 
Sugar Town

Robert Nicholls

Copyright 2013 by Robert Nicholls

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Parade (Friday)

Chapter 2 - Sideshow Alley

Chapter 3 - Garlic and the Gourd

Chapter 4 - Life in Death

Chapter 5 - Hospital Visit

Chapter 6 - A Baker's Perspective (Saturday)

Chapter 7 - Waking Isak

Chapter 8 - Questions and Strategies

Chapter 9 - Bandini and Johanson

Chapter 10 - By Moonlight

Chapter 11 - Finding Queenie (Sunday)

Chapter 12 - Sunday Morning Visitations

Chapter 13 - Waiting for Understanding

Chapter 14 - Choosing Isak

Chapter 15 - Home

Chapter 16 - Allies

Chapter 17 - Fires Kindled

Chapter 18 - Night Walkers (Monday)

Chapter 19 - Exposure

Chapter 20 - Reconsidering

Chapter 21 - Revelations

Chapter 22 - More Revelations

Chapter 23 - Looking for Bridie

Chapter 24 - Queenie Goes Home

Chapter 25 - Ways of Healing

About the Author

Extract

They were not boys. They were men, all three of them, each approaching his fourth decade of life. And she was not a woman. She was thirteen, in a long-legged body that, despite her inattention, grew fuller every week. Her father should not have let her walk alone in the dark. She was awkward, though – had knocked over a chalice and insisted on moving about the church while he practiced his sermon.

" _Go home," he had said. "Tell your mother I'll be along soon."_

" _Can't I stay and listen, daddy? I'll be still. I'll sit down the back and not move. Promise!"_

She stood in the aisle of the church, hands behind her back, looking up at him in his pulpit. He looked at her there, on her long legs, saw the curve of her hips and the high, small swell of her breasts. Lately, he'd begun to fend her off when she wanted to sit on his knee or throw her arms around him.

" _You're getting too big for that," he'd say. She was his first child._

She stood in the aisle of his church and he looked away from her, down at his Bible. The Song of Songs was there. 'My love,' it said, 'you are as beautiful as Jerusalem, as lovely as the city of Tirzah. Turn your eyes away from me; they are holding me captive.' He became unaccountably angry.

" _Do as I tell you, Bridie!"_

And so she'd gone into the night. She'd left him to his resounding communion with God and walked into the sight of men whose interest in communing was much less inspired. This is how things sometimes end and also how things sometimes begin.

She didn't see them, but she heard them. She tried to run but her sandals tripped her up. She turned then to face them, to show them her courage, but a blow came out of the dark. She fell, she hit her head and she woke, alone, in the deepest, loneliest darkness she'd ever known. Her father was nowhere in sight. The church was nowhere in sight. Her shoes were gone, her panties were gone and she burned inside. She vomited for a while and, when she could, she got up and edged her way toward a distant street light. That was the night of Harvest Festival, 1997.

* * *

I was two years old in 1997 so nothing meant anything to me. Even the disappearance over the next few months of half my family meant nothing to me. When you're little, you don't question how the world is. But I grew. I grew past surprise, at how odd my family was, and I grew well into resentment; right up to the door of resignation. Then, one week in 2008, when I was thirteen, the past came hurtling forward, like a rock out of a slingshot, knocking me arse over teakettle, fair into the middle of 'Now, I need to know!'

I can be very precise with the starting time. Make it October 18, 2008, at four o'clock in the A.M. Things were happening then, not so far away in space, as the other things had happened not so far away in time. October 18, at four o'clock in the A.M. That's when the space thing (or 'Queenie' as we came to know her) was stalling out over the south-western Pacific, slanting in out of the void, a peppering of stars above and the black ocean below. Maybe a shaft of sunlight tried to catch her, high over New Zealand. But she glided away into the western darkness and came to us – to Sugar Town.

We, of course, had no awareness of her approach. Juiced-up fruit bats were taking their usual bearings for home and bossy roosters were clearing their throats over the usual lie-abed hens. In roof spaces all over town, possums were hunkering down, shoulder to shoulder, snouting their tales of tall trees.

By the time anyone saw her (and a surprising number did) she was already past the long grace of her flight, tumbling and turning and flaring, reduced to a howling streak of light.

* * *

Asael thinks something in our dreams called her to us. Asael takes medication and his contact with the world is sometimes iffy but, nonetheless, it was a dream that had us McFarlanes up and alert at that hour. So who am I to say he's wrong?

The dream was the recurring property of my sister, Bridie, who is twenty-four years old and, maybe to her detriment, not a jot less than beautiful. A little before four, she was lying alone, as always, in her bed, across the hall from my room, in our parents' house. Her long legs telescoped up to her chest, her eyes behind her lids darting from side to side. It was a dream that skirted the edges of nightmare and one I'd crossed the hall to wake her from many times before. In the midst of it, she twitched and moaned and the hammering of her heart was so loud, it would vibrate the air in the middle of the room. And it was always about our town – Sugar Town.

You can find Sugar Town, under lots of different names, on any map of North Queensland. From the highway, in daylight, it looks like a colony of fibro and metal barnacles attached to fields of irrigated emerald green. At night, from high above, (the first view Queenie would have had) it's little more than a sprinkling of lights around the volcanic glow of a sugar mill.

* * *

In Bridie's dream, a girl walks the streets of Sugar Town, past the familiar mouldering houses and droop-palinged fences. She could be me, this dream girl – tall, thin, angular. Thirteen. She approaches a great door above which looms a massive cross, trembling on an invisible plane of air. The cross and the door, both luminous with grace, speak somehow to the dream girl's soul – a promise of meaning, of insight into her place in the world. She reaches for the door.

Before she can touch it though, something, some irresistible weight crushes her to the ground. She is instantly suffused with pain. Agonised! Confused! Wiped clean, in a heartbeat, of all hope. Only a single, irreducible spark of resolve endures, prompting her to fold her hands over the agony and, with all the strength of her being, to press it down, a full arm's length down, into the soil of memory where it's too dark and cold for anything to survive. And like a creeping tide, numbness edges in.

Waking, Bridie knew and I knew and all of Sugar Town knew that there was a wall in her mind, with at least a pair of years utterly concealed behind it. She was resigned to it. More than that, she'd convinced herself that she knew the reason for it. It was part of a penance that she was being charged for some terrible, unremembered sin. Part of a penance that included being abandoned, in one way or another, by almost everyone she'd ever loved. Except for Asael, who is our brother, and me. Two kids, dumped on her when she was barely more than a child herself.

Funny how people can imagine something and then accept that imagining as truth. Asael's imaginings about Queenie; Bridie's imaginings about her lost years; my own, about the history of my family. Some people say that the truth can set you free, but I think it's a tricky and dangerous thing that can just as easily push you into a prison you can never escape from. Bridie's dream girl, of course, knew that right from the start.

* * *

Ordinarily Bridie's dream ran in a continuous, unchanging loop. But on the night of Queenie's arrival, the night before Harvest Festival Weekend, there was one new thing. A voice. The dream girl, while wrestling her pain into stillness, heard – little more than a fleeting, fading hiss – a command. A command containing our mother's name.

"Reconcile yourself to it, Rita!"

That voice brought the dream to an end, but the voice that woke Bridie was her own. At the edge of my own awakening, I heard her.

She lunged from the bed, as you do when nightmare struggles to be reality. You know what it's like. Your body is awake but the wet, woollen feel of monsters remains. You stumble to the window, panting for breath, sweat prickling on your belly and thighs. You mop your throat, insisting to yourself that, whatever it was, it wasn't real. But unreal things have just as much power as real ones to pluck at your skin, pull up the hairs on your neck and whisper terrible, incomprehensible things in your ears.

'Reconcile yourself to it, Rita!'

Bridie fled into the hallway, flicking on lights, whimpering like a small, terrified animal. She went to the shower where she scrubbed at herself with punishing ferocity – scrubbed until her skin burned and the nightmare at last began to fade.

In the mirror, as she slid back into her nightie, she saw herself, still close to tears and she shook a menacing finger at the reflection. "You stop that!" she demanded. "Right now!"

In the hallway outside the bathroom, Asael jerked upright. For the past several minutes he'd been crouched at the door, his eye pressed to the keyhole. He'd heard her cry out in her sleep. He'd seen lights and heard the shower running. He'd had to go to the toilet anyway, which meant passing by the door to the bathroom. So, as he always did, he'd stopped for a peek. He was eleven.

"I only wondered why you're up!" Even from my room, half snagged in sleep, I could hear the sniffle in his voice. "It's not even four o'clock yet! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Asael! I just . . . had a bad dream. I'm washing it away with a shower, that's all. Go back to bed!"

* * *

You have to picture Asael. He's not built like Bridie and me, tall and rangy. He's pale and small. Also, he wears glasses, which not many kids his age do. And lots of people believe he isn't entirely all there. Or maybe, in some infernal way, that there's too much of him there! At the start, it was because he was so introverted – so turned in on himself. Then, right around his eleventh birthday, he started seeing things – lights, mostly; sometimes faces and figures. And once or twice he went completely blind, though only for a couple of minutes at a time. Late Onset Childhood Occipital Epilepsy, Doctor Dabney said, which still left all of us, including Asael, poorly prepared for what was to follow.

In some ways, I think his sense of that particular illness got swamped by his overly morbid (understandable, considering what had happened to our family) and depressing obsession with death and dying.

Once, long ago, Bridie put him off a burst of persistent questioning about Rita's death by saying: "People just die, Asa! Every day! We can't know why! It's just God's will!"

People die every day? And we don't know why? No way! And from that moment, he'd developed a sort of paralysis of watchfulness. Any cough, hiccup or sneeze from any one of us could launch him into a state of high anxiety. He even started studying illnesses, memorising their faces so as to properly recognise them if they showed up at our door.

"You know what 'fatal arrhythmia', is Ruthie? You know why polyps grow in our sewer pipes, Ruthie? What if you had a weak blood vessel in your head, Ruthie, and you fell down? Know what would happen to your brains?"

The year before, at Christmas, we'd given him books just to get him off our backs – a copy of 'The Visual Dictionary of the Human Body' and an edition of Barcsay's 'Anatomy for the Artist', (142 full-page plates'). So he was well up on the osseous and muscular systems and on a first name basis with 'flexors', 'extensors', 'iliums' and 'ischiums'. It's important to know, he said, because disaster is sneaky. Which, interestingly, is pretty similar to what I feel about truth!

* * *

So anyhow, morbid obsession was one reason he was watching Bridie through the keyhole, snivelling out excuses and dragging me the rest of the way out of my beauty-sleep. And the other, much more obvious reason, of course, was that he was a hormonally rabid eleven-year-old boy.

"What's going on? Why's everybody up? It's four in the morning, for God's sake!" Not happy, shielding my eyes from the light, hair in my face. Itchy bum. Not happy.

"She had a bad dream," he whined. "She's having a shower to wash it away. I had to pee. Can I come in with you?"

"What? Don't be stupid! Go back to bed!"

He nodded agreeably then followed me into my room and climbed under the sheet beside me. I didn't really care. It was too late, or too early, to fight. Overhead, the fan ticked slowly.

"God!" I said. "This family!" And I turned my back on him.

* * *

When I say 'family', of course, there were, as I've said, just the three of us. Rita (or 'mum', as the other two insisted on calling her, but I wouldn't because I'd hardly known the woman) had been gone so long that only Bridie truly remembered her. It seemed she'd barely had time to give poor little Asael his life and his odd name and get him home to Sugar Town, to this house, before she was gone, dead.

And there'd been Gramma Grace, but she'd got herself murdered the year before Rita died. For a couple of years after that, we'd still had a father, the Reverend Jacob McFarlane, who'd lasted with us until the start of the new millennium. And then he'd gone off, missionary-ing in New Guinea.

I was five when he left, so I know I'd've had memories of him. But I've worked actively at forgetting them. People who abandon you cancel all rights to space in your head, as far as I'm concerned. Ironically, the one memory I wish I'd kept is a memory of how he left. Whether he took a suitcase or called a taxi or waved from the gate or promised to come back. What does someone look like as they walk out on their family? There were times I could have used a memory like that.

Still, try though I might, I couldn't get rid of all of him, because of the letters. Most years we got two or three; just enough for us to understand, I guess, that he wasn't dead like the others. And I suppose I could give him this much credit, that the letters were pretty interesting in some ways; full of stuff about 'God's great work' and sinners and pagans and strange practices! Whenever one came, the three of us would troop into his study, which Bridie insisted on keeping like a shrine, and she'd read the thing to us. Interesting, but surreal. Like having a ghost sending us drafts of exotic stories.

I should mention too, though, that they weren't solely for us. Parts of them were always clearly marked for passing to Brian Johansen, for publication in the 'Sugar Town Weekly'. It was important, Bridie told Asael and me, to remind 'the congregation' of the Reverend's 'selfless work' and his 'continued prayers'. Etcetera - etcetera - yada - yada. The real story was that we and the Reverend lived pretty much on donations and hand-outs and the good will of the town. So the true purpose of the letters, I always knew, was to fortify the illusion of his and our usefulness.

In the long, slack periods between letters, Bridie did her best to compensate. "We're so blessed!" she'd tell anyone who'd listen. "Show me another town with a minister doing such important work! So important that he can't come home! Not ever!"

His letters and her delusions were enough to keep Asa' and maybe a few other fanatics on side. But not me. Never me. If I wasn't so flat-out busy not caring about him, I'd have written him a note saying, 'Get over yourself! Bridie needs you here more than they need you there; so come home!'

Not that I felt sorry for myself. I didn't. Seriously! I felt sorry for Bridie! Landed with Asael and me, and too precarious about everything to claim a life for herself. But being sorry for people – even for people you care about – wears thin. Like I said, she was twenty-four. Sure, she had an amnesiac block and 'nervous problems' but I figured hey! Do those things break your legs? Or can you still stand up for yourself? Which takes me back again to those comments on truth. It's way complicated.

* * *

So anyhow, when I turned my back on Asael in bed and said, "God! This family!" I was thinking of all those people, just a little bit.

"You shouldn't," he whispered, "take God's name in vain!"

"No? Is that worse than peeking through keyholes?"

"I wasn't peeking to see her, Ruthie. I was peeking to see if she was okay."

"Yeah, yeah. Thousands wouldn't, but I do . . . believe you. And don't call me Ruthie. Call me . . . Genuflecta."

"Genuflecta?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking of having a holy week this week."

"Okay." He rolled on his side and touched my back. "Genuflecta?"

"What, Asael? Can you see I'm trying to sleep?"

"I had a dream too."

"Mm. That's nice."

Asael had a regular X-box thing happening in his head. Sleeping and waking. Seating for only one. Hence the medication.

"Mum. It was the mum dream."

"Uh-huh. And how was she?"

"Like always. Beautiful. Like Bridie. And sad. Like Bridie."

"Uh-huh. Well! I guess that's being dead for you. Same feet as always?"

In Asael's 'mum dream', she always had skeleton feet. Creepy, I know, but it had to do with the way she died.

"Yeah." I could feel him pulling one of his own feet up to touch. "Twenty-six bones," he muttered. "Tarsus, metatarsus, phalanges." Then he lost interest and started on at me again. "She talked to me. She said my name. Asael. Then she said, 'God strengthens. But you have to help.' What do you think that means?"

I rolled over to face him. He was weird, but he was my brother. And I knew he had a guilt thing about Rita. Post-natal depression was the only explanation we'd ever been given for what she did and, of course, he was the 'natal' that the depression came 'post' of . . . if you take my meaning. So I gave him a bit of a hug.

"Well, you know that that's what your name means. Asael . . . God strengthens. So I guess she was just telling you, you know, that strength is important. It's something she would've wanted for you. Probably for all of us. And that it's not just physical. Not just muscles and stuff. Some of it's in your head and you have to try not to be frightened."

"Like frightened of dying?"

"More like frightened of living, I expect."

"I don't get it."

"No, well! I'm not surprised."

He went quiet then for a bit and I thought he was probably okay so I rolled back over. Bridie was back in her bedroom. I could hear her rummaging and I could just tell she had the memory box out. We called it the memory box but it was a dilapidated shoebox, really. It had been there forever. Brooks Brothers sandals, it once held, according to the covering advertisement. Singapore Pink, plastic, size eight: a kid's size. Just shows how badly in need that house was . . . of a good clean-out!

In times past, opening that memory box had been a weekly ritual for us. Bridie'd drag out old letters and clippings and read them to us, then cry, then read them again and cry again. For a long time, we used to cry with her but, for me, it was mostly just to keep her company. Eventually I realised she didn't need me, so I stopped and took to just waiting quietly.

It had been a long time. Her getting it out was what made me realise she'd had 'the dream'. We should burn that memory box, I thought – and everything in it! Ironic, considering what was to happen only three days on. I was drifting on those thoughts when Asa' suddenly started in again.

"Genuflecta?"

"What?"

"Why are you wearing a bra?"

"It's a trainer, nerd-boy. I'm getting used to the idea, that's all."

"So you got boobs then?"

"Course I got boobs, you idiot. Huge juicy ones just like Bridie. Which is why I'm wearing a TRAY-NER and disappear when I turn sideways. Now shut up and go to sleep!"

"Can I touch one?"

That was enough. I pulled my knees up between us and kicked him out. In fact, I wound up having to push him all the way out of the room. I fully expected Bridie to jump up and order him back to his own bed but, instead, her light went out. Which was strange because usually she got between us straight away when we fought, being all about peace and reconciliation, as she was. When she didn't come out, Asael went instantly back on sickness alert.

"Something's wrong!" he whispered. "I knew it!" And confirmation came straight away – a gasp of breath and the muffled sound of crying.

Oh crap, I thought. And though I was inclined to pretend I hadn't heard, nothing else would suit Asael but that we go in. Which we did and we crawled in either side of her and just about got her to the point of talking when a light flashed through the window from outside. We all looked at the same time and we all saw it, streaking across the sky. As though that was the very moment Queenie, the space thing, had been waiting for – for us all to be together and quiet. So we could see her long fall come at last to an end. In a spot, as it turned out, that Asa' and I were to become far too familiar with for comfort.

"Holy Crap!" I heard myself say. "What was that?"

* * *

As I said earlier, it was crazy how many people, like us, were awake at four on that particular morning. These are the ones you need to know about.

* * *

First there was Kevin Truck. Kevin isn't a dyed-in-the-wool local Sugar Town guy. But when he came to town and opened The Harmony Bakery, Rita and Gramma Gracie were still alive and the Reverend was still here and neither Asael nor I were born yet. So that's a long time.

Kevin's fifty-ish, short and wrinkled and he always smells like new bread or cinnamon; like a man you could inhale. He's the only black guy who lives in Sugar Town which, it turns out, matters to some people. And he's gentle and clever and funny but his most important quality – the one that got him completely tangled up in my family's woes, in ways that not everyone appreciated – is that he's just a very lovable guy. Even Bridie, in her shy-of-men kind of way, can't help but love Kevin. You might be surprised to learn (I know I was!) that being loveable is a quality that can get a person into heaps of strife! Not a problem I'll ever have to deal with, happily!

Anyhow, Kevin saw the space thing come down because he was, at that moment, just opening the back doors at the bakery, starting his day's work.

Second there was Johnathon Cranna. If every town's got a favourite son, Johnathon Cranna, at whatever age he was – maybe forty – was Sugar Town's. He had money. He had property. He had this way about him that just wafted importance. And he was way handsome; gorgeous, in fact. Not that I particularly knew him beyond the 'hello-nod' that small town people are inclined to exchange with everybody. I don't think we'd ever actually talked before the week in question. And I never expected anything more because, after all, he was him and I was me. We shared a corner of the planet but that didn't mean we moved in the same universe.

I don't know why Johnathon was awake in his fine bachelor's pad in his own Grand Central Hotel. Maybe he hadn't been to bed yet, free-wheeling man-about-town that he was. I like to picture him waking up and blinking at the clock, which blinks right back at him. 4:00, it says. Can't sleep, eh? Well check this out! And bam! Just like that, Queenie winks by outside the window.

"What the . . . ?

As I say, I don't know why he was up, but I know he saw it.

The third and fourth to see it were Garlic and Rosemary. Well, Garlic was blind, so he couldn't have actually 'seen' it, but I'm counting him because I'm betting that he didn't actually 'miss' it either. And you have to know that Rosemary saw it! First because their place was the closest building to the spot where it landed, them living right on the edge of Alf Caletti's cane paddock. And second because they're goats and Amalthea says goats can see the wind.

I just know they'd have raised their heads and pricked up their ears. 'Hear that?' one of them would have goat-talked to the other. Louder and louder, then WHOOSH! Probably there was a bump. Maybe the house shook a bit. Rosemary gets to her feet to see if Amalthea's okay. Amalthea's breathing is shallow and regular. Rosemary sees her by starlight that's filtering through the window. Her hair, showing those chemical-red tints, trembles in the breath of the fan. She's asleep. Amalthea sleeps the sleep of the fearless!

Garlic's clouded, blind eyes turn toward Rosemary and she touches her nose to his. 'She's okay. Nothing for us goats to worry about. Go back to sleep.' Never suspecting that events had been set in motion; that they would both die in the next few days, (though only one of them would stay dead).

The fifth one to see the space thing, one who, incredibly, was Johnny-on-the-spot where it came down, was Isak Nucifora. Isak was one of those men who stay around so long their lives become kind of mythological. Once he was this and once he did that! What he was now was a bitter, unrepentant alcoholic and what he did now was snarl amongst people with all the charm of a Tasmanian Devil.

Since we're talking about dreams, though, here's a curious thing about Isak. After I got to know him he told me that, right up to and including that night, October 18, 2008, the night before Harvest Festival Weekend, he hadn't dreamed a dream in over a decade of nights! Which I found strangely sad! Though, when I found out the truth behind some of the things people reckoned he'd done, I also found it pretty amazing!

"Just goes to show you, girlie! The feckin' booze . . . she can kill ye from the inside out or the topside down. Both ways work." That's how he talked.

Another thing he told me was that, at whatever age he was (somewhere in his seventies, I'd guess) he'd arrived at a place where he owed no one, feared no one, believed no one and had mostly forgotten that he ever loved someone. I remember that clearly because, at the age of thirteen, before Harvest Festival Weekend, it was a stance I was working on for myself! Parts of it, it turned out, were alarmingly true for Isak. Realistically, I guess none of it was true for me. The last part definitely wasn't true for either of us. Especially not after Queenie arrived on the scene.

As he told it, at four A.M., he was rolled in his swag, beneath a tall poplar gum, only half a kilometre beyond the last house of the town. He'd spent the early part of the evening shooting 'roos on a contract for Alf Caletti. Pest control – that's how he made his living and still does! One shot per 'roo. He reckons it's like someone switching off a light. "It's the world, then fuckin' nuthin'. That's all." It's a way, he reckons, he wouldn't mind going himself, when his time comes.

Anyhow, he'd drunk his over-proof dinner and lay down to watch the stars. He was thinking, he claims, about all the ways that death finds people. And the ways that, sometimes, people find death. And he was taking stock of what things he might've left undone in his life. It'd been on his mind for days, he says – a premonition of something about to end. Which explains why he'd brought his swag out when home was near enough to walk to.

So he was lying there, awake, with his arm over his eyes and these weird old thoughts duck-diving through the alcoholic fug in his mind, when suddenly, there was this tremendous buzz and yoick and howl somewhere up in the sky! He lifted his arm an inch and saw a trail of phosphorescence flickering on the air straight above him, followed immediately by a bumping and banging and squawking in the near distance, like a ghost cane bin falling off a set of ghost tracks. Having no idea what to make of it, he put his arm back over his eyes and stayed where he was, studying on that yammer which, he says, didn't fully die out until just before dawn.

Only then did he rise, rolling his swag and testing the wind with a long stop-start pee in a vaguely northerly direction. He sucked the last ounce of whisky from his bottle, gathered up his gear and loaded his rifle. And, ready at last, he began to walk. Two hundred metres away, he found small branches newly skinned from the tops of the trees. At four hundred metres, he saw a large branch hanging from the mid-way point of a big old paperbark. At six hundred metres, he entered a paddock of mature cane – Alf Caletti's cane – following a swath of bent and smoking stalks.

Chapter 1 – The Parade (Friday)

I was still in Bridie's bed when I woke up. So was Asa', spread out like a starfish, but Bridie was up, clicking around in the kitchen. It was a great room, Bridie's room; big and airy. It used to be Rita's and the Reverend's long ago; a room where secrets were whispered and, I suppose, we kids conceived. Now, with them gone, it was still the cosiest corner of the house.

I rolled out, bumped my feet on something and looked down to see the memory box. And dropped beside it was a letter, much folded and faded. 'Hello!' I thought. 'You must be the one that made her cry in the night!' And I popped it open for a read. Why not? As far as I knew, we'd been through all the letters together heaps of times before, so it wasn't like I was snooping. This, however, turned out to be one I'd never seen.

It was dated June 12, 1994 – just a month before Asa' was born – from the Reverend to Rita. Rita and Bridie and little two-year-old me were all in Brisbane that June, and had been since Christmas, staying with someone who I obviously couldn't remember because I was too young and Bridie couldn't remember because it was lost in her 'blank spot'. Neither of us even knew why we were in Brisbane, beyond the obvious possibility that Rita might have had trouble with the pregnancy. Typical Asael – uncomfortable, even in the womb!

Anyhow, I read the letter through twice, getting more puzzled and more annoyed each time. Because apart from the expected 'mum-and-dad-newsy' stuff – (sermons he was writing, neighbours he was visiting, a commendation of Bessie Crampton, who was just starting her long period of caring for the McFarlane family) – beyond those things, I had no clue what it was about!

' _As for our "problem",_ (the most confusing bit said) _no one understands your bitterness more than I. I can only give you the same answer I've given your mother_ (Rita's mother – that's Gramma Grace, who got murdered) _who, I might add, continues to storm about the town like a wild thing._ (Amazing to think we once had someone in our family who could 'storm about like a wild thing'!) _Of course, there's no denying the terrible nature of this deed! And our longing for retribution cannot be questioned. But you are not here and don't see Sugar Town as I do._

I've battered the congregation for months now, as you've asked, and you of all people, Rita, know the power of my pulpit. No one mistakes my message. I preached from Romans this week: 'They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death.' And I do believe that, in response, the people strive with their individual souls. But the striving yields nothing. As a community, they've closed ranks on the matter!

Johnathon Cranna (of all people) has been to see me! I know he's never been part of the congregation. I'm not even certain that he's a believer! But he's a young man with an undeniable understanding of the town. He confides in me that the people are at their wits' ends with my demands. They are, he assures me, doing everything in their power to atone, and he warns that that effort must be enough for now. (As an example, he has organised a commission for a beautiful new blue gum cross to be erected over the church's entryway!)

I think I must believe him, Rita! In no small part because I know that God tests and tries his vessels in many ways. Surely this test is as much for the people of Sugar Town as it is for us! Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? So we must pray for our neighbours, Rita, and also for ourselves, that we all may achieve His mystery

And my decision is this. We will take it as a sign of blessing that God has blocked out both the memory of the past and the understanding of the present. We will raise this new child – yours and mine – to be strong; to hold his faith high above the swirling waters. And the rest, we will leave to God, who makes all things happen. I tell you this plainly, Rita, as I have told your mother. I will not further alienate this congregation by continued recriminations. You are to stop asking it of me. This is our cross to bear and bear it we shall. Reconcile yourself to it, Rita.'

The letter finished with another Biblical quote _: 'If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? Corinthians 14, 8,'_ and ended with, ' _Yours in the strength of God, Jacob.'_

Okay, well, bits of it I could guess at. The 'new child', obviously, must be Asael – Asael, yet to be born, yet to be named. The 'blocking out the memory' thing had to refer to Bridie and the cross that Johnathon Cranna organised is still there, over the church. And the snotty, arrogant tone was, in my mind, authentically the Reverend. So yes, some of it did make a kind of sense. But the stuff about the 'terrible deed' and the need for 'atonement' meant nothing.

It had become increasingly strange to me, how Bridie nurtured her delusions about the Reverend; like he was the biblical Jacob – wise, righteous, noble and beyond questioning. Not the one who stole his brother's blessing but the one who fought a fight with God. It was a fight she seemed to think he'd not yet abandoned, even though he'd clearly abandoned us. Us and the whole town! How could he be beyond questioning for my sister when, for me, questions were all he was worth?

I took the letter to the kitchen and dropped it on the table.

"What's this?"

In response, she told me that she'd had her old repeated nightmare: the whole 'little girl and big doors and terrible weight and pushing the pain away' thing that we'd already talked about ad nauseum heaps of times in the past. And the new bit – the voice: 'Reconcile yourself to it, Rita.'

"I don't know! It's not like I recognised the voice! But the words reminded me of the ending of this letter. So I dug around in the memory box and found it. That's all. Just a coincidence, I expect."

I was totally good with it being a coincidence. Frankly, I was over her dreams and couldn't wait for the day when she was, too. But the fact that she'd hidden a letter from me was something else! I mean I knew that her memory was full of holes but that didn't give her the right to create holes in mine!

"Okay well, I've never seen this letter before! Why's that? And what's all this stuff about a terrible deed and atonement? What's all that about?"

"I don't know, Ruthie! Some old argument going on in the town back then."

"A family argument? Is that why we were in Brisbane? Were they splitting up or something?"

I kept picturing Rita being pregnant up to her ears, away from home and getting these heart-breaking, self-important messages from her husband.

"Of course they weren't splitting up! They were in love – deeply in love – having another baby! He's a strong man, Ruthie, and those words . . . they're just the language of his calling, that's all! For goodness sake, where do you get these ideas?"

"Gee, I don't know, Bridie! I guess I get them out of my over-active imagination! And now and again from family letters that've been hidden from me!"

I suppose I went overboard a bit. I accused her of being sneaky and untrustworthy and not giving me credit for having any brains at all. I insisted that I had a right to know what quarrel had occurred between our parents and the citizens of Sugar Town and she insisted that, if such a thing once existed, it no longer did, so it no longer mattered. Dredging up the past, she said, was no way to complement the present.

"And anyhow, as you well know, Ruthie, I don't remember those times! I don't know what those references were about! Which is probably why I didn't bother showing you the letter! Okay? Because I knew you'd blow it out of proportion! Anyhow, I thought none of this mattered to you!" she stomped. "Little Miss 'Who Cares!"

"Well you thought wrong . . . Missus 'Why Ask Me?' And I'll thank you, in case you get the urge again, not to make any more choices for me! I'm thirteen! I'll blow whatever I like out of proportion! And you're not my mother! "

Long story short, we got side-tracked and plopped into the pit of our own on-going quarrel; me wanting to be treated more like an adult and her adamant that I needed to 'enjoy my innocence'

"Innocence isn't enjoyable, Bridie! It's humiliating!"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic! If old letters and old quarrels are all you have to worry about in life, Ruth, you should be counting your blessings!!"

And of course, her telling me that it wasn't important only convinced me that it was extremely important!

"Put it back in the box," she demanded, "and forget it! Like I have!"

I didn't bother pointing out that forgetting it like she had apparently meant having it thoroughly lodged in your dream-memory. I stomped off but half-way down the hall I thought of a last word and went back. She was still sitting at the table but had her hands folded in prayer. (She's the Reverend's daughter, through and through.)

"Dear Lord," I heard her say. "I'm still here! Still in the same place."

She scrunched her eyes and ground the heels of her hands into them. That wrung at my heart a bit, I must say, and I decided to keep my last word to myself. Or, more properly, I guess I just re-directed it, adding my own little conclusion to her prayer: "Still without expectations." Just in case the Big Guy was open to sarcasm.

I headed back to her room, intending to do as she'd asked, but somehow I found myself detouring into my own. There were, after all, other people I could talk to. Kevin Truck, for example. I knew I'd see him later at the festival and I knew that, if I mentioned the quarrel and he knew anything about it, he'd share. This 'terrible deed' that had split my parents and that the town had had to atone for was not going to stay a secret! Not if I had anything to do with it!

* * *

Harvest Festival Weekend! Kev' says you have to beat your conscience with a stick if you're going to do Harvest Festival properly. Flog it into submission. It's the only way, he says, a person can celebrate the area's blessings while staying quiet about all the things they've personally gotten away with. So that makes it less surprising that everything came to a head that weekend. Right from Bridie's dream re-discovery of the Reverend's letter, to who showed up in the travelling carnival, to the town's reactions to Queenie! Consciences were already sore and bloodied.

Sugar Town's Harvest Festival Weekend starts off shortly after dawn, in the park behind the hospital, with the marshalling of the parade; just about the most deadly serious 'fun' thing you could imagine. The years that the parade comes off well are positive years for Sugar Tonians. The years it doesn't quite, are like the dog has peed in the soup.

The thing is, of course, that you can push east as hard as you like, and some things'll still find a way of going west. The 2008 parade, for example, looked exactly like every other parade since Ned Methusala's nine hundredth birthday. It had a stack of cattle trucks; each with at least one crapping big Brahman on board, because everybody loves a cow. It had tractors covered in fresh cut sugar cane, because cane is our bread and butter. It had a fleet of semi-trailers, loaded down with four-metre long papier-maché wrenches and giant thrones made of paper daisies that the oldies in the nursing home folded by using their dentures or whatever. Because everyone loves colourful, fun things and also old people. It had bands and Brownies and Boy Scouts, Lions and Rotarians and kung fu fighters, volunteer firemen and guys with baggy britches and red balloon noses.

It had everything it was supposed to have, including, most importantly for my family, the most beautiful girls in North Queensland. It's a celebration of fertility, right? What would be the point without beautiful girls? Which is why Bridie, who filled that bill so well, every year since she was sixteen, had dug out her little home-made signs, dolled herself up and put herself forward for Harvest Festival Queen. Not that she ever expected to win! It was just that even her public shilling for money for the Reverend's ministry was part of what was expected in our annual parade. She had to be there. And even when we were fighting, Asael and I had to be there with her.

* * *

"Wake up, Rosebud. It's after eight."

"After eight?" Asael said, popping out of sleep and fumbling for his glasses. "Holy cow, why'd'ye let me sleep, Ruthie? Is she gone already?"

"Don't get your colon in a twist, Hanky Boy! It's your turn for the shower so get your bony butt moving!"

And then, because he's a nervous little character and I like to help him exercise his demons, I added, "Better make it a cold one, As'! Driving through those crowded streets is gonna take some alertness!"

"I don't feel so good, Ruthie! Maybe you should do the driving!"

Wetting himself with anxiety. The fact was that he was slated to be the one new element in the parade; for the first time playing a central part in Bridie's display.

"No fear, Buster. You got the training, not me! Anyhow, you gonna die, what better way to do it than on a big old Harley, eh? There're bikies who'd die for a chance to die like that!"

Character building, I call it. Anyhow, Bridie came into the room before I could take it any further and put a thumb against his chin.

"Don't listen to her, she's in a mood. Show me your tongue."

He lolled it out, scanning her face all the while, checking her while she checked him. "You'll be fine. A good breakfast is all you need."

She pushed him away but he reached for her arm and held on. "When you were up early, before, in the shower, Bridie – were you sick?"

"No, As', I wasn't sick. I told you. I just had a dream that needed to be washed away."

"Me too. I had one too. I dreamed of mum!"

"Did you? Well that was nice, I suppose. Was it nice?"

'Nice' isn't a word Asa' would ordinarily settle for but, about then I decided to bring the tension in the place down a notch. I gave him a 'don't push it' glance and, knowing what was good for him, he didn't. "Yeah," he said. "I guess."

"Well then. Good."

She was looking around the room like maybe she'd counted us and realised someone was missing – the Reverend, for example. Maybe he'd any moment pop out of the closet. She's told me that sometimes, ages ago when there was just her and me and Asa' and the Reverend in the house – and Bessie looking after us – sometimes she'd creep into this room in the morning, to wake him.

She liked to remember it as a sweet thing, but I bet she was scared crapless every time – in case he'd gone missing in the night, like Rita and Grandma Grace. Which, of course, is a version of what he did in the end. 'Reconcile yourself to it,' he'd said to Rita in the letter. It had taken a little longer to say it to the rest of us but that's what we'd had to do, nonetheless; to Bridie's endless bafflement.

"Well," she said again to Asa', as though saying it a second time somehow summed up the situation. "That is nice, then."

I could see she was still upset from our quarrel plus probably anxious about the day's coming events so I pushed Asa' off toward his room and nudged the door shut. I wanted her un-distracted and focussed for a minute; not to apologise, but to explain that, even though I didn't cry with her any more, this 'memory box' stuff did actually have some importance for me. Not in the 'How-sad! I-wish-it-could-be-like-it-was!' sense, but in the 'curious about history' sense. Kind of on a par with learning how Rasputin seduced the empress.

Her special dress was hanging on the closet door and she set about pinching off invisible bits of fluff. How many Festivals had that dress seen by then? Six? Seven? It was the prettiest thing she owned and she kept it just for parade day.

I fiddled at making her bed, giving her a chance to settle before starting my little talk, and she had the nightie half over her head when the door squeaked back open. Asael's eye appeared around the corner, she dropped the nightie back over her bum and we both turned on him, fists propped on our hips.

"You're supposed to knock, Asael!" I snapped. "You know that! You're too old to be . . . !"

"I wasn't peeping! I just wanted to be sure . . . that Bri's all right. That's all! You'd tell me, wouldn't you? If you were sick? I'm old enough to know, you know! Than be left in the dark!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, not you too!" Bridie snapped. "Listen! Both of you! Once and for all! I'm not hiding anything! I'm not keeping anything from you! Either of you! You have to stop . . . expecting things from me! Stop . . . suffocating me! I can't be your . . . !" I thought she was going to say 'mother', but she didn't. "I can't be your everything! Okay?"

"Why're you mad? I told you I wasn't peeping! Are you an' Ruthie fighting?"

As I said, a clingy, obsessed little dude. I felt for him though; really. I mean, except for his obsessions and his phobias and his illness – and a pair of mismatched sisters – all he had was the knowledge that, if family history was anything to go by, he'd turn around one day and find himself utterly alone in the world. Same fear Bridie grew up with; and look how she turned out!

She sighed, with a kind of weary finality. Then she relented. He was still such a boy – narrow and bony, and for his age, short. The top of his head was at Bridie's mouth level. She held him at arm's length, straightened his glasses on his face and pushed hair from his forehead.

"No, no. I'm not mad. In fact, just the opposite! I know you do it because you care. But you don't have to fret, As'. Honestly! I'm fine! Ruthie's fine! We're all fine! Nobody's fighting. Why would we be, after all? We're family!"

"We heard you in the night, me 'n' Ruthie. You got the memory box out after your shower. That's why we came in. We weren't s'posed to look there anymore, I thought! Because of the cryin' 'n' all!"

"Yes, well. There wasn't any crying. Did you hear any crying? You did? Well, maybe there was just a little then. I just . . . sometimes I get a little sad, you know?" She glanced at me and I gave her my best 'time to get over it' look. "But you're right, Asael. You're absolutely right. There's been too much crying in this house!"

She drew him to her and he tucked his head under her chin. She beckoned me to join them, which I did because you have to make an effort, don't you?

"Let's make a pact, shall we?" she said trying to sound upbeat. "All three of us! Let's promise each other – no more crying over the past." I knew that was meant mainly for me and I nearly pulled away out of the group hug. But she held onto me and so did Asael. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick," she continued. "That's what Proverbs says. And you know what else, let's promise? To tell only the truth between us! What do you say?" I guessed that that was probably also meant for me; like an apology for not showing me that letter and a promise, on her part, to do better.

"Only the truth?" I challenged, just to show I knew how easy a target it was to miss. "Nothing else?"

"Only the truth! Always! Now, As'! Have you taken your medication?"

He rolled his eyes and nodded.

"Good then." She spun us both about and faced us out the door. "Go and get dressed, the pair of you. We've got a festival to attend!"

Funny, isn't it, how a simple little animal like 'truth' can be so elusive. And yet create such complacency. Nonetheless, working on the belief that false optimism must be better than none at all, I did as she asked, and we all toddled off into the first day of a week that was going to turn that little animal into a monster that would rival even those in Bridie's dreams.

* * *

Experience had taught us that, unless you were into chaos and confusion, the marshalling area was no place to be before at least ten. Later was better. That day, it was after eleven when we arrived, leaving us just enough time to stroll through the park, enjoying the real optimism that underpins so much of country life.

* * *

Hiya McFarlanes! Day's half gone awready, did yez know?

'Nother showin' fer the Reverend, eh Bridie! Yer made o' gold, you are!

An' still the mos' beautiful girl this side o' Lord Howe! 'F you aren't Queen this year, I'm writin' a complaint to the Guv'nor!

Hey Ruthie, you up for the excitement? Them Showies got a ride this year . . . make Tarzan wet hisself, they say!

Talk about wettin' yerself, you lot see the comet?

Wun't a comet, y'ignorant farmer! Was a meteor!

Well, excu-u-se me, Professor Astro! An' my dearth o' educational sophistication! Whatever it bloody was, it was bloody hair raisin'! Wonder where it landed!

Not too close, hopefully. Could be radio-active, eh young Asael? Could be burnin' our bung-holes out as we speak! Whaddya reckon?

* * *

If you'd asked me then, I wouldn't have been able to remember a day when I'd felt wary or nervous or even particularly alone in Sugar Town. People seemed to accept us MacFarlanes; to trust us and even to like us! Strange, parentless little threesome that we were, we had roots there. And Sugar Tonians, as country people do, had a special feel for roots.

So, despite my embarrassment at Bridie's annual self-flagellation in the parade, it was very warm and nice, walking through the crowd that morning; even with the new knowledge that, once, a quarrel had divided them from my parents! A division behind which Rita had died and the Reverend had planned his flight. I smiled at every greeting, even as, without my inviting them, a froth of questions bubbled in my mind.

For instance, if, as Johnathon Cranna seemed to have promised, 'atonement' had been made, what form had it taken? And were Rita's death and the Rev's leaving then completely unrelated events? Or, had Rita and the Reverend maybe gotten the wrong end of a stick and there was no 'terrible deed'? And had the townsfolk, then, so generously forgiven the false accusations that, eventually, out of guilt, Rita did herself in and the Reverend slunk away in shame? (Too weird for reality?) Or – were all these people hypocritical and two-faced, nursing memories of the quarrel and biding their time, to put Bridie and me and Asael off our guards?

Okay, the last one was a bit over-the-top paranoid. But unlike Bridie, I've always prided myself on being open to all possibilities. In her mind there was no more room for the concept of a division between our parents and the town than there was for the possibility of a division between the two of them! Just as there was no possibility that some of us in Sugar Town might not share her deathless admiration for the Reverend's absenting 'mission'. And she had the gall to call me innocent!

On that note, though, as we chatted our way through the crowd, another possibility occurred to me – another one that, even on her least self-effacing day would never have occurred to Bridie. And that was that these people were surely no longer a part of the Reverend's congregation! They were part of hers! She could work nine days a week, if she wanted, trying to keep him in their minds, but it was her they were committed to loving and supporting! Not him.

* * *

The support I was giving that morning at the marshalling area (and giving very willingly, because I didn't want to get dragooned into taking his place) was making certain Asael didn't bolt for home. So when he started dragging me toward the line of the trees, I conscientiously put the brakes on.

"The Gourd! It's The Grand Gourd, Ruthie! C'mon!"

What to say about Sugar Town's Grand Gourd! It's a pumpkin, of course, but it's a pumpkin in the same way that a palace is a house. The annual selection, the 'Chosen One' – and in some years, none are good enough to be chosen – has to be a gob-smacker! Gi-normous! Chopped in half with its guts removed, a true Grand Gourd becomes two kid-sized bathtubs. Knock on one with your fist and the vibration goes straight back up your arm and sets your ribs to thrumming – almost like the pumpkin has knocked on you rather than the other way around.

Kevin says Grand Gourds have to have drawn their nourishment from the dung-heap of the Gods – an image that he appreciates more than I do. But if he's right, back in 2008 the Gods' were doing their business in a remote corner of Snowy Sutton's back cane paddock, because that year an awesome vine climbed out of the earth there, all on its own. When Snowy's boys stumbled across it, they found it curled around a single pumpkin that stood waist high to an eight-year old and weighed two hundred and sixty kilos! They rescued it, washed it, polished it and dared the leading citizens to reject it.

"C'mon Bri', quick! They're taking the cover off!"

And who could resist that? 2008's official Grandest Gourd – on the tray of Snow's new Ute, about to be unveiled to the public!

"No, As'! You know I don't like all that business! All that excitement over a vegetable . . . just isn't right!"

"C'mon, please? We're gonna see it in the parade anyhow! Let's see it unveiled! Please! See? Ruthie's coming! Please?"

She might have had her way if I hadn't let the crowd catch us up – if she hadn't been determined to erase the morning's quarrel. In short order, we were right up against the Ute, scant metres from the veiled monster itself.

Above us, Snowy stood, arms crossed, looking as smug as a man who has the world's last bunyip dozing under his tarp. He gazed benevolently out over our heads, waiting, demanding our stillness. Then (unaccustomed as he was) he coughed out a blather of rubbish about honour and privilege and the amazing perspicacity of his boys who, to my mind, were about at the outer limit of their powers in recognising a pumpkin, they having barely the brains of a gecko between them.

Nonetheless, he splashed about in his delusions for a bit before dribbling to a stop and getting a nice round of 'get-on-with-it applause'. Then, milking it to the last drop, he edged off the tarp, revealing at last the massive lump of a vegetable. The silence was like that sound you hear when you're under water in a big pool that has no one else in it! I swear, Bridie could have taken her dress off, turned it inside out and put it back on again without anyone noticing. That's how impressive that Grand Gourd was!

A single soft voice finally ventured, "Jee-zuz!" and Snowy nodded, wiping away a tear. And that set off an avalanche of cheery noise.

Christ, what a whopper!

That's a cracker, Snow!

Shit a brick, mate! Whadja feed that bastard?

Bloody fantastic!

Miss Universe o' pumpkins, Snow! Jennifer bloody Hawkins!

Give us a touch of that mongrel! She can't be real!

* * *

Touching The Grand Gourd is another big Sugar Tonian tradition – kind of a home-grown good-luck thing, like stroking a rabbit's foot. People even put messages and questions on them when they're on display at the Showground! Someplace in Tibet they write prayers on papers then float them away on burning kites; in Sugar Town, we stick 'em on our Grand Gourd! Not that anyone expects a reply, of course. If you asked anyone what happens to those notes, they'd shrug you an answer: they dissolve in the rain, fade to nothing in the sun. Who knows? Who cares?

I expect that's actually what happens to most of them. But I also expect that some survive the long weekend and that those survivors are disposed of discretely by my very good friend, Kevin Truck who, when the Gourd returns to being just a pumpkin, hauls it away, to salvage what he wants for use in the Harmony Bell Bakery. Maybe he cooks them up in his scones, like fortunes in cookies! I've given him the nudge-wink and offered to help chop it up, just to get a squiz at what's left. But he says, even if anything was still readable, he wouldn't. He says the whole procedure is meant to move people's issues from the inside to the outside – not to replant them in someone else's imagination.

I was disappointed about that, but not enough to stifle the pleasure of mocking.

"Fancy being so frustrated, or guilt-ridden, you have to whisper your secrets to a pumpkin!"

"It's not a pumpkin, Ruthie! It's a Grand Gourd! Everyone needs a Grand Gourd sometimes; just to keep their lives in perspective!"

"Not me! My life's in great perspective, thank you very much!"

"If you think it is, it probably ain't."

"Ho! You're pulling my chain, Kev'! 'Cause I reckon, next to me, you're about the most together person I know! And if there's two of us, logic dictates there must be others, don't you think?"

He waggled his eyebrows knowingly. "Be nice if you were right, Ru'! But if you are, I guarantee it's going to be only folks who keep their noses out of other people's business. Only way to avoid the rot! Which is why, as far as we two excellent people are concerned, all the Gourd notes blow away on the wind!"

* * *

Nobody knows how much of what Kev' says even he takes seriously! But there was really no argument about the depth of the Grand Gourd's importance to Sugar Town. Even before Snowy lifted that tarp, the crowd had been positively light-headed – like we were a band of allies approaching the end of a great quest. Bodies bumping and feet shuffling. Sifting the hundred or so of us, none of us strangers to one another, into a back-to-belly bond.

And when the solid green and cream bulk of that Gourd emerged, well . . . a dozing bunyip wouldn't have been much more fantastic! That's how amazingly unconditionally 'other' that Gourd was! Like you could easily imagine a huge, slow, alien consciousness lurking inside it! Demanding stillness. Then praise. And finally prodding us into a sort of tidal, surging motion which, because we were locked so closely together, had us rocking in weird, unconscious unison, like a huge self-soothing monster. Despite my impulse to mock and Bridie's to mis-trust, even we were in it and a little bit part of it, without ever giving our consent to it.

* * *

I almost said everyone was in it there but, of course, the one usual culprit, Asael, was not. As' is a great participant from the other side of a keyhole, but he's far too personally obsessed to yield to anything else – even on an unconscious level. Consequently, all that communal awe just meant loss of breathing space to him. In response to which, he began to shrink into a smaller and smaller ball, until he was finally nothing but a whimper, squeaking out from between Bridie and me.

That was exactly the hint Bridie needed. She hooked his pathetic little arms around her from the rear and, pinching my shirt to make sure I was with them, she turned to face the crowd.

Escape was never going to be easy, of course. Not in the long run; not in the short run. In the long run because their tightly-packed closeness meant dozens of people had to yield just a little bit more. In the short run because the first people we hit were Darryl and Dale Sutton, Snowy's two big bull-necked, Grand Gourd discovering sons, who wouldn't give space to a quadruple amputee, let alone to Bridie!

Darryl, being the older brother and out of school, I knew then, only by the common consensus, which was that he was stupid as a stick. Dale, slightly the quieter of the two, was still at school, three years ahead of me, making him almost seventeen. Big muscle-head; swoon material for girls with super-simple tastes – much too self-important and 'mature' to move aside for my family! I heard Bridie's murmured excuse-me's and Darryl's honking laughter and I knew we were in trouble. Still, following Kev's very wise recommendation, I put my head down. With every intention of avoiding the rot.

Bridie, of course, with Asael snuffling against her back, felt compelled to speak Darryl's name, asking him personally, pointedly, to please let us by. He made a loud, 'Go for it' response and I peeped around her in time to see him puff himself up, making it necessary for her to scrape her gorgeous curves against him. I'd've put a finger in his face and a few choice opinions in his ear if it'd been me, but Bridie – avoiding the rot was second nature to her – with Asael's volume rising behind her, twisted herself into the too-small corridor he offered.

In the sudden space, I could clearly see the lust gleaming in Darryl's eyes and the paw that he edged out, to wipe across her breast. And that was totally the end of my communal awe. I thought, 'No frickin' way, you dumbass!' and I pressed Asael in the back, adding what little impetus I could to Bridie's momentum. And in the resulting half-a-person's width that opened up between him and me, I stopped. I stopped and waited for Darryl's squinty little eyes to fall off her and turn to me. I was working on instinct, but I just knew I was going to catch his eyes with a winning smile and crush his dreams with a knee to the groin. He was big, but my legs were long, my knees were bony and I reckoned, if I took him unawares, I could drop him like a lead weight!

Not the smartest plan, I suppose, but Sutton-stupidity still managed to save him. Because even as I saw him turning – even as I bared my teeth at him – smooth as juice, he spun his big arms out and snatched Asa' into the air.

"Come on, young McFarlane!" he roared, bouncing him like a stuffed toy. "Let's see how ye measure up!"

* * *

Guys like Darryl always have so much to prove – big man, no fear, do-what-I-want! Yada yada. And guys like As' seem always to pay the price! The price this time began with being tossed up onto the Ute, into the big hairy hands of Snowy Sutton to share an instant of silent, mutual confusion! Big old farmer – twice terrified kid! At the end of which, both Darryl and Dale dropped down beside them, having scuttled like a pair of apes up over the Ute's cab. So no satisfying knee to the groin; only a glancing view of my puny little brother, imprisoned behind a meaty wall of Suttons.

Anyone who's encountered their own Darryls or Dales knows the sensible thing to do when they corner you. You play dead. Or play the clown! Play anything, so long as it isn't their victim! But a roar of applause went up from that carnival-ready crowd and Asael, possibly thinking that the Armageddon he was always watching for had finally come, freaked! His whingey moan had been pinched off when Darryl snatched him, but now a real wail came out of him – 'Bridie-e-e-e!' His arms began to flap and his legs to churn. Through cracks in the Sutton wall, we could see him, doing his feeble best to batter his way out.

Fear, of course, when fools are at work, is like nuts to monkeys. One unthinkable thing leads to another and I watched helplessly as all three Suttons, probably for no better reason than to keep Asa' from hurting himself, grabbed hold of him – arms, legs, the waist band of his shorts. Asael's howl rose in volume, threading its way out over the crowd which, in turn, increased its own volume; one sound competing with the other! Even Bridie and I joined in, me shouting at Asa' to be still – not to fight them – and Bridie shouting at the Suttons to let him go. Nothing could stop it, though. Even as we shouted, the scenario evolved, the Sutton grip turning into a lift, the lift into a swing and the swing into a plopping of Asa' on his bum on top of The Grand Gourd!

The Suttons, of course, if challenged, would've said, what's your problem? Bit of a laugh, that's all! Liven things up! And certainly the sight of Asael, perched like a horribly terrified, bespectacled little gnome-king on our own Grand Gourd, did that!

Ha ha, what a lark!

Looka bloody that!

Ha ha! Take a bow, young Macca! Take a bow!

With only the occasional: Ya scarin' the poor little bugger, ya mugs!

And the Suttons jiggled about crazily, like the over-sized knob-heads that they were. Darryl especially. His grey little eyes jabbing fiercely down at Bridie. Clearly wishing it was her he'd been able to man-handle across the Ute's deck.

I remember thinking, 'Only an idiot would get within arm's reach of you, you maniac!' Only to look around and see Bridie, scrabbling for purchase on the Ute, her chin trembling, her long legs bared and her bum folded out toward the crowd!

She looked like a referee who's blown her whistle only to have the players offer to jam it down her neck! The look alone should have been enough to tell them they'd well and truly stepped over a line. But some people can't imagine more not being better, and the 'more' that day was to lean their great, round, sunburned faces right in close to Asa's, (which would've terrified the crap out of anybody, let alone an already verge-of-hysteria kid!) and to grunt the whole works – Gourd and boy together – up into the air.

Now up to that point, I'd been mostly cringing with embarrassment for As' and Bridie and, most of all, for me. But when three men – I don't care how big they are – on the rocking, crowded tray of a Ute, decide to lift two hundred and sixty-two kilos of pumpkin, plus thirty-some kilos of hysterical boy, with nothing to hold onto but a slippery curve of polished skin and their steroidal stupidity, that's a cringe of a different sort! Like what fool can't see the catastrophe lurking there? So, while the rest of the crowd hooted with surprised amazement, my embarrassment flapjacked into pure mad. So much so that I yanked Bridie aside and went for those handholds myself!

And that was the instant, between one step and the next – between looking down and stretching up – that something reached out of the air and snagged a hook into Asa's fear.

In a finger-snap, he stopped thrashing! His eyes relaxed and his grimace melted away. His hands drifted to rest in his lap and his lips settled into a firm, almost disdainful little line. He sat up. He looked around with this great, Is that all you've got? look on his face. It was an Asael that no one in the crowd had ever seen before and, a bit like the Gourd itself, he summoned a blanket of silence, casting it across the whole yard.

It was entirely excellent, if I do say so! Even I stopped, half-way aboard. This was the Asael who, some in the town would soon believe, was capable of communing with the dead! But at the moment, for me, it was the Asael who'd reduced his tormenters to the status of left-over props; trembling under the massive weight of the Grand Gourd, their demented squirrel grins slipping away. And when he twisted to look calmly into each of their sweating faces – serious as a gun – their eyes took on that bewildered look that cattle get when they find themselves in the race that leads to the abattoir.

A faint hiss escaped from him and his arm floated up over the crowd, with an accusing finger that roved amongst them, targeting individual faces; pausing, lingering, going back, moving on. It was weird enough that people began dropping their eyes and ducking their heads. A couple of throats cleared but between those sounds, the silence was so pure you could've heard a gnat's scratch! And I found myself floating a little inside, wondering how the crazed little obsessive who hid from his dreams in my bed in the middle of so many nights could produce such a seriously spooky aura! Such totally ingenious thinking! That's my bro', I thought! For once, totally cool!

And then I realised. He hadn't produced it at all! The epilepsy had! The epilepsy thing was so new at that stage that, really, only Bridie and I and Doc' Dabney knew about it. Even Asael hadn't fully taken it in yet – couldn't be sure – didn't much care what was real and what was hallucination. And since Asael lying about taking his medication was one more possibility that Bridie seemed intent on being blind to, I was probably the only one in the crowd who guessed he was having a seizure.

Strangely though, even with that – even knowing he was hallucinating – I couldn't help stretching, like everyone else, to see what faces that accusative finger was picking out. From my perch, half-way onto the Ute, I could see what he was seeing. But I no sooner began to look than his pointer began to wander; away from faces, way out past the crowd, past the assembled vehicles and beyond the paperbarks at the park's edge. The furthermost discernible line that you could see was the line where the green of a distant cane paddock feathered up against the hazy blue of surrounding hills. That's where Asael's finger finally stopped. Toward the mouth of the river. And there was nothing to see there. Not for the rest of us, at any rate!

And then, almost the last thing – second last, really – his lips moved. And a faint little stream of words came out. And I swear there would have been people in the crowd – people he'd pointed at maybe – whose bladders also let a little out! The silence stretched like a balloon blown way, way, way beyond its capacity. And then a small voice in the crowd popped it.

"What'd he say?" it whispered, a question everyone knew was directed at the Suttons, whose neck cords had begun to distend with the effort of holding a load they seemed unable to put down. Their usual vacant glances. Then Snowy grunted out, "Sump'm 'bout 'the place'! Sump'm about whose fault is it!"

And for me, that was the context – the clincher. Everything became as clear as bells! As' was pointing down the river toward the mangroves; 'the place' where Rita died! No one figured as highly in Asael's delusions as Rita did. And the 'fault' thing was one of the conversations he most frequently had with her! (Which shows, I guess, how deeply he shared Bridie's psychotic sense of guilt!)

The question and answer cemented everything in place for me but it released the crowd, allowing a little sort of 'Hooley-dooly!' hum to rumble from throat to throat.

"What's he mean?" someone nearby demanded. "What place? What's he talking about?"

"You're the one he pointed at, mate! You tell us!"

"Me? He did not! 'At was him behind me he was pointin' at!"

"Yeah, so you say! So what's 'at about someone's fault, eh? What's 'at about?"

"How should I know? Was it even us he was talkin' to, d'ye think?"

"No one else here, is there? Lookit him! The kid's makin' the hairs on me neck stand up!"

"Someone's 'fault'! Man! On'y thing I can think of is . . . !"

"Don't!"

I'd looked around for the speakers and found them, just as the last one cast a warning glance in Bridie's and my direction.

When I looked back, the Suttons had finally managed to ground The Gourd and were skooching back from it as far as the Ute's tray allowed. Snowy reached each of his sons a tap on the back of the dome and grizzled, 'Now look what you've done, you pair o' knot-heads!'

I suppose there was a vague chance that I might have just said to everyone, 'It's okay; it's a seizure'. But I didn't care to, and I know now the re-awakening of the quarrel between Sugar Town and my family had begun somewhere in those last minutes, with the snatching of my brother and the suggestion of a reason for guilt in the crowd. It wasn't and wouldn't be enough to be part of them. Not until someone could explain to me that ancient quarrel and why all the adults in my family were dead or gone or mentally crippled. Until then I and Asael at least, because he was with me, would not be part of them again.

While I was thinking this, a mumble of speculation was shooting through the crowd, all the way to the outer edge and back again, like a Mexican wave, and when I looked to see why, the last, odd and totally inexplicable happening had set itself in motion. A sprinkle of green was floating down in a narrow, luminous column, onto Asa's shoulders. The Suttons looked up; I looked up; we all looked up. Above us, in the whole, still vastness of the Poinciana tree, a single little branch was trembling so hard that handfuls of its tiny leaves were losing their grip. Just as Asael had! Maybe just as all we McFarlanes had at one time or another.

I looked back into the crowd and maybe it was my imagination, but spaces seemed suddenly to have opened up. That sense of their having been singled out for wonders, of being somehow especially deserving, was not there any more. In less than a week, in fact, Sugar Town would have its Night of Mayhem, a vigilante camp would be established in the Showground, Asael would no longer be my brother and Bridie's memory would be healed in the most awful of ways. Also, for better or worse, the ghosts and shadows that clustered around me and my family would be gone.

* * *

In the meantime, however, things had to proceed by the thousand little steps that everything takes. First up, Asael still sat, gazing serenely into his hallucination. So far, we'd seen seizures lasting anywhere from five seconds to five minutes and this one was shaping up to be a long one. Someone had to fetch him. Bridie pushed at me gently and I went the rest of the way onto the Ute; more resentful than relieved; feeling conspicuous beyond belief; not sure how I was going to move him; wishing I could will us to 'out there', on the horizon where he was looking, instead of being the uncomfortable centre of attention in the marshalling yard.

So it what followed, though it was an extension of Sutton boof-headedness, was partly my fault. I should have taken a breath. I should have focussed on avoiding the rot. Instead, I was focussed on the sudden isolation that I felt. You see? You can't lose concentration. Especially when there are people around who haven't had their turn at being a craphead. Snowy was finished; he'd taken to mumbling to people in the crowd. And Darryl was finished, reduced to licking his fat old wet lips in Bridie's direction. They paid me no mind. But Dale, following some spark of unreason in his dark little recesses, as I edged past him, grabbed onto me like Squid-man and aimed a slathery old square-toothed kiss at my face!

I think now, it was kind of kindly intended, if you know what I mean. But seriously! Do any real cranial procedures at all go on in a male's head? Like anything short of an outright, public apology can make up for being a random loser who tosses around members of someone's family? My mental reaction then was: You big repugnant dozer! On a warm Spring day with the air full of ice cream butterflies, I'd still have to be unconscious before someone like you could get away with touching me!

My physical reaction was to pound my little fist square onto his big flat nose. It was a lucky punch, I admit; a sucker punch. And if it'd caught him anywhere else he'd've laughed it off, him being the size of a small elephant and all. But the connection was good and solid enough to bring tears to his eyes. Which, when I saw them, made me smirk right out loud, fair in his face. Which he responded to by slamming his palms into my shoulders, knocking me arse over teakettle off the tray of the Ute.

Now, a person can be seriously damaged, toppling off the tray of a Ute! Break some bone that only Asa' or Doc' Dabney'd know the name of! Fortunately for me, though, in retrospect at least, I had the luxury of one particular pair of arms that reached out to catch me.

Gratitude, though, I'm ashamed to say, didn't immediately occur to me. Astonishment did! Followed instantly by madder-than-Hell! I don't know who in my family the 'berserker gene' comes from – maybe Grandma Gracie – but I seem to have it in spades. I lashed out with everything I had – feet and arms flailing in every which direction. Just as Asa's had done a few minutes earlier, only much more so. I'd like to say that every strike was aimed at big gorpy-face Dale Sutton, still up on the Ute, looking down on me. But I suspect he was just one in a whole row of mostly innocent people! My parents, my sister, my brother! Even the unknown person who was holding me! Even myself! Why not just break something and be done with it?

But give them their due, those arms hung on for the half minute or so it took for the red to begin to clear from my head. Then I saw that Bridie was there, trying to catch my arms, and Asa' was hopping from foot to foot on the tray of the Ute, beside Dale, who was looking shame-faced and teary, clutching his nose.

So I took control. Willing myself to be calm. Willing myself to breathe. Inhale – exhale. Let it flow away. Background sounds started filtering through.

The parade marshal signalling the need to get on: "Wrap it up, Snowy! Time to get that bloody pumpkin out in the street! C'mon everybody! Chop chop!"

Snowy, ripping strips off Dale – not for knocking me for a loop, but for distracting attention from The Grand Gourd!

Someone behind me, saying my name in my ear. I twisted to see – Johnathon Cranna!

He put my feet carefully on the ground, as if I was a pistol with a hair-trigger, which I guess I was, and I stood there in front of him, shuddering with barely suppressed teenaged stupidity. On any other day, I'd surely have gone back for another shot at Dale on my own behalf. But Bridie and Asa' were both clearly distraught! And Johnathon Cranna was there, saying nothing; nothing with his voice and something inscrutable with his gorgeous, knowing eyes.

As I've said, Johnathon wasn't someone I'd ever had a conversation with. But his reputation alone made him pretty imposing and helpless, stupid, childish anger was not what I wanted him to see in me. So I decided that, for the moment, Dale would have to keep! Time favours the patient.

I pulled in that healing breath.

"Thank you, Mister Cranna. Sorry if I hurt you."

He shook his head slightly and continued a long, thoughtful look at me – like he was searching for a familiar freckle. I wasn't sure what effect he was hoping for, but if he was waiting for me to go all weepy or little-girlish, his luck was just as bad as everyone else's. This was not the day and I was never that girl.

Bridie, by this time, had switched her fussing to Asa' who'd been reduced again to snivelling, so it was kind of a very private moment between Johnathon and me. Another deep breath. I ran the fingers of both hands through my hair, tossing it back off my face in my best 'I'm not to be messed with' sort of a gesture, which I only wish would come off as well in real life as it does in the movies. Then I forced myself to meet his eyes. Which, I was gratified to see, widened a little in surprise.

"I'm all right," I said, as flatly as I could, probably as much for my benefit as for his. "Really! I'm fine."

"Yes," he said and, after a long pause added. "I can see that you are!"

Not many words but they came with the start of a really beautiful smile. I glanced around. Dale Sutton was leaning against the Ute, sniffling through his damaged nose and staring grimly at us, like the big gormless idiot that he was. I flicked my hair and turned back to Johnathon, giving him what I thought was a look that Bridie might have used to slay men if she'd had any interest in them at all.

"You can see that I'm what?"

He put his hands in his pockets and leaned a fraction toward me.

"That you're a person to be reckoned with, Ruthie McFarlane! Obviously!"

So! That was the whole of the first conversation I ever had with Johnathon Cranna. And I was someone to be reckoned with! Not the scrawny thirteen-year-old girl who lived in my mirror, but someone to be reckoned with! I would have liked to be conversationally reckoned with a bit more by him but the moment was stifled when Asael, who'd heard more than I realised, whined in his quiet little half defensive way, "Don't call her Ruthie. Call her Genuflecta!"

Then he ducked back behind Bridie's skirts and, "I'm just saying!" he squeaked.

And immediately following that, Snowy jumped down from the Ute and killed the moment dead.

"So! Y'all right, girl?"

He put his big paw under my chin to force my head up. If I'd been a dog, I expect he would have yanked my ears.

"She's fine," Bridie said breathlessly. "Sorry Snowy! Sorry! I don't know what got into her! How about Dale? Is he . . . ?"

"Yeah, yeah! Bloody big boof-head! Got nothin' but girls on his mind, that's 'is problem! Tol' 'im to leave the kids alone, eh! Pick someone his own age, know what I mean?" And he turned to bellow it again over his shoulder: "She's a kid, ye bloody boof-head!"

When I looked back to Johnathon, his eyes had skittered over and parked themselves on Bridie. The two of them nodded briefly at one another, like wary old acquaintances (though I doubted she'd ever said even as much to him as I had just said).

Johnathon made the smallest mock bow. "The Reverend's daughters!" he said. "Always a pleasure." And he turned away, into the rapidly thinning crowd.

I watched him go. We all watched him go. I fully expected him to glance back – at least at Bridie. Almost everyone has a second look at Bridie. But he didn't. Not even when Snowy called out, "Hey Johnno! Good luck with the drop, mate! Watch out for them fallin' comets!"

Johnathon raised an open hand, even as he melted into the crowd which was, itself, melting into a couple of dozen small, busy groups. The irony of things: before noon, he'd be unconscious in my arms.

For the moment, though, no sooner was he out of range than Snowy turned a snarling face on me.

"And by the bye," he growled. "Ye got off lightly this time, girl! Might not be no Johnathon Cranna aroun' t'save yer bacon next time ye decide to tease them boys, know what I mean?" He thrust his chin and a finger in my direction. "Don' say you wasn't warned!"

And muttering swear words under his breath, he stomped away. At the front of the Ute, Dale and Darryl were shaking out a banner which said, "Grand Gourd 2008". And in small print below, "God bless Sugar Town." I swallowed hard and looked back to the spot Johnathon had filled. 'The good, the bad and the ugly,' I thought. What else is there?

* * *

I spent the next fifteen minutes sitting under a tree, totting up the various weirdnesses that a day can bring. Apparently on some days a space thing can fall out of the sky, a lost letter can be found, your brother can be terrorised, you can have your first kiss, (and it can be a slobbery public embarrassment!) and you can get in a hopeless fight that somehow turns out to be your fault! All before lunch! Oh, and you can be publically humiliated in front of the town's first citizen! Surely there couldn't be more?

Ordinarily I might have tried to talk some of it through with Bridie, but she, of course, had her own stresses to deal with. Once she was certain As' hadn't been permanently scarred by the Gourd ordeal, she'd become completely engrossed in pacing up and down and straightening her dress at every second step. I even considered having a word with Asael, just to take my mind off things. I would have liked to know, for instance, what a hallucination felt like. But, aside from the fact that talking to him was an act of desperation in itself, he was as distracted as Bridie – snivelling on about the Suttons and the unfairness of how they'd treated him.

"It wasn't your fault, Ruthie! They made me go up there, didn't they? They shouldn't've, should they?"

"No they shouldn't, Asael! But they did! Now let's just drop it, okay?"

"Okay. But Ruthie?"

"And don't call me Ruthie. Call me . . . Perplexia."

"Okay." He was quiet for a bit, then, "Perplexia?"

"What?"

"I tried not to be frightened. Like you said – like my name means. But I wasn't as brave as you. I have to work on that, don't I? And Perplexia?"

"What?"

"I'm okay for the motorcycle!"

He was a sweet kid, in some ways. Probably I should have made more fuss about the seizure. But sweet or not, I didn't want to have to take his place in the parade. And I didn't want to miss out on my private time with Kevin either. Happily, I didn't have to worry about it for long because, at that very moment, Kevin's lightly decorated old rattler of a Triumph, sidecar attached, came choofing into the park.

"Am I late?" he shouted as the engine spluttered into silence.

And even as he spoke, the parade marshal began to bellow: "Five minutes, people! Let's get them girls in place!"

Chaos renewed itself instantly, sparking us all out of thought and into action.

* * *

The 'girls' were the Harvest Festival Queen entrants, all identifiable by the sponsors' banners they wore across their chests – Miss Prince of Wales; Miss Combined Sugar Mills Association; Miss Tepperman's Hardware Services; Miss Jeppeson's Accountants (Honest to the Last Dollar). Bridie's banner, which was as old as her parade dress, said 'Miss Freedom House Ministries' – the same as the sign Kevin had rigged up on the Triumph.

No offence to Kevin but, as a float, the Triumph was never going to be a winner. While the other girls would be perched up high, on the bonnets of antique cars, on the backs of trucks, on hay bales, in crepe and balloon castles – elevated for maximum, eye-catching exposure – Bridie was going to be tucked down, almost out of sight, in a motorcycle's sidecar. Why? Two reasons!

One was that she didn't really care to be seen as a serious contender for the title, the other girls all being sixteen and seventeen – perkiness personified – while she was an ancient twenty-four year old. But more importantly, for the first time, she'd been unable to gain support for a proper, independent float. Every year since he'd left, Bridie'd had a float to help raise money and awareness for the Rev's New Guinea ministry. But that year, for the first time, nobody'd had any 'appropriate' vehicle to spare. Maybe quite genuinely, for all I knew! But Kev's motorbike was her last option.

* * *

Watching her fold her long legs into that cramped little sidecar was painful. I had to look away. I couldn't see why she didn't just drive the bike herself; sit up tall and rev' the bejabbers out of it all the way up Main Street! At least people who didn't care about the ministry would be reminded again of what a humongously beautiful woman she was! Maybe they'd cough up some dollars on that account!

I couldn't comment though. She'd tried to draft me into doing the driving and I'd flat out refused. The bike had sorely tempted me but there was no thrill in the world, no cause in the world that could overcome my refusal to be put out there on display. Asa'd tried refusing too but, though he might know the proper names of all the bones, the concept of 'backbone' escaped him entirely. Especially when it came to standing up to Bridie. So he and Kevin had tootled up and down the driveway a hundred times and he had memorised what he needed to know: start, first gear and stop.

The two of them were going through it one last time while she inched herself lower and lower into the sidecar and I looked away, thinking how sad and pathetic it was. The banner that Kevin had rigged up over Asael's head read:

FREEDOM HOUSE MINISTRIES'

' _Rev' Jacob McFarlane, Working for Christ in PNG'._

'Working for Christ.' It was an old sign and I still blame it for my picture of Christ, in a hardhat and sweaty tee-shirt. The logo on the shirt says: 'Bloody hell, McFarlane! How're ya gonna get the job done if you're off nancying about in the jungle?' (The 'job' being looking out for us kids!)

Hardly a flattering take on my father or on Christ but, as I'd said to Bridie, get one of them to come and set me right, why don't you! We'd argued the whole 'why isn't he here?' thing through so many times that it just didn't matter any more.

"He is what God's made him," she would say primly, "and does what God requires. Shall the clay say to him that fashions it, what makest thou? No, of course not!"

She had stock answers like that for most things. Another one was that the Reverend would be with us if he was needed, but he wasn't needed because she was plenty capable enough to care for the three of us. (Probably true at twenty-four, but she was sixteen when he left! Did she acknowledge that? Hardly! Or that she was only eighteen when Bessie left? Not likely! And that, from then on, she was officially, totally responsible for a family that wasn't of her making? I don't think so!)

Another favourite fall-back was that, whatever the cost to her or to As' and me, the cost to the Reverend must have been so much greater.

"To lose part of his family to evil (Gramma Gracie's murder and Rita's suicide) and the rest (her, me and Asael) through the call of God! How could anyone presume to criticise?"

See? I knew her answers as well as she did; so well I could, and often did, fight with her even when she wasn't around! That's because I've got a ferocious memory which various smart-arse people have told me fits my temperament exactly. For example, I can quote you this entire letter; partly, of course, because it lived on the fridge door for years, so it was in my face every time I reached for an apple. But more so because I, even if Bridie didn't, recognised it as the sly one that set up his expectations for Bridie.

My dearest Children,

I begin this letter as a project of faith, knowing that it will, in time, reach you. But when or how, I cannot say. The reason is that I have, at long last, found the courage to leave the general mission at Daru and to direct myself into a more acute and personal ministry. I know you will be happy for me when I tell you that I am now resident amongst, and ministering to, a tribal people deep in the mountains of the Western Province. In the atlas, run your finger up the Fly River and beyond, into the fathomless reaches of the Victor Emanuel Range. There am I.

_The people in my valley –_ _my_ _people – the Gebusi, they are called – have only the barest interest in western civilisation. That is to say that white people do occasionally pass through – prospecting, surveying, seeking particular stands of timber – even just adventuring. And members of the tribe do, in turn, sometimes travel down the river to Kiunga, where the barge stops. But it can only be done by dugout canoe and on foot so is an arduous task. (As any path worth travelling is bound to be!) I can only promise you that, though the remoteness of these valleys is great, so too is the need of their inhabitants for salvation._

I have arranged for your letters and care packages to be forwarded to Wasua and, from there, placed on one of the barges carrying goods to Kiunga. There they will be held until such time as either native or foreign travellers pass through in this direction. I am confident that nothing will linger there for overly long. For my own part, I intend to make my letters of a continuous nature – writing as and when I can until opportunities arise for me to put them into motion in your direction. I am determined to be as thorough and detailed as possible – especially as I know you put them to good use in your fund-raising efforts for the ministry.

All rife with self-sacrifice and grand ambitions in Bridie's eyes but, to me, there were two key phrases: 'care packages' and 'fund-raising efforts'. About as subtle as a jab with a Gebusi arrow. But they worked on her. They were why she put herself on display in the parade every year – to prod Sugar Tonians into remembering him generously, as she insisted she did and as I utterly refused to do.

* * *

"Sure you're all right, Ruthie?" Bridie asked me, as she settled into the sidecar. And to Kevin she added, "She got in a fight with Dale Sutton!"

"It wasn't a fight! He . . . took liberties with me! So I clocked him and he pushed me over. End of!"

Kev' blinked at me curiously, but was far too sensible to offer an opinion.

The plan for the morning was that, once the parade got moving, Kevin and I would cut through the park and watch the whole kaboodle pass from somewhere nearer the showgrounds. Then we could meet up with Bridie and Asa' later, at her donations table. That might sound like I was being fobbed off on Kevin but, generally speaking I think I'm a positive influence on him. And vice versa. We've a mutual support thing going on.

Nonetheless, as I looked around at the big trucks and the rumbling tractors and the sheer, joyous expectation on everyone's faces . . . and I saw Asael's hand trembling on the motorcycle's clutch and Bridie fretting over her pathetic years-old 'Miss Freedom House Ministries' banner, and I thought of the questions I'd sorted to get Kevin to help me fret about a past that was so far gone it couldn't possibly impact on anyone . . . I couldn't help but be struck by what a strange sad little group of misfits we must seem to him.

Until that week, I'd never really wondered why he was so there for us. Almost like he was one of us! He was, as I've said, the only black man living in Sugar Town which, I suppose, suggested a kind of alone-ness – maybe a sort of parallel? Not that he ever seemed lonely! In fact, he was the most entirely and consistently jubilant, in-love-with-life person you'd want to meet! Which I suppose I'd used as an excuse for never learning anything at all about his family! Where were they? Why weren't they here? Why wasn't he with them? I'd never asked because he seemed so complete on his own. Which, now that I think of it, was exactly the un-parallel of us McFarlanes!

Anyhow, as the parade's last parts moved into place, I was busy formulating questions for him; specifically about the 'terrible deed' referenced in the Reverend's letter and the relationship that had existed between my parents toward the end. And a provocative thought came into my mind. What if there were more letters? What if the letter Bridie's dream had resurrected was one of lots that she'd kept from me? And I thought, if there's one that presents a question, why wouldn't there be another that reveals an answer?

And so, with all the confidence of that thought and Bridie's same day promise that there'd be nothing but the truth between us, I smiled and nodded encouragement at Asael's nervous glance. I gave them the 'thumbs up' when the vehicle ahead began to move and I applauded when the band began marching in the saints. I clapped my hands with excitement when Bridie patted his shoulder and shouted, "Let's go, Asa!" And I began to wave goodbye even before his trembling fingers eased off the clutch. And I lied to Kevin.

"I've forgotten something, Kev! I just need ten minutes, okay? I'll catch you up in the street. Or at the showground. In the display sheds. In the Cakes section. Half an hour; an hour, tops! Okay?"

"Want me to come with you? You need help?"

"No, no, I'm good, thanks. Really! You go! Keep an eye on them. Make sure Asa' doesn't run up anyone's backside!"

He laughed and went. He's a trusting soul, is Kev', and one who'd do anything for you. Even give you space, if that's what you seem to need.

* * *

Bridie never hid the memory box – the Brooks Brothers Sandals box. She just put it out of sight (and thereby out of mind, I suspect). So it was easy to find.

That might have been the first time that I'd gone through it on my own and I remember being struck by how little it actually contained! Some ancient newspaper clippings, a dozen or so loose letters and, at the bottom, a small bundle bound with a perishing rubber band. Virtually everything the Reverend did (or didn't do) was a sore point with me; but he'd been gone for eight years! Surely there were more letters than this! I spent ten minutes or more going through the backs of closets and drawers, coming up empty handed and deciding to give it a better look another day.

A quick survey of the letters in the box told me that the loose ones were all familiar, but the bundled ones were not. Yet the franking on the stamps said 2000 and 2001 – the same era as the fridge letter describing his 'Gebusi people'!

'Okay!' I thought to myself. 'Gotta start somewhere!' And I put the whole small bundle into my backpack, (it being the only place that was safe from Asael's marauding). Then I put the memory box away and headed back into Main Street.

* * *

I'd spent more time than I intended. Either that or the parade had sped to a premature finish because the street was already deserted. There was an ankle-deep litter of paper and streamers and soft drink cans and splattered food bits, all being turned over by stray dogs; but no people at all. I knew they'd be milling around the parking lot in front of the showground, waiting their turns to get in, so I took my time, looking in windows, dawdling in the crosswalk, picturing the people who'd normally be there – imagining my father scowling his way amongst them.

The air was full of pockets, that day, some bearing the warm closeness of coming summer, others the cool leftover sweetness of departing spring. Thunder storms would come in a few weeks and drive the dogs howling in circles. I looked up. And in a corner of the sky, I caught a glimpse of a little red dot, moving way up against the blue – Johnathon Cranna and his Tiger Moth!

I wasn't surprised. They were a familiar sight in the skies over Sugar Town, and weren't an uncommon sight in advertising spreads on the pages of local and state newspapers. Promotional stunts were one of Johnathon's gifts to Sugar Town – his way of keeping us from falling off the map. The best stunt, though, was reserved for us alone – the Harvest Festival lolly drop!

When I spied that little spot of colour at the top of the sky, I knew that, for the moment, he had to be sight-seeing. The drop, after all, couldn't happen until the crowds had had time to file into the grounds and that couldn't happen until the Grand Gourd was in place on its pedestal, at the gate. And anyway, he was way too high to be thinking of the lolly drop. I tried to imagine lying on the wind like a lazy hawk, looking down on Sugar Town. A small stony island in a green sea. With a Ferris wheel and a loop of colourful tents at one end, and a parade piling up like river-wash against the big green pea of The Grand Gourd.

There's a poem about a guy who doesn't know what turning to take next in his life. He looks to the sky and wishes he was a bird, 'to whom such thoughts must seem absurd'. That was me, thinking that Johnathon Cranna, in his Tiger Moth, must be the free-est person in the world! No walls, no restrictions, no ties. Nothing to hold him down or in or out. If I was that free, I imagined, I'd take Bridie up and away from all her cares and responsibilities and Asa' away from his strange visions and me . . . back in time, maybe. Back to a fuller family time.

* * *

As I watched, the Moth dipped and fell, out past the river and out of sight. I shifted my track into the middle of the empty street and walked slower, scanning between buildings for a glimpse of it. To my surprise, though, it reappeared dead ahead of me, standing on the point of one wing as though it had just spun around the corner out of Mill Street. It wavered briefly, steadied itself and, like a hound on a scent, began a run straight up Main Street. So low that it made the wires sing!

Curious to think I was watching the second-to-last flight that the Moth would ever make.

They passed directly over me, waggling their wings and I instinctively raised my hand to wave. Then they tilted lazily away and I zig-zagged on, working to keep them in view. At one point, they pulled back into a heart-stoppingly vertical climb and I drifted to a standstill, waiting for the long, beautiful arc of their fall. I waited and waited while they continued impossibly on, straight up, as though intent on punching through the blue. In the silence at my end of the street, I could hear the tiny buzz of the engine. I could hear when it started to cough and sputter as Johnathon held it there, clawing and straining through the thinning air. Until finally it gave a popping noise and died!

I shaded my eyes and squinted as, for what seemed an age, the Tiger Moth hung, way up in the middle of the sky! Connected to nothing at all! Inside it, in the ringing silence a kilometre up in the air, Johnathon was sitting, staring out into space! What could possibly be going through his mind, I wondered? Disappointment that he couldn't keep going? Satisfaction, that he'd gone that far? Was he smiling? Talking to himself or to the Moth? Eating a sandwich? What? What kind of a man was he?

Whatever kind he was, of course, the moment was only a moment. The Moth began to slide tailwards, then toppled over onto its back. So no long beautiful arc! It fluttered like a leaf, and then spiked into the dizzy, frenzied spin of a wounded goose. Eventually, of course, the engine hiccupped into life and the plane became a sort of Earth-Thing once again, skimming the tops of the cane. I wished there was someone else with me, to share my wonder, but there wasn't. I was the only one there.

Chapter 2 – Sideshow Alley

It was always a muddle near the gate. The floats and the bands and the marchers had all shouldered up, as far into the parking lot as they could get, and then they'd stopped, in whatever chaotic order had resulted. They'd stopped and begun the wait for was the placement of The Grand Gourd.

As a matter of tradition, The Gourd sat on a re-enforced plinth, under a purpose-built awning, just inside the gate, so the show-goers could pay their entry fee and their respects at the same time. If you stood near, you could hear a chorus of truly spiritual comments like:

'Jesus Weeping Christ!' or 'Bloody hell, that's a porker!' or 'Strike me dead! You could feed the multitudes with that bastard!'

Folks took the opportunity to reach up and give it a slap or a stroke as they passed and that's when patches of paper would appear, attached with Blue-tak or a gobbet of gum. No one ever commented. As a rule, you'd rather be caught peeking in your neighbour's window than commenting on their private communion with The Gourd! At least with the window, you could pretend you weren't; that you'd only stopped to tie a shoe!

So anyhow, the crowd oozed in slowly and I was happy to hang back. Especially considering that, somewhere up ahead, the Suttons might be lurking, soaking up congratulations. And it surely was way too soon to be running into them again.

* * *

I was in no hurry anyhow. I knew exactly where Bridie was, which meant I knew exactly where Asael was. And I knew that I still had plenty of time before I had to meet Kevin. So, a bit of solitude being a precious thing, I found a possie on the ground against a fence and started digging through my backpack. I had a water bottle in there. And a packet of Sultanas and my wallet. And down the bottom, my bundle of pilfered letters.

A quick survey of the bundle showed me that I needn't have taken the newspaper clippings. I knew them all by heart. Still, I scanned them again, for certainty's sake.

* * *

'TOWN'S FAREWELL', the title of one read. 'The body of local identity, Mrs Rita MacFarlane . . . laid to rest . . . Several hundred mourners . . . Scant months after the death of her mother. . . service conducted by her husband, well known local identity, Rev' Jacob . . . leaves behind two daughters, aged 15 years and 4 years, and an infant son, aged 16 months . . . sadly missed . . .'

* * *

Not much in the way of detail but, of course, everyone in town would have known the details – where and how she did it, the condition of the body when it was found, etcetera, etcetera. You start reporting that sort of stuff in the local paper and next thing you know you'll be writing about the infant son's eventual guilt complex; or his nightmares, with Rita showing up on her skeleton feet! Nobody wants that sort of stuff in print.

There was another clipping, dated almost exactly a year after that one.

* * *

'FAREWELL TO OUR FATHER', the title read. 'Much loved local minister, Jacob McFarlane . . . farewelled by . . . congregation . . . temporary duties . . . Papua New Guinea. . . . lately bereaved by tragic losses . . . wife and mother-in-law . . . no reservations about leaving his three children in the care of friend and housekeeper, Bessie Crampton. "Such is my faith," he said, "in Sugar Town's commitment to caring for its own."'

Such was his faith. Yada yada. Shame the commitment wasn't his!

* * *

I was actually able, by that time, to catch glimpses of Bridie and Asael. They were in her usual spot, directly opposite The Grand Gourd where, just for the first few hours of each day, she habitually sat, under an umbrella, sporting her worn 'Miss Freedom House Ministries' banner, humbly accepting donations to verify the Reverend's 'faith'. Which, of course, was the annual test of 'Sugar Town's commitment to caring for its own'!

And I guess, if he was right about nothing else, the Rev' was at least right about that because, give them their due, the people of Sugar Town never stinted in their support. Practically everyone gave at least a silver coin at Harvest Festival and lots took the opportunity to ask after 'the work'.

'Still battlin' the heathen hordes, is he, Bri'?'

'Good on ya, girl! The Lord's got hisself fine workers in you McFarlanes!'

Bridie was totally comfortable with it. But I wasn't. I'm sure humility takes a lot more practice than I'll ever be willing to give it.

Still, I did admire her ability to chat happily with givers and non-givers alike, while As' gazed dreamily at her side. I decided to leave her to it a bit longer before presenting myself. Instead, I slipped the rubber band off the thin packet of letters – the ones I was fairly certain I'd never seen before. Still wondering why that was.

* * *

How I wish I could show you children what God has wrought here in these remote valleys and mountains! It is an Eden of green foliage, with life stirring at every conceivable level. And though I'm only beginning to understand their language and culture, I believe the people to be among the most innocent of God's children, seeming to want for none of their daily needs. What they need to eat, they take from the jungle and from the earth and from their own labour.

I know you will be wondering about my health so let me hasten to assure you that I've quickly become accustomed to – even appreciative of – the local diet. Yams, sweet potatoes and taro, though humble fare, are more than sufficient to the daily needs of the Gebusi and so I give thanks to God that they are also sufficient to my needs. And of course (on feast days at any rate) there is pork! (Pigs being here, as elsewhere in PNG, ubiquitous and much valued.)

I don't mind telling you, however, that, between feast days, when the occasional bit of meat does come our way – be it only a bird or a possum or even a few frogs – well, you would laugh to see the excitement in my hut! Only last week, Agnes (more of her in a moment) discovered a rat in the thatch of my ceiling. It was astonishing to see how quickly she was able to capture and dispatch it. Smartly skinned, it was, and into the pot it went! Of course I was reluctant to taste such a creature, but Agnes was insistent and seemed so hurt by my refusal that I finally gave in. Such small gestures are the least I can do to thank her for the dedicated manner in which she tends to my needs. (And anyhow, as I've always said, those of us charged with carrying God's word must be prepared for a hard road.)

* * *

That was the first page, and it left me none the wiser. For the most part, just a follow-up to the fridge letter that had spent years becoming dog-earred, reminding us of the Fly River and the Gebusi! So why hide this one? I read that page twice and the only part that meant nothing at all to me – so therefore, I decided, must be a clue – was the reference to Agnes. Who was Agnes?

By this time, almost the whole of the crowd had passed through the gate and I calculated that Kevin would soon be starting to look for me. Also, there was the inevitability that someone would soon point me out to Bridie, leaving me no choice but to make up a story to explain my sitting against the fence, reading, instead of coming to claim Asael. I was okay with making up stories, but doing it well is always a strain, and I didn't need more strains right then.

My compromise was to scan the second page as I walked. I didn't have to scan far before I met Agnes.

* * *

Agnes, I am very pleased to say, is my first convert – and already my most valuable tool in the further spreading of the Word. She came into my service almost as soon as I arrived, some three months ago. (I've been trying to keep track of the days on paper, but I fear I sometimes forget to mark the day or sometimes, inadvertently, might mark it twice!) The Gebusi, you see, are very fine hosts and go far out of their way to ensure the comfort of their visitors. And yet I long for the day when I'm no longer viewed as a visitor, but rather acknowledged as a significant member of the community!

(Interesting, since it clearly hadn't been enough for him to be a significant member of this community!)

I've taught Agnes rather a good bit of English (mostly in the form of prayers, of course – though she seems remarkably able to adapt that language to everyday use). As well, I've begun teaching her to read! Which is to say that I read to her nightly, from the Bible! My belief is that, if I first instil in her an appreciation of the perfect beauty of its wisdom and promise, then she will soon enough wish to 'see' those things for herself.

On Agnes' behalf, Bridie, I must thank you for the used blouses you sent in your last mission package. I brought all those goods with me and have distributed them amongst the villagers. The clothing issue presents particular challenges, I must say. I have been used to the people around Daru who are well used to the wearing of clothes. But here in the mountains, things are quite different. Here it is not particularly important, for example, for women to cover their top halves.

Obviously I cannot have Agnes coming into my hut in such a state so I've taken to keeping a number of your blouses near the entryway and requiring her to put one on whenever she enters. They are snug on her – (I do hope you're not losing weight! Are you quite well?) – but they do an admirable job. It's odd but, for a young woman with very adept fingers, Agnes has a remarkably difficult time with the buttons and I seem forever to be having to button her up as she will not or cannot do so herself. (If you could send a roll of Velcro and some needles and thread and perhaps some trousers, in your next package, the ministry would be much obliged.) Just to show how Agnes does value the blouses, I must tell you that, when I took her to the stream to baptise her (the name 'Agnes' was my choice, chosen for that much harried saint!) she insisted on wearing one. I was very proud of her.

* * *

I looked up and realised that I'd drifted to a stop. The letter wasn't dated but by my calculation, based on when he went up into the mountains, it must have been at least five or six years old. Bridie would have been eighteen or nineteen when she received it.

* * *

The villagers have designated a small hut for my use (both church and residence, at the moment) and I have been at pains to persuade them to build a small annex onto it for Agnes. The proposal seems to have caused much amusement in the village. There is, they point out, already a women's hut where many women, both married and single, sleep together. I would not interfere in their customs but I believe I am able to see a potential for loss that they perhaps cannot see. My fear is that Agnes is of an age (I believe she may be 16 or 17) at which she may be traded in marriage to another clan. We are only 27 people in this village – though other and larger ones are within a day's march of us – and it's common for young girls to be more or less exchanged in marriage arrangements between such clans. Her older brother has married a girl from a nearby village and Agnes may be marked for marriage to a brother-in-law. All that is very well and fine and customary, I know, but I fear that, were she sent away before I have finished her Christian education, she would be in grave danger of losing her new found faith. I only want her strong enough in her grasp of Christ's teachings that she will be able to hold open the door for Him to enter into the hearts of her fellow villagers. Of course, I cannot have her stay with me in my hut but, with an annex, I might be able to keep her near enough to make it clear to all that she now belongs to God.

Please include her in your prayers.

* * *

Sometimes, the harder you look at a thing, the more complicated it gets. I looked at that letter so hard that the actual words began to blur and the 'between the lines' message took on a crazy clarity. What I saw was that the Reverend was far away in the jungle, shacked up with a buxom sixteen or seventeen year old girl who was only half-way inclined even to cover her boobs!

I looked down the path at Bridie, with her frayed banner across her chest. It was so old she could hardly remember where it came from. And the dress! How many times, in how many ways, had she 'taken it in' or 'let it out' or altered the hem? I'd asked her if we couldn't afford a new one – just one fancy dress! But she'd always smiled in that sad way of hers and quoted me something.

"If thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation." That sort of thing. "For it surely will come!"

So I stood there, thinking about how much she might have sent off or done without, for the sake of the Reverend's convert – 'Agnes' – a girl who, after all, presumably also had a mother. Or at least memories of a mother! And apparently had our father, as well! And our father, who once had a family to care for – who once had a wife – now had 'Agnes'.

Barely noon, it was, and already I was in my third bout of shaking-with-rage kind of anger. Not for the Reverend who, after all, was just a pathetic man with delusions of self-worth! No, I was angry with Bridie! What in the freaking fairy light was wrong with her? How much of herself did she think she had to sacrifice? For anyone, let alone for this man! What could she possibly imagine she'd done to make her deserve this kind of treatment? I knew I couldn't confront her directly, there in public, but I damn sure knew I had to find some way to provoke her to talk to me.

The queue at the gate was down to only a dozen people and, judging by the roar of bells and whistles and laughter from Sideshow Alley, Harvest Festival was off to a whale of a start. I stopped a few metres behind the last couple in the queue and waited, seething.

The people in front of me, as it happened, were Sugar Town's first couple, Lyle and Frieda Hoggitt. Lyle was the mayor and the president of the Lions Club and the natural annual choice for Master of Ceremonies in the formal parts of the Festival.

Frieda, on the other hand, (so everyone said) was the power behind, beside and as often as not, before the throne. Her big jobs at the Harvest Festival included picking the Harvest Queen and keeping Lyle sober. As they passed through the gate, they took their turns patting The Grand Gourd.

"It's things like this," I heard him boast to Frieda, "that make me know! God surely does smile on this town!"

Frieda nodded happily and handed Bridie a twenty-dollar bill. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was far too large an amount for Bridie to be comfortable with and, sure enough, she began pawing amongst the coins in her little pot of money.

"Let me get you some change, Frieda."

"No dear," Frieda smiled. "Change is the last thing we need here in Sugar Town."

Bridie was sensible enough not to argue further and Frieda turned her attention to Asael.

"So!" she yodelled, groping at his cheeks. "How old are you now, young man?"

"Eleven, Mrs Hoggitt."

"Eleven? Never! Is it really eleven years?" She looped her arm through Lyle's and drew him to her side. "You know, Bridie, I was just saying to the mayor this morning what a fine woman your mother was! Isn't that something? Just had her in my mind when I woke up, I did! And the mayor was the same, weren't you dear!"

"Fine woman, was Rita!" he nodded and smiled – a politician, through and through. "Bloody marvellous! Specially considering what she had to put up with!" Frieda's elbow twitched against his ribs and he wagged his head defiantly. "I meant what with 'er ma getting topped, an' all that terrible time! An' the Reverend bein' so . . . so hardline, like. That's all I meant, love! Bloody fine woman, Rita was! An' ye can take that as Gospel!"

Then it was his turn to focus on Asael. "Eleven years ye say, young fella? Well! Couple more years, you'll be voting in the shire elections, mate! Sump'm to think about, innit?"

Frieda, as was her way, had begun to talk again well before he finished.

"Eleven years in her grave, an' we both wake up thinkin' about her! Fancy that, eh! Somethin' very unusual in the air this Harvest Festival, Bridie! Very unusual indeed!"

Then she turned her big sombre face back to Asael.

"Eleven's time to start being a man, young Asael! Time to move out from under your sister's skirts, eh? Find some independence! Make your ma proud o' ye! She's lookin' down on ye from On High, ye know!"

"I know," he answered sombrely. "She says I shouldn't be frightened. Isn't that right, Ruthie?" He looked past them at me and the effort of giving him a nod nearly broke my neck. They all looked at me as if to say, 'What tree did you drop out of?' Then Frieda said to Asael, "Well that's good advice. Here!"

She held out her free hand, palm up, in front of Lyle who looked at it, recognised the signal and pulled out his wallet. Frieda scanned the contents and selected a ten-dollar note, which she held out to Asael.

"Now you take this note and get off into the grounds, mister! Have yourself a ride and a dagwood dog on the mayor!"

Bridie tried to protest but Frieda tucked the note into Asael's shirt pocket and patted it firmly, knocking Asael back a step.

"No! Not another word! This town . . . all over the shire . . . we can't . . . we can't ever re-pay your family, Bridie. Nothin' but tokens, that's all we got. This is jus' one o' them. Now you go on, Asael McFarlane, an' do as I tell ye!"

He stood, slack-jawed, staring past her at me. No way he would go into that crowd on his own.

