

## DARK CONFLUENCE

### The Darkening Trilogy, Book 1

### Rosemary Fryth

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used factiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012, Fay Parkyn  
Glen Innes NSW, Australia

Fourth eBook Edition, February 2017  
Published by Fay Parkyn at Smashwords

Cover photos courtesy of  
© Lilkar | Dreamstime.com and  
© Teresadreamwalker | Dreamstime.com

Cover design by

Vila Design

http://tat-94.wix.com/viladesign#!

Editing: Wendi Temporado

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portion  
thereof in any form whatsoever.

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 enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

#  Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Rosemary's Books

About the Author

### To Richard—love of my life.

#  Chapter 1

Jennifer gasped in sudden, heart-stopping panic. Braking desperately, she attempted to avoid the shrouded woman who appeared directly in front of her car. However, her attempt was unsuccessful and the Mini ploughed straight into the figure.

The sudden stop flung her forward against the seatbelt. Her glasses flew off her face, and the bags of groceries on the back seat scattered everywhere, rolling and bouncing about, spilling contents across the inside of her car. Dimly, she heard a second screech of tyres and felt a hard jolt as whoever had been tailgating her smashed into the back of her car, propelling it forward. That last impact was too much for the frayed safety belt, and it tore. She lurched backward, catching her head painfully on the side window. For a moment, she saw stars and then blacked out.

After regaining consciousness, she turned the door handle and half-fell from the car to encounter the wrathful expression of Dave the local plumber.

"Geezus, Jen, stop in the middle of the road, why don't ya?" Dave yelled, whilst pointing back at his four-wheel drive. "Good thing my bull bar took the impact. Do ya know how much it costs to replace a radiator? Do ya? Do ya?"

Jen shook her head, and in a daze, staggered to her feet. Feeling nauseous, she sagged against the side of her elderly Mini, her head thumping painfully.

"Where is she?" Jen demanded through the pain.

"Eh, you're hurt then?" Dave, his anger dissipating, forgot his own troubles for a moment as he regarded the small and slight older woman propping herself against the misshapen vehicle.

"My head hurts," Jen complained, her fingers gingerly exploring the tender lump that was rapidly forming. She looked around again. "Where is she?"

"Who?"

"The woman, I think... I hit a woman"

Dave looked around. "What woman?" He checked the front of her car. "There's no woman here." Dave shook his head and motioned her to move away from the car. "Come on sit ya 'self on the footpath while I move our cars out of the way. We're holding up traffic in town."

Looking back, Jen saw a small line-up of cars—the drivers either peering curiously at her and Dave or impatiently leaning on their horns. Sighing, she allowed herself to be steered to the curb where she abruptly sat on the cracked concrete slabs of the footpath.

"Wait here," Dave told her. "I'll be back in a tick."

Jen watched him get into her car and move it to the side of the road. Within a few minutes, his big four-wheel drive pulled up next to her.

Dave leaned out of his car window and called to her, "Look, ya car is over there. I've locked it, and here are the keys.

He tossed her car keys out the window, and they landed in her lap. "I've rung emergency, and they're on their way. I'd wait for the police, but I have a client with a flooded kitchen, and I'm already late. I'll get in touch with the police after my appointment." He stared at her quizzically. "Are you sure there was a woman?"

She shrugged and shook her head. Strangely, the memory of the woman was rapidly fading from her mind. Jen tried hard to remember, but every time she tried to recollect what she saw, the memory seemed to slide away. To make it worse, she could not think past a crippling headache.

"Well, I didn't see anything, and there was nothing under your car."

Jen nodded, with her eyes half-closed against the painful _thump, thump_ inside her head.

"See ya!" he called. "I'll ring ya later about the insurance and stuff. He glanced back down the road. "I reckon ya car's a write-off, those nose to tails always bugger up the smaller cars. Doubt you'll be allowed to drive it. Oh, I can hear a siren." He grinned ruefully. "She'll be right, just wait where you are. They know where to find ya." And then in a cloud of noxious diesel fumes, he was off and speeding down the road.

"Are you sure you are all right, dear?" enquired a voice above her.

Jen looked up squinting and could only make out a pink and purple haze. Eventually, the haze resolved itself into the ferret-like features of Miss Amelia Crane, the Chairwoman of the Country Ladies Society. The local town gossip had descended upon her as soon as Dave had departed the scene.

"A headache," Jen explained, touching the impressively large, red swelling on her head for emphasis.

"Then you best be off to the clinic, dear. Oh, and the ambulance is here," she added quite unnecessarily, as the big white vehicle with the painfully bright flashing lights pulled up where Dave's four-wheel drive had been only moments before.

Jen found further conversation impossible as two, burly, blue, uniformed paramedics shooed the ever-growing crowd of onlookers back to a reasonable distance and started firing a barrage of questions at her.

"Was it a car accident, love?"

"Where does it hurt?"

"Can you move your hands and feet?"

"Are you dizzy?"

"Do you have a headache?"

Jen answered their questions as best as she was able whilst the medics fussed over her. Moments later, she heard another siren, a police car pulled up, and two uniformed officers got out. Their eyes noted the crowd, the paramedics, and Jen seated on the footpath. One officer went back to the car and started talking on the two-way radio, whilst the other walked over to where she was.

"Hit and run?"

"Jennifer McDonald's car was hit from behind," Miss Amelia Crane, piped up helpfully.

"Oh, did you see the accident?" enquired the police Senior Constable.

"Indeed I did," the old lady said, happy to be the centre of attention. "You see that lady there on the ground?" She pointed at Jen. "Well, she stopped suddenly, and Dave O'Donnell's four-wheel drive utility ran straight up the back of her car."

"Ah." The police Senior Constable continued writing in his notebook, then knelt and turned to Jen. "Did you hit something, Miss?" he asked.

Jen shrugged. "I thought I did, but Dave looked and couldn't find anything."

"Where is your car now? And Dave?"

"He-he moved the car," she explained unsteadily, her headache boring into her skull. "He had to go to a job, he was late," she mumbled apologetically.

"Was he now?" The Senior Constable was unimpressed. "Cars involved in an accident should not be moved. That will cause problems, and he should never have left the accident scene. I'll have words with Dave later."

He looked across the road at the mangled end of the elderly mini. "Your car?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I'll take a look."

The other officer finished speaking on the two-way radio and walked over to where she was.

"I've called a tow-truck. Your car will be taken to the police yard because we'll need to properly inspect it there."

Jen nodded and suddenly remembered, "My purse, my glasses."

"Don't worry. We'll get them to you."

The paramedic stood and straightened, addressing the officer, "Have you finished here? We need to get her to the hospital."

The Senior Constable glanced across to his partner who nodded. "Go ahead. We'll finish up."

Jen felt herself being lifted onto a stretcher and then loaded into the back of the ambulance. As the vehicle slowly pulled out into traffic, the paramedic continued to fuss over her, hooking her up to a myriad of monitoring devices.

"Really, I'm fine," she assured him, "Just a bump on the head and a bad headache."

He shook his head and muttered darkly about possible brain injury, whiplash, and having to be careful in case of spinal injuries. Therefore, Jen accepted his ministrations and closed her eyes, trying to recollect what she had seen before the crash. After a few minutes, she gave up. Whatever she saw had faded from her memory, no doubt aided in part by whatever it was the medics had injected into her arm.

Jen struggled to wakefulness, disoriented by her unfamiliar surroundings.

A diffused half-light bathed the room, except for an array of flickering, twinkling lights off to one side. She groped for her glasses, cursed when she could not find them, and cursed again when her hand knocked over something, causing it to fall and send it clattering to the hard tiled floor. Immediately, she heard soft steps, and a figure materialised at her side. A figure clad in a blue, cotton tunic and pants. She felt cool hands on her forehead and wrist, followed by a quickly muttered, "Oh, you are finally awake; I'll fetch the night-shift doctor."

Groggily, Jen tried to take in her surroundings. She was obviously in a hospital and hooked up to various monitoring devices. Around her, she could hear the soft voices of staff at the nurses' station, and even less distinctly, the breathing of the other patients—five others in various stages of sleep or wakefulness in the curtained-off cubicles of her ward. A headache that had previously hammered at her temples was just a faint echo of the ferocity of earlier in the day. However, it was nightfall, and Jen had no idea how long she had been asleep.

Suddenly, a man in a white coat appeared out of the gloom, picked up her chart from the base of the bed, studied it for a moment, and then peered at her over the tops of his rimless glasses.

"Awake, are you, Miss McDonald?"

Jen thought his voice sounded foreign.

He turned on the light near her bed, and as he moved closer, she saw that he was Indian. "You've been asleep."

"How long?" she murmured.

He studied the chart again. "You were admitted into emergency just before noon today, Miss McDonald. We gave you a sedative so you could rest and so we could run some tests on you. He consulted his watch and made a note on her chart. "It's just after two in the morning."

"Oh! What sort of tests?"

"X-ray, CAT-scan, etcetera; we wanted to investigate that nasty bump on your head and check for neck vertebrae damage."

Jen's fingers flew to her head to encounter tightly bound bandages.

"Don't touch it," the Doctor advised her. "The lump will go down naturally. However, you are very lucky; you could have easily fractured your skull or bruised your brain."

Jen stared at him. "And the tests revealed what?"

"Nothing of concern," he hastened to reassure her. "Topical swelling where the lump is, but no injury to the brain—we found no clots or abnormalities.

Jen nodded. "My headache has faded."

The doctor studied her. "Good! It could have been far worse. Now, we'll keep you in a little longer for observation, and if you are still improving, we'll let you go home around mid-morning tomorrow. He studied the chart again. "Now, Miss McDonald, is there someone we should ring? We got your details from the police; they checked your car's registration. However, there isn't anyone listed as next of kin."

Jen shook her head. "I live alone."

"What about friends or any family who could collect you?"

Jen shook her head again. "I am quite alone. I have distant cousins in Scotland, but no family here in Queensland."

"Well then, we'll call a taxi for you at the appropriate time and arrange for a district nurse to call in and check on you for the next couple of days. He smiled suddenly at her frown. "Standard procedure, Miss McDonald. Now, any other aches and pains?"

Jen gingerly moved her neck and shoulders. "I do feel a bit stiff."

"Whiplash. Again, that will fade, there is no vertebrae damage. If it's troubling you, we can give you a neck brace."

Jen shook her head. "No trouble, at least not whilst I'm lying down, however..."

"Hmmm?"

"I need to visit the ladies," Jen said embarrassedly as she felt a hot flush suffuse her face.

"I'll call a nurse," the doctor was brisk and business-like. "When you return, make sure you rest some more, and press your buzzer if you need further assistance."

"Where is it?" Jen turned her head to look and winced a little.

"Here—" the doctor walked over and placed a small, hand-held device on the bed "this will call the nurse. Now you must excuse me, Miss McDonald, because I have other patients to attend to."

The hospital released Jen a day and a half later, and the taxi deposited her, along with the groceries she was able to salvage from her car, outside her small, white, and unassuming house. Everything looked normal. The garden beds still sported spring bulbs, although most had passed their prime. Sadly, the few tulips that had survived summer looked decidedly ratty.

_Time for a replanting_ , Jen decided, yet the stiffness in her neck and shoulders warned her that any strenuous work in the garden would have to wait awhile.

Her gaze drifted to the house as she checked that all was well. Frowning over the peeling paint and the guttering that was starting to show some holes, she knew that the house badly needed renovating. However, repairs would have to wait until she received payment for the work she had done on the last book. Her older Queenslander cottage seemed sturdy enough, so she decided that she had some leeway.

Her body aching, Jen stiffly climbed the half-dozen steps that led to her verandah and thankfully sank down on the wooden seat, which afforded her a panoramic view across her garden and further out to a lush green vista of the Blackall Range. It had been over thirty years before when she had first come to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, and at the time, she had tried to buy a place overlooking the coast and the ocean. However, such properties were rare, and given that she had consumed her small budget in coming to Australia, her modest house amongst the green hills would have to suffice.

Happily abandoning herself to memories, her mind wandered back all those years to when she had arrived in Australia fresh off the Qantas flight from London, via Sydney. She had travelled to Australia chasing dreams and a man she had known only through correspondence. Although her green nook amongst the hills seemed an adequate dreamland, the man proved to be more elusive. He had up and left, seemingly after her last letter to him—the letter informing him that she was migrating to Australia.

Jen still had those much-folded, much-worn, yellowing letters that he had sent her. She did not know why she still kept them. Perhaps, they were a keepsake of days when she was more trusting, more naive and innocent.

Perhaps, more importantly, she kept them as an object lesson in not to trust handsome strangers with a glib tongue who came from far away and exotic lands.

Perhaps, she also kept them as a reminder that no matter what life threw at her, she was able to stand on her own feet. For a time, he had broken her heart, but Jen was stubborn enough not to give in, and she made the best of what at the time had seemed a bad situation.

Now, older and wiser, Jen looked back and thought that a one-way ticket to Australia seemed a particularly foolish thing to do. However, the past could not be undone, and she had settled into her new life. Although the nearby township of Emerald Hills was not Scotland, it was as fair a place as anywhere, and being on the range afforded a cooler, milder climate than the humid coastal settlements below.

Reluctantly, Jen got to her feet and fishing the keys from her lap, opened her door. Wrinkling her nose at the musty smell, she began opening windows allowing the fresh cool air inside. Mindful of her aching body, she carefully took the stinking rubbish bag to the outside bin. She spent the next few minutes putting away the groceries that she had been able to rescue and was thankful that she still at least had some tetra packs of long-life milk to use as the milk in the fridge had soured in her absence.

Her few small chores complete, Jen kicked off her shoes and sank back onto her old and cracked leather sofa. Taking off her glasses, she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead gingerly. At least the hospital had removed the bandages, assuring her she was safely on the mend. Yawning tiredly, Jen thought back to the day of the accident. It still bothered her that she still could not recollect what she had seen on the road to make her brake so hard.

Grimacing, she attempted to remember, but all she was able to achieve was to bring her long-dormant headache back to pounding reality. Discouraged, she locked the door and secured the few windows she had opened, took a painkiller with a glass of water, and went to bed.

#  Chapter 2

Carma Bright closed the front door of her small shop on the main street, secured the bolt, and walked around the corner to the back of the shop where she had parked her hybrid car. Easing her bulk into the driver's seat, she leant down and rubbed her ankles for they ached from standing behind the front counter for so long. However, the ache had been worth it—sales had been good.

In the lead up to St Valentine's Day, Carma had sold a good number of expensive, scented candles, and those folksy cardboard cards—imported directly from China—had proven to be winners at seven dollars each. Even better, her homemade soaps—infused with essential oils guaranteed to drive one's lover wild with passion—had virtually flown off the shelves, reducing her stock to such alarmingly low levels that she was determined to brew another concoction of them that night after the Emerald Hills Green Action Group meeting.

The EHGAG meeting, scheduled that week to be in Rod's back shed, was supposed to be about promoting to the community the importance of the rare Green Mottled Dust Moth—an insect that had only recently been discovered fluttering about the weedy side entrance of the local bookstore.

With the discovery of the moth, the action group had taken the bit between its teeth and all were hell-bent on closing down the bookstore in order to protect what was obviously a vital breeding location. All except Carma, who although she privately harboured doubts about the authenticity of the moth, had bigger fish to fry; _much_ bigger fish to fry.

Driving unhurriedly through the streets, her mind drifted back to the very strange conversation she had with a very odd, yet very beautiful woman, who had called into the shop to see her just a few days before.

The woman was tall and so very beautiful, with the palest of skin, hair the colour of spun gold and the greenest eyes Carma had ever seen. So green that Carma had been convinced that the woman was wearing coloured contact lenses.

Carma's knees had buckled at the sight, and if she had not already been in a relationship with Ebon, who was currently in Botswana 'reconnecting', she might have made a pass at the beautiful stranger.

Moira, she had named herself, and Carma had detected a very faint accent that she could not identify. She had gently taken Carma's hand—making her spine tingle with excitement at the recollection—and led her to a quiet corner of the shop to talk. What the woman had spoken of had caused Carma's pulse to race, and she had no reason to disbelieve her, so convincing she had been.

"Take the power underground, Carma," the woman had softly commanded. "I can assure you that these small magics that you do will be strengthened, amplified, just like this..." And the woman who had called herself Moira had spun a web of pure light right before Carma's astonished eyes with just her fingertips.

Carma's hand trailed through the glittering light, and as she touched it, the web fell away, dissolving into a fragrant mist.

"How did you do that?" Carma exclaimed excitedly, immediately recognising Moria as a fellow practitioner of the hidden arts, although adept at far greater skill and talent than she could imagine.

"You could do the same and more," Moira replied as her hands spun an even more complex tracery of light. "True magic, power, wealth, and influence are all within your grasp."

Carma gaped at her. "I could do the same?"

The other woman nodded. "These, these constrain you." She waved her hand at the outside window.

"What, windows?"

"No." Moira had shaken her head dismissively. "The electricity that runs through the outside lines interferes with the flows of power. I could also show you far greater demonstrations of what could be achieved, except those things hinder me."

Carma was captivated. "What can I do?"

The beautiful woman was adamant. "The lines _must_ be moved below ground. The ground will act as a shield and allow you to fully develop your magical potential."

Carma felt crestfallen. "Such a thing cannot be done. The expense, the disruption, and the local council would not agree."

Moira stared unsympathetically at her. "You would allow the feeble minds of others to stop you?"

Carma bristled at that. "Of course not. EHGAG has had many successful campaigns and we are quite politically influential, as well. The council has conceded on many of our demands, and we have hopes that a couple of our younger activists will be recruited into politics."

"Then what is stopping you?" Moira asked, her green eyes flashing.

"A moth, it is our latest project."

With a distant look in her eyes, Moria stared at Carma and whispered as if not comprehending, "An insect?"

For a split second, Carma looked into Moria's eyes, and deep within her soul, the word _insect_ caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise.

"Very well." Carma sighed. "I will try to make EHGAG see it my way."

"Not try, _do_ _it_ ," the golden-haired woman said sharply. "If they do not see it your way, then I can help you become more...persuasive."

With that last enigmatic statement, the woman had left, gliding out of the shop in a rainbow radiance of cobwebbed light and perfume.

After that experience, Carma sat down behind her counter, quite overcome from her encounter with the mysterious stranger. She looked around and concluded that the store had been going well since she had set it up eighteen months prior. The local music, drama, and arts festival brought repeat business, and sales had lifted since a more progressive and prosperous clientele had bought into the area, replacing the old original farmer and settler families who had been there for generations. No matter how good sales were at the moment, they could always be improved, and if her little attempts at magic could translate into creating items possessed of real power or wielding greater influence over others—well, that would be a battle worth fighting for, and EHGAG would be a beneficiary too. Emerald Hills might well become a leading light in Australia's green and progressive movement, and Carma planned to become the brightest of the lights there.

Reluctantly, Carma pulled her thoughts back to the present and upcoming EHGAG meeting. Turning the hybrid into Rod's Elton's driveway, she drove over the old, iron, cattle grid, which made the suspension shake. Driving up to the old homestead, she parked next to the other cars—a varied collection of hybrids, a couple of four-wheel drives, and Adam's elderly purple combi-van. Sitting for a moment, she adjusted the rear-view mirror to check that her scarlet lipstick hadn't smeared and that her new ultra-short hairstyle wasn't mussed from the drive. Most recently, she had dyed her naturally blonde hair red with purple highlights.

Getting up, Carma adjusted her voluminous cheesecloth dress, specially chosen to hide the lumps and bumps of too much gastronomic indulgence, and reached into the car to collect her EHGAG folder from the back seat. Firmly grasping the ring binder and shoulder bag, she locked the car and walked behind the timbered house down to where Rod had his shed.

"It's _criminal_."

"The bookstore won't budge. They say they have a responsibility to serve the community and refuse to cooperate about the moth."

Even before she opened the door to the shed, Carma heard the raised voices.

"The Green Mottled Dust Moth deserves protection; the town could always source books from elsewhere. The council library at Cromhart is only a twenty-minute drive away, and there is always the mobile library that stops in here once a month."

Carma slipped in through the door and settled herself down on the spare seat. Making herself comfortable, she placed her ring binder on her lap and looked around curiously.

Rod evidently had been in a creative mode with his concrete statues scattered in every corner and available space. Carma could see in the slanting rays of the late afternoon summer's sun that a faint film of concrete dust covered everything else in sight. Rod glanced across at her. At that moment, his salt and pepper hair and beard looked to be far more salt than pepper with all the white dust streaked through it.

She mouthed at him, 'How long?'

He shook his head, pulled a face, and mouthed back, 'Two hours."

Carma rolled her eyes, and with her free hand, slapped the cover of her folder hard, making it ring like a gunshot. Immediately, all faces turned to her, and Jeremy, who perpetually looked like a constipated Chihuahua with his concave chest and receding chin, snapped his mouth shut with an audible crack.

"You wanted to say something, Rayleen?" purred Sonja, whilst playing with her mane of long ash-blonde hair.

Carma gritted her teeth. She _hated_ the reminder of her birth name.

"Yes," she snapped irritably. "We are wasting our time with the bookstore; I have a far more important action to present to the group."

"More important than the moth?" Jeremy questioned irritably, his nasal whine immediately setting her teeth on edge.

"Yes, far more important. Now listen, we all know that Emerald Hills is a special place, not only because of the moth but also because of its amazing beauty and location. People travel for hours to visit it and take in the sights and enjoy the cool, clean, mountain air and the pristine creeks and lake."

The others all nodded.

"It's why EHGAG was formed," she added.

"We protect and defend what we have here. Some of the actions we have done may have been unpopular with the old landowners. For instance, Steve's effort in saving that large and important blackberry thicket on the Allenson property might not have gone down well with the family, but it did get results. The local newspapers ran with it, and the council was forced to act under our pressure. It might have been my initiative to start it, but without Steve's effort, the media wouldn't have become involved."

Everyone nodded again, smiling at Steve and recollecting his protest the previous year, which involved chaining himself naked to the barbed-wire fence, which excluded the thicket from the rest of the property.

The stick-in-the-mud Allenson family had called the police to move him, which then excited the local media—including a few curious reporters from Brisbane—who did a twenty-four-hour camp-in outside the Allenson's front farm gate.

Eventually, the Allenson family relented, agreeing under pressure from the council not to interfere with the blackberry thicket, although they had protested long and hard about the idiocy of protecting a known noxious weed. Steve had emerged triumphantly naked—and rather scratched—from his protest.

At the time, Carma had appreciated Steve's effort for the cause. She especially appreciated his tall, lean, and well-muscled body. In fact, every inch of him showed the results of significant time spent in Sonja's personal tanning booth at her home.

Carma did not discriminate when it came to bed partners; both sexes fascinated and attracted her. At first, Steve had attracted her, but he and Sonja were an on-again, off again item, so Carma had kept her distance. The last thing the group needed was additional sexual tension.

"What I propose is a major effort to beautify the town and return it visually to nature," Carma stated.

"That sounds fair," piped up Maryanne, who was one of several university dropouts EHGAG had attracted. "What do you intend to propose? Tree planting?"

"Of course, that can be part of it," agreed Carma noncommittally. "However, I was thinking of visual pollution, in particular, those nasty and ugly overhead electrical wires."

"Are you thinking of pushing renewables?" a voice asked enthusiastically behind her.

She turned and spotted Todd. Carma had long suspected that Todd had bought a number of shares in an international wind farm consortium, because without fail every meeting, he wasted no opportunity to raise his pet interest. Todd had once been a minor capitalist and employed with a major investment firm, however at thirty, he had 'seen the light' and sold up to become a 'tree-changer' at Emerald Hills.

"That might eventually be part of our action, Carma replied with a deliberate vagueness.

"One day we might be able to move off the grid with local wind farms and solar panels. However, small steps, people. First off, we need to petition the council to move the electrical wires off the poles and to relocate them underground."

"It won't work," Adam stated slowly and gravely. At sixty-eight, he was the patriarch of the group and had been active in the environmental movement since attending Woodstock in '69.

"You are talking serious money now, Carma. The last time I spoke with Councillor Franks, he said that the shire was in a financial hole and that they were cancelling or postponing most of their non-critical projects."

Carma was nonplussed with what the elder of the EHGAG group said. "Nonsense, I'm sure we can talk them round. It's just a matter of persistence and getting the local activists behind us."

"It's a pity that we're moving out of storm season," Brandon, who was the other university student present, mused aloud. "I've read that councils tend to relocate their wires underground if they keep losing them to tree and branch falls. What we'd need is a cyclone to head south and cause a bit of damage in order to ram the point home."

"I agree," replied Carma. "That's just what we need."

"Well, you two can do your rain dance," scoffed Jeremy, "because personally, I think we'd have far more success with keeping on with the bookstore and the moth."

After that, the discussion resumed for supporting the moth, and for the rest of the evening, arguments went round and round, with almost equal numbers supporting either Jeremy or Carma. Eventually, the group broke up around eight with a promise to think over both proposals and come back next week with a firm decision in mind.

Annoyed and dispirited, Carma trudged back to her car. It infuriated her that the group pulled in separate ways so often. Their procrastination meant delays on issues, and she wished, not for the last time, that she were more influential. She knew they could achieve so much more and get real results if they thought and acted with one voice.

Carma desperately wanted her voice to be the one to drive the group. However, with so many people with so many different agendas, it was hard to get them focused and moving forward as one. Carma concluded that she had to be more forceful, ignore Jeremy and the other moth activists, and during the week, ring around the rest of the waverers to convince them to support her. Thus fortified, Carma climbed into her car and drove home for a long night of soap making.

#  Chapter 3

_The ground was tipping crazily around her as she drove her car down the road. She knew where she was, yet she somehow, she didn't. Everything was familiar, yet strange. Nothing seemed to be right or normal. As she crested the top of the hill, the landscape_ firmed _into solidity. She drove through the lush green of farmlands, which gave way to houses and signed streets. Suddenly, in front of her, she saw a figure in the middle of her lane. She hit the brake and saw the tall woman, clothed in a long, black dress and cloaked and hooded in a dark cape, stand and stare at her. From her hands hung a long piece of grey cloth dripping with what looked like water. As Jen's body flew forward, the woman suddenly vanished, dissolving into mist. The last thing she heard was the screeching of the brakes._

Like a swarm of demented bees, the alarm clock buzzed incessantly. Jen sat up in bed, her body bathed in sweat; her waist-long dark-and-silver-streaked hair in its customary braid was a tangled mess. Drawing the sheets protectively around her, she sat shivering for a few minutes, trying to calm down and to ease her rapidly beating heart to a degree of normalcy.

"Is _that_ what I saw?" Jen wondered aloud, vividly recalling the strange gaunt woman on the road. She shook her head dismissively, attributing the dream to the trauma of the accident.

"Surely not," she muttered as she sloughed off her sweaty nightdress. Taking a fresh towel from the linen closet, Jen retreated into the bathroom. As she turned on the shower taps, she hoped that the hot water and steam would wash away the memory of that unsettling vision. Eventually, she relaxed under the flow of hot water, the residual stiffness slowly easing from her neck and shoulders.

Turning off the taps, she dried herself and dressed in her customary cotton pants and a t-shirt. The polished, wooden floorboards felt cool under her bare feet.

Going into the kitchen, she made herself a cup of tea, organised breakfast for herself, and all the time, her mind was consumed by the dream image.

" _Enough_ ," she chastised herself. "This is not getting me paid. Back to work Jen, me lass."

The tiny back room that housed her laptop and shelves of reference books also doubled up as her office. In it were stacks of paper, half a dozen pens and pencils, and an antique, mahogany, writing bureau with an equally-old leather office chair. Both pieces of furniture had belonged to her father, and after his death three years before, she had them transported from Edinburgh to Australia at much expense.

Turning on her computer, she checked her emails; only two had come in during her absence. One email was from a client who needed another manuscript proofread, and the other email stated that there had been a delay at the bank with processing her payment for her last job. The funds would be transferred to her account within the next forty-eight hours.

_Good,_ she thought. _Might be able to afford to fix the guttering now._

Then she remembered the state of her car parked at the police yard and groaned aloud. Of course—she had to deal with the insurance, contact a plumber, and find a garage to see if they could repair her car.

"It just never ends," she sighed dramatically as she exited the mail program.

"Yes, it will," whispered a quiet voice behind her.

Jen frowned and spun around in the chair, immediately twisting painful nerve endings in her neck, which made her wince. She glanced about her whilst rubbing her sore neck. There was no one there; she was quite alone. Muttering to herself, she took off her glasses, wiped them clean on her shirt, and put them back on. Still, she could see no one.

Getting up, she went into the other rooms to check the radio and television and then remembered that she had turned both appliances off. Outside, she looked around. Her house was located at the end of a short and narrow unpaved drive off the bitumen road beyond. She listened and heard nothing but the cawing of crows in the distant eucalypts. The only traffic noise she could hear was the occasional sound of a distant car on the main road.

Shrugging to herself, she mentally reasoned the voice away, dismissing it as another side effect of her head injury. As she turned to go back inside and return to her work, she heard a car drawing near. Within a few moments, a small blue hatchback turned into her drive and drove up to the house, dust from the road billowing in its wake.

Jen stood and waited at her front door, leaning expectantly on the solid wooden door frame. The car pulled up, and a moment later a young woman dressed in a light-blue uniform got out with a small leather attaché case in her hand.

"Jennifer McDonald?" the young woman with the neat and short light brown hair asked.

Jen nodded.

"Clare Williams, the hospital asked me to call in on you. I'm the district nurse, and I'm to do a follow-up since you were discharged from hospital yesterday."

Jen motioned her inside and out of the glare of the morning sun.

Jen sat down and watched as her visitor opened the attaché case and pulled out a sheaf of papers to examine them.

"Hmm, car accident. I see that the tests and scans have come back with no irregularities." She put the papers down and scrutinised the older woman sitting opposite her. "How are you feeling, Miss McDonald?"

Jen shrugged. "Some stiffness. A headache came back briefly last night before bed, but it was gone when I woke."

The nurse nodded. "Anything else? Dizziness, nausea?"

Jen shook her head. "A bad dream I dreamt of the accident and..." she hesitated. "I heard a voice just before, thought it was someone hanging about the house, but no one was there. I was just checking when you drove in."

"A voice? Male or female?"

"I couldn't tell," Jen answered her honestly. "It was so quiet that I couldn't identify the source or the speaker. "Do you think the dream and the voice might have been a result of the accident trauma?" Jen asked.

The nurse shrugged. "It's possible. Medical science is still learning new things about the brain, especially after a traumatic event like a car accident. I'd definitely say that the dream is the brain doing 'housekeeping' on your memories. Again, she leafed through the papers. "Your file states that you have no memory of what you saw before the accident?"

Jen nodded.

"No doubt it will fully come back to you. Just give yourself time and rest, and the healing will happen. As for the voices, if it happens again then I'd advise returning to the hospital for more tests. There may be pressure on the brain now that wasn't evident before, and a CAT scan would pick that up."

Jen nodded again, a tiny wriggling worm of worry now planted in her mind.

The nurse saw her concern and hastened to reassure her. "If you're not experiencing any ill-effects such as dizziness, nausea, fainting, fits, etcetera, and if the headaches have gone away, then I doubt there is real cause for worry. It may well be just your mind is recovering and it will pass naturally over time. It's just that all head injuries must be taken seriously, and if you are concerned, then further tests will rule out any troublesome causes.

Clare closed her attaché case and stood.

"If you feel you are well enough, I'll go. I do have a neck brace in the car if you need it."

Jen nodded. "My neck and shoulders are still a bit stiff. What about painkillers?" she asked.

"One or two at a time," Clare replied. "Don't overdo it. If you find you are relying on them then it is time to return to the hospital. I'll schedule you some physio in a few days."

"At the hospital?"

"Yes." The nurse turned towards the door. "I'll see myself out. Keep mindful of rest. I'll get the neck brace in case you feel you need it, and I'll leave it on the verandah for you."

"Thanks."

The nurse walked briskly to the door, and with a soft swish of her blue uniform, was gone.

Jen moved to the window and watched as she walked to the car, took the brace from the backseat, and returning, placed it on the verandah chair.

Seeing Jen at the window, the nurse lifted a hand in farewell, went back to her car, climbed in, and drove off.

