to the homepage and began typing again:

LEGENDA PYTHONEAM

Pressing the enter key, I knew I had the first word correct. Google quickly came back to me and, when I saw the words flash up on the screen, it took a moment to sink in.

Did you mean Legenda Pythonissam?

"Yes," I yelled excitedly, talking to the machine once more. Unfortunately, when I clicked the singular link containing both words, I was directed to a French site with a Latin heading: Malleus Maleficarum.

At first, I was deeply annoyed, but then, I remembered opening Helen's book and seeing the title of the first chapter. I couldn't remember it exactly, but I was sure it was something similar to Maleficarum.

"Think, Sara," I said to myself, again. My focus was skewed entirely on the computer screen. I was no longer so concerned about Rumer. I really was obsessed.

I entered only the first word, Legenda, and Google instantly came back with a definition. Legenda was Latin for Legend or Legend of...

"Okay," I said, enthusiastically. I was finally on the right track. Then, I entered the second word and it took a moment longer for me to register what I saw. I felt like I'd fallen into a quasi-fantasy world and my mind conjured up a plethora of melodramatic characters, vibrant colors and exotic locations. A heartbeat later, I choked on a reality I did not want to swallow. Google had translated the title of the book I had discovered on Helen's desk:

Legend of the Witch.

The number of web pages on witch legends was exhausting and I had no intention of perusing all twelve million hits. I flicked through the first few pages, but all related to the infamous Bell Witch Haunting of the nineteenth century in Tennessee. I got lost reading the articles and letting it scare me a little, but it was of no help in explaining what I had discovered on Helen's desk.

As I was about to give up and go in search of Rumer, pleading sheepishly that he may have been right, I clicked on an obscure page that mentioned Leura in its logline. The link directed me to a scanned image of a newspaper article of the Mountains Gazette from 26 February 1906. There were no images, only three columns of hard to read, out-of-focus text.

A journalist, whose name I could not make out because of the smudginess of the scan, wrote that three girls had disappeared in the space of a month, coinciding with the total lunar eclipse of 9 February 1906. They had come from the prospering city in the east and had been invited to take residence with a 'group' of independent women in an unnamed mountain village to learn bush skills.

Within a week, one of the girls was able to smuggle a letter back to her family in the city, begging for help, because she believed she was no longer free to leave the camp and she no longer felt safe. According to her, the women weren't just a group of independent colonialists.

They were witches.

The letter arrived too late and, when police besieged the outpost – the 'night after the red moon' – they found three dead girls, partially devoured and still tied to an upturned crucifix.

They had been the victims of a sadistic ritual. Messages discovered carved into the floor of a metal cage, revealed that one girl was murdered the night before the eclipse, one girl the night of, and one thereafter. It was a festival of death, encompassing the lunar eclipse.

An immediate witch hunt was ordered within the bounds of the Malleus Maleficarum and police would pursue all leads to identify the culprits.

The title of the newspaper article read, Legendary Coven in Leura!

I knew it simply, as the Legend of the Gingerbread House.

My mind shot in all directions. Mr. Dobson had been right. His version had some creative license applied to it – he loved to tell a good story – but his description of its awfulness had been closer to the truth than perhaps even he realized.

It was difficult not to shiver from the horror.

But I had no evidence of anything. Even though I wasn't ready to admit it to myself, Rumer was right. Just because Helen possessed a book about witches, didn't mean a thing. Because her book was written in Latin, I couldn't even be sure if the book had anything to do with the newspaper article. As Rumer had said, I was willing the connection into reality for personal reasons.

But the images of Lexie strapped to an upturned cross and being eaten alive, was enough to keep the fires of I hated Helen burning with unlimited fuel.

What if a new coven had risen?

What if the disappearing girls were to be the next sacrifice on the night of the red moon?

What if the Legend of the Gingerbread House was alive and out there, right now?

I pulled the unfolded map into my lap. I pondered the directions again. And the arrow. I so desperately wanted to make a connection.

Had I gone completely mad? I wondered.

Then, I heard footsteps coming towards the study door. With my brain still very much in fantasy mode, the first image that scratched my eyeballs was mom riding in on a broomstick.

Mad indeed, I thought.

When I looked up, there was no mom and there was no broomstick. Part of me dipped into the jar of disappointment, but I quickly screwed it shut and returned to reality.

"Oh, hi," I said. "How are you?"

# Chapter 47

Pastor Crosbie stared at me with a confused look. "Everything okay?" he said.

"Why do you ask?"

"Is Rumer here?"

I hesitated, but I wasn't going to lie to him. "Yes," I said. "He's down the back somewhere, I think."

"And you're not with him?"

What was that supposed to mean?

"No," I said, a little too defensively.

"But you're always together," Pastor Crosbie said, with a genuine innocence.

A smile crept across my lips and I couldn't stop it, as hard as I tried. "Well," I said, "that makes sense when I'm here, doesn't it? I mean—"

"It's okay, Sara. You don't have to justify it to me."

There was no reason to hide the truth from him. "We had a bit of a disagreement," I said.

"Oh," PC said, raising his eyebrows. He pulled a small, wooden stool from beside the desk and planted himself down and facing me, Alison McKinney style. "Tell me more."

I hated talking to my counsellor because she seemed fake and she had discussions with mom over the phone afterwards, effectively exposing everything I had told Alison in confidence. I had not seen her in over a month, despite mom's badgering. It was mom's scapegoat for everything. Whenever I told mom something she didn't agree with – which was pretty much all things – her answer had become a mechanical, "It's time you go and see your counsellor." It left me wanting to throttle her.

What set Pastor Crosbie apart from mom and from Alison McKinney, was his genuine concern. He laughed and pretended to be all Oprah Winfrey about it, but he just as happily accepted me not willing to talk about it. It was comforting and made me all the more relaxed about opening up. Take note mom and Alison McKinney! I thought.

"Your first?" Pastor Crosbie said, to break my silence.

"Argument? Yes," I said, sheepishly. "I know that sounds silly, but..."

"Not at all. There's nothing wrong with having different opinions about things."

I said, "It just feels all... It's hard."

"Every human endeavor was once hard before it was easy, Sara. I bet your first day at school was hard, like everyone else, but now you wouldn't think twice about it. You got through that and I have no doubt you'll get through this."

I smiled. His words soothed me. He didn't look as if he was constantly judging me – like mom – or thinking too much about what next to ask me, like Alison always did. He didn't take notes, either. I always hated Alison scribbling away. Was she emailing her notes to mom? I always wondered.

"I know he was right and I'm just being stubborn, but..."

"He can be stubborn, too."

No kidding!

PC let me wander through my thoughts without interruption. I hated the idea of Rumer being angry at me but, at the same time, I needed him to understand my point of view. I'd screwed up trying to save my family and I had, thus far, failed to reunite him with his family. If I couldn't save Lexie either, than that was three strikes. And I wasn't sure if, and how, I could deal with that.

"What is it that you want from him?" Pastor Crosbie asked.

"Are you sure you can't read minds?" I said.

PC smiled broadly. "The Lord works in mysterious ways."

"So you keep telling me. I bet you never thought they could be quite as mysterious as Rumer, though?"

The pastor's smile shrunk in a drawn face of conflict. Had I overstepped? I thought. I was attacking his beliefs. "I'm sorry," I said. "That was too personal a question."

"No. It's fine. You're right. And ten points to you for changing the topic away from you."

"Yes. I do that a lot," I said.

"I have been in conflict with my faith ever since Rumer arrived on my doorstep... literally on my doorstep. It reminds me of a situation a year ago. A member of my congregation came to me with a dilemma. A friend of hers, who was of a different faith, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Doctors had detected it early and told her friend that if they operated immediately, there was every chance they could remove the cancer and her friend would live a reasonably normal life. Her friend refused the medical treatment and told the doctors that he put his faith in God to save him. Her friend was dead six months later."

"Oh," I said, Pastor Crosbie's abruptness catching me off guard.

"My point is, Sara, that firstly, I respect the friend's decision to put his faith in God, but the flip side of that is, God giving doctors the abilities to save people's lives and gifting scientists and engineers the knowledge to advance the technological tools to make that a reality. If you believe in God, then surely you can't be blind to those possibilities. If I am to be truthful to my faith, then surely I must believe that what has happened to Rumer is part of those possibilities, too."

Pastor Crosbie looked more conflicted than I did. He had a whole congregation that depended on his guidance and his interpretation of the world. That was the sort of pressure I didn't long for.

He added, "You have to remember, Sara. If we go back a hundred years and you told people that, in a short time, men and women would be smart enough to work out how to put a man on the moon, firstly you would think they were crazy, but you'd also be of the impression that such knowledge would require super-human abilities and that's why you'd conclude it to be impossible. I'm a big sports fan. In 1912 the world record for the one-hundred-meter sprint was 10.6 seconds. It was inconceivable, at that time, to run it in less than 10 seconds. It would require a Herculean effort, many people wrote. A super-human effort. Today, runners constantly stop the clock before the 10 second mark. Indeed, a 10 second run is now considered pretty average. Just because something seems impossible in our world, doesn't necessarily mean it is."

"Do you think he realizes how special it is, though?" I said.

"To be honest, I don't think he does. But it doesn't mean he won't work it out."

"We had a fight about that very thing," I said. "My friend, Lexie, is one of the missing girls in the mountains. I found something that I think might help us to find her. I know it's a long stretch, but I think we're onto something."

"But Rumer doesn't think so?" Pastor Crosbie said.

"I need him to help me. Even if I'm wrong, I need him to believe me."

"You want him to be a hero."

"It's not about being a hero. It's about making a difference in the world."

"Are you sure you don't want him to be your hero?" PC said, flatly.

"Okay, maybe just a bit, but he's got this amazing chance which he could use to help people and make this world a better place."

"Sara, if you want to change the world, then it has to start from within. Not for any other reason."

"Not even to save my friend?" I said.

Pastor Crosbie stared long and hard at me. I couldn't decipher his thoughts. Then, he stood up abruptly, leaned across and placed his hand gingerly on my shoulder. "Have faith in him," he said. "His heart will tell him what, when, or indeed if, he needs to be the hero you need him to be."

With that, the pastor stepped into the time-vexing corridor leading to the church proper. I swiveled on my chair towards the door to say thank you, but he had already vanished into the blackness, beyond. I mouthed the words in silence anyway.

Perhaps Pastor Crosbie had been right. Maybe there was some value in my not rushing into any stupid decisions.

I was certain about one thing. I needed to find Rumer.

As I stepped through the house, its quietness plagued me. I needed distraction, not silence to hear the voices screaming in my head. I upped my pace and quickly found myself at the door of Rumer's bedroom. It was slightly ajar.

Through the gap, my eyes clapped on the most peaceful site I'd seen since the pod of whales breaching in the ocean. Rumer lay on his bed, fast asleep. His chest rose and dropped in calming rhythm. In the cave at Tura beach he had told me about his struggles to sleep for any more than an hour at a time. Gazing through the inch-wide opening, Rumer looked the most relaxed I'd ever seen him.

Ironic, I thought.

I had been in constant combat about my earlier behavior. He finally found some peace. But I felt no animosity, only a strong longing to be close to him.

With the deftest of touches, I pushed the door open, fearing with every heartbeat that the door would creak and wake Rumer. Then, he'd really have something to be annoyed at me about! But the door was thankfully my friend and, within a whimper, I was inside his room. The confined space was silent, except for Rumer's deep, slow breaths. Like a giddy twit, I tried to match the rhythm of my breathing with his.

Love had turned me into a jelly fish, I thought. All wobbly and no substance.

I watched Rumer from afar. He lay on top of the blankets on the edge furthest from the wall. His hands were neatly tucked beneath the pillow and his legs were equally together. His face looked relaxed. The scar on his face kept my stare glued, as it always did. He was so handsome, I thought.

Not satisfied with stalking him like a lovesick puppy in the distance, I stepped to the back of the bed. "What are you doing, Sara?" I said to myself, in a whisper. As I raised my knee to bed height, I heard the awful sound of my teeth instinctively clenching together from the pain shooting through my leg. The burns still felt fresh and warm. They still hurt.

I climbed up onto the bed. It shook like a dodgy hotel massage bed and I was shocked Rumer didn't wake in a fright.

With poise I learnt as a gymnast, my next move was more controlled – and doubly as frightening. I eased forward and let my entire body sink into the mattress. I rolled onto my side until my back contacted the wall. My fear was as intense as being chased by Special Agent Nico Moth or running through Grose Valley.

What the hell was I doing?

Paused in my insanity, I watched Rumer lying on his side in front of me and with his back towards me. His black hair lay still on the beige pillow. I reached out to touch it. "Sara," I said to myself, much louder than I thought, and again I worried my craziness may wake Rumer. Of course, he'd wake with me holding a bunch of his hair, and that would have been quite embarrassing.

But nothing was going to stop me.

I wriggled forward, closer to Rumer. A little further. And just a bit more. My chest brushed against the small of his back and it tingled me, like touching electric wires. I may have even giggled like a hyena, but I was in such flight-of-fantasy mode, I couldn't be sure of anything I did or did not do. The smell of his jumper tickled my nose.

Stretching my right arm, I let my hand touch his shoulder. My fingers massaged into his muscles with the faintest of pressure, before I ran my fingers down the length of his arm. My eyes were wide and glazed over from a cocktail of fear, excitement and hankering.

Then, his hand unexpectedly grabbed mine and he pulled my right arm over his torso, hugging him. The gap between our bodies disappeared and, suddenly, I was pressed firmly up against him, my nose buried in his hair.

I wanted to yelp. I wanted to laugh. I wanted him to turn around and kiss me!

But he moved no further. I wasn't sure he was even awake. We lay glued together, breathing in unison, keeping each other warm. It was the most romantic moment of my life.

As I closed my eyes, I tensed the muscles in my arm and held Rumer even tighter. My hand was firmly locked with his, so there was no thumbing, like I'd done in flight, but his body felt like a woolen fleece and I wanted it to smother me and take me to an alien world. A world without fire and without pain and without...

# Chapter 48

My eyes were sluggish to open. I ran the tip of my tongue across my dry lips to get my mouth moving and had to swallow hard to dispel the saliva gathered in my throat.

So much for my perfect world.

The light in the room had disappeared altogether and I was certain I heard crickets chirping outside. I felt colder than I last remembered and, for the briefest of moments, I wondered if I had woken on an alien planet.

But Rumer was still beside me and he was still asleep, as undisturbed as ever.

My arm was no longer around his waist and he had shifted slightly towards the center of the bed, but it seemed like no force on earth was going to wake him.

We had been asleep for hours.

The ache spiking through my veins demanded a long rest and I knew Rumer hadn't slept decently for months. Fatigue had charged us both and imprisoned us in slumber through every hour of daylight. As I slowly sat up and peered through the gap in the curtains, I saw night had taken hold, but I had no idea how late it really was.

I glanced down at Rumer again. Waking beside him was something I could very much get used to. I touched his hip and then his leg, but I didn't want to wake him.

"Sleep," I whispered to him, as I stroked his hair.

Moments later, I was on my feet, stretching the hours of siesta from my tired muscles. A final glimpse at Rumer and I was out the bedroom door and into the kitchen. I glugged down a glass of coolish water before finally pulling Cinderella into view. My watch barely glowed in the darkness, but there was enough light spilling in from the adjacent lounge room to see it was almost ten o'clock at night.

My nap had been more like a coma. I certainly felt like I just woke from unconsciousness.

I mechanically felt for my cell phone in my jeans. But then, I remembered. "Crap!" I said, loudly. I was livid for not grabbing it from between Helen's couch cushions in the morning. I pulled annoyed faces at myself. I hated not having my phone. Despite there being something soothing about not having mom ring me to check up on me, I wanted Emma to be able to contact me with good news about Lexie. Not so much the bad news.

I did find something else in my jeans' pocket. The business card of Special Agent Nico Moth that I'd pilfered from Helen's desk. That didn't cheer me up any, either.

Suddenly noticing the darkness and the quietness of the house, I stepped into the lounge room in search of Pastor Crosbie. A singular lamp illuminated the gorgeous room, but PC was nowhere to be found.

He wasn't in the study either, but as I stepped closer to the corridor leading to the church, I heard singing. Beautiful singing. And in a light-bulb-moment, I remembered it was choir practice night. Pastor Crosbie loved to sing. He loved music altogether. On Wednesday nights, a select group of his constituents gathered for rehearsals for their performance the following Sunday. Pastor Crosbie always made sure his choir was in tune. He had no problem telling people they couldn't sing.

I turned away from the corridor and my eyes connected with the study desk. The computer was no longer on and the desk looked as messy as ever. The only change since I sat at the computer was a folded newspaper. Pastor Crosbie wasn't one to read the daily news online. He was old school. He still paid for news. It made me chuckle.

Absentmindedly, I glanced across the top half of the paper on my way back towards the kitchen. A two-by-three inch banner caught my eye. I'd looked away by the time it registered in my brain. As I turned back, I unfolded with newspaper with both hands. In the top right-hand corner, there was a small advertisement for a social event in the nearby city park. Join the Lunar Loonies. See page 15 for details. The word Loonies caught my attention because of what a nasty boy had written in Mr. Dobson's English class when I stabbed myself with the compass, but it was the other word that tugged at my curiosity.

Lunar.

I turned to page fifteen and scanned the broadsheet for the article. It didn't exactly pop off the page, but when I found it in the corner, I couldn't help but read it aloud.

"Come and join us this Wednesday night as we celebrate the Lunar Loonies Festival culminating in the spectacular lunar eclipse at 3am Thursday morning. With the forecast clear sky, festival organizers are expecting a beautiful red moon to entertain a crowd of revelers at...."

I stopped reading the newspaper. Lunar eclipse. Red moon. Tonight!

I had tried so hard to put the fantasy out of my mind. I had battled to resist a connection between the legend and the disappearances of the girls, including Lexie. What I didn't know, was that there was lunar eclipse. The 1906 newspaper image I had read earlier, spoke of the red moon and of sacrifice.

It couldn't be a coincidence, I convinced myself.

The lunar eclipse was the gaping, final puzzle piece I did not have earlier. I sprang into action like a grasshopper with a match under its butt. I was suddenly annoyed at myself for sleeping the day away. Had I lost too much time already?

The jury was still out about Helen, but I no longer cared about her. My only thoughts were about Lexie and saving her from a gruesome death.

The one hope that kept pricking me in the backside and enflaming my impetus was the notion that, if the girls were kidnapped for some sadistic occultist ritual, the chance of Lexie still being alive was a real possibility.

I needed to take action. I needed Rumer.

Rushing through the house, I ran back to his bedroom. I forced the door open with less finesse than earlier, but it didn't wake him.

I stepped to the bed, kneeled down and gently shrugged his shoulders. "Rumer," I said, "wake up!"

He groaned, but kept his eyes firmly shut.

"Wake up," I said, again. "I think I've figured out what's going on with Lexie. There might still be time to save her."

"Huh?" Rumer finally said, rolling onto his back. He half-opened his eyes and looked like he'd been interrupted from death. "What?"

I stared down those brown eyes and forged the most serious look on my face that I could engineer. I said, "There's a lunar eclipse tonight and I think it's connected to the missing girls. I think tonight... Oh my god!" It suddenly dawned on me that we were already at the night of the lunar eclipse. One girl would already be dead. One girl was murdered the night before the eclipse, one girl the night of, and one thereafter, the newspaper article had said. "But we could still save the other two," I added. "There's still a chance, damn it!"

Rumer's words were mumbled and I wasn't even sure he was coherent enough to grasp the seriousness that I so valiantly attempted to exude. "Is this about Helen again?" he said.

"Yes," I said. "No. Maybe. I don't know. It's probably got nothing to do with her, but I'm certain it's about the other stuff. I think this may be it."

Rumer struggled to keep his eyes open.

I shook him a second time and he momentarily looked up at me again. But there seemed to be no cognition. He was still fast asleep. I was frustrated and angry, but couldn't muster the aggression to slap him across the face and wake him properly. I was such a coward when I needed to be a hero.

I ran back into the kitchen and checked Cindy again. 10:07pm. The eclipse was less than five hours away. Without Rumer, it would take me just over an hour to drive up to Leura, but I'd have to do it by myself – and illegally. Not a great decision, but with the possibility of saving Lexie nipping at every passing minute, it seemed like there was little choice.

Then, I remembered Nico Moth's card. He was a cop. I had done nothing to help him in the past. Indeed, I had helped his archenemy in every way possible to evade capture, but Lexie's life transcended my desire to stay as far away from the Moth as possible. I had no intention of telling him where I was, or about Rumer or about what I knew.

Hurrying to the kitchen phone, I pulled the agent's card from my pocket, found the number in small typeface and dialed it on the phone. My heart began pounding and I felt my sweat on the handset. The phone rang three times. A grumpy woman answered and let me know, with zero emotion, that I'd rung the federal police.

"Oh. Hi," I mumbled, struggling to find volume through the nervousness in my voice. "I was wondering if I could speak with..." I hesitated and had to pull the card into view to counteract my growing, deliberate amnesia. "Uhm... speak with Special Agent Nico Moth."

Silence followed. I stopped breathing. What was she waiting for?

"Just a moment, I'll check for you, ma'am."

Music that mom and dad used to listen to, trickled down the phone line in scratchy tones. I checked my watch again. "Come on," I said. "Let's go already." The horrible music seemed to last for hours.

A minute later, the woman was back on the phone. "I'm sorry, ma'am, we have no one by that name who works at this organization."

"What?" I said, with genuine shock. "What does that mean?"

"I have checked. There is no one by the name you mentioned. Moth. M.O.T.H."

"Does that mean he's out? Or at another building?" I said.

The woman had little patience. "No, ma'am. I have checked our database, we don't have any agents by that name. Not here. Not anywhere in this country."

"I don't understand," I said. "I've got his card in front of me."

There was another long, uncomfortable pause before the woman spoke again. "What was your name, ma'am?"

I felt the muscle inside my rib cage thump against its casing. My lips were dry. I was so nervous, I couldn't manufacture a drop of saliva to remedy the sting in them. A thousand thoughts ran through my head, at the same time. I didn't know if I should give her my name, or ask to speak to someone else or... I did the only thing that seemed logical.

I hung up the phone!

It didn't solve any of my problems and the clock continued to hurry my decision making. I had no Rumer and no Special Agent Nico Moth, and every sane part of me screamed for me to calm down and wait. But only one image scratched continuously across my eyeballs. Lexie. She was in extreme danger and I knew that the only action worth taking would have to be equally extreme.

I knew exactly what I needed to do... and where I needed to go.

# Chapter 49

Map in hand and dressed in black jeans and one of Rumer's black jumpers, I was on a one-woman mission to save my friend. I was on my way to the Grose Valley.

Without a full license or another driver beside me, taking Pastor Crosbie's Corolla – my Corolla – was both risky and illegal, but I justified it by convincing myself that I had tried the law enforcement route and it had led to a fruitless, dead end. I needed to take matters into my own hands if Lexie was to have any chance. Those hands ending in cuffs by the end of the night, was a risk I was content to entertain.

I chose not to display my learner plates.

In a three-second decision, I figured if a police car drove by and saw me alone in a speeding car, with bright yellow learner signs, I was screwed for sure. With so much to think about, my brain pulsed warnings of an impending migraine at regular intervals, but I remained focused like a laser light on the road ahead.

Imagine if I had an accident, I constantly thought.

Despite the dark and the internal dialogue about breaking the law, I was confident of making it to the mountains. Wednesday night traffic appeared sparse and I knew that, once I got past the city traffic and onto the freeway, I'd be okay.

"This would be so much easier if I could fly," I mumbled to myself, to break the monotonous silence in the cabin. I didn't want to turn on the radio – I wasn't that confident.

I made a copy of the map I found in Helen's book and left it on the bedside table beside Rumer. On the back, I wrote instructions not dissimilar to the curt directions written on the map itself: 'Gone here. Looking for Lexie. Witching hour at 3am. Lunar eclipse.'

Secretly, I hoped Rumer would wake and come to find me. I could use his skills to find the location on the map, especially in the darkness.

From the moment I left the garage, I was busy convincing myself that I could find Lexie on my own. Finding her was one task, but I had no idea what I would do if I found the needle in the stack of heartbreaking needles.

I was so proud of myself when I turned onto the freeway. Leura was less than an hour away and my driving confidence was scratching at the door of arrogance. I tried to drive fast, but sensibly. For the most part, I'd stuck to the speed limit, so as not to be pulled over for speeding, and I'd kept a safe distance behind other traffic. Checking my mirrors regularly had never been a problem for me and, even though I felt sweaty and on edge, I was comfortable about my ability to get my little, red buzz-box to the edge of the National Park.

My nerves and doubt had been tempered with my attention glued to the road and the traffic in the city streets, but as I hurled down the freeway, where there was very little traffic and the road was wide and straight, my boffin began thinking about what on earth I was doing?

I had no phone, only a sleeping Rumer knew in which direction I aimed, and I had no certainty whatsoever about where to start. My mind had a convoluted self-assurance that the answers would present themselves if only I could just get up there – up in the general vicinity.

Truthfully, I had no plan at all.

"This is crazy," I said, finally giving volume to the echoes in my head. "What are you going to do when you get up there, huh?"

I looked in the rear view mirror and found myself staring back at my reflection, rather than at the vacant road behind me.

"Okay. Think," I said, glancing at the map lying in the passenger seat, beside me. "It's got to be off a road somewhere. You don't give people directions to a place they can't access."

Streams of ideas flooded across the synapses in my cerebral sponge.

The National Park was an area too vast and dense to simply rock up to and hope for the best. I was in danger of drowning in a deepening see of indecision.

"Just get to Leura," I finally said. "Just get to Leura."

The rest of the freeway passed by without me saying another word to myself, but it didn't stop my brain any from pumping out an ocean of different scenarios. Rumer's words about my crusade being more about me than about Lexie kept repeating themselves, like I was on some mad, I told you so roundabout.

My goal was to find Lexie and somehow engineer her rescue from a gruesome, cannibalistic death by a group of sadistic cultists. I was in complete denial about the somehow part and I wondered if that was because realistically, my chances of finding Lexie were as good as nil.

No! I couldn't afford to think all hope was lost. I had seen stranger things in the previous months. I had to believe that there was always some hope.

It was the why in my crusade that troubled me most. I already knew I was no hero, so I wasn't on a mission of glory or self-gratification. Was I?

Had I built saving Lexie up as a metaphor for saving myself?

Had I turned mom into Helen?

Had Rumer been spot on... again?

I suddenly wished Rumer was in the car with me. Fear began to settle inside the car like an unwelcomed lodger. What scared me most, was that it wasn't a fear of witches or of sacrifice or even being eaten alive. I began to fear myself.

Turning into the main street of Leura at a quarter past eleven, was quite an achievement. My driving had been slow and steady. More slow than steady. My fingers had trembled since turning the ignition key, but I was drunk on the cocktail of excitement and outright terror.

Leura was dead quiet. My first thought was of Rumer and me walking the Main Street, up and down both sides, and him touching my stomach and making me feel all funny for the very first time.

At the bottom roundabout, I turned left and then, into the car park behind the shops. I needed a plan.

I smoothly pulled the car to a stop beneath a single light that illuminated the deserted car park. I was so proud of myself.

Easing the chair back, I pulled the street directory from behind the passenger seat and flicked it open to the location where I was parked. The map of Leura did not show as much detail as I had hoped – it was a city street directory – but it clearly defined the boundaries of the National Park, the access roads and, flicking several pages left and right, the surrounding areas.

I was still furious at myself for not having my phone. I thought briefly to stop at Helen's on my way, but the torrent of questions from mom about what the hell I was doing, would have suffocated me. She'd never have let me leave.

My mission had not started well. No phone, no Rumer and no flaming idea what to do next. I pulled out Helen's map and focused on the directions scribbled beneath.

3. To Blackheath.

2. Right.

9. Follow.

A. Left.

1. Next hill.

3. End of road.

What sort of a list was that? I thought. My first goal was to put them in some sort of logical order. I grabbed a pen and sheet of paper from the glove compartment and began writing.

1. Next hill.

2. Right.

3. To Blackheath.

3. End of road.

9. Follow.

A. Left.

But I had two threes and what was I supposed to do with the A? I couldn't decide whether to slot it in at the top or at the bottom of the list. It also didn't make any sense. To Blackheath had to be the first direction. I was sure of it.