"Right, sure!" Frieda decided. "Take yer sister! Take Ruthie! Go on down Sideshow Alley an' spend that money on just . . . whatever! Off you go, the pair o' youse!"

She was taking charge of us but, for once, the mayor had got in ahead of her. He had got his arm around my shoulders and was studying me sideways.

"By Gee you're a tall one, aren't ye girl! Gonna be a beauty, like yer big sister, when you grow up?"

I gave him the most acid smile I could manufacture. Lyle Hoggitt had been mayor of Sugar Town for as long as I could remember – three terms at least. But I was angry enough to tackle even him. Or, even sneakier, to use him.

"I'll do my best, Mr Hoggitt," I simpered. "Wow! Mr Sutton's grown us a pretty amazing Grand Gourd, hasn't he?"

"Tell you a secret about that, girl! Some folks reckon a Gand Gourd is a sign from the year passed! But you know what your old mayor reckons? They're a sign from the future! Yep! Sign o' great things to come! Say, did you lot hear about the meteor last night? Right over us, they say! Right over top of us! Night before Harvest Festival! How 'bout that, eh? 'Nother sign! Tell you what, kids! Never forget how lucky you are to live in Sugar Town!"

"Wow, Mr Hoggitt! I never thought of it like that!"

I stepped across to The Gourd and reached up to stroke it. They were all four of them watching me, like they could sense that something more was coming. Another meteor, maybe.

"Great things to come!" I said with exaggerated pleasure and, as casually as you please, I began moving notes aside, clearing a space, claiming bits of Blu-Tack. Then I unfolded the Agnes letter and stuck it onto the Gourd.

I put my fists on my hips and studied it for a long moment, defying any one of them to come across and read it over my shoulder. I couldn't tell if Bridie recognised it but she certainly looked suddenly as though she'd eaten a bad egg. Asa' looked back and forth between her and me; and the Hoggitts, sensing they were in the middle of a domestic something-or-other, shuffled uncomfortably. I didn't care. What I knew was that Bridie wouldn't be able to resist checking it out – even if she waited until after we'd moved off. And when she saw what it was, she'd have to talk to me.

I stepped back across the driveway to the mayor, whose head came up, his eyes opening wide. Maybe he'd heard about me punching Dale Sutton and thought I was going to do the same to him. He shifted nervously on his feet, even though I kept my most innocent smile in place.

"You know, Mayor Hoggitt, it's funny you and Mrs Hoggitt should wake up thinking of Rita – our mum! Because we did too, didn't we Bri'? In fact, we got to looking through old stuff . . . and we came across a funny old letter! One the Reverend wrote to Rita, years and years ago. One I'd never seen before if you can imagine!"

He glanced in puzzlement at the letter on The Gourd. "Did you now? Well there's a bit of family history then, eh? Important stuff, family history! Gotta have memories!"

"Yeah well the thing is that we don't, you see! I mean that letter mentioned something that happened in Sugar Town a long, long time ago – and we didn't know what it was! A 'terrible deed', he called it. And he sounded so angry because, he said, everyone in town seemed to know about it but wouldn't talk about it! And it seemed like . . . like it was something that needed to be talked about, you know? Our problem – mine and Bridie's and Asa's – is that he didn't say exactly what the terrible deed was! And Bridie – well you know she has an amnesiac block you could hide a hippo' behind! And I was just little, so I wouldn't remember. And Asa wasn't even born yet! So it really got us curious, you know? What could have happened in quiet little Sugar Town to get the Reverend so upset? And I said to Bridie, we should ask someone who was here! Someone like Mayor Hoggitt! He'd tell us!"

His face, and Frieda's and Bridie's, turned the colour of porcelain, and I heard a little groan escape from Bridie. She dropped into her chair and covered her face with her hands while I fluttered my eyes at the mayor and smiled expectantly.

He started up like an old lawnmower. "Harumph harrumph! What? Well! Cough-cough! Must have been Gracie, you know? The murder? Terrible! Yes! Some blow-in off the highway! Awful! Brutal stuff! Keep it from the kiddies, that's all! No big secret there!"

It was a good try on his part, but not good enough to win a balloon.

"No no! It was before that! The letter specifically says Gramma Gracie was 'tearing about town'! Those were the words weren't they, Bri'? 'Tearing about town'? Very upset about . . . whatever it was."

"Ah! Well! Couldn't say then." He waved his hands dismissively and began to bluster. "Something confidential. Ministerial. Part of the Reverend's work, eh? Not for us to know."

He made as though to move away then but I took hold of his arm. The time for letting him off the hook, I felt, had not yet arrived.

"No no, Mayor Hoggitt! He specifically said, didn't he Bri'? Everyone in town knew about it! And he wanted them to talk about it but they wouldn't! Surely if everyone knew about it, you, the Mayor, must have known best of all!"

He blinked, opened and closed his mouth, pulled his arm away and sputtered into stillness. He was like a robot on overload. I just kept looking at him, waiting, smiling. It was Frieda who finally cut him loose.

"We'll think on it, Ruthie – the Mayor and me! Maybe between the two of us, some afternoon over a nice cup of tea, we'll be able to remember something. Just leave it with us. Meantime you get on and enjoy yourself, all rightie? And remember, no good comes of fretting over things past, there's a dear."

She was smooth, icy. And treating me like I was stupid. But that was alright. If you're old enough to recognise the game, you're old enough to play it. That was my feeling.

"Okay! Thanks! I just thought I'd ask, you know? I have some other thoughts on where to look but . . . well, there's no place better to start than at the top, right?" I was aiming for a nice balance between seeming almost satisfied but not at all stupid.

"C'mon, As'. Let's go spend the mayor's ten dollars, shall we?" And I took the hand of my timid little brother, who shook his head in confusion but was content to do as he was told. Unlike me, who'd had a gutful of doing what I was told.

"Frieda, . . . !" I heard Bridie begin apologetically and I looked back to see the Lady Mayoress sympathetically patting my sister's hand. "Kids . . ." I heard her say, and something about growing pains. She was holding onto the mayor who had his eye firmly fixed on the letter I'd left on The Gourd. I stopped and watched, blatantly, defying him to go read it. Frieda, though, was far too savvy to allow that. She towed him away, heading for a decidedly distant part of Sideshow Alley.

* * *

I have to say, I was quite pleased with myself about that letter. It was like I'd put the cheese on the table while the mice were watching. All that was left to do was to pretend to turn my back.

I took Asa' into the edge of the crowd then doubled back behind the tents. His eyes were so bugged that I thought his glasses would pop off.

"What're we doin', Ruthie? Why're we . . . ?"

"Why're we what? Why're you calling me Ruthie? What did I tell you to call me?"

"Umm! Perplexia! You said to call you Perplexia!"

"All right then!"

"So what are we doin', Perplexia? Why're you mad? What did you stick on The Grand Gourd? Why's Bridie so upset? Did the parade frighten her? What were you tellin' Mr Hoggitt about? What happened?"

I turned on him then which, not immediately, but a little later, I became sorry for.

"Shut up!" I barked. "Shut up a minute and listen!"

Tears came welling up in his eyes but I knew I couldn't actually tell him my plan. His loyalty to Bridie would have exploded his head.

"No, don't start blubbing on me, Asael! It's a . . . it's a joke, see? A joke I'm trying out. I'll tell you about it later. Right now, I just want to see if Bridie takes the bait . . . so we can all have a good laugh later. Okay?"

I don't know. Maybe I didn't give him enough credit. But it was easiest not to include him; easiest just to have him go along, like a little pebble, rolling down a hill. So we lurked like thieves at the edge of the pavilions, peeking around tent corners, waiting to see what Bridie would do about that Agnes letter.

She was a picture of distraction, puddling away at her little pot of coins. The money did, apparently, go into a bank account that the Reverend had access to. I didn't know if he actually used it but I knew that Bridie loved to picture him, beatifically trekking along shaded jungle pathways with his little rucksack full of life's necessities – all courtesy of the people of Sugar Town. And in her fantasy, grateful black faces would surround him as he dispensed gifts.

'From my home in Australia,' he'd say to them. 'Collected by my daughter, who does good work for the Lord. In quietness and confidence is her strength.' And the people would bare their brilliant teeth and beg a blessing for her.

I knew she'd be mortified by my having cornered the mayor. But I reckoned that, for the most part, truth was on my side. It was true, for instance, that it was the Hoggitts, not me, who'd brought up the topic of Rita. And of Gramma Gracie. And it was true that we'd found the letter that morning. And that we had no memories of a 'terrible deed'. And while it was true that no one spoke of lots of things from those times – things like Gramma Gracie's murder and Rita's suicide and even the Reverend's leaving for New Guinea – it was also true that none of them were the thing mentioned in the letter. The thing that once meant so much to my parents. And the truest thing of all – and the fairest, I thought – was that what the town knew, we also should know.

Even from a distance, I could see Bridie's glance settling for longer and longer periods on The Gourd and the big flag of the Agnes letter. She'd always hated the whole 'unholy symbolism' of The Gourd. What kind of thing, after all, would people seriously ask of a vegetable? All she had to do to find out was to cross that narrow road! Which I'm sure she would have done if it hadn't been for a last minute arrival.

It was Asael's sudden straightening up and taking an interest that made me look beyond, to the parking lot. Amalthea Byerson! Amalthea the 'outsider'! Outsiders never become 'insiders' in Sugar Town, but usually a few months of residency at least teaches us how to 'read' them. Not so with Amalthea! She was about the same age as Bridie but everything else about her was well off the local scale of familiarity. Her long, chemical-carrot coloured hair; her funky Saint Vinnie's dress sense; her blatantly sexy, round richness; and most challenging of all, her casual way of spouting peculiar opinions that made people suspect she might be taking the piss.

Add to all that, her lack of history. Where had she come from? Why was she here? What was with her living out on the fringes, in that run-down rental of Alf Caletti's? And the goats! (One of which, Garlic, was blind and therefore, according to common wisdom, completely useless!) What was with them?

In short, she fitted in the way you might expect a phoenix to fit into a pigeon coop; which is to say that she was allowed to be there amongst us, but the pigeons were eternally wary of, and completely mystified by her.

Despite all that, though, in my book Amalthea had two indisputable things going for her. One was her refusal to make concessions . . . to anyone. She just was! Like it or lump it. And the other was that Kevin Truck had hired her to work behind the counter of The Harmony Bakery. I reckoned that, if she was good enough for Kevin, she was good enough for me! I could make a cheap comment here about the two things Asa' liked best about Amalthea, but I know that wouldn't be fair to either of them. Suffice to say that, as happened to many of Sugar Town's males, coming within shouting distance of Amalthea caused Asa's hormonal sluice gates to open wide and his power of speech to desert him.

* * *

From our hiding place, he and I watched her emerge from between the parked vehicles, flanked as always by Garlic and Rosemary. All three of them were wearing sunglasses. (Though why Garlic needed them, I don't know. Maybe he was incognito!) And the goats, as always, were wearing banners draped over their backs. The words on one said: THE FORCE IS GATHERING. The words on the other said: LET IT GATHER IN YOU. What 'the force' might be or why anyone would want it gathering in them or how you could stop it from gathering, were more Amalthea-type mysteries that no one had yet managed to solve.

It's stupid, I know, but my take on it was that the whole 'force' thing might have had more to do with the goats' outlook than with Amalthea's. They had that sort of spooky independence about them! The first time I met her I asked if they made good pets. Straight away Garlic, the blind one – the 'The Force is Gathering' one – nudged Amalthea's hand, waggled its ears and bleated unhappily. And Amalthea began to scold it.

"You," she said to it, "are very rude, Garlic! How can you be like that when Ruth has tried so hard to be pleasant and inquiring?" And to me she said, "You'll have to ignore him, Ruth. Garlic doesn't believe he's a pet. In fact Garlic doesn't believe in much of anything – or at least in anything lasting." (Which of course straight away gave me a bit of fellow-feeling for that goat!) "He's right, of course, in some ways. But that's no excuse for bad manners, is it!" This last, she'd spoken slowly and from two inches in front of its nose, as though forcing the message through its nasal passages.

Rosemary, for the little time I knew her, was very different from Garlic – though maybe dying that first time altered his personality. When I knew them, though, Rosemary was a socialite and Garlic was a curmudgeon. Rosemary was (fatefully, in the end) trusting and Garlic was everlastingly cynical. It even showed in their signs. Garlic's THE FORCE IS GATHERING always seemed ominous to me – a warning. While Rosemary's LET IT GATHER IN YOU was like an offering – an invitation. Up to that Harvest Festival weekend, I'd never seen either without their signs but, after the first time he died, Garlic rejected his; I suppose maybe he'd met 'the Force' and been unimpressed. And Rosemary's sign, of course, simply made no sense without Garlic's!

* * *

Speaking of 'forces' though, watching Amalthea enter a conversation with Bridie, as she did at the gate, was like watching a wild brumby approach a horse that was born broken; one loose and animated, the other stiff and reserved. Amalthea virtually danced into the conversation while Bridie locked herself in place, her arms folded across her chest. Bridie focused solely on Amalthea throughout but Amalthea was like a force of nature, sucking in an entire surrounding – the money table, the Grand Gourd, the music from Sideshow Alley . . . everything.

I fancied that I could follow Bridie's and Amalthea's conversation even without being close enough to hear it. First, Amalthea would compliment Bridie on her role in the parade.

"You were lovely in the parade! You and Asael! The motorbike was perfect! And wasn't it all so fast? We've never been to a parade quite as thrilling and . . . fast as that, have we kids!" I saw her toss the question to Rosemary and Garlic, though neither goat responded, they being busy exchanging muzzle messages. A moment later, Bridie unfolded her arms and looked down, brushing at her dress self-consciously, which meant Amalthea had just offered one of those womanly 'love-your-dress' compliments and Bridie'd gotten embarrassed.

Then Amalthea waved a hand in the direction of The Gourd, maybe commenting on its size or on the number of notes stuck to it, and Bridie became dismissive. She shook her head, frowned, muttered and waved the comment away.

That was as far as the predictable bit went because then Amalthea did something totally unexpected. She crossed to The Gourd, hoisted her skirt above her knees, her knees above the edge of the plinth . . . and climbed up!

I was so gob-smacked that I stepped out into the open, just to be sure I was seeing right! And Bridie, forced to witness it up close, raised her hands to cover her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.

Behind me, Asael whispered, "Holy Cow!"

If Amalthea'd shinnied up a flag pole and waved her knickers from the top, she couldn't have startled us more! Nobody was allowed to climb on that plinth! Especially after people had started placing their notes! But there she was, right up there, bracing herself against our Gourd!

I jumped back out of sight but had to peek again straight away. She'd begun studying it, for all the world as though she was thinking of having a copy made! She pressed her weight against the handle-sized stem at the top! She knock-knocked on the shell and put her ear against it, as though the thousands of seeds inside might whisper her a 'Who's there?' She draped herself across the breadth of it, spreading her arms wide, pressing her cheek and breasts against it in a gargantuan hug!

I had to draw back to catch my breath – to look around and see if anyone else was watching! For all I knew, there might be a stampede of outraged citizens! She might be tarred and feathered and dumped on the outskirts of town! Thankfully, though, Sideshow Alley appeared to have temporarily swallowed the entire town. I peeped again and she was still sprawled over it, her hands now tracing slow, lazy, feather-light paths over its hilly, mounded parts and down into its deep valleys. Even from a distance, her hands were princess-pale against the pumpkin's green skin.

"Holy Cow!" Asael repeated and I folded my hands, pleading silently for her to stop before anyone else saw her. Much as I admired her courage, it was horrible to watch – like watching someone slowly lift a drink to their lips and they don't know but you do know and can't tell them that it's poison! But horrible as that was, it became even more horrible when I realised that she had, as I'd wished, stopped stroking. And instead, started to read! Casually, carelessly, one by one, she was flicking the notes up, scanning them and letting them fall back! Until, inevitably, she came to the Agnes letter.

Now, I want to be clear about this; Bridie knew that was our letter. It was big, it was obvious and I'd made absolutely certain she saw me put it there. She had to know that it was there for her. But she said nothing to Amalthea! Instead, she looked away, down at her hands, watching them fumble hopelessly with one another!

I mean, I suppose it wasn't like it mattered hugely if Amalthea Byerson read the Agnes letter. It wasn't like she really knew anything about us! But how hard would it have been for Bridie to simply take it back? To say, 'They're all private, actually! Especially this one!'? For reasons that confused even me, I was almost as embarrassed by her as I was by Amalthea.

* * *

Amalthea read the full letter – both pages. She parked herself on her bum on The Gourd, trawled through it line by line and, when she finished, she simply leaned over and slapped it back into its place. Several quiet moments followed, long enough to make me wonder if the Reverend's blatant hypocrisy had somehow paralyzed her. But then she shook herself, made a couple of expansive, see-how-deeply-I'm-breathing gestures and, with all the carelessness in the world, retrieved a folded paper from between her breasts and bubble-gummed it into a cleft next to my letter. Side by side with it, like an answer! And she jumped down; apparently having achieved all she could on that particular pumpkineering expedition.

Both goats stepped toward her – hoping for news of the world, maybe. But she flitted past them, suddenly keen again to talk to Bridie, gesturing down Sideshow Alley. Just casual courtesies, I hoped, knowing Bridie would die on the spot if she had to acknowledge that letter. But in the two or three minutes of those courtesies – while Amalthea's attention was diverted – Garlic reared up in strangely man-like fashion, placed his front hooves on the Gourd's plinth where she'd just been and, though blind, began moving his nose from note to note.

"Is it smelling them?" Asael hissed at me and, "How would I know what it's doing?" I hissed back.

But when Garlic dropped back onto all fours a minute later, I knew exactly what he'd been doing. The Agnes letter was gone. I could hardly believe my eyes! I was half inclined to run out and grab the thing by the throat! To see if I couldn't squeeze the paper back out of it! But I couldn't, of course! I'd put it out there and it had met its fate! Amalthea, still unaware, laughed a good-bye to Bridie and turned away, down the sawdust path toward Sideshow Alley. Rosemary nudged the thoughtfully chewing Garlic into motion and my letter began turning into a motion of a different sort.

I was fairly stuttering with outrage. My impulse was to march back to the table and have a piece of Bridie! Why hadn't she taken the letter from Amalthea and hung onto it? But if I did that, I'd be letting on that I'd been hiding and watching – that I'd set a trap for her! That I was a sneak and a plotter! So what was I to do? And even worse, without the actual words to wave under her nose, how would I force her to talk to me about whatever woes the Reverend had inflicted on Rita?

Amalthea, Rosemary and Garlic ambled away but both Bridie and I were frozen to our spots; to our moments. I watched her and she stood like a statue, watching her feet – considering her options, I supposed. And then, to my great relief, she strode across to The Grand Gourd and touched the spot where the letter had been. She looked up and down the path, under and all around the plinth. Had it blown off! Of course not; there was no wind! And I could tell that at least she knew! Something important had gotten away on her . . . again!

I'd almost decided to move away myself before recognising the indecision that had come over her. She was folding and unfolding her arms, looking to the sky and shuffling her feet. Until – and I can only imagine the level of guilt she had to overcome – she plucked Amalthea's note off the Gourd! She slipped it inside her dress, under a bra strap, and scuttled back to her table where she began packing up her donations. Feigning an innocence she hadn't felt in all the years I'd known her.

"Well well well!" I muttered in admiration. "It's a new day for sure, Asa'! I bet you never thought you'd see anything like that, eh?"

I said the words to him but he didn't hear them. He'd vanished.

* * *

"Try yer luck, ladies an' gents! Everyone's a winner, no one's a loser!"

"Fifty bucks fer a two dollar investment, folks! If yer banker was yer brother, he still wouldn' give ye odds like these!"

"Bust a balloon . . . throw . . . shoot . . . see . . . reach . . . try, try, try!"

Asael had gone wandering, alone, amongst the crowds at Harvest Festival! If anything could conceivably have been less likely than Bridie stealing a note off The Grand Gourd, it was Asael going off on his own into Sideshow Alley! What, I wondered, had come over him?

Not that he was in any danger. It was just Sugar Town, after all, and no one was ever going to bother him! On the other hand, the crowds were loud and intense and they could be a little crazy around the beer tents and the peep shows. And if he'd already had a seizure that day . . . did that make him more susceptible? Or less?

I knew that, as a responsible sister, I should start tracking him down straight away. But, shamefully, I didn't. What I did was, I took it as an opportunity to go back to Bridie. She'd opened Amalthea's note by then and spread it on the table in front of her. So deep in thought was she, that I was right behind her, looking over her shoulder, before she realised I was there.

"Ruthie! My God, you startled me! What's wrong? Where's Asael?" The note disappeared under the table.

"He's okay. I just wondered if I left my wallet!" I slipped off my backpack and made a quick show of rummaging. "Oh no! Silly me! Here it is! Okay! See you later."

Secrets would be a lot more fun if you could count on them to make sense. All Amalthea's note said was: 'We follow. Now we follow.' That's what I'd been doing all day! Following clues, following impulses, following the parade and now, following Asael – hoping that at least one thing in my day would turn out to be uncomplicated.

* * *

When I finally did track him down, he was in the most unlikely of places, run aground in the midst of a flowing crowd, in front of the open mouthed plastic clown heads; the ones that all turn in unison, left, right, left, and you pop ping-pong balls into their mouths. Once, when he was younger, their stunned watchfulness had prompted him ask Bridie what they were looking for. She'd told him they were watching out for the King of Glory. As though He might momentarily appear from either direction, carrying a ball of cotton candy and a lightning bolt! No wonder the kid was bent!

The clowns, not surprisingly, were still looking. But Asa', when I first spied him, had his eyes closed, and something about his lonely isolation in that river of people nudged my curiosity enough to push me off the path into a canvas alcove. He had his hands stuck deep in his pockets which, knowing his hypochondria, made me guess he'd drifted into some kind of self-inspection; maybe checking to see if the motorbike experience had infringed on his testicular well being! A few little pushes, this way and that. In his mind, he'd be seeing diagrams of strings and connectors; stuff from his books.

That was my first thought. My second was that maybe he was playing a game with me – waiting for me to find him; because suddenly his eyes popped open and he began searching the faces that surged around him; head swivelling like those of the plastic clowns. But I wasn't there, of course, and he soon dropped his eyes. Frieda Hoggitt's ten dollar note came out of his pocket and drew an approving nod from him, but almost immediately it disappeared and he fell still again. Crap, I thought! He was like a little defective computer that kept freezing and I was, like, the nominated re-booter. I had to rescue him. Again.

I sized up the rolling wave of people, spying out a way through and when the opening came – I didn't take it. I didn't take it because, in my last glance, I saw that a sly, silly grin had plastered itself across his face. I looked where he was looking and there, surfing happily along in the crowd, were Amalthea, Rosemary and Garlic.

I couldn't believe it! Had he seriously risked his sanity and my anger just to 'accidentally' bump into Amalthea Byerson on Sideshow Alley? With his pathetic little ten dollar note? But then, watching her come along; she was like a mermaid embedded in a school of mackeral. That electric buzz of red hair, the black eyes, the olive skin, the skipping rhythm, the funky clothes; boobs like a pair of happy teddy bears on a trampoline. And woven through the surrounding riot of noise, the throatiness of her laughter!

And I could see! She was totally mesmerising . . . even to me! Boys like Asael – boys of any age, for that matter – would be like butter on hot corn when she was around! At least half the males in town, I suspected, would have played the goat for a chance to join Rosemary and Garlic at Amalthea's side.

Interestingly, though, there was another contingent in our conservative little town that saw her in a totally different light. Too much, they said. Too sexy for her own good! Too outspoken! Too outrageous! Too much of an outsider! Too single. I'd seen older women in particular tapping their noses when she walked by. I'd heard their whispers. Men stopped at Amalthea Byerson's house, they said!

Why would they do that?

Don't be naive! What for, if not for . . . ?

Do you know anyone who's been there?

Well, no one personally, dear, but I did hear . . . !

But the thing was that Amalthea floated above all that! Before meeting her, I'd actually begun to believe there must be a submissive gene that automatically kicked in at some early point in a girl's life. Virtually every female I knew had it to some degree. Bridie had it in spades! I'd been dreading it – dreading what my gender would make me become. But even my distant view of Amalthea's three defiant months in town had pushed my horizons well out into forbidden territory.

One of the lesser of the recent arguments I'd had with Bridie had developed from a question I asked about Amalthea's reputation. I'd raised it as a matter of genuine curiosity, hoping for the benefit of Bridie's 'grown–up' wisdom. Unaware at the time that, not only was Bridie not really a grown up; as far as normal people went, she didn't have much wisdom!

"Judge not, lest ye be judged, Ruthie."

It had escalated from there. First because there's a huge difference between judging, which I wasn't doing, and inquiring, which I was! And second because, in those days, I increasingly felt the need to draw something personal – maybe even something angry – out of Bridie, instead of those ever-lasting Biblical quotes.

"Are you defending her, Bri'? What about the people who say she's a wh...?"

"Ruth!" she'd barked, glancing meaningfully at Asael. "Don't you dare! People say all kinds of silly things. And the silliest people of all just repeat what they hear. You're not silly, so don't repeat. The fact is that we don't know Amalthea. We don't know her background. We don't know why she's like she is. And even if we did, we wouldn't be making judgements. We wouldn't like people talking about us would we? That's just ignorant! And unkind! So we'll do unto her as we'd like to have done unto us. Okay?"

"But we do know stuff about her!" I'd insisted. "The goats! And those signs she puts on them! And men who she . . . !"

"Yes, yes, alright! We know a few little things. But we don't know what they mean, do we? What they mean to her! And until and unless we do, we should mind our business."

"But Bri'! She told Dorrie Gunster that she believes in ghosts! She thinks she's reincarnated! I mean . . . what's that about?"

"I believe in goats too!"

That was Asael, blundering stupidly into the discussion. No one was going to challenge Amalthea's reputation, even in a constructive way, while he was around.

"Not 'goats', stupid! Ghosts!"

"Oh! Well I believe in them too! And anyhow, maybe she is re-in-tarnated for all you know! Like . . . what is it, anyhow?"

I'd thought I was on the verge of having a win, at least in terms of getting Bridie to actually argue. But Asael had provided her with a distraction, which she jumped at.

"It means coming back to Earth after you die; only you come back as someone else or an animal. But we know it's a silly idea, don't we? Short and sorrowful is our life. And there is no remedy when a man cometh to his end. That's the Book of Wisdom."

It's hard to argue with the Book of Wisdom; especially when its dismal outlook kind of suits a very frustrating person who you live with.

"Yeah, well" I'd said, determined to make one last thrust. "If you want my opinion, she's the most . . . !"

"Enough! Let the poor girl alone! Unless you're going to talk to her and ask her about herself . . . are you going to do that? No? Well then, just let her be! Accept and trust that she has reasons for her . . . eccentricities. The tree is known by its fruit!"

* * *

I had no ideas about investigating anyone's 'fruit', but it was clear that that discussion was over. She never did clue in to the fact that I really just wanted to understand! And I wanted her to understand that there was a person amongst us who didn't give a cat's meow for what people thought. And maybe that could actually be a good thing!

* * *

Anyhow, if a person stands on Sideshow Alley for half an hour, everyone in town passes in front of them and that, I grudgingly had to admit, was probably why Asael was there. Some moon gravity thing had yanked him out of his established orbit around me and Bridie and that moon gravity thing was Amalthea Byerson.

No sooner had she drifted into view than he began shuffling about like a legless line-dancer. His hands flicked around his collar, his hair and an itchy spot on his cheek; fluttered together and apart, dodged in and out of his pockets and, as he edged into her path, attempted a careless wave

"M-m-m-m Byerson!" I could see his lips moving. "M-M-Amalthea!" He was like a plastic bag on the verge of disintegrating and I strained to hear, unwilling to miss a single beat of it.

I doubt that he had any more idea than I did on what to expect from her but, to both our amazements, she walked right up and stopped in front of him! I thought of her eyes and I thought, 'Okay! This is going to kill him now!' No one looked at anyone quite as directly as Amalthea looked at people, but eyeball to eyeball stuff was like the smallest worm in Asael's compost heap of abilities. I admit I crossed my fingers for him about then. I mean, it would have been tragically perfectly Asa' to get this far with whatever twisted little plan he had, and then do something gross at the last minute – like throw up on one of the goats!

"Asael!" she smiled in that warm, I-was-hoping-I'd-run-into-you sort of way that some women are so good at faking. And she started to chat with him! Like he was genuinely an old friend! And it didn't kill him! I was leaning so far into the alley, I could have reached around and popped a ping-pong ball into one of the clowns' mouths! With a bit of a toss, I might even have gotten one into Asa's!

"You and your sister in the parade!" Amalthea cried. "Lovely! We were just talking to her at the gate!"

She indicated Rosemary and Garlic, behind her. They looked up at Asa', kind of inscrutably from behind their sunglasses, and I noticed that Garlic was no longer chewing. Which meant that, unless the words had left a bitter taste in his mouth and he'd spit them out, my Agnes letter was well and truly in the fertiliser canal.

"A lovely chat, we had!" Amalthea was carrying on, very close to Asa's face as the crowd broke around them. "About happiness and being special. And what about you, Asael? How are you? Pleased with your day so far?"

And (someone could have dropped a ping-pong ball into my mouth!) she leaned into him, placing her cheek next to his! She was so close, I fancied he'd feel the air compressing between her chest and his! There was a whack and a clang from the Strongman's Hammer and, for one wild instant I thought maybe Asa's heart had exploded! Maybe he'd had a subclavian artery malfunction, which was one of the many mysterious things he liked to fantasize about.

Then . . . she stepped back and turned away. The whole stop-chat-mock hug having taken only half a minute. Poor Asael! His face went through this routine like he'd been drowning but then someone had pulled him out of the sea and saved him but then they'd changed their minds and thrown him back.

'And there's your lesson, little brother!' I thought. 'You're eleven years old! And reality is a kicker!'

As I said, they and the goats were standing in the centre of the sawdust-paved alley. In any other universe, they would have been nudged and shouldered out of the way but the crowd on that day broke politely around them, like a shoal of fish, gliding around a small island. So when she turned away from Asa', she was actually turning to face an on-coming current of people. You really had to see her to believe her – how she smiled and spoke and reached to touch people. Like she was counting them . . . or claiming them. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd opened her arms and tried to gather them in – like a merry little gill-netter.

The gossipers and the biddies, I knew, would feed on this show for weeks and I found myself watching for them in the crowd. They were there all right, screwing up their faces, pointing at her back and her bum and the rolling surf of her red hair and her blatant refusal to move with the masses. But there were just as many – men and women – whose stares were as openly awed as Asa's! I reckoned that, for every two who'd've been horrified to see her climb on The Grand Gourd, there'd've been at least one who might've trotted over to offer a leg up!

If I'd had any lingering doubts about which side of the Amalthea fence to fall on, (which I didn't) I'd've lost them then. She was invincible! She was like our river, wearing patiently away at the rocks and the banks. If a girl like her could cut through Sugar Tonian rigor mortis, anything was possible! I wonder now if that's a thing Asael had sensed about her; like he had an inkling that he and I the whole town, in our separate ways, needed her.

Meantime, though, Asael was way out on a limb there, with God knows what plan disintegrating in his mind. Because whatever things stirred Amalthea to be the person she was, a creepy little eleven-year-old obsessive was never going to be one of them! Still and all, a boy has to learn doesn't he?

Rosemary and Garlic had been passive observers through all this. Garlic, being blind, was a picture of concentration – decoding sounds, I supposed. But Rosemary, I suddenly realised, had found me and was staring at me over the tops of her glasses. If she'd been a person, I expect she'd have nudged someone and pointed me out. I gave her my best what's-your-problem glare but – take my word – you can't intimidate a goat. Especially one that knows about 'the Force'.

* * *

I remember now, Asa' asking me once about those signs – 'The Force is Gathering' and 'Let it Gather in You'. What were they for, he wanted to know. So I made up a story about three kinds of people in the world.

"There's those who wonder if 'The Force' is too busy to gather, see? Like it's sitting down to tea somewhere, unsure if the time is right for gathering? So for them, it's just information. And there's those who worry that something else, something other than the 'The Force', is gathering. You see? So for them, it's kind of reassurance. And then there's those who've lulled themselves into thinking that 'The Force' is actually dispersing! For them, it's a warning. Get it? And we all have to decide which type of person we are."

"And what type are we, Ruthie?"

"We? You mean you an' me an' Bridie? We're one of each, of course! But I'm not telling you any more. The whole point of the exercise is to work it out for yourself."

To my knowledge, no one ever did take the trouble to ask what the signs were meant to tell us! Which probably doesn't matter any more, since they're both gone.

* * *

Anyhow, I suddenly realised that Amalthea had turned her attention back to Asael and that Rosemary had started whispering something to Garlic. I didn't want to get caught hiding in my alcove, so I slipped into the passing crowd and glided casually over to them.

"Ruth!" Amalthea smiled, taking my hands in her own warm dry ones. "Asael was just saying you saw me climb on The Gourd! You were hiding and watching and you caught me being naughty!"

I was so embarrassed; I wished I'd drifted on past and left him to shrivel.

"We weren't hiding!" I poked Asael hard and sneered at him. "Why would you say that? It was a joke, I told you! We were playing a joke on Bridie, that's all!"

"Oh yeah, that's what he said!" she lied, making the obvious effort to save his butt. "That's what you said, isn't it Asael? Playing a joke! Me too, I guess; only mine was officially out of line. Sorry if I offended."

I did my best to seem like someone who didn't know how to be offended.

"Doesn't worry me! Climb on it all you like!"

Asael stuttered into his story, then, of being put on The Gourd by the Suttons and I took a moment to wonder if she'd connected the Agnes letter to us. And to hate her a little bit for letting a certain goat gobble it up! Even if the Force was gathering in him, eating my stuff was entirely not cool! I didn't get a chance to consolidate that feeling though because of her challenge to Asael.

"So, did you feel anything?"

"Huh?"

"When you were sitting on the Gourd! Did you feel anything?"

"I saw something!"

She clapped her hands excitedly. "Did you? A vision?"

"Uh-huh!"

I could see where this was going and I wasn't about to stand in the middle of the passing hoards while Asael resurrected twisted visions of our dead mum.

"He sees stuff all the time," I scoffed. "He takes medication. It's no big deal."

She kind of lurched away a step, then bowled an argument at me.

"No big deal? Oh, Ruthie, I don't know! Coming into contact with special things like the Grand Gourd . . . can do amazing things to a person!"

"It's just a pumpkin, Amalthea. A big vegetable! And he does . . ." (I wanted to be sure she'd taken this in), " . . . take medication!"

She seemed intent on ignoring the point.

"It's 'just a pumpkin' to you and me, sure! But it's totally awesome to practically everyone else, isn't it? And you can see why! I mean, things that absolutely refuse to remain ordinary can't help but astonish, can they? I tell you what! If some people . . . some lucky people . . . get glimpses into the recesses," she smiled on Asael, "more power to them, I say!"

I thought of filling her in on Kevin's 'dung heap of the Gods' theory' but it didn't seem like a suitable thought to connect with 'glimpses into the recesses'. So I just turned into a bobble-head. Not Asa' though.

"Maybe the Force has gathered in the Grand Gourd! Like it says on the sign! And spilled over!"

Amalthea looked at him with positive warmth. "Bless your heart, Asael, I think you're exactly right!"

"But Bridie," he babbled on, "says The Grand Gourd is not right! She says we shouldn't treat it like it's got some kind of magic in it!"

"Ah, well!" said Amalthea, tapping her lips in mock puzzlement. "That's a point! Magic! Magic would certainly be a problem, wouldn't it?" She turned to me then, as though we were sharing some kind of secret.. "Wow! That's got us beat, then, hasn't it Ruthie?"

It seemed obvious to me that she was taking the Mickey now and I kind of hoped that Asa wouldn't twig to it. I say that in full knowledge of the fact that I do it myself, frequently, with both Bridie and Asael – but I know that I'm being a bitch when I do it. And, despite my temporary anger with her over the Agnes letter, I didn't want to start thinking of Amalthea as a bitch.

"Still!" she continued. "To be so bulging with life! So eager to grow!"

She put a hand on my arm and leaned toward me and I could see in her eyes that, on this account at least, she was deadly serious.

"I wouldn't want to argue with Bridie but you know, in my heart, I think it is a form of magic! Surely!"

It was a strange moment . . . as though she was somehow looking for a reflection of herself, or of the Grand Gourd, in me. I know I disappointed her because she stepped back and spoke to As' again.

"Anyhow, I tell you what! Magic or no magic, some Force has surely fiddled with that pumpkin! And judging by the notes on it, every second head in Sugar Town is wishing a bit of it would spill onto them!"

She caught Rosemary's ear absently, stroking the silkiness with her thumb, and something in her manner struck me. Like maybe Sugar Town's wishes actually interested her! Like even though she fit its framework so poorly, maybe she felt a rough comfort there. Who knew? Maybe she was looking for something particular in her life and had caught a faint whiff of it in Sugar Town. Stranger things have absolutely happened! She looked up, caught my speculative air and laughed.

"Oops! Now look what I've done! Made the day all serious and sombre. Come on, we have to change that!"

She swung away to face the crowd again and threw her arms wide in a gesture that seemed capable of taking in an entire half of the world.
"Hello Sugar Town!" she called. With her arms out, she blocked fully a quarter of that section of Sideshow Alley. "Hello, Harvest Festival goers!"

I grabbed Asael's arm, thinking unpleasantness was about to erupt and it would be a good time to cut ourselves loose. But to my surprise, he hadn't yet had enough of her and he refused to budge. I thought, well! Brace yourself, kiddo! You're about to see your idol be crushed!

It didn't happen, though. She was outlandish and lots of people had misgivings about her but, on that day at least, they couldn't resist her joy. People began speaking to her, softly, out of the sides of their mouths: Hiya, Thea! You tell 'em, girl! How're ya goin', Sweetheart? G'day, goats! And so on. Bolder ones reached to pat her hands, her arms – some, even her face and her hair, and she stood there, open to them in utter trust. I didn't know if any magic actually emanated from the Grand Gourd but it made me feel utterly empty, there on Sideshow Alley, to see how strongly it emanated from Amalthea Byerson.

There's no telling how long the parade of greeting might have lasted if Kevin Truck hadn't materialised in front of her. Kevin and Amalthea are quite similar in some ways. They're both short and plumpish. He's black, of course, and wrinkled, and she's neither of those. And he's ancient while she's not. But they do share a kind of joyful optimism that insists the cup is running over even when it's half empty and leaking.

Thea!" he said, stopping in front of her open arms, placing his hands on his hips. "Is this the best you've been taught . . . to scatter your blessings so freely amongst the multitudes? Without even knowing how they've sinned?"

She dropped her arms, cocked her head mischievously and, "Kevin," she smiled, "I hereby decree that, on Harvest Festival weekend, no one's sins may be held against them! Not even yours!"

"Not even mine?" he laughed. "Ahh! If only I'd known such a day would come! I could've sinned so much harder in my youth!"

She made a show of taking his hands from his hips and, "I'm sure," she said, "that you were the very worst man you could possibly get away with being. Just as you are now. In fact," she continued, turning to include us in the conversation, "it wouldn't surprise me if you and Asael, here, had that in common!" She placed a hand against Asael's sternum and I could see him jump, as though she'd given him an electric shock. "I suspect you're both as bad as you can possibly be. Which, of course, still leaves you a pair of convincingly kind and gentle men."

And returning both hands to Kevin's grip, she said, "We were just talking about magic, we three! And about The Grand Gourd and the questioning soul of Sugar Town."

"Were you now?" Kevin was immediately interested. He loves that sort of cogitative stuff. "Well, you know the poet's answer! 'What is all this juice and all this joy?' 'It's a strain of the earth's sweet being'!"

He smiled love on us all, the way a man might smile on precious children or a baker on a perfect sponge cake. And Amalthea stepped up to him, wrapping him in her arms.

"The earth's sweet being!" I heard her say and I couldn't take my eyes off the sight of Kevin's surprisingly large dark hands coming to rest, one against the small of her back, the other nestling between her shoulder blades.

I noticed how their bodies were pressed together and I saw Kevin's wrinkled face, dark and peaceful under the orange caress of her hair. They rocked one another gently. A Category Three hug, I thought in surprise. In my reckoning, Category One is the bend-and-reach hug, where nothing but arms and a square inch of cheek make contact. In Category Two hugs, bodies meet. Category Three adds the rocking motion. There's only one more category – one I've never been involved in – and that's a pretty intimate one that includes a bum-clutch. So Category Three is well up there on the familiarity scale. I was surprised and undoubtedly a bit jealous. I'd somehow come to believe that I was Kevin's only Cat' Three hugger!

When they stepped back from one another, Kevin turned to Asael.

"Nice job in the parade, mate! Got a bit crazy out there, but you did great! Listen, when you're ready, you and me should hit the back roads one day! I'll teach you another gear!"

Then he looked at me and gave me a casual rub on the shoulder.

"Hey, Ru'," he said. "We still on for the display sheds? You're not standing me up, are you?"

"No way! I'm counting on you to answer deep and meaningful questions for me! Mullberry jam kind of questions!"

It's silly, but I didn't want him to rub my shoulder just then. What I wanted was for him to hug me the way he'd hugged Amalthea – Category Three. I wanted to press myself against him and feel his bones and smell the cinnamon and have him rock me, so she could see that I wasn't Bridie and that I wasn't just one of the ones who yearned for a vision and that Kevin and I were important to each other. That was the kind of magic I needed.

He must have seen the something in my eyes and he gave me a long steady look which I gave right back to him. Not too long. Just long enough to let each other know . . . to remind ourselves that we were friends . . . that we shared things.

"You okay?" he asked and I kind of wound my head around in a circle, trying to say yes but unable to shake off the torn edges of a 'no'. He looked a question at Amalthea who became suddenly animated.

"Well," she said gaily, indicating herself, Rosemary and Garlic, "we are off to the lolly drop! Gonna get us a share. Why don't you come with us, Asa'? We can talk some more – about magic and The Grand Gourd and the Gathering Force and whatever! What do you say? Is that okay with you, Ruthie?"

I knew I should take charge of him, especially considering the strangeness of his behaviour that morning and the near certainty of him having had a seizure. But I nodded. And she, in a surprisingly protective manner, took his elbow and steered him, the goats following in their wake, out of the human current and out of our sight.

When I looked back at Kevin, he was smiling like a lottery winner.

"Ha!" he laughed. "Aseal McFarlane, walking Sideshow Alley with Amalthea Byerson! What do you think'll be going through his mind right now?"

I had to laugh then too. "He'll be checking his pulse as he walks." I used the laugh as cover to wipe away the tears. I think they were tears of gratitude.

Kevin just drew a deep breath, looked around, grabbed my hand and started walking. "Fairy floss!" he said. "I can smell the need for fairy floss!"

* * *

So, one thing about Kevin was that you could have a heart-to-heart with him while eating fairy floss, while looking at jam in the show pavilion or while leaning on the counter in the bakery. You could do it while you were laughing or crying or listening or seeming to talk about something altogether unrelated.

We started with things that fall out of the sky in the night and what and where they could be. We started there and that got us onto why we were both up at that ungodly time. By which point we were sitting on a log under a huge rain tree and my floodgates were holding nothing back. I babbled out the story of Bridie's nightmare and Asael's peeping through the keyhole and coming into my bed and his dream about Rita and our fight and Bridie's crying and the letter mentioning the 'terrible deed' and me stealing more letters and the Agnes letter getting eaten by Garlic while Bridie stood by and did nothing to stop it. The works!

* * *

And when I'd gotten that off my chest, I asked him straight out about the terrible deed. I even got the letter out of my pack and made him read it.

"Ru', you're asking the wrong person, really. I hadn't been in Sugar Town very long at all back then and . . . I just haven't got any insights! You know?"

"But you knew Rita and the Reverend; and Grandma Gracie! I know you did!"

"I knew Rita, of course – from the bakery. I didn't have much to do with your father. And your grandmother – she was an elemental force. I don't know if anyone actually got to know her!"

"Okay, but this letter was for Rita! Didn't she ever give hints? You know, like, 'The Reverend's a closet maniac!' or 'Snowdroppers have been stealing my underwear'? Something?"

He just looked at me, patiently, like, 'Be serious, Ru'!'

"Okay! Look at this bit! _We will take it as a sign of blessing that God has blocked out both the memory of the deed and the understanding of what's happening now. You and I will raise this new child – your child and mine – to be strong, to hold his faith high above the swirling waters._ 'Blocked out the memory' is obviously Bridie, isn't it? And 'this child' has to be Asa'. So Bridie saw something, knew something, witnessed something that related to mum's pregnancy! And something was 'happening'! 'Now'! What could it have been, Kevin? C'mon, help me out with this!"

That's when he got peculiar with me.

"Ru. It's Harvest Festival weekend! One of the points of Harvest Festival is to be a marker . . . a line that marks off the past. You know? The old year – all the dear old years – they've fled away, behind us! They are where they belong!"

I gave him an intentionally blank look and he just sighed.

"Right! Okay! You know I love you like you were my own, don't you Ru'. I'm thinking of naming a scone after you, did I tell you that? But here's the thing! I've known Bridie . . . since she was younger than you. A long, long time. And your mother . . . I admired her a great deal. A great deal. I know that they . . . both of them . . . went through some hard things. And I have to say that, if Bridie doesn't remember them, then maybe that's for the best. Really! But I didn't know details then and I'm not sure I want to know details now! That's a bit of how I get through life, Ru', and it's not a bad way to go. Because knowing things about people gets you involved in their hurt. And for the most part, there's not much you can do about other people's hurt! That's all I can say."

I tried one last tactic. "Yeah, yeah, whatever! Look! It says here that Johnathon Cranna said the town was trying to 'atone' for whatever happened. Do you think they did?"

But it was hopeless. I couldn't budge him further. So I was left no wiser at all and a whole lot more frustrated.

We sat under the rain tree and watched people, each in our own world of thoughts, until eventually Mayor Hoggitt's rant over the loudspeaker broke through to us. The lolly drop was coming up. People passing in front of us were already craning their necks for a first glimpse of Johnathon Cranna's Tiger Moth. Naturally we headed off toward the open footy field where it was all to happen. But Kevin had one last thought to leave with me.

"You know, Ru', from here . . . from this very point in time . . . from every moment in time . . . everything's as new as we allow it to be! You know what I mean?"

This time my blank look was unintentional.

"It's just that . . . ugly things happen in everyone's lives. And everyone makes their own choices about how much air-time to give those things. And no one much says 'Thank you' to people who make them look back. That's all I'm saying."

It occurred to me only later that Kevin might have been advising me to back off.

Chapter 3 – Garlic and the Gourd

Isak knows how close the thing is, firstly, because he's picked up the mewling sound once again, ahead in the cane, and secondly because it's suddenly stopped. As though some creature in mid-bawl has suddenly realised it isn't alone. Isak lowers his lead foot gently and stands, rigid as an ear, bristling with listening. Eventually he understands that whatever it is isn't about to charge out of the cane at him. Even so, he stalks it for fully half an hour longer before succumbing to a kind of sleepy sense of acceptance

It lies in a wide furrow of earth at the end of what appears to be half a dozen bounces and several very destructive (to the cane) tumbles. Isak thinks that, if it weren't for the sound, it might be a seat, fallen from a passenger jet – a gently S-shaped thing – like an open recliner. Except that it's kind of blown up, like a balloon. From a distance, the copper coloured surface looks smooth and possibly metallic, but it's oddly indistinct, as though the interface between it and the air is none too solid. He estimates it to be shoulder height – a huge weight if it actually is metal! At this stage, it's as still as the frozen wave of soil that it's ploughed up around itself. And it's quiet. But it glows ever so slightly, as though a tiny, dim bulb might burn somewhere within.

Isak stands motionless and watches for a long time. It's that mewling that's spooked him. It sounded like fear and he knows that fear makes things behave unpredictably. He crouches on his heels for another long while. He drinks shallowly from a bottle of port, finds an apple in his swag, rolls a cigarette and smokes it. Nothing happens! He jinks to his feet and walks noisily back and forth in the path of destruction, thinking about the speed and weight and trajectory of the thing.

" _Low an' fast," he says aloud. "An' straight as an arra'! Solid, too, bringin' down them big branches like that!" He manoeuvres so he can look down the track at the distant thing, squat and still, maybe forty metres away._

" _So what are ye, then, I'm askin' meself?" He lifts his hat and scratches through the thin fuzz. "If yer just a 'thing', what was all them noises, about, eh?"_

He sits, studies the clouds, nods off for a bit, wakes with a start and realises the morning is gone. And so, finally, figuring he's given caution its best chance, he walks directly toward the thing, crunching and shuffling through the broken stalks of cane. He walks right up to it, to within an arm's reach. Nothing. He slides a foot forward and leans, putting his face very near to its surface – or at least to where it seems the surface ought to be. There's a pearly, chatoyant radiance within. It's as though a glowing curtain has been drawn just an inch beneath the surface. But no sound, no movement. No smell. Isak chuckles. Just a chunk of glowing metal then!

Pretty much everybody has written Isak off years ago. Addled by alcohol, they say. And maybe he is. Or maybe he's just a man not given to fuss. A man with a nose and a taste for obvious conclusions.

" _Yer an 'out there' thing, ain't ye!" he says to the glowing object._

It's not that Isak has any interest in 'out there' things; he barely has any interest in 'in here' things! To him it's just an obvious fact to be filed away – like the location of a water hole or the elevation needed for a two hundred metre shot.

Nonetheless, a change begins to work through him. Only hours before, he'd lain in his swag, experiencing a sense of disconnect with his life – like somehow it wasn't his own anymore. Like he'd become an observer, looking down on an old man who lived inside a bottle, cut off from everything he'd ever been. But with his face only inches from an 'out-there' thing, it's sort of like that bottle has been jolted. Like the cork has popped and some fizz has appeared.

" _So the question is," he explains to the object, "what to do wi' ye!"_

The obvious thing would be to walk away and leave it for Alf Caletti, in whose cane paddock it lays. But then, it could be days – maybe weeks – before Alf cuts this paddock! But so what?

" _How far you come to get here, eh?" he asks of it, as though the difficulty of the journey might help him decide. "Can't o' bin aimin' for this, surely to Christ!" And then he thinks, Mind you, I come a long way too! Seventy-eight feckin'years an' here I am – same place as you!"_

He talks to the thing as though it might answer. "You even know where ye are?"

It's an old man's habit. But as it happens, in a way, it does answer. At the corner of his eye, Isak swears, against that glowing inner curtain, a face appears. He swings his head to catch it and it's already gone! But it was a face! And a face he knew – or had known, many years ago.

" _What the Jesus!" he whispers. "What the Jesus!"_

That's when he decides that he has to get it out of the cane. Come hell or high water.

That's also the moment when, seemingly out of nowhere, Johnathon Cranna's Tiger Moth shunts by overhead. Cranna's taken on his load of lollies for the lolly drop and is teasing the showground crowd with aerobatics. He's tipped the Moth on its wing, rolled it on its back, barrel rolled and looped the loop – coming out of the last barely a hundred feet above Caletti's cane paddock.

To Isak, it's as though a gigantic lawn mower, with howling blades and yammering pistons has suddenly rolled over him. He staggers, falls halfway to the ground and barely manages to regain his balance.

Isak has an aversion to useless things. And noise – noise that's its own reason for being – is more useless than anything. At the best of times, it confuses him, muddles him, pounds him down. Today it's even worse. Maybe it's the sudden sense of protectiveness he feels for the shipwrecked thing. Maybe it's the briefly glimpsed vision of that sorrowful face. Or maybe it's just the fact that it's Johnathon Cranna up there, having his arrogant way. Whatever it is, even Isak isn't prepared for the size of the rage that jolts into him – like something he hasn't felt in more years than he cares to remember. It drills up through his feet, hammers nails into his knees, jams a burning rod into his back and hurls his arms into the air. It peels back his lips and drags a ragged curse out of him.

" _Mad bloody bastard!" he thunders, snatching up a clod of earth to hurl into the sky. "Get the fuck up in the air where you belong!"_

It's been more than a decade – maybe eleven years – since Isak's felt such rage. The memory flickers briefly; how right it felt on that day; the day, in this very same paddock, when he killed a man.

The memory flees as the plane has, leaving him frozen with his old arm cocked behind his head. And something has moved. At the edge of his vision. What was that? In the instant just gone by! What was that?

He allows only his eyes to move. Bits of dirt drop from the clod in his hand and lodge in the collar of his shirt. A fat white grub pokes its head out of the clod, squinting into the morning sunlight, sensing, like Isak, that something strange is afoot. It pulls back into its little circumference of earth. Isak has no such option.

Even in the blood-pounding fug of his fury, he senses that there's a difference in the way the 'out there' thing is laying. Perhaps its S-curve is tighter? Maybe the wave of dirt stands higher around it? Does it seem to be cringing?

And for one truly weird second, Isak imagines that it's himself lying there, at the end of his run, cowering beneath all the commotion of an unforgiving world.

" _Sweet Jesus!" he says in wonder, shaking his head minutely to clear the dross. And then, "Don' go givin' up, matey! 'S not over yet. Not while we're still standin'_

Up in the horizonless blue, Cranna is swinging the Moth about. He's seen the slash in the cane, seen the old man and the faintly glowing object. He's coming back for a closer look.

Isak can picture Cranna in that cockpit, head thrust forward, eyes blazing, defying the earth to take him. And a dangerous question pops into his mind. A little seed of 'What if'.

' _What if . . . I give it a little teeny bit o' help?'_

He lays back against the wave of earth, his shoulder almost touching the 'out there' thing. Its surface pulses weakly and, "Always a little more ye can do," he says to it as he sights along the barrel of his rifle. He has no clearly defined grudge against Johnathon Cranna. Other than a general distaste for what he sees as arrogance and swaggering self-importance. No, this is almost wholly a reminder of the need for good manners.

" _The man jus' couldn' . . . give . . . a shit!"_

The impact of the bullet on the plane's engine is like the impact of a slap on the face of a laughing woman. It sucks, spits, dribbles and rattles its carburettors in shock. The impact on Cranna is one, firstly, of mild surprise and, secondly, of major annoyance as he leans back on the stick and struggles for altitude.

The impact on Isak is, to say the least, mixed. The rifle is a tool that he's used for years, with precision and accuracy, and he's seen every conceivable result of its use. Everything is ritual. The quick sighting, the gentle squeeze, the explosion, the kick. All predictable. Except that this time, at the end of the sequence, the thing beside him bounces straight up into the air, squeals like a wounded pig and plumps back into its hollow of earth.

Isak is instantly half a dozen yards away, into the cane, the hairs on his neck as stiff as nails!

And that, for the time being, is the last he knows. The air turns red before his eyes, his legs melt beneath him and he slams face first into the earth. In the space of heartbeats, he's back in his dreamless sleep! Except this time, it isn't totally dreamless. Now and again, out of the black and silent emptiness, that face, the one he glimpsed in the depths of the 'out there' thing, comes swimming back to look lovingly down on him.

* * *

None of us in the showground, of course, knew the trouble Johnathon was in. When the heart of that little Tiger Moth hammered to a halt, he'd not only failed to claw back any altitude, but he'd also failed to identify an alternate glide path. The one he was on – the one he was more or less committed to – led straight over the footy ground where the townsfolk were gathering in their hundreds.

Probably, once the engine died, even Johnathon could have heard, over the race of wind, Lyle Hoggitt's frantic efforts to summon them.

"This is IT!" Lyle was wailing. "Get onto the paddock, folks! 'Cause Cranna's lolly express is comin' out o' the south, RIGHT NOW! Don't be slow! Go! Go! Go! Eyes open an' heads up, EVERYONE! It's LOLLY DROP time! And who knows what could come fallin' out o' the sky for YOU!"

It was an un-missable tradition, the lolly drop! People would run from all corners of the grounds to gather in the footy field next to the rail lines. In the aftermath, we counted our success in lollies, but secretly everyone understood that it was about much, much more than that. It was about release and abandonment. When that plane cruised over and its hatch opened, it didn't release only sweets onto the Harvest Festival air. It also released permission for the townspeople to shuck off their inhibitions, their timidity and their shyness. For a time, people could dance and caper and hoot, as carefree as nudists beneath a sweet, tail-spinning rain. At Harvest Festival, the wilder, the sillier, the more childlike, the better. No one would ever dare to criticise.

On that day, for the first time, I was outside of it, standing to one side with Kevin, still mulling over my options with regard to this 'terrible deed'. Maybe, as Kev' seemed to suggest, I should just give up on it; pass over it. Let it lie. Obviously Bridie, if she ever knew it, had managed to forget it. And the Reverend too, I supposed, with Rita gone and his New Guinea 'Agnes' to console him, had probably put it behind him.

And yet, if whatever it was was so insignificant, why didn't somebody just tell me? Just shine a little light on it for me, so I could forget it too! That was all I was asking! Trouble was, Kevin had been my only hope. Without him, I had no clue how to proceed!

So we were at the edge of the paddock, Kevin and I, and I was just beginning to wonder what he was thinking about, when the Moth began its run. Out on the paddock I could see teenagers, kids I knew, jostling aside pre-schoolers and adults ploughing into the teenagers and granddads swinging their walking sticks to make room about them. The lolly drop had always had a Roller Derby element about it but I'd never seen it quite that fierce before. Sort of desperate. As though something precious and old was being allowed to unravel in people and no one knew quite how to stop it.

* * *

In the moments between the mayor's amplified rants, there would have been silence in the cockpit of the Moth. Except for the rush of wind, maybe. Hush! Husssshhhh! It was a light, manoeuvrable plane that still offered options to Johnathon. But none of them were good. If he swung to the west, he'd come down amongst the Showies' tents and caravans with their minefield of gas bottles, welding kits and amped-up transformers. If he swung to the east, the water tower would catch him. If he tried to bring it straight to ground, before the paddock, he'd be in the rail yard, amongst the stacks of concrete sleepers. And that left the Showground paddock which, while probably offering the least harm to him personally, was packed with his friends and neighbours! Not much joy and not much time to mull it over!

In the end, he made just that one minor adjustment. Everyone on the ground agreed. The wings tipped just a little.

Speed and altitude are declining rapidly. The Moth is doomed, without doubt. Johnathon, however, may yet survive. As should most of the Sugar Tonians gathered in the paddock, once they've sensed the inevitable fall. He takes his hands from the controls, re-checks his harness and firms his back against the seat.

What an irony! A small forest of welcoming arms is there, beckoning him closer, expecting lollies to come down, like rain. And instead, the Moth itself is going to come down. Like an axe!

" _Well there you go," he murmurs grimly to them. "We don't always get what we came for!"_

At forty metres above the ground and two hundred metres from the edge of the paddock, he can see faces. Time has slowed so much that every brief observation seems like an entire page of thought. There's the bank manager. There's Frieda Hoggitt. Every fleeting impression excites a wealth of memories and impulses.

There're the Legg Brothers, who are booked to entertain at the pub next week.

Off to the left, like a flag, is Amalthea Byerson's flaming hair! And there are her goats draped with their sandwich board signs! 'The Force is Gathering'! And trailing along behind Amalthea is Asael McFarlane, fresh from his perch on The Grand Gourd! 'Let it Gather in You'!

" _Hurry up, now! Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Lyle's voice throbs again into life. "Come one, come all! Get on that paddock! Grab a possie! 'Cause you gotta know, somewhere in his bag of tricks, Cranna's got big surprises in store!"_

" _Amen to all that!" Cranna mutters._

And further out, he sees . . . Cranna does a double take! At the northern end of the paddock a skerrick of ground is opening up as the townspeople surge toward him. Impossible that the glide would carry him that far! And never enough room to stop! Maybe enough to get the wheels on the ground, though! If only some miracle . . .!

A lone figure stands there! Who? Bridie McFarlane? Now there's a memory! One dark, drunken night! Long slim legs! Fast as a whippet! How she stopped, unexpectedly. How she turned. How she then forgot. And how this morning, first time in ages he'd been close to her, she looked at him as though something was there. Untidy details from a careless, disorderly piece of the past.

Thirty metres up and passing over the first of the people! There's a snowball's chance that the Moth could make that northern end! Would mean risking the densely packed middle of the crowd! So many people! But Bridie! Bridie and the past, the two birds; me and the Moth, the stone. What the hell! It's all whimsy, folks! Always was! Nothing personal! We'll just try this one last little adjustment.

He twitches the aileron and the patch of Amalthea's chemically reddened hair moves to the bottom centre of his windscreen. The lone, serene figure of Bridie moves to top centre.

* * *

Why Bridie had stayed so long at her table near the gate was anybody's guess! Counting the donations? Wondering about the lost letter? Pondering Amalthea's note to The Gourd: 'We follow. Now we follow'? Who could say? Maybe it was just quiet time to think about the problems I presented, having reached the embarrassing stage of publicly standing up the mayor.

If she could only find just the right Biblical proverb to sum things up! That one about the wind blowing where it pleases would have been good. And you hear it, but you don't know where it came from or where it's going. Or in our case, what it means!

Anyhow, when she'd finally turned her attention back to the present and wandered to the edge of the paddock, she was truly on her own. Ahead of her, she'd have seen only backs – hundreds of the backs of the Reverend's one-time parishioners. Herself the last and the least of them. If she was meant to get anything, it would come to her wherever she waited. That was how she thought.

* * *

Neither Kevin nor I noticed her at first. Our attention was all on the Moth and its upcoming rain of lollies. We'd spotted it when it was still a kilometre out to the south, making its final turn, and we'd watched it settle into its line. We even heard the slap of silence when its engine died. We waited, listening for a restart, commenting that the line was wrong and he was going to miss the centre of the crowd. Then, at the last minute, the Moth dipped its wing and altered its course. Which I took to mean that Johnathon knew what he was doing.

Kevin read those signs differently though. The silence, the failing altitude and speed. When the Moth turned into its the new path, directly over the greatest mass of people, including Asael and Amalthea, his hackles went up. It was him who spied Bridie over our shoulders, in the last place that the plane, if it failed to restart, had a chance of landing. He gripped my arm and pointed but I didn't understand. Not him, not her. As I looked, she raised her arms above her head, as though offering herself. Here I am! Pass your judgement. She was as placid as a ghost.

* * *

In the cockpit of the failing Tiger Moth, Johnathon Cranna can only wait out the year that passes in the falling seconds. Though an unbeliever, he squeezes out a cynical prayer. 'Please let me make it! Only a little further now. If you're out there . . . prove it to me now!'

* * *

I think it's fair to say that Garlic's sign proved prophetic that day. The Force (whatever it is or was) really did gather! Possibly in the Moth, possibly in Johnathon Cranna! Possibly in Sugar Town as a whole! There was no crash of thunder, no bolt of lightning, no burning bush, no one walking on water; not your conventional sort of miracle at all! What happened was, the Moth went into a state of stasis! Which is to say that it simply stopped falling! And its forward momentum, while declining in speed, continued impossibly on and on! And, as an added touch, the hatch opened, freeing thousands of assorted lollies to tumble earthward.

The townsfolk on the paddock, when they saw the lollies, roared their approval, even though the effect was unexpectedly devastating. The plane was still doing at least thirty or forty k's per hour and that was the speed at which the lollies socked and snapped into the upturned faces. People of all sizes were bowled off their feet. One little bundle, nearly a kilo of deadweight lollies, failed to separate and, in a clump the size of a small bucket, brained poor Garlic – he of the blind eyes and the 'Force is Gathering' injunction. It felled him like a slaughterman's hammer, even as the Moth glided on, as silent and uncaring as the shadow it chased across the field.

By the time it passed in front of Kevin and me, it had left behind the crowd and the spot where, in anyone's wildest estimation, it should have crashed. I could see Johnathon as clearly as if he was standing across a room from me. Our eyes met and my hand came up impulsively to wave, as it had when he'd buzzed me in the street. He opened his mouth as though to speak to me. And then he was past. His speed was down to what seemed little more than a walking pace but, somehow, he glided on, as though caught on an invisible rail.

And in that very instant, I knew! I knew that he was the one! The one I needed to speak to! It was him, in the Reverend's letter to Rita; him who spoke of the town's efforts at 'atonement'! Him who knew about the terrible deed!

Kevin cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Bridieeee!"

I turned to look and it was only then that I understood how it had to end. The Moth, if it had no power to fall, certainly had none to make itself rise, either. And the knoll at the north end of the paddock, where Bridie stood so determinedly in its path, was metres higher than our spot. It occurred horribly to me that hers would be the last face Johnathon would see before crashing. And his would be the last she would ever see! Hers remained propped between her upraised arms, bathed in an expression of serene acceptance. His, I had already seen, wore an expression of grim determination.

The whole flight would be eulogised as a miracle, of course. Though a miracle unseen and un-understood by almost all the people of Sugar Town who, in their efforts to protect themselves from the hail of sweets, had turned their faces to the ground. But I saw it. And Kevin saw it. And Bridie saw it. And Johnathon Cranna rode in the midst of it. And it persisted just long enough for the plane to pass safely over Bridie.

I saw the wind of it lift her hair, tear at her banner and mould her dress to her body. It was so low that, if she'd made a tiny hop, she could have touched the Moth's wheel as it passed over. She never so much as flinched. Tall, upright, arms raised, legs apart – she was a monument of faith.

And then the miracle was finished. The plane put a wheel down on top of Snowy Sutton's flash new Ford utility, the only vehicle in that end of the Showground, and bounced, peeling away both the Ute's roof and its own landing gear. It hopped to the entry gate, slashing away Bridie's umbrella and table before slicing through the pavilion of The Grand Gourd. The umbrella reappeared as cloth confetti and the Gourd as a pale, juicy corona of green and gold. And finally, shattered, torn and stained with pumpkin, its momentum all but gone, the Moth crossed the corner of the parking lot and belly-flopped onto the railway tracks. It slid and twisted and half tumbled, screeching with protest, until crunching at last to a halt against a hopper car full of rough brown sugar.

"Oi vay!" Kevin exclaimed and, for two more beats of a heart, he and I stood still, in amazement

Then we began to run.

Bridie, of course, had to be in shock. That's what happens to survivors – to people who witness mayhem but don't fall victim to it. Kevin and I swarmed over her, demanding speech, touching her in fear and gratitude, but she remained silent, rooted to the spot, her hands still braced aloft. I looked up, reached up, to help her bring them down and – I swear this is true – I saw a flutter of movement in the air, disappearing into one of those hands. She brought her hands down then, and showed us. A single Allen's Mintie. Somehow, released from the turbulent air around the plane, it had hovered, fluttering like a bird, swirling on the currents, staying aloft until well after the Moth was finished – until it was able to plant itself in her palm, as gently as a kiss.

We all gazed at it in wonder and, "What does the Lord require of thee," she whispered, "but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah, six eight."

She clasped the Mintie to her 'Miss Freedom House Ministries' banner and turned to cast her gratitude after the plane which she only then realised was no longer in the sky.

* * *

The wreckage was wedged up against the sugar hopper, its nose high, as though taking a last lingering look into its lost element. The air, even as far away as we were, reeked of engine oil, hot metal, pumpkin and sugar. Nothing moved. But the crippled engine, much too late, had begun to click and stutter.

I remember Kevin saying breathlessly, "He'll be a bloody burnt pumpkin scone if she goes up!"

And next thing I knew, I was kneeling on the wreck. I remember fumbling with the harness that held Johnathon in place, freeing his arms and yelling at him to open his eyes, to get himself out. Blood was eking from a gash over his ear and his eyes were rolling, vacant.

I remember bunching up the front of his jacket and trying to lift him, but he was limp, unable to help. That's when I hiked my shorts up as far as they could go and lowered myself into the cockpit. There was just room for me to straddle his legs, bracing my knees against the seat. His eyes opened then and a hand began to bump against me.

"The Reverend's daughter," he mumbled vaguely. And he followed it with some nonsense like, "Stopped running! We never expected that!"

"Yes!" I stammered at him. "It stopped running! You've crashed! But you missed the crowd! And you missed Bridie! Everyone's okay!"

I pushed my arms under his and pulled him tightly against me. His face was only an inch from mine and his eyes were anything but focussed. But his arms came up in a feeble kind of embrace, his hands sliding on my back. Trying to help. I don't know why, but I kissed him. Just ever so lightly and quickly. On the lips. Kiss of life, I thought to myself. Smiling just a little.

"You'll be all right!" I whispered. "I've got you!"

And with all my strength, I jerked him skywards. He gasped with pain, even as he slid away, back into unconsciousness. So, at that moment, he and Isak Nucifora were both buried in deep and blessed darkness. One not so far away, in the cane, the other in the long spidery arms of a thirteen year old girl.

Chapter 4 – Life in Death

The ambulance is never far away during Harvest Festival and ours was quickly on hand to carry Johnathon to hospital. Dorrie Gunster, chief driver and medico, had him bandaged and immobilised within minutes before launching into her own version of correctional therapy.

"No thanks to good sense," she roared at him, "you'll probably live!"

Unlike the Moth which, clearly, had rolled its last barrel and looped its last

loop. I edged to the back of the crowd where I found Kevin, also in the process of unloosing his temper. And, though I'd never seen him let go before – certainly not at Bridie – I entirely understood where he was coming from.

"Are you completely bonkers?" he was demanding. "Couldn't you see that plane was coming down? Why didn't you run? What the Sam Hill were you thinking?"

He pushed a hand across the thin stubble of his hair, as if to say, you were this close! And then he actually did say it. "You were this close, Bridie! I don't know how that plane stayed up but . . ," gesturing at the ambulance, "there, but for the Grace of God, girl! Without a doubt!"

Bridie just nodded dazedly at him and said, "Oh yes! The Grace of God! Without a doubt!"

I knew, and I'm sure Kevin did too, that blind luck was a concept outside of her reckoning. In her mind, if you lay down on the tracks and God didn't want you to die, he'd stop the trains. That sense of submission – the conviction that God's will ought to take precedence over your own – was something she and I had argued about endlessly. My conviction was that, someday, her convictions would be the death of her.

"You do know what just nearly just happened, Bridie?" I goaded, figuring two voices might carry more wake-up-to-yourself strength than one. "That plane – there was only one place for it to land, you know! And you were standing in it! I mean, there's no way on God's earth it should have missed you!"

She turned her calm, serious eyes on me, as though I'd spoken to her in the language of flowers. "No, it couldn't miss me," she said serenely – an answer to all our past arguments. "And yet it did!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Kevin cried. "We see that! But the point is, it shouldn't have, Bridie! By all rights, it should have . . . ! Nobody could have known that it would . . . how it would . . . ! God Almighty the Second, Bridie! Do you really think you're that impervious to the world?"

"No, no," she admitted. "Of course not! Not impervious."

It was a pointless argument.

"Kevin," I said, catching one of his shaking hands. It was rigid and damp with unaccustomed sweat. "She won't get it! She's a brick wall!"

His eyes were locked on hers and he was actually trembling!

"You're as stubborn as your mother!" he cried. "And look where it got her!"

People had been milling all around us, some chatting excitedly about the crash, others listening to our little face-off. But the movement stopped suddenly when Kevin said that, and a little wave of silence rippled over us. It only lasted a heartbeat or two, but it punched a big ragged hole in the day.

"Aah!" he said softly, and even he sat back in surprise. Then he tried a smile, which bared his teeth but left his eyes wide with apology. "See how shaken I am? I'm not as young as I was, you know!" He patted his cheeks, dark fingers on chocolate skin. "I must be pale as a ghost, am I?"

"Like a sheet," I agreed, wanting only to get us past the moment. "Like a polar bear in a snow storm! Maybe you should sit down, whaddya think?" And he did, right there on the ground!

Whether it was the reference to Rita or that mock collapse or something she saw in the Mintie, I don't know, but Bridie did finally concede a hint of understanding.

"Sorry," she said, even though it was obvious that she wasn't. What she was, was distracted – much the way Asael got when he had one of his seizures! "Sorry," she said again, sounding fully as contrite as a kid who's just flipped a two-headed coin and won your bicycle. "Sorry you were worried. I just . . . saw something different, I guess!"

A small, three-cornered tear had appeared in her dress near the sleeve, at the curve of her breast. She lifted the flap, patted it into place, then let it fall. She looked at me and reached to touch my cheek, as though to pat it back into some imagined rightness, as well.

"Ruthie! Where's Asael?"

I pointed into the showgrounds, down the paddock. Even from where we were, we could see him, standing beside Amalthea and Rosemary, next to the motionless lump that was Garlic.

I'm not sure if she actually looked. The thing that had really held her attention through all this chaos was the captured Mintie. All the while we were speaking, she kept turning it over and over and cupping it like a talisman between her hands.

"Good!" she said absently. "Good! You're a good sister, Ruthie!"

* * *

I could tell that something fairly major had happened inside Bridie's head. It wasn't an entirely new thing for her to become all beatific and contemplative and sacrificial virgin-ish. But I'd never seen her be quite so convincing before! And what she next threw at Kevin shook me even further.

First, she bent to touch his cheek, her skin as white as paint next to the black of his. "There haven't been many people in our lives," she said, "who've been as constant as you, Kevin." His forehead crinkled deeply and he looked up at her; her face, her eyes, her mouth – her air of unruffled tranquillity. He knew as well as me that her head, like Asael's, was a favourite hang-out for various troops of fairies.

Then – and this was the kicker – she put a hand on the grey buzz of his hair and, as though speaking a blessing she said, "Our mother . . . I think, if she hadn't loved our father, she would have loved you!"

My mouth dropped half way to my knees and Kevin jumped like a stomped-on cat, clambering to his feet. "Bridie!" he gasped. "What on earth has gotten into you? Have you been drinking? Has she been drinking?"

I couldn't answer him. I was fully speechless! Already that day, I'd seen her steal something and I'd seen her refuse to remove herself from harm's way. Now she was talking about Rita as though she once had been a real and sensual woman – not just the Reverend's wife! I don't know if I was more shaken by the daring of this last image or by the depth of Kevin's embarrassment!

She, however, was completely oblivious to both our reactions. "Would you," she smiled at him, "watch over these two for a bit?" (Meaning Asa' and me.) "I think I'll go with the ambulance."

And without waiting for a reply, she slid through the small crowd and climbed into the compartment. A moment later Dorrie, having lectured Johnathon back into unconsciousnesss, thumped the doors closed and, with a get-out-of-the-way burp from her siren, edged the vehicle away.

I had the briefest impulse to run after them and ask if there was room for me. Mostly wanting to see that Bridie was okay, of course, but also wanting to see if Johnathon was okay. Secretly, I was quite thrilled at how things had worked out. Aside from three very important realisations (one, that we'd all escaped harm; two, that I had a new lead in my quest to learn about the Terrible Deed; and three, that I had a newfound and entirely fascinating image of Rita) . . . I had a very sweet little tickle in my throat. It came from the image of my scrawny, gangly, barely teen-aged self straddling the legs of the great Johnathon Cranna, holding him helpless in my arms, being held in his, and kissing his lips. I could still taste the faintest hint of sugar-coated pumpkin.

* * *

I turned to Kevin and had to suppress a laugh. "You and Rita, Kev'! You and Rita!"

The tone I was aiming for was 'light-hearted and teasing' – an extension of where we'd been. But it didn't come off at all well. Firstly because, even as I was speaking, I realised that the image of Kevin and Rita together was at least as comfortable to me as the image of her and the Reverend. Maybe more so! And secondly because, when I looked at him, the furrows on his forehead seemed, if anything, to get even deeper. He raised a warning finger and looked away.

"If you're ready to believe, you're easy to deceive," he said, which, like so many other things in my life, made hardly any sense to me at all.

* * *

Fortunately for both of us, we had the lolly-drop victims to distract us. There were damaged townsfolk everywhere, some limping about and some back to scouring the grass for the last of the lollies. But the majority remained on the ground, investigating their wounds and shaking their heads in dazed confusion.

Amalthea was one of those on her knees and Asael was one of the ones standing. She had a healthy trickle of blood on her forehead and half a dozen coin sized welts freckling her arms but he, crazily enough, had come through unscathed. Knowing his instinct for survival, my guess was that he'd hidden in the lee of her when the pummelling began.

The focus of both their attentions was Garlic, sprawled and limp on the grass beside the lolly-bomb that had felled him. With one hand braced against the stillness of his shoulder, Amalthea was struggling to free his banner which had bunched under him when he fell. Only the words 'The Force . . .' remained visible. There were no tears, or sobs, but her face was a mask of disconsolate hurt. Kevin went straight to her and crouched, adding his hand to the one she rested on Garlic. That's when I knew for sure that Garlic was dead.

I guess that, during good times, we should all devote a little thought to what we might say or do when things turn rotten. I don't know why – maybe because there'd already been so much loss in our family – but my first instinct was to get Asael away; to keep him from realising how close to him Death, his dreaded nemesis, had come.

I pinched up a bit of his shirt to move him but, before I could, Rosemary stepped between us, catching his eyes and holding them for a long, strange boy-goat moment, at the end of which she sniffed sadly and he sniffled back at her. And then, with what even I viewed as a beautifully philosophical eloquence, she bent and plucked a lolly from the murderous bunch that had killed Garlic. Her lips drew it behind her teeth and she turned her head away to chew. I thought of Bridie, with her Mintie floating down, finding its way into her hand, and how different that was from Rosemary, bending to choose her own – making her own will known. I gained a lot of respect for Rosemary that day.

I gained some for Asael as well. Although his lips had begun moving and I could make out mutterings about brainstems and cerebellums, he didn't, as I'd feared he might, go to pieces. Instead, he shrugged off my hold, got down on his knees across from Amalthea and put a finger out to touch Garlic's ear. Getting a scientific sense of the dead, I imagined; though Amalthea clearly saw something more empathetic in it.

"Aahh Asael," she said softly. "Here's a thing!" And she reached across the corpse, taking his hand and folding it in both of hers.

It was such a tender instinct for inclusion that it shocked me. I stepped back and left them there, turning my attention to the others on the paddock.

Looking back, it still amazes me! There were so many wounded and yet, there was none of the anger or self-pity or outrage I'd've expected! In fact, despite the general impression of devastation, there were smiles twitching at the corners of mouths and even unmistakable hints of laughter! I looked with astonishment at Kevin who shrugged eloquently.

"A legend is born!" he chuckled. "Remember the year Johnathon Cranna half-slaughtered us with lollies and demolished The Grand Gourd? My God, what a great festival that was!"

And he was right, of course. It wouldn't matter that no one but Kevin and I had actually seen the Gourd get splattered because, before long, heaps would firmly believe they had seen it. Some would even say Johnathon had given them a private nod and wink beforehand. In short order the Chamber of Commerce would create a Harvest Festival sub-committee to map out plans for a repeat performance the following year. They would (and in fact did) go so far as to find and help finance a replacement for the Moth! (Though, as you'll hear, that turned out to be a disaster of a whole different order.)

The reason being, as Kevin was inclined to say, the heart cries out for wonder.

"And given a little, even if it hurts, we cry out for more! Not a good world for one-trick ponies!"

I didn't fully see the implications back then, but I did know that, along with the birth of a legend, something in us – in me, in Asael and maybe in Bridie too – had changed. I knew that sometime in the near future, I'd be paying my own visit to Johnathon Cranna, looking for his help to put the dead and the missing in my family firmly behind me. And I knew that Asael, even as Amalthea gave him back his hand, had already begun feeling about for the courage to leave his fearful boyhood behind. And I was not surprised in the least when Rosemary plucked a second lolly from the clump that had killed Garlic.

* * *

Bridie waits patiently, scanning magazines in the nurses' lunchroom where they've seated her to await the results of Johnathon Cranna's scans. In ones and twos, they come through to hear the story of the crash and to curse their luck at having been rostered to work. Soon they're bringing stories to her, of people who've come in to have wounds checked – cuts, bruises and contusions from falling lollies. At last, she's permitted to see the downed pilot himself.

He's propped on the bed, his head wrapped in a bandage, his lower leg encased in a cast, like a white log. His eyes are glazed, his expression one of faint confusion. The second bed in the room is empty.

She bends over him. "Mr Cranna! How do you feel?"

He blinks up at her, like a drunk trying to place a one-time acquaintance.

" _Well," she carries on, too joyful to be contained, "you shouldn't be feeling too well, I don't suspect! You've had a crack on the head! And your poor leg! And the painkillers will be making you quite fuzzy I'm sure, but my goodness! That's a small price to pay, isn't it? I feel quite dizzy myself, and I was only on the edges of it! Sugar Town's own little miracle!"_

He sinks further into the pillows, groaning in helpless self-pity, his eyes closing once again. Bridie waits for comments, but none come. Instead, his breathing slows until she's prompted to reach a finger and touch the furrow between his brows. His eyes re-open.

" _You can't go to sleep," she tells him. "The nurses only let me in with the promise that I'd keep you awake. So, awake you have to be! Talk to me. The alternative is you'll have to listen me. And that could be worse for you!"_

He shakes his head, winces and closes his eyes again, so she moves to sit on the bedside. The movement pulls lines into his forehead.

" _Mr Cranna?" she demands, ramping up her insistence. "Don't go to sleep! I'm serious. You have to stay awake! If you think your troubles are over, you should know that . . . they aren't! They aren't over! Amalthea Byerson's going to be looking for a piece of your skin, for one thing! Did you know you killed one of her pets? Mr Cranna? Johnathon? One of the goats? People in the lobby are talking about it even now!" She jiggles the bed, intent on keeping him focussed, even if it's from mere annoyance._

" _It was struck it with a huge clump of lollies! I can't imagine what you were thinking!"_ She finds herself dancing her fingertips on his shoulder. _"Dropping those lollies at that low altitude, Mr Cranna! For goodness sake! You should see all the cuts and bruises and black eyes! It's like you beat up half the town!"_

His eyes judder open. "Lollies?" he murmurs in wonder. "I didn't drop 'em! Nowhere near the handle! I remember!"

" _You didn't? Well! There you are then!" she says in a matter of fact voice. "Another part of the miracle!"_

His eyes swivel in her direction. Did he or didn't he drop them! He doesn't think so, but can't be sure. Nonetheless, apparently they were dropped! Maybe that lightening of the load was what saved him?

" _Someone was with you," she assures him; "watching over you! A guardian angel! Watching over all of us! You must have felt it?"_

He thinks to himself, "No angels. Jus' me 'n' the Moth. All alone." He must have said it aloud, because she answers him.

" _Johnathon! I can promise you, you were not alone! No matter how 'in control' we think we are, we're never alone! There's always a greater pilot guiding our ship."_

He's too confused, too drifting in the mind, too stupefied by what's happened to follow where she wants to lead. Why is she here? What does she want from him? After all these years . . . it's dangerous. Dangerous to be near her!

Bridie's last resort for keeping him awake is to relate the evidence of the miracle she's witnessed: the death of the Tiger Moth's engine, the long impossible glide, ending in the destruction of that offensively exalted Grand Gourd! The impossibly realised feat of avoiding harm to the people of Sugar Town! And now, add the inexplicable dropping of the lollies! Through the narration, she frequently touches his arm, prods him with questions and jiggles the bed in an increasingly fruitless effort to keep him awake.

" _You should've run," he murmurs at one point._

Bridie's smile is slight and reflective. "You know, I almost did run at one point! But then I . . . it was like I heard my father's voice! 'Be strong and of good courage', Bridie. That's what he used to say to me. 'Because come what may, God will have His way with you'." She turns her steady dark eyes back on him. "So I waited to see . . . what his way might be!"

" _And . . .?"_

" _And . . ." she holds her arms out, presenting the evidence of herself, "here I am. Here we both are, alive and well! So his pleasure is for us both to go on . . . in the renewed knowledge that we are His."_

He groans his refusal of being anyone's and Bridie sits back. She thinks of how, in the manner of small towns, she's known Johnathon, but hardly ever actually spoken to him. She's seen him cross the street sometimes, as though to avoid her, though that must certainly have been in her imagination. But today, she thinks, God has pointed them out to one another! His name has come up in the Reverend's eleven-year-old letter to Rita! And he was there to save Ruthie from injury at the marshalling yard. And now they've been linked by the miracle of their survival – two who most certainly should have been killed! It seems clear to her that, for some reason, Johnathon Cranna has been put squarely in the path of her life.

" _My father thought well of you," she says._

The information takes a moment to sink in but, when it does, it whips him back

into full consciousness. "Eh? What did you say?"

" _I found an old letter this morning. One that he wrote to my mother when she was away having Asael. He mentioned you in it."_

" _He did?"_

" _Yes. He said that you were helpful. Sceptical, but helpful. Apparently there was some unpleasantness going on in the town and . . . you spoke to him about it? AND you got a new cross for the church!"_

" _He said that?"_

" _Yes. He seemed to like you."_

" _The . . . unpleasantness . . . he didn't . . . ?"_

" _He didn't say what it was, no. And I'm afraid I have a hole in my head from around that time. I expect you'd remember it though?"_

He shakes his head slowly but his eyes remain fixed on her face. Has the time finally come, he wonders? Has he let things go too long?

She laughs lightly. "Of course I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't remember! It's ancient history now, isn't it? All so long ago! Mind you, Ruthie's convinced there's a story to be learned. She even confronted the mayor and Freida about it this morning."

" _She asked Lyle?"_

" _Yes! I was so embarrassed! He thought it was most likely something to do with the murder! You know, Gramma Gracie? But it wasn't! As Ruthie pointed out, Gramma Grace was mentioned in the letter. So whatever it was that happened, it was BEFORE gran's death!"_

" _Before?"_

" _Yes. It makes you think, doesn't it? Something that seemed so important to my parents back then, and now no one remembers it at all! It's completely odd, isn't it?"_

All he's heard is 'No one remembers it at all'. He smiles faintly, remembering it himself.

" _Anyhow!" she chirps happily. "We've more important things to think about, haven't we? Look, I have something for you!"_

She holds out the Mintie, warmed and softened by hours in the heat of her hand.

He peers through narrowed eyes. "What's this?"

" _Take it as a sign," she says, her eyes smiling._

" _Sign o' what?"_

" _A sign," she answers, pressing it into his hand, "that if you try to be a good person in your heart, and you believe in God's mercy and you stand your ground, good things . . . right things . . . will find their way to you. Eventually."_

He closes his hand over it, thinking, dreaming, and then he hands it back.

" _Keep it. It's your sign, not mine. An' maybe you should get along now, eh? 'S been a big day."_

She takes the Mintie and slides it deftly under his pillow before taking his hand in both of hers. "I know it was a sign for me," she says softly. "But I choose to give it to you – to be your sign. God worked a miracle through you today, Johnathon. For reasons of his own, He's singled you out. Let this be the first and the smallest of the rewards He has in mind for you."

There's more to her chatter but there's little more that he actually takes in. Little by little, he reclines into the recesses of his own memories.

" _Killed the goat!" she hears him murmur at one point. She knows he's rambling. But at least he's not in a coma. "Billy goat, nanny goat. Play the goat. Old goat. Scapegoat. Part of him the Devil can't change. Little hoofs are always there." Suddenly, he nudges her thigh. "You sure it's dead?"_

Before she can answer, he's off again, his eyes darting about behind his closed lids. A nurse comes in and goes out again without comment.

After a while, Bridie goes to the second bed and lies on it, on her side, to watch him and to think about the strange purposes of miracles.

The last thing she remembers him saying before she falls asleep herself is, "You were so good. So brave! Didn't cry. Never a word."

* * *

No place is far away in a small town and that included Amalthea's house. A half century old worker's cottage, it was a fifteen-minute walk from the show grounds, down a side road that led only to her house and to one section of Alf Caletti's cane paddocks. In sugar country, there are heaps of such dead-end access roads that branch, like promising ideas, away from the main.

Like most of them, Amalthea's road promised bitumen at the start but turned quickly to gravel, then grass and finally to knee-deep headlands that criss-crossed between canyons of cane. Amalthea's house was the only one on the road, a hundred metres north of the bitumen and a hundred metres south of the grass; leaning against an empty car shed, the pair of them snoozing in the shade of an ancient Poinciana. Behind it, invisible from the road, there was a small fenced yard and, beyond that, untold acres of sugarcane. Looking left from her door, you could just make out the line of gums that marked the levee bank along the river. Straight ahead, across more cane fields, the smoking stacks of the mill.

After a brief period of fawning and commiserating, that was where we took Garlic. Shoulder pressed to shoulder, Asael, Amalthea and I each bore a portion of his weight, while Rosemary bumped morosely along behind us. Kevin had started out with us but, when it was clear that four meant we were tripping over each other, he'd veered off.

"Listen, you three don't need me for this, and I've got someone I promised to look up today. So I'll call you later, okay?"

I would have liked to be the one to let go, but I couldn't abandon Asael and he wouldn't abandon Amalthea. I think he'd have carried that goat all the way to Brisbane, just to stay near her.

That's not to say he wasn't wheezing and gulping and puffing the whole way. I asked him at one point if he was going to make it and he started on about latissimus muscles or some such thing. I figured if he had enough wind for that, he had enough to carry on. Anyhow, I was more interested in keeping Amalthea in the corner of my eye than listening to him. Reminded again of why males – even junior ones like Asael – were drawn to her. She was like one of those billowy, luscious-looking clouds you see gliding serenely northwards along the coast.

She caught me watching and smiled. "You're a good sister," she said. I suppose commenting on my concern for Asael. She was the second person in a day to make that mistake about me.

"Rosemary and I . . . we really appreciate your help, you two! Garlic too, I'm sure! "

I kept waiting for her to break down but she didn't. She muttered little phrases now and again that were clearly part of some internal discussion, and once I heard the hum of a tune! If that was what passed for distress in Amalthea-land, I definitely wanted to go there.

"I guess he wouldn't have seen it coming," I said, to see if a little conversation would shake her composure. "Being blind and all! At least that's a comfort!"

"Oh yes, I'm sure! Though when you think about it, probably not much of anyone gets to see it coming! All of us being blind in one way or another."

"Mm? Oh! Right! Well! Probably, I guess!" I felt like such a dweeb.

* * *

Finally, all of us strained to the limit, we grunted the two steps up onto her veranda.

"Ohmygod!" she groaned. "If I'd realised he was this chunky, I'd have had him on a diet ages ago! Put him down! Put him down! Just here'll do!"

We bent together, Amalthea protecting his lolling head, and we laid him out as gently as we could before Asa' and I stepped back, wiping the sweat from our faces, and she went lightly to her knees. Asa' was completely mesmerised – though whether by the bodily signs of death in Garlic, or the bodily signs of life in Amalthea, I wouldn't have cared to guess. We watched as she passed a hand over Garlic's closed eyes then touched the barely exposed tip of his poked tongue. I couldn't help but notice the tip of Asa's peeping out when she did that, before he put his own finger up to push it back in.

"Sit here in the shade for a bit, guys," Amalthea puffed, rising to her feet. "Would you mind? Just for a minute while I get us drinks?"

She started away, but the intensity of Asael's stare momentarily captured her. She smiled a question at him and the tip of his tongue popped out for a second time. For one dizzying second, I thought he was inviting her to touch it as she had Garlic's! Which normally would have sent him berko! I mean, what kind of diseases might be on the tip of a finger that has just touched the tongue of a dead goat? Happily, she settled for patting his head before going inside, leaving him and me and Rosemary and dead Garlic to sprawl on the ancient boards.

When she came back, she sat on the step, edging close to Rosemary.

"Poor Garlic," she crooned. "Old greybeard. We didn't expect this, did we, Rosemary? To lose him so suddenly! To have Death come visit us again, so soon."

The 'come again so soon' part of that was only beginning to register with me when she turned her attention back to us.

"Where is he now, do you think?"

To my great relief, she was looking at Asael who, not surprisingly, blinked in confusion. I suppose, if I'd really been a good sister, I would've made some attempt to save us from what followed. ('Dunno where he is, but I know where we should be! Seeya!') I didn't though; being more than a little intrigued, to find out where she thought Garlic was. So I waited. And sure enough, she repeated the question, only this time addressing it to Garlic himself, and adding a pair of hints.

"Where are you now, my man? In sun? In wind?"

Then there was a long, uncomfortable silence during which we stared half-expectantly at the corpse. Knowing someone's a bit unorthodox in their beliefs doesn't really prepare you for downright nuttiness. Surprisingly though, Bridie's long hours of indoctrination kicked in with Asael.

"He's with his Maker!" And he nodded beatifically at me, as if to say, 'See? I have been listening!' Whatever forces were working on the little dude that day, they were producing exceptional, if unoriginal results! And, as if his little motor had gotten away on him, he carried on, doing what Bridie always did with difficult questions – spouting a platitude.

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. For sure. Ecclesiastes. I think."

Amalthea had washed the blood off her face but the lolly-made slash on her forehead was ragged and still weeping, just a little. She put a fingertip beside it and a small frown skimmed, kingfisher quick, across her face. Then she shook her head.

"No. I doubt that, As'."

If it'd been up to me, I'd have escaped that conversation right then – a nod and a, 'No, I can see why.' But Asael was like a possum on steroids when he decided he needed to know something.

"Not Ecclesiastes?"

"Not better! I don't think endings are better."

She leaned away, far enough to touch Garlic's flank, and Rosemary popped a hoof out to do the same. When she glanced up, she couldn't help but catch Asa's look of expectancy, or mine, of scepticism.

"Well, I mean!" she defended herself. "If the end was better than the beginning . . . it wouldn't make sense, would it? Because for one thing, some beginnings are unbearably beautiful! You know? Like spring mornings! And new friendships! While some endings . . . like the end of Garlic's time with Rosemary and me . . . !" She turned a warm, sympathetic gaze on us. "Well, I don't have to tell you two how painful endings can be, do I?" (Adding to my newly sprouting conviction that my family's history, though mostly a mystery to me, was readily available to virtually everyone else – even outsiders – in the public streets of Sugar Town!) "So no! I don't think endings are better than beginnings, Asa'. What I think is that endings ARE beginnings."

There's a sort of clear-eyed, invitational look that people adopt when they want to share their personal puzzles. Like, 'I got something here that'll knock your socks off, bud!' It wasn't a look I'd ever knowingly given anyone, to that stage – not even Kevin! But it's the one she gave us and, not least because her willingness to trust was so . . . in need of testing, I jumped straight in.

"Oh yeah? So how does that work?"

"Well for instance, I know that your mother died." (Hmmm, I thought. Showing off her knowledge? Trying to stir me? Oblivious? What?) "When that happened, that was an end – a very sad end – to your time with her! But it was also a start, yes? Of a life that you had to be more responsible for! Same when your gramma died and your father went away! Each was an ending: each brought new beginnings! See what I mean? Today, when we met at the Festival . . . that was an end! An end to our time as . . . passing acquaintances! But it was also the start of our time as friends! And here you are at our house, for the first time ever! Hopefully something that will happen lots more times! Do you see? All endings have new beginnings built into them! And vice-versa, of course!"

Not a complicated theory, actually. Translated, it just meant that every solution clicks you along to the next confusion! Like, the solution to my curiosity about her was just clicking me along to including her in my resentment catalogue; for her access – not granted by me – to the mysteriously twisted McFarlane family history! My day had practically been birthed in resentment of the fact that, on the subject of our history, we McFarlanes seemed to be the least informed people on earth! And intentionally or not, Amalthea was demonstrating the proof of that – that even outsiders with smudgy reputations could be insiders on the topic of us!

Anger was a near option. On the other hand, though, she'd said we were 'friends'! And that 'hopefully' we'd be visiting more! Statements which, to be honest, were like honey on a bee to me. She was an outsider! Refreshingly, completely un-Sugar Town! The only other person who was remotely like her in my whole world was Kevin who, lovely though he was, was still a source of affection that I couldn't fully account for. For someone like Amalthea, though – an independent, free-willed, free-thinking female like her – to consider me a friend – someone who wanted to be around me (which, I have to admit, even I didn't particularly enjoy!) . . . that was something!

Then again, (there I was, as usual, arguing myself to a standstill) I understood that friendship came with trade-offs – rights for obligations. I didn't particularly want it to be her 'right' to casually discuss Rita and Gramma Gracie and the Reverend. Especially Rita! No one – hardly even us (except for Asael, in his dreams; and apparently Kevin, when he was miffed with Bridie; and I guess the Hoggitts, when they had too many prunes for breakfast) – no one ever talked about Rita! Could I impose an obligation not to talk about her? Or would that shatter the bargain? That was the rubbish going through my head as she chatted on, revealing further tidbits of her personal puzzle.

"However, if Garlic did get to meet his Maker, well . . . he'd have some curly questions to ask, I'll bet! Most likely, though, he's just camping."

"Camping?" Again, Asa', who didn't seem able to resist picking up and examining every crumb that fell from her lips.

"Mmm. Since he has to be out of his home for a while! Out of the world, you know? I'd like to think he'll be resting in a pleasant wilderness full of lovely bushes to browse on. And soon . . . or later . . . when the time is right . . . he'll pack up and come home."

"Home?" (Oh look! Another crumb! Let's have a nibble at that one, shall we?)

"Oh, not 'home', as in this house, of course! Not even to this house," she indicated the corpse. Then she leaned over and placed her palm against its ribs. "But somewhere! Somewhere this side of the wilderness."

Okay! So one obligation I definitely place on my friends is not to treat me like I'm an idiot!

"Wilderness?" I said. "What, so he's like, in Kakadu or something?"

I thought it was an excellently sharp bit of sarcasm but Asael who, in Amalthea's presence at least, was entirely oblivious to being taken for an idiot – or even for an empty bucket with a very large hole in the bottom – trampled right over it.

"What would make him come back, Amalthea?"

It seemed to me to be a 'nobody's dumber than me' question, but to Amalthea it seemed exactly the right one. Her eyes lit up like sparklers.

"You're right! You're exactly right, Asael! Why are we moping here? What're we thinking?"

She and Rosemary both jumped to their feet.

"Ceremony! Ritual! A send-off that's full of life! That's what'll make him come back!" She reached for our hands and began tugging us upright. "Come on, you two! We've got a funeral to arrange!"

And just like that, we were caught up in preparations for a goat send-off.

* * *

Our first task was to arrange Garlic on a blanket in the centre of the living room. Then Amalthea fetched a hairbrush and, drawing Asa' down beside her, she began lovingly, exaggeratedly, to brush the dead goat's hair, following each stroke with a slow, sensuous sweep of her other hand. Half a dozen strokes. Then she put the brush into Asa's hand.

"Like that," she said. "Make him handsome."