Jen turned whilst absently rubbing her neck, her mind already consumed with thoughts of whether or not her insurance company would recognize an insurance claim for the accident.

Tyres crunched outside. Jen quickly grabbed her handbag and keys, and walking to the front door, she locked it. The taxi was only a few minutes late in arriving, and whilst she was without a car, she needed transport.

"Emerald Hills Cooperative Bank, please," she told the driver, settling herself down on the shiny padded vinyl backseat of the sedan.

He nodded and eased the car forward out of her driveway and onto the road.

Jen sat back and tried not to let paranoia overcome her. It had been a few days since the accident, and sitting in the car, she had immediate and chilling memories of the terrible screeching of brakes and the sudden painful stop. Staring out the window, she tried to distract herself by gazing at the countryside—an undulating panorama of green fields, groups of trees, and wheeling birds against a clear, azure sky. Her eye was drawn towards a group of horsemen riding parallel, yet at a distance from the road. Pressing her nose to the window, she attempted to make out details of the group, but they remained determinedly hazy, caught in mist, yet riding as if on a hunt or in a steeplechase.

All at once, they turned as one and stopped as if to stare at her. At that moment, the taxi drove past a dense clump of bushes, temporarily obscuring her sight. As the taxi cleared the brush, Jen looked back, but the riders had completely vanished.

Frowning, Jen tried to recollect details, however, all she could remember was how translucent they had seemed, as if they had been riding through the shimmer of a heat haze or like distant figures glimpsed upon a pristine and white sandy beach. Chewing her bottom lip, Jen felt an odd unsettling feeling in her stomach. It was as if the world was not quite as right as it had been that morning, or even as it had been earlier in the week before the accident.

The little worm of worry for a short time had hibernated. However, it was awake and gnawing at her again.

The taxi soon turned into town and drew up alongside the bank. The driver checked his meter and turned to her. "Twelve dollars fifty, please."

Jen handed over fifteen dollars and waited whilst change was given, then hopped out of the taxi and brushed down her skirt and shirt, trying to smooth out the wrinkles.

She had come to the bank in the hope of getting a small loan to buy a new car. The repairers had taken one look at her mini, decided that it simply wasn't repairable, gave her a couple of hundred for it, and then towed it away for parts. The insurance company had been sympathetic, however, bureaucracy and insurance claims moved slowly, so Jen didn't expect to receive her insurance check for another month or two, and she needed a car right away.

Staring at the weathered brick building, Jen didn't hold out much hope for a loan. Her income as a proofreader was sporadic at best, and in-between jobs, she heavily relied on her investment earnings and modest royalty checks, from her two, published reference books.

Shaking her head, she turned away.

Briefly, she entertained the idea of buying a bicycle and then dismissed it as the practicalities of transporting groceries from the local supermarket to her home sank in. Swinging on her heel, she crossed the main road and headed up the road where she knew the local car-hire business was.

An hour later, she was in the possession of an unassuming, dark-blue hatchback.

The deal they made was to the general dissatisfaction of both the dealership and her. The woman behind the counter had baulked at the length of hire—it seemed the hire company preferred a fast turnover rate—and Jen had baulked at the cost. Yet beggars could not be choosers, and Jen handed over her debit card with great reluctance and paid for the transaction.

Turning out of the dealership gate, Jen drove slowly and timidly as she grappled with not only a strange vehicle and unfamiliar controls, but also with her underlying paranoia about the accident.

A few minutes later, she swung into the supermarket car park and found a parking space off to one side and well away from the other vehicles.

Inside, Jen breathed a little easier and relaxed in the refreshing coolness of the air-conditioned complex. The building was dominated by the big grocery store with its vast array of produce and goods.

Jen noted that a hardware store had only just opened its doors, as well as a boutique fashion outlet. Evidently, new money had moved into the area, invigorating what had been primarily a sleepy regional township. Staring at the people around her, she recognised only a few faces here and there. New money indeed, seemingly most from the cities or interstates, given the big expensive cars and the interstate plates she had noticed on her way in from outside.

As she regarded the people milling by, she noticed a sobbing little boy who was standing off to one side near the entrance to the toilets and mother's room. Caught by his distress, Jen made a beeline to him, noting his dishevelled appearance and his tousled hair, which looked to have been dyed a rather odd shade of green.

She had almost reached him when without warning he shot her a cheeky grin, turned suddenly, and walked straight into a solid brick wall, vanishing instantly.

As if she too had hit a brick wall, Jen stopped immediately, and another shopper cannoned into her. Before the other shopper could say anything, Jen hastily apologised and then walked over to where the sobbing boy had been to examine the wall and to see if she had missed a door or some other opening.

Jen spent a few fruitless moments running her hand along the wall, searching vainly for an opening as if she could somehow find and extricate the boy from it.

The world suddenly tilted about her, and dizzily she clutched the wall as a shipwrecked sailor would clutch the sodden timbers of wreckage keeping him afloat. Breathing hard, she was able with some effort to steady her pulse as passers-by by gave her a pitying look—perhaps they thought her drunk or drugged.

"Are you poorly, love?"

Jen glanced over her shoulder and nodded at the solicitous old gentleman who out of all the throng in the supermarket had stopped to help.

"Then let me aid you to a chair."

A rough and calloused hand took her arm, and she felt herself gently guided to one of the nearby metal benches. She sank down on it in some relief.

"Don't fret, love. I'll be back in a mo'."

Jen nodded again and waited for the world to stop spinning.

"Here."

The chivalrous, elderly gentleman handed her a plastic cup filled from the water filter in the chemist.

She gasped out her thanks and drank gratefully.

"Flu?" he asked; his age-creased and sun-darkened face showed concern.

She shook her head. "I was in a car accident," she explained.

"Perhaps you need to be going to the hospital," he said. "You look quite pale."

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Just needed to sit for a bit."

"You're from Scotland, then?" he asked.

She nodded, finishing her water. "Yes, a very long time ago. I've been in Australia close on thirty years now. Is my accent that strong?"

"Not so much," he said. "But I did pick up a little of the Highlands in your voice."

"I was born in the Highlands, but the family moved to Edinburgh when I was a wee lassie."

He smiled as if in recollection. "My wife, God rest her soul, was a Highlander too. You seem to have a little of her look, as well. He held out his hand, "I'm Tom Delany."

"Jen McDonald."

They solemnly shook hands.

"I run a small farm out on the road to Cromhart—mostly avocados and macadamias."

He fished an old supermarket coupon from out of his pocket and with it the stub of a pencil. He scribbled a number on it and handed it to her.

"My number, in case you need a friend." His faded, almost-cloudy, blue eyes stared at her with a sudden, startling directness. "Forgive me for being so blunt, but there's something not quite right about you, love. Perhaps, you should ring sometime. My wife, Anna, you see, God rest her soul, sometimes had a similar look about her. When I saw that look, I knew to be brewing a strong cuppa tea, to bring the animals in, and to lock and bolt the doors of the farmhouse. He stood and shook her hand formally. "I must be off. My granddaughter Fiona is due to pick me up soon and drive me home."

He smiled at her, and standing gave her a little bow, before slowly walking away.

#  Chapter 4

Jen sat and fidgeted as she waited in the reception area of the local hospital.

After her strange turn at the supermarket, she had completed her weekly shop and then driven home to offload the groceries. Once those chores were completed, she rang the hospital to arrange for further tests and scans. The hospital had acted with alacrity, scheduling her for a CAT scan and blood tests the next day.

The procedure had not taken long, and they advised Jen to return the following morning for the results. After a poor night's sleep, where Jen spent most of the time nervously tossing and turning, she skipped breakfast and arrived at the hospital a full hour early. As she rubbed her tired eyes with the back of her hand, she noticed that her pulse was again racing with nervous anxiety.

Trying to take her mind off things, she stared at the television high up in a corner of the room. Her eyes blankly watched the flickering figures of the Sunday morning shows yet her brain did not comprehend, so consumed with worry was she.

"Miss McDonald?"

Jen leapt to her feet as if someone had planted a firecracker under her.

"The doctor will see you now."

With suddenly sweaty hands, she grasped her handbag and followed the nurse through the swinging doors of reception and into the wards area. The nurse stopped outside a door and motioned her in.

"Wait in here, please; the doctor will be with you momentarily."

Inside was a small office. Jen sat herself down on the visitor's chair next to the desk and curiously looked around. Most of the small room was taken up by a large desk, on which sat a computer, keyboard, and monitor as well as various pens and medical folios. A leather chair was positioned at the desk. In addition to the desk and chair, there were two sizeable bookcases full of reference and medical books.

Charts and framed photos hung on three walls, and a clean whiteboard dominated the far wall. The office looked very professional.

The door opened and in stepped a middle-aged balding man clad in a white coat over a business suit. He held out his hand and smiled at her.

"Don't get up, this won't take long."

Somewhat reassured by his smile, Jen allowed herself to relax for the first time that morning.

"I'm Dr. Anthony, and I've been reviewing your files and also the most recent tests," he said.

He flipped open one of the manila folders he had carried in and perused the documents.

"The blood tests have shown nothing to indicate any latent issues or problems. In fact, your cholesterol levels are superb for your age. Your iron and calcium need a little improving. However, the levels fall within normal range. If you ensure you eat more red meat and more calcium-rich foods, you'll find an improvement in your energy levels and bone density."

He closed the first folder and opened the second.

"As for the CAT and other scans, again, they show nothing out of the ordinary. The bruising from the accident has gone down and the brain seems normal and healthy. There doesn't seem to be long-term damage to your spinal vertebrae from the whiplash." He looked up at her. "In short, aside from the iron and calcium, you seem as healthy as an ox, Miss McDonald, and as I said before, change your dietary habits slightly and you'll see even more improvement."

Jen sat back, deflated. "So the visions?"

"Are probably just your imagination playing tricks upon you," he replied. "You did suffer emotional as well as physical trauma, and the brain is probably just dealing with that emotional trauma in its own way. Give yourself time, plenty of sleep and rest, and you'll find that everything will be back to normal soon enough."

"So, physically, I'm fine?"

He nodded. "Now, I must go. However, I've booked you in for a check-up in six months' time. The nurse will mail you a reminder closer to the date. He stared again at her pale face. "If you wish, I can get the nurses to book an appointment with the resident psychologist?"

Jen gulped and shook her head abruptly. "No, I don't think that will be necessary."

He stood and opened the door for her. "Very well, now don't be worrying, Miss McDonald, there is nothing to fret about. Just let nature take its course."

As Jen left the hospital, she felt unsure if she should be relieved or not by the doctor's cheerful prognosis. Although she was grateful that there seemed to be no physical cause for her visions, her worry worm remained fed with thoughts of mental illness or insanity.

She stopped suddenly, mentally berating herself. She refused to allow herself to sink into hypochondria, vowing to chalk all future visions to an overactive imagination.

A day or two later, while taking a break from her proofreading, Jen sat out on the verandah with a cup of tea by her side.

The book was going well, only three more chapters to go, and then she could send the completed proof back to the client. The mundane wrestling with words seemed to calm her and she was able to put the last unsettling week to the back of her mind.

She glanced at the watch on her wrist. It seemed to have stopped. She shook it, and the hands refused to move. She sighed as she knew it was yet another thing to deal with. Banishing the problem, she closed her eyes and let the balm of the late-afternoon-summer sun gently warm her bare legs and arms.

"Mind the sun, would burn one as fair as you."

Jen's eyes fluttered reluctantly open.

In front of her stood a young man aged about nineteen, who regarded her appraisingly with direct leaf-green eyes.

She glanced out to the yard beyond him. There was no car, nor had she heard the local and infrequent bus.

"Can I help you?"

He introduced himself, "I am Fionn."

"Jen." They shook hands; his touch was cool and unsettling to her skin.

"Mind if I sit?"

She shook her head.

He sat on the top step near her feet, and unobtrusively, she studied him.

The young man was slender and wore a non-descript pair of faded, grey jeans, and a loose-fitting collared black shirt. His hair, which was the colour of sun-bleached linen, fell straight about his shoulders. If she had been thirty years younger, she might have felt shy of this pale, handsome youth. As it was, he seemed young enough to be her son.

"You have an interesting name, Fionn. Are you Irish?"

He smiled tightly and her heart gave an odd lurch. "More or less."

"Then you've wandered a long way to end up on my doorstep," she replied. "What would a young man like you be doing here?"

He smiled at her again; that time, the smile reached his eyes. "I'm older than I look."

"Very likely and direct off the flight from Dublin, going by that fair skin of yours," she observed frankly. "You shouldn't be the one to lecture me on the perils of the southern sun. Still, you didn't answer my question."

He stared at her with a smile hovering about his sensual lips. "You are not yet ready for my answer. So I would ask you a question instead."

Jen nodded, humouring him. "Ask away, young Fionn."

"If you could be given anything your heart desires, what would it be?"

Jen narrowed her eyes, taking in the perfect face of the young man who called himself Fionn.

She thought to herself, _My heart's desire? I have a home, hearth, am reasonably financially independent—what more could I want?_

An answer insinuated itself into her mind, yet she flicked it away. She could not reclaim thirty years of loveless life. It was something that had to be accepted.

"What would I want, out of all the things in the world?" she asked.

He nodded, staring intently at her.

"A measure of happiness, I guess. It is all that anyone ever wants."

"Yet, happiness can be a double-edged blade," the youth observed, leaning back and staring intently into her face.

"How so?" she asked, intrigued by their odd conversation.

"Well, what might give you happiness might yet cause grief or pain to another. He grinned wickedly and her mouth grew suddenly dry. "After all, I am sure even the evillest of men gained a certain perverse happiness from their horrid acts upon others."

"Is that your intent here?" she asked. "To seduce me with fine words and then rob me to feed a drug habit? I warn you, there is little of value in my house."

He glanced inside and laughed. "Of that I am sure, no riches abide within. Do not be alarmed. I was merely in the neighbourhood, saw you sitting there at peace, and I wished to converse with you." He smiled gravely at her. "So you would ask for happiness without harming another. That could be a martyr's choice, Jen?"

"Perhaps so," she agreed. "Perhaps, true happiness can only be attained through self-sacrifice."

He looked at her directly, as if examining her heart. "I perceive a life of self-sacrifice already."

Then he stood as if to leave, yet he bent forward, and to her utter surprise placed a kiss upon her pale brow.

"You possess a gentle soul for one of your kind," he whispered quietly against her ear. "For what is coming, I am truly sorry."

Then, he stepped back and shockingly, faded completely away.

Jen looked around. It was completely dark, and her tea, forgotten and unheeded, was stone-cold.

She shook her head and stood, feeling a little disorientated.

_A dream_ , she thought. She must have fallen asleep in the sun. Immediately, she dismissed it from her mind. Yet the feel of his lips upon her skin disturbingly remained with her for the rest of that day and night.

#  Chapter 5

There was a sudden knock on her door, and Jen looked up from the breakfast she had been preparing. Glancing at the kitchen clock, she frowned. It was just after 6 AM; too early for visitors. Turning the heat off of her scrambled eggs, she tightened the dressing-gown cord about her waist and cautiously opened the door.

Standing on her verandah was her farmer neighbour, Brett Robinson. Brett was a young man in his late twenties and clad in faded denim jeans, scuffed work boots, and a light-grey, cotton shirt that gaped open revealing a sun-bronzed neck and chest. On his head was a battered and misshapen bush hat, which going by the look of it had seen many years of constant wear.

"Come in, Brett, what brings you out visiting so early?"

He leant on her doorframe filling it with his lanky height.

He squinted down at her. "I won't stay Jen, just here to warn you. Do you have any dogs or cats?"

"No, at least, not since old Harry died last year."

Brett nodded. "Ah Harry, I remember him. Wasn't he a kelpie-cross?"

"Yes, he was. A good dog too, pity he died of a tick. Her eyes clouded with past sorrow. "I took him to the vet, but he was too far gone, paralysis had set in."

Brett shrugged his wide shoulders. "Yeah, those ticks can be buggers. Ya gotta watch 'em. Summer is the worst time."

Jen nodded. "Yeah, he died last summer. Was seventeen, a good age for a dog."

"Agreed, perhaps it's best he's dead. Given what has been happening."

Jen frowned. "What has been happening?"

"Dunno, Jen, a few of us have lost small animals the last few days. They vanish, and then later found dead. Mutilated, as if something's had a go at them, some are literally torn to shreds."

Jen shuddered. "What do you think is doing it?"

"Hard to tell, perhaps a feral dog is attacking them, or maybe a fox. I've not seen the like. Anyway, just warning households to keep their small animals in at night until we catch whatever is killing them. I'll be laying baits too, Jen, so mind you don't touch anything on the ground."

Jen nodded. "Thanks for letting me know."

"No problem, I'm off to alert the next house."

Jen glanced at the heavy and menacing clouds that were building up on the horizon. "You'd best be quick, Brett, looks like we're in for some wet weather soon."

He nodded. "Yeah, I heard on the radio that there is rough weather ahead." Waving goodbye, he was gone.

Jen turned to go back to her half-cooked breakfast and stopped, a thought niggling at the back of her mind as the odd dream from the day before returned to trouble her again.

What was it the young man had said? Something about being sorry about what was to come. A shiver of dread travelled down her spine. Surely, that encounter was just a dream, or was it?

Right then, Jen honestly did not know and did not want to know.

She took the scrambled eggs off the stove and transferred them to a plate. Fetching her cup of tea from the bench, she took both to the kitchen table and settled down to have breakfast. She hadn't eaten more than a mouthful of her eggs when she pulled a face and spat the remains out into a paper towel. The eggs had tasted horrid, yet she knew that she had only bought them the day before. Perhaps the milk had turned, but she had recently bought it as well, and it was certainly within its use-by-date.

Opening her fridge, she smelt the milk—phew.

Yes, the milk had soured. Time for the new carton she had bought the day before—and again, that too had turned.

Puzzled, she poured the contents of both cartons down the sink and binned the remains of her meal. Breakfast would simply have to be toast and juice.

By the time she had finished her meal, showered, and dressed, the rain was drumming a thunderous rhythm on her tin roof. Grabbing an umbrella from the verandah, she locked the front door and ran to where the hire car was parked by the side of the house.

Hastily, she threw her bag in the back and sat down in the driver's seat, her open sandals oozing mud and water. Flicking on the radio, she decided to delay her trip until the rain had diminished enough to see her way out of the driveway. The news was just finishing, and she sat watching the raindrops pelting against the front windscreen of the car waiting for the weather report to come on.

The radio hissed and crackled, so she turned the volume up trying to catch what was being said.

"...the weather service has indicated that a deep low-pressure system has formed off the Sunshine Coast and will cause above average rainfall and damaging winds across all adjacent regions... Fraser Island to Brisbane... are warned that flash flooding may occur and that they are not to attempt to cross flooded roads... an indication that this low-pressure system will develop into a cyclone... warning signals have gone out to all small boats, and that swimmers are advised that dangerous surf conditions... strong wind gusts have been recorded from Tewantin to... beach closures are expected north of... next full report due..."

Jen switched off the radio and contemplated her trip to the shops.

Not only the milk needed replacing, but also additional supplies needed to be bought too, in case the weather turned especially bad. She had never experienced a cyclone that far south, but the recent cyclones further north had been widely covered on the news, so she had a good idea what to expect.

A few minutes later, the rain eased sufficiently for her windscreen wipers to be moderately effective, so she pulled out of her driveway and onto the road.

Carefully, she made the drive into town.

Turning into the supermarket car park, Jen noted that a number of people were already there ahead of her. She parked as close to the entrance as she was able and ran inside, at the same time attempting to shield herself with the now ineffectual umbrella. Shaking herself dry, she stared at the crowd milling around the supermarket entrance. Amid the hubbub, she dimly heard a loudspeaker announcement.

"Shoppers, please be patient. We're unloading milk supplies now. However, each person will be rationed one three-litre bottle each until our regular supply arrives later today. We can assure you that this milk is fresh, it is newly delivered from our sister-store in Nambour."

"What happened?" Jen asked the young mother standing close by.

"Haven't you heard?" the woman replied. "The supermarket's entire stock of milk spoilt overnight."

Jen's mouth dropped open. "How odd, I had the same problem."

"We all did," she replied, her baby fretting at her shoulder. "Every drop of fresh milk turned bad. The only milk that did not spoil was the powdered variety. The supermarket is blaming the supplier. Yet I've heard that the supplier reckons there was nothing wrong with the batch."

"That's very strange," Jen exclaimed.

"Oh good, they are opening the doors." With a quick smile, the young mum had vanished into the press of people surging forward.

Jen duly received her three-litre bottle of milk from the attendant at the dairy cabinet and then hurried on to get the other supplies she wanted in case the storm crossed the coast. Her list in her hand, she ticked off batteries, matches, bread, powdered milk, a spare bottle of kerosene, and bottled water. Additionally, she added to her trolley a dozen tinned and dehydrated meals as well.

Reaching down to a bottom shelf where candles were stored, she heard an ear-piercing shriek of laughter. Straightening, she looked around and saw an entire stacked display of tinned fruit go tumbling off the shelves and land right at the feet of a startled employee.

She hurried over. "Are you okay?"

The young man frowned at her and motioned her closer.

Jen repeated her question a little louder this time.

"I'm fine."

He stared at the mess of tins on the floor and slowly bent to start restacking them.

"It's so strange. I saw no one near, and then suddenly, the tins were all on the floor. I'm positive they were stacked properly."

"Then you didn't hear the laugh?"

He shook his head. "What laugh?"

The young man grinned suddenly. "Mind you, at the moment a bomb could go off and I'd not notice. Spent last night clubbing on the coast, and I've had a loud ringing in the ears since.

He looked around. "I reckon it must have been an earth tremor."

"Yet, nothing else fell," Jen pointed out reasonably.

"That's true," he agreed. "Nothing else fell."

Jen walked back to her abandoned trolley, her mind racing. What _was_ going on?

Outside, the rain continued to pelt down, and a fresh wind had picked up, blowing the rain sideways at times.

Jen, her hands burdened by several plastic bags filled with groceries, stumbled to the car. Her clothes clinging to her, she was drenched through by the time she had deposited the bags in the boot of the car and opened the driver's door. Wiping the water droplets from her glasses, she turned on the demister and put the windscreen wipers on the highest setting—to little effect.

The drive back to her house was hairy, indeed. The rain was like a waterfall, reducing visibility to only a few metres and wind gusts buffeted the car, rocking it on its suspension. Jen peered anxiously out at the road, wincing as other drivers barrelled toward her and past, spraying water and further reducing visibility. Braking often, she slowly retraced her route back to her home.

It was with a profound sense of relief that she turned into her driveway and eased the car as close to her front steps as she was able.

Once inside, she sloughed off her wet things into the washing machine and had a hot shower, gratefully changing into dry clothes. Slowly and mechanically, she put away the groceries, listening as the rain hammered mercilessly on the tin roof of the cottage. The din was pervasive; it seemed to Jen as if the storm was personally attempting to cow her into submission.

Needing some contact with the outside world, she turned on the radio, and then gave up as the thundering rain and an immediate chorus of whistles and crackles made listening impossible.

Shrugging, she decided that the best course of action was to return to work, for there were those three chapters left to do. If she put her mind to it, she might get it finished by that evening, and her cozy little office might prove to be a welcome sanctuary away from the immediacy of the storm.

She turned on the computer in the darkening room, and immediately, the screen started to flicker. Alarmed she did a restart, but no change. The computer was acting as oddly as the radio.

Annoyed, she shut it down and stood staring at the small window. Walking over, Jen brushed away the chilled condensation on the glass, feeling the water gather against her skin. She stood there, her fingertips touching the window, watching the distant trees bending and moving, and the house imperceptibly shaking in the increasing wind. Despite being almost midday, the rain and clouds had plunged the countryside into a creepy, grey-green half-light.

There was a sudden rattle of hail on the roof, and immediately there was a sharp crack, almost like a rifle shot. Inadvertently, Jen jumped, and all the lights went off in the house.

Cursing to herself, Jen stumbled around in the semi-dark, finally locating a kerosene lamp in the laundry and lit it.

In the eerie half-light, the fury of the storm was readily apparent. She pushed open a curtain in the living room and peered outside. The wind was driving the rain almost horizontally and tree branches whipped from side to side. A waterfall cascaded from her roof as the holes in the guttering opened up under the cloudburst. Every so often, the house shuddered on its foundations as a strong gust of wind hit it.

Feeling alarmed, Jen hugged herself like a child, not wanting to watch the storm. Yet, despite her fears, she was fascinated. She stared up at the flying clouds, greenish-grey banners snapping across the sky. She watched, too, as the rain squalls moved across the countryside, curtains of deeper grey against the ever-present gloom. As she watched, a brilliant, mind-searing shaft of light flashed before her eyes, and before she could blink, she glimpsed with shocked eyes a dozen or so ghostly riders cavorting about in the dark sky. She stumbled back at the sight, her hand to her mouth, and her skin crawling with fear. Suddenly, the ground shook, and an earth-shattering bang threw her back on her heels and sent her scurrying for the relative safety of the bathroom. Crouching fearfully on the cold tiled floor, she felt the house tremble and then settle again. Her ears rang from the deafening clap of thunder, and she distinctly smelt ozone. Distantly, yet distinctly, she heard high pealing laughter, then it was gone, and the wind picked up again, howling through the eaves.

Shaking with fear, Jen decided she had had enough.

Determinedly, she locked and bolted the front door, did a double check of all windows, and with the kerosene lamp in her hand, she retreated to her bedroom. Quickly, she extinguished the lantern, and with a blanket pulled over her head, attempted to sleep away the fury of the storm and try to forget what she had seen in its dark roiling clouds.

She woke to her electric alarm clock blinking away. The numerals read 3.25 AM, yet there was a half-light peeping through her curtains, which indicated that it was still daylight. She heard a light patter of rain on the roof which faded away as she listened. It seemed that the storm had not yet passed. However, its full fury had finally abated.

Jen switched on her bedroom light switch. When the light did come on, it was dimmed, and only a fraction of its normal strength. Assuming the power lines were down somewhere, she turned the switch back off.

For the moment, candles, a kerosene lamp, and the gas stove would have to suffice.

Nothing seemed amiss as she moved through the house. No water had penetrated for which she was thankful. She decided to check the yard and opened the front door.

Outside, a shroud of leaves and light twigs covered the hire car. In the near distance, Jen could see several trees on the property boundary that the force of the storm had struck down. One of the trees showed a muted finger of smoke caused by a lightning strike. Otherwise, the house and land seemed fine, despite the damage elsewhere.

Standing on the verandah, she breathed deeply. The air was fresh with an underlying earthy aroma of crushed leaves, mud, floodwater and something else...unidentifiable.

Jen inhaled and closed her eyes; there was something magical about the world after rain. The scents and the light seemed amplified. A shiver went up her spine and goose bumps dimpled her skin.

The sound of a tractor pulling up outside her front gate interrupted her reverie. Pulling on a rain jacket that hung from the hook at the back of the front door, she walked out into the lightly spitting rain to see what was going on.

"Miss McDonald?" a voice called out from over the rumpf _,_ rumpf sound of the idling machine.

"I'm here," Jen called back, whilst squelching her way up the muddy driveway.

She peered through the light rain and saw Brett sitting atop his tractor.

"Alice sent me out to check on you," he explained. "That was a rough storm. The bureau hasn't called it a cyclone yet, but I reckon it was near Category One."

"Indeed, it was," she agreed." Did it cross the coast?"

"Yup, it was a fast moving bugger. The news services reckon it will break the record books. In fact, the eye went through a bit further north of here up 'round Noosa, they say. Seems that most of the beaches have been washed away and Coolum caught a fair bit of damage. He looked past her up to the house. "Any damage?"

She shook her head. "Not really, just some trees down on the boundary fence. My guttering developed a few more holes," she added ruefully. "Also, electricity is doing odd things, like I'm on partial power."

"You are. In fact, we all are," he told her. "All the power lines are down in the area. The power companies have brought in generators, but it will be awhile before full power is restored."

Jen nodded. "I've got supplies."

"Good!" His expression became troubled. "One more thing. Can you keep an eye out for little Lachlan Bryce? He vanished during the height of the storm, and his parents are frantic."

Jen put a hand to her mouth in shock. "He's only a wee child of three!"

"Yup, it's a terrible thing. The police are out combing the area now."

Jen shook her head in worry. "I'll check my land; in case he's hiding somewhere." She looked around at the undulating hills and flooded creeks. "He could be anywhere. I hope they find him."

"As do we all," he said. Then he tipped his old felt hat at her and slowly drove the tractor away.

#  Chapter 6

"Well, I don't know how you managed it, but you got your storm," said Jeremy as he shook the raindrops off his oilskin jacket and hung it up on the wooden pegs on Carma's front porch.

Brandon laughed. "None of my doing, I can assure you, but the timing seemed...providential. How is the moth situation at the bookstore?"

"A bust," Jeremy complained. "I think the storm blew them away. I went to check on them on the way here and not one to be seen."

A voice could be heard from the kitchen. "Green or herbal tea, Jeremy?"

"Ginseng, thanks, Carma," Jeremy called back.

'We're the first," Brandon said to Jeremy. "The others are still arriving. It was damn decent of Carma to offer to host the meeting here, especially with Sonja still trying to deal with the gum tree that flattened her house. Good thing she was at Steve's place today."

Brandon winked knowingly at him.

"So she's staying with Steve then?" Jeremy asked.

"I assume so."

"Will we have a quorum?" asked Jeremy. "Given tonight we're voting on the two issues, moth or underground power lines."

"I would think so," replied Brandon. "Carma told me that the local councillor is coming tonight, as well as a representative of the power company since they're in the area doing repairs."

"Fortuitous indeed," said Jeremy. "Pity about the moth, but we can't mount a proper campaign without it being present."

Brandon's eyebrow lifted. "That's not stopped us in the past..."

Jeremy giggled. "The Spotted Crake? Well, it's amazing what you can achieve with a recording of its call being played on and off when that local birdwatcher group was present.

He was airily dismissive. "Just a bunch of dotty old ladies, so very easy to pull the wool over their eyes."

"Well, that rainforest needed preserving," Brandon agreed. "A necessary means to an end."

"Rainforest?" Carma questioned, emerging from the kitchen and laughed at the two men.

"Come now, if that scrubby gully was a rainforest, well then you can call me a fool. However, it was a necessary means to an end; we needed to flex our muscles against the council, and I'm glad that I initiated that action.

She indicated the three mugs of tea balanced on a tray. "Ginseng for Jeremy, latte for Brandon, and green tea for myself." She handed out the beverages. "Still only us three?"

"I'm here," called out a voice from the front door.

"Maryanne! Good to see you here," said Brandon as the young student came in through the doorway, her dark hair plastered to her head.

Carma took one look at the dripping figure and went straight to the linen closet to fetch towels.

Maryanne shook the drips off. "I thought it was all over when I left, but it just started bucketing down again."

Two more figures materialised at the front door, shrugging off coats and closing umbrellas.

"Rod, Adam, any trouble on the road?" Carma enquired as she handed a towel to a grateful Maryanne.

"A few trees down, but the emergency workers are clearing," Rod replied. "I picked up Adam as his driveway is washed out."

"A cloudburst," agreed Adam. "I've been living here all my life, and I've never seen the like, this was far worse than '74 and '11. I had no idea the clouds could hold so much water. No wonder so many trees went down. I heard this area copped the worst of the rain."

"Adam, Rod, Maryanne, tea or coffee?" Carma asked.

The others nodded and called out their orders, and Carma went back into her kitchen to boil some more water. She moved five more mugs from the kitchen dresser onto the tabletop and going to her pantry, pulled out different canisters of herbal teas. As she waited for the water to boil, she took from a small black bowl a pinch of a silvery grey powder. She then sprinkled a few grains of the mixture into each mug. It had taken most of the afternoon to combine the ingredients correctly, and Moira had been most specific about its preparation.

Ah, Moira, now she was a strange one.

Carma had answered the knock on her door three days before to find at her feet a small wooden box placed on her front doorstep. She had taken the box inside to find within a dozen or more small glass—or were they crystal?—vials containing a number of strange substances that she could not identify.