The paper found a new home, screwed up in the passenger foot-well, and I returned to the original list. "Okay," I said, thinking aloud. "Let's just follow these instructions and see where it takes me."

Holding the map against the steering wheel, I flicked the street directory in my lap to show Blackheath. "Okay. That's direction one. Simple." Denial was such a wonderful friend sometimes.

The next instruction was Right. Blackheath was not a huge town, but it was a little more than a single intersection. I stared at the map. "Turn right," I mumbled. "Turn right..."

No amount of gazing was magically going to draw neon signs on the street directory saying, turn right HERE!

It was hopeless. The directions were useless. Even if I could figure out where to turn right, the next instruction was follow. Follow what? The road? The heading? The map? The stench of reality quickly worked its way up my nostrils.

I checked Cindy again. The hands ticked off the numbers on the watch-face without contrition. My time was running out.

Numbers...

Oh my God! The numbers.

And then, my brain found an extra gear, as the images came together like someone had just dropped a super-strong magnet in a strewn pile of nails.

It couldn't be, I thought.

But the more I mulled over the individual pieces, the more cohesive the puzzle looked. I pulled the map and the street directory back onto my lap and stared again at the directions.

3. To Blackheath.

2. Right.

9. Follow.

A. Left.

1. Next hill.

3. End of road.

The written words remained as useless as earlier, but my interest was no longer on the vagaries of right, follow and left.

My enlarged pupils were fixated on the other parts of the instructions.

The numbers.

Cindy's digits fused the coherence of the data swirling chaotically though my skull, and my gut feeling instantly told me I had looked at the wrong part of the directions. The instructions themselves were nonsensical hocus-pocus. It was the jumbled list of numbers that was the key.

3-2-9-A-1-3.

They were map characters.

I stared at the cover of the closed street directory in my lap, willing it to reveal the treasure that lay within. The last three digits of the instructions looked conspicuously like coordinates. A-13. I convinced myself that the first three numbers could only mean one thing.

A map number.

The tension in my arms was immense. Moment of truth, I thought, as I flicked the street directory open to the spread of map 3-2-9.

My eyes hesitated, before looking for familiar names of towns, roads and other landmarks. I gripped the directory with both hands and let my pupils focus.

"Oh my God!"

# Chapter 50

I smacked the car into first gear and threw the headlights back on. I was heading straight out of Leura and to the National Park turn off, north of the train tracks.

Map 329, at coordinates A-13, was a spot deep in the southern corner of the Grose Valley, not far from where Rumer and I had escaped the fire. As soon as I saw the vast divisions of green splashed across the map, all doubts desperately clinging on to notions of quitting and returning home, fell away into oblivion.

Coordinates A-13 showed no details other than it being impenetrable forest, deep inside the National Park, but that was enough to refresh my obsession.

My mania had only one focus. Lexie. The excitement gushing through my arteries usurped any logic to stop and use a public phone box to call for help, to try contacting the police again or to see if Rumer was awake. The tunnel encapsulating my vision shrunk exponentially and, as I hurled through the darkness, I thought only about Lexie and my 3am deadline.

I still had no idea what to do once I got to the location.

Just beyond the 'You are leaving Leura' sign I had seen more times than I could ever remember, I turned right and off the main road. I checked the street directory on my lap again to confirm I had picked the correct avenue. The map showed the road led to a dead end. I would need to go on foot from there, deeper into the National Park.

The car suddenly bounced violently and the noise shuddering through the cabin was intolerable. In the headlights, I saw dust fly in all directions and the visibility ahead was instantly reduced.

The street directory said nothing about the road turning into a dirt track!

I struggled to keep control of the car. The backend slid to the left. I yanked violently at the steering wheel to straighten up, but I overcorrected. I slid to the right. Damn! Stupid Car! I corrected again, almost collecting a large tree trunk on the side of the road.

"Who plants a tree that close to the bloody road?" I yelled, over my shoulder.

My head hurt from focusing with the increased intensity, but the potential embarrassment of stacking the car before I'd even got to the National Park was enough of a motivator to not let the thumping in my head distract me.

The dirt track seemed to go on forever. There were no street lights and I no longer saw any houses. Looking out through the windows, there was only blackness – and a storm of dust in my wake. I started to worry about signage indicating the end of the road. I was howling down the track. If a bunch of tree trunks suddenly jumped out in the tips of my headlights, there would be no time to stop.

Embarrassment plus!

Then, I saw something out of place in the high beams. Reflectors. And they were in the center of the road.

I slammed my foot on the brake and again, I struggled to keep the car pointing forward. The wheels locked up and I slid to a scary-as-all-hell stop. A tattered-looking, wooden beam connected two white posts. Red and translucent reflectors shone in my headlights, but the barrier looked as if had seen better days. It definitely wouldn't stop anyone hurtling through. In the gloom beyond the barrier, I saw the fringe of what I came for. The National Park.

I had arrived!

"Okay, Sara," I said. "Now what?"

At the risk of losing my enthusiasm through an exhausting conversation with myself, I swiftly flung my door open and instantly swallowed a mouthful of swirling dust.

No more conversation.

The air was crisp and, when I switched the engine off, the night was eerily quiet. My excitement found itself in the first stages of a war with outright fear as I stood on the dirt track with my mouth agape, gazing at the towering trunks all around me.

"Oh, crap," I said, with a slight tremor in my bottom lip.

I had to grip the car for support, because I thought my knees were about to collapse out from under me. My lungs ached for air as my heart thumped volumes of blood through my veins, while it waited for me to make the ultimate fight-or-flight choice.

I need a weapon, I thought.

And my decision was made. I popped the trunk, thinking for sure there had to be some kind of crowbar or tire iron I could take with me.

The trunk was empty.

"Double crap!" I was hardly expecting a shotgun or a set of steak knives, but what sort of a car didn't have a tire iron? I was going to need to have a long chat with Pastor Crosbie.

I stepped to the passenger side, opened the door and ransacked the glove department. It took only a second to find my only other option. A torch.

"That's great, Sara. Maybe you can blind them to death." I flicked the torch on. Its beam was full, but not terribly bright. "Nope! That ain't going to hurt them at all."

I took it anyway. Unlike the track at home, my raid into the dark beast would be across terrain that was completely unknown to me.

What a great way to spend a Wednesday night, I thought.

I needed to refocus. Lexie. I felt an unbridled sense of moral purpose. I wanted to save my dear friend's life. It made no difference to me that the possibility of finding her alive – finding her at all – was virtually nil. She deserved my effort, no matter how logically challenging or how pants-crappingly frightening.

Lexie deserved me to be the best me I could summon. If there was any truth at all to the macabre legend of the Leura sacrifices, what other hope did she have?

I turned all the car lights off and locked the doors. With everything dark around me, the depth of blackness struck me cold. I couldn't see a single artificial light. Scattered clouds revealed the occasional star and, directly above me, the gaps in the clouds sporadically unmasked the full moon, ready for its majestic dance with the shadows of sun and earth. A gentle breeze flowed across the road, entangling itself high in the trees, swishing the delicate eucalyptus leaves in its wake. But I was glad for the subtle noise to tickle my senses and remind me I was still alive.

I snapped the torch on. Its miniscule beam barely reached from the car to the first line of trees. Not only did it suck as an ad hoc weapon, it wasn't much better as a torch.

Unfolding Helen's map on the car hood, I planned my next move. It wasn't much of a plan. Head into the forest along a trail that was supposed to start from the end of the road. Follow it until it veered sharply left towards the northern half of the Grose Valley and, instead of keeping to the walking trail, deviate right and into the forest. All I was focused on was getting there before 3am.

I had three hours.

I pierced the darkness behind the reflectors with my torch and saw the start of what looked like a track. The street directory had been spot on. At just after midnight, I heaved myself over the barrier, looked back one last time and defied the temptation to talk myself out of the insanity. I was heading into the dark woods and nothing on earth was going to stop me.

The path was overgrown and difficult to navigate. Impeding branches and ferns lashed at my face, shins and arms. Weeds sprouted up through the gravel track with reckless abandon. It looked as if the trail hadn't received a single visitor for years.

The greenery felt cold and wet to touch in the midnight moisture. And as I encroached deeper into the belly of the forest beast, the temperature seemed to drop with each advance. It was going to be a hard slog and I already dreaded reaching the point where I needed to veer into the forest proper.

After only a few minutes I was stuffed. I paused to catch my breath and to listen for any unusual sounds. The whispers of the wind revealed nothing. I sucked another volume of air through my nostrils and delighted in the crisp, mountain smell.

Snapping from my small pleasures, I renewed my advance through the scrub with an insane resolve. "Keep going," I said, softly, urging myself to chuck both the agony of my wounds and the dawning realization of my futility into the wicker basket inside my head, labelled 'denial.'

I wondered what the critters of the forest thought about my sudden intrusion into their world at such an ungodly hour. Their bug eyes would be wide and confused – like my own – and I hoped their perplexity stunted any thirst for revenge. The last thing I needed was to be bitten by a huntsman or a red-back spider, become incapacitated, and struggle to make it to daylight hours.

The trail felt like it was without end. I battled step by step to advance deep into the forest only a short distance at a time. When I checked Cindy, I was horrified that an hour had already passed since I'd left the relative safety of Mika's car.

Enormous tree trunks reached for the stars to my left and to my right. Ferns, weeds and the undergrowth snapped at me like hungry children, restless at the feet of their towering parents. The chilled wind carried their chirps and disapproving cries to my ears. Hell wasn't the confined inferno I'd seen in movies, it was a vast expanse of blackness, gloom and loneliness, with the unending squeaks of bugs thrown in for good measure.

But my determination remained locked on my singular objective, and I left myself blind to my dreadful predicament. Get to the spot on the map before 3am, were the only words the voices in my head were hollering. Any dissension was quickly silenced by a burst of anger aimed at the ever-increasing shrub. I began to doubt if I was ever going to make it to the end of the hiking trail.

I single-handedly redefined the meaning of hiking.

And then, abruptly the track speared left. I would have missed it, if not for the huge spider web spread across its width, catching in the torch beam, a foot in front of my face. A huge spider, with orange stripes on it thin legs, sat idly, waiting for an unsuspecting victim. I gingerly stepped back, not wanting to disturb the arachnid any more than I already had.

Pulling the map from my pocket, I unfolded it beneath the light. The spider must have caught a glimpse, too. I was finally at the point of needing to transition to a full-on night crawler through the forest. Turning my body away from the trail, I angled the torch up and looked ahead. "No way," I said. "That's impossible."

The belly of the beast looked impenetrable. Thick branches stood like guardians to discourage all night-comers and I struggled to locate a starting point into the monster. I clicked the torch off and forced my eyes shut. The sounds of the forest fused into a symphony of nature, as if each individual sound – each unique cricket and moth and tree branch squeaking in the wind – played a critical instrument, without any one of them, the whole kit and caboodle would crash into a cacophony of random noise.

It had a surreal, calming effect on me, like I was somehow trying to put myself in tune with the forest around me.

When I flicked my eyes open moments later, they were well on their way to adjusting to the feeble light. The clouds had dispersed more than I could have hoped for. The moon lit up the forest in beautiful shades of dark blues and grays. Despite the underlying scariness, standing in the middle of the forest under the angelic moon, was awe-inspiring.

There was enough light from above to not use the torch. It worked better to have a faint view all around, rather than a concentrated, albeit clearer, view of only a couple of feet. "This is much better," I said, careful to not let a tinge of sarcasm creep in from the small crowd of clingers-on in my noggin who still believed I had gone mad.

Spreading two large tree branches apart, I stepped off the trail and into the gloom. The ground beneath was rough and undulating. Three steps in, I slipped and fell butt-first to the moss-covered, forest floor. At least it was a soft landing, I thought. That probably had more to do with the size of my backside, rather than the thin layer of green fungus.

I grabbed a firm hold of a nearby, fallen trunk and could only imagine the creepy-crawlies I disturbed, as I heaved myself back to my feet. My next problem was girlie as well. My hair tangled in the maze of branches, small and large. I dug deep in my jeans and found the last hair tie. It was my biggest win for the night to that point. Pulling my hair back from my face and securing it behind, rejuvenated the impetus to get moving again.

"I'm coming, Lexie," I said, numerous times. "Hang on." My phantasmal charge of bravery aided me a decent way through the growth. But as the scrub contracted around me, to the point where I could barely move, my doggedness began to waiver.

The forest monster was literally strangling me and keeping me captive.

The undergrowth transmuted into the overgrowth. The weeds and grasses were so high, I barely saw my sneakers on the ground. I was drowning in a dark blue sea of shrubs, weeds and vines. The thorns digging into my ankles were like needles as they popped my burn blisters, but I couldn't reach down to pull them out, because there was not enough room to bend backwards or forwards.

I was suddenly imprisoned by my own misguided stubbornness.

And like quicksand, the more I moved, the greater the entanglement. It took a while to fully appreciate how dire my situation had become. At first, not being able to advance another step was simply frustrating – funny even. It was like I was on wires in a stage show. My legs were in motion, but I wasn't making any movement forward, because the vines and shrubs held my upper body in a steadfast lock.

But as I tired more and more, the funny side wore off and I became convinced that I was trapped. The forest beast had me in its claws and wasn't going to let me go without an enormous tickle.

I simply couldn't move.

I was stuffed!

My body felt like a beached whale. The energy drained from my arms and legs faster than a shot of anesthetic in the butt. In desperation, I clicked my torch on with the enthusiastic hope that the light beam would somehow cut me free from my captor, like a magical light sabre.

That didn't work.

"Oh, crap!" I said again, loudly.

My wrist was free enough to wave the torch sideways, but it offered little help in releasing me. The struggle pulsing through my veins was pointless and all the dissenting voices in my freaked out skull screamed, I told you so!

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move and it got harder to breathe with every passing minute. The bush monster was like a serpent constricting the life out of me. Each time my lungs deflated, it felt as of if the branches shifted in closer and made it still harder to suck in a bag of oxygen.

"This is just freaking great!" I said, in a whisper, afraid that any excessive noise may aggravate my jailer and it may snap me in half for good measure.

Awkwardly angling my watch sideways, I saw Cindy ticking over to two in the morning. I had been fighting the forest for two long hours and I finally stood at the edge of defeat. There was nowhere to run. Nothing to do. I imagined my torch batteries dying in the following hour and leaving me alone in total blackness, waiting for the morning light, or worse, waiting to be devoured by the elements altogether. It was hopeless.

I was hopeless.

I switched the torch off and closed my eyes again. I felt tired, beaten and literally crushed. My mind wondered back to Pastor Crosbie's church and lying with my arms around Rumer. His soft skin. His warm body. His decadent smell. I mused if I would ever see him again.

Then, my eyes flicked open in a panic. I heard a faint noise in the coldness afar.

It was the scream of a girl!

# Chapter 51

All at once, the resignation anchoring my body, cracked. If not for the soft whispers of wind, whirling through the tree tops, I may have even heard the shackles fall away. I had let my doubt cover me like a warm blanket, manufacturing a reason to simply give up. The sound of a girl's scream in the distance changed all that in a single heartbeat.

Of course, I was still stuck in a web of branches.

I tried to wriggle my torso downwards and slip beneath the thickest branches, but the forest brute wasn't going to release me that easily.

"Okay," I said. "Come on, Sara."

I sucked in a gallon of air and, with a silent groan, forced all the blood to my hands and legs. I became crazed. Like a savage animal caught in a snare, I writhed my body in every direction and tore and kicked at the branches and vines with my arms and legs. The sound of the forest fighting back was intense, but there was no more intimating me.

I was getting free, no matter what!

Grabbing the branch across my chest with both hands, I tore at it like a lunatic. My teeth gritted together and forced all reserves of determination to my arm muscles. A final groan. And then, the branch snapped.

My upper body was instantly less restricted. I turned a full ninety-degrees, and was able to swivel my shoulder around and beneath the next, large tree branch. I ripped at another and used my legs to hook free from two particularly uncomfortable ferns, scratching at the burns on my thighs.

It then felt like the forest renounced its victory, because I was suddenly free and able to move again.

My focus instantly returned to the scream I had faintly heard in the distance, directly ahead. My path was blocked by thick foliage, but with the renewed ticker, I suddenly believed I was indestructible.

I kicked at the first branch blocking my path and it snapped like a tiny twig. Quickly intoxicated by the confidence it gave me, I pushed forward through the darkness. My hand projected straight through a disgusting spider web, but even that didn't slow me down. I was a one-woman army once more, slashing my way through shrubs, flowers and the undergrowth.

"Hang on, Lexie. I'm coming."

I paused intermittently, listening like an owl for any out-of-place sounds – screams! But I heard only the utterances of the woodland choir, conducted with stateliness by the churning gusts of wind. No voices. No yelling. No Lexie.

I trudged forwards for what felt like half a lifetime. The going was slow, frustrating and mostly painful. There were no more human sounds of any kind, so I had no idea if I headed in the right direction or not.

After what felt like two lifetimes of forcing my way through the grass and weeds and branches, my legs felt like they could continue no further. I was exhausted. Stuffed! I couldn't recall the last time I felt so whacked. There wasn't a single part of my body that wasn't affected in some adverse way. Even my little pinkie was scratched. A hardened trickle of blood was smeared from the fingernail to the first joint. I was going to need some major attention, if I ever got out of hell.

I checked Cindy. 2:30am. And I sat my butt down on a fallen log to rest. I felt hopelessness scratching inside my head for another attempt to defeat me. Its talons were much sharper the second time around. Dropping my head, I licked my lips and Hoovered in a ton of air.

Looking up, the darkness all around was devastatingly depressing. I felt alone and the cold was starting to breach my determination. Everything was against me, I thought. I looked left and then right, but the view was equally dark and morose.

I glimpsed over my shoulder, but my neck muscles were fatigued and didn't like the stretch very much. But as my head bounced back to face forward, my right eyebrow peaked with curiosity. Had I seen something in the corner of my eye? I thought.

I pursed my lips in thought, then thrust my scuffed palms onto the log, heaving myself upright. Slowly, I turned my body half-circle and stared into the darkness beyond. It took a moment for the messages from my eyeballs to register across the synapses in my brain, but the sight was unmistakable.

A light!

I didn't hesitate. I forgot about the pain in my legs and arms and the rest of my body and I advanced through the branches and shrubs. As the glow intensified, the density in foliage lessened. I picked up speed and suddenly started worrying about the amount of noise I made. With each step, twigs snapped beneath me and my hands and arms rustled the leaves as they spread branches to clear a path.

I pushed a large branch with lots of dense leaves aside and my heart bounced from my chest with outright fear. I instantly stopped cold. At last, I saw the light source.

It was a fire!

Flames pranced into the darkness from a bonfire on the ground. There was no mistaking it. All at once, I realized that it was no accidental fire or a wildfire started by lightning. It was a campfire. The same as Emma and I used to make when we pitched tents in the National Park for a thrilling night of hijinks in the bush.

And it was very deliberate.

My muscles tensed and I instinctively ducked down. The fire was less than a hundred yards in front of me.

To my immediate left, I noticed a tree stump. A good hiding spot. As quiet as a guinea pig, I snuck behind the broken tree and kneeled on the ground, craning my neck around the trunk to keep a steady surveillance of the campfire. I couldn't pull my eyes away from the flames.

I checked my watch. It was twenty minutes before the lunar eclipse, but I could no longer see the moon through the clouds. I couldn't see anything other than the bright orange flame, glimmering in a world of darkness.

For two minutes I kept still, but the inevitable cramping of my leg muscles forced me to move. I kept low, crouched with my hands dragging along the ground for support. Every couple of steps, I checked behind me and to either side, but it was so dark, I barely made out the nearest tree.

Then, blood froze in my veins. My spine chilled, and every muscle in my body cramped instantly. Fear wanted to expel a volley of aural surprise from my mouth and there was no way of moving my hand quickly enough to catch it. I forced my gaping jaw shut with a clang, caging the OMG! ready to scream from my pie hole.

There was movement at the fire!

A silhouette moved in the distance between the fire and me.

I didn't move a single eyelid and I couldn't breathe. My fingers tunneled into the wet moss on the ground beneath me, supporting my forward center of gravity. Their trembling reverberated up though my arms and into my eyeballs. I was petrified.

The dark shape was human.

I saw arms and legs and a head. But there was something unusual about the impostor. I couldn't work out if it was an optical illusion because of the shadowing effect, or if my mind was playing some other lunar-ecliptic mind games with me, but the person looked far too big.

They were at least my height and a half again. Maybe more. Nine, ten feet. It was too tricky to see clearly. The person's shoulders were proportionately much broader than mine and their arms looked inexplicably long. A long cloak with torn edges draped over the person's bulk and billowed gently in the breeze. It made the person look wider than I imagined they really were. A wide hood shrouded their head. There was no way I was able to see the person's face from my position.

I needed to move... closer!

Convinced the silhouette had its back towards me, I lifted the big toe in my right sneaker, followed by the other toes, one by one. With the movement of each muscle, I paused and waited for the interloper to turn and look in my direction.

But they didn't.

Within a couple of heartbeats, I found refuge behind a huge eucalyptus trunk, burnt out and hollow, but still strong and rising an ungodly distance into the night's blackness.

Then, another shadow appeared.

There was a second person, equally as tall, and with the same, ogre-like proportions.

The newspaper image from 1906 I had read on Pastor Crosbie's computer began to haunt me and inject me with the heebie-jeebies. A coven. Witches. But witches were wiry, I thought. And they weren't as tall as a house, as far as I knew.

A third shadow appeared on the other side of the fire. I could barely make out its face. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman – or human, even. But it looked hideous. Wrinkled and strangely elongated. There were definitely no beauty queens around the camp fire.

An insane resolve possessed me. I wanted to get even closer. I needed to know who the hell the strangers were, what they really looked like and what on earth they were doing.

I dropped both knees to the cool ground and dug my elbows into the moss. I crept like a spider and hoped I was as stealthy as one. My aching muscles struggled to support my weight. Four extra legs would have been handy.

Ducking under an angled trunk, I was virtually flat on the ground. I stopped. A fourth person appeared.

And then, a fifth.

Finally, I counted six.

What nutcases would be having a meeting in the middle of the forest at three in the morning? I thought.

As I angled my head forty-five degrees, I found an unobstructed line of sight to the camp fire. It was in a tiny clearing, encircled by immense trees. My eyes focused through the heat haze and I had to blink twice before I was willing to believe what I saw.

There was something else lying flat on the ground on the other side of the fire. Lexie! I thought, briefly. But I couldn't make out what it was with any certainty.

Then, I heard voices. Female voices. They were chanting, but it wasn't in English – it wasn't in any language I was familiar with. The silhouettes began to move around the circle. Their long arms spread up and down like wings and, for a horrific moment, they all looked like gargantuan bats. Their chanting got louder. Strange words. Foreign and nonsensical. I didn't understand a word they were saying. The deep sounds travelled along my spine and made me shiver with fright. I refused to entertain the facts of the article I had read about witches and sacrifices, but with each passing minute, the words from a hundred years earlier were playing out in front of me, like some demented, historical re-enactment.

And I was knee-deep involved!

My body began to spasm again, screaming at me to move – or all my muscles threatened to arrest and immobilize me forever. I slinked sideways, using my knees and elbows like crutches. I reached another fallen trunk and was able to sit up and keep out of view. I sucked in some much needed air and could smell the smoke from the fire. I was too close, I worried. Swinging my body around, I clambered to my feet, but kept in a crouched position.

Peering over the top of the log, I watched the shapes moving, chanting. It was as if they danced and were having the time of their lives.

I wasn't.

Suddenly looking skywards through the forest canopy, I saw the light of the moon fracture the blanket of clouds. The female voices erupted with euphoria.

The lunar eclipse.

I checked my watch. Five minutes to three. Oh no!

Then, the group stopped moving. The chanting abruptly died and the night was silent again, except for the faint crackling of the fire. The shapes gathered at the far end of the circle. The two tallest of the shadows reached for the ground and elevated what I had been unable to see earlier.

My eyes widened further than I had ever thought possible.

Slowly rising into view from behind the fire, a large wooden plank angled into the air. The women began to chant again. A different chant. Deeper, darker, more evil-sounding. I watched the wood rise from out of the blackness and, when it finally caught the light, I instantly felt sick. My legs buckled. Blood drained from my face and I almost passed out completely.

The plank of wood had another shape attached to it. A human form. But not a person like the soaring tyrants gathering around the rising timber. It was a normal-looking person.

It was a girl!

I choked back a surge of terror racing through me. My fingers shuddered. My whole body felt like it was about to explode. I had never seen anything so terrifying in my life. I leaned forward across the fallen tree trunk as much as I could. The girl's face was clearly visible in the glittering light of the flames. It was a young girl. My age.

But it wasn't Lexie.

I was sure of it. The shape of the mouth was completely different and, even in the dim light, the girl's hair was a different color. It was a bitter-sweet delight. I reveled at the thought of my friend not being on the plank, but there was still someone there. And it didn't look like it was for a sorority get-together.

As the beam pulled perpendicular to the ground, the girl's features became even clearer. The girl's eyes were closed and she looked... She didn't move at all. Her body, arms and legs were roped to the wood. What looked like a large, metallic shackle, was secured around her neck. The girl looked lifeless, and my gut feeling wished that she was. I had no idea what was about to happen, but I was certain it wasn't good and I didn't know what I would do if the despicable shapes did something to her while she was still alive.

The silhouettes looked up simultaneously and let out a guttural scream of joy. I couldn't stop myself from following their skyward line of sight. The eclipse. The shadow of the earth cast across the lunar surface materialized in a black disc slowly blotting out the light of the moon. Only a tiny part of the shadow was visible, but the eclipse had begun. I looked desperately at Cindy. It was 3am. And the moon was turning red.

Witching hour!

Then, something distracted me. A bright glare in the corner of my left eye. I looked down, towards the clearing. The shape closest to the girl on the plank drew an enormous blade from her cloak. It was an old, rustic machete-looking sabre.

I gasped and made no effort to curtail the fright escaping from between my lips. The chanting of female voices drowned out all other sounds. Their tones elevated in pitch and volume. The person wielding the blade moved it about like she was conducting the other voices in chorus. Light from the moon and from the fire sheathed the metal and refracted its rays in all directions.

Everything stopped. The women were instantly silent.

They looked up at the red moon for the briefest of moments and threw their slender arms into the air, holding them in a weird pose. The one with the blade stepped directly beside the girl. She ripped open the girl's shirt and positioned the sabre across the top of the girl's chest.

The shadow turned to the others, seeking their deathly approval. They began to chant once more in a deep tone, but louder and louder and louder, building up to the ecstasy of what they were about to commence.

Suddenly, the young girl's eyes flicked open. She was alive! And the witches frenzied with delight. Their arms waved frantically from side to side. Their chant was deafening and delirious.

The girl was going to be cut open. There was no doubt in my mind. I rose straight to my feet to capture the clearest look of the scene as possible. I felt sick and weak, but couldn't take my eyes off the incarcerated victim.

Then, the girl screamed the most horrible, high-pitched shriek I had ever heard. The blade suddenly dripped with a copper-red liquid, and crimson streaks meandered down the girl's pale flesh. Her head moved. Her eyes blazed wide in all directions. Then, those eyes looked dead ahead.

Straight at me.

Her silent screams for help echoed through every inch of my skull, bouncing in all directions. I felt the humanity drain from my body and instinctively knew that I had to do something.

"Stop!" I yelled, as loud as I could. "She's alive!"

# Chapter 52

Oh crap!

All six shapes turned in my direction and, for the first time, I could clearly make out their eyes. Hideous spheres of evil, stared in my direction. The dancing flames reflected in the blackness of their pupils, giving the appearance that their eyes glowed a fiery, wicked orange.

They shrieked in a language I couldn't comprehend, but I knew they weren't inviting me for a coffee. I almost wet my pants with fear. I pushed off from the tree trunk and scrambled back into the dense undergrowth. Branches flung left and right and I no longer cared about the noise. I didn't care about the scratches, either.

The shrieking behind me didn't stop – it got louder! I was being chased!

"Oh my god!" I yelled.

Like a woman possessed, I hurled my arms wildly at the forest. My legs forced their way into the weeds and flowers, cutting an unclear path.