He took to it like a goose to gooseberries and she shot off into the kitchen, launching herself into a flurry of cupboard opening, drawer sliding and maximum bumping. I went to see and found her creating a pile of candles on the table. Tall and thin, fat and short. Candles that had been rescued from birthday cakes and candles the size of birthday cakes. Wax and wicks enough to fill a bathtub!

"Whadya think?" she asked, sweeping a hand over them. "Do I have enough?"

"Enough to light a basketball stadium! If you want to light up something bigger, you'll need more!"

I could hardly fathom the enthusiasm she'd mustered for 'sending-off' that goat! But I was even more gob-smacked by Asael's willingness to participate – to actually be touching something that was dead! I could hear him in the living room, rabbiting happily on, possibly to the living one, possibly to the dead one, and the only thing that would've shocked me more would've been for one of them to answer!

"He's a special boy, isn't he?" Amalthea said, nodding in his direction.

"Is he what! Every day's a revelation!"

She stopped moving around and looked at me closely. "Ruth, can I talk to you for a minute? Girl to girl?"

My attention flitted from Asa' immediately and I wagged my head. Prepared to be thrilled if she was sharing a confidence; underwhelmed if she was sharing 'life' advice. I already had platitudes aplenty in my life.

"The thing is," she said, "I owe you a better apology than the one I gave at the Showgrounds. For climbing on The Gourd. And for being a sticky-beak – reading those notes and letters. I knew it was a 'thing' here in Sugar Town and I went ahead and did it anyway."

I shrugged again. How quickly a little plane crash and a minor lolly-bombing can change your perspective! "Ah! Why would I care? It's just a stupid old Sugar Town thing! Doesn't mean anything to me!"

"No? Well I guess we're sort of sisters in that, then. It's just that . . . I know I'm a curiosity in town, and that people tell stories about me. And, well, sometimes my nose-thumbing is a little heavy-handed."

"Yeah." I thought of myself, standing up the mayor at the showground gate. "Yeah, I guess I know how that goes, too! So! But no harm done, eh? What the folks don't know, won't hurt 'em."

"Well, I'm not sure about that! In my experience, 'not knowing things' can hurt like hell! But then, of course, so can knowing too much! Which is why I want to mention the letter. Your letter . . . that I read!"

I gave her a look that I hoped would say, 'My letter? What are you, nuts?' It's a look I still haven't perfected. It tends to blur into wounded self-pity, which I hate.

"It had your names at the top," she explained. "Yours and Bridie's and Asael's . . . in the salutation. And also, Asael told me you'd put one there."

"Did he? Well! His anti-idiot medication must be wearing off!"

She smiled thinly and went back to sorting her candles, but I knew she hadn't made her point yet and I did my best to anticipate it.

"I don't know why I put it there. Aside from messing with Bridie's mind! I promise you, I'm not some superstitious yokel who communes with pumpkins!"

"Ruthie, I'm the last person to judge anyone that way! I've communed with some very strange people in some very strange places over the years! Part of what makes us human, I think!"

"Oh? So talking to pumpkins makes us human?"

She waggled her eyebrows, like: 'weird, but true, kiddo!'

"And like, what kind of advice did your communing ever get you?" I pressed. "Turn your lemons into lemonade? Be happy 'cause everything happens for a reason? Toughen up and take it on the chin? Useful stuff like that?"

"Sometimes, yeah." Despite my sneering, she laughed. "I guess that's as complicated as some people want to handle. But look! I just wanted you to know that, given the chance to climb up there again and look at the notes again – especially yours – I wouldn't. It was insensitive and stupid of me and I'm sorry I intruded."

And suddenly, though she'd clearly and carefully skirted the mud pit of my anger and humiliation, I found myself eager to drag her back and in.

"He's been gone eight years, you know?"

She tilted her head and made a little frown, which I didn't know how to interpret, so I took it as a 'So what?' kind of reaction from someone whose father experiences were probably much pleasanter. It surprised even me to find I was suddenly standing at the intersection of Bawling and Fighting Streets. I don't like bawling. But fighting is harder on friendships. Nonetheless, I chose the more testing option.

"That's eight years Bridie's been stuck with me and the idiot! Maybe while you're being sorry, you can be sorry for men like him! What did she do to deserve that! What did any of us do? All that crap in that letter about 'spreading the Word'! You read what he's really up to – romping in the jungle with 'Agnes'! His new . . . whatever-she-is! How does he get the right to tell us stuff like that and use the same mouth to ask for our support, eh? What kind o' man is that? What kind of a father?"

She didn't pause or ruffle up in the least. "I know a little bit about men, Ruth. But I'm the last person to ask about fathers. It's a whole, mysterious different state of being, from what I can gather."

I'd known from the start that I was off on a topic she couldn't possibly relate to. So I scrambled for another; something / anything that might provoke her because, suddenly, as I seemed always to need with Bridie, I needed her to fight – to want me out of her house and out of her clean, simple, unencumbered life! I needed her to give me an excuse to storm off and keep her from wandering any deeper into the shallow, pathetic boneyard that was me and my family.

"You were the last one to read it, you know! Garlic ate it! Did you know that?"

"Did he? No, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. But maybe – if it upset you this much – maybe it was a suitable end to it! In any case, it wouldn't have been anything personal, Ruth. He was blind, after all." She slid a selection of candles across the table toward me. "That's the thing I know about men, by the way; in case you were wondering. They go and they do. They come back or they don't come back. Because they see with their appetites; not with their hearts."

If I have a talent for provocation (and I do), I was a blunt amateur compared to Amalthea. When you wanted her to fight, she backed off. When you wanted her to back off, she ducked straight in and whacked you. Like the 'if it upset you' comment! Of course the letter upset me! It was proof that my father was a liar and a cheat; and I wanted to keep it as evidence! Or the 'fathers being mysterious' thing! What's mysterious about selfishness? Or the 'men seeing with their appetites' thing! Easy to find an example to prove her wrong! Kevin! Or maybe Johnathon Cranna! I didn't even get a chance to challenge her about her note on the Grand Gourd: 'We follow. Now we follow.' What was that about? (Though to bring that up, I'd have had to expose Bridie as a thief. And I wasn't going there!) All that potential for argument and, by the time I'd sorted my thoughts, she was gone, back into the living room, chattering to Asael and Rosemary. I hate it when people won't stand and fight.

* * *

I helped arrange the candles around Garlic's corpse, seething the whole while about Amalthea's elusiveness and also about Asael's dedication to brushing that dead goat, as though somebody's life depended on it. Eventually we stood back and she made a show of mumbling to Rosemary.

"Mmm, yes! That's what it is!" And to us she explained, "It's a wonderful start! But Rosemary and I were thinking we'd slip out and look for some flowers! Garlic was crazy for flowers!"

Rosemary licked her lips, obviously sharing Garlic's craziness, and Asael shot to his feet, practically wetting himself in his need to be obliging.

"I'll go!"

I sighed. "We'll go . . . together! And when we've finished looking, we'll go home. Okay As'? You know how worried Bridie'll be if we're late!"

The yard was bare and empty, of course, cropped to the roots by Rosemary and Garlic. Beyond the rusting mesh fence that enclosed it, there was rampant growth – a lushly green headland, backed by a three-metre high wall of cane. None of it flowers!

Okay, I thought. That's that; we tried. And my thoughts turned toward Bridie and the hospital and Johnathon Cranna. Asael's, however, as was happening more and more often, turned in a completely different direction. I could tell by the way he started shifting his head this way and that.

Even from her place, the air was distantly full of the whiz, pop and whistle of Sideshow Alley; the cries of the spruikers and the look-at-me squeals of girls on skirt-lifting rides. The ping of bells, the honk of horns, the continuous rant of loudspeakers and the shouts of men at the beer tent. As the crow flew, we weren't that far from the showgrounds. And from what we could hear, despite the catastrophe of the lolly drop, the celebration had lifted to a kind of manic intensity!

On a normal day, Asael would sooner have eaten a spider than consider going back there at night. If it had been me or Bridie asking him, he'd have flopped over with his legs in the air and refused to budge. But it was Amalthea asking. And the day had not been normal.

"Shrouded!" I heard him mutter. "Absolutely shrouded!" And when I forced myself to ask, he reminded me of the parade floats, now parked and abandoned. So many of them shrouded in flowers.

Would he dare steal flowers? Once, I'd've said definitely not! Was I willing to test him? No way! What if he pricked his thumb and got septicaemia? What if he pricked his conscience and became permanently gaga? What if he got caught? I'd never forgive myself! So I scolded, threatened, pleaded and finally offered to go myself, if he would promise to stay with Amalthea.

"But you have to promise! And promise you'll come with me as soon as I get back! Okay? The very minute I get back! Okay?"

As soon as I'd made the decision, I knew it was a good one. Crazy days come and go, but there's never enough alone-time. Tipped up against the Poinciana was a wheelbarrow which, judging by its squeaky wheel, was not happy about being shifted by a flower flogger. Nonetheless I took it and, though it would soon get used to me and stop complaining, I could hear Asa' back in the yard, imitating its sound: eek, eek, eek!

The street, of course, was empty and, breathing a sigh of relief, I let my thoughts drift over the day's events. The Tiger Moth was the major thing: sailing past, cutting the air like a huge, blunt sword, with Johnathon Cranna looking down at me. His lips had moved. What had he said? And then of course, I fancied his lips had moved again, when I kissed him! Had he known he was being kissed? Did he know it was me? How would I explain it if he asked?

"Sorry, Mister C'! I'm a sick, sad, desperate piece of work with a fetish for crash victims!"

The real reason, I knew, was that sometimes you do things just because you can! An impulse. A reflex. The mingled smells of pumpkin, petrol and a man's cologne! And not just any man's cologne! Johnathon Cranna's cologne! Me conscious, in control and a person raised in the company of loonies: him unconscious, in need of help and smelling like danger! So what're you whinging about? One sneaky smooch from a scrawny kid is hardly a biggie, mate! Especially when you consider the alternative!

Imaginary arguments – the one thing I hate about alone-time! It took a real effort of will to bring my focus back to the job in hand. Get into the parking lot, rip off some greenery and squeak away – five minutes! Simple! But the day had worn on me and the smells, the sounds, the steam and the smoke-laced lights soon had me gagging with nervousness. If I got caught, Bridie would die of shame! She'd kill me a thousand times, then she'd die of shame.

"So what, so what, so what!" I was growling at myself as I parked the barrow beneath a bush at the edge of the lot. "Shut up and leave me alone!"

It was just on dusk. Fifteen minutes of waiting would do it. Fifteen quiet, uneventful minutes!

* * *

Five minutes later, a pair of boys I knew from school appeared. They drank hastily from a bottle, peed on a tyre and sauntered away, back to the grounds. Five minutes more and a vehicle rattled into the lot. Doors slammed and voices floated across to me! One of which was almost as familiar as my own.

"If something ever happened to me," Bridie once said to me, "and you needed someone to put your trust in, you couldn't do better than Kevin Truck!"

And with all my heart, I knew that to be true. Which was why, with all my newfound criminal intention, I really didn't want to show myself. Stealing is stealing is stealing! Even if it's for a goat-funeral!

It quickly became clear, though, that he and whoever. . . a woman? . . . weren't on their way into the grounds. They were lingering in the lot. Why? And I didn't recognise her voice! Who was she? Thus (as Kevin would've said) doth curiosity tempt the cat to leave its squeaky barrow behind and creep out amongst the densely packed cars.

Peeping carefully over bonnets and around bumpers, I finally got a view of them. He was tossing remnants of the exploded Grand Gourd into the back of his van; which answered my first question. Grand Gourd scones were still going to be on the town's menu, despite Johnathon's careless landing!

As to the other question, the woman he was talking with was a complete stranger to me. I squinted, I strained to hear, got none the wiser and, deciding that my and Kevin's friendship deserved a better effort than this sneaky evesdropping, I began a retreat. I'd have made it too, if weren't for the one word I clearly heard both of them say. And that word, my own name, drew me out into the open.

He saw me straight away. "Ru'! What the . . . ? What are you doing here?"

The apparent answer was, surprising the hell out of him!

"I mean . . . why aren't you down on Sideshow Alley, running amok? Where's As'? Hey, sorry I had to leave you with poor old Garlic, earlier! How'dja go, dja get him home alright? My God, you startled me, popping up like that! Hey, you don't know where Bridie is, do you? Could she still be at the hospital, d'ye think? Bin tryin' to find her all afternoon!"

Babbling Kevin! This wasn't a persona I'd come across before! And it made me even more curious about the woman who, maybe more so because of the sharp shadows, seemed a sombre, grim, worn looking thing. About Kevin's age, I guessed, but wearing stuff that belonged to some other era entirely. Dark, ankle-lengthed, sewn with bright stars and brocade. It looked like part of a costume. Like she was an escapee from a 1960's gypsy parade!

My manners aren't always very flash. But I did my best, as I mumbled empty answers, to check her out in a sidewise, inoffensive kind of way. She, on the other hand, let her eyes crawl over me like worms and made no effort to hide the fact that she was unimpressed. Rude old cow, I thought; and my surreptitious glances rapidly morphed into a 'what's-your-problemish' kind of stare.

Kevin, giving credit to his breeding, did his best to avert a confrontation. He wrapped an arm about her shoulders and spoke to her slowly, softly, the way I sometimes spoke to Asael when he was being particularly, aggravatingly (as Amalthea'd called him) 'special'.

"It's been a long time, Bess. She won't remember you."

But as soon as he said her name, I did remember her. And if I hadn't already been as annoyed as hell about so many things – having to lurk in the parking lot to steal flowers for a dead goat was not the worst of them – that name alone would have ruined the rest of my weekend. Nonetheless, nothing emphasizes someone's bad manners as sharply as showing good manners, so I bit my tongue and boiled up a smile for Kevin's introduction.

"Ruthie, I'd like you to meet the famous clairvoyant, Madam Zodiac!" He launched into a spiel that I'd probably heard a dozen times before, on Sideshow Alley. "She remembers your past, she knows your future! She'll astonish and ama-a-a-ze wi . . . !"

"Can that!" she snapped and the introduction halted, though both his smile and mine teetered on.

"Sorry, Bess. Just a professional courtesy, love." He winked at me and reached a hand to my shoulder. "Ruth, this lady who's gracing us with her company is Bessie Crampton. You might not remember Bessie, but . . ."

"I remember."

It was a bit bitey-er than I'd intended but, for starters, it wasn't the first time that day her name had come up, so I already had a freshly re-minted awareness of her in my mind. And in the second place, she had long been, to me, just one more of the people who'd abandoned Bridie – the most recent one, in fact! And in the third place, I was none too happy with the sense that whoever was in charge of 'Life' appeared to be playing silly-buggers with mine! What the Fairy Ferkles was going on?

Kevin paused thoughtfully, nodded and soldiered on.

"You do? Excellent! Well! I'd thought, what with it being so long ago . . . !" He was speaking with that sort of eyebrow-wagging exaggerated emphasis that people use when they want you to read between the lines. "So, you'll remember too, then, won't you, that Bessie was a great friend of your parents? And your grandma? Bessie knew them for many years. In those very same years you and I were talking about this morning! Remember?"

I nodded shallowly. She had stayed with us all those years, it was true. Even after the Reverend left, when we'd needed her so badly. But then, like all the rest, she'd gone. I was seven that year and, for Bridie and for me, it had been like another death.

"Bess," he finished up gamely, turning away from me, "I'd like you to re-meet Ruthie MacFarlane."

I switched off the smile. Sometimes people presume they have a right to hug you, and I wasn't going to risk seeming to invite it. But she thrust out a hand instead. I looked at it long enough to let her know that, whatever distance she was imagining between us, she was still underestimating it by half. In all the years I'd known her, I'd never called her anything but Bessie. Okay, maybe sometimes Auntie Bess. Right, and I suppose I might even, once or twice, in moments of extreme vulnerability, have called her 'mum'. But it wasn't heartfelt! I reached out and took her hand.

"I remember you . . . Mrs Crampton."

Her grasp was as swift and surprising as a turkey's peck. But a turkey that hangs on. She stepped straight into me, twisting my wrist so my hand lay atop hers and began rubbing the skin with her thumb, squeezing the meaty edges and fingering the knobs of my knuckles. I was so startled! I tried instinctively to yank myself free but she moved her grip up to my wrist and held on, spreading my fingers, pinching the webbing between and muttering crazily to herself. I tried a second time to twist free and, in response, she clutched the hand to her breast and turned her glaring attention to my face.

Kevin, meanwhile, put on a show that would have distracted a hypnotist.

"What a day, eh Ru'? You're a hero in town, did you know – risking your all for old Crash Cranna? Folks've been looking all over for you! And for Bridie! She won the Queen contest! Lyle's been calling your names over the loudspeaker! Just to congratulate you, you know? Bess and I, we went over to your place looking for you both. You know, so Bess and Bridie in particular could have a catch-up! Missed her though! We were already back here before I thought o' the hospital! Surely Bridie wouldn't still be there, would she? With Johnathon? Has she called you?"

I was embarrassed to realise that I not only had no idea where she might be but I was going to resent it mightily if she'd spent the whole afternoon with Johnathon! Not that she didn't have every right to!

"Yah, yah!" I struggled to find a suitable lie. "She's fine! You know her – just hates the limelight! She's just – laying low!"

"Good-oh. Well! Great! What a memorable festival this one's gonna be, eh? Goodbye to the dreary old past and hello to a . . . a bright new future!"

And as though she'd remembered where that bright new future was to be found, Bessie cranked my hand through a hundred and eighty degrees and began analysing my palm.

"Hey, and so, you got Garlic home all right?" Kevin continued with barely a pause. "What a shame that was, eh? He was a good bloke, Garlic was! Focussed! 'The Force is Gathering'! Wouldn't leave home without that sign, the old bloke! Couldn't trick him with something else, either! Couldn't even slip Rosemary's sign on him. No way! That was his mission in life, carrying those words. A rare and lucky gift, that would be, eh Ru'? To know your mission in life? Yes indeed! I'm gonna miss that little billy. But there you go! Life changes, doesn't it? I'll get around to Thea's tomorrow, after the scones. Just to see she's okay. She's good value, her, don't you think? Haven't known her all that long. What's she been here – three, four months? But what a breath of fresh air, eh? Never hurts to breathe some fresh air, I always say!"

Listening to him was like being pounded with a pillow. But it did the trick! When he ran out of chat, though, my hand was still stuck in Bessie's bull rider's grip and I was seriously regretting leaving my possie under the bush with my barrow. Thankfully, Kevin put an end to it. He didn't actually have to judo chop her or anything, but he did gently break her hold on me, a finger at a time.

"Come on now, Bess! Let her go. You've seen enough. Here! Give me your hand."

He got one hand free and the other jumped into the air, fluttering like a moth before coming to rest with its mate in Kevin's strong black ones.

"Go on then, Sweetheart," he said softly. Like he was encouraging a confused old workhorse to tend to its oats. "She's grown up beautifully, hasn't she? And she's clever as a whip! Why don't you tell her?"

Dealing with damaged people was daily fare at my house and, the more I heard and saw, the stronger my suspicion became that she'd become, or maybe had always been, one of them. Like half her thoughts were hiding behind the mulberry bush. It made me gloat just a little bit, a cruelty which she must have seen in my eyes because she let her gaze fall to the ground.

"It's Bridie," she sniffed. "Bridie I should be seein', not Ruthie! She was too little. She won't remember Rita. It's Bridie needs to know, not her!"

* * *

Something about Rita? Something about my family? My dead mother? And I, according to our one-time carer, didn't need to know?

"Right!" I sizzled. "Of course! A pleasure to see you again too, Mrs Crampton! And, yeah, you should tell whatever it is to Bridie! 'Cause we're all agreed around here that my family is none of my business! Everybody else's business, obviously, but not Ruthie's! 'Cause we all know she's way too freakin' stupid to understand anything!" The last word was shouted.

I was so angry, I wanted to scream and pull hair! True enough, I didn't remember a lot about Rita. But I remembered plenty more than Asael did! Asael who'd never known her at all! She of the skeleton feet. And I wanted to remember her plenty more than Bridie ever seemed to want! I was, in fact, the one most deserving of knowing! And I was there, ready to listen! But I wasn't the one that was wanted!

I wished I hadn't left my backpack at Amalthea's. If I'd had it, I would have pulled out the clippings I'd taken from the memory box and waved them in Bessie's face. See? You have actual memories! This is what I have!

* * *

' _TOWN'S FAREWELL'_

' _The body of local identity, Mrs Rita MacFarlane . . . laid to rest . . . Several hundred mourners . . . Follows closely on the death of her mother. . . service conducted by her husband, well known local identity, Rev' Jacob . . . leaves behind two daughters, aged 15 years and four years. Especially tragic . . . an infant son, aged 10 months . . . sadly missed . . .'_

* * *

'Daughter . . . four years'. Those three words were practically the sum total of my connection to my mother! And yet, according to Bessie Crampton, there was stuff I didn't 'need to know'! All I did know was that she'd gone out one drizzly day and been found the next, hanging from a limb in the mangroves! And of course I had the added benefit of Asa's morbid imagination; the tides having come and gone twice, he calculated. Hence his dream image of her skeleton feet – picked clean by fish and crabs. As for why she did it, what had been going through her mind, what she'd said or done in her last hours at home, whether she'd hugged any of us before she left . . . I hadn't a clue. Bessie, it seemed, had a clue. But it was none of my business!

"So there's no point in hanging about then, is there?" I said, loudly and stupidly. "Which is great because I've got some stuff to steal and people waiting for me! Wish I could say it's been a pleasure, Mrs Crampton! But it hasn't!"

I spun on my heel and started to walk away. It was clear that Bessie couldn't see much use in me and I was fully contemptuous of her. Let Kevin deal with her ancient looniness.

"Ru', Ru', wait!"

The back of an angry person was one of Kevin's least favourite sights.

"Don't go! What are you talking about, stealing stuff? Listen! Wait! Bessie, look! It's Ruthie! All grown and beautiful! You can talk to her! Believe me, Bess! You can talk to her! Just try, okay? For me?"

It was a nice little speech. I especially liked the 'all grown and beautiful' bit – even though I knew it wasn't true, on either count. Whatever! It seemed to reach something in Bessie because, suddenly, she beckoned me back impatiently and snatched again at my hands. This time, she took both, flipping them palm up, like a pair of exotic seashells. I let her look. Two minutes, I thought. Look fast because in two minutes, these hands are going to be off snatching flowers. And yours are going to be as empty as your soggy old heart!

"Hmmph! Rita's hands, all right!" she declared reluctantly, as though maybe she'd mistaken them for Edward's scissor-hands the first time around. "Stubborn. Temperamental. Short on good sense." She looked up at me, her eyes glistening. "Not that there's any point in warning you! I warned Rita, ye know! Trouble in those hands, I said! Didn't help at all! Best you can do is brace yourself. So listen . . . Ru'. Ruth. Ruthie."

It was an effort for her to get her tongue around the name. Which was okay; I wasn't that fussed on it myself. Detestia, I felt like saying: call me Detestia. But I didn't and, hesitantly, at least part of the story she'd brought for Bridie, she began to tell me.

"Fact is . . . I took something! Years ago. Told myself back then it was for the best. Protect people . . . people who'd been good to me. For longer than maybe I deserved." She kept her head down, talking more to my hands than to me.

"I've come this way on the Show tour every year since I left! Sometimes stop, sometimes not. Sugar Town's not been a good town for me. Lotsa good folks in it, mind. Fine folks. Well-meaning folks. But 'well-meaning' don' always wind the clock, does it? Guess I'm your prime example o' that! Anyways, I always thought . . . I dunno . . . maybe Jacob would've come back for yez – taken yez away. Couldn' believe when I heard her name over the loudspeaker! Bridie McFarlane! My God, I says to myself! She's still here! Has to be her! An' then I says to myself, 'That's a sign, Bess! Time to step up and do your bit. Time to set things right'."

She turned a dark look on Kevin.

"Men are such bastards! Always leave it up to women to put things right!"

He smiled gently. "Because you're so good at it, Bess! Go on, tell Ru' the rest, now."

"Yeah, well! Thing is, what I took, I need to give back. That's all. You tell Bridie, if she wants it, to come find me, okay? I got a caravan, back amongst the Showies – back o' the showgrounds. Madam Zodiac. You remember that, Ruth?"

I pulled my hands firmly away from her and pocketed them. I thought to tell her that, for all Bridie'd care, she could barbecue her 'something' with the sausages. Nothing from those times meant anything to Bridie anymore. It was all darkness, and that was how she liked it. But I just nodded dumbly

"She can ask anyone along Sideshow Alley. They'll send her right. Okay? You sure you got it?"

"Treating people like they're stupid," I said through narrowed lips, "doesn't actually make them stupid, Mrs Crampton. I've got it."

She took a last look at me, up and down, as though her eyes were whisking away dust. And then she changed the subject abruptly.

"Asael," she murmured. "Poor little mite! Of all the names we looked at, she picked that one!"

And then she was done with me altogether. She turned to Kevin, put her arms around him and buried her face against his shoulder, as though holding onto him was all that kept her from spinning away into space. She wasn't a small woman but she folded herself into his arms like a child of ten and, for the second time that day, I thought, again with a hint of resentment, how entirely at home women were allowed to make themselves in Kevin's arms.

"I just couldn't watch him," she sniffled into his shirt. "Couldn't do it. I tried. I couldn't."

"Bessie," he said soothingly, "whatever happened back then. . . happened without your consent. It doesn't belong on your conscience."

She choked out a laugh and pushed herself free of his grasp. "What would you know about consciences, Mister?"

Kev' smiled lopsidedly and shrugged at me. "See that? The world's an open book to Madame Zodiac – and still it weighs on her! Simple folk like us, Ru' . . . we haven't got a chance!"

He wagged his head, always happy with the impenetrability of the world, and guided Bessie toward the Ute. I waited, my trouble-marked palms clutched in my armpits and Kev', once he'd secured her, came back to me and took my face in his hands. Over the years, he and I had held hands, bumped shoulders, danced, slapped each other on the back, arm-wrestled, tried to push each other down and helped pick each other up. But he'd never before held my face between his hands. I was thirteen but felt at that moment like I was five.

"Time heals old pains," he said, "even while creating new ones. Some pains just take more time than others." Then he kissed me on the forehead and I didn't respond. Arms crossed, hands tucked away, eyes on the ground. "She's more than she seems, Ru'. As are you. If you're still intent on your quest, you could do worse than giving some trust back to her."

I nodded, knowing he'd soon be gone, already missing him. He climbed into the old van and chugged away, leaving a confusing mix of odours on the air – diesel and the too sweet smell of vegetable.

I looked around and realised that the last shirt-tails of daylight had been tucked out of sight. And everything, from the sounds of the festival to the arguments in my head, seemed magnified by the dim and lonely light that arced and flickered overhead. Just like Kevin, to leave a person with a big 'If'. 'If you're still intent on your quest. . . !' His way of saying, 'You don't have to tell Bridie about Bessie: but if you don't, you'll have to accept that it's over.'

It may seem a given, that I would tell her, but it wasn't. With all Bridie's insecurities, who could guess how she'd be affected by the fossilised memories 'Madame Zodiac' had hidden in her witch's trunk? Time creates new pains. What if Time used crazy old ladies to do its dirty work! What if it used her to open the door to more trouble – maybe the trouble that apparently lay dormant in my palm! Then again, if it was in my palm, maybe Bessie didn't matter! Maybe the door was already open!

I forced myself to start walking, back toward the shadowed floats. Maybe, if I focussed on my flower-stealing mission, an answer would creep up on me. Even so, I turned in slow circles as I walked, intent on ensuring that there'd be no creeping without my having at least a moment's warning.

* * *

The trouble with trouble, of course, and me, is that we seem to have an affinity for one another. How else to explain the predicament I was already in, in that crammed parking area, with the nearby festival roar surging around me? How else to explain being drawn to a small but persistent knot of sound on the sugar mill side of the lot? A distant uproar of cheers, jeers and mocking laughter that I should have known to avoid but decided to investigate instead. In the interests of self-preservation, I told myself.

I crept as close as I dared and climbed on a car's bumper for a peep into the weak unhealthy-looking light, dull and orange as a pawpaw, that shone on the wreckages of the Moth and the smashed sugar hopper. Half a dozen boys were making eerie shadows, prancing, pummelling one another, crushing beer cans and roaring out challenges to the night. A testosterone binge, if ever I saw one! I was ready to scamper the moment I saw them. And I would have if it hadn't been for the unmistakable silhouette of Dale Sutton, climbing over the Moth's wing and, with all kinds of bravado, lowering himself into Johnathon's seat.

I nearly laughed out loud at how pathetic it was! As if he had the least hope of filling Johnathon's place! 'Chalk and cheese, you big bozo!' I sneered at him under my breath. And knowing I should leave, I stayed, to watch a second figure climb onto the wreckage.

It began to gyrate above Dale and the ones on the ground clapped and shouted drunkenly.

"Look out, mate! Here comes Ruthie to yank you outta there!" They all choked with laughter and I felt myself flush with shame and embarrassment.

"Whatsa matter, Suts? Too scrappy for ya?"

"Yeah, scrawny little scrapper fights back, don't she! Throw 'er back, Suts! We want Bridie!"

"No, no! The goat lady! She's good for it, eh!"

"No no! The goats! What about one o' them goats for Sutto, eh? Give 'im the billy!"

My insides collapsed like cheap paper in a spit ball maker's mouth.

I knew all of them, at least a little bit – not my friends, but definitely my neighbours – and I'd never seen any of them quite like that before. I wondered what they'd do if I appeared amongst them and ripped into them. Would they cringe with embarrassment? Or would they step up to a whole new level of horrible?

I considered it! I truly did! Until the ones left on the ground suddenly lunged, as unified as a school of sharks, and howling with exertion, began to push the Moth along the railway track. Somewhere under its belly, metal screamed against metal.

I remember once asking Kevin about the effort he put into charming people at the bakery.

"You don't have to do that," I pointed out. "It's the only bakery in town! They're always going to come back!" And he'd answered, "It keeps the weevils at bay, Ru'!"

Something in the unity of purpose of those boys, and in the fantasies that bound them together, seemed powerfully weevil-ish to me that night. It was enough to send me creeping back, tail between my legs, to Amalthea's barrow which squeaked, low and fretful, as I wheeled it amongst the floats.

* * *

I spent over half an hour, in the end, climbing over the abandoned vehicles like a crab over coral, sniffing, selecting and stripping away their blooms. If nothing else, seeing those boys and hearing their jibes had numbed my conscience, and it was numbed even further when the loudspeaker crackled into life with the voice of Mayor Hoggitt.

"Well," he roared through the microphone's peeps and whistles: "you know the story by now, folks! We got a Queen we can't find! I had my spies out lookin' for her all afternoon, but . . . maybe she's like them comic book heroes – needs impending doom before she'll reveal herself. Ha ha ha! Last chance for today, Bridie! You out there in the crowd? No? Well . . . I'm gonna go ahead an' guess maybe the day's excitement's got the best of her, folks. Either that or she's out in the parkin' lot with some lucky young stiff. Ha ha ha! Get it? Stiff? Whaddya reckon? Fat chance or no chance? Ha ha ha! No matter! Mayor Hoggitt's spies'll catch up with you Bridie! Sooner or later! Always do!"

A series of grunts and bumps followed, underlain by the muffled voice of Frieda as she wrestled the mike away from him.

"Listen to what you're saying, you old fool!"

And his slurred reply: "Don' upset yourself now, love! All friends on a day like this!"

So Bridie really was Harvest Festival Queen! After all those years, the judges (Frieda Hoggitt) had decided to reward her perseverance! I wondered how she'd feel about that and hoped, somehow, that she'd understand the compliment.

Minutes later the fireworks began and, a little bit in honour of Bridie who would never allow herself such heights, I climbed onto the tallest carnation throne, three metres above the bitumen, to watch. It was somewhere between starbursts that the Tiger Moth burst into flames and the wild boys began to bay at the darkness.

* * *

In Amalthea's living room, the air quickly became soupy with the aroma of pilfered flowers. She'd made spaghetti for Asael and me and, while we ate, she moved about, fine-tuning her arrangements. Rosemary, in her wake, dined slyly on marigolds, delphiniums and everlasting daisies.

My plan was still for As' and I to go. We'd been more than neighbourly and I didn't want Asael to be part of whatever funereal weirdnesses Amalthea had yet to enact. Also, wherever Bridie was, she'd certainly be fretting about where we were. I figured she'd be at home – that she and Kevin and Crazy Lady Bessie must have crossed paths. I tried to ring but the battery on my phone was dead and Amalthea, inexplicably, didn't own one. The silver linings that I glommed onto were that spending a little time looking for our sister would help distract Asael from the whole farewelling-the-dead thing; and that the day's events might have created an afterglow of co-opertive good will in Bridie.

She'd be hurt, of course. By my stealing the Agnes letters (plus the clippings, etcetera, still in my backpack); by my sticking private family business up in public on The Grand Gourd (and its subsequent disappearance) and by my challenging the mayor! On the other hand, she'd come unscathed through a near-death experience and Asa' and I had shown some redeeming community spirit by helping Amalthea. And I had news to tempt her with . . . Bessie Crampton's reappearance!

By the time we'd cleaned up our dishes, Amalthea had lit the candles around Garlic's corpse, turned out the lights and seated herself, like a candle-genie in the midst of the flames. She invited us to join her and before I'd blurted out, "No, we have to . . . !" Asa was on the floor beside her. I started to remind him of his promise but then (me and trouble again!) decided maybe he (and definitely me) could risk a glimpse of what was to come. In the interests of experience!

"Good," Amalthea said, flicking the pages of a book. "Words are nicest when they're shared, I always say. I've picked a poem here that Garlic always loved, didn't he Rosemary. The farm descriptions, I think. Mornings and roosters. Reminded him of when he could see, I suppose. And of when our purposes were . . . simpler." She and Rosemary both sighed and several candles waggled their flames. "Anyhow . . . that won't make you too uncomfortable will it?"

Listening, as it happens, has always been one of Asael's more muscular skills. You could read a recipe to him and he'd listen like it was the story of the next Mars landing. He sat forward, watching Amalthea, and I leaned back on my hands, watching him watch her. As soon as she began, he closed his eyes and began to rock.

It's not so much the words, I think, as the voices that move him around like a big marionette. Amalthea's voice, for instance – the husky musicality of her em's, the rumble of her ar's – sent visible little shivers running through his arms. When her tongue flicked away a line of el's, he smiled a little Buddha smile and when she got amongst the o's and the oo's, he puckered his lips, as though she'd asked for a kiss. Asa' could drown in voices. It makes him very vulnerable, I think, and it's one of the reasons he takes medication. Also one of the reasons why I watch him so closely.

Amalthea's poem was a thing about getting older and being chained by Time. I really only took in bits of it. 'Young and easy,' I heard, and 'happy as the grass was green.' 'Prince of the apple towns.' Prince of the sugar towns would have made more sense to me. At one point, though, I heard, 'It was all . . . . . . .'

The pause was so long that Asa's eyes popped open. It was all . . . what? We both looked at Amalthea and I realised she was, at last, crying. It was her first real show of grief, and Rosemary stepped through the candles to put her chin on Amalthea's shoulder.

"It was all . . . shining!" she eventually finished. Then she repeated.

"It was all shining!"

Asael shifted and his hand came up to stroke the air in front of her; like, for one crazy moment, he thought he might actually touch her! Which, for Asael, reaching out to touch anyone other than me or Bridie would have been like a palm tree reaching out to touch a passing bird! Or Bridie, reaching up to touch the Moth! He was becoming, it occurred to me, like some kind of doppelganger copy of my brother, but with strange new qualities! In the event, of course, his hand settled, unused, back into his lap and she, oblivious to him, turned her attention to Rosemary.

"Oh Rosemary. We're going to miss him, aren't we?"

Right, so that was where the discomfort began to kick in. I started to shuffle my feet under me, catching As's attention and gesturing with my eyes at the door. He didn't budge.

"I've lived lives, you know!" she said.

She might have been talking to herself, her voice was that soft, but her eyes had swivelled to Asa' and me. Asa's mouth fell open and I subsided back into my place.

"I mean, we all have! We've all known so many endings and beginnings. But knowing doesn't mean you won't miss someone, does it? Or that you shouldn't treasure memories of who they were. Not that I have to tell you two what it feels like to miss someone."

She sniffled, picked up her hairbrush and began raking out its load of goat hair with her fingers. Then, maybe because she'd noticed my let's-get-going signals, she turned the conversation onto us. Or more accurately, onto Asael.

"What do you remember most, Asael?" she asked very softly.

"Uh!" He looked at me, looked at her, looked at Rosemary. All eyes were on him and there was no way I could help. "About what?"

"Oh . . . about people who are gone."

"Uuuhh." He narrowed his eyes and grimaced, trying his best to find a memory. Poor little dope! He so wanted to please and impress. "Skeleton feet, I guess?"

I jumped in then. I had no idea where it would lead but, knowing Asael, crazy seemed inevitable.

"Asael wasn't born when Gramma Grace died. And was only a baby when Rita died. So he doesn't remember them – just from what he dreams. I was older but even I don't remember very much."

"I remember she gave me my name!" Asa' blurted. "It means 'God strengthens'!"

"Really? Asael means 'God strengthens'?"

"Yep! Ruthie says it's to remind me to try not to be frightened."

"Ah! And does it? Remind you?"

"I'm working on it. But not usually. Not unless Ruthie helps."

"No?" She palmed away her tears, pulled a tissue from between her breasts and wiped her nose, suddenly thoughtful. "Not to be frightened! Well . . . there are two treasures there, aren't there! A lesson for the future and Ruthie's loving help! You're a lucky boy!"

There was a long moment of silence during which we watched Asael's lips shuffle through some story he was organising to tell.

"Our father's a missionary in New Guinea!" he finally squeaked. "He's got a very important purpose in God's scheme! That's what Bridie says. He writes to us!"

His simple nature saddens me sometimes, it really does! I hoped Amalthea wouldn't follow up with mention of the Agnes letter, but even if she did, I was fairly certain that Asael wouldn't see the truth, lying there like a three-D photo between the lines. He'd take it at face value.

"Hmm!" Amalthea answered thoughtfully. "Well, it's a fortunate person who knows his purpose in God's scheme." She nuzzled Rosemary and added softly, "In any scheme at all, for that matter!"

The moment seemed to have passed and I said a silent thank you for letting us through it with a minimum of embarrassment. Asa', though, having found his tongue, was determined to give it a good workout.

"Kevin," he blathered, ignoring my warning frown, "says Garlic's special purpose was to carry his sign – 'The Force is Gathering'." He indicated the banner, now folded beside the corpse. "He says Garlic knew his purpose! I don't think that could be right though, could it? That goats would have a purpose . . . and know stuff? I mean . . . could they?"

Amalthea smiled, put her knuckles between Rosemary's eyes and rubbed lightly.

"Oh yes!" she said affectionately. "They have a purpose. And they know stuff!!" Then she winked mysteriously at As' and added, "They can see the wind! Did you know that? Yes they can! And what else they can see . . .," she leaned forward conspiratorially, ". . . it would scare the bejabbers out of us to think about!" Her eyes were wide, more serious than mocking, the tears all gone. Asael gaped, as though she'd conjured a monkey out of the air.

"I see stuff too!" he whispered. "Not the wind, but! And I hear stuff too! I take medication."

Both Amalthea and Rosemary stared at him, as though hoping to share a vision with him. Then she tapped his leg with the hairbrush and leaned even closer to him. The candlelight whisked across her face.

"I know you do! And I bet . . . I bet some of those things stay with you, don't they! Because when they're with you, you make them real!"

It suddenly felt unusually cold for an October night! Or maybe it was the thought of Asael's imaginary Rita becoming real, with her skeleton feet, that had given me the shivers!

"Oh my God!" I cried, intentionally overloud. "Look at the time! Bridie'll be having a kitten!"

* * *

It seemed timely; to get us up and moving before things got any more out-of-hand strange. But the candles had fooled me, making me think the night was still anchored in normality; unaware that the freakiness had been cozying up outside. As if our talking about it had drawn it in! As if our preparing to leave had invited it to pounce. We could leave, it turned out; but only with conditions.

The first hint came when Amalthea went from light switch to light switch, finding them all useless! No inside lights, no carport lights, no outside lights. Mildly frustrated, we edged out into the yard, aiming to get our bearings from the glow of the sugar mill. No sugar mill! Nothing! Darker than dark! The whole town, in fact, was gone!

"Bloody possums!" I croaked, thinking how they sometimes got inside a big transformer, frying themselves and all other connections in the process. "The electrical guys'll be onto it. Have it back in a flash!"

"Mmm," Amalthea hummed doubtfully. "Possums usually short out the stars in sugar Town?"

I looked up, swivelling my head from side to side; watching them disappear. They were there, but fading quickly to black.

"They're switching off!" Asael croaked and, "Mmm," Amalthea answered agreeably, "certainly looks that way!"

There were probable explanations, of course. Fast moving clouds was the obvious one. Weird that they'd cover the whole sky so quickly but, nonetheless! I spun in a circle, just to be sure, and found myself looking back at the doorway, softly framed by candlelight. It was unexpectedly comforting in the pitch black; familiar and inviting. 'You'd best come back!' it seemed to be saying. 'It's safe in here!'

But the other voice, the one behind me, in the dark – Amalthea's voice – spoke much more clearly.

"Aaah! That's lovely!" I heard her long, deep inhalation. "What is that?"

Asa', Rosemary and I, all joining her, sucked in the faintest, miles-away scent. A rare current wending its way up the river.

"Mangroves!" I said. "The mangroves are flowering!"

And inescapably, as I always did when I thought of those ageless trees, standing tiptoe above the rottenness of the mud, I thought of Rita, who'd gone there to die.

"Mangroves!" Amalthea carried on, her enthusiasm growing crazier by the minute. "Beautiful! And listen! You can almost hear the tides rolling beneath them!"

You couldn't, of course, but I knew what she was talking about. Only half an hour earlier the sounds of the Harvest Festival had been shaking the dust out of the air. Now the sounds were so muffled, they were barely audible. As though a great quilt had been thrown over the showground. Or over us.

"Everything's going away!" Asael quivered. "Why's everything going away?"

The question, as we all seemed to be doing, sank like a stone. I found myself straining for sounds but my ears were full of sand. I put fingers in to jiggle it loose and pulled them out just in time to feel Amalthea's hand light on my arm, gentle as a ladybug.

"I think it's the Void!" she whispered.

"The wha . . .?"

"Between the worlds! Nudging everything else aside! Making way for Garlic to pass over! I think that might be it!"

"Oh-waa!" Asa piped, his voice brittle with what I took to be near panic. And I realised that, whatever slightly unusual thing actually was going on, it was up to me declare a limit to spooky interpretations!

"It's alright, As'! Nothing to worry about! We don't believe in voids, do we!"

Except for the familiar little closet-sized ones that he and I shared with Bridie, at home! Ones I'd hated that morning but was suddenly becoming very nostalgic for!

"And anyhow, we have to go! Asael? You hear me? Come on! Dark or no dark, we . . .!"

I tried to move away from Amalthea but the hand resting on my arm went suddenly rigid.

"Look! There it is!"

A flicker at the edge of my vision! Something distant and reddish. Something glowing and growing! The hairs on my neck slammed upright and I turned away, refusing to see more! Seeking again the momentary refuge of candlelight in the house. She couldn't possibly be right! For a Void between the worlds – some hellish firey emptiness – to open up in the middle of Alf Caletti's cane paddock? Come to capture a goat-ghost? No way!

I shook myself free of her and groped for Asael, feeling my ribs shudder against the pressure of my heart. I found I could see him, there to the side, dark against the darker wall of cane. He and Rosemary both, gazing off at the dim rose of Amalthea's Void. Off toward the river.

"It's a farm house," I choked out, knowing that my chance to claim some control was fast slipping away. "A farm house! Someone with a generator!"

"No. There's no house there!"

"I don't know! Maybe there is! Maybe we got turned around by the darkness! Confused!"

"Rosemary and Garlic and I – we walk along those headlands every day, Ruth! Every day! There's no house!"

"Well," I ventured, desperate for any option other than 'the Void'; "it's a fire then! Someone's set the cane alight!" I thought of Dale Sutton and his mates, setting fire to the Moth.

"Yeah, that's it! Some boys set fire to the Tiger Moth when I was getting the flowers! They're out there now! We should call the fire brigade! Or the police!" Remembering as I said it that, with my phone dead, we had no capacity for calling anyone!

And even so, I already knew I was wrong. Sounds were muffled, but the sound of a cane fire is like a train driving through a tunnel in your head. Nothing could muffle that. And there was no smoke. And in fact, rather than flaring up as a cane fire would, the light had begun to fade; like the last flame on a wick that's sinking into the wax.

Something about Asa'! If you think you know what's going on in his head, you almost certainly don't! And if there's something you'd rather he didn't say, he almost certainly will say it. He said it now.

"It's The Thing!"

"Thing?" said Amalthea. "What Thing?"

I could have slugged him. I would have if I hadn't been so terrified. I'd have to settle for slugging him later. "It is not The Thing!" I cried, ramping up my volume as much as I dared in that haunted night. "That landed way off somewhere else! Across the river! It's not The Thing! And it's not a Void!"

He wasn't listening. "The Thing that fell from the sky in the night! The meteor! That's what it is, all right!"

Rosemary bleated her recollection while I continued to bleat scorn. "Stop being stupid, Asael! I'm warning you! That was hours ago! It wouldn't just be coming to life now, would it! And anyhow, look! It's gone out!"

"No it hasn't!" He's incredibly frustrating sometimes. Especially when he's right. The light had almost gone out, dimming to hardly more than the distant strike of a match. But then it held; and reversed. It began to swell again, growing slowly to, and even beyond, its former size, to a small, glowing dome. We watched in silence as it reached a peak and then, with barely a pause, began again to shrink.

"A Thing!" Amalthea whispered, as though it was the rarest, most wonderful animal in the zoo.

I felt my mouth levering itself open for one more try at distracting them, but my throat tightened and nothing came out. White patches moved in front of me and I realised it was Rosemary, rearing onto her hind legs for a better look. We stood in silence through several repeats of the light's cycle, Rosemary dropping to all fours, rising again and dropping again. The refuge of the candlelight might as well have been a thousand miles away.

Surprisingly though, as we watched, my terror began to give way to a little blossom of 'told-you-so'. Could something so gentle and so locked in place be related to Voids? Or meteors? I didn't think so! Something ordinary, surely! And Rosemary, the first to break our silence, seemed clearly to be on my side.

"Baaaah!"

Amalthea's response was immediate and scornful. "Nonsense, Rosemary! Why should we?"

"What?" Asael demanded. "Why should we what? What's she saying?"

At that particular moment, I was agog at how many ways he could be stupid. How, for instance, had he failed to learn that you never, ever encourage people who talk to animals!

"It's nothing. Ignore her," Amalthea answered shortly. "She's such a 'fraidy-goat. Come on."

She began to move, apparently expecting us to sweep along in her wake, into whatever fantasy was occupying her mind. I held my ground.

"No," I said firmly. "We're not 'coming on' anywhere! We're going home!"

"Right! I'll get a torch. You two get the wheelbarrow."

"No. You're not listening! We're . . . !"

I was louder, I know, but it was Asael's voice she heard.

"Why do we want the wheelbarrow?"

Her voice came out of the darkness, moving away. "I don't know! Who knows? How big is a 'Thing'?"

I grabbed at him and barked his name as sternly as I could but, like her, he ignored me, moving off blindly to fetch that barrow. That left Rosemary and me alone, together. The distant light was once again reaching the height of its cycle and she nudged at my leg in what I fancied might be consolation. I squatted beside her, putting my hands either side of her snout. A skerrick of candlelight from Garlic's bier found its way into her eye and was reflected back at me. She gave a patient sigh and I could feel the encouraging wag of her head against my hands.

"Okay," I whispered. "You can tell me. Are we about to see the wind?"

People who talk to animals.

* * *

All the long day Isak lies, face down where he's fallen. For the first part of it, his heart sputters erratically and his mind is mostly an absence – a patch of emptiness beneath the sun. But at a point, the spark plug darkness begins to recede and a clouded type of awareness enters his mind, like light filtering through to a pip in the heart of an orange.

He tastes earth on his tongue and senses that the sun has him. Like a cat playing with a mouse, it holds him down with unsheathed claws. He suggests to himself that he should move but his muscles won't respond. Unmeasurable time passes – quickly, slowly, indifferently. At one point, he senses that something . . . something near his face . . . is moving. He commands his eye to open and it does. It's like looking through water, with all the outlines dancing and shimmering together. But there is definitely light and colour – and movement. He blinks and blinks again. What boils into view is the lipless, tongue-flicking, black-eyed smile of a taipan.

The snake's head looks vaguely like the head of a ball peen hammer, its body, as thick and sinuous as a dropped hawser. It seems to be waiting for him to wake. When Isak's eye flickers, the hammerhead rises into the air above him. Isak's mind forms a lazy question about death.

" _Well," the snake seems to say, "this is about as convenient a time and place as any, I guess! Right here where Les finished up! Dribbling tears and snot and blood, the way he did! Was it about here, old man? What do you think? What do you think?"_

The voice, Isak thinks, is strangely like that of Lyle Hoggitt in his light and enthusiastic announcer's role. Only far, far away. The snake's tongue moves like a dry leaf in wind. Isak's tongue moves like a fat worm on hot bricks.

" _Lyle? 'Sthat you?" he tries to ask. "What ye doin' in that get-up?"_

" _What, this old thing?" the Lyle-snake sniffs. "Surely you've seen me in my suit before, Isak? In your dreams? Or maybe . . . in your nightmares?"_

Dreams, Isak thinks. Is that what this is? How would you tell? He tries to shake his head, but the movement is minute – almost non-existent. "Never seen that suit before, mate," he wants to say. "It's pretty slick, though!"

" _It is, isn't it! Doesn't come out of the closet often enough for my liking. But it's kind of you to notice!" The Lyle-snake seems to have a bit of a lisp – the sibilance is so strong. "It's my 'making deliveries' suit, ye know!"_

" _Yeah? What're ye deliverin', Lyle?"_

The snake's head is above Isak's line of vision. Now it falls, retreats, becomes like an arm cocked for throwing. "What we delivered to Les, remember? You and me? All those years ago? It's always the same thing, old man. Always the same thing. I'm sure this is the place! Funny how things come around again, don't you think?"

Les? Les Crampton? Why has that evil-bastard name come creeping out of the past! Isak's mind flicks up a memory of rage – beyond-words, gut-clenching, animal-howling, need-to-chase-and-batter kind of rage.

" _Yeah," he thinks. "Funny. Ha ha." And another image of the pulped face pleading up at him. "Not sorry, though. He needed puttin' down!"_

" _Poor old Les-s-s!" the snake hisses at him. "Remember his las-s-st words? 'We only meant to s-scare her!' That's what he said! Spat them out, like loose teeth, didn't he? 'We thought she'd keep running!' That was it, wasn't it? 'Why did she s-s-stop?' Remember, Isak?"_

Isak is puzzled. "'We'? Never noticed that before! Who's 'We'?"

" _Wouldn't you like to know!" the snake laughs. "Who's 'We'? For that matter, who's 'she'?"_

Isak frowns. "Piss off, Lyle. You jus' tryin' to confuse me."

" _Never act in anger, old man. That's the lesson. Because you finish up getting it wrong, don't you. You finish up not being finished!"_

There's another movement, a sound, somewhere beyond Isak's head. He can't move to see what it is, but the Lyle-snake reacts abruptly, uncoiling in a reverse motion, backing away, its tongue flickering wildly. Within seconds, it's gone.

In its place, the edge of a shadow creeps, sunrise-slow, across his line of vision, displacing the great cat of the sun from his neck and back. Isak directs his feeble gratitude toward it. It doesn't occur to him to question the strangely ovoid shape of the shadow. Nor does he think further on his vulnerability, lying so inertly on the red earth. He decides to sleep.

Before that can happen, though, the thing that has blessed him with its shadow leans over him . . . and touches him. It feels at first like a cold spark has been ignited at the base of his spine. Then, like a bullet from his own rifle, something rips a furrow all the way up into his head. It seems that every muscle in his body, most particularly his heart, is summoned into spasm and a burst of light slaps his consciousness, like a cricket ball, straight up into the air. Quite suddenly he's looking down on himself, on his contorted body, just in time to see it collapse slowly into stillness. He also sees, bending over his body, the smooth, metallic, sausage shaped bubble that he stalked that very morning. No longer the uniform copper colour he first saw, it has become a veritable pallet of colours, shifting amongst one another, like oil on water. And emanating from it, he fancies he can hear a distressed little bonging sound that makes him feel very sad.

" _There now," Isak thinks toward it. "That was a long time ago, matey! None of it was your fault! Not a bit. If I got it wrong, why then . . . it wun't the first thing I done wrong. 'S jus' too bad! An' all too late!"_

* * *

By torchlight, beneath a starless sky, Amalthea wheeled the barrow into the dewy dark knee-deep grass of the headland. Asael stumbled beside; the keeper of the torch, tripping in potholes that he couldn't quite seem to focus on. And behind them, as wary as bandicoots, came Rosemary and me. I had threatened him a last time – told him I'd leave him there.

"If that paddock's haunted, Asael, whatever it is is going to love getting its dried up old hands on a squidgy little runt like you!"

"Don't be scared, Ruthie," he'd said, as though 'Fear' wasn't his middle name. "I'm not scared!" I'd snarled. "And don't call me Ruthie! Call me . . . Prudence."

"Okay. But we can't go yet, Prudence. We have to help Amal . . . !"

It was hopeless. Short of wedging his underpants up his bum-crack and dragging him, I couldn't get him to leave Amalthea. And I couldn't leave him.

"All right, all right! Fine! We'll go look! It's nothing, but we'll go look! Then we go home! All right?"

Rosemary and I bumped along together behind the other two. I at least drew some courage from having her there, with her animal senses. My own little snake detector. In the distance, the cycle of rise and fall continued despite my determination to ignore it. I tried a last desperate diversion.

"It's just going to be somebody playing silly-buggers, you know that, don't you? Harvest Festival weekend people, getting stupid!"

No answer.

"I'm just saying! They're not going to be happy! If we show up in the middle of . . . whatever they're doing, they're not going to be happy!"

I'd really given up by that point but Amalthea suddenly stopped in her tracks, bringing our little parade to a sudden halt. She looked to right and left and to the rear.

"You know, you could be right, Ruth!"

We muddled briefly in the middle of the track and my hopes began to rise.

"Course I'm right!"

"But take another look around!" I did. We all did. "What do you see?"

Apart from the plume of torchlight and the pulsating glow ahead, the night was absolute.

'It's dark, Amalthea! I can't see anything!'

"That's right! Not a thing!" There was no defensiveness in her voice, only wonder. Great, I thought! If she's immune to sarcasm, what chance does anyone have?

"And how amazing is that?" she continued. As though every night of the year wasn't completely rife with darkness! "How amazing to find ourselves – just the four of us – out at the edge of the humdrum; maybe where worlds are colliding! You know, there was a time when people wouldn't go out at night at all! For fear of other worlds!"

"Yeah, well I'm with them! Coping with the usual world is hard enough!"

"Ahh," she sighed; yet another person disappointed. "Of course! You're right! You're right to remind me. Tell you what! We've spied a light in the darkness. And there's a path! But we don't know what's out there, do we? Going down mysterious paths without knowing? What are we, white rabbits?"

Okay, she wasn't entirely insensitive to sarcasm. Nor, it seemed, to wild fantasy.

"You know," she went on, her face shining in Asael's torch light, "I once knew a girl who . . . turned me into a white rabbit! Just for a time. Dropped me onto a strange path! Life has never been the same again! It never can be the same! Once you choose!"

Asael was fairly dancing with excitement by this time, pinning her ever more closely with the light. "A white rabbit? Whaddya mean? What path? Why not? Choose what?"

I was really beginning to dislike my brother. What had happened to that sweet kid you could count on shushing with a look and a nudge?

"I'll tell you later, Asa. First, though, Ruth's made a good point. So what do you want, Ruth? Stay with the familiar? Be safe and sensible? Or shall we follow and find out what's there?"

I'm smart enough to know when I'm being played and I definitely felt it then. I also heard the echo of the note she'd left on the Gourd: 'We follow. Now we follow.' And I wondered, like Asael, only with a good deal more cynicsm, what 'path' she was following. What path had led her to Sugar Town? A girl who believed in Voids. A girl with goats.

In spite of all that, I didn't want to be the piker. I wanted to go back, but I wanted it to be because I was right; not because I was afraid.

"The White Rabbit knew where it was going!" I said. "It was Alice who got lost. We're Alice, not the rabbit!"

She smiled enigmatically in the beam of Asael's torch. "Right again! But they both wound up in Wonderland, didn't they? Each in their own way? So? Keeping in mind, of course, that even going back is just a different way of going forward – what's it to be?" She wagged her head, testing a balance of ideas. "Mad Hatters or home to bed?"

The problem with talking in metaphors is that sudden switches in perceptions can leave you looking at yourself in ways you never intended. I'd already seen myself, that day, doing outrageous things: putting the Agnes letter on The Grand Gourd; challenging Mayor Hoggitt; even pulling Johnathon Cranna from the Moth to ensure that he lived long enough to tell me what I needed to know. They were all the acts of a person I wasn't particularly used to being. A person in a place that seemed increasingly out of whack. But, I told myself: you at least know how it's out of whack! Unlike, for instance, Asael whose own personal Wonderland is a mystery even to him!

In short, I was stuck – a situation that Rosemary ended by walking back into the beam of the torch. She went straight to Amalthea and Amalthea squatted beside her. They shared an eye-to-eye moment before Amalthea nodded and tapped Rosemary gently between her horns.

"Yes," she said, pushing herself to her feet. "I wouldn't be surprised. Not one bit!"

The comment, I was sure, was intended as a tantalising bait in the midst of the little pond that was us and I refused to approach it. Asa', however, was onto it in a flash.

"Surprised about what? What did she say?"

Amalthea's face turned through the beam of Asa's torch, back into the darkness, toward the distant light. She fell still, letting the decision take hold.

"A Thing! That's what you said! Fallen from the sky! And Garlic's dead!" She put a hand absently on Asael's shoulder. "You know, you should listen to your sister, Asael. Go back. Go home." And she pushed him gently to me.

In the ghoulishly shadowed backwash of torchlight, Asa's face became a picture of confusion. And it struck me again how vulnerable he was. How he barnacled himself onto people he trusted. He never challenged me on my name choices; he never stood up for himself when I bullied him. He saw and believed things in his own special way. He took medication. If only, I thought, there was a medication for naivety or gullibility! But there wasn't. There was only me.

I snatched the torch from his hand, knowing clearly what I needed to do. I moved quickly ahead and turned to face him, centring the small circle of light on his chest, as though the pressure of the light might hold him back.

"I know what you're thinking, Asael," I hissed, my voice rattling out of control, "and it's wrong! Listen to me! Garlic is dead, back there at the house! He's not out here in the cane. There are no worlds colliding and there are no things from space. There are drunken boys out here, playing silly–buggers! It's the police who are wanted, not us! And just you ask yourself: would Bridie want us doing this? No she wouldn't! So we'll do as Amalthea says,okay? And go home! Now!"

"Oh!" Amalthea whispered. I flicked the light to her and saw that she was looking over my shoulder. "It stopped!"

* * *

Up until then, even at a distance, the light had formed a precise shape and had had a clear boundary, as though contained inside an inverted bowl. Even at the dim end of its cycle, it had been more a case of the light thinning than shrinking. But now something – perhaps the sound of my raised voice – had caused it to change. The boundary between dark and light had taken on a vaguely molten look and begun to collapse, falling into and through itself in slow motion, shrinking down in a vaguely oily fashion. As though somewhere, low down, a skirt had been lifted and the glow was oozing out. It was quite beautiful, in a special effects, golden-syrup kind of way. And it wasn't the end.

"What's that sound?" I turned the torchlight back on Asael. His face was all circles and astonishment.

I listened. We all listened.

"No, Honey!" I said. "There's no sound." Honey! You know I'm close to breaking when I start calling him names like that!

"In your feet!" he said, gawping at the ground. "In your ankles! Thunder!"

Sound, coming up through the ground? Rosemary nodded faintly. Amalthea put a hand to the ground to search for vibration and I put a hand to the back of my neck to press the hairs back into place.

If Amalthea had shown some skerrick of either doubt or fear, we might just have gotten out of there! But she didn't. She rose, touched my arm – a passing gesture – and reclaimed her torch.

"Why don't you wait here?" she said, almost without inflection. "I'll just be a minute. Promise." And before I knew it, she, Rosemary and Asael had all nudged past me, leaving me alone on the path in the dark. Sometimes, it seems, as in Alice's Wonderland, paths just insist on being under your feet.

* * *

I caught up with them quickly, targeting the tensely rigid outline of Asa's back.

"Did you take your medication this morning?" I hissed, in a half-hearted effort to remind him of his vulnerability.

And he answered, "It's okay, Prudence! Don't be afraid!" The second time he'd said that to me!

"I told you, I'm not afraid, Asael! Not for me, at any rate!"

He didn't answer. At least he didn't answer ME. What he did say, half under his breath, in a little sing-song breath was, "Marco-o-o!"

I had a "Huh?" half way out of my throat before I noticed the movement of his head, turning like a radar beacon, and recognised the game.

"Marco-o-o!" Like someone blindfolded, whispering into in the darkness and listening for the response: Polo-o-o! Trying to grasp the invisible presences that lurked just out of reach.

If all that seems weird, (and how could it not?) it instantly got weirder. On some inexplicable impulse, maybe hoping that darkness would shield us from whatever lay ahead, Amalthea flicked off the torch. And a soft, organic radiance, green and golden, took its place, lighting the pathway at ground level! Like a sleepy, glowing river of smoke, it flowed out of the cane and into the headland.

Amalthea halted, immersed up to her knees in the pale drift of it. Rosemary also stopped, submerged up to her chest, the words on her banner – LET IT GATHER IN YOU – washing faintly in and out of view. I reached into the glowing mist to brush at my calves which prickled as though tiny, invisible moths were fluttering against them.

Believe me, I've spent many an hour since, thinking of that light. Perhaps it was some kind of river fog (though the river was dry!) Or fireflies. Or radioactivity or phosphorescence. Amalthea reckoned it was a spirit light. But then Amalthea's a frustrated mystic. Asael was sure it was a welcome from The Thing. But then Asael takes medication. Isak, when we told him of it, agreed with Asael. But then Isak's prone to delirium tremens – they're as whacko as each other! I don't suppose it makes any difference in the end. It's just that you like to know the 'whys' of things.

I could sense awe creeping into my mind and I pushed it away, grasping instead at a more comforting tendril of anger. Someone – I didn't know who or why – was playing us for fools! And I wasn't having any of that!

"Right!" I barked, looking at Amalthea who was stroking at the mist as though it was a vast, green cat. Looking, I must say, more than a little bit fiendish and crazy. "Right! That's a step too far! Thing – Void – whatever! Let's get this sorted out, once an' for all!"

She smiled and began to walk. And we all followed, Asael studying the ground as though it was strewn with glass.

* * *

It turned out to be only a few dozen metres until we were brought up flat against a dense, tangled barrier of sugar cane. Without a skerrick of hesitation, Amalthea oozed her way in between the stalks and disappeared. Rosemary and Asael threaded themselves in behind her and also disappeared. I thought of the eminently sensible things Bridie would say when, inevitably, Asael blabbed this story.

('What about the snakes, the rats, the bandicoots, the spiders? Ruthie, did you never think?')

I looked back down the headland where, in a myriad of tiny sparkles, the syrupy mist was dissolving away into nothingness. 'Don't be afraid, Ruthie!' That's what Asael had said to me. My nerdy, hypochondriac, paranoiac, shrimp of a misfit brother had said that to me! I stepped forward and fit myself into the narrow path, following the sound of his breathing.

Wrist-thick stalks of cane, twice my height, squeezing, rubbing, barring – snaring, entrapping. Buzzing, squirming things entangled in my hair! Things with hooked legs, hard shells and mandibles sliding inside my shirt. Ten metres, fifteen metres – seemed like a hundred. And then, slowly, the light again. A clearing. A long, narrow hallway, walled in by cane.

The ground was a tangle of broken, flattened stalks. Off to the right, the crop had been laid flat far into the shadows. To the left, it remained standing, tall and untouched. The view directly ahead was blocked by Amalthea and Asael but it was clear from the glow that surrounded them that the source of the light was there. I stretched to see past.

What I saw was a waist-high pile of dirt that shouldn't have been there. And a man, half sitting, half leaning against it. Further back was what appeared to be an enormous, burnished lantern, once again emitting the gentle orange glow that had drawn us there. The man, of course, was my chief concern. His face was too shadowed to recognise but the angles in his knees and back told me that he wasn't young. He was looking to the sky in a thoughtful, distant manner, as though the sudden appearance of three people and a goat was of no consequence to him. And scattered about the area I could see various articles of clothing, a neatly tied swag and a high powered rifle. The man was stark naked.

And strange as it may seem, I was relieved. It was, it seemed, as I'd predicted: merely someone playing silly-buggers.

"Who is it?" I whispered, pressing into the space to stand between Asael and Amalthea.

Amalthea reached slowly out and placed a finger against my lips. The man, making no sound, no movement, no acknowledgment, continued his distant contemplation. We waited. And waited. And waited.

Until finally Rosemary released a huff of impatience and Amalthea propped a hand on her hip.

"Hello? Are you all right?"

At that, the man's gaze floated down to our level and he set himself into a kind of broken motion. First his arms jittered about, without any apparent purpose. Then one took it on itself to point at each of us in turn. Until it came to me. Then it stopped. A gluey recognition sort of gargle scraped around in the old bloke's throat and the pointing finger turned into an open palm, being held out to me. Something, I could see, was there, glistening faintly.

"Waaa!" Asael whispered and fell silent.

Instinctively, I touched his back – just to reassure him (and probably myself as well)! Ordinarily I get some kind of response when I do that, but this time there was totally nothing. I put my hand on his shoulder. Nothing. I jiggled. Nothing. I twitched a piece of his shirt to try to turn him. Nothing. And finally, I pulled his chin around so he'd have to look at me. The face came, but the eyes remained where they'd been.

"As'?"

His mouth was hinged open and he was trembling from top to bottom. Everything in him that could hum was humming – like a human tuning fork.

"As'?"

I squinted into his eyes, clearly visible in the dim light, and saw that they were blank – simply frozen in place on the glowing lantern thing.

Oh crap, I thought! In the middle of a haunted cane paddock, in the black of night, with weird things going on all around, he's having a seizure! Of course! What better time?

Naturally, I immediately blamed Bridie who, for reasons way beyond me, had agreed to let him supervise his own medication routine. Despite the specialist's warnings! He'll continue to have them if he doesn't take the pills, he'd said. If / when it happens, don't panic! Panic will be no help! And suddenly I couldn't remember if he'd told us what would be a help!

It certainly wasn't going to be Amalthea who, once she'd decided the man wasn't about to explode, had started moving quietly about the area, fearlessly and, I thought a little recklessly, checking out his discarded clothes and bits of equipment. He took no notice of her at all; not even when she shifted the rifle out of his reach. No, his whole attention remained, weirdly, on me – still holding out the whatever-it-was in his hand. So the only one who had tuned in to Asa's problem, aside from me – and who was going to be no help at all – was Rosemary, who seemed to be making some connection between his face and the lantern-thing that held his gaze. Seeing the wind, I supposed. Both of them! Maybe all three of them!

I decided to try the bossy approach. "Asael! Look at me! Tell me you're okay!"

Almost inaudibly, he mumbled, "Key to what?"

Ahh, I thought! Excellent! His eyes remained on the lantern but, in my experience, if he answered, he wasn't entirely gone! I'd have been happier, of course, if he'd seemed to be answering me.

"Not 'key', Asael! –kay! Oh-kay! Are you okay?"

He turned his head then but, instead of looking at me, he peeped around me, at Amalthea. Then he turned back to the lantern. "I don't think she can hear you. I'll tell her, though. Is that okay?"

And I was back to my 'Oh crap!' thought. Not good. Not good at all!

* * *

Amalthea, meantime, had finished her prowling and planted herself directly in front of the old man.
"What have you got there, Isak?" I heard her say.

And as soon as she said the name, I knew him. Isak! Isak Nucifora! Of course! Everyone knew Isak! Crazy old town drunk! We didn't often see him in town and I made it a habit, when I did see him, to keep out of his way. Once, red-eyed, bawling and spraying spit, he'd cornered me against a shop in the main street, with a rambly story about life and death and my family's history. Gramma Gracie and the Reverend and Rita and others who I didn't even know! I'd pretended to listen, until his grip slackened; then I'd broken free and ran. When I told Bridie, she'd said, "Everyone has their ghosts, Ruthie. Thank God ours are at peace."

* * *

"What have you got there, Isak?" She tapped his hand with a finger, but he stayed mute, still looking past her, at me. She turned the beam of her torch onto his palm, across at me, then directly onto his face. His lips were crusted and clumps of soil clung to his cheek. She flicked some away with her nails and he barely flinched.

This time, Asa's voice was quite clear. "He's the key," he said. Thea, Rosemary and I all turned to look at him.

"Asa?" I was fully relieved, but no less confused. "You're back! You're okay! Are you okay?" I don't know why I kept asking him that. In his mind, he'd never been okay; he'd been decaying since the day he was born!

"He's the key," he repeated. "That's what she said. He's the key. Don't let them forget. I said I'd tell you." He was looking at Amalthea.

She shook her head and looked to me for explanation. I shrugged my confusion.

"Who ya talking about, As'?" I asked him gently.

"Umm. Mum! I think. She said he's the key. She said don't let them forget. That's what she said. Just now! She was talking to you, Amalthea, but you were busy. So I said I'd tell you."

The thing with Asael is that sometimes, if you get really angry with him, you can make him change his stories – get him to admit that they're only delusions. Cruel to be kind, sort of thing – keep him as grounded as possible.

"Asael! How many times have I told you, you idiot? It's not mum! It's your imagination – a dream! 'Cause your brain's broken! That's why you have to remember to take your medication! So you . . . !"

"To me?" Amalthea interrupted. "Someone spoke to me? Your mum spoke to me? And I didn't hear?"

I couldn't believe my ears. Was she taking him seriously! At face value? Surely not! And then I thought, 'Of course she is! She's the one who's 'lived many lives'! Ghostly messages must be mother's milk to her!'

"And you're sure it was your mother?" she was saying. She and Rosemary exchanged disappointed glances. "Not Garlic?" They both sighed. And the next words were clearly for Rosemary. "We thought we were here for him, didn't we, Baby? But we're not! We're here for . . . something else!"

She looked at old Isak, passing the torchlight over his naked form from top to bottom, and I looked away; partly because I was so crapped off; partly because he wasn't a pretty sight and partly because his eyes were still on me and that extended hand, with the glint of something in it, was creeping me out.

If Amalthea had taken my hint and accepted that Asa' was merely hallucinating, things might have turned out differently. But she didn't. She kept at it, prodding it into reality.

"Who did she mean, Asa'? Isak? Is Isak the key? The key to what?"

In her hands, the torch swung wildly back and forth, between catatonic man and delusional boy. One part of me wanted to shout at her to let it go. But another, slightly larger, much less responsible part wanted to know just where this whole ridiculous path was headed.

Asael shrugged.

"And don't let them forget?" Amalthea demanded again.

"Yeah. Don't let them forget."

"Forget what, Asael?" She was nothing if not tenacious. "Don't let them forget what? Don't let who forget? Listen, are you sure this message was for me?"

He nodded extravagantly and she sniffed the air, as though an elusive thought had passed wind in the neighbourhood.

"Your mum's been gone for . . . ?"

From my point of view, the conversation was as surreal as the setting. For the sake of nothing better than curiosity, I'd let it run, but I did then finally remember the one piece of advice the specialist had given us about delusions. Don't validate them!

'The patient needs to learn to differentiate,' he'd said, 'between the real and the seems real. That's where you come in."

"Rita died ten years ago," I told Amalthea, in hopes it would take her out of the conversation. "Asa', listen to me! Remember what the specialist said? Sometimes, what you think you see and hear . . . it isn't real! It's just chemicals in your head! You know . . . like in your books! Hormones and enzymes and stuff! Okay?"

"Ten years!" Amalthea exclaimed. A fire had begun to burn in her eyes. "That explains it then!"

I gave her a seriously scornful.

"No it doesn't! He hasn't been taking his drugs, that's what explains it!"

She just ignored me. "Truth and order!" she declared and Asael, his face alight, repeated the words as a question.

"Truth and order?"

"Okay!" I demanded, not willing to accept that my demands meant nothing to either of them. "That's enough! No more! It's seriously weird and no fun and not right! So let's stop it right now!"

It was like the dam had an arm-sized hole in it and I only had a thumb to fill it with.

"The cosmic battle against disorder!" Amalthea raved. "Don't you see? Spirits must be allowed to unite with their guardians! If they're left to wander, disorder wins! And the battle is lost!"

"It is?" squeaked Asael.

"What battle?" squeaked me. "There's no battle! Forget about battles!"

You know what it's like when you come across a pretty little billabong and you're kind of casually interested in it but suddenly you realise that there are fish in it? Really big fish? And you have to stop and wait and watch really carefully because you suspect there's something even stranger that you haven't spotted yet? Like maybe a platypus or an eel? Or a crocodile? That's how I felt. I wanted really badly to get myself and Asa' out of there; but couldn't because the strangeness wouldn't let me!

Old Isak and the lantern thing were the centre of the strangeness of course, but Amalthea had become the lens through which we must see it. Sorting it all in her mind, she walked in small circles around the two of them, studying them and the situation from all sides. She sucked the end of her finger, scratched her head and peeped again into Isak's outstretched hand. She bent over and, through her clothing, clutched the under-wires of her bra, waggling her chest mightily to resettle her breasts. Then she clapped her hands once.

"Okay!" she exclaimed, as though whatever process she had just worked through should be obvious to us all. "Good! Now listen, guys! It's obvious to me that we've been called here . . . by forces presently on the other side! I still feel . . ." she waggled her fingers like a happy hold-up victim, ". . . Garlic . . . somewhere nearby. And if your mother . . . Rita . . . is also here, that can mean only one thing! Something in our world is holding them! Something remains unfinished! Our help is being sought! You understand?"

Asael and Rosemary, I noticed, both nodded and I wished that Bridie or Kevin or maybe even Johnathon Cranna was there – someone sensible – to join me in shaking mine!

* * *

Though I actually did perk up my ears at one thing she said. 'Something remains unfinished'. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I had some sudden revelation that this trek into the cane and finding The Thing and Isak Nucifora and Asael's vision of Rita were in any way related to that unfinished 'something'. But the Terrible Deed hung in the back of my mind like a stranger's suit, discovered in my closet. And there was Bessie, with her 'something' from the past! And her reading of my palm that promised unavoidable trouble. It was Harvest Festival Weekend and, like the Suttons stumbling onto the gourd in a remote paddock, I felt that maybe something had been waiting for me.

And so, without my permission, my head-shake morphed into a shallow nod.

* * *

Things began to happen then, as though in recognition of our new-found accord. Isak Nucifora snuffled, grunted and leaned forward, extending his arm even further in my direction. Amalthea turned the torch's beam on him. His eyes were barely visible in the folds of flesh, but they had a kind of pleading steadiness about them.

She gestured at the hand. "This is where we begin then. This seems to be for you, Ruth."

I stepped forward, surprised at my courage, and plucked a ring from his palm. It was gold but plain and unadorned. I examined it briefly and put it in my pocket, whereupon Isak's arm lowered, at last, to his side.

Amalthea began speaking to him.

"Isak? It's me . . . Thea. Amalthea Byerson. Are you alright?" No response. "Look. I've gathered up your clothes for you! Can I help you put them on?" Still no response. "No? Well . . . we're a bit worried about you, Isak . . . out here, alone, in the night. You know? We'd like to help you. Is that okay? I'm just going to take your hand now, alright? See who's here with me? It's Asael and Ruth! You know them, don't you?"

If he heard any of what she was saying, he didn't let it show. We pulled him onto his feet and coaxed his pants back onto him. We tried to get him to walk but it seemed beyond his comprehension. In the end, in desperation, Amalthea staggered out of the cane, bent almost double, carrying him pick-a-back. Asael went before, doing his best to make an opening, and I went behind, holding the old man in place, trying to keep him from toppling backwards. Out in the headland, Amalthea tipped him into my arms and, together, we lowered him into the wheelbarrow.

He got his first actual words out then. They were faint and I'm sure if I hadn't been holding his head, I wouldn't have heard them at all. He was looking straight at me.

"Who else, Gracie?" And then, a breath later, "Am I too late?"

"Did you catch that?" asked Amalthea, still panting for breath. I told her.

"And who's Gracie again?"

I told her that as well and she nodded, remembering, filing it away.

We arranged Isak as best we could in the wheelbarrow and he didn't make any sign of complaint. Not about the cold metal against his back or about the fact that his legs hung out between the handles or that his clothes pillowed his neck so poorly.

"What's happened to him?" Asael asked.

I didn't want him dwelling on it. Especially if Isak was in the process of dying, as seemed very likely. I pulled his head against me and roughed up his hair.

"I don't know, As'. He's an old man! I think maybe strange stuff happens to old men!"

"Hmm," he said, organising that thought into something he could deal with. "Some strange stuff . . . just doesn't seem as normal as other strange stuff, does it?"

That would've been a good last word, but Amalthea topped it. Her breathing still laboured from carrying Isak, she puffed, "Normal's just what we're used to, As'. New normals are around every corner, waiting to get to know us."

* * *

I volunteered to push the barrow. For his own comfort, I'm sure, Asael wanted to keep control of the torch. And Amalthea was happy enough just catching her breath. We hadn't gone half a dozen steps though, before we came to a halt. Where was Rosemary?

We found her standing at the wall of cane, staring back into the space from which we'd exited. And that made us all think of The Thing, now alone there, where it had come to rest. Not that 'alone' was actually the appropriate word! It had been left, that was all. Someone would come for it and take it away. It was a Thing, after all. Not a person. And there was still that light, faint and eerie. It would be easy enough to find again.

Nonetheless, we gathered around Rosemary and watched, as though waiting for a last member of our group to squeeze out into the headland. It was oddly mesmerising. The light, as faint as it was, began to oscillate and dislocate. Colours like you see behind your eyes on a pitch-black night. As though someone was shuffling through them, looking for the appropriate one. Then it stabilised at a deep and barely visible purple.

A silence of listening followed, though who was listening to who was difficult to say. Then Thea raised her voice.

"Thank you!" she called. "Rest now. All will be well!"

Oh for cryin' out loud, I thought to myself.

But Asael gasped – a quick intake of breath. "What was that? Did you hear that?" And the light went out.

The dark slammed in on us. The beam from the torch in Asael's hand was suddenly puny and inadequate as he swung it frantically from one face to the next. When Rosemary sidled amongst us, Amalthea bent to finger the lettering on the goat's banner. LET IT GATHER IN YOU.

"Yes," she said. "I think you might be right!"

Chapter 5 – Hospital Visit

At a point, Asael's torch became redundant. We were beneath street lights which, though they'd earlier been off, were now most certainly on – making my 'possum in the works' theory seem all the more likely. Amalthea and I had taken turns pushing the barrow, Asael finding himself not to be strong enough. Mine was the last shift, through a part of town that was as quiet as a parked ambulance and exhaustion had shrunk my focus until there was nothing but the crunch of tire, the click of goat hoof and my own laboured breathing. It took all three of us to get Isak and the barrow up the little incline to the hospital's emergency entry and only then, when Amalthea pushed the buzzer, did I dare to lift my head.

* * *

Voices behind the door, a brilliant shaft of light, a pair of young nurses. I bent, hands on knees, marvelling at the agony of the spikes that had been driven through my shoulders.

"Sternocleidomastoid," Asael said sympathetically, touching the back of my neck.

We watched the nurses hoist scrawny old Isak out of the barrow and place him on a gurney; so limp, I thought he might be dead.

"Dead drunk, maybe," laughed one of the nurses and Isak gave a sudden snort – the sound of a man asleep.

When I looked up again, the gurney, Amalthea and one of the nurses had all been swallowed up by the antiseptic light. The second nurse, Dana Goodrich, leaned in the doorway, smiling. They all knew us. Most especially, they knew Asael, he being a frequent visitor at the hospital, brought in by Bridie at his own insistence to quiet his midnight symptoms. I staggered off to the edge of the garden and sat on a rock ledge, unsure whether I was going to puke or pass out.

"Nice wheel, Asa'!" I could hear the smirk in Dana's voice. "Hey! Your other big sister might still be here! Maybe you could give her a ride home in your little barrow! Her being the new queen of the Harvest Festival 'n' all! Shouldn' have to walk the streets when there's a grand carriage like this parked right outside, should she! Is your siren working?"

Asa' went into immediate panic mode. "Bridie's here? What for? Is she . . . ?" He came to a panicked halt, suddenly sounding more out-of-breath than I was.

"Is she what, Az-ee-el? Painted blue? Usin' the loo? Waiting for you? Hey, didja hear that? I made a rhyme! Blue-loo-you! Get it?"

Asael stared at her uncomprehendingly.

"My God you're a dull boy, McFarlane! You got to learn some appreciation of, you know . . . things other than your kidneys! But in answer to your unspoken question, Bridie is just super-dandy! Nothing to worry about! She's helping us monitor ol' 'Kamikaze' Cranna. Pilot extraordinaire! Since mid-afternoon, I might add! No idea why she'd want to spend time around the ol' skirt-chaser, but it's good from our point o' view! Keeping him awake. Concussion an' all. Just a born carer, isn't she?"

I was amazed! It'd been hours since the ambulance brought him in, but she was still here!! So, did that mean he wasn't badly hurt at all? Or did that mean he was at Death's door and she was doing her Christian duty by him while he struggled to survive?

"How is he?" I asked out of the semi-darkness. "At the Showground, Dorrie said he wasn't . . .!"

"Wasn't what, Ruthie? Dead? Alive? Fixable? Nah, he's okay. Broken leg, bang on the head, lots o' bruises. Only thing that's prob'ly not been shaken is his ego! Made o' shatter-proof porcelain, that; like his conscience. Nah, he'll be in a bit o' pain for awhile, but what the hell! Serves him right, the reckless old fart! I, for one, intend never to let him live it down.! Man, I wish I hadn' been working! Wish I coulda been there to see that plane come down! Blasted the shit out o' The Grand Gourd, they say! An' you saved him, Ruthie! Kee-riste! What were you thinking, girl?"

All the talk of 'shattering' and 'shaking' and 'blasting' had Asael hopping from foot to foot. "And Bridie, she's . . . ?"

"She's what, As'? Boy, do you ever finish a sentence? She's what? Here? Gone? Up the stump? What? Hey! I'm off duty in about ten. What say you give me a lift home? Wouldja do that, As'? Wheel me through the streets in your little barrow? Is it clean? What else you been wheeling around in there? Nah! On second thoughts, I don't wanna ride in there! Maybe I could ride the goat, though, whaddya reckon? Is he saddle-broke? Hey, is it true Cranna's rampage included bombing the crap outta the other one? How come you two're out with the goat-lady anyhow? She a bit on the weird side, like they say, or what? Stupid question, eh? Of course she is! No other explanation for these useless little grass-munchers, is there? An' these signs! What's this one say? LET IT GATHER IN YOU! I mean what's that about? I mean, what's she – Princess Leia or something? Princess Fruit Loop, more like!"

Asael's head had fallen under the onslaught and I was a little daunted myself. Not by the flood of questions; Dana never expects answers to her questions. I was a little daunted by the impulse to defend Amalthea. It's hard to stand up for outsiders – for fear of becoming one yourself! But I was seriously contemplating giving it a try when I noticed Rosemary stepping quietly up behind Asael.

Without stopping or even pausing, she bunched her shoulders and slammed her head straight into his butt, which sent the poor kid lurching forward, straight into Dana's arms. The two of them, squawking in surprise, reeled backwards in a short-lived, slow-motion dance that left him clinging to her like a big rhinoceros beetle, hands clamped on her breasts, and her staring at him in stunned disbelief.

Rosemary, her head held high, strutted over to where I sat and, though the light wasn't good, I could've sworn she winked at me.

* * *

Give Dana her due, she was back in control in a flash. True, her eyes widened appreciably and her mouth froze in an astonished little O; far from a normal state for Dana's mouth. But then, with a genuine smile, she lifted Asael's hands off her and held him away at arm's distance.

"Jeez, Aseal! You want me that bad? I mean, I know my allure is inescapable! And we are at the Emergency Entrance here, but hey! Even if copping a quick feel seems like an emergency for you, you gotta be a little subtle with it, you know? Kee-riste, Ruthie! Whatcha been feeding this boy?"

Asael was mortified, of course.

"I'm sorry, Dana! I didn't mean . . . ! It was the goat, she . . . !"

"Yah, yah!" she poked at him. "I know what goat we're talking about, Asael! I've seen hundreds just like it! And they're all the same!"

Rosemary bleated her contempt and Asael tried again to bleat his innocence. His mind, I knew, would be jumping like a circus act – bouncing back and forth between the feel of Dana's big boobs in his hands and the feel of Rosemary's horn buds in his . . . whatever big bum muscle's are called. I couldn't imagine which he'd enjoy more! And that thought gave me my first decent laugh in a long crazy day.

Amalthea reappeared in the doorway.

"Hey what's going on?" she smiled.

"This sly young buck here," Dana answered, joining in the laugh, "just turned the tables on me! Decided to give ME a check-up!"

"No, no! I didn't . . . ! She . . . " pointing at Rosemary, "she butted me!" And he began belatedly to lift a leg as though it couldn't hold his weight. Dana made a mock move toward him, arms out.

"Oh, hey! You're hurt! C'm'ere darlin'! Let Auntie Dana check that butt out for you. No secrets left between you and me now, are there?"

He, of course, skittered straight over to me for protection, holding onto my arm with one hand and clutching at his wounded bum cheek with the other. And he started to cry.

Wounded pride, I knew; and anxiety and fatigue and confusion. But it embarrassed me. And I'd been through a lot in the last couple of hours, on his account. And suddenly there was just a hole where my laugh had been. A hole that re-filled instantly with full-blown crapped off. Having to kick him out of my bed at four in the morning! Having to put up with his new-found, wrong headed independence! Having him mistake my cautious supervision for fear; and then going delusional on me! Having to witness his helpless infatuation with Amalthea, without which we'd certainly be home in front of the t.v. with a bowl of popcorn instead of out here in Crazy Land!

"Stop it, Asael!" I stood up, more abruptly than I'd intended, pushing him away, hard enough to make him stumble. "Stand up! You're too big for this sort of crap! And I'm not your mum!"

The looks in all their eyes – but especially his – instantly condemned me! Shock and disbelief! I couldn't have done more damage if I'd slapped him and thrown him to the ground. It was one thing for others to tease and mock him, but for me to publicly humiliate him? It was as though I'd taken some ancient foundation of trust between us, and shattered it with a single blow. Which of course, in a sense, I had.

* * *

There was a worse thing, though. You know how a thing can stick in your mind? A childhood thing, maybe – an image or a word? You don't know why, because it's just one of a million things you've heard or said or done, no better, no worse, and it has no obvious importance to your life. But once every couple of years some little probe goes to that corner of your brain and eventually it's a sensitive spot. It's like you've gone on a long midnight trek and dropped your torch and it lit up a jagged little stone and you forever remember the clear, sharp edges of that stone, lying there in that passing pool of light.

The look on Asael's face was that lone, jagged little spot-lighted stone. I'd seen it before – not on his face, but on Bridie's. And it went with the tears and the pushing away and my words: You're too big for this!

I might have been three? Certainly not more than four, because the Reverend was gone after that. And Bridie . . . twelve or thirteen . . . coming to him in tears over some forgotten slight. And him pushing her away. You're too big for that! And that look of utter betrayal on her face!

I was only little, but I hated him for hurting her when he could so easily have held her. And now, to my shame, I'd done exactly the same to Asael!

* * *

When I pushed him off, Dana's laughter and Amalthea's laughter were pinched off immediately. Even Rosemary gave me a wondering look. I had no choice, of course, but to bluster it out. I grabbed his wrist and jerked it roughly.

"C'mon, ye little rat! We'll find Bridie and . . . you can cry on her shoulder!"

Amalthea said softly, "You okay, Ruth?"

"Of course! I'm fine! Just . . . sick of being responsible for him!"

Asael was hanging off the end of my outstretched arm, sniffling, refusing to step near me. I couldn't look at him, so I looked to Dana instead.

"Where's Bridie, Dana?"

She gave the number of Johnathon Cranna's room but Amalthea said, "I just peeped in there. He was alone and asleep. I bet she's gone home. Want me and Rosemary to walk you over?"

I didn't want to be walked over. I didn't even want to go home or see Bridie. I wanted to feel . . . I don't know! Less responsible; less connected; less confused. I wanted something to wash away the look in Asael's eyes, to push it back into the shadows. I dragged him closer and he gave an exaggerated limp.

Dana stepped forward then and gently lifted his arm from my grasp. "Look, mate!" Her attention was all on him. "In all seriousness. That goat gave you a bit of a battering there." She wrapped fingers around his wrist, much more gently than I had, and began counting off seconds on her watch. "Might be we should just make certain you're fit to walk home, eh? Where'd she get you, exactly?"

"Biceps femoris," he snivelled.

"Ah, now! You see? I was right! 'Cause that one can be prone to spasms, as well you know! Potential for ligament trauma too! Bridie'd never forgive me if I let you go without at least a painkiller! You could spare a couple o' minutes for a painkiller, couldn't you Ruthie?"

She was all business and professionalism now, with not the least hint of tease and Asael turned hopeful eyes on me. It was all play on her part. I knew it and I didn't see how Asael could fail to know it. But it cheered him – maybe just the thought of getting away from me! But I was grateful, nonetheless, for her effort.

"Yeah, sure. Why not? Better safe than sorry, I suppose." And off they went, leaving me alone with Amalthea and Rosemary and my guilty conscience.

* * *

"Okay," Thea said. "We're going to head off then." She stepped close and gave me a hug, which I returned fleetingly. "I can't thank you enough, Ruth; for all you've done today. Helping with Garlic! Getting the flowers! You've been lovely; both of you."

"S' okay," I said, wishing that Garlic's death was all the day had been about. Knowing it wasn't.

She stepped back but kept hold of one of my hands. "We've got plenty to think about tonight, you and I . . . and Asael. I know it's a big ask, Ruthie, but it'd be great if the two of you came by the house tomorrow. I mean, if you want to! The sooner we talk through what happened tonight . . . what needs to be done . . . the better."

She obviously thought I was with her on the whole 'message from Rita' thing and I didn't have the energy to disabuse her. As far as I was concerned, we'd rescued a drunken old man from a night in the cane, Asael had had some kind of excitement seizure and we'd left an unexplained something in the paddock for Alf Caletti to find. I didn't want it to be anything more.

"Yeah, sure. If Bridie doesn't need me for anything . . . I'll try. And . . . sorry about Garlic." The last bit, I found myself, slightly to my embarrassment, addressing to Rosemary as much as to Amalthea.

"Look at her!" Amalthea said affectionately. "You wouldn't know she's lost a life-long companion, would you? That's one of the things I like best about goats, I guess. They aren't overly oppressed by things. You know what I mean? Whatever they meet in life, they meet head on. And whatever happens . . . that's just what happened!"

I shook my head. "Nice way to be, I suppose. Not to care."

"Oh no!" Amalthea shook her head. "That's not it! You have to care! What I'm saying is that . . . we people tend to find extra burdens . . . beyond caring. Regret, guilt, anger, fear." Her eyes glistened as she spoke. "Things that turn us about and distract us; mess with our focus! Goats don't let that happen! They know how to shrug those extras off."

She was looking at me intently, hoping for a glimmer of understanding, I suppose. I don't think she got one.

"Right, well, okay," she said. "Off my hobby-horse and onto the street!" She picked up the wheelbarrow and spun it about. Then she looked back. "You're a good sister, Ruth. Don't ever doubt it. I'd have you for mine any day of the week."

And with Rosemary trotting at her side, she wheeled the protesting barrow away down the drive.

* * *

Johnathon Cranna was a wreck! His leg was encased in fibreglass, his cheek was swollen, his head was wrapped in gauze and his mind was hopelessly hazy from painkillers. But he woke when I opened his door.

"Well well!" he said drowsily, looking me up and down. "Who's a hero, then?"

I felt unaccountably better just for seeing him – for knowing he was all right. I thought of the kiss I'd given him when he was only one eighth conscious and I had to look away to hide my smile. The smell of him somehow had become mine. And he didn't even know.

"They tell me you saved me!" he muttered. "From a fate worse'n death!"

"It was only sugar," I said. "And you saved me from breaking my neck, falling off Snowy's Ute. So . . . we can almost call it even."

"Almost?"

"Mm. For now. Until I can think of something else."

He tried a laugh but it turned into a little whistle of pain and I got up to go. "No, no!" he hissed and waved me back which gave me a little glow inside; he wanted me there. After a moment he said, "I'm trying to remember. I saw you somewhere! On the ground! Was that . . . ? Where were you?"

The pain killers, I guessed, had made Swiss cheese out of his memory.

"Yes, you did see me. And I saw you. Twice! The first time was in the street after the parade went by. You buzzed me."

"I buzzed you?"

"Yup! I was back by the fire station, alone in the middle of the street! Making my own little parade. And you buzzed me. Waggled your wings."

"Ahh." I doubted that he remembered, but he wanted me to believe that he did. "I always waggle my wings at the pretty ones." He winked at me in a cross-eyed, bruised kind of way that nonetheless made me laugh. Having men call me 'pretty' was a totally novel experience!

"And obviously I was at the showgrounds. Just near where the Moth crashed. You saw me there. Standing with Kevin."

"I did?"

"Mm-hmm. You were so low." I waved my hand to show him at eye level. "You looked right at me." I was feeling a little flushed, talking to him like this, as though we were exploring a newfound connection between us. Flirting, Bridie would have called it. Reckless flirting! Something she would never do. "I saw you see me."

"You saw me see you? From way down there?"

"Yes I did!" I waved my hand again. Eye-level. "It wasn't actually very far at all!"

"No? That low?"

He looked at me then. I mean he'd been glancing at me, the way you do when you chat with someone or when you're really too tired to hold your head up. But now he really looked at me. Up and down. Like he'd done that morning at the marshalling yard. And I felt the blood rise in my cheeks, just as it'd done then. This time, however, it wasn't because he was looking but because of what I imagined he was seeing. If I'd looked like Bridie – long and regal and beautiful – or was curvy and round and feminine-soft like Amalthea – looks that I imagined must drive men mad – I'm guessing I mightn't have minded. But what he was seeing was a scrawny, thirteen-year-old beanpole in a trainer bra, with a ponytail and a backpack. And enough cheek to be visiting after hours. I was fully furious with myself; for blushing uncontrollably; for being . . . just stupid. And I knew he was going to laugh at me.

"So . . ." he finally said, looking away, "what did you think . . . when you saw me see you?" No laughter. No hint at all, in fact, of what he thought. Which seemed to me like a bit of a challenge.

"I don't know. That you were going to die, I guess."

"Ooo! Did I look scared?"

I shook my head. "You looked like you wanted to say something. But didn't have time. You know, what with being busy lining up The Grand Gourd and all."

He smiled faintly and gave a weak gesture with his head, inviting me closer. I leaned in. Even through the medication and ointments, I could smell his aftershave.

"I wasn't scared, Ruthie," he confided quietly. "You know why? 'Cause I'm indestructible!"

"Really? Are you Super-Mister-Cranna then?"

"Time has proven it to be so, kiddo. Time and again."

Folded and draped over the arm of the bedside chair was a piece of cloth that I recognised. I picked it up and let it drop open. Bridie's MISS FREEDOM HOUSE MINISTRIES banner.

"Yeah!" he said tiredly. "Big sister was here! Big sister. Quite a looker, your sister, eh? Haven't . . . had a chat with her . . . in years!"

"She won! Did you know? She's Harvest Festival Queen! Only they couldn't find her to crown her. I guess she was here with you, maybe, when they announced it."

"Yeah?" He tried the laugh again and again managed only a choked bit of a gargle. Through a grimace, he said, "So the princess became Queen at last eh? Bloody marvellous! Much deserved, I'm sure."

He put an arm over his eyes, then, and fell quiet. I began to think he'd drifted off but half a dozen breaths later he murmured, "Miracle. She thinks she saw a miracle." A few breaths more and he peeped at me from under the arm. "Did you see a miracle, Ruthie?"

I shrugged. "I saw that your engine was dead!"

His eyes disappeared back under the arm, this time for a dozen breaths or more. Then he whispered, "One o' God's little chillen. That's me. Inde-bloody-structible."

I had no idea what he was seeing against that arm but I accepted that it was no longer anything to do with me, or even the hospital room. I sat on the edge of the chair, watching him. I'd been embarrassed when Johnathon looked me up and down before but now I wanted him to look at me, at my face . . . to focus on me. I wanted him to remember that I'd been there. I began searching my mind for something that would bring him back. I even, crazily, thought of kissing him again.

While I waited, I folded Bridie's banner and slipped it into my backpack, next to the letter that I'd stolen from the memory box; the one in which the Reverend questioned Johnathon Cranna's values, even while accepting his advice. When the time was right, when his head was clear, I'd show Johnathon that letter. In the meantime, my mind began to drift to Asael and the fine, fawning time he'd be having with Dana. And to Bridie, who'd spent the afternoon in this room and left her banner behind.

* * *

"Pay attention!" Johnathon suddenly barked; as though he'd grown impatient, waiting for me to focus. Then he wagged a slow, admonishing finger at the ceiling. "Always keep running! Never stop! Never look back! Might be the Devil behind you! Right?"

Great, I thought! Another hallucinator! If only Asael was here, I could show him how helpless it feels to be on the outside of other people's delusions. Johnathon lapsed into stillness before suddenly demanding, "Where's the Reverend?" He was so loud that I bounced in my seat, but his eyes remained fixed somewhere miles beyond the stippled ceiling. "Back in his church, that's where! Got his nose in his books, Princess! Eyes in his books! That's all he cares about."

"New Guinea," I said softly, wondering if it was possible to correct a dreamer. "The Reverend's in New Guinea."

"What? No way! Zat right? Not in the church then, the ol' God-botherer?"