A handwritten note lay amongst the flasks. The words were in a strangely archaic flowing hand and written on parchment. With some difficulty, Carma had deciphered the words, _"A concoction to_ bind _others to your will. Mix with care. Moira."_

Below the note were detailed instructions.

It had taken Carma several attempts and scorched fingers before she had a finished powder that resembled the description on the note. Carefully, she had put the bowl away and covered it as requested with a linen cloth. The note had warned that the powder would only have a one time use, and its potency would decline rapidly, so she would need to make it on the day of use.

Adam appeared at the kitchen door. "You done yet, Carma? The councillor and energy chap are here now. Before she could ask, he said, "Coffee for both of them."

Carma nodded and started to pour into the mugs the boiling water.

An hour or two later, Carma looked around at her guests. All were sitting forward on their chairs and seemed to be avidly following every word she said. She had spoken passionately and at length about the need for the power to go underground, citing tourism potential, the overhead wire danger to the town's possum and bat population, as well as a more reliable method of energy distribution.

Everyone had nodded at her words—even the stodgy councillor became animated when the tourism angle was mentioned. The power company representative had initially sat back and listened, and then after he drank his coffee, he too leant forward and nodded. He interjected once to agree with her observation that the town would still have power if the lines were underground.

Finally, once the councillor and energy representative had left, the remaining members of EHGAG had voted on the moth and the power lines. Carma wasn't at all surprised that the moth hadn't attracted a single vote. Even Jeremy—its most avid promoter—had gone wholly across to support her action instead. It was time to move into top gear and lobby the council, the power supplier, and the residents of the town.

#  Chapter 7

After forty-eight hours of patchy power supply, electricity to the town was finally reconnected. Jen celebrated by turning on her laptop and devoting the rest of the day to proofreading the last few chapters of her client's manuscript.

She had been busy the last two days clearing away the mess of leaves and twigs from her garden and mopping away the water that had pooled on her verandah. Going by the reports on the radio, the search for the little boy had proved fruitless. Police from Brisbane had moved into the area and had set up an incident room in the local council chambers.

The press had also sensed blood and sent reporters into the town, attempting to interview anyone who might supply them with a new angle. Local opinion was that the child had wandered away and fallen into one of the many small creeks, several of which had broken banks during the cloudburst. Most agreed that they might not find his body for weeks until after the water levels had returned to normal. Already, police divers were combing the river, with no result other than finding a few bloated corpses of livestock and native animals caught by the swiftly rising floodwaters and washed away.

As she typed, Jen listened to the radio perched precariously on top of a stack of books on her desk. Still no word on the missing child and another tragedy seemed to be unfolding. A skilled police diver somehow dragged down by floodwaters in the local dam and reported missing as the timer on his oxygen had long since expired. Police were warning all residents away from fast flowing creeks and barriers erected at crossings, alarmed that more casualties could result.

The phone interrupted her, its shrill ringing drowning out even the radio itself. She saved her work on the computer and went to answer it.

"Hello, Jen McDonald speaking."

For a moment, she heard nothing, and then distantly she heard a quiet whispery voice speaking in a language she could neither understand nor identify.

"Yes. Jen speaking. How can I help you?"

Still, the caller whispered away. Jen couldn't make head nor tail of what was being said.

She identified herself again, that time a little more abruptly as her patience began to wear thin, yet still the voice whispered on.

Fed up, she slammed the receiver down, cutting off the voice mid-whisper. The phone rang again, and she answered it. There was an echoing silence as if whoever had been whispering on the first call was awaiting her response.

Feeling foolish, she identified herself again and still silence, then suddenly she heard a high-pitched giggle on the other end—not childish, not even human; her blood chilled at the sound of it.

As she held the receiver aloft, staring at it in horror, the phone inexplicably rang again. The receiver dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers to clatter on the desk. Faintly, she heard the laugh again. Alarmed, she bent down and pulled the phone cable from the wall, the ringing and the giggle immediately silenced.

She _had_ to get out of there. She had to talk to someone.

Suddenly, she remembered her meeting with the elderly gentleman at the shopping centre. Jen went to her bag and retrieved the phone number. Not wanting to trust the landline, she quickly dialled the number on her mobile and waited for a reply.

A young woman's voice answered the phone, "Delany residence."

Jen was nonplussed. "Hello, Jen McDonald speaking, I'd like to speak with Tom."

Jen heard a voice calling out, "Grandpa! There's a lady on the phone for you."

There was a bit of distant talking, then Jen heard the phone passed over, and then the quiet voice she remembered. "Tom Delany here. Who may I ask is calling?"

Jen cleared her throat. "Jen McDonald. We met at the shopping centre last week."

"Ah, Jen, so glad you called." Jen could hear the smile in his voice. "I'd hoped you'd ring."

"Uhm..." Jen was tongue-tied. She did not know how to explain to Tom what was going on.

"Thing have been happening then, love?" he asked gently.

"Um...yes, it's hard to explain," she stammered. "Really, I hate to burden you, but I don't know of anyone else to turn to."

"Best that you come over here then," he said. "My granddaughter is cooking dinner tonight, and I'm sure her pasta can stretch to five."

"Five?"

"My son and his wife are helping me clean up after the storm," he explained. "Come on over."

"Oh, I don't want...to be an imposition," she struggled.

"Nonsense," he said crisply. "Here is the address. Got it?"

She murmured her assent as she hastily scribbled it down on a scrap of paper.

"Then we'll expect you within the hour."

Jen heard Tom hang up. There had been no opportunity to refuse the invitation. Resignedly, she showered and changed, and then fetching her bag, she secured the house and drove off in the direction of Cromhart.

Jen felt overawed when she drove up to Tom Delany's place.

She had turned off the main road, and in the slanting rays of the setting sun, drove up along a still muddy dirt road through seemingly endless rows of fruit and nut trees. If Tom considered his farm small, Jen wondered exactly what he would consider a large farm to be like.

Finally, she glimpsed the house through the last rows of trees. It was a sprawling old Queenslander with a tin roof, central stairs, cast-iron lacework trim and a bullnose-verandah surrounding three sides of the house. It looked like one of the original settler homes of the region.

Jen parked her hire car off to one side, next to some farm machinery and some other cars. Mechanically, she got out and stood uncertainly by the driver's door, unsure of what to expect.

A young woman who seemed to be about twenty years of age walked around the corner of the house. Her hair was long, straight, and blonde, her eyes a bright blue and her skin tanned. An aura of self-possession and innate strength hung about her. She looked very fit and healthy.

"Miss Jen?" the young woman asked, her eyes quietly appraising the other woman, noting her slight build, glasses askew on a round, pale face, and nervous hazel eyes regarded her approach.

"Yes," Jen replied, self-consciously holding out her hand.

To her surprise, the young woman leant over and taking her hand kissed her gently on the cheek.

"I'm Fiona," she introduced herself. "Tom's granddaughter, Grandpa is inside. Come on in."

Taken a little aback by the easy familiarity, Jen allowed herself to be led inside the house.

"Jen, so nice to see you again." The old man stiffly lifted himself from the overstuffed sofa and reached to shake her hand.

Jen smiled and nodded. "Likewise, Tom. I trust you have been well?"

"Fair to middling, Jen," he replied. "My old joints dislike the rain we've had. Do you mind if I sit?"

"Of course not," she said, perching herself on the edge of an old bentwood chair.

"Fiona's gone back in the kitchen. Pasta night tonight, and her speciality is homemade spaghetti," he explained.

"Matt and Catherine are still out with the contractors. We've started to bring in the macadamias and trying to salvage as much of the avocado crop that was damaged by the storm."

"Did you lose much?" she asked politely.

He grinned unexpectedly. "Enough to be annoying and sufficient to affect this year's bottom line. Such is the life of a farmer, even one long in the tooth and afflicted with rheumatism. Good thing Matt and his family live close by and help out."

Jen nodded.

"Now, tell me about what has been happening, Jen. You sounded quite odd on the phone."

Jen stared at her feet, her innate shyness overpowering her.

"You've been seeing and hearing things haven't you?"

Jen looked up to meet his faded blue eyes. "Yes, how on Earth did you know?"

He sat back in his chair with a sigh, Jen could see that he was gathering his thoughts about how and what he was about to say.

"My family has been living up here on the Hinterland for over a hundred years," he said after a long pause.

"This place" and he indicated the house with his hand, "Was built around the time of Federation. So you could say we've seen most everything the region could throw at us, including the odd cyclone, bushfire, hippy invasion and the coming and going of various families and industries.

He stared at her, "Fifty years ago, I had just married my young wife Anna. You see, her family had just moved out from Scotland two years before, and I met her at the Brisbane Show."

Jen nodded. "I've been to it a few times myself."

"Hmmm, I've been told it's changed quite a lot since my last trip...but I digress. I met Anna, and we moved into the family house up here at Cromhart. At that time, the farm was mainly dairy and some mixed crops; we didn't diversify into macadamias and avocados until the eighties. Anyway, Anna's family was Scottish Highlanders, a tough breed with a lot of history behind them. Anna herself was as courageous a woman as I'd ever met, ready to do the hard work of farming with me. Not a shrinking violet type."

"She sounds like quite a remarkable woman," Jen mused.

"She was, and in more ways than one," Tom added. "You see, fifty years ago, Anna, my strong, tough, prosaic, practical Anna started seeing and hearing things."

Jen fidgeted a little at hearing that.

He noticed her discomfort and asked her directly, "What do you know about fairies, Jen?"

Blushing with embarrassment, Jen tried to answer the question. "Fairies? Do you mean the Hans Christian Anderson, Grimm Brothers fairy stories?"

He nodded.

"Only from what I remember reading as a child," she replied honestly.

"Have you ever considered that fairies might actually exist?"

She stared at him, wondering if he was addled in the head, and then almost immediately dismissing the thought when she remembered the hard-headed practicalities of being a farmer.

"No, I've always thought fairy tales as being written to amuse or frighten young children, or perhaps teach them certain behaviours."

He smiled. "Admittedly, some were yes. However, many myths originated as tales handed down from generation to generation, some stretching back hundreds, perhaps thousands of years and from all around the world."

Jen nodded. "I understand. It was early man's attempts to explain strange happenings in his environment, happenings that can now be explained through science and medicine."

"Mostly explained," Tom corrected her. "Living with Anna opened my eyes to a lot of things that could not be rationally explained."

"Why so?" Jen was puzzled.

Tom cleared his voice. "Anna was Sighted, Jen. She had special gifts that allowed her to see into what she called the realm of the Fae."

"Sighted? Do you mean she was psychic?"

He nodded. "She called the gift _An da_ sheallad, or the Second Sight—in other words, the ability to see spirits, to see the future. I understand 'the gift', or perhaps more accurately 'the curse', can be found amongst certain individuals from the Scottish Highlands."

She stared at him in some confusion. "Are you implying that I also am Sighted?"

"Perhaps, now might be a good time to tell me of your own experiences."

Jen sighed and fidgeted in her seat. "I don't know what to say. I've had dreams that seem more real than reality. I've seen ghostly horsemen in storm clouds and in distant fields, and I have heard inhuman, whispering voices in my house, and even on the phone." She looked at him frankly. "It's all been terribly unsettling. Not to mention the storm, which I've heard on the news was quite out of the ordinary... Also, I've had a visitor. I thought he was part of a dream, now I'm not so sure."

"What sort of visitor?" Tom asked gently.

"A young man who called himself Fionn. He was dressed in ordinary enough clothes, yet thinking about it later, he didn't seem the least bit ordinary. In fact, his behaviour was quite odd. However, in the dream, it all seemed so normal, so rational."

"It seems like the Fair Folk have taken quite an interest in you, Jen McDonald."

"Fair Folk?" asked Jen.

"The Faerie, the Fae, the Good People, the Sidhe, the Tuatha De Danaan." He steepled his fingers together. "There seem to be as many names for them as stars in the sky or mushrooms in the grass after rain."

"They hardly seem good," observed Jen, thinking back on her experiences. "I'd call them wild and terrifying, given that what you say actually exists and is true?"

"Is nature not wild and terrifying?" Tom asked.

"Certainly," Jen agreed. "Nature can be both beautiful and terrifying."

"Then perhaps these elemental creatures that we have called fairies are simply just another aspect of nature; an aspect that only a few people have the ability to perceive."

"Perhaps," agreed Jen. "Or more possibly my brain was hurt during the car crash."

Tom stared at her directly. "Do you really believe that?"

Jen shrugged. "My practical side would...yet, and if I did wholly believe it, I wouldn't be sitting in your house and rationally discussing fairies with you, now would I, Tom?"

"No, you would be already at a hospital getting scans and tests done," he said.

"I've already done that," she admitted, blushing.

"And what did they find?"

"Nothing, I got a clean bill of health."

"There you go," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Even the wonders of modern medicine cannot explain away the unexplainable."

"Dad, you there?" a male voice called out suddenly from the back door.

"I'm here," called out Tom. "We have a visitor."

A lean and bronzed middle-aged man dressed in a Hi-Vis shirt, work shorts, and work boots sauntered into the living room. He had an old bushman's felt hat jammed on his head, and his bright blue eyes twinkled.

"Excuse the dirt," he apologised, wiping his hand on his shorts before holding it out to Jen. "We've only just finished for the day."

"Jen McDonald," Jen said as she shook his calloused hand.

"Matt Delany. My wife Cathy will be along soon. She's just cleaning up now." He turned to his father. "Dad, the contractors will be back tomorrow around 10 AM. You okay with that?"

Tom nodded. "Yes that's fine, Matt, you go wash up. We'll wait for you and Catherine."

"Fiona, how soon till dinner?" Matt called out.

Jen heard a voice, distant from the kitchen, "Be serving up in ten minutes, Dad."

"Okay...back in a tic."

Tom grinned at Jen. "He'll be awhile because my son loves his bath. Now, back to fairies, do you believe me?"

Jen shrugged. "I guess so. It is a lot to take in. What I cannot understand is why here, why now? I thought fairies were Northern European mythology."

"National borders would hardly constrain supernatural or elemental creatures," Tom said wryly. "Anna used to say that she believed that the Fair Folk travelled often, sometimes in procession, along roads that were unseen to us. Fairy highways that crisscrossed the globe." He paused. "She often thought that Emerald Hills lay right atop one."

"Given that all this is true, and to be honest, I'm struggling to accept it. I understand the _why here,_ Tom. So can you explain the _why now_?"

It was his turn to shrug. "To be honest, I don't know. Perhaps, they are not always present here. Perhaps they _do_ move. All I do know is that fifty years ago, Anna was seeing and hearing things, then after a few months, they suddenly vanished and everything was back to normal again. Anna still felt things from time to time, but nothing like what she had experienced back in '62."

"So something's up?" reasoned Jen.

"It seems to be that way." Tom nodded. "Oh and one last thing, these creatures do not think like us. Their motives seem to be as alien as a little green man beamed down from Mars. Do not trust them and try to limit your interactions with them. From what Anna said, they will use us as easily as we would move chess pieces on a chess board."

"So why me?" Jen asked finally, reluctantly.

"I believe it is because you are Sighted, Jen," he replied. "They _see_ you because you _see_ them. Occasionally, I've read that they will reveal themselves to non-Sighted people, however, you attract them as easily as insect paper will attract flies." He shook his head. "It can be a curse or a blessing. It depends on how you handle the situation, but heed my warning: They will make themselves hard to ignore, but you must try hard to ignore them."

Jen nodded and looked to the kitchen. "What does your family think of all this?"

"It's mentioned only rarely," he admitted. "Matt knows that his mother was Sighted, but neither he nor Fiona seemed to have inherited her gift, so we leave it at that."

"So this gift or curse can skip generations?"

"Apparently so," agreed Tom. "Are you the only one in your family to see things that others do not?"

Jen shrugged. "I've no idea, I am an only child and both Mother and Father have now passed on. They didn't speak to me about such things, and my cousins back in Scotland have never mentioned it, either."

"Dinner's up!" called Fiona from the kitchen.

"Well, then time for us to speak of other matters and to enjoy Fiona's delicious cooking."

Tom was right. Fiona's homemade pasta _was_ amazing and Jen listened as the talk went around the table about the storm, farming matters, the contractors. Jen learnt that Fiona was a surf lifesaver at nearby Mooloolaba beach in her spare time. Fiona's mother, Catherine, seemed to be a shy countrywoman, content to sit back and let her voluble husband, daughter, and father-in-law speak.

Occasionally, she and Jen caught each other's eye. An unspoken agreement seemed to pass between both of them that perhaps one day they might be good friends.

"Oh, Dad, did you hear?" Fiona suddenly stated. "The council is planning to take the town's power lines underground."

Matt looked at his daughter shrewdly. "This seems to be an unnecessary expense, given that storm damage has been so significant up and down the coast."

"I agree with the expense and question the necessity," Tom replied. "I can see the fingerprints of EHGAG on this."

"EHGAG" Jen asked in some confusion.

"The local greenie group," replied Tom acidly, his mouth twisting with distaste. "Look, I'm all for proper conservation and land management, most decent farmers are, but that particular outfit is a bunch of lunatics. EHGAG have had the most idiotic proposals approved by the government. The only thing I can think of is that they must have a politician deep in their pockets. Try to speak against them and before you can say 'placard', you'll have a demonstration at your farm gate and the media baying for your blood."

Tom sat back in his chair, his face white and furious.

"Normally, I'm all for civic improvements," Matt said quietly, moderately. "However, the council has admitted it's financially in a very poor position, and given the expense to repair infrastructure after the storm, well, it's a stupid project to be taking on now. He sighed. "Sure as anything, rates will be going up, as well as electricity charges, since it will be the only way they'll have to fund it."

"No government grants?" asked Catherine, her voice quiet.

"Doubt it, love," said Matt. "The government is in debt too, and if they do give the council money, then there will be a gap. There always is, and the taxpayers will be the ones to fill it."

"So why is the need, if it's going to be so expensive?" Jen questioned at last, hesitant to speak out on a subject that seemed so fraught with emotion.

Tom turned to her. "Your guess is as good as mine. I've given up trying to reason out the workings of EHGAG."

After that, the conversation drifted onto other matters, and by eight PM, Jen, noticing the yawns around the table, said her goodbyes, pleading tiredness herself.

Before she left, Tom stopped her at the front door.

"Jen, about what I said before. If you get truly frightened by what is going on, then there is a spare bedroom here to bunk down in until it all passes over."

Jen squeezed his lined and work-roughened hand. "I appreciate the offer, Tom, but now that I know what I'm dealing with, well, let me do this my own way."

Tom nodded. "I understand, however, the offer still stands." He suddenly laughed. "Fiona has been congratulating me about my new, young girlfriend, but you and I know the truth."

Then he fell quiet for a moment as if remembering.

"I'd not be telling others what you have been seeing. Anna told a few, and she was virtually ostracised by the town after that. It took years before they accepted her again. Small towns are like that. If word gets out, then the gossips will pass it on, and it will spread like wildfire. It will take ages for you to live it down, and people simply won't or can't accept the truth."

Jen agreed to keep 'mum' and waving goodbye, walked down to her little car.

Driving back along the dark wet country roads, Jen was a little apprehensive about what she might find at home. However, all seemed quiet and normal when she drove in, parked, and then opened the door. The only thing that was out of place was the phone wall socket. She went to push it back into the wall and then hesitated, the cable dangling in her hands. What she really craved was a good night's sleep, and a disconnected phone would stop any unwelcome calls. She would deal with the phone, and whoever or whatever was whispering into it, in the morning.

#  Chapter 8

Pulling her dressing gown around her, she stepped out onto the verandah and breathed in deeply. A fresh and cool southerly breeze was blowing, dispelling the high humidity of the last few days.

Above, a brilliant-blue sky greeted her, marred only by a few clouds scudding across the blueness, driven by the wind. Outside, the greenness of the hills and paddocks was bright enough to hurt the eyes and lilting birdsong banished any residue anxiety.

Faced with such a glorious day, it was hard to believe any imperfection could be present in the world. Jen immediately decided that such a day did not warrant time spent with her nose to the computer screen. Rather, a long walk and a hot breakfast after beckoned her outside.

Quickly, she dressed and locked the house, and then walked down the few stairs to the springy grass of the lawn. The air was almost intoxicating, again, she breathed deeply of it, feeling her skin tingle in response. Reaching the road, she randomly chose a direction and began to stroll. Her shoes crunched along the gravel edge of the bitumen occasionally disturbing small insects which, startled, flew away from her. Every so often, a car would rush past in a blur of metal and noise. After a few minutes, she turned off the road and, carefully clambering through a barbed wire fence, walked out into one of the neighbouring paddocks.

The paddock had seen much rain and little grazing so the grass had grown to reach her knees. Mindful of snakes, she picked up a long stick, which had evidently blown in by the storm, and hit the ground ahead of her. The unaccustomed exercise brought a rose to her normally pale cheeks and after a few minutes, she looked for a good place to sit.

Eventually, she spied a clump of granite boulders off to one side and determinedly made her way to them. Most of the boulders were too steep to scramble up, however Jen found one she could clamber onto and sat panting with exertion.

The view from the boulder was tremendous and Jen just sat staring out at the green and lush landscape. She could see a tractor working one of the fields in the distance, yet heard nothing, the wind taking the sound in the opposite direction. Above her, black cockatoos flew, looping and diving, catching the wind gusts. Off to one side, a bunch of crows circled and called. Perhaps, some stock had died. Remembering the lost child, Jen decided she would investigate before she returned home.

"You pick the wild and lonely places to do your contemplation," a familiar voice said suddenly.

Jen jumped in surprise and turned around to encounter the leaf-green eyes of the one who had called himself Fionn.

On the other hand, was it Fionn? She narrowed her eyes, that time he seemed much older, an elegant, mature man in his late forties with a face attractively lined. He was dressed differently than before; the jeans were gone, and instead he wore a black jacket and collared shirt and black dress trousers. His long, pale, ash hair still hung about his shoulders. A pale clay pipe poked out of his jacket's top pocket.

"You!" she said.

He nodded smiling.

"I've been warned about you," she accused.

"I'd not harm you, Jen," he said, lithely springing up to sit next to her on the rock. Idly, his hand covered hers, which made her heart jump.

"So what do they say about me?" he asked, smiling at her. She felt her bones melt under his warm gaze.

"No-not ab-about _you_ ," she stammered, blushing deeply.

"About what I am?" he asked her directly, his fingers lightly brushing hers.

She nodded silently, her face suffused with a scarlet blush.

"Then, what am I, in that I cannot be trusted?"

"Fairy," she finally breathed.

He looked suddenly vexed as if he objected to the name.

"So I am caught out. Who enlightened you?"

Jen stared at her boots, her emotions transfixed upon the play of his fingers upon her hand.

"A friend," she murmured quietly.

He studied her face. "Do I disturb you Jen? Jenny of the sweet heathery hills of home." He leaned down and breathed in her ear, "Your kind calls to us as bees to pollen-laden flowers."

"My kind?" she gasped, her head spinning.

"You, who see us and hear us, your voice is a siren song to me, sweet Jenny."

His hand reached up and turned her face to his. Gently, he kissed her, and her lips surrendered to his. He tasted of honey, cinnamon, and smoky duskiness.

"I would have you sweet, Jenny. I would have you here now, upon these rocks. I would fill your empty heart with overflowing love."

He kissed her again, and that time, his fingers moved from her hands to roam across her body.

"No," she breathed, half-heartedly attempting to break away from him. "You are not to be trusted."

He smiled at her protestations and slid his hand beneath her shirt. She gasped and felt an unfamiliar hot and rushing heat flood her body.

"You want me too," he whispered against her mouth. "Why deny what your body demands?"

"No!" she half-slid off the rock to face him. Her face was flushed and her clothes in disarray. "You are not human; how can I trust one who..."

He smiled gently at her. "How many times, my Jenny, do I have to tell you that I wish you no ill?"

Jen closed her eyes to his leaf-green gaze and tried to ignore the overpowering sexual pull of the man half lying upon the rocks.

She shook her head and turned away, ignoring the cry of her own body, a body so long denied pleasure and love.

"I cannot trust one as you."

Even to her own ears, her pleas sounded hollow.

She heard him slide off the rock, and she felt, not _heard_ him come behind her enfolding her again in his arms.

"I will have you, Jenny of the old lands," he whispered against her hair. "If not now, then another time, it is fated, you see. We will come together, you and I. Your body sings to me, and I am in its thrall."

She pulled away again, shaking her head. "Please leave me be."

"I cannot," he admitted. "However, I will honour your wishes.

He turned her to face him, and his face was strangely serious. "Although, you deny yourself pleasure, my Jenny, my express purpose was to give you warning this day."

She stepped back out of his arms, giving herself space to breathe and collect her shattered senses.

"I need no warning now, your presence is warning enough," she muttered darkly.

"No, you misunderstand. I am a herald, a messenger, for the great powers who come after me."

She stared at him, her knees trembling again at the perfection of his face. She saw that he was in a state of arousal and her face grew scarlet. She looked away, anywhere but at the fairy-man with his imploring, beautiful face and pleading hands.

"My message to you comes from the powers that are the two great Courts of the Fae. Their message is that you must stop what is being done here," he said to her, his words oddly formal, his face a study of seriousness and lust.

Jen stared at him. "Courts? What courts? What am I supposed to stop?" She shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand." She took another step back. "No! Why should I do what you want? You have given me no reason to trust you, or your word."

His eyes flashed green. "I may be of the Sidhe, but I am still a man of my word."

"You are no man," Jen breathed.

He grinned suddenly at that, then he too stepped back. "Very well, I shall leave you in peace, Jenny. My message has been given, and you will see no more of me."

"No more," she whispered, her heart breaking. Against her will, she desperately longed for his touch, to taste him again on her lips.

He smiled suddenly, and his hands lifted as if to reach for her again. "See, your body cannot be deceived, yet my word stands. I will not come until you call me by my true name, and when I come, you cannot deny me. It is your choice, my Jenny."

Turning away, Jen firmed her resolve.

"I will not need your true name!" Jen declared, against the wishes of her own longings.

"Yet I will still give it to you," and on the breeze a word was given, whispering. Against her will, she remembered it. She heard him sigh and knew instantly that it was a binding thing, this giving of true names. Desperately, she tried to forget it, yet insistently it clung to her memory. She turned to protest, but he was gone, and the morning dulled in the absence of his presence.

Jen sank to the grassy ground, tears falling.

She desperately wanted the fairy-man, wanted him as she had never wanted anything or any man before in her life. She sobbed out her longing, yet she innately knew that succumbing to him would mean bitterness and a grief beyond imagining. She vowed never to utter his true name, vowed to deny herself the love and pleasure she most craved.

Jen understood sacrifice. She knew that she had to endure sacrifice in order to avert a greater sin. She would _not_ surrender. Eventually, she picked herself up and brushed the dew-wet grass from her jeans. The morning had lost its lustre and Jen felt drained of the joy that she had experienced earlier. Dragging reluctant feet, she ploughed on through the paddock to investigate the still-circling crows.

The cow had endured an ugly death. Jen stood back a bit from the carcass, whilst covering her nose and mouth, and stared at it in horror. The expression in its blank eyes spoke to her of infinite pain and fear. Going by the slashing wounds upon the hide, the cow had not died well or quickly. Jen thought that only feral dogs might do such injury, dragging a large prey animal down until it died. It might be the work of dogs or wolves.

Yet, Australia possessed no wolves in the wild. It would have to be a large feral dog pack, but Jen instinctively knew that something else had caused the death of the cow, something that was not of the natural world.

She turned away, sickened by the sight. If there had been a brand upon the cow to indicate ownership, then it no longer was visible. Looking around, she again saw the tractor, working then in a neighbouring field. She called out and waved, finally alerting the farmer. She waited, whilst he drove to the fence line, then stopping the tractor, he got out and walked over to where she stood. She looked at him and his face was unfamiliar to her.

"G'day lady, what's wrong?"

She pointed to the cow. "Is she one of yours?"

He stared at the mutilated animal and shook his head. "Nope, however, I do know who does. Bob Jenkins owns this field. Did you find her?"

She nodded. "I was out walking and followed the crows. Was thinking about that missing young child and thought I'd best investigate."

"Yup, a bad business that," he said, his mouth tight. "Still not found and worse still, another went missing yesterday."

"Another!" Jen's hand flew to her mouth.

He shook his head. "Little girl this time, scarcely old enough to crawl, let alone walk. She vanished from her bedroom in broad daylight. I heard it on the two-way radio this morning. The police seem to think that a predator is working the area."

"Good God!" breathed Jen in shock.

"Don't think God has much to do with these vanishings," the farmer said abruptly. "Although church-folk might find comfort in praying, these lowlifes seem to operate outside of God's laws."

"But not his retribution," Jen replied firmly, although what he said caused the hairs to rise on the back of her neck.

"If you believe it, perhaps it may be so," he said quietly. His voice sank to a low whisper. "I know that I wouldn't mind having such a lowlife in my gun-sights."

He looked at her in some embarrassment and cleared his throat, "Thanks for letting me know, Miss. I'll let Bob know about his cow when I'm done here."

She stared at the carcass. "Was it dogs?"

He shook his head. "Nope, I've seen dog attacks, it's different. It's like whatever killed it set out to be deliberately cruel."

Jen watched him trudge back to his tractor and decided that her morning walk had taken her far enough. Summoning her willpower, she dismissed the unsettling events of the morning from her mind, pushing even the memory of the fairy-man to the back of her memory. It was high time that she was home and away from that place.

#  Chapter 9

Jen had just finished eating her lunch when she heard a car drive up her gravel driveway and park next to the house. Curious as to whom her visitor might be, she opened the door to see the heavy-set police Senior Constable from her accident three weeks earlier get out of a police car.

"Miss McDonald." He quaffed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

Jen nodded.

"Nice to see you recovered," he said. "I'm Senior Constable Sanderson from Emerald Hills Police Station." He flashed his badge at her.

"I remember you, officer, come inside," she offered.

"Obliged," he said. "It's a mongrel hot day today."

"Let me get you a glass of cold water," Jen offered, getting up and heading to the fridge.

"Ta," he said. "This is just a follow-up visit to let you know that Dave O'Donnell has admitted that he was tailgating you and that the accident is his responsibility. His insurer will come to the party. He looked out the window. "That rental car would be setting you back."

"The insurer told me they will reimburse the rental costs when my claim goes through."

"Good and the head injury? No long-term damage?" he asked.

"None. A little stiffness from time to time, but even that is fading."

He nodded. "I have one other bit of business." He took the offered glass of water with a smile and downed it in one swallow. "You've heard about that little boy going missing?"

"Yes, still no word, then?"

He shook his head mournfully. "No leads, nothing at all, it's a complete mystery." His brawny hand clutched the glass so hard that Jen feared it would crack in his hand.

Gently, she took the glass from him and placed it on the coffee table.

He looked up at her. "I'm a family man, Miss McDonald. I have three of my own.

He took his wallet from his back pocket and flicked it open showing her a small photo of three small children running heedlessly around under a sprinkler in the garden.

He stared at the photo. "I'm tempted to move them off the Hinterlands for a while and let them stay with their grandparents in Gympie."

"I heard this morning that there was another child missing," Jen said gently.

He nodded imperceptibly. "It's not general knowledge yet, but it will get out soon enough, and we'll have the media up here in packs. He glanced at her. "I'm just a country copper, this..." His face grimaced. "Sort of thing sickens me. I thought we'd be immune from it here away from the city. He closed his wallet and pushed it back in his pocket. "Anyway, we're asking residents to not speak with the media. We're hoping we can put them off, whilst we continue our investigations unhindered."

"I'll not speak of it," Jen assured him. "I mean, I only know what others have been telling me, which, to tell the truth, isn't much," she admitted.

"Believe me, Miss McDonald, there are some nasty types out there. It makes my blood boil to think that there might be a pervert in the area abducting children.

He shook his head in disbelief. "We just can't work out how he's doing it. No tracks, no fingerprints, no DNA, no one is coming up on our database. The boy and girl simply seem to have vanished into thin air."

Jen's mouth went dry at that, and the shuddering unease she felt earlier that morning returned in full force.

The Senior Constable shook his head. "We've got officers up from Brisbane and federal officers on the way too. We'll catch the bastard who is doing this, don't you worry about that."

Jen could only stare at him, remembering what he said about the children vanishing.