I tripped and hollered in pain.

There was no moss where my palms landed and they grazed painfully on pointy stones buried deep in the soil. "Get up, Sara!" I yelled at myself, again.

In a flash, I was on my feet and running my butt off.

I had no idea where the witches were. With every pace, I felt like they would jump me from behind and smother me. My ears only registered two sounds – my thumping heart and my frantic breathing. I sucked in air like a jet engine and the muscle pumping blood through my veins sounded like a freight train. I huffed and puffed as I ran for my life.

There was a sudden shriek behind me. It was a witch.

Elongated, bony talons reached out for my shoulder. I felt them brush against the fabric of my jumper, but they couldn't secure a grip.

I saw a gap through the trees and I shot abruptly to the left and in between two enormous trunks. My arms plummeted into a blanket of spiny greenery. I was in a fern bed.

Leaves lashed at my face and throat. I swallowed a sprig and, for a split second, I couldn't breathe. But the moisture of the greenery as it slid across my lips was like heaven in an incomparable nightmare.

My left foot snagged on a tree root and I plummeted face-first through the canopy of fern leaves and into the muddy soil beneath. I groaned and wanted to scream.

But there was a noise to my right and I instantly froze rigid. I rolled onto my back, staring at the underside of the fern canopy within arm's reach above me. I was out of sight beneath its flourishing blanket. Through the gaps, less than ten feet away, I saw a massive black shape towering about the leaves. It was stationary, but I knew exactly what it was.

A witch!

I threw my hands to my mouth, too afraid to breathe. My body was suffering in all manner of ways and I feared it may uncontrollably let out a noise. I pushed my torso into the ground, trying to make myself as small as possible. My eyes never broke contact with shape. As I focused beneath the canopy, through the three-foot tall fern trunks, I saw the witch's cloak, with two black leather boots protruding underneath. She was so close.

The boots turned in my direction and took a step forward.

Move Sara!

I scampered to my knees and elbows as silently as I could. The soft ground was a gift to my stealth. A sound of rustling leaves breached the cacophony of my heart and breath, and I knew the evil intruder was on the move behind me.

Like a demented mouse scurrying for its life, I crawled forward as quickly as I could. My face was covered in mud and my body hurt like hell, but I had to keep going.

There was a freaking witch on my butt!

Four breaths later, I still wasn't caught, so I snuck left again, still on my hands and knees. I paused and listened. The rustling was further behind me and then, I heard a scratchy female voice. I didn't understand a word she said, but there was no mistaking that it was a witch.

I crept further beneath the fern canopy, trying desperately to imprison the fright boiling away in my gut. I was nauseas and couldn't work out if the black spots I saw were simply patches of darker shadows in front of me, or if conking out was just around the corner.

Suddenly, the canopy broke open. No more ferns. "Crap!" I said, in a muted growl.

But I didn't stop. Jumping back to my feet, I eased into a crouched position and peered back over the top of the ferns. I saw nothing. No witches.

Go, Sara! the voices in my head screamed. Go now!

I went straight from the ferns into the dense undergrowth. Branches again tried to encase me and keep me captive, but I was so pumped with adrenalin, I felt unstoppable.

The ground suddenly sloped downwards and I picked up speed. I broke through a web of twigs and they splintered across my face, forcing me to enjoy another mouthful of National Park.

A low-hanging branch swung into my path and knocked my feet clean out from under me. I tumbled forward between two massive tree trunks. My inertia folded my body as I fell, and it rolled me into an awkward somersault. As I came out of my flip-flop, my left shoulder collected a stubborn branch. My jumper caught, and my entire body was pulled sideways and turned me back-to-front.

I slid backwards, feet first, as the downward slope increased my momentum. My hands instinctively dug into the ground to slow my advance, but I suddenly felt rock beneath my fingertips. Out the corner of my eye I saw a bunch of tree roots sprawled across the top of the rocky outcropping, apparently having had as much trouble to penetrate the hard ground as my fingers. I desperately reached for a thick root.

My fingers grasped the stem, but it was wet, and my hand slipped along it without gripping. Then, I felt the same weightless sensation that shot through my body when Rumer disconnected me with the earth at Honeymoon Bridge. All at once, I no longer felt the rocky ground scraping my stomach.

I was flying!

I screamed as I went over the cliff edge. My right hand had to decide. Grip and live or let go and plummet to my death.

My fingernails ploughed into the soft, moist skin of the tree root. The muscles in my hand viced the appendage with so much force, I felt the outer skin of the root snap open. My body flew straight off the rocky plateau and speared downwards into the ravine, until my arm could stretch no further. My body angled back towards the rock face proper and slammed into the exposed, rock face. I groaned again.

I dangled over the edge of the cliff, hanging on to a single tree root for my life.

Resistance to look down broke away quickly and I tilted my head to look over my shoulder. In the dim moonlight, I saw the valley below. An immense distance beneath me! The rock face was smooth – worn by the winds through the valley – and I saw no ledge or outcropping on which to secure a footing of any kind. I was in no doubt that if I let go, I would plummet for at least 1,000 feet and slam into the crown of the forest below. Unlike the foreboding dream of a few days earlier, I knew I wouldn't survive.

The wind was much stronger across the cliff face and it swayed me dangerously left and right. I looked up at my lifeline. The erosion of the cliff angled slightly inwards and I worried that the sharp ridge would cut through the root with me swaying it from side to side.

My fingers cramped and ached inconceivably. There was no way I was going to be able to support my weight with just one hand.

I flung my left hand towards the root, but missed it on my first attempt, taking with it most of the energy I had left. I needed to reach it or I was a goner. I tried a second time. I didn't believe I had a third shot in me. The nails on my left hand sunk into the flesh of the root and gave me just enough leverage to grasp it properly. Clinging on for my life with two hands was much better, but it was still no fun at the carnival.

"Come on, Sara," I said, softly. "You need to hold on."

And then, I heard noises at the top of the cliff and I suddenly remembered I had screamed like a goose when I went over. I was sure the entire mountains community had heard me. The crunching sounds above me glued my attention upwards. A bunch of loose twigs and stones flew over the edge, dropped down the six feet to where I hung, and hit me in the face. Someone was on the cliff ledge.

Witches!

Two female voices whispered in alien tongues, out across the darkness and into the valley. I couldn't see them clearly, but there was no denying their ill-intentioned voices.

Their footsteps on the rock froze every bone in my body. I hung on without moving an inch. My eyes remained glued to the edge. If the witches peered over, I was stuffed. They would easily see me. A swift cut of the tree root with the sabre and I would be flying again, before splattering into the valley below.

Please don't look! I kept repeating in my head. Please don't look over the edge.

I waited without blinking or breathing.

I forced my feet onto the rock face to stop swaying in the wind. Time seemed to slow to a virtual non-existence. What were they doing up there? I wondered. The pain in my arms began to burn. I wasn't going to hang on for much longer.

Then, their footsteps echoed away from the cliff top. I saw the frayed edges of their cloaks swirl over the edge as the sorceresses turned on their heels to leave. The fading sound of crunching pebbles gave me hope and, moments later, the night was silent again.

If I didn't move, I was going to have to let go.

With the last reserves of energy, I thrust my left hand up along the tree root and choked the stem like I was a serial killer. I had climbed plenty of ropes in gymnastics class. It had given me broader shoulders than I would have liked but, hanging over the ledge with death calling me from below, I was glad for the extra strength. My right hand let go of the vine for the first time since I went over the edge, and the blood rushing to its extremities, celebrated with a tingling sensation. That hand then gripped above the left. And I was heading upwards.

The climb was horrific. By the time I peered my eyes over the top, my arms were numb, and I no longer felt like they were under my control.

At the top of the ridge, I saw no witches. The relief injected renewed determination in me, but I knew the despicable shapes could return at any moment. I needed to hurry.

In super-gymnast-style once more, I swung my left leg up, and over the edge, to haul my battered body over. "Move, Sara," I whispered, again.

Without knowing where I mustered the energy from, I heaved my body over, and back up onto the edge of the cliff. I rolled onto my back and finally let go of the tree root. I was completely stuffed. My hands fell to my chest as air shot into my lungs like a tornado.

I tasted blood in my mouth and swirled my tongue around to find its origin. The earlier cut on my lip was bleeding again and I blotted at it with my upper lip. The taste of blood reminded me that I was still alive – and that I needed to move!

My first steps were cautious. I had no idea where I was in relation to the car or to the camp fire. Worse, I was completely oblivious to where the predators were. Passing each tree trunk, I expected someone to jump out at me. My trek through the forest was agonizingly slow. My brain told me to run, but I knew the noise of cutting through the undergrowth at speed would reverberate through the tree tops and it would be easy for any stalker to find me. No! I needed to be smarter than the witches. As painful as the sluggishness was, I knew it was my best chance to stay alive.

Suddenly, I veered to my right, for no other reason than it looked less dense in that direction. Forcing each step forward was like having all my teeth pulled at the dentist in one go.

I felt faint and dehydrated, but I struggled on. I was glad for the opening up of the undergrowth. The late-night moisture settling on the leaves and branches tasted sweet and cool on my lips as I brushed past. My blood had been pumping at a million miles an hour, burning me up. The frigidness of the forest proved a welcoming, wet cloth to slow my annihilation. Its roots had save my life, and it now comforted me with its weeping.

Instinct suddenly pricked the hairs on the back of my neck to attention and I looked up. I didn't want to believe the image scratching the inside of my eyeballs. In the distance there was a familiar glowing light.

The campfire!

Every fiber in my shattered frame was screeching to turn around and get as far away from the fire as quickly as possible. It was the only sensible thing to do.

But nothing I had done that night had been rational, and I thought about the girl. I let my concern for her trump any level-headedness. I needed to know what happened to her. And she was my only link to Lexie.

There was simply no turning back.

I crouched down low and ploughed on through the weeds and sleeping flowers, still believing I could do something for the girl. Embracing my best friend, denial, had become all too easy an option.

I was still like my mother in so many ways and I hated it.

My focus was less centered on the fire on my second approach. My eyeballs darted to the left and right and behind. I had no idea if all the witches had returned to the camp site. For all I knew, they were behind me, following me and waiting to pounce the moment I was close enough to the clearing.

I hunkered down as much as my jeans allowed. My fingers again dragged along the forest floor for support.

When I looked up and saw the clearing through on opening in the foliage, I stopped and rose to my feet, while hiding behind a large trunk. Quickly checking over my shoulder that no one was behind me, I clung to the bark as I angled my body for a better look. The girl was still at the center of the circle, tied and shackled to the upstanding plank of wood. She didn't move and her eyes were no longer open. Her ripped shirt hung loosely across her chest, but I couldn't see the extent of the slash across her flesh.

But the girl wasn't alone.

A large shadow loomed over her. One of the witches. She paced beside the fire, looking distracted and impatient.

Where were the others? I wondered.

Curiosity compelled me closer. Crouching down, I waddled like a duck to the next tree trunk. And then, to the one thereafter. I stood up and took another look. Move closer, Sara!

I ignored the stinging pain shooting through my lower back and squatted closer to the ground than before.

My gap to the camp quickly diminished to the same distance as when I had screamed for the girl's life, but I realized I had come in from a different side on my second approach. I had come full circle since I last saw the clearing.

Why couldn't it have circled me back to the car? I wondered.

I raised my torso behind a large, bushy shrub and swallowed away the fright at spotting the edge of the clearing, less than thirty feet in front of me.

The girl remained motionless and looked a thousand times worse than me. I didn't want to entertain the idea that the fight had left her. I needed her to still be alive.

I needed to do whatever I could to help her!

My focus turned to the witch. Her huge, black bulk, larger than a bear, heaved as the woman stepped to and fro. For the most part, her back was towards me and I felt relatively safe staring at her from behind the shrub, as I worked out my next move. It was the other witches that worried me more. Not knowing where they were was the worst monsters-in-the-dark experience of my life.

The list of options was scarce. I wanted to get to the girl, but I couldn't just rock up and say, "Excuse me, witch. Do you mind if I have a quick chat with me best peep, here?" I was certain the witch would eat me alive.

As I chewed over what plan, if any, I could marshal to help the young girl, one recurring thought kept bouncing like a Ping-Pong ball loose in my skull. The only chance to get anywhere near the fire and the imprisoned girl meant I had to get rid of the witch.

And how was I going to do that? I wondered.

I tried to imagine some sort of distraction and maybe get the witch far enough away. I could circle back around to the camp, but I'd only have a few seconds at best. And what about the other witches? It was a crappy plan, but I was hesitant to contemplate the only other solution scratching at me from inside.

The one sure way to buy enough time would be to get rid of the witch, altogether. Permanently. After all my judgments about Rumer and expressly taking the position that I believed there never to be a situation where taking another human being's life was justified, I suddenly found myself looking for faces in the fire to convince me that every rule had its exception.

Was taking the life of the witch to save the girl justification enough?

Was the witch even human?

And how the hell was I going to perpetrate such a contemptible act?

But the hanging head of the young girl, with her blonde curls glittering in the orange hue from the flames, sealed my resolve. Before cognitively rationalizing the decision in my head, I realized that I had already made the decision in my heart. Stubborn New Sara wasn't one to digress once she'd made a choice – no matter how horrible that election.

It energized the neurons in my brain. In the space of a handful of seconds, a whole basket of ideas streamed through my head, but there was one idea that felt right. One diabolical action that would change me forever.

I scurried closer to the clearing – closer to the witch. I kept telling myself what a fiendish non-human the witch had to be to partake in the horrific sacrifice of an innocent young girl. My soul worked overtime to strip the woman of all humanity. As I covertly tip-toed to my right to find a clearer path to the circle, I was willing to see only a black shape – a big black shape – but a shape without emotion, without heart and without compassion.

My feet dug into the soft ground, covered with fallen leaves and twigs, and I tried to keep as quiet as humanly possible. I heard nothing over the thumping coming from my chest. My entire body shook uncontrollably.

I felt less human than anyone.

But my determination would not wane. I checked over my shoulder one last time. There was no other movement to my left or to my right.

It was now or never, I thought.

I forced my eyes shut for the briefest of moments and refused to listen to any rebellious voices in my head.

The silence in my skull was deafening.

As I opened my eyes, I felt like I endured another rebirth. My head was tilted slightly down and I looked towards the clearing through my eyebrows. I was focused on only one thing – the dark shape stepping to the left and right at the fire's edge.

I let all emotion drain from me until I felt like nothing more than a husk, piloted by a solitary resolve. My fingers curled into two tight fists as I waited for the perfect moment.

Now!

Like a sprinter in the Olympics, I pushed off, exploding the energy in my quadriceps and funneling it down to my feet. In an instant, I ran like a cheetah, but it felt more like slow motion. My arms swung wildly to squeeze all the momentum from each rattling fiber in my body. My strides were enormous. With each landing of my feet, my entire frame shook from the impact, but it only spurred me on.

When I reached the edge of the clearing, the witch stopped moving and instinctively turned to face me as if she somehow sensed an unstoppable missile was hurtling towards her. She tried to raise her arms in defense.

But it was too late. My arms extended towards the huge shape. I closed my eyes at the moment just before impact. I didn't want to see that ugly face. I didn't want that image to haunt me for the rest of my days.

The thud was incredible. The woman's body was massive and, for a fleeting moment, I panicked that I would simply bounce off and fall back in front of her. But my energy was too great. My forward motion hit the witch like a speeding train and her balance toppled backward. The arms she had put out for protection suddenly flailed wildly in the air as the fiend realized she was falling.

I fell, too. Backwards and to the side of the fire. I looked up just in time to see the witch pitch over. Her cloak flicked up uncontrollably and followed the rest of her mass, plummeting backwards... and into the fire!

The cloth instantly caught alight and consumed the witch. A high-pitched scream erupted in the night. It was so loud, I instinctively threw my hands to my ears. It was the most awful sound I had ever heard. The witch tried one last time to get out of the frying pan. Through the flames, I could see her skin bubble and sear with a crimson red. Her eyes were wide as golf balls and her mouth agape. Her spiny fingers reached into the air and, as her clothes melted away, I briefly saw her bony, elongated arms.

The image was horrendous, but I couldn't look away. It was as if morality was obliging me to witness what I had become. A murderer. The stealer of another's life.

As I sat in stunned silence, the witch's movements became stilted and her pleading arms dropped away, into the fire. The flames consumed the woman in a flash. Sparks flew in all directions and the fire crackled with delight at having been fed.

I had achieved my objective, but felt completely alien.

The humanity I had tried to compartmentalize inside my shell, struggled to return. I knew in that instant, I would never be the same Sara again.

As the witch stopped moving and the flames diminished a little, I suddenly remembered the reason why I had become an executioner. The girl.

I scrambled to my feet, choosing not to look at the fire again.

My attention turned to the erect plank of wood from which the girl hung. Her eyes were watermelon-wide open, watching me with unfathomable fright and astonishment.

I quickly stepped to her side. She instinctively tried to pull away. I didn't blame her. I had just killed one person, so there was every reason for her to fear me.

"It's okay," I said, in a voice rough with smoke and disbelief. "I'm here to help you."

My gut already told me there wasn't much time. The ear-piercing scream of the witch was bound to re-gather the others back to the circle.

I placed my hand on the girl's shoulder. She flinched from the pain. She looked weak and conquered. I pulled away the rags hanging across her body and shuddered at the sight.

The girl had five puncture wounds across the front of her body. Blood ran freely from the gaping holes. Instinctively, I tracked the flow and saw a dreadful pool of dark liquid at the base of the timber. I also noticed, for the first time, that it was not a simple plank of wood. At its base, the girl's feet were shackled to a perpendicular plank. A beam. She hung from an inverted crucifix.

The newspaper article of 1906 had been correct. The legend was true. Everything had happened as it had been documented a hundred years earlier.

Everything, except for me!

I looked back up at the girl. "I have to get you out of here," I said.

Her expression was blank. Considering the amount of blood she appeared to have lost, it was no surprise that most of her coherency had drained away.

My hands began tugging at the ropes around the girl's waist, but she moaned in excruciating pain. "I'm sorry," I said, but kept yanking away.

The ropes barely budged. So I took a closer look at the rusted, metal shackles around her neck and feet. The clamps joined together at the rear of the plank, where they were fastened to the timber by an old, rustic lock. And there was no key in sight!

I stopped trying to free the young woman and simply looked up at her, trying desperately to hide the hopelessness I felt. "Can you tell me your name?" I said, solemnly.

The impossibility of her freedom seemed almost certain to me and the tone in my voice suggested I was asking for no other reason than to identify her to the authorities and to her family. Part of me wanted to believe my voice was not dripping with inevitability, but even I struggled to think of what to do next.

The girl's lips parted slowly. "M... Mary..." she said, in the softest of voices. "Mary Steele."

"I'm Sara," I said. "We've got to figure a way to get you out of this."

The girl struggled for any discernable volume in her voice. "It's no use," she said. "You're never going to get me free from this."

I knew that, too.

"And even if you did," she said. "I'm never going to make it. I'm already..." She couldn't find the energy to finish her pleading, but she said, "You can't beat them. They'll kill us all."

Primal curiosity took my empathy hostage in an instant. I said, "Are there others? Do you know a girl called Lexie?"

But there was no answer. I was torn between frustration and compassion. I wanted to know if Lexie was still alive. I needed to hear where she was and if she was still okay.

"You should go," the girl said. "They will come for you!"

Her words frightened me as they connected with the reality that our meeting was quickly running out of time. The dead witch's screaming had been an alarm to wake the entire world.

"What's going to happen to you?" I said.

The girl's eyes locked stares with mine. "They eat people, you know?"

I swallowed hard and felt tears welling in my eyeballs.

"Don't let them eat me, Sara. Please. I'm not going to survive this, but please don't let them take me piece by piece. I beg of you."

"What are you saying?" I said.

The girl motioned me closer. I stepped onto the crossbeam and placed my ear to her mouth. I could smell her hair and her skin. Her body trembled with resignation.

Her voice was a soft whisper, as she answered my question.

I jumped backwards and stared up at her, mouth wide. Are you out of your freaking mind? I thought. My words to her were less terse. "I can't do that," I said.

# Chapter 53

The cold in the air began to bite at my wearied body, like a thief in the night. I stepped aimlessly forward, having no idea where I was or in which direction the path was taking me. Not having to push aside the undergrowth was a pleasant change, but the undulation of the sandy trail played havoc with my ankles. But I no longer cared about the pain.

I no longer cared about anything.

Cindy clicked over to five in the morning. My identity felt unfamiliar. The skin on my hands and forearms was blistered, my hair was unrecognizable and my soul was a universe away.

I had never felt so alone in my life, and it was all because of my own doing.

The witches were gone. The fire was gone. Mary Steele was gone.

She had asked me to do the unthinkable. "Please kill me," she had whispered. "Please don't let them eat me alive." Pushing the heinous witch into the fire and letting her burn was one thing. Taking the life of someone who was not dissimilar to myself, was a demand I could barely comprehend, let alone execute.

But Mary had insisted, pleaded, begged. "I am as good as dead already," she said. "I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm not going to make it, Sara."

"We have to try, damn it."

"It's no use," she said. "There's no way to free me. And you can't drag me with you."

"I'll go and get help," I said, but I knew it was a plan as futile as the feebleness in my conviction to suggest it.

"It's okay, Sara." Mary Steele said. "I know I'm going to die."

She saw her death, on her terms, as a victory against her captors.

"This way," she said, "I still win. I'm still better than they are."

After her instructions about how she wanted me to carry out her request, she stopped talking. She closed her eyes and waited for me to fulfil her wishes. I stood motionless for what felt like a lifetime, doing nothing but letting the image of her face scar my soul. I had refused to look at the witch before I pushed her into the fire in the hope of not painting my wicked act with an identity.

Mary Steele's face would be the cracks in the artwork of my life.

Only once more did she open her eyes. "Please hurry," she said. "They'll be back soon." She smiled at me and I did not see her blue eyes again.

I slowly pulled my jumper over my head and rolled it into a ball. Scrunching it tightly together to make sure it would do the job, I felt sick just holding the material – knowing what I was about to do with it. Up until the very last moment, I hoped for Mary to flick her eyes open and tell me she had changed her mind. She had asked me to cover her mouth and nose until her breath gave out. "When I'm gone, tip this horrific symbol on the fire, just to be sure," she had added, with a wry smile.

I stepped up onto the crossbeam of the inversed crucifix. "I'm so sorry," I said. My face was less than two feet from hers. Her skin was dry. Her hair felt like straw. I wondered what unimaginable torture she had suffered since her disappearance.

She had choke marks across her neck and deep scratches along the left side of her face. I wanted to ask more questions about Lexie, but felt the moment had passed.

My procrastination would have continued, but I suddenly heard noises in the forest behind me. My head snapped around and I saw dark shadows in the distant trees. I was out of time. If I was to save Mary from the witches, it needed to happen at that moment.

I made the decision to do it.

As I turned back to face her, I eased the rolled-up jumper towards her face, but I stopped. Her skin looked different. Drawn. Gaunt. Lifeless. I pushed the jumper between our two bodies as I reached with my hand to touch her. I drew open her eyes, but the life in them had vanished. Her look no longer embraced a spirit.

She was already gone.

"Mary," I said, shaking her shoulders gently. But there was no response. There was no twitching. No nothing. It then registered that her chest no longer moved, either. She had clearly stopped breathing. Mary Steele was already dead.

I jumped from the beam and crouched low. Through the flames, I saw the remaining witches approaching. They were coming back to the fire!

I needed to get nicked as quickly as possible, but there was one last thing for me to do. With every last inch of energy, I forced my shoulder into the back of the upturned crucifix. At first, it didn't budge and I thought I would fail even at Mary's last request.

"Come on, goddammit!" I mumbled. "Give me a freaking break!"

I thumped the wood one last time and, to my surprise, it angled forward. It hung in the air for a moment longer and then, gravity pulled Mary towards the earth and directly into the fire. Her cremation was swift in the hot coals and I felt some satisfaction that the last face she had seen on earth was friendly – someone who cared. Even though we had never met, I was certain an instantaneous bond forged between us and would transcend the darkness and the evil upon which it was engineered.

When I was convinced the crucifix burnt, I knew I needed to move like a hare. But first, I tossed my jumper into the fire. I wanted to destroy what it stood for – what I was willing to do with it. I knew that, down the track, I would most likely regret it when my butt was ice cold, but its symbolism was nauseating. I preferred the cold over sickness.

I didn't look back to the other side of the clearing to gauge how much time I had. I withdrew into the forest and, once I could no longer glimpse the clearing with any precision, I bolted without looking back. Visceral groans from the camp briefly poisoned the wind through the trees as I ran, but they faded quickly, and I heard no rustling behind me. I kept running until my legs could sustain the speed no more.

An hour had passed since my getaway. The lactic acid in my legs had frozen and I could barely move. I had murdered one person and thrown another in the fire.

What sort of a monster had I become?

What value had I put on human life?

Who would I see when I finally looked in the mirror?

To the left of the track, I came upon an improvised bench. It was a log, roughly cut in half and kept in place by two makeshift beams. The mountains tourism bureau had spent some money a few years earlier to make the National Park more 'family friendly' and accessible to hikers of all ages. Rustic seating that didn't look like a toaster on a fence post, was part of phase one. I don't recall if there was ever a phase two or three, but when I saw the bench it looked as good as a king-size bed in a five-star hotel.

I was cold and, as I had predicted, I missed my jumper. It would have made a nice makeshift pillow, too. My butt fell onto the bench without much resistance. I was so tired. At some point, I must have laid my body down the length of the trunk, but I couldn't physically remember doing so.

As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw Mary's face. At first, I believed it to be a warm spirit coming to thank me and wave goodbye but, almost instantly, her face spontaneously combusted and was consumed by flames. At that instant, I knew I would never get another night of peaceful sleep.

# Chapter 54

"Hello?" I said.

My eyes wrestled to adjust in the daylight. Streaks of sun shot through the forest canopy and pinpricked me with warm spots on my skin. My inquisition was not a reaction to hearing any particular noise, it was more of a statement in the realm of, "Where the hell am I?"

The stinging in my legs was immense. My favorite jeans were ripped across both shins and one boasted a long tear on my left thigh where a branch had penetrated my skin. It felt like someone had poured a ton of salt across the wound. Rubbing it only made it worse.

The muscles in my stomach, lower back and across my shoulders were tender. Scratches on my face tickled like bugs in their thousands, crawling across my skin. I didn't even want to think about my hair. I forced my palms onto the wooden trunk and pushed myself upright. It took a few moments to settle and deviate my focus from my battered body to the obvious question to which my brain still sought a definitive answer.

Where was I?

The forest seemed peaceful and inviting and inspired me to get my feet moving.

The first few steps were accompanied by a chorus of groans but, thereafter, I staggered forward without complaint. There was no one to complain to.

I needed to find some human contact to alert the police and to get me back home. If I followed the hiking trails, I was certain I would eventually come across one of the many properties bordering the National Park. The forest trail looked unfamiliar. The trees were eucalypts, but so were most of the other 664, 681 acres of the National Park. I tried to gauge my direction by looking at the sun, Bear Grylls style, but with trees towering all around, it was virtually impossible to reference the sun with any part of the horizon. I was lost and no amount of TV smarts was going to change that.

I kept moving. I was thirsty and unbelievably hungry, but the fact I was still alive after the previous night's horrors, injected enough oomph in me to keep going. My hands looked as if I had played with a meat grinder. They were red and blistered, scratched and almost every nail had cracked or broken. I would need the mother of all manicures if I ever found an escape from the forest. Coagulated blotches of dark-red blood dotted both my hands, like a ghoulish version of measles. Was all the blood mine? I wondered.

Mary Steele had been so brave. I knew her for less than a few minutes and yet, she felt like a kindred spirit. Her death was impossible to dispel from my aching heart, but her valor inspired me. Her loss would be for nothing if I didn't survive to tell her story. Her family needed to know the truth about how she died and the heroism she demonstrated all the way to the end. I probably wouldn't tell them I singlehandedly cremated their daughter.

I also didn't know how I would explain her captors.

The similarities to the narrative in the hundred-year-old newspaper article I had read earlier about witches and virginal sacrifice, were all too real. What I couldn't decipher was the physical attributes of the witches. They were huge – tall and broad. Their skin was leathery and decaying. But from my one instant of contact, their bodies felt solid. Human. And they definitely screamed like normal people.