He was sweating and kicking feebly; hearing me, I thought, but imagining me part of his dream. I got up to wipe his face with a corner of the sheet and I shook him a little, wanting to free him of whatever was holding him.

"You smashed The Grand Gourd to smithereens, you know!" I said loudly.

It must have worked because he blinked several times, searching for my face, searching for the memory. "The vegetable is dead?"

"Yes. You killed it – splattered it half across the parking lot!"

"Whoah! Get me some seeds from that sucker! Do a run in the Moth, you 'n' me, eh?" So he was conscious enough to know that I – or at least someone – was there with him! "Next year . . . pumpkins big as houses, all over the country! You come with me?"

"Sure! Great! You'll need a new plane, though. The Moth's gone!"

His eyes juddered into near focus.

"It got burned," I said.

"Burned? No way!"

"Yes, 'fraid so! I saw it go up!"

"No-o-o! Not burned?"

"Yeah . . . the boys. You know. Too much drink and excitement."

He closed his eyes and rolled his face to the wall. "Ahrrrr!"

I straightened the sheet over him and he didn't move.

"It might have been an accident!" I whispered, but he didn't answer.

Out in the hall, I could hear the nattering approach of Asael, telling Dana about The Thing that we'd left in the paddock.

"How wouldja know?" he was asking. "How wouldja know if it was real?"

Before they arrived, I spied a Mintie, still in its wrapper, lying on the floor beside Johnathon's bed. Knowing Bridie, I thought it well might be the very one that had fluttered into her hands at the end of the lolly drop. I could see her leaving it for him – as a sign of his 'miracle'. I remembered Rosemary, plucking lollies from the clump that had killed Garlic and I quickly unwrapped the Mintie.

"You suck it and see, little brother," I whispered to the air. "That's how you tell if it's real." I gingerly tucked the paper under Johnathon's pillow and popped the lolly into my mouth.

Chapter 6– A Baker's Perspective (Saturday)

How should a baker not be a philosopher? How should the yeasting of breads not spill over into the yeasting of minds? That's how people explain Kevin. And that's why people continually seek him out; to ask their most perplexing questions and to savour the inventiveness of his answers.

"Hello, Morning!"

It was a ritual with him, formally greeting the day. Even though, at six A.M., he'd already been up and working for two hours. It was really the return of the sun that he welcomed.

"Hello yourself!" I said trudging out of the driveway and up to the back door of the bakery.

"And hello Ruthie Mc Ef! What's up? You wet the bed or something?"

He was forever telling me that people who got up at eight had already missed the best part of the day.

"Not even a little bit. But I might as well've, for all the sleep I got. Can I come in?"

"No! I finally got young Hoggs motivated to work and I don't want you distracting him. But for the sister of the reigning Harvest Festival Queen, I can pull up a clean crate out here. And I can offer you coffee and hot scones. And I've got a sunrise ordered that would've knocked your socks off if you'd thought to put any on!"

* * *

I sat and he fetched. I heard him pass a few words with Hoggs, inside, and then he was back, settling onto the seat beside me.

"So?" he said, happy to indulge my mood. "Tell me!"

I shook my head as though I wasn't going to, but we both knew that was what I was there for. I just needed some coaxing. A place to begin.

"Conscience get to you?"

"What – about stealing the Reverend's letters?"

He waggled his eyebrows at me as if to say, what else.

"A bit maybe. Not so much. Not enough to give them back, at any rate. Anyhow, they must be mine as much as anyone's, wouldn't you think?"

This time, one eyebrow went up and the other curled down – a sure sign that he was making an assessment.

"And Amalthea's goat ate one of them. So even if I wanted to give 'em back, that one's gone."

His lips clenched in a 'that's that, then' expression and he nodded.

"I'll tell you what though, I wouldn't be sorry if I'd never seen them!"

"Mmm, well. One thing about the past – it's always there, just behind you. Hard to ignore."

"Yeah, well not mine! Or my family's! It all seems to have looped around in front of me these days!" And, though I'd told him part of it the day before, I launched into the rest of the merry-go-round that had been spinning in my head all night.

From the mysterious 'Thing' that we'd found in Alf's cane paddock, to Isak Nucifora's catatonic ride in Amalthea's barrow. From Asael's vision of Rita, to Amalthea's conviction that my family's ghosts were stalking about, unable to rest. From being embarrassingly childish and useless in front of Bessie Crampton (instead of simply demanding the return of whatever it was she 'took') to stupidly breaking the news to Johnathon that the Moth was history. From humiliating Asa' for being so slobbery weak, to fighting with Bridie for . . . for being Bridie. Round and round and round.

I was certain, in fact, that I hadn't slept at all until I actually woke, feeling cramped and cornered, and discovered that Asael had crept in with me sometime in the night, balling up like an echidna against my back. He always was a forgiver. Which must be helpful when your sister's a cow!

Anyhow, not wanting to face either him or Bridie, I'd slid out of bed and out of the house, and headed for the Harmony Bakery. Unhappily, the person I'd least wanted to face – myself – had come right along with me. So here I was, inflicting that person on Kevin.

"You can't let it go?"

I shook my head. "I'd like to! But I don't seem to be in charge."

We sat silently there for a while, under the morning stars, soaking up the smell of baking. Grand Gourd Scones. For the moment, I didn't need any more than that smell and the comfort of Kevin's company.

After a bit, he drew a long, slow breath and raised his arms toward the sky. "Of all the hours on the clock," he said, "these are the ones to treasure, Ru'. The readiness – the sweetness of the air! A new chance at joy. You, my friend, have got to avail yourself of it. There are steps to be taken!"

A voice came, slow and deep, from the depths of the work room behind us. "Careful ye don't fly away there, Chief!"

Kevin rose immediately and dramatically, all the way onto his toes where he wobbled precariously, waggling his fingers and spreading his hands as though the sun might, at any moment, come bouncing over the horizon like a ball for him to catch.

"Now wouldn't that be a treat, eh? Fly up, just high enough to look back – see what kind of expression the old world has on its face this fine morning."

He fell back onto his heels. "A funny old expression, I'd expect. A funny old look for a funny old world, eh Ru'?"

I smiled but the voice within answered. "So says the funny ol' man, eh?"

"Respect for your elders, young man, is one of the corner stones of civilisation! As is coffee! Have you put it on like your employer instructed? Or are we destined to suffer desiccation out here?" He smiled at me and raised a finger to his lips.

The owner of the second voice was Franz Hoggitt, son of Mayor Lyle and Mayoress Frieda. At least according to his age – seventeen or eighteen – Hoggs was on the cusp of being a man. In every other respect, however, he was just a large boy with scarcely an interest in anything – certainly not in making coffee or baking. The one certainty about him, in fact, was his interest in grog; which accounted for his showing up at the Harmony Bakery, relatively reliably, at four o'clock every A.M.

He was Kevin's dog's body, shifting bags of flour, sweeping, wiping, carrying and sometimes helping behind the counter. Kev' reckoned it was the perfect job for Hoggs – warm, uncomplicated and with the added benefit of free baked goods. Hoggs reckoned that the work and the hours were tolerable, but having to put up with Kev's relentless persecution of ideas was close to being too much.

"Desiccation, for Chris' sake!" we heard him grumble. "Get to your age an' can't speak fuckin' English yet! How's it happen?"

He rattled a spoon in a cup and Kevin, content, launched himself on one of trademark circularities.

"Astounding, isn't it, Ru'? How one day you're this and the next day you're that? One day, you feel like someone who fits. Like you're comfortable with yourself and other folks are comfortable with you – your size and shape and colour and sound. 'Cause you're part of all that they are. And only a day later, it can seem like you've grown a jaggedy edge and folks have shifted away from you. What does that tell you, Ru'?"

"Know what it tells me?" Hoggs appeared in the doorway with a plate of steaming scones. "Tells me ye'd be a nong to worry 'bout it. Stuff what other people think, that's what I say! They don't like ye the way ye are, that's their tough tittie. Who's gonna taste-test these buggers?"

"Ah!" Kevin nodded, accepting the plate. "Now what about that, Ru? Stuffing what other people think! Would that work for you?"

I knew that any answer Hoggs came up with had to be suspect in some way, even though it sounded exactly like the approach I'd been taking.

"If you're asking has it worked for me, the answer is . . . apparently not! Maybe my skin's not thick enough. Either that or the people I have to ignore are just too chronically talented at being irritating!"

"Well," said Kev', with no small degree of irony, I thought, "You're renowned for your sensitivity, mate. So it's probably that."

The three of us fell into a thoughtful silence, looking out into a sky that was taking on an oily sheen. Yesterday morning, only a couple of hours earlier than this, the Space Thing had streaked across that very portion of sky, headed for Alf Caletti's cane paddock and a meeting with Isak Nucifora. I looked at Kevin.

"So what else have you got for me, Kev? 'Cause that didn't help much."

He folded his hands behind his head.

"Well, I was just thinking about a village I once heard of, way off over in New Zealand. The queen's man came to it one day and told everyone the queen had decided to reward all the best people in the town – the ones who'd been truthful and good and tried to do right all their lives. The townsfolk figured, 'What the hell? That's all of us, isn't it?' So they all got in the line to go with the queen's man, to collect their reward. But just before they left, the man said he'd made a mistake! So sorry! Actually it wasn't the good people the queen wanted. It was the bad people! The liars and cheats and thieves and muggers and hypocrites! The queen, he said, was going to give those people bags of money – not as a reward, but as a bribe – in hopes that it'd get them to stop their evil ways. Everybody fell out of line, of course, because they knew they were the good people! They milled around for a bit. Then they all got straight back into the line."

Again, silence. The sky was beginning to wave streamers of light, as though cheering the sun in its climb toward the horizon. The air was heady with the smell of new scones and now, coffee as well. Nearby a kookaburra cleared its throat, giving fair warning to all food species.

"Mate," said Hoggs, "It might be that you sometimes know what you're talkin' about. But most o' the time, no other bugger has the least clue!"

Kevin laughed. "No? Well I guess that's the curse of being a funny old man, Hoggs." I could feel him looking at me, like he was expecting a light to come on over my head. I waited. No light. He kept watching me.

"I'm thinking," I said.

"Good!" He tapped my knee. "Coffee for three, coming up!" And he bustled past Hoggs, into the workroom. Hoggs took Kevin's place beside me on the crate and did his best to take Kev's place in the conversation.

"He's a looney ol' bird, isn'ee? But sometimes there's just that little parcel o' sense hidden away. Like a lost raisin, ye know what I mean? Hey! Heard you were the one pulled Cranna outta the Moth yestidy! Bloody good on ye, mate! Me, I was out on the paddock waitin' for lollies. Got heaps of 'em! Got hammered to buggery too! Look!"

He held out his arms to show red welts.

"Got on the piss with me mates afterwards! Bloody wasted, we were! Hey! Heard what you was sayin' to Kev', 'bout the meteor thing 'n' all. You really see somethin' out the back paddocks there? I mean like a space junk thing? An' ghosts or whatever? Man! What kinda stuff you musta bin smokin'! No wonder yer up at the crack o' freakin' dawn!"

My head went on automatic nod, so I could keep mulling over Kevin's village story. Like Hoggs said, there's always a meaning; a raisin of truth hidden in the dough.

"How old are you, Hoggs?"

"Me? Eighteen. Near enough. Why? How old are you?"

"An' you've lived in Sugar Town all your life?"

"Yeah. Pretty much! Why?"

"Can you remember my father? The Reverend?"

"Yeah yeah! Course! Well, sorta. Mum useta make me go listen to him preach. She reckoned he was good for the soul but I gotta tell ye – he scared the crap outta me! Always mad, he was! Every one of us on the fast road to hell, the way he told it! Funny innit, how we never really got no one to replace him? My ol' man says the Reverend whipped us into good enough shape to last three generations. Ha! That's somethin', comin' from the mayor!"

"Why? Whatcha mean?"

"Ah! Just his stories! To hear him tell it, he done some pretty rude things in his life. One o' the wild boys! Before he got the political bug. That's his story anyways!"

"Tell me, Hoggs, you ever hear of anything really bad happening in Sugar Town? I mean like maybe even years ago?"

"Oh shit yeah! I mean, that ol' lady – your grandma – she got topped didn' she? Years ago. She lived in that house o' Alf Caletti's, where the goat-lady is! What? Ye didn' know she lived there? Yeah! An' some drifter done 'er in, right there in that house! The oldies still talk about that one! An' then there was your ma, like. Done herself in, they say. I kinda remember that! But that wunt talked about so much. Kinda hush-hush around us kids."

"Yeah. I'm finding Sugar Town's real good at hush-hush. What about anything else, though? Before that time? Around that time? It's just that I . . . well I found this old letter, see? From when the Reverend was still here. And it's got this thing about a 'terrible deed' in it. When my ma and grandma were both still alive. It had something to do with my family and kind of the whole rest of Sugar Town!"

"Mate, you asked the ol' man about this at the festival, didn' ya? He was up prowlin, the house when I come in this mornin', goin' off about you. Still pissed as a newt, he was, an' I wunt much better meself, so I didn't make much sense of 'im. But listen. The way I see it, your family's had more'n its share o' bad luck in the past. If there's sump'm more, sump'm you haven't heard about yet, my advice to you is, stay the fuck away from it, girl! You know what they say about pokin' them sleepin' dogs!"

"Yep! Yep I do! So the mayor was upset?"

"He wunt upset, Ruthie. He was majorly shat off! Ready to tear the legs off the table, he was that pissed! Whatever you said to him musta percolated all arvy!"

Kevin appeared with the coffee and we busied ourselves with that. In the next yard, the Uniting Church's yard, from a high branch of the Poinciana tree, came the drawn out graaaak of a tree frog. Against a pale, new light in the sky I could pick out the kookaburra, slamming it against the wood. I took a bite of my Grand Gourd scone and the bird tilted its head back, swallowing its stunned breakfast whole.

I'd known the mayor was annoyed at being ambushed, but I was surprised it would still be working on him hours later. I mean, realistically, I was just a kid, and he was the mayor! Unless the Terrible Deed really did mean something to him! Something he remembered from his 'wild days' perhaps!

After a bit, Hoggs said slyly, "Saw you with that ol' sheila yestidy, Kev'! At the festival. Someone said she's a fortune teller wi' them Showies. She give ye a bit of a forecast, did she?" He nudged me and winked a 'watch this' kind of wink.

Kevin stopped eating and brushed crumbs from his lap. He looked back and forth between us.

"That 'sheila', Hoggs, was actually a Bessie! And she's an old, old friend who went missing wa-a-y back . . . back when you, Hoggs, were a little nose-picker fogging up the glass of my display counter. And she is a fortune teller! A good one! She could look at your hands, Hoggs, and tell you exactly where they've been this past week! And what they've done."

"She could not!"

"She could so! And she would! Because once the old witches look, Hoggs, they have to tell! No matter how horrible the truth is, they have to tell. It's part of the code! And she wouldn't forget, either. Even if she had to track you down, years later! Would you like me to introduce you?"

"No fuckin' fear!" The humour'd gone out of Hoggs. "Not into witches!"

"No? But you don't believe me, do you? And yet, I can tell you for a fact, Hoggs, there're folks in this very town whose hands Bessie looked into years and years ago!" He was like a mean older brother telling a ghost story. "And even the ones who ran off when they saw the look in her eyes – she''s still carrying what she saw! Still waiting to tell!"

"She looked into my hands," I said. "She told me there was trouble there!"

"Uh-huh. I heard."

"Yeah?" said Hoggs. "Well maybe it's her, dja ever think o' that? Like maybe trouble's followin' her around, eh? 'Cause I can tell you for a fact, the mayor wunt impressed about her showin' up in Sugar Town again neither! Hey, whyn't ye ask her about your letter, Ruthie? Get 'er to look into 'er own hand an' see where it was back then eh?"

"Not a bad idea, Hoggs!" Kev answered with a sideways look at me.

"It's a fuckin' good idea, is what it is! An' hey! When yez're talkin' to 'er, yez could ask 'er why she run off in the first place, eh! If she had people here she needed to talk to so bad!"

"Well now there's the irony! I always thought she'd gone looking for a particular man – part of her witch's calling, you know? Which I thought was going to be too bad for either her or for him, because I knew that particular man and he was a nasty, mean-assed piece of work! But it turns out she had other reasons."

"I hope they were spectacularly good ones," I said.

I knew Kevin well enough to know that, in his own mind at least, he was speaking hard truths. But I had no sympathy for her. Even though I knew we McFarlane kids hadn't been any of her proper responsibility in life, you don't just up and leave a kid to bring up other kids.

Kevin rocked a little on his crate. "Might o' been, I think. Not that it would make 'em easier to forgive, I guess!"

"People worry, God smiles, Ru'!" said Hoggs happily. "Crazy ol' black baker name o' Kevin Truc tol' me that once! I don' remember much o' the airy fairy shit he goes on with, but that one made sense to me. Made me think like maybe good reasons, bad reasons – it don'make any difference! It's all jus' God, fuckin' with our minds."

Kevin nodded slowly. "A vibrant image, Hoggs!"

"Yep. Sometimes ye get crap, sometimes ye get donuts! Nothin' ye kin do. Get a bit more sleep an' wait for the nex' spin." He drummed on crate with his knuckles. "Trouble gonna find ye when it wants ye! End of!"

Strangely enough, something in that conversation caused a flinty little spark to appear in the back of my mind.

"Is that what it was with the people in the village, Kev'? They could claim to be whatever they wanted, because nothing that happened was their fault anyhow?"

Kevin opened his mouth to speak but Hoggs jumped in first.

"'Zackly! But they're not the point, see! Fuckin' queen's the point! She's screwin' with 'em . . . like we're all bein' screwed with! Jus' to see what happens! She don' give a rat's dick what they think, 'cause she gets the same crowd either way! Bitch's prob'ly not gonna pay 'em anyways!"

"Don't forget," Kevin said, "there's good ways to be paid and bad ways to be paid. You said yourself – sometimes you get crap, sometimes you get donuts!"

Hoggs stared at him briefly, then let his head roll back. "You're tryin' to confuse me, aren't ye, ye crafty ol' fart!"

Kevin laughed. "Am I?" Then he looked slyly at me. "Or am I just confused myself? Or have I got my eye on the donuts, as any good baker should?"

At that moment, a timer went off inside the bakery and the sun finally put its fingers over the edge of the horizon.

* * *

It wasn't yet seven when I got home. Asael had hardly moved in my bed but Bridie was up and in the shower. I thought guiltily of my phone, still in my backpack, still with a flat battery. If she'd looked in my room and seen me gone, she would've tried to call me. The previous night's quarrel, I knew, though it had gone on for nearly an hour, hadn't yet ended.

When was I ever going to grow up, she'd demanded, scolding me for the cheek I'd given the mayor and the 'insult' I'd given her by sticking personal papers on The Grand Gourd. And I'd answered, maybe I'd grow up when she started to face up . . . to reality! What was with hiding the Reverend's letters in the first place and deceiving herself about the Agnes connection? She accused me of immaturity and insensitivity and I accused her of hypocrisy. We were screeching by then and Asael, trying to end it, had made it worse by changing the subject to The Thing in the cane.

"You took your brother out into the cane? In the night? Looking for space debris? Ruth, what is wrong with you these days? And for Amalthea to let herself be drawn into such . . .!"

On and on.

* * *

I must have felt at least a little fortified by my visit to the Harmony Bakery because I was ready to finish it by the time I got back. I took my backpack into her room and sat cross-legged in the middle of her unmade bed.

In my mind, the only important part of our argument had been the bit about the Reverend's letters and the so-called 'Terrible Deed'. Admittedly, I could've pulled my head in and simply accepted that my family had experienced some bad, unlucky, now-forgotten karma and been rewarded with – as Hoggs had put it – crap. That would've been what Bridie wanted – no muddied waters and life stuttering on as usual. But I wanted to know, for better or for worse, why we'd missed out on the donuts. And of course, I still had Johnathon Cranna up my sleeve!

I dumped the contents of my bag and scattered them on the mattress around me. Phone (with its flat battery), empty water bottle, spare t-shirt, wallet, the remaining letter and clippings, a few old hair bands, some bandaids and tissues and Bridie's 'MISS FREEDOM HOUSE MINISTRIES' Banner. Then I sat back to wait.

I spent my time studying the room. The decorations were more little- girlish even than the stuff in my room. Teddy bears, pink flounces, cartoon-princess prints on the curtains. One thing that caught my attention was a framed family photo of the Reverend, Rita, Grandma G, Bridie and me, on the wall beside the bed. One of those spontaneous, unplanned things that'd caught us unawares. I hadn't looked at it closely in ages.

In the left of the frame, there was Bridie's twelve or thirteen year old self, long-legged and lean, backed into the Reverend's arms, holding his crossed hands against her bare midriff. He looked to be whispering to her; a joke that had made her laugh. To the right, apart from them and with her back to them, Rita was bent over, listening to a serious comment from an animated two or three year old, which was me. And in the background, Gramma Gracie held out an inviting hand to someone outside the frame.

It was an image from a long ago morning before Asael was born, and it was one of the few items that remained from our parents' occupation of that room. Bridie'd left it up because, she said, it reminded her of how happy we'd all been. I always had the impression that it actually spoke of three separate happinesses; or maybe two and a half separate happinesses – little pairings that seemed to have stumbled into the one photo. The 'half' being Gramma G, who'd been reaching for someone outside the picture. Someone the photographer had eliminated.

I spent the last of my waiting time numbering off events from the time of that photo. Within a year, Asael would be added and Gramma G would be subtracted. In less than two years, Rita would also be subtracted. I imagined the photo with the two women gone. That left the Reverend and Bridie and their joke on one side and me, alone (or with baby Asael) on the other. Not so much later, of course, the Reverend would go as well. Then there'd just be Bridie and half a joke left on her side.

Bridie, wrapping her hair in a towel, was in the room before she saw me. We both opened our mouths to speak and both stopped, each waiting for the other. She looked at the stuff on the bed, picked up the phone, checked the battery and put it back without comment.

I tried to be conciliatory. "Here's the rest of the stuff I stole from the memory box. Minus the letter that Garlic ate."

She shook out her hair and bent, towelling it dry. Her face was hidden but her voice had the forced flippancy of someone who's been hurt. "Is that what happened to it? Well it doesn't matter. Anyhow, that stuff belongs to you as much as to me."

"Yes, it does!." This was a good sign, I thought; reality asserting itself. "Which is why I was so hurt you never showed it to me! This stuff should be part of my memories. But it's not. And I still don't understand why."

She turned her back on me and walked to the window, still towelling. I could tell she was crying, trying to hide it. All those years that we cried together in this room, the three of us; I knew the signs. But I'd stopped crying over this stuff long ago. And she was still going.

"You said yesterday that we were going to have nothing but the truth between us, Bridie!" I continued, as gently as I could. "From here on in! You, me and As'! Remember? No more crying over the past and only the truth between us. Remember?"

She shook the towel hard in front of her, making it crack, then draped it with exaggerated care over the back of a chair.

"Yes, Ruth. I remember."

She turned to me and I could see the outline of her body through her nightie, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes were fiercer and yet somehow sadder than I could ever remember seeing them. Sadder even than when the Reverend pushed her away, all those years ago. But it wasn't enough to make me let her off the hook.

"Are there other things you haven't shown me, Bridie? Things you've not told me? About them?" I pointed at the photo. "About us? About everything?"

"Ruthie, why do you . . . !"

"JUST TELL ME!" If I was close to tears myself, I was comforted by the fact that mine were tears of frustration; not of self-pity. "I know that you have a block, Bridie! That some things are gone! But whatever's left, I need to see it, hear it, know about it! Why is that so much to ask?"

My shout had woken Asael who rushed into the room, tousled and unnerved. He took a step toward me, but I warned him off with my eyes and he went to Bridie instead, wrapping himself in her arms. She fluffed and cooed over him and false- started several times but, eventually, memory was the only place to go.

Mostly it was little, unconnected things – Rita's quiet laughter in the kitchen; Gramma Gracie's songs and clapping games; a myriad of nameless people coming and going. And orchestrating it all, the powerful, insistent presence of the Reverend – 'daddy', in Bridie's telling. Working in his study, booming out sermons in the church; spreading a cloak of righteousness over everyone. Until suddenly, for no reason she could remember, there was just us and Bessie Crampton. Everyone else was gone.

"Bessie Crampton," I interrupted, "is back in Sugar Town. Did you know that? I saw her yesterday."

"You what?"

"I saw her. I talked to her. At the showgrounds, with Kevin. Apparently she's a fortune-teller – travelling with the Showies."

"Bessie? You're sure it was Bessie?"

"Course I'm sure! She was with Kevin, I told you! They'd been around here looking for you, as a matter of fact. Apparently she has something that she 'took' when she left. Stole, I guess she means! And if you want it back, whatever it is, you have to go see her at the Showgrounds. Madame Zodiac, she is now."

Even through my anger and sarcasm, I could see Bridie glassing over, as she always did when we talked about the past.

"Are you even trying to listen?" I shouted. "She has something!" I snatched up letters and clippings from the pile in front of me and waved them at her. If she'd been closer, I'd have thrown them in her face. "Something that belongs to us! To me, if you don't want it!"

My shout had made Asael jump, which was gratifying, but Bridie maintained her distant impassivity. She was like the kid in the back corner of the classroom who carries on a private conversation with his eraser. I was about to walk out on the pair of them when her mouth finally opened.

"The story!" she said. "I forgot the story!"

This is the story that had come back to her – the story that Bessie used to tell her.

* * *

Once upon a time, on a night just like this, long, long ago, there was a little girl. And the world collapsed on top of her. It was a night of calamity, which the little girl's father promised would be the worst she would ever know. Be strong, now, he told her. Don't cry. This is how we survive things; one moment at a time. Nothing worse can happen. How do I know nothing worse can happen? Because not even God would think to look for a little girl under all this heap of pain! He loves little girls.

The little girl looked to her mother and her grandmother and saw strange confusion in their eyes and she was frightened. But her father put his hand on her chin and turned her face back to him. God is love, he said. He loves you. He wants to teach you your strength. And the little girl felt how hard it must be for God, to have such a foolish and frightened child to work with.

I'll be strong, she said to her father. I'll make Him proud!

* * *

By the end of it, Bridie was seated on the bed beside me, holding Asael in her arms, staring into nothing; seeing a memory. I waited. Asael looked from me to her and back again. I shook my head. Not yet. Let her finish her memory.

"Bessie," she said at last "used to tell me that story! How could I have forgotten? She'd sit with me and I'd ask for the story about the little girl."

"A night of calamity?" I asked. "She told you a story about a calamity?"

"No. Yes. I mean that wasn't the point of the story! Don't you see? The point was the little girl; the little girl being strong, for God!"

I let that lay between us. It seemed to be a morning for cryptic fairy tales. First Kevin's, about the queen testing her good - bad villagers. Now this, about calamities heaped on little girls – also a test. Why couldn't people just speak plainly?

I said, "So what about Bessie . . . Madame Zodiac? You gonna go see her?"

She furrowed her brow, nodded, shook her head, nodded again. "Sure. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, I'll try! She didn't say what she has?"

"No."

I shuffled my fingers through the clippings and letters. I wasn't certain what I'd hoped to get out of Bridie by confronting her – maybe just the satisfaction of having the stronger argument – but there was no point, I knew, in pressing her much further. We'd talked through the 'Terrible Deed' letter the day before and I was convinced that Bridie was as much in the dark about it as I was. I wasn't over being angry about the Agnes letter but, in the first place, it was now poop in the bowel of a dead goat and, in the second place, I didn't want Asael to have to listen to an argument about the Reverend's sixteen-year-old, bare-breasted, live-in 'convert'.

"So, are there more letters, Bridie? Others that aren't . . . in the memory box? That stack seemed small."

She gave me a hurt look, as though I'd accused her of stealing coins from the tooth fairy. Although I could have forgiven her that, much more easily than I could forgive her the theft of my memories.

"You know he can't write often, Ruthie! It's not easy, from where he is!"

I waited, for a proper answer.

"There might be more in the study. But I'm sure I've read them to you! All of them!"

I waited some more. Asael looked back and forth between us, like a confused puppy.

"I want you to be proud of him, Ruthie!" she finally said. "Like I am! Like Asael is!"

She was getting her back up and everyone knows that backs-up people aren't inclined to give very much. Even when they have it to give which, I supposed, Bridie didn't. I looked over the scattered clippings. They were mainly random things Bridie'd gathered from the bottoms of drawers, from the pages of books and from dusty crevices behind furniture when she first moved into this room. She'd kept them and filed them away in the box but it was like she was the curator in a foreign museum.

I began scanning them, organising them into a tidy order. By date seemed sensible.

* * *

" _FRANTIC ATTACK!"_ That was earliest one. It was the report of the attack on Gramma G.

" _Local woman . . . . 62 years old . . . police baffled . . . massive trauma. Died in hospital on . . ."_

* * *

And then there was, _"SECOND TRAGEDY STRIKES FAMILY!"_ They were familiar clippings and I let my eyes flick over them rapidly.

" _Body found . . . mangroves . . . two days. . . . Six months . . . unsolved violent death of her mother . . . depression . . . Wife of . . . Leaves behind three children . . . fifteen and four-year old daughters . . . infant son. Police investigation . . . no foul play suspected. Service to be held . . ."_

The first was dated April 12, 1998; the second, October 19 of the same year. I looked for intervening dates and found one, hand-written on a little square that had been torn from the middle of a page – April 30, 1998. A name jumped out at me. Isak Jonas Nucifora.

" _Isak Jonas Nucifora . . . wildlife management expert and accomplished bushman . . . not seen for two weeks . . . police inquiries . . . Also Leslie Barry Crampton, 31. . . well known journalist . . . uncharacteristic . . . wife's concerns. Any information . . ."_ The heading was, " _LOCAL IDENTITIES MISSING."_

Isak Jonas Nucifora! Surely there could only be one old man in the area with that name! But what coincidences! Not just that his name should come up again the day after we found him in the cane, but also that he'd had a period of being 'missing', in the same month that Gramma G was murdered! And when we were loading him into the wheelbarrow, he'd said her name! 'Who else, Gracie?' And something more! Something about being 'too late'!

And then there was this other name – Leslie Barry Crampton! I remembered Les Crampton – or at least his name! Bessie's husband! Gone walkabout at the same time as Isak? So what had happened to him? Had he ever come back? Bessie was with us until I was seven, which made it 2002, and there was definitely no picture in my mind of her having a partner during those years! Maybe he'd become one of the travelling Showies, like her! Maybe he was Mister Zodiac! Or the fire-eater! Maybe, those years ago, she left us at his insistence! Or she went to try to find him! Maybe he was the 'nasty, mean-assed piece of work' that Kevin mentioned!

"Is this who I think it is?" I demanded of Bridie, holding the article up and pointing out the name. She looked, squinted, leaned close and read again.

"Bessie's husband? That's right, she had a husband once! I remember! He left her, I think."

He left her! Went walkabout! Which would explain Bessie's availability to move in with us! To share mutual despairs! But then to take something that didn't belong to her! Why do that? Unless it was something valuable! In which case, why bring it back? Surely consciences don't sting for that long?

I cleared the bed, stuffing everything, including the letters and clippings, back in my backpack, leaving only her banner behind.

"You need to go see Bessie!" I said, pointing what I hoped would be a commanding finger at Bridie. "Madame Zodiac! Find out which of our memories she's got! And get 'em back!"

I shuffled off the bed and left.

Chapter 7 – Waking Isak

_Johnathon Cranna doesn't move, doesn't open his eyes, despite the fact that a clearing has appeared in the creamy, drug-induced mist that fills his mind. A close watcher might notice the change in his breathing but nothing else reveals the approach of consciousness. He studies the clearing and the stark, appalling vision that occupies it. The vision is directly related to the sharp-edged voice that's shouting somewhere nearby. The voice's owner is one Isak_ _Nucifora and the vision is of that same old man, crouching in a patch of destroyed sugar cane, aiming his rifle into the sky. At the Moth!_

* * *

"I want me clothes, girlie!" Isak was demanding. "I don't care what the doc' says or what you say or what anyone else says! I don' know why I'm here an' I don' know how I got here, but I damn sure ain' stayin' here! Get me? I'm off! I got stuff to be doin' and it don' include lyin' here like a dummy for yer proddin' an' pokin' pleasure!"

* * *

That was the speech I heard being bellowed as I crept down the hospital's hallway, toward Johnathon Cranna's door. Bridie'd gone to the Showground to fulfil duties as the newly elected Queen, making me promise to give Asael a quiet morning. As soon as she'd left, though, he'd started at me. Not about going back to Sideshow Alley but about going to Amalthea's house. He wanted to see the goats again – both the living and the dead. And to talk to Amalthea, who believed in his vision and in the occasional need of the dead to ring doorbells in the minds of the living. And most of all, he wanted to go back to The Thing.

I'd given in, but with conditions. I was absolutely set on finding out more about that Terrible Deed and that meant following up my only remaining lead – Johnathon Cranna. Depending on the outcome there and on what came of Bridie's visit to Bessie (if she followed through on it, as she'd promised) I could decide whether to back off or keep delving.

So my condition was that Asael had to wait for me in reception. If he did this and if he promised not tell Bridie where we'd been, I'd take him to Amalthea's.

* * *

The roaring voice had warned me to caution. I peeped around the corner of the door, snapped a mental picture of what was happening, and dodged straight back out of sight. The second bed in the room, though empty, had clearly been recently occupied and its missing occupant had, equally clearly, shoved aside some ferociously powerful looking medical apparatus.

"Please, Mr Nucifora," a nurse was saying. "Get back in bed! You've had a stroke! You're a very sick man!"

"Bullshit! You took my clothes off me. You been lookin' at my pecker while I was sleepin'! An' you callin' me sick? Get outta my way! I'll find them clothes meself!"

Johnathon was still there, with his plastered leg elevated, but he looked, incredibly, to be asleep. I knew that I should leave. But I wasn't sure how many chances I'd have to get back before he was released. And I absolutely knew I'd never have the nerve to approach him at the hotel! If I wanted to speak with him, my back was to the wall – in more ways than one.

I realised that, if I stood at the right angle, I could see a fairly clear image of the room reflected in the glass of the door. I glanced about. A nurse crossed at the end of the corridor and disappeared. No one else was in sight. It's just to save embarrassment, I told myself; don't want to catch anyone half undressed!

"Bastard!" It was Johnathon's voice, fitting a word in through the nurse's objections. So he was awake after all!

"And," Isak's reflection roared, pointing a big-knuckled finger at Johnathon, "he's not sick neither! Get him a crutch while ye're gettin' me me clothes. Hear me? An' don' be messin' with me stuff, neither! I know what's exackly in every pocket, see?"

An I-dare-you look came over Isak's face. "Well? Go on! What're ye waitin' for? Bloody Santa Claus? If I hafta go outta here wearin' one o' yer bed sheets, girlie, then by Christ you better not be surprised. Get me?"

He raised his hand as though to push her but she fled, out of the room. I spun and pretended to be walking.

"No visitors for them!" she mumbled angrily as she raced by, and I made a

show of following. I intended to follow. But I was pulled up by the clunk of a water glass, followed by a clearer, stronger version of Johnathon's voice.

"I saw you!"

"Saw me?" Isak answered. "Course ye saw me, ye bloody communist! I'm right here in the bloody room wi' ye!"

I slowed, let the nurse disappear, and crept back to my possie. Johnathon's reflection was shaking its head, erasing Isak's words with a waving hand. "In the paddock!" he stammered. "I saw you in the paddock! You shot me! You shot the Moth!"

I glanced around quickly. There was no sign of the nurse returning, so I moved as close as I dared. This would be a story I wouldn't want to miss!

Isak was flicking his hands, dismissing every accusation.

"Don't be such a whiner, Cranna! Listen!" He jogged across the room, the thin, bowed sticks of his legs flashing beneath the hem of the gown. He thrust his face next to Cranna's and, following many an exaggerated glance about the room, managed to hiss, "Did you see anything else out there, mate? You know! Anything. . . with me? 'Cause there was sump'm'! Sump'm . . . big . . .important! Did you see it?"

For a moment, it seemed the old man intended to climb onto the bed with him and I could see Johnathon pulling back, struggling to blow away the clouds in his head.

"I don't care if the Titanic's out there! What's important is, I'm in here! Half bloody killed! And the Moth is wrecked! 'Cause YOU shot at me! You SHOT at me, you bloody lunatic bloody . . . crazy old . . . ! I'm gonna have you locked up!" He gulped water from the bedside table.

"Fer Chris' sake, Cranna! It's all about you, innit! Ask yerself this: Am I shot? Eh? Answer? No ye ain't! Ye ain't, are ye? No! So ye got a little hole in 'at raggedy bit o' paper an' string you call a airplane. So what? Buy yerself a patch! Buy yerself another airplane! Buy yerself a jet liner, for Chris' sake! All yer money, it don' even matter! This is important, what I'm talkin' about!"

"What, an' the Moth isn't important? Is that what you're saying? And shooting me outta the sky? That's not important?"

Isak wasn't listening. He jumped on the spot, waved his hands and thumped Johnathon a number of peppery little taps on the shoulder.

"It's a Space Thing!" he cackled.

I heard a sudden intake of breath at my back which nearly made me whiz in my pants! Fortunately, it was only Asael. His mouth was agape, his eyes were wide and he was pointing an 'I-told-you-so' at the door, as though Isak's words were painted on the air. I put one finger on my lips, another on his and gave him the I'll-toast-you-like-a-stale-muffin look which, happily, he responded to as trained.

"A space thing," Johnathon was saying flatly, as though identifying a splinter in his finger – a wood thing.

I manoeuvred Asael so he too could see the reflection in the glass. I didn't really want him to hear or see but, once he was there, it was either both of us or neither of us. And I wasn't ready to leave.

Isak was nodding gleefully. "A genuine, crashed-down, feel-good, metal kinda sausage space thing, Cranna! That's what I'm tryin' to tell ye! Ask me what happened to me while I was sleepin' las' night!"

By this time he actually had crawled halfway onto Jonathon's bed.

"Get off me, you coot! Go lie on your own bed! This one's got a shot man in it!"

Isak hopped off and, as though demonstrating his eagerness to please, jigged away to park himself against the second bed. He folded his hands in his lap, cranked his eyebrows half way up his forehead and, like a comedian's audience, gazed expectantly at Johnathon. I could hardly believe this was the same man we'd found, practically comatose in the cane, not twelve hours ago.

"What?" a mystified Johnathon was finally driven to demand.

"Ask me! Ask me what happened while I was sleepin' las, night."

"Jesus Murphy! Will you never give a man peace? What? What happened while you were sleeping? A feel-good space sausage came down, I got that bit! An' then what? It bought you a drink? Knit you a pair of socks?"

"Nuh!" Isak shook his head happily. "I dreamed!"

"You what?"

"Dreamed! A whole friggin' technicolour story 'bout what-all kinda stuff! Unbe-fuckin-lievable!"

"A dream? You're telling me this big news . . . that you dreamed? Is that it? No space sausage, now? Just a dream?"

Isak wagged his finger admonishingly. "Don' be like 'at, now, Cranna. 'At sausage is real! Real as you are! I know you seen it, ye lying little rooster! But 'at dream . . .! Well, she was like . . . almost real. Realer 'n' I could ever remember 'er. No matter how hard I tried! An' I tried plenty over the years, I can tell you!" He sighed, sniffled and knuckled at an eye. "Man!" he continued softly. "She was so fine!"

"What the bloody hell are you on about? An' what's more, unless this space sausage dream was telling you you're a dickhead for shooting at my airplane . . . what do I care? Eh? Is that what it told you? That you're a dickhead?"

"Course not! Don' be such a bloody nong! An' anyways, what I'm tellin' ye is, that space thing weren't part o' the dream! 'At was real, Cranna! Real as this bloody room! Real as you! It's out there right now, in Alf's cane paddock! An' you know it, doncha?"

Asael turned to look at me with wide-eyed expectancy and I turned his face away, back to the glass.

"So you never had a dream before?" Johnathon was asking.

"Are you bloody deaf? Course I had dreams! Jus' . . . fuckin' years ago! What I'm tellin' ye, ye ignorant paddock-pisser, is . . . that thing wun't part o' no dream! The dream come after! An' the feel-good come . . .! Well it come first when I got up close to the space gadget, see? Not straight away, like. First there wun't anythin' at all! Jus' me bein' curious, like . . . 'bout the sound comin' out of it an' all. But then, when I akshally come across it, I kinda sensed 'at thing uz jus' scared! More scared 'n' anything I ever met. Scared shitless! You know? I mean, I met a lotta scared things in my time. Half-dead things. Half-alive things. But this thing . . .! You know, 'f you could imagine your airplane comin' alive while you was flyin' along somewhere, so it up an' spoke to ye . . . an' maybe it says to ye, 'I've blown a piston, Cranna! An' I'm caught in a down draft an' one o' me wheels is fallen off an' I'm entirely rooted. An' unless you can think o' sump'm' to do, mate . . . I'm goin' down!' An' imagine it's like that airplane stops bein' a thing yer in an', instead, becomes a thing that's inside o' you! An' you gotta do somethin' . . . anythin' . . . to stop that hurtin'!

"So I starts to feel like . . . I dunno . . . like the Queen o' Sheba's come knockin' on me door, in terror of her life! T'ask me for me help, ye know? An' I says – I 'member I spoke to it, right out loud – I says, 'What's yer problem, Queenie?' An' there it was! The feel-good! It was like . . . I dunno . . . like a dog, lickin' the inside o' me brain, ye know? Like they do when they find a sore spot. Just warm, like. An' gentle. An' kinda like . . . I dunno . . . like sayin' nothin' I ever done . . . no matter how bad . . . really mattered no more! An' then . . . then . . . it started to come back to me! "

"What? What started to come back to you? The fact that you should be under lock and key?"

Isak tapped his forehead, as though checking for woodrot. "I . . . I can't seem to put a finger on it now. But . . . it was sump'm. Sump'm to do wi' Gracie!"

"Gracie? Gracie Albion, who's been dead for half a dozen years or more?"

"Eleven years, Cranna. 'S been eleven years."

Asael reached back to touch me and I found myself wrapping my arms about him, patting his chest. I fancied I could feel his heart beating.

"An' suddenly, there you were, in that bloody noise machine o' yours! What's bloody wrong wi' you, Cranna? You get some kinda kick outta fright'nin' the bejesus out o' people?"

"Me? What's wrong with me? Listen, I was out there, doing my civic duty – like I do every Harvest Festival! I'm not the one out in the middle of the cane dreaming about a . . . a brain-licking 'Queen of Sheba-sausage-feel-good-thing'! And shooting at airplanes!" He gulped more water and poked a finger Isak-wards.

"Let me tell you what's really happened! There's a little thing called delirium tremens that happens to liquored-up, sodden ol' maniacs like you who've pickled their brains with over-proof rum for more years 'n' a centipede's got legs! And in that world, there are pink aliens and space elephants! See? But not in the real world!" He gestured at the equipment standing derelict beside Isak's bed. "Oh yeah! An' apparently you've had a stroke as well! Which altogether adds up to fire crackers going off between your ears! Understand? Your thinking apparatus is ratshat! Got it? Not that your head probably ever worked any better than it does right now!"

Isak hopped to his feet and jigged a high-stepping pirouette, favouring us all with a flashing view of his buttocks. "Well, slap me back o' the head! Do I look like someone's had a stroke, you donkey?"

It was at that point that I realised Asael and I weren't alone. I whirled about, and standing directly behind us was the hospital doctor and manager, Roger Dabney. Doctor Dabney was our family doctor so we knew him well enough, as did everyone else in Sugar Town. He was Sugar Town born and bred and had been in charge of the hospital at least for all the years of my life. He gave us a powerfully disapproving look and gestured down the corridor with his thumb.

"Sorry!" I muttered. "Just leaving." I switched my grip to Asael's hand and began to tow him away. "Better not be calling me a donkey, in here!" I heard him say as he entered the room. "That's the last thing you want to be doing while you're resident in my hospital, Isak."

As soon as we were alone in the corridor, Asael stopped and pointed back over his shoulder.

"He's the key!" he said, as though he'd just remembered where his bum was. "That's what mum said last night! He's the key, don't let them forget!"

I'd been having the same thought; not that I was ever going to verify his delusions! Nevertheless, I swung us into the next room, which was unoccupied. My heart was racing like a train. I pinned him against the wall and wagged a finger in his face.

"It was a hallucination!" I insisted.

But it was more an effort to convince myself than him and he knew it. He didn't bother to answer. I did a rapid circuit of the room, shaking my fists, wondering what to do. Isak had known Gramma G! He'd called me by her name when we were loading him into the wheelbarrow. He'd gone missing the very same week she was murdered! A crime that was never solved! And now here he was talking about her! So hallucination or not, it seemed he was, if not THE key, at least A key. And I wanted to know more. I peeped into the corridor. Empty. We doubled back in time to pick up on Doctor Dabney's rebuke of Isak.

"If I'd said you'd had a stroke – which I didn't, but if I had – then, donkey or no donkey, a stroke is what you'd've had! Which wouldn't be surprising, considering the lifestyle you lead!"

"Ahhh! Ahhh!" Isak wailed, clutching at his chest in mock horror. "Lookit me now! Me motor's conkin' an' I'm on me deathbed! Know how I can tell? 'Cause they sent the slaughterman to finish the job!"

"Your metaphors are as mixed up as you are, Isak." Doctor Dabney patted the pocket of his smock. "I got a shot here'll fix that for you."

"Whoa!" croaked Isak. He gripped Johnathon's arm and pointed accusingly at Dabney. "Lookee here, Donkey! We got a horse's arse come to fix us! You take my advice, mate! Don' let 'im touch ye! Fuckin' quacks! Get paid by the disease, ye know! The sicker they decide ye are, the more money they get. An' if they manage to kill ye, why then, the gov'ment gives 'em a big bonus! Keeps the population down. Gits rid o' the trouble makers! Did ye know that? That's the God's own truth! Am I right, Rog'!"

"Damn straight you're right! And we got a special offer rung through just this morning. Too many old ratbags in the country these days, it says. Moaning and carrying on – bringing down the mood of the populace. Free beer for a month, we get, for every one we knock off! Damn sensible offer, if you ask me. So I came in to work feeling sorry for myself, because I didn't have any old ratbags in the wards. But then, luckily, I remembered you, Isak! And here you are, giving my nurses hell! And upsetting my other patients! And scampering about when you should be flat on your back. And worst of all . . . worst of all, Isak . . . questioning my diagnostic skills! I can tell you, I'm this close," thumb and forefinger, a coin's thickness apart, "to ordering up a dose of strychnine."

Stout and imposing, Dabney had stopped with the bed between himself and Isak. He propped his fists against his hips and glared. Isak straightened his back, lifted his chin and pointed an accusatory finger.

"You always were up yerself, Dabney. How'd we know yer even a real doctor, eh? Ye go away for a couple years. Claim yer at the uni-ver-sit-ay, while the rest've us are workin' at real jobs. How'd we know you wasn' just off lookin' up the shiela's skirts, eh? Come back claimin' ye're Doctor bloody Zoose or somethin'! You know anythin' 'bout dreamin'?"

"Dreaming's my specialty, Isak. That's how I know that you're dreaming now; especially if you think you're leaving here this morning." He looked to Johnathon and asked, "How long's he been carrying on like this, Johnathon?"

"He was doing it when I woke up! I vote for the strychnine. How much you charge to let me jab it in? Small compensation for what he's cost me!"

"Why, what's he cost you?"

"Only the Moth! I remembered this morning, soon as I heard his voice! He was out in Caletti's paddock when I was circling for the lolly drop! He's the reason I crashed! He shot the Moth!"

"Shot the Moth?" Roger Dabney repeated, turning an inquisitive eye on Isak. His white goatee trembled as though a kernel of astonishment had suddenly lodged itself between his teeth. "Tell me that isn't so, Isak! Is that why it crashed?"

"Course not! You gonna believe this bloody heathen? If it crashed at all – an' I ain' had no proof o' that – it'll be 'cause he didn' know how to fuckin' land it! Bloody typical o' your fuckin' generation – startin' stuff ye can't finish. Not like the ol' days! Anyways, you can't keep me here, Dabney. 'S against the law! I know me rights. An' I ain' afraid o' ye, neither! Neither one o' yez!" Isak danced into a crouch, bouncing shiftily from foot to foot, hands up like claws. "C'mon, I'll wrestle ye! If ye beat me, ye can keep me!"

"Wrestle you?" said Roger Dabney, laughing. "I'll knock you on the head with a mallet! What's got into you, Isak?"

"He's been dreaming!" said Johnathon. "The feel-good, Queen of Sheba, brain-licking, alien-space-sausage dream! So he tells me! Here, gimme your stethoscope, mate. I'll hold it for you while you put your famous grapple move on him!"

Dabney looked critically from one man to the other, pursed his lips and folded his arms. "Why don't you tell me," he said, "about this dream, Isak. What was it about?"

The note of interest must have taken Isak by surprise because his focus failed and his gaze dropped to the floor, though his hands remained up like claws. "Gracie," he said barely audibly. "I saw Gracie. Like yesterday! Like she was when she was a girl."

I think I stopped breathing when I heard that. Judging by the silence in the room, Johnathon and Doctor Dabney might also have stopped. If there'd been a clock in the room, I think even it would have stopped to listen to the silence.

"Gracie?" said Doctor Dabney. "You mean Grace Albion . . . who died six-seven-eight years ago?"

"Eleven years." said Isak. His eyes came up fiercely. "You should remember that, Dabney – since it was you let 'er go."

"Nobody 'let her go', Isak. The injuries she had . . . ! I did everything I could. Nobody could've done more."

"Everything you could," said Isak with disgust, "wasn't good enough, was it, Dabney? She died. It was your job to save 'er an' ye didn't. End of story!"

"Isak," Johnathon chipped in, "we all felt terrible about what happened to Gracie. But you know – even the Sarge said – no one could have prevented it. Blow-throughs from somewhere, come into town, destroy a beautiful woman like that and never get seen again. Just a mystery! You can't seriously hold that against Roger!"

"I do whatever I friggin' want, Cranna!" said Isak, swinging his gaze to Johnathon. "An' you can fuckin' stuff this up yer tailpipe, as well! I know stuff! I al'ays knew stuff! Right from word one! It's jus' . . . 'til las' night . . . I didn' remember I knew it!"

I think Asael and I could have walked into the room and yodelled at that point, without being noticed. I could see Isak's face clearly in the glass, back in his dream again. His mouth dropped open and he sucked in a sudden, shallow breath, as though stung by a hornet. He sat against the bed and seemed to shrink into himself, with something that looked very much like shame.

Dabney spoke softly, the gentlest sound he'd made since entering the room. "What is it you know, Isak? After all these years of knowing nothing. What do you know now?"

"I . . . I know that Gracie had information . . . 'bout who done what to the Reverend's little girl. That's one thing I know."

'Done to the Reverend's little girl'? I rocked back on my heels; hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. Was that really what he'd said? Something was done to . . . Bridie? The Terrible Deed was something done to Bridie? And Gramma Gracie knew about it? The Reverend's letter said she'd been storming about the town! Could she have been killed by someone in the town? Someone in Sugar Town?

"Nothing got done to the Reverend's little girl, old man!" Johnathon was snarling. He sounded suddenly not at all like a man on a sick bed but rather like one fending off a burglar. "You're mixed up! Check the records! You won't find any charges – not even any allegations of anything being done to any little girls! And Grace Albion was attacked by a blow-through off the highway. Some druggo, high on heroin! She caught him, he lost it, he hurt her and he got away! That's the story!"

Isak might have been old and half demented but he had at least one conviction floating solidly in his mind, as unmistakable as a dead body rolling in the surf. He squinted down on Johnathon and pointed a crooked finger.

"I might not have it all clear in me head, Cranna, you monkey's arse, but I got this much clear! I know who did for Gracie – or at least, who started it!" He glared an accusation at Dabney. "And it weren't no blow-through off the highway, I can tell you! And he weren't there tryin' to steal 'er fuckin' spoons, neither!"

"Isak," said Dabney reasonably, "think about what you're saying. Think about . . . !"

In the glass, I could see Dabney's head turn. Listening. I grabbed Asael's collar in one hand, put the other over his mouth and dragged him backward as quickly and quietly as I could. We slid into the empty room where we stood trembling for a long minute. Then we heard him speaking again.

"Isak" he said softly. We glided into the corridor again to hear. "If you repeat this to anyone, I'll deny ever having said it. And I'll have you committed, for being a danger to yourself and others. You know I can do it. Your alcoholic stupor probably prevented you from realising this, but we all know who killed Grace Albion! And we all know – you, more than anyone, know – that that person paid for it. In full. Justice was done. But the town isn't going back there, Isak. Understand? For your own sake . . . in so many ways . . . let it be."

"Justice got done?" said the old man, knuckling at his eyes. "That's your story is it? Well don't you fret yerself on that account. 'Cause what I know – what I r'membered yestidy – is that justice only got half done! Maybe not even that much! Ain' all clear to me this mornin', what wi' the shite ye been pumpin' into me. But I know it ain't over! I get back to Queenie, it'll come clear. I know it will!"

"Queenie? Is that your 'space thing'?" sneered Johnathon. It was the cruel voice I'd heard when the drugs were carrying him off the night before. Ripe with sarcasm. It didn't suit him and I didn't like it. "This town's supported you and turned a blind eye on your filthy old self for uncounted years, Isak. And now you're going to turn against it? Go on, Rog'! Hit him with the strychnine! He's way past his use-by date anyhow!"

"Ye smart-ass little twerp!" Isak snarled, turning on him, "Look at ye! Ye float around in yer little airplane, lookin' down on everyone . . . droppin' lollies, fer Chris' sake! An' you, ye sneaky bloody assassin," he said to Dabney, "with all yer pills an' yer prods – both o' yez! So ye know all about it, do ye? Everyone knows all about it! Well, maybe that's the real pity, eh! That no one ever said nuthin'! What kind o' people are ye, for Chris' sake?"

"Isak," said Dabney reasonably, trying to bring it to an end, "Regrets make poor neighbours. How about you climb back in that bed. Let me take care of you and let the past take care of itself."

Isak's voice was venomous. "Ye know, when I brought Gracie in here that day, everyone says, 'Dabney's yer man. He can fuckin' stitch life back into a goatskin waterbag, he's that good.' But ye didn' fix her, did ye? One chance! An' you blew it!" His voice began to shake and it was clear he was crying.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" drawled Johnathon. "If you did, you'd have . . .!"

Roger Dabney snapped at Johnathon, in a way that not many people would dare to do. "Be quiet, Johnathon. You've got a skinful of pain-killers and you're making matters worse." He turned back to Isak. "Isak? Sergeant Morrow's dropping by soon to talk to Johnathon about the crash. Maybe you'd like to tell him your story?"

Isak sniffled and made a no-more-nonsense sound deep in his throat. "I'll finish it on me own, thanks."

I could hear movement in the room and I guessed that Dabney was fiddling with the apparatus around Isak's bed. I knew that it was time for us to get out of there. I signalled to Asael and we actually started moving down the corridor before Doctor Dabney said something that brought Asael to a halt.

"You want to talk about your Queen of Sheba space sausage dream?"

"Not to you, I don't!" Isak answered clearly. "She's out there an' I know what she wants! That's all that matters. She'll wait."

I hoped Asael wasn't going to decide that he also knew what 'Queenie' wanted. I dragged him away. I'd already heard more than I was able to process. My head was spinning, my stomach was churning and I needed a toilet. But most of all, I needed a quiet place to think.

I started us scurrying as quietly as possible down the corridor. We rounded the corner at the end and ran straight into Matron Blix, the head of the nursing staff. Matron Blix was never a woman to treat lightly. Efficient, powerful and hefty, with neither humour nor tolerance. She was, people said, and had been forever, the real power throughout the hospital.

She blocked our way. Like certain teachers I could mention, when they want to rattle you. Expressionless.

"What are you two up to?"

"Nothing Matron!"

I wished I had the nerve to say, 'Oh we just discovered that something awful was done, by the town, to our sister and that probably someone in town murdered our grandmother and everyone – probably including you – has been covering up and lying about both things for years! Otherwise, it's just a normal day, Matron! And how are you?' Instead, I said, "We came to check on Mister Cranna, Matron, but it sounds like the doctor's with him. We can come back later."

"Yes. In the afternoon, perhaps." And she strode on.

I watched, long enough to see her turn into the room occupied by the arguing men. She was carrying a hypodermic needle.

"Someone rang my bell," I heard her say with barely discernible inflection.

* * *

Asael started asking questions straight away, as I knew he would, and I had no idea how I was going to answer him. I knew clearly in my mind that it no longer mattered what I did or didn't do; the Terrible Deed – maybe more than one terrible deed – was going to reveal itself. I could feel its inevitability, like some dark thing crawling up the back steps at midnight, looking for a lighted room. Isak was part of it and Bridie was part of it and I was part of it and Asael was part of it. Bessie Crampton and her mean-assed little husband and Kevin Truck were part of it. The whole of Sugar Town was part of it. For the first time in my life, I shared the sensation that Asael had long harboured – that Sugar Town was a haunted place.

Surprisingly, though, it wasn't the 'what was done to the Reverend's little girl' comment that stuck in Asael's mind; nor was it the 'everyone knows who killed Gracie' comment. It didn't seem to have dawned on him that those were stories that related to us. What had taken his attention were Isak's assertions about The Thing in the cane – 'Queenie'!

"Why didn't they believe him, Ruthie? About The Thing? About Queenie?"

"I don't know, Asa'. But he's a sick old man. And it's not the kind of thing people like to believe. Maybe they reckon he's got what you've got! You should look it up in your books! You could go home now and do it, if you like!"

I was hoping to give him the shake, thinking vaguely that I might go on to Amalthea's house, to say thanks, but no thanks, to her offer to help lay spirits to rest. Maybe instead I could get some impartial reactions from her, about what I'd just heard in the hospital!

Asael seemed to giving my suggestion some thought and I worked the point in a little deeper as we passed through the foyer.

"You know it's just a piece of machinery out there, don't you, As'? Probably the Air Force or somebody's already tracked it down! Might even be dangerous! They might have to blow it up or something, just to make us all safe!"

His mouth sagged open and I knew I'd have to concoct a strategic backtrack. Maybe not dangerous, but . . . secret! Before I got there, though, for a second time, a figure suddenly blocked our way. I tried instinctively to step around, but it clearly had the same instinct.

"Just the pair!"

My head snapped up. So did Asael's.

"Um, morning, Sergeant Morrow!"

He nodded, lifted off his policeman's cap and ran a hand over the thin fuzz which, like Asael and I, stood to attention. He glanced balefully around the foyer then turned his gaze back on me.

"Just the two o' youse here?"

"Yessir. We just stopped in to say hello to Mr Cranna."

"Yeah? How's he doin'?"

"Ah. He was busy with the doctor. We didn't wait."

"Awright."

Sergeant Morrow wasn't a particularly big or imposing man. But he was ominous. Talking to us that day, he was like a heron stooping over the shallows with its eye out for an unwary tadpole. He'd been the only copper at the station for years. Every now and again the police authorities sent him a young constable for short-term training but, when people talked about the police in Sugar Town, they were talking about Sergeant Morrow.

"Hear you pulled Cranna outta the wreck," he said, spying down his nose at me. He had a trick of speaking very softly, so you had to pay extra close attention to what he said. "Commendable. Drop 'round the station later today. What you heard, what you saw. Just routine."

There was no hint of a request – merely an expectation. I gave him a shallow shrug at first, as though to say I'd think about it. But his stare and the way his hands crawled up onto his hips made my mouth overrule my mind.

"Okay, Sergeant Morrow. But it all happened so fast, you know?"

He stepped aside to let us go. Before we got past him, though, Asael blurted out, "Has the Air Force called, Sergeant Morrow? Are they coming to take Queenie away? Or blow her up?"

Morrow turned his expressionless gaze on Asael. He blinked several times, tapping his cap against his leg. Everyone knows Asael isn't always fully in touch with reality. Finally Sergeant Morrow gestured at the door with a flick of his head.

"Be no blowin' up on my watch, mate. You get on now. Have yourselves a nice morning."

* * *

We hustled out of the hospital and Asael turned immediately toward Amalthea's place. In the distance, the sounds of the festival had started up again. I knew they'd go on until mid-afternoon, by which time people would be wearying of it and the Showies themselves would have started packing up. Many would be gone before nightfall, moving on up the highway to the next small town. I also knew Bridie would be occupied there for hours yet, fulfilling her queenly duties. And I thought of Madame Zodiac, peering from the shadows into the palms of citizens who didn't remember who she was.

Chapter 8 – Questions and Strategies

Amalthea wasn't home. We sat on her steps and I began struggling with my little bit of family history, trying to see how on earth Isak Nucifora could fit into it. How did he know Grandma G? And why did he believe (when Johnathon said there was no record of such a thing) that something (the Terrible Deed?) was done to Bridie! And was I right in thinking he'd actually accused Doc' D of killing Grandma? And when he said, 'It's not over yet' – was that a threat? And when Doc' D said he'd have Isak committed . . . why? What could that old drunk possibly know?

I couldn't sort it. I needed the bigger picture, and for that I needed pen and paper. So when Asael decided to pee in the yard, reminding me that I also needed a toilet, on the twin premises that girls shouldn't have to squat in the yard and that doors in Sugar Town were left unlocked for a reason, I went inside.

Garlic was still there on the floor, looking surprisingly, to my mind, fresh and un-dead. But then, it had been less than twenty-four hours since he was brained, so maybe that was normal.

Asael set about fiddling with the spacing of the candles around the corpse and then to brushing Garlic's coat. I found what I needed and sat down to cast a hard, critical eye on the sources of the information that had so far come to me. Whose word could I trust? Whose should I ignore? This is what I came up with.

* * *

Sources of Information

1. The Reverend's letter to Rita. Because it's an authentic, private thing, intended only for her, Trust Factor = 10. But it mostly raises questions, so remaining Information Potential = 1. (Note: Show it to Johnathon?)

2. Johnathon. Because he's an amazing, civic minded guy with a huge record of public service and commitment to Sugar Town and everyone seems to admire him, Trust Factor = 8; more when he's off the pain-killers. And because he got a mention in the Rev's letter about whatever it was that happened, and he promised the town's atonement (he MUST have been an insider!) AND because he didn't express any surprise when Doc' D' said everyone knew who killed Grandma G, Information Potential = 10! (Note: According to the Rev's letter, he advised the Rev' to stop pushing, so he's not likely to just volunteer much. How can I coax him to talk about the past?)

3. Doctor Dabney. Because he's arrogant and condescending and clearly wants to keep things under wraps (his threat to Isak?) . . . Trust Factor = 4 / 5? But he admitted straight out to Isak that he knew who killed Grandma Gracie! And because I know he treated everyone in our family, so must have insights at least into Rita's suicidal decision; Information Potential = 7?

4. Bridie. Because she has this super-loyalty toward the Reverend – so much so that she's already tried to cover up the Agnes letter – Trust Factor = 2. And because she really does have selective amnesia and isn't always sure herself if her memories are real or imaginary, Information Factor = the same . . . 2. (Note: could be worth trying to shame her into 'remembering' more letters, etc.)

Isak Nucifora. Because he's a demented old alcoholic and might be suffering from a stroke or withdrawal symptoms – Trust factor = 1. But, because he's the only one acknowledging that there was ever any trouble, Information Potential = 4? 5?

Kevin. Because he knew Rita and the Reverend and Grandma G (and Bessie?) but mostly because he wouldn't lie to me, Trust Factor = 10. But because he wasn't a town 'insider', and because I've already asked him (and because he talks in riddles half the time), Information Potential = 2? 3?

The ghost (or whatever) of Rita, that Asael claims to have seen when we were rescuing Isak. Because I don't believe in ghosts, Trust Factor = 0. But because Amalthea believed it and because the 'he's the key' thing was pretty kind of spookily, vaguely meaningful, Information Potential (if she came back with more ghostly messages) = . . . 2?

Bessie Crampton. Because she shot through and left us kids on our own, Trust Factor = 0. But because she lived in our house when the Rev' was there and because she's got something of ours, even though she doesn't seem to be the full meatball, Information Factor = 3.

* * *

It was a good start, I felt. From there I moved on to trying to sort the things I knew from the things I couldn't be sure of. I called that section:

* * *

Findings

1. True fact: At least two terrible things happened in my family almost a dozen years ago. One was the murder of Gramma G. The other might or might not have involved Bridie.

2. Possible fact: Everyone in town knew about both things but agreed, in some kind of secret pact, never to let on. And if Doc' Dabney's threat to have Isak locked up is anything to go by, there's still strong pressure to stay mum.

3. True fact: Grandma was said to have been murdered by an unidentified blow-through druggie, but Isak claims (& Doc' Dab' confirms and J.C. doesn't deny) the murderer WAS known and the murder had something to do with Bridie.

4. True fact: Johnathon says there's no record of anything being done to Bridie.

5.True fact: Dabney says that 'Justice was done' in relation to the murder, but Isak says that 'it's not finished yet'. (Curiosity: What would Sergeant Morrow say? He must've been the cop on duty!)

6.Fact: Isak had some connection to Grandma G. And he went missing for several weeks straight after she was killed.

7.Possible fact: Isak might have been involved in Grandma's murder!

8. Curiosity: IF something happened to Bridie, could she have gone nuts and been involved in what happened to Grandma G? What is the terrible sin that's left Bridie convinced she owes a penance?

9. Fact: The story that Bessie used to tell Bridie, about the world collapsing on a little girl, has a mum and a grandma and a father in it. Coincidence???

* * *

Almost an hour had passed and I was as very pleased with myself. I even began to think of adding third and fourth headings. The third would have to be QUESTIONS and the fourth would be STRATEGIES. The key question was obviously the one I'd started with: What was this 'Terrible Deed' that so distressed my parents? (Looking back, I think I must have had an inkling – an awful dread. If Bridie had truly been its victim – and there was no assurance that she had, but IF she had – there are only so many terrible things a person would even let themselves imagine being done to a twelve or thirteen year old girl!)

Other questions included: Who actually did kill Gramma G? And if everyone knew who did it, why wasn't it made public? And why would Dabney care about it so much that he'd threaten Isak with committal for bringing it up?

At that point I began imagining that Isak might actually not be safe in the hospital, which told me that I clearly needed a break! I wandered into Amalthea's kitchen on a hopeful search for tea and maybe a left-over Grand Gourd Scone. That's when Asael called me back, into a whole new mystery.

* * *

"Hey look, Ruthie! This guy looks like Kevin!"

Asael was sitting on the floor in front of Amalthea's bookshelf, leafing through a pair of albums. As soon as I saw the photo he was holding, and the raggedy bits that he was sifting out from behind layers of acetate, I knew he was going through stuff he shouldn't. He'd stumbled onto a collection of Amalthea's personal keepsakes – her version of our memory box. Except that her memories, unlike ours, lived right out in the open where any old nosey person could find them.

I raised a finger to jab him with and a dose of indignation to clobber him with, but neither got delivered. Even from a distance I could see that the photo was faded and old. As was most of the stuff: a collection that could have meaning only to the collector – like stuff you'd see in a bower bird's nest.

In one album, there were a couple of recipes – one for 'Revenge Cookies' particularly caught my eye. And there were pages with carefully arranged ticket stubs – always in pairs – for public transport in Sydney, for entry to Taronga Park Zoo, for rides at fun fairs and meals in restaurants that I'd never heard of. There were five Certificates of Appreciation, made out to Amalthea Byerson, for fund raising efforts from the Leukaemia Foundation. There was even a love letter, addressed simply to 'Thea', from someone named Brett. I read it. How shameful is that? If Asael had no sense of other people's privacy, I, apparently, didn't even have a sense of decency! My moral fibre was, to use Johnathon's word, ratshat!

* * *

Nevertheless, I read it and learned that Brett was a boy who'd been left behind – probably shortly before Amalthea's arrival in Sugar Town. He wasn't happy about it. 'May not be here when you decide to come back', he said. 'Probably good riddance,' I thought to myself, and wondered anew about her purpose in Sugar Town. Quite probably she didn't have a purpose. Maybe being in Sugar Town was just a random outcome of the shedding of 'Brett'.

Fronting the second album – the one the photo had come from – there was a poem, written in a graceful script, which I took to be Amalthea's. The name Rudyard Kipling was at the bottom. I've since looked it up and made it one of my own treasures.

By the Hoof of the Wild Goat

By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed

From the cliff where she lay in the Sun

Fell the Stone

To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,

So she fell from the light of the Sun

And alone!

*

Now the fall was ordained from the first

With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,

But the Stone

Knows only her life is accursed

As she sinks from the light of the Sun

And alone!

*

Oh Thou Who hast builded the World,

Oh Thou Who hast lighted the Sun,

Oh Thou Who hast darkened the Tarn,

Judge Thou

The sin of the Stone that was hurled

By the goat from the light of the Sun,

As she sinks in the mire of the Tarn,

Even now . . even now . . even now.

*

I read that poem at least three times right there and then! There was something about that stone, casually nudged from a cliff. One minute lying in the sun, the next tumbling through the air and into dark, deep waters. Not because of anything it did! Just because of something else's random passage nearby! Somehow it made me think of Bridie, sitting meekly at the table, in prayer: 'I'm still here, Lord.' And I wondered, why would he care? One pebble gets tipped, another stays in place. It's all just random. Nothing personal.

I put the poem back behind the acetate and arranged it as it had been, thinking warmer thoughts about Amalthea than I ever had before. The next page of the album also held a single shard of paper, this one having slipped and lodged crookedly at the bottom of the page. The handwriting was light and flowery, different from that on the first page. Some of the letters had actually been drawn rather than written.

* * *

The pride of the peacock is

the glory of God. The lust of

the goat is the bounty of God.

The wrath of the lion is the

wisdom of God. The nakedness

of woman is the work

of God.

\- W. Blake (with the full admiration of Philippa B!)

* * *

Philippa B? No idea! Further on, the book was just an almanac of photos, some relatively new looking, but most old. Some were candid, snatched moments, like the photo of my family on the wall in Bridie's room. There was a grey-haired man engrossed in a book, his lower lip pinched between two fingers. There was a middle-aged woman in a tai-chi pose in a park. There were photos of Amalthea as a young girl: a young girl laughing, a young girl dancing, a young girl on a bike. And there were photos of various boys looking with smitten eyes into her camera.

The majority of the photos, though, were of a wizened child, a girl of maybe six or seven or eight. In some she was in a wheelchair, in others, being piggy-backed by various people, including Thea. In still others, she was in a small cart, in a farm setting, and the cart was hitched to one or another of a pair of goats – Garlic and Rosemary. Annotations told that she was Philippa.

Despite her obvious disability, in nearly every photo Philippa's face was a bowl of purest delight. In the very last photo, she was perched on the back of the grey-haired man and each had raised a hand to wave at the photographer. The inscription read: 'Am, May there always be another wave.' The only thing after it was a black ribbon stamped with the words 'Nothing matters: everything counts'.

I flipped the rest of the pages quickly . . . all empty.

"It was in here?" I asked Asael. He nodded, pointing to the last page. 'It' was the photo he'd first held up. Actually it was a strip of four small, much worn, black and white pictures. The sort of close-up head shots people get from a booth in a shopping mall . . . four poses for two dollars, instant development. They all showed the same two people.

There was a young woman, possibly still in her teens, grinning and mugging, cheek to cheek, with a black boy of similar age. She looked a lot like Amalthea but the date tattooed onto the edge of the strip was June 1982, so that was impossible. I flipped back into the book and convinced myself she was a young version of the tai-chi lady. Not that it mattered. What really was surprising and interesting was who the black man was . . . a very young but unmistakable Kevin Truck.

What it meant, I didn't even want to contemplate. I gave the photo back to Asael.

"Put it back, As' . . . exactly where you found it. And put these albums back too. They're none of our business!" I said; the biggest hypocrite in town. "And I don't want Amalthea to know we've been nosing around her stuff. Right?"

I went to the kitchen and switched the kettle on. Ten minutes later, when Amalthea and Rosemary showed up, we were back sitting on the steps, innocently drinking her tea.

* * *

That much was no problem, of course; just comfortable neighbourliness. I apologised for having been in and explained about the peeing and the tea and said we were back outside out of respect for Garlic. But I was embarrassed at having snooped – embarrassed at even going back into the house with her – and I suppose to compensate, I started chattering. I told her about my quarrel with Bridie and breakie with Kevin and Hoggs. I told her about our morning visit to the hospital and Isak's rambling accusations. Then I dragged out my list of SOURCES and FINDINGS to show her how busy I'd been. By this time Asael, whose total fault everything was, had wandered back out into the yard to play with Rosemary.

If Amalthea had any suspicions that we'd prowled through her stuff, she didn't let on. In fact she was so totally focussed on my list that she insisted on scribing for me while we added the QUESTIONS section. I was a bit distracted by my mental image of teenaged Kevin in that hidden photo, but I rattled out a couple, which I re-read over her shoulder. Her handwriting was the same as that in the poem about the goat and the stone.

When I ran out of questions, she insisted on listing some STRATEGIES, on the grounds that, without an action plan, we were dead in the water. Rosemary and Asa' came clopping in from outside at that point and caught us staring at one another blankly. Rosemary put her chin on the table and As' put his on my shoulder.

"Well," Amalthea eventually said, "the way I see it, there's only one person who's got something to say and doesn't seem frightened to say it."

"He's the key!" Asael mumbled in my ear and, "So we're told!" said Amalthea.

"Isak? You mean Isak who's in hospital with a stroke and surrounded by people who don't want him to talk? On pain of being committed to a loony bin?"

Amalthea smiled. "Which means that our first strategy has to be to get him on his own!" She wrote that down.

It didn't escape me that what was 'my' strategy five minutes earlier was now 'our' strategy; but with no ideas of my own, I was in no position to niggle about it.

"Now," she said happily, in a clearing-up-the-details sort of tone, "ideas?"

"Oh, yeah, well! Obviously one of us hides in the shower cubicle! And when he comes in, we offer to scrub his back in exchange for information!"

"Mmm!," she smiled. "Good one, Ruth! Maybe, though, if he hasn't already had a heart attack, we should try something a little less likely to provoke one!"

"A distraction?" Asael asked.

"Exactly. And something fairly big, I think!"

"Not big, Batwoman and Robin!" I made my bid to re-mind them of reality. "Huge! Huge enough to need Doctor Dabney! And Matron! And the nurses! Which still would leave Johnathon in the room! Although," (I thought of the flirtatious smiles he'd given me and the Trust Factor he'd earned on my list of sources) maybe he could be counted on for discretion!"

"You think?"

"Well I don't know, obviously! But it was Doctor Dabney who threatened Isak – not him! In fact, if he knew how serious we are, and if he heard Isak's story, maybe he'd be tempted to share what he knows! Like, if Isak rambled and made no sense, Johnathon might want to set the story straight! 'Cause he was there, remember! A friend o' the Reverend's!"

"Okay!" She began writing again. "So we get 'em together, stir the pot a little, and let 'em bounce off each other! Excellent! So what's the distraction? Someone throw a fit in the lobby?"

We both, plus Rosemary, looked at Asael who looked back blandly.

"Nuh!" I said. "They all know him too well. And it's happened before."

And we were back where we started, staring helplessly at one another. Amalthea put the pen down and allowed a puzzled frown to draw itself on her face.

"Maybe," she said, "we're looking at this from the wrong end! Maybe Isak's already started talking to you."

I looked at her blankly. We all did.

"The ring!"

"The ring?"

"The ring. What have you done with it?"

What I'd done with it was to forget all about it. I pawed about amongst the lint and old tissues in the bottom of my pocket, glad that I'd decided to get a second day's wear out of those shorts. I put it on the table between us – my first real look at it. It was a man's ring, a plain, simple gold band!

"Why would he want me to have it?" I wondered and Amalthea carefully added that question to the others in the QUESTIONS column.

It lay before us – a simple thing, but a thing of secrets. We all studied it briefly then Amalthea began walking distractedly around the room, nudging the chairs, swiping fingers across the table, patting the back of the sofa, a circle inside of which Asael, Rosemary, the ring and I waited and the still corpse of Garlic also waited. As she walked, she carried on her own question and answer routine, which hardly seemed to need the rest of us.

"Isak. Out in the cane on his own! Why? Well . . . obviously he's a 'roo shooter, everyone knows that! And he has his rifle with him. So he's a man at work. There's camping gear too, and he's dehydrated; so maybe he's been out there all day. Maybe he's out there when The Thing comes down! Maybe he sees it arrive! At the very least, he sees the glow that we saw. So what does he do? The natural thing . . . same as us . . . goes to investigate! But it's more than just a light! It speaks . . . through visions! It shows him a vision of a long-dead woman! In response, he takes all his clothes off! So he's starkers there, alone, at night, in the middle of the cane. Okay. Men like that kind o' stuff. But let's think about it! He's thrown aside every earthly thing he has – his clothes, his gun . . . his everything! Except that ring! The ring he also takes off but it's the one thing he doesn't throw away! Why? Is it a way of ensuring that, when someone eventually finds him, this solitary clue will be unmissable! Is it his last feeble effort at demonstrating that, amongst all his things, only this ring retains significance?"

She was amazing, circling us like a hypnotist, building an illusion. An illusion which, as the best of them should, made its own kind of sense.

"It's Queenie!" Asael breathed softly. At which point, for me at least, the illusion popped like a dropped egg. But it didn't for Amalthea.

"Yes, Asa'!" She was passing behind him and she stopped, leaned elbows on the back of his chair and spoke softly, her cheek almost brushing his. "It's Queenie! Queenie holds him! Queenie needs him to be there – needs to be there with him, holding his focus – until someone shows up. Until we show up! No one else showed up, did they? Only us! Like we were meant to!"

"Like Santa on Christmas?"

"Like butter on popcorn!"

She wrapped an arm around him, her hand coming to rest on his breast, which she jiggled for emphasis.

"Ask yourselves this: was everyone else so busy with the Harvest Festival that they missed seeing that light? That beacon? Answer: Of course they were! We'd have missed it too . . . if we hadn't been here . . . looking after Garlic."

We all looked at Garlic, laid out and surrounded by the remnants of stolen flowers. Rosemary bleated sadly.

"Maybe that's why Garlic had to go!" she whispered. "A sacrifice, to get us out from under the Festival lights and back here! Or a messenger! To make contact on the other side! To let them know someone would be listening! At last!"

And her trolley had run so far off the tracks at that point that her ability to keep going was actually beginning to spook me.

"Okay!" I insisted. "I just wondered why he gave me the ring! Turning it into some kind of cosmic hookery-crookery stuff – like everything's being coordinated by a lost bit o' space junk – that's just weird! And scary!"

"Yeah?" Amalthea patted Asael's chest. Their faces, side by side, seemed full of pity as they looked at me. "Well," she said. "Something that would be even scarier, I think, would be . . . if they didn't connect! And it really was all just random and meaningless! I'd be pissed, Ruthie, I really would!" Then she moved off again on her relentless circuit of reason.

"Anyhow, this we know! We show up! Isak spots you and up comes his arm with the ring. He's not keeping it or offering it to me or to As'! You're the one who has to have it. Why?"

I stared at Garlic, waiting for an answer. None came. Except for a small constellation of dust motes that seemed to swirl away from his nostrils, as though in the grip of a tiny breeze. I looked up. Amalthea, Asael and Rosemary were all looking at me.

"Huh?"

"Why, Ruthie?" Asael whispered in awed tones.

I had no idea. I shook my head. I waved my hands. I opened my mouth to show there was no answer lurking there. I snatched up the ring and held it out in pinched fingers, offering it to anyone who wanted it. To do with as they pleased! That's when the light caught the inscription. I blinked, pulled it close to my eyes then bolted for the window and the light. How could I have been so stupid as to not look for an inscription? The others gathered around me and we twisted and turned the ring, passing it from hand to hand, until what was left of the faint message had been viewed from every angle.

As far as we could make out, it said, 'I loveliest man G'! Three words and a letter. No sense. We looked at each other. We looked at the ring. We passed it amongst us again. Amalthea plopped onto the sofa, at last immobilised by the weight of thought.

" 'I loveliest man G?'" she repeated. 'I' for Isak? 'G' for Grace? Isak comma loveliest man comma Grace? What do you think; was there a relationship?"

"No-o-o," I said. The Gramma G I knew from the photo on Bridie's wall might have known Isak, but she definitely did not get around giving gold rings with pet inscriptions to old rubby-dubs like him! "No no no! Grandpa died years ago, but she stayed on her own 'til the end!"

"You sure? I mean, think about it, Ruthie! There's a code of silence surrounding what happened to her! Only someone deeply, deeply affected by her loss would dare to break that code. What if that person is Isak? And he's waited all these years for someone like you – someone who cares enough to want to listen! What if The Thing . . . Queenie . . . pulled Isak and you together? And then it served as a door – a portal – for spirits to cross; to spotlight the wrong! The ring could be a token – a solid token of the truth of the connection between Isak and your grandmother! And you!"

I held my head in my hands. "No no no!" I cried. "How did Gramma Grace even get into this picture? The deed . . . the Terrible Deed in the Reverend's letter . . . wasn't about her! Even Isak said . . ." (I hesitated to dwell on it in Asael's hearing) ". . . it was about someone else!"

"Exactly!" Amalthea crowed. "ISAK said! Isak is the key!" She held up the ring. "Start with this! And it'll lead you . . .," she waved my list of questions, ". . . to this! Wrongs have been done, Ruthie! And whether you believe it or not, things are connected! All things!"

And that was all I could tolerate of that. Waving my arms in denial, I stomped out, across the veranda and down onto the grass. In the distance, smoke churned from the mill's stacks and the sounds of celebration arced across from the showground. I paced up and down on the road, picking up rocks and hurling them into the cane. I didn't want connections. I didn't want complications. I just wanted someone – any one of the apparently many who knew – to straight up tell me what Sugar Town had allowed to happen to my family! Why should that be so hard? Why did there have to be ghosts in the machinery? Eventually Asael came out to me.

"Thea's making sandwiches for lunch. I told her vegemite an' cheese for you. 'S that okay, Ruthie?"

"Fine. Whatever. And don't call me Ruthie."

"Okay." He waited.

"So? What was the last thing I told you to call me?"

"Perplexia."

"Right! We'll stick with that then." And I pushed him ahead of me, like a shield, back into the house.

Lunch was quiet, I suppose out of respect for my temper. And I did manage to calm down enough to at least consider an Isak – Gramma Grace connection.

"Okay!" I finally grumped. "Just for argument's sake, let's say Isak has a story to tell and some unholy power has chosen me to be the hearer. Why didn't I see or hear any visions, then? And why, if a spirit was needed to spotlight the wrong – why bring two? I mean Isak saw Gramma G but Asael saw Rita! Why the overkill? Eh? How does it work, Amalthea?"

She tore a chunk from her lettuce sandwich and offered it to Rosemary. "It's a mystery," she smiled. "All we can do is follow and see where it leads."

"Follow and see where it leads. Great! But your thinking is that we'll follow the ring to Isak, he'll lead us to whoever killed Gramma G and that, somehow, will lead us to the Terrible Deed, right? That's where we'll finish?"

Rosemary, chewing her sandwich, gazed at me blankly, as though wondering how people got to be so stupid. Amalthea shrugged.

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

She raised a hand, asking for patience. "Look! Based on what you heard at the hospital, you'd have to think that Isak . . . needs to talk to someone about what happened to your grandmother! Just go with it, Ruth! Let the Forces lead! Only they know your destination!"

"The Forces?" I sneered.

"Queenie," said Asael.

I was so filled with disgust for the pair of them, I was fairly popping with sarcasm.

"So, like, when it says on Garlic's banner, 'The Force is Gathering', we're talking space junk, are we? That's 'the Force'? Or could we be talking a freakish great lolly-bomb, coming to brain somebody?" I held up my own hand this time, stopping any reply. "In either case, the question we're stuck on is . . . . !"
I didn't know. I couldn't figure it out! Too many 'mysteries' and 'Forces' and too much giving in, only to follow blindly.

Amalthea smiled. "The question we're stuck on is, 'What's our strategy going to be, Ruthie?' Bearing in mind that the final choice is yours."

I was angry still, and recognising that anger is a force all on its own, I said, "Obviously, I'm going to talk to Isak! One way or another!"

She nodded approvingly and reached for my list of strategies.

"Good! That's number one then. Method yet to be established. And what about a number two, if Isak doesn't pan out? What then?"

"Check on Queenie!" blurted Asael. Rosemary huffed through her nose and I, in full agreement, followed suit. Asa' became immediately defensive.

"You heard what Isak said! She's frightened! And besides, the army might blow her up!"

I wanted to take hold of him and shake him and shout in his face: 'She's not people, Asael! She's space junk!' But I didn't. I took a purposeful bite of my sandwich, just so my mouth would be occupied with something less hurtful. As I chewed, I watched Rosemary pick an everlasting daisy from the few flowers remaining around Garlic. She stood then, with the stalk hanging from her mouth, watching me watch her. Slowly, deliciously, her lips pulled it in past the ruminative grind of her teeth. What I like about goats, Amalthea had said the night before, is how they meet life on its own terms. She swallowed the last of her flower as I swallowed the last of my sandwich.

"Okay!" I said. "Let's make that first then! Let's go see Queenie!"

* * *

It couldn't be just that easy of course. Even as we prepared to go, Amalthea reminded herself aloud that she had arrangements to plan for Garlic who had now lain dead in her living room for almost twenty-four hours. Her preference, she said, was for fire and the stack of termite-ridden timber under the Poinciana would be perfect for that – with Alf Caletti's permission, of course.

Asael missed the first part of that conversation, but he came into the room in time to hear her say, "I know Kevin'll want to help with the send-off. They got on well together, he and Garlic."

"Send-off?" he asked.

"Mmm!" she said. "A lovely column of smoke, connecting the earth to the sky. Garlic's very own axis mundi! He'd like that."

"Smoke?"

"Yah!" She was slightly rapturous with the concept. "You know, there's a place in India where they just leave bodies out for the scavenger birds to feed on! Giving back to nature all that's been on loan! The Towers of Silence, they call it. There aren't enough scavenger birds here, though. Besides which . . . ," she rolled her eyes in disbelief, "there're civic by-laws. And we don't want to get on Sergeant Morrow's bad side, do we? But surely no one'd object to a lovely little funeral pyre!"

"But . . . he's still in there!"

"Well, in one sense of course, yes. But that's what I'm saying. That's what's not right. The sooner the flesh is gone, the sooner he's free to go."

Asael virtually staggered from the room and I resolved, on the spot, to have him and me somewhere far away when Garlic was burned.

* * *

Amalthea's mention of Sergeant Morrow, however, reminded me that I was expected at the police station some time in the next few hours, to give my eye-witness account of Johnathon's crash. It was important, I knew. But squeezed in beside that were my equally pressing needs to figure a way to talk to Isak, alone if possible, to make peace with Bridie and to get this 'Queenie' distraction out of the way.

My plan for Isak was non-existent

My plan with Bridie was to be super-sensitive and caring about her vulnerabilities but an absolute hound about our pact to be truthful with one another. If, for example, she got herself together enough to find Bessie Crampton, I fully expected to be told everything.

As for Queenie, she being only half a kilometer away in the cane and only a broken piece of machinery anyhow, dealing with her should've been easy. Even that, though, was destined to be put off. As I gathered my things and checked my phone, I found a text from Kevin.

"Ring me."

* * *

Bridie is half-way through the door before the voices register. Kevin, of course, is there behind the counter, his smile wide but his eyes weary. Franz Hoggitt is also there, elbows planted on the counter, his chin in the wishbone of his hands. And in front of the counter, her arm deep in her purse, is Frieda Hoggitt.

" _Please," Kevin is saying, "don't spoil it for me, Frieda! It's my one small gift of the year to the town. I could no more take money for Grand Gourd scones than . . ." as Bridie steps through the doorway, ". . . than Bridie McFarlane could take money for saying a prayer!"_

Bridie finds herself suddenly pinned by three sets of eyes.

" _Darling girl!" Frieda crowds toward her and the large purse slides, mouth agape, to the crook of her arm. Before Bridie can react, she is smothered in a bosomy hug, all but lifted from the floor._

" _The town is agog with you, Bridie McFarlane! And very cranky, as well! Lyle positively wore himself hoarse calling your name over the microphone yesterday! Positively hoarse! Bridie McFarlane! Miss Harvest Festival Queen of 2008! But were you there to accept the crown? No you weren't! That snooty young slut of a Renee Hamble – Miss Tupperman's Hardware – got to stand in for you. My God but that girl would flash her tits at a parking meter if she thought it'd give her an extra minute in the limelight!"_

Through this speech she alternates between hugging Bridie, holding her away at arm's length, patting her back, rubbing her briskly about the shoulders and wagging a finger in her face. "I nearly came to your house! Truly, I did! To drag you back – kicking and screaming, if necessary! But then Lyle got on the sauce, as he always does, and I had to manoeuvre the drunken sot home! Tell me you're alright, Sweets!"

" _I'm fine, Frieda. Really! Thank you so much for worrying." She takes the opportunity to grasp and still Frieda's hands. "I went to the hospital to see that Mr Cranna was alright and I had to wait and by the time I got to speak with him it was late and . . . I was just exhausted. And there was Ruthie and Asael and . . . you know how things get away on a person."_

" _Of course I know, darling!" Frieda returns to delving in her purse, scratching out a space for Kevin's Grand Gourd scones. "No one knows that better than I!"_

" _Frieda, I'm so sorry for Ruth's outburst at the showground yesterday. Questioning the mayor like that! It's not like her usually you know, but . . . well we came across some old, half-forgotten letters yesterday. Letters our father wrote years ago. And they mentioned things I couldn't explain to her. Among my many blank spots, it seems! And Ruthie's such a terrier about family things these days! She got very agitated and we quarrelled and . . . I'm afraid she took it out on the mayor. Please pass on my apologies to him!"_

" _Oh tosh, girl! It was nothing! Nothing at all! I don't know why you're bothering to mention it. You tell that little minx of a sister of yours . . . blank spot – shmank spot! All that matters is that you're well and safe! And . . ." she finishes busily, "that's always been the deal."_

Her head comes up slowly, her eyes suddenly wary. Kevin cocks his head to one side and Franz looses a finger to scratch his nose.

" _Deal?" says Bridie._

" _Deal? Did I say 'deal'? No, no, no! That's not what I meant! It's what's 'right', that's what I meant! You know! It's just . . . you deserve all the support . . . all the town can give, that's all. What with . . . all you've been through."_

" _Oh Frieda! I'm sure we've not been through anything more than most people! We all have our difficult times, after all! Gracious, I'd feel terrible if I thought people were mollycoddling us for ours! In any event, our father always said that character is a crop best grown in lean soil."_

" _Yes," says Frieda with an unexpected hint of bitterness. "Well . . . we've had our share of 'lean soil' in Sugar Town over the years, without a doubt. Don't know how much character it produced! Certainly a healthy crop of thistles! Not that the Reverend's here to know!"_

Bridie is shocked by the disdain in Frieda's voice. She's worked hard to uphold her father's image in the town. "I . . . I'm sure he would be here if he could, Frieda! Father's given up so much that he valued, you know – his parish, his friends, his family!"

" _Yes, yes, of course! Obviously! Well!" Frieda clears her throat loudly and waves a hand in the air. "Look, pay me no mind, sweetheart. I'm a silly old woman! Ignore me! Ignore me! Everything goes away if you ignore me." Her air of jollity is like a precariously balanced leaf in a rising wind. "In any event, the Reverend must be terribly proud of you! Grateful for all your good work . . . fund-raising and all! While he's off tilling someone else's 'lean soil', eh? So to speak? So exciting for all of us when a letter comes. Not quite the same as having him here, of course! But there you go! That's men for you, isn't it! Always running! Toward, away from! Always running."_

By the end of the speech the leaf has fallen and all hints of pleasantry have been slammed flat under a tone of wrathful indignation. She plops her massive purse onto Kevin's counter where, with unwarranted vigour, she bats its contents into a new configuration and, as though completely out of patience with baked goods, jams in the scones. She deals them a few punches of their own and, before they can recover, bangs shut the mouth of the purse. She breathes deeply a time or two, staring at her big hands, which remain clenched on the purse's metal lips, as though a crocodile might escape if she let go. Her sudden intensity has filled the small shop with nervous anticipation. When she lifts her eyes to Bridie, however, a mask of regret has slid, unbidden, over the anger.

" _To answer your question, darling girl," she says with careful clarity, squeezing the words out through narrowed lips, "Yes! I do know how things get away. How life gets away. So far away, sometimes, that we might begin to wonder . . . if we can ever get it back! I just want you to know that nobody here has ever blamed you . . . for anything! Do you understand what I'm saying?"_

" _Uh! Not really, Frieda, no!"_

Frieda takes a step back, measuring Bridie carefully with her eye. Then she takes the girl's face in her hands and presses trembling lips to her forehead.

" _Of course you don't! Of course you don't!" She sighs heavily. "Eleven years, and we wake up this morning thinking of Rita! Of all people! Been a strange Festival Weekend, hasn't it? Already! And it's not over yet!"_

She's ready to leave but before she does, she turns her jutting jaw on her son and Kevin..

" _What're you looking at? Look like a pair of . . . moribund guppies!" She jabs a fat finger toward Franz and barks, "Stand up straight, Franz! Stop scratching yourself! Show some respect to the ladies in this shop! You're as bad as your fool of a father!" She turns the stiletto finger into a small hammer, which she wags at Bridie. "Don't put up with it, Bridie! And don't believe 'em, you hear me? Not a word from any of 'em! Bloody men! They should pray to God that they never have to face a reckoning! At the very least!"_

She wheels toward the door and is almost gone before a last thought brings her raging back. The finger points to the spot where Bridie's halo would be were she wearing one. "And another thing! Don't waste any sympathy on 'em, either! Not on these two, not on Johnathon Cranna; certainly not on your blessed father!" She nods once, emphatically, as though all has been clarified and, with a wave of her hand, wipes away all previous messages. "Don't say I didn't say so!" She swings the straps of her bag over her shoulder, clamping the scones beneath her arm and storms off out the door.

Bridie, Kevin and Franz stand for long moments in amazement. Then, "Wow!" says Kevin, and, "Yeah!" says Franz. "That's what we call 'er, too!"

Bridie turns to them, her face a study in perplexity. Before she can speak, however, Franz fills the room with his own flurry of activity, stripping off his apron, tossing it on a hook and reaching for his cap.

" _Gotta go, mate!" he puffs to Kevin. "See if I can intercept the ol' man. Warn 'im off! Jus' 'til she cools down a bit! She catches him while she's in this mood, she'll do 'im like a lemon tart! See ye temorra?"_

" _You bet," says Kev'. "And good luck!" he calls as Franz trots out the door._

* * *

_Bridie's mouth has sagged open but words elude her entirely_.

" _Don't let her upset you," says Kevin. "She's just one of those people who need to vent. Anger has no eyes, the old Hindus say, and Frieda's their living proof!"_

" _Vent about what? And what have I done that people would blame me for?"_

He frowns impatience at her.

" _Don't you think," he asks, "that if you'd done something blameworthy, you'd know?"_

She shakes her head, surprised to feel tears judder loose from her eyes.

" _Kevin . . . there are whole years I don't know anything about! Yesterday I found a letter my father wrote to my mother when I was a teenager, and I had no idea what he was talking about!"_

Thinking to do what's always been done, Kevin comes around the counter, puts his slim, muscular arm around her shoulders.

" _Ru' told me about that. But letter or no letter, my very good friend, I can tell you categorically that you've done nothing wrong! Frieda's got some other thing going on in her mind and she's mixed you up in it by accident. My advice to you is to take her advice and ignore her. Put her out of your mind!"_

Bridie sniffles and blinks watery eyes.

" _I can give you hot coffee and a warm scone," he continues, "as a bribe. They're so fresh your taste buds'll want to belt out the Halleluja Chorus. Whaddya think?"_

Bridie thinks that when one is held fast in the bosom of such friends, one would be ungrateful to be anything less than positive. She takes his hands.

"' _I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar and the curtains of Solomon'." She has to bend just a little, but she plants a kiss on his cheek. "The Song of Songs. You are a very fine friend, Kevin. And the best baker in the world!"_

He wags his head dismissively and slips back behind the counter. He's tipping the last of the scones from the new tray when a memory pulls him up to lean on the counter, suddenly sombre.

" _You know, Bridie," he says, "Next to his calling, you were the most precious thing in the Reverend's life. He was hard on Rita, hard on his congregation – and maybe hardest of all on himself! But he doted on you!" He points toward the ceiling, to his private rooms where Bessie Crampton idles over breakfast and a stale, unhappy past._

" _There's someone I think you should . . . !"_

But before he can finish his sentence, the door swings open and Dana Goodrich enters. With the change of shifts at the hospital, she's had a late finish and will have an early start.

" _Hi youse," she chirps. "Man, I just saw Frieda Hoggitt up the street! Whatta face! Be a sorry dog that barks at her this morning!"_

" _Dana!" Kevin answers happily. "Just the one! I've got three dozen scones packaged up for you lot at the hospital! Franz was going to drop them in on his way home but Frieda put the wind up him and he rocketed off without them. Are you on your way in?"_

" _Ah!" she says. "Thank Christ! I was afraid Cranna might've completely ruined the big veggie. Thought I was gonna hafta go lean on his broken leg for a bit o' payback. Morning after Harvest Festival just wouldn't be right without your Grand Gourd Scones, Kev'! Be like . . . !"_

" _. . . like a nose without a finger?"_

" _Worse! Like an arse without a crack!"_

" _An arse without a crack! The hemispheres would collide? Well . . . we must all give thanks, then!" He twists the lid on a bottle of water and raises it in a toast. "May all things broken be so easily repaired!"_

" _Amen, brother!" says Dana and, turning to Bridie she adds, "Hey, Bri'! Some kinda weekend, eh? Miss Harvest Festival Queen! Wow, eh? Long overdue, in my book! And Ruthie turned into a hero!" She throws her arms high and wide and rolls her eyes heavenward. "Saving the town's favourite heathen from drowning in sugar! Hah! Hey, and then rescuing old man Nucifora! Saving him from his demons, eh? Sugar and demons! Wow! Family's chockers with winners this morning!"_

She leans close for an air of confidence, even though Kevin's moved away into the back room.