"Anyway, I'd best be on my way..." He stood and put his hat back on. "Thanks again for the water, Miss McDonald, and I'm glad you are recovered from your accident."

"My pleasure, officer," she replied, quickly collecting herself. "I hope you find those children."

"We all do," he said, and then with a brief wave of his hand, he was outside and within a few moments was driving away and onto the main road.

Jen turned away from the window, her thoughts jumbled. Everyone seemed to believe that a criminal was responsible, yet a thought nagged at her. The only way she could dispel the nagging worry was to go onto the internet and do some research of her own. She walked into the office and turned the computer on.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing words into search engines, reading some sites, dismissing others. As the day wore on it seemed to be that evidence for fairy abduction was wholly due to legends passed on through story telling. However, the oral evidence did persist and Jen had a growing suspicion that the recent events might be linked to what she had experienced herself.

She immediately dismissed Fionn from the equation. His desires seemed to be focused entirely on her, which made her wonder just who or what was removing children from their families. Further searches on the internet brought up a veritable zoo of beasts and creatures that could be responsible and Jen's blood chilled when she read some of the descriptions. Jen had always been a practical, prosaic sort of woman, so she felt both embarrassed at herself, and unnerved by the fact that she was actually considering all of it in a rational way.

She turned off the computer and slowly lowered the lid on the laptop. What a quandary! She had to do something about the situation, but no one, save Tom and his family, would believe her. To be ridiculed and mocked would be the height of embarrassment, but Jen knew that would happen if she presented herself to the local police with an absurd story of fairies stealing children.

She resolved to call Tom to ask his advice, although she suspected that even he could achieve little. Fionn rose in her memory again, and she blushed furiously as to how she had acted around him. She reprimanded herself, but she suspected that if he presented himself again she would submit to his desires. It was so damned unfair. Why did the first man to grab her heart since Robert all those years ago, have to be neither man nor trustworthy?

Tom had been wise with his advice to ignore the fairy race. However, it was far easier said than done. Jen suspected that her dealings with the fairy people were a long way from being over.

#  Chapter 10

A week had passed since the last child disappearance and although the media had descended en masse upon the town, there were few new leads to sustain their interest.

Within a few days, the journalists had returned to whence they came, keeping only one of two 'cub' reporters in the area to keep an eye on things and to investigate new developments. The only people who regretted their departure were shop owners and the local motel and bed and breakfast operators. The rest of the town had been thankful. Most of the residents had chosen Emerald Hills for the serenity and isolation from the big cities; the last thing they needed was big city problems plaguing their little slice of heaven.

Still, Emerald Hills did not now seem to be the haven residents had once desired. The town was an eyesore of footpaths ripped up by diggers and contractors since the determined push for underground power had gone ahead in council and government. The steady din of jackhammers and mechanical diggers drowned out the gentle sounds of birdsong and the subdued bubbling creek. The effort to crack and split concrete and to lay the harsh-smelling freshly laid bitumen drove many residents either indoors, or to neighbouring Cromhart to do their shopping. The Council predicted many more weeks of disruption as the alternate power route was constructed.

However, Alan Turner, owner, and proprietor of 'The Royal Hotel' was ecstatic. Business was booming, residents stayed longer at the bar to escape the noise and dust in the town, and the imported tradesmen from Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast were regular visitors. He thought it was a pity that the media had left the town. They had been good customers, hanging about all hours drinking and chatting amongst themselves.

Taking jangling keys from his pocket, he opened the door to the public bar, switching on the lights as he did so. The lights shimmered, dimmed slightly, and then ever-so-slowly brightened.

He frowned and sniffed, there was some foul residue odour, like stale beer mixed with something else. What was it, ozone? Imperceptibly, the small hairs on the back of his neck and forearms rose and he shuddered. He went to go into the room when suddenly he sensed, rather than saw movement at the far end of the bar. Then there was a crash as several bottles hit the ground.

"What the f—" he growled, turning and taking up a pool cue by the rack near the door. Stalking the length of the bar, he noted many more overturned bottles, all spilling expensive spirits onto the tiled floor.

_Whoever did this is going to pay,_ he thought, his mind turning to which of the local hooligans might have broken in. He swung the cue menacingly in his hands as out of the corner of his eye he saw a small shadow dart away into the greater darkness where the light did not reach.

"Damn, it must be possums?" he said amazed. "Surely not, must be idiot kids. Just wait 'till I catch 'em"

Then another bottle smashed behind him where he had been only moments before.

"Come out of there," he bellowed, spinning around. "Show me yer face otherwise you'll have this cue around yer ears."

Whoever, whatever it was, paid no heed because Alan heard another rustle, that time at the far side of the bar. As he turned, he heard the sound of quick and light footsteps racing down a dead-end corridor to his small wine and beer cellar.

Firming his grasp on the pool cue, Alan angrily marched in afterwards. He stopped puzzled at the door to the cellar. It remained firmly locked and bolted from the night before. He shook his head. Surely, the young offender must have doubled back behind him. Alan again heard a noise, that time definitely coming from the cellar. The publican took out his bundle of keys and selected one. Grunting, he turned the key in the heavy lock and with his shoulder, pushed open the door.

Although darkness enveloped the cellar, Alan could immediately smell the distinctive aroma of spilled alcohol. Dimly, he could hear a strange, low, and earthy chuckling, followed by a vague splashing, as if the water mains had burst. Seriously alarmed, Alan reached out and flicked on a switch, bathing the entire stairs and cellar in the flickering but fierce light of a naked bulb that swung from a wire chain anchored to the concrete ceiling.

"Bloody 'ell!" Alan shouted as he uncomprehendingly saw his cellar awash with what seemed to be the entire contents of all his wine casks and beer barrels. Even to a hardened publican, the stench took his breath away, and his eyes watered painfully. The scale of the vandalism was incalculable; from what he could see every barrel, every bottle, every cask had been broken and the contents left to drain onto the floor.

_Why_? he raved to himself. He had no enemies, no feuds. He got on well with all the drinkers. It was beyond understanding. Someone had to pay!

Then he heard the chuckle again to his right and more splashing. It seemed that whoever was responsible was still there seemingly bathing in the booze.

"Right," he muttered furiously, his hands gripping the cue so hard that his knuckles whitened. Alan took a step down the concrete stairs, then another, and another until his booted toes were nudging the stinking alcoholic mess.

He looked around the corner—nothing. Nothing on the other side of the room, either, still he heard the muttering, chuckling, and splashing. Then silence. He felt the air move by his legs and he turned, spinning awkwardly to confront the intruder. He yelled then, confronted by a small, blue, grinning, wizened face out of nightmare, a head topped by a green feathered bonnet and attached to a man too tiny to be human, clad in a scarlet cloak, shirt and trousers, and wearing black, thigh-high boots.

"Ah, see me, you does," the creature shrieked, doubling up in fits of laughter.

It bobbed and weaved about him as Alan, choking on the fumes, lashed out with the pool cue.

"Must be faster, Master Publican," it jeered, dodging between his brawny legs and nipping him on the thighs with needle sharp teeth. Alan roared in pain and lashed out again, managing to hit the creature on one shoulder with the wooden cue. With a pained howl, the little man leapt onto his shoulders and started to pull his thinning grey hair from his head.

"You'll pay, you'll pay, stinking human," it hissed, yanking his ears now for good measure.

Alan desperately shook his head, abandoning the cue to try to pull the wretch away with his hands.

He achieved nothing except earning a nasty bite on his finger for his efforts.

"Git off me," he growled, throwing himself at the brick wall, trying to stun the creature.

The little man hissed and bit again, taking a chunk out of the publican's ear. Alan screamed in pain, and with blood streaming down his neck, tried to run back up the stairs and away to safety.

Suddenly, he stumbled as the creature scampered down his back and under his feet, yanking at his ankles. Desperately trying to keep his balance, he reached out to grab the half-open door, missed, and fell backwards, cracking his skull open on the concrete stairs. The last thing he heard before darkness overwhelmed him was the cackling laugh of the creature as it did a demented dance on his chest. Minutes later, the lifeless body of Alan Turner slid down the blood-and-brain-streaked steps to rest against the gently lapping surface of the pool of alcohol.

Gary West parked his camper van in the car park adjacent to the National Park, and yawning, leant back in his seat and stared blearily out at the heavy rainforest in the green and lush distance.

He had been driving all night from Northern New South Wales, and his body craved sleep. The drive up the range was nerve-racking, and he wished his reaction times were better. Still and all, there he was and he should get moving before the families and picnickers came and infested the pristine area with their noise.

He was a tall, lanky man, and as he unfolded himself from the cramped driver's seat of the van, a cascade of empty fast food containers fell out with him onto the ground. He did not bother to pick them up.

He certainly wasn't an oil painting–long, greasy, grey hair was pulled back into an untidy ponytail, and a hand-woven choker encircled his throat. His apparel—faded jeans, bright orange t-shirt, denim jacket and scuffed leather boots—was crumpled and stained.

Taking a canvas rucksack out of the back of the van, he locked the vehicle and walked down across the grass of the picnic grounds and to the tree edge. Taking a creased map out of his pocket, he consulted a compass, took a bearing, and without hesitation entered the heavy confines of the rainforest.

Inside, the air was markedly cooler, heavier and wetter. Since he chose not to follow a path, he slipped often on the damp rocks and fallen logs, which were all heavily covered with moss and lichen. Occasionally, he would stop to consult the map, take another compass bearing and peel off the black leeches from his boots, jeans, and socks. He could hear bellbirds in the distance, also at times the sound of water running. Once, he heard a scuttling and bounding, as if an animal or large bird had been startled into movement. Sometimes, there would be a distant crash as a tree or branch fell, striking others on the way down.

After about twenty minutes of steady hiking and scrambling, he heard the sound of a waterfall. Taking a breather, he took his canteen out and drank a mouthful of tepid metallic-tasting water. Repacking his knapsack, he checked the map, nodded, and turned his feet in the direction of the waterfall.

After a short walk through the increasingly-damp-and-heavy atmosphere, the thick foliage opened up to reveal a small waterfall crashing water into a deep pool littered with large mossy rocks, cycads, and ferns. A faint mist veiled the pool, and a rainbow arched overhead. It was as mystical a place as Gary had ever seen.

Over the years, he had travelled far searching out the places where the dreaming fungi grew. That was one such place, and Gary did not need the map to confirm what he innately knew from years of exploring and searching. Turning over the map, he looked for the tightly-written instructions of where to find the hidden, secret plants. He looked up and his gaze narrowed— _look for the fallen log and the rock half cloven in two on the edge just where water and rock meet._

Hoisting his knapsack on his back, he started to skirt the edge of the pool, slipping and sliding on the mist-wet rocks. Within moments, his clothes were clinging damply to him from the spray.

There, just out of the corner of his eye, he saw the broken rock, and there was the fallen log, half-hidden by a clump of ferns. Walking carefully, he knelt down and saw the growth of small fungus that he had travelled so far to collect. He placed his knapsack on the ground and with trembling hands undid the fastenings, taking from the bag a glass jar with a screw-top lid. Carefully, he harvested the mushrooms, dropping them gently into the jar and leaving behind one or two fungi to continue to spore the ground.

Gary stared at his treasure. Some of the mushrooms he would attempt to grow back home, the rest he would dry and sell. He knew that he would make a good deal of money from those little goldmines. Gary smiled and licked his lips. He would reward himself with just a small taste. After all, he reasoned, he had driven and walked far to find those little beauties and just a little bite would be just what he wanted. A bite, then back to sleep in the van. Gary relished the idea of the walk back since he was used to the effects of the fungi, and the primal atmosphere of the rainforest whilst under the influence was something to savour.

Settling the jar carefully in his pack, he hefted the bag across his shoulder and then knelt to break off a portion from the still-growing mushrooms. Sitting down on the cracked rock, he gently placed the fragment of fungus on his tongue, closed his eyes, and swallowed. Usually, he had to wait many minutes for the effects to come into play, however, those beauties were very strong, and within a minute or two, he felt the usual lightness and euphoria bathe his body.

Sighing blissfully, he opened his eyes taking in the enhanced visuals, colours, and scents. It was almost as if he had become part of the rainforest—the rainbow from the waterfall was so achingly beautiful that it brought tears of joy to his eyes. He felt, instead of heard slight movement behind him, and turned to see in the depths of the rainforest a strange procession of what looked to be trees moving through the deepened darkness. He shook his head, awed at the vibrancy and creativity of the psychedelic trip he was experiencing. He watched amazed as the ancient trees swayed in time to the wind playing through their canopy, whilst below strange twig-like creatures played amongst their roots.

It was amazing, beyond anything that he had experienced before. It was no wonder the location of those mushrooms was a closely guarded secret.

"Woah!" he breathed in awe.

Gary watched as the leafy, twiggy, stately procession moved off deeper into the forest and was finally lost to sight. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling again the earthy, green, wet aroma of the forest.

"Shhh..." breathed a voice almost at his ear.

He slowly opened his eyes and beheld a radiantly beautiful young woman with blue-white skin leaning over him—long, straight, dripping wet black hair hung over her shoulders and halfway down her back, veiling little of her nakedness.

Gary's mouth hung open, and he found himself immediately and painfully aroused in her presence. She smiled at him and her eyes were turquoise depths into which he fell.

"Come," she breathed, caressing his face with her hands.

Gary clambered to his feet, the knapsack falling unheeded to the ground. With shaking hands, he tore the denim jacket off and then the t-shirt, heedlessly ripping it from his body. His jeans, boots, and socks followed the rest of his clothing, unceremoniously dumped in a pile next to his discarded knapsack. He stepped out of his stained boxer shorts and stood naked, his desire for her written in every line of his straining body.

He reached for her, but she darted just out of his reach, stepping back into the pool. She smiled mysteriously at him and beckoned him to come.

Deep in the drug-induced trip, he did not think, did not reason, did not consider the consequences. She alone existed, and he was determined to have her. He stepped into the water, relishing the bracing chill upon his overheated skin.

"Come," she mouthed, stepping even further back into the pool, the water sliding like a caress across her skin.

Gary groaned and lumbered after her, first ankle-deep, then knee, then thigh, until at last, he was swimming out to where she waited for him in the middle of the deep pool.

She smiled at him then. Gliding through the water, she caressed him, kissing him deeply, winding her arms about him, imprisoning him in her slender, yet iron-hard embrace. Gary groaned and writhed against her, frantically trying to embrace her in return, yet at the same time desperately trying to keep his head above water.

"You want me?" she breathed.

"God yes," he coughed, swallowing water.

"Then take me," she smiled, kissing him again, her body sinking like a lead weight.

Gary thrashed about in her grasp as he felt the cold waters close above his head. He took a desperate breath but ended up swallowing water. His chest constricted, and he struggled for air, but the woman dragged him even further down.

Frantically and silently, he pleaded with her, his lungs aching, his eyes bulging. She smiled and shook her head, and even as he stared, her face and form changed to something monstrous, something fish-like, something that robbed all desire and all life from him. He opened his mouth to scream, and his lungs filled with water, drowning him instantly. The creature that was not a woman smiled an inscrutable smile, and relinquishing its hold, darted away to vanish into the depths of the pool.

Gary's body drifted for a minute or two and then slowly and quietly settled to the bottom.

Miss Amelia Crane pushed her stick-like legs into her rubber gumboots, and with her old cedar cane to support her, took her small woven basket from the laundry to collect the morning eggs from the hens in the fowl run.

Outside, the morning was strangely quiet. The wind, such as it was, blew fretfully from the northwest, promising a warm day. Already, the humidity was high and perspiration formed on her brow.

Clucking to herself, she walked over to the run and unlocking it, let herself in. Peering into the darkness of the coop, Amelia saw the birds pressed as far back into the corner as they could, feathers ruffled and eyes dilated with terror. She called to them, yet none moved; they seemed frozen in fear, not even making a sound.

As she searched each box, she found not a single egg, despite the fact that she owned two dozen birds. Puzzled, she looked around for the rooster. Normally, he had her up at dawn with his crowing, yet even he had gone quiet. Frowning, Amelia Crane suspected a fox, yet she had seen foxes before, and the hens, although frightened, had not reacted like that.

Peering down at the still-soft ground around the hen run, she searched for tracks, but the ground was unmarked. Straightening, she locked the gate on the run and went to find the rooster.

Slowly, she circled the house, clucking and calling his name, but she heard nothing. Stopping to rest, she noticed a patch of white and grey snagged in the barbed wire of the fence. Walking over, she discovered a bloody mess of feathers adhered to it. Removing the feathers from the wire, her fingers became red with fresh blood. Her face creased in worry. Amelia reasoned that whatever had taken the rooster had only done so recently, as the blood had not yet congealed and dried.

As Amelia stood pondering what had happened, she felt some heavy drops of rain upon her head. Puzzled, she looked up; the sky was brilliantly blue. Lifting her hand, she felt her hair, which she had tied back in a tight grey bun, and her fingers came away sticky. Appalled, she examined her hand; it too was covered with fresh blood.

Gasping with horror, she stumbled back, her eyes scanning the branches of the trees above her. Immediately, she spotted the ghastly remains of the rooster and then in the upper branches of the tree she glimpsed a shadowy movement. For a split-second, she saw an inhuman shape that seemed comprised of fur, scale, and teeth, before it too scuttled away deeper into the trees. For Amelia Crane, that one brief glimpse was enough to send her limping back into the house, her cane and egg basket fallen and forgotten on the grass.

With trembling fingers, she picked up the phone, dialled a number, and waited anxiously for someone to answer.

"Lynn Black speaking..."

"Lynn, Amelia here. We need to urgently contact the other ladies."

Miss Crane's voice was trembling.

"Amelia, whatever is the matter?"

"It's started again, Lynn. I saw one of them in my trees! Took my rooster. Oh my _God_ , it disembowelled it. I swear upon my Mother's grave, Lynn."

Amelia was almost stuttering with reaction.

"What has returned, Amelia? You're not making any sense."

"Them...the creatures." Amelia took an unsteady breath. "Fifty years ago...remember what happened."

"Fifty? Oh, my heavens..." The voice on the other end of the phone faded away in shock.

"We need to call the others. Supplies need to be bought and distributed. Salt, horseshoes, herb bags. Do you remember what the CLS did last time to protect our families?"

"Not really, it's been such a long time," Lynn fretted.

"Check the minutes of the meetings," Amelia said. "We've got record books going back decades."

"I'll go fetch them," Lynn stated.

"Not yet, we have to keep this quiet and close," Amelia advised in a whisper. "Only members should know, otherwise, we'll be laughed out of town, not to mention what the state committee would say."

"What about the newcomers, the outsiders?" Lynn asked. "There are many new families that have come into the area."

"I don't know," Amelia said. "Perhaps once we have sorted out our own, we can get in touch with neighbours, but our own families are our primary responsibility now. We need to get moving, there is no knowing how long this will last."

Senior Sergeant Maxwell scratched his head, baffled—three mysterious deaths in as many weeks and two unsolved child abductions.

He drew his hand through his close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair in some frustration. Fellow police divers had finally located the body of their colleague who had gone missing two weeks before in the local dam. They had dredged the waters and brought up all manner of flood debris. However, the diver's body had not been located until much later. It was odd; all his dive gear had gone missing and was discovered naked, his body wedged tightly in the branches of a submerged tree.

Police Senior Sergeant shuddered; it was not as if he was unused to death. He was originally from Melbourne and had dealt with numerous dead bodies over the course of his policing career. He had seen bodies as the end-result of accidents, of misadventure, of murder, of suicide, or simply the body giving up due to extreme old age. He had dealt with complete bodies, body parts, and bodies so old that they were bloated, rotten, or simply bones. He did not enjoy dealing with death, but it was all part of the job.

The last three bodies he had dealt with were, however, making him seriously reconsider his career. It was not so much the manner of death—drowning was always nasty, especially when the bodies started to bloat with gas. What had seriously put the wind up him was the look on the faces of the dead. In all the years of policing, he had never seen such grimaces of horror and fear. It seemed as if all three bodies had died in such terror that the marks of their torment were forever incised upon their features.

The coroner too had commented on it—his normally serene complexion blanching. He was a strange, dry sort of chap, the sort of man who would never blink twice around a dead body. Perhaps it helped that he possessed a macabre sense of humour, maybe cultivated in order to be able to do his job properly and then go home and sleep well afterwards.

Senior Sergeant Maxwell had worked with the coroner a couple of times in the past after bodies had been discovered in the Emerald Hills region. There had been nothing particularly out of the ordinary about those deaths, just two dead bikers from one of the criminal gangs operating drug rings on the coast. Investigations had uncovered that the murders were due to a payback from a rival gang, and arrests were made. Gunshot wounds were messy, but at least you could rationally explain them. The coroner had thought nothing of it. Yet the latest ones seemed to affect him; his eyes looked haunted for a long time afterward.

To make it worse, over the last forty-eight hours, the Senior Sergeant had been fielding phone calls from the press since the news about the publican had broken.

Just as soon as morning staff had arrived for work at 'The Royal' the mess of alcohol was found, and then shortly afterward, they discovered the body of the publican in the cellar. The coroner had determined that he had died from a fractured skull from falling onto the concrete stairs, although he could not easily explain the small bites on the corpse's legs and the piece bitten from his ear. The coroner had immediately considered rats, although all the evidence seemed to point to the fact that the bites had happened prior to death.

The Senior Sergeant had known the publican well. In fact, most of the townsfolk were on speaking terms with him and his death had hit the town hard. The coroner had assured him that a DNA profile was in process on whatever had bitten the publican, but the Senior Sergeant was not mollified. The publican's death rankled, and he would be glad to know the results of the investigations.

That afternoon, hikers discovered the second corpse.

A backpack and clothing were found by a local waterfall, and investigating further, they noticed the bloated body of the man partly visible in the pool. Police divers again were called, and the body and evidence removed. The coroner, who had set up a temporary office in Emerald Hills, advised that the body had been in the water for a couple of days.

At least the cause of death was clear that time—drowning due to being under the influence of a prohibited substance, even if the look of horror on his face could not be explained away. Perhaps the hippy had experienced a bad trip.

The Senior Sergeant had impounded the mushrooms as evidence, and a search of the area had located a few more growing, some obviously interfered with. Senior Sergeant Maxwell had been tempted to remove those as well. However, he was not sure if the local national parks ranger would have approved. He marked the location on a map and reminded himself to ring the ranger office as soon as possible.

The phone rang again, interrupting his thoughts. He picked it up and almost groaned aloud, yet another reporter sniffing out a story.

The press had scented blood.

#  Chapter 11

Jen sat down to her lunch of salad vegetables and cold meat and perused the local paper. The death of the publican had been relegated to page three; instead, a photo of the local waterfall dominated the front page of the local rag, followed by a picture of a group of police carrying out of the rainforest a stretcher on which lay a covered figure. Alarmed, she read on. The newspaper report was sketchy, only that an interstate man had been found drowned in the pool along with a supply of prohibited drugs.

Jen subtly relaxed. Surely, that body could not be attributed to the actions of the Fae. It was just another needless, pointless death brought about by the actions of a man chasing a drug-induced high. The publican was another matter. She had been to town to shop, and everyone was speaking of the condition of his body and the unexplained dumping and wastage of very expensive alcohol.

After finishing lunch, Jen had immediately started more research and discovered a member of the fairy race who might be responsible. The clurican seemed in legend to have both a benign and malign nature. Jen wondered what the publican had done to warrant his death.

Not for the first time, she cast back to what Fionn had told her over a week before—that she had to stop what 'was being done'.

What did he mean? She wished she had the presence of mind to quiz him back then. However, back then she was beyond rational thought. She had been caught by her emotions, thought only of the moment, captured by the immediacy of his desires. She knew that the only way to understand what he meant was to call him again, but she knew she could not. She knew that she would succumb and submit.

His true name hovered upon her lips, yet Jen still refused to call him. She would figure the puzzle out for herself; there had to be another way. Yet she still thought of him, remembered the taste of his lips upon her own, the feel of his hands upon her skin. Jen wondered if she was under some kind of enchantment, but the way Fionn made her feel...

She shook her head in disgust at herself.

It had been over twenty years since she had attended chapel. She had in her new life grown away from the church that she had so diligently attended back home in Scotland. Vaguely, she wondered if she should return, to make her peace with God, to see if the pastor could aid her.

Jen turned off the laptop, closing its lid and sat back trying to work out what she should do, and if anything could resolve the problem.

What _did_ Fionn mean? She had no idea what he had meant by his enigmatic statement. It was almost as if he was challenging her to call him again in order to receive more of the puzzle. Instinctively Jen knew that the church could not help. These creatures seemed to be neither angels nor demons, and Jen wondered if they were even subject to God's laws. Oral legends stated that in olden days the church used to provide comfort or protection for those afflicted, even perform exorcisms.

She shook her head again.

No, that was then, and this was now, and now was twenty-first century Australia. Jen could not conceive of a country or society so far removed from European pagan fairy-faith, that it seemed impossible to reconcile that fairies could exist here, let alone battled by the Church or contained by its Laws.

She left her office and walked out her front door to get some fresh air and some perspective. Over two weeks had passed since the fury of the storm, and slowly the garden was getting back to normal. A local contractor had removed or trimmed the storm-damaged trees and everything was green and lush. Summer's bite was waning and soon Jen would need to order in some stacks of firewood for autumn and winter.

Over the last week, Jen had done a lot of research into the fairy folk, and she felt that she was better prepared to deal with them. Her own home had quieted back to normalcy, and with her small armoury of protective charms, the dreams and voices that had disturbed her days before no longer troubled her. She glanced across at the nearest window sill; the salt she had laid was still there and across the doorways too. She had even hung horseshoes bought from a local farrier.

The salt had been troublesome, as it seemed to make its way into every corner of the house, but Jen considered it a necessary nuisance. She planned to visit the New Age shop and purchase some herb bags and bells since the old stories stated that both were useful in dissuading the attention of the fairy folk.

The previous day, Jen had rung Tom and told him of her discoveries, and he had assured her that he was making similar preparations. She had also mentioned the child vanishings and Tom agreed with her that, perhaps, the fairy folk had been responsible. However, what could be done about it bemused him as much as it did her. They had rung off with a promise to remain in touch, and to keep each other up to date with what was going on.

Jen thought about their conversation and wondered why she had kept her meeting with Fionn secret from Tom. He would be able to suggest some advice, yet Jen felt that Fionn was _her_ secret, not to be shared, even if she deliberately denied herself his presence.

Jen closed her eyes, remembered again his lips on hers, his taste, his scent, and sighed.

She knew she was acting like a lovelorn teenager, but after decades of being alone, it felt nice to be wanted, even if the wanting brought heartbreak. Time could heal heartbreak, but not feeling could be no longer be endured. For too long she had lived a life cocooned from others, sheltered and secluded, but since Fionn had touched her, kissed her, part of herself had woken from dormancy and cried for succour. She did not care that she might be under enchantment; it was just wonderful to feel something, _anything_ again.

#  Chapter 12

Carma had long since finished her lunch break, and she drove leisurely back through town to reopen her shop. As she turned into the main street, she smiled as she looked at all the footpaths and roads that had been dug up. The underground power action had developed a life of its own and both council and the power company had been insistent that it should be their primary concern.

Carma chuckled, she knew she should feel bad about the storm-damaged coastal communities, but for some reason, she didn't give a damn. Sure, their concerns had been relegated down the list of priority; however, if they couldn't shift for themselves, then they'd have to wait. Carma had worked day and night to push the action into priority, and no one was going to stand in her way.

Already, the local progressive party had taken an interest in her action and had murmured supportive words such as mentoring, and a possible political future, which Carma had enthusiastically agreed to.

In a matter of weeks, the majority of the town's power would be underground and Carma hoped that Moira would honour her promise about granting her more power. Already her minor dabbling in the secret arts seemed to be blossoming, and she hoped that her political influence could soon grow to extend one day to state and federal levels.

She sighed happily, pulling into the small car park behind her shop. She could achieve great things with power and influence, and all soon lay within her grasp.

Walking from the car to the shop, she was surprised to see a small queue of people waiting to go inside. So she turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN and unlocked the doors. Waiting at the front counter, Carma observed her customers. Most seemed to be older women in their sixties and seventies, and all seemed to be making a beeline to her bags of herbs.

Her eyebrows raised; she wondered what the old dears were up to and made a mental note to increase the prices on all her stock. One by one, she rang up the items. She was dying of curiosity as to what had inspired the rush but said nothing. Twenty minutes later, her shop was empty of customers and her shelves empty of herbs. Restocking would take days, and Carma hoped that there would not be another rush.

The door jangled, and Carma turned to see another female customer. That one, however, seemed younger, having a pale complexion, as if she spent much of her time inside. The woman was so slight that it looked as if a stiff wind would blow her away. Carma judged her to be in her early fifties and dressed plainly in jeans, tailored shirt, and closed-in, sensible shoes. The woman's hair was long, dark, and streaked with grey and hung down her back in a knotted braid. Her face was not beautiful, although something was compelling about the shadowed hazel eyes glimpsed behind the glasses. Those eyes hinted at something, a mystery. She seemed to possess power of some kind. Carma wondered if she was a fellow practitioner of the arts.

"Can I help you?" Carma asked, her curiosity piqued by this stranger.

"No, I'm fine. I'm just looking," the woman replied softly, with ever-so-gentle a hint of a Scottish lilt in her voice.

"Very well, I'll be here if you require assistance."

Carma watched the woman move around the stock. She seemed almost embarrassed to be there, constantly touching her face and neck for reassurance and a blush suffusing the pale cheeks. She went to the herb shelves, and stood there, as if surprised to find it empty, and then shaking her head moved on and finally picked out a packet of small silver bells. Eventually, she finished her shopping and came back to the counter.

"Are you all done then?" Carma asked archly.

The older woman looked across to her and nodded, not meeting her eyes.

"You seem to be out of herbs," she said, pointing back to the empty shelves.

"Sadly, yes," Carma replied. "I had a run on them before. My apologies, I should have new stock in about ten days." She took the packet of bells and scanned it. "Thirty dollars please."

The slight woman handed over her debit card.

"EFTPOS?" Carma asked. When the woman nodded, Carma added, "Signature or pin number?"

"Signature."

Carma handed over a pen and watched the woman scribe a name with a neat and compact hand. She handed the slip back along with the pen and Carma quickly read the name—Jennifer McDonald—before putting it away into the cash register. For a couple of moments, the woman stood quietly, and then she looked up, and for the first time stared directly at her. The force of the woman's hazel gaze was disturbing, and Carma ended up glancing away, unable to bear the scrutiny. Then the woman opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but then obviously changing her mind, collected her purchase and left the shop.

_Jennifer McDonald_ , she mused, as she collected her wits, staring at the place where the woman had been. _Now where have I heard that name before?_ Carma racked her brains for a few minutes, but then eventually gave up. The memory seemed lost.

Jen walked away from the New Age shop with the bells jingling in the plastic bag and a troubled heart. She did not know what it was, but the place felt bad. Jen also sensed something about the store owner that just felt wrong. It was hard to put into words, but she vowed to herself that she would not go there again. Shivering, she increased the pace of her walking. She still had bills to pay, and she wanted to put distance between herself and that place. Hurrying, she headed to the post office.

The original post office had been located in an old federation style building in the centre of Emerald Hills. However, years later, developers had converted the building into an upmarket restaurant and the post office relocated to one of the shop fronts in the new supermarket complex. Although Jen preferred the eccentric little old individual shops with their overhanging eaves and wide verandahs, the new complex did have the benefit of parking and easy accessibility.

Clutching her utility bills in her hand, Jen walked into the building and shivered again, wondering why they set their air conditioner so low. Even at the lateness of the hour, the post office was still crowded, so Jen patiently waited in the queue directly behind a young mother with a small toddler.

She checked the time on her watch and saw that the hands read a quarter past four. Jen frowned and tapped the dial because she was sure it was later than that but the hands did not move. The last time she had checked her watch it was four o'clock and that was before she had gone into the New Age shop.

Jen looked ahead, the queue was not moving, and the young toddler was bored and started to pull items off the lower shelves. Jen sighed in resignation and watched the young mother haul her child away, speaking to her in a low, yet sharp voice. Then the toddler started screaming with frustration.