Were they a cult of handicapped outcasts – giants – gathered in the woods to exact their revenge on a society who scorned them? Because of their cloaks and the darkness, it had been difficult to see their faces with any clarity and their foreign tongue still confused me.

I wondered where they lived when they weren't stalking young girls, hosting sacrificial parties or setting the night on fire.

Cindy clicked over to ten o'clock. I had walked for over an hour and found no sign of life. Since my departure, I had hit two forks in the trail and chosen to veer right on both occasions. Without any reference, I had no idea if my choice of direction took me deeper into the forest or towards liberty, out of it.

As the track continued without end and Cindy kept ticking away, I started to feel demoralized again. The lack of liquid and sustenance started to break me down physically and emotionally. Tears suddenly ran from my eyes without control, covering my lips with salty fluid. It was a poor substitute for a big bottle of water. I began hallucinating. The trees grew legs and began circling me closer and closer. I kicked at them as my legs kept propelling me forward. I wanted to run, but had no energy. I wanted to fly, but was without wings – and without Rumer. I was about to give up, fall in a heap and let the forest devour me.

But then, I saw it.

Through the trees to my left. There was a clearing and a house.

Finally! The edge of the National Park and the end of my nightmare, I thought.

Within a heartbeat, I was back in the undergrowth, pushing aside branches, weeds and flowers. It was so much easier in the daylight.

Visions of water and food began to flick like neon signs inside my eyeballs. I felt saliva trickle across my tongue as I pictured cakes and cordial. I was so hungry. Twenty-four hours had passed and I had eaten nothing, drunk nothing and experienced the most intense physical stresses of my life. The thought of eating just a single apple induced a feeling of ecstasy in my mouth. Imagine if there was chocolate and biscuits and hot apple pie!

I reached the edge of the property in less time than I thought it would take. The house was gorgeous, if a little messy. The exterior walls had a rustic look that suited its dense, tree-lined surroundings. There was a rural mixture of polished stones and larger, roughly-cut boulders. The roof was constructed from timber and was covered in a web of naturally growing vines that crept up the rear facade and across the slanted top.

My excitement peaked when I followed the roof line to the bluestone chimney and saw smoke trailing skywards. Someone was home!

"Oh, thank god!" I said. My dream of sweets and soda was one step closer.

I stepped excitedly along the side of the house towards the front. The pretty, round windows were difficult to look through and the last thing I wanted to do was to scare the owners with my ugly mug stalking them through the glass. No! I was going to be as lady-like as possible, as impatient as I was.

The untidy garden lapped at the base of the walls. There was no porch at the front of the house and the ground sloped gently away from the front door. At the base of the wooden portal were two large, carved boulders serving as steps, adding to the charm of the homestead.

I stepped up to the dark-oak door and took hold of the large, metal-ringed door knocker. I rapped it twice and then, eased back to the edge of the bottom step.

Instantly, I heard noises inside. Someone was definitely home! I impulsively straightened my hair, but no amount of grooming was going to improve its look. There was no question I looked like some lost, homeless chick, looking for a feed and a bath.

My plan was pretty simple. I would say hello, explain I got lost in the forest the night before and I had witnessed some disturbing events which required me to contact law enforcement authorities. I would ask the home owners to call Mika or Emma or Steph or Pastor Crosbie's church, in the hope of contacting Rumer. Any one of them could verify that I was not some demented psycho.

I heard locks at the top and bottom being removed. I beamed with as much of a smile as my sore, cracked lips allowed and unfolded my arms to look as nonthreatening as possible. I imagined some old couple was going to greet me and I didn't want to give them heart failure. I had seen enough death to last me a lifetime.

The door creaked open slowly and a woman stepped into the frame with a droll smile.

My mouth fell open. "Oh no," I said.

I thrust a wild stride back, but forgot I was on a step and lost my balance, falling backwards. My palms clobbered into the ground to cushion my weight and it felt like I snapped my wrists. My head flicked backward and hit the firm earth beneath me, giving me an instant migraine. I tried to scramble backwards. My heels desperately tried to dig into the ground for traction, but they kept slipping on the small pebbles, littered across the terrain.

"You!" I yelled.

The woman took an enormous stride forward onto the bottom step. "You couldn't leave it alone, could you?" she said.

All at once, I realized I had stumbled onto something other than a pretty, bluestone mountain cottage with an elderly couple and a pantry brimming with sweets and delight.

I found the Gingerbread House!

The nexus between legend, fable and horrifying reality, struck me cold. And towering over me was its primary occupier, its wicked lodger.

Doctor Helen Wexler!

My eyes pulsed wide with dread. The look I had glimpsed twice before in Helen's eyes was now a permanent feature of her expression. As I tried again to scramble away, my sight began to fail. Dark blotches shot like ink across my vision.

Through the distortion, I suddenly saw Helen move. Not towards me. But upwards. Her bulk expanded, inflating like a balloon. Her eyes glowed copper-red and her arms and legs appeared to extend.

She shrieked as her hideous body began to transform, emitting a deafening howl.

The monster was loose.

But I could no longer impede the growing darkness. I fought with every inch of resolve to keep myself from conking out but, as my head fell backward onto the ground, the last thing I saw was Helen rising over me.

And then, everything went pitch black.

# Chapter 55

My first cognition that I was still alive was the inexhaustible thumping in my skull. It felt like someone stood over me with a mallet, pretending to play the xylophone on my head. I slowly opened my eyes, but found little extra light. My fingers ached, but I felt rough wood beneath me. Then, I felt the pressure in my butt, my shoulders, head and feet. I was lying on a wooden floor with my knees uncomfortably bent up.

I dared not move. Being out cold had so far kept me alive. I didn't want to give the impression I was suddenly in a position to stand my ground. Not that I could find any obvious strength in my muscles or bones. I was a wreck. I had come through the meat-grinder and into the frying pan. My expectation had been an end to the suffering, coated in sugary goodness and ultimately, ending with Rumer's embrace. But there was no sugar, no Rumer and an end that seemed only forebodingly shocking.

It took a couple of minutes for my eyes to adjust, but shapes began to materialize in my view. As I looked upwards from my position on the floor, I noticed a slab of pine an arm's length above me and shards of light reflecting off bars all around me.

Metal bars.

I angled my head up slightly for a better look. I was in a freaking cage! When I tried to stretch my legs, my toes pressed up against the bars at the far end and there was no extending my body to full length. The cage was barely three-by-five feet.

I rolled over, clambered to my knees, and flicked my butt beneath my legs, into a seated position. The cage wasn't high enough to sit straight, and my neck craned over in the most awkward position imaginable. I pulled my legs in to find a more comfortable spot, but there was none to be found.

The surroundings were dark. I was obviously in a room, separated from the house by a single, wooden door. The light reflecting off my cage bars was cast from a strip of deep, orange luminance, spearing in beneath the door. There were no windows in the room. The sliver of light caught the edges of several other shapes in my immediate vicinity, but it was too dark to discern any meaning in the abstract contours.

My attention turned back to the cage itself. I positioned my hands in the center of the wooden slab above me. Ignoring the stiffness in my forearms, I pushed as hard – and as silently – as I could. The top of my prison didn't move an inch. There was no spring in the wood, not a hint of any possibility that I could engineer a way out through the top.

Even in the dull light, I saw the cage was bolted to the ground, so I immediately gave up on any notions of kicking out the bottom. If I was to get out, there was only one possibility.

The bars themselves.

I took a firm grip – one tube of metal in each hand. Without making a sound, I tried pulling them apart, but doing so only appeased the gods of fantasy, rather than any reality. Plan B was to twist them, but that didn't get me anywhere, either.

My focus then turned to my right. Steal struts formed a square around the metal bars in the center of the cage wall. It was an entry point. A door. Bulky hinges were soldered to a reinforcing bar that ran the height of the cage. At the end opposite the pivots, I saw a latch, fastened with a chunky pin and secured by an old padlock. It was the size of my hand, but it looked old, slightly-rusted and well used.

Movement in the cage was virtually impossible.

I tried looking behind me, but I couldn't turn. I pushed up on the roof of the cage again, then gripped the bars a second time, trying desperately to pry them open through shear strength – strength I no longer had.

It was hopeless.

Frustration and anger besieged me. Not being able to stretch out was more maddening than I could have ever imagined and I began to fear what dangers lurked in the darkness. I felt panic creeping in under my skin, but had no drive left in me to quell it.

My anger exploded. I forced both hands onto the bars again and began yanking at them with everything I had left. My feet kicked the bars. I no longer cared about the noise.

"Let me out of here, you freaking bitch!" I screamed, at the top of my voice. "Help! Somebody help me!" I went mental. My rage was off the scale. The volume in my voice was deafening and I kicked and thrashed like a monkey in a cage at the zoo. "I'm going to kill you!" I yelled.

"Ssshhh!" a voice from the darkness suddenly said, in a soft whisper.

It caught me by such surprise, I almost wet my pants.

The voice spoke again, "She's not here."

I turned to my left and squinted, trying to focus into the darkness from where the sound came. It was a girl's voice. It sounded scratchy, feeble and crushed. "Where are you?" I said.

"She only comes at night," the girl said.

As my eyes fixated on the shapes outside my cage, it suddenly became clearer what I was looking at. Three feet to my left, I saw more bars. It was another cage. "Come closer," I said. At first, I heard nothing further and I wondered if the girl was tied up, too hurt to move or she simply didn't want to talk to me. I had no way of knowing how long she had endured the horrific conditions. I'd been awake for a few minutes in the cage and I was ready to kill people. I had no intention of entertaining any thoughts about how I could possibly survive hours or even days locked in such hell.

But then, I heard shuffling noises. The girl slid across the floor. In the dim light, I saw her hands grip the bars of her cage and she pressed her face as far forward as she could. Our eyes locked and instantaneously, both our faces flushed red with excitement.

"Oh my God!" I shrieked. "Lexie?"

A stained blanket covered half her face, but I knew those eyes well. A thick bruise swelled on her cheek and she looked gaunt and dehydrated. But I was in no doubt I had found my friend.

"Sara?" she said. Her voice desperately searched for gusto, but fell short. Her tone was a stark likeness to how she looked.

"Yes," I said. "It's me."

We both began to cry uncontrollably. For me it was the culmination of days fearing something dreadful had happened to Lexie, the war against the witches, the forest and myself, and the ideology that I had emotionally linked all hope for my family – and for me – to Lexie's wellbeing. If she was live, there was still promise in all those things. My tears streamed like Niagara Falls.

Then, we both started talking at a hundred miles an hour at the same time. Neither of us could understand the other. We laughed loudly. It was a bizarre mix of the greatest emotional torment either of us had experienced, with the funniest of belly-laughs we could muster.

"Are you okay?" I said.

"I'm alright."

"What happened?" I said.

She struggled to contain her tears. Her voice boasted little volume or self-belief. "I was on my way to the Paragon Café," she said, "and a car pulled up next to me. It was Helen... that bitch... she was friendly and stuff. You know how fake she can be."

I sure did!

Lexie continued, "Anyway, I'd seen her about my first contraceptive pill prescription and stuff, so when she said, 'Get in. I'll give you a lift,' I saw no reason not to. She lured me in by saying she had some news for me about my prescription. I thought that meant she was secretly going to give me one. You know, without mom knowing and all. She offered me a piece of cake and the next thing I know I was feeling faint. And then, I woke up here."

"She's a monster," I said.

"You have no idea."

But I did. And when Lexie told me she had only seen Helen a handful of times to bring her nothing but a few glasses of water, I was certain I knew more about the monster that lurked beneath Helen's skin than Lexie did. Lexie had not seen the witches. "What about the other girls?" I asked. "Have you seen any of them?"

"Yes," Lexie said, resigned. "There was a girl here yesterday in the cage you're in now. Mary... something. I don't remember. She was real quiet. Helen came and got her just after dark."

I said nothing to Lexie about what I had experienced the night before. I was too embarrassed to tell her about Mary Steele. I mechanically folded my arms, hiding my hands. I still had Mary's blood on my hands – literally – and I was too ashamed to expose what I knew.

"I don't know what happened to her," Lexie added.

I felt bad for keeping the truth from her, but I made the judgment to spare her from the awfulness. The decision played upon my mind as I listened more to her recounting her first few days in her dark and dreary prison.

"Mary told me saw another girl in a different room," Lexie said. "She didn't know her name or anything and she only saw her that one time. Mary said she looked pretty beaten up."

Lexie went quite for a time after that. She seemed reconciled with a doomed fate. The spark that had caught Emma's eye to draw her into our group, and that had entertained us countless times since, was long gone. Her eyes and face looked vacant as if the ordeal had sucked every last inch of spirit from her bones. She had given up all hope. As I watched Lexie's spirit dwindle away, I saw a reflection only of myself. She was someone whose strength was blinded by her own helplessness.

She was me on the train tracks. Caged and witnessing the rot of helplessness in Lexie, I finally realized I had been wrong all along. Ending up on the train tracks wasn't mom's doing...

It was mine!

Mom was nothing more than a bully. I had been wrong to let mom overwhelm me. No matter how awful she had been. No matter how unkind her words. The choice had been mine and I needed to take responsibility for my own momentary lapse of reason.

Rumer had been right. People we loved and cared about were worth fighting for, no matter what the cost to ourselves. That included ourselves, too. The night on the train tracks, I wanted nothing but to embrace the perceived comfort of death. Sitting painfully, bent over in Helen Wexler's prison, I made the decision that I needed to do everything I humanly could to stay alive.

"What's going to happen to us?" Lexie suddenly said.

"Here," I said. "Take my hand." I stretched through the bars of my cage towards hers. My fingers spread, reaching for every last inch. My body was pressed against the steel and it felt like I was back in the meat-grinder. But Lexie slowly followed suit. At first, we were a couple of inches short, but with a little more effort from her end, our fingers finally touched, and we were able to hold on to each other. "Whatever happens," I said. "I will come for you. I promise you, I will do whatever it takes to get you out of here. To get both of us out of here."

She didn't respond, but she didn't need to. My resolve was not about my personal gratification.

I needed to fight for her, because no one else could.

"Okay," I said, with renewed ticker, trying to encourage myself. I wriggled around in my cage again, looking for any weakness – any sign to implant enough hope of escape. I checked the lock on the cage door again. "If only we had something to jimmy the lock," I said to Lexie. "It looks pretty old. I reckon, with enough leverage, I could snap it off."

"There's nothing here, Sara," Lexie said.

"Hmmm..." I fought to not let her defeat affect my determination. I didn't blame her. After all, it wasn't me that had spent a week in the clutches of unimaginable hell.

Think, Sara! Escape was our only chance of survival.

"It will be dark soon," Lexie said.

And for the first time, I realized my watch was missing. Crap! The monster had not only put me in a cage, she had also taken Cindy hostage. I resolved that I was going to get my watch back, no matter what.

Lexie spoke more about her time since she was captured. I listened with half a mind. The other was firmly focused on devising a plan for our escape.

"She comes mostly at night," Lexie said. "I don't know what she's waiting for... what she's going to do with us."

But I did. And being in the middle of the red moon festival, I knew not only what was going to happen to us, but when. I realized the girl Mary Steele had seen was the sacrificial victim of the night before the eclipse. Mary was killed during the eclipse. And Lexie...

"We don't have much time," I said.

When Lexie began to cry again, I changed the subject. I tried cheering her up by talking about Emma and Steph and Mel. I spoke about seeing her family on the news and I tried to reassure her that everybody was out looking for her. I didn't delight her with false hope about anyone finding us – I doubted anyone would. If we were to survive, we needed to take responsibility for our own continued existence.

I yanked at the cage door again. "Goddammit!" I yelled, in pure frustration. "There's got to be a way out of this."

Then, we both heard the jingling of keys outside. My eyes shot to the thin strip of orange light peering in, beneath the door.

"Oh crap!" I said softly, turning my eyes in Lexie's direction.

"She's back," Lexie said.

# Chapter 56

My eyes remained glued to the door and particularly, the strip of light beneath it. Suddenly, I saw movement. A shadow broke the sliver of radiance. It paused for a moment and then, spread to the left and right.

Someone approached the door!

The sound of footsteps got louder. The shadow beneath the door broke in two and, almost immediately, I heard a metal bolt slide across. The door creaked open as if I watched in slow-motion, but I could not pull my stare away from it. I had no idea what Lexie was doing. I imagined she was not as absorbed as I was. But then, I had additional reasons to detest Doctor Helen Wexler.

Her bulk was silhouetted by the light streaming into the room from behind her, but there was no doubt that it was Helen. I could tell by her short hair, her broad, masculine shoulders and imposing frame. At least she was... normal.

In human form.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Lexie pushing herself as far back into the cage as possible – as far away from Helen as she could. I gripped the metal bars in front and refused to move an inch. "I saw what you did," I said, boldly. "You're never going to get away with this."

"I'm sure you're right," Helen said, smugly.

My aggravation boiled. "I know all about you, you know. The red moon. The legend. Someone will stop you."

In my head, I pretentiously proposed me, but I wasn't audacious enough to reveal my brimming self-confidence. It frightened me that I wasn't trembling with fear. I was either very brave or very stupid.

Before I could decide which way that insane pendulum swung, Helen took three huge steps towards me. "You should have left it alone, Sara," Helen said. "Your mom does actually mean a lot to me and I will take no pleasure in ensuring our future together."

I hated everything about the woman. Her reference to mom only made me want to kill her more. "You're going to fall into hell and burn alive," I said.

"Tough words from a suicidal brat, stuck in a cage," Helen said. "Or do you think your little boyfriend will come and save you?"

I wanted to scream at her, but tried to stay calm and show her that she couldn't get a rise out of me so easily.

"You know," she said. "That boy has got a bit of explaining to do. I still don't know how you got out of your embarrassing... fire incident. And how did you get to my house so quickly?"

"Do you think I'm going to tell you that?" I said, with the greatest defiance I could engineer.

"No," Helen said, smiling wryly. "But you will."

"Do you think?"

She stared at me with her duplicitous, deep eyes. I was sick of people trying to read my mind. Just flamin' ask me what I'm thinking, I wanted to scream – but didn't. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for your third murder?" I said.

Helen's eyes narrowed. "You think you're so clever, don't you? You have no idea about the importance of what we're doing here."

"I have a fair idea," I said, smartly. "You're killing people on up-side-down crosses and then, deciding to eat them." I tried to keep as straight a face as possible.

Lexie gasped to my left, but I dared not turn away from Helen.

"You cannot fathom the power we have," Helen said. "History has been trying to fight us for hundreds of years. You despicable people have slaughtered thousands of our families. The red moon reminds us of the blood on your hands and we commemorate our resilience in the festival of Lex Talionis, as we reclaim the blood spilled from those who have died. The blood of our ancestry must be refreshed, as we wait for the resurrection of the black master."

"That didn't go so well last night, though. Did it?" I said.

I saw Helen's anger boil through to the witch beneath. She pushed her face up to the bars of my cage, but I refused to move. "That's alright, Sara," she said. "You'll make a good replacement."

Defiance had soldered me to the front of the bars. Helen's breath smelt foul and her skin looked ragged.

She was one ugly cow, I thought.

But her eyes glowed with the same rage I had seen before, and I knew what lay beneath. "You're insane," I said.

Helen mocked me with a snicker, as if her higher cause was somehow above my understanding. What scared me most was the seriousness in her narrative. She believed wholeheartedly that the sacrificing of young girls was well and truly justified. I began to wonder how many people had been killed in the witch's quest for revenge and her demented plot to raise some ugly, black sorceress from the dead.

"Why don't you show us who you really are?" I said. "Why don't you stop being such a coward and reveal the monster under your skin?"

The pupils in her eyes appeared to glow red with wrath. Her anger frenzied. She didn't like hearing the truth from a suicidal brat stuck in a cage. She pulled back and strode from the room.

Lexie re-engaged. "Sara. What are doing? How do you know all this stuff? What are you saying? Witches? And is she really going to eat us?"

My mind was too busy to implement any kind of moderating and so, I spoke before I thought. "Yes," I said, matter-of-factly.

Lexie began to cry again and a bunch of concerns fell from her mouth, none of which I understood.

She needed desperate reassurance. "But I'm not going to let that happen," I added. My first answer had been outrageously truthful. The second answer had its roots deeper in hope and ideology, than in certainty. "We'll be okay," I said.

Then, Helen stampeded back into the room. In her hands, she held a metal bar. The fury with which she held it aloft mirrored the ire glowing in her eyes. Within a few enormous strides, she stood at my cage, threateningly swinging the metal piping.

"Open that smart-ass mouth again, you brat," she said. "Let's see who the coward is."

I hesitated, because I could see she was deadly serious. It was hard to work out in my beehive head where my courage was coming from. Some of it was inspired by Rumer and what he thought of me, a large portion of it was forged by the bravery I had witnessed in Mary Steele the night before, and I was certain I was getting a bit tougher as well. But mostly, I worried that my decision to once-and-for-all defeat the force of self-destruction and live at all costs, had turned me into a psychotic rebel who no longer saw danger with any clarity. I couldn't understand what had happened to my fear. Was the supremacy of self-belief really that empowering?

Seemingly, yes. I drilled my gaze directly back at Helen and said, "Do with me what you want! I can be beaten and I can be killed... but you will always be a bitch!"

Helen moved even closer. My words scolded her psyche and sent an inferno of rage flashing through her body. She raised the metal bar in her hands high above her head. I closed my eyes and prepared for her to swing the rod between the bars of my cage and pummel me. It would hurt, but I somehow didn't care what pain she inflicted on me. My body was already pulsing with agony. Surely, it couldn't be any worse.

Then, I heard her take a step. My eyes flung open. Helen glanced at me with her evil eyes and swung the metal bar into the cage. But not my cage. Lexie's. The rod smashed into her. Lexie screamed an awful, high-pitched scream.

I thrust my arms through the bars of my cage to reach for Helen. "Get away from her, you bitch!" I screamed again and again.

But Helen just kept hitting Lexie with the bar. The sound of metal slamming into Lexie's bones was sickening and unlike any sound I'd ever heard before.

"Please," I said, as tears began to stream from my face. "Stop! Leave her alone."

But the fury in Helen's resolve would have none of it. She hit Lexie a fourth time and a fifth. Her face was wild with excitement. She delighted in seeing Lexie writhe on the cage floor, desperately trying to block the blows with her arms and legs.

I tried to reach for Helen again, but I was helpless. "Please," I said, again. "Hit me instead. It's me you want. It's me you hate!"

Helen gave Lexie a final blow. I was certain I heard the bone in Lexie's shin, crack. Bitch! Lexie howled a guttural scream of tears and fear. Helen's eyes turned in my direction. She took one step towards my cage and, in an exhibition of defiance, threw the metal rod to the ground with the same ferocity as she had shown towards Lexie. The rod hit the floor with a loud clang.

"You may like to think twice next time you decide to be a smart-ass," Helen said. She crouched down, her face again coming close to mine. "Next time," she said, "I'll kill her right in front of you."

After her final taunt, she stood straight and looked pleased with herself. She glared at me. "I'll be back for you later," she said to me. She took three immense strides to the door and pulled it shut on her way out. Her footsteps quickly faded away and the room returned to its awful darkness. My singular focus was on Lexie's sobbing. I could only see her feet because her head lay in the opposite corner, but her cries were heartbreaking.

"Are you okay, Lex?" I said, knowing it to be a stupid question.

She didn't respond and her weeping didn't lessen. I felt nauseous, helpless and responsible. My big mouth – my so called growth in self-belief – had resulted in nothing more than my good friend being belted to within an inch of her life.

I tried to reach for Lexie's cage, but it was too far away. I called out to her again. It was futile. At least, while she cried, I knew she was still alive. "Hang in there, Lexie. Everything will be alright."

It was easier to say than to believe.

Her crying waged a war inside my skull. The bees buzzed relentlessly, zipping around in search of a solution. I'll be back for you later, Helen had said to me. My time for unearthing an answer was short and, from everything I had witnessed in the previous twenty-four hours, I knew it was literally a matter of life and death.

"Think, Sara," I said, quietly to myself.

There was unadulterated clarity about my number one priority. While I was imprisoned, there was nothing I could do, but wait for imminent death. I needed to get the hell out of my confinement.

I thought about the cage again. The bars, the inescapable roof, the bottom bolted to the wooden floor, the cage door with its lock. I searched the darkness for any clue, twisting my torso in the most unnatural position my body had ever experienced. The flexibility I had gained from gymnastics was again a handy asset, but any sort of proper movement in the cage was tougher than fighting a wildfire with a glass of water.

Rumer could do it, I thought. He'd swoop in a simply break the lock apart, so I could escape through the cage door.

And then, it hit me. Break the lock!

I suddenly remembered examining the padlock before Helen had entered the room and thinking I could jimmy it open if I had the right tool for the job.

I grabbed the bars on the front of the cage and pulled my aching butt across the prickly floor. I rotated my body awkwardly on my pelvic bone, pulled the legs from underneath me and dropped my face as low to the floor as possible to look into the darkness.

And there it was!

The metal rod Helen had used to thump Lexie broke the clean line of deep orange light shining below the door. Its shape was unmistakable. Helen had thrown it down in a demonstration of her anger to sway my confidence after the awful beating she gave Lexie. Could the instrument of such evil now be my one chance at salvation? I wondered.

Getting to the metal rod was another matter.

I reached through the cage bars, but my fingers fell well short. Swiveling my body sideways, I tried with the other arm, but it made little difference.

"Crap!" I mumbled.

It would have been so easy to give up at that moment, but there was no longer a choice. It was succeed or die. I simply had to find a way to squeeze through and gain the extra few inches.

I sucked in a volume of air because I knew crushing my shoulder through the bars was going to hurt. My left arm snaked forward and I let my fingers walk along the wooden floor towards the long black shape in the darkness. Quickly, I found myself at the same juncture as before, a little way short.

"Come on," I said, urging myself on. I forced my shoulder between the bars and pushed forward as hard as I could. My teeth clenched. The muscles in my arms strained until they ached, and my fingers thrashed like the tentacles of an octopus.

Contact!

The tips of my fingers glanced across the smooth surface of the metal rod. I was so close. I needed to grip it somehow. Between two fingers maybe. I wanted to grab it so badly, but I just couldn't reach far enough.

I had to pull back because I was about to pass out. The voices in my head were screeching in frustration. I was so annoyed at myself. There was literally an inch between certain death and, at least, a chance at freedom. There was only one thing left to do.

I had to try again.

My lungs drew in another huge volume of enthusiasm. "It's now or never, Sara," I said to myself. The bees in my head stung desperately at the doubt creeping in, and for a fleeting moment, I thought self-loathing would be the death of me once more.

But I cracked my fingers and sent them into the darkness outside of my cage. Again, they crept towards the metal rod. My shoulder locked into the gap between the bars. I forced it forward, moaning and silently screaming my head off. The broken nail on my middle finger was the first to touch the steel. "Come on," I said. "Push." It was more like I was having a baby. The compression on my shoulder and upper chest was excruciating, but I pushed on. My head was pressed firmly against the bars of the cage, trying desperately to milk every last measurement from my body.

Three fingers crawled along the rod. It was further than last time. With a loud grunt, I lunged forward. My fingers gripped the rod. It moved ever so slightly. But then, I lost the grasp. Every fiber in my being howled for me to pull back, but I lunged forward one last time. The rod was closer on my second attempt. All digits connected with the steel and, with the prospect of a ghastly crucifixion prodding me in the butt, I clutched the rod and edged it towards me.

"Yes!" I said. "Come on." Closer and closer. I finally had the damn thing in the palm of my hand. I angled it sideways and pulled it all the way into the cage and held it close to my chest, hugging it, like a best friend. I had never been so excited by a piece of metal pipe before.

"Okay," I said. "Let's do this." Confidence again cloaked me in a fuzzy warmth. I knew if the plan failed, I was doomed – and so was Lexie.

Shuffling my butt across the cage, I positioned myself adjacent to the cage door. I slanted the metal rod sideways and eased one end through the bars towards the lock. After three goes and one hell of an uncomfortable neck position, I jammed the end of the rod into the U-shaped latch of the one piece of metal holding firm between me and freedom. Leverage required a precise angle because there was almost no room to maneuver.