" _Good o' you to stay with ol' Cranna yesterday, Bri'. I mean, I know that's the churchy thing to do, innit? But still 'n' all . . . ! Hey, you know him and the doc' were having a good old serious natter about you when I went to give him his night pill! I mean, they shut up when I went in, like, but I heard your ol' dad's name all right!"_ _She_ s _traightens up, searching for the context._ " _Somethin' about a letter. Had 'em good and cranky, it did! An' speaking of ol' men, we put ol' Isak in the bed next to Cranna and guess what! Apparently he was up an' flying around like the bloody wrath o' God this morning! Raving about aliens in the cane an' ghosts from the past an' who knows what all! I got rung up at home to hear the story!"_

She pushes hair behind an ear and blinks incuriously in Bridie's direction. Then she props her elbows on the high counter and stretches to see where Kevin might be.

" _None of my business o' course," she barrels on, "but they reckon the ghost he was on about was your gran'! The fact that she died on Dabney's watch an' all! 'Magine that! Doc' D was aer-i-ated as hell, they say! Wound up sedating the poor ol' bugger. Isak, I mean – not the doc'! Doc' reckons the old man should be in a coma but miracles bloody happen, eh?" She looks over her shoulder in time to see the bakery door swinging closed._

" _Hey Bridie!" Kevin says, backing through the curtain with his armload of scones. "I started to tell you! There's someone upstairs might be able to put your mind at ease! Did Ru' tell you Bessie Cr . . . ? Where'd she go?"_

" _Search me!" shrugs Dana. "Ever notice how you can't get a word o' sense outta these religious sorts?"_

* * *

That was the story Kevin told me when I rang him. He'd tried Bridie's phone but it was going directly to the answering service. I tried and got the same result.

"I'll have to go find her," I said to Amalthea. "I've pushed her so hard this last little while; I guess I better make sure I haven't broken her!"

"Of course, of course! Listen, take my bike! You can be home in ten minutes. Asael'll be fine here with me."

I didn't want to leave him but he didn't much care. "While you're gone, me and Amalthea can go check on Queenie!"

She gave me a questioning look and I shrugged. "Better you than me – me being an unbeliever an' all!" And as an afterthought, I asked Asael, "Did you take your medication this morning?" He rolled his eyes, scoffing at my concern.

So that became our new strategy.

* * *

Bridie wasn't at home but I found her sitting on a bench in the grounds of the hospital, draped with her new 'Harvest Festival Queen' banner and watching a pair of Peaceful Doves searching the short grass. I parked Amalthea's bike and sat down beside her.

"I don't know why I'm here," she said.

"God's will?" I suggested.

"No, I mean here . . . at the hospital."

"Oh."

Across the short stretch of lawn, a bank of recently pruned poinsettias and cordylines wagged in the afternoon light, their prunings piled neatly in front of them.

"It was a miracle, wasn't it? Johnathon's plane? That it stayed up long enough to spare us all? Don't you think it was a miracle?"

"True blue," I said.

"Do you know what I was thinking? At the end when it was coming down and straight for me?"

"That you'd need a miracle?"

"Not that I'd need one, no. That I was owed one." One of the doves flew off, its wings whistling against the air. The other continued feeding. I wondered how much of their day each spent wondering where the other was.

Bridie turned to look at me. "Does that make me a terrible person?"

I shook my head. Why ask me?

"Where's Asael?" she asked.

"At Amalthea's house. I know you said not to take him there, but he needed to see the dead goat again. I thought it might be good for him, to get it out of his system. Did you know that's where Gramma G was living when she was attacked?"

Bridie nodded a yes then shook a no. "I don't know why I'm here," she said.

"Maybe you wanted to visit Johnathon?"

"No, I mean here in this life."

"Oh."

The second dove flew off. I looked up and saw that they were sitting on a wire, shoulder to shoulder, nodding gravely to one another.

"Maybe you were owed a miracle. And you've been paid."

That brought a small smile to her face.

"Did you find Bessie?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"I looked. Madame Zodiac. But I couldn't bring myself to go into the tent."

"Ah."

I felt awfully let down. I wanted to know what thing of ours Bessie had carried away with her and kept for years. And I wanted to know what had become of her nasty, mean-assed husband. I hoped that maybe he'd discovered he missed her, needed her, loved her; that maybe things had worked out for the best.

"The Showies'll be packing up this av'," I said. "Probably missed the chance now."

The doves seemed to be watching us, wondering, perhaps, at our lack of industry. How do people survive at all, sitting about like that?

"Frieda Hoggitt says no one blames me."

"Oh? Blames you for what?"

"I don't know."

"Ah! Well that's all right, then."

"But a person wouldn't say that, would they, unless there was something that someone needed to be blamed for? I mean you wouldn't think, 'Well, I'm not aware of anything ever happening and I don't blame you for that'. That wouldn't make sense. You'd only say, 'We don't blame you' if something had happened and someone was going to get the blame but you wanted to let someone know they'd been eliminated from the list! Isn't that right?"

This was getting to be tricky ground. "The Terrible Deed?"

She sighed and sat back.

As she'd been talking, a scrub turkey had edged out of the undergrowth and started scratching apart the pile of cuttings. Bugs that had been safe in there suddenly found themselves in the turkey's maw.

"Asael and I . . . ." I began hesitantly, unsure where I was going to finish. "We stopped here this morning. I wanted to see for myself that Johnathon was okay. And we overheard a conversation – just by accident. The old man, Isak, who we found in the cane last night? He was arguing with Johnathon and Doctor Dabney. He said that everyone in town knew who killed Gramma G. And that it wasn't a blow-through. And he said she was probably killed because she knew about something else that had happened. Which would have to have been the Terrible Deed, wouldn't it? And he said that . . . !"

I wanted to tell her that the deed was possibly something done to her, but I looked into her eyes and I couldn't.

"And he said that . . . it's not over."

She stared at me, slack-jawed, and I sat back, waiting for the questions.

"It's not over? What did he mean? How did Johnathon and Doctor Dabney respond? Did they believe him?"

"Doctor Dabney said he knew! He said everyone knew! And he'd have Isak committed to a loony bin if he ever dared to repeat the story."

We sat in silence. The scrub turkey surveyed the ground one last time, intent that nothing should escape, then edged back into the undergrowth.

"A loony bin," she said.

"Yeah. For his own good, maybe. I don't know. I wish I could talk to him."

She seemed not to be hearing me anymore. "The harvest is past," she murmured, "the summer is ended and we are not saved. Jeremiah."

That was all the inertia I could take. I clapped my hands against my knees and stood up. "Okay!" I said. "Enough of that! Maybe we're not saved, but we are Queen of the Harvest Festival! And saved or not, for this weekend, at least, 'we' can do what 'we' want! Let's go inside and see how Mister Cranna's faring."

* * *

In the foyer, greetings were waved in our direction and congratulations were sung out, but no one asked us our business. Country hospitals are good that way. We walked the little maze of halls, my thoughts jumping back and forth between the two men we were about to see. Johnathon, who had waggled his wings at me and called me pretty and who I had kissed when he was barely conscious: and Isak, who had called me by my grandmother's name and given me a ring. Both were men I needed to talk to, but quietly and without fear of interruption from Doctor Dabney. Or Bridie.

As we neared the room, a man's voice, angry and too loud, sizzled past our ears. The words were rapid and mostly unintelligible but two rang clear. Those words were 'Rita' and 'McFarlane'. I already knew the benefits of being furtive outside doors and would have stopped, but that sort of cunning was beyond my sister. She bowled into the room and I had to creep in, in her wake.

Four men were there. Furthest away, Isak lay in the room's second bed, shrivelled and gaunt, encumbered with wires, unencumbered by consciousness. Nearer to us were Johnathon, Roger Dabney and Sergeant Morrow.

Silence flooded the room as they turned impatient gazes on us and I felt Bridie shrink back, too late, crossing her arms in a gesture of self-protection. Roger Dabney, standing at the far side of the bed, sucked his teeth and turned his glare onto the medical chart in his hand. Johnathon, still in his bed, licked his lips and let his eyes fall to Bridie's breasts. Sergeant Morrow, seated in a chair at the foot of the bed, stared at us the way I imagined the scrub turkey had watched for movement in the pile of cuttings. My first thought was, 'My God, Isak's died! I've missed my chance!' My second was that we'd stumbled into the midst of an argument.

* * *

Morrow was a contemporary of the other two men, probably a drinking buddy when they were all off duty. Unusual for a man in his occupation, he was a small, physically unimposing man whose thin, nasal voice made him seem even less so. By all appearances, he should have been one of the malleable men – one who could be 'guided' or goaded along certain desirable paths. Those who spoke of him, though, never failed to mention his eyes. Most of the time they were steely, with the controlled glaze of authority. But sometimes they flitted about wildly, as though fuelled from within by madness. His temper, everyone said, was unpredictable at its best, volcanically malevolent at its worst. His nickname was 'Masher'.

I remembered that I was supposed to see him at the police station to talk about the crash and I wondered: if he was still here, did he expect me to be waiting for him there? He pushed hard on the arms of his chair and raised himself to his feet.

"Well look who's here!" Johnathon finally blurted. "The Queen of the Harvest Festival, no less! With my very own guardian angel! Come in! We were just talking about you, weren't we, boys?" It was not the voice we'd heard from the corridor.

"Masher, here," Johnathon continued, waving vaguely at Morrow, "was just getting the facts on the great crash! Seems like he was just about the only one in town not there to see it! We were saying what a lucky thing it was for me that you were there, Ruthie! By all accounts! Otherwise I might still be there in the sugar hopper! Hah!" The policeman stood quietly, his eyes on Bridie's feet.

"He's just come from checking on the Moth. Those little bastards burned it alright! Can you believe it? I'll be taking it out of their hides, I can tell you!" He wagged a finger at the policeman's back. "Just get me some names, Mash, and by the living Jesus, I'll . . . !"

He seemed different in the light of day. Louder, more insistent, coarser. I put it down to shock. He croaked on, waving his fists in the air. Unable to see, as Bridie and I could, the stirrings of contempt he was provoking on Sergeant Morrow's face. Morrow's head tilted back, drawing his raw gaze up to a far corner of the ceiling and his lip curled disdainfully. As Johnathon's rant continued, Morrow's head began to bob with impatience. Whatever argument the men had been involved in, it seemed, had ended prematurely.

Morrow sucked a breath through his teeth and, with caterpillar slowness, began to turn in Johnathon's direction. He reminded me of a predator and I steeled myself to watch him bite. Before he could loose a word, however, Roger Dabney laid a controlling hand on Johnathon's arm.

"That'll do, Johnathon," he said. "I'm sure Sergeant Morrow will work out the proper course of action."

Johnathon frowned, opened his mouth to reply and thought better of it, subsiding into a brooding silence. Dabney's voice wasn't the one we'd heard from the corridor either.

This meant, of course, that the one who'd been speaking about Rita, though the voice had been at a volume and timbre I'd never heard him use before, was Sergeant Morrow. Why Rita, ten years in her grave, should be a reference point in their argument – why she seemed to be on practically everyone's minds, in fact – was, in my mind, fast becoming the mystery of the day. And for her to be spoken of with such venom! I briefly wondered if there wasn't some new Rita McFarlane in town, who neither Bridie nor I had met.

* * *

With Cranna's harangue suddenly ended, attention turned to Sergeant Morrow. He retrieved his cap from the foot of the bed and turned it in a careful little circle, scanning its inner circumference. He flipped it over and patted a speck from its brim. He drew a long, slow breath, raised his eyes to Bridie's and, in his tinny voice said, "Lucky escape."

Then he fell still, all except for his eyes which kept moving, crawling like robbers over her hair, her face, her throat, her breasts. Johnathon and Dabney were also still. Dabney went back to studying his chart and Johnathon gave me a sly wink. Bridie's arms tightened across her chest and she flushed with embarrassment.

"Yes," she whispered, looking down at Morrow's shoes.

I hated him at that moment; for the way he looked at her – inspected her – made her feel small. If anyone ever looked at me like that, I resolved – like I was the suspect apple in the bin – I would turn to stone and fall on them with all my might. In fact, the sergeant did turn his eyes on me then. I stared at him, unblinking, defying him with every ounce (and it took every ounce) of courage I had. He smirked, I thought, then flicked an itch from his nose and looked away.

"The Doc', here," he said, indicating Roger Dabney, "says you an' your brother and Amalthea Byerson brought the old man in las' night." He jerked a thumb in Isak's direction. "And it seems the old bloke had a story to tell . . . before they knocked him back out. Somethin' about space junk. That right?"

"I wouldn't know what story he had to tell," I grunted.

"No? Didn't see anything?"

I shrugged. It wasn't that I cared if he knew about the Space Thing. It was just the least helpful response I could dredge up.

"Uh huh." He stared at me and I stared back. "What about your brother? Reckon he mighta seen anything?"

"Mighta seen talking trees for all I know. He takes medication for that kind of thing."

Morrow glanced at Doctor Dabney who nodded slightly and went back to his chart.

"You bring him along with you anyways, eh, when you drop in – later in the day."

As when he first demanded my presence, it wasn't a request and he didn't wait for confirmation. Instead he raised his cap and squared it carefully on his head.

To Bridie, he said, "Gotcher hands full with this one, eh?" And over his shoulder, he said to Cranna and Dabney, "We'll finish our talk later. Meantime, you do what the good doctor tells ye, Johnny. Not too much excitement, I think. Isn't that what you were saying, Rog'? Before this nice Queen o' the Harvest Festival came in?"

"Stillness and quiet," said Dabney. "Stillness and quiet."

Morrow's eyes scurried once down and back up Bridie's body, like a pair of greedy mice, dancing up a corn stalk. He whisked a thimbleful of air through his nostrils, as though savouring the smell of her and one eyebrow arched itself, like a surprised cat. And then he went.

* * *

A long, slow breath leaked out between Bridie's lips. She looked like a rabbit that some wild thing had tracked almost to her door before, in the last yards, losing its hunger. The two remaining men stared at us, the edges of Johnathon's mouth seeming to betray sympathy, the set of Dabney's, impatience.

"So," gruimbled Dabney, "I take it you came to see if the downed pilot survived?"

"Yes. Well, no! Not just that! I . . . I ran into Dana Goodrich. She was telling me that . . . !" She stopped, uncertain how to proceed.

"What?" demanded Doctor Dabney. "She was telling you what?"

"She said . . . there was some talk here . . . about my grandmother! And, well, Grandma Grace has kind of been on our minds lately – Ruthie's and mine. So I thought . . . !"

"I'm surprised at you, Bridie!" he huffed. "People with sense don't put any store in what Dana says. And I might add that the same goes for anything Johnathon might have said yesterday. I can promise you, with the pain-killers he has in his system, it'll be days before he's making reliable sense."

He glared at Johnathon and made a toss-away gesture with his hands. The argument we'd stumbled into, I guessed, had seen these two on opposite sides. It pleased me to think that Johnathon was principled enough to stand against the doctor – maybe both the doctor and the policeman together – though I had no idea what principle he might have been defending.

At his point, however, with the three of us staring at him, Dabney must have realised that he had suddenly become the odd man out. He made a visible effort, reining back his volume and arranging a mask of concern on his face. His tone became buttery with solicitude.

"However, now that I think on it, your grandmother's name did come up, Bridie!" He nodded in Isak's direction. "The old fellow, you see! But he's always fretted about the past; especially when he's on the grog. And we wouldn't like to imagine what sorts of things are in a past like his, would we? Let alone have to sort the real from the imaginary!"

He tried a comradely chuckle which sounded like a crow gagging on plastic and no one joined in.

"Anyhow," he continued, gesturing offhandedly at her banner, "Sugar Town's Harvest Festival Queen must have better things to do with her time than follow up rumours spread by silly girls. Speaking of which . . . !"

He turned his attention on me then. "Ruthie! I'm told you've been worrying the mayor with some sort of conspiracy nonsense. Is that right?"

My hackles had barely relaxed from Sergeant Morrow, and now they were straight back up again. I didn't like him condescending to Bridie as though she was thirteen and, even though I WAS thirteen, I wasn't going to be a 'silly girl' without a fight.

"I asked a question, that's all. If you can't ask the mayor a question about his town, who CAN you ask?"

He looked at me, his lips clenched tightly, and I looked right back at him, as steadily as a stone. He looked like he was holding back a verbal pummelling, which he must have succeeded at because, in the end, he just nodded. I nodded right back at him. I felt that we understood each other.

"How's Asael?" he asked, a sudden change of topic which threw me entirely.

"Asael? He's fine! Why?"

He nodded again and this time I didn't join him.

"He spent some time with my nurses, last night – after you brought Isak in. There were signs, they said, that he may have had a seizure. Did he have a seizure?"

All eyes were suddenly on me and I felt the blood flaring in my cheeks. I hadn't followed up on his 'vision' in Alf's paddock. Or on his stillness while perched on the Gourd. He'd come out of it on his own both times and I'd simply ignored it, too busy with my own tangents. I hadn't even properly pressed him about his medication (though, in all fairness, it wasn't actually my job to do that!) I began to stutter and stumble over words, as you do when you're caught out. A trace of a smile flickered across Dabney's lips.

"You can ask the mayor," he said, in what he probably imagined was a fatherly tone, "anything you want to ask him, Ruthie. Of course you can. I'm glad you did, in fact, because I'm sure Lyle would have put your mind at rest. But . . . !" I knew the lecture was coming and hated myself for deserving it. "You're a big girl now, Ruthie. You have responsibilities . . . to Asael . . . and to Bridie. Even to the community, in some ways. They give you and your family their support as best they can; and they need your support in return. In the here and now. Understand?"

I couldn't bring myself to look at him or to answer him. It's dead awful, not to have a leg to stand on! And to add injury to insult, to have someone like Johnathon in the background, watching and listening! I could happily have crawled into my own pocket and disappeared.

"Of course you do," Dabney smiled and he actually patted the top of my head. Self-satisfaction oozed from him so thickly, I thought I could feel it on my scalp. He wasn't finished though. Having put me in my place, he turned to Bridie.

* * *

"And you, Bridie!" The one good thing was that the disappointed look she'd fixed on me evaporated. "Are you looking after yourself? Not letting yourself get too . . . stressed?" And to her sheepish nod, he said, "You're sure? You're positive? You're sleeping well? I know you're dealing with a lot – a single de facto parent looking after two young siblings! One of them with an impairment."

I assumed he was talking about Asael but I also noted that, for an instant, he looked squarely and openly at me.

"And of course there's your father. It must be a worry, him being off in the remote jungles, out of touch, living hand to mouth as he most probably is, knowing him! And you're here, wondering! And then things from the past pop up and of course you can't explain them because of your amnesia! Tell you what! Why don't I prescribe a little something . . . just to help you relax! You don't have to take them, but you'll have them at hand if you feel the need arise . . . to take your mind off the everyday world for a bit!"

I could tell by her silence that she was considering the offer seriously. Perhaps the doctor was right. Perhaps life was getting ahead of her. She looked at me. Perhaps I was too much for her.

"No," she said, lifting her head and dropping her arms to her sides, trying her best to look like she was in control. "I'm fine, Doctor. Thank you?"

"Roger. Please. After all these years, I think you can call me Roger."

"Thank you . . . Roger. It was just . . . mention of my grandmother that . . . ! Well! You of all people know . . . Roger, that I have these gaps in my memory. But just lately . . . I've had this feeling that, if I really tried, I could remember! It's like I'm feeling my way down a dark street and I know there's a corner somewhere near. If I could just get to it . . . find it . . . there'd be light . . . and I'd remember! I want to find it but . . . I suppose I'm frightened! But if someone was talking about grandma Grace, well . . . I'd want to be there . . . to hear, wouldn't I? To learn?"

Dabney glanced at Johnathon. I assumed there was some professional indiscretion happening, discussing people's personal medical conditions in the hearing of others. But then he continued on, taking Bridie's hands in his.

"Of course you would, Bridie! Of course you would! That's perfectly natural . . . perfectly understandable. But you know, like I said to Ruthie, there's a bigger picture to consider. The whole town was deeply affected by your grandmother's tragic death – and by Rita's. Re-opening those wounds could be a very bad thing – for you and for rest of the people in Sugar Town. I'm talking purely medical and psychological points of view, of course. Very bad. My professional advice, Bridie, would be to stop thinking about that elusive light. You owe it to yourself . . . and to the people of Sugar Town. Listen to this, Ruthie, I'm talking to you too. It's ten years in the past, all this stuff! And that's where it belongs! Leave it there. Let time do its work. Can you do that, do you think? Both of you? Focus on the good memories and the good experiences you still have? Eh?"

Bridie looked at him bleakly and I looked at my feet. Even to me, his words seemed almost right! The town truly had given unfailingly generous support to her, and through her, to Asael and me. Through all those hard years since the Reverend left. Could they forgive her – or us – could we forgive ourselves – if we repaid their kindness with ingratitude?

"Where in the Book does it say it," Dabney asked softly, "– I know you'll know – that we are members, one of another? Eh? Where does that come from, Bridie?"

She did know, of course. "Corinthians four, twenty-five."

"Right," he said contentedly. "I knew you'd know. That's us, isn't it! All of us here in Sugar Town – members, one of another."

She nodded, beaten. I didn't nod. Instead, I thought of his threat to Isak: 'I'll have you committed!" Somehow it seemed like maybe Isak had missed out on being a 'member of us'.

Dabney was already jotting on his pad. "Okay. So no more dark streets in the imagination. We're just going to refuse to go there, aren't we?"

She nodded again, shallowly.

"Good girl." He tore the sheet from his pad. "You stop and see Matron on your way out. Then you're to go home, take one of these tablets, have a long, cool shower and a cup of tea. You may feel like sleeping for an hour or so. Just go where it takes you, okay? Good. Off you go now. I'd let you stay for a visit with Johnathon but he really needs to be resting. And I need to run some tests on Isak here so . . . it'll be best if the room's quiet."

Johnathon laughed lightly, his first words since having been shushed by Dabney. "The old fella's got them stymied! He's been three parts dead for years, from the booze, but he woke up this morning with springs in his feet! They had to sedate him, would you believe it!"

All four of us turned to look at Isak, small and frail beneath the sheet. One red-rimmed eye sagged fractionally open and his cheeks, bristling with grey, leaned like wet paper against his bones. But his jaw was firmly clenched, his breathing steady and even.

"It was him that Dana heard talking about Grace," Johnathon said. "No telling what set him off. Maybe just waking up and finding himself here! Probably the first time he's been near a hospital since . . . you know, since that night he brought her in. Would've brought back memories, I guess. Her dying here 'n' all! But I mean, where better, eh? If you have to go? Good doctors, good drugs and . . . !"

"Be quiet, Johnathon!" snapped Dabney. Then, more softly, he added, "Didn't we just ascertain that Bridie's trying to avoid those memories? She doesn't need that talk. Any more than any of the rest of us do!"

Johnathon turned a fierce eye on him, but didn't speak again. So even he could be put in his place, it seemed. The realisation startled me a little.

Dabney turned back to us, again solicitous.

"He's not entirely himself just yet. Which is another reason why I can't let you stay. Stillness and quiet, they're the remedies."

"Oh, yes! Fine!" Bridie blurted. "We'll be off then. Perhaps I'll call back . . . tomorrow?"

We were half-way down the corridor when I touched Bridie's arm.

"I just forgot something. Keep going. I'll catch you right up!" And I turned back to the room. I didn't hesitate this time, but strode right in. Even so, I picked up a last few words that Dabney was addressing to Johnathon.

" – better for all of us, if you don't encourage her."

"I just wanted to say," I said, "how glad I am to hear that Isak was up and bouncing this morning. Such a nice old man, with such interesting stories. Be a shame if someone went and had him committed for telling them, wouldn't it? Us being members one of another and all!"

I waited and watched. It only took a couple of seconds. They both turned surprised faces to me. Dabney's neck seemed to grow an inch longer and his eyebrows rose like startled birds. I nodded once. This time I was sure that we understood one another.

* * *

In the dark, twisting cave of Isak Nucifora's mind, a tiny light is burning. In that light, Gracie Albion stands, beautiful, mature, round-hipped and shimmering.

" _They need you," she's saying into the darkness. "Sugar Town needs you. As I always have." The walls of the cave bead with tears._

* * *

It was after four o'clock when we left the hospital. The light was beginning to soften and the air was its gentler late afternoon self. The atmosphere between Bridie and me, however, was crackling with tension once again. As soon as we reached the footpath, she pulled me to a stop.

"You didn't say anything about a seizure!"

"It wasn't a seizure!" I lied. "Not really! You saw him this morning. He's fine."

"What do you mean, 'not really'? What kind of a seizure isn't really a seizure?"

"The kind that's more like a . . . waking-dream thing." And I told her about Asael's vision of Rita.

"Was he in any danger?"

"No, none! There was only me and Amalthea and old Isak. And you just saw what shape he was in!"

"And The Thing!"

"Yes, 'and The Thing'. But it's harmless, Bri', really! It's just a bit of junk!"

"Junk that glows in the dark?"

I walked away from her. In my mind, it was her who should be looking into having Asael's dosage levels reviewed. And as for the Space Thing – Queenie – he and Amalthea would already have been out to see it, and in the daylight, I was sure, it would seem much less exotic to both of them. Besides which Sergeant Morrow was onto it and would certainly be having it collected very soon.

"And he's with Amalthea now?" Bridie asked, drawing me to a halt.

"Yes, he's with her now! I had to leave him there! Look!" I scrambled for my phone to show her Kevin's text. "Kevin was worried about you! I was worried about you! We didn't know where you were! And you know how Asael gets if he sniffs trouble! And anyhow, Amalthea only had the one bike! So I left him. She was happy; he was happy! What's the problem?"

"I want him home."

"Fine!" I told her. "No problem!" I told her. "I'll go straight away and get his precious self away from the wicked witch!" To which she replied that we'd go together. And so we did, her walking stiffly, me free-wheeling beside her on Amalthea's bike.

Small towns aren't made for lingering in and, what with the festival being all but done, most people had already drifted homewards. There were people who hailed us, but all they wanted to talk about was the crash of the Moth and my rescuing Johnathon and, as the story had gone around, Bridie's fearless, hands-in-the-air defiance of seemingly imminent death.

"Big Fella in the sky got a soft spot for you, girl!"

"I reckon! Lettin' 'er order up miracles, by the look!"

"Kee-riste, woman! There's folks sayin' it was you kept that Moth up there! Saved the whole she-bang of us! Lemme feel your muscle!"

A couple of men in front of the pub touched the brims of their caps and stepped aside. "Miz McFarlane," one of them said in greeting. I looked back and saw them watching, though I figured it was her ass they were looking at rather than her halo. She was fully embarrassed, but I could see she was enjoying herself a little bit too.

"Have you got any idea how much respect people have for you?" I asked.

"It's not me. They're remembering the Reverend, is all. He was a much greater force for good in Sugar Town than you give him credit for, you know! As I'm sure he still is . . . where he is. Despite . . ." and this was a concession to me, I knew, "despite what appearances may suggest."

"Yeah. Super Rev', I'm sure! But he still went away, didn't he? Hey!" I had a sudden flash of inspiration. "You know how Frieda told you nobody blames you? Do you reckon people think he went away because of us? That if it wasn't for us, he'd still be here, preaching up a storm?"

That connection actually took both of us by surprise. We fell quiet for several minutes. Then I said, "Too bad you didn't get to see Bessie! I bet she could have put our minds to rest on the whole question!"

And that was why, as we rolled past the entrance to the Showground, Bridie decided we should have a quick look . . . just on the off-chance that Bessie hadn't joined the instant exodus of Showies.

Chapter 9 – Bandini and Johanson

A small crane from the sugar mill was already shifting the burnt out remains of the Tiger Moth and, in the vicinity of the gate, the smell of pumpkin still lingered. At first glance, that was all that lingered. The tents, the wagons, the spruikers, the power cables, the jury-rigged lights were all gone. Only a lone black dog was left, wandering along the sawdust-strewn paths, sniffing out the discarded ends of dagwood dog's and hamburgers.

I'm sure Bridie was relieved. She stopped at the gate, looked and gave me a shrug. Oh well! On the verge of turning back, though, my eye was caught by a movement, far down the lolly drop paddock. It could have been another dog, but it would have to have been one with a tail that looked like an arm! Because it was an arm! Someone was lying out there, flat on the grass, pointing or waving at the sky!

My immediate, if highly unlikely thought, was that some poor lolly-bombed soul had been overlooked and forgotten, left for a night and day to lie, wounded and helpless. Dorrie, taking a last weary glance from her ambulance, across the darkening paddock: 'That's the last of 'em, I guess! Me for home!'

The arm went down, bobbed up briefly and went down again. Bridie and I approached slowly. It could be someone in need of help. But it could also be lovers, enjoying a bit of private sugar in the grass. In the event, it was neither. It was two old men, lying side by side, hands now folded on their chests, chatting softly as they gazed into the air. Next to one was a laptop computer, open, its screen filled with a reflection of the lowering sun.

"Well well!" said the computer owner happily as Bridie and I hove into their circle of awareness. He levered himself into a sitting position and, "Well, well, well!" he repeated. "The people you don't meet when the party's finished!"

The second man was also struggling to rise, a laborious, wincing exercise that eventually had him vertical in front of us. He was a foot shorter than Bridie, inches shorter than me, with a Santa Claus build but a clean-shaven face that was shiny red and glowing. Like one of Snow White's dwarves, I thought; Bashful, judging by his gentle smile and the way he doffed his cap.

"Forgive me, ladies," said the seated man, "if I let my friend stand for both of us. I've only got so many 'get-ups' per day in me and I have to use them sparingly."

It was Brian Johanson, owner, editor and chief reporter of the Sugar Town Weekly. The Weekly had three claims to fame: its long-term ownership by the Johanson family, its status as one of the state's very last independents and its thoroughness. Nothing that happened in Sugar Town escaped being weighed for its newsworthiness by Brian Johanson.

"Arturo," he said to his companion, "these lovely young ladies are the very ones we were speaking of! Behold, the Queen of the Harvest Festival, Bridie McFarlane! And the radiant heroine extraordinaire, Ruthie McFarlane!"

The little man bobbed his head merrily.

"And that man before you, ladies," said Brian grandly, "is none other than The Great Bandini! Grand practitioner of prognostication, augury, horoscopy, divination and necromancy."

"Retired," said the man, thrusting out a dry little hand for shaking.

"Temporarily disengaged," said Brian.

"Permanently superceded," said the man and only then did the Italian accent register. Pair-man-ently soo-per-see-ded.

He kissed our hands. I was enchanted.

"You will call me Arturo," he declared. "Only Arturo. Issa great honour for me. Such beautiful girls! Dis man . . .," he gestured toward Brian, "he makes his life wit' words. But does he tell how byoo-de-fool you are? No! Brave, yes, and wonderful, yes! But byoo-de-fool he forgets!" He shrugged helplessly, holding his hands out in a Papal gesture. "Australian men, eh! D'eir souls are made of dust!"

We all laughed and Brian said, "It's a frontier, mate! We need our women tough – not spoiled! You got time to sit, you two?" He patted a patch of grass beside him and Arturo quickly pulled a carefully folded handkerchief from his pocket, to spread on the ground.

"Please," he said, gesturing grandly at the little square of cloth.

"Oh no!" Bridie said. "We don't want to intrude. You were chatting!"

"Please," repeated Arturo. "Two old men! What we got to talk about, eh? But wit' byoo-de-fool girls, da world is new again. Please!"

That was enough for me. I plopped myself straight down on his hanky and even my scrawny butt made it disappear entirely. The moment I'd seen Brian there, my thoughts had turned to the faded newspaper clippings in my pack. And the fact that every scrap of news that had been reported in Sugar Town in the past thirty and more years, had been written or edited by him. The deaths of Rita and Gramma G, the leaving of the Reverend – even the reduction of the disappearances of Isak and Les Crampton to a sixty word filler – it was all his work! A person looking for historical information, I thought, could do far worse than spend a few minutes chatting with Brian Johanson!

"Well," Bridie, hesitated. She really wanted to get on and check on Asael.

"Just for a few minutes, Bri'?" I pleaded. "Just to say hi?"

"Ahh, now, there you go!" crowed Brian. "You see? The Great Bandini still has the gift!"

"Da gift of da popcorn," Arturo beamed. "Only dis." And to Bridie's frowned question he explained, "Once, yes. For Bandini, dere was more. T'ings dat hide . . . Bandini could see. But Bandini don' look no more. Now, only da popcorn. Bes' popcorn for da peoples! Always fresh. Real butter. Not too much salt. For keeping da arteries good in byoo-de-fool girls, yes? You tried? I don't t'ink so, eh? I would remember. But nex' year, nex' festival, you come see Arturo, eh? Not even heroes – not even Queens should miss da popcorn!"

"You travel with the Show, Mr Bandini? Are you one of the Showies?"

He wagged his head in affirmation. "I travel. Sometimes wit', sometimes a little behind. Today, a little behind." He pointed toward the lower end of the grounds and there, blocked from our original view, were two small caravans.

"Oh!" I said. "Maybe you know Madame Zodiac! She asked for Bridie to come see her but . . . I guess we left it too late. You'd remember her, Mister Johanson. Bessie Crampton?"

Both men looked at me curiously and Brian nodded slowly.

"I do remember Bessie. Very well! I must say, though, that I'm surprised you do, Ruthie!"

"Oh yeah, who could forget? Actually, I spoke to her yesterday! That's when she said she wanted to see Bridie but . . . well . . . everyone's gone already!"

"Mate," said Brian to Arturo, "I reckon you have your answer!"

Mister Bandini pointed again at the caravans "One for Bandini, one for Madame Zodiac. For her, I am here . . . popcorn man in empty field, waiting."

"I . . . I'm sorry! I . . .!"

"No, no, no!" Arturo protested, flicking my words away. "Her gift says, 'Go,' so she goes. My gift says, 'Wait,' so I wait. Da gift is always boss, eh?"

Brian took up the explanation. "Arturo's been with the Show for longer than you two've been alive. There was a time he would tell your fortune like nobody's business. There were people all up this coast who wouldn't step sideways without the Great Bandini's blessing. But that was way back. Correct me if I'm wrong, mate – but Bessie came to him for a reading one year and he wound up being a disciple instead of the guru. That about right, Arturo?"

The little man sat, straight as a stick – a very happy stick.

"Bandini, he sees to here." He ran a fingertip the length of his hand. "But Bessie, she sees to here!" He ran the finger all the way to his elbow. "Straight away, I know dat! I say to her, 'Lady, why you ask what you awready know?' She says, 'I know, but I don' wanna believe.' I say, 'Want' don't fill no buckets, lady. You gotta believe!'" The smile showed signs of slipping as he added, "Sometimes da sight, she's no easy to have, my friends."

Mister Johanson took up the story again.

"He's understating the old Bandini charm, of course. When the show left town that year, Bessie left with it. Hung on all the way up the coast, she did, until eventually Arturo figured she meant to stay. Then he stepped aside and Bessie got herself a permanent gig."

So that was her excuse for abandoning us? She'd run off to join the circus? Mean-assed little husbands notwithstanding, she sounded so much like the Reverend, I figured they might have been cut from the same bolt of cloth. But the important thing today was that she was still in town.

"And you're waiting for her now?" I asked, just to be sure. "She's still in Sugar Town!"

Arturo patted my arm and leaned forward, confidentially.

"Every year, we come t'rough Sugar Town. Every year, Bessie says, 'Arturo, you go inna tent. Madame Zodiac's t'roat, she's not so good.' Dis year's different. She says, 'Arturo, I gotta fix somet'ing here.' I say. 'Hey, you gotta fix? Go fix!' So! Soon somet'ing is fix and she come back. Meantime, I talk to my frien' da newspaper man and to byoo-de-fool girls. 'S all good, eh?"

He shrugged boyishly and Bridie began making diversionary social noises. We've missed her so much. Is she well? Is she happy? Has she missed Sugar Town and her friends? Yada yada yada.

It was all prattle, but I had real business in mind and I set to rummaging in my backpack, looking for the article I wanted.

"Did you write this, Mister Johanson?" It was the missing persons article about Isak and Les Crampton.

He took it and scanned it briefly. "Nineteen ninety-eight?" he whistled. "Where'd you find this little titbit?"

"We're having a clean-up. Stuff falling out of the cracks. Did you write it?"

"Mm, I did." He handed the shard of paper to Arturo, who also scanned it.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Leslie Barry Crampton. He was Bessie's husband!"

"He was. And . . . ?"

"Well . . . do you know what happened to him? I mean, Isak obviously turned up again! What about Mr Crampton?"

He looked at me through narrowed eyes. "Mr Crampton did not turn up again, Ruth. For all intents and purposes, he fell off the earth. And before you ask, I can tell you nobody much missed him."

Arturo handed the clipping back to me and climbed wearily to his feet. Apparently this wasn't a conversation that interested him.

"Why? What do you mean? Because he was a nasty, mean-assed little bastard?"

"Ruth!" Bridie stammered, scandalised by my whole demeanour, no doubt. But Brian Johanson just laughed.

"Ha! You've been talking to someone who knew him!" He began packing up his laptop, preparing to join Arturo. "Les worked for me as a journo' for two years," he said. "I kept him on that long for Bessie's sake more than anything. But he was just what you called him. And you can throw in 'lazy' as well, with a vicious streak a mile wide. I was never gladder to see the back of a man."

He waved a hand at Arturo, signalling for help, and the two old men locked hands, using their combined leverage to get Brian to his feet. Bridie and I scrambled up as well and Bridie retrieved Arturo's handkerchief.

"I'm so sorry, Mister Bandini!" she began, holding it out to him. "Ruth's going through some . . . uncertainty these days it seems. I hope she hasn't upset you?"

He waved the suggestion away and held out his hand to her.

"You was brave liddle girl, Bessie says. She got good memories o' you." They shook hands briefly and he turned to me. I held out my hand and he bent over it, without touching, studying it from a distance. I felt as though I might be contaminated with something, but then he crinkled his eyes at me, drew some circles in the air and said, "Per favore?"

I turned my hand and let him look at my palm. Unlike Bessie, he didn't touch me, just rubbed his jaw and frowned.

"Don't tell me," I said. "I've got trouble coming, right?"

He pouted, pointed at some invisible markers and made a variety of old-man noises deep in his throat. Then he folded my hand closed and wrapped my fist in both his hands. He squeezed, not uncomfortably, as though willing the fist to stay in place.

"Trouble's only trouble if you not prepared," he said.

Then he did something to me that no one else has ever done. Still holding my fist in one hand, he made a fist of his own and, with the meaty side, he gave me a couple of speculative thumps on the wishbone. If I'd actually had boobs, he'd have been tapping me directly between them. It was such an intimate gesture that Bridie's tension reflex made her gasp aloud. Strangely, though, I didn't find it the least bit alarming. Confusing, yes; alarming, no. He gave me my fist back, put his own hands in his pockets and squinted narrowly.

"You gonna surprise some people," he said, chuckling happily and turning away.

Mister Johanson, who'd busied himself with slapping grass clippings from his bum and organising his laptop, spoke to Bridie then.

"Haven't had anything in the paper from the Reverend lately, Bridie! You be sure to share, won't you!" And to me, he said, "Bandini says it's so, Ruth, so it must be true. You're going to surprise. Just remember, there're folks who need to be protected and folks who need to be protected against. And it's seldom easy to tell 'em apart!"

Be protected against? Blank looks seemed to be becoming my standard default expression. Arturo, who had been watching the exchange, caught my eye and winked.

"When Bessie come back, I tell her you was here, eh? Now me 'n' my big-shot newspaper frien', we goin' for nice cuppa tea, talk about nice headlines he gonna write for Miss Harvest Festival Queen Bridie."

The two old men waddled away, arm in arm, toward the distant caravans and Bridie and I started back toward the road and Amalthea's house to collect our little brother.

"She'll be with Kevin, at the bakery," I said as we left the grounds. "Bessie! I'd put money on it!"

Bridie didn't answer.

"You going to go see her?"

"Later, Ruth. We'll talk about it later."

I absolutely knew that to be true. Mister Johanson's comments about Les Crampton had finally clarified for me a series of possible connections – between a nasty vicious man, a terrible deed done to Bridie and some kind of justice dealt to the man, resulting in him going missing but not being missed. And though Rita's ghost had identified Isak as being the key, I now had Bessie being the lock into which the key might fit. The details were surely in her keeping.

Mister Johanson had also spoken of people who needed to be protected. I thought of Bridie and also of Isak, sedated and suppressed under Doctor Dabney's care. But who were the people to be protected against? Doctor Dabney himself? Bessie, who'd come back into our lives for her own secret reasons? Or what about me? Pressing Bridie to find memories that might only do her harm in the long run! Strange to think that that might be the surprise – that I was the most dangerous person in my family!

These thoughts filled my mind during the fifteen minute walk to Amalthea's house. I don't know what thoughts filled Bridie's mind.

* * *

It was almost five-thirty when we arrived at the house and it was immediately obvious that Asael was in a state. It emerged that, shortly after I'd left and before they'd gotten organised to go out to Queenie, they'd had visitors. News had spread that Isak Nucifora, having been rescued by Amalthea Byerson, Asael and me, had given up a rant about alien life in the cane and a group of drunken boys had shown up demanding to know its whereabouts. The most vocal of the group had been Darryl Sutton.

Amalthea had done her best to put them off the scent. 'We didn't find Isak in the cane,' she told them. 'We found him in the yard. What fool would be out in the cane at night?' As for alien life, the old man had been drunk and delirious! Just as anyone who knew him would have sense enough to expect.

'So there's no alien?'

'Oh, probably there're heaps of them! But not in this neighbourhood, boys.'

'Why you got the kid here, Amalthea? That scrawny sister o' his here as well?'

That was Dale who, Amalthea said, had developed two pleasantly colourful black eyes, apparently due to the tap I'd given him on the nose at the marshalling yard. The other boys had laughed when he asked about me and warned him off going a second round. Dale, she said, had gone stony quiet under their teasing.

'No,' she'd told them, 'Ruth's not here. Asael's just a friend who's come to help with the pyre. But the job's too big for us, I'm afraid. You boys could do it in five minutes, I expect, but it turns out it's beyond us!

'What pyre? What's a pyre?'

So she'd told them of Garlic's death and the need for a funeral pyre. They'd wanted to see the corpse and she'd shown them.

"You want us to burn him?"

"No, I don't want you to burn him. I want you to take some of that old timber from under the Poinciana and make a stack in the back yard. Sergeant Morrow has asked me to hold off, at least until tomorrow. In case the fire gets away into the cane. He wants to be sure the volunteer Firies are sober enough to respond."

They'd launched themselves at the task and made a stack twice the size of what she needed.

"You sure we can't burn him now?"

"Only if you want to face down Sergeant Morrow about it. He was pretty clear on what he expected."

"So Morrow's actually been here?"

I could picture them standing in her yard, panting, adrenaline pumping, licking their lips, looking her up and down.

"Yep. Big investigation into the lolly-drop crash! Seems like Johnathon Cranna might be thinking about legal action against whoever burned his airplane!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. So I was a suspect, see? Because Garlic here was the only casualty! But now I'm eliminated from the list of suspects because I was here, with Asael and Ruthie, rescuing old Isak from my yard! But it's okay, the sergeant said, because he's got other, much more likely suspects on his list. I wonder who they'd be, eh?"

* * *

I was hugely entertained by the story, thinking of Dale in particular, with his blackened eyes and his troll-ish bulk, being tricked into carrying heavy timbers around. I imagined he and all of them were quite sober by the time they left. It meant, of course, that Asael hadn't gotten to see Queenie but he was much more concerned about that than I was. I'd only agreed to go to shut him up. And Bridie was just happy to have him in her protective custody again. She looked in his eyes and felt his arms as though she hadn't seen him for a month. As we said goodbye, he leaned against her, the back of his head between her breasts, seeming very small and distant.

* * *

Asael's chat on the walk home was mostly about Amalthea's plan to burn Garlic, a plan that appalled him entirely. Bridie and I both tried to tell him that it was a normal way to deal with dead bodies and Bridie assured him that souls didn't linger, that bodies were only temporary vessels and all that, but it didn't seem to reassure him. I finally got him laughing when I made him tell us again about Dale's black eyes.

Through the whole rest of that evening, Bridie was only nominally with us, drifting away frequently into her own thoughts. I hadn't brought up the subject of Bessie again, even though I was thoroughly convinced she must be at the bakery with Kevin. I was at odds wth myself. Perhaps it would be better for Bridie if Bessie melted quietly back into the life of the Great Bandini. Maybe I could write her a letter in a month or so, care of the show, explaining Bridie's fragility and asking for the secret to be sent to me alone.

We all went off to bed early. When I went into Bridie's room to say goodnight, I saw that she'd opened the bottle of relaxants prescribed for her by Doctor Dabney. Her body was full and long under the sheet, but her face was that of a small, sad child.

I sat on the edge of her bed and said, "Migraine?"

"Coming on, I think."

There's some vague statistical connection, it seems, between the type of epilepsy that Asael has and a family history of migraines. She gets the migraines, he gets the hallucinations. All I get is cranky spells.

"Have I congratulated you yet, for being elected Queen?"

Her lips, and only her lips, smiled faintly.

"You deserved it," I said. "As far as I'm concerned, you deserve it every year."

"The wind bloweth where it listeth," she sighed. "John."

"John Cranna?"

"Saint John. Chapter three, verse eight. The wind bloweth where it listeth. And you can't tell whither it comes or whither it goes."

"Right!" I picked up the bottle of pills. "I'll put these in the bathroom for you, shall I? Have you taken anything else?"

She moved her head weakly. I turned out her light and kissed her on the forehead. Just lightly because, apparently, even a kiss can sting when you have a migraine.

* * *

The tap on my shoulder came just before eleven. I flicked back the sheet for him and he crawled in. For the next half hour, it was constant wiggling, snuffling, poking me with his knees until I flared up, fully awake at last.

"Okay, what?"

"We didn't get back to see Queenie."

"Asael, it's just a bit of space ju . . .!" And I thought, what's the point? We've been through this. "No, you're right. We didn't get back to see Queenie."

"There might be more!"

"More what? More Queenies?"

"More messages. And Isak said she was scared!"

I put my pillow over my head. I'd have thrown him out, but I didn't want to risk disturbing Bridie. I pictured her lying in her bed, just before I'd turned out her light and 'scared' was exactly the word to describe the expression on her face. The impending migraine, I told myself. She'd be fine. She always was. And the only way I could think of to settle Asael was to tell him we'd try to get back to Queenie the next day, just to check for messages.

Chapter 10 - By Moonlight

Isak looks up from the embankment where he's been sitting, face in hands, for a period of time that seems both too long and too short. The sky glows like freshly oiled leather, and the moon tumbles toward the horizon. The air is warm and cushiony with dew. He thinks how pleasant it would be just to lie back, just to breathe away the rest of the night. And maybe the following day as well.

Instead, he forces himself to focus on the broad, shallow channel that crosses before him. It's carpeted with roughly mown grass and bisected by a motionless ribbon of water. Off to his left, a small grey heron dozes on one leg. A wall of sugar cane looms darkly behind him.

He's not confused about this place. He knows he's on the side of a drainage channel that cuts through cane paddocks not more than a thousand yards from Hospital Street in Sugar Town. That's where he's come from.

He looks down at the hospital gown he still wears. He's turned it so the opening is at the front, like a kimono, and it hangs open on him, revealing the two fabric pads that remain glued to the shaved patches beside his nipples. The alligator clips. He'd made certain he was on his feet, ready to go, before he disconnected them. In case there was a monitor. In case the machine would alert someone. When they'd left him on his own, they'd underestimated both him and his determination. People always did, these days.

Isak's mind remains fuzzy, a remnant of the drugs pumped into him while he clung like a baby possum to the edge of awareness. How many hours ago was that? How much could have happened, could have gotten away on him, while he lay uselessly in that hospital bed?

" _Fuckin' schmucks," he mutters aloud, pushing himself to his feet._

Time past may have been wasted, he tells himself, but that's no reason to get bogged down here. As he rises, the gown flies open, catching at his knees, sliding under his feet and exposing his bare body.

"" _Fuckin' rag," he exclaims._

He considers throwing it aside. Bare arsed could hardly be more inconvenient than this flapping monstrosity. But then again, it could make a handy tourniquet if he gets snake-bitten. He decides to keep it. Meantime, the sight of his penis reminds him of the pressure in his bladder. He manages a dribble and a squirt, but the tubes close up on him, leaving most of the load dammed up inside.

" _Fuckin' thing!" he rants._

The body he looks down on always surprises and dismays him – the bunion-ridden feet, the knees that no longer straighten, the pecker that hangs, limp as a drowned man. It's all so old. It's not what he ever bargained for and it makes him angry, which somehow seems to help clear his mind. Anger, at least, is still a friend.

" _Fuckin' eh!" he shouts, goading himself to action. In the channel, the grey heron turns its flat eye and sees a bent old man in a long white robe, flapping his arms as he shuffles away down the channel._

* * *

Midnight has come and gone. Under the pyramidal roof of Amalthea Byerson's house, the chronic dust of a farming community hangs in the early morning air, like a held breath. Motes, on their tiny, boat-like keels, have drifted aimlessly, weightlessly, all through the night until, at last, the air has stilled and left them becalmed, a vast miniature armada in the rarest of doldrums. With approaching dawn, the light changes and a trapped dragonfly, having drowsed the hours away on a lampshade, flexes its cellophane wings, producing an eddy – a slightest of anticipatory vibrations. The motes tremble and swing on that tiny vibration, like ships at anchor sensing the turning of the tide. They are born for journeying. To stop is to risk the long fall through the air into the cracks of the universe, from which there is no escape.

Oblivious to their plight, the dragonfly lets go its grip on the lampshade, rises, hovers and turns its bullet head toward the pearly glow that outlines the window. Its passage amongst the motes, as incidental as a goat's cough on a distant mountain, is sufficient to set the near ones in motion and soon they're all tumbling and rolling once again on the ever-renewing, ever-conflicting currents of their ocean. Confidently, fiercely, the dragonfly launches itself against the impossibly hard radiance of the glass. In a short while, the sun will rise, the motes will journey on and the fly will subside in despair onto the dry, burning plain of the window sill.

On a square of living room carpet, surrounded by drooping, lifeless flowers and the burnt out remnants of candles, lies Garlic, the murdered goat. Garlic dreams that he is dead and unable to draw a breath – unable even to open an eye to glimpse the source of that buzzing flight in the air above him. On the floor next to him dozes his erstwhile companion, Rosemary, legs rigidly outstretched, patches of her hide twitching at imagined flies.

In the bedroom, moonlight creeps down the wall to touch Amalthea Byerson's back as she sleeps, face down in her bed, the pillow drawn over her head. She dreams that a warm, delicious cloud is caressing her. When, in her dream, she twists to look at it, she sees it is not a cloud at all. It's Kevin Truck, the baker, resting his cheek between her shoulder blades, behind her heart. His presence both puzzles and delights her. She smells him, cinnamon-sweet and inviting as fresh bread. Under the pillow she smiles; under the sheet, her toes curl appreciatively. Except for the dream, she is alone in the room.

Chapter 11 – Finding Queenie – (Sunday)

Six o'clock Sunday morning; the sun, I was certain, hadn't fully cleared the horizon. But there he was, up, dressed, tapping me on the shoulder, thrusting a bowl of corn flakes at me.

"Come on, Ruthie. You promised."

"Ohhh! Why Asa'? Why, why, why?"

"Those boys . . . they'll go back and they'll find her! We have to hide her!"

"Hide her? How can we hide her? How could we even move her? Did you see the size of her?" I was glad no one else was there to hear me referring to The Thing as 'her'.

"And even if we could move her – it – we can't just take it! Somebody official will be coming for it! Today or tomorrow, for sure! The Air Force, maybe. The police. Sergeant Morrow'll kill us if we interfere with it, As'! Be sensible!"

"But you promised!"

"I didn't promise to steal it! Or to hide it! Only to go see it . . . for messages!" I felt entirely moronic saying that, as though saying it was the equivalent of believing it might happen. Still and all, if the Grand Gourd could be a conduit for messages, why not a random piece of space junk? I threw the sheet off.

"Just remember, that's all I promised! You understand?"

He pushed the breakfast cereal at me. "I got our bikes out already. I'll wait in the kitchen."

* * *

And so we went. Men were up on the farms at that hour, of course, and women too, tending their animals and machinery, galumphing about in their boots and sucking in great lungs-full of air. Probably they liked that time of day. I didn't. So as we pedalled through town, I refused to respond to any of his endless chatter.

I'd checked on Bridie and she'd been sleeping soundly, with the curtains pulled and the room nearly blacked out. If the migraine was on her, she could sleep 'til noon, by which time, I promised myself, we'd be back – message or no message.

Through the half kilometre length of Main Street, the town seemed unnaturally quiet and empty. We passed Johnathon's Grand Central Hotel and I thought of his rooms in there, empty and waiting for him. I enjoyed a bit of a fantasy about going in and looking through his stuff. What would a man's residence look like? What would he have chosen to put out on view, for company, and what would he have hidden away, as private treasures? And that thought led me to our snooping at Amalthea's – her memory book with its poems, its mentions of 'Philippa' and its mysterious photos of Kevin Truck when he was little more than a scrawny teenager like me.

We passed the entrance to the showground and I thought of Arturo, the Great Bandini, waiting there for Bessie. Had she come back? Had they moved on in the night? Perhaps we should check, on the way home. Meantime, smoke was rising from the mill stacks and the wreckage of the Moth had been cleared away. Even the smashed hopper had been removed. The town, it seemed, was returning to normal.

On Amalthea's nameless road, the flowering Poinciana spread its branches far out over her shambling little house; the one in which Gramma G had come up against someone intent on ending her life. The doors and windows were still closed against night insects and slithering vermin, so we pedalled on past. On the headland, a wallaby froze momentarily to watch us come on and the slanting shadows revealed the path of wilted grass from our last visit. It ended in a wide, trampled area and there, up against the wall of cane, we dropped our bicycles.

Suddenly I was very nervous. Maybe I hadn't thought this through carefully enough! I mean, checking for messages was just stupid! Hoping to save it from discovery by Dale Sutton and his incendiary friends made fractionally more sense (though our tire marks through the long grass made a joke of that!) But really, what I should have been thinking of was the odds on The Thing actually being dangerous! Or of Asael having some kind of unpredictable reaction to it!

"Did you take your medication, As'?"

He didn't answer. I'd have pressed him but I could tell he was concentrating, straining to hear. And if there was anything to hear, I needed to know! I turned in my own listening circle, but the morning was quiet! A butcher bird somewhere far off. And in another direction, crows. Faintly, an engine, out on the highway. Asael had turned his attention to the ground, searching I supposed for that vibration he'd felt before, coming up through his feet, like the beat of a dog's tail against a metal bucket in a distant room.

"Anything?" I asked softly and he shook his head. "Not yet!"

The faintest of smiles edged its way onto his lips and, without further hesitation, he slid away between the stalks.

* * *

The Thing was exactly as we'd last seen it, but somehow more so in the daylight than it had been at night – if that makes any sense. The space it was in seemed smaller, its shape was squatter and its pewter-colour was greyer, lacking the internal glow. And though I hadn't thought of it as moving the first time we saw it, it seemed somehow stiller. Asael approached it with a positive sense of glee. After a first glance, I was more interested in the surroundings – particularly the long channel of smashed and twisted cane, marking the path where it had hit, bounced and rolled finally to a stop. There was a mound of dirt but The Thing was several metres away from it. How had that happened? When had that happened? Had it been like that the other night or had it moved since then? I couldn't remember.

"So," I nervously said to Asael, "what about now? Do you hear anything? See anything?"

He was right up to it, staring into it, almost touching it with his nose. He didn't answer.

"It looks like some kind of a thing off a rocket!" I said, hoping to impose some common sense on the proceedings. "Maybe something the Chinese tried to send up. You know? Like those mini-subs's they used during the war? Only a mini-rocket? Do you think there could be a Chinaman inside it?"

Oddly, the possibility that something could be in it hadn't occurred to me before I said that. The thought wasn't comforting.

"Asa', wait! Come back from it! What if there IS something in it?"

If he heard me at all, he very capably ignored me. He continued staring into it, moving his head this way and that as though trying to make sense of something through distorted glass. Then he sidestepped around it, studying its surface, top to bottom and all around.

My nervousness began to transform itself into annoyance. Annoyance at being ignored; annoyance at his total and totally uncharacteristic disregard for good sense! For him to expose himself like that, so blatantly, to the unknown (and I include in that, not knowing how I might react to being ignored) was completely provocative!

"No joins," he said. "No seams. She's just herself." He was positively purring with assurance! And then, "It's okay," he said softly. "No one's going to get hurt!"

A line of 'What-would-you-knows?' queued up at the tip of my tongue, until I suddenly realised that he wasn't speaking to me.

* * *

I don't say that I was putting any level of credence at all in anything my brother said, because only a simpleton would do that! But I also wasn't about to cower in the background while he took control of things. I marched up to it myself, intent on going him one better, and splayed the tips of my fingers to touch it. The morning was still very young and cool and the shade was still on The Thing, so I expected the cold reply of metal, which was exactly what I didn't get! I pulled my fingertips away and put them against my arm, my neck, my face, then back to The Thing. Despite being clearly metallic in composition, it was the same temperature as me – the temperature of my blood!

That was obviously impossible! But what followed was even more impossible! Probably as an attempt to out-do my out-doing of him, Asael bent and gripped The Thing around its middle – and stood up! It lurched into the air so suddenly and easily that I stumbled back, thinking it had jumped up of its own accord!

"Look!" Asael laughed. "She's light as a feather!"

I found myself stuttering, my mouth chewing my thoughts into unintelligible mush before spewing them out into the air. What I was trying to say was, 'No! No-No-No! She can't be!' I was waving at the piled mound of earth and the crushed cane. Look at the damage it did! It can't be that light!

"Look!" Asael was crowing. "I could hold her with one hand!"

There are times, I'd say, when mistrust and suspicion must be two of the most valuable qualities a person can have, and they kicked in big-time with me at that moment. My every instinct said it should not be so, but if it was so, then something very unknowable was going on – unknowable and scary!

"Asa' look around us! Look at the damage! Something that light didn't do all this! If it's that light now, then something really WAS inside it! Asael, we have to go! Now! Put it down! Now! Please!"

On virtually every other day that Asael had lived, he would have done as I said, without question. Even on that day, with The Thing in his hands, he almost obeyed me, bending and holding it toward the ground. But then he stopped. His mouth fell open and he straightened up again, curious and alert, holding The Thing in front of him like a giant, mis-shapen balloon.

"What's that?" he whispered.

"What? What's what?"

I'd almost have welcomed a look of horror on his face, but the mask of surprised delight grew even wider, which I took as an equally worrisome sign. I stepped closer, intent on somehow loosening his grip. A hard jab in the ribs would likely have done it. Instead, I tried the gentle approach, catching his arm, leaning in to catch his eyes and putting a hand against The Thing to press it earthwards. And it bit me! That's not the right word but none other comes quite close enough! I jumped away. It hadn't hurt me and it clearly wasn't hurting Asael. But something was there that hadn't been there a moment ago! A little sort of electrical nip!

"That!" he said. "What's that!"

I forced myself to touch it again and to hold steady against it. This time, it was like an apologetic little tap at my fingertips, barely nudging the epidermis.

"Batteries?" I suggested.

"It's like a pulse! A racing pulse." Asael had taken his own pulse and mine and Bridie's so often that he was virtually an expert. His eyes rolled up and I could see that he was counting.

"It would have to have a heart to have a pulse, Asael. And machines don't have hearts. They have batteries!" My own heart could have overwhelmed any battery in the land at that moment. "Put it down, Asael! I'm warning you! We're going!"

His eyes fell to his hands and roamed slowly up his arms, as though they were clear bottles and he was watching them fill. Within a moment, he was jiggling and giggling exactly as he did when I tickled him under the arms.

"Come on!" he said. "We gotta show Amalthea!"

Nothing I said could touch him. Joyful as a leprechaun, he headed through the wall of cane which, though it seemed to part to let him pass, closed behind him, leaving me scrambling to catch up. By the time I battled through, he was virtually hippety-hopping down the open headland, losing and regaining his footing without a care, holding The Thing easily, though her top was more than a metre above his head.

For the first part of the journey, he held her away and to one side, like a dance partner, so he could peer around her. Once, though, when he stumbled, she struck the ground, catching part of his weight and, from then on, he held her like you'd hold a baby – close to his body, pressing his cheek against her. I scrambled behind, in helpless semi-despair, wheeling my bicycle. Asael's bike, we left lying in the headland.

* * *

I suppose, from the moment he found he could lift Queenie, it was inevitable that she'd be taken to Amalthea's house and I was relieved to see, as we entered the yard, that the curtains had been drawn back. So at least she was up. Though no one could have been prepared for such a manic start to their day.

Rosemary was first out, nudging the screen door open before we reached the steps, sniffing the air and squinting at the flood of garbled shouts emerging from Asael. Amalthea followed a moment later, bare-legged, still in her nightshirt. She shook her head in surprise and her auburn hair, still wet from the shower, flicked into little ropes. Then she laughed, though whether in negation or resignation or pleasure, I couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry," I blurted. "I was only humouring him! I didn't expect to be bothering you! He was afraid those boys'd come back and find her and smash her!"

"Well," Amalthea said softly; "we don't want that happening, do we? Not to our Queenie!"

* * *

Still on the plastic sheet in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by nibbled flowers and burnt candles, in the dreamless sleep that should never end, the lolly-bombed and murdered Garlic shudders invisibly and points his mind at the curious bleating of his old friend and partner, Rosemary.

Chapter 12 – Sunday Morning Visitations

"You think it's dangerous, Amalthea?"

We were in the kitchen, she and I, making coffee and buttering toast. Asael was in the living room with Rosemary and the corpse of Garlic. And Queenie, which I'd insisted Amalthea should touch, to feel the electrical pulsing. Strangely, there was none.

"I don't know, Ruthie! I mean, it's not sharp or pointy or heavy or, apparently, explosive! Not hot, not mobile – not unpredictable in any obvious way!"

"Hm. I'm not taking any bets on the mobility thing yet! But it has to be electrical, doesn't it? The lights we saw the other night? And the pulse?" Asael at least had backed me up on that detail.

"I guess, but . . . even with that . . . it has an aura of peace about it, doesn't it? And Asael, obviously, hasn't got any reservations about it!"

I was about to object to using Asa' as a gauge of anything but she held up a hand. "I know! I know! You have no faith in his perceptions! But you've said yourself, he has an instinct for self-preservation! As does Rosemary, by the way! And she's not bothered either! So no. I think I'm going to vote for NOT dangerous."

We were standing in the doorway, watching it – or rather watching Rosemary watch it. She was staring into it, so close that her breath made little clouds on its surface while it, though its bottom was as round as a beach ball (a very large beach ball), stood motionless where Asael had placed it, balanced on a pinpoint and seemingly inert.

A stranger thing altogether was happening to Asael. He'd begun prowling about the room – walking away from Queenie, turning his ears this way and that, then going back to her and walking away again. He was like a yo-yo on a string that was being held by that still, metallic thing. Like she was sending him out and drawing him back – testing her control. It did nothing to ease my worry, that's for sure!

"I wish I knew how it stays standing like that," I said.

"Mmm," Amalthea said. Then I felt her stiffen, just a little. She flicked the hand towel over her shoulder and went into the room, straight across to Queenie and bent to look at the floor beneath it.

"Well!" she said. "How did that get there?"

I joined her and, when she looked up at me, I felt my cheeks flush crimson. A black ribbon was there, the stencilled words glinting up at us: 'Nothing matters: everything counts'. Amalthea knew exactly where that ribbon should be and, to my everlasting and obvious embarrassment, so did I.

* * *

Asael can hear Ruth and Amalthea clearly – hear their continuing chatter, their concern and their bumping about in the kitchen. He listens contentedly for several minutes, even though their words are not directed at him. When he stops listening to them, other less insistent layers of sound begin to intrude. At the top, there's the noisy chatter of birds, underlain by the dreamy chink of a wind chime and the purposeful chug of the distant mill. And further down, something much less intrusive; something flagging; something with a voice no bigger than the squeak of a leaf against a twig. And yet, somehow, it's that layer that summons his attention. It's somewhere in the periphery of the room, but he hears it best when he's near Queenie. He keeps returning to her, finding new bearings.

Finally, he finds himself at the window, beyond which the landscape is already fiercely bright. The sound – a dry little flutter, like a corner of paper that's now and again ruffled by a breeze – is not coming from out there.

He searches the window ledge and finds there, jammed in a corner, a dragonfly. Its body is a long, blue straw, interrupted by hulking shoulders and pea-sized red eyes. Hours spent beating itself against the glass have drained it so that its four, crystalline wings lie dully at its sides. As he watches, they rise, ruffle the air half-heartedly and fall again, making the sound that he's been tracking.

Asael sweeps the dragonfly gently into his palm and it tumbles like a broken plastic thing – no longer a dragon. No longer even a fly. He holds it near his face, marvelling at the huge, lidless eyes, wondering that such eyes should have failed to search out some other exit – to find some solution other than this hopeless battering. Through them, he must seem a monstrous apparition.

He walks with it to the door, half expecting to see it move or object or try to escape, but there's nothing. He opens the screen and holds his hand out. Still, it doesn't move. He jiggles it, feeling it feather-light on his palm. He brings it close to his mouth and puffs a dollop of air onto it. Immediately, it rises to its feet, clicks its wings and turns itself in a full circle on his palm. Then it lifts into the air and hovers briefly, its great eyes turned to him, before diving off into the shadows of the Poinciana.

Asael knows what has happened. The creature was close to death and is now fully alive. It's alive because of him and his act of carrying it to the door and breathing onto it the force that has gathered in him from his contact with Queenie. He felt it filling him up when he carried her. And now, in Amalthea's doorway, with a green and brown landscape of possibility stretching away before him, he raises his arms to the sky.

" _Baa-ah-ah," says Rosemary, punching lightly into Asael's leg._

He shakes his head at her and then, with a sudden sense of insight, goes back into Amalthea's living room, straight to the makeshift bier and the dead body of Garlic the goat. Rosemary comes to stand beside him, positioning herself to watch Asael's face as though expecting a mask to be lifted. Thoughtfully, Asael puts out a hand to stroke Rosemary's living chest and puts his other on the cold shoulder of the recumbent Garlic. They are like that when the shadow fills the doorway.

* * *

Amalthea studied the black ribbon briefly, probably assuring herself that she hadn't had that album out in months. Then she gave me a blandly inquiring look, as if to say, 'Is that who you are?' She held it out for me to take – Nothing matters; everything counts. Then she snapped the towel off her shoulder and went back to sit at the kitchen table. I followed her, though I felt much more like crawling under a rock.

"Amalthea, I'm sorry! We were waiting for you. Asa' got bored and . . . I should have made him put it back straight away. It's not his fault, it's mine."

"It's all right!" she said. "Don't worry about it. Sit down, coffee's getting cold."

I threw myself into a chair, even as I heard myself saying, "We'll go. We shouldn't have come, imposing ourselves on you like this."

"Right, right. Imposing yourselves." She put her elbows on the table and held the coffee cup under her nose. "Going through my stuff."

I slumped in the chair. "Shit-shit-shit-shit!" And, prompted by a large dose of humiliation which had to squeeze itself in beside the confusion I was already feeling over Asael and Queenie, I started to cry. When I cried at home, I could always count on Bridie to try to comfort me, which gave me the option of shrugging her off. I half-expected Amalthea to do the same, but she didn't. She sipped her coffee and left me blubbing away on my own. Finally I managed to push myself upright onto my feet. I put the chair in, like that would erase any evidence of my having been there, and put the ribbon on the table.

As I started for the door, she said, "It's not a mantra to live by, of course. Even she understood that in the end."

I stopped, slapping away tears. She was gazing through the steam from the coffee, eyes focussed somewhere beyond the room, into the past.

"Still," she sighed, "whatever gives you comfort, right? The universe spins along on its merry way. We keep up as best we can."

Then she patted the table where I'd been sitting and pushed my cup a little closer to the edge. I sat back down, sniffling, and she pushed tissues my way.

"Who is she?" I managed.

"Was. She's dead now. Who she was, was Philippa . . . my little sister. Half-sister. We have . . . had . . . the same mum."

"Oh! I'm sorry."

"Mm. Me too. I miss her. We all miss her, Rosemary and . . . well, maybe not Garlic anymore, I guess."

She started to tell me about the farm she'd grown up on with Philippa and their mother and Philippa's father and Garlic and Rosemary and, finally, Philippa's disease. She was dead at thirteen, my age, from an illness that had slowly and cruelly reduced her.

She told the story quickly and scantily and, when she finished, I asked the only question I could think of that made sense.

"How did she . . . ? I mean before she . . . ! Was she brave?"

"Brave? I guess she was, yes! Something certainly managed to keep her spirit upright; even after her body lost the ability to walk. And she had a wicked sense of humour, that's for sure!"

"Humour? While she was dying?"

"Oh yeah! A way of seeing things. Our father – her father, my step-dad – made a goat cart and Rosemary and Garlic used to take turns taking her around the farm. Once, near the end, she was lying back in that cart. And she said to me, 'Wouldn't it be awful, Am', if life took its clothes off and you were expecting something beautiful and you found it had a pale, freckled, pointless little arse like mine!' She laughed herself senseless over that!"

I didn't get it, and I guess my puzzled look showed as much.

"She wanted life to be beautiful, Ruth – even her small, failing life! Meaning? Sure, it would be nice if it had meaning. But if irony was all we could expect, she was prepared to appreciate that. She's one I expect to find again somewhere, sometime, somehow. Her and Garlic both!"

* * *

Philippa had told her parents she wanted the commemorative bookmark ribbons to be green, to symbolise growth, but when it came to it, Pip was their child – the child of both of them – and, though they were willing to let her say that nothing mattered, to them it mattered desperately! It counted and it mattered. The ribbons were ordered in black.

"It's crazy, you know? How you lose so much! And then when it's gone, Life just nudges you ahead, as if . . . so what? It's like, 'Did you think you were here for that? No, no, no! You ain't seen nothin' yet!' And then, if you really are persistent – you stumble across laughter all over again! It's always out there you know, Ruthie! In pockets – maybe in your own pockets! Just waiting for you to dig down to it! I for one can hardly turn a corner without thinking, maybe this is the one! The one Pip's going to jump out of and shout 'Ha! Tricked you!'"

* * *

Amalthea seemed to have fallen into a dream that she needed to speak out loud. Philippa was clearly still alive for her. I, on the other hand, stayed very quiet, hoping she'd get to the pictures of Kevin. She didn't, because the first of her unexpected visitors arrived.

"Hello? Ye outta bed yet, girl?"

It was the voice of Alf Caletti, her landlord, calling from the front door; a shy man's way of respecting her privacy. He called and then retreated to his Ute, cap in hand, rubbing the sun away from the top of his head and carrying on a muttered conversation with Vivian, his wife, who remained in the vehicle. Thea went out to them and I stood inside, behind the screen.

"Alf! Vivian! This is a surprise! Early morning visits aren't usually your style!"

Cane farmers are an aging breed and the Caletti's were no exception to the rule; both fifty-ish; old enough to be marked by heavy work and the tropical sun and the endless anxieties of unreliable crops, markets and weather.

"Amalthea," said Vivian solicitously, leaning from her window. "We aren't stopping. It's just, we heard about your sadness, with poor Garlic. And we wondered if you managed, yourself, to escape the battering?"

"Yes, I did, thanks, Vivian. Just a couple of glancing hits. Not you though, by the look of those bruises!"

"Ho! This one," Vivian gingerly touched her temple, "like to knocked me right out of me knickers! I swear it was half an hour before I could properly get my legs under me! Got my sense back just in time to see the ambulance leaving with Johnathon! Totally missed seeing the McFarlane girl . . . young Ruth . . . pull him out of the wreck! Ironic she should be the one to do that, isn't it?"

I drew back further into the shadows at the mention of my name.

"Ironic? Why is it ironic, Vivian?"

"Oh. No reason. Just is, that's all."

"What about that clobbered billy?" Alf asked, quickly changing the topic. "You get him disposed of okay?"

"Ah, thanks, Alf! That's very thoughtful. He's still in the house, in fact. But today's the day, I think."

"I can pop 'round with the tractor if ye like. Throw 'im in the bucket an' plant 'im somewhere out the back paddock. No fuss."

I heard Asael and Rosemary shuffling across to listen at my back.

"Thanks, Alf," Amalthea said mildly, "but I've decided to cremate him . . . if I can use some of that old timber from under the Poinicana?"

"Jus' feedin' the white ants. Use what ye want."

"Thanks, Alf. Actually, I jumped the gun a bit – already moved some of it around the back. I just want to give Kevin a heads-up first. He and Garlic were kind of mates, you know?"

"Yeah? Well . . . ye gotta have mates, that's for sure."

He looked off into the distance, casually assessing his cane crop.

"Something else on your mind, Alf?"

Vivian took up the story then.

"It's none of our business, dear, but we also heard that it was you found Isak Nucifora the other night, and got him to the hospital?"

"Yes?"

"They say he claims that . . . that he had something else there with him. A bit of space stuff – from that meteor maybe?"

"Well . . . yes!" I could hear the hesitation in Amalthea's voice. She wasn't quite ready to admit that she had both a dead goat and some 'space stuff' in their house. "There was a strange something there!" She pointed down the appropriate headland. "Knocked down a bit of your cane, I'm afraid, Alf."

"Yeah? I'll check 'er out. Maybe temorra."

"The thing is," Vivian continued, "poor old Isak has been a little . . . 'irregular' for years, you know. And . . . well, no one's ever sure if he's maybe seeing pink elephants, you know what I mean? Anyhow, the point is that he seems to have done a runner from the hospital!"

"Done a runner?"

"In the middle of the night! Doctor had him sedated and all but . . . well, they went to check on him this morning and he was gone. We just thought you should be warned. He was working for us the night you found him, you know, so we feel a little responsible for him being out there. And, as well, this house . . . it kind of figures large in his history, you know? There was a woman attacked here, years ago, and Isak found her. Never been the same since that night! Completely unbalanced him. And rumour has it that . . . she was on his mind during his time in hospital."

"Oh!"

Amalthea and Vivian joined Alf in gazing out at the wall of cane and Alf's plate-sized hand came up to massage his face.

"You've known Isak a long time, I guess?" Amalthea mused.

"Everyone's known Isak for a long time," Alf said. "Poor ol' bastard!"

"Why's that, Alf? Why's he a poor old bastard? Has he got something wrong with him?"

"Ahh, no more'n the next man, I don't s'pose. Bit too fond o' the drink. But then again, who isn't?" He laughed mechanically, ha ha, and bit it off. "Drink's one of them things can get the best of a man . . . along with hard work . . . and women." He smiled fondly at Vivian and she finished the thought for him.

"Isak got past the women and hard work parts some years back, dear. That only leaves the drink. Some men never get past that."

"It's hard to imagine him with a woman," said Amalthea, and I knew straight away she was casting about for information on his relationship with Gramma G. "Hard work, yes; but a woman? Was he married or anything?"

Alf looked at her suspiciously. "We gotta be gettin' on. Let you get about your day."

He walked around the Ute and got in. Vivian, smiling helpfully, said, "He won't be dangerous, dear. Even if he managed to get this far, which Doctor seems to think is unlikely. They're sending folks out to look for him."

The engine started and Alf leaned across for a parting word.

"Don't leave it too long," he called. And to Amalthea's inquiring look, he said, "The goat. Don't leave it too long. Dead things go off quick in the heat."

* * *

Amalthea was barely back in the house when Asael started in on her. It seemed that all he'd heard of the conversation was the 'cremating Garlic this afternoon' bit.

"You can't cremate him, Amalthea! He could come back! I could . . . ! There was a dragonfly! Just now! I picked it up and . . . !"

We both looked at him expectantly, but it seemed to be the end of his thought.

"What are you on about, As?'" I asked, none too patiently. I was managing to re-direct my annoyance with myself, for letting him rummage through Amalthea's albums, into annoyance with him, for not putting everything away properly.

In answer to my question, (and my tone, I suppose) he shook his head, unable or unwilling to explain. Amalthea was heaps patient with him.

"Sit with me a minute, Asa'," she said softly, guiding him to the couch and sitting beside him, continuing to hold his hand. "Listen. We're brand new friends, you and I. But being friends doesn't mean we have to see the world in exactly the same way! Like, the way I see what's happened to Garlic, for instance! The way I see it . . . this flesh we inhabit . . . is just a husk! A temporary home for our spirit! Mine, yours, Ruthie's . . . your mother's and your grandmother's . . . all husks. But sometimes, when a husk is finished, a spirit might forget, or might not want to remember, that it has another place to go! Its real home! Its own Summerland! That's why we help it to go free . . . help it to finish this part of its journey. So it can get on its way to a new start! That's what we have to do for Garlic! You say Garlic could come back. I know he will come back. But you have to understand, he won't ever come back as Garlic! Okay? Does that help?"

"I . . . I just don't think you should burn him, Amalthea! Not yet!"

She tilted her head, studied him briefly and let go his hand.

"Well we aren't going to do anything along those lines this very minute, anyhow. There's lots of other stuff to do before we get to that. Acres of things to do!" She jumped to her feet. "Come on! Time for these husks of ours to be busy!"

She bustled off to the kitchen and I watched him for a minute longer, sitting and staring at Queenie, balanced impossibly on her tiny point. Whenever she's burning this goat, I reminded myself, I have to make doubly certain we're not here. And I went off to the kitchen, hoping to lure Amalthea into talking more about her family and the mysterious photos of young Kevin Truck.

* * *

Before that could happen, though, it became clear that Garlic's fate was on more minds than just ours. Car doors slammed, a rabble of male voices erupted in the yard and heavy feet clumped onto the veranda, the whole ruckus culminating in the heel of a fist pounding on the wall and someone shouting, "Bring out the goat!"

It was so close, so unexpectedly loud and aggressive that, though we'd heard the engines, we both leapt in fright. I knocked over my chair and Amalthea dashed out with a cup still in her hand. In the living room, Rosemary and Asael had also jumped up and were staring in amazement at the hulking silhouette in the doorway. The 'Bring out the goat' shout had already set off a chanted chorus outside: Bar-b-q the goat! Bar-b-q the goat! The silhouette in the doorway was that of Darryl Sutton.

He pushed open the screen, leaned blearily on the jamb and fixed his eyes on Asael.

"You still here, runt? You 'n' the lady o' the house got somethin' goin' on, have ye?" It was typical, low-grade Darryl-talk and it also confirmed that, though it was almost nine o'clock Sunday morning, Saturday night hadn't quite finished for him.

Amalthea strode straight across to stand in front of him, blocking his entry to the house, while the chanting outside degenerated into wild laughter and scuffling. A moment later Dale shouldered up beside his brother, filling the remaining space in the doorway.

"I hope you boys aren't out driving around in this condition?" Amalthea scolded. "The night's over! The festival's over! You should all be home in bed!"

"We want," Darryl said, with the exaggerated care of someone who's using a semi-paralysed tongue, "to burn the goat. We moved the timber. Now we want the fire."

"Uh-huh, well I'm grateful for your help with the timber. And you're welcome to join in the send-off. You'll need to come back around three . . . sober."

"Sober my arse! An' sober your pretty little arse as well, Am-al-thee- ah!" Even holding onto the jamb, he was barely managing to stay upright. "We ready right now! Aren't we, bro'!"

He held up a knife, bobbing it around in front of Amalthea's eyes, and I pressed Asael out of sight behind me.

"Have that bastard gutted, bar-b-qued an' eaten inside of an hour, eh?"

I'd hoped to stop Asael from focussing on the knife but I couldn't shield him from the words. He pushed out from behind me, pointed a finger at Darryl as though he was Moses confronting an idolater, and shouted, "Oh no you won't!"

Both Dale and Darryl squinted into the shadowy interior of the house and that, I suppose, was the first time Dale saw me. He seemed almost to get a notch soberer and he snarled, "You here too, beanpole?"

"Ruth's here on my invitation," Amalthea snapped, knuckling him on his big shoulder, "which you boys aren't! Now go home and sleep it off! If you want to come back for the send-off, and you've sobered up, you'll be welcome. Three o'clock! Eat before you come."

The light was behind Dale but something in the tilt of his head told me he hadn't taken his eyes off me and I couldn't resist baiting him.

"How are your black eyes doin', you moron?"

Darryl hooted with laughter and Dale straightened up, swaying in the door. Then Darryl turned around and called, "Get some petrol on that timber, boys! She says to help ourselves to the goat."

The rabble outside became louder, more excited and began to clatter its way around the house.

"You're not doing this, Darryl!" Amalthea hissed.

"You think not?"

He put his big hand out – the one not holding the knife – and, pushing her slowly, purposefully to one side, he stepped into the room. I saw Dale reach for him in a drunken, half-hearted way, but it was Asael, to my great astonishment, who ran at him. It was like watching a Chihuahua with a death-wish. Some flicker of understanding made Darryl move the knife aside, but the other big hand twitched, almost reflexively, and flicked Asa' onto his bum. And Darryl instantly forgot him. He weaved across to me instead, bumping and pushing furniture, making his big, stupid look-how-dangerous-I-am faces.

"Us morons," he said, louring over me, "don't take well to bein' told what we can't do." He put out a finger, stiff and hard as a spike, and jabbed it into my shoulder. "I bin hearin' stories about you, ye scrawny little smart-ass. Makin' trouble. Ye think pullin' Cranna outta that plane gives ye some weight to throw around in this town?"

I wasn't frightened of Darryl, though I probably should have been. Boys when they're drunk are a whole different animal to boys when they're just hormonal. I thumped the heels of my hands against his chest and snarled right back at him: "You smell like a pig's arse, Sutton. And you look like one too, you big sphincter."

Neither the push nor the insult budged him. In fact, he laughed in my face, a sour, humourless, evil-smelling kind of laugh and, though Amalthea was behind him, shouting at him to get out of her house, it was Asael he turned to speak to.

"Ye know what I reckon, hero?" he said gleefully. "I reckon we'll butcher that little four-legged pecker right here, in the shade!"

It was at that point that Dale stepped the rest of the way into the room, though probably only I noticed it because that was also that point when Rosemary decided to intervene. She'd bounced to Asa's side when he went down and, with Darryl turning that way again, she launched herself, rolling her head forward and lifting the nubs of her horns directly into Darryl's groin.

A sound came out of him like a truck horn that's been shot in mid-honk and we all froze as, in quick succession, the knife, his knees and his forehead hit the floor. Rosemary, queen of the moment, jumped onto the broad hump of his back, stamping her little hooves a time or two, and Darryl, in very close communion with his balls, seemed hardly to notice.

Dale, though, lurched groggily forward, taking up the momentum by aiming a feeble kick at Rosemary who, swinging her attention to him, was unprepared for Darryl's slumping over onto his side. She fell heavily, winding herself and, in an instant, the battle swung back in the Sutton's favour.

Dale's big head swung confusedly between her and his brother. Attack or rescue? It had all happened so quickly. Amalthea and I both moved to intercept him, (though how that would've ended is anybody's guess; together we might have matched his weight, but we were still only a fraction of his strength!) As luck would have it though, we were beaten to the punch as, for the second time in two minutes (and probably in his entire life!) Asael threw caution to the wind and himself into danger. He flew past us and the struggling Rosemary and, like a small, soft cannonball, hurled himself against stony wall of Dale's ribs.

The impact, I'm sure, stunned Asa' a good bit more than it did Dale. Nonetheless, drunk, dizzy and under attack, with his big brother already down, Dale stumbled. One hand smacked into the floor and the other, probably more by luck than design, latched like a claw onto the back of Asael's neck.

Movement, at that point, was everywhere: Amalthea shouting Dale's name, Rosemary scrabbling for footing, Asael, clawing with all his puny strength at the big hand that held his neck – a neck that Dale might well break purely by accident! And Dale, twisting to give me a look that had no chance at all of penetrating the red rage flowering in my head. And it was too late for looks anyhow, because that's when the explosion happened.

One of the boys in the back yard had touched a match to the litres of petrol they'd poured onto the wood of Garlic's funeral pyre. The walls of the house shook, Dale sank to one knee and I lost it completely.

It was the apparent need of these boys to impose themselves where they weren't wanted; the casualness of their violence. But it was also the courage of Rosemary and Asael and Amalthea in confronting it! It was the fear that wouldn't allow Bridie to go into Madam Zodiac's tent and it was the queen who wanted the good people and then the bad people and I didn't know why! It was the Agnes letter and it was Bessie Crampton seeing trouble in my hand and it was Isak Nucifora, threatened into silence about my grandmother's death. I became a thin little pony-tailed demon version of myself and, howling like a banshee, I jumped onto Dale's back. I wrapped my legs around him, grabbed his ears and commenced to do my very best to rip them off his stupid, drunken head!

* * *

Not fifty meters away, in the tall grass at the edge of the cane paddock, a ghostly white figure lies pressed to the earth. Isak has spent a couple of hours making his furtive way through the cane, bare-footed and cursing, hating a hospital staff that wraps a man in a floppy white kimono instead of a decent pair of pants. He's travelled slowly, craftily, keeping low in the channels and headlands, until finally reaching the tangled alley of flattened cane where (how many days ago was it?) Queenie had come to wait for him. And she wasn't there. His first thought was that she had gone back into whatever mysteriousness had hatched her.

' _Can't be gone yet!' he'd moaned. "I haven' got it all! I can't remember it! Gracie? Queenie? Don' be gone! Please please please don' be gone!"_

Somehow the lost woman and the lost Thing had begun to meld together in his mind.

" _Qu-e-e-e-n-i-e-e-e!" he'd shouted forlornly into the still morning air. He'd been counting on that magical thing, that Queenie, for some kind of further guidance, further illumination. Without illumination . . . how's a man to know what to do?_

He'd tramped about the area, anguished and frustrated, for what seemed like ages, finding nothing. He'd cursed powerfully and continuously, hating Amalthea Byerson for finding him in the cane and hauling him to the hospital; hating Roger Dabney for sedating him instead of letting him go; hating Johnathon Cranna for starting the whole thing with his bloody airplane. Hating Sugar Town for letting the past lie. And finally, his tracker's eye, of its own accord, found itself focussed on the path opened only hours ago by the passage of Asael and Ruth. Immediately he'd been mollified. Of course! She wouldn't just go! She was here for a purpose! Someone's taken her! And out in the headland he found that, not only did they leave a trail Blind Freddie could follow, but they'd left him a bicycle!

The boys in Amalthea's yard, had they looked up, might have seen the ghostly apparition come pedalling out of the headland, coat-tails flapping. They might have seen him drop out of sight into the long grass, hoping he hadn't been spotted.

He's close enough to hear voices being raised, first in anger, then in agony. He's close enough to feel vibrations running through the earth from the exploding petrol. He's close enough to see the pillar of flame from behind the house and the mayhem that erupts from within as one man scrambles out on knees and one hand, the other hand clutching his balls; and a second man stumbles behind, with a raging girl mounted on his back, ripping at his ears. He's close enough to recognise Amalthea Byerson, Asael McFarlane and the bucking, bleating goat that tumble out in pursuit. Isak's close enough to pick off any one of them, maybe all of them, if he had his rifle and a mind to. He's close enough to see the police car swerve into the yard and he's canny enough to lower his head.

' _Shit on a duck!' he thinks. 'What's goin' on here?'_

* * *

If you could take all the little bits of annoyance and anger and frustration and sadness and regret that pop up in various parts of your life and put them into a big funnel so they come out in a concentrated, focussed little stream of poison, you'd know what was happening to me as I rode Dale Sutton out into the yard. All the answers that I couldn't get, all the blank faces that were turned to me, all the stupidity that I saw in myself and the helplessness that I saw in Bridie and the incomprehension in Asael; all the resentment of being abandoned by people who should have loved me – I was taking it all out on Dale. In the moment, I had no sense of what was happening. I didn't feel him get his fingers into my hair and I didn't feel myself fly through the air, over his shoulder.

It wasn't until I slammed into the earth on my back, hurled from a great height, it seemed, that the rage oofed out of me. As did my ability to breathe. No air in, no air out. Ears ringing, eyes closed, lungs simply lounging in my chest, taking a break. And I thought, 'Okay, so he's killed me. At least that's an end to it!' And then I thought, 'What stories? What stories have they been hearing about me? What trouble have I made?'

I lay there for long seconds wondering about that. Then I heard a little gasp. And another. It was my lungs clocking back on. I opened my eyes and saw Amalthea's face. And Asael's. Their lips were moving. Something was frightening them, but I didn't know what. Then I saw, above and behind them, shouldering into view, the faces of Lyle Hoggitt and Sergeant Morrow. And I knew that 'the trouble' I'd caused had come looking for me in at least three forms: the least of which was probably the Sutton brothers!

* * *

Sergeant Morrow's upside-down face was the one I focussed on. Expressions are hard to read when a face is upside-down, but I could tell by the bulge of his eyes and the colour of his throat that he was in a blue rage. Someone turned my ears back on then and I heard Lyle Hoggitt, who'd disappeared from view, squawking at the boys, cursing and threatening and ordering them back to their cars. One of the answering voices, swearing innocence, was that of Hoggs, his own son, which disappointed me a little. I couldn't concentrate on it much, however, because feeling, which had also temporarily abandoned me, suddenly returned, in a very cranky mood! And my breathing apparatus, my back, my head and my every joint all started screaming at me: We're busted! Look what you've gone and done to us!

Thank God for Amalthea, who brushed away the onlookers and half-carried me into the house, oozing me gently onto the sofa. A ruckus followed us in but, for the moment, it wasn't the police or the mayor or any of the boys. It was Asael and Rosemary, both of whom were dancing and bouncing like a pair of spring lambs. Rosemary bucking and bleating merrily while Asael jumped on the furniture, sparring with the air. It took me a minute to recognise it: a war dance.

Very very slowly, I pushed myself onto my bum as Amalthea came cooing over me, brushing dirt away, swabbing my face with a cold cloth and fretting over what might be broken.

"Did we win?" I groaned.

Amalthea winked. "Ask Dale next time you see him. Assuming he gets his hearing back!"

Outside, the remnants of arguments were still skittering about like sparrows. Sergeant Morrow, I learned later, had insisted that the boys track down and extinguish every last flaming spark from the petrol explosion. Under his supervision, they'd scoured the yard, sprayed water onto the walls and roof and even into the Poinciana. When finally he was satisfied, last threats were muttered, car doors were slammed and we all breathed in the silence. Briefly.

For the sake of decorum, before opening the screen and letting the authorities come in, Amalthea warned Rosemary and Asael against resuming their dance. And by the time Sergeant Morrow and Mayor Hoggitt stood before me, I was fairly certain that even the Great Bandini would have seen survival in the dirt of my palms.

* * *

Morrow, good cop that he was, glared about the room. His posture said that he knew evidence of crimes was nearby and woes betide anyone who tried to conceal it. I thought of the flowers I'd stolen and said a silent thankyou to Rosemary, who'd finished them off for breakfast. Mayor Hoggitt edged in to stand a step behind Morrow, his whole expression one of shocked disbelief.

"You!" the Sergeant said flatly, looking at me.

I nodded. I was far more frightened of him than I could ever imagine being of Dale Sutton.

"You didn't come."

I shook my head, slowly, showing my confusion. I'd expected him to ask if I was all right.

"I told you to come to the station yesterday. You didn't come."

I shook my head more rapidly, trying to remember why. So much had happened and it was all stirred up in my brain.

Somethin' wrong with your neck, girl?" he demanded and my head shook even harder.

"Be still then. Stop floppin' around." With a great effort, I stilled myself and tried, this time without success, to hold his gaze.

"Now I've had to come lookin' for ye. Ye see? Ye think I might have better things to do with my time than come lookin' for you?"

Having barely gotten control of my head, I set it to nodding again and Morrow frowned with disgust. Amalthea, I noticed, had merely crossed her arms, in imitation of his stance, and was waiting to see what developed. Lyle Hoggitt was casting his eyes rapidly about, as though he'd just realised he was in a maze.

Morrow's eyes, having seen all there was to see in me, swung to the corpse of Garlic. He studied Garlic's stillness and thoughtfully compared it to the upright wariness of Rosemary. He stepped closer, nudging the corpse with his foot. When nothing happened, he bent to touch it.

"Dead goat," he said, matter-of-factly. "Ye'll wanna get rid o' that."

Next, he turned his attention toward Queenie which, I suddenly realised, had moved half-way across the room, into a corner. When had that happened? Had Asael shifted it during his dance? Or had Amalthea's theory of its immobility just been shattered?

"What's that?" Morrow demanded.

We all looked at it, balancing delicately on the impossible point of its round bottom.

* * *

Asael smiles warmly at Queenie and sees, in return, a flash of purple from within her depths. There and gone. He doesn't understand what Queenie is, but he understands the message. Stand off! The noise of the fight and the explosion – his every instinct tells him that the flash is a sign of warning. He glances at Ruth, at Amalthea, at Morrow and at Lyle Hoggitt. None of them have reacted. Perhaps it was too quick for them. He looks at Rosemary who is looking back at him. She nods a slow confirmation. Asael looks back at Morrow whose hand is now resting on the leather cover of his holstered pistol. It's okay, he thinks toward Queenie. No one needs to get hurt.

* * *

"It's nothing," Asael blurted before anyone else could respond. "Just a thing we found in the cane . . . me and Ruth and Amalthea. Bit of junk."

"Junk? That the thing Isak was talking about seeing? Thing he had with him when yez found 'im?"

Asael's shrug – his attempt to put the policeman off – turned to a rapid nod when Morrow barked a loud, "Eh?"

"Well I'll be buggered!" said Morrow, bending to study its surface. "So this is his space sausage Queen o' Sheba freakin' thing? Whatchu doin' with it here?"

"Well, I . . . I . . . !"

Amalthea interrupted. "We're just keeping it safe for the moment. The boys came looking for it yesterday and we were afraid they'd damage it. You know, before the authorities came for it."

"Yeah? You notified any authorities yet?"

"Well, no, not yet! We only fetched it this morning."

"Course ye did! 'Bout to ring someone any minute, I imagine, eh? Bit o' space junk . . . might be worth a few quid, d'ye reckon?"

"We wouldn't know about that, Sergeant Morrow. But probably not! A bit of ruined scientific equipment can't be worth much."

"That what it is, is it? Not an alien, like Isak reckoned? How'd you get it here? You carry it?" While speaking, he put an exploratory hand on Queenie's surface.

* * *

And Asael sees once again the flash of colour from deep beneath its skin. Once, twice, like a flush of blood past a peephole. He looks around expectantly but, again, no one seems to notice. Whatever is to be done, it seems, must be up to him.

* * *

"You . . . you . . . you shouldn't touch her!" Asael stammered.

If I was dumbfounded to hear Asael utter something that sounded like a warning to Morrow, even in such a mild way, it was nothing compared to what Morrow must have felt. He hadn't, I suspect, fully calmed down from dealing with the boys and Asael's remark instantly re-called that deep red flush up from under his collar.

"What? Shouldn't touch it? Shouldn' touch this thing?" He slapped at it hard, and it fell, as a natural thing should, out of balance, leaning into the corner. "I touch whatever I bloody well think I need to touch, little man! I'm the freakin' representative o' the legal system here! Get me? Who the hell're you? Bloody cheeky little grub who thinks he can lay claim to government property? Well, I can tell you, young McFarlane – tell all of you – if that's what you think, you got your heads somewhere where the light don' shine! And that's a fact!"

He slapped his hand against Queenie a second time, then moved proprietarily to put his arms around it. He rocked it, testing its solidity, then bent his knees to lift.

I knew – we all knew, straight away – that something bad was happening. We could tell by the buzz that filled the air and the choking noise that filled Morrow's throat: "Uuunnngggggg!" The man's entire body began to vibrate and the hairs on his head, I noted with fascination, rose slowly to attention.

There was nothing any of us could do. Mayor Hoggitt raised his hands to his mouth and retreated to the door. Asael and Rosemary had stepped back the moment Morrow stooped to put his arms around her and Amalthea and I moved back when the buzzing sounded. We all watched as the policeman's eyes rolled toward us, in painful appeal. There was nothing any of us dared to do.

I don't know how long it lasted; maybe for a slow count of seven or eight. Then, with what must have been a super-human effort, Sergeant Morrow threw himself backward, away from Queenie, somehow breaking his contact with her.

The momentum threw him tumbling to the floor, where he scrabbled backward like a crab until he ran into the wall; and there he lay, panting – like us, watching Queenie's final spin. For a moment, she wobbled and whirled precariously on her round bottom, flashing and buzzing frantically, bumping the chairs and ricocheting off the table until, at last fatally unbalanced, she began toppling slowly forward. Only Asael, impelled by his new-found courage and despite her obvious electrical charge, lunged to catch her, snatching her into his arms.

No one could have anticipated him doing that; or been quick enough to intercept him. I shouted his name and reached for him but I was already too late. Adding his momentum to her own, Queenie flipped and spun, dragging them both to the floor where, locked together, they came at last to rest against the body of Garlic.

We were all of us frozen in place as she buzzed a last time or two. The sound faltered, became intermittent and stopped. The room filled with silence. The only sound, I expect, that intruded on any of us would have been the sound of our own wildly beating hearts. Six wildly beating hearts. Then a seventh joined in. The little pink protrusion of Garlic's tongue disappeared back into his mouth, chased in by a shallow breath – just enough to force a cough – and then a deeper breath. His eyelids popped open.

* * *

Kevin says that sometimes there's no point in asking for explanations. Sometimes, he says, we're just not meant to know. Life would be a whole lot easier, I think, if there was some way of telling which times those are; but I guess nobody's in the business of making life easier.

Amalthea, of course, for the moment, wasn't interested in explanations anyhow; she had her hands full restraining Rosemary and weeping over Garlic who struggled, but was unable, to rise. Sergeant Morrow also, was in no condition to ask questions as he limped away, his limbs shuddering, in the equally shaky grasp of Lyle Hoggitt. Lyle managed to shout a defiant threat from the yard: "That thing is a menace! It oughta be destroyed!" But he had no questions to ask.

That left Asael and me. And I had plenty. I started with the panicky ones.

"Now you see? It's nearly killed someone! Didn't I tell you it was dangerous? Do see how lucky you were, not to be electrocuted? Didn't it shock you? Don't touch it! Asael! I said don't touch it! Are you listening to me?"