Flushing with embarrassment, the young mother bent down to hush the child, and at that moment, all the lights in the supermarket flickered strangely and went off, plunging the entire complex into complete and utter darkness. As she stood in the darkness, Jen felt a cold, clammy breeze waft around her, and she smelt a strange odour. She stiffened as she heard a couple of sudden screams and a few audible drawn-in breaths. Then a second or two later, the lights came on again, bathing everything and everyone in a sudden white brilliance.

For just a moment, there was silence as everyone stood blinking in the brightness. Then, a sudden and ear-piercing shriek tore apart that silence, as the young mother in front of her discovered that her daughter was missing. Immediately, everyone turned to see what was going on, and there was a sudden surge in low and whispered conversation.

Sobbing, the young mother cried out, "Where is she? Where is my daughter? Tegan! Tegan! Where are you?"

As if her frantic words broke a spell, everyone in the post office immediately moved from immobility to startled action, all looking under tables and behind shelves for the missing child. As soon as the post office employees understood what had happened, they alerted security guards and management, and within minutes, all the doors into and out of the shopping centre were closed and locked.

Jen sighed and waited patiently as police questioned her and the other customers in the post office. A security guard came up to her and asked if she had seen or noticed anything and Jen could only shake her head. She told him that the child had been misbehaving, threw a tantrum after being chastised, and then the sudden blackout and after that, nothing. The child had gone.

The young mother was beside herself and management took her away into a nearby office in an attempt to settle her down. Jen heard sirens and noticed flashing lights out in the car park—it seemed the police had arrived.

It took two long hours for security and police to comb the complex for the child and to speak to everyone who was near. They checked and rechecked every tiny hiding place or hole, and they even investigated the air-conditioning ducts. The search and perusal of the security camera records revealed nothing, except some illicit drugs and stolen goods, which evidently were hidden away for later retrieval.

Reluctantly, management and police allowed the tired and annoyed shoppers to leave, who in turn faced a barrage of media cameras outside in the car park. Jen, due to her smaller stature, successfully managed to weave her way between the media and the host of townsfolk outside. The last thing she wanted to do was face an intrusive camera, and the media were like sharks in trying to wrangle the story out of people. Muttering grateful thanks to the sky, she reached her hire car and turned on the ignition to drive home.

"Wait awhile, my Jenny," murmured a familiar voice from the back seat.

Jen spun around to see younger-Fionn sitting there in the semi-darkness.

"I did not call you!" she exclaimed, her heart beating fast and a blush suffusing her face at seeing him again. "You have broken your promise to me."

"Perhaps I did," he agreed quietly. "However, I came with a warning. That abduction was meant for you."

"For me?"

Shock drained her pale face even whiter.

"Aye, the others see you as a threat, as a troublemaker. However, you were warded, so you could not be taken against your will."

Jen was confused. "Warded, in what way?"

He indicated the bag of small bells that she had just put on the passenger seat beside her, along with her paid bills.

"You carried bells upon you, so no Fae could imprison you or spirit you away."

"Yet you're here," Jen observed.

"It causes me pain to be so close, but you are my Jenny, and I want to protect you from those who would do you harm."

"So why did they take the child?" she asked simply. "Why didn't they just leave the others be if they couldn't take me?"

He shrugged. "They acted within their nature and for the most part, their nature is malicious towards humans."

Jen took a shuddering breath. "Fionn, you must tell me what I am to do. Do you mean to say that these abductions, these murders, they have been done by your people?"

"By the Fae, yes, but not by _my_ people," he hastened to assure her.

"Then by who?"

"Have you heard of the two great Courts of the Fae?" he asked with a sigh in his voice.

Jen nodded. "I've been doing some reading. I understand there are the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. One comprises order, the other _dis_ order?"

"Aye, you are somewhat correct," he agreed, nodding. "Although, there is more to it than that. I am of the Seelie Court, a humble messenger only since the great powers deign not to have a direct conversation or interaction with humanity."

"So the Unseelie Court is behind the abductions?"

He shook his head again.

"We have been assured they have had no hand in it. However, it seems that some rebels from the Unseelie Court have broken away. It seems that they want to establish their own Court to rule over the other two."

"So why here, why now, why involve humans?" Jen questioned.

He shrugged. "I don't know; I am a messenger only. All I know is that rebels from the Unseelie Court have decided to make this place their battleground, to supplant themselves over all others from our realm."

"And the missing children?"

Fionn sighed. "Held by the rebels. I assume that you have read the legends and stories. The children could be held for weeks, perhaps years, perhaps they may never be returned or Fae substitutes returned instead. The only way to return the children is for the rebels to be stopped. Our Laws will punish them, but for the moment, we are powerless to move. We must work within the Laws, so humans must be our agents."

"What are these Laws?" Jen questioned of Fionn.

"An agreement made hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years ago by the reckoning of your kind, he replied quietly.

"The Laws keep order in place and control our involvement with humanity. Your people don't know of these Laws, but we are firmly bound by them. Which is why you see our kind only rarely and really only when we gather in great numbers, or when we are Sighted by humans such as yourself."

"Do the rebels have human agents?" Jen asked.

"It seems so, but it must be remembered they are also at times acting outside the Laws."

Jen frowned. "Who are their agents?"

"I cannot tell, we cannot track their agents nor identify them or seize them," he replied bleakly. "We are bound by the old Laws. The rebels, however, care not for Laws. They break our Laws too. Only the old protections can keep you safe from them—salt, herbs, horseshoes and bells, those protections go deeper and are far older than our Laws. You must keep yourself protected at all times, my Jenny, even if it means I can no longer touch you as I so wish to."

He shuddered with desire at her nearness, and seeing his pain and feeling her own, Jen wept too.

"So what can be done?" she asked finally, with effort mastering her distress.

He looked at her sadly. "Only that you must stop what is being done. Remember what I said, that the rebels work through human agents. It is through their handiwork that you will see the mark of the rebel Fae."

Jen despaired, "It could be anything, anyone!"

"Use your gifts, my Jenny, and remember the old protections will not work against the human agents," he whispered.

Then, within the space of a heartbeat, he was gone. Her only tangible memory was the caress of his breath across her cheek.

#  Chapter 13

Jen found it difficult to get to sleep after the events of the day. She tried to still her mind, but her overactive brain kept creating nightmarish images of the strange woman at the New Age shop.

Eventually, she dropped off.

Fionn's face constantly appeared in her dreams, whispering and singing to her, beckoning her to follow him. Her body bathed in perspiration, Jen tossed and turned as her dreams of him turned from fragmentary recollections of the day into a heated erotic fantasy.

Suddenly, she sat up blindingly awake in almost rigid fear. Her eyes stared out into the darkness, and she could feel the cold trickle of sweat running down her face and back. Sensing movement somewhere out in the darkness she pulled the sheets up to her chin and waited as still as a mouse, scarcely breathing, hoping that whatever it was would go away.

The night itself had fallen oddly silent. All the usual sounds had faded away as if whatever walked outside had stilled every living creature into fearful immobility.

Her ears pricked, and she heard a snuffling sound, as whatever it was moved toward her house and sniffed windows that she had left open. Frantically, Jen wished she had closed and locked them, but the humidity of the night had forced her to keep a couple of windows open to the breeze. She heard harsh scraping on wood, claws perhaps, maybe even teeth. Her own teeth were starting to chatter noisily, so she bit down on her bottom lip to still them—she tasted blood.

The fear seemed to be all-consuming as if all she had ever known was terror. She stifled a scream in the bedclothes, her body shaking and each hair on the back of her neck standing erect.

Jen heard a guttural grunt, then slowly the sounds faded as the creature moved away, and with it, the fear seemed to ebb from her as well.

Eventually, Jen heard the return of the normal night noises—cicadas in the garden and the cry of a flying fox somewhere near. Breathing a little more easily, Jen left the bed and checked the bedside clock; the time was twenty past three in the morning. Moving slowly and quietly, she pulled the window shut. Whatever it was had been thwarted and frustrated this night. However, the next time she might not be so lucky and she walked around the house, checking that nothing was amiss and that what Fionn had called the old protections were still in place.

Lastly, Jen took a fresh nightdress from a chest of drawers and showered away the clammy sweat that had clung to her skin. Emerging from the shower, Jen returned to bed, and despite the horrors of the night, fell immediately and deeply asleep.

When Jen finally awoke, the world seemed unusually hushed and quiet, so sitting up in bed she checked the time. It was a quarter to ten; she had slept in. The light outside seemed veiled, and Jen wondered if the weather had changed and another storm was brewing.

Getting out of bed, she opened the curtains, but all she could see was a pervasive greyness, a rare early morning fog was still lingering, cloaking everything in its hazy light. Quickly, Jen changed and breakfasted, all the time utterly aware at how absolute the silence was. Not a bird called, nor could she see movement in the leaves of the nearby trees.

It was as if overnight the area was transformed into a ghostly otherworld.

Distantly, she heard a truck on the main road, she heard the gears shift noisily and then suddenly the engine spluttered and died, the echoes of the engine swallowed up by the mist.

Perturbed, Jen opened her bag of bells from yesterday and then taking a silver chain from her jewellery box, attached a single bell to it and hung it around her neck. It seemed scarce protection, but it would have to do.

Walking outside, she examined the wooden verandah of her house.

The wood showed nothing but old scratches and scuff marks, and Jen wondered if she had altogether dreamt last night's terror. Moving around her house, she examined the wooden frame of her bedroom window. Jen ran her fingers across the paintwork. Yes, new scratches were there and _there_. Deep gouges made as if someone had run a serrated knife across the wood, tearing it apart in places. Jen's heart quailed and sudden nausea roiled in her belly. Backing away from the window, she vowed to keep all her windows secured in future. However, another trip to town was needed; the wood in the frame had been severely damaged in places, and she needed some wood glue for a temporary fix otherwise the entire frame might give way.

With the fog all pervasive, vision was limited so the usually familiar drive into town became nerve-wracking.

Driving around the forty-kilometre mark, Jen drove slowly down the once-familiar country roads, the car's headlights turned on as if it were night. Every few minutes, a car barrelled out of the mist, some heedlessly ignoring the conditions and sometimes on the wrong side of the road, which necessitated a sudden swerve by Jen onto the road shoulder. By the time Jen drove into town, her palms were sweaty and her nerves jangled. Turning into a side street Jen located the hardware store and pulled into the parking bay next to the neighbouring yard, a space that was partly full of hire equipment and other machinery.

Outside the car, the atmosphere was cool and damp, and Jen could smell wood smoke. Clutching her jacket closer about her, Jen walked from the yard into the hardware store and looked around. No one seemed to be present. Going about the shelves, Jen quickly found the wood glue she was after and returned to the front counter.

Still no one showed and Jen pressed the buzzer. Immediately, she heard a shrill ringing at the back of the store. Eventually, she heard the sound of footsteps from outside and an older man with short, brown, receding hair stuck his head into the doorway. Catching sight of Jen, he nodded and walked, limping slightly, to the front counter.

"Sorry, Miss, I didn't see you there. I was out the back fixing a generator."

"It's fine," she assured him, watching as he grabbed an old rag and wiped black grease from his hands.

"Wood glue, eh?" he questioned, looking at her sharply. "Doing some renovations?"

"Repairs," she murmured. "Something tore up the wood on my window frames last night."

"Ah." He glanced at the product as he took her debit card and ran it through the EFTPOS machine.

"Well, that will do the trick. Mind you, let it dry before you sandpaper and paint. It will take several hours to seal. He glanced at her, as if measuring her response, "Must have been a pretty big possum to tear up wood," he said levelly.

"I don't think it was a possum," she said simply, looking away in embarrassment.

The older man nodded. "Been strange things about over the last couple of nights. I've heard some weird stories."

"Oh?"

He rested his elbows on the front counter, his expression grave. "Now, I'm not one for spreading tales, but frankly, Miss, if you live alone I'd be locking and barring the door at night. My wife has had the wind up her, something chronic, muttering about God-knows-what and hanging bags of herbs everywhere. A man can't go into a room without the stench of those dried leaves." He leaned over. "She's part of the CLS, and all her friends have suddenly gone batty with herbs. Frankly, I don't know what to make of it, but Doris says it's important so, I go along with her, humour her...and you know, Miss, there may be something to it."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, I've had friends call me, good friends, old friends and not prone to imaginings. Telling me of terrible dreams, nightmares that have had them waking in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Now, Miss, these are decent men, salt-of-the-earth types; it would take the very devil to make them sweat, yet here they are behaving like ninnies. If I was a God-fearing man I'd be thinking that the devil himself walked our streets."

"So what _do_ you think?" Jen asked quietly, ignoring the sudden racing of her pulse.

He shrugged. "To be honest I don't know. With the murder of Al Turner and the child abductions, I really don't know what to think. It's like the place is jinxed, I've lived here close to forty years and frankly I've never seen the like." He leaned in even closer, his air confidential. "You're not the only one that's been in this morning. I've had two more before you, and all talking about sudden and inexplicable damage to their houses, and most often on doors and window frames." He shook his head. "Something is up. I dunno what, but something is. You can sense it."

He gestured at the mist outside.

"That should have lifted by now. It's just weird, something is just not right, and frankly it's put the wind right up me."

Jen stared at him. "What does your wife say?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, only that this is stuff that needs to be done, and that I wouldn't understand." He tapped the side of his head and grinned. "Secret women's business, I reckon."

Jen smiled tightly and nodded.

She thought about saying something then fell silent. It seemed that the older women of the town might have an inkling of what was going on, but to identify the threat as being Fae to that man... Well, Jen did not know what to say, or how to say it without seeming a complete fool.

Finally, she cleared her voice and simply murmured, "Perhaps, she needs to be listened to."

The hardware proprietor looked at her oddly. "You too, Miss? Well, perhaps you women have the right idea, after all, there may be something to this women's intuition thing." He looked outside again at the fog. "All I know is this is weird weather—perhaps this is climate change?"

Jen lifted an eyebrow. "I think there is a bit more to it than that."

He shrugged and grinned. "Agreed. Anyway, this is not getting that generator fixed. Good day, Miss, remember if the glue doesn't hold, you'll need to replace the timber entirely, and I know of a good handyman."

He laughed and pointed to himself.

"I'll remember," Jen replied with a tight smile, and then with a wave, she left the store.

Outside, the fog seemed unchanged, despite the growing heat of the midday sun. Jen tossed her purchase in the back seat and relocked the car. Standing by the driver's door, she wondered if she should pick up more supplies, and then decided she'd buy some fresh bread and get some lunch in town.

Leaving the car parked near the hardware store, Jen ploughed into the mist and up the slight hill to the small bakery and cafe on the other side of the main street. With all the digging in process, the footpath was a mess and barriers were everywhere instructing pedestrians where to walk, where to cross, and where there were holes.

Suddenly, Jen stumbled and fell forward, catching herself before falling fully onto her knees.

She looked around, and right in the middle of the footpath, she saw growing a small sapling. Jen stared at it in consternation; the tree had cracked the concrete by the force of its growing, and she wondered why the council had been so lax in not removing it. Gazing about, Jen noticed that the tree was not alone. More seedlings were evident elsewhere, not only on the footpath but also visible in nearby yards and driveways. The roads of the town seemed oddly unaffected, and Jen wondered if there was something in the black bitumen that prevented these saplings from taking hold there.

Jen felt a deep unease grip her. It almost seemed that the forest itself was beginning to reclaim Emerald Hills. She had been that way only the previous day, and she was certain that the seedlings and saplings had not been present—somehow she knew that they had sprouted overnight.

Jen knelt down to examine the plant, and as she knelt, her silver bell swung close, softly ringing. To her astonished eyes, the plant seemed to diminish and contract at the sound, disappearing back into the broken concrete of the footpath.

Jen stood; her mind racing. Fairies she could deal with, but that was unexpected and unwelcome. Surely, people would be noticing, commenting, yet she saw people walking around and even through the emerging seedlings, stumbling, yet oblivious to any change other than the mist, which despite the midday sun, continued to shroud the town. It seemed certain that the mist was responsible for the new seedlings, and it seemed equally certain that the mist too was veiling the trees from the minds of the townsfolk. Perhaps, thought Jen, it was only because she was Sighted that was she able to see them.

Disturbed, Jen walked swiftly to the bakery, dodging not only earthworks and diggings but also still more of the saplings. At the bakery, she bought two litres of milk and a couple of loaves of bread, plus a turkey and avocado roll to take home for lunch. All around her, people were discussing the oddness of the fog, yet she heard no one commenting on the tiny seedlings sprouting all throughout town. Jen, her face blanching with terror, hurried back to the car. All Jen wanted to do was get home and check to see if the forest was intruding itself on her property too.

Jen got in the car and switched on the radio. If anything, the fog was thicker than before and she tuned into the local broadcasting station to see what the news broadcasts were saying about the strange goings-on in town.

The first half of the news was about state and federal issues. About the level of debt the country had accrued under the present administration, and about recent polling. Finally, the newsreader came to local issues and of course the subject of the still missing children was prominent, as well as the recent deaths. There was official talk of an expanded police presence in the region and the siting of a major police hub on the Hinterland. The newsreader also stated that a good quarter of Emerald Hills was drawing its power from the underground cables and that the council expected the whole project to be finished ahead of time by the end of April.

The news also reported that the power company would be advising residents when to expect more of the underground cables to come online. Finally, the weather report came on, and the dour-sounding weather reporter gave a brief mention of the fog. He spoke about unusually still conditions, and high humidity and other factors, and stated that the weather service expected the fog to lift with the expected easterly breeze due to start up overnight.

Turning on the ignition and pulling out of the parking bay, Jen wasn't that confident in what the weather reporter had said. She suspected that the fog wasn't natural, at least, not natural in the way science understood nature and that the weather service had no clue as to what was actually going on.

Carefully, she drove through town and out into the country roads. Experimenting, she drove a little way towards Cromhart and noticed that ten kilometres beyond Emerald Hills the mist had almost completely lifted or dissipated completely.

Therefore, Jen reasoned it was just local to town, and to the area immediately near Emerald Hills. Ten minutes later, she drove into Cromhart. The sister town of Emerald Hills was a hive of activity that morning. Cars lined the streets and shoppers filled the footpaths. It seemed that Cromhart was benefitting greatly from Emerald Hills' troubles.

There was no sign of the mist, or of the seedlings. The place seemed utterly normal and natural, a typical Australian, country town. Jen parked the car and got out. The sense of horror that seemed to envelop her in Emerald Hills was gone. Jen was certain that the Fae had no interest in that town, and no presence here.

_So what makes Emerald Hills different?_ she asked herself, watching the people going about their everyday lives.

Why were the Fae interested in her town, and not that one? What was it that she was missing? Jen shook her head frustrated. She was missing something fundamental, some key that would solve the puzzle. She was annoyed at herself for not seeing and not understanding, yet still the answer eluded her. Getting back in the car, she pulled out into the traffic. The only thing she could do was more research, and that meant going back home, going back into the mist. Jen turned the car on the roundabout and with determination, drove back towards Emerald Hills.

After another difficult drive through the mist, Jen was relieved to finally turn into her driveway and be off the roads. The trip back had been a nightmare. People seemed not to understand about altering their behaviour in the changed driving conditions and there had been several near misses as some drivers wandered out of their lane, or drove at speed.

Jen's accident was only a few weeks old, and since then she often drove with white knuckles, relaxing only when she was out of the car.

Back inside the house, she put the milk in the refrigerator and took her roll from the bakery to her office where she turned on the laptop. She ate distractedly whilst the machine powered up and connected to the internet. There was something nagging at the back of her mind, something she had heard or read recently that might be the key—but _what_ was it? She wished her memory were better. As she ate, she remembered the drive back along the misty roads, it was amazing how such a simple thing as fog could alter one's perception of the landscape and turn what was real and ordinary, into the surreal...

Jen paused, mid-bite and stared at the screen.

Roads, now that was it, something about the roads. Where had she heard about fairies and roads?

Then it came to her.

Of course, it was Tom; he had explained to her that his wife had thought a Fairy road ran through Emerald Hills. Was that the difference between Cromhart and Emerald Hills? Was the Fairy road the reason why there was no fairy presence in one town, yet the other was plagued by them? Was the Fairy highway the key to the entire puzzle? Jen took another bite from her roll and called up a search engine on the laptop. Carefully, she typed in the words, _fairy roads_ , and then hit the search button.

#  Chapter 14

The Brisbane news team drove into Emerald Hills marvelling at the heavy fog that still shrouded the town. They had an uneventful drive, right up until they started to see the road signs pointing to the town. It was then that the mist began to be evident, curling across the road like the heavy mist from dry ice. From then on, the fog had thickened into a real peasouper, cutting visibility down to only a few metres in front of them.

Finally, they drove into the town itself and pulled their van into one of the parking bays next to 'The Royal' hotel and got out, stretching cramped muscles, and moving overnight bags from the vehicle onto the footpath.

Bill Anders, award-winning journalist and commentator, looked up at the pub, nodding to himself. He consulted a sheaf of papers. "Seems to be the right place; Samantha booked us into three rooms."

"Sure looks like a likely place" observed Trent, the soundman. "I hope the meals are decent.

He grinned across at blond-haired Deven, who was the fresh-out-of-university cameraman, eager to cut his teeth on his first real story. "This is the place where the publican was murdered!" he told Deven.

Bill stroked his well-trimmed beard and moustache and gestured to the others. "Well let's go in."

The others nodded and followed Bill inside.

For the hour, the pub was strangely silent and stank of stale alcohol and something else that they could not identify.

Bill walked up to a counter and pressed a buzzer. Distantly, he heard it echo. He waited a couple more minutes and then pressed it again. Finally, he heard the heavy tread of footsteps, and around the far end of the bar, a middle-aged man with grey thinning hair appeared. Bill suddenly shivered and noticed the others pull their jackets and clothes closer to them. Bill heard Trent make a disparaging comment about the air-conditioning set too high, and then the older man was facing them.

"Well, gents, what can I do for you?" the man asked in a wheezy voice.

"We have rooms booked for the Brisbane Channel Eight Network," explained Bill, shivering hard, his breath frosting in the suddenly frigid air.

"Ahh," said the man. "I'll need to check records. Back shortly."

Then he was off again, his shoes echoing in the stillness.

Deven nudged Bill. "Did you check him out. Missing half an ear, it must have been _some_ pub fight."

Trent chuckled and headed over to the bar. "Wonder when they start serving around here?"

Bill looked around him whilst he waited. He had been a journalist close on thirty years and something felt very wrong there. He checked his watch, frowned, and shook it, it had stopped at twenty past four. Surely the bar should be packed by then, and what _was_ that smell?

The older man had completely vanished. Annoyed, Bill leant on the buzzer, listening as it echoed.

Eventually, he heard footsteps, different ones that time, lighter and faster. Around the corner where the older man had vanished appeared a sour-faced policeman dressed in a paper coverall over his uniform.

"What are you doing here?" he said abruptly, "Don't you know this is a crime scene?"

Bill was confused. "We're media, with the Brisbane Channel Eight Network. We've been booked into stay here, my personal assistant had it all organised."

"Well, you need to replace your assistant," snapped the officer. "Hotel has been closed for days. In fact, we're still doing forensic investigations here."

Bill opened his mouth. "We just spoke with one of the hotel staff. He said he was going to check records, an older bloke, thinning grey hair, piece missing from one of his ears."

The policeman's face grew severe at hearing that. "This is not a joking matter, mate."

"I'm not joking," Bill said, his own face growing red with annoyance.

"Well, someone must be pulling your leg, because we have a corpse on ice out back in the cold room. The publican was murdered a couple of days ago, and your description exactly matches the corpse."

At that news, the blood drained from Bill's face, rendering his complexion grey.

"But-but...he was just here," Bill stammered.

The policeman was not amused. "I don't have the time to put up with stupid media stunts. I don't care where you three go, but this place is closed...until further _notice_."

With that last and final statement, he walked away, annoyance written into every line of his stiffly-held body.

Bill gestured to the other two. "Let's get out of here. I dunno what just happened, but I know when we're not wanted. We can do further investigations later. After I've given Samantha a serve on the mobile."

"So no go here?" asked Trent, scratching his dark hair.

"No, go," Bill growled. "However, this is not the end of the matter. I have contacts within police headquarters. I plan to get to the bottom of this."

The sleek grey car drifted into town as if it were part of the mist itself. It sat for a moment, its engine idling at the red traffic light, then as the light changed, it eased off again, the expensive European engine purring gently.

Slowly, it drove through town until it stopped outside the office of one of the three real estate agents in the town. Silently, four adults got out of the car, the fog muffling the sounds of doors closing.

The men were dressed in expensive designer suits, the type that if you needed to ask the price, then you couldn't afford it. The women were dressed simply in silk blouses and linen slacks. Their immaculately coiffed hair showed scarcely a tendril out of place, and they wore dark sunglasses, even though it was late in the day and the mist still hung heavy about the town. They stood there for a moment, furtively glancing about, and then after a low conversation, walked into the real estate office. One of the men carried a slim leather briefcase and he wore an expensive Swiss watch upon his wrist.

The receptionist at the Real Estate office looked up as the group came inside. She greeted them with her usual blinding smile, perfected over many years of use. Yet her smile faded away as the group stared back at her with unsmiling, impassive, pale faces.

"Good afternoon," she persevered, effortlessly reworking her smile back to its usual brilliance.

"We are here to collect the rental key," the man with the briefcase said curtly, softly. "It is all arranged, we have money."

The receptionist nodded, noting the unusual Eastern European accent and imprecise English.

"I will need the letter that was sent to you, and some form of ID," she said.

The group looked at each other briefly, and then silently the man with the briefcase nodded.

"Very well," he placed his briefcase up on the counter, opened it, and took out a folded piece of paper, plus a passport. He handed both over to the woman, and as he passed her the papers, she noticed a strange tattoo on the back of his wrist. She perused the letter, nodded, and then taking his passport glanced at it and him.

"You are a long way from home, Mr. Dalca. Are you and your friends here on holidays?"

"Working holiday," he replied briefly.

The receptionist handed back the passport and then consulted the computer, "Ah, I see Neil Jenkins has processed the deposit on your rental. You have the bond?"

Mr. Dalca nodded imperceptibly. "Here, two thousand dollars."

He handed over a wad of cash.

The receptionist balked and then nodded as she again consulted the letter.

"Cash only? Very well, and Neil has noted that you are additionally paying for three months' rental in advance."

"Correct," the man said, and then handed her another even larger wad of cash. Patiently, the group waited as she counted the notes and then placed them into a lockable drawer.

Going to a board on the back wall, the receptionist selected a key from a number that was hanging there and gave it to the mysterious Mr. Dalca, along with an A4-sized envelope.

"Here is the key, along with a map of the town and surrounding area, and some information about the town, its facilities, and the house you are renting." She pushed a sheaf of papers to him. "This is your rental agreement. I have tagged the places where you are to sign."

The man nodded, and taking out a gold fountain pen from his inside jacket pocket, quickly and efficiently signed the document.

The receptionist nodded and handed back his passport. "That is all Mr. Dalca. I hope you and your friends enjoy your stay at Emerald Hills. The house is just three streets away, almost in the centre of town."

"Good." He took the passport, papers, and key. All vanished into the slim leather briefcase. The group glanced at him and he nodded briefly. As one, they left the office.

"Will she be a problem, Vaslav?" asked one of the women in her native Romanian.

Mr. Dalca shook his head, and replied in the same language, "No, by morning the paper trail to us will vanish into dust. However, we now have the key. I have ensured that our presence in the town will be overlooked except for those who know why we are here and are sympathetic to us. We have important work to do here, and we need to settle in and then get started."

The four got back in the car, and with a low purr of its engine, the vehicle turned around and was soon lost to sight in the mist.

Jen leaned back into her old leather seat until it creaked, and with her fingers, massaged the strain out of her temples. After a long day at the computer, she was beginning to understand what was going on, or at least she supposed she had some comprehension of the puzzle.

Her research had led her to various sites that she would normally dismiss as at best dodgy, and at worst, outright loony. Those sites dealt with ley lines, those mysterious paths claimed to be channels of mystical energy. Linking ancient Neolithic sites in England and Europe, the New Agers claimed that these lines or paths channelled natural energy. Leylines were also supposedly present in Australia, although the online maps of such lines were crude and scarce.

It seemed that some people even claimed that Uluru was a key focus of earth power and there were even maps of ley lines radiating from the natural monolith.

She also read about spirit paths, or corpse roads, those trackways and paths made for transporting the dead to their final resting place. It seemed possible that fairies could use both leylines and corpse roads to travel, and perhaps Emerald Hills lay along one of these roads.

Jen stretched and heard her joints pop in protest. It was all supposition. There was no hard evidence that such paths existed. In addition, there was no hard evidence that the Fae existed, either. Yet her direct experience was that they did, so then _ipso facto_ the fairy roads existed, also.

It seemed since the Fae existed, then it was likely they travelled along unseen roads oozing natural power, and one of those paths lay directly through Emerald Hills.

Jen shook her head, still puzzled. If the Fairy road had existed for many years, perhaps even forever, why then was it _then_ that the problems were happening?

Jen remembered Tom explaining how fifty years ago Anna had sensed the Fae. However, it seemed that what had happened then had faded, vanished of its own accord.

So what had changed? Why was it starting up again?

Fionn had told her to stop what was being done, but still she had no idea what he had meant. She guessed that the perpetrators were human agents of the rebel fairy court and that they had moved into the area and were possibly changing things that affected the Fairy road. Jen frowned; it was all guesswork, and she doubted a word of it would hold up in a court of Law.

For a brief moment, she considered the construction of the underground power lines, and then laughed at her own absurdity. The electrical work was coordinated by the council, state government, and through the power companies. It would be ludicrous to consider that the government could be actively aiding the rebel Fae.

Jen paused, and drew an unsteady breath, considering another alternative.

What if the government did it inadvertently, and that, by putting the power underground it had affected the road and all that were bound to it? Could that be what was happening? Did the government know what they were doing or were the rebels manipulating Government itself? Maybe they were manipulating the activist groups that leaned on Government and the electricity company.

Tom had spoken of one, what was it...EGAG, EGOG, EHOG? Jen groaned, so many questions, so few answers, and the answers she was coming up with seemed too far-fetched to be true.

Jen put that puzzle to the side, instead addressing the questions of why: _Why now and why Emerald Hills?_ Jen massaged her temples. She was starting to develop a headache. With some relief, she decided to turn off the laptop and close its lid. The questions could wait; she could not concentrate with the growing hammering behind her temples.

It was time for a painkiller and a nap. Jen locked the house and, turning down the coverlet, lay down and went to sleep.

#  Chapter 15

The next morning, the people of Emerald Hills awoke to the mist still shrouding the town. For an area unused to such conditions, it was an unsettling experience, but people accepted the situation and began their daily routines.

Life could not stop or slow for mere vagaries of the weather.

Robert White opened his classroom door and turned on the lights. The fog had made the usual drive to school interesting, so he was glad to be out of the car and at the school.

Unhurriedly, he finalised his lesson plans for the day and laid the textbooks out on the tables for his small class of thirteen primary-school-aged children. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that one of the overhead lights was flickering, and as he watched it, the light went dark, followed immediately after, by the light next to it.

Frowning, he waited for more lights to blow, but the others still shone brightly. Shrugging his shoulders, he dismissed it. Surely, it must just be a malfunction in the electrics. He would let the school maintenance man know as soon as was practical.

Picking up his laptop bag, he closed the door and walked down the corridor to the building that housed the staff room. As usual, there was a staff meeting this morning, and Robert planned to be early, so he would have time to speak to the principal about some matters. Although he was only in his late thirties, Robert was a big man, and he wheezed slightly as he walked.

Every day he meant to do something about his weight, but by the end of the workday, he was usually exhausted and only had energy enough to deal with the schoolwork required for the next morning, prepare a meal, and go to bed.

Thankfully, he reached the staffroom and sat down on a comfortable, cushioned, fabric chair. Resting the laptop on his knees, he nodded hello at the other gathering staff. The Principal was still absent, obviously busy with a parent or an early student—so much for his plans of having time to talk to him.

"Weird weather we're having," commented Janet Chin, the year-five teacher. "Looks like we're to be another casualty of climate change."