I began pulling the rod down and towards me. At first, it seemed to have no effect on the lock, whatsoever.

Was I doing it wrong? I repositioned myself slightly, bringing the rod down on a more acute angle.

I had been dreaming if I thought my plan was a cinch.

My hands tightened on the metal. I pushed down so hard, the muscles in my arms and hands trembled like electricity gushed through them. The rod began to bend and creak and the lock itself made a metallic clanging noise.

The strain on my arms was unbearable. I wanted to yell and let go and throw the metal rod at Helen in the hope that it struck her head, but I clung on for dear life. My vision began to plug with black spots and the sour taste of vomit was climbing into the back of my throat. And then...

Clang!

With a thunderous crack, the lock fractured open. With the tension in the rod instantaneously gone, I lost my grip on it and the metal rod flicked upwards and towards my head. It missed my skull by an inch and smashed across the bars on the other side of the cage. The lock automatically fell away from the latch that kept the cage door shut.

My eyes were wide with shock. A heartbeat later, my pupils snapped to the beam of light beneath the door. I had made so much noise, if Helen had been anywhere near the room, she was sure to have heard.

When there was no movement on the other side of the door, I kicked into gear. I reached through the bars and pulled the latch free from its housing. The cage door squealed open without any further intervention from me.

And I was free!

I pushed my legs through first and, within a couple of breaths, I was completely outside the cage. "Oh my God!" I said, surprised by my sudden, delicious freedom.

Pressing my face to the floor, I checked beneath the door for any movement. Nothing. I reached back into the cage and grabbed the metal rod. It made for a good weapon.

As quietly as I could manage, I crawled like a spider around my cage and towards Lexie. Her sniffling continued to pierce through the darkness.

"Lexie," I said, in whisper.

She didn't answer. I snaked my arm into her cage and gently touched her leg. She instantly flinched and shrieked. Again, my eyes shot to the door, terrified at the possibility of attracting the freak. "It's okay," I said. "It's me. It's Sara."

Lexie lifted her body off the wooden cage floor. Her eyes were like watermelons. "Sara?"

"Yes," I said.

"How did you...? I don't understand."

"It okay," I said. "I'm going to get us out of here."

Lexie said, "I think my leg is broken. It hurts so much."

"Oh... Do you think you can still walk?"

Lexie's eyes looked up at me like she was choosing between her own life and death. "No," she finally said, in a shaky voice. "Sara, I'm in so much pain."

"It's okay," I said. It wasn't really, because it incinerated my grandiose plan of getting us out and running away. "It will be okay, Lex. I'm going to go for help and come back for you."

I thought about getting her out of the cage, but I was sure I no longer had the energy to jimmy another lock. My pride was too embarrassed to own up to the weakness, so I pretended leaving her locked in the cage was all part of my master plan.

She didn't bat an eyelid.

I checked with her one more time to see if she was alright. I told her to use her jumper as a makeshift bandage for her leg. It looked broken, but I tried not to get too involved with the first aid. If I didn't get us both to safety, no splint was going to make a difference.

And I knew our time was running out.

Steel pipe in hand, I clambered to my feet and tiptoed to the door. "Sshhh!" I said to Lexie. "I'll be back for you, I promise."

She was no longer visible in the darkness, but I made sure she heard my voice. I knew she needed to soak up all the reassurance I could offer. There was no reply, but at least she had stopped crying.

My trembling, free hand gripped the round door knob. When Helen had entered the room, she had unlatched numerous locks, but her departure after belting Lexie had been swift, and I hoped that meant a lapse in security.

"Come on," I said, as a turned the handle as slowly and quietly as humanly possible. "Give me a bit of luck."

The knob turned easily, but not quietly. My heart pumped violently and sweat oozed from my pores like a fountain. My body had experienced so much trauma in the previous twenty-four hours that it had started to fight back. It was no longer happy to service my crazy adventure and told me so at every heart-stopping opportunity.

I pulled at the door. It opened! My lungs froze. As did my eyes, arms, legs, open mouth and just about every other part of me. I eased the door open a little further. It was one of the few things in the house I'd come across thus far that didn't creak and moan. But my mind was consumed by only one gnawing thought.

Where was the witch?

# Chapter 57

I eased the door open further. The gap was just large enough for me to shoot an eyeball out of the room. The first surprise I saw was fire. Orange licks of flame played happily in a brick fireplace. The flickering light illuminated a large room with cathedral ceilings. Two sofas encompassed a coffee table in front of the open fire. The fabric was covered with broad sheets of industrial plastic. A gorgeous-looking rug sprawled between the sofas and looked out of place – homely amongst the clinical plastic. There were no other lights on in the room.

And I saw no sign of Helen.

I pulled the door open and snuck through, not looking back at Lexie again. The room was lined with books on shelves, stacked from floor to ceiling on the wall surrounding the door through which I had entered. I clicked the door shut, noticing the open latches and locks gleaming in the soft, tangerine light.

On the wall opposite to where I stood, there was another wooden door – closed – and a thin shard of light crept into the main room from underneath. The only noise my ears picked up was the crackling fire and the occasional gust of wind soaring across the rooftop. Through two small, round windows, I noticed the light outside was gone, but I saw no clocks inside the room to confirm how late it was. My eyes followed the bluestone walls around to my right and I found what I was looking for.

The front door of the Gingerbread House!

I worried about Lexie. Her inability to run, or even walk, flooded my initial plans of escape and I was now making it up as I went along.

My feet ached as I sneaked to the large wooden exit. The floor beneath me creaked like a town meeting of geriatric planks. With each step, I expected Helen to burst from the far room, in one guise or another, and attack me. As I neared the door, I noticed a bunch of latches, all open. Their locks were gathered in a decorated ceramic bowl, positioned precariously on a narrow bench to the left side of the door. Could I get lucky twice? I thought.

I reached for the door handle with growing confidence and began to think about what I would do the moment I stepped into the night air. I tried to visualize the walking trail I had come from and the trajectory at which I had encountered the deceptively beautiful cottage.

All I needed to succeed was to get out of the bloody house!

In contrast to the shiny bolts and latches, the main locking mechanism on the door looked a hundred years old. It was black as coal with a round, antique door handle and single slot for a medieval-style key. It reminded me of the secret drawer beneath Buddha's big butt.

My fingers squeezed tight around the handle. As I twisted the knob hard-over, I pretended not to hear the excruciatingly loud rasping noise. Then, I pulled the handle towards me. The door moved a fraction, but then, it stopped.

It was locked!

I squeezed the door knob in the opposite direction and tried yanking it again, but the door wasn't going to open. The anticipation drained from my body and evaporated in the bitter smoke I could smell, irritating my nose hairs.

"Crap!" I said, under my nervous breathing.

I dropped to my left knee and inspected the lock. The view was straight through the key hole to the outside. But there was no key.

Double crap!

I quickly rattled through the bowl containing the locks, but Helen had not been that stupid.

My eyes searched the room for answers. I saw only the three doors – the front door, the door back to Lexie and the closed door at the far end of the room. The small windows either side of the open fire were present also on the front of the house, but I wasn't going to be able to squeeze my backside through any of them. They didn't look like they opened at all. What sort of a bizarre fun house was I in? I thought, looking at the weird, almost ship-like portals.

As I surveyed the room, it became clear that there was only one choice. Give up and die or forge ahead and fight.

My first step towards the farthest door was shaky and slow. I clenched my fists and rubbed the sweat around in my palms. With each movement forward, the blood pumped quicker through my body. I dared not look at my hands, because I knew they were trembling like the wings of a butterfly.

"Deep breaths, Sara," I said to myself, without volume. "You're okay. Deep breaths."

I still expected Helen to jump out at any moment, so when I actually reached the door, I was numb with surprise. It hijacked my feet to the ground, like I had stepped in glue. If Helen had thrown the door open in that instant, my only option was to smile and say, "G'day, how's it going? Cup of tea, perhaps?"

She would have had me for dinner!

I forced my right ear to the door to discern any sounds of human movement. The wood of the door was prickly and smelled like smoke. It vibrated gently as the entire house shivered in the outside wind. But I heard nothing.

My hand eased onto the door handle. Every sane fiber in my wobbly body shouted at me to let go of the handle and run in the opposite direction as fast as I could, but my limited options made me deaf to logic. My other hand tightened its grip on the metal rod – my only prospect of defense... or attack.

"Okay," I said in a whisper, to calm my pounding nerves.

The spindle clicked as it disengaged from the cavity. The door was unlocked. I felt it was free to move, but I kept the pressure firmly forward, holding the door shut.

I closed my eyes again, wishing I was sitting on top of the Eifel Tower painting the Paris skyline, wishing Rumer was with me and wishing I wasn't in the Gingerbread House. But when my eyes flicked open, the sound of hissing fire and the thumping of my chest against the wooden door obliterated any such fantasies.

I was on my own. And if I was ever going to get the hell out of the demented house of horrors, I needed to be decisive. "You can do this, Sara," I said, trying to convince myself.

As slow as humanly conceivable, I took a step to the side and slipped the door open, just far enough to peek in through the gap. The space beyond was dark, quite, safe.

And narrow.

Pulling the door open all the way, my eyes barreled down a short, gloomy corridor. The orange light from the fire spilled into the restricted space and I saw a door on either side of the corridor and one at the far end. They were all closed.

Having long since abandoned all rational sensibilities, I checked over my shoulder and then, stepped into the hallway. My fingers ached from their grip on the metal pole. I shuffled each foot forward with exaggerated caution, as if I was crossing a frozen ocean. The flickering fire light behind me spewed my shadow across the walls of the corridor and skewed my shape into a bloodcurdling avatar.

After every three steps, I stopped moving to listen for any sounds other than the wind outside. For a moment, I thought I heard a faint cry from the farthest door, but I quickly realized it was Lexie in her cage behind me. I needed to keep going. For her. For both of us!

The doors either side of the hallway were diagonally spaced. I quickly reached the one to my right. Pressing my ear to the door, as I had done earlier, I listened for noises in the darkness beyond, but all was still. The door squeaked open as I turned the door handle and eased it forward. I thrust the metal rod into the room for protection. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light crawling into the room.

When I finally deciphered the dark shapes and reflections in the space, I threw my left hand to my mouth to catch the awfulness wanting to escape in a scream.

The room looked as if it had not been used in years, but scattered about the floor were large, metal cages. Some looked broken. Others were tipped on their sides. They all oozed the most god-awful image of torture and helplessness. It was a storage room for unused pens and it made me want to vomit.

Then, my head tilted upwards. Suspended from the ceiling on what looked like a purpose-built rack, a myriad of chains and shackles glimmered in the faint orange light, as they swung gently in the flutter of air I had allowed into the room. Their serenity belied their chilling function.

I quickly stepped out of the room, pulling the door tightly shut behind me. I never wanted to see that room again. The brewing anger cultivating in my arteries, spurred me on to the next door, to my left. Within four silent steps, my hand was on the loose, rattling handle. The ire I felt usurped any caution about getting the door open. The wood and the hinges groaned in unison as the entrance gave way.

But I did not step in. Could not step in!

The image that scorched the back of my eyeballs was so horrific that my body froze and my feet failed to advance. The room was stacked from floor to ceiling with discarded personal belongings.

Bags. Backpacks. Jumpers. Shoes. Jeans. Suitcases.

Necklaces and gold chains sprawled across the towering heap, like a demented vine. Watches were scattered everywhere. I noticed items that looked only a few years old as well as bags and shoes that were more common decades earlier. It was an historical cemetery of personal property.

There was so much stuff, I thought.

I dared not count the items or estimate how many people once owned them. But I was under no illusion about the implications of the image I was sure to remember for the rest of my life. It was an epitaph of unimaginable horror.

A single tear streaked down my face. "You have to move, Sara," I said, quite loudly, trying to jar myself away from dismay. If, for no other reason, I felt the courage falling from me and, if I stayed and let the impression blacken my soul a moment longer, I was likely to collapse. And that meant my belongings – my clothes, my runners, nanna's silver-pendant necklace – all would be the next macabre addition to the pile of horror.

No! I would never let that happen.

I dug my fingernails into the doorframe for traction and physically forced myself away from the room. Swallowing again and again to get some saliva back into my mouth, it took the longest minute of my life to recapture any semblance of resolve. The smoke-filled air streamed in through my nostrils and mouth as I sucked for gasps of inspiration.

What I wouldn't give for a decent volume of fresh, outside air, I thought.

Turning away from the ghastly sight, I focused on the last door, and a whole new saga of terror enveloped me. I was certain there were no other rooms in the house.

One left. One possibility.

I let the hatred of seeing the cages, chains and discarded personal belongings inject me with an unbridled determination. I needed to know what revulsion lay behind that last door – and the whereabouts of the despicable people responsible.

Clutching at my metal rod, I forced each foot forward. I barely moved an inch at a time. My body quickly overpowered the paralysis from the previous room and began to quiver nervously once more. I paused to suppress the fear as I thrust my hand to the door knob.

This was it, I thought, much too fatalistically.

I needed something a little more empowering. "Okay, you bitch," I said, softly. "Let's see what you've got!"

I turned the handle and pushed the door open without carefulness. The wood slammed against the inside of the space as I lost my grip on the small handhold. My fingers instinctively clasped at the metal rod in my other hand and I found myself holding the weapon aloft like a baseball bat, poised to swing... and swing hard!

But the room was no room at all.

The space was barely larger than a walk-in wardrobe. I clearly saw the farthest wall. There were no belongings, no cages, no windows.

And no Helen.

My eyes instantly shot to the floor. I saw a glimmering orange light, but it wasn't from the ambient luminosity of the fire in the room behind me. I saw a whole new source of fire light and it poured up a staircase just beyond of the entrance of the room.

"Oh no," I said.

Wooden steps led down through the floor and into a carved-out hollow in the rocky ground beneath. As I leaned over the void, I saw the jagged edges of excavated limestone, cloaked in dancing orange radiance.

"What are you doing, Sara?" I said to myself, as I stepped shakily onto the first of the wooden rungs. It groaned and felt soft under my runners, no doubt constructed as part of some dodgy, do-it-yourself witch project. But I stepped again. And then, to the third, creaking plank. My stranglehold on the metal rod tightened with each motion. If they needed to identify my body at some later point, I was certain, they'd find my fingerprints etched into the bent steel.

Towards the bottom of the stairs, the structure turned sharply back on itself and I found myself staring down a long corridor of carved limestone. Broad, wooden pylons – the foundations of the Gingerbread House – projected from the rock, like sporadic busybodies peeking in for a look at the abnormal tunnel running through its legs. At irregular intervals, black-metal rings secured angled torches, glowing with fire and lighting up the cavity.

My first step off the stairs was onto jagged rock, covered in a layer of tiny pebbles that had worn from the people-come-witch traffic. I saw coarse footprints in the surface heading both away from me and back towards the stairs.

Like a moth to the flame, I advanced without giving any thought to my safety. I had already convinced myself there was no way of getting out of the macabre funhouse. And then, there was Lexie. The only way I could possibly save her was to confront Helen. With her out of the picture, I imagined I'd have enough time to break my way out of the house somehow, and drag Lexie with me.

I snatched the first flaming torch from its holder. A light and a weapon, I thought.

Then, I continued forward, checking over my shoulder every few steps. In a flash, I came to a second tunnel, completely dark and to my right. I thrust the flame into the space, but saw nothing other than the hole, tunneling deep into the rock. There was not enough light to see where the passageway led and I decided against the investigative urges tickling my insides.

Instead, I continued down the main corridor. Despite the fire, it was cold and damp. After several more steps, I noticed the rock above me was worn away and I saw the foundations of the actual Gingerbread House. The wooden crossbeams were worn and dark from absorbing the smoke and moisture from within the tunnel complex. I saw pipes, too. There were broad pipes that looked like plumbing and narrower ones, running across the foundations and serving the utilities above.

As I waved the fire torch back to ground level, it was clear that the passageway began to angle sharply downwards. I was heading deeper underground and felt suddenly claustrophobic and panicky. I wasn't certain how much further I could deceive my sanity with the faux-courage I pretended to abound in, but I stepped forward and down the tunnel.

A few steps later, the space above me unexpectedly opened up and I found myself standing stock-still at the entrance to a vaulted antechamber, carved in the rock, and the size of a large bedroom. Three dark, unlit tunnels stemmed from the hub like spider legs. But it was the black, expansive hole in the center of the ceiling that bewitched me.

I stepped carefully to the middle of the cavern and gazed upwards. The top of the duct rising away from the antechamber, was covered by some type of construction that I could not make out, but I felt cold mountain air stream down through the three-foot-wide shaft and knew it was open to the outside at the top. It felt truly magical, but seeing the length of the upward tunnel – and thus, my significant depth beneath the ground – scared the crap out of me, at the same time.

I dropped the burning torch to the ground and let my eyes adjust to the different shades of orange bouncing their way up to the top of the shaft. But as I surveyed the duct, it was instantly clear there was no way out. The ceiling of the antechamber was at least twelve feet above me and the chute itself looked impossible to climb.

Then, my eyes caught sight of subtle discolorations at the side of the chamber. I stepped slowly towards the markings running up and down the wall. Even in the dim light, the streaks looked out of place, and I wondered if they were tracks of rain, dripping in from above. But the smudges were dry, patchy and seemed darker than what I'd expect from water trails. A foot away from the wall, I clearly saw the marks. They looked like...

Oh my God!

I threw my hand to my mouth a second time. "No!" I said, trying to hold back a barrage of tears flooding from my eyes. I followed the marks up as far as I could see. The images scratching at my eyeballs worsened the higher I angled my head.

The limestone was scratched up and down with thin, random lines. I spotted short strokes and longer, more agonizing ones. The sides of the indentations were stained with a dark color. I was certain they could be only one thing. Blood.

The marks were scratch marks made by victims trying to claw their way up the wall.

As the walls tapered in towards the ceiling like a dome, the marks stopped and I imagined the hapless victims falling hopelessly back to the gravelly floor, crying for help, before attempting to climb their way out of hell again and again.

I felt the heebie-jeebies skulking down my neck and I panicked. My courage had depleted and I knew I needed the reserves to get back up the stairs and into the Gingerbread House proper. Backing away from the wall, I instinctively turned to face the passageway from which I had originally entered the chamber. I needed to go. I could no longer keep going forward. I desperately needed to get the crap out of there.

As I turned my back on the room, I froze. "Oh God!" I yelled. My blood turned to ice, my mouth fell open uncontrollably and my eyes fixated on the most unwanted sight I ever hoped to see blocking my path.

Helen!

Her eyes brimmed with rage, but the thin smile on her lips made me think she enjoyed the cat-and-mouse premise. "Why can't you just wait to die quietly, like the rest of them?" she snarled.

In an instant, I swiveled fully around and sprinted for the nearest tunnel. By the time I thought to stand and fight, I was already engulfed by blackness and I was not going to stop and have a swing with the metal rod to which I still clung for dear life. My feet moved so fast, I struggled to stop myself from falling forward, but the tunnel was much narrower than I imagined and my flailing arms quickly connected with the sides. I scraped my fingers along the jagged, rough-cut limestone edges and was sure they were bleeding... again!

But I didn't stop.

My trailing foot suddenly caught a rock poking out above the ground and I toppled forward. But it felt like a lifetime before my outstretched palms smashed into the gravel. As I continued to propel forward, I realized the ground sloped down, acutely.

I was sliding.

My mouth must have dropped a scream or two, but I was too busy trying to stop myself propelling down the slope. My battered hands dug into the rock, but only cut them deeper and made me want to scream more.

I suddenly looked up and saw a light.

Instantly, the contour of the tunnel floor revealed itself – rounded like a demented theme park slide. But I couldn't slow myself. Two heartbeats later, I plummeted head-first from the tunnel into an even deeper cavity. I landed belly-flop-style like an unco platform diver and yelped as the rough pebbles scraped the front of my torso.

At least I had stopped moving, I thought.

I felt groggy and exhausted. The pain in my hands, arms and legs was excruciating, but I was too whacked to care. I wiped the dust from my face and tasted blood in my mouth.

When I touched my lips with my other hand, I realized I no longer had the metal rod in my grip. It was lying in front of me, against the farthest wall of the space and out of reach. Too sore to stand, I began to crawl for it on my elbows and knees.

The room was cast in a sunset-orange light from flame torches fastened across its circumference. Despite the pain, it felt good to be out of the darkness.

I reached for the metal rod and grasped it with two fingers before drawing it close to my body.

But then, I heard a loud thud. I instantly stopped moving and hated the light that I loved only a heartbeat earlier. There was no cover in the room. No place to hide. No other tunnels. No more avenues of escape.

Slowly, I rolled onto my back, but I already knew what I would find. My face must have looked helpless and defeated as I rolled into Helen's view.

She stood tall in front of the tunnel entrance through which I had plummeted, and she beamed with the same wicked smile I had seen earlier.

I waved the metal rod wildly from side to side as I desperately scrambled onto my butt. "Come on!" I screamed, trying to buy some time, knowing I needed to get to my feet if I was to stand any chance. "What are you waiting for?"

For a moment, I believed I had a fighting chance. Helen was a towering woman who looked strong and had the will to be ruthless. But she was unarmed and I had a metal bar.

But as I tried to scramble to my feet, our lines of sight locked. I watched the blue in her eyes fade to black.

Her eyelids stretched and her cheekbones appeared to dislodge, making her face seem strangely enlarged. The muscles in her neck stiffened and then, bulged. Her entire upper body broke free from its normal posture and cracked into awkward angles with the most god-awful sound I'd ever heard.

All at once, she enlarged lengthways and sideways.

The skin stretched across the abnormal bone structure and filled the loose-fitting clothing covering her from head to toe.

I stopped moving – quit trying to get to my feet – stunned by the transformation I was witnessing. It was disgusting, incredible and terrifying, all at the same time.

Helen's shoulders, hips, elbows, fingers and knees all appeared to disjoin at the same time and visible muscles swelled and protruded grotesquely as her body deformed.

She towered into the air and her disfiguring head craned forward as it hit the ceiling. She grew to almost ten feet in height and three feet wide.

Her face expanded and mutilated itself into an ugly, monster-like version of itself. The disjointed bones in her fingers extended into spiny talons and she began to spread her arms like a vulture, ready to pounce on its prey.

And those eyes – the large, black balls pulsating from their sockets – looked vile and other-worldly as they stared at me, filled with a lifeless hatred.

Her voice changed from her usual annoying shrieking to a deep, throaty groan. Her teeth poked from her lips as her jawbone realigned itself to fit beneath the rest of the distorted skull. The nose looked extended – like the rest of her extremities – and she looked unable to keep her thin lips together.

She was one ugly witch, I thought.

I sat motionless as I watched Doctor Helen Wexler transform into a huge, hideous monster. Her face blazed with furor and I realized it was no longer a fair fight.

Reactively, I dropped the metal bar to the ground and let my body slide back along the farthest wall to the gravel. Helen's monstrosity and heaving bulk stunned me into submission.

I wanted to cry for help, but knew it was futile.

She groaned like a wild animal and spread her arms, diving towards me. Her face filled my vision and I pressed my head back as far as I could. I saw her hands reach for me and then, everything was pitch black once more.

# Chapter 58

I woke sluggishly and with a throbbing pain in my butt. It took a while for my eyes to want to open and, in the blackness, I licked my lips for some moisture, but found only sandy residue and the remnants of dried blood from inside my mouth.

Urghh!

As the hammering pain travelled up my back and down towards my feet, it suddenly occurred to me that I was lying on my back. A barrage of Where? How? and Why? pumped my cognition with a burst of motivation, and I snapped my eyes open.

From the flickering orange lights on the jagged edges of the limestone above me, I knew I was still inside the cave complex. Staring straight up, I suddenly realized that I couldn't move. It wasn't because my body was too sore, or through lack of will.

I was tied up!

As I angled my eyes downwards, I saw ropes clenched across my torso. I tried moving my arms and legs, but I felt the pressure of constriction press into my skin. As I lifted my head, I heard the gut-wrenching sound of metal and instantly felt the weight around my neck. I was shackled. And I knew in a heartbeat, that it was the same neck brace I had seen on Mary Steele. My body began to spasm and feel for contours beneath me. My shoulder blades moved freely and I knew that I wasn't lying on the ground or a bench, but on a narrow plank of wood.

I was tied to an inverted crucifix!

There was barely time for the ghastly predicament to penetrate my freaked-out brain, when I heard noises all around me. Shuffling noises. And guttural moaning.

I twisted my head sideways as much as the broad shackle allowed and expelled a horrifying groan of my own. The witches were all around me. As I cranked my head from side to side, I counted five. They all looked equally grotesque. Their bulks towered above me and their spiny claws explored the room, like the tentacles of mythical beasts.

Lifeless black eyes gazed at me hazily, but refused to lock stares. All, except one.

Helen.

She stood over me and gawked with her evil eyes. She attempted a sneering smirk, but the disfiguration of her hideous face, only made her look twice as ugly when her jaw muscles tightened. Crooked, blotched teeth poked at me like pick-up sticks, and the breath coming out her mouth was equally repugnant.

"You should have a mint," I said, defiantly.

Helen stared at me a moment longer, then said, "Maxima voces mori tardissimis!" Her bony talons reached into her colossal black cloak and she withdrew a dirty, scrunched-up cloth. I opened my mouth to scream, but she thrust the cloth into my hole and forced it down so far, that I almost gagged. "Et dolore," she added.

"I don't know what you're saying," I screamed, but it came out as little more than a muffled, indecipherable shriek through the rag.

The ugly witch turned away from me and joined her collaborators as they circled the elevated plinth on which the crucifix rested.

They clasped their wiry fingers together and bobbed their heads as they chanted in the same language Helen had just spoken. Their voices were deep, raspy and united. Every three or four steps, they raised their sinewy arms into the air and heightened the pitch in their verses. I felt like I was in some weird, anti-Christ-like church service. I was sure Pastor Crosbie would have a few choice words to say if he were with me.

I tried to get a better look at the gruesome fiends in the radiance of the flame torches lining the circular room walls. At first glance, the witches all looked like clones – the same disagreeable rendering of a raggedy old woman who'd fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. But as the witches circled me, I began to notice subtle differences in their character.

Some were even uglier than others!

One detestable villain had dark splotches across the scraggly skin on her face and hands. Her nose was disproportionately long and bent like a sickle. Her nails were black and dirty and her hands were smaller than those of the other witches. Another of the women had scars across her face – not dissimilar to Rumer. The scars ran sideways from beneath her right eye and down to left of her cheekbones. Because of the deformation of the skull and the warping of the skin, it was difficult to tell the exact nature of the mutilation but, even in the muted light, it was obvious.

The witches chanted for what felt like an hour. Their volume steadily increased to a holler. At one point, I screamed for them to shut up, but the rag in my mouth was far more effective than I anticipated. I tried to wriggle free. I knew there was no chance of escape at that moment, but I wanted to gauge how much room I had. If I could just get my hands free, I thought. But it was hopeless.

Suddenly, the pitchy chanting stopped dead. There was instant silence in the room and all my thoughts about escape and rebellion seized.

What were they up to?

I heard a throaty voice behind me. Even though it sounded nothing like her human persona, I knew it was Helen.

"Haurire cruorem puri!" she yelled.

I had no idea what it meant, but it didn't sound pretty. The witch with the ugly spots I had noticed earlier, stepped towards my right side. My eyes flourished wide as the repulsive women withdrew a short blade from inside her cloak. I yelled. I screamed. I began to writhe like a wild animal, but there was no way of getting out of my imprisonment.

The witch lifted the blade high above my mid-torso with both hands, growled primordially and slammed the tip of the blade into my right forearm, in between the ropes covering my wrists and elbows.

I screamed for five minutes!

The pain was inconceivable. I tried to get the rag out of my mouth, but each time it moved, a hand appeared from behind me and shoved in down further. I needed air. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.

The blood oozing from the cut in my arm felt warm in the cool antechamber, and there was so much adrenalin gushing through my entire body, that it quickly tired of telling me how much it hurt.

Having yanked the blade from my wound, the spotty witch touched the blood-soaked blade to the tip of her tongue, exuding sounds of delight as she did so. She tasted my blood! Then, the woman passed the dagger to the even uglier witch beside her. The second ogre repeated the same process and the blade, with my blood on it, quickly made its way around the room.