He wasn't listening to me. He was busy righting Queenie which, to my added confusion, had returned to complete passivity. No glowing or sparking or buzzing or twirling! He simply pushed her gently upright and she returned to attention, balanced easily once again on a square centimetre of her round bottom.

Asael patted her gently and said, "Thank you, Queenie."

At that moment, I could have grabbed his ears like I had Dale's, and shaken his smug little head like a baby's rattle and kicked The Thing into a corner and walked out of the house to plant my feet on the ground and hold my head in the breeze and insist that the world had not suddenly turned upside down. I could have, but I settled for snuffling helplessly.

"Can we at least get her out of the middle of the floor?" I said at last and made a not very convincing move toward it.

"I'll do it," Asael said. "You'd best not touch her just now."

They were almost the same words he'd said to Sergeant Morrow and Morrow had ignored them. I wasn't about to make the same mistake. Asael moved her easily. And I let him.

Then he said, "Have we had breakfast yet? I'm hungry!"

* * *

We had had breakfast. Twice! Once at home and once at Amalthea's. We'd also, in the four hours since we'd left home, acquired a Space Thing called Queenie, been in a fight with a gang of boys, nearly electrocuted a policeman and resurrected a dead goat. Not bad going! And yet, as time would show, not apparently enough for whatever Fates were in charge of organising that Sunday morning.

For the moment though, I couldn't think of anything more appropriate to do than to put Amalthea's kettle on to boil. I sent Bridie a text, telling her where we were, hoping that, at best, her migraine had passed or, next best, that she was still asleep. I didn't want to ring in case she pressed me for details which, despite our new 'nothing but the truth' pact, I would obviously have to lie about.

And lastly I went back into the living room to ask Asael when he'd last taken his medication. He smiled blandly and assured me that I needn't worry about that.

* * *

Hot, milky, highly sugared tea is a great soother. Asa and I like it that way and Amalthea just got what she got. Rosemary got leavings from the rubbish bin – orange peel, onion, the broken ends of broccoli – all of which she seemed to enjoy, and Garlic got raisins, fed to him one at a time by Amalthea. And Queenie got the cold shoulder from me and plenty of happy nods from Asael.

For a while, Amalthea and I chatted in soft amazement, wondering about Queenie – whether she could, contrary to all appearances, somehow be alive. And if she was alive, what kind of life did she have? Then our talk turned to Garlic. He had rolled his legs under his belly and was holding his head up, taking the raisins the way a sick person takes spoonfuls of soup – dutifully. Now and again he turned his blind eyes in the direction of one of our voices but his every attempt to stand ended in collapse.

We wondered then if he had really been dead! And if he had been dead, what was that like?
Eventually, with no other thought but to keep my mind from dwelling on what we'd been through, I asked about Garlic's blindness. And that led us, naturally, back into Amalthea's and Rosemary's and Garlic's history.

* * *

Philippa had stumbled across the 'Nothing matters; everything counts' phrase when she was only ten or eleven and had barnacled them onto herself so that, in the remaining months of her life, only those willing to risk a slashing would venture near her. They became a kind of motto that she relished flaunting, more so as it became clear that her illness could not be controlled. Not even Amalthea, her attentive eighteen-year-old sister, was immune from attack.

"Mum and dad," she'd say to Amalthea, "think it matters that I'm going to die. "But it doesn't really, does it, Am! I mean, look!" She'd point to animals on their parents' small farm, Rosemary and Garlic amongst them. "When you take the arrogance out of it, we're just like them. We're born and we work and we produce milk or eggs or cardboard cartons or whatever and then we die! And the sun still comes up, just as fresh and new, every day! Time doesn't stop. Time doesn't bat an eye! Because none of it matters in the big picture! I'm right, aren't I Am'? Go on, admit it!"

She debated with Amalthea because their mother refused to argue and because Philippa's father, in his gentle, smiling way, had retreated behind an argument that he would not abandon.

"We love you, Pip!" he would reply. "Surely that must matter? In the great scheme of things?"

Too smug, Philippa had grumped to Thea. Too smug and adult by half! And ultimately she had, at least to her own satisfaction, found an argument that seemed to suit. "If love mattered to the world," she had carefully explained to him, "then it would change the world. It would be a kinder world. But it's not. Ipso facto, not even love matters!" She'd wagged a cheeky finger in his face. "It does, however, count. It counts very heavily in your favour, young man!"

In time it became clear that he had nutted out a new argument.

"What about believing?" he'd one day demanded of Philippa. "People believe in all sorts of stuff about life and death and the meaning of everything. Does any of that matter?" It seemed that, if he couldn't stop his daughter's body from wasting away, he would fight at least for her mind.

Philippa had thought long and hard on it, eventually answering, "It would be better if we knew, wouldn't it – instead of everybody making up something and hoping they got it right. I suppose it could matter . . . if we knew."

And so he began taking the family on 'belief prowls', dragging them to every church and synagogue and temple and ashram and prayer meeting that he could find. He winkled out Christians and Muslims and Sikhs and Zoroastrians and provoked them mercilessly. And when Philippa had googled the National Association of Atheists, he'd taken them to a meeting there, as well. Sometimes they wheeled Philippa in her chair. Sometimes one or the other would carry her. Amalthea hunched her back as she told me this, as though she could feel the weight of her sister's wizened frame on her back, feel the arms about her neck, feel the tickle of breath in her ear.

"Look at them," Philippa would giggle. "They're hoping like hell we haven't come looking for a miracle! Take me down the front, Am. I want to look into someone's eyes!"

At home, their father searched out internet sites, downloading information on the yugas of the Hindus, on the Fivefold Path of the Buddhists, on the Summerland of the Wiccans and on the Cloud of Unknowing. Once, at dinner, he'd begun a discourse on the axis mundi – the navel of the world, the point where Heaven and Earth are connected.

"This is great!" he'd crowed. "Because the beauty of it is that it's whatever and wherever each of us wants it to be! Wherever / whenever you feel that little prickle of awesomeness and you think, 'Whoa! This is . . . I can't imagine feeling any closer to the centre of the universe than I do right now!' That's your personal axis mundi!'

'For me," he'd beamed, "It's right here, at this table, in this kitchen, when we're all four of us here!" He'd leaned back and waved his arms. "A shaft of spiritual energy, firing right up out of the mashed potatoes! Bam!"

Amalthea, Asael and I laughed at the image, as they must have done at that table, waving their hands through the imaginary beam, crying out in imagined wonder. And he'd insisted they each turn their mind to their own concept of the axis mundi.

Philippa had eventually settled on the goat cart. "You know? Looking at Rosemary's backside as we roll along! That's a whole universe, right there!"

Laughter had rolled around the table that night and, for awhile they'd almost forgotten that one of them was dying much more quickly than the others. Thea, taking Philippa's lead, had talked about sharing secrets with Garlic. But her real axis mundi, the one she didn't want to tell, was the sound of Philippa's voice, chuckling and whispering shocking things into Amalthea's ear as she clung to her back. Their parents sometimes argued for the wheelchair, but Thea lived for that closeness.

Once, in the aisle of a vast cathedral, with their parents walking behind and the solemnity crowding in on them, Philippa'd whispered wickedly, "You know what I'm going to miss, Am? Sex! I would have liked to get old enough for that!"

At the table that night, their mother had demurred for as long as she could but finally, under pressure from all sides, she'd said, "Okay. My axis mundi – not taking anything away from my wonderful daughters – my axis mundi would have to be . . . the men I've loved. For their dauntless cheer . . . and their wisdom . . . and . . . !"

She'd fled the room in tears at that stage and Philippa's father had gotten up to go to her. When he was gone, Philippa'd said to Amalthea, "See? She loved your father too!"

* * *

When Philippa became too fragile and easily tired, they gave up the 'belief prowls' but they'd done their job. Amalthea knew this when, near the end, lying back in the goat cart during a tramp about the farm, Philippa'd said, "Nobody knows what it's about, do they, Am? I mean, everyone's just guessing, right? But you know, what I think is neat is that everybody wants so badly to find some really excellent reason for things! So, I'd never tell him this, but maybe dad's right. Maybe some things do matter. But maybe it's the wanting that matters – even more than the finding out!"

And later she'd reached out for Amalthea's hand and whispered, "Keep an eye out after I'm gone, Am. 'Cause if I can, I'm going to come back and tell you! What it all means!"

* * *

Not once – not even on that last comment – did Amalthea show the least hint of self-consciousness or embarrassment. It just was what it was; a scrabble to open doors before the last one closed. I was grateful for it. It helped explain her easy acceptance of Queenie's peculiarities and of Asael's hallucinations. And the return of poor, blind Garlic, I thought, from a new darkness to his old familiar one, must have made perfectly good sense to her.

When the story came to a halt each of us, barring Rosemary who got up and began to pace the room, sat quietly, immersed in our own private thoughts. I thought about the axis mundi thing, and the 'maybe it's the wanting that matters'. What I wanted, still, was some kind of insight into the forces that had pulled my family apart. But where and when did I feel particularly 'centred' in the universe? I couldn't think of anywhere that remotely qualified. Pale, freckled little arse of a life, I thought!

"Did she ever come back?" Asael finally whispered and Amalthea tilted her head thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure, Asa!" She cupped Garlic's face in her hands and nuzzled his snout. "Not like this fellow, of course. But parts of her maybe."

I was working myself up to asking about her 'real father' and wondering (with a true sense of wonder, I might add) if there was a connection here to the photos of Kevin Truck. I spent some time organising it in my head, not wanting to be too pointed about our having seen the photos. When I had it ready, I drew breath and raised my eyes to hers. She was staring, her forehead creased with concern, across the room at Rosemary who, in turn, was standing with her nose almost to the wall, staring at, for all anybody could guess, a flyspeck.

As we watched her, though, she drew a deep breath, twitched her shoulders, lowered her head and slammed herself head first into the northern wall of the house.

If the crash hadn't already brought us all to our feet, (including Garlic!) the howl from outside certainly would have. My first thought was that the Suttons had returned for another round and I started searching the room for something solid enough to dent thick heads. Nothing came immediately to hand so I fell in with the mad scramble out the door, prepared for hand-to-hand combat. What we found, of course, was Isak Nucifora. He was lying on his back on the grass, flailing at the tangle of a hospital gown which, very obviously, was all he had on.

"Aaaarrrrh, ye mad bastards!" he was roaring as we crowded around him. "Fuckin' shoot a man for bein' in the yard? What's wrong wi' yez?"

His legs were waving in the air, so that his own pale, skinny little arse was out there for all the world to see and his arms were thrashing about helplessly. He looked like a big white rhinoceros beetle, stuck on its back. The little progress he made toward turning over, Amalthea easily defeated, pouncing on him and pressing him into stillness.

"Has someone shot you, Isak? Where? Where are you hurt? Who did it?"

She flipped him unceremoniously onto his belly, looking for the hidden wound, and I grabbed Asael, wondering which side of me to put him on to protect him from gunfire. With no clues to work from, I opted for pushing him down and planting my knees on his back to hold him still. That we believed someone could actually be out there with a gun, I suppose, was a sign of how crazy the whole Harvest Festival weekend had been.

After much argy-bargy, of course, we realised that Isak had been the only one creeping around out there. He'd made it, unseen, to the wall of the house and no sooner pressed himself against it than Rosemary, sensing his listening presence, had slammed her head into it, only inches from his ear. So much for a mad sharpshooter!

I let Asael up – reluctantly. For the few minutes I'd held him down, it seemed like the safest place we'd been in all day! Amalthea and I then untangled Isak from his gown, got him upright and lugged him inside. He leaned on us almost as heavily as he had two nights ago when we'd found him catatonic in the cane. Until he spied Queenie! Then he shook us off like a pair of unwanted mittens.

"Queenie!" he cried, staggering directly across to her. I reached for him, to warn him off, but Asael stopped me.

"It's okay," he murmured.

I believed him straight away which was not something I was in the habit of doing. But he had seemed to know that Sergeant Morrow shouldn't touch Queenie! And he seemed to know that he could touch her. And, obviously, he was right about Isak who, in a flash, was running his hands quite happily down Queenie's sides, as though she was a prize horse.

"I knew you wouldna left!" he was cooing. "Not yet! Not 'til we set things right! You right? They been treatin' you right?" When he was satisfied, he turned to us with a huge smile wrinkled onto his face. "Youse are a pack o' bastards for movin' her. But ye looked after her! So I guess that makes yez an all right pack o' bastards!"

That was when we started to hit him with questions. What was he doing out of the hospital? How did he get here? Did he know people were out looking for him? Why was he still wearing a hospital gown (and could he please do it up properly so we didn't have to be seeing his 'business' end)?

"Bloody escaped, didn' I?" he crowed. "That mob o' bloody vet'rinarians! They got ways o' bloody killin' a man that don' even get talked about, didja know that? Cover it up like that!" He waved a crooked finger at us. "Got drugs te make ye talk, as well 'n' all! Squeeze it outta ye! Like wringin' the juice outta a grape. Couldn' risk that! No way! 'F they knew what I know – what I come to remember since meetin' Queenie – they'd o' gi' me the needle quick as throttle a parrot. Straight away! An' you can bet yer friggin' boot on that!"

Disbelief, I'm sure, was written all over us.

"What?" demanded Isak. "You don' think a ol' man like me knows anything?"

He couldn't have known, of course, that he was number two (after Johnathon Cranna) on my list of people who I thought did know stuff! I'd heard the threats made against him in the hospital and I'd heard him say he knew who killed Gramma G and I'd heard Doctor Dabney warn him: 'Repeat it and I'll have you committed!' Doubt was the last thing on my mind. I fished the ring from my pocket and held it up.

"You gave me this the other night, when we found you in the cane! It was the only thing you hadn't thrown aside. Clothes, gun, water-bottle . . . you'd thrown everything but this! What were you 'knowing' when you did that?"

He held out a gnarled hand and I put the ring in the centre of his palm. He studied it for a few moments, nodding, which I hoped meant memories were being stirred.

"Things happen to ye," he murmured. "Good things – bad things. An' ye don' deserve neither one of 'em. Howja explain that?" Not a question for a quick answer, and not an answer to my quick question. Blinking solemnly, he offered the ring back to me. "Why don't you hang onto it?" When I took it, he sighed. "Yer gonna look jus' like yer gramma, ye are! Jus' like Gracie."

"The things that you know," I pressed as gently as I could, "the things you didn't want to tell them at the hospital . . . about Gramma Grace? Do you really know what happened to her?"

Isak was quiet for long moments. He peered so distractedly into the depths of Queenie, as though watching a scene being played out at some secret level, that I began to wonder if he'd heard my question. Or if maybe his mind was so pickled that he'd already forgotten it. I wasn't going to let the opportunity go, though, and was about to ask him again when he raised his eyes to me.

"Pretty much I do," he said. "That's why I did the killin'!"

* * *

I don't know if the sound I heard was a collective gasp in the room or the sound of the air falling out of me or the sound of Garlic's knees giving way as Amalthea let go of him.

* * *

Ruth and Amalthea stare incredulously at the old man. Everyone else – Asael, Rosemary, Garlic and Isak – turns their eyes on Queenie who has begun to emit a sound. It's a high, crystalline tinkle that _extends and rises, evolving into a shrill, feminine keening. Asael covers his ears,_ squeezing closed his eyes and bending his face to his knees _._

* * *

"You killed . . . Gracie?" Amalthea asked, but he ignored her, carrying on from some middle point in the memory.

"Jus' like he always done to Bessie. On'y worse. Way worse. I come by . . . jus' that bit too late." A sigh rattled into his chest and a tear bobbled at the edge of his eye, immediately disappearing into a deep furrow of flesh. He growled, impatient with himself, and rubbed it out of existence.

"I shoulda stayed with her. But she didn' seem that bad at first, ye know? Jus' all happened so fast! I come in that door right there. An' she uz bowled over, right here! This uz her house, ye know? She looked up at me and I seen blood on her. But not so much, I thought. I thought she'd had a bad fall, maybe! An' then she says his name an' I hear 'im slammin' off out the back! An' I knew what he'd said to 'er at the pub – knew what he said he done! So I left her here. He run into the cane, hopin' to shake me off. But I caught 'im down the back, by the river."

Isak had dropped to the floor as he spoke, to sit, leaning against Queenie. He put his arms on his knees and Rosemary stepped close to him to lick at his fresh tears.

He patted her haunch and said, "You know what I'm sayin', doncha. I beat on that man 'til he cried for mercy. An' I beat on 'im some more. Then I dragged the pointless bag o' shit to the edge o' the river an' rolled 'im in. She had a flow on that week, the river did. Croc's woulda picked 'im up, not far along."

Amalthea and I looked at one another, our eyes wide with disbelief. Garlic's chin dropped to the floor, as though he was too exhausted to hear more. Rosemary had begun to rock herself gently back and forth, like an old woman in a rocking chair with a heartbroken child. And Asael, on the lounge, was doubled up with his hands over his ears.

"Surprisin', the things ye find in yerself, ain' it?" Isak whispered. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his gown before continuing. "I got back to Gracie . . . an' I seen what a mistake I'd made. She was way worse 'n' I'd thought. I got 'er to the hospital quick smart, thinkin' Dabney could fix her. But he let her die."

I got down on my knees beside Isak so I could look into his eyes.

"Was it Les Crampton, Isak? Is that who you're talking about? Bessie's Les?"

He nodded, finishing huskily, "Croc' shit before the week was out. But Gracie – she was gone too!"

"But why? Why would he attack her?"

Isak's back suddenly straightened. He looked around, surprised to discover himself on his bum, whispering to a scrawny, pony-tailed girl. He climbed to his feet and busied himself again with a sleeve, wiping tears and goat lick from his face. I'd risen with him, trying to support him, but my impatience and horror got the best of me. I began shaking him.

"Tell me why, Isak! What did he want from her? Why was he after her? You must have found out from him, before you . . . !"

"I toldja!" he said, pushing me off. "I didn' hafta ask! I knew! Gracie was workin' the pub them days, for Cranna, behind the bar. An' one day, jus' before, that cheeky little bastard – pissed as a newt, he was – he dropped a couple hints, didn' he! Just for her to hear. Jus' to taunt her. 'Bout what he done. His mates shut 'im up quick smart . . . got 'im outta there . . . made like it was the piss talkin'. She told me what he said and I said, 'You gotta tell that to Masher Morrow' an' she was gunna. We was gonna go together. That's why I was headin' over here . . . to get her! But Les . . . he got sobered up, I reckon, an' decided he's gonna tell Gracie he was on'y jokin' an' she best not be takin' it to heart."

Asael was in all sorts of distress by this time, curled up on the lounge, and I should have gone to him or tried to put Isak on hold until I could get Asa' out of hearing. But this was obviously a core part of the story I'd been chasing. I sensed that the Terrible Deed was about to be revealed and there wasn't any way I was going to let Isak off the hook. Not 'til I'd wrung him dry. I left it to Thea to slip onto the couch next to Asa, to try to comfort him.

* * *

"I reckon he uz so used to smackin' Bessie into line, he thought he could do the same with any woman. But your gramma," Isak finished proudly, "she never backed down, ye know! Never a backward step! 'Specially when it come to her family. That's what done for her, I reckon."

"Isak!" My head was spinning with questions but the obvious one was, "What did Les do? The thing he dropped hints about . . . what was it?"

"The rape, o' course! Where this 'un come from!" and he thrust his chin towards Asael.

"Where Asael came from? You mean . . . Rita? Rita was raped?"'

Isak shook his head.

"Not Rita. Bridie! This 'un's hers."

* * *

I almost wasn't surprised! Almost! And I didn't doubt the truth of it for a minute. Once I'd learned that Bridie had been the victim of something awful, my mind had turned already to matters sexual. She's so beautiful. In the photos of her as a kid, she was always beautiful. And the timelines . . . ! And the closeness between her and Asael! It fitted together with an almost audible click.

So I fully believed that I had the answers to at least a couple of my questions. I knew what the Terrible Deed was and I knew who killed Gramma G, and why. But it's a strange thing, I've learned, that answers often just generate more questions. And one of those questions, I thought, looking at Asael curled in Thea's arms, is whether, when you get the answers you seek, you can be at all sure that you wouldn't have been better off without them.

Nonetheless, I couldn't let it go.

"But you were never arrested? Never tried? No charges were made against Les? Why not? And why does everyone talk about it as though it was some big mystery? Some itinerant in off the highway, they say! Why make up a story?"

"Not hard to understand," Isak said. "Not that part, leastways! Folks jus' reasoned that Les Crampton was for sure a bad bastard! He good as confessed, in the pub, to getting' up the Reverend's girl an' his mates were happy to dob him in, once he was gone. An' everyone knowin' how he treated his own woman, no one doubted he done the same to Gracie. A mongrel dog, gone bad in the head, folks said! Now if ol' Isak's gone an' done what needed doin', there's for sure no one in Sugar Town gonna speak against him!"

"So," Amalthea stuttered, like me, more appalled with every revelation, "no one ever . . . talked to you about it? Questioned you?"

"Masher Morrow did, once. I tol' him the story. Tol' him all what Les said in the pub, 'bout enjoyin' the Reverend's girl on Harvest Festival night. An' like I said, his mates backed me up on that. I tol' Masher all about catchin' the little rat-bastard at Gracie's an' all what I done to him. Ol' Masher, he listened to it all then he says, 'Nuh! I reckon he's jus' run off, Isak. He's a 'Missin' Person'! End of story!' "

Isak was back beside Queenie then, holding his hands out to her as though to warm them at a fire.

"For a long time, it seemed like it was the end of it, too. Folks turned into clams," he said. "Protectin' me, ye see! 'Cause nothin' could be done for the Reverend's daughter. Or for Gracie. Or for Bessie, who was well shot of him, as far as the town was concerned. So best thing was to make like nothin' ever happened! Me, I regretted goin' after 'im. Not killin' 'im, but goin' after 'im. I shoulda stayed wi' Gracie. I'da given anything to change that! But ye can't go back, can ye! Nex' thing, I got into the drink. Started stayin' out, under the stars. Ye don' forget, o' course. But if ye work at it, ye can stop rememberin'."

I could hardly get my head around the repercussions of what he was saying! And Amalthea, I could tell – still on the couch, still rubbing Asael's back – was having the same struggle. I couldn't imagine what turmoil Asael must be in, having just discovered that his sister was his mother! Rosemary nosed Garlic's cheek as though planting a kiss and the old buck struggled, with a groan, to his feet, trembling like a newborn. Together, they made their way to Amalthea and Asael where they leaned in silent support.

"So what you're saying is," Amalthea asked, "that, basically, everyone in town knows that Bridie and Asael are . . . ?"

Isak shook his head and looked pointedly at Asael. "Don't reckon he does! Even yet! Look at him."

We did. Asa' was only beginning to come out of his foetal crouch.

"Don't reckon the girl does, neither, by all accounts. By all accounts, she lost her marbles, that night, when she got done over. Or when the sprog was born. Or when her ma died or when the Reverend up an' left. Somewhere in there. An' she never got 'em back. That's what folks say, leastways."

A bit of a light seemed to come on in Isak's eyes then and he became newly animated, walking about the room.

"Anyway, after findin' Queenie out in the paddock – or maybe it was her found me, I dunno – I had this memory, see? First, I seen Gracie – all whole an' beautiful, like she was! An' then I 'membered Les, beggin' me for his worthless life. He says to me, 'We on'y meant to scare her.' See? 'We meant to scare her! We thought she'd keep runnin!' That's what he says. We! I'd forgot that, but that's what he said all right."

He looked grimly over his shoulder at us.

"I gotta piss," he said, and walked out of the room.

* * *

The keening subsides to a manageable level and finally ends. The air is clean again. Asael lifts his hands from his ears, to sample the sound levels, and he sees his sister, Ruthie, watching him with an unusual level of tenderness. He smiles.

" _Did you hear?" Asael demands. "Did you hear it?"_

Ruthie begins to cry. She comes to him and adds her arms to those of Amalthea Byerson, wrapping him tightly. Asael feels very very warm and protected, snuggling there between them.

" _Don't be frightened, Ruthie," he says. "She's only sad. Sad can be fixed."_

* * *

I don't know how much later it became clear to us that Asael hadn't taken in any of Isak's story. Something about a sound from Queenie – which complicated matters enormously for me because it meant that I would have to make an actual decision on how, when and even whether to tell him.

The only explanation I could give him for my tears was, "It's been a big day, Asa'. I must be overtired! We'll go home soon, okay?"

As though that was any kind of a solution.

* * *

When Isak came back into the room it was clear that he'd been through Amalthea's dirty clothes basket and liberated a new outfit for himself. He'd found a pair of her jeans which, rolled at the ankles and bunched at the waist with the cord from his hospital gown, made him look like a half-empty sack. He'd also found a pink t-shirt emblazoned with the words, WOMEN MAKE MEN.

"Hey girlie!" he said to Amalthea. "You pick up my rifle the other night? From out in the cane?"

"Uh-huh," she affirmed. "That and your clothes. We left everything at the hospital."

"Shit! Never get it back from them bastards. You gotta gun?"

"No-o-o!" she said hesitantly. "Why? Do you need one?"

"Yeah!" His tone suggested that she might be an idiot for having to ask. "I'm a bit past beatin' folks to death, case ye hadn' noticed!"

"Oh! Ahh!" she said, as we all turned to watch him. "You're planning on killing someone?"

"Oh yeah! Sooner or later. You got any eggs in the house?"

She rose quickly, moving toward the kitchen, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Anyone in particular in mind? To kill?" she asked.

"Well not yet, no. Gotta find out who else was with Les first." He flicked a gesture toward the lounge where Asael and I sat. "You know! At the rapin'!"

The stunned silence that greeted him, exasperated him quickly. "I tol' you! Me 'n' Queenie . . . we remembered what that little pony's pecker said when I got 'im cornered. He said, 'We'! 'We didn' mean to hurt her.' See? Meanin' there'uz more 'n' one of 'em! An' that means, ind'rec'ly, there was more of 'em in on what got done to Gracie. Ye follow?"

We both looked at him blankly and he rolled his eyes.

"Bloody hell!" he declared, amazed at our stupidity. "It's like talkin' to me foot! It ain' over! That's what I'm sayin'! Soon's I finda ones 'at got away, I'll be finishin' the job! See?"

"But how . . . !" Amalthea stuttered from the doorway. He looked at her curiously, as if she was about to ask how he'd like his eggs. "How are you going to find them?" she finished lamely. "After all these years?"

"Dunno yet," he said. "Can ye scramble them eggs? I really am tonguing for some scrambled egg!"

She began getting out bowls and pans and I could hear her, shakily, breaking eggs into a bowl. Isak came back into the living room to sit opposite Asael and me.

"Whadda yez reckon about this fer an idea?" he said to us. "I go over to the hospital and shoot fuckin' Dabney in the kneecaps. Then ask 'im respeckfully to tell me why he let Gracie die. Who was he coverin' for? 'At might be a place to start, eh?"

And then, restless with ideas, he went to take over from Amalthea.

"Let me do that. Gracie always loved my scrambled eggs. What about you lot? You havin' any?"

"Uh. . . I think I'll take a shower," Amalthea muttered. "I'll have a shower and think about it. Okay?"

He waved her away brusquely. "Yair, you get on wi' your day, kiddo. Don't mind me. Be outta your hair d'rec'ly."

* * *

In the bathroom, she strips off quickly and steps under the warm spray. Before the water fully wets her, though, it occurs to her what a strange series of predicaments she's found herself in. Inside her house, at this very moment, there are three people who she barely knows. One is a self-confessed murderer with a blatant plan to kill again! Another is a fragile boy who's in contact with spirits that even she can't detect and who's been prowling through her stuff! (In fact, judging by Isak's mode of dress this morning, they've both been prowling through her stuff!) And the third is a confused teenager who's just discovered that her sister has been raped and her brother is in fact her cousin.

And then, of course, there's The Thing (or Queenie, depending on who you listen to) which is an issue in itself – an object of unknown origins which, (who could deny it?) has an altogether independent power of its own! Garlic, after all, was surely dead and is now certainly alive! Amalthea, half showered, steps dripping from under the spray, pads across the room and locks the bathroom door.

Chapter 13 – Waiting for Understanding

Sunday, June 4, 1994

Jacob,

Eight and a half months, since it happened! Thirty-four weeks. Two hundred and thirty-eight days. Nearly six months since we left Sugar Town. Two weeks to go 'til the birth. An hour until we leave for our last doctor's visit. Three minutes to boil an egg. One minute for noodles. Seconds until I go entirely insane. I'm sorry, Jacob. I know you want us to somehow place this obscenity behind us . . . and I've really tried. I've tried to find a positive spin – we're none of us permanently injured, a new life is being made, we'll be together again soon, etcetera, etc. It hasn't worked for me! So now I fill my head with numbers and calculations and trivia because they take up a bit of the space that otherwise would simply boil over with rage. I so envy the great, seemingly unshakable faith that you have in the love of God and I wish, I wish, I wish I had just a portion of it! But I haven't. Not any more. If I ever did! Not when such terrors must be visited on children! For what?

But I know that's just me. And it's not about me in the long run, is it?

As far as Bridie goes. . . she's definitely your daughter – eerily, unshakably fine, as she has been all along, since the night it happened – since you first spoke to her about it. You'd be very proud of her. We can only imagine how dreadfully uncomfortable and confusing and upsetting it must be for her, living away from home like this and going through all this change in her body. But, unlike me, she seems to grow stronger, day by day. She doesn't complain, she doesn't object – doesn't even question. Sometimes it seems as though she doesn't even remember! I say you'd be proud of her but, for me, in some ways, she's almost terrifying. I don't know, you see, if it's courage or if something inside her has been so terribly crushed and broken that she simply can't respond anymore! I need so badly to know what's going on in her mind. I asked her at lunch yesterday what she was thinking and she answered, "Ecclesiastes, 44, 1." That's all she said! I had to go look it up. "Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us."

So you see? She also seems to have a mania for numbers, but it's all scriptural references. You'll be happy to know, though, that when she talks, she talks about you and she mentions you in every prayer. She loves and trusts you so much. As do I, of course. If I didn't, I wouldn't have agreed to this charade which, I confess, I still don't fully understand. I'd be there, pulling down the houses and tearing up the streets to find the animal that did this obscene thing. God help me, I would kill him myself if I could find him.

Jacob, I am desperate to know from you what's happened with the police investigation. Have any clues at all turned up? Surely there was something left at the scene – some evidence? Or around the church where he must have been lurking? What about the missing sandals? Did you find the box they came in, to show Sergeant Morrow? I'm sure it's still in her cupboard. Write it down for me, Jacob – all of it – every word – everything that's been done and said and tried, so that I can know for myself that no stone has been left unturned.

Someone, after all, knows who did it. Someone at least suspects. All they have to give is a clue, a hint, a suspicion – something that'll set the police on the right track. Please, please, please, renew your appeal to the congregation, Jacob. Don't let it die. Plead with them. For me. For Bridie. For themselves. Whoever he is, he is a thorn in the flesh of Sugar Town and the town cannot be allowed any peace until he's rooted out!

I know you're going to be disappointed with this letter, Jacob, and that you've begged me not to keep going over and over this. You've seen in my previous letters how I've tried. But I can't help it. Maybe it's not being there – not being able to walk the streets and look our neighbours in the eye and demand that they tell me the name. Maybe it's the nearness of the birth. I feel so useless – so helpless. So frightened. What if the baby's a monster? What if we can't love it? What if Bridie can't manage the next couple of weeks, let alone what she'll go through in all the coming months and years? She's so uncannily calm and serene right now! It's not natural!

(Ten minutes later.) There, you see? I've tramped about the house a bit to try to calm myself. Eighteen steps from this desk to the front door. Exactly half that to the kitchen sink. Ten from the toilet to the edge of the bed where Bridie and Ruthie are napping. I expect the numbers are what I'll most remember about this place.

I'll have to get them up in few minutes. The doctor just wants to talk more to Bridie about what's going to happen. He's really been very good and sensitive in dealing with her, but I think even he is worried about her state of mind.

I know I've said it before but I have to say again how grateful I am that Bessie's been able to help you. We owe her a great debt of gratitude. I don't know if she's mentioned it, but we've exchanged a few letters of our own these past months. I have no doubt that she's guessed the truth – that it's not me who's pregnant – that we haven't taken Bridie away just for psychiatric help. I honestly don't expect anyone will be fooled into believing this baby is yours and mine – not when the assault is common knowledge. Still, I suppose, in a strange way, the silence is a way of protecting us as well – an assurance that whatever story we choose to tell for Bridie's sake is exactly the story they'll support – if not out of respect for your position, then for Bridie's sake and for the new child's sake.

I wonder . . . has Les had anything to say to you about Bessie being out of the house, helping you? It's common knowledge in the town (at least among the women folk) that that man has a foul temper and is blue jealous of Bessie's time and attention. I strongly suspect he's hit her, Jacob! On more than one occasion! What kind of a man does that? In fact, if Bessie hadn't vouched for him going home early from the Harvest Festival, he'd be exactly the sort I'd be casting suspicions on for what happened to us. But Bessie says he was home, dead drunk and asleep, and her word, of course, is golden.

Okay. I hear our girls stirring. Fifteen minutes to get them dressed and sorted. Twenty to the doctor's surgery, if the lights are with us. Twenty-five if they're against us. Once again, I'm sorry for the tone of this letter. You must think I've suddenly lost my mind! But really, I will be fine. I actually think that putting all this down on paper at last has helped a little! Not with understanding – just with coping. Just a little! Please remember, Jacob! Keep asking! Keep demanding! And write it all down!

Love for now,

Rita (and Bridie and Ruthie) (and ? )

(We have one or two names in mind! Nothing certain yet! Something strong, though! We'll get your approval before registering anything!)

* * *

Bridie sits at her father's desk in his study, in the very chair he occupied while writing his sermons. The desk, the chair, the room – she has kept them as he left them, untouched except by the weight of memory. Before her lies a lost letter – one that Bessie had taken away with her when she went, all those years ago.

* * *

" _Why?" she'd asked Bessie when the papers were handed over. "Why take old papers?"_

" _For shame," Bessie had said, struggling to hold Bridie's gaze. "All for shame! Shame for the words in there that say how near to breakin' Rita was, even then. Shame for the kind things she said about me that weren't true. Shame for Rita's need to have it all written down! 'Cause I knew that, one day she'd look back at what she wrote an' . . . she'd know . . . what a bad thing I did."_

" _Bad thing? But you looked after us! When we were in need, you . . . !"_

" _Tsst!" Bessie had hissed through her teeth, waving a hand in negation. "You take this stuff home. Sit yourself down in a quiet corner an' read it. You'll know what I'm talking about."_

Bridie had been nonplussed. Did she really need to know about the weights Bessie had on her conscience?

" _Okay," she'd said softly. "I'll read it."_

" _And," Bessie had added, "if there's anything . . . anything I can do . . . to make it up . . . I want to do that. You only got to ask me. Eh? You were always a good girl, you were. Quiet an' respectful. I'm not expecting your forgiveness. But maybe . . . it's not too late for understanding. Okay?"_

Kevin had halted Bridie outside the back door of the bakery for a final word, gripping her arms. To her surprise, his dark little eyes, usually so filled with merriment, were brimming with concern.

" _Bridie, listen! I don't know what's in these papers. But I can tell you,without even knowing what they are, that some of the things you've forgotten most probably deserved_ _to be forgotten_! Maybe you should just throw this stuff away!"

She'd squirmed in his grip and, "I'm tempted!" she'd said. "But then I think of Ruthie's obsession these days, with our family history. And I think, maybe I owe her some . . . effort! It says in St Matthew: Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with them twain. What do you think? If I go with her twain, will she be satisfied?" He'd had no answer and she'd loosed herself, smiling, from his grip. "It's all right! I mean, realistically, what could be so bad?"

He'd shaken his head: what indeed?

" _Do me one favour then, Bri! Please! Have Ru' with you when you read it!"_

" _Why?"_

" _Why? Because . . . because she'd appreciate the trust."_

Bridie had promised and gone home and ignored the promise. Trust was all very nice, she'd thought. But when all was said and done, Ruthie was thirteen! She didn't need another 'Agnes letter' sprung on her. Thirteen was an age that wanted protecting .

* * *

She pushes the letter aside and stares at the blank surface of the desk. How often did she sit here as a child, in her father's lap, watching the words spill out onto the page, watching the tip of his pen skitter along, barely able to keep up with the eager fecundity of his mind? It was like a form of magic, to know from his writing what, at that precise moment, he was thinking.

But in the last week before he left, she'd found him here once alone, head down on the desk, sobbing like a child. She'd touched him lightly, afraid more for herself and Ruth and baby Asael than for him. He was, after all, a grown man, a man of strength and she only a child. At her touch, he'd sat up and thrown his arms around her waist, pressing his face to her chest. He'd let his large hand slide up her side, over her ribs, under her arm and out onto her breast, all the while blubbering and mumbling into her dress. She'd stood impassively, looking down at him, hands on his shuddering shoulders, waiting for understanding.

This is a new memory for Bridie, but one clear and sharp-edged. Something, she guesses, from behind the wall. And she's still waiting for understanding. Waiting for understanding of his need of her. Waiting for understanding of her mother's letter, brought back to her after ten years. Waiting for understanding of Bessie's motives in returning it. Waiting for understanding of what her life has been, what Asael's life has been. Waiting for understanding of the great hollowness of shame that's opened out inside her.

A second image swims into focus. Again, it's her father's face, but in a form that she's never seen. Not the kind, beneficent face of the man in the pulpit but one with a twisted, broken grimace and a snarl of a voice. 'All wickedness,' it mouths. 'The wickedness of a woman!'

It's a vile image, a false betrayal of her gentle father – not the father she knew. She shakes it away, rubbing at her eyes and rolling her forehead against the cool wooden surface of the desk. Somewhere . . . she has always known this . . . somewhere in her past she has done a terrible, unforgivable thing. Something that has cowered for shame behind the wall. She's long wanted to believe that what she doesn't remember, no one else must remember either. How else explain the continued acceptance of her by the people of Sugar Town? But now she knows. Everyone must know the shame that drove her mother to suicide and her father to flee from his family.

" _If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness," she groans, "how great is that darkness?"_

* * *

Once upon a time, on a night just like this, long, long ago, there was a little girl. And the world collapsed on top of her. It was a night of calamity, which the little girl's father promised would be the worst she would ever know. Be strong, now, he told her. Don't cry. God loves little girls. He loves you, even as I do. He wants to teach you your strength. Make him proud of you!

Whether God was proud of her, the little girl wasn't able to tell. Because, indeed, the Lord did sniff out that little girl in her snug security, and find further ways to test her. Quake after quake, He delivered, until no two stones of the little girl's life stood together. And when she was utterly empty, prostrate and unprotected . . . only then . . . only now, had she been allowed to raise her head. With her mother and her grandmother dead and her father turned away from her.

Bridie sits in her father's chair, looking into the shadows of her life, wondering. Wondering where Asael and Ruthie have gone; wondering where her life has gone.

She rises, leaving the papers strewn on the desk, and goes to the cupboard where Dabney's pills are stored. With them and a large glass of water, she makes her way to her bedroom where she folds back the coverlet, slips out of her t-shirt and jeans and rolls onto her back. For a time, she watches as her breasts rise and fall with her breathing. Rise and fall. Further down, the bones of her hips. Asael would know the names of those bones. Asael, who came into the world from between those bones. Asael, whose name means 'God strengthens'! As though to say, 'You wanted him! Now what can you make of him?'

* * *

Ruthie will be so angry with her, she thinks. Everyone'll be so angry. But that's okay. Anger is okay.

* * *

With Bessie gone back to her caravan, back to Arturo, Kevin sips a late afternoon coffee and reflects on changes the weekend has wrought. He doesn't know what was in the papers she returned to Bridie, but he does know the town shares a certain culpability for the truncated life of Bridie McFarlane.

He walks into the streets, past Bridie's house, hoping against hope to hear her voice and Ruthie's and Asael's – maybe find them sitting in the yard, waiting for the sun to set, talking about the unexpectedness of life. When he hears no voices, he knocks on the door. When no one answers, he turns the handle. Calling out, his concern growing, he allows himself to be drawn into the house. He sees the papers on the Reverend's desk and, berating himself all the while, he reads the letter.

When he finds Bridie, laid out like an offering on her bed, her breathing is already indistinct, her hands limp at her sides.

" _No no no no!" he cries._

Chapter 14 – Choosing Isak

One o'clock came and went and Bridie still hadn't answered my text. I tried ringing her mobile but it went to call service. One of two things was going on there, I decided: either her migraine had completely incapacitated her and she was closed up in the house with all the curtains drawn or she'd gone off to the hospital to get medication for it. Either way, I was utter crap for not being there with her. There was never a day she would have left me suffering on my own.

On the other hand, how was I going to face her, knowing what I knew?

'How's your headache, Bri'? Would it help to know that the boy you've been thinking of as a brother is actually your son? And that everyone in town knows it and they've been nursing the McFarlane delusion for years? Not to worry, though! Iask Nucifora has plans to murder someone over related incidents, so that'll be a nice distraction! Can I make you some camomile tea?'

* * *

I waited until Amalthea'd finished her shower. Isak rattled about in the kitchen the whole while, muttering to himself. Every now and again, I thought I heard phrases like 'kill the bastard' or 'sorry, sweetheart'. It was obvious he was in a state of high excitement and I convinced myself he was probably capable of nearly anything. That thought, coupled with the fact that Asael sat about, playing contentedly with Rosemary and speaking to Queenie as though she and he were classmates – those two things started a conviction forming in my mind. Again, I knew I was utter crap even just for thinking it!

When she finally came into the living room, drying her hair, I guided her surreptitiously out onto the veranda and put it to her.

"Turn him in?" she said. "So you don't believe his story?"

"Yes I do! But the problem now is, you see . . . Bridie! I honestly never expected any of this to be so . . . potentially catastrophic! And I'm terrified what it'll do to her to find out! It's been like, the town's secret for years! Mightn't it be best to just let it go on that way? Look!"

I pointed out Asael, clearly unconcerned and blissful.

"I think Isak was right; he hasn't taken it in! That means it's only you and I and Isak! Nobody else is going to say anything; they've proven that with years of silence! So if we don't talk about it, don't do anything about it . . . it's all over, isn't it? And anyway, he's talking about shooting someone! Maybe it's our civic duty to . . . you know . . . get him locked up!"

I could hear Doctor Dabney's threat to Isak: 'I'll have you committed'! Much as I hated to admit it, maybe Dabney was on the right track.

Amalthea sat down on the step, spreading her hair for the sun. "So," she said thoughtfully from beneath the mane, "your thinking is that it might be okay to become part of the carpet that it's all been swept under? And that if Isak's right, and there were others involved in the rape, maybe those people should be left in peace?"

I didn't answer, hoping that she'd say, 'Yeah, that all sounds pretty right!' But she didn't. Instead she said, "And it would be for the greater good of the community if that old man was shushed?"

I swallowed hard. Why couldn't she just back me up on this? A vehicle turned into the lane and rattled past. It was Alf, on his own this time, going I supposed to investigate the damage done by Queenie.

"You're not a local, Amalthea," I said. "You don't know Sugar Town like I do. Nothing changes here. People get born, people get old, people go away and sometimes people come back. But the guts of the place stay the same. Maybe that's a good thing."

I couldn't see her face and didn't know how she was reacting. I focussed on the dye line in her hair, where the red ended and her rich black natural colour began.

She said, "Well, to paraphrase a wise man, a wise girl should be a lamp unto herself. You know what that means?"

"Of course not. I don't know what anything means."

She side-spied at me through her hair. "It means . . . " she sat back, shook her hair out of her face and gave me a surprisingly fierce look before placing her palm on my chest; same spot Mister Bandini had touched. "It means what's in here has to be your guide. It means that whoever we are – whatever's been done to us – whatever we've done to others – it all becomes part of the light that each of us casts. We have to make our choices based on what that light reveals."

Her touch turned into a vigorous, business-like pat, right over my wishbone, as though she'd straightened out the whole problem for me; and she went back to drying her hair.

"Great!" I muttered aloud. "One more thing I don't understand!"

She laughed. "Come on, now. The world hasn't ended! Make the best decision you can! Just remember, though! The truth will always be there, waiting in the background – waiting for someone to spill the beans! And they will be spilled, Ruthie! Make no mistake about that! But there's nothing to say they have to be spilled by you! And if that's what you want, I can promise it won't be by me either!"

She got up and went inside, leaving me with my dilemma intact and the added mystery of her mixed up bean metaphor. I prowled through the names on my phone, wondering who else I could talk to. Something in my family situation (and more so in my attitude, I knew) had left me without any close friends of my own age. The only people I knew who would give even one hemisphere of a rat's butt about my troubles, or whose feedback I was interested in hearing, were Bridie and Kevin. I played a couple of games on the phone to help clear my mind and, before long, Alf's old Ute came rattling back into the yard.

* * *

"Hiya," he said, leaning from the window.

"Hiya yourself. What's the damage?"

"Not too bad. Thing's gone though."

"Yeah. It's here, inside."

"Yeah? Not dangerous then?"

"Only to some, it seems. Asael carried it here, no problems. But Sergeant Morrow tried to take it away and it shocked him half to death. And then it brought Garlic back to life."

"Yeah? 'At's a good trick!" He got out of the Ute and stretched mightily, turning his leathery face to the sun. At that point, Amalthea and Rosemary came out on the veranda, followed closely by Asael and a very unsteady Garlic, who sniffed suspiciously at the air.

"Be buggered!" said Alf. He stamped his feet, lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his scalp. " 'At's a real good trick!" He gestured toward the Ute's tray.

"Want me to haul The Thing away for yez?"

"I wouldn't mind moving it on!" Amalthea said and we all turned discouraging looks on her. I realised that, at some level, I was as interested as Isak was to see what further wonders Queenie had to offer. "I wouldn't mind but I'm thinking we should let Sergeant Morrow deal with it, Alf. Now that he knows it's here. We're just steering clear of it in the meantime."

"Right, then." Alf opened the door and backed his big bum onto the seat. And almost as an afterthought, he said, "No word on ol' Isak yet. Don' s'pose he's popped up around here?"

Amalthea suddenly found something of concern on Rosemary's shoulder and began fussing. I realised that she was leaving me to answer. Time to make my decision. All I had to do was say, 'Yep, he's inside, making plans to shoot someone.' And the old man would be back in custody before the afternoon was out.

I knew he'd be listening from the living room. I thought of his suggestion for knee-capping Doctor Dabney. And then I thought of the tender way he'd handled Gramma Gracie's ring and given it back to me and said how I looked like her. And how he regretted not staying with her after Les Crampton's attack. And I thought, bugger it! He's more on my side than he is on anyone else's!

"I'd be super-surprised," I said to Alf, "if he could get himself all the way over here! He was in terrible shape last night when we found him!" All of which was true!

"Mmm," said Alf. "Poor ol' bloke. He'll turn up somewheres, I guess."

He reached for his seat belt and, before I realised what was happening, at least one aspect of Amalthea's 'spilling the beans' metaphor suddenly came clear. I needed to see Bridie. If she was ever going to find out the truth about the terrible deed, and odds were that she would, it had to be me who told it! Amalthea, I knew, would be content to let Asael stay and he'd be content staying. I could come back for him. Or she could send him walking, it was no big deal. I'd call her and let her know.

"Hey Alf! Are you going back through town by any chance?"

* * *

It was fascinating to watch Alf's interactions as we drove. One sausage-like finger continually rose and fell from the steering wheel, a greeting for each approaching car. And once we were in town, he added a nod for pedestrians on both sides. Frequently his salutes led to him letting go of the wheel entirely. And each time, he'd speak aloud the person's name, as though in a never-ending rehearsal.

"Davo." The finger lifted. "Arlene." He touched the brim of his cap. "Johnno." He nodded to the side. In the country, everyone's your neighbour and, for an old local like Alf, failing to speak their names, even when they couldn't hear, would have been a dire rudeness.

"Alf," I asked him at one point, "is there anyone in this whole region you don't know?"

"Yep," he answered. "That bastard been selling insurance policies 'round the farms."

"What, you don't know him?"

"Nup! He come knockin' on my door las' week, I says, 'You piss off outta here. I don' know you'."

"And did he?"

"Nup! Still around. But at least he ain' around me!" Alf bobbed his head to the right. "Robbo," he murmured.

"So, but everyone who lives here, or who's been here for any amount of time – you know them, right?"

He scratched at the dark stubble beneath his chin, producing a papery chitter and, "Myrtle," he murmured in the direction of a tiny silver-haired woman. Then, "Old timers, I guess. Know a lot o' them. Grew up with 'em, ye see."

At the town's only cross-walk, a great shambling man stood, booted and hatted in the familiar garb of a farmer who, though it was Sunday, had too much to do to take a full day off. He'd come to a halt at the edge of the bitumen and seemed to be contemplating the distant shore. As we approached, a spry, slim woman stepped out from behind him. Alf brought the Ute to a trembling stop, raising his finger from the steering wheel.

"Geoffo. Marybeth."

They launched themselves serenely onto the bitumen but, instead of crossing, they detoured to the windows of the Ute, Geoff to Alf's side and Marybeth to mine. Marybeth had a pair of blackening welts on one cheek – exactly the sort that might be made by lollies falling at fifty kilometres an hour.

"Ruth McFarlane!" she said, crouching to look in the window. "How are you, dear? And aren't you the talk of the town! Rumour has it that you've upset the mayor rather badly but made up for it by pulling Johnathon from the wreckage of that infernal machine!"

"Am I? Have I? I mean, I don't know! I seem to have been so busy the last couple of days! I really . . . !"

"Of course you have, dear. So nice to be young and full of vim. And how is Amalthea, the poor dear? I presume that's where Alf's bringing you from? I hear one of her little pets has been fatally wounded! So sad!"

"Yes well, Amalthea's fine! And Garlic – the goat – well we thought he was dead, you know, but – strangest thing – he's come back to life!"

"Has he really? Well isn't that interesting? You know, we were just listening to Mayor Lyle talking about that very thing in the newsagent's! Well, of course we were all sceptical you know." She made a drinking gesture and rolled her eyes resignedly. "But you'd know, wouldn't you, love! Because you were there too! He says so! So it's true then! And Lyle says it was the meteor did it! Is that right?"

"Yes. I mean no! I mean . . . I don't know! My brother, Asael, he was holding onto it and they both fell against Garlic and, well . . . Garlic just woke up! Something electrical, I suppose!"

"Now, dear! After nearly two days of being dead, he 'woke up'!" She snorted with derision. "Your sainted father the Reverend wouldn't have dismissed such a thing so lightly I don't think! Do you? Raising the dead? And Lyle says that Sergeant Morrow tried to intervene in some way but was rejected by the Heavenly object and nearly done to death! My goodness! Can that also be true?"

"Well, it did kind of bowl him over I guess!"

"But it didn't shock Asael?"

"No!"

"Have you touched it?"

"Oh yeah! A little! Not much, but."

"What about Amalthea? Has Amalthea touched it?"

"I . . . I don't know! Asa' carried it on his own from the paddock, you see! It's very light, he says!"

"So mainly only Asael can touch it?"

"Well . . .!" I was about to say that Isak practically draped himself on it and survived quite nicely, thank you very much. But I pulled myself up just in time. I hadn't told Alf about Isak and I wasn't ready to tell anyone else, either! Not yet! "Rosemary, the other goat, she rubs against it! No problem!"

"Ah, well, now there's an interesting thing! And tell me, dear, which one is Rosemary? Is she the 'Force Gathering' one? Or the 'Gather in You' one?"

"She's the 'Gather in You' one."

"Is she? So the one brought back to life then . . . he's the 'Force is Gathering' one! My my my! That is interesting, don't you think?"

I had no idea what was interesting about that and was about to say so when Marybeth chirped, "Oh! Excuse me, dear, there's Alice! She won't have heard the news, I don't expect. I'll just pop back and see how she is."

Alice, it seemed, was in a second car that had pulled up behind us. In fact a short queue was building there. In Sugar Town, two stopped vehicles make a town meeting and people were already stepping off the footpath, willy-nilly, for gossip and greetings at car windows. In the side mirror, I watched Marybeth lean through Alice's window and I could hear their excited chatter. Her arm came up to point at Alf's Ute and her head reappeared briefly to check on us. I had the uncomfortable feeling that my name was being bandied about.

I looked to Alf, to encourage him to move off and I couldn't help but tune in on the end of his conversation with Geoff, who was squatting on his heels, gripping the window ledge, rocking the vehicle gently.

"Gone back to the station, they reckon!" Geof was saying. "You know Mash! 'Member two year ago that big concreter bloke, Angelo Ferrari, belted him with a four be two out back o' the G.C.? Would o' killed a black dog, they reckon, he hit him that hard. Took Mash about half an hour to shake it off before he come back lookin' for Angelo."

"Yeah," said Alf. "Reckon when he dies, they'll have to strap him to the slab."

The two men shook with silent laughter.

Then, without another word, Geoff pulled himself to his feet, patted the side of the Ute as though it was a favourite dog, and slouched back to Alice's car. We stayed where we were, Alf contemplatively watching in his own side mirror. He seemed to have forgotten the task of driving.

"News travels fast in Sugar Town, eh Alf?"

"Only thing that does, Ruthie."

He leaned over the wheel, to change his view in the mirror and I looked around the street. On the opposite side was Johnathon Cranna's Grand Central Hotel. ' _Sunday Special!_ ' said the chalk board out front: ' _Chicken Kiev - $11.00_.' And below that: _GET WELL SOON, J.C._ The windows on the top floor were closed and curtained and I thought again of Johnathon's private suite up there where, I supposed, there would be maids keeping the dust from settling while he was in hospital. I was wondering how he'd cope with the two flights of stairs when suddenly an apparition rose up in front of us like the ghost of Christmas past. Rap-rap-rapping on the vehicle's bonnet with a rolled newspaper.

I jumped half out of my skin before I realised, unhappily, that I was looking into the flushed face of a slightly unfocussed Mayor Lyle Hoggitt.

"Ye broken down, Alf?" he demanded, giving the bonnet several more whacks.

"Eh? No! No, jus' stopped for a word with Geoffo, Lyle." He poked a thumb rearwards.

It was obvious that, in working the crowd, the mayor had worked himself right up to the edge of frenzy. His hair and clothes were dishevelled, the little veins in his cheeks were inflamed and his eyes were darting about like a pair of black ants on a drain board. He leaned on the Ute as though defying it to move and, "You!" he stammered, pointing and shaking his newspaper at me. Then he swung it to point at Alf.

"You!" he started again. "You got any idea what this lot's been up to on your property? Bloody assault an' battery, that's what! On a police officer, no less! And an elected public official! Not to mention innocent, unsuspecting boys who only stopped to offer their help gettin' rid o' that friggin' dead goat! An' that don' even begin on the interferin' with government property charge!"

I could see little drops of spit flying from his lips, pattering onto the Ute's bonnet. Passing pedestrians were drifting to a stop and people actually got out of the cars behind us, the better to hear. Alf's eyes rolled lazily from mirror to mirror, to me and back to the mayor. He hung his elbow out the window and leaned his head on his fist, a picture of patience.

"That a fact, Lyle?" he said.

"Too bloody right it's a fact! I was there, mate! A booby trap! Bloody near fried Masher right there on the spot!" He turned his attention back to me, pointing and shaking his rolled newspaper as though hoping words would spill out onto me like droplets of holy water. Then he turned it into a wand to encompass the gathering crowd. "After all we done for your mob! Your father'd be ashamed o' you! Askin' questions! Stirrin' the pot! Where's your respect? Where's your gratitude? Where's your sister? Why isn't she lookin' after you, teachin' you to mind your betters?"

As far as I was concerned, he could say whatever he wanted about me and probably not be too far off the mark. But there was no way he was going to start bad-mouthing Bridie! Bridie, who'd given all she had to this town and been supported by lies throughout it all. Bridie, who someone in this town had taken as a child and slammed into the ground and . . . ! My hand was on the door handle and steam was roaring out of my ears. I didn't know what I was going to say, but I knew it was going to be very loud and very angry and delivered from very close to the mayor's screwed up little face. And then, if I had to get up on the Ute's tray and belt it out for the rest of the gogglers, I reckon I'd've been up for that, as well!

Before I could get a leg out, however, Alf very neatly brought the harangue to a fitting end. He brought his big arm up and dropped it on the horn. The sudden blare threw Lyle's restraining hand up off the bonnet and sent him staggering. A sound very like the sound of a squeezed bicycle horn tore out of his throat. "Waaaaaaaaah!' And his face turned instantly into an ashen sheet, with dark rents where his eyes and mouth popped wide. Alf, his head still resting on his fist, said lazily, "Sorry 'bout that, Lyle! Mus' be a short circuit. You right?"

And then Frieda came, like the force of nature that she was, shouldering her way through the crowd. She swung her gaze around, lethal as a cane-cutter's knife, and the entire crowd shuffled two steps further back. Then she went about the job of straightening Lyle up, patting down his clothes and pushing his hair into place. Only when she was satisfied with him did she turn to look at us in the Ute. Nobody else moved.

"Alf," she said softly, nodding acknowledgement.

"Frieda," he answered equally softly.

"Ruthie," she said, turning her eyes to me.

"I know," I said, with barely any voice at all, "the truth!"

She didn't look nearly as stunned as I'd hoped she would but she looked at me for that extra couple of seconds that seem to indicate someone wants to spit on your shoes. Then she put her hand in the mayor's and they moved off. The crowd cranked itself into its little random motions and Alf, at last, put the Ute in gear. All back on our original trajectories.

The rest of the short distance to my house, we passed in silence, Alf with his lips set in a thin line. When we rolled to a stop at our fence, he nodded to me curtly, dismissing me from the cab. I felt that, before I let him go, I should at least offer my thanks – an acknowledgment that he probably saved me from making an ugly situation even uglier. I turned to him, hands still folded in my lap.

"That was . . .!" and I couldn't think how to do it. So I finished abruptly with, "Thanks Alf," and I opened the door.

"Ruthie," he said and I turned expectantly. "Nobody knows the truth, Ruthie. You might think you do. But nobody does."

I got out and he drove away. I stood there, watching him go, wondering. My understanding was that, with the exception of my immediate family, the truth was common knowledge in Sugar Town. Everyone knew what had happened to Bridie and to Gramma G. They just wanted to keep it under wraps! But even the best of wraps wear out. And that was a truth I was sure of.

* * *

The house was empty. Bridie's bed was messed, which wasn't like her. And there was an empty pill bottle beside it. I began to get a very uneasy feeling. Back through the house I went, looking for her in each of the rooms. In the study, there was a letter open on the Reverend's desk, which was also unusual.

I read it, then sat down and read it again. My hands were trembling but some of the phrases seemed to burn on the page: _changes in her body; crushed and broken inside; fooled into believing this baby is yours and mine._

Shit! Shit! Shit! So she knew! I could only guess she and Bessie had somehow gotten together and this letter was the outcome. I read it through a third time. _What if the baby's a monster? What if we can't love it?_

I thought of Asael, as I was so used to seeing him, cradled in Bridie's arms. And Bridie . . . where was Bridie now? I went back to her room and picked up the empty pill bottle.

The very next thing I knew, I was standing at the front door, at the top of the stairs, gasping for breath, screaming her name. She had to be in the yard! Or working in the room under the house! Or walking back from the shops! She had to be!

* * *

I sat alone by her bed for the longest time, watching her chest rise and fall, rise and fall, half expecting at some point to see it fall and refuse to rise again. People came and went but she didn't move. I'd watched Bridie sleep before. She sucked at it. She was always twitching and making little strangled noises. That time though, in the hospital, she was motionless and still beneath the sheet. Pale and beautiful.

When Asael arrived, he was owl-eyed but ten times calmer than I would have expected. There was definitely a new Asael amongst us by that time. Matron had walked Asael to the room and they arrived at the door at the same time as Doctor Dabney. The two of them, man and boy, stood for a moment, facing one another, each with his hands in his pockets.

"She'll be okay," Dabney finally said.

"I know," Asael answered. His glasses were sliding forward and he twitched his nose exaggeratedly, tilting his head to urge them back into place.

"I mean, I don't want you to be frightened. She's not conscious, but that's only because, right now, we don't want her to be conscious. She's not in any danger."

"I know," Asael repeated.

Dabney stared, meditating for a long moment before drawing forth a hand and grasping Asael's chin, which he lifted and moved from side to side, as though checking a worrisome hinge.

"You been taking your medication, Asael?"

Asael lifted his head away in a movement that could have meant yes or no or nothing at all. Dabney looked in at me then.

"Matron can organise a couple of cots if you want to stay on later."

"How long will it take?" I asked, not knowing what else to say and, before Dabney could answer, Asael said, "Not long."

Dabney looked at him sceptically before placing a deliberate finger between Asa's eyes and pushing his spec's firmly into position. Then he stepped aside and gestured roomwards with his head. Matron's face had betrayed no reaction whatsoever. But she waited until Dabney had moved off.

"Does she know we're here, Matron?" I asked.

"On one level or another, Ruth . . . I'm sure she does."

And then, from out of sight, Dabney's voice rumbled. "See you for a moment please, Matron?"

* * *

He doesn't touch her, doesn't take his hands from his pockets. They are charged, he knows, with an energy granted him by The Thing – by Queenie. He has rubbed her before leaving Amalthea's house and, like a magic lantern she has produced a jinni and placed it within his power. It's a thing she can do. How else explain the revival of the dragonfly and the resurrection of Garlic, who was surely dead? Even the old man, Isak, whose mind everyone said was gone, has been granted a return of his senses. Asael can see the progression from simpler tasks to harder ones and each of them a lesson surely intended to show him the increasing magnitude of her power.

He thinks with pleasure of Ruthie, who saw the truth of things and made him able to see as well. 'God strengthens,' she'd said. 'Your name means 'God strengthens'. Don't be afraid.'

' _And when it comes to the Gathering of the Force,' she'd told him, 'there are three types of people. We have to learn which we are.' He knew she would be proud of him._

So he waits for the moment when Bridie's breathing will falter. When the moment comes, he will lay his hands on her and release the jinni which will make his sister live.

* * *

Asael and I touched briefly, as you do for reassurance, and I gave him my chair at Bridie's bedside. The room had two doors, one into the corridor and one into an external courtyard that was shady and overhung by trees. I opened the door to the courtyard and stepped out. There was a chair and solitude and time to think. Then, from the next room, I heard Dabney's voice.

"Listen! I need you to get on the phone and try to track down Morrow. I tried to hang onto him this morning after that shock he got but he wouldn't have it. He should be at home resting, but he might well be at the station. You know what he's like if he doesn't get to play his part, so we have to at least give him the option of investigating. Did you give her exactly the prescription I ordered the other day? Because if not . . . !"

Matron's voice interrupted him with a command. "Keep your voice down, Doctor!" And then her own fell to a barely audible pitch. I wasn't really listening. They had their jobs to do. A minute later, though, the doctor's low bass rumble rose again into my hearing.

"Bloody stupid business! You know what this is about, don't you?"

"Who ever really knows what this sort of thing is about, Doctor?"

"Don't be coy with me, Matron. You know as well as I do what we're talking about. Listen, when you do get onto Morrow, you'd best mention this letter that Kevin Truck talked about. If Rita named names in it, well, the police need to know about it."

The rumbling continued for a moment then, "Any word on Isak yet? Hasn't been found? Hasn't been seen?"

I figured I knew the answer to that. The voices faded into the corridor.

I sat there, shivering in the shade despite the October warmth. She was going to be okay. Doctor Dabney said so.

* * *

Around that point, I heard a rubbery squeak somewhere in the corridor and Johnathon Cranna's voice. He was apparently getting acquainted with a wheelchair and trying to manoeuvre it through Bridie's door.

"Gimme a hand, will ya kid?" I heard him say to Asael. "I haven't got the hang o' this thing yet."

I could hear the shrug in Asael's voice. "Can't." I'd noticed that his hands seemed to be glued into his pockets.

"Oh! Righto! Fine then!"

I should have gone into the room myself and helped, but I didn't much want to face anyone. It seemed to me that everyone must look at us McFarlanes and think, 'If only you knew what we know!' Or, if they were really up-to-date with the gossip, they'd be thinking, 'You're barely holding it together, aren't you?' I was pretty certain Johnathon would be up with the gossip and I just couldn't bear to see pity in his eyes.

"I heard the commotion earlier," I heard him saying to Asael. "When Truckie brought her in. She gonna be okay?"

"Yep."

"Good. That's good. I heard she . . . kinda had some flashbacks or something. From way back. That right?"

Asael said nothing.

"Deceptive stuff that. Like sometimes you think you remember stuff but it might never really've happened, you know? Manufactured memories, that's what they call it. All a matter of suggestion. People grizzle away at you until you start to lose touch with reality. Might o' bin guilty of it yourself sometimes, eh? You know?"

Asael not only wouldn't have known, but wouldn't have cared what Johnathon was getting at. It did make me think though! Not the 'manufactured' part, but the 'memory' part. It's one thing to have someone tell you something happened and something else entirely to actually remember it happening. I began to wonder if reading that letter could have provoked actual memories in Bridie. Would there be a place in her mind where she actually now had to relive the experience of being held down, having her clothes ripped – looking up into a face or faces that she knew? And if that was the case, could she ever live again, let alone live in Sugar Town?

"So you wouldn' know, would you?" Johnathon was asking in a tone of exasperation. "No, course not. Well . . . you know . . . I thought Ruthie might be here. I know she's been . . . asking around about things – things she imagines might have happened. But she put herself in harm's way for me the other day, at the crash. So, I'm indebted aren't I? Definitely owe your mob at least one return favour, wouldn't you reckon?"

Asael remained quiet and Johnathon gave up the struggle. "Tell you what! When Ruthie shows up, whyn't you tell her Johnathon Cranna stopped by. And tell her . . . tell her . . . ! Ah never mind. I'll catch up with her and tell her myself."

His wheelchair squeaked away and I put my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands and stared down at my feet. Or were they the Reverend's feet, like everyone said – long and boat-like? They certainly weren't Rita's feet, picked down to the bones. For a minute, I thought I was going to vomit on them, the world spun so dizzyingly. If I'd stayed at home that morning – or gone home instead of lingering at Amalthea's – maybe none of this would have happened in the first place! Maybe I'd have talked Bridie out of going to see Bessie. Or at least I'd have gone with her. Then we'd have read the letter together and we'd have shared our shock and cried and hugged and made a plan to protect Asael. As a sister, I was absolutely the most useless piece of crap!

I thought of old Isak, with his own new but hazy crop of memories. Things happen to you: good things and bad things, and you don't deserve either one of them. That's what he'd said. So maybe it was just meaningless Fate that made things happen the way they did: unavoidable, written in our hands. Nothing matters; everything counts. I dug around in my pocket for the ring that Gramma G had had engraved for Isak. He'd said I looked like her. Except, I supposed, for my feet! I wondered if, in a way, by giving the ring to me he felt he was giving it back to her.

I thought of Amalthea, going without question into the darkness of the cane, just to see what was there. And Garlic, who'd gone into the darkness of death and come back but couldn't tell us what was there. I thought of the boys and their eagerness to burn things, of Mayor Hoggitt, quivering with rage in the street and Alf, so calm, resonating with the slow pace of Sugar Town. Johnathon Cranna, Doctor Dabney, Sergeant Morrow, Bessie Crampton and Mister Bandini: all of us and more, locked into a dance. And at the centre, comatose, in a bed just beyond the door, lay my sister, Bridie.

I forced myself to my feet and went back in, dragging a second chair to sit by Asael's side. A short time later, full of forced chirpiness, Dana Goodrich appeared.

"Hey, you two! She's not going to wake up for quite awhile, you know? Not 'til the doc' wants her to. It could be tomorrow. Maybe even the next day."

She bustled about, tidying and smoothing. She uncovered Bridie's feet and felt their temperature before pausing to look down at Bridie's pale, serene face. She pushed hair off Bridie's forehead and touched a cheek with the backs of her fingers.

"She's very beautiful, your . . . !" What was she going to say? Your sister? Your mum? She straggled off on a different tangent.

"And a real sweetie. A little nuts-oid sometimes, eh? But then, who isn't?" She fell quiet and a tissue came out of her pocket, to wipe at a sniffle. If I didn't know better, I thought to myself, I'd say Dana was crying. And suddenly I realised she really was.

"Ruthie," she sniffed, "Asa', I hope you know that all the hard times I give you . . . they're only because I like you, eh? And Bridie. I like Bridie too. A lot! In fact, between you an' me an' the bedpost, I think Bridie's . . . the world's most beautiful . . . perfect thing!" She smiled ruefully and wiped at her eyes. "Between you an' me, mind! Don't you tell her I said that! You won't tell her, will you, As'?"

He shook his head earnestly and she tried a laugh.

"That's good. 'Cause if you did, next time you came complaining about your aches 'n' pains . . . I'd have to amputate your weenie. And then where would you be, eh? Nothing left to play with!"

I knew what she was doing: trying to gee us up, to lighten the situation. I appreciated it. She sniffled, blew her nose, shook a wrinkle out of the curtain and finally came back to us.

"Sorry," she said. "That was inappropriate. Folks tell me I need to get control of my mouth. But I'm so truly sorry things came to this! It's something amongst the oldies, you know! But I can promise you!" Her face twisted and a whole new set of tears came bowling out. "If I had any idea who did her over, back then . . . there really would be amputations happening – without any hesitation at all. They deserve nothing less!"

So the story was already out – from Kev' to the doc' and thereby to the nursing staff. I could have extended it by telling her about Les Crampton, who'd had the entire rest of his life amputated for what he'd done to Bridie and to Gramma G. But that would have meant trusting someone with the news that we'd spoken to Isak and that Isak believed there were others yet to be punished. Others yet to be punished? Both the shivers and the urge to vomit left me for good at that point.

I watched as Dana stroked Bridie's arm lightly and I heard her saying, "Look, she'll be out of it at least until tomorrow. You could go home if you wanted. I'd call if you were needed. No? Well, if there's anything I can do in the meantime . . . or even after this is over. . . anything at all . . . to help the three of you, you only have to ask. Okay?"

I stood up, took her hand and drew her into the corridor.

Chapter 15 - Home

I heard Amalthea and Rosemary come up the stairs. I'd been sitting in the living room, trying to remember the sounds of habitation, the hubbub of my family moving about the rooms. Scuffling amongst the common, daily details of life and squirreling away our secret, private, unsharable little gum nuts of self. Now, without Bridie and Asael, without Rita and the Reverend, the rooms echoed and the closets and cupboards seemed ominously resentful. Amalthea stamped her feet and called out, "Anyone home?"

It was only an hour since I'd left the hospital. Dana'd been right; there was nothing I could do there. But Asael wouldn't easily have been moved from Bridie's bedside, even if I'd tried which, considering what I had in mind, suited me fine. Dana and the other nurses were only too happy to keep him company, feed him, divert him and generally watch over him. So I'd called Amalthea and asked her to meet me at home.

Why Amalthea? I'd thought of Kevin first, of course. After all, I loved him and knew that he loved me and Bridie and Asael. And therein lay the problem. Because love, like truth, is a tricky bastard. Being blind and all! I needed someone with eyes; the sort of person who would go into the darkness, just to see what was there; the sort who would not bow their head and turn away because what was seen or heard or found was other than what was expected.

The door was open. I let the two of them walk in and listened to the click of Rosemary's hooves moving through the house until they found me.

We went to the kitchen: instant noodles for us and some aging broccoli for Rosemary. That was tea. While we ate, I caught her up on Bridie's condition and on Asael's hands-in-pockets stoicism and she told me about Isak falling asleep at her kitchen table. She'd woken him and insisted that he move to her bedroom, out of sight of unexpected visitors. He'd gone, but only after moving Queenie into the room with him. Garlic had joined them and both man and goat had been asleep when she left.

"I gather you decided against turning him in?" she asked.

I pulled the ring from my pocket and put it on the table between us. "This is all that stands between him and the loony bin. This and the fact that we might need him yet. To shoot somebody."

A smile crept across her face. "So, we're here to look? For clues?"

I fetched the letter that Bessie had returned to Bridie – the one that had set off this particular part of my family's crisis – and let her read it through.

She scanned it then went back to the beginning and read it again, this time reading parts of it aloud – partly, it seemed, for Rosemary's benefit but also, I suspect, because it was a way of liberating the words from the prison of the page. I knew then that I'd asked the right person for help.

By the time she reached the end . . . 'Keep asking! Keep demanding! Write it all down! Love for now,' . . . Rosemary had dropped onto her stomach, folded her dainty legs beneath her and seemed to be trembling with misgiving.

"What a terrible way to learn!" Amalthea said. "If she truly hadn't realised or remembered that she'd been attacked, what an awful way to learn!"

"Yeah!" I tapped the letter urgently. "But look! 'Write it all down!' That's what Rita asked the Reverend to do. Everything about the investigation; every suspicion, every clue! There's more stuff that's missing, Amalthea! Look!"

I grabbed her hand and pulled her into Bridie's room to show her the memory box.

"These memories start . . . at the end! When things started to go wrong! I mean, things were wrong when Bridie was attacked, but the family survived that! It's all later stuff – when Les killed Gramma G and Rita died and the Reverend went off to New Guinea – these memories are about those things! They're Bridie's memories and Bessie's memories – not the Reverend's. And even then, there's not enough of them! If Isak's right and names were suppressed . . . where better to look for them than right here?"

So, as ridiculous as it now seems, we began to search my house. We started with Bridie's room, easily the tidiest and emptiest of all the rooms. There were no jewellery boxes, perfumes, letter cases, ornaments, diaries or novels. The bedside table held a lamp, a Bible, an empty glass and the medicine bottle. Even the bed, untouched since Bridie was lifted from it, was only slightly rumpled, as though she'd folded herself into a tiny square, intent on leaving the smallest possible imprint. But there were drawers in the bureau and shelves in the closet.

"Ironic," said Amalthea at one point, "that Bridie, with all her health and her independence and her beauty, should make so small a mark on her space! My sister, Philippa . . . ," (I blanched at the memory of snooping – the little girl with the ruined, wizened body and utter reliance on others to carry her from place to place) ". . . Philippa would have trashed this room. She'd have had everything she owned or ever desired to own represented somehow, out in the open, where she could see it and savour it and remember it."

She sighed. "Goes to show you, doesn't it?"

I didn't know what it went to show but I agreed anyhow. I might have pressed her then for more about Philippa and maybe even about the photos of Kevin, but I didn't get a chance.

"Where's Rosemary?" Amalthea suddenly asked. She'd crept out, it seemed, while we were intent on our task.

"Rosemary?" She leaned into the hall. "Where are you? What are you up to?"

The responding bleat was short and gargled.

"Rosemary!" Thea raced down the hall and into the Reverend's study. "Stop that! Spit it out! Right now!"

Judging by the scrunched appearance of what was hanging from her mouth,  
Rosemary had been browsing in the waste bin. Half of it was already paste, but Amalthea waved the remnant in Rosemary's face.

"What's come over you? You know better than this!" She dropped the salvaged bit back in the bin and tucked the bin under her arm for safekeeping.

"These are people's private papers, Rosemary! For goodness sake! You can't just . . .!"

I never liked that room – that study that had once belonged to the Reverend. It wasn't just that it was a man's room – dark and, even after all those years, faintly tobacco-ish, with a massive old desk, large, sagging armchairs and shelves of sombre looking books. The thing was that, though it was a complete contrast to her bedroom, this was also Bridie's room. She used it only occasionally but when she did, it was purposeful and solitary. Asael and I were . . . not forbidden, but definitely not welcomed when we went there. I'd become so conditioned to avoiding it that being in it made me feel almost as guilty as snooping through Amalthea's things. That room was why I needed her.

"What's all this?" she asked. One whole wall was lined with shelves which were chockers with reference books – mostly theological works. And there were albums! Stacks of personal albums! Twelve, fourteen . . . fifteen of them!

"Sermons, I think."

"Sermons?"

"This was the Reverend's study."

"Ahh! Where the ills of the world were stripped for public flogging!"

I looked at her quizzically and she said, "I've heard stories. A holy terror, they reckon."

She went to the bookshelf and selected an album from the end of the row. It was fat with dated pages, each hand-written in a script that was bold and confident, spattered with flourishes and slashing strokes, highlighted for emphasis. It was his handwriting.

"Have you read them?" she asked.

"No. Bridie probably has. But I've never been interested."

"No? Well! I am! Do you mind if I have a browse?"

"Fill your boots!" I said. "Be handy if he's named some names in there! Though I doubt he'd've gotten away with that! I reckon anyone who blabbed about the town's business – even the Rev' – would've been run out of town on a rail!"

"Mmm! Are you sure he wasn't?"

"What? Run out of town on a rail?"

Strangely, though I'd imagined Isak and Les Crampton and even Bessie being pressured in that way, the idea of the Reverend being rejected by the town banged me on the top of the head like an entirely new kind of egg falling out of the sky! My mouth sagged open with the jolt of it! Amalthea laughed lightly.

"A foolish thought, I know! A much respected man, from all anyone says! Anyhow, at the very least, these sermons'd give you some insights into your father wouldn't they? And it behoves us to know our fathers, Ruth. Even if they don't want to know us!"

With the bin under one arm and the album under the other, she went to the desk.

"Rosemary? You find yourself a cool corner, why don't you. Somewhere where you can't get into mischief! And if I find anything fascinating, I'll let you know. Okay?"

She sat, squared the album away in front of her, tucked a rope of hair behind her ear and wiped perspiration from her palms onto her jeans. The house was so quiet. Why, I wondered. Why would it behove us to know our fathers? Especially if they didn't want to know us! She opened the book and began to read lessons from a man she never met, delivered long ago to a people she hardly knew.

I slipped out, back to Bridie's room where I lay on her bed, in the space she'd occupied and attempted to die in. I tried to imagine what kind of pressure could be put on a man like the Reverend. If he'd made enemies from his pulpit and those enemies wanted him gone, what would they do? How would they bend him? The house snored gently in the afternoon air, a sound punctuated occasionally by Amalthea, speaking to Rosemary.

"Why are there so many 'whys', Rose? Did you ever wonder that?"

It seemed she was working through thoughts, just as the Reverend must have done in that very room.

"Well why would he get upset about that? I mean, we're only human, for God's sake!"

I imagined Rosemary nodding a sad condolence. Outside, the sky was the colour of chalk.

* * *

A slow flip of the pages reveals that the dates in the album are all from l984. _Each date is_ followed by a brief introductory description of the sermon's purpose. Some were for funerals, some for weddings, some for christenings. Some were comments on what was happening in Sugar Town or elsewhere in the far-flung world. It takes Thea short minutes to realise that, in those private notes – notes that only he would have read – names are indeed mentioned! She's entranced. In her hands, it would seem, is a conscientiously constructed record – one man's view – of the blessings and _iniquities that were visited on the people of Sugar Town in the year of l984._

" _Nineteen eighty-four!" she whistles. "Twenty-four years ago! That's the same age as our trail, isn't it, Rosemary?" Rosemary flaps an ear lazily and Thea smiles._

Thea is not daunted by the age or the faintness of trails. She has, after all, found and followed the thinnest of trails; one that's led her far up the coast of Australia, to a tiny, improbable town called Sugar Town and a baker named Kevin Truck, with no other intention than to make the casual acquaintance of a man who might be her father. Because it's important to know the father – to know him for who he is – even if he never chose to know the daughter.

Deeds done, visions seen, vengeances sought. The pale, freckled little arse of the world! She doesn't fear any of it.

* * *

1984, by all accounts, was a fine and fruitful year in the Reverend's eyes. The sermons are those of an enthusiastic young preacher in love with his congregation and his learning and his new wife. 'Love is the fulfilling of the law', Amalthea sees highlighted on one page and, on another, 'A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved to me.' 'Let us solace ourselves with loves.'

In May of the year, he records the birth of 'a precious daughter' – Bridie – celebrating it with a lesson on the responsibilities of parenthood, and the duties of children: 'Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us.' ('No mention of mothers?' Thea thinks.) She thinks of her own mother, stoically alone in childbirth while the father that begat the child was somewhere else, at an entirely unrelated labour of his own choosing.

She puts 1984 back on the shelf and moves thirteen books to the right. 1997. 1997 was the infamous year; the year when the fabric of Sugar Town began to unravel.

The first thing she notices is that the handwriting is different. The bold, flowery script has been exchanged for one that's small, meticulous and exact, done with the lightest of touches. The 'I's' are capped with precise little circles and the capital letters are printed. I _t's the writing of a child._

Amalthea fetches the goat-nibbled sheet from the waste bin. It's one of half a dozen relatively freshly crumpled papers, on all of which the handwriting is recognizably the same as that in the book. Bridie's writing. So she was helping her father! Working as his scribe at the ripe old age of . . . what? Twelve? Thirteen?

Thea smoothes the paper absently as she tries to picture the process – the tall man stalking about the room, pausing to read over the child's shoulder. Or did he merely make rough notes that she later, alone in her quiet time, transcribed for him? An act of devotion, perhaps.

Thea flicks on through the album, glancing at dates and titles and introductory notes. It slowly dawns on her that, in the years between 1984 and 1997, more than the handwriting has changed. The Reverend's once companionable and celebratory tone is gone and his sermons now pulse with barely coherent rage. The notes to one, entitled 'Insidious Destruction – What are Your Children Reading?' condemns teachers at local schools for issuing novels that deal with witchcraft. Another ('Pagan Ritual and Satanism – Have We Become Druids?') vilifies the mayor and his council and the entire farming community for endorsing the Grand Gourd as chief icon of the Harvest Festival. In 'Lust, Lechery and Fleshly Temptations', a tirade is unleashed on marital partners who stray into other's beds. That topic, ramblingly, is connected to the rumoured issuance by hospital staff of 'morning after' pills to careless fornicators. In yet another, (Discipline and Public Order – Who is in Control?) the police receive a drubbing for failing to curb drunkenness and casual domestic violence in the community.

It's the tone of a burnt out teacher struggling to correct a disaffected class. Sundays with the Reverend, Thea thinks, cannot have been easy! And yet, in these records, all that anger has been channelled through the hand of a child!

* * *

I was all but asleep when Amalthea wandered into the room, carrying one of the albums. Almost an hour had passed.

"Listen to this, Ruth! "Husbands, love thy wives and be not bitter against them. Woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him."

I shook my head. "Yeah? What about it?"

"It's from a sermon on the virtues of loyalty, patience and forgiveness in family life. Guess whose name is mentioned in the preliminary notes. Les Crampton!"

Again I shook my head, not understanding.

"Heaps of these sermons are aimed at someone or something specific in the town! He's written private notes on each of them! And people are named in the notes! This sermon barely stops short of publicly naming and shaming Les Crampton! And it comes within a whisker of inviting neighbours to intervene! And listen to this!" She flipped pages and found a highlighted section.

"There's a reference here to 'men of deep learning but shallow spirit'. 'Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.' Guess who! Roger Dabney! It's a sermon about arrogance and abuse of power!"

I swung my legs to the side and she sat beside me, opening the book between us.

"It's Bridie's handwriting!" I said.

"The sermons, yeah. 1997! She was his scribe. But these notes are in his hand! Look here! Johnathon Cranna got a mention!"

She flicked a page and picked out highlighted bits. " 'We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.' And again, 'Let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.' Can't quite figure whether he's flattering or knocking with that one!"

Even Kevin Truck was there, mentioned in the notes of a sermon that rambled confusingly over topics such as trust, loyalty, opportunism, intimacy, confiding and disappointment.

Amalthea read, "'Let us take our fill of love until the morning, for the Goodman is not at home; he is gone a long journey.' What about that? And this: 'They were as fed horses in the morning; every one neighed after his neighbour's wife!'"

"What does it mean?" I asked.

She shook her head numbly, staring at the words. "Nothing very nice, I think." Then she flipped the page abruptly and slammed the book closed.

"Questions without answers!" she snapped. "Come on."

She headed back to the study and I straggled along behind.

"This is 1997," she was saying as I caught up. "There are three albums left. Supposedly they'll be 98, 99 and two thousand."

I did the maths quickly. Gramma G was killed in June of 1998 and Asael was born the following month. Rita died early in '99. Bessie Crampton was with us from '99 to '02 but the Reverend left, and so the sermons ended, in two thousand. It occurred to me that, if there were revelations about his leaving, they might well be in that last album.

It didn't escape me that, while I was handling the books, Amalthea was quietly removing one of the sermons that we'd just looked at in 1993. I didn't say anything. I knew it would be the one mentioning Kevin and I figured I owed her at least that – for having snooped in her memories, if nothing else! I picked 1998 off the shelf and she took both 1999 and 2000. She sat at the desk and I sat in the big armchair.

Two things were immediately obvious to me. Firstly, the sermons were in the Reverend's own handwriting all the way through to September. The months before must have been when Rita had us in Brisbane, waiting for Asael to be born. After September, Bridie was scribing for him again. And, secondly, true to what he'd told Rita in his letter, the Reverend's anger never faltered. The congregation, tasked only with figuring out who he was cutting to pieces on a given Sunday, must have found the services appalling to sit through.

The last sermons were more subdued. Resigned. Gramma Grace was dead and, somehow, so too was his fire.

'So fight I; not as one that beateth the air . . . lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.'

A castaway? Was he already planning his escape to New Guinea? Or was he just going crazy! Mad with grief or disappointment or too much thinking. Perhaps he'd used up all the targets in Sugar Town and had only himself left to focus his wrath on! Whatever the case, I realised that his accusations were far too all-encompassing to be useful to us. We needed information from a sniper – not from a shotgun enthusiast.

* * *

I was drifting through these thoughts, immersed in the big chair, when Rosemary suddenly catapulted to her feet, staring distractedly from side to side and flapping her ears.

"That's what you get," Amalthea scolded softly, "from eating people's private papers, Rosemary! Bad dreams! And serve you right!"

Then a heavy step sounded on the outside stairs. Followed by another and another. Someone . . . someone much too slow and deliberate to be Asael . . . someone who Rosemary's sixth sense was definitely not comfortable with . . . was about to knock on the door!

Despite the fact that I was in my own house, I suddenly felt as guilty as a fox in a barnyard – or, in this case, the Reverend's private space. The footsteps reached the landing and paused. I waited for the knock, but it didn't come. Instead, there were faint clicks as the outer door opened and closed. Whoever it was, was standing in the kitchen! The thought crossed my mind that this would be what a real 'blow-in' off the highway would sound like; someone come to bludgeon two girls for no reason, as one had supposedly done to Gramma G. I had an impulse to hide! Amalthea, happily, had an altogether more useful impulse as, very stealthily, she tucked the 1999 book away in her shoulder bag, leaving 2000 open on the desk in front of her.

There was the sound of shuffling footsteps and soon a shadow slithered along the floor into view; elongated head, shoulders, torso and legs making their slow, silent way past the study door. Then an actual foot and, finally, a dark, solid figure appeared. He side-spied Amalthea sitting at the desk, did a double take and limped to a halt. His eyes clicked from left to right, capturing Rosemary and me in a glance.

It was Sergeant Morrow – nervous, suspicious and barely fit, it appeared, to be out and walking around. The hand he raised to his hat trembled visibly and the rest of his body seemed unsure of its ability to stay upright.

"Sergeant!" said Amalthea brightly. "I surely did not expect to see you out on the beat this afternoon! That shock you got this morning looked like it might've killed an ordinary man! You all right, then?"

He lifted his cap and his head shook 'no' even as his voice said, "Yair, good."

He gave me a disparaging look. "Thought you'd be with yer sister." I wagged my head and said nothing.

"I come to . . ." He looked around, dazedly; just the way you'd expect a man to look only hours after his neurons had been zapped by an exotic chunk of space debris; and then seen a goat that he had just touched and recognised as being stone cold dead . . . open its eyes and wink at him.

"I come to see about the pills. 'Parently there were pills."

His voice carried barely an inflection and his hands twitched at his sides, like those of a washed-up gunslinger.

"In the bedroom," I said. "There's a bottle. I'll get it for you."

"Good," he said, without much interest. And twitching a glance at Rosemary, he asked, "Which one's this?"

"This is Rosemary. Rosemary, say hello to . . . !"

"Not the dead one?"

"No, no, Garlic's the dead one. And even he's not the dead one anymore, it seems! Is he?"

"Not wearin' their signs."

"No, well! What with recent events, we're thinking we might need some new signs!"

She cast an enigmatic smile which made him lift his head and cock a suspicious eye. Just checking, I suspected, to see if she was taking the piss. Amongst the many things capable of provoking Sergeant Morrow's wrath, taking the piss ranked very highly indeed.

"You pair," he said, flicking his eyes abut the room, "yer magnets for trouble, aren't yez? The old man. That space junk. Brawlin' wi' them footy boys. Askin' questions about things better left forgotten. Now we got a suicide attempt. What's it gonna take, eh?" He hooked a thumb through his belt, next to his pistol, the better to steady the hand, and locking eyes with Rosemary, he demanded, "What you doin' here?"

By the end of that little speech, my back was well and truly up! This was my house and these were my friends! And in a free country, I could ask whatever questions I felt like asking! Not to mention the fact that the 'attempted suicide' was my sister! Anxiety, territorialism and frustration, combined with, I confess, my native bad temper, turned into a fist that had me by the scruff of the neck and half out of my chair before Amalthea stymied me. She did it by banging her palms on the desk and demanding, much too loudly, "Here? What're we doing here?"

It was like she'd been waiting all afternoon for a chance to explain.

"We're helping our friends, Sergeant! When Rosemary and I heard how serious a turn things had taken for Bridie . . . we just had to come see what we could do for Ruth . . . who you can see is absolutely distraught, poor thing!"

Everyone looked at me and Amalthea waggled her eyebrows encouragingly. I wasn't sure what she was up to but I turned the corners of my mouth down and sniffled obligingly.

"You see? And Rosemary and I – and Garlic helped, of course, but mostly Rosemary and I – we had this brilliant idea! To contact their father!"

"Their father! The Reverend?"

"Exactly! I mean, a father would want to know, wouldn't he? That his family was in such turmoil? And if he knew, surely he'd be back in Sugar Town in a jiffy! How good would that be?"

"Back in Sugar Town?"

"Exactly! The problem is, though, the only person who knows how to contact him is Bridie! But there has to be something written down, you'd think! A phone number, an e-mail address . . . something! So that's why Rosemary and I are here with Ruth. Just kind of . . . ferreting through the stuff! Standing by the family! As friends do!"

She emphatically patted the 2000 album still open on the desk in front of her, drawing his eyes to it. By the look on his face, you'd've thought she'd said she was there to eat frogs.

"You find anything?"

"Well there's the serendipity, Sergeant! No contact details! Not yet, anyhow! But what we did find was these books of sermons!"

She helpfully indicated the row of albums on the bookshelf and, from the shrewd look on her face, I began to understand what she was doing. Isak had declared that guilty men – rapists and murderers – still walked the streets of Sugar Town. And if that was so, someone was responsible for 'closing the books' on those people! Amalthea, it seemed, was about to give the Sergeant's tree it's second big shake of the day.

"Did you know," she went on, patting the open book, "that the Reverend wrote private notes on each of his sermons? A little week by week commentary on the good, the bad and the ugly in Sugar Town! And what's really fascinating is . . . he's put in names! Lots of townspeople's names!"

A small furrow formed on Sergeant Morrow's forehead, rising from the bridge of his nose.

"Hey!" she continued, as though it had just occurred to her. "You know what just occurred to me? Because they're so detailed and . . . it looks like one album for every year he was here . . . they might be really great evidence! Like even stuff about the attacks on Bridie and on their grandmother! Wow, Sergeant! Imagine it! The answers could've been right here in this house, all this time!"

The policeman stalked over to the desk and turned the album. The crease in his brow deepened as he flipped a couple of pages and grunted, a small surprised sound.

"All dated?" he asked.

"Seem to be, yep!"

"With names?"

"Yep!" She smiled and wagged her head flightily. "Not as good as police records of course but gee! I bet they'd be interesting reading for anyone who was . . . you know . . . just trying to get an idea of who did what to who! Don't you think!"

He went to the bookshelf and confirmed for himself the organisation, flicking open one after the other, checking dates. He came to the last one, 1997, and the empty space that followed. He looked to the book I had in my lap and the one open in front of Amalthea on the desk and his lips moved as he did the calculation in his head.

"'98 an' '99," he said, bobbing his head at our books. "Rev' left in 2000, as I recall. So this's all of 'em?" His voice was thoughtful, empty of its usual brusqueness.

"Well, that's all that's on the shelf, so I suppose . . .?"

He looked at me for confirmation and I shrugged exaggeratedly, leaving him to reach his own conclusion.

He closed 1997, sighed deeply, rubbed the bridge of his nose and put the album back in its place.

"Finished the year after the . . . ! When . . . !"

He stopped. The whole town would know by now, from what I'd said to Frieda in the main street and from Bridie's overdose, that the stories of the rape and of Bridie's and Asael's unorthodox relationship, were no longer secrets. But Morrow, to his credit I suppose, was still intent on treating the topic with delicacy. I made my chin tremble and sniffled into my sleeve.

"Revelations," he said, twisting his mouth into what passed for a smile in his world. "The Reverend was always big on Revelations."

It was obvious that the collection was something new to him – something that was stretching his imagination. New things meant change, and change meant challenge and challenge always came back to being something for him to deal with. After a few moments of stillness, he took 2000 from in front of Amalthea and 1998 from me and put them back into the empty space on the shelf. He didn't check their dates and, if the two books didn't quite fill the space, he seemed not to notice. He drew a deep breath and began methodically to crack the knuckles of his hands, one after another. Then he turned his cold gaze back on Amalthea.

"An' you didn' find that address?"

"The address? No! We got so distracted with the sermons! Has to be here, though, doesn't it? We'll just keep looking, I guess!"

He shook his head. And to me he said, "Sorry, kid. You 'n' your brother . . . gonna have to clear off for a day or two. Gi'me time to check through this lot. Investigate. Make a list. Get you to sign it. Should be your sister but you'll have to do. Right?"

I sniffled and whimpered a bit. There was no way Asael and I would have spent the night there anyhow; especially having been offered beds in the hospital, near Bridie. Still, why make life easier for him?

"Maybe your 'friend'," he said, flicking a glance at Amalthea, as though she wasn't really a friend at all, "could put yez up. Or I could book yez a room at the G.C. On the gov'ment, o'course."

"S'okay," I said. "We'll work it out for ourselves, thanks." I sniffled some more and gave him a calf-eyed look which never touched him..

"Right, then. Settled. So I'll 'ave this pill bottle, eh. Then youse can get about your business. Somewhere else. Let me get into this lot."

We both rose and Rosemary danced a little jig, tapping her sharp little hooves, a movement that distracted Morrow just long enough for Amalthea to swing up her shoulder bag without revealing its weight. Before we reached the study door, however, he barked her name, bringing her to a guilty halt.

"That piece o' machinery." We waited while he collected the rest of the thought. "I'll be sending someone 'round for that."

She nodded, put a dramatically supportive arm around me and, smiling sidelong, guided me out of the house. Rosemary raced ahead into the yard, licking up fallen frangipani blossoms and, as we left the stairs, Amalthea formed her lips into a "Shhhh!". We walked off into the street, past the patrol car. The weight of 1999 was bumping between us and the weight of Sergeant Morrow's gaze was heavy on our backs.

* * *

I wanted to stop in the park just a hundred metres up the road. We could sit on the kids' swings, I thought, and begin reading through the papers she'd pilfered. But Amalthea said no.

"If he realises we've short-changed him, he might come looking for us."

So where to go? Her place was too far, she said, and the hospital was too busy.

"We should go to Kevin, at the bakery," she suggested and I had a feeling it was the only option she'd consider. But I was good with that. All being well, Bessie, having planted her poisonous remembrance with Bridie would have cleared off, back to Mister Bandini – perhaps even have left town. And Kev's brain would be available for picking. All in all, it seemed a good choice.

Chapter 16 – Allies

Sunday, sunset: the air softening and sweetening; the palm trees sighing with relief. Of course the bakery was closed. The delivery van was there, at the back, but the motorcycle was gone. I tried the door which, though locked, was quickly opened from the inside, revealing the owlish face of Frieda Hoggitt. She had both a frown and a dusting of icing sugar on her lips but she crooked a welcoming finger before popping that same digit into her mouth. She sucked it, inspected it and, as we filed past her, moved on to suck all the others before brushing them lightly against her frock.

"Mood food," she said, closing the door behind us. "I eat when I'm agitated. Tempt anyone?"

Amalthea and I both shook our heads. "No thanks, Frieda. We're just were hoping to catch Kevin . . . ?"

"How about 'It'?" interrupted Frieda, tilting her head in Rosemary's direction.

"Rosemary?" Amalthea shook her head firmly. "No, none for her either. Is Kev' here?" Stolidly, Frieda climbed onto a stool at the work table and folded her arms.

"Nope. Just me."

Amalthea and I looked at one another. Should we head off for her place or hang about and wait? That hesitation provided all the space Frieda needed.

"Don't tell me. I'll bet youse are here about this mess Bessie's brought back, aren't you?" She fixed her eyes on me. "I suppose Bessie's how you come to know 'the truth', is she?" She made little quotation marks in the air.

I shook my head.

"No. I come to know the truth because I overheard Doctor Dabney tellng Isak Nucifora that everyone knows who murdered my grandmother! And me wanting to know who is no fault of Bessie's."

Frieda was a big woman, tall, broad shouldered, with an impressive girth and breasts the size of pomelos. Her face was square and hatched with the faint lines of someone who laughs often and heartily. But she wasn't laughing then.

"Hmm. 'Who', is it? Not 'why'? Or maybe you learned that too while you were 'overhearing' things?"

I could see she was establishing the boundaries of my knowledge – whether I knew a truth or the whole truth.

"Not fully, no. But I learned what horrible thing someone in this town did to Bridie, years ago!"

Her eyebrows arched doubtfully. "Roger Dabney talked about that?"

I blinked my best 'go ask him yourself' look, not yet ready to share all my sources – particularly if it involved dobbing in Isak. She stared into my silence for long moments before gesturing toward Amalthea.

"And so you've decided to share all your new knowledge with this one, have you? With her goats and her signs and her . . . I don' know what all! What's her part s'posed to be in all this?"

"I have no part in it, Frieda. I'm an outsider, remember?"

"You bet I do! The question is, do you! Because here you are! Stirrin' this girl along, I don't doubt! Not caring that no one gives a fiddler's fart for your opinion! It's how people judge themselves that counts. Don't you think?"

"I think it's easy to hide in lies, Frieda."