Robert grunted a noncommittal reply. Unlike most of the other teachers in the school, he was not yet convinced about the whole climate change ideology, but given it was part of the curriculum, he had to teach it.

Finally, the principal appeared.

He was a small, compact man who was prematurely balding. He perpetually wore a harried, worried expression on his face as if the world itself was conspiring to make his life difficult. Robert guessed that the decades of teaching and then being Principal of the School had not helped his stress levels.

"Good morning, staff," he said as he waited for everyone to find a seat. "We have twenty-five absentees today, ten up from yesterday."

He handed out copies of a list, Robert perused his copy—three of the students were from his class, including one of the habitual troublemakers.

The principal went on, "It seems that the weather has spooked a number of parents, and some families are, in fact, relocating out of the town until the start of next semester. I have also had word from the department that if conditions here deteriorate any further, then we are to send the children home early. I'll let you all know at lunchtime whether that will happen today." He cleared his throat. "Keep in mind the police directives that we have been given in regard to child safety. I have had a phone call from the authorities this morning. It seems another child has been abducted overnight. This time, an infant. The child was removed from a cot in the parent's own bedroom. So we must be extra vigilant with our own pupils."

He waited for the ripple of concerned conversation to die down, and then spoke again.

"Onto other matters, as you are aware the school term finishes the end of th—" He was interrupted by a sudden crash from a nearby room.

Immediately, all the teachers leapt to their feet, Robert with effort lifting himself from his chair.

The Principal led the other teachers out of the staff room, hurrying along the corridor to the library, which seemed to be the source of the crash. The lights had gone out in the room, but there was enough diffused light from outside to see that three of the big windowpanes had crashed inside, shattering shards of glass everywhere.

"What the..." the principal breathed, astounded. "Now, how did that happen?"

One of the younger male teachers went over to investigate. "I can't find any rocks or bricks, and it seems that the glass has just given way."

Emma Houston, the teacher librarian gasped, pointing at the windows. "Look at _that_."

Everyone followed the direction of her pointing finger and saw tendrils of watermelon vine cascading over the windowsills and into the room.

"Since when did we have a vine problem?" demanded the principal.

"Since never," answered another teacher. "Those vines were only planted at the start of the school year as part of our permaculture project. There is no way they'd be this high or this lush now. I mean, it's a watermelon vine, and it's a low-growing plant. It shouldn't be anywhere near the windows, let alone have the weight to smash them in."

"Well, it's obviously done so. Come on, we need to clean up the mess before school starts and bar entry into the library until we can get the windows secured and the books removed before they are ruined."

Carma looked out at the fog-enshrouded street outside her shop and felt a twinge of worry.

Since the advent of the fog three days earlier, sales had been down. Tourists, who normally flocked to Emerald Hills were absent from her shop, and even her regulars seemed to be giving her a wide berth. She could not understand why. After that day when the old ladies of the town had bought up all her herbs, she'd scarcely had a customer. She looked down at her balance book. It was not yet a matter for serious concern, but if the fog continued, she might have to consider a new marketing strategy.

Walking around the store, she rearranged some of the displays, trying to make the items seem more enticing. Behind her, she heard the chimes jingle as the door opened.

_At last!_ she thought. _A customer._

Turning hurriedly, she encountered the cool green gaze of Moira, who as usual, did her bizarre float-walk towards her.

"I see the changes are being made in the town," Moira said quietly, a small smile upon her lips.

"Good morning to you too, Moira," Carma replied archly.

"Oh." Moira was airily dismissive of the greeting. "Good mor...hmmm."

She stopped and examined a candle, sniffing delicately.

"What changes? Oh, you mean the power network?" Carma said," Yes, it is very successful. I've heard that half of the town is now connected to the new network. That mixture you asked me to make was quite potent. Those opposed to my action completely rolled over and showed their bellies."

Moira only nodded. "My compatriots and I are quite pleased. Do you know when the whole town will be reconnected?"

Carma nodded. "The council has informed me that the new grid will be in place by mid-to-late April."

"So soon," breathed Moira. "You _have_ done well."

To her mortification, Carma blushed to the roots of her vividly-purple dyed hair.

Carma glanced outside at the swirling fog. "Moira, the fog seems to have affected my business, is there anything that can be done about it?"

Moira glanced at her dismissively, waving her fingers and spinning amazing trails of light. Carma sighed and relaxed. The display was so pretty, so wonderful.

Moira smiled again, her voice low and compelling, "The fog is entirely natural and don't fret about customers, they will come. I will ensure that your loyalty is rewarded. However, I no longer need you, and I think it's best that you forget that I ever existed."

Carma smiled, and she felt an odd dullness envelop her as if complex thought was too difficult, too wearying. Part of her brain recognised it and fought against it, but entranced by Moira's flashing display of light, Carma could only smile blankly and nod.

Moira walked up to Carma and rested her ruby lips against the other woman's ear. Softly, she whispered, "I was not here, you will forget my name, our meetings, and our conversations. You have been a useful tool, mortal, however, your work for me is done."

Carma nodded dully, although inwardly she quailed.

_This was not part of the arrangement_ , she thought with vexing tears starting to spill onto her cheeks. Then the apathy took hold of her again and her chin sunk down onto her ample bosom. She felt too tired even to stand up.

Carma lifted her head and shook her head in confusion. Just what was she doing sitting on the floor? How long had she been sitting there? Had she fallen asleep? Surely not, she had just been rearranging the merchandise on the shelves.

She struggled to her feet just as the door chimes jangled. Looking around, she saw a family of five enter, the youngest girl gazing in wonderment at all the colourful candles and other knickknacks set out for sale.

Carma smiled blissfully and went back behind her front counter.

#  Chapter 16

It was the fifth day of the mist, and Jen was running low on milk and bread.

She had not wanted to drive into town whilst the fog persevered, however, she could not delay any longer. She needed at least a few basics, her supplies of tinned food were good, but she needed flour, more salt, and some meat.

The last few days at her home had been uneventful. When Jen had discovered some of the strange saplings coming up in her lawn, she had started to panic, then remembering what had happened with the bell, she took some salt and sprinkled a little upon each invader.

Amazed, she watched each infant tree shy away from the substance, and then it almost reluctantly retreated into the ground. Each morning after that experiment, she ventured outside with her diminishing bag of salt and sprinkled each new invader. After the second morning, there were no new invasions. Whoever, or _what_ ever it was, clearly understood that she was not to be trifled with and she was left alone.

Jen walked onto her verandah and locked the door behind her, her car keys in her hand. Her home was her castle, her refuge against whatever was happening beyond her carefully defended domain.

Mindful of being neighbourly, she had three days before rung Brett at his farm to see how his family was faring. His young wife Tracey had answered the phone. Speaking to her, Jen thought she had sounded stressed and harried. Tracey told Jen that she and Brett had decided to move their young family out of the area until the police caught whoever was responsible for the child abductions. Brett was to remain and mind the farm, whilst she stayed with relatives at Noosaville on the nearby Sunshine Coast. In fact, they were due to leave that very day.

Jen stood in an agony of indecision. She knew she had to go to town, yet was reluctant to leave her sanctuary. She felt herself safe there.

Looking out across the mist, all seemed quiet, too quiet.

Yes, the mist stifled most distant noises, yet all the natural sounds of the countryside had stopped too. Not a single bird called. Even the usually constant background buzz of insects had stilled. Jen wondered how long the silence had been present.

Then she heard something through the mist. Vague sounds. Jen strained to hear and was relieved to recognise the distant cawing of crows. Not all wildlife was silenced; there seemed to be a few still unperturbed by what was happening. Somewhat cheered by the calling of the crows, Jen got in the car and carefully pulled out of her driveway to make the hazardous drive into town.

At first glance, Emerald Hills seemed normal, except for the all-enveloping mist and the growing saplings. There were a number of people around, mostly visitors, as Jen did not recognise any of the faces.

Jen parked her car on the side of the main road and glanced idly at the people walking by. It seemed that the troubles that were plaguing Emerald Hills had brought back the media en masse for she could count at least five media teams. Even the national broadcaster had made its way up to the small Hinterlands town.

The rest of the visitors seemed the general tourist type, carrying cameras and wearing daypacks. A few individuals gave Jen pause. A couple, dressed in fine clothes sent waves of unease flowing through her, and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Jen recognised them as being human, but something about the two strangers set alarm bells clanging in her mind. They walked past her car, then stopped and looked back; Jen shrank into her seat, busying herself with the contents of her purse. After a moment, she dared to look again and saw that they had walked on, taking the miasma of corruption with them.

Jen finally summoned the nerve to get out of the car and face the town. Outside, the fog hung heavily about the buildings, and the saplings, with three or four day's growth, were knee-high. Jen with her Sight could easily avoid them, but others would walk right through them, tripping and stumbling. She watched people looking back or down and then shake their heads in bemusement when they saw nothing.

A group of young university types clustered outside one shop. They were talking excitedly amongst themselves whilst wielding sound recording devices and other obscure bits of electronic hardware. As she walked by, she overheard one of them exclaim something about raised EMF fields, then she was past them and they too fell out of earshot.

The news agency was open and crowded with people. Jen bought a copy of both the local newspaper and the big national broadsheet. Stepping outside, she leant against the wall of the newsagent to peruse the front paper stories. Suddenly, she stopped and listened. Jen was certain she had heard something. She listened, nothing, but then it came again—the sound seemed almost like a deep, earthy groan as if the ground were in pain. There again, a groaning, grinding sound, not human and she would swear, not living, either.

A moment or two later, she felt a mild tremor through her feet, and the building she was leaning against suddenly shuddered. Hastily, she moved away from the wall, and as she did so she heard several screams as the ground moved beneath her feet.

"Earthquake!" someone yelled, and within moments, the footpath and road were crowded with people running out of nearby shops and businesses, most looking up into the sky as if a jet had crashed, or if they feared that buildings would topple onto them.

The tremor lasted scarcely a few seconds, although to Jen it seemed far longer. She found herself crouched on the ground, her hands sweating and resting on the footpath as if she had dared not trust her feet to keep her upright. Standing, she trembled a little, perhaps from reaction, or perhaps it was that her body contained the earth tremor.

It took her several minutes to calm down enough to walk back to where she had parked the car.

At least there had been no apparent damage to the town. From what could be seen through the swirling fog, the buildings all seemed intact, although some retaining walls had gained a few new cracks that hadn't previously existed.

From fear grew excitement, and people milled around talking animatedly about what had happened. Earthquakes were a rare phenomenon in South East Queensland so that one would surely make it onto the nightly news, along with the abductions, murders, and fog that was the recent feature of Emerald Hills.

Jen put the newspapers on the passenger seat beside her and sat, trying to calm her ragged breathing. The practical, pragmatic part of her scolded her for thinking that anything other than natural causes caused the tremor. However, given the incidents of the last few weeks, Jen wasn't sure. By then, Jen was ready to attribute paranormal origins to everything that had gone wrong lately, even to the cyclonic storm that had hit weeks earlier. Jen told herself that she wasn't being rational, but she didn't care. There were just too many things happening now that she hadn't seen in all her years of living here.

Finally, Jen made up her mind to speak to someone in authority about it, someone who might listen and lend a sympathetic ear. She thought immediately of the local councillor but then dismissed the idea. She suspected the underground power lines lay at the heart of the problems, but the council was working hand-in-glove with the power companies, and the last thing they would want to hear was Jen's half-formed theories—theories born of gut feeling and her Sight, and not from actual scientific observation.

_Who else then?_ Certainly not the media. She would be hailed as a crackpot and lampooned across the nation. She would probably end up on the internet as a laughing stock. The police seemed a good idea, then she remembered that they knew she had had a car accident and they would pass off her imaginings as brain damage. She'd likely end up committed into some institution somewhere.

She shook her head. Every avenue seemed a dead end. There was only one person who would believe her, that person was Tom. Perhaps he knew what to do. Jen resolved to see him that afternoon after she completed her shopping.

Jen drove out of town, her groceries in the back of the car. She had planned to drop off her purchases at home and then go to Tom's place, but once on the road, she just kept driving, anxious to put Emerald Hills far behind her.

As Jen neared the Delany property, she discovered that Tom's farm was just outside the mist barrier. As she turned off the main road and drove over the cattle grate and down the long driveway to the homestead, she could see to her left the far grey wall that was the outermost extent of the fog.

It really was a disturbing sight, it was almost as if the fog stated, "Here is where the real world ends."

Jen pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. She was keen to speak with Tom, get his thoughts on the matter and offer her some advice. Suddenly, she slammed on the brakes. A dozen or more kangaroos and wallabies had bounded out from the scrub and fruit trees just ahead of her, hopping across the dirt road and out of sight. It was rare to see a big mob of kangaroos so close to the coast, rare to see them moving at speed and in a densely scrubby area.

It almost seemed as if they were fleeing the mist.

Jen pursed her lips and watched the scrub at the mist line. Sure enough, more native animals were visible. That time a big flock of cockatoos flew out silently. Instead of roosting in the nearby treetops, they instead wheeled and headed west, away from the mist.

Jen shuddered; if the animals were fleeing Emerald Hills, then something was definitely amiss. She put her foot down on the accelerator; it was high time she spoke to Tom.

As the homestead came into view, she saw a number of cars parked out in front, including a police car and an ambulance. Her heart in her mouth, Jen quickly parked and walked up the front stairs to the door, which was open.

Quickly, she rang the bell and waited. As she stood on the front verandah, she could hear voices inside the house. For a moment, she thought no one had heard her, and then just as she was about to repress the buzzer, she saw Cathy, her eyes red and puffy as if she had been crying.

"Jennifer! Did you hear?"

Jen shook her head in bewilderment. "What happened? Was there an accident?"

Cathy shook her head, drew Jen outside, and shut the door behind her.

"Tom passed on this morning."

Jen drew in a shocked breath. "I came over to see him! I'm so terribly sorry."

Cathy drew a deep, shuddery breath. "We think it was a heart attack, although there's been no indication of anything wrong before. He was out in the orchard helping Matt when suddenly he clutched at his chest and keeled over. Matt tried and tried to revive him, but it was no good. We have the coroner here. He's been up in Emerald Hills since the last murder and came in with the police when we rang emergency." Tears leaked from her eyes. "It's just so sudden. We all knew he was getting on, but he's always been so hale and healthy. This is just completely out of the blue."

She sobbed out her grief into her hands. Jen, shocked beyond words, could only put an arm around her shoulders, her own eyes welling with tears.

Eventually, Cathy drew away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry; it's just been such a shock. I should go to Matt, he'll need me."

Jen nodded. "I understand; I should be going too."

Cathy looked at her and gave her a woeful smile. "Any other time you'd be welcome to visit; it's just not a good day today." She fussed with her hands. "I'd best go inside, thanks for dropping by, Jennifer."

"Let me know when the funeral is," Jen said. She scribbled her telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to the other woman. "I'd like to go if I could."

Cathy inclined her head. "We'll see what can be done. I know Tom would want you to be there. Anyway, goodbye, Jennifer."

Jen lifted her hand in farewell and walked back to the car. She felt shattered. Her only lifeline was gone. She felt devastated, alone, and adrift. She had no idea what to do.

Mechanically, she got into the car and drove home, her thoughts filled with her last conversation with Tom, and missing him as a friend. She felt utterly alone.

A pair of leaf-green eyes watched Jen as she drove into the yard and parked the car. He could feel waves of grief and despair radiating off her, but he could get no closer, even though he longed to take her in his arms to comfort her and love her. The protections she had put in place kept him and the others of his kind at a distance. Even there, standing amongst the bushes on the perimeter of her property he felt the burning. Salt was anathema to his kind, and the mortal woman called Jenny had spread it liberally on the trees that the rebels had sent to overwhelm the town.

The Seelie Court had been disgusted with him for falling for the mortal woman. However, he did not care; it was in his nature to love and be loved, and over many generations, he had chosen thousands of lovers from the mortal realm.

That one, however, was different—it was the first time he had chosen a Sighted woman and her stubbornness in continuing to refuse him meant that he was frustrated. For one such as him, frustration was a new emotion. Usually, women went gladly to him, seeking out his attention and affection. It had amused and flattered him to see such behaviour, and amusements were always to be welcomed, for boredom was the one thing that soured an eternal existence. Like a moth to a flame, he hung about the edges of Jen's garden. He was invisible to mortal eyes, even most times to hers, yet always he was drawn to the mortal woman in the building.

Reluctantly, he turned away. He would return, no doubt about that, but there were other new humans who had come to the town that had to be investigated and reported back to the Seelie Court, especially if they were found to be allies of the rebels. He could not act against them, but if Jen could stop what was going on, then the two Courts would be free to seek revenge, on not only the rebels but their human agents also.

As quick as a thought, he melted into the mist, and using the invisible flows of the natural power, travelled almost instantly to the town.

Wearing the mortal face of an attractively, trustworthy, mature man, he stalked the streets of mist-filled Emerald Hills.

He did not trouble to hide. Just a hint of glamour was enough to render him humanlike enough to pass through crowds, and of all the faces he wore, that one had allowed him entry through so many doors and into so many private meetings and trysts.

He even ensured his glamour clung when visiting the mortal woman Jenny. He had not bothered so in the past, but for his mission as a messenger, it was important not to allow what he truly was to influence her. He could have unleashed considerable power at his disposal to manipulate her into doing his will, yet had he done so, he would have broken the Laws. No, she alone had to make the decision to aid the courts. Once she had made that decision, he would reveal himself and take her for his own. He knew how desirable he was to human females, his nature was elfin, Sidhe. His true face and body were one that many mortal women in the past had in their lust killed to possess. Jen would be no different; she would fall into his arms like an autumn leaf. He felt himself growing aroused at the thought.

He looked around him. The saplings were growing strongly, and even he who rightly should be ripping each one from the town inwardly rejoiced to see their presence. He did not like the settlements of men, they were an affront to the natural order, but the old Laws and Covenants bound him. He could not act, only the mortal woman could raise her hand against the machinations of her fellow kind, even when they aided the rebels.

Closing his eyes and opening his senses fully, he could feel the pulsing of the electricity running through the ground under his feet. The electricity was fouling the Fae path, disturbing the natural flows, making it circulate as water heated under fire.

It was bad enough when it ran through the wires overhead—at least that could be endured, be travelled past, but underground, its presence was even stronger. The path had once flowed as straight as an arrow's flight, now it looped, double-backed, and in places, it became as a whirlpool. The great Courts, when they moved were tied irreconcilably to the path and the Great Ones even more so. When the courts processed, as they were due to in just a matter of a week or two, they moved with it as naturally as leaves carried by a swift mountain stream.

Due to the new currents and eddies, both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts would be trapped there, and such a concentration of natural power was not a good thing, and worse still for the humans caught in it. There would be a heavy reckoning for not only that town but others too, for the interference and power would grow, feeding upon each other, until the entire area could no longer be habitable for humanity.

He frowned, knowing that would only be the start of the problems. Always, the Courts had strived to keep a low profile, content to be regarded as myth and legend. If humans in power were to suspect they actually existed, then he knew that there would be war. It was in the nature of humanity to embrace conflict, and the weapons of humans were so great that extinction would result either for the Fae or for humanity—and that was not even taking into account the rebel court that had set in place the entire process in order to achieve domination over the other two courts.

He shook his head, no balance must be restored, and the mortal woman, Jen, was the only one fated to do it. He wished he could tell her outright what she had to do, but he could not. The rebels worked outside the Laws, but they, on the other hand, bound him.

He moved as quickly as a phantasm, drawing his awareness tighter into himself, away from the corruption below his feet. The Seelie court had chosen him to be their messenger to the mortal woman, chosen him because of his origin and past associations with humanity. He out of all of them had the closest bond with them, and was less bound to the flows of the Fae path, and he could move upon it even whilst it lay corrupted.

Pausing for a moment, he sniffed, his senses again alert. There was a whiff of something...unwholesome. He had come across the stench in the past and in the old lands but did not think to find it there, in the new, southern lands.

_Warlocks_ , he hissed to himself.

Like carrion crows, they would often gather upon the meeting places of the Fae. They would steal power and infuse items with it, in order to gain power in the mortal world. The group had come far, so obviously the word was spreading. There would be more of their kind before long. He watched the sleek grey car pass and pulled his glamour tighter about him, fading completely back into the mist and the shadows. He did not think they could harm him, but it would be prudent if they remained unaware of his presence.

#  Chapter 17

Jen woke late after again sleeping poorly. Bad dreams troubled her, causing her to wake several times in a cold, drenching sweat. Perhaps, she was paranoid, but it occurred to her that Tom's seemingly natural death might not be so natural after all. Perhaps the rebel Fae knew of his association with her, and failing to lay a hand on her, now sought to punish those with whom she had a close association. _Perhaps now, they considered her a threat?_

All Jen wanted to do was pull the covers over her head and wish the world away, but she knew that was not an option. The least she could do was ring Cathy to tell her to get her family to someplace safe, somewhere off the Hinterland.

Reluctantly, she rolled out of bed and retreated to the shower. Time to wash off the dark clinging dreams and the dried sweat; it was time, too, to make some phone calls. If she was being targeted, then she had to start telling people to be careful. She was past the fear of ridicule—Tom's death had ensured that.

Just as she was towelling herself down, the phone rang. Hastily, she pulled on a cotton robe and dashed to the study where the landline telephone was located.

"Hello?"

"Jennifer?" the male voice seemed hesitant, tired.

"Yes, speaking."

"Matt Delany, here, I understand you called in yesterday to speak to Dad?"

Jen, surprised at the phone call, started to choke up, but with effort, steadied her voice.

"I did, Cathy told me what happened. I'm so terribly sorry for your loss."

The voice on the other end of the line paused as if he too was finding it difficult to express words, let alone emotions.

"Thank-you," he finally managed. "Our only consolation is that dad went quickly. It would have been distressing for him if he had been left in a state unable to..."

His voice wandered off, Jen heard a muffled sound, and she imagined him brushing away tears with the back of his hand.

"He was always a strong, independent man, you see. Hated to be a burden. He drove up to almost a year ago until the government told him he was too old to have a license. It was his eyes; his macula was degenerating you see."

"How old was he?" Jen asked quietly, gently.

"He would have turned eighty-five this year," Matt replied sadly. There was silence for a few moments, and then he continued on, "Anyway, the funeral is scheduled for Thursday morning. Cathy said you wanted to come?"

Jen nodded. "Yes, if that is fine with the family?"

"Of course..."

He gave her the details that Jen noted down on a scrap of paper. Tom was to be buried next to his wife, Anna, at the local cemetery. It seemed both right and fitting. It was clear that Tom had loved her dearly.

"Jennifer?"

"Yes?"

He cleared his throat. "Yesterday, just before Dad passed, he pulled me close and whispered some words in my ear. He told me to ring you. Told me to ask you about Anna, I figured it must have been important.

He fell silent and then with a hesitant catch in his throat went on, "Did Dad ever speak to you about Mum, about Anna and her...gift?"

"He did, I don't know how to say this, but your mum and I...well, I'm Sighted just like she was."

"Dad told you?"

"In a way," Jen admitted. "However, things have been happening to confirm it. I was going to speak to Cathy about it, but since you rang... Well, all the things that have been happening in Emerald Hills, all the bad things. I don't think it's natural. I think we're in for a world of trouble."

There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line.

Jen hastened to add, "I know it's hard to accept, but you must believe me, and you must take your family away for a while."

"Why?" His reply was almost terse.

Jen struggled to explain, "Because it's not safe. I don't want to upset you, Matt, but I think it's dangerous for your family to remain here."

There was a noncommittal grunt on the other end of the line and then silence for a moment or two.

Matt finally replied, "I'll think on it. Dad knew more about these matters than the rest of the family. You see, he accepted without question what Mum was seeing. Mum never talked about it, but after she passed on, he wanted to tell us what happened all those years ago." He paused. "It's hard for me to imagine this sort of thing being true, but Dad is not one for spinning a tall tale, and I'd never known a lie to come out of Mum's lips."

"I'm not lying either," Jen said desperately. "Please take your family off the Hinterland, at least for a little while."

"I'll see what I can do," Matt said. "We have the bulk of the fruit in now, so I'm sure I can arrange some time away. God knows, it has been years since we've had a holiday, and my nephew Ben has been pestering us to visit. Perhaps, this is a good time to go away and take a break."

The silence stretched on for a while, and then Matt asked, "What are you going to do? Are you going to leave the Hinterlands as well?"

Jen swallowed. "I can't. I wish I could, but I have to do something important. I'm not sure what yet, but I can't leave. I must stay on."

"If you feel you must; then you must," he answered obliquely. "I don't know how this gift of yours works, but you have to follow your heart. That's what Mum always said." He drew an unsteady breath. "Anyway, I must go. If we are to leave after the funeral, then I have preparations to make, and Cathy and Fiona need to be told."

After that, he said his goodbye and rang off.

Jen felt somewhat comforted; she liked the Delany family and hoped she had acted in time to spare them further harm. Jen picked up the local phone book; she had still a couple more calls to make.

#  Chapter 18

Carma wandered listlessly about her shop.

Sales had picked up, but she still was not content. Something nagged at the back of her mind, but annoyingly, she could not identify what it was. She had been feeling vague for a couple of days, a far call from her usual crisp and decisive self. The previous night's EHGAG meeting should have angered her, but she had just accepted it. She should have been grinding her teeth, yet she had resignedly shrugged her shoulders.

The night before, five members of EHGAG had handed in their resignations. The meeting had started poorly, everyone slouching in, looking as if they hadn't slept in a week. The younger members creeping in quietly, their eyes shadowed, seemingly jumping at the slightest noise.

Then, Steve arrived and even before he sat down, he apologetically admitted that Sonja had been spooked since the gum tree had fallen on her house and that they now planned to sell their respective properties and make a move south to Sydney.

Adam, the patriarch, who had been silent throughout the meeting, had stood, stared witheringly at Carma and told her that he disapproved of the direction and methods of the group. He also said that EHGAG was now no longer an environmental conservation group and that Carma was corrupting their original purpose and that he had no further interest in supporting their actions.

Taking his jacket, he had left without a backward glance. Of course, where Adam went, Rod would always follow, and shamefacedly, he had mumbled some pathetic excuse and left too. After that, there was silence and then young Maryanne, her face scarlet with embarrassment, said that she too was leaving. She was scared about what had been happening and that morning her parents had driven up from Brisbane, telling her they wanted her home. They had been watching the news broadcasts and no longer felt that Emerald Hills was a safe place for her to live. They wanted her out by the next day, no argument, no questions asked.

Carma usually did not frighten easily, if she had, then she would not have left the safe and familiar confines of university. However, she had struck out, keen to make her mark and achieve her personal ambition of power, wealth, and influence. Carma really did not believe in any particular political ideology, but she did yearn for power and had long ago identified the green progressive movement as a suitable vehicle to achieve her aims.

At university, she had grown familiar with the activist type—young, naive, wet-behind-the-ears, all so touchingly desperate to change the world of their parents. So a few years earlier, she had moved to Emerald Hills, started up her business and joined EHGAG, and had subsequently dominated it as ruthlessly as any corporate mogul.

Carma had found it so very easy to manipulate EHGAG, and as for those who were older and should have known better, they either shared Carma's hard-nosed goals or simply were hopelessly naive. Adam had fallen into the latter category. At his age, he should have _understood_ what the game was about, understood what the rules were. However, up until recently, he had seemed blissfully naive and unaware, believing that what the group did was environmentalism. Carma wondered dully what had changed his mind.

Sonja was the last remaining of the stick-in-the-mud type that had resented her muscling in. However, as of the night before, Sonja was no longer a problem, pity then about Steve, though.

Carma shrugged, she had little empathy for those who fell to the side. If they did not possess the _vision_ for the big picture, then she was well rid of them. Scruples and principles just got in the way in this game.

Yet all her planning and conniving seemed to matter little then. Carma had sat silent and dumbfounded during the entire episode last night. She knew she should have been seething, knew she should have been shouting, dragging them back, demanding proper answers.

Yet, she did nothing.

Her brain was like a sieve. For a moment, she wondered if someone had slipped something into her green tea. Still, EHGAG was holding together; they could renew from four members. They had been in worse straits before. She was only thirty-eight. She still had decades of activism ahead of her.

Carma looked outside the shop windows and stared at the heavy mist that, days later, still refused to lift. She should have felt concerned, she should have felt alarmed, yet she did not. She recognised that the town was changing, yet felt little disquiet. Normally, she would have been out, investigating, seeing if she could turn anything different to her advantage, yet... _meh_.

She felt...hollowed out, a husk blown about by the will of the wind. It was as if someone else was pulling the strings, making her dance, setting the rules. It was an unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation. It was as if her desire for influence and power had drained away from her as sand through her fingers.

Carma knew she should protest the change in herself, yet although she recognised the change, she could do nothing. She felt nothing but apathy.

#  Chapter 19

Below the surface of the town, the natural energies, and powers that comprised the Fae path swirled. What used to flow straight and steady now spun in eddies, making the ground tremble and shudder beyond human awareness. Beyond the town, the path lay quiescent and in darkness, until much further on, the natural power reasserted itself and flowed as normal onwards.

Moira stood with her small host of rebel Fae and watched the slow, but inexorable transformation of the town from a human construct to something else.

She saw the saplings growing taller every day—soon even they would be visible to mortal eyes. She saw the still invisible cracks in buildings, as tendrils of green worked their way remorselessly into brick, tile, and mortar. Eventually, they would pull even the stoutest building apart into ruin. It would not be long, and then the buildings would fall apart.

For the moment, the mist and fog clouded mortal vision and deceived mortal minds, but soon even the half-blind humans would see their town disintegrating around them, and then they would know fear. Moria would love to see them panic and run, however, it would be soon time for her infant court to move. The natural power was pooling there, and the last thing she wanted was to be trapped alongside the enraged Seelie and Unseelie Courts and to face their wrath and revenge on anything that moved, even on the innocent.

She sensed too that the forerunners of the courts were near, only days away by her reckoning. She had already sensed the Great Horned One, the Green Man, and the Hunt a scarce few days, weeks prior. Those ancient elementals and powers were not allied to any court, but they remained as primal random energies pursuing their own ends. She had tried to draw them across to her court, but with no success. They simply did not listen or care. It was as fruitless as attempting to strike a deal with the wind and the tides.

She had sensed the _Gancanagh_ there, also, pursuing yet another mortal woman.

The woman was an odd one, small, unassuming and plain to behold, yet possessing a quiescent power. It was no wonder that she drew the _Gancanagh_ to her, for despite her unprepossessing looks, she shone as brightly as a flame to the Fae. Moira had been in two minds as to whether or not she would be a nuisance, and then coldly dismissed her since the mortal seemed frightened of her own shadow.

Even if she could act, she would not act; despite her power, she did not have the character to do so. Stupid mortals, they were so easy to control and fool. _Still_ , she thought, _the mortal was worth watching, her protections only extended so far and may yet be manipulated through her friends and associates._ It was a pity that the old mortal man had died under his own steam for it would have amused Moira to plant the seeds of despair and horror in his mind.

Moira turned away. Soon she would be away from the human-fouled place and back to the old lands where the history and essence of her kind were etched on every barrow and standing stone. There, she could build her own court and rule over all her own kind.

Bill Anders from the Brisbane Channel Eight Network cursed as he tripped yet again on the footpath, that time almost falling flat on his face.

"What in God's name is wrong with this footpath?" he growled, cursing under his breath. "Geezus, either I'm going blind or the council must be lax with their repairs. That's the fifth time I've tripped in the last hour."

"I've had the same problem," said Trent. "This place is bizarre. To make it worse, I've been getting all these weird interferences on the audio files."

Bill turned around to stare at his soundman. "What sort of interferences?"

Trent shrugged. "Well, you know that audio report we did yesterday on the tremor here?"

Bill nodded. "Sure, you sent it back to the station this morning, didn't you?"

"Sure did, right on time too. Mind you, I spent most of last night trying to clean it up." He paused and yawned. "It's hard to tell, I mean at times I could swear I heard giggling and whispering in the background. I had to try and isolate the interferences and then edit them out, it was the devil of a job."

"What caused it?" Bill asked.

"No idea, but it reminded me of the old crossed-lines problems we used to sometimes get with telephone landlines."