When the dagger returned to the woman who had plunged it so nonchalantly into my skin, all five witches exalting, emitting deafening howls that roared like thunder. Their arms flailed wildly in the air with excited exultation.

In an instant, I felt myself move. The crucifix wobbled momentarily, before I was hoisted into the air. Two witches carried me at their waist height, which I estimated to be at least six to seven feet off the ground.

The fabric in my mouth again inhibited my screams, but I wanted to let my nemeses know I was still alive and not going to give up simply because they had me tied to a plank of wood and driven a dagger into my veins.

My hunger for retribution buzzed inside my skull.

The witches formed a queue as the procession left the round, limestone room. I was carried by the second and third witches in the line. The chanting began again as we wound our way through the honeycomb of tunnels. The rasping, foreign tones echoed off the limestone walls and were twice as annoying as earlier. I offered my own contribution. By struggling on the crucifix as much as possible, it was increasingly difficult for the ugly fiends to hold onto the cross. I was in the fight of my life and I wasn't planning on giving them an inch.

In retaliation, by the time we reached to the top of the slope directly beneath the Gingerbread House – where I once again spotted the wooden beams and multitude of pipes – the witches slammed my shoulder into the wall. Part of the limestone broke away and it felt like my collar bone cracked with it, but I refused to show any sign of emotion. It was the only time on the crucifix I had been deadly silent.

They continued slowly and carried me awkwardly up the stairs, scraping my shoulder again, along the jagged rocks. If I was ever to survive my predicament, I was sure I would need months of rehab, both physical and mental.

Within seconds, I was back inside the Gingerbread House proper. We passed the two rooms of horror and quickly moved through to the main lounge area. I couldn't see the door at the far wall and I could only hope Lexie was still okay... and still alive.

I will come back for you. I promise, I had said. As we passed through the front door and into the chilly night, I stopped myself from letting the barrage of opposing thoughts overwhelm me.

Despite my god-awful predicament, it was nice to be in the open, night air.

The two witches carried me high in its frigidness. I only saw trees passing by either side of me and little else. Through the shadowed forest canopy, I clapped eyes on the abundance of stars watching our wicked precession. I again thought about nanna. And all the authority over my feather-thin resilience broke away.

I had fought for so long to keep my fear dormant, to pretend to be in control and to, at the very least, lie to myself that I would find the absolution that betrothed the bravery and foolishness which had brought me into the dark woods in the first place. But memories of my dead grandmother brought an instant end to my toughness.

My recollections returned to the train tracks and looking up at the stars on that momentous night, thinking about nanna's passing. I wondered if she was looking down on me, shaking her finger, like she used to do, saying, "Sara, you stupid girl. What were you thinking?" Or would she be proud of me, I wondered. Happy that I had given it my best shot, regardless of whatever outcome lay beyond the darkness. I had not earned it yet, I thought.

And what would Rumer think of me? I had shown no patience to wait for him. I had been defiant and stubborn. He was the most annoying person I had ever met and yet I was completely and wholeheartedly in love with him. Sitting in my bedroom, I had dreamed so often of my first kiss and how I would love the boy I first kissed, forever. I knew it was foolish and that such romantic fairy-tales were little more than the sugar-coated musings of a desperate teenager.

But I knew Rumer was that boy – and I was yet to kiss him. As the stars bobbed in and out of view through the tree tops, I dreamed about holding him tightly forever and having his body warm mine and... I missed him so much. I wished more than anything that he was with me.

Straining the muscles in my neck to look up, through my eyebrows, and into the direction we headed, I instantly noticed a tinge of tangerine mixing with the blues and blacks of the leaves and tree trunks.

Fire!

I knew exactly where they were taking me. Time was running out to devise a plan for a final stand – a last attempt at freedom.

I wriggled again, trying to be cunning, but there was so little movement. My right arm was virtually useless from the stabbing. It was numb and I barely felt any movement in my fingers. My left side wasn't much better. My shoulder ached and throbbed and I struggled to make a fist with any real conviction.

How was I ever going to be strong enough to take a witch down?

How was I going to take five of them down?

And how the hell was I going to break free from the ropes?

It was the last proposition that troubled me most. If I couldn't break free, then any doubts about my fighting ability were hopelessly superfluous.

But as the orange glow intensified, I began to hear the distinct crackling of wood on the fire and I knew my available time was shorter than ever.

Moments later, I twisted my head sideways and clearly saw the flames. I was back in the clearing where I had killed the first witch and brought to fruition Mary Steele's dying wish. It wasn't a place I was likely to forget in a hurry.

The witches plonked me down beside the fire with a thud. It hurt like hell. I wanted to scream, but the bloody rag was still the cork in my verbal champagne.

Then, unexpectedly, the witch I knew to be Helen, pulled the filthy cloth from my throat.

"Scream all you like!" she said.

"You do speak English now?" I said, defiantly.

She snarled like a wild animal, but dumped the rag on the ground, before walking away.

First, I sucked in the most beautiful volume of chilled mountain air I had ever tasted – despite the smoke. And then, I let out a scream that I almost deafened myself with. It was so loud. "Help!" I screamed, again. "Somebody help me!"

The witch with the scarred face rushed to my side and leaned over me, raising her filthy black boot above my head, threatening to stomp on it. But there was a noise. A growl from across the fire. And the witch reluctantly returned her foot to the forest floor beside my head. She'd been told off. She gave me a decent kick with the steel cap in her boot on the sly.

I yelled again.

After she walked away, chanting like an obsessed devil, I began my last-ditched effort for freedom. I was only a few feet from the fire. It was hot like an inferno. In less than a minute, I felt sweat streaming across my entire body. But I thought it could be a means of escape. I desperately tried to hustle myself and the crucifix closer to the camp fire. If I couldn't break the ropes, maybe I could burn the bloody things off me.

I groaned and strained as I writhed. Panic began to crawl over my body, like weeds in a rose garden, and I struggled to keep any level of sanity. Words were pouring from my mouth as tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes, annoyingly blurring my vision. Bloody hell, I thought. Could I make it any more challenging for myself?

The heat was excruciating and began to burn my skin. I felt the hotness in my pores and in my eyes and on my cracked lips. I forced my chin forward to survey the ropes, only to discover they looked no different than minutes earlier.

The fire had virtually no effect on the bindings, whatsoever.

Suddenly, the crucifix moved. My body angled upwards and, in an instant, I stood upright. The timber at the bottom of the cross took what little slack there remained in my confinement. The witches secured the inverted crucifix with angled planks of wood and tested its sturdiness by giving me a thump in the chest with the palm of a swinging hand.

I looked up, staring at the fire directly ahead of me. The flames towered into the night sky higher than the crucifix – higher than the witches.

The ogres began to chant once more. Louder, and with a deeper tone. I still could not understand a word they were screeching, but I knew exactly what they were building up to. Their excitement frenzied as they prepared to sacrifice another virgin in their despicable tribute to some dead, black witch to be risen from eternal hell. They had some serious issues! I thought.

Suddenly, there was silence. And I saw what I dreaded most.

The gleaming sabre.

At that moment, I felt pee running freely down my leg as I lost all control of my bodily functions. My heart pounded, knowing that the game was up. I wriggled violently one last time in desperation, but there was no movement, no give in the ropes or in the shackle around my neck... and no freedom.

I knew my time had run out.

Slowly, I turned my eyes towards the largest of the witches as she approached with the glistening blade. I knew it was Helen. The evil in her black eyes were void of humanity, and she tried once more to snicker and salute her own victory with a vile display of self-gratification. "Go on then," I said, defiant to the end. "Do it, you bitch! Finish it! Kill me!"

Her spiny fingers ripped my shirt just below the neckline. She tried yanking it further down, but the ropes held firm. It didn't seem to matter. Helen pressed the blade against my flesh. I shivered, feeling the hard, warm metal against my skin. It was the fear of what I knew would happen next that terrified me more than the actual blade itself.

The witches howled in their foreign language. Their ecstasy of evil echoed throughout the forest and beyond. The Legend of the Leura witches was alive in all its ghoulish glory.

Helen drew the blade across my flesh, ripping the skin. I felt warm blood creep out – slow at first, but then, with pulsing regularity. The witches laughed and gaggled. They were having the time of their lives.

Helen stepped to within a foot away from my face. Her ugly head and bad breath engulfed me. She pressed the tip of the sabre to the base of my throat, ready to drive it all the way through to the wood behind my neck. She smirked with her hideous teeth.

I was silent, except for a single tear inching across my cheek bones.

Helen's eyes were black as coal. "Cogi qui potest nescit mori..." she whispered.

I wanted to respond with something smart, as I had earlier, but the will of rebellion had settled in my veins. Even though my body physically trembled at the thought of death, my spirit was content that I had fought a good fight. I had been brave. I had proven to myself that I was wrong to think I was better off dead. My few months with Rumer had been the best of my life and I wouldn't trade them, not even for my soul.

He had taught me to fight for those who could not fight for themselves. He had inspired me to appreciate that the best things in life were not those that we could touch, or see or smell – but those things we felt in our hearts.

And as I felt Helen increase the pressure on my throat with her blade, I rejoiced in the one thing that Rumer had taught me above all other things...

To never, ever, give up.

"PERICULUM!" one of the witches behind Helen screeched.

"Daemonium!" screamed another.

Helen's black eyes grew to the size of golf balls. She snapped her neck around and saw the other witches pointing skywards. Her eyes angled up. "No," she mumbled, in English.

She stepped away from the crucifix, trying to maintain pressure with the blade, but her astonishment captivated her, and she distractedly dropped the sabre away from my throat.

The witches' movement revealed confusion. Their disfigured jaws hung open and their groans were tinged with a dread I had not heard in their tones before.

I looked up to where the witches pointed.

In the darkness of the night sky, I saw a black shape blot out the stars at it soared above. The form instantly changed course, plummeting from the sky towards the clearing. Its black, wing-like extremities spread like the wings of an angel and the shape hit the ground with the resolve of an enraged giant.

He straightened himself and stared with unyielding eyes in my direction. With one enormous leap he stood beside me. "Hello, Sara," he said, in his deep tone.

"About time you got here!" I groaned, with my last reserves of energy.

# Chapter 59

Hell broke loose!

The witches released a deafening growl of anger. For the second night in a row, their hideous plans had been disturbed, and they weren't happy about it.

Rumer tried to yank me free from the ropes and neck shackle, but my attention quickly locked onto the shapes behind him. "Look out!" I yelled.

He snapped around. The witch with the scar across her face that had stabbed me earlier, now wielded the sabre and she shot in our direction, thrashing the blade left and right as she advanced. She groaned and heaved and her face brimmed with fury.

Rumer took one step to his right to ensure he stood firmly between me and the witch. He extended his arms forward and spread his gloved fingers wide.

Suddenly, the advancing witch slammed into an invisible shield around us. She hit the safeguard so hard that her body bounced off and plummeted backwards to the ground. Her arms and legs sprawled outwards as the witch writhed desperately on her back, like a toppled-over rhinoceros. She lost her grip on the sabre as she fell, and it flung high into the air.

Rumer switched his focus to the blade. He froze it mid-air above the witch, blade pointing down, towards her. He waited long enough to see the sprawling witch look, first at the blade, then at him, and back at the blade again. In an instant, Rumer shot the blade downwards. The sabre penetrated the witch through the middle of her chest and she howled like a wild, harpooned animal.

The force of Rumer's energy pushed the sabre through the witch until it caught at the handle. The blade itself stuck into the ground beneath her and the dying woman could no longer move. Her growls changed from anger and wrath to cries of agony and helplessness. She was done for, and she knew it.

I looked up at the other witches. Their eyes exploded with rage as their howling turned into a deafening chorus of screams. The witch I knew to be Helen, riotously propelled her arms skywards. She hollered words I did not understand, but what she conjured, chilled me.

The fire at the center of the clearing erupted like it had a mind of its own, and it shot high into the night sky. Embers and flames whirled violently in a tornado of flames.

"Rumer!" I screamed.

He returned to me and worked frantically to get the ropes off me.

The fire got warm so quick, I thought I was about to spontaneously combust. I couldn't breathe and I was blinded by the heat storm.

Finally, I felt my arms drop freely away from the side of my body. The ropes dropped in front of me. One end fell close to the fire and instantly caught alight. I wanted to move, to run and to get away from the heat as quickly as I could, but Rumer's hand pushed me firmly to the cross.

"Wait!" he yelled.

The shackle around my neck!

With the rest of me free, it was almost impossible to keep still against the wooden plank. "Please hurry," I screamed.

There was no way Rumer would get the shackle off without some atomic-level intervention.

I remembered it around Mary Steele's neck – strong, stubborn, fatal. But in a flash, I heard the metal hinge snap apart. It dug momentarily into the skin of my neck and then, rolled across the gash on my chest. It hurt like hell.

But I was free at last.

We turned towards the fire. Rumer grabbed my hand. We could no longer see the witches because of the brightness of the flames, but we still heard them. The fire roared like a bear and had a depth of tone I would never forget.

Suddenly, the breadth of fire expanded in a furious burst. The wave of energy was so great, in knocked Rumer and me flat to the ground. We both fell backwards, landing with our butts in the dirt at the edge of the clearing.

He quickly turned to see if I was okay, but my eyes were glued to the shaft of flames. At the top of the fire stack, the inferno began to split, rupturing to the four winds. The end of each fire tentacle shot away, turned, and of its own volition, speared back towards us. As the four orange monsters gushed downwards, their ends transformed into recognizable shapes.

The heads of serpents!

Four snakes, made entirely from fire, materialized from the flames and aimed their focus on Rumer and me. Sprawled with our butts on the forest floor, we were lame ducks, ready for a roasting.

Rumer thought so, too. "We need to move!" he yelled. "Now!"

The four evil serpents opened their mouths wide as they struck. I saw their glowing eyes, flaming tongues and blazing teeth. They shot directly for us.

Suddenly, I felt my hand tugged violently. Rumer yanked me sideways and, in an instant, we were airborne. I felt the heat from one of the fire snakes as it snapped its jaws just beyond my trailing left leg.

We hoisted into the dark sky and the serpents gave chase. Rumer maneuvered me onto his back as he picked up speed. I looked behind and saw four trails of furious fire in hot pursuit.

"Go! Go! Go!" I kept yelling.

We rose high into the darkness, leaving the forest canopy below us, but the serpents followed, seemingly not bound by connection to either the forest or the witches which had engineered them.

They were truly alive!

And catching us, fast. Then, they separated and tried to encircle us. They were like a pack of hunting wolves.

Intelligent.

Ferocious.

Indefatigable.

"Hold on!" Rumer said.

I was already borderline strangling him from outright fear. There was no chance I was going to let go of him any time soon.

The open sky was our weakness. The fire snakes were able to position and maneuver themselves at will and orchestrate a sophisticated attack. And they were damn fast.

They were snakes made entirely from fire, I had to keep reminding myself.

Two shot wide and a third went up, faster and higher than us. They were planning another strike. Rumer tried to accelerate but, with me on his back, his velocity was limited.

We were in trouble.

The snakes poised their fiery necks for a bite. I looked up. The snake above us speared towards us. "Rumer!" I howled.

He instantly dropped altitude. My stomach paid a visit to the back of my throat, as we pitched violently towards the ground. Rumer headed back to the cover of trees.

The sniping serpent's jaws narrowly missed us and our sudden change in direction interrupted their assault.

I was hanging on for my life!

Letting gravity accelerate us towards the ground, our speed was frightening. I briefly closed my eyes, trying to reinforce the trust I had in the whole Rumer-controlling-space paradigm. Plummeting like a meteor towards the earth, I didn't have much choice other than to trust him.

The canopy materialized a second later and we narrowly missed the eucalyptus branches as we burst through the blanket of leaves. We were hidden and I thought we were safe. But the serpents broke through the foliage, scorching a path through the leaves.

We weren't safe at all.

And our flight path had just become a nightmare. We dipped into the forest proper and Rumer struggled to dodge the huge tree trunks randomly blocking our path. Left. Right. Left. Left again.

My legs around Rumer's torso tightened. It was like a wild rodeo ride, without end. My head snapped left and right and left again. I had no idea how Rumer was missing the trees.

He wasn't missing them by much!

And he didn't slow any, either. If we slammed into one of the trunks, we were bound to be killed instantly.

Then, I felt a burst of heat behind me. The snakes. They were keeping up with us, twisting through the tree trunks like we were. Four trails of fire winding left and right through the belly of the forest, snapping at our heels. If they weren't trying to bloody eat us, I may have thought that it was an enchanting sight.

Sparks and embers trailed in their wake. The snakes must have been thirty-feet in length, if not more. Their heads were the size of a car and, when they opened their mouths, their hideous fangs glowed and sparkled with a brilliant, fiery orange.

Their translucence made them all the more terrifying.

The heat emitting from their fury was intense. It felt like I was in the tanning salon from hell. Their see-through, glowing tangerine eyes – the size of watermelons – radiated a single-minded, deadly intent.

Us!

Left again. Right. It quickly became unbearable and I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to hang on. No matter how fast we flew or how complex our path through the mosaic of tree trunks, the snakes kept coming.

And they gained on us once more.

One snapped its jaws in my direction. It increased its speed and got ahead of the other snakes. Its eyes fixated on my face when I turned to look. The viper streamlined its fiery contours and prepared for the death blow.

"Rumer!"

"Hold on!" he yelled.

The snake got closer still. Its mouth opened and I saw its neck angle acutely, ready to strike. I yelled Rumer's name again. The serpent's tongue was close enough to reach out and touch. I felt its heat on my flesh. Its eyes bore into my skull. Its body rippled, propelling it forward even faster. Its fangs lined me up. It was about to attack.

My body then suddenly jolted upwards, more brutally than before. My fingers instinctively drilled into Rumer to ensure I didn't fall backwards. In an instant, we had changed our trajectory, from straight and level to directly up, perpendicular to the ground, following the contours of a huge eucalypt trunk as we shot skywards.

I turned to look for the snake. Our abrupt new angle had caught it completely by surprise. It smashed head-first into the tree trunk below us. I saw the flames, which made up its body, encompass the massive trunk at the base. Smoke and cinders exploded in all directions and I was certain I heard an agonizing growl.

Within a heartbeat, the snake was gone.

All that remained were spot fires at the base of the trunk and up the bark of the tree. But the serpent was destroyed, returned to its elemental state.

The three remaining snakes diverted around the trunk, not stopping to mourn their fallen comrade. They continued their heading for a split second, before turning skyward and climbing in our direction.

Rumer and I breached the canopy, slowed to a stall and then, let ourselves drop back beneath the tree line again. The serpents followed our lead and shot up from the trees. Like candy canes, they buckled over and U-turned back into the forest. Quickly, they located our position and resumed their unrelenting pursuit.

We picked up speed again, which I hated, because we zipped between the trunks faster and faster. I said nothing. I didn't want to interrupt Rumer's concentration. I had seen what happened to the snake on impact. If we splattered against the immoveable trunks, we wouldn't dissolve into the fire, but the outcome of our existence would be the same.

The snakes rapidly shortened their distance to us. They looked angrier, more hideous and more determined than before.

We needed to haul our butts into a faster gear.

"They're coming!" I yelled, suddenly worried again that my backside was about to have a fiery chunk taken out of it.

The three serpents twisted their way through the forest, snapping their jaws and growling in raucous tones. Again, they prepared for an attack.

As I twisted my head forward again, an unexpected light in the corner of my eyes snapped my attention.

The clearing!

The campfire was still burning and I was certain I saw the dark shapes of the witches in the flickering luminescence. I leaned forward and pointed, but Rumer had already seen it and hastily changed course.

As we approached the sacrificial site with the deathly vipers in tow, the huge bulks of the mystic women became clear in the light. The four remaining witches watched with snarled looks of derision as Rumer and I pelted across the top them. One of the witches reached for us with both arms, but we were too high and too fast.

The snakes followed our flight path and did not deviate an inch around the campfire or the witches. The woman who had tried to grab us, ducked to prevent her spiny fingers from being scorched by the howling flames shooting over her, in the form of a menacing serpent.

Rumer suddenly veered left and arched around, back towards the clearing.

"What are you doing?" I yelled into his ear, as I clung tightly to his body.

"Trust me," he said. "I have an idea."

"I trust you!"

We zigzagged through the trees. Loose branches occasionally smacked into us, but the fear of hitting something much bigger and more solid, suppressed any care about a few scratches on our hands and face. I hoped that a stray branch didn't swing me off Rumer's back and plummet me to the ground.

Within a few breaths, the witches and the campfire were directly ahead of us again. I checked over my shoulders.

Damn! They were persistent bloody vipers, I thought.

The snake closest to us, increased its speed and took lead of the hunting pack. It gained on us with a frightening ferocity.

Rumer dropped lower to the ground. The snake followed. I couldn't pull my eyes away from its mesmerizing, flaming head. We jerked left. Then right. Up a little. The serpent gained ground again. It was close. Too close.

But it was all part of Rumer's plan.

Then, he slowed down.

"What the hell are you doing?" I screamed.

He dipped down again. The snake followed. "Hold on!" Rumer yelled.

I looked up, dead ahead. The campfire was directly in front of us. "Oh my god!" I screamed. I ducked my head down. We flew straight through the burning fire and then, immediately up and over the witch, standing at the edge of the clearing. She looked bewildered and genuinely shocked at our surprise swoop.

There was no time for her to respond or move.

The indomitable snake followed us through the campfire, but lacked the human instinct to divert quickly enough. It blasted into the unfortunate witch with all its fury. The woman spontaneously burst into flames and howled in agony. The other witches tried to help her, but it was too late. The fire snake and the witch had become one. Flames whirled and screeched around in a horrifying, high-pitched whine.

The woman collapsed to the ground and was consumed by the inferno.

The serpent's form was devoured by its own ferociousness and burnt away, fuelled by the dying carcass of the witch. The snake was dead and it had taken one of its makers with it, straight to hell.

Rumer circled around again. Two snakes remained and their pursuit continued without pause. We dodged more trees. We climbed and dropped over fallen trunks. But the serpents kept coming. And they seemed more determined than ever.

Rumer tried to lure them into a collision with the tree trunks, but the snakes appeared to be learning, and they held back far enough to anticipate any change in our direction. We needed to come up with a better plan.

As we shot between the trees, the snakes gained on us with increased speed. I yelled Rumer's name again. He didn't respond.

Did he have a plan? We needed one, because within a heartbeat, both serpents were at our sides. One to my left. The other to my right. It was a coordinated attack. Smart buggers! I thought. They positioned themselves for a two-pronged assault. We were toast.

We shot upwards again. The snakes shadowed our every twist and turn. We headed back towards the canopy, increasing our speed as we reached the top of the trees.

"Do you trust me?" Rumer yelled.

It was a strange question to be asking as we hurled skywards. Why did he need the validation now? I thought. What the hell was he planning?

"Yes," I shouted. "I trust you."

We broke free into the night sky. The snakes were right behind us. They burst through the canopy, setting the tops of the trees on fire, but they kept coming at us.

Suddenly, I split free from Rumer. I thought for an instant that I had lost my grip, but it was no accident. Rumer forced me away from him and hurled me skyward and in the opposite direction to him.

My body flung through the blackness like a rocket. I looked back towards Rumer, further and further away from me. My desperate, outstretched arms reached for him, but he was already the length of a basketball court away from me.

I screamed my freaking head off!

I saw the serpents split. One changed its heading and rushed after Rumer. The other viper set its eyes in my direction.

Then, gravity overpowered my momentum sideways and I began falling. I was literally in free-fall, plummeting out of the sky and back to earth.

I burst through the forest canopy. The small branches and leaves brushed against my body as I fell backwards. I couldn't see what I was about to hit or how far I had left to fall. But I was in no doubt that at some point, if I wasn't impaled by a branch beforehand, I would splatter onto the ground and break every bone in my body.

I was no physics nerd, but I knew I fell from such a height, that I would not survive hitting the ground. But there were even bigger problems.

The fiery serpent followed me straight down, into the canopy and down through the trees. Having lost Rumer's propulsion, I hurtled downwards by gravity alone, and the snake quickly caught up. Its gaping jaws snapped wildly like a demented anaconda. Its tongue licked at my body and I felt it burn across my face.

I kept falling. The branches quickly gave way to open space. That could mean only one thing. I had to be close to the bottom of the trunks. Close to the ground. Close to my imminent death.

My screaming had not stopped since Rumer ejected me. It was the worst ride of my life and I was certain I'd bite the dust, with my last thoughts being about how much I hated Rumer for randomly tossing me through the air to my death.

The serpent arched its body. It opened its mouth further. Its evil eyes blazed. It was going to strike. Snake or terra firma, either way, I was seriously screwed.

Then, suddenly, I stopped falling. My body jolted violently sideways.

Rumer!

He caught me in his arms and continued on his sideways trajectory at speed. The snake pursuing me tried to make the abrupt turn with us, but there was suddenly another flaming streak.

The other snake.

The viper which had followed Rumer, continued its relentless pursuit and didn't see the other snake hurtling towards it from above.

They collided in an explosion of fire and brimstone. Embers and licks of flame catapulted through the trees. The inertia of the snake which had followed me, thumped both the serpents into the ground.

A blanket of fire instantly cloaked the forest floor. Trees and shrubs caught alight in the firestorm and the heat wave flattened the grass and weeds.

As Rumer and I ascended, away from the conflagration, I couldn't pull my eyes away from the brilliant light and dancing flames.

But when the luminance settled, the snakes were gone. Spot fires, burning bewitchingly in the blackness of the forest carpet, were all that remained of the two beasts. The collision had destroyed them both.

Rumer circled back to the location of impact, eased his speed and angled us upwards. We hovered vertically above the scorched earth to make sure there was no resurrection of the ghastly vipers. But they were gone, defeated, destroyed.

With my feet secured atop his boots, I pulled back from his torso, clinging to him with one arm.

I stared at him for a moment, then my rage took hold. I began smacking him with my free hand. "Don't you ever do that to me again! Are you out of your freaking mind? Do you know how scared I was?"

"Sara," Rumer tried to interrupt.

But I was having none of it. "You just threw me away. You made me fall from the sky. And there was a bloody snake on my ass. I could have died."

"Sara!"

"What?"

"You're okay, now!" Rumer said. "Everything's okay. Calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" I growled.

My anger was unfathomable.

"I had a snake on my ass, too," Rumer said, trying to hold in a sarcastic smile.

"Yeah, but..." The anger in me evaporated quickly after that. I had to giggle at his comment and I couldn't help but smile at his efforts to hide his own amusement.

With the serpents crushed, we cautiously made our way back to the clearing. The camp fire continued to burn like a lighthouse. The bodies of the two dead witches were piled together at the fire's center, burning in hell, but the three remaining witches were gone.

We quickly searched the surrounding forest, but there was no sign of the hideous fiends.

Rumer and I walked back to the campfire, hand-in-hand.

"What do you think?" I said.

I stared into the dark woods and said, "I know exactly where they have gone."

The Gingerbread House.

# Chapter 60

There was never any question about us going. We were safe and could have easily retreated to the comfort of home and engaged others to deal with the witches. But we chose to fight, we chose to accept the responsibility and we wanted to defeat the evil that roamed the dark woods.

And, of course, there was Lexie.

From above the forest canopy, it didn't take us long to find the Gingerbread House. We landed quietly at the edge of the property, in an orchard of young trees. The centerpiece of the plantation was an old-style, bluestone water-well and we hid behind it to devise a plan. I looked up at the wooden structure extending above us, covering the well with a delicate, quaint roof, and it looked somehow familiar.

I had seen that pitched covering before, I thought.

Our position provided for a clear view of the cottage. Its unusual-shaped stones glistened in the occasional bit of starlight peeking through the ever-increasing cloud cover.

The distance between the well and the house was less than thirty feet, but we saw no movement. The surrounding garden was unkempt and strewn with branches and the occasional boulder. My eyes fell on the end of the house closest to us. I saw no windows and I was certain it was the small room where Lexie and I had been caged. I wondered if she was still there.

I wondered if she was still alive.

"What do you suppose that is?" I whispered to Rumer, pointing away from the house to a large cylindrical container at the edge of the property.