Frieda stretched out a leg and tapped her foot thoughtfully on the floor before pushing herself to her feet and stomping purposefully to the big fridge. When she came back, she plopped a cream bun on the table and wagged a cream-tipped finger in the air.

"So! Young, attractive, single woman, camping out in a little backwater town. Why, we ask ourselves! What's she expecting to find here? A good man?" She laughed sardonically. "Career opportunities? Escape? What? What've we got that she wants? What's she here for?"

I had no idea how or why we'd bounced from what I knew to what Amalthea wanted, and I had half a mind to tell Frieda to mind her own business; or better yet, to go away and let us get on with ours! Even though I was dead curious to know what Amalthea would answer.

"She likes small towns," she said.

"Oh yeah? Now that's curious! Because you know what this small town has to say about her, don't you? That she's a screw loose? A screw loose and a loose screw! They say half the men in town have been in her pants and the other half are just waiting in line! What do you think about that, Thea?"

Amalthea didn't so much as flinch. She leaned forward and bobbed her own un-creamed finger under Frieda's nose.

"In the first place, Frieda, who she lets into her pants is her business! Even so – since you seem so interested – she can promise you, the only person in Sugar Town who's been within a mile of her pants is her! But why let the truth get in the way of good old-fashioned xenophobia, eh? Like I said, it's easy to hide in lies. If hiding is what people're into!"

The two women sat facing one another for a long moment, nostrils flaring. Then Frieda snatched up the cream bun and ripped it in two. I thought for a second that she might push half of it into Amalthea's face but, instead, she held it out between them, propped on the little upright pillars of her fingers.

"Too bad she's an outsider, you know!" she said, her face slowly creasing into a poorly constructed smile. "I think she mighta made an almost acceptable local – with the right training and guidance."

She swung the half cream bun closer to Amalthea. An offering.

"And I think you are part of this, Thea! Whatever you say! Just how remains to be seen!"

Something, I wasn't sure what, appeared to have passed between them, even before Amalthea grudgingly accepted the pastry. Then, slouching wearily, Frieda began again the sucking and inspecting of her fingers.

"So . . . Bessie Crampton," she said between slurps. "Voice from the grave, that woman, if ever there was one, eh? Poor Bridie! Be better off – we'd all be better off – if she'd kept her secrets to herself!"

She gestured defencelessness and left us a space to add our comments.

"I guess we'll never know," said Amalthea.

"No. I suppose not. Anyhow, Kev's shot off over to the showground to let the old busy-body know what damage she's done. My words, not his. Me; after I heard, I just had to get out o' the house; find some solitude. And Kev' was kind enough to let me come here. And where better, after all, eh? To inspect your . . . memories?" She blinked wetly and tongued a helping of cream off the bun.

I began to fidget. Kev' could let Ned Kelly have the run of the place if he wanted to! His privilege! But listening to Frieda's whiney self-indulgence wasn't high on my list of priorities.

"So do we know when he'll be back?" I asked.

Frieda looked at me levelly, sucked a last finger and gave me back my 'go ask him yourself' look. Then she picked up the remaining portion of pastry and pointed it toward Rosemary. On receiving an eye-rolling nod from Amalthea, Rosemary plucked it daintily from Frieda's hand.

"She's got nice manners, your goat."

"For an 'outsider', you mean?"

"Hmph! What about the other one – the billy? Lots o' people saw him get brained at the lolly drop. Common consensus was, that was a dead goat! Now rumour has it he's walking around, big as life. That right?"

"Not walking much yet, but big as life, yes."

"And it was a space thing, the meteor . . . or young Asael . . . or the two of them together . . . that did the deed? Brought that billy back?"

Amalthea sighed. "I don't know what brought him back, Frieda."

"No? Bit of a mystery then. Like Bessie. No telling what brought her back, either!" And finally, she seemed to tire of being evasive and unhelpful.

"So!" she said, turning to me. "Ruth! Here's what I can tell you. We did all know who killed Grace – eventually. As you obviously do now too. And the attack on Bridie – we knew 'bout that, eventually, too. Just nothin' straight away. Jacob – he never actually talked directly about anything! Round 'n' round like a bloody dervish, but nothing clear, know what I mean? That was his way. If you didn't get the proverbs, you like as not didn't get the message. Even when he sent Rita and Bridie away a couple months later – and you, o' course – we still never made the connection. But when yez came back, months later and Rita carrying that baby boy, for all the world like he was hers – well! Let me tell you, no one believed that bit o' razzle dazzle!"

"You all knew so much," said Amalthea, echoing my own perplexity. "And yet no one actually did anything about it!"

Rosemary had finished the pastry and Frieda held out her fingers, this time allowing Rosemary to suck them clean. A long, slow breath eked out of Frieda.

"The small town way, Thea – the Sugar Town way – is to give people their space. Sometimes, 'specially when you don't know if what you know is true, you have to look away."

"A little girl was raped!" Amalthea hissed. "How do you 'look away' from that?"

"I just said! That part we didn't know!" The answer came quick and sharp, like a poke with a stick. "You see? We didn't know! An attack, we knew, sure! But what does that mean? Her boyfriend touched her up? Her daddy spanked her? What? She had no cuts no bruises, no broken bones! We followed the Reverend's lead, like we always did! That was his job – to lead! How were we supposed to know he was . . . bloody walking in circles?"

"How pathetic!" Amalthea sneered. "You chose to follow a blind man! Don't you dare blame him for where you wound up!"

They glared at one another, chests rising and falling as though they'd run a race.

"He preached horrible angry sermons against the town!" I said. "Surely that must've told you something?"

She shrugged. "He was a dissatisfied man, was your father. Even before that time! Full o' rages we didn't always understand. Like I said, we gave him his space."

"Okay. You gave him space!" I protested. "But why keep the silence going, even after it all became clear?" I drew a deep breath and edged as close as I dared to breaking my self-imposed pledge to protect Isak. "After people knew about Les attacking Grandma! And then about what happened to him? I mean . . . two people got murdered, Frieda! How could anyone be given that much space? Surely the Reverend didn't lead in that?"

She leaned back and stared at me. If she'd asked how I could know about the second murder – Isak's murder of Les – I was simply going to challenge her to deny it. But she didn't ask or deny. Instead she pushed Rosemary gently away with her foot and stood up.

"Just seems to get worse and worse, doesn't it?" she said quietly. "But you have to remember, even what happened to Les was – still is – only hearsay. Nobody actually knows anything, eh? Beyond the fact that Les was a bastard of a man! But still, it's still the best fit! And if he did what it seemed like he did, and if what happened to him was what we thought happened to him, then it was best to let that be an end to it. Because if he'd been punished like we thought, that was good justice! Good for Bridie, good for Grace! Good for Sugar Town!"

" 'If he did what it seemed like he did'!" Amalthea sneered. "Are you hearing yourself?"

"Les did it! Both things! We believed it then and we believe it now! And we believed there was nothing to be gained by . . . hunting out whoever took on the filthy task of dealing with him!" Obviously I wasn't the only one opting to protect Isak's name. "We chose to protect that person – and Ruth's family!" she snarled, leaning into the argument. "To protect them with silence! And I'll tell you another thing! All that's water under the bridge! The only question you should be asking now is, what's to be done for Bridie and Asael! Because in case you missed it, they're in a damn sight harder place, now, knowing what they apparently know, than they ever were before, living in innocence!"

She was growing angry now; won over by her own arguments. And she was right about Bridie and As'! For all her bitter defensiveness, she was right!

"You're wrong!" Amalthea snapped. "When wrongs go unrighted, Frieda, the water just piles up! Just eddies under the bridge! You think coddling Bridie now is going to answer for Rita? For Ruth? For Isak?" Amalthea was unrelentingly, quietly incensed and Isak's name was, at last, out there. "You should never have gone along. No matter who you thought you were protecting! And you shouldn't go along now!"

Frieda turned a cold eye on her, with no argument to fill the silence.

"Isak," I said softly, seeing no need to pretend further, "says it's still not ended, Missus Hoggitt! Not even yet! He says there are guilty people still free in Sugar Town!"

"Guilty people?" Frieda's voice was sharply edged, tinged with refusal. "Guilty of what?"

"Of the rape! Of killing my grandmother! Both things!"

Understanding slid across Frieda's face. She pulled her fingers out from the damp moss of her armpits and, with an audible noise, cranked herself onto her feet. For a moment she stood, looking down, as though wondering what her legs would do. Then she shuffled to the sink and began washing her hands. Amalthea, maybe thinking that Frieda was dismissing us, was electric with indignation but, before she could continue, Frieda held up a wet hand, fingers splayed. Wait.

When she finished washing, she shook the water off and propped fists on her hips.

"Les did those things. No one else. You have to understand," she sighed, "that Isak hasn't had a coherent thought in more years than you've had breakfasts! I know for a fact Masher took up that 'other people' story with him, years ago. If there'd been any evidence at all, he'd've followed it through. But there wasn't. So it was dropped. Les Crampton raped Bridie and, in some fit of insanity, killed your sainted grandmother, Ruth! End of story. I can only say to you again – our own was hurt and our own paid for it. There are lots worse places to leave things!"

" 'Your own was hurt'?" Amalthea blurted. "That's what you call it when grown men tear into a thirteen year old girl and give her life back to her in shreds? Someone was 'hurt'?"

Frieda turned to her, fists still on hips.

"Not men! Man! One man! Singular!"

The corners of her mouth twisted downwards and a couple of fat tears bowled unattended down her cheeks. I could have felt sympathy. But I didn't. Instead, I felt like she was confirming herself as 'one of them'. Sure, they'd supported Bridie and Asael and me all these years. But where were they when Les Crampton was beating on Bessie? Where were they when the Reverend was trying to tell them, even obtusely, that it had to stop? Where were they when a little girl got raped and her parents took her away to hide their shame? Where were they when one man's beating to death of another was seen as 'near enough' to justice for the even more horrifying murder of a grandmother? Amalthea was right: the waters were still eddying.

"What do you want me to say? We were wrong? I'm ashamed of us? That we should start tearing the town apart again on the off-chance that someone escaped justice? Show me some skerrick of proof, that's what I say! And I'll walk to Burke and back to make it right! But for everything up to now . . . you've no right to judge! Neither one of you! No right at all!"

My heart was racing and my throat couldn't seem to let enough air through to fill my lungs. Frieda slashed away her tears, as impatient with them as she was with us.

"I don't know if you'll believe this, Ruth, but right now I would truly turn this town on its head and shake the shit out of it if there was a single iota of a hint that we did wrong! But there isn't! And what's done is done! And it's too late for tears!"

"An iota of a hint?" said Amalthea, reaching into her shoulder bag and pulling out 1999, "That's all it would take?"

* * *

Ten minutes later, Kevin rumbled up to the back door and half an hour after that, we were all upstairs in his flat, poring over the 1999 sermons. In 1999, I was four years old, Asa' was almost one and Bridie was a fifteen year-old mother who, like almost everyone else in town, had come to accept as truth the illusion that ours was a happy, relatively normal family. That she was an ordinary teenaged girl!

In the sermons, though, we found hints and references which, to the knowing eye, showed the rottenness at the core of the illusion. An extract from Solomon seemed a clear reference to Rita's unravelling: 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.'

And after she died, the sense of despair returning. From Isaiah: 'All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf.'

I pictured him slumped at the window of his study while Bridie sat at his desk, pen in hand, waiting for his thoughts. His wife and mother-in-law both forever lost to him as, quite possibly, was his congregation. Bessie Crampton, the beaten wife of another man – a murdered man, by all accounts – was in his kitchen. The baby of a violent rapist slept in another room. A scrawny four-year-old yammered about the house and this angelically trusting child – this beautiful, open young woman – this Bridie – sat smiling up at him, irreparably damaged but secure in his care. And somehow the jungles of Papua New Guinea began to beckon!

It was that step that most truly baffled me. I found myself leaning more and more toward believing that he must have been in cloud-cuckoo land toward the end.

"What sort of a man was he?" I asked the room at large.

"A man with demons," said Kev'.

"Demons?"

"A demon himself, in some ways," Frieda added. "A great preacher, no doubt! Full as a goog with fire and indignation. But in the end, men are just men. And we all know men, don't we!" She looked at me. "Well, not you, obviously."

I sniffed and went back to my reading. She could condescend 'til the cows came home, but even I could see that there were at least two kinds of men in the world. Those who could do what was done to Bridie would be a certain, recognisable kind of man. Les Crampton / Sutton-ish kind of men, who were physical and violent and frightening. Not gentle men like, for example, Kevin, or maybe John Cranna.

Amalthea brought us all back from our scattered thoughts.

"Now here's a weird co-incidence! Listen to this! The last sermon of the year: 'And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions'!"

We all looked at her, not understanding the light in her eyes.

" 'Old men shall dream dreams!' It's Isak! And 'young men shall see visions'! Asael sees visions! Am I the only one who thinks that's weird?"

I glanced at the others whose blank expressions told me she was definitely out on her own limb with that one.

* * *

The conversation did turn, however, to where the Reverend might be and, again, to how he could be contacted. I remembered the description he'd once sent: up the Fly River . . . Victor Emmanuel Range . . . barge to Kiunga . . . dug-out canoes. None of it seemed very promising. And since finding him was not really my idea, I didn't much care. As far as I could see, he was as lost as any dead person.

"You know, I blame myself a bit for some things!" Kevin said at one point. He wandered to the window as he talked, and gazed down into the darkening street. "I mean, I never really tried with him. No common ground . . . nothing we could share, you know? Maybe I could've . . . if he'd felt more supported . . . !"

"Yeah," said Frieda. "Same. We didn't make him go, Kev'. But then again, we didn't make him stay either."

"Okay," I said at last, stating what I thought must have become obvious to us all, "all we're doing here is getting even more morbid and depressed! He's gone! The past is gone. The only reason we're giving any of this any airtime is that, like Frieda said, Bridie needs help. So-o-o, I'm thinking all of it just needs to go back in its box! I might have my head up my bum on some issues, but at least I can do that! Me 'n' Asael will look after Bridie."

"Well!" sighed Frieda. "Out o' the mouths o' babes! But listen! Can I just say, Ruth, that it'll never be just you 'n' Asael. Whatever things it might seem like Sugar Town failed to do in the past, I know we never failed to support you McFarlane kids! And I can promise you, for sure, we're not going to stop now!"

Kevin, still at the window, said softly, "Of course, of course. I'm sure that goes for me and Thea as well, Ru'!"

Some germ of a thought had drawn Amalthea away from the table by this time. She'd fetched the half-eaten page she'd rescued from Rosemary – the one in Bridie's hand-writing – and was comparing it to something in the Reverend's early 1999 sermons – the ones he'd written himself. When Kevin spoke, though, her head snapped up. She gave him a level look and, like a cold day in June, snapped, "You don't speak for me, Kevin."

"Eh? Oh! No! Of course not! Sorry! I only meant . . . !"

"I know what you meant. And you know what I meant. I speak with my own voice, thanks. And my voice says 'no'!"

"No?"

There followed one of those embarrassingly long moments of silence when no one dares to speak because, suddenly, what they thought was going on turns out to have been something altogether different. Brows were furrowed and furtive glances exchanged all around. Then, bravely, Kevin decided to try her again.

"It's only that I thought, if Ru' wanted . . . !"

She turned her back on him.

"Ruth? I'm telling you! No!"

"No?"

"No! You can't give up! Listen! Out in the cane, your mother tried to tell us that Isak was the key! But he's not! You are! Because if you put this injustice down . . . and it is an injustice . . . then the evil will go on winning! All the new hurt that drove Bridie to that bottle of pills? Whatever confusion Asael has yet to take out of it? It'll be for nothing! And someone – maybe someone – will walk away free! You don't want that, Ruth. Not any of it! You're too honest a person for that!"

She was so certain! So vehement! I looked over her shoulder to Kevin who was scratching his head as he studied her back. He caught my eye and shrugged.

"I never thought of it that way," he concluded. "But . . . realistically . . . what can we do? We're at a dead end!"

I looked to Frieda who wagged her head in exasperation. "You've already said it: the past is gone! If there was a way to go back and see it again . . . of course, we'd do that! But there isn't! It's all history. Bridie and Asael are all that matter now!"

We all fell quiet again, hopelessly scanning idea-bins that we'd already confirmed were as empty as rubber tyres. And during that process, Kevin leaned toward Amalthea to mock-whisper, "Sorry."

She softened then, bumping him gently with her shoulder before deciding to put her arms around him. The Cat' three hug, again.

"Yeah," she said. "Me too. All this talk of fathers, whisking off like they haven't a care! It's not the way fathers should be, is it?"

He shook his head absently and she leaned away to look into his eyes.

"So listen! Somewhere down the track, Kev', you and I need to talk. Seriously!"

He laughed, but she held on, shaking him like a child. "You promise me! Right now! Or Rosemary and I are walking out on this project and taking with us the one and only, lonely little possibility that might keep us moving toward justice – rather than just consolation!"

Rosemary bleated, Frieda and I exchanged questioning looks and Kevin stared at Amalthea, a sound of surprise caught in his throat. I think, at that moment, he almost recognised a connection. Something in her tone or her choice of words – perhaps her sudden need – might've had a puzzling familiarity. He put his dark hands against the coffee-milk of her cheeks and held her face, searching it as though he might recognise a mote swimming in her eye.

"Amalthea!" he said softly. "Amalthea Byerson."

And she immediately, self-consciously, lowered her eyes, cutting him off from whatever she might unwittingly reveal. With an effort, he released her, letting his hands fall back to his sides. But neither stepped back. They stood, inches from one another, not touching, she with her head bowed, looking toward his shoes, he looking into and beyond the dark auburn of her hair. He shook his head in confusion.

"I . . . did we know each other in one of your previous lives, Thea? Because sometimes, I swear . . .!"

She smiled, touched him fleetingly and moved away to Rosemary. She squatted to nuzzle and murmur at the goat's ears while Kevin turned in a bewildered circle. You could see the glimmer in his eye, his mind like a hound, chasing a hare through a vast field of long grass. Glimpsing. Glimpsing. And then it was gone.

Frieda, her arms folded beneath her breasts, shook her head in new understanding. "Well I'll be!" she murmured. And then to him: "Hey Kev'! You ever hear the story 'bout the baker who couldn't recognise two peas in a pod?"

She looked at me and winked and it occurred to me that Kevin was probably the only one in the room who had no inkling of the connection between himself and Amalthea. Then Frieda clapped her hands in her best CWA come-to-order manner.

"Okay! Impasse! I move we see what sort of eats a baker keeps in his fridge! And while that's happening, I'm open to hearing this 'lonely little idea' that the outsider claims to have! Who's with me?"

* * *

It was actually a pair of ideas. They were little more than tokens but, as Amalthea'd said, they were enough to give us some momentum. The first part of it involved me dragging out the lists she and I had made at her house: Sources of Info', Findings, Questions and Strategies.

"We have to stop starting over again every five minutes," she told us. "I say we work from Ruthie's list. Update it, see what new strategies we can devise. And go from there. If that's okay with Ruth."

It was, and that's what we started to do.

* * *

It was surprising, how much of it had changed in a day. Isak was upgraded from 'Questionable' source to 'Worth Listening to' source. 'Terrible Deeds' was replaced with 'Rape / Murder'. And the 'unidentified blow-through' was given a name – Les Crampton.

In the 'Questions' category, at Amalthea's insistence, we added two.

"First off, complaints must have been lodged. 'S that right, Frieda? It wasn't a secret that some kind of assault had happened?"

Frieda shook her head. "They took Bridie to the hospital! In Sugar Town, hospital doings are about as secret as sunsets!"

"Right! So the question is, why did Cranna claim in the hospital that nothing had been done to Bridie when common knowledge said otherwise?"

No one had an answer.

"And second, Sergeant Morrow! Isak says – and I gather this isn't news to anyone in this room, right? – Isak says he confessed to Les's murder! But Morrow let him off! I mean, you let one person off for murder, what's to stop you letting someone else off for the rape? With dead Les Crampton the perfect scapegoat!"

That argument made sense to me, but . . .

"All right! All right! Open minds, is all I'm saying! Anyhow, my real point is, now that the Sarge has the Reverend's sermon notes, if he wants to keep a shred of credibility, he'll have to go back through the original records! I think we should get on his case and stay there!"

"Ah!" said Frieda in a nice-try-but-no-cigar kind of tone. "About the police records!" We waited, knowing it wouldn't be good news. "There was a fire – small fire – at the station – eight, ten years ago. Straight after it all happened! All Masher's hand-written notes! I mean, he may have tried to resurrect them but . . . well, when the 'official' report is that nothing much has happened, you wouldn't go to much trouble, would you?"

Blank faces; eyes blinking vacantly.

"You're joking!" said Thea.

Frieda's shrug was eloquent, palms up, illustrating her innocence.

"I didn't say he lit the fire, don't get me wrong! He's a cranky old bully-boy sometimes, but Sugar Town's his town and there's no silly-buggers about him! That's why we've lobbied to keep him here." She raised her voice and hurried indignantly on, stifling Amalthea's imminent outburst. "You do what you want! I'm just saying! He gets a lot of trust here!"

I couldn't help but picture the Sarge as I last saw him, peering coldly down on us from the study window. Insisting that I vacate my house. I thought of him prowling through the rooms and the cupboards and the drawers – picking things up, wondering what they meant to Bridie or me or Asael. On the question of the Sarge's trustworthiness, I was squarely on Amalthea's side. But on the question of what could be done, I was a little on Frieda's.

"Okay! Okay! So no records! And no change. We didn't have a plan and we still don't have a plan!"

"Yeah we do!" insisted Amalthea.

That plan (maybe Amalthea'd become the key, now I think about it) called for her and I to sneak back to my house to grab the 1997 and 1998 sermons. The 1999 album had given us little, but she was certain that those two years would be essential reading.

"We just have to hope the Sarge was wobbly enough from his Queenie contact to have put off taking them away. We grab 'em, we go through 'em tonight and we have 'em back in place before daylight. At the very least we'll know what he should be seeing – if he's doing his job properly!"

Truth to tell, I thought it was a feeble idea. To my mind, the only person revealed in those sermon notes was the Reverend. And my enthusiasm for him was at an all-time ebb.

* * *

Nevertheless, as we waited for the sun to finish its tropically short job of setting, we each of us filled our time with fretting over our various concerns. Mine was Asael. He wouldn't be lonely, I knew; not with Dana and the other nurses watching over him. But, despite his new-found courage-in-the-face-of-everything attitude, I was sure he'd be increasingly terrified for Bridie. I decided that I'd help retrieve the '97 and '98 sermons, but I'd leave the reading of them to the others. Instead, I'd slip away to check on him; maybe stay with him at the hospital, ready for whatever happened when they woke Bridie on the following day.

* * *

Asael has tried to stay awake but the distant click and mumble of hospital business has lulled and numbed him. Nurses have come and gone to check on Bridie, but she hasn't moved; her stillness has defeated him.

He stirs in his sleep, dreaming again of his mother, who said goodbye before he had a chance to say hello. He sees her, not as she was found by early morning prawners, hanging by her neck from a branch in the mangrove swamps. In this dream, she is not contorted or crab-nibbled as he imagines she must have been in reality. In this dream, she stands on bare, whole, lovely feet, supported by the water, and the rope is merely an accessory, loosely draped about her long, delicate neck.

She smiles on him and says, 'You were never to blame, lovely boy. It's time now. Find your strength, now." In the dream, Asael feels his heart drive up into his throat and he cries out, "Where is it, mum? Where is it?"

* * *

Amalthea's concern, judging by her chat with Kevin, was for Isak and Garlic and Queenie, all left unsupervised at her house. What if the old man had found a gun and gone off to shoot Doctor Dabney, as he'd threatened? What if Garlic had collapsed and died again? What if Queenie . . . well, who knew what Queenie might be capable of?

And Frieda's concerns were anybody's guess. She stalked about the flat, ricocheting from room to room, picking at her palms, shaking her head and adjusting things on shelves. On one of her several trips through the kitchen, she raised a finger, tapped the air and seemed about to speak. We all turned to her but she didn't get a word out because, as though her gesture had been a signal, two mobile phones began banging away in the flat and, out in the street, a siren began to wail.

Frieda groped one phone out of her bag and, plugging her other ear with her air-tapping finger, strode off into Kevin's bedroom. Kevin snatched up the second phone and fled into the stairwell. Amalthea, Rosemary and I scrambled to the window.

The siren was coming from the fire station, only fifty metres further up the street, and already the big doors were opening. Within minutes, local volunteers were converging and the pump truck was edging out onto the apron. A dozen men, still fumbling with their safety gear, clambered aboard and, with barely a pause, the truck curled away into the street.

"Gotta go," growled Frieda, coming back into the room. "That was Franz. The Mayor's disappeared! He was at the pub all afternoon but he left a couple of hours ago and hasn't made it home! The bloody man! If he hasn't already drowned in a ditch, I'm going to throttle him!"

"We have to go too," said Kevin to Amalthea and me. "That was Dana Goodrich! Something's happened at the hospital! It seems Bridie's defied Dabney's medications and gone ahead and woken up!"

We all snatched up what we needed and scurried out onto the back landing, two women, a baker, a goat and me. Through the million tiny leaves of the Poinciana, over the shoulder of the church's roof, three streets away, the glow rose to meet us. It was our house – Bridie's and mine and Asael's. Even over the siren's wail, we could hear the suck and whoop of the flames.

Chapter 17 – Fires Kindled

Funny how things can be both ordinary and awesome at the same time. I knew that house so well that I'd stopped noticing it. And yet here it was, wearing an enormous helmet of fire that whipped and howled at treetop level, flinging sparks and gobbets, high into the night sky. The window of the Reverend's study, where Sergeant Morrow had stood only a few hours earlier – where once the Reverend had leaned, conjuring brimstone to fling down on his parishioners – was full of flames.

As we raced up the footpath, the fire lashed a pair of liquid fingers out through the open door, instantly igniting the stair rails and the outer wall. The volunteers were doing their best, fountaining water over the roof, but the fire simply drank it up, spewing it back as jets of steam into the night sky. Turning the Reverend's sermons into a rain of charcoal and ash. The roar of it was so blood-curdling it was easy to imagine the building as a living thing, screaming out in the midst of dying, and I knew straight away that nothing would survive – not the house, not its contents – nothing of the home in which my family had grown and flourished and then failed.

Even my tears, as I stood with Kevin and Amalthea and Rosemary on the footpath across the road – even them, it took fresh from my cheeks, dissolving them into air.

A crowd, naturally, had gathered and, although Frieda'd come with us, putting off her concerns for the mayor, I was vaguely aware of her prowlng the edges of that crowd, speaking on her mobile phone. Until, out of nowhere, Franz was there with her.

Amalthea, when I looked for her, had turned her back on the fire and was scanning the faces of the watchers. They looked past her with their hands in their pockets or folded prayerfully beneath their chins, their heads tilted back, their eyes full of reflected flame.

"Will this set you free?" I heard her shout at them.

If anyone had an answer for her, I couldn't hear it.

* * *

At the fire truck, a small knot of volunteers has gathered, like upright turtles in their mud-yellow fire-proofs. Three or four men in a half circle, attending to some organisational detail – some trick of valves and pressure gauges. Something in the solid, shoulder to shoulder wall of them, some furtiveness in their glances, captures Amalthea's attention. She squints through the dancing light as the men begin to move, shuffling in many-legged unison toward the shadows at the back of the truck. When one staggers, feet entangled, she catches a glimpse of un-uniformed men at the centre. One has a policeman's cap, askew and falling to the ground. And the other, flailing weakly, is firmly locked in the grip of many hands.

The gap in the circle is not closed quickly enough to dam up Amalthea's outrage. She pushes toward them, chin out-thrust, Rosemary trotting supportively behind. What she's capable of, she doesn't know, but she may be prepared to beat her way through that shield of men, to see who is concealed within. One of the firemen spies her, detaches himself from the circle and turns to confront her.

" _Amalthea," the man says flatly, as though informing her of her name. It's Alf Caletti, her landlord, and he blocks both her way and her view._

" _What's happening, Alf? Who's that?"_

" _Just a station matter, Thea. Nothin' to concern yourself about."_

" _A station matter that needs police?"_

" _Help comes in lots of forms, Amalthea. Move back from the vehicle now, eh? Ye'll get a fine view o' the fire from over that way."_

" _No, Alf. I don't think so."_

She tries to step around him and he moves quickly to be in front of her. He pushes back his helmet, clearing the shadows from his face. Behind him, other firemen turn unfriendly eyes on her.

" _Don't make a fuss, Thea. I'm askin' ye nicely. Jus' do like yer told, eh?"_

She looks up at his broad, expressionless face, at those impatient ones assembled behind him, and wonders what men like them think when they look at girls like her. She shakes her head.

" _No, Alf, I don't think so! Tell me who it is! Tell me . . . and then I might go."_

He folds his arms in refusal. She folds hers in defiance. The fire roars and the beams of the house roar back as ancient pockets of pitch bubble out of them. In the study, the floorboards give way and the Reverend's burning desk tumbles like a bomb to the concrete below.

* * *

A massive gout of sparks hissed out into the street, causing the crowd to cry out with a single voice, like a hallelujah chorus, and I turned to the place where Amalthea had been standing. Finding her gone, I scanned quickly and recognised her back, her hair, the confrontational stances of both her and Rosemary. Facing off with Alf Caletti. Together, Kevin and I began to slide in her direction.

Seeing our approach, Alf beckoned us on.

"Truckie!" he called to Kevin. "Mate! Get her outta here, will ya? We got no time for this right now."

"Yeah, Truckie!" Amalthea spat. In the half-shadow and the shimmer of light, her eyes glowed like a cat's. "See if you can get the girl outta here, would you! Alf hasn't got time to be 'The Man' just now!"

We looked at her blankly and she raised her voice, loud enough for the knot of firemen to hear.

"They've caught someone! They're holding him right there! I saw Sergeant Morrow. I just want to know who it is!" And back to Alf she said, "A lot of things get covered up in this town, Alf. This isn't going to be one of them! So just tell us! Tell Ruth! Who are you holding!"

The men in the human shield glanced nervously at one another and began again, still pressed together, to shuffle into the shadows behind the truck.

"Just a hint!" Amalthea hollered and heads in the crowd turned our way, even as the knot of men edged out of sight. Then only Alf remained, impassively, silently before us.

"There were valuable papers in that house, Alf!" Kevin half-shouted. "Clues about what happened to Bridie, and her grandmother! We were coming to get them. Another hour and they'd've been safe!"

Part of the crowd began to edge in our direction, straining to hear and Alf held up his hands, a quieting gesture.

"I got no idea what you're talkin' about. But if it's that bloody important to ye . . . if ye hafta know, I'll tell ye this much. It ain' no arsonist. 'S jus' one of the volunteers, showed up a bit pissed! Orright? An' we're keepin' him back from the fire to keep him from hurtin' himself. Orright? Good enough for ye?"

We stood, facing off with him, and I could see that he wasn't about to relent. And I thought, if that's all it is, what does it matter? Suddenly though, Frieda joined the group. She shouldered between us and bared her teeth toward Alf.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

Alf's quieting gesture remained in place, palms patting the air around Frieda's breasts. "Now don't you worry, Frieda. He ain' getting' anywhere near the fire."

"I should've known straight away," she scowled. "Two things he never could resist. A fire and another round."

"No danger at all!" Alf continued. Damping down; always damping down. "The Sarge's got 'im in tow. Havin' a chat with 'im behind the truck. Outta sight o' the constituents 'n' all. Now you go easy on 'im, Frieda! Bloody good man, is the mayor! Jus' a little under the weather for what we need tonight."

"He'll be under my fookin' heel when I get 'im home!" And Frieda, possibly the only woman in town who could, pushed Alf Caletti aside and stomped off around the truck, looking for the mayor.

* * *

Half a block away, Kevin, Amalthea, Rosemary and I could still feel the heat of the fire on our backs.

"Poor old Lyle!" Kevin was saying. "Caught out in public like that! You'd think he'd know better, wouldn't you? Sitting in the pub all afternoon! Not a good look for a mayor, let alone a volunteer firey!"

"Yeah. In the pub all afternoon," Amalthea seethed. "Except for the hour or two he went missing! Remember? The call Frieda got at your place? He'd left the pub and disappeared!"

"Yeah? And you're suggesting . . . ?"

"I'm suggesting that an hour ago we had exactly one source of clues to take us to the bottom of all this. And now we've got none! I'm suggesting that it's more than a coincidence that the police records disappeared the same way! I'm suggesting that 'accidents' in this town have a way of being provoked!"

"But no one knew about those notes!" he said. "You only found them this morning!"

"Right! That's right! So there's our first clue! Apart from us and Frieda, did anyone else know about the notes?" She looked at me through narrow, I-told-you-so eyes. "Who did, Ruth? Who else knew?"

"No one! No one but Bridie!"

"No one but Bridie? And . . . ? Sergeant Morrow!"

"Oh now listen!" scoffed Kevin. "I know what we said earler but . . . I'd be happier accusing the mayor of arson than Masher Morrow! And I'd be happier accusing . . . I don't know . . . Rosemary, than either one of them!"

Amalthea pounced on the opportunity to argue.

"Why? Tell me who looks bad in this picture! Bridie gets attacked on the street. Morrow doesn't arrest anyone. Bridie's grandmother is murdered. Morrow doesn't arrest anyone. Isak confesses to murdering Les Crampton. Morrow doesn't arrest him! Years later, we think the records should be re-examined and they can't be because, under Morrow's watch . . ." she paused for emphasis, hooking her fingers in the air, ". . . they got burned up! Who's the common denominator?"

"Fine! Fine! So riddle me this, then! What would Morrow'd have to gain by destroying evidence?"

"I don't know! Covering up the fact that he's an incompetent arsehole? I mean look at it! Les was gone, Gracie was gone, Bessie was gone, the evidence was gone, Bridie's memories were gone . . . and guilt-stricken Isak had drunk himself into oblivion! All without him raising a finger! Then the Reverend's notes turn up, having been right under his nose for years! He has a peek, he finds something and whoops! Up it goes in flames! Come on, Kev'! Doesn't that scream bullshit to you?"

"I don't know! Maybe! So what are you saying? That Lyle lit the fire, in some kind of drunken haze, and Morrow tried to hustle him away? Or that the two of them lit it together? Or that Morrow lit it and just happened to be handy when the volunteers needed help with Lyle?"

"Sure! Why not? Why not one o' those?"

"Or . . . why not rats in the wiring, shorting something out? Or a power surge after the other night's outage! It doesn't have to be that someone's to blame!"

"Sure, yeah, fine! It doesn't have to be! But tell me this! Are you willing to bet on the rats? Or do you think you should consider visiting your friend Bessie and laying out the other possibilities? That someone very dangerous – possibly dangerous to her – could be on the verge of breaking?"

* * *

Behind us, another explosion rocked the night. Perhaps the bookcase tumbling through the floor. Perhaps the roof caving in. The amazed cry of voices followed. We stopped and looked back at the renewed bloom of sparks, leaping into the blackness. Then we moved on.

Amalthea scuffled her feet, absently holding Rosemary's ear as we walked, the argument still tumbling through her mind.

"He wasn't in uniform!" she said, half a dozen steps later. "Just now, at the fire. Except for his hat. And I didn't see his car anywhere! How likely does it seem he'd show up on foot to a fire?"

Kevin shook his head determinedly. "Even cops – even cops in one-cop-towns, have a night off now and again, Thea. Maybe he was taking a walk. Taking in the night air. Maybe the car's broken down. Maybe his uniform's in the wash and he just likes to wear his hat. Maybe lots of things. I'm not saying you're wrong! Just that it's smart to scout out a landing area before you jump to conclusions. In case you miss!"

Another half dozen steps.

"You know, I'll bet Bessie Crampton knew about those notes! Living there as long as she did; keeping house for the Reverend! Maybe she'd even read them, you know? Cleaning the house? The book's open on the desk! Oh yeah, she'd have known!"

"Ah!" It's another avenue whose end Kevin can't see. "And after ten years,

she decides to come back and destroy them? Why? What would prompt her to do that?"

"In fact," Amalthea said, ignoring the question, "I bet she's another one who knows more than she's telling! The only person ever implicated in the rape, after all, was her husband! So he never talked in his sleep? Or got drunk and boasted, like he did in the pub to Grace? He never brought mates home? Accomplices? For all we know, Bessie heard the whole story, told at her kitchen table! What if she's covering for someone?"

Kevin's defensiveness blossomed.

"Thea, stop! You're getting crazy! Look, if Bessie'd come back to burn the Reverend's house, she could've stayed quietly anonymous as Madame Zodiac and not drawn attention to herself. But she didn't! And another thing! Just remember that Bessie put her life on hold for the McFarlane family – for years! If she knew about those notes and they worried her, she could have destroyed them then, ten years ago, with no one the wiser!"

We walked on. In front of the hospital, under the streetlamps, Amalthea stopped again.

"Okay. How 'bout this then? What if the fire had nothing to do with the notes? What if someone's just erasing a chunk of the past? I mean, everyone in town would've known by sun-up that Bridie was in hospital! That she'd taken an overdose! And that her being raped years ago was out in the open at last! Ruthie's already been asking questions! Maybe the fire's a warning! Somebody's way of saying, 'Back off! Let it lie!'"

"Mmm." His scepticism was less sharp this time. And so was mine.

* * *

Dana was hovering near the reception desk, waiting for us.

"Sorry!" she wheezed, gathering us into an urgent huddle. "I didn't know who else to ring! She's awake! Doc's having seven fits! He was planning on keeping her sedated at least until tomorrow but . . . holy crap, what a night! He's blaming us nurses, which is nothing new, we always get the blame! But like, when I tried to tell him what happened he wouldn't have a bar of it! Hey, what's with the siren? You mob know what's going on out there?"

Her agitation only grew as Kevin explained about the fire.

"Holy crap! That's awful! That's the last thing she needs right now! Last thing any of you need!" She rubbed consolation on my arm. "Jeez! Maybe Matron should let the doc' put her back to sleep! You shoulda seen 'em goin' at it, Matron and Doctor! Neither one of 'em gives up easily but holy crap! Matron was like a bloody tigress! And Asa' was just as bad! Christ! Like a ferret on steroids! No way either one of 'em was gonna let him near her! An' I tell you what anyhow! I don' know what kinda dose he'd o' had to give her to keep her asleep! I mean Christ! By all accounts, she should be . . . !"

"Wait on!" said Kevin. "Dabney and Matron argued in front of her? Over how to treat her? In front of her and Asael?"

"Yeah! No! I mean, they started on the ward! The whole hospital could hear 'em! Then they took it into the back office. I think Matron's had a win for the moment, but she's walking the halls now like nobody's going to fart without she knew it was comin'! Anybody wants to get near that girl tonight without goin' through her's got Buckley's!"

"She won't let the doctor treat Bridie?" Amalthea repeated. "That's just too weird!"

"Yeah, well, weird is as weird does, sister mine! Weird was watching Asael wake her up! I mean, she was drugged out, girlfriend! We put enough sedative into her to put the town band to sleep! But I'm in there checkin' on her an' Asa's asleep in the chair. An' suddenly the kid jumps up! I mean one minute he's muttering his way through a dream o' some kind an' the next he's on his feet! Practically popped outta me panties, I did! An' then he like, waggles his fingers in the air, grabs onto Bridie's feet! Ka-ching! She's awake! Jus' like that! Awake and talking! Large as life! Ye coulda knocked me over with a sparrow's fart! Shrugged off those drugs like they were sugar water! That's weird! Man! I'd give my favourite freckle to know what that was about!"

I was dying to get to the room and see Bridie and Asael, but Dana was so agitated that she actually hung onto me.

"Hey, Jeez! Your house is on fire? Christ! That's awful! Morrow'll be onto that like a rat up a rope! If he's capable, that is! He was back here just earlier, asking Doc' for something to settle him down! Doc' told him he should be checked in here – not out walking the streets! Not after that shock he got this morning! Hey! I jus' gotta ask youse! I mean, after seein' Asael wake Bridie up like that! What's goin' on? Talk is, you lot found that meteor an' that Asa's been like, communing with it and nobody else can get near it or touch it and he like, warned Morrow off but Morrow went ahead an' it nearly killed him but then Asa' like . . . he used it to bring your goat back to life! Holy shit, guys! What's that about? What's he got, like some weird mental channelling thing happening? Has he like, become the Yoda of Sugar Town or something?"

She was breathless and bug-eyed. I wondered if she'd be capable of taking her own pulse at that moment, let alone anyone else's. Amalthea reached out to stop the flow.

"Dana? Listen to me! You said Sergeant Morrow was here, tonight? How long ago?"

"Yeah yeah! Maybe an hour and a half! Maybe two hours!"

"After Ruth and I saw him at the house!" Amalthea raised her eyebrows to Kevin. "After learning about the notes! And before the fire! Talking to Doctor Dabney!"

"Yeah," Kevin agreed. "Keeping in mind that, like Dana said, he's had a shock to the system today and where else is he going to go for advice?"

"Did he talk with anyone else while he was here?" Amalthea demanded of Dana.

"Nup! Well, I guess he wanted a word with Bridie! Gotta investigate her little pill-excursion, as well as get himself sorted! But she wasn't awake then. He checked in on J. C. – him an' the doc' together. Yeah! Don' know what that was about – the plane crash, I guess – but they all had the shits up with each other in pretty short order. Tell you what; for old friends, those three sure don't like each other much, you know? Doc' finished up stormin' off on one of his walks!"

"Walks?"

"Yeah, he stomps off around the block sometimes when things aren't going his way. And man! It's like a monkey house with the door left open these days! Like, he mis-diagnosed ol' Isak Nucifora the other day an' the old geezer scampered on us! Might be dead in the cane somewhere for all anyone knows! And then this business with Bridie and what prescriptions she's been given an' whether she shoulda been given 'em at all an' how she's woken up too soon! An' there's that bloody ol' goblin, Morrow, goin' round and round like a milkin' stool, askin' this, refusing to do that! I reckon Dabney'll be losing faith in himself!"

"So he left the hospital? Just in the last couple of hours?" You had to admire Amalthea. She was like a falcon, counting off the pigeons.

"Well, yeah! Just around sundown, I guess. Best time for walking and thinking, eh? Anyhow, I sort of figured, poor bloody Bridie! She takes a dose to forget her troubles an' wakes up to all this carry-on . . . Asa' all smug and self-satisfied, Matron all mother-goosey! I started going through her phone, looking for your number, Ruthie. But then she started askin' for you, Kev! And for Bessie someone-or-other. So I rung you! Hope you don't mind! Hey, girl, I think the goat'll have to stay outside or something. That okay?"

The combined pressure of the three of us finally got Dana moving. During the time we'd been in the reception room, I noticed it had become ringed with hospital workers feigning busy-ness in order to listen in. That's one of the ways Sugar Town works – one of the ways we look after one another, according to Kevin's theory.

Down the breezeway, sitting in an alcove, we came across Matron, seated primly with a stack of charts on her lap. She was staring at the opposite wall, lost in thought. When she looked at us, it was as though we were just four new spots on the wall. Then she rose, placed the charts on the chair, brushed wrinkles from her skirt and held out her hand to me.

That gesture frightened me a little bit. 'Gentle' Matron, 'Thoughtful' Matron, 'Touchy' Matron wasn't someone I was familiar or comfortable with.

"Oddly enough," she said, holding onto my hand but looking to Kevin and Amalthea, "I was just thinking of you two!" She looked meaningfully over Kevin's shoulder at Dana. "I expect Nurse Goodrich has filled you in on all the hospital gossip along the way?"

Dana blushed and looked to the floor.

"Loose lips sink ships, Nurse! If your mother didn't point that out to you on a weekly basis, then she's done you a disservice. Off you go now, about your duties. I'll take them the rest of the way."

She waited quietly, watching until Dana was out of sight and hearing. Then she said to me, "Bridie's room is the next one down, on the left, dear. Asael's with her. Why don't you go ahead. Mister Truck and Miss Byerson and I are going to have a chat for a moment."

In all the years I'd known him, I couldn't remember hearing anyone refer to Kevin as 'Mister Truck'. And I had to rattle my head a bit to remember who 'Miss Byerson' was. Still, I was impressed. Seeing a black man blanch, I thought, must be a rare sight indeed.

Things only got better when I walked into Bridie's room. Asael bounced against me with a shout, a beaming smile and a full-on Cat' three hug.

"Ruthie!" he yelped. "Look! It worked! Just like I knew it would!" He crinkled his fingers as though offering to tickle so I grabbed his wrists, spun him around and locked his arms against his chest.

"Don't call me Ruthie," I whispered in his ear. "Call me . . . Amazia!"

We laughed and tousled and bumped about until we fell against Bridie's bed. Then we stopped. She was propped palely there, managing a small smile. There were tiny shadows under her eyes but otherwise, her skin was like milk – frosted milk. I could never imagine anyone being more beautiful or more fragile and something in that thought seemed to shatter me inside. I stood beside her and suddenly, out of nowhere, I was hiccupping and bawling; afraid to touch her – afraid to touch anything – the bed, the wall, the sheet, her hand, my brother. Knowing that when I did, this moment would end and we'd have to start dealing with ugly things again

She held out her arms to me and I stared at them, blubbing through my tears, amazed by the firmness of the line between her and the air around her. Why did other people seem so contained within their own outlines while I . . . I seemed to be splattered across an entire landscape, dripped and mashed into places where I couldn't even find myself. I couldn't even gather enough of myself together to lift my arms. Not until Asael bumped against me, the top of his head at my shoulder.

"Go on!" he said. "What're you waiting for, Amazia?"

And I went slowly, carefully, pulling enough of myself out of the crevices to be solid in her arms. She put a hand on the back of my neck and pulled my face down against her chest and I wailed uncontrollably. I felt her fingers in my hair, her nails against my scalp, caressing.

"Once upon a time, on a night long, long ago," she whispered, "there was a little girl. And the world collapsed on top of her. It was a night of calamity, which the little girl's sister promises will be the worst she'll ever know. Be strong now. Don't cry. Survive this, one moment at a time. Nothing worse can happen."

It was a version of the story Bessie had told her, those long years ago, not long after she'd been pummelled to the ground and raped.

I felt Asael pat-pat-patting my back. I wrapped my arms around Bridie and felt her ribs, the muscles of her back, the bulk of her breasts against my own flat chest. How did this come about, I wondered: that they both seemed so whole and I felt so broken?

* * *

When finally I pulled myself together, we all tried to laugh – that embarrassed sort of laugh you do when you've just realised that your worst fears almost came true, but then they didn't. Asael chattered away, telling his story of dreaming of our mother (Bridie's and mine, at any rate; it was increasingly obvious that he hadn't taken in the fact that his origins were different from ours) and her telling him it was time and then his waking of Bridie with the powers he'd brought from Queenie. Bridie smiled indulgently, sadly, recognising his imagination at work. I was, I confess, no longer fully convinced that it was only imagination.

When Asa's story ran out, Bridie asked for Kevin. Her throat was raw and dry. "He didn't come?"

"Yes, he's here!" I assured her. "Him and Amalthea – they're just in the hall, talking to Matron. Want me to hurry them along?"

"No," said Bridie. "Let's let Asael do it. Would you do that, As'? You could show them where the coffee machine is. Then, in five minutes or so, you could bring them along here. Okay?"

* * *

It didn't take five minutes, but we didn't need it. She promised me straight up that nothing like 'the pills' would be happening again, ever; that she'd had a shock and not known how to deal with it but that she'd woken up feeling stronger and fuller and more complete than she'd felt in ages. I told her that was good because everyone in town (with the likely exception of Asael) knew what shock she'd had and that their attempts to keep it under wraps had come to an end.

"So what's happening now? I suppose they're all a-chatter about it and about what a fool I've been?"

"No, Bri'! I think they'll be waiting to take their cue from you. Except . . . !"

"Except?"

"Except . . . there's been a fire. At the house."

"A fire? How bad?"

"Bad enough. The firies are there now but . . . I don't think there'll be much left."

I'm not certain what response I was expecting, but it wasn't the unearthly calm that I got. She turned to look out at the night. Somewhere a yellow bug light cast a garish glow on the trees. Her face remained completely expressionless. Then she said, "Was it an accident?"

"I don't know. I was there this afternoon. I didn't turn anything on. Amalthea thinks it's suspicious."

And I told her about the sermons and the notes. About Sergeant Morrow and Mayor Hoggitt and Alf Caletti and the desk crashing through the floor and Kevin and Amalthea arguing over the cause.

She nodded impassively. "So it's all gone?"

"I think so."

"Good. That saves me burning it myself."

I was shocked, but I didn't let it show; I wanted so much to be in the same place as her, in tune with her. I bobbed my head foolishly.

"A new start?" I said and she shook her head, no.

"There's only one start, Ruthie. And then there are bends in the road."

"Huh?"

"We aren't hiding, Ruth. Something in me has hidden for a long time – cowering in the dark, afraid to be seen. But now I know what it is." She fixed me with burning eyes. "It's anger, Ruth. Pure and simple. And I'm not going to help it hide any longer. In the meantime, we're together, you and I and Asael. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes. Now why don't you go see where those others are?"

I found them waiting down the hall, still under Matron's careful supervision. As I came out, she waved the three of them away toward the room and called me to take their place in front of her. They passed me quickly, all of us with unanswered questions floating in our eyes.

"Ruth," Matron said sombrely, ushering me into a chair. "I just wanted you to know that, at least from a physical point of view, your sister is fine. We'd like to keep her with us for a few days, just to monitor things. But I promise you, nothing will be done without your knowing exactly what and why. That's my personal promise. Do you understand?"

I cobbled together my best effort at a smile of gratitude.

"As for her mental state," she went on, even more sombrely, "that remains a mystery. You and I know – actually everyone knows – that she's learned some . . . shocking things of late. But there's no way of knowing how, or even if, she's processed those things. I know she seems completely in control right now but you must keep in mind that, at some level, she's having to reassess her whole outlook. Her relationships with you and especially with Asael – and maybe more especially with Sugar Town – are under enormous pressure. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes Matron."

"Good. You'll see her seem to fall back from time to time over the next few weeks but I want you to be aware that that's normal. There are three important things to remember. The first is, don't panic. The second is, don't lose your love or your patience. And the third is, if you need me, I'm always here. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Matron. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Ruth. Do you have any questions?"

There was only one that seemed to matter and, knowing that I would hate whichever answer I got, I did my best to squeeze it out.

"Does she remember the . . . the night when she was . . . ?"

" 'Raped', Ruth. The word you want is 'raped'. Try again."

She waited silently while I figured out what she wanted. I cleared my throat.

"Um, does she remember being raped?"

"Good girl. It's important that those of us who have to deal with the world as it is, do so with honesty, Ruth."

My knees almost juddered out from under me and, before my brain properly engaged, I heard myself saying, "No offence, Matron, but that just sounds a little hypocritical coming from almost anyone in Sugar Town these days!"

Her head snapped back. She glared at me. She crossed her arms over her chest. I pulled myself up to my full height, a little taller than her, though only half her weight and stared at her throat. It was as high as I could raise my eyes.

"Point taken," she said softly. "To answer your question, then, I don't know if she remembers. She knows, but that's not the same as having memories."

I nodded. That meant that the experience, the scene, the faces, all waited somewhere in her mind, and one day, perhaps while she was walking down the street, minding her business, it could very possibly just open out, like a bloody flower.

"Okay. Thanks." I turned to go.

"She did speak at one point, Ruth." I stopped, looked over my shoulder.

"'Can't I stay, daddy? I promise I'll be still.' Words to that effect – several times over. It was when Mister Truck first carried her in and, of course, she was delirious. Are you able to contact your father, Ruth?"

"Sure," I said. I don't know why I lied. I just did. "Already doing that."

She looked at me sidelong, as though I'd failed a test of character, and "Good," she said. "He should be here. And . . . one last thing. The nurses are all agog with the news of the fire at your house. Would you like me to arrange beds for you and Asael here, near Bridie?"

"No thank you, Matron. We'll be right."

* * *

Back in the room, Kevin, Amalthea, Asael and I stood about the bed, chatting inanely, with Bridie listening in. Except for Asael, our only objective seemed to be to cast the illusion that all was as it should be. Asael alone remained truly buoyant, even when Kevin explained to him that there'd been an 'accident' at the house and we 'might have to stay at the bakery for a few days'.

Bridie's calm remained intact. At last, she over-road our chatter and thanked us all for being there. She apologised for worrying us and promised us she'd be well and asked us to go.

"I'm tired," she said. "Come back tomorrow. Or when you can."

It was the first time, I think, that Asael realised he really wasn't going to stay with her and he looked stricken. Bridie took his hands and opened them, to study his palms, the way Bessie and Mister Bandini had studied mine, looking for my destiny.

"These hands," she said. "I can still feel them on my ankles. They brought me back. I knew they were yours and they brought me back. You are the most special of boys. Thank you."

And with that, he was content to leave.

Chapter 18 – Night Walkers (Monday)

It's the slamming of the screen door that wakes Amalthea. Is that the first time it's slammed? She thinks not. And that's not right. For a girl who lives alone with only goats for company, that's definitely not right! Then it comes back to her; the company she has in the house. Ruth and Asael McFarlane, who came home with her from the hospital last night, because their own home was burned and Asael felt the need to be near Queenie.

She also remembers who's not in the house; Isak . . . gone when they returned late in the night. No note. But then why should it be otherwise? No one is Isak's keeper. And more importantly – so much more importantly – Rosemary is also not in the house. She'd had to wait outside the hospital and was nowhere to be found when Amalthea left. What had she told the little goat to do? Did she say, wait here? Did she say, I won't be long? Whatever it was, most uncharacteristically, Rosemary was not there when Amalthea came out.

She and Kevin and Ruth and Asael had scoured the grounds. Dana and another nurse had come out to help her, batting the bushes, calling Rosemary's name. When it was clear she wasn't there, they'd walked the deserted streets to her house, watching, calling, listening for the clatter of little hooves or a bleat of recognition. Ruth had tried to reassure her and Kevin had gone for his motorbike, intending to search further a-field.

At the house, they'd searched the rooms, searched the yard. Asael, along with blind Garlic, had gone to Queenie, wrapping his arms around both of them, murmuring as though in consultation, while Amalthea and Ruth had walked up to the main road a dozen times and shone their torches down the track into the cane a dozen more. There were taipans and brown snakes there that could kill a little goat in a heartbeat. There were pythons that could wrap her up and crush her and swallow her whole. Amalthea'd called and called and finally, well after midnight, lay down fully clothed on her bed and slept.

* * *

There was a moment when I thought it was the sound of the flaming roof, collapsing around me. Then I saw the moonlight in the doorway – Amalthea's doorway. I was on the lounge in her living room and the time on my phone read 3:12. At least three hours before sunrise. So why had that door slammed? I looked for Asael, who'd been asleep with Garlic on a mattress on the floor beside me. He was gone. They were both gone. And so too was Queenie.

My mind raced through the possibilities. The best thing would be if it was Rosemary, found her way home at last. The next best would be if it was Isak, come back to the slight sanctuary Amalthea's house offered. Then again, it could be the Suttons and their friends, come with vengeance in mind. Perhaps Amalthea's house would be next to burn. Perhaps that glow I could see wasn't moonlight at all! I rushed out onto the veranda, letting the door slam behind me.

They were sitting on the ground, in a row, the pear-shaped bulk of Queenie in the middle, Asael on her left, holding his hands over his ears, rocking, and on the right I recognised the slump of Isak's shoulders. The door opened behind me and Amalthea emerged, slowly, rubbing sleep away.

One of Isak's hands, we could see, was stroking Queenie as though the alien thing was a bereaved friend. On his other side, standing like an ancient, bony dog, was Garlic. Away in the distance, the sugar mill rumbled its soft, mechanical music, billowing steam from its stacks, and a little to the right, a column of thin, grey smoke still rose from the ruins of our house.

"What is it? What's going on?" Amalthea asked.

She let go the door and it slammed yet again. No one turned to look. We stepped down into the yard, she and I. The damp grass prickled against my bare feet and, out from under the roof, I could feel the dewdrops swarming on my face, my throat, my nightshirt. I wrapped my arms about myself and wished I was still asleep.

We were almost on them before we saw what held their attention – not the distant mill, but a small, pale mound that lay on the ground like a crumpled blanket. Amalthea stopped and I stopped and the world stopped. Even while pleading for it not to be, refusing to let it be, we both knew what that mound was. It was the corpse of Rosemary. Alone then among the group, Isak twisted, pained in his joints, to look at Amalthea. For the first time, I noticed the rifle leaning against his shoulder.

"Sorry," he said deeply. "It was all I could do for her. Sorry."

Amalthea crept forward, as though fearful of surprising someone.

"A snake?" she whispered. "Was it a snake, Isak? I always told her, stay out of the . . . !"

Isak was shaking his head. "Not that kinda snake, missy."

"Should I call the vet? Get him out of bed? Maybe there's . . . !"

She was beside Isak now, passing him, rushing to Rosemary but Isak held out a hand, catching her, his head still shaking in negation. Even in the dim light, I could see the dark stain up his forearm. He was still wearing Amalthea's t-shirt: WOMEN MAKE MEN. The letters were clouded, half lost in a greasy black blur. I looked up to the pewter cloud of mill-steam that boiled soundlessly against the sky.

"Someone cut her," Isak said, his voice soft and ominous and, it seemed to me, in the glimmer of moonlight, that Queenie began to rock, barely perceptibly, in time with Asael's movement. Somewhere off to the west, against the Dividing Range, I heard a grumble of thunder. Go away, it seemed to say. Then it drew a breath and repeated itself. Go away. Go away.

"Cut her?"

"Hammies," Isak croaked. His voice broke and he began to pant, short little breaths, in and out. "Cut her hamstrings. Left 'er up there." He waved his blood soaked hand in the direction of the road. "She got about half-way here," he continued, sniffling, wiping snot onto the shoulder of the t-shirt. "Dragged herself. Ye can see the blood stain. She was all but gone when I found her. I couldn' let it go on, honey. Ye understand? I jus' couldn'!"

I tried to move to Asael, who was clearly distraught, but I had no traction. It was as though an abyss had opened at my feet and I'd fallen through. And all I could do was fall and fall. And wait. We're in a void. That's what Amalthea'd said to us on the night we found Queenie, when the stars went out. We're in a void.

For Amalthea, this was the second time in less than a week. First there was Garlic. But Garlic came back! I looked to assure myself. Yes, he was there! Still upright! Still breathing. But now Rosemary? I looked to Asael and then to Queenie. And I found myself thinking, as though such a thing was possible, 'Bring her back!'

"I'm gonna know," Isak sniffed softly, bringing my attention back to him. He moved the rifle so that it lay readily across his lap. "Before I'm done, I'm gonna know who done this. Some fucker's gonna answer."

* * *

Once again, in the depth of her dream, Bridie walks Sugar Town's streets. She is with – she is – the child who lives, trapped, in this in-between world of what-once-was and what-might-be. Together, as one, they pass along dark, narrow paths, hurrying from street light to street light, from one sanctuary to the next. Until, suddenly they're caught by shadows. Light is ahead and light is behind but the great looming darkness of trees, hissing and moving and laughing, is all around them.

What shall we do? What shall we do?

We'll look at them. Look in their eyes. And they'll think we're not afraid. And they'll free us to the light. Together, as one, they turn. But the shadows are blind. They strike her down and, one by one, they crawl inside her head. There is light all around, but in her mind, the shadows lie down, heavy and satisfied as hogs, and they fall asleep there. But she – the little girl, the grown woman – she knows! She knows that in their sleep, they dream of her.

Bridie's dream has one last image for her. It's the Reverend, sitting, working at the great desk in his study. She, the little girl / woman, touches him and he wraps his arms around her, blubbing like a baby against her breasts. 'Forgive me,' he cries and she looks around to see who is there. But there's no one! Not her, not the little girl, not the Reverend. Only the shadows, pig-happy and grunting in their sleep.

* * *

The sun, when it finally brought that dreadful night to an end, found us – an old man, a young woman, a girl and a boy, a live goat and a dead one, along with a smoothly opaque, faintly coppery, pear-shaped metallic object from space – all gathered on the small veranda of the house. Amalthea had washed the dried blood from Rosemary's wounds, one at the back of each rear leg and one at her throat. The hair on her legs beneath the cuts had been syruped into place, sheathed with thick masses of congealed blood. On her belly, the skin was torn and flayed, flecked with gravel, where she'd dragged herself. But on her chest, below the slash on her throat – Isak's cut – the blood had been little more than a spatter; testament to Isak's belief that she was nearly gone when he found her. She was covered now, not with blood but with a sheet, to hide the gaping wounds.

We sat about aimlessly, shocked almost into silence, watching the new day's beginnings. When we did speak, it was softly as though the sun might rush back into hiding if we raised our voices. Asael told us that Queenie had woken him with a high-pitched keening wail, even before Isak had turned up and I didn't feel the least compelled to question him about his medication. Who was I to question? Somehow, between him and Queenie, Bridie had been woken from her sleep and Garlic brought back from the dead. When I nodded an appeal in Rosemary's direction, he shook his head.

"Too much of her is gone, I think." And that made as much sense to me as anything else I'd seen or heard in recent days.

"It's Monday," he said. "Are we going to school, Ruthie?"

"No. Not today. And don't call me Ruthie. Call me . . . ! Call me . . . Afraizia!"

"Okay."

Isak had showered away the blood from his hands and arms and found himself a different shirt in Amalthea's wardrobe. He sat, propped against the wall, arms on his knees, with the butt of the rifle between his feet. He had seemed, when we first found him, to be very small and fragile. But I could see, now, that there was a solidity about him; an aura of permanence and stillness – like he was made of earth. No one asked him where he'd been or where he'd gotten the rifle or why he'd come back. He seemed, for the moment, to be where he belonged.

Which was a great deal more than I could say for myself. For the first time, that morning, I was truly frightened of the possibilities that surrounded us. We'd spoken of rape and we'd spoken of lying and we'd spoken of murder. We'd seen a house burned. But nothing had been as real as Rosemary's blood and the cruel cuts on her body. That morning it seemed that, in the very early hours, something terrible had awoken in Sugar Town.

* * *

We were still there, waiting for some idea of what to do, when we heard Kevin's motorbike turn off the main road. Its progress stopped for several minutes, just out of our sight, the motor left running. Then he came on, slowly, weaving this way and that, studying the road as he came. When at last he rumbled into the yard I could see, dangling between the pincers of two fingers, a long-bladed knife.

He took in our little band on the veranda, his face agog, probably as much at our sombre stillness as at the sights of Isak and Queenie. When his eyes fell on Rosemary and the lightly speckled sheet that covered her, a strangled sound escaped him and he went to Amalthea, arms wide. She cried then, for the first and last time.

* * *

Kevin had fresh bread in his saddle-bags, so some things were clearly going on as normal. He'd spent a fruitless hour in the night, patrolling the streets of Sugar Town on his bike, looking for signs of Rosemary. Then he'd slept a few hours and risen as usual, at four. Hoggs had been at the back door, as always, ready for work.

"And did he say how the Mayor was?" Amalthea asked scornfully. "Whether he enjoyed the fire last night? Or better yet, did he say where the Mayor got to in that hour or two when no one could find him? That's a thing we'd all love to know!"

There was a grimness about her that was as new as the cuts on the backs of Rosemary's legs. Kevin shook his head and began to speak, but she cut him off with an outthrust finger.

"Don't you dare! I might have half-way bought it last night but not today! Nothing could be more deliberate than what they did to Rosemary! And they're connected, those two things! I promise you that!"

"I know," he said. "I know. I believe it. Listen! I swung by the showground on the way here, to see if Bessie and Arturo got away all right. I couldn't stop thinking about what you said last night; that soon there'd soon be no evidence at all of what happened to Bridie. Police records gone, the Reverend's notes gone! Gracie, Rita, Les and the Reverend – all gone. I counted you in there as well, Isak – as one of the people who'd never be heard."

"Oh, I'll be heard all right!" Isak said. "Take no ear-strain to hear me." He bounced the butt of the rifle against the floor boards. Thunk thunk!

"So what about Bessie?" I asked. "Has she gone?"

He shook his head. "They'd planned to get away at first light. But someone paid them a visit in the night. They found a gas bottle this morning – one of hers – with a hose attached – running into her caravan."

It was one of those moments when you cover your mouth because you're frightened of what might come out of it. It came out anyhow.

"Shit a brick!" I whispered. "What happened? Is she okay?"

"She's not called Madame Zodiac for nothing, Ru. She's fine. She was with Bandini in his caravan. Anyhow, I told them about Bridie and about the house burning. It was her home too, after all, for a number of years there, and Bridie was . . . well, they were close. Very close – especially after Rita died. So I thought she should know. Then, when they told me about the gas bottle . . . ! I'm convinced! Somebody's obviously very desperate – dangerously desperate – to have this history left in the past." He gestured toward Rosemary. "This . . . just adds certainty."

Thump-thump went the butt of Isak's rifle and, "Fuckin' oath it does!" he said.

"So they're leaving?" I asked and Kevin shook his head.

"Don't know! They're airing out Bessie's caravan and talking it over. But Bessie wants to see Bridie. And she's got it in her head that she left things in a muddle here once before. This time, she says, she wants to see it right."

We all fell silent. It sounds so easy, I was thinking; to 'set things right'. But where do you start? It was no help to me that, at some point through the morning, I'd experienced a sort of mental click, like a stepping stone had winked in and immediately out of existence at the corner of my eye. Things were shifting so rapidly.

"They have to come here," Asael said quietly.

And to our questioning looks he added, "They'll be safe here; with Queenie."

I imagine everyone's mind turned, as mine did, to a picture of those two lonely caravans, half out of sight at the bottom of the showgrounds. Obviously, Asael was right. If they were staying in Sugar Town, it couldn't be down there.

Groaning with exertion, using the rifle as a crutch, Isak climbed to his feet.

"The kid's right. I'll get 'em."

And tucking the rifle under his arm, he headed off in the opposite direction, into the cane.

"Have some breakfast first!" Amalthea called out to him but he waved without looking back, taking the long way around to the showground.

In a déjà vu moment, Kevin and Amalthea moved Rosemary's corpse inside, to the spot where Garlic had so recently lain, and Asael picked up Queenie, carrying her easily to a corner of the living room where she again balanced lightly on a pinpoint of her round bottom. I stayed outside, looking across the yard at the dark patch of blood, wondering if it would be wrong to fetch a bucket of water and wash it away.

Nearer, on the grass, Kevin's motorcycle ticked and gurgled as it cooled and beside it lay the knife he'd carried in from the road. He'd spotted it, he'd said, just fifty meters up, where the greatest mass of blood could be found. So that's where Rosemary had been attacked. Would someone have brought her there, to make sure she was found? Or had someone found her at that spot, almost home; almost safe. Someone who had already set up a gas bottle to empty into Bessie's caravan. Someone lurking.

And suddenly, there was that mental click again – that stepping stone, winking at me from the void. Only this time, my eye caught and held it long enough for my mind to register it. It was the knife! I'd seen that knife before! Only yesterday, in fact! Right here in this house!

It was the knife Darryl Sutton had produced to use in butchering Garlic who, as it turned out, had still had not only a beating heart in his chest but friends to protect him..

I picked up the knife between two finger tips, the way Kevin had. The blade was long and thin, narrow as a rapier from years of sharpening. A proper butcher's knife. Dale, I knew, had a school-based apprenticeship with Ansell Williams, the butcher. What did that mean? Obviously it meant he'd borrowed or stolen a knife and he or Darryl or probably both of them had used it to maim Rosemary! But why? And why booby-trap Bessie's caravan? Dale and Darryl wouldn't know Bessie from a hole in the ground! And then to leave the knife on the road? Even for the Suttons, that was some stupid!

I took it inside and laid it on the floor behind the front door, out of sight. Even I know that the more obvious something appears, the more careful your scrutiny should be.

* * *

As it happened, I wasn't the only one who recalled seeing it in Darryl's hand. Half way through breakfast, Amalthea gave a surprised grunt of remembrance and left the table, muttering about that knife. I had to tell her where it was.

"Just wanted it out of sight," I said in answer to her question. "I only touched the tip of the handle – with two fingers, like Kev'. What're you going to do with it?"

"Sergeant Morrow," she said narrowly. "Frieda says he's a good cop. Even Kevin's willing to stand up for him. I think it's time to put him to the test."

Plans started to be made then; because whatever else happens, the day moves on. Kev' needed to get back to the bakery to relieve Hoggs. And Asa' and I obviously had to go to Bridie, though I had thoughts beyond that, as well. Amalthea was off to the police station.

"I'll take Garlic," she said. "He's not strong yet, but I can't risk leaving him alone; not with whoever's-out-there still on the loose. And we'll come straight back, in case Bessie and her friend move their caravans here."

That meant Queenie would have to stay on her own. The last thing we did was agree amongst us that we would remain mum about Isak.

Chapter 19 – Exposure

I have this theory that, when a thing disappears, some remnant of it remains in the space it inhabited. The details of it linger, as though that particular volume of air is a slightly different colour. I was thinking that as I sat in the yard beside the stinking pile of ash and rubble that had been our house. If I squinted my eyes in just the right way, the house was still there! And it struck me that the same is true for people; that it takes a while for their auras to fade when they move away from us. Some longer than others, I expect. It might even be true for parts of people. Like, if you tell lies, there might be a detectable place where your honesty used to be. Or if you became a coward, there's an empty place where your courage used to be. I was counting on that as I waited for Dale Sutton.

* * *

I'd gone with Asael to the hospital to check in on Bridie and I confess that I'd been nervous about it. Despite her promise that nothing like the pills would happen again, it just seemed to me that the unexpected kept bobbing up in terrifying ways in our lives. It was a comfort to see Matron, still there at the front desk, looking like the Guardian of the Gate. She waved us on through.

Bridie was sitting up in the bed, reading, and Asael was so excited that he started to yammer at her practically before we were in the room. The story of Rosemary's death was top of his list, of course, and he blurted out Isak's name before I could gag him. I reminded him, as calmly as I could, that we were keeping our 'friendship' with Isak secret for the time being. As far as anyone in the area was to know, Isak had gone walk-about and couldn't be found.

I probably would have let Bridie in on it anyhow – just a bit more quietly. As it was, I showed her Gramma G's ring and tried to explain how the old man had come to be temporarily in residence at Amalthea's house. I also kind of suggested that he was frightened of Doctor Dabney (which I thought was better than saying his intentions were murderous!) and that was why I was trying to stifle Asael.

I didn't say anything about his confession of murder, though I supposed that, some day, the topic of Les Crampton would have to come up between us. Nor did I say anything about Isak's intention to uncover conspiracy in the town. I would have kept the gun-thing to myself as well, but Asael had already blabbed it. The only option left to me was to make out that he was just a nervous old bloke who wanted to be left alone, and that both Kevin and Amalthea thought it would be best to keep his whereabouts quiet for the time being (which was also only a bit of a lie). As it turned out, only the ring interested Bridie and even that she quickly shrugged aside.

We chatted on aimlessly for a bit until I casually put my plan into action, proposing that I slip over to the house and take some photos. For the insurance people, I said. And to show Bridie just how severe the damage was. She was content to let me go and, happily, Asa' was content to stay at the hospital.

On the way out, I detoured past Johnathon Cranna's room and found him up and dressed, in his wheelchair.

"Ruthie! Lovely! I'm glad you haven't wiped me from your social calendar!"

The broken leg was rigid out in front of him and looked very uncomfortable, but his face seemed to light up when he saw me. Who can resist a smiling reception?

"I don't have a social calendar, Mister Cranna," I smiled in return. "But if I did, I'd make sure you were on it."

"Ah," he said, and laughed. "First of all, I thought we'd gotten past the 'Mister Cranna' stage. My name's Johnathon. And people who've been through as much together as we have should be on a first name basis. Don't you think? And secondly, seriously, because my head seems clear for the first time in ages, I want to make sure that I've properly thanked you for saving my bacon!"

He held out his hand and I took it for a shake, which lasted just a little longer than I would normally have expected.

"I've always been a sucker for bacon," I said, a little cheekily. "You're up and dressed! Are you going home?"

"Maybe. Roger's still assessing the situation. But I live in hope. Listen, I heard about your house! And about your sister's . . . well, you know! That old busybody Bessie Crampton, they say . . . bringing up ghosts from the past. It never rains but it you-know-whats, eh? But listen! Bessie never was right in the head, you know! And I say that with the deepest respect and affection and gratitude for what she did for your family – especially after your poor mother's tragic death. Is Bridie alright? Are you alright? Is there anything I can do?"

"No, no, thanks! I think we're okay. I'm just heading over to the house now to check out the ruins."

"Well, look! If you need anything in the short term . . . a place to stay or whatever . . . I've got a whole hotel there and I'll make space for the three of you for as long as you need it. You know that, don't you?"

"Thank you, Johnathon. That's very generous." He was so charming and immaculate and handsome. The faintest hint of aftershave hovered around him. "Look, I'd best be getting on. I hope the doctor's report is good news."

He nodded gratitude and, as I started to leave, he called me back.

"Ruthie, can I tell you something? I wouldn't ordinarily burden you with it! And my conscience is giving me curry, even as we speak. But from what I'm hearing, the way things have been going, I think I'd be doing you a disservice to keep quiet."

He held out his hands, reaching for mine – so serious and sombre. I went back to him, more than a little intrigued.

"Not everyone knows this," he started, "but, back those years ago, when . . . you know . . . what apparently happened to your sister . . . Sergeant Morrow actually did manage to identify a . . . a primary suspect! Yes! He did! And that person . . . was none other than Les Crampton! Bessie's husband! No doubt about it! Now I don't know what stories Bessie's been telling, but I just think you should be aware that she might . . . and I'm not saying she has, but she might . . . have ulterior motives! You know? Hoping to protect his memory? Hoping maybe even to protect herself! Who knows what she knew and didn't tell, eh?"

I don't know what level of shock he expected from me, but I'm fairly certain I didn't register any at all! Aside from the fact that it was all stuff I already knew, my major reaction was pleasure that he was volunteering information to me. I'd defended him when Amalthea challenged his silence and, to my mind, he was vindicating me, as well as himself. So, though I'm sure I didn't register any shock, I expect some hints of gratitude and pleasure might have leaked through. In any event, he seemed to take encouragement.

"I also think, in the spirit of friendship, Ruthie, that I have to tell you this! Before Les could be taken into custody, he was murdered! Beaten to death, the rumour was! I'm sorry. I know it's brutal and ugly to talk about. But the very dangerous and unstable man who did that . . . was Isak Nucifora!"

Now I found myself swallowing hard. I'd told Amalthea that I saw no hope of any new information from Johnathon. But perhaps I'd been wrong!

"Why isn't he in prison then?"

"He's not in prison because, in a back-handed kind of way, he did the law a favour, I guess. Sometimes, in little towns like ours, local justice . . . just seems more convenient! So he was never prosecuted! And there's something else, Ruthie."

He stopped talking, his eyes locked on mine. And for the first time, I thought I saw a little emptiness there; a place where something else – I couldn't tell whether it was something better or worse – had once been.

"Nobody else knows this," he said, closing my hand between the two of his. His hand was soft and warm, a little damp, despite the hospital's air-conditioning.

"Nobody else knows this but, before your father left on his overseas mission, he asked me to watch over his kids. To be a sort of . . . godfather to you, I guess . . . for want of a better word. He was a great man, your father . . . IS a great man . . . and I, of course, was honoured to take on the role. I know I've never made a fuss or been public about it; mostly because I respect Bridie's need for dignity and independence. But I want you to know that I've always made sure things worked out for you three. And I'm going to keep doing that. Even now, I can tell you that I have started plans to get you re-housed – something, bigger, nicer, newer."

He suddenly grimaced and, letting go of my hand, tried to adjust his outthrust leg.

"I don't think I've gotten into this chair properly, Ruthie!" He laughed uncomfortably. "There's a cushion here, just under the edge. I wonder . . . if I hoist myself up a bit, could you pull it a few centimetres forward for me?"

So I found myself reaching around under his cast, under his thigh, finding a small cushion and needing to get both hands on it to tug it free of his butt. I'd gone down on one knee and when I looked up to ask if it was okay, he sighed contentedly.

"That's fine, Ruthie. Thanks." Then he brushed a finger very fleetingly against my cheek. "Beauty runs in your family, doesn't it Ruth. Your father would be very proud."

I stood up, flushed with embarrassment, and backed toward the door.

"I'd better get going."

"Yes, you should!" he laughed. "I haven't got time to be sitting around gas-bagging all day, after all. Busy, busy, busy!" Then he turned serious. "But think about what I've told you, Ruth. I know it's hard but . . . there're true friends and there're false friends, mate. You know? The butcher, the baker and so-on and so-forth. Your true friends in Sugar Town . . . we just want what's best for you. And all we ask in return is that you want what's best for Sugar Town. That's not much to ask, is it?"

* * *

Johnathon backs his chair to the door of the room and leans out to watch her go. She's tall, slender, boyish. The ponytail and the ever-present backpack make her seem even younger than she is. But something in the way she held his eyes when they spoke, some aura of defiance, stirs him.

The same qualities your sister once had, he thinks. And your mother. And look where it got them.

Johnathon wonders if he's been too subtle in warning her off. But if the fire wasn't enough, and the planted suspicions weren't enough, what else can he do? Whatever it is, it must be circumspect – clear but not too direct – like the steps he's already had enacted to discourage Bessie Crampton from lingering in Sugar Town.

And old Isak is another complication. He'd thought, as everyone else had, that the old man had done them all a favour and taken himself off to die. But then, while patrolling the halls in his wheelchair, he's heard the first outcry of Asael McFarlane's story. The old geezer is still in circulation! Alive and mobile . . . and armed! Unbalanced too, of course! Perhaps, Johnathon thinks as Ruthie disappears from his sight, there could be a more direct remedy for someone like Isak.

* * *

So that's what I had to think about as I sat at the old table in the yard, waiting for Dale Sutton. Once out from under the blanket of Johnathon's immediate charm, I felt just a tad weird about the hand-holding thing and getting me to reach under his butt; touching my cheek and pretending that I might be as attractive as Bridie. But then, he was only three days out from a near-death experience in the Moth! And I was proud of him for seeing me as someone he could finally tell the truth to! And the thing about being close to the Reverend did ring true. Especially, considering the cryptic references in the Reverend's sermon! So on the whole, I was feeling pretty warm about him.

* * *

The house was basically rubble. The concrete stumps still stood and spars of blackened timber poked up here and there. Sheets of roofing iron lay scattered about the yard where the volunteers had thrown them during the final damping down. I could easily have stepped under Sergeant Morrow's crime scene tape and had a look for mementoes, but I didn't. As far as I could see, it was all gone and, like Bridie, I was totally fine with that.

I was there for close to half an hour before Dale came lumbering along the footpath. He was so big – it wasn't until you recognised the school uniform that you realised he wasn't a man.

"Dale, Dale, DALE!" I scolded as he came into the yard. "Skipping out on school again? How're you ever going to better yourself?"

I'd had to ring his mother to get his mobile number. We'd had a nice chat, she and I. She'd asked after Bridie and tsk-tsked about the fire and I'd deliberately kept the conversation as light and pleasant as possible.

"Of course you're not at school today, dear. So much to do, I'm sure. And tell me, dear. This space object! It was all the talk at the CWA meeting last night. Some extraordinary connection with your brother, they say! Has he . . . is it . . . terribly imposing?" She was a nice lady. Not her fault her boys were drongos.

"Whaddya want?" Dale demanded. "Your text said you had something for me."

"Yeah, I do have something. How're your ears, by the way? No ringing going on in there? Still firmly attached, are they? I notice your black eyes are healing up nicely!"

He looked at me expressionlessly for a few seconds then turned his big, bearish self around and headed back toward the street.

"Your knife!" I called after him. "I have your knife!" He turned and looked, waiting. I knew I had him. "Or should I say Mister Williams' knife? Not nice to steal from your employers, Big Guy! You could lose your precious apprenticeship . . . as a butcher!"

Expressionless was Dale's default setting and that's the way he stayed.

"Are you with me? Are you in there? The knife you used on Rosemary? Amalthea's goat? Last night? The butcher's knife you probably stole from Mister Williams? The one Dumb-ass Darryl brought to the house the other day to use on Garlic? You left it on the roadside! Dumb is as dumb does, that's what I always say, Dale."

He made a little mouth and blew a breath of air out, as though shooing a fly, then ambled back toward me. He sat at the table opposite and folded his big arms on it. If he was hoping to intimidate me, I wanted him to know it wasn't going to work and I stared him right in the eye. That wasn't something I'd done often with Dale and I was expecting to see one of those little empty spaces where cruelty lives – or maybe even a hint of shame. But I didn't. There actually was something a little soft and wounded-looking in there.

"Why're you like this?" he asked; hardly the question I expected.

"Like what? Pissed off? Disgusted?" I threw an exaggerated look at the ruins of the house. "Geez, I dunno Dale! Why're you as dumb as a duck?"

He sighed. "So you got the knife. It was stupid, what we did yesterday, and I'm sorry. But yeah. I borrowed it. I was gonna take it back but I lost it. Do what you want with it."

"You lost it, did you? On the roadside after catching a trusting little animal and cutting its hamstrings? Is that when you lost it, big brave Dale? Hey, why don't you to tell me how it felt, crippling that harmless little animal! Did it make you feel like a big man? And maybe you could really stretch yourself and tell me why! Or hey! Why not go for broke and try telling me what you had to do with this!" I gestured at the charred ruin of the house. He didn't seem to be following me.

"I always tried to be nice to you," he said. "There was a time I even thought I liked you. But I can see now you're just way too smart for the likes o' me. So how 'bout we agree not to bother each other anymore."

And he got up to go! It was all I could do to keep from throwing myself on his back and boxing his ears again!

"Come on, Dale! What sort of chicken-shit does stuff like that and won't own up to it?" He stopped, stared at me, rapped the table with his knuckles; strangely calm.

"Ruth, I have no idea what you're talking about. We came around for the dead goat, sure. We were pissed and stupid. But I don't know anything about hamstringing animals. And I sure as hell don't know anything about this!" He flicked a gesture at the house. "So you do what you want with the knife, little girl. And good luck to you."

He pushed the bench in deliberately, carefully, ready to walk. This hadn't gone the way I pictured it at all.

"Mind you," he said before leaving, "if I was you and I was wondering why my house got burned down, I'd start by scratching around amongst the ashes for a mirror."

"Why? What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Why ask me? I'm as dumb as a duck! Remember?"

Half-way out of the yard, he stopped and looked back. "You sure it's the same knife?"

"Oh yeah! I'm sure alright!"

He cast a long, thoughtful look at the ruin. "You stayin' at the goat lady's place?"

"Yeah. And we've got guns. And we're all mad as hell!"

He twitched a little smile at me then; quite a nice smile, actually. "No argument from me on that score!"

When he was gone, I sat for a long while, looking across the ruins out to the street. At least two new things were annoying me. One was that, against all my better judgement, I actually believed the big, dumb gonzo! I suppose I just couldn't imagine anyone being low enough to do what had been done to Rosemary and not be shame-faced when challenged over it. A second thing was the suggestion that I look in a mirror for the trouble-maker. Like I was the problem here!

And a third thing that came back to me was his, 'I even thought I liked you' crack! What was that about? I mean, aside from bumping into me and poking me and calling me names, what had he ever done to show that he liked me? Even that sloppy kiss on the back of the Ute in the marshalling grounds was sheer provocation! Wasn't it?

* * *

I checked the time on my phone. Only 10:15. It seemed like the day should be nearly finished. But then, I'd been up since shortly after three. I thought of going around to Kevin's for coffee and a bread roll but knew I should get back to Asael and Bridie. Taking photos of the ruins – a couple from the yard and a couple more from the street – was almost an afterthought.

When I passed through reception at the hospital, Matron was still there, and her long watch period was definitely starting to wear on her. She summoned me with a tired gesture and told me that a 'deputation of do-gooders' – Frieda Hoggitt and some of her acolytes – had been and gone. The dual message being that, firstly, she was not totally sold on Bridie having 'outside' visitors just yet at all and, secondly, that even the 'insiders' – the family – needed to make themselves scarce. Bridie was overdue for some 'quiet time'. Which was fine by me. I promised her that I would stay just long enough to collect Asael and I headed off down the hall. My intention was to step softly and quickly past Johnathon's room but I couldn't resist pausing to see if he'd actually been allowed to go home.

He was back on the bed, the wheelchair pushed into a corner. Obviously today wasn't to be his day. I sped up but he'd already spied me and called out.

"Hey! How did you go? Come tell me the news!"

I hesitated, not really wanting to go in. "Not much news, I'm afraid. Everything's gone."

"Oh-waa! Sorry to hear that! Did you take pictures? Come and show me! I'm going stir-crazy here. Or are you frightened people will start to talk?"

"Well. I guess that'd still beat having them light matches."

"What? Oh hey now! You don't want to be jumping to unhealthy conclusions, Ruthie! Accidents can happen, you know? The world is full of stray sparks!"

I nodded. Right at that moment, I was thinking, only one person in Sugar Town would have better reason than me to jump to unhealthy conclusions – and that person would be my sister.

"That's just how it is!" Johnathon went on. "Sometimes you're the pigeon, sometimes you're the statue. That's what my old man used to tell me. Luck of the draw. Nothing personal! None of it means anything!" It sounded surprisingly like Philippa's dying mantra: Nothing matters, everything counts.

"No? Well, nothing against your 'old man', Johnathon, but I'm not sure if I agree with him! Sometimes it seems very personal"

He smiled sympathetically. "Yes, yes. Of course." Then he winked and nodded. "Tell you the truth, Ruthie, I never agreed with him either. You know why? Because I learned long ago that I can do something about what happens. I never let myself be the statue. Never! I feel myself seizing up, I fly out and shit on something."

I guess sometimes, when you're a kid, the effort to seem worldly-wise and sophisticated can make you just unquestioningly accept crazy stuff. But I was so stunned by the sudden assertiveness in Johnathon's voice and the narrow focus in his eyes that I just nodded blankly.

"One of the things I learned growing up, Ruthie . . . bad stuff is out there in the world! Sometimes you run into it by accident. But sometimes bad people bring it directly to your door! And what are your choices then, eh? Maybe you can shrug it off, like your sister's been able to. Maybe you can get strong, like I've been able to! Or maybe you can just get with strong people and hope trouble doesn't notice you. You know what I mean? But don't ever be a statue, Ruthie. Whatever else you do!"

"Count on me!" I said, as if I understood what he was talking about.

Dumb, I know. But once again, in a perverse kind of way, I was very flattered. This was like, a strong person, talking to someone who he thought might also be capable of being strong! At the same time, though, I was thinking of Bridie, whose door had been knocked on by some very bad people! And maybe she'd been able to 'shrug it off'. But as for me, I was beginning to think, a little longingly, that life was probably much less complicated for statues.

"Hey!" chirped Johnathon, changing the topic and the tone. "You want a job?"

"What? A job?" That made me laugh, almost for the first time that day. "I am going back to school, you know! And I'm way too young to be a barmaid. What kind of job?"

"Oh I don't know! Something after school, I was thinking. Only for a few weeks, 'til I get this cast off! Maybe come in and straighten up the flat, that kind of thing! I mean, I could get someone else on staff to do it but I thought maybe you could use the spare cash."

Again, I hesitated. "It'd keep you out of trouble," he said. "And give us a chance to get to know each other – as employee and employer, of course!" His wink was hard to decipher. "Could work into something more permanent, you never know!"

"Well, thank you! Thank you for the offer! I'll . . . I'll talk to Bridie about it."

* * *

Asael was lying on the bed beside Bridie, both of them half asleep. She woke when I came in and suggested that I take him back to Kevin's or Amalthea's so we could all get some sleep. She and Matron, it seemed, had the same idea and it was obviously not the time to be broaching the subject of me working for Johnathon Cranna.

I hauled Asael back down the corridor, weighing my options of where to go. The one thing I was sure of was that I didn't want to walk the streets yet again. Not that any place was far but a walk meant a barrage of inquiries and sympathy from all sides and I just didn't feel like facing it. That's why I was glad when I saw Hoggs, leaning on his car, smoking a cigarette in the parking lot.

"Hey Hoggs! Whatchu doin' outta bed? I thought daylight didn't agree with vampires?"

"Yeah, very funny. You wanna lift?"

The secret to getting on with Franz Hoggitt was to accept him for what he was – one of those very little 'successes' that unambitious people can become. He was the same age as Dale Sutton, whose crowd he hung out with, but had already been a school drop-out, much to Frieda's and the mayor's disgust, for nearly a year. So he had freedom, which heaps of kids envied him for. He also had money (from his work at Kevin's bakery) and a car. If you didn't look too closely, his life looked pretty sweet. When you did look closely, you could see that he'd still be doing the same thing – leaning on cars, smoking, trying to pick up teenaged girls – in twenty years time.

Nonetheless, we had a pretty good relationship going, from all the time we both spent at Kevin's – a big brother/little sister-ish kind of thing. And I had a whole new respect for his mum after her help at the bakery and coming to visit Bridie and all. So even without Asael as a chaperone, I'd have had no problems grabbing a lift with Hoggs.

"Don't tell me! You were hoping to pick up a stray invalid, but you'll make do with us?"

"Jus' for that, you can ride in the back. Come on, As'! Us men'll ride shotgun up front, eh? Whaddya reckon?"

We got all the way through town, Asael nattering away about this and that – mostly about Queenie – before Hoggs suddenly pulled the car to the side of the road and turned to me. Actually, he only half turned to me. Like he wanted to talk but he didn't want to have to look at me.

"Ruthie, I was actually waiting for you," he said, like it was some big revelation. "At the hospital."

"Yeah? You knew we were there?"

"Mm. I saw you sitting in the yard at your house – what's left of it. I buzzed around the block and came back but by then Dale was there. So I parked around the corner. When I saw you head for the hospital, I just waited."

"Yeah? So-o-o . . . was there something you wanted?"

It took him three tries, just to get started.

"I just wanted to . . . ! Look, I know that . . . ! I'm sorry about your house."

"Thanks, Hoggs. Us too, I suppose. It wasn't much but it was home, you know?"

"Yeah. Look, Alf Caletti come in the bakery this mornin' an' he tol' me about you lot seein' my ol' man there last night – at the fire, like. An' what with him bein' pissed and ma havin' told you the silly ol' fart was missin' just before that . . . Alf reckons youse took it into yer heads that it was maybe him started that fire! An' I just wanted to tell you that it definitely wasn't him, okay? Whoever done it, it wasn't him!"

"No! No! Course not! We were just upset, Hoggs. You know . . . trying to figure out how it started! No, I know I got up the mayor's nose a bit these last few days, but I surely wouldn't expect him to get about burning people's houses down every time they annoyed him! That'd be a hell of an electoral strategy, wouldn't it?"

We both laughed, ha-ha; both of us knowing there was nothing funny. I pictured the mayor as I'd seen him the morning before, standing in the street in front of Alf's Ute, shaking his finger at me and stuttering with rage. How big a jump would it be, from that to, a few hours and a few litres of beer later, wandering past an empty house and dropping a match?

"So where was he?" I asked casually. "When he went missing, I mean!"

"Where? Oh, nowhere! Just walkin'. He does that sometimes when he's got council business on his mind. Doesn't go anywheres; just up and down."

"Uh-huh."

I didn't intentionally sound sceptical but a man as drunk as the mayor was when I last saw him was not doing any deep reflecting on council business! And now that I was thinking about it, I was more than ever mystified by the fact that it was rage that had possessed him in the street. I could have understood regret or embarrassment or even dismissiveness – but to be so angry? It was almost like he'd found himself, unexpectedly, in a cage! I tried to picture him, the dapper little drunk, being involved in sexual assault on a young girl. It was a stretch, but doable!

"An' Kev' tol' me 'bout someone doin' for that goat," Hoggs was saying. "That's jus' bloody wrong, innit?"

Asael had to start in, then, on how Queenie'd woken him up with her wailing and how Rosemary had tried to get home, even with her back legs crippled. Most times, Hoggs was pretty patient with Asael's ramblings but he was too worked up to listen that day. He just bowled over top of As'.

"Were you talkin' to Dale about that knife?" he demanded of me.

"How'd you know?"

"I knew you'd recognise it from the other day. Dale stole it, you know. From Mister Williams. I'm not one to dob on me mates, ye know, but that Dale! Him an' his brother both . . . they're a pair o' bastards when they get a few in, ye know what I mean?"

"So-o-o, you're saying it was Dale who cut Rosemary?"

"No way! All I'm sayin' is, he stole that knife. Other'n that, you weren't with him an' I wun't with him so we can't know what he got up to las' night, can we? You have to make your own judgement on that! I'm jus' sayin' he can be one scary mongrel, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I do." For someone who wouldn't dob on his mates, Hoggs was doing a pretty focussed job of feeding my suspicions. "Well, you're right about me asking him, Hoggs. I asked him straight out if he did it."

"Yeah? Wha'd he say?"

"He said no."

"No kidding, eh! Surprise, Surprise! You believe him?"

"Dunno! I mean, it's not that I don't think he's capable. It's just, I can't figure why! If I could figure that out, I'd be a lot happier!"

"Whoa, you must be thick, girl! Think about how stupid you made him look lately! Them black eyes and them big red ears! Dale don' like bein' made a fool of, ye know! Ever think maybe he'd want to get back at you?"

That was the mock-laughing explanation and it was followed quickly by a more serious one – one delivered kind of shiftily, as though Hoggs had been practicing making it sound unrehearsed.

"But even more 'n that, maybe he's tryin' to get youse – you 'n' the goat lady – to back off a bit. You know? From all the questions and pryin' about stuff that went on in the past? Bad enough all this shit's come out without youse, you know, pushin' it further. Carryin' on, like! Nothin' to be gained from that shit, ye know? I mean, you can't un-do sump'm like that, can you? Done is done! So, maybe . . . you know . . . just in the way of lookin' out for yourselves, youse should give it a miss, whaddya think?"

I was momentarily stunned by Hoggs' strange logic. Why would it matter to Dale if 'all this shit' came out? He wasn't involved in it! He was five years old when it happened!

"But Rosemary belonged to Amalthea! It wasn't her who was asking questions!" I said.

"It was her askin' las' night! At the fire, about the mayor! She got no call puttin' her nose into Sugar Town's business like that, Ruthie! Makin' up shit! Bein' mayor o' this town's the most important thing in the world to that ol' bloke an' she's got no right to . . .!"

He was getting way ahead of himself and seemed suddenly to realise it. "I dunno," he finished more softly. "Maybe we jus' don' need outsiders pokin' their bibs in, eh? Anyways, I keep thinkin' o'that poor little goat, havin' to suffer like that, jus' so's someone could make a point. Jus' as well the ol' fella was there to put her out of her misery, that's what I say."

It took a minute for that to register and another for me to catch my breath. The old fella? Meaning Isak? How would Hoggs know about Isak? We'd all promised before we split up that morning to keep mum about him! And even if one of us had let that slip, how would he know that Isak had 'put Rosemary out of her misery'? How could anyone know? Unless they were there to see it!

"Ah! Yah, good," I managed to blurt. And then, "Hey, you haven't seen The Space Thing yet have you, Hoggs? Why doncha drive on down to the house and let As' introduce you?"

"Man, yeah! Far out, girl scout!" He was suddenly all sunshine, as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he turned his attention to Asael. "I heard you got a way with this thing, Big Guy! Like you an' it, you got powers, Man! Brought that other goat back to life an'. . . !"

"And a dragonfly!" Asael crowed. "And Bridie!"

Hoggs spun the tires and swerved out onto the road. The two of them started jabbering about 'powers' and I reeled off a text to Kevin. 'Did u mention Isak 2 Hoggs?' And I got an answer back straight away. 'Not 2 any 1. No 1 nos where he is'.

Yes someone does, I thought to myself! So the question is, how!

* * *

The noise of Hoggs' car brought Amalthea to the door.

"Look!" I said cheerily as we tumbled out. "Hoggs gave us a lift from the hospital! We thought we'd show him Queenie as a reward."

"Oh! Great!" she said in a tone that would have ripped the welcome mat out from under a more sensitive person than Hoggs. And she followed it with, "How's Bridie? Did you get to talk to her, Asa'?"

"Yup! Ruthie went to look at the house but I stayed and some ladies came to visit. Your mum came, Hoggs! She was very worried about Bri' but I told her everything was okay now 'cause Queenie was involved."

"Yeah? Slick!"

We filed into the house behind Amalthea; first Asael, then Hoggs, then me. Hoggs jolted to a stop just inside the door, though, and I bowled into him. Amalthea'd left a sheet over Rosemary to hide the grotesque wounds on her throat and legs, but her head was exposed. Garlic lay beside her, in almost the same spot as when he was dead.

"Go on in!" I put my hands on Hoggs' back and shoved him forward. There was no way he was getting out of this! "You'll never guess what, Amalthea! Hoggs thinks he knows who killed Rosemary! Don't you, Hoggs?"

He shifted on his feet and glanced at each of us, his head shaking minutely. In all the hours I'd spent around Hoggs at the bakery, I'd never noticed how narrow and nervous his eyes were.

"Yes!" I babbled on. "He thinks it was Dale Sutton! Remember Dale had that knife here the other day, when they came for Garlic? Hogg's reckons it was the same knife! Actually, I had the same idea! And I texted Dale at school this morning and got him to come to the house, or what's left of it, which isn't much, by the way, and I asked him if he did it. Asked him straight out and mentioned that knife and he said he knew about the knife but nothing else! I mean like he really didn't know! But of course, as Hoggs pointed out, what else is he going to say? So Hoggs thinks it was Dale! But you know what else in interesting?"

I'd wandered across the living room as I was talking and had a look in the kitchen. As I'd hoped, Isak was there, sitting very still and quiet at the table where he and Amalthea had been having coffee. The rifle was leaning against the sideboard, just at the end of his reach. I put my hand on my chest where he could see it and pointed at Gramma G's ring, which I'd taken to wearing. He looked up at me and furrowed his brow.

"What else is interesting . . . !" It was as pregnant a pause as I could manufacture; ". . . is that Hoggs doesn't think it was Dale who killed Rosemary. What was it you said, Hoggs? Lucky the 'old man' came by and 'put her out of her misery'? Was that it?"

He nodded, his mouth dangling open. The effect I was hoping for was him sensing that his foot was in a bear trap which, as soon as he tried to move, was going to snap closed on him. I realised I was going to have to rattle the chain a bit louder.