"Hey, guys, take a look at this," Deven breathlessly called across from where he had been setting up his camera equipment.

The other two men walked over.

"What's the problem?" Bill asked, picking up the note of fear in the young cameraman's voice.

"You mentioned the problem with the footpath before, well take a look at this." He indicated that Bill should look through the camera lens.

Bill peered through. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

Deven stood at his shoulder. "Tell me what you see."

Bill squinted. "Footpath, people tripping... Good, it's not just me. Hmmm, lots of cracks in the concrete, crap job the council is doing here. Oh, and that's odd, the fog seems less severe looking through the camera." He looked up. "Anything else I should be seeing?"

"No, now take a look around you. Do you see the same as through the camera lens?"

Bill looked around him. "Well to the naked eye the cracks aren't that visible, and the fog is definitely heavier too."

Deven cleared his throat. "Now take a look at the same area with this camera." He passed over to his boss a small hand-held digital camera."

Bill obediently peered at the screen and immediately swore. "Hell, where did they come from?"

Bill lifted the camera away from his eyes, stared again, shook his head, and then looked back to the camera screen.

"What?" asked Trent.

"Take a look for yourself," Bill said, handing the camera over.

"Geezus! Where did all those trees come from?" gasped Trent.

Bill turned to the cameraman. "You pulling our legs, mate? Is that some kind of trick camera?"

Deven shook his head. "I only wish it _was_ a joke. The only thing different about that camera is that it is a full-spectrum model. In other words, it can see both into the ultraviolet and into infrared. You see, I've always had a bit of an interest in the paranormal, love watching those ghost hunting type shows on cable telly. They use these types of cameras all the time, most usually at night, so I invested in one, do a bit of ghost hunting myself on the side; never been able to catch anything...until now."

Bill spluttered, "Are you trying to tell me, Deven, that all those trees that are tangling and tripping people up are-are...ghosts?"

Deven shrugged. "Perhaps, perhaps not, but it does seem to be a paranormal phenomenon. You saw for yourself that they are only visible outside the normal human visual range. Explain that to me."

Bill shook his head. "I can't explain it."

Deven grinned. "Which gives me an idea for another angle we can do here—Emerald Hills, the Possessed Town." He turned to the others. "What do you reckon?"

Trent nodded. "It's a new angle, and we can work our experience at the hotel into it. Perhaps, we can sneak back in and try to do a bit of ghost hunting ourselves?"

Bill shuddered, his face going grey with fear. "Look, I'm all for following up on an angle, but that place really freaked me out. I'm not sure if I want to go back in there."

Trent stared curiously at the normally hard-nosed reporter. "That's not like you, Bill."

Bill shrugged. "War-zones, fine, riots, I can handle, and when it comes to political shenanigans, I'm like a pig in mud. But this...paranormal stuff... It's fringe. I'm not sure if the network will want to follow it up. Do we really want to go there?"

"It seems to be where the story is, Bill," Trent reminded him. "After all, Deven's camera seems to give us the proof. When was the last time that a regular news team went after the paranormal?"

"Which is my point, exactly," Bill said. "If we do this we're on our own. Even if we break a big story we'll lose our serious news credentials. Do you really want to do that?"

Trent looked at him. "I'll follow a story wherever it leads me."

Bill glanced across to Deven. "What do you think?"

Deven grinned. "I'm keen for it. This would be like a dream come true for me."

Bill groaned. "Okay, but first I want to run it past Mac back at the office. I know it is rare for me to go checking with a producer before we run with a story, but I'm getting the heebie-jeebies about this one."

Trent nodded. "Fair enough, mate, let's check and see. In the meantime, we can at least do some groundwork here."

Deven indicated his camera. "I'll keep filming with this. There may be other things that might turn up, not just the ghost trees."

#  Chapter 20

Jen surveyed herself in the bedroom mirror. The charcoal-grey suit that she had bought for client meetings was still in good order and seemed suitable apparel for attending a funeral. Grey stockings, black, low-heeled shoes, and her long, dark hair tied back neatly—she presented to the world a sober, almost puritanical picture. Jen frowned in annoyance. Her face seemed paler than normal as if she was the one being coffined that day and not Tom. Inexpertly, she applied a little makeup, but that made it worse than ever; she indeed looked as if she was the end-result of an undertaker's endeavour. Hastily, she took a washcloth and removed the makeup. She would remain pale; after all, it was not as if she was attending a party.

She glanced at the alarm clock, still an hour and a half before the funeral was to begin. There was time enough to drive into town and pick up a local paper from the news agency.

Outside the house, the mist persisted, hanging heavy and flaccid across the countryside. Already, there seemed to be a subtle change in the environment. There was lichen growing where there wasn't before, and a slimy, slippery surface underfoot in places where the grass did not grow or was dying off. Jen noticed more mushrooms too; most of them were the usual poisonous varieties, also other types unknown to her. The dampness clung to everything, both inside and outside the house, and Jen had spent most of yesterday scrubbing mould from the walls and other surfaces, and despite her strenuous efforts, she had awakened in the morning to find most of the mould back again. At times, Jen wondered if the sun would ever shine again over Emerald Hills.

In town, there weren't as many people on the streets, and those who were there were strangers, their faces unknown to her. It seemed as if the locals were staying home, or moving away entirely. Jen hoped for their sakes that the latter was the case. Everywhere she looked, the town seemed to be showing signs of decay or malfunction. Even the traffic lights, if they worked at all, intermittently flashed red, as if their warning extended beyond directing traffic flow and onto the world at large.

She parked the hire car outside the newsagent and sat for a moment in the comparative safety of the vehicle. On the other side of the road, she watched a group of youths sitting on the footpath with a collection of half-empty beer bottles at their feet. They seemed to be talking amongst themselves, and occasionally, Jen would hear a raised voice although she could not make out exact words. Mindful of her own safety, Jen furtively observed them. The last thing she wanted was to attract their attention and for them to come over to her car.

Jen frowned; there something seemed to be odd about them. Their hairstyles were shorter than usual, and the cut of their clothing seemed peculiar, almost vintage. Jen wondered if they had been to a 1930s themed, fancy dress party the night before, and then spent the early morning hours drinking in the town.

As she watched, they all stood up and heedless of the traffic, walked across the road; their obvious destination 'The Royal' on the other side of the street. Suddenly, a car barrelled out of the mist, and without slackening speed, ploughed into the entire group. Jen stifled a small scream, inadvertently, turning away as she felt her own stomach twisting and roiling as images of her own car accident flooded her memory.

Then just as suddenly, the car vanished back into the mist, and the group of youths, unharmed and unmarked, continued their careless and carefree walk across the road.

_Ghosts!_ Jen breathed in equal parts relief, amazement and horror, and as she watched, the youths turned and looked at her, finally sensing her presence and her awareness of them.

Jen froze in the car, unable to turn away, unable to look elsewhere. Silently, they gathered about her vehicle, and Jen shivered as the temperature plummeted, her breath condensing in the air before her.

Slowly, she became aware of an insistent whispering—the youths seemed to be telling her, _asking_ her something. Her hands visibly trembling, she wound down the driver's window so she could better hear.

"I don't understand," she pleaded softly. "What _is_ it that you want?"

They stared at her, at first murmuring and muttering, then speaking, and finally shouting in a terrible cacophony of noise.

Eventually, three words became decipherable from the din. Jen clearly heard _trapped_ and _free us_. Then just as suddenly, both the voices and the figures faded immediately into the mist.

She sat back in the driver's seat, breathing hard. Not only were the dead rising, but also they seemed trapped in her plane against their will. Was it the intent of the rebels, something planned and malicious, or was it simply a side effect, a natural reaction to what was going on? Jen stared out at the mist-filled streets, tears streaming down her face. Surely, the dead deserved their rest. It was intolerable that they were driven out of their graves.

Jen stilled, the thought freezing in her mind, remembering what she was doing there and what lay ahead in the day. Immediately, she turned the key in the ignition. The newspaper would have to wait; there was someone she urgently needed to speak to and right then might have been the only opportunity to do so.

Despite the hazards of the mist, Jen drove fast to the cemetery just outside the town. Her car was the first one there, so she hastily parked and hurried over to where the gravestones were located.

It did not take her long to find the one she was looking for—the slender, young, red-haired woman sitting atop the gravestone was as good a marker as any tall cross or spire.

Walking self-consciously up to the grave, Jen felt at a loss of how to act, or what to say. As she moved closer, it seemed to her that the woman did not look the least bit like a spirit. She seemed to be solid, not the translucent portrayal of ghosts in movies and on television. The only thing that marked her as different was the fact that her clothing and hair seemed to move of its own accord as if tossed by an unseen wind, and that a subtle light seemed to shine within her. She also seemed oblivious to Jen's presence, staring down, fascinated by her own gravesite.

Jen cleared her throat. "Anna?"

The shade looked up curiously at Jen, "I-I think that was my name."

"You're young."

"It is how I remember myself."

Jen hesitantly smiled, understanding. "You waiting for Tom?"

"Tom? Tom. Yes, that was his name." Anna cocked her head as if she listened to something beyond. "He will come soon enough." She smiled gently. "His spirit is still tied to his body, but once he sees me here, he will understand that it's time to move on."

"Tom's a good man, he was a good friend even though I did not know him long," Jen simply said.

"A good husband too," Anna said. "Even in this altered state, I felt sad for leaving him behind for so many years."

"What is it like?" Jen asked simply, lifting her hand in a vague expression that questioned everything about her.

Anna seemed to understand the question that Jen could not properly put into words.

"More wonderful than you could ever imagine," she replied. "Death is not something to be feared, just a transition into another phase of our existence. Like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis of mortality."

"Is there a Hell?"

The brightness in Anna's face clouded a little. "Not a place, but a spirit can be imprisoned in a hellish existence. I have seen the trapped ones, replaying their mistakes and sins over again, just as a film clip is caught in an endless repeating loop.

She sighed. "Until they can forgive themselves they cannot move on."

"What about the Fae?"

"The Fae are...themselves, a part of nature, a part of the natural world, just a part that is hidden to most humans." Anna looked at her. "You've been touched by them. Sighted?"

Jen nodded.

Anna fell silent again as if listening to voices unheard and others unseen.

"You must aid them. Your suspicions are correct about what has been happening. The Fae path is corrupted and almost entirely blocked. When that happens, there will be terrible consequences for the mortal world. You must unblock the Fae path so the Courts can move through and hunt these...rebels."

Jen shuddered. "I've thought and thought, and I don't know how to do it. I fear that no one will listen to me. I don't have that sort of influence, standing, or connections."

Anna looked at her. "Then you must take direct action."

"How?"

Anna smiled gently. "You will know when it is time, but aid will be given if you are strong enough to call for it."

"Fionn?"

"Fionn...aye, the _Gancanagh_ will aid you, but first, you must call for him."

Jen's face drained of blood. "But that will be a sin."

"Which is worse?" Anna asked. "Is the greater sin the one against your principles, or to sin against all those innocent children taken by the rebel Fae?"

Jen looked at her feet and mumbled, "It seems that I don't have any choice since you put it like that."

Anna smiled gently. "Even in death, we have choices and the possession of the answers to those choices.

She looked up and across the cemetery. "Others are coming; it would probably be best if I fade now. I don't think the others are Sighted, but still, I don't want to distress them today." She looked back at Jen. "If you are able to tell my son..." She seemed to think for a moment, and then recollected his name. "Tell Matthew that I am happy and that Tom will be well looked after. Oh, and tell him to get that mole checked on his neck."

Jen gulped and nodded. She glanced back to the car park; it was indeed starting to fill with a number of vehicles. When she looked back a moment later, Anna was gone.

Jen knelt briefly at the gravesite and offered up a silent word of thanks to Tom's wife. Standing, Jen noticed a distant figure at the far end of the cemetery, a figure hooded and garbed in grey and holding something, cloth or perhaps a robe in their hands. The figure seemed strangely familiar as if a recollection from a memory or dream. For a brief moment, their eyes met, and the woman, for Jen had determined that much about the figure, inclined her head, then turned and vanished into the trees. Distantly, she heard a voice calling, or was it in song, it was hard to tell, the mist tended to swallow up all sound.

Jen shivered, goose bumps rising upon her skin, and she briskly walked away towards the chapel, rubbing the warmth back into her arms.

The funeral service was simple, yet touching.

Jen had sat at the back of the small chapel adjoining the cemetery and joined in with the other country folk in singing the hymns and listening to the various people who came forward to speak about Tom's life.

Toward the end of the service, she noticed a bright sphere of light rise up from the coffin and drift haphazardly down the aisle, stopping and bobbing at several points.

At each stop, the sphere of light increased in brilliance, bathing the people nearby in light, although the people involved seemed to notice nothing at all.

Eventually, the globe of light had drifted down to her and Jen, her eyes brimming with unshed tears smiled gently at it.

"Go, Tom, Anna is waiting for you," she whispered.

At her words, the light brightened again, and she felt gentle warmth suffuse her. The light bobbed and danced, as if for a moment unsure of what to do, and then it moved purposefully at the closed door and then through it, and finally it was gone.

Jen sighed and dabbed at her welling eyes with a tissue.

_So that is what death is,_ she thought.

Anna _was_ right, a shedding of the mortal frame to become...energy, light, something unknowable.

She felt comforted. It was reassuring to know that despite the trials of mortality, life persisted.

When the chapel service had ended, Jen did not go back to the gravesite with the others. She had already said her goodbyes and she had a gut feeling that both Anna and Tom had moved on. It was not necessary to be there, and she would rather not encounter any further spirits that might be active in the graveyard that day. No, she had plans to make and if what she sensed about the woman in grey was correct, then she had a lot of work ahead of her and little time to complete it.

#  Chapter 21

Senior Sergeant Maxwell of the Emerald Hills police sat wearily back in his ancient, cracked, vinyl chair and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

He was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the paperwork spread on the table before him. Thankfully, there had been no further child abductions, although the last one, forty-eight hours prior, had taken the number to five in total. To make it worse, there was no hint, no clue, and no trail that he and the others on the case could follow.

A federal investigative agency was now in the town, a strike-force comprising twenty-three officers from Brisbane and interstate, replacing the state police counterparts who had been sent back to their own branches. Technically, they were there to deal with the abductions, brought in under the umbrella of the newly coined Operation Autumn-Mist. Yet their investigations seemed to extend beyond the confines of the abductions to areas that, to Senior Sergeant Maxwell's eyes, seemed totally unrelated. He was not at all happy about the intrusions onto his turf, and both he and the Senior Constable had written emails back to headquarters complaining about it.

He stared at all the reports and ticked the numbers off on his fingers.

Five abductions, three mysterious deaths, livestock mutilations, a host of missing or dead domestic animals, a school block slowly but surely being consumed by an out of control watermelon vine, and reports of flocks of birds and mobs of native animals moving, fleeing almost, from the Hinterlands down to the lowlands of the coast.

Then, of course, there was the storm, the earth tremor and the recent shocking news from the local council that some buildings in the town itself were starting to crumble and crack, forcing the council to put up warning tape across many doors.

The Senior Sergeant shook his head, trying to clear the damned cloudiness from his mind. If he was a superstitious man, he would be thinking that the town was cursed, or at any rate, rapidly heading to hell in a hand basket. He just could not understand it. Years, even decades of quiet policing, then all this all at once. A few days before, he had tried to find clues to link it all together, trying to understand what was causing the disturbances. He even had outlined it all on a brand-new straight-out-of-the-packaging whiteboard, to no avail. The troubles that Emerald Hills was experiencing seemed to have no rhyme or reason.

It was a good thing that most of the old families had decided to up and leave, or take lengthy vacations away.

One by one, they had filed into his office, or sent phone messages, telling him various stories of going away, or needing a well-deserved holiday. The families with young children had been the first to go. The school finally forced to close, as pupil numbers dropped to single digits for most classes. The only families that remained seemed to be the newcomers, the ones with the most tenuous hold on the region. He wondered why. Even the perennial CLS had temporarily closed up shop, their aged Chairwoman citing extenuating circumstances.

He held up a piece of paper, it was a request from his own Senior Constable asking for redeployment off the Hinterlands. The Senior Sergeant stared at the request and tossed it back into the "in-tray".

He knew that Sanderson was eager to re-join his family in Gympie, but with all this work there, well he would have to think on that. He was reluctant to allow the feds full reign there in Emerald Hills and he did not want to lose his partner. No, Sanderson would have to remain, at least until he could contact the Superintendent at headquarters on the coast and arrange for a replacement.

The phone rang, and he picked the receiver up and introduced himself, "Senior Sergeant Maxwell, Emerald Hills Police."

He listened, the accent of the caller was difficult to understand, and he almost groaned aloud. It was yet another media enquiry, that time from Berlin. The world's media had heard about the multiple abductions from the Australian news, and he was daily fielding calls from far-flung places. He thankfully gave the caller the mobile number for the feds. Let the federal agency deal with them. Already, the town seemed cursed with intermittent media crews from interstate and New Zealand and last he heard, journalists were coming in from the US and Europe to cover the unfolding story of Emerald Hills.

The Senior Sergeant put the receiver down with a clatter and cradled his head in his hands. The circus had indeed come to town. Visitors and media seemed to outnumber residents, and some of the more recent arrivals had been...odd, to say the least.

Emerald Hills had always attracted more than its fair share of New Agers and hippies, and as if sensing something, more were arriving every day, putting a strain on the hotels and motels in the region. Some were even trying to camp out in council parks, putting up tents and teepees, without heed for rules or regulations. He and Sanderson were able to move some out the day before. However, the next morning, they were back, with more arriving every day.

It was a circus, or perhaps more like a freak show.

One of the farmers from one of the outlying properties had rung in that morning with a story about strangers coming on the property and lighting fires at night. The Senior Sergeant had immediately driven up to the property, and the farmer had taken him to a remote grove of trees where he had seen the lights the previous night.

Both he and the farmer had discovered an extinguished campfire. As well as that, they found burnt remains of something that looked suspiciously like a goat. He had also found stubs of candles and other...what seemed to be offerings. The farmer had been understandably angry, trespassing was one thing, but the lighting of a fire was another, more serious matter. It was a good thing that everything was so damp. Otherwise, the fire might have gotten out of control. The Senior Sergeant promised that he would do what he could, but with so many strangers in town, it would be impossible to identify the intruders.

The farmer had nodded at that and stomped away in irritation and frustration. No doubt, the farmer would ready a shotgun for the coming night, and frankly and secretly, Senior Sergeant Maxwell did not care that the farmer might decide to take the law into his own hands.

For a moment, his own fatigue and indifference troubled the officer, and then the waves of apathy that seemed to plague him swept over him again.

He looked at the files, the reports sitting in front of him again, and then, shaking his head, he reached down to unlock the bottom drawer of his desk to withdraw from it an unopened bottle of whiskey. It had been a long time since he had felt the need to drink hard liquor. He had thought he had put those days behind him since moving up from Melbourne. Over the last few years, he had indulged only in beer, and only socially at the local pub. He had thought himself reformed.

With shaking hands, he unscrewed the top of the bottle and poured a good measure into his empty coffee mug. He stared for a moment into the depths of the golden liquid and then downed it in one swallow.

#  Chapter 22

Bill stared at the footage captured on Deven's full-spectrum camera and shook his head in amazement. "I don't know what we are going to do with this. It's either the greatest scoop of all time or a fast-track into the loony bin for all three of us."

"What _are_ they?" Trent asked, scratching his head in bemusement. "Do you reckon they are aliens?"

Deven shook his head. "I've no idea. I'm guessing paranormal, so we could be dealing with anything from aliens, to demons, to ghosts and spirits."

Bill pointed to the laptop screen where he had uploaded the footage. "Don't forget fairies, I mean that one looks like something out of the St Paddy's Day march, except check out the teeth on it. Try asking it for a pot of gold, and you'd get your arm gnawed off."

"Don't forget the one at three hours, thirty-seven minutes in," Trent whispered.

"That one was like something out of a nightmare. A demonic amalgamation of teeth, scales, fur, and claws. It was like the end-result of a mating between a hyena and an armadillo, and the size of it! I reckon it would rival a Great Dane. Did you see it go up the side of the bank? Whffft, seconds only and then it was gone!"

"And then there are the ghosts," Deven stated. "Not only those dratted trees that have sprung up everywhere, but the dead as well. We have footage that would blow the socks off those ghost programs on cable. I have seen researchers go into paroxysms of delight over single orbs and indistinct shadows. What we have here are full-bodied, floating phantasms going through walls, and through cars. It's like opening a window into the last one hundred years of settlement here."

Bill frowned. "I'd like to think we could win awards with this, but really, look at it. It is unbelievable; most people will think that we faked it ourselves.

"You guys have seen the stuff that's up on the net, most of it is computer generated and we'd just be a laughing stock. I know Mac has given us the go-ahead, but this stuff is hot and it could either make or break our careers."

"I'm thinking, break it," Trent replied. "No one would believe us, even with you... Geezus, did you just see that!"

The three men stared at the computer screen that showed, faintly and in the distance, a tall spindly, tree-like creature walking slowly and deliberately across a road and into the scrubby bush.

"It's like something out of Grimm's fairytales." Bill breathed, "Deven, did you see it when you were filming?"

Deven shook his head. "I just left the camera running at one stage...call of nature," he explained with a rueful grin.

"Looks like nature called whilst you were away," Trent grinned tightly. "Do you know what gets me about all of this weird stuff?"

Bill shook his head. "No, tell me."

Trent pointed to the townsfolk who occasionally would walk into camera range, "They're totally oblivious to it. All this stuff happening in and around them and it's like they are sleepwalkers, are they even aware of it?"

"We weren't even aware of it," Bill reminded him. "We would have been unaware of it too until we saw what was really happening, then our minds cleared, but you were right in how you described the people as sleepwalking. Really, when you think about it, has anyone here been properly awake, since we arrived? It is as if the entire town is apathetic, unconcerned. It's as if they don't care about what is going on or that it simply doesn't bother them."

"Keep in mind that the mist is obscuring most of what is happening," Deven replied. "We've taken identical footage with two cameras running. The regular camera shows just the mist, and the other, everything else. The mist simply vanishes. I doubt that the regular camera even picked up that tree-thing."

"The only ones that seem purposeful are the contractors doing the digging for the power company. I heard them talking. Seems as the entire town will be hooked up to the new underground power network mid next week," Bill added.

"It's hard to rationalise everything. All this effort going in for what effectively is a town full of sleepwalkers, mindlessly going about their daily lives with their town falling apart around them."

"So what are we going to do with this footage?" Trent asked.

"Sit on it," Bill advised. "We'll keep on with the story about the structural breakdown of the town, and the new power network going in, but the paranormal angle; it's just too _out_ _there_."

Deven stared at the footage on the laptop and reluctantly nodded, shutting down the laptop and closing it. "You're right, no one would believe it."

#  Chapter 23

Jen drove slowly through town, aghast at what she was seeing.

It had been five days since the funeral, and she had deliberately stayed away from Emerald Hills, choosing instead to do her shopping at Cromhart, despite the longer drive. However, curiosity had won out, and she had decided to investigate and see exactly what had transpired in the town over the last few days.

Pulling in next to the bank, she saw many shops and businesses closed, and the few that remained open seemed almost devoid of customers. Apparitions openly walked the streets, and most of the footpaths looked ruined and ravaged. The roots of the Fae trees had broken the concrete and paving apart, leaving behind an uneven, fractured mess that was proving hazardous to most pedestrians. The traffic lights shone a steady red, illuminating the ever-present mist with a sickly scarlet haze, and most walls and structures showed significant cracking.

Every surface seemed covered with a dark, greenish-black mould, and vines and creepers worked their way across the sides of buildings, even across and onto tin or tile roofs. Jen had noticed that the council or police had put warning barriers and tape across the entrances to many buildings, so evidently someone in authority was aware that civilization was breaking down in Emerald Hills. Jen just could not figure out why nothing else was being done to stop it or fix things—there seemed to be a strange disconnect or dissonance present in the town.

The very few people that she recognised seemed unaware of their surroundings. When first driving into town, she had to brake hard in order to avoid a mother and child heedlessly wandering across the road, seemingly caught in a daydream. She had honked the horn at them, but they just ignored her, so she had to wait until their aimless walk took them to the relative safety of the opposite footpath.

As she watched, all the townsfolk seemed caught in a daze, drifting singly or in small groups, conversation almost non-existent. For a town that seemed packed with people, she saw little sign of busyness or occupation—just a zombie-type of haphazard drifting here and there across the roads and footpaths.

As for the others, well, there were crowds of people who were foreign to the regulars that she normally observed. Hard faced individuals in business suits brushed shoulders with hippies in cheesecloth.

Then there were the others, dressed all in black with pale skin, dyed black hair, and possessing an unnerving dead-eyed gaze. Once before in Brisbane, Jen had seen one or two hanging about the Valley near the nightclubs, but she had never dreamt of seeing them in country Emerald Hills.

Evidently, there was no accommodation left, because she noticed that tents were erected on almost every bit of green space and parkland, and cars with interstate plates were parked everywhere, even in no standing zones and across driveways.

Jen couldn't remember the last time she had seen the local bus on its regular route.

The town was crowded, but Jen felt it was a bad sort of crowd. She could feel the wrongness oozing, even from where she sat in the locked car. She did not know why or how those people knew to come, but she knew that Emerald Hills was no longer safe for her. It wasn't just the Fae that she had to fear; others had come that might see her as a threat. Jen was thankful that she was immune from the haze and apathy that was afflicting the townsfolk. Although she did not properly understand why she was spared, she guessed it might have to do with her Sight.

Jen innately knew that the mist must be responsible for the mental haze, but to see the whole town so affected was not only frightening but depressing, as well. The town was falling down about everyone's ears and no one cared. The ones who did care, and did have a purpose, seemed to be like vultures or parasites feeding upon a dying host.

Not wanting to look out on the corrupted town, Jen instead turned her attention to the local paper that she had bought in Cromhart. She had read it cover to cover, and although the mist, the abductions, and the unexplained deaths featured prominently, there was not a single word of explanation.

Frustrated, Jen put the newspaper down on the passenger seat and forced herself to look out of the car window again. Going by the news reports, the electrical work was almost complete, only a day or two more and then the town would be wholly reliant on underground power. Jen knew that she had to act soon, but did not know how to undo all the changes and bring the town back to life.

Jen turned on the car's indicator and slowly began to turn out onto the main road, narrowly missing a cyclist who had shot out of the mist, seemingly oblivious to traffic. Jen wound down her window to shout out at him, then immediately stopped—her actions had attracted the attention of a group of people, two of whom she had seen days earlier. Dressed in expensive, European-style clothes, they gestured at her to stop and walked over to her car, pulled halfway out from the kerb.

"You're awake," one said, without preamble or introduction. "How can this be so?"

Jen felt waves of misgiving and fear—those people were not to be trusted.

"Awake? Of course, I am awake. What on Earth are you talking about?" she nervously blustered.

The group looked at one another and then noticed the hire car sticker on her vehicle.

"Tourist?" another asked.

Jen nodded, deciding that it would be best to keep them ignorant of where she lived and who she was.

"Ach...makes sense."

The elder of the group, a man in his forties, looked back at her. "Keep driving, this place...not good. Better to...eh...go on."

Jen stared at them in disbelief. "You can't tell _me_ what to do."

Suddenly, all four turned their eyes on her, and Jen felt the temperature drop, one started chanting and a background headache immediately started up behind her eyes. Jen knew that they were trying to do something to her, but her Sight seemed to block most of what they were attempting.

Instantly, she knew what to do. She had to comply. Otherwise, they would understand that she was different, and she understood that it would be dangerous to be found out.

Scared, Jen allowed the annoyance to fade from her face, and instead sighed apathetically and let her face muscles relax into blankness.

"Yes... You are of course right," she intoned. "I should drive on."

They smiled as one, their faces tight and taut, and as a group, they stepped out of the way as she turned the car onto the road and slowly drove off.

Jen floored the accelerator as soon as she was out of sight of the group and drove out of town.

#  Chapter 24

Bag slung over her shoulder, Carma looked at her front door and then back to her bedroom.

She sighed, every day for the previous three days she had fought an internal battle to walk out of her house and go to work, and each day she had failed. She was running low on food, but oddly enough she did not care, all she wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep.

She knew she should open the shop and earn money.

She knew she should be taking advantage of all the visitors flocking to Emerald Hills, but she simply could not will herself to move beyond the confines of her house.

Carma thought back the night before; the EHGAG meeting had been a bust. It had been pencilled in on the calendar for weeks, and she knew everyone who remained was aware of it, but still no one showed. She had pushed herself to make herb muffins especially for it, and now they sat on the table, uneaten, and going stale.

Dispiritedly, Carma let her leather-and-fabric shoulder bag drop to the floor—it lay on the wooden boards looking as dispirited as she felt. Mechanically, Carma put her car keys back in the wooden bowl on the dresser and took off her shoes. She walked listlessly down the hallway, her bare feet whisper-silent on the polished wooden floorboards, and headed straight to her still unmade bed.

Sitting down on the covers, her head drooped, as if she did not have the strength to hold it erect. One part of her mind knew that she should be angry, upset, frustrated, yet all those very familiar emotions seemed to be foreign to her then.

She felt...nothing, drained of all vibrant emotions. She had tried the day before to work her craft, to brew herself a tea to enliven her spirit, yet even the simplest of concoctions seemed beyond her. Instead, she had sat for hours at her kitchen table, just staring at the herbs spread out before her, trapped in a haze of apathy.

Dimly, Carma remembered a time when she was full of energy, decisions, and purpose. She recollected being driven, always working to attain her goals of influence, power, and wealth. She vaguely remembered it, could almost taste the memories of such passion, but at that moment, even thinking of such memories seemed to tire and weary her.

She knew it wasn't her, she understood it wasn't natural, yet she could not lift a finger to correct or stop it.

Depressingly, she clambered onto the bed, lay down, and pulled the soiled covers over her head. Perhaps sleep would right all wrongs. Perhaps waking would bring the world back into sharp focus again. She could but hope. Carma closed her eyes and let the insistent pull of sleep claim her once again.

#  Chapter 25

Jen pushed the print button on her word processing program and watched as the machine slowly churned out a dozen or more pages of typed text. She had written two lengthy letters, one with a letter already stamped and addressed, the other letter was to go into a blank envelope—although, she was not yet certain what address she was going to write on it.

It had taken her most of the day to write those two letters, and although she was skilled with language, they were the hardest words she had ever written in her life.

Jen sat back, fatigue written in every line on her face as she remembered the last twenty-four hours.

She had driven home from town as if the hounds of hell were on her tail. Gone was the fear of the mist, gone was her sedate and careful driving. All that mattered was finding a way to fix things, to change the terrible fate of Emerald Hills. She did not know how she was going to do it, but by God, she would do her best. She simply could not allow everything she knew and loved to go into the darkness. The changes to the town, the horrible people gathering there, the missing children; Jen knew that she could no longer stand aside and just be a witness.

She ran from the car, slamming the door behind her. In her haste, her feet slipped on the mossy, lichen-covered ground, almost throwing her off-balance, but she recovered sufficiently, stumbling the last few steps to her front verandah

Turning from the house to face the garden, she threw her arms out wide and called out, "Fionn." She heard her own voice pealing and echoing, even though the heavy quagmire of the mist.

She did not have to wait long. A figure stalked out of the fog, with his green eyes luminescent in the semi-darkness. He did not bother now to apply his mask of mortality—he wore his natural face and form, and Jen, her knees threatening to give way beneath her, leaned heavily against the wood of the balcony and watched him walk towards her.

His lean body was clad in a billowing black shirt with a lace collar. Over it, he wore a black leather jacket slashed with dark-grey silk, black leather trousers, and knee-high riding boots encased his legs. He held a great wide and feathered black hat in his hand. It seemed to Jen that he had stepped just that moment from the great halls of Europe in the seventeenth century.

He was beautiful in the way a stallion was beautiful, or a thundering waterfall, or an arcing rainbow. If he had worn his natural face the first time they had met, Jen did not think she could have refused him. Pale straight hair flowed over his shoulders, and his ears were ever-so-slightly pointed and thrusting up through his fine locks. His face was flawless yet wholly masculine. High-sculpted cheekbones and a narrow arrogant nose hinted at cruelty, whilst the softness in his green eyes showed a deep, almost eternal capacity for love. He seemed the very epitome of nature, in that it could be both magnificent, and dangerous.