"Water tank?" he said. But after he focused a little more closely, added, "No. Petrol, maybe. Oil? It looks like they've set up a self-sufficient outpost here. All the supplies they need to start a war."

"Supplies to kill people," I said.

"Come on," Rumer said, as he grabbed my hand, again.

But I yanked him back. "Wait!" I said, in the softest voice possible. We slumped back against the well. Rumer's eyes searched mine for an explanation, but I didn't move and held him as still as I could. I was certain I had heard something.

Voices. Faint voices.

We waited in total silence, but there was nothing. I wondered for a second if I was going crazy, but then, I heard it again. I definitely wasn't crazy. Growling, deep women's voices spoke in foreign tongues. It had to be the witches. But where? I thought.

I angled my body around the well to gain a better look at the Gingerbread House, but I saw no one. Suddenly, clarity struck me. Oh my God! Of course, I thought. I looked again at the layout of the property. If the end closest to us was the dreadful cage room, then the farthest end was where I had discovered the staircase – the steps that doubled back beneath the house leading towards...

Nudging Rumer, I clambered to my knees and poked my head over the rim of the water-well. Instantly, the guttural voices were clearer and louder. The witches!

I had been right all along!

The hole I had seen in the vaulted ceiling of the antechamber beneath the earth did lead to the open. It was the water-well. When I was in the underground room, I had been unable to see the stars and the trees and the sky because of the roof structure. But, seeing it from above, it all made sense and I finally understood why I'd seen nothing, but felt the cold, outside air gusting in – spilling over the well walls, beneath the roof, and down the shaft.

It was a secret way in and out of the tunnel complex beneath the Gingerbread House.

"Down there," I mouthed, pointing into the well.

We inched away from the bluestone and had a quick discussion about what to do next. Our first priority had to be Lexie and so we chose be smart and silent. Still holding hands, we stealthily crept to the front of the house. I had hastily explained the tunnel complex to Rumer and we figured, if the witches were beneath the home, it was relatively safe to simply walk up to the front door and enter like civil human beings. The Gingerbread House needed a good dose of normal people, I thought.

Rumer took the first step up the boulder to the front door. He gently, quietly, twisted the door handle, but the door didn't budge. "Should we knock?" he said, quietly.

"What?" I said. "Are you out of your freakin'—?"

"Sshhh... I'm kidding," he said.

"Not funny, Rumer!" I added.

He smiled. "I don't hear you call me by my name very often."

"What?" I said, again. Now? "Can we do this some other time, perhaps?"

And then, the lock on the front door clicked open. He'd been working his magic while distracting me and I'd taken the bait like a white shark to a bleeding seal. He twisted the door handle again and, with a soft squeak from the hinges, the door opened.

We were in!

I jumped up the boulders to Rumer's side, but he gently eased his arm in front of me and guided me to a safer spot behind him.

The space beyond the door was dark. The open fire had been extinguished, but the smell of smoke and scorched timber remained fresh in the damp air. It had only recently been put out.

As we shut the outside world away and let ourselves be enveloped by the Gingerbread House, the silence of the home was frightening. There was a sensation of terror dwelling in the woodwork and in the bluestones and in the...

Suddenly, there was a noise to our left. A dragging noise. And then, footsteps came from behind the door to the room where Lexie and I had been held captive. I pushed Rumer in its direction. He wanted to embrace more caution, but if Lexie was still alive, we needed to get to her as quickly as humanly possible.

"Come on!" I said, to reiterate my absolute seriousness.

We hustled to the door together, but my impatience got the better of me. I flung my hand to the door handle and, without hesitation, burst into the room. The shock made the muscle in my chest jump, and I thought I was having a heart attack.

Lexie was half out of her cage, her torso sprawled across the floor of the room. Her lower body poked through the open cage door. There was no animated movement from her, but I saw her chest rise and fall. She was still alive!

Leaning over her was one of the witches. The hideous form towered from the ceiling to the floor. The woman's head was cranked over to fit into the small space. Her face was grotesque. Her yellow teeth splayed in all directions.

In her hands she held a short dagger, poised to drive the tip of the blade into Lexie's body. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.

Surprise!

"Get away from her!" I yelled.

The witch turned in my direction. She took one leap, then launched herself towards me with the dagger pointed at my throat. It all happened so quickly, I had no time to react.

Suddenly, I felt Rumer's hands snake between my body and my elbows. His gloves appeared in my view as I felt his body press against me from behind. To the witch, I must have looked like a four-armed monster.

The huge bulk of the hideous woman suddenly froze mid-air, held for a heartbeat and then, thundered backwards into the rear wall. The mortar holding the bluestones together, fractured up and down the wall. The wood in the ceiling split and dust descended like a hailstorm. Because the witch was so large, she doubled over.

When she hit the wall, I heard a faint growl above the fracturing structure. The entire room shook as the woman struck the floor.

Moments later, her unsightly face gazed up at Rumer and me. Her black eyes projected hate and pain and defeat. She stared down to her own chest. I couldn't resist the temptation to follow her scrutiny.

Stuck in her chest, just to the left of center, was the dagger. Viscous, red blood pumped from the wound in irregular pulses. The dagger had penetrated her evil heart. She looked up only once more and then, slumped backwards against the wall.

The witch was dead.

Still standing behind me with his arms tucked beneath mine, Rumer hugged me. "Please be more cautious, Sara," he said.

It was a bizarre mix of romantic excitement, having his body pressed firmly against me and his arms wrapped around me like a winter skin, amongst the death and mayhem.

"Okay," I said. But my attention quickly turned to Lexie. Rumer must have sensed that, too, because he quickly let go of me. I was by her side in a flash. She felt cool, but there was no doubt that she was still alive. "Everything is going to be okay, Lex," I said. "We're going to get you out of here." I turned to Rumer. "Right?"

"Yes," he said. "But there's two witches left. What about them?"

"We have to kill them first, of course," I said, casually. "That goes without saying."

Rumer's eyes widened. I hoped it was because my fighting spirit pleased him, but feared he was starting to think I was a raving lunatic. "Yes. Of course," he said.

I gently stroked Lexie's forehead. "What should we do with her, in the meantime?" I said to Rumer.

"Make her as comfortable as possible. We'll leave her in this room."

"What if the other witches come?"

"I'll fuse the lock so that no one can get into the room without breaking the house down."

"Okay," I said, gently dragging Lexie fully from the cage.

I placed her in the center of the room and folded her arms over her chest. It wasn't much comfort, but I knew that I'd be back for her. "I'm going to get you home," I whispered in her ear. "I promise you, Lex. I'm going to get you home."

"Let's go," Rumer said. He held out his hand to help me to my feet.

I checked Lexie was okay one more time and we left the room. Rumer pulled the door shut and thrust his hand towards the lock. A moment later, the metal glowed red-hot and the space for the key disappeared altogether.

"Okay," he said, sternly. "Let's do this."

We were uncertain if the other fiends had heard the commotion, so we took extra care sneaking to the other end of the house. The door to the hallway was open, but we still kept as close to the walls for cover as possible, just in case. With each step closer, my fear increased tenfold. Even though Rumer shielded me from any surprise, I expected confrontation with every inch forward. The witches must have known we were coming.

Stepping into the corridor, my grip on Rumer's arm tightened as we approached the room where I had previously discovered the stored cages, shackles and chains. I didn't want to see the horror behind the door again, but it would have been imprudent to not check. I looked away when Rumer investigated. There was nothing. I did the same for the next room with its storage of suitcases and personal belongings of bygone victims.

Rumer carefully eased the door open and I heard him physically gasp when he saw the discarded bags, clothes and jewelry. He stood in silence. From a short distance, I saw his head tilt up and down as he fathomed the countless belongings.

"Sara," he said. "Look."

I shook my head. No!

"It's okay," he said, trying to soothe my despair with a soft, caring tone.

Reluctantly, I stepped towards the door frame.

Rumer entered the space. I engineered all the courage I could to look in, but there was no way I was ever going to step into the nightmare.

When he emerged, he raised his hand towards me. He had found something. A watch. My watch! Cindy!

The cocktail of realization was bitter-sweet. I was so glad to have my precious Cinderella watch back, but the idea that it had already been discarded onto the pile of the dead – laid with the memories of the tortured and deceased – made me physically ill.

"Cindy is still ticking," he said. "Let's not stop now." His stare was hypnotic and his implied symbolism was not lost on me. It corked my sickness and I sucked in a volume of dusty air in my search for courage.

He gently pulled the door shut behind him and we never spoke about that forsaken room again. As I secured Cindy back around my wrist, I knew I would never look at my watch the same way again. The history of all those victims would cry each time the hands ticked forward, and their unspoken memories would never be forgotten.

I looked at Rumer, there was only one place left to go. The door at the end of the hallway.

"Let's go slowly," he said.

I nodded. Yes!

We tiptoed to the wooden door. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Rumer said. "We could just grab Lexie and get out of here."

My eyes locked with his. "Let's finish this," I said. "It's the only way we can stop these monsters from murdering again."

Rumer carefully opened the door. I instantly saw the orange radiance, and I knew the fires along the tunnel walls were burning. The witches were definitely home.

"After you," I said, with a wry smile.

Rumer wasted no more time and stepped onto the staircase leading down into the complex of tunnels.

"Careful," I said. I kept a few steps behind as we descended, and I felt a familiar, cool chill on the back of my neck as I thought about the two remaining witches. Where were they?

Rumer paused before taking the final step onto the sandy, tunnel floor. He double-checked his footing and ran his gloved fingers across the limestone walls. Looking back over his shoulder, he said, "You okay?"

"Yes."

We advanced in virtual slow-motion. The spasms in my heart were intolerable. I had let go of Rumer. I was so nervous, his entire body vibrated when I held his hand. A sticky mixture of sweat and blood covered almost every inch of my skin and I felt disgusting. But my anxious heaving for oxygen and the thumping inside my chest were enough of a distraction from the embarrassment.

Another step forward. And another. I grabbed one of the flame torches, like I had the last time. Rumer seemed to care less about the need for props, and he continued confidently down the main artery of the limestone complex.

When he reached the offshoot tunnel to the right side, Rumer stopped and bent over, gazing into the blackness. He held his position for a moment and then, reached his arm back to me.

I couldn't resist the temptation to be a proper smart-ass. "A bit of light would be good, huh?" I said.

He turned to smile at me.

But just as the light from my flame torch reached the black hole, I saw movement. I wanted to scream Rumer's name, but it happened too quickly. The round space of the tunnel entrance instantly filled with a shape. And before Rumer could look away from me and towards the danger, the huge bulk of the witch shot out of the hole.

They both plummeted to the ground. I recognized the witch immediately. It was the spotted ogre.

She raised a curved dagger into the air and speared it into Rumer's torso. He groaned and I immediately knew he was in serious trouble. I wanted to scream, but decided to act instead. I jumped towards the witch, but she was so big and strong she pushed me backwards. I fell hard against the limestone, my head smacking onto the gravelly ground.

As I looked back down the tunnel, I saw the witch stab Rumer a second time and a third. With each wound I heard his howling and felt the anger exploding inside him.

The witch raised the dagger again, but Rumer wasn't going to take it any longer. He wrestled an arm free from beneath the giant frame of the witch. He forced it to her face. She squealed and thrashed wildly with her blade, trying to wound him again and again.

It gave Rumer a chance to free his other arm. He looked so small, squashed beneath the witch – like a grasshopper pinned by an elephant.

I scrambled painfully to my knees, desperate to get to my feet. I needed to help him. New Sara was no damsel in distress.

But Rumer yelled, "No, Sara. Stay back!"

I wanted to fight, but I knew I was no match for the hideous monster. Staying put and watching Rumer struggle, was the most difficult thing I'd ever done.

Then, Rumer rammed the witch against the tunnel wall. The impact was so great, she howled like a hyena. I saw Rumer extend his arm toward the dagger, using his power to apply unparalleled pressure on the witch's grip. She immediately dropped the blade to the ground, but it only amplified her rage.

She slapped Rumer with her bony claws, scratching his face.

I had never felt such hatred running through me!

The tunnel echoed with a screeching holler. I wanted to cover my ears. It was so excruciating that I thought they were going to explode. It was the witch that screamed. Rumer hurled her sideways, down the tunnel. She rolled across the tight space. Her huge mass bounced off the tunnel wall and, with each impact, the witch's shrieking deepened. Rumer scrambled to his feet.

But the witch was quick to regain her stance. Much quicker than Rumer expected! They leapt towards each other, colliding like two raging bulls. Their heads crashed together as they entangled in a fight for their lives. The witch secured a tight grip on Rumer. She physically lifted him off the ground and slammed him upwards. But Rumer didn't hit the tunnel ceiling. The witch pounded Rumer upwards in the spot I had discovered earlier, where the foundations of the Gingerbread House were exposed.

Rumer crashed into the wooden beams. I saw his head smack against the underside of the house. It knocked him badly and he instantly looked dazed. The witch pulled him back and slammed him upwards again and again and again.

"Stop it!" I yelled. "You're killing him!"

But the ogre wouldn't stop. She smashed Rumer's body into the underside of the Gingerbread House again.

His body missed the wooden beams and crushed the piping that ran beneath the house. The ducts broke open and liquid sprayed out, covering both Rumer and the witch.

The monstrous woman tossed Rumer to the ground. He slid several feet down the slope. With her back to me, she threw her weight on Rumer once more. Her spindly fingers wrapped around Rumer's throat and she exalted a deafening roar of exultation as she began strangling the remaining life out of him.

Do something, Sara! I yelled at myself in silence.

The tunnel was blocked by the huge bulk of the witch. I was never going to get around her. But then, I saw it, glistening on the ground.

I was so angry at myself. Why had I not thought about it sooner?

The dagger!

I sprinted forward, bent over to pick up the weapon in my advance and, with all the force I could muster, I drove the dagger into the witch's back. She flinched and howled instantly. Her hands released from around Rumer's neck as she tried desperately to pull the blade out.

But she couldn't reach it.

I stepped backwards, watching the monster struggle. Her screams became more primal, more deafening, more intolerable. But there was no way those spidery hands were ever going to catch the blade handle.

The witch fell backwards, writhing and squealing. She tried to use the tunnel walls for leverage to get to the blade, but it only forced the curved dagger in deeper and immobilized her further.

I finally jumped over her. She was too consumed with her own survival to care about me. When I reached Rumer, he had already managed to raise himself to his elbows.

"Are you okay?" I yelled.

"I'll survive." He rubbed a film of liquid from his face and smelled his gloves.

"What is it?" I said. But from the odor filling the tunnel, I already knew.

"Oil or petrol," Rumer said. "From the tank we saw in the yard."

Together we looked up at the piping. The liquid continued to gush out. It sheeted across the tunnel walls and meandered down the slope, into the rest of the complex.

"Come on," Rumer said, getting to his feet.

The witch barely moved. She twitched oddly, sporadically trying to force her arm to her back, but she was done for.

Rumer looked in bad shape. His jumper was blood-soaked and filthy. His face was covered with dirt and he smelled like a petrol pump. "You might want to stay away from the flame torches," I said, smugly.

"Let's find Helen," he said, ignoring my warning. "Let's end this. I'm no longer finding any amusement in this madhouse."

He took my hand and we stepped through the liquid gathering at our feet. We scrambled down the limestone slope and into the antechamber.

"Look," I said, pointing to the hole, high above us in the domed ceiling. "That's the well."

Rumer stumbled to the center of the room and gazed up. I was certain it crossed his mind to get out while we could – while we were still alive.

Covered in blood and lacerations and feeling vulnerable and weak, I no longer believed Rumer was under any illusion about how serious a danger we were in.

The liquid gushing from the pipes entered the vaulted room and crept between my runners. "Pretty soon this place is going to be swimming in the stuff," I said, with a hint of concern. "We don't have much time."

I looked at the three tunnels leading from the antechamber.

Where to go?

What to do?

And where was Helen?

Then, I felt a cool chill gust in behind me. Before I had a chance to register what on earth was going on, the flame torches blew out one by one, and Rumer and I were instantly shrouded in pitch blackness. There was no more light. No more sound.

All I heard was my own breathing and, for the briefest of moments, I thought I may have passed out. But I still heard Rumer's voice.

"Sara? Are you okay?" he said.

"Yes. What's happening?"

"I don't know," he said. "But I bet it isn't good."

I was ready to pee my pants again. My hand reached out for Rumer, but I couldn't find him. We were both blind as bats.

Suddenly, there was a noise behind us. I swiveled on my heel and heard Rumer twist, too. But it was a decoy. The attack came from the other side.

An enormous gust of wind rushed past me. Rumer groaned, and I heard an almighty thud on the ground. Every sense in my battered body knew Rumer had just hit the ground hard, but I couldn't stop myself from calling his name.

"Rumer? Rumer?"

I was suddenly thrust sideways. A huge weight pushed on me and propelled me through the room. I was literally being carried!

My hands scrambled for something to hold onto – something to stop my movement – but I was a passenger through the darkness.

When I screamed Rumer's name again, the sound reverberated close to my skull and I realized I was already inside one of the tunnels extending from the antechamber. I reached my arms out again, and they instantly scraped along the limestone walls. Ouch!

There was no stopping my momentum.

My attention turned to the bulk pressing into my back. I felt around my waist for what was holding me and then, my hands connected with what felt like chicken bones. It was a hand. The talons of a witch.

Helen!

My lips spread to yell obscenities, when suddenly, the rigid grip on me, loosed. I tumbled forward and smacked my face into the gravel on the ground. Yelping like a wounded puppy, I didn't know how much more abuse my body was going to take.

I kept deadly still in the blackness. But almost instantly, spheres of light came to life around a circular chamber. Six flame torches ignited of their own volition, bathing the large, round tomb in a dazzling orange.

I turned my body fully around and found the witch I knew to be Helen, towering over me, heaving like a blood-thirsty leviathan. Oh crap!

But my first words weren't about concern for me. "What did you do to him?" I said.

"Exterminati!" she growled.

"Speak English, you ugly cow!" I screamed.

She leaned in. Her face was less than a foot from mine. "Perhaps, when you bleed, you won't be so smart," she said.

"Perhaps you could find a mint or two."

Her spiny claws wrapped around my face. It hurt like hell, but I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of screaming. The power in her talons was incredible. Even when I viced her bony wrist with both my hands, her grip was immovable.

"Puella ridiculam. Mortuus cito," Helen said.

She dragged me to the center of the room. At first, I thought it was a plank of wood, but when Helen rolled me over and tossed the timber across my back, I realized it was another bloody inverted cross.

There was no binding ceremony. She secured my hands behind the crucifix with a single, painful shackle. She tied my angles to the base of the timber with a length of frail rope, and dug her fingernails into my side to make sure I was secure.

She dragged me and the crucifix across the room. I stopped sliding through the gravel and suddenly found myself hauled across a number of flat, wooden planks with bolts sticking out of them. They scraped the crap out of me.

Helen kept mumbling the same indecipherable phrase over and over. "Virgineum cruorem! Virgineum cruorem!"

She planted her foot in the center of the cross and leaned over again. I heard the sound of jingling chains. There was a clicking noise to my left and then, my right. And one more at my feet. Helen stepped off and I heard her footsteps fade away.

I struggled to keep my face off the wooden planks on which I lay. The splinters on the fractured wood were horrendous. I hated splinters! Suddenly, my entire body angled upwards at the sound of metal chains being dragged through a pulley.

I was being hoisted into the air!

The cross slammed into the domed ceiling and I hung three feet off the ground at the most uncomfortable angle imaginable – and shackled to an inverted crucifix.

As Helen secured the pulley device, I was able to explore the room properly, for the first time. The planks of wood from which I was hoisted weren't just random bits of timber. They were doors into a compartment beneath the ground. The floor around the room was marked with a dark etching. It was a circle with a large triangle and some writing which I couldn't understand. It all looked like hocus-pocus to me.

Most troubling was the liquid which had begun contaminating the entire complex from the burst pipes. I saw it creeping into the tomb, trickling down from the connecting tunnel. It crawled along a shallow ridge running the circumference of the circular room.

My attention turned to Helen. She stepped to the wooden doors and yanked them open one by one.

Dust flew in every direction, but what was hidden beneath the access panels revolted me to my core.

There was a corpse!

Three feet beneath the ground, I saw a mummified corpse of a witch in a glass coffin. It was hideous.

It reminded of the preserved specimens I had been forced to see numerous times in science class.

The mummy was withered and brown. Strips of bandages covered parts of its torso, legs and arms but, for the most part, the cadaver was exposed – saved from decomposition only by the air-tight container in which it slumbered. Its hands were shrewd and spiny, like the other witches. And its teeth needed some serious dental work.

Helen spread her arms wide and groaned with jubilation. "Only the pure blood of virgins," she shouted in English, "will resurrect the darkest of us all."

She pulled a long blade from her cloak and stepped around the sepulcher towards me. "My family has tried for years to bring back the black power, but you know what the problem is, Sara?"

Was that rhetorical or was she seriously expecting me to answer? I thought.

Luckily, she continued. "Girls never seem to tell the truth about what they get up to, anymore. But I know you're a virgin. Isn't that right?"

I tried to wriggle my arms free, but the shackles held firm. My feet, though, were able to twist a little and I began to think that, with a little covert effort, I might get them free. The single length of rope put up a good fight to keep me restrained.

"Tempus moriendi. Tempus moriendi!"

My eyes filled with fright. The woman was completely mad and I was about to be the sacrificial offering in her belief of raising the ugliest person I'd ever seen in my life from the grave. I screamed out of fear.

Helen screamed with pure ecstasy.

Then Rumer screamed.

The witch instantly turned around.

Rumer stood at the entrance to the tomb, half slumped over. In his hand he held a blood-soaked dagger, which he promptly threw to the ground in disgust. I knew it was his blood on the blade.

Helen was ready launch at him and strike him down. But at that instant, I overcame the rope and yanked my feet free from the cross. Letting the shackles around my wrists excruciatingly take all my weight, I raised my knees to my chest, and in one sharp movement, thrust them forward. I kicked the witch in the back with such force, she lost her balance and tumbled forward. She shrieked and desperately stretched out her arms to save herself.

But she fell face-first into the crypt and smashed the glass coffin into a thousand pieces. In a flash, she smothered the corpse with her own huge bulk. The impact was so intense, the entire tomb vibrated, and the leftmost chain holding up the crucifix snapped free. I angled sharply downwards and I thought the whole shebang was about to collapse and plummet me on top of Helen – into one macabre, necromancer sandwich.

"Rumer!" I yelled.

He instantly moved. But not towards me. He slammed the two wooden panels shut, trapping Helen in the void beneath, pressed between the wooden doors and the mummified black witch. He tied the handles with the fallen length of rope which had briefly secured my ankles.

It wasn't much of a hold.

The witch howled and thumped away at the doors from the inside. Our only advantage was that she'd fallen in face down and there was no room for her to move.

Rumer's attention turned to me. He ascended to my eye level, but he struggled to remain airborne. He looked barely conscious.

Quickly, he engineered my freedom, took hold of me and, a heartbeat later, we landed feet-first in the center of the tomb. I stared at the flimsy tie holding the doors of the sepulcher shut. "Do you think it will hold her?" I said.

"Probably not!" His focus rose to the crucifix. "How about we use the chains?" Rumer said.

He shot his arms towards the pulley. Instantly, the metal broke apart. But instead of falling straight to the ground, the sudden breakdown of tension hurled the chain off the pulley and across the tomb. It slammed against the domed wall and slid down, snapping off one of the flame torches on its way to the ground.

Rumer and I watched in horror as the fire appeared to fall in decelerated time. It somersaulted fully, scraped against the wall twice and then, landed within inches of the circumference trench. The shallow moat was filled with flammable liquid.

Ignition was inevitable.

"Go!" Rumer screamed at me. "This whole place is going to go up!"

We scrambled to the exit tunnel and up its rocky slope. My fingers were raw from digging into the jagged limestone, trying to get traction. Rumer was behind me, urging me on, but I was struggling. And then, I slipped.

My face fell into the running liquid. It stung the cracks in my lips and the scrapes on my cheeks and forehead.

Move, Sara!

I clambered on, sucking dry every last reserve of energy. We needed to make it to the antechamber and get the hell out of there, but I had no idea from where I would construct the energy to keep moving.

We both knew that the moment the fuel ignited, it would shoot around the room and follow a path back to its origin. The antechamber beneath the well was certain to be covered with the smelly liquid. As soon as the ignition reached the pool of flammable juice, it would go up in an instant.

"Go, Sara!" Rumer shouted. "Whatever you do, don't stop!"

No kidding! Thank you, I wanted to yell back, but I was consumed with the pain in my arms and legs and getting up the bloody slope.

Defying all the rebellion in my body, I finally reached the antechamber and time felt like it slowed to a trickle. Rumer pushed me the last few steps.

We both fell into the room and slid through the slimy liquid. Using each other for support, we pulled ourselves to our feet.

Then, there was a burst of orange light. The ignited fuel screamed up the slope behind us and surged into the vaulted room.

Rumer dived to grab me. Only our hands connected, but there was no time. He flew towards the opening in the ceiling. It was our only way out. My feet left the ground just as the liquid beneath me burst into flame. Our ascent felt like the passing of a lifetime. I saw the floor behind me explode inch by inch. The heat was like a thousand suns, and I had to look away or my eyeballs were sure to melt.

We rose into the shaft proper.

Suddenly, I felt my foot snag. Something gripped it.

Helen!

Her spiny fingers curled around my ankle. I looked down. The floor beneath her was ablaze. She was on fire, too.

Her cloak looked like the flaming wings on a devil.

Rumer was no longer strong enough to take all the weight, and our ascent came to a virtual stop. As he struggled to the top of the shaft, he thrust a hand over the rim of the water-well and held the weight of all three of us with one arm.

My body was being stretched between Rumer's grip holding me up and Helen's incredible weight dragging me down. I was going to snap right down the middle, I thought.

"Rumer!" I yelled. But he was barely able to hang on, himself.

If he let go of the stone, all three of us would plummet back down the shaft, into the fire, and burn. He had no strength to do anything other than cling on for all our lives.

I am not going to let you take us down! I yelled to myself, but the indignation was aimed at the gigantic ogre swinging off my leg.

The fire beneath us intensified rapidly. Even if Rumer could hang on, we'd all be roasted meat in a barbeque within seconds. It was now or never. Life and death was in New Sara's hands, and she needed to choose!

I looked down at Helen. She looked up at me. Her black eyes still brimmed with unbending hate and their evilness represented everything I had come to loathe. In them, I saw the destruction of my family, the transformation of mom into a stranger, the death of Mary Steele and the annihilation of Old Sara.

My hand gripping Rumer, tightened. My eyes narrowed and I sucked in what little oxygen I could muster from the rising smoke.

"Get off me you mother-freaking bitch!" I screamed.

I swung me free leg high and then, hacked it down as hard as I could. The heel scraped along Helen's arm.

And her grip on me broke free. Her eyes exploded with fear as she felt her body release and fall backwards. She screamed and howled and tried desperately to regain a hold. Her arms flailed wildly. Her legs tried to gain traction against the shaft wall, but her weight dragged her down into the inferno.

I caught a last glimpse of her despairing face and suddenly, she was gone, devoured by the flames. A burst of brilliant orange light shot up from the fire as she hit the ground. The flames took her to pieces bit by bit and melted her into oblivion.

I couldn't see her anymore and her screaming faded to black.

The bitch was dead!

With the extra weight gone, Rumer quickly hurled the two of us over the edge of the water-well. We rolled across the soft, cool ground of the garden surrounding the Gingerbread House.

We were outside and free!

Flames shot up from the shaft and destroyed the quaint roof structure of the well. It tumbled down the chute and we both knew the entire tunnel complex beneath us was engulfed in fire.

"Are you okay?" Rumer said.

"Yes. You?"

He nodded, but I knew he was struggling.

Rumer looked back at the Gingerbread House. "We need to go," he said. "The whole place could blow. Who knows what they've got stored in there?"

I was about to agree, when the most god-awful feeling struck me cold. "Lexie!" I screamed.

Rumer jumped to his feet. "Get to safety. Run as far away as you can!" he said. Then, he jumped skywards.

As I scrambled to my feet, I watched him rocket towards the Gingerbread House.

At almost the same time, the far end of the cottage exploded and erupted into flame. The energy released by the blast was like a speeding train hurtling towards Rumer and towards the room where we had left Lexie, lying on the floor.

Then, I saw the full power of Rumer's ability. As he shot towards the building, he split the wall in two, right down the middle. Bluestones and wood burst in all directions. The Gingerbread House was being devoured by unparalleled energy – from both ends.

As the force of the fiery explosion from the far end engulfed the house, Rumer disappeared through the fragmented wall. In a heartbeat, he and the flames met face to face, and the Gingerbread House was instantly turned to fire.

The entire cottage disappeared in a roaring firestorm.

"No!" I screamed.

But before I drew my next breath, I saw a dark shape catapult from the burning building into the night sky. Flaming embers and smoke trailed away as the black shadow ascended into the darkness.

I backed away as the house exploded. The force of the eruption knocked me to the ground. Another burst of flame shot up from the water-well beside me. I was caught in a demented symphony of heat and deafening roars of explosions as they rocked the earth. The ground beneath me vibrated and I was afraid it could spilt in two and swallow me whole.

Scrambling to my feet, I ran into the bush. When I looked back over my shoulder, the Gingerbread House was all but gone, flattened to the ground and blazing in an inferno.

I stopped to take in the view. Suddenly, I heard a rustling behind me and I turned.

Rumer!

Secured in his arms was Lexie. Unconscious, but alive.

"I thought I told you to run and get to safety," Rumer said, as he staggered forward, struggling to stay on his feet.

"When do I ever listen to you?" I said.

He tried to laugh, but he was spent.

"Are you going to be able to get us out of here?" I said.

His eyes were filled with a cocktail of pain and relief. He struggled to speak. "Who would have thought that you could be so demanding?" he said.

I smiled. "That goes with the job of being my personal hero!"

His lips moved and I knew exactly what he was going to say. I forced my finger to his mouth to shush him.

"Don't say it," I said. "Just let me believe the whole hero-thing a minute a longer, please!"

# Chapter 61

We stumbled into Pastor Crosbie's church at five in the morning. Rumer struggled to stay conscious. He had lost a lot of blood. His arm was firmly around my shoulder for support and I enjoyed him using me as a crutch.

"Crosbie!" Rumer shouted, his voice exhausted and battered, like the rest of his body.

I wasn't in any better shape. My arms, legs, torso, head and pretty much the rest of me, had experienced the most horrific forty-eight hours of its existence and I felt fragile, frail and vulnerable. I leaned on Rumer as much as he needed my support.

With the Gingerbread House destroyed and Helen and the other witches vanquished, Rumer had taken me and Lexie in his arms and we left the unspeakable site for good. We arrived at Lexie's house under cover of darkness and made little fuss. It was a priority to maintain Rumer's secret, so we gently placed Lexie's unconscious body on the front porch, propped her head with a soft pillow from a nearby seat, and checked her vital signs. Her pulse was soft, but Rumer was certain she would be okay.

I gently kissed her forehead and told her everything was going to be okay and I would see her again, soon.

We thumped our fists on the front door, before I jumped on Rumer's back and we ascended high enough to be out of sight. We heard a high-pitched shriek from Mr. Morse when he finally came to the door.

Lexie's mom followed onto the porch soon after and we watched them embrace their daughter with tearful and heartfelt rapture. They carried her inside and we knew she was going to be alright after that.

Rumer asked me to tighten my grip around his shoulders as we soared into the dark, starry sky, heading for Pastor Crosbie's church. It was obvious to me that Rumer had little strength in reserve. Unlike our previous flights, which had been smooth, our journey home from the National Park was uneven and bumpy. Rumer struggled to keep us in the air. As his consciousness waned, so did his ability to control the environment around us.

The door at the back of the church swung open. Pastor Crosbie shuffled to our aid in a ridiculous, dark-blue robe, with a print of yellow crosses.

He instantly noticed our condition and tried to support both of us at the same time. "This is becoming quite a habit," he said to Rumer, with a wry smile.

"That's a tough call from someone in a bath robe like that," Rumer said.

"Well, you have called me out of bed at a devilish hour."

Rumer tried to smile, but his pain and fatigue emitted little more than a weird snorting sound. "Devilish hour?" he said. "It's not the nineteenth century, you know?"

"Okay, hello," I butted in. "Can we focus please, boys?"

I enjoyed their banter, but if I didn't get some water and rest in the next five seconds, they would both see me very angry... and they wouldn't want that!

"Come on," Pastor Crosbie said, smiling at me. "Let's get you guys some attention."

There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice and I was sure he inferred that I was an attention seeker, but I let him guide us to the front of the church, without engaging his teasing.

At the pulpit, Rumer said to Pastor Crosbie, "I need to stop here. Can you bring me some water and bandages, please?"

Pastor Crosbie and I gently steered Rumer into a comfortable sitting position on the raised floor. "Of course," Pastor Crosbie said. "Stay with him, Sara. Keep him talking."

"Okay," I said.

And with that, Pastor Crosbie disappeared into the darkness of the passageway. I kept my hands on Rumer, steadying him as he swayed from side to side.

"Are you okay?" I said.

He flinched momentarily as his backside took his full weight. "I will be," he said.

"I hope so, because you know I damn well need you, right?"

Rumer smiled. "You did just fine without me, Sara. Going off into the forest by yourself to save Lexie. A little crazy, but...."

"You were sleeping," I said, cheekily.

"You're the bravest person I've ever known," Rumer said, suddenly very seriously. "When I found your note, my first reaction was, Oh God! What have you done? But I know how stubborn you are... and I know how much you care for your friends and would sacrifice anything for them. That's pretty special."

I watched him talk and didn't interrupt.

Didn't want to stop his praise.

Even with black soot from the fire and cuts and bruises all over his face, he still looked like a prince. His lips were cut, like mine, but I was no less attracted to them. I couldn't pull my eyes away from him.

"I didn't wake until just before daylight the following morning," Rumer said. "I searched across the National Park in the last remaining darkness, but there was no sign of you. Then I thought, Stuff the darkness! and I kept searching throughout the day. I don't know if someone saw me. It would have looked pretty weird seeing a bloke in black, gliding across the treetops."

"I'm sure someone would have taken a grainy shot and thought it was a UFO," I said.

"Yes. But I was so worried about you. And when it got dark again, I was terrified that I was too late. I went up and down the Grose Valley so many times, but saw nothing that led me to you. Not until much later that night when I saw fire burning in the middle of the forest."

"You must have wanted to give up at some point?" I said.

Rumer's eyes narrowed sternly. "No," he said. "I would never do that."

"Why not? Anyone else would have."

He paused for a heartbeat and then said, "I would never do that... Because, I'm in love with you!"

"Oh," I said.

"I would never give up on you. I would die for you."

My mouth was open again. I felt my extremities trembling slightly and couldn't be sure if it was because of the exhaustion and pain or for a whole new world of nervousness.

Our stare had not broken for a minute and it suddenly occurred to me that we had sat in silence for those sixty seconds.

How awkward, I thought.

Rumer must have thought so, too.

His upper body eased towards me. With a grimace trying to suppress his pain, he slowly, gently, placed his left hand on my right cheek, framing my face.

I wanted a moment to enjoy his touch, but he moved closer. His face angled towards mine and I saw him gently lick his lips. I let him guide me – because I had no idea what I was supposed to do – and I watched him move his face to mine. He paused a moment, smiled, and then, let the voltage between us draw together.

His lips touched mine. My eyes fell closed and I thought I was about to die all over again. He tenderly caressed my lips with his own and he pulled our bodies together until our chests joined. I felt his heart pounding. I was sure he felt mine. His thumb and fingers warmly massaged my skull as he kissed me.

And it was the most amazing moment of my life!

Suddenly, a fake cough echoed through the church.

"You might like to remember that you're sitting in a church, kids," Pastor Crosbie's voice resonated through the vaulted space.

Rumer and I instantly drew our lips apart, but he kept his face and his body close to me. "Sorry," I said to Pastor Crosbie.

"He's just kidding," Rumer said, before turning to the pastor. "You were kidding, right?"

Pastor Crosbie tried to keep a straight face, but quickly began grinning.

"Who's the child, here?" Rumer said, before he flinched again from the pain.

"Here," I said, as I gently placed my arms around Rumer's body and pulled him all the way to my chest. While he rested his head, I gently stroked his black hair, ignoring its smell of smoke and the remnants of the forest which had caught in it. "Everything is going to be alright."

Pastor Crosbie kneeled beside me, placing a large first-aid kit on the floor. He gave Rumer water and brushed his face with a warm, damp cloth.

"You're a good man," I said to Pastor Crosbie. "We would both be lost without you."

"No," Pastor Crosbie said, "don't be silly. I'm just doing what anyone else would do."

"We both know you're doing a lot more than that," I said.

Together, we removed Rumer's coat and, for the first time, I saw the extent of his injuries. His shirt was slashed in five places where the blade had penetrated through his skin. Other parts of his jumper were burnt through and the flesh beneath was purple and still warm.

Pastor Crosbie worked his magic like a methodical paramedic.

"What can I do?" I asked him.

"Oh, Sara," he said. "You've already done so much."

His words were soothing and I let myself drift away in their kindness.

Pastor Crosbie continued, "As you know, I've always had doubts about my actions with... well... with making a decision that placed me at odds with the law. I've stood by my decision, but you know that I have been in conflict about it since the first day."

I nodded. I did understand.

"Everything is much clearer now," Pastor Crosbie said. "Because of you, I see that his heart is filled with love for you... and for others. I can now believe he is one of many tools to fight against all manner of enemies. Even enemies we never wanted to believe existed. And you know what? I'm certain there will be other battles ahead. I will sleep much better knowing that there's someone like Rumer... and like you... here to protect me and perhaps, in time, others too."

An hour later, I had Rumer tucked into bed. Pastor Crosbie had bandaged his wounds and injected a heavy sedative to let him sleep for as long as possible. I wouldn't mind some of that, I thought, as I had watched the needle go into his arm.

I sat with him for a while, recollecting our kiss over and over again. I thought about it so much, I was certain I had manifested a rash onto my lips from all the imaginary smooching.

Get a grip, Sara! I thought.

I kissed him on the forehead and tucked his blankets in beneath him to keep him as warm and comfortable as possible.

My own body ached for sleep, too. Pastor Crosbie had sutured the laceration beneath my neck, dressed my burns and pumped me full of antibiotics. All I needed was to sleep for days, but there was something very important I needed to do first.

In the kitchen, I picked up the landline phone, dialed, and impatiently waited.

Moments later, a groggy voice answered. "Hello?"

"Emma?" I said. "I just heard that they found Lexie. She's alive! And she's safe!"

# Chapter 62

A relaxing week had passed since the destruction of the Gingerbread House before I returned home. On the third day of my sabbatical, I took my driving test... and passed! At the beginning of the examination, the instructor expressed his concerns that I seemed too confident. Perhaps, I had been. But it was that confidence that empowered me to park straight on my first go, to drive like an expert and to complete a hand-brake start at the end of the test.

I was so proud of myself.

The photo on my driver's license was another matter entirely. My face still showed cuts, bruises and scars from my battle with the witches. I looked like a zombie in my new photo. The woman behind the counter who took the photograph was itching to say something but, thanks to my recent crusades, I believed my death stare ability had significantly increased. And I cared a lot less about what people thought of me.

Rumer slept for thirty hours without waking. I kept checking on him to make sure he hadn't died on me. It was a good excuse to climb under the blankets with him and wrap my arms around him. It was all too easy to get lost for hours in our embrace.

When he was finally well enough to emerge from his recouping hibernation, we spent every minute together – except during my driving test, of course. I couldn't keep my hands off him and I was shocked at how quickly I had turned into a blubbering leach.

"I'm very needy, don't you think?" I asked.

He didn't answer, which was answer enough.

We had kissed again and again and again. I worried he might get sick of my love-puppy persona very quickly, but he seemed to enjoy the attention. And I enjoyed the kissing! I couldn't get enough of his face, his body and his hands being so close to mine, and holding me and keeping me warm and safe.

I loved being in love.

Driving up the mountains by myself was the longest period we had been apart all week. As I approached our driveway, I saw an unfamiliar car pull out. It stopped as I drew close, blocking my access. I clicked my blinker on to indicate I needed the car to move, and I pulled over to wait.

But it took way too long for the vehicle to do anything. If I wasn't so consumed by the frustration I felt for the clown, I would have worked out that it wasn't just another car. Slowly, the vehicle pulled across my bonnet and stopped again when it drew level with my Corolla. I was poised to give the person a few choice words, but as their tinted window crept down, I unexpectedly recognized the face.

Special Agent Nico Moth.

I thought for a moment to floor the gas pedal, but he'd not left me enough room to turn into the driveway, so I would have looked rather silly... or hit him. So, I didn't move at all, except for slowly winding down my window.

"Well, Sara," Nico Moth said. "And where have you been this last week?"

I gave the Moth one of my new death scares, but it seemed to have less effect on him than I had hoped.

He continued, "I just spoke to your sister and she said she knows nothing and hasn't seen you for days."

Mika was awesome!

My dislike for Nico Moth only swelled and, hardened by everything I'd been through, I told him exactly what I thought.

"It's funny you say that," I answered angrily and suspiciously, while trying to contain my sarcastic tone, "because I rang your office and they didn't know who you were, either."

Nico Moth repositioned himself awkwardly in his seat.

The driving instructor had been correct. I had become way too confident for my own good. It didn't stop me from raising my eyebrows as if to say, 'Huh! What do you think of that, Mr. Moth?'

"I'm sure you simply rang the wrong number, Sara," he said.

It was an odd answer, especially as I knew that I had not. What troubled me most was the look in Nico Moth's eyes.

It reminded of Helen. I saw a duplicity that made me uncomfortable. I didn't think he was a witch, but I was certain there was more to his story.

"What can you tell me about reports I've heard regarding... well... individuals of a different nature... being involved in the sacrificial murder of young girls in the National Park?"

I'd had enough of the cross-car interrogation. I wanted to get home and see Mika. We spoke earlier in the week over the phone. She had asked me to come home because she had exciting news she wanted to share with me.

My eyes drilled into Nico Moth. "Individuals of a different nature, huh?" I said. "I thought that was just rumor."

The Moth glared at me like he was ready to devour me.

I smiled cynically and then, eased my foot onto the accelerator. He was getting nothing further from me. Our stare remained locked until I turned into the driveway. Nico Moth then screeched his tires and disappeared in my rear-view mirror. I had a gut feeling I would be seeing the so-called Special Agent again.

The morning rays of sunlight snuck through the gaps in the trees lining the driveway as I turned in. Home had never felt so foreign. My eyes glanced down to Cindy on my wrist. She had been my trusting companion through all the wretchedness. Like me, she still ticked. "I'll never lose you again," I said, smiling.

I had little over an hour at home.

Emma had organized for the girls to visit Lexie in hospital. She had given me little choice. Because I still didn't have my phone, our only communication had been via Pastor Crosbie's landline. It was much more difficult to say no, rather than text it. I knew the girls still had hundreds of questions.

I knew Lexie still had hundreds of questions! I had not seen any of the girls since my two nights of horror in the woods.

There had been a flurry of interest. I briefly spoke to the local police over the phone and gave a statement. I told them that I had witnessed a group of women murder Mary Steele. That same cult then kidnapped me and attempted to murder me. And they had Lexie Morse as well. My version of events had me simply escaping into the bush. I mentioned nothing about the witches or the transformations or how the women had died.

I had seriously lied.

The police had pressed me for answers about what had happened to the women. They had been unable to locate the remains of the Gingerbread House or any of the cult members or even the sacrificial site. I simply played dumb – except to send them in completely the wrong direction to look for the Gingerbread House. At least, what was left of it.

I also told the police I had been drugged, was somehow able to run away and had no idea about the when, where, why or how. I also claimed to know nothing about how Lexie got home.

I would protect Rumer at all cost.

The police had promised to follow up their enquiries and I was bound to hear from them again. They had given me a little space because of my injuries and the trauma, but I knew they'd be back. There wasn't anything they could threaten me with that could possibly make me divulge my secrets.

By the time I stepped onto the back porch, Mika was outside waiting for me. She had a bizarre, mixed look on her face. Happiness. Confusion. Anger. Relief. But as we got closer, we both wanted the same thing. A big hug.

We threw our arms around each other and squeezed tight. It was so good to see her. "I missed you," I said.

She pulled away pretty quick after that. "Yeah, alright. Good," she said. She was uncomfortable with too much affection, even from her sister.

"Anyone home?" I said.

"No. Just me. Come inside."

As we stepped through the back door, I cautiously asked, "Have you heard from mom?"

Mika huffed and puffed. "No!" she growled. "Should I have?"

Mom had been interviewed by the police, too. They informed her of concerns that Doctor Helen Wexler – her lover – could be involved in the disappearances of the missing girls.

Mom had been hiding her own secret. She hadn't seen Helen for days, and when the police came knocking and expressed their concerns, mom's world fell apart. She knew straight away.

According to dad, she went to pieces and sobbed for hours. Her gut told her she wouldn't see Helen again and all the plans they had made, the future they had dreamed about and the relationship that mom had validated at the expense of everything else in her life, was over. Fate had delivered loneliness on a costly platter. Dad, feeling sorry for the woman who had unquestionably betrayed him, organized a modest rental property for her just outside of Leura. He'd even paid the security bond.

The sap!

Days earlier, when Mika had told me over the phone about mom's hardship, my first curiosity was about mom's abrupt resignation to the allegations put to her by the police about Helen.

How much did she know?

What had Helen told her about her wicked plan?

What did mom know about my involvement?

"No," I finally said to Mika. "I guess mom wouldn't have contacted you in a hurry."

"Thank god!" Mika said, sharply.

As I followed Mika into the kitchen, she poured me a soda. "How's your recovery going?" she said.

"I'm okay," I said. "Still a little sore in the joints, but I'll survive."

"Yes. You are a survivor, Sara. I'll give you that."

We took a seat around the marble kitchen bench. I had no desire to answer too many questions. I hadn't told Mika too much either about the witches or the Gingerbread House. She already had so much hatred flowing freely through her body, I was certain she needed no more feeding in that department.

"So," I said. "What's your big news?"

Mika instinctively knew I was changing the topic, on purpose. She didn't seem to mind. Dad had given her little attention since he attacked me in the backyard. Mika thought he was too embarrassed, or too ashamed – or both. And he definitely wasn't going to talk about how he felt about it. It left the two of them in a tango of emotional indifference.

"Yes," she finally said. "My big news... you might not like it."

"Oh," I said.

"I've been working on this for a while, but I applied for a job at a hotel... in England. And yesterday, I got accepted."

"Huh?"

Her face lit up, her fangs poked out and her weasel eyes brimmed wide with genuine excitement. "I'm going to England next week to start a new job."

She said job, but I knew she really meant, new life!

"England?" I yelled.

"I know," she said. "How cool, right?"

Not cool at all, I thought.

But I said, "Yes, Mik. That's fantastic."

"You're not happy for me, are you?"

"I am. It's just all a bit of a shock, that's all."

Mika said, "I know it's sudden, but what have I got to keep me here?"

Me, I wanted to scream.

"And you'll be right," Mika said. "And besides, you're not alone now, right?"

"I guess," I said. I had never seen Mika look so serious. It wasn't my place to be selfish – as much as I wanted to be.

Jumping off my stool, I threw my arms around her again. "I'm really happy for you, Mik. It sounds awesome. I'm going to miss you, though."

"Well," she said, "you'll have to come and visit."

"Of course I will come and visit you," I said. "I'll just fly..." But I caught myself, awkwardly.

Mika's eyebrows peaked with a decent injection of cynicism. "Yes," she said. "I bet you will... just fly."

"About that—"

But Mika cut me off. "Chillax, Sare. Your secret is safe with me. But someday, you're going to have to give me a few answers."

I hugged her again. "Agreed... I'm so happy for you! And I can't wait to visit you."

Images of streaking through the clouds with Rumer, surged in my veins. I pictured us soaring over Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the London Eye. The selfish part of me wanted Mika to stay as close as possible, but New Sara understood she'd be able to see Mika whenever she wanted to.

And it would be awesome!

"I'll show you the place on my laptop," Mika said. "Come with me."

And with that, she rushed with astonishing enthusiasm to her bedroom. I smiled, trying to convince myself that I was truly happy for her. At least, that I should be happy for her.

I began to follow her, but as I heard the sound of her computer booting up, I paused outside another room – mom's study room – and I looked in with a heavy heart. The space was empty. The desk, filing cabinet and Buddha had all gone. But the marks on the floor where the furniture once stood, were ingrained in the wood forever. They were like gravestones for a bygone epoch.

As I stepped into the study room, a disturbed layer of dust swirled from beneath my feet. The room was otherwise lifeless. It was indicative of the rest of the house, as if the home's spirit had been banished. Dust had gathered on the window sill and on the lamp shade, hanging motionless from the ceiling. A half-empty box of beige folders sat in the farthest corner, abandoned and unwanted.

But it was the silence inside the room – and the rest of the house – that terrified me most. Gone was the laughter, the stories and the dreams. There was nothing but an empty shell waiting for the last of the survivors to vacate its carcass.

The cost of winning against mom, against dad, against Nico Moth, against the witches and against myself, was far greater than I could have ever imagined when I first discovered mom's secret.

Had it been worth it? I wondered.

Yes! The people I cared about were still alive!

Mom was living in a different house. Mika was moving to the other side of the world. My friends were still okay – although Steph was struggling with no longer being the absolute center of attention. I had met a life-changing force in Rumer. I had kissed for the first time and loved in a way I didn't know was possible. One thing I knew for certain, was that my life had only just begun. New Sara had tasted adventure and she was drunk from its bewitching excitement.

I stepped to a single family portrait mom had tellingly left hanging on the study room wall. I giggled at how silly I looked with braces. I had changed since those metal-teeth days, I thought. Looking up at the aging, dust-covered photo, I accepted that those days were gone. Our family would never go back to being what it was...

... _and I was okay with that._

# Epilogue

The Paris skyline from the top of the Eifel tower at two minutes after midnight was magical. Over a thousand feet above the ground, Rumer and I were positioned on a wide, steel girder just above the observation platform. The tourist attraction was closed, of course, and there wasn't a living soul on the tower, but Rumer had flown in from high above and used the darkness to cloak our presence.

We sat comfortably on a blanket and had a modest bag of snacks, comprising mostly of unhealthy chocolates and chips. I had with me a small, blank canvass and a number of paints and brushes. My dream to paint the Paris skyline by night was suddenly, an enchanted reality.

The view was spectacular. Thousands of lights lit up the landscape below us, even at the unsocial hour. We saw the headlights of the occasional delivery truck traversing the deserted streets surrounding the Champ de Mars, as the city slept. We were well rugged up, but it was a surprisingly warm night.

It redefined my understanding of romance.

"It's beautiful," I said to Rumer, as I began sketching a few outlines beneath a small torch light. "Look at all the different tones in the lights. It's like a giant, horizontal Christmas tree."

It felt like Christmas, alright!

Rumer sat silently, watching me paint. Since our fight with the witches at the Gingerbread House, he had spoken often about his abilities. He continued his aversion to being painted with an heroic brush. "I'm not a hero, Sara," he said. But he had to concede that when the people he loved were in danger, he had no compunction about embracing his strengths. "I'm not saying I would do it for everyone," he said, "but I wouldn't just stand by and let people be hurt, either."

His natural, empathetic compassion was in constant conflict with his humility. His ability to make the world a better place was at war with an assumption that he had a right to be that person to force his judgment on others. "I'm not anyone special," he kept telling me. I hoped, in time, Rumer would see the potential for goodness in his power and inspire not only me with it, but others, too. I still believed he had the strength to change the world.

My final year of high school had resumed – the Paris skyline artwork was my submission for my major art class project. Emma, Steph, Mel, Lexie and I had all ended up in the same English class, which thrilled us to no end. Our first assignment had been to present a blog to the class. Mr. Dobson, whom I was again fortunate to score as teacher, had been so impressed by my efforts, he made me stand at the front of the class and read it aloud.

How embarrassing, I thought, at first. I hadn't stood facing the class since primary school and public speaking wasn't exactly something I rejoiced at. But my adventures with Rumer had given me a newfound courage to speak about my triumph over the blue-devils.

I stood in front of the class and read from the piece of paper, unsteady in my trembling fingers. I said, "There will come a time in all our lives, maybe even numerous times, when we feel like there is no reason to keep living. We feel alone, afraid and like no one on the entire planet cares about us. We question why we would continue, when our pain feels like it is eating us alive. We convince ourselves that we – and the rest of the world – will somehow be better off without us. That no one will miss us or care that we are gone.

And sometimes we will think that our own destruction will be the rightful punishment on those who we believe deserve to feel our loss. They will suffer, and if we suggest in a note, or otherwise, that we have chosen to end our lives because of those people, then we hope that they will suffer more. What will we care? We will be dead. Sometimes there will seem no end in sight. No light in our darkness. No reprieve from our constant heartache. Absolution in death may look appealing. No more pain. No more falling. No more wishing ourselves wiped from the face of the earth.

We may be hurting ourselves with needles or knives or cigarette lighters or by some other means. We may be taking pills and speaking to official counsellors, whom we may despise as much as our pain, at times. We may feel that no matter what we try, we continue to be alone, to be hurt, to be neglected, to be misunderstood, to be frightened, to be bullied, to be confused, to be addicted, to be lost and to wonder who we really are.

I can tell you, my friends, that you are not alone. No matter how hard it gets, no matter how lonely you feel, no matter how much pain you are going through... just keep going. Keep fighting, because life is worth living. Watch a sunset, sit for an hour watching the crashing of surf on an ocean beach, look up at the stars, close your eyes and remember your best days, or simply look in the mirror and see that you are a beautiful human being even if others don't see it, and I promise you, you will make it.

You will get through it!

You are strong enough to defeat the darkness!

And you will prevail!

You must prevail, because life really can be very beautiful. Find a friend, search for a counsellor, ring a helpline, talk to a church leader – do whatever you have to do to survive. Because you never know when that life-changing moment will come.

And it will come!

The world may not always seem like a beautiful place, but you color her more beautiful by being in it."

In between my brushstrokes and switching paints from one dark blue to another, I took Rumer's hand and kissed it. I pulled it near to my chest and closed my eyes. I loved him. I loved everything about him and most importantly, he inspired me to be the best self I could possibly be.

"Thank you," I said to him.

"Thank yourself, Sara."

As I looked towards him, my eyes were distracted to a large, shimmering, orange glow across the landscape in the distance. "Look," I said to Rumer. "What do you suppose that is?"

He turned and stared. "It looks like a large fire."

"Hmmm..." I said. "It's as if the darkness is burning."

"Yes." He turned his deep, brown eyes back to me. "Maybe I should go and have a look."

I kept quiet. I didn't want to pressure him into action. There had already been so many nights where I'd expressed my opinions about what he could achieve. I looked at him with as much love as I could, and simply smiled. It's up to you!

Then, I heard a creaking noise to my left and couldn't resist the temptation to break my stare away from Rumer. It was just the steel in the structure, adjusting itself to the ever-changing environment. When I turned back to Rumer a heartbeat later, he was gone. Vanished into the darkness. I still hated it when he did that!

But I knew exactly where he was going.

###

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### About the Author:

Reinier Krol is an Australian-based writer/filmmaker with 20 years experience in the entertainment industry; working as a director and producer on various shorts, docos and corporate videos. He has also written a number of feature-length screenplays.

He published his first full-length novel, "Loch Ness" (as Reinier J. Krol) in 2000, before focusing on writing, directing and producing for the screen.

He has returned to prose because of his passion for the themes explored in Firenight.

The author is indefatigably passionate about raising awareness of the growing emotional struggles of young people, depression and teenage suicide prevention. Coming from a background of counselling young people, the author has seen first-hand the emotional challenges young people face and the all-too-often path to self-destruction they choose.

The author encourages everyone to proliferate a much-needed dialogue and understanding within the community about the scope and seriousness of this otherwise, out-of-sight-out-of-mind – and devastating – crisis facing young people today.

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### And Everyone...

Please support young people in your local community

in the fight against depression and suicide.

If you, or someone you know, needs assistance,

please seek out a friend, family member, counsellor, church leader

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Life is worth fighting for!