Jen sighed when she saw him, and she felt her stomach knot in both pleasure and anxiety. He exuded sexuality and a raw power, and Jen moaned aloud at the very sight of him.

" _You called me, Jenny," he murmured, reaching her and placed a cool hand upon her cheek._

Jen gasped and nodded. Frantically she tried to pull herself together. "I did; I need your help."

" _You know it comes with a price?"_

She nodded again, a blush suffusing her face and neck. "It is why I called you, fairy man."

" _I dislike that title, call me by my name," he demanded, caressing her cheek with his thumb._

She shivered at his touch. "Fionn."

He shook his head. "My true name."

_Jen whispered the name he gave her weeks earlier, "_ Ionuin _"_

He sighed, shuddering like a leaf.

" _I am yours, fair Jenny, what would you ask of me?"_

" _I cannot save the town by myself, I need your aid. I don't know what to do or what you can do..." Her words staggered to a hesitant stop, and her stomach twisted with nervous anxiety._

He looked past her to the front door. "Invite me in; I cannot pass your protections without your leave."

Jen trembled and searched her bag for her keys. After a few moments of fumbling, she extricated the house key and opened the door. She stood for a moment at the entrance and turned to him, he wore an expression of both amusement and anticipation.

" _You are welcome to_ enter _," she whispered simply, uncertain if more words needed saying._

_He strode in through the door, looking curiously_ about _him. His fingers trailed tendrils of light across sofa, table, chairs and wall, pausing and then avoiding the salt piled up upon the windowsills. He seemed almost too large for the room—as if his very existence made the objects about him diminish into insignificance._

Jen just stared at him, her mouth agape. Despite the elegant Cavalier clothing that he affected to wear, he seemed to personify nature at its most primal, and deep within herself, her body responded in kind.

He turned to her and his face was solemn. "I cannot aid you directly, Jenny, the Laws prohibit me from doing so. However, I can work through you. If you give me leave?"

She nodded, swallowing heavily.

" _Come then." He took her hand and led her to the bedroom._

Jen picked up the printed pages and sorted them into two piles.

She stood and then stretched, because she was stiff, not only from the long stint at the computer but also from the events the day before.

Even then, she blushed at the recollection of their lovemaking.

He had first been gentle, as was his nature, and then later, wild and ferocious, carrying both of them to heights of ecstasy that Jen, in her innocence, had never dreamt existed. She had come to him a virgin and hours later, she had rolled from the bed, her dark hair undone and tumbled down her back, and face flushed with pleasure and exhaustion.

" _You leave me?" he had asked her, smiling that secret smile she knew so well._

" _Only to shower," she replied, shyly pulling a robe around her nakedness._

" _I like your mortal scent," he said. "_

Don't wash it away, I want to smell you, taste you."

So smiling with love, she went to him again, and they both tumbled to the bed, enjoying each other over again.

Finally sated, he rolled over and regarded the mortal woman lying panting by his side.

" _It is time to show you what must be done."_

Jenny gazed at him imploringly, not wanting the moment to end.

He smiled and kissed her lovingly, his hands cupping her face. Jen felt his fingers wrap silvery threads of power around her, binding her to him, making them as one.

" _You carry my essence now, my Jenny," he whispered. "You will have my aid when it comes time to do the thing you must do."_

Jen looked at him questioningly. "Do you know what I must do?"

" _I can show you—the means and how you must discover for yourself."_

He stood and pulled her to him. With a gesture, he wrapped them both in gossamer robes of silk and shadow.

" _Hold tight to me and don't let go," he told her._

_Obediently, she wrapped her arms_ around _his neck, feeling with her Sight, his power beating within him._

He held her firmly to himself with one strong arm, and with the other hand spun a tracery of light that appeared at his feet. He spoke a word, and they both faded from the mortal realm. Jen felt a great rushing movement of light and sound around her, and terrified, she clung like a burr to the man of the Fae.

_Moments later, they both appeared back in the mortal world amongst some scrubby trees high_ up on _a ridge. Jen gasped out her confusion as she struggled to catch her breath. Finally, she was able to take stock of her surroundings and saw below her a great construct of man. A brilliantly lit humming, vibrating complex of human power, Jen felt the tingling from it even where they stood on the ridge._

Jen instinctively guessed what it was for she had often driven by the sign for it on the road to Cromhart, but that was the first time she had been so close.

" _You know what it is?" he asked._

She nodded, staring at it.

" _It will need to be shut down," he said finally. "This is the heart of the power your people use. For my people to move through and for your town to be saved, this place, it must be rendered silent and the town darkened."_

Jen gulped, swallowing nervously.

" _I must go now," he said. "The courts await my report and you must prepare."_

She turned to him, eyes shocked, but even before she could speak, the mortal world faded again and she was hustled back along the Fae path to her home, and back to her bedroom.

He stood before her, clad once again in his cavalier clothes, and bowed and kissed her hand.

" _I will be with you again before long, my lady, my Jenny," he whispered. "Remember, you carry my essence with you now, so when you require aid, simply call my name."_

_Then, before she could bid him farewell, he had become a_ shadow _, and again one with the dimming Fae path._

Jen, at last, knew what she had to do. Just the way of doing it was beyond her knowledge and skill. She had combed the internet for information, and increased her knowledge, but had come up empty-handed as to an easy way of doing it.

Turning the computer off, she took her sheaf of papers out of her office and into the living room. Sitting down on her sofa, she stared at the pages. With an economy of movement, she stapled one lot of typewritten papers together, signed the bottom, and carefully inserted it into the addressed envelope along with her spare house key.

She would need to visit the Cromhart post office soon, she thought. She did not trust the Emerald Hills one to be either open or working, and besides she wanted to limit her interaction with the strangers in town.

She took the other sheaf of papers, signed and folded it as well, inserting it into an ordinary blank envelope. She would need to think about who was best to send it to. She would need to think about who would take her seriously and act on what she wrote.

Sealing both envelopes, she placed them on her dining room table. Jen felt tired, but oddly, did not want to sleep. She suspected time was running out, so she instead walked outside to enjoy the fading colours of her garden for a while.

#  Chapter 26

The electrical company and their contractors had finally finished their work in Emerald Hills that morning. They had packed up their sledgehammers, diggers, and cable laying machines and thankfully waved goodbye to the town that most of them were all too eager to leave.

It had surely been the oddest place that they had worked, and every day the strangeness had amped up by degrees, until in the final days, most of the workers had to be paid overtime rates in order to turn up to work.

Nothing had actually hindered the operation, although the earth tremor a week or two before had put the wind up some. Most felt that the town was weird and the topic generated daily muttered conversation around the coffee pot at smoko.

There was to be a ceremonial turning on of the last quadrant of underground power to Emerald Hills that evening, but most of the workers had decided not to linger, with only a few 'big wigs' staying on for the ceremony, which was to be covered by multiple media units.

Despite a directive from the company ordering staff not to talk to the press, enterprising journalists bailed up a few workers. They asked questions, trying to find a new perspective, a new angle on the ongoing mystery of the town.

One media group had been particularly persistent, trying to find out who had authorised the underground lines, and how it had all begun. The crew in question had seemed different to the others who had come into the town—they looked stressed and worried and seemed to be constantly looking over their shoulders. So the contractors had humoured them, told them what they knew about EHGAG and the council, and went on with finalising the completion of the work.

Bill Anders rapped on the front door of the wooden pole house for the second time and waited for a reply. He turned to Trent, who was waiting below and shook his head. "No one home, perhaps we should try later?"

Trent looked across at the separate garage. "Well, there is a four-wheel drive parked there, so I would assume someone might be around. Besides its lunchtime, he should be here."

Bill checked his sheet, and then checked the number on the house. "We've got the right place."

Deven angled his camera beyond the house and took some footage looking out across the Hinterland to the vista of the coast beyond. "Great view!" he said. "This place would have set the owner back a packet. He's a greenie, did you say, Bill?"

Bill nodded as he walked back down the stairs. "I assume so, his name is Todd Roberts. The goss on him is that he used to work for HBAGroup Financiers, then sold his Albion penthouse to become a 'tree-changer' up here and joined EHGAG to become an environmental activist."

Trent's eyebrows crawled up his forehead. "A bit of a change of life-direction there."

Bill shook his head. "Not necessarily so. I did a bit of digging on him and found out that he's heavily invested in wind farm technology both here and overseas, sunk quite a bit of money into it in fact. Perhaps, he's just protecting his investments?"

Trent stared over Bill's shoulder at the A4 paper he held. "I reckon it's a bust here. Who else do you have on your list for EHGAG?"

Bill ran his finger down the list. "Carma Bright... Geeze, what sort of name is that, she lives just..."

"Um, guys..." Deven called out, a strange strangle in his voice. "Take a look at this."

Bill and Trent wandered over to where Deven had the big television camera set up on a tripod.

"I was doing some background footage," Deven explained, "of the escarpment and across to the coast when I panned across to some nearby trees and saw something odd in the branches. So given what we've been seeing all week with the full-spectrum camera, I zoomed in and... Well, see for yourself."

Bill put his eye to the viewfinder and gazed through it. "I can't see anything other than branches."

Deven came over to the camera and peered into the trees. "You're looking for something pale yellow, left-hand side, halfway up the biggest tree and wedged in a fork in the branches."

Bill nodded and turned his eye back to the viewfinder. "Ah, got it! Oh...My...God, is that what I think it is? Geezus, where is the rest of him?"

Trent pushed his way in. "The rest of what? We got a body?"

Bill stepped back, his face green. "Yup, at least part of a body. There are a head and torso way up there...minus the arms and legs."

Trent's breath hissed out between his teeth. "Our missing tree changer?"

"I reckon so," Bill replied. "Not sure if I want to go looking for the rest of him, though."

"What the hell happened to him?" Deven mused. "And how did he end up in those trees?"

"God knows," Bill said, a peculiar expression on his face. "It looks like he was torn to pieces. Just _what_ would do that, and why stick him halfway up a gum tree?"

"One of the monsters, perhaps," Trent said. "Although, going by the mess on the ground, I'd say perhaps some kind of freak weather event."

"What mess?" asked Bill.

Trent gestured to the edge of the escarpment, not fifty metres away from where they stood. "Check it out," he said. "There are big branches down and twigs and leaves everywhere. It's almost like a mini-tornado or whirlwind came through here, picked our friend up, tore him to pieces, and deposited him in the tree."

" _Geez_ ," Deven exclaimed. "I wonder how long he's been up there?"

"A day or two, max," Bill replied tightly. "The body is still holding together. Otherwise, the crows would have had a field day picking at it." He looked again through the viewfinder. "He's still got his eyes, and those would be the one of the first things he'd lose to the scavengers. Perhaps the crows haven't discovered him yet."

"I'm not too sure about that," Deven said, pointing. "You know how we were commenting yesterday on the absence of birds and wildlife. Well, there are crows here, masses of them, and all sitting silently on those branches looking at us."

"It's called a murder of crows," Bill corrected him. "And yes, I see them now. Macabre, eh?"

"This whole place creeps me out," replied Trent quietly. "I'll be glad to get back to Brisbane."

"We still have work to do here, guys," Bill reminded them. "Deven, get some footage of this, also, get some video with that special camera of yours. There might be something hidden that we're missing."

Deven nodded and ran back to the van to get the full-spectrum camera.

Trent looked up into the high branches of the gum tree. "So what are we going to do about...him?"

Bill looked at his soundman and shook his head. "Ring the police, although, I really don't fancy trying to explain this to them."

#  Chapter 27

Jen half-listened to the radio as she went around her house cleaning, tidying, and turning off appliances at the power points. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and she was keen to hear the local news. Listening, she discovered that there had been another mysterious death—discovered by a television news team that had been following developments in Emerald Hills.

She paused as she listened to the interview with the journalist. What was his name again? That's right, Bill Anders; that name rang a bell.

It took her only a moment to remember that he had quite a distinguished career as an Australian news correspondent, who had in the past reported from some of the world's most dangerous trouble spots. So now, he was there, reporting on Emerald Hills.

She walked into the kitchen to hear better; it seemed that the body found was a member of EHGAG. Bill Anders stated that in time he would reveal more information. However, for the moment, it was a police matter and he could not say any more.

Jen nodded. _Of course, EHGAG_. They were the activist group that Tom and Matt had been talking about weeks earlier. Perhaps Bill had been able to join the dots and work out that EHGAG may have been instrumental in getting the power underground. Perhaps, Bill suspected that the power was the problem all along.

Jen now knew who should be the recipient of her second envelope.

She walked over to the phone and opened the local phone directory. Thumbing through the pages, she quickly found the number for the radio station, and within ten minutes, she had a postal address for the television company that employed Bill Anders.

A moment later, Jen had addressed the envelope.

Jen closed and locked the front door behind her. It was time to leave.

Going by the radio reports, the last quadrant of underground power to Emerald Hills was to be switched on that evening at a special ceremony. If she was going to attempt to stop it, she only had an hour remaining to do so. Jen still had no idea how she was going to accomplish her task; however, she drew comfort from the fact that both her lover Fionn/Ionuin and the spirit Anna both seemed confident in her ability to do so.

She walked down the front stairs and to the hire car parked on the driveway.

The mist seemed deeper, heavier than ever and the black rotting grass felt slimy under her shoes. Goosebumps lifted on the back of her neck and she looked out into the mist to see, once more, the strange hooded and robed woman staring at her. It was the closest she had ever come, and Jen then recognised the figure as the one from her car accident months before.

"I know what you are," she said levelly to the figure, which in turn undulated slowly in the mist. "I know what must be done, and I understand what may happen."

The figure nodded and drew back her hood to expose a face beautiful, yet mournful. Dark hair fell about her shoulders and grey eyes matched the pallor of her skin. She held, as usual, cloth in her hands, cloth that perpetually dripped water.

She was the _BanSidhe_ , the Fae herald of death. She opened her mouth as if to speak, yet no words came, just a low mournful wail that drummed within Jen's blood and made the ground about her shudder and tremble.

Jen, her purpose set and mind steadfast, lifted a hand in farewell to the woman of the Fae, got into the car, and drove away into the mist.

It was late when Jen drove into Cromhart and opened the post office door.

At that hour, only a few customers remained in the queue, so it did not take long to complete her business there. A short while later, Jen stood outside on the street, as if having second thoughts about her course of action. She looked about her at the reassuring normalcy of the neighbouring town, and thus decided, dropped the two stamped letters into the post box.

One letter would go to Channel Eight in Brisbane; the other lengthier one was addressed to Matt Delany and his family. Information had to be forwarded on, as well as ownership of her house. She figured that Fiona would be a worthy beneficiary.

She hoped that she had provided enough legal documentation for the inheritance process to be straightforward.

Since the meeting with Anna at the cemetery, Jen had known she was fated to die. Oddly, she did not fear death, but she did fear the manner of her own passing and understood why her own stomach churned and roiled, and why her own eyes were moist with unshed tears.

She leant heavily on the post box and closed her eyes, trying to settle her heaving stomach. The cleaning and organising back at home had allowed her for a time to push what was confronting her to the back of her mind.

Since it was time to confront it, she had to act.

It was the only way. She knew that then. It was necessary in order to save the town and the abducted children.

When she had driven from her house to Cromhart, she had seen that the mist had grown. Once spared areas had been consumed. Even the Delany property was engulfed by the mist, along with everything malignant that came with it. Jen innately understood that once the earth power pooled there, then it would grow and consume the region. Who knew where it would end? With the metallic taste of vomit sour in the back of her mouth, Jen straightened with effort and went back to the car. She had no idea what to do, but somehow she had to do it right then.

Back in the car, Jen gripped the steering wheel with palms clammy with cold sweat. Her heart was beating an unsteady rhythm against her ribs, and she fervently hoped that she had the strength to complete the deed.

She leant back against the seat and closed her eyes, and then with an effort of will, turned the key in the ignition. The car purred to life. She glanced at the dashboard—damn she was almost out of fuel. She wanted to get everything over, yet even then, there were disruptions, inconveniences, and distractions.

Jen angled the car out of the post office car park and into the light stream of late afternoon traffic. She remembered there was a petrol station just outside of Cromhart—it would have to do.

Jen turned into the petrol station and drove up to the nearest free bowser.

She released the catch on the petrol cap of the car and got out to fill her vehicle. As she stood there at the bowser, the petrol hose in her hand, a large petrol tanker drove in. It was one of the regular vehicles used by the petrol companies to refill the massive underground tanks at the station. She watched it draw up into the parking space and saw the older driver get out and head into the office.

_It is time_ , a voice whispered into her ear.

She looked around and saw nothing, but the voice was familiar.

Jen nodded, understanding what she had to do. She lifted the petrol hose away from her car and replaced the nozzle back into the bowser. With a click of her key, she locked the car and turned instead to the tanker.

It was dusk and with the area being free of the mist, the late afternoon sun streamed low over the horizon, its glare obscuring the vision of the two men in the office. With some difficulty, Jen clambered into the driver's seat of the tanker and shut the door. She had no idea how to drive such a massive vehicle with its complicated gear system. With her hands sweating on the steering wheel, she called out a name. Immediately, he was beside her, his smile sad.

"I can't do this alone," she said. "I don't know how."

"I will help you," he whispered, his hand closing over hers.

Despite the absence of the key, Jen felt the engine of the truck shudder into life. Without knowing how, her feet reached the pedals, and she instinctively knew which gear to choose.

Slowly, she pulled the massive tanker out of the petrol station. She dimly heard raised voices behind her, and in the rear vision mirror, saw the two men running out of the office, yelling and gesticulating angrily, shouting at her to stop. One tried to run in front of the tanker, waving her down. She spun the wheel and clipped a metal sign, sparks flew, and cursing, he dodged out of the way.

Out on the road, Jen methodically worked her way through the gears until the tanker was barrelling along at sixty. She glanced across at Fionn, who sat next to her, his face enigmatic, his cool hand covering hers, lending her his power to do this thing.

Far away in the distance, she could hear sirens gathering behind her.

Finally, she reached the intersection, slowed, and braked, and then read the sign, _Hinterland Electricity Sub-Station_ , and then below it, _Authorised Personnel Only. Trespassers will be prosecuted._

Fionn nodded, and gently pressed her hand. "This is the place, my Jenny. I will be with you to the end."

Jen shuddered, her skin clammy, her eyes brimming with tears and, not trusting her voice, nodded. She turned the tanker off the main road and increased its speed as the winding side road led down a bit of a hill and to the small valley below.

Jen felt the accelerator depress under her foot and the tanker turned a corner at speed, rocking on its suspension. Jen struggled to control the vehicle and Fionn's grip upon her hand grew stronger, holding the wheel where she could not.

The tanker's wheels squealed in protest, but the vehicle stayed, swaying on the road. Ahead was a steel barrier, a simple boom gate preventing casual entry—the tanker ploughed through the impediment as if it did not exist, trailing wire, steel and sparks in its wake.

Ahead, in a blaze of light was the sub-station itself. Jen had read enough on the 'net' in the last few hours to know where damage would be most effective, so she angled the tanker away from the unoccupied building and to the great array of wires, transformers, and other devices beyond.

She floored the accelerator and crashed, first through the wire security fence, which when impacted, buckled and tore around the tanker. Then through sundry metal poles that scratched and scraped at the steel skin of the tanker, to stop suddenly and with intimidating force into the massive transformers at the heart of the complex.

Jen was flung forward against the steering wheel, losing her glasses and even the airbags that burst open, did not prevent the tearing and breaking of her ribs. In a cacophony of pain, Jen lay dazed against the steering wheel, coughing up frothy blood, and watching dully as sparks erupted all around her.

Then, all at once, there was a deafening clap of sound, almost like a thunderclap, and she felt the tanker suddenly lift up and thrust into the air as the fuel leaking from damaged fuel lines and the torn skin of the tanker met the sparks from the damaged substation. Everything suddenly went searing white, then scarlet red. Instantly, air was sucked from her damaged lungs and violent heat seared her face and charred her skin. She screamed in heartrending pain until the heat robbed her of even her voice.

The very last thing Jen felt before falling into blissful darkness was Fionn's arms encompassing her, holding her close.

#  Chapter 28

The great, mushroom-shaped fireball that erupted from the Hinterlands sub-station could be seen for many kilometres around, bathing the entire area in a sickly red light, before it too finally dissipated into roiling black smoke. The automatic sprinkler system installed at the sub-station partly subdued the immediate fire, but small detonations continued apace.

The ground rocked and trembled from the force of the explosion, and residents far away, were suddenly and inexplicably, plunged into complete darkness. They thought for a moment that there had been another earthquake.

Those who remained in Emerald Hills saw nothing except a far brilliant light arcing up into the dusk sky, and then they heard and felt nothing, but a faint rumbling and a juddering of the ground. Then the instant and immediate darkening of their town as every light, every appliance, and every electrical item stilled into darkness and silence.

Jen stood on the wooded ridge with Fionn and watched the conflagration of the sub-station below. She turned to him with one question on her lips.

"Am I dead?"

Fionn smiled and held her to him, kissing her. "Yes, and no, my Jenny," he replied. "Your mortal shell did not survive the great fire, but your spirit-essence remains safe and in my care."

She looked down at herself. "So how is it that I have a body still?"

"I helped you create yourself a body, with the same power that I create mine. Have you not guessed what you have become?" he asked smiling at her.

She shook her head.

"You have been granted a great gift, my Jenny," he said, brushing his fingers against her face. "You have become one of us, as you would say...of the Sidhe, of the Fae, as thanks for services rendered." He smiled brilliantly at her. "The great Courts do not forget when humanity aids them by self-sacrifice."

Jen lifted her hands, and her fingers spun cobwebs of light. She looked around, and her vision seemed oddly enhanced—seeing colours brilliant and vibrant even during the encroaching night. She began to perceive the presence of creatures beyond human imagination and ken, and overall, the presence of the natural power that infused every rock, every tree, every life form, and even eventually permeating human-created things.

Her breath caught at the world's beauty, fragility, strength, and wonder.

Reluctantly, drawing herself back to her present situation, she turned to Fionn.

"So what now?" she questioned. "Is the town safe, and are the children to be returned?"

"The town is safe," he assured her. "Although greatly damaged, and the stolen children are already returned to their beds."

"And the rebel Fae?"

"We are tracking them down," he replied. "Some have already answered for their crimes. There will be more retribution in the future."

"What of the humans that aided them?"

Fionn's face grew grave. "Just as we reward, so also do we punish. One already has been punished by the elementals he sought to tame."

Jen nodded. Already, she was feeling distant and removed from the troubles of men.

"Where to now?" she asked, finally.

He took her hand. "We travel with the Courts. Now that the way is clear, they already begin to process through this place."

Jen smiled and squeezed his hand.

Together they wove a brilliant and luminescent path before them. Together, they faded from mortal sight.

Bill Anders, who, with his crew, was covering the official ceremony of the turning on of the underground power to Emerald Hills, turned in surprise at the distant rumble and flare of light, and then the immediate darkening of the town about them.

"What was that?" he demanded.

Trent shrugged, perplexed. "Sounded like an explosion somewhere. Whatever it was has knocked out the power. I wonder if there are there any generators in town?"

"Look at the mist," yelled Deven, turning his camera away from the podium and the array of microphones. "It's rising; I can see stars!"

All the townsfolk and visitors who had gathered at the ceremony turned, too, staring as the heavy, insistent fog of the last few weeks started to break and rise, revealing for the first time to all, a town shattered and torn, with buildings cracked, listing and falling into ruin.

"How..." someone muttered nearby. "What on Earth has happened?"

Others were shaking their heads, trying to clear the mist from their minds, as if trying to wake after a long dream.

Bill stared in amazement, not only at the waking residents but also at the devastation in town. "I don't believe it," he kept muttering, "I knew it was bad, but _this_ bad..."

"Check out the street," cried Trent, pointing up to the nearby main road.

Everyone who heard him, turned as one, following his pointing finger with his or her eyes.

In the deepening darkness could be seen a long, silent, floating procession of lights, orbs, and shadows, and then distantly, as if in a dream, a very faint suggestion of music and song.

Deven was the first to react, grabbing his full spectrum camera from the ground at his feet and filming the strange paranormal event occurring on the road beyond.

Bill stared in wonderment, he suspected what it was he saw, but until he could see Deven's footage, he could only guess. Then he heard low voices behind him, voices speaking in a guttural language.

Bill had knowledge of many languages, but that one defied him; it sounded Eastern European, perhaps Romanian. The speakers moved out of the darkness, and Bill saw a group of elegantly dressed men and women. They sounded to him awed and frustrated, angry even as if their plans had gone awry. Nervously, Bill stepped back away from their thunderous faces and watched them as they walked away, getting into expensive European cars parked nearby. He did not know who they were, but on a notepad, he quickly jotted down car registration numbers. Perhaps, one day he would follow up on his new development.

Bill stared at the darkened, ruined town. He stared at the rapidly-dissipating mist. He looked at the stars, visible for the first time in weeks. He watched the orbs and lights continue to process along the main road, until, eventually, the last few lights vanished into the far distance.

He wondered about all that, and just what EHGAG had to do with it. He wondered why the mist had vanished at the same time the town lost power. He wondered why there and why then. He wondered at the paranormal aspect of it all.

He shook his head, all of it would make a hell of an exposé, and their story might even win awards. Would anyone believe them, or would their story simply be mocked as pure fantasy and their footage dismissed simply as the art of CGI?

Bill had no answers to his questions. As a journalist, he had chased down many important stories over the years, many that embarrassed individuals, governments, countries, even, so what was so different about that one?

"Ah, Hell!" he muttered.

He'd never soul-searched so much about a story before, bugger the consequences, they'd go for it.

Bill looked up and gestured Trent and Deven over.

"Guys, we need to talk!"

#  Epilogue

### Three months later

The Federal Government department in Canberra possessed a title that was immediately recognizable. However, the branch that Mark Davies worked in had no name—at least, no name that the public was aware of, or familiar with, for that matter.

The branch was created decades before. Their main directive was to clean up unsightly messes and mistakes. Sometimes government, sometimes individuals or organizations, and sometimes media, had made those messes.

It involved a certain whitewashing of events, even a modicum of creative re-writing of the truth so that ordinary people could be lulled, even at the worst of times, into a sense of security. The last thing the branch needed was the truth to leak out. The truth oftentimes meant the fall of governments or the fall of nations. The truth meant a scared population, and an unnerved population meant serious times for the economy, and for the share market. So, it was considered expedient of the branch to keep life on an even keel, and to quietly, unobtrusively, and efficiently, clean up the messes that arose from time to time.

Mark Davies looked at the pile of police reports and other documentation from the _Emerald Hills Incident_ and he shook his head. The branch had already put out preliminary findings to a compliant media. Their findings were that experts within Government had surmised that an unusual and extreme weather event had developed on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, which had caused the rapid and exponential growth of molds and fungus across crops, gardens, and even buildings. It was well-known that certain plant moulds could cause hallucinations, so the actions of townsfolk and the general malaise of Emerald Hills itself was written off as a mass hallucinatory event.

Everything that had gone wrong with the town and the region was linked back to it. The branch had been able to link temporary insanity to the deaths and disappearances, and even to the terrorist-like act of blowing up the local sub-station. The town had for a short time been possessed of lunacy, with even the most stable citizens becoming terribly afflicted.

His branch hadn't quite worked out how to thread the returned children into the hallucination tapestry. However, given the general and overwhelming sense of relief when the five missing children had been found alive and well. Perhaps, it was best not to start disturbing an issue that was naturally and conveniently dying down.

The last thing that he wanted was a Royal Commission of Inquiry—something that local politicians had originally called for, desperate to shift the blame onto someone, anyone.

Sometimes the manufactured lie fit like a glove, other times it did not, and had to be forced, kicking and screaming into line.

He and his compatriots hadn't quite worked out where the murders of the EHGAG group fit into the general narrative, other than to ascribe the four deaths to either misadventure or unknown causes.

Mark Davies sifted through the paperwork and picked out one file in particular—the police report on the death of local activist Rayleen (aka Carma) Bright.

He opened the file and shook out the report, plus the photos that the feds stationed there had taken. Mark Davies had a strong stomach; he had to possess one in his job. However, even he blanched when he saw what had happened to the woman. Feeling nauseous, he turned away, his hand covering his mouth. He turned back only when his stomach had ceased its churning.

A local media team had discovered her two days after the explosion at the sub-station. They had arrived at her place to interview her and finding the front door open, investigated further. What they found was beyond description. Her body, if it could be so described, had been literally torn apart, and what remained of her torso eviscerated.

Whoever, whatever had done it, had been entirely thorough because no fingerprints and no DNA evidence remained for analysis.

It was almost as if the perpetrators had stepped out of thin air, and then returned to thin air. The only positive to emerge was that the woman had died while she slept in her bed.

In Mark Davies experience, such an act came out of revenge, out of malicious hatred. This was punishment, not some random sick killing by a psycho. Oddly enough, the rest of the house had not been touched. Even the brand new and very expensive hybrid car was discovered parked in the garage, the keys lying obviously and tantalizingly in a wooden bowl on the living room dresser.

Investigators found odd things in the woman's house—objects connected with Wicca and New Age beliefs. The branch concluded that she had fallen afoul of some of her malign compatriots. Unfortunately, that didn't explain the lack of physical evidence at the scene of the crime. It was just another mystery, on top of an even greater mystery.

Therefore, his branch had created the great lie for public consumption, whilst quietly and behind closed doors discussion continued on the real mystery of Emerald Hills.

Eventually, the truth would be revealed to those in power, that is if the truth was ever determined.

However, Mark Davies did not think that it would happen in his lifetime.

It had taken Bill Anders and his team six months to piece together all the information on what the rest of the media, and the Government, was now calling the 'Emerald Hills Incident'.

He didn't believe for a moment the misinformation the Government was putting out, especially not since Deven had spliced together into video format, all the footage from his multi-spectrum camera.

He especially did not believe it after receiving in the mail, a lengthy and signed letter from a Miss Jennifer McDonald detailing everything she had observed and personally experienced. So much of what she wrote collaborated with what Deven had filmed and with what he had seen with his own eyes. Her belief was so strong that it had extended to blowing up the local sub-station and sacrificing her life for what she said was "the greater good, for the saving of the town and humanity and the return of the abducted children."

The proverbial was about to hit the fan. They had for weeks, months even, agonized over every second, every minute or their documentary. At times, they just wanted to give it all away, but Bill persevered, believing strongly that an entire town, or for that matter, a middle-aged spinster shouldn't be written off by history as a nut, deluded into violent hallucinations by the effect of fungal spores.

The truth had to come out, and within moments, it would, and they would accept the consequences for good or for ill.

Bill turned to his station manager and gave him the nod. It was time to roll the tape on the new documentary titled _Emerald Hills: The Real Story_.

Sixty minutes later, phones began to ring in a Government office in Canberra.

*

End of Book One

The final two books of The Darkening trilogy are

_Dark Destination_ and _Dark Destiny_.

If you have enjoyed _Dark Confluence_ ,  
please leave a review at your point of purchase or at Goodreads.

#  Rosemary's Books

'Riothamus' trilogy (Epic fantasy)

Arantur

The High King

Warriormage

'The Darkening' trilogy (Dark Paranormal fantasy)

Dark Confluence

Dark Destination

Dark Destiny

A stand-alone novella set in the Darkening world

The Dresser Man

Elemental

(Anthology of Poetry)

Forthcoming

The Janus Enigma

(Sci-Fi)

#  About The Author

Rosemary Fryth lives in a small, quiet Australian country town in an upland region that is known as 'Celtic Country'.

She is the author of the self-published 'Riothamus' and 'The Darkening' trilogies, and the poetry anthology 'Elemental'.

Her interests include medieval and ancient history, paleoanthropology, astrophysics, and sculpting. Rosemary lives a happy and peaceful life with her beloved husband in an eighty-year-old cottage. They care for one cat, a handful of chickens, and a pond full of frogs.

Rosemary is currently doing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Writing and Ancient History, at a local University.

Visit Rosemary here and here.