"And by 'the old man', you meant . . . Isak Nucifora?"

Again, the wary nod. Amalthea's gaze turned from me to him.

"We were under the impression," she said, her voice low and dangerous, "that nobody knew where Isak was, Franz! That he's wandered off from the hospital and disappeared into the scrub somewhere! So why would you think he was involved?"

"Ahhh," he tried. "Yeah, but . . . Kev' told me he showed up here! Late, like! And he tol' me what he done!"

He looked at me in a pleading way, as though I could somehow help him out of this corner. Instead, I read out my text to Kevin and his answer.

"We all agreed, this morning, Franz," Amalthea explained carefully to him, "that IF any of us knew where Isak was, we wouldn't be mentioning that to anyone just yet! Are you saying that Kevin broke that promise and then lied to Ruth about it?"

"No no! It's just . . . He musta let it slip! Maybe he forgot!"

There was a scrape of chair from the kitchen and we all fell silent, turning to watch as Isak stepped into the doorway. The butt of the rifle thumped against the floor and he planted his hand over the tip of the barrel, as though only his palm was holding back the bullets. He looked larger than he'd seemed up until now; kind of swollen with anger, despite the fact that he was wearing a pink t-shirt of Amalthea's with _Who's Your Daddy?_ emblazoned on the front.

"Who's this little tosser?" he asked quietly. "This Lyle and Frieda's boy?"

In a reflexive kind of way, Hoggs chirped out a bit of bluster, during which Isak lifted the rifle and cocked it, allowing it to swing in the general direction of Hoggs' knees. Hoggs drifted to a stop. Then, like an old jalopy, he tried to start again.

"You don't scare me! No way you're gonna . . .!"

And the rifle went off. The bullet, as nearly as I could make out, must have passed between Hoggs' legs. Every one of us in the room, except for Isak, jumped a foot and half in the air and Asael slumped to the floor, covering his ears and crying out.

"Best you don't talk, sonny," Isak said softly. "Makes me nervous when people yabber at me." He tapped his forehead. "Not all here, ye see. Me 'n' the boy there! Both a bit strange!"

He folded himself into a chair and, "Ahhh, now!" he sighed. "Reckon we best sit down for this!" But when Hoggs moved tentatively toward one, Isak said, "Not you."

I went to Asael, who was sniffling and crying lightly. When I tried to pick him up, he turned wide eyes on Queenie.

"'S okay, youngster," Isak said to him softly. "She'll be okay. She knows me."

I could barely hear him, what with the echo of the gunshot ringing in my ears. But I understood exactly the fear that Asael was feeling. What had we done? What had I done? I pulled Asael onto the couch between me and Amalthea, who had lifted Garlic in close to her. I wasn't sure what I'd expected from Isak but, despite his having talked about shooting Roger Dabney, the reality of gunshots hadn't properly registered in my head. And despite how disgusted and disappointed I was in Hoggs, I didn't see shooting him as a sensible option.

"Let's get this clear," Isak said, his voice as calm as a turtle's. "I reckon you seen me put this little gal outta her misery las' night. I reckon you was there! An' I'm crappin' meself with excitement to hear what you got to say about that."

Hoggs opened his mouth to protest but Isak waved him into silence. "Not yet. You'll have yer chance in a minute. First, I want to make sure you understand where I'm comin' from. I want you to consider that what you done to this little goat las' night with a knife, I could do to you with a bullet. Get me? If you was a hundred yards away, runnin' faster 'n' Cobalt Joe, I could still take your knees out, neat as a pin, so you'd never walk again. Shootin's what I do, ye see? How I make me livin'! Ye unnerstand?"

Hoggs was trembling so hard he could barely stand, but he nodded.

"Good. Now that's not my intention, see? I might decide to shoot you later. I might even jus' shoot you by accident! But it's not the thing that's in the front o' me mind right now. She's pretty unpredictable o' course, this ol' head o' mine, but right now, I'm thinkin' we'll jus' talk. Orright?"

A small wet stain appeared on the front of Hoggs' trousers.

"That's orright," Isak said pointedly. "'S just fear. Everything does it. Done it meself once or twice. What's yer name again?"

"F-F-Franz."

"Franz. Okay. Tell me, Franz. You move that gas bottle on Bessie's caravan las' night? Or did Mayor Lyle do that?"

Hoggs shook his head. "I . . . I . . . !"

The rifle bobbed up and down in his direction and he whimpered, "I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Just . . . !"

"Just what, Franz?"

And Hoggs lost it. Tears and snot and noise came tumbling out.

"It's her fault!" he squealed, pointing at me. "Askin' an' askin'! It's all in the past, fer Chris' sake! Can't you see that? Nobody can undo anything! Nobody can take it back! Everything was fine an' forgotten 'til she started up!"

"Fine an' forgotten?" Isak croaked, starting to his feet. His voice, which had been relatively mild, was suddenly thunderous, his eyes wide and wild. "Fine an' forgotten sez who, you jumped up little toad's dick? That gonna be your excuse for cuttin' this little goat? For movin 'at gas bottle an' lightin' 'at fire at the Reverend's house? All o' which, I reckon you done! 'Cause by the livin' Jesus, let me tell you this for free 'n' all! Fuckin' little is 'fine'! An' nothin' ever gets forgotten! Everythin' hangs on into the right now!" He shook his head as though someone had just slapped him, and he stepped back, raising the rifle. "That's it!" he roared. "Bloody miserable little pissant! You're done!"

I was on my feet, even as Hoggs fell off his.

"No!"

The action seemed to break something in my own resolve and I found I was crying almost as hard as Hoggs; wounded by his terrible killing of Rosemary and also, I think, by the blame placed on me, for making it seem necessary. Even so, like some mad woman in a cheap film, I thrust myself between him and Isak.

"No!"

"No? No, my ass, junior! This li'l pecker i'nt man enough to own up! An' this town got two shitloads too many like him awready! Now get outta the way, an' let me fuckin' finish 'im!"

"No, Isak! Stop it! We can't!"

Hoggs slumped even lower on the floor behind me, adding his blubbering and pleading to mine, while Asa' contracted back into his foetal position and Amalthea edged forward in her seat. The stand-off lasted only a few moments as Isak, his teeth bared, shook the rifle at me, stomped his feet and growled down on the snotty, piss-stained, cringing mess that was Hoggs.

"Grrraaaahhh!" Then, swinging his eyes back to me, he waggled his bows mischievously and allowed one weepy eye to perform a slow, unmistakable wink. At which point, I realised how close I'd come to wetting my own pants!

So! It was a fishing expedition! A game! And though it doesn't say anything very nice about me, it was a game that I immediately knew and just as immediately wanted to play. I virtually lunged at Hoggs, putting my own spurs into his terror.

"You see what you've done?" I howled at him, smacking the hair on the top of his head. "He's ready to kill you, right now! To shoot you dead as a nail! And I'm having trouble thinking of a reason to stop him, Hoggs!" I smacked him a second time. "Because you are the world's biggest disappointment! You know that?"

He buried his face in his hands, stifling his own nod and I slapped him a third time.

"Don't you dare agree with me!" I grabbed his ear and jerked his head up. "Look at her!" I cried, sniffling and pointing at Rosemary. "She was a living, breathing creature, Hoggs! And you slashed her with a knife and left her to die, on the side of the road! All alone! At night! So close to home!" Each piece of it seemed a horror on its own. "How could you do that, Hoggs? What kind of a person could do that?"

He wiped his nose on his sleeve and shook his head, but kept his eyes averted, refusing to look. It was that refusal, I think, that tipped me the final bit – out of the game and into the terrifying needs of reality.

"Answer me!" I screamed at him. "Why does it matter that much, Hoggs? Why shouldn't I be asking questions?"

He had a rocking motion up by then, hugging himself and moaning deep in his throat.

"What? You just gonna lie there and whine? Lie there and feel sorry for yourself? Where's all your big, brave courage gone, you little puke? I tell you, you better come up with some answers, Hoggs! 'Cause I swear . . . I'm gonna let him shoot you! Understand? 'Cause I've had enough o' this shit! We've all have! We had enough yesterday! And today is just way too much! So this is your last chance to talk to me, Hoggs! This is it! Last minute! Right? No? Still nothing? Well! Fine then! Fine and forgotten!" I waved my arms in all too real and tearful exasperation. "You get what you deserve then, you stupid lump! Go ahead, Isak! Shoot him!"

His legs slid out behind him and he covered his head with his hands, weeping uncontrollably. Isak, meanwhile, shuffled his feet and grunted, making a show of licking his fingers and damping the peep sight; all the while glancing nervously at us, obviously surprised to have the ball back in his court so quickly. I wonder to this day what I would've let him do to Hoggs if, finally, Amalthea hadn't risen from her seat. She gently urged Hoggs to his knees, brushed hair from his forehead and tapped his cheek.

"Get up, Franz. It's all right, no one's going to shoot you."

She pulled his shirt front up and wiped his face with it, before tugging him to his feet and seating him at the dining table where he slumped, sniffling helplessly. Amalthea knelt in front of him, seemingly oblivious to the room's wet, sour smells of anger and fear.

"Your mother asked me yesterday," she said softly, "why I came to Sugar Town. I didn't tell her, Franz. None of her business, right? But I think I'm going to tell you."

She got no response, but carried on regardless.

"Listen to me, Franz. 'Cause I think this might be important to you. Okay? The reason I'm here is . . . I'm looking for a father."

Her voice was so lacking in expression, she might have been saying she was looking for a butterfly. I let my mouth drop open, ensuring that the rasp of my breathing wouldn't startle her into silence. "He's a guy I lost a long time ago," she continued. "Or rather, he lost me. He left my mother before I was born and he never came back – never came looking for me. What do you think, Franz? Is that a fatherly way to be?"

He raised his eyes at last and focussed on her, mystified.

"No," she answered for him. "No, I don't think so either. Fathers should be there for their kids, shouldn't they? They should be wise and caring and protective and . . . there! But you know what I've learned? I've learned that sometimes . . . they don't manage. Maybe they're trying, maybe they're not! Whatever! They don't manage. So sometimes kids find themselves . . . having to be the wise ones. Isn't that right, Franz?"

He nodded minutely, his eyes, like all our eyes, now fixed on her.

"There you go," she confirmed. "I knew you'd understand." And she groaned to her feet and, moving to stand over Rosemary, continued, "You know, some people'd say she was just a goat, Franz. Like it wasn't much to be a goat. But goats are more special than most people think! You can always trust a goat's judgement. Look!"

She bent to Garlic, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Garlic, what do you think? Was it Franz who hurt Rosemary?" Garlic shook his head. "No? Well what about that gas bottle? Did he move that, do you think, and try to hurt Bessie?" Again, Garlic wagged his head. "No? What about the fire at Ruthie and Asa's place, then? Surely Franz lit that, don't you think?" Garlic was still for a long moment, sniffing the air and blinking his blind eyes. Then he shook his head.

Amalthea patted Garlic fondly and sat back down, leaving us all wide-eyed, wondering what had just happened; letting the craziness leak away. Then Isak grunted to his feet and stomped off into the kitchen, giving us all the welcome distraction of slamming cupboards. When he came back, it was with a bottle of rum and a pair of juice glasses. He sat at the table next to Hoggs and poured two hefty drinks.

"Fair dinkum, Franz!" he said, pushing one across. "It's hard to keep up, innit?"

The rum slid down Isak's throat in a single gulp, surrounded by the smacking of lips and happy gummy noises. Franz coughed and grimaced over his but choked it down determinedly. Isak, having waited impatiently for it to be gone, refilled the glasses and sent a second shot scurrying after the first.

"Aahh!" he growled. "That's better, eh? Come on, get it into ye, boy! Not every day ye come that close to gettin' shot, I don't 'spect!" And as Hoggs gulped, he turned to Amalthea, "Now! From the beginnin', girlie!"

Amalthea's explanation went like this. It was unlikely, she figured, that Franz started the fire because when it started, he was at the pub. He'd rung Frieda from there, looking for his missing father. She and I, Amalthea pointed out, were there at Kevin's when the call came. So Franz had an alibi for that. And yet, apparently, he was willing to take responsibility for it! Why? Obviously, he thought he was protecting someone. Who? Who but his father . . . the mayor! The mayor had already made a show in the main street of the rage I'd stirred in him. When, only a few hours later, he was there, drunk as a skunk, at the burning of my house, Franz (Amalthea concluded) had jumped to the same conclusion that we had.

"Am I right, Franz? You think he lit the fire? And if he did that, well, it wouldn't be much of a step to moving a gas bottle to scare an old lady, would it? Or even to catching and wounding a harmless little goat, to warn people off asking more questions! Isn't that right?"

Hoggs looked at the floor in silence and Isak poured each of them a third shot which, a few moments later, managed to break the shackles on Hoggs' tongue.

"I don't know why!" he snivelled. "I mean everyone knows . . . !" His eyes were already starting to swim around in his head. "Everyone knows now! But why's he so mad? What's it got to do with him? I mean, he reckons to me, all anyone wanted was to stop things gettin' uglier! Courts 'n' fuckin' laws 'n' shit! 'Specially after that bastard who done it . . . that Crampton bloke . . . !" He looked at Isak, uncertainly. "They reckon you killed him!"

Isak tapped the base of his glass on the table and threw back a fourth shot. "That I did, young fella!"

"Whoa, man!" Hoggs' lifted his already sopping shirt tail to mop more tears and snot from his face. "That is heavy shit, dude! Me dad, he tol' me you were fuckin' bent, ye know? I never believed him!"

"Well ye do now, don't ye! Bent as a fuckin' copper nail! An' don't you forget it!"

And the liquor finally completed the task our threats had failed to do; slapping Hoggs' tongue entirely loose.

"Christ, Ruthie! All yer shit about cover-ups an' all! Why couldn't ye jus' leave it? Askin' Alf an' Mister Cranna an' who knows who else an' gettin' this Bessie shiela's back up! An' you," (meaning Isak), "makin' them accusations at the hospital an' then runnin' off like some kinda evil spirit an' you (Amalthea) pushin' it all along an', an', an' this space thing comin' down here like it's some kinda judgement on Sugar Town an' Asael bringin' back the dead or what-fuckin'-ever . . . ! Then Bridie takin' them pills . . .! It's like fuckin', a cliff has opened up in fron' of 'im, an' he's jus' knowin' someone's behind 'im, ready to push!"

"But he's your dad," Amalthea pointed out reasonably. "And you love him, whatever he's done. And you don't want to fail him. So you're willing to take the blame to protect him. Is that right?"

In answer, Hoggs choked back his fourth shot.

"If you weren't the one who hurt Rosemary," I asked, "how could you have known about Isak finding her?"

"'Cause I found her first! The mayor . . . ma threw him in the back bedroom to sleep it off when we got home from the fire, see. But when she checked on him in the middle o' the night, he was gone again. So she sent me out lookin' for him. Sometimes I find him, ye know; jus' sittin' on a bench in the main street! Middle o' the night! Contemplatin' his fuckin' button or somethin'. Keepin' a watch, he reckons. On his town! But he wunt there! So I come 'roun' this way, see? Reckoned if he had already burned yours, this place might be next! Come creepin' down, I did. Gonna grab him without wakin' anyone up. An' I foun' 'at goat an' na knife! But I didn' know what to do. An' 'en I heard you (Isak) comin'. I thought it mus' be me dad, see, comin' back! So I hid! Gonna pounce on him an' drag him home, I was! "

"And the gas bottle?"

"Dunno anything about that. But it seems to fit in, don' it? With everything else he done?"

"It would," Amalthea said, "if he actually had done the other stuff. But you know, I don't think he did! Not any of it!"

I'd just about let myself be convinced otherwise, so this was quite a surprise to me. She went on.

"I spent nearly an hour with Sergeant Morrow, this morning, filling out a report on Rosemary. I mentioned the mayor at the fire last night – the fact that he'd gone missing for an hour or two – just letting him know that I knew! Sergeant Morrow told me your dad was with him, at the police station yesterday afternoon, Franz. When you were looking for him, he and the sergeant were drinking and arguing. About Sugar Town's . . . past history!"

"Hmph!" Isak grunted, pouring more rum. "Never too late for drinkin', but way too friggin' late for arguin'!"

"According to Morrow, the mayor was needing to know what evidence still existed about the rape and Les's disappearance. Wanted it out on display, for all to see! And he staggered off only minutes before the fire siren started."

"According to Morrow!" I sneered. "Last night, you were reckoning he might be an arsonist! That he was protecting criminals instead of catching them! And today he's one o' the good guys?"

"I'm not saying anything about what happened years ago, Ruth! That's a whole different story. But as far as last night goes, I don't think either of them was involved. Mainly because the sergeant showed me what he and the mayor were arguing over – before the fire and again later in the night, when Rosemary was being attacked!" A smile patted the edges of her mouth. "He has 1997 and 1998, Ruth! Your father's sermons and notes! The two crucial years! He picked them out before he left your house in the afternoon! They're what he and the Mayor were trying to make sense of! So if someone burned your place thinking they were destroying the last records . . . well, it wouldn't have been either of them, would it?"

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't keep up with it! It was like we were in a game where people changed sides without warning.

"Oh bugger, bugger, bugger! First it's Hoggs, then it's not Hoggs! Then it's the mayor, then it's not the mayor! It might've been Morrow in the past but it's probably not Morrow now, because he's got books full of clues that nobody knows exist – and that're so crazy-nutjob-obscure they barely made any sense even to the people they were aimed at, let alone to us! But they seem to have flipped someone's lid anyhow! How're we . . . ? What're we . . . ?"

Exhaustion. Confusion. Fear. Anger. I was stupefied by it all.

"Listen," Amalthea explained calmly, "Morrow was up-front about the books, Ruth. That's all I'm saying! And I think it speaks in his favour! I asked if he and Lyle had argued out any conclusions and he said no. Not yet! But there are names! Lots of names! Lots of people who trod on your father's sensibilities! Morrow admits that he himself is there. As is the mayor and Kevin and Cranna and lots of others. So he's still looking! And I think, for the moment, we have to do like Frieda said and give him his space."

"Bloody useless!" I pointed out. "The very fact that the Rev' singled out guys like Kevin and Johnathon is proof o' that! As far as he was concerned, everyone was on a roller coaster ride to hell!"

"Damn straight!" Isak growled.

"Pissed meself!" Hoggs murmured in surprise. And then he threw up.

* * *

We considered pulling Hoggs'stinking pants off him before laying him on the floor in Amalthea's room, with a pillow under his head. We considered it and thought better of it, in case more leakage occurred. Then I set to work cleaning up the spew in the living room. It was the least I could do. Poor Hoggs! Enduring my probably baseless rage! For no other sin than loyalty to a deficient father.

While I worked, Isak and Asael talked about Queenie. I was half listening, half gagging, but I gathered that, aside from the initial 'dream' of Gramma G, Isak had gained very little from Queenie. A vague sense of approval, he thought; which was incentive enough to keep him pushing forward. But no clues, no hints . . . certainly no 'magical powers'! It set me to wondering again what was happening with Asael. Was he, as he seemed to think (and even I, at times, was half convinced) functioning on some sort of spiritual connection with Queenie? Or was he short-circuiting for medical reasons?

And that led me to think of Doctor Dabney, who we'd have to visit to find out. And that led me to think again of Bridie, lying in a hospital bed, with Johnathon only a couple of rooms away. Which led me to think of Matron's dogged supervisory techniques. It was another circle, round and round, that I couldn't shake. I rang Kevin.

"Stay there!" he said. "I'm closing up. I'll be right over."

By the time I got off the phone, Isak had wandered into the bedroom and flopped, immovably, on Amalthea's bed, while Asael and Garlic had curled up together on the living room floor, next to Rosemary. Amalthea rang Frieda, then, to come get Hoggs.

She and I sat on the veranda to wait, talking quietly and I had to decide which to ask about first: the 'looking for my father' story she'd told Hoggs, or her thoughts on who, if not Hoggs or the mayor, was responsible for last night. Having a pretty good idea who the lost father was, I decided to tackle that one before the man himself, Kevin, showed up.

"Does he know who you are?" I asked.

"He knows all he needs to know. Which is less than you know. And I'd like to keep it that way, please."

"Are you sure he's the one?"

"Ninety per cent."

"Why don't you just ask him?"

"Because if I ask and he's says yes, then I'm stuck with him, and him with me. And I'm not sure I want him. And I'm guessing, from the fact that he never came looking, that he never wanted me."

"But you wouldn't . . . you wouldn't just go away again, after finding him, and not tell him who you are?"

"Ruthie, I made some promises. First to my sister and then to my mother, who it seems never stopped loving whatever man it was who fathered me. Even though he abandoned her. If it was up to me alone, I'd have stayed content with my life-father – my step-father – who I love dearly and who loves me. I don't need anything from Kevin."

"What if he needs something from you?"

She rose to her feet, annoyed. "Don't be tiresome, Ruthie. What if your father needed something from you? After he abandoned you to go off with his . . . Agnes?"

"I can't imagine the Reverend needing anything from me."

"No? Not even forgiveness?"

She arched a brow at me and I had to concede the point. Nonetheless, the Reverend was obviously out there nourishing his 'demons'. No one could imagine Kevin having demons.

"Where are they?" I managed to ask. "Your mother and step-father?"

"Where are they? Well! They're all in their various versions of Summerland, I guess. Philippa died five years ago. She was almost your age, almost thirteen. Maybe even more brave, more determined, more stubborn than you, if you can imagine. A year after that, our mother developed leukaemia. She lasted six months. And two years further on, my father – my step-father – Philippa's father – developed Alzheimer's. We looked after him on the farm for a year. Now he's in a home, living a simple, uncomplicated life. And before you go getting all solemn and morbid about it, don't! It's just the stuff that happens. When I started clearing up their papers, I found the photos of mum and Kevin. And I found other stuff as well. Childhood sweetheart stuff. Correspondence. Very sweet. Just enough clues for us to come looking, Rosemary and Garlic and I. You see? Every ending is a new beginning! I always thought we'd have a look – fulfil our promises – and then go home, back to the farm. Which hasn't worked out very well for Rosemary, I guess. But her story got snagged on yours, didn't it. And that's just another thing that happens. Now, if you think you have enough information, I'm going to go have a shower."

She was in there for a long while. After a bit, I listened at the door and could hear the little animal noises of her crying. There's nothing like a good shower to carry away tears.

* * *

Johnathon Cranna sits in his wheelchair, his forehead pressed to the cool porcelain of the sink, his heart hammering. Damn her, he's thinking. Damn her and her sister and her brother and her arrogant, self-righteous father! He'd fallen asleep thinking of Ruthie McFarlane and how satisfying it might be to have her work for him, cleaning and organising, moving about his rooms at his beck and call. And he's woken from a terrifying dream.

It started well enough, with himself swaying through cheering throngs, waving away kudos, shrugging off praise. Straight through, he'd gone, directly to the centre where a sign flashed, bearing his name. Massive, he was, crisp and important, like a movie star. Vast as an airship. His body began to float.

But then – he rose too high, too fast! He clawed for the ground but couldn't reach and, below him, the people's cries of jubilation turned to cries of dismay. Only one person, magnified in his dreamer's eye, stared placidly up at him and he knew! He knew that she was the one who'd slipped his tether. That person was a little girl – a beautiful, blossoming, icy cold little girl. He could clearly see her, her long tantalising legs, her feet in little pink Brooks Brothers sandals.

She is the same girl who stalks the town, barefoot, in Bridie MacFarlane's dream. In Johnathon's dream, she'd cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, "It's coming!" Then she'd waved him goodbye.

Now he sits, bathed in sweat, rolling his forehead against the porcelain. He thinks of Bridie McFarlane in a bed, just down the hall. It would be better, he thinks, if she'd died. If only the Moth had fallen that bit quicker! He'd tried, hadn't he, to push forward on the stick? Hadn't he tried? Or when she took the pills! The baker had saved her, but . . .!

He sluices water across his face, angry now. He remembers how deftly he once fed the Reverend's guilt until, like a great horse, it carried him away. It was child's play. Surely, he thinks, managing a suicidal girl would be easier yet.

* * *

Amalthea emerged about the same time that Kevin and Frieda arrived, him on his motorbike and her in her car. They pulled into the yard one after the other, both a little too quick, raising dust as they braked, as though they'd been racing. He looked worried, she looked like thunder; and she wasn't alone. When Marybeth and Vivian climbed out of the car with her, Amalthea muttered unhappily: "Uh oh! She's brought reinforcements."

Hello, hello, all around, but stiffly and stuffily. Vivian, after all, along with Alf, was the owner of the house and so had proprietorial airs to put on. And Frieda's son was inside and in disgrace, so she had the angry mother thing happening. Kevin, because of my tearful phone call, was on the defensive on my account and Amalthea was not in the mood to be put upon by anyone.

That left only Marybeth and I, and I saw the gleam in her eye straight away as she said hello to our faces but strained to see past and into the house. It wasn't hard to guess, from the few words that I'd passed with her on the street the day before, that she had religious ecstasy on her mind. If the heart truly does cry out for wonder, as Kevin says, Marybeth's cried out much more desperately than most. If anyone was likely to own the proverbial stale dinner roll with a likeness of the Virgin Mary in its crust, it was her.

She was ready, then, and anxious to believe that Isak Nucifora, having found 'a Heavenly Body' in the cane, had been granted visions; and that Asael, having rescued it and carried it to civilisation, had been granted powers that allowed him to raise the dead and, almost as astonishing, to wake Bridie in defiance of Doctor Dabney's wishes. She it was who cut immediately to the chase.

"I hope you don't mind us old busybodies," she indicated herself and Vivian, "coming along with Frieda. There's just been so much excitement in the town lately! I mean even discounting the Harvest Festival! And so much of it . . . well, it does seem to be centred on your little house, Amalthea!"

"Of course she doesn't mind!" Vivian insisted. "Alf and I drop in all the time, don't we, love, just to see how things are going. She's like a daughter to us, aren't you dear, and Alf does like us to be available. It's not far out of town, he always says, but a young woman on her own . . . ! And a house with a history, at that!" She rolled her eyes, inviting us to remember catastrophe bursting through the door when Gramma G lived there. "Was it only yesterday Alf offered to bury your pet for you, Thea? The one that got killed by Johnathon's lollies?"

"Goodness, yes!" Marybeth fluttered. "Ruthie told me, didn't you dear, that the creature had been resurrected! What was its name again?"

"Garlic," Amalthea said. "Yes, he seems alright! He and Asael are both sleeping. We had kind of a hard night last night, as I'm sure Frieda's told you, and . . . !"

But Garlic was up and, having heard his name, he nosed open the screen and came out. Animal grace can be so entrancing. For a moment, we all turned to look at him and he, in the regal way that animals have, turned his head toward each of us, one after another, as though in recognition. The last he looked toward was Marybeth and he stopped moving then, his blind eyes staring. It looked to me as though his spring had suddenly wound down but it must have seemed to Marybeth that he was particularly interested in her presence. She raised a hand to her mouth and a tiny "Oh!" escaped her.

"Sweet Lord! He . . . he's so . . . alive!"

No one answered. It seemed self-evident.

"But he wasn't . . . wasn't he blind . . . before?"

"Yes he was," Amalthea said. "And remarkably . . . !" She was about to say, And remarkably, he still is, but Marybeth's near collapse brought the sentence to a premature end.

Her chin began to wobble and the corners of her mouth fell so far that the bags under her eyes were reduced to mere wallets. Tears oozed across them and her breathing became erratic. She reached out, as blindly as Garlic would have had to do, for support, and Frieda put out an arm to shore her up.

"For Heaven's sake, 'Beth!" she huffed. "Get hold of yourself!"

"He sees me!" Marybeth stammered. "Look! He's been 'Beyond' and come back! He was blind and he can see! What does it mean, Frieda? Is it a miracle?"

"Don't be daft, woman! He can't see. He's as blind as an apple. Isn't that right, Amalthea?"

Marybeth, reaching urgently for Vivian, was already oblivious to any answer Amalthea might have given.

"Vivian!" she was whimpering. "Is 'It' still here? Is it still inside? Can we see?"

"Stop it!" Frieda hissed, smacking lightly at Marybeth's hand. "I never would have let you come if I'd known you were going to carry on like this! Go sit in the car!"

"But . . . but . . . !"

"No buts! There's far more important things to talk about than this silly goat and God-forsaken bits of space junk!"

Marybeth gasped and clenched a fist at her bosom to keep her heart from bursting through into the air.

"I'm serious, Maybeth! I've come about Franz – not about any of this 'miracle' nonsense! The only miracle you'll see today is that boy surviving after I get my hands on him! Now go! Sit! Get control of yourself! Maybe afterwards, Amalthea'll let you look at her . . .Whatcha-ma-callit!"

Marybeth went, trembling at the nearness of power, yet keeping her feet defiantly on the ground, perching in the car's open door, so as to hear what might be said.

* * *

Amalthea asked me to fetch chairs for Frieda and Vivian.

"There's no need . . . !" an out-of-patience Frieda began but Amalthea waved the objection aside.

"Both Franz and Asael are having a couple of quiet moments to themselves," she said, blocking all entrance to the house. "And we need to talk!" So the five of us, plus Garlic, sorted ourselves on the veranda. When we were settled, Amalthea took charge.

"When we spoke at the bakery yesterday, you said you'd do anything to help sort out this McFarlane mess, once and for all. I want to know if you meant it."

Frieda's nostrils flared, Vivian sat up straight and Marybeth, metres away at the car, leaned forward to listen.

* * *

Amalthea then related the events of the night – the 'Night of Mayhem', she called it: about Rosemary and the gas bottle at Bessie's caravan and her son's confession to having done those things, as well as to having set fire to my house. And before Frieda could gather her outrage, Thea went on to say that Franz had been lying to cover up for the man HE thought was guilty – that man being his father, the mayor! Who, (once again over-ruling Frieda's stuttered disbelief) 'we' also guessed, probably didn't need to be covered for.

(Interestingly, she didn't mention Isak's role; the merciful end he provided for Rosemary, and his terrorising of Freida's son. It seemed that our promise not to mention the old man, who was even then asleep in Amalthea's bed, was going to remain in effect for as long as we could manage it.) By the end of Amalthea's tale, Frieda was barely containing herself.

"I can tell you abso-bloody-categorically," she burst out furiously, "that the mayor would never . . . ever . . . in a year of royal piss-ups, be capable of harming anyone! Or anyone's animals! Or anyone's property! There's not an ounce of hurt in that entire man! And if he was with Masher, like you say – and I don't doubt that he was – then it wasn't for drinking company alone! He's had . . . things on his mind!"

"His mind?" Amalthea asked softly. "Or his conscience?"

Frieda bounced in her seat. Her eyebrows arched, her shoulders rose and Marybeth took a step closer, so as not to miss a thing.

"The McFarlane family," Frieda managed to stammer through her indignation, "is not the only family in this district to have its troubles!"

Kevin, ever the placator, jumped in. "Whoa Frieda! No one wants to snoop in your family's business! But you have to think . . . if Ru' and As' had been in their house when that fire started . . . or Bessie in her caravan when the gas was released . . . we all know how horrible the consequences could have been! Thea's just asking why Franz would suspect his father!"

With a vast and visible effort, Frieda stifled the explosion that was building within her. For starters, she snarled, looking levelly at me, as though I should have known better, my challenging the mayor at the Festival had been the worst possible timing.

"Because we'd been talking about poor Rita that same morning, see? How it was ten years since she took herself off out into them mangroves! It shook us both, all over again; to think how someone in Sugar Town could be that low, with nobody knowing! That's not how life's meant to be here! Not death, neither! 'S just . . . people you think might have an eye on things . . . sometimes they haven't, eh!"

She looked meaningfully at Kevin and he lowered his eyes. Then she went on.

"Not that we were particularly close, Ruth – your family and mine. Nothing personal, we just weren't. But that don't mean we didn't care about 'em see? We did! And while I'm on that topic, let me jus' say . . . if you're thinkin' nobody much cared about that thing with Bridie, you're wrong! Who was to say though, eh! That it wasn't jus' some boyo she was leading on? Too much Festival spirit in 'im, touches her up a bit, gives her a fright! Who was to say, eh? Common as nut grass, innit, girls?"

Vivian from her seat on the veranda, nodded sadly, and Marybeth, caught half way between the car and the house, did the same. And Vivian added, "'Specially after she wouldn't name any names, that's exactly what we thought! Kids!"

"But then, o' course," Frieda continued, "Jacob fired up with all this 'pustule of corruption' sort of talk – about how Sugar Town had to root out it its evil! It was a big jump for us, I can tell you, from over-sexed teenagers to 'pustules of corruption'!"

"If only Rita'd come out an' talked to us!" Vivian simpered. "Just amongst the women, even! But she never would! She washed her hands of us, you know? You'd go knocking on her door and . . . often as not, she still wouldn' come out! Well, we thought she was just being over-protective, or kow-towing to the Reverend! She'd soak in it a bit, we figured. Then get over it, an' come back to us! Like people do!"

"An' then there was Gracie," said Frieda, reclaiming her story, "who went entirely off her cruet! Raving around the town! An' before we knew it, Rita took you kids off an' disappeared! Come back evenchally with a new baby!"

Amalthea was like a hangman who's heard one too many pleas for mercy. "You'd've had to be living in a crack not to have figured it out by then! That it was more than just a teenage grope!"

"O' course! O' course!" Frieda, though she'd started reluctantly, seemed to be warming to her version of the story. "We been through this! We're none of us stupid, you know! Especially because, in the meantime, Gracie got herself killed! That's when everything really come clear; 'cause mongrel old Les Crampton got linked to that, which indirectly linked him to the attack on Bridie! And then, soon's we knew it was him . . . he disappeared! It was like some kinda justice snaked into town and done what needed doing! See? Pebble falls in the pond, bit o' sloshing about, then it settles down! Everything's back to rights! Leastways, that's what we thought!"

" _Some kind of justice.'_ So that was how they'd come to think of Isak! Like a rough tool that they couldn't quite bring themselves to name. I looked up and Marybeth was there beside me, her eyes wide, her lips moving soundlessly. Frieda, realising how far off topic she'd wandered, erased it all with a wave of her hand.

"Anyhow! The point is that all the mayor's ever wanted is for Sugar Town to be the proud, friendly little place it's meant to be! Prosperity and family values! That's been his whole story, every campaign he ever fought. It was him behind the Grand Gourd, did you know that? The whole idea – the symbol – it was his! And for so long, everything was right! But then, out of the blue, him and me, we wake up thinking of Rita McFarlane, and the way she died. And then," she ticked points off on her fingers, much as Hoggs had done: "there's meteors falling outta the sky, Johnathon smashes the Grand Gourd, Ruth comes baitin' us with this 'terrible deed' story, old Isak flares up like a bloody ulcerated colon, Bessie comes squidlin' back into town an' there's Bridie . . . tryin' to do like Rita done! Naturally the mayor's upset! Naturally he is! He maybe didn' handle it real well, but he's desparate to figure what can he do to set things right again!"

She fell silent, as though she was done, and Amalthea said, "And?"

"And what?"

"And now . . . let's hear the real story."

Frieda gave her a look that could have knocked a cockatoo stone cold dead.

"I just told you . . . !"

"Oh you did not! You turned in a comfortable circle and lay down again! Look, we can all see that something needs fixing in Sugar Town! But an hour ago your son stood here, prepared, as far as he knew, to go to prison! Because, for better or worse, he's convinced himself that his father has something to do with it being broken! So how's about we drop the 'family values / community pride' rubbish and get past pointing fingers at everyone else! Why did a few questions from Ruthie and a memory of Rita McFarlane turn the mayor into such a raving, paranoid lunatic, Frieda? What's your family's role in all this?"

Frieda's breasts were heaving. A little pulse twitched beneath her eye and a furrow formed on her forehead.

"Where's my boy?" she hissed.

"Exactly where I said. Inside, lying down. He'll wait. Talk to us, Frieda. Please!"

I felt I needed to kick in a little provocation of my own.

"Last night at Kevin's, we talked about Isak Nucifora and what he told them at the hospital – remember? He said there were others, besides Les Crampton, involved in that attack on Bridie. Is it possible that the mayor knows something about that, Missus Hoggitt? Is that why he's so angry with me for asking?"

Marybeth was nearly beside herself, hopping from foot to foot and, "Lord save us!" she whispered over the knuckles of her clasped hands. "That poor, derelict old man! Given over to drink and cursing for all these years! And yet, God has intervened on behalf!"

"What are you on about, you mad woman?" Frieda demanded furiously. "Lyle's the mayor, for God's sake!"

"No, not Lyle! Isak! Isak Nucifora!" She leaned in conspiratorially, back in the group at last. "Such a handsome, dashing man once, oh, I do remember! A beautiful man! But we all know, don't we? What terrible sins he's committed! But the Lord has sent him back amongst us now! His penance is done and he's been given a vision!"

Her eyes were like painted eggs. She sucked in a great gasp of air and her hand flew to her mouth. "They're all signs! The Grand Gourd smashed! The object falling from Heaven! Asael's spiritual contact – so like his father's! All signs!"

She sank to a seat on the steps and commenced to fanning herself with a pale little hand while we all gaped at her. It was an unexpected bit of passion that had taken the wind out of our argument. Then, "Reverend Jacob will come back" she declared, "if we bring out the truth! If we redeem ourselves! Yes! That's all you've been asking for, isn't it, dear?"

I showed my open palms, empty of everything but the little gleam of Isak's ring. "Just the truth!"

We all looked to Frieda then, acknowledging that the decision to start on the truth was hers alone to make.

"Oh for the love of Gawd!" she cried, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm tellin' youse, those troubles had never a thing to do with my family! Whole diff'rent set of issues! But I s'pose I won't hear the end of it, will I? Nothin' else'll do! Well all right! Okay! I gave my promise to do whatever, so never let it be said! But I warn you! Truth for one means truth for all! No high moral stances, right? Not 'til we see just how far the stain will spread!"

She fixed her eyes on Kevin. I don't know if everyone noted the set of his lips or the single shallow nod of his head; but I did and I know Amalthea did as well.

"Don't anybody ever say I didn't warn you!" Freida roared, shaking a finger at the sky, much as I imagined my father must have done from his pulpit. And then she put the mayor's long years of selfless dedication to Sugar Town in front of us, like a little box, and stomped it flat.

* * *

Turns out that, when Lyle first nominated for the mayoralty, he really did have a vision for Sugar Town. It was to put up a wall around the town (metaphorically speaking); to maintain a small town integrity that said 'No' to big conglomerate chains and foreign investors who wanted to replace our cane paddocks with timber plantations and our local Chicken Bar with KFC's.

Johnathon Cranna had materialised as his most vocal supporter, pushing for responsible local investment and using his silken voice to tip the electoral balance in Hoggitt's favour. In token appreciation, Lyle had slipped Johnathon a few nudges and winks on Council's private deliberations – thereby allowing Johnathon to become far the most successful of our 'responsible local investors'. And the support had continued exactly as long as the nudges and winks had continued.

"Nothing purely negative from him, you understand! No, no, that's not Johnathon! All purely positive! About vision and drive and how much more Lyle could achieve - with the right 'corporate sponsor'! That kinda thing, you know?"

And so, to Mayor Hoggitt's secret shame but undeniable political benefit, Cranna became the resident ghost in the local political arena – a quiet pedlar of influence, and the accumulator of a small fortune. He was insightful and charismatic and a visionary, and together he and the mayor were a formidable team.

"Maybe not a strictly kosher arrangement. But they done alright by Sugar Town, by Gawd they did!"

"Oh my dear!" whispered Marybeth when Frieda fell silent, and her fingers passed over, without quite touching, Frieda's hand. Frieda turned her head sideways, the way birds sometimes do when they want to look at the sky.

"That's it?" said Amalthea. "A little graft and corruption? And Franz knew about it?"

"Actually, everyone knew about it," Vivian said softly. "It's a small town! But no one was being hurt and the town was prospering without being taken over by outsiders. So what if a little incentive gets paid? That's what we all reckoned."

Amalthea gazed at her blankly, as though she'd advocated planting the cane upside down. Then she waved it away; both hands, eyes scrunched.

"So,"she said to Frieda, still trying to clarify, "you're saying the mayor's just fuming because his town's out of whack! And Franz is confessing to crimes on the off-chance that his old man was involved in them! Does any of that even make sense?"

Frieda shrugged a tight-lipped confirmation and, with her chin trembling, declared, "Much as I love both my men, neither one's exactly a whip-crack. An' the mayor drinks too much. And when he's in his cups, what he knows, everyone knows. Which is how I know, like I toldja, he had nothing to do with that fire last night! Nor any of the other stuff neither!" She cast a vicious look at Vivian and Marybeth. "He deserves the benefit o' anybody's doubt!"

The two women reached to console her and to assure her that no judgement would ever pass their lips, which was as likely as the prospect of water never passing over a fish's gills. Amalthea, dead-ended yet again, gave up and went to fetch Franz, provoking a sleepy query from Asael, within.

"Oh!" Marybeth moaned, her eyes pleading for admittance.

* * *

The object, pear-shaped, pewter coloured and tall as a full-length mirror, balances impossibly on a pinpoint. It should fall. She expects it to fall. She thinks that perhaps it is falling – has already fallen – but her mind has stopped, snagged like a rag on a jagged edge of time.

Asael smiles beatifically up at her from where he sits, cross-legged on the floor. Asael, conceived in fury, birthed in secret, raised in ignorance. The goat lies down beside him and also gazes up at her; the goat that was dead and is alive; the goat that was blind and (she feels in her heart) can see.

She tries to imagine the object's journey but she cannot. She remembers how it glowed with fire in the night, streaking down like the arc of an arrow, thrusting itself into the consciousness of Sugar Town. But that's all. For her there is no oily sheen of sky or impossible-to-conceive emptiness of galaxial space or mythology of stars. No. Before that fall, there is only the hand of God!

The boy speaks to the goat, words she doesn't hear, and laughs and the goat rolls on its side and they both casually, fearlessly, bump against the object. At that instant, a cloud clears from the sun, a door cracks open, the breeze moves an unsecured curtain and a shaft of light prisms into the room. On the surface of the object, Marybeth spies a fleeting image – the shadow of a great bird, soaring. And she's comforted. She knows the object cannot fall. Nothing can fall, so long as God desires it to stand.

* * *

When Frieda, Vivian and Marybeth rolled a very unwell-looking Franz into their car, I felt genuinely sorry for him, knowing, as he still didn't, that the protection of silence long given his father's reputation was about to be rescinded. Frieda went in subdued silence, shrugging off my attempted thanks while Vivian's air of smug superiority, I knew, was the precursor of whispered revelations in every shop on Main Street. And Marybeth left with a spooky aura of calm, completely opposite to the nervous fidgetiness she'd displayed on arrival. Watching her during the five minutes she'd spent staring at Queenie was like watching someone be anaesthetised.

As she was leaving, she patted my hand and leaned close to whisper: "We'll get him back from the jungle, Ruthie. Don't you doubt it. The cleansing has begun."

I just smiled and nodded. At least her brand of craziness was harmless.

* * *

In what he thinks of as maudlin moments, Cranna has occasionally pondered the workings of Fate. Some are spared and some are flicked away; and the so-called 'wicked' are as likely to carry on as the so-called 'holy'. The question is one of survival, and 'Luck' is the only answer that's ever felt right. Luck and cunning. You pay with a counterfeit penny and you try your luck. If you lose, you've lost nothing.

His own luck has always been spectacular; from the usability of Lyle Hoggitt to the gullibility of Jacob McFarlane; from the impetuous stupidity of Les Crampton to the close-mouthed petulance of Roger Dabney. By whatever means, for whatever reasons, they've given their luck over to him and allowed him to have what he wanted. Not even an airplane crash – not even a gun-happy lunatic like Isak Nucifora, has managed to change his luck!

Half an hour ago he's organised his face into a frown of deepest concern and sympathy – the best of his counterfeit pennies – and rolled into Bridie McFarlane's room.

How sad to see you here! How unfortunate your news! How perfectly understandable your reaction! All on your own with a wilful teenaged sister and . . . (a tone that oozes sensitivity and condolence: what shall we call him?) . . . a 'brother'? . . . who suffers debilitating lapses! A mother dead and a father gone to the wilderness rather than stay for his family! A memory so pitted and damaged that well-meaning but mis-guided 'friends' like Bessie Crampton can re-arrange its furniture at will. All these many, many troubles!

He counts them off, one by oppressive one, each one a brick that he drops with inward satisfaction and outward concern, at her feet. Sometimes it must seem bleak – not that it really is bleak, but sometimes it must seem so! Blah blah blah. No one escapes, do they! We all know that.

He watches her for reactions; the topic that causes her shoulders suddenly to slump or the corners of her mouth to sag. They're the clues he seeks. She's like Rita was, he thinks, but without Rita's intelligence. And she has Jacob's urge to self-destruct. He is pleasantly surprised to find that Jacob is the key.

" _Yes indeed!" he pronounces. "Your father was – and I suppose still is – a fine preacher! A man of powerful sentiments! We were fortunate to know him, weren't we?"_

Her smile is thin, bereaved, but her eyes remain clear and proud. McFarlane arrogance and self-righteousness! Something about this family has always rubbed Johnathon like a poorly fitted shoe. He feels subtlety slipping from his grasp.

" _Well yes! And we all admire your commitment, Bridie – collecting money to send him, year after year. How long has it been since you've seen him – eight, nine years? That is true commitment, alright! And why not, eh? I mean, if you reckon he's done right by you . . . how can you do otherwise than right by him, eh?" He shrugs doubtfully and wags his head._

" _Right by me? Mr Cranna, it's not a question of doing right by me! He has a mission, to spread the word of . . . !"_

" _Yes, yes, I know! Spread the word of God!" An angry impulse grabs him and, before he can recognise it, it leads him off on a tangent. "You want to know what my father's mission in life was? To do whatever it took! To look out for himself! You can screw your convictions to the wall and forget about 'em. That's what he told me. Just grab what you want and get the hell out of the road before something runs over you. Because something's surely going to try!"_

" _My! That sounds so . . . desperate! What happens if you can't get out of the road – if you're stuck?"_

He shakes his head, gives her a level look. "Then you grab someone else and get behind them. Whatever it takes!" He looks at the furrows in her brow. "That seems wrong to you, doesn't it?" And in answer to her nod, he leans forward, slyly confidential: "Me too! But it's something your father understood very well, if I'm not mistaken. And I did get to know him rather well, you know – before he left!"

He swings the wheelchair about and, without stopping, says over his shoulder, "Not that you'd want to dwell on that, Bridie. I'd put such thoughts out of my mind if I was you!"

* * *

When the car was well and truly gone, Isak emerged from Amalthea's bedroom. He shook his head at us and we all shrugged. Frieda'd been right; the outing of a little small-time corruption, which possibly only Lyle Hoggitt had thought was a secret, was of little use to us. She'd told us because, if she didn't, and we took Franz's confession to Sergeant Morrow, it might all have wound up having to be explained in a court. So now we knew that, but we were no closer to knowing who was behind the Night of Mayhem. Or, on the long-term front, what the true story was on the occurrences of Harvest Festival Weekend, 1997.

Amalthea declared that she was going to make sandwiches for lunch and then, afterwards, build another funeral pyre, this time for Rosemary. Kevin and Isak went with her to the kitchen while Asael, I noted, had drifted back to sleep on the floor. It wasn't like him to sleep so much or so easily and I wondered if this connection with Queenie could be taking something out of him. Or was he just tired, like me? I tried to focus on what to do about it but the merry-go-round of concerns continued in my mind; every time I glimpsed one, it immediately got bumped along by another.

I went to my rucksack and dug out my list of Findings, Sources and Questions, focussing on it being the only way I could think of to make that merry-go-round stop. Sprawling in the shade of the veranda, I pencilled a large new heading:

* * *

NEW THINGS TO FIGURE OUT, and underlined it twice.

1. Figure out what's going on with Asael. Ask Doc' Dabney?

2. Figure out what Frieda was implying by her sly looks and nods at Kevin.

i.e. "Even when you're close to people, you don't always know!" (Hard look at Kevin.) And, "The stain (of truth) will spread!" (Hard look at Kevin.) What was that about? Ask Kevin.

3. Figure out whether Kevin knows who Amalthea actually is! (Not that it's any of my business!) DO NOT ask Kevin! Keep eyes and ears peeled.

4. Figure out Johnathon Cranna!

i.e. Frieda implies that he's led the mayor by the nose – which probably says more about the mayor than it does about Johnathon because he seems mostly pretty genuine and charming to me, if maybe a little desperate for company. Do I know anyone who might know him well enough to talk about him?

* * *

I was pondering that last question, tapping my teeth with the pencil, when a voice said, "Roger Dabney's yer man." It was Isak, reading over my shoulder. I was mildly startled at first. Then I remembered point number three and felt myself blush. Isak paid no heed.

"Roger Dabney and Alf! Ask them about Cranna. They 'uz all mates once."

I pencilled in the names and smiled thanks at him.

"Ye could ring ol' Rog' on yer little phone, couldn' ye! Ask him to come out here and check out the boy. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Just thinkin' of yer number one there."

"Oh," I said. "Yes. No. Do you think he'd come just to see Asa'? Or would he say, 'Bring him to the hospital'?"

"Hard to say with ol' Rog'! He'd come if ye tol' 'im I was here, but!"

The suggestion surprised and disappointed me.

"You quitting then, Isak? Ready to turn yourself in?"

"Didn' say that, did I?"

"No, but . . . !"

"No. Jus' an idea for gettin' ol' Rog' off on his own. Ask him a couple o' curly questions, that's all! Samidges're ready."

He turned to go back in.

"Wait!" It's hard to ask someone for discretion when you're not very discrete yourself. I indicated the list. "I'd appreciate it if you . . . you know . . . don't say anything about my point number three – the Kevin / Amalthea thing? I really . . . I don't even know what I was thinking! Just being stupid!"

"Senile ol' man like me," he said, "is flat out keepin' two things in his head at one time. Right now, I got samidges an' Roger Dabney in there. Come 'n' eat."

* * *

I didn't ring Doctor Dabney; not right then. Mostly because Asael, when I went through the living room, was sleeping so peacefully. I took his glasses off his face and pushed hair from his forehead, thinking my touch might wake him and he'd come for some lunch. He smiled, mumbled and rolled over, but didn't wake.

"Is his forehead cool?" Amalthea asked, coming from the kitchen.

"Yeah. And his colour seems . . . natural."

"I thought so too. Are you worried about him?"

I realised I wasn't actually sure. It seemed to me that even the delusions he had – sounds and images coming from Queenie – the belief that he could draw power from her – they weren't particularly alarming or dangerous. And once the authorities took her away, probably it would all pass. Still . . .

"A bit, I guess. We're still kind of getting used to this epilepsy thing; these little seizures! You'd think it'd be scarey for him! Seeing things – lights, figures. Going blind, sometimes, for whole minutes!"

We watched him sleeping, curled up against Garlic, with dead Rosemary under a sheet only a couple of metres away.

"Do you think it does scare him?" she asked.

"No. I think he kind of likes it!"

I mentioned Isak's suggestion for getting 'ol' Rog' to the house for a grilling, but she doubted Isak'd have enough leverage to pry information out of anyone. Not without using his gun which, after the bullet he'd so casually fired between Hoggs' legs, seemed a trifle more dangerous than we were comfortable with.

* * *

So it was Isak and Kev' and Amalthea and I for lunch. I took the opportunity to ask Kevin about his personal memories of reactions to the attack on Bridie. He remembered the talk of 'teenage hormones' and he remembered the Rev' being like a column of non-specific fire for a few months until, sometime after Rita took us away, the fire suddenly went out. Around when Grandma G died.

"Poor Rita," I rambled, thinking how she'd begged him in her letter to write it all down – to not give up. "She must have been so frustrated! Didn't she have anyone she could talk to in those times, Kev'? I mean, where was everybody?"

"Everyone was here," he said softly. "As close as she'd let us be. But . . . it was like her sense of trust had been cut out. The fact that no one was willing to come forward – about either attack – that no name at all came up until so long after the facts! It must have seemed like . . . treachery! And she built a wall." His head had fallen as he spoke, but he lifted it then pressing for a more positive tone.

"Bessie! If you really want to know what was going on in your father's house, you should talk to Bessie!" He paused a moment then added, "Or Johnathon Cranna. He and the Reverend spent a lot of time together in those last months."

"Humph!" snorted Isak and when I cocked a questioning eye at him, he waved me away.

"Ne' mind! Truckie's right about Bess, though. You talk to 'er. Reckon she'll be along soon, her 'n' the wog. I tol' 'em, I says, 'Move yer vans over ta Gracie's', I says. 'That, or move along altogether! Yer temptin' the fates out here on yer own'!"

For a few minutes we all went quiet until Amalthea suddenly pushed her plate back and turned the full focus of her gaze on Kevin. Isak squinted expectantly over his sandwich and I felt my guts turn over: 'Uh oh! Crisis time!' Kevin's surprised grin made me think that only he was unaware that the next few minutes might very well be the difference between him carrying on as he was and him gaining a daughter.

"Treachery's an interesting word, isn't it!" she said, clearly not about to waste any in this discussion. "Tell me something, Kev'! When Frieda was . . . unburdening herself earlier . . . I couldn't help but notice the little comments that she directed at you. Particularly when she was talking about Rita! 'The stain of truth will spread'! 'No high moral stances.' What was that about?"

He blanched and fumbled with his sandwich and tried to put her off with joking remarks about women's imaginations. No one jumped in to save him.

"C'mon, Kev'! She was putting herself on the line there! Took a lot of gumption on her part! What's the story? I'm sure Ruthie'd like to know every little scrap there is to know about her parents. As any child would, for that matter!"

He stammered and flushed and cleared his throat and flung himself off to the sink for water. It's hard to watch someone be cornered but harder still to suspect a friend of being loose with the truth. Still, none of us offered him a way out. We waited. And finally he came back to us at the table.
"Fine, right, okay! Not that it's a relevant issue, Ru'! Honestly! Not to what happened then or what happened last night! If thought it was . . . if I'd ever thought it was, I'd have found a way to tell you! But the thing is . . . as you know, your mother was a beautiful woman, Ru' – smart, funny, brave. When she laughed, it was like . . . spring. And when she cried . . . she made winter. I promise you, if anyone could've helped her back then, in any way, they would have! Because everybody loved her! I loved her. That's what Frieda was getting at."

Sometimes I embarrass myself with how dense I am. "I know you loved her, Kev'. You love all of us. And we love you!"

"No. You don't understand. I really loved her."

The three of us sat briefly in stunned silence. Then Isak got up and went to the toilet and Amalthea went to the sink, where she splashed water on her face and remained, looking out the window. Kevin reached to touched me but, for reasons I can't explain, I leaned back in my chair, staring at him. Maybe stunned by the obviousness of it. Maybe waiting for the rest.

* * *

The rest was that he'd known my mother since the early days of her marriage, through the bakery. In those days, he told us, the Reverend's spiritual passion had thrilled and excited Rita, despite its ability to over-fill him, often leaving too little room for her. But a good and righteous man, nonetheless. How could she be critical? Then Bridie'd come along. And, as a bright, pious, vivacious pre-teen, had ignited a look in him that at first pleased, then confused and finally frightened Rita.

"Probably it was all in her imagination!" Kev' said. "But she didn't know where to turn!"

"And," said Amalthea thinly from her place at the sink, "let me guess! She felt alone, insecure, a little bit . . . needy? Craving a sympathetic ear? And you, harmless little baker-man that you are, jumped into the breach? Purely as a friend, of course! A touch of the hand here, coffee and a scone there! With maybe the smallest dollop of . . . sympathetic understanding? And then . . . did you take advantage, Kev'? Vulnerable as she was? Did you have an affair with her?"

He stuttered, looked at me. "I . . . I . . . !"

I couldn't press him, but Amalthea couldn't let up on him. "It's a simple question, Kevin. Did you have an affair with Rita? Yes or no?"

"We . . . we never planned . . . !"

"No. No, of course you didn't!"

I wanted Amalthea to stop then – not to say anymore. But there was a cold insistence about her that I was sure had more to do with her mother than with mine.

"Nothing planned! Well, let's be honest; probably she planned it! Being a scheming woman and all! Something in her 'imagination', no doubt! But you didn't have anything to do with it, did you, Kev'? For you, it just happened! Because that's what 'love' is, isn't it? Letting someone 'happen' to you? And then, after a bit, she went off and killed herself which, again, had nothing to do with you, really! After all, dying is just one of the ways that people un-happen to us, isn't it! You can leave them! Or they can die! Either way, you're free to move on. Which, of course, is the really important thing!"

He looked like a man with a knife newly planted in his ribs. Isak came back into the room with a question on his lips, but Amalthea intercepted him, steering him away from his unfinished lunch.

"Come on, old man! I've got timber to shift for a funeral pyre. And you've got a debt to pay. No free lunches under my roof!"

We sat for a while, Kevin and I. I fetched water for us both and waited, not knowing what to say, both hoping and fearing that there'd be more.

"I wanted to take her away, Ru'," he finally said. "Her and you and Bridie. We talked about it. Then the attack happened. And knowing what I knew. . . there was a time – a very short time – a totally wrong, mistaken, crazy time – when I thought it was him! The Reverend! From what she'd said about him! From what I knew of him! I told Rita she had to leave him but she said if I could see how broken he was, how completely shattered, I'd know it wasn't him! Then Grace was killed and Les Crampton's name was whispered around – not a good answer but it eventually became obvious that there'd never be any other! I tried to see her but. . . after Asael came, she locked herself away – poured herself into Jacob's fiction that Asael was theirs and that Bridie was just a traumatised kid and she tried . . . she tried to go on! But she never gave up believing Sugar Town had betrayed them. And she never forgave. I don't know if that explains why she . . . why she went off and . . . !"

"Do you think," I asked, picturing the turmoil that must have been going on in our house, "that the Reverend ever knew? About you and Rita?"

He buried his face in his hands.

"And you never told me because . . . ?"

"She was a good person, Ru'. Nothing should ever be allowed to challenge that."

I lifted him to his feet by his shoulders and held him there, at arm's length, until he was able to raise his head and look at me. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want either of us to cry. When he was ready and I was ready, I moved in close, slid my arms around to his back and pressed against him.

"It's okay," I said. "We're okay. Come on! Let's you and me do these dishes."

* * *

The pyre took a long time to prepare. Eventually all five of us were involved, making a scaffold of dry old railway sleepers and packing the hollow with kindling. It seemed to me that we had enough to burn down a church, but Amalthea was frightened of it going out with the job only half done. At the last, we put thick planks across the top of the scaffold and, as tenderly as we could, hoisted Rosemary into place.

When it was done, Amalthea fetched the banners – THE FORCE IS GATHERING and LET IT GATHER IN YOU. Neither Garlic nor Rosemary had worn them since we first encountered Queenie in the paddock and, though they'd apparently refused to be without them in the past, neither had finally objected to their absence. Amalthea draped them both over Rosemary. And finally, she read some words. I remembered the poem (or at least bits of the poem) she'd read over Garlic – 'prince of the apple towns'; 'I sang in my chains'. And the bit that Asael had loved: 'It was all shining!'

She picked something different this time, from a tattered old book that, from the moment it appeared in her hand, had Kevin agitated. I expect he would have gone closer to her, to investigate it, if it weren't for the fact that she'd been moving around him as though he was a bush of nettles.

I liked the lines a lot – so much so that I eventually borrowed the book and copied them down.

"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again, look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you, nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged.

Missing me one place, search another.

I stop somewhere waiting for you."

* * *

I especially liked the third line: 'You'll hardly know who I am or what I mean'. It seemed to me that you didn't have to meet someone in another life for that to be true: Right there in Sugar Town it seemed that I hardly knew, or knew the meaning of, anyone around me!

Anyhow, for the last part of the ritual, we each lit a match (even Asael managed it, despite his awe at what we were about to do) and we each touched our bit of flame to the paper at the bottom. Within ten minutes, the flames were ten metres tall – a metre for every minute we watched – and we had to move back from the heat. I stood with Kevin, Isak stood alone off to one side and Amalthea, Asael and Garlic stood in a separate group. But we all craned our necks to watch the column of smoke. It rose straight up until, at some indistinct point it, with Rosemary in it, became too thin to see.

There was only one unexpected bit of movement and that was when Isak suddenly appeared in front of me. Over the fire's roar, he asked for Gramma G's ring, which I took off my finger and gave to him. He squinted at it briefly, tossed it into the fire and went back to stand on his own.

* * *

It's not a cane fire, Bridie thinks. Too early in the day. And if it was, the smoke would be broader, blacker and wilder, with kites riding above it, picking toasted insects out of the air. She wonders idly what kind of fire it is that creates this thin grey column with its top blown off. Something hot, no doubt, that consumes cleanly. She is nurturing just such a fire within her.

She has been drawn from her bed and her cloistered room, first to find Johnathon Cranna and then to find this window from which to look out on the world. She'd struggled to re-construct Johnathon's earlier words: 'Grab what you want – Do whatever it takes – Your father understood.' And to reconcile them with images that lingered around the edges of her memory: the Reverend pushing her gently away, the Reverend drawing her near. The Reverend's voice in the kitchen, in the study – one day crying for forgiveness, the next cursing womankind. The Reverend's tears soaking into her shirt. None of it made sense.

When, in Johnathon's hospital room, she'd asked what he meant, he'd only smiled sadly.

" _I told you not to be thinking of this," he'd said, pretending to scold. "I spoke out of turn and you should ignore me. As I told Ruthie yesterday, your father entrusted me with many things before he left, all those years ago, including the welfare of his family. I certainly have no intention of . . . betraying any of his confidences."_

When she'd pressed him further, he'd spoken with pained reluctance.

" _Well . . . having been one of the few people he seemed . . . at peace with . . . in his last months in Sugar Town, I suppose I do have some insights that no one else has. Particularly in view of the fact that your own memory is . . . corrupted, if I can use that word in its most harmless sense. I just worry, Bridie! I worry that knowing the truth might only be damaging to you. And that's the last thing I want."_

It was far more damaging at this stage, she'd told him, to be left wondering.

" _Yes? Well. If you're positive?" He'd drunk water and wriggled with discomfort. "You must promise me, then, that you won't be angry with me. All right? Will you do that? Because I wouldn't be telling you this if it was up to me. No one ever has up until now and no one else in Sugar Town ever would. They know they'd answer to me if they did!" (He'd laughed – a harmless bloke like me? Ha!) "It's only that, lately, I've been wondering if my loyalty to the Reverend hasn't . . . I don't know . . . run its course; maybe even . . . contributed to an injustice? Maybe it was misplaced to begin with, God knows!"_

He'd drunk more water and she'd waited, heart hammering. He wouldn't hold her eye but his glances had a narrow, hungry feel.

" _You're a grown woman, Bridie. And I'm a grown man. So I'm going to speak bluntly; because if it has to be said, it's best to be clear – no misunderstandings. So here it is. It wasn't only a religious calling that took your father away to New Guinea, Bridie. It was a . . . a carnal calling, as well. Do you know what I mean? The truth is that he couldn't trust himself . . . to be near you, Bridie."_

His eyes had turned full on her then, greedy, it seemed, for any shock or anguish or anger that might appear there. She'd held herself like a thing of stone, allowing herself only to blink and blink again, revealing nothing of the understanding unfolding within.

Johnathon had had more to say, but Bridie hadn't heard. Instead, she'd heard a tumultuous voice crying out about the weakness of women. "All weakness . . . !" When she rose to leave, Johnathon had asked her if she was all right.

" _Yes," she'd said. "Of course!" And from the door she'd said, "Women are strongest, Johnathon. But above all things, Truth beareth away the victory. That's from the Apocrypha."_

And now she's at the window, looking out at the world and at the column of smoke which, unbeknownst to her, carries Rosemary out across the country.

Chapter 20 - Reconsidering

Half an hour passed. The planks that supported Rosemary burned through and the centre of the fire collapsed, but the outer scaffolding held – bloodwood and ironbark, blazing cleanly. At a point, I had a sense of being watched and I turned to find Dale Sutton, slouched against the corner of the house. The school day hadn't ended yet, but he was no longer in school uniform, so I assumed he'd not gone back after our morning chat.

"Fire seems to be a theme in your life these days," he said when I approached him.

"Mmm. Like stupidity's a theme in yours. Whaddya want?"

"I suppose an apology's too much to hope for?"

"You can hope for anything you want. Keep an eye out for the sky dropping on your head. The apology'll be right behind it!"

He nodded. "That's what I thought. Good thing I keep my expectations low when it comes to you."

"Look, we're in mourning here, Dale. I haven't got time to be listening to your scintillating banter. Whaddya want?"

"Want you to come for a walk."

"Get stuffed! Are you deaf and blind, as well as stupid?"

I was probably more surprised than he was to hear the tone in my voice – surprised and a little ashamed, if truth be told. I think it was because he was confusing me. In the last four days alone, we'd had two knock-'em-down fights. And yet, on this one day, I'd found myself thinking that he might not be a total cretin after all! He'd said he liked me, for one thing, and in my book, anyone with taste that strange deserved at least a little sympathy! So I back-pedalled; not far; just a bit.

"Whaddya mean, 'come for a walk'? Walk where? Why?"

He stood up to his full height, which was probably fifteen centimetres taller than me, shoved his hands deep in his pockets and made an exasperated face.

"I got something to show you," he said. "Somethin' that'd likely make most people smile. I expect a smile'd break your face but what the hell! No big loss, eh?"

I studied him carefully for a full minute. There were still shadows under his eyes from the lucky punch I'd managed to land on his nose at the marshalling ground. I thought of commenting but I didn't because there was something else there that I had to think about. It was a sort of fierceness but perhaps, I thought, not really of the dangerous kind. Challenge, I decided; the 'I-dare-you' kind. We stared at each other for so long that the corners of his mouth started twitching toward a smile, which made mine do the same and I had to look away.

"Right!" I said. "You wait here! I'll tell the others. How long are we going to be?"

"I'll wait around the front," he said, I'm sure only so that he wouldn't be seeming to take instructions from me. "An hour. Tops."

The walk took us back up to the main road and toward town. I took the opportunity to tell him about Hoggs' false confession and to remind him that he himself wasn't in the clear; that he stole the knife that was used on Rosemary, that Amalthea had handed the knife in to Sergeant Morrow and that the only thing missing was a clue as to what his problem was.

He barely responded. "Uh-huh."

"Why aren't you in school, learning to speak properly?"

"I'm with you, Ru'! It's all listening around you."

"And who told you you could call me Ru'? Makes me sound like a wallaby!"

"Truckie calls you Ru'. I've heard him."

"Yeah, well Truckie's different. He's knows how to say it nicely."

"Uh-huh."

He was laughing at me under his breath and I knew it. I put my hands on his big shoulder and tried to push him toward the ditch which I knew, since he weighed probably twice what I did, would have no effect at all on him. Nonetheless, he staggered exaggeratedly then stopped.

"All right!" he said. "All right! Why don't you teach me how it goes when it's said nicely, then?"

I tried to imagine the syllable as somebody genteel might say it – maybe with a little accent, like Mister Bandini's. "RRRuuu!"

And it suddenly occurred to me – mostly because of the silly little smirk on his face – that I was standing in front of him with my lips fully puckered as though waiting for a kiss.

"You are a dead-set idiot!" I barked and stalked away from him, fully embarrassed and getting more confused (and therefore less patient) by the minute. He ran to catch up with me, which I thought was the least he should have to do.

"Don't talk to me!" I said. "Let's get this over with. Where're we going?"

We were at the entrance to the showground and that's where he pointed.

* * *

I was prepared to crane my neck to see if Bessie and Mister Bandini were still parked at the low end or if they'd taken Isak's advice and hit the road to catch up with the Showies. I expected them to be gone, but they weren't. Nor were they alone!

"What's going on?"

A dozen tents, six or eight more caravans and probably forty other people had turned the paddock into a small village – as though a new Show had slipped into town. But this one was made up of people I knew – people whose own homes were within close walking distance.

"Frieda Hoggitt's going on. She's mobilising."

"Mobilising? For what?"

His answer was a hand on my back, pressing me forward toward the largest, most conspicuous of the caravans. A bright green awning shaded the entry and under it sat Lyle Hoggitt, patiently nodding his way through an ear-bashing from Marybeth. The instant he saw Dale and me, however, he jumped up and began banging on the caravan's side with his fist. I could hear him shouting: "She's here! She's here!"

Marybeth, far from being insulted, immediately abandoned the shade and bustled her way past us, pausing only long enough to squeeze my hand and say, "Just as I said, dear! We'll get him back! You'll see!" Then she skittered off amongst the tents, her hands flitting like birds in front of her.

I looked at Dale. "What the . . . ?"

He shrugged and walked on. By the time I'd turned in a circle and decided to go after him, he was already in a conversation with the mayor.

"The great outdoors, eh?" the mayor was saying, slapping his belly with satisfaction. "Get back to the simple things, that's what I say! Mother Nature! Puts our little squabbles in perspective, doesn't she? Speakin' of which, magnificent Grand Gourd this year, young Sutton! You boys an' your dad – you did Sugar Town proud! We're indebted to you! Shame it ended the way it did, but that takes nothing away from your achievement, mate!"

I could only shake my head at the bluff and bluster of the man. I mean it was inconceivable that Frieda wouldn't have told him how his 'agreement' with Johnathon Cranna had been outed. (Better he learn from her, than from someone whose ear had been whispered in by Vivian Caletti!) Nevertheless, there he was, head high, glad-handing for all he was worth.

When I approached, he threw his arms in the air as though I was an especially important part of an orchestra that he was conducting. A far cry from the finger of doom he'd pointed at me last time we met!

"Miss McFarlane!" he slobbered with happy mock formality, and I crossed my arms to warn him off touching me. "Aaahh!" he faltered. "Here you are then! Good! Good! Knew if anyone could get you here, it'd be this handsome young buck!"

He was determined, it seemed, to be buttering someone up. And Dale, I noticed, was content to be buttered, nodding sombrely, as though the mayor had just said the wisest, most obvious thing since Confederation.

"Yeah." I said. "As if! So why am I here? What's going on?"

"Well!" The mayor waggled his eyebrows and winked exaggeratedly. "That's for you to find out!" He opened the door to the caravan and bowed me a welcome.

It was a moderately sumptuous caravan, as you'd expect for a man with the Mayor's inflated sense of self-importance. Three people sat uncomfortably at a table that could easily have fitted five more: Frieda, looking as focussed and grim as ever; Bessie – back straight, hands folded in her lap' looking like she felt like someone's poor cousin; and Mister Bandini, sprawled half onto the table, caught in the midst of a vigorous discussion.I stood, hesitantly, in the doorway, not a all certain that I wanted to go in.

A fourth person was also in the room, standing off in one of the doorways, still looking whipped and close to vomiting – Franz Hoggitt. I gave him a cold nod, thinking that, quite rightly, he must be nobody's favourite person at the moment. The mayor, however, edged past me, went straight to him and began guiding him gently through the door to the outside.

"Okay now, mate," the mayor said, speaking as though Hoggs was mentally deficient which I thought, in the light of recent events, could well have been the case, "you're the front man, right? Anyone comes asking for anything, they gotta go through you! You tell 'em the mayor's indisposed; working in flagrant delicto for the good o' the community, okay? But if you think it's important, you call me, right? You use your judgement, okay? I'm counting on you, son." He tossed a thumb toward Dale and added, "The big fella here'll keep ye company, eh?"

Dale shook his head and rumbled shallowly, "I don't think so!" Obviously none too impressed with Hoggs's effort to incriminate him over the knife.

I didn't care about their friendship but I was secretly pleased that Dale was staying. I had a very prickly feeling that I was about to be leaned on and, though I didn't actually think Dale was on my side, I was also fairly certain he wasn't on the Hoggitt's side either.

So when the mayor looked to me for support in his bid to get rid of Dale I said, "He's a suspicious character, Mr Hoggitt. I'd like to keep him where I can see him if that's okay."

The long and the short of it was that the mayor (he claimed the idea was his but it had Frieda's mark all over it) had devised two schemes, he said, to 'clear up the air', he said, about both recent and long-past events in Sugar Town.

The first scheme involved the gathering campers. Having been made aware of threats implied against Bessie, he said, ('to wit, tampering with a gas bottle and leaving it in a parley-voo state') – Bessie, whose only crime had been to come back to her own home town and attempt to do her little part in righting an ancient wrong! (the wrong being 'the murkification of details surrounding an attack on Bridie McFarlane eleven years ago'), he had sent out a call for volunteers to rally around Bessie and her friend, Arturo, to ensure their continued safety and to demonstrate to anyone, anywhere, that Sugar Tonians would not be tolerating any kind of threatening shenanigans. Hence the instant village taking shape outside.

"And there's more where they come from!" Frieda promised us all. "If we want 'em! All volunteers! Marybeth might take a group over to Amalthea's place, as well, to camp in the yard, because obviously someone's got it in for her too; doing for that poor goat and all!" She gave Dale a filthy look then. The stolen knife, it seemed, had already become part of the town's lore, as had suspicions about who might have used it on Rosemary.

She went on, "I said to Marybeth, I said, 'Don't be mad, woman! The girl's got a man with a gun there now!'" She waggled her eyebrows at me as though something secret had passed between us, but I knew full well that she'd have screwed every detail out of Hoggs about his treatment at Amalthea's – including references to Isak.

"Of course," the mayor went on breathlessly, "if Amalthea wants extra eyes and ears around, she's only got to say so! Send half this mob over right now, if she wants 'em! Maybe even a brand new mob! No troubles! Gonna get Marybeth whether she wants her or not, o' course! She's that frantic about getting close to young Asael's space thing!"

Somewhere along the way, it seemed, Asael had become Queenie's official keeper!

Anyhow, the instant village was one scheme. The second was a plan, once and for all to, as he said, 'de-murkify' events, both recent and ancient. It was understandable, he declared, that things might 'slip out of mind for a bit'. (Another instance of truth being in the eye of whoever's fabricating it.)

"But it's a thing," he went on, "that's never been far from my mind, I can tell you! Part o' me mayoral responsibility, as I see it! An' if it's the last thing I ever do, I'm going to see the smoke o' this terrible eructation blown away. Isn't that right, love?"

So there it was! My family's woes, such as they were, had suffered the final indignity of becoming part of a re-election campaign!

The mayor drew an expansive breath and Frieda dove straight into his wake.

"That's right!" she crowed. "As first family, we owe it to the town, we do! And to your people o' course, Ruth! Sugar Town may've let you down before – misdirected good will and all! But we'll get it right this time, you mark my words! Only person we're waiting on," (she leaned back to look out a window), "is walking up to the door right this minute!"

She rose just as Hoggs opened the door. "Cops're here, dad!"

Morrow's entrance was quick, deliberate and unsmiling, causing us all to shuffle ourselves into slightly smaller packages – leaving as much space and air as possible for him. Without pause he pulled out a chair, straddled it, dropped a small notebook and the nub of a pencil on the table and, making no effort to disguise his contempt for amateur sleuths, muttered, "This better be good."

One of the best things about policemen is that they like full pictures. Morrow gazed at each of us in turn, silently warning that the full picture better be exactly what we were prepared to give. When no one spoke, he pointed to Bessie.

"Go."

"Why me?" she stuttered.

"Because," he snarled, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder, "I got shit goin' on in my town that no one's okayed with me! Because yez seem ta think yez can take things inta yer own hands, which I'm here ta tell yez, yez are sadly fuckin' wrong about! An'the French is instructional! Now I want this business done, see? I want yez back about yer own business an' I want my town quiet again! That means layin' open this little bastard of a story so's ye can all be satisfied it's received professional attention, right? So it's from the beginnin'! And the beginnin' is you!"

She nodded. Hers, it was true, were the oldest 'insider' memories. But put suddenly on the spot by Morrow's impatient harangue, she shivered down into herself and remained quiet. It wasn't until Mister Bandini began rubbing her back and the rest of us muttered small encouragements that she finally began, bringing to life a Sugar Town that no longer existed in the real world of 2008.

She started with Les.

"Well, 's no secret he was a committed drunk," she said, and several heads nodded in affirmation. "And a mean one, too! Not to his mates, us'ally, but . . . for his mates, often enough, 'f ye know what I mean. Some men, you know – don't know the difference between being a man and being one of the blokes! Les was one o' them."

"Man was a bloody nightmare was what he was!" Morrow declared. "I coulda charged him rent, all 'at time he spent in the tank!"

The picture that Bessie painted for us was of a restless, violent man who would fall in with random groups – anyone who was shouting rounds or seemed to be settling in for a session. And having no close friends, too often he was the evening's entertainment as his fellow drinkers egged him on, promising him that strangers were laughing at him or that so-and-so reckoned he was a creampuff. Pushing Les until he cracked was a joke that only Les never caught onto.

On the afternoon of that Harvest Festival Saturday in 1997, he'd told Bessie, he'd met up with a group that included some of the town's leading citizens – Johnathon Cranna, Roger Dabney, Lyle Hoggitt (seven months into his first term as mayor), Brian Johanson, who was Les's boss at the Weekly, and several other prominent citizens. Johnathon was shouting rounds in celebration of his first ever lolly drop and the session had stretched out. Inevitably, though, by ones and twos, they'd all drifted off to whatever other forms of fireworks the night could provide.

Les had come home, fiercely drunk. According to accounts of the time, he'd staggered there on his own, his path, probably through nothing more than bad luck (both his and Bridie's), having crossed that of a little girl walking in the dark. Maybe he'd spoken to her. Maybe he'd recognised her. Or maybe not. Maybe he just tore into her at the blind urging of some manic demon in his head.

That was as much of a picture as she, or anybody else, had been able to piece together back in 1997 and even that was seven-tenths guesswork, arrived at several months after the fact when Les, once again blind drunk and inadequate, had made stupidly revealing comments in the bar, to grandma Gracie who was found next day, senselessly beaten in her rented home (now Amalthea's rented home). And Les had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Only bits were indisputable facts. That Les had woken up to the danger he'd put himself in and gone to try to quench whatever fire he'd ignited in Gracie; that his well-known violent streak had emerged; that he'd done her a damage, either intentionally or accidentally – that was all speculaton.

" 'At's what happens," Morrow said sternly, "when folks don't have proper appreciation for us professionals, see? If she'd come to me straight away and tol' me what Les said, none of 'at ever woulda happened! See what I'm getting' at? Wi' sensitive information like 'at, ye hesitate an' yer done for."

"But why wasn't Les a suspect before that?" I found myself asking. "Why wasn't he picked up for what he did to Bridie?"

"Don't start me, girl! Every man-jack in this town was a suspect! Cause 'at's the start o' good policin', see? Not bloody vigilante camp-outs like you lot got goin' on here! Wunt a one I didn't quiz about that – including Les. Including all the blokes he was drinking with! Even including the mayor, here. Got nowhere at all."

"But there must have been . . . I don't know . . . DNA evidence or something?"

Morrow shook his head. "Now see, here's another example o' what I'm talkin' about! Your ol' man! Now it's not my place to judge a man for what goes through his head when his kid's been hurt. But the poor bastard jus' couldn't bring himself to accept what had to be done. Didn't even get to discussin' a Morning-After Pill!"

"Why, for cryin' out loud! Why not?"

"Well there ye go, ye see! Seems he mighta kinda unintentionally been put off."

"Put off? How? By who?"

"You list'nin' to what's bein' said here, or what? The Doc'! We jus' tol' ye, Doc'd had a couple in wi' them others at the pub! Not 'nough to interfere with his doctorin', they reckoned; an' ye can't blame a man for havin' a bit o' down time now an' again! But no way your ol' man'd let 'im near that girl! Wouldn' let him examine 'er proper like, ye see? All jus' bad news 'n' bad luck!"

Bad news and bad luck? I could have filled a page with sharper comments than that – most of them on my father's choices. Not that I wished she'd been given a Morning-After pill! That just would've meant no Asael! I pressed on to other issues.

"What about Isak's claim?" I asked, " . . . that there were others involved besides Les? He says Les . . . !"

I pulled myself up, realising that I was on the verge of revealing both Isak's whereabouts and his possible role as Les's murderer. I fully believed he had murdered Les but, if that was the only form of justice Bridie and Grandma G were ever going to get, I wasn't going to go lifting any lids! (Which, now that I think about it, was exactly the same position Sergeant Morrow had found himself in with Isak eleven years earlier!) So I finished weakly, "Did anyone look into that?"

Morrow squinted down his nose at me and I knew he was trying to picture what opportunity I'd had, to have that conversation with Isak. It was obviously a new consideration that he took a moment to file away in his head. Then he looked carefully around the table, assessing each one of us, perhaps imagining the secrets each of us had a stake in hiding.

"Right!" he said at last. "Between these walls, and I mean only between these walls . . . I can confirm that, before Les disappeared, he had what you might call a 'conversation' with Isak Nucifora. Might be that Isak was the last person he talked to before . . . leavin' town. I got no details an' I can't say what passed between 'em. But I do know Isak brought up the idea o' more 'n' one attacker shortly after that conversation. I followed that up as best I could, but it never was backed up by any evidence. Or by the victim, who – and you have to think it was for the best – never remembered even one man, let alone two or three!"

Never remembered, I thought, until this week! And I wondered again what might have come back to Bridie. Were there faces in her mind now? Faces she'd have to meet again in the light of day?

"So the answer to your question," Morrow said to me, "is, like I said, I questioned everyone – most especially and carefully, the boys Les was drinking with that night. Everythin' I heard pointed to Les. An' only Les! Innat right, Lyle?"

All eyes turned to the mayor, who nodded nervously. "I was behind the mike at the Festival by the time of the attack! Hundreds o' witnesses!"

"That's right," Frieda assured us. "That was his first year announcing the Harvest Festival Queen. Lot o' firsts, that year! First for the lolly drop; first for the Grand Gourd! I remember Lyle come galloping in at the last minute. Full as a coot, but still managed to carry it off!"

Then Dale's voice rumbled in. "You musta been one o' the last to leave the pub then, Mister Hoggitt! Crowning the Queen comes late – after dark! Who stayed on?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Fair question," said Morrow. And to the mayor, "He wants to know who was there when you left, Lyle. Who finished the night with Les?"

You could see from the way the mayor's eyes shifted about that his plan of exposure hadn't included being put under the spotlight himself.

"We sorted this back in the day, Mash! Remember?"

"Yair, I remember, Lyle. But these folks don't. And we're puttin' it all out there this one last time, aren't we? To make sure it's finished. So jus' tell 'em, right!"

"Oh, right, sure! Well let me see! I guess at least Johnathon, Roger, Alf and Les were still there when I left. But folks were comin' an' goin' real steady all afternoon, ye see! Someone else coulda joined in after I left! I wouldn't know about that!"

"Alf?" I said. "Why was Alf there? He doesn't even drink!"

"Not 'ny more, he doesn't! Back then, that man was a walking sink!"

Then it was Bessie's turn again. "I know it's a long time ago, Lyle, but . . . I sometimes wonder what you were all talking about that night. Before you left, when there was just the five of you!"

"Jesus, Bessie!" He waved a hand dismissively. "What do blokes talk about when they're pissed? Rubbish! Tits 'n' bums! Who knows?"

He grinned foolishly and, I thought, a little slyly. Morrow, happily, his professionalism already having been undervalued by this group, wasn't about to let even a guilty smirk slide past.

"What you gettin' at, Bessie?"

"It's only just . . . whenever I think back to it I think . . . there was something strange about how mad Les was when he come home! Liquored to the gills, but poppin' out of his skin, he was! I know now he was hypered up about little Bridie and what he done to her. But he was on an' on about the Reverend and Rita! I sometimes wondered how they got into his head, 'cause they were never pub-goers! I wondered could there o' been a connection, between what was said and what Les done! Because, I gotta say even now! I knew that man had a misery in him but, before that, I never woulda pictured him harmin' a child!"

It had taken a lot, I think, for Bessie to mount even that little defence of Les and I, for one, had my first small surge of appreciation for what it must have cost her to live with him.

"Fair point!" said Morrow, and turned to the mayor, as we all did – no one more keenly than me. "Whyn't ye jus' take another minute, Lyle. Think hard on it."

He used the full minute, figiting and hemming and hawing. But the pressure of our combined expectancy eventually poked a hole in his resolve and he began, slowly, to let some information flow.

"I ain't swearin' to it, mind – so many years on!"

But now that Bessie'd mentioned it, he did seem to recollect a conversation touching on my family. If memory served him, it might have seemed that 'some folks', whether seriously or just rambling with the booze, had given the impression of having 'a bit of a bug up their asses' about the Reverend.

"Some folks?"

"Yeah, well. Maybe Johnathon in particular!"

"Now Lyle!" Morrow interrupted him straight away. "This ain' gonna be helpful if you go getting creative on us! Common knowledge is that Cranna and Jacob lived in each others' pockets that last year or more! Couldn' put a crawly-bug between 'em. Everyone knows 'at!"

Bessie shook her head emphatically. "There's friends and there's friends, Cecil. I was in the Reverend's house for a while there, if you remember. And I always reckoned Johnathon was one o' them Clayton's friends."

"Whatcha mean, Bess?"

"One o' them friends you have when you don't have any real friends. One who likes to whisper in your ear, like Les's pub friends done. Some folks, ye know, they get close to ye because they care about ye." She reached for Mr Bandini's hand and clutched it in both of hers. "I know for a fact it was Johnathon put the missionary idea in Jacob's head. Jacob told me that straight out! I tried to say to him how he needed to be thinking about his kids. But every time he started comin' around, Johnathon was there, cheerin' him on; congratulatin' him; promisin' him the town's support. For my money, he congratulated that man straight outta town!"

The suggestion that Johnathon might be somehow other than what he appeared didn't particularly shock me; it was increasingly clear that that was true of all of us. In fact, I found myself constructing a relatively obvious defence for him. Who was to say, for example, that he, like pretty much everyone else in town, hadn't just been exercising a misguided sense of concern for his friend's needs! And as for Bessie pointing fingers, what could be more natural than her, who'd abandoned us herself, calling the loyalty of others into question?

The Reverend, on the other hand, had no defenses. Considering the 'Agnes letters' and his long periods of silence and his refusal to let Bridie be properly cared for after the rape and the coldness that drove Rita into Kevin's arms. If he was a man who couldn't tell what was right for his daughter or his wife, why should it be surprising that he couldn't recognise poor advice? Why surprising that people were having a laugh at his expense in the pub? My father, I concluded, whatever else he was, had been a joke, much like Les Crampton had been a joke.

I excused myself, went into the mayor's fancy caravan toilet and threw up.

On another day, I might have left then; just thrown my hands in the air, walked out of the caravan and kept on going. Just said, 'I don't give a rat's anymore! Do what you want." But, as I watched myself in the mirror, wiping drool off my lips, I knew I couldn't do that. No longer just for Bridie's sake, but for Asael's and Rita's and Kevin's; even for the Hoggitts and Sergeant Morrow, not to mention everyone else in Sugar Town! The story had to be told and we all had to hear it.

"Orright?" Dale asked quietly when I came back to the table. I didn't trust myself to answer so I just slid back into my seat, next to Frieda.

"Right!" Morrow barked. "All ready again? Let's get back to Bessie's question then. What I'm hearin' from you, Lyle, is that some of the talk in the pub that night was about the Reverend, is that right?"

"Mighta come up a bit, I guess, yeah. 'Bout the Reverend, yeah. An' others. But mostly him. And . . . and Rita."

"Him an' Rita! The both of 'em! An' ye never thought to tell me this before?"

All the mayor could do was shake his head.

"UunnUHH!" Morrow growled in frustration. "Not helpful, Lyle! Be bloody disappointed, I will, if the course o' justice hasn' been important to you, mate! Eh? But obviously you're not gonna leave anythin' else for me to find out on me own, are ye! 'Cause as of right now, I'm on the verge o' re-openin' this entire friggin' investigation! 'N' if I do, I'll be kickin' over every rock in town, Lyle!"

It was a convoluted story, the telling of which required the mayor to start on the outside and burrow his way in. First up, to his credit, he volunteered at least a padded version of the story of his and Johnathon's 'mutual support arrangement' – information, in exchange for electoral endorsement. Somehow, he said, the Reverend had got wind of it and "got all arse-about, moral-wise, on what it was." He threatened to publicise it, in response to which Johnathon invited him to go right ahead! No one would care! Because not only was no one being hurt; the whole thrust of it was a look-out for Sugar Town's welfare and prosperity!

"Which is dead right!" the Mayor assured us, wide-eyed with imagined innocence. "Effective corporate intercommunication! That's what it was!"

The only negative in publicising it, in fact, Johnathon had told the Reverend, would be the need for an expensive, reputation-shattering re-electoral campaign – which would certainly finish with Lyle being re-elected. If the Reverend needed enemies, he'd said, then by all means, he should go ahead and try to undermine the happy stability of Sugar Town!

In short order the Reverend had pulled back and Johnathon, as a sop, had begun a campaign of support for the Reverend's church (the big blue gum cross over the door, general refurbishments to the building and so on). At this stage, even Morrow was scratching his head in confusion.

"So what yer sayin' is, Cranna's friendship with Jacob mighta been coverin' up a layer o' resentment? O' the fact that the Rev' managed to see through your bit o' petty graft and corruption? That what you're saying?"

"Not graft, Mash! Wunt ever graft!" But Lyle nodded morosely even as he denied it.

"Well, I s'pose that kind of fits in with Bessie's observations, I s'pose! But lookee here! If that was the only bug up anyone's ass, it don't seem hardly enough, does it? I mean first up, Cranna was prob'ly right! No one woulda cared! An' it was nothin' to him for sure; you bein' the public official an' all, not him! An' then I don't get this! Once the Reverend's kinda . . . softened to it . . . why wouldn' Cranna leave it? Why carry it on, months later, to the point o' nigglin' the Rev' away to New Guinea? Away from his kids! That don't make sense!"

"Well," the mayor said, "I can't comment on that! I'll just say, I never saw any signs o' lingerin' bitterness in Johnathon Cranna."

Morrow gave him a hard, unsatisfied look and Lyle stumbled on, half under his breath. "Except . . . maybe ind'rectly. Maybe ind'rectly, there mighta bin . . . a hardly important sump'm else."

His eyes flicked to me and away, as if I'd caught him peeking through my bedroom window. He huffed and squirmed and cast appealing looks around the table.

"Maybe, though," he said to Morrow, "might be a good time to let these young folks go their ways, eh Mash? You know? Some things . . . not for young ears? Best said in private? 'Mongst adults?"

It was me and Dale he was talking about and Morrow looked us up and down, one after the other, as though he was considering the request. I steeled myself for a fight – a physical one if need be.

Then Dale said, "I'll go if I'm making you uncomfortable, Mayor. But Ruthie gets to choose, eh? No one here has more right."

And he stood there like the stump of a tree in the doorway, looking first at the mayor and then at Morrow, daring them to deny it. I had to fight off an urge to reach for his hand. Morrow gave me a long look then turned back to the mayor.

"Just get on with it, Lyle."

* * *

To make a long story short, according to Mayor Hoggitt, there were actually two aspects to Johnathon's conflict with my family. The 'information misunderstanding' was one thing. The other had to do with plain, old-fashioned sexual jealousy.

Rita, my mother, as people never tired of telling me, was a beautiful woman. 'A face you could rest your eyes on,' people were still inclined to say. 'She could look at you – one glance – and a five-day headache would disappear! Curves like a Formula One race track!' I'd heard it all.

And I'd also heard (just earlier that day, in fact) about the contrast my father presented. Around women, he was . . . ! Lyle was stuck for words but Frieda filled in for him: ". . . as cold as a morning in July, that man! Full of learning, mind! But a man frightened o' being a man." And by all accounts, he blamed women for that – for making him want this when he all he wanted to be wanting was that. "Why Rita ever took up with him," Frieda declared, "was a question for the ages!"

Johnathon, according to the mayor's account, was one of many who'd tried to get close to my mother and been rebuffed.

"But . . ." he looked around the room, sly and panicky as a cornered Chihuahua, and I thought for a minute that he was going to vomit as well. "It seemed to lots of folks that . . . there was maybe one man who . . . got on her good side . . . if you know what I mean." And he raced on. "Not that I'm sayin' it was so, you understand! Or makin' any judgements on anyone! No sir! Just rumours an' inyerendos as far as I was ever concerned! No doubt in my mind Rita was a fine, up-standing, honourable woman! But . . . you know how people like to talk!"

He sputtered to a stop. All eyes were frantically looking for something to light on – anything, so long as it wasn't me – and I suddenly realised that he was talking about Kevin. I picked Bessie to focus on, thinking she was the most likely to understand what my mother'd endured.

"If this is about Kevin," I said, "I know all about that!"

Eyes goggled and mouths dropped open. Apparently such shocking information should have melted my brain on impact.

"And so what?" I said to the table at large. "Kevin's not the point here! And neither is Rita! Their . . . relationship . . . has nothing to do with the attack on Bridie! And anyhow, there surely must have been other women who said no to Johnathon Cranna!"

"Oh my word!" Frieda confirmed. "Johnathon's tried it on with more women than you can shake a stick at! Some you'd be surprised at, I'm sure!" She wiggled in her seat and arched an eyebrow at the mayor. "But with Rita, it wasn't so much a case of who missed out as who lucked out. You know what I mean?"

I truly didn't.

"Well, you're young see; but look at it this way! Johnathon's a wealthy man! He's got influence, charm and good looks to burn, right? Put him up against Kevin and . . . ! Well, Kev's a lovely bloke, he really is! But he comes up . . . less!"

"And he's black," the mayor said. "Not that it ever made a difference to anyone here in Sugar Town! No sir! Black, white or brindle – makes no difference. But it has to be said! And Johnathon, he can . . . !"

I suddenly twigged to what they were doing – looking for issues – even non-existant issues – that were big enough to hide their own guilty consciences behind! I felt steam rising into my head. I didn't care if Kevin and my mother had been lovers. In fact, I was happy about it! Fine! Great! Wonderful! Kevin had been a much better, more caring and supportive father to me than the Reverend had ever tried to be! And Johnathon, for all I knew, had been watching over us for years! No way was I going to sit quietly while more scape-goats were paraded in front of me!

"Can what?" I bristled. "Johnathon can what? Listen! If cutting down Kevin and Johnathon Cranna's the best anyone's got, then we're all wasting each other's time! It's all just ducking and weaving! Why the hell have you got me here? You can do this on your own!"

I'd have left then, but Sergeant Morrow intervened.

" 'At's enough now!" he soothed. "It's ugly enough stuff we're talkin' through here! No harm meant, I'm sure. But . . .," he eyed the group, "I'm takin' the girl's side on this! I'm over bein' side-tracked!"

He planted his elbows on the table and fixed his beady eyes on the mayor. "So let me see if I got the nub o' this, Lyle. There's you, Johnathon, Doc' Dabney, Les and Alf Caletti, drinkin' in the pub. 'S late in the day. Somehow the talk comes aroun' to how the Reverend and his missus get along with each other. That what yer sayin'?"

"Yeah, yeah! Well an' so," the mayor continued, stung into closing on the truth. "I guess someone at the table, I don' know who, mighta suggested, just quiet-like, that Rita might be a little on the . . . hypocritical side, you know? I mean, self-righteous, like. Sorry, Ruthie, but considering what everyone reckoned'd been going on – between her 'n' Truckie! That's just how it came out!"

I gave him my narrow-eyed, freeze-your-blood-with-a-glance glance and Morrow forged ahead. You could see that he was doing his best to separate the relevant bits from the dressed up bits.

"Okay now! Le's jus' stop there now for a minute!"

He wrote a couple of words in his book but I could see the pencil line wandering off in doodles. He was quiet for a long time before suddenly snapping the pencil down on the table and leaning back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. He puckered his lips, blew a little breath and squinted at the ceiling.

"We got some new dots, here," he said. "For sure! But like young Ruth here, I'm havin' just a tad o' trouble seein' how they connect. For instance: number one, we got some minor, unethical business dealings (he bobbed an elbow at the mayor) which led, in fairly friendly fashion, it has to be said, to a bit o' money bein' paid, some of it into church coffers. Number two, we got an attractive, maybe unattended woman who maybe / maybe not got a bit closer than usual to our man Truckie, which led, not too surprisingly, to a bit o' jealous speculation in the pub. But then . . . we got number three! Les Crampton, listenin' in to some drunken chat about it all. Then wanderin' off, maybe / maybe not in company, comin' across Bridie and – somethin' crazy even for him – decidin' to do her over! What's the connection? Does he think it'll put him in his mates' good books? Has he got some gripe of his own against the Rev' an' Rita? Or is he just a bloody screw loose and don' actually know what he's doin'?"

Morrow's arms came down, the front feet of his chair struck the floor with a thud and he leaned out onto the table. His voice fell to an ominous level.

"Or is Les even the right man to be lookin' at? I mean, it seemed obvious back then; but somehow not so much now. Because now . . .," he said, looking coldly at each of us in turn, ". . . now we've got number four, haven't we! Number four bein' that, eleven years down the track, my town's in an uproar!" His voice fell even further, so that I wondered briefly if he was still talking to us. "I got houses bein' burned; I got animals bein' slaughtered in the street; I got gas bottles bein' moved around with what I take to be criminal intent. I got bloody people campin' out so's to protect one another from some evil bastard! An' I, personally, got doubt! Doubt, 'cause I'm hearin' stuff now that I never heard back then. You know what that should be tellin' youse?"

He banged a fist on the table and then turned the fist into a terrible, pointing finger that swung to each of us, one after another.

"That should be tellin' youse that I'm a shit of a long way from bein' happy! That should be tellin' youse that, if I got stone-walled on this once before an' let it ride, thinkin' it had worked itself out for the best . . . I ain' grateful!" He leaned back again, made a sweeping motion with his hand, as though swiping crumbs from the table. "I want them dots connected! Now you lot called this meeting. If I walk away from here an' find out later that someone forgot to tell me somethin', that someone's gonna get their tail stomped on! Understood?"

He looked around expectantly, flushed to the eyeballs, nostrils flaring. No one moved. Well, I think a number of bowels might've come close to moving, but outwardly, we froze. Might be a good time, I thought, for Dale to speak up and at least re-tell his 'I stole the knife but I lost it' story. Or for Hoggs to be called in and made to explain his false confession. But it wasn't either of them who spoke. It was Bessie.

* * *

"There's one more thing maybe should be said." She was looking at me.

"I'm sorry, Ruthie. I'd keep it but . . . I think it might help you understand. It's about the Reverend. And Rita. . . . And Bridie."

And she went on to elaborate on what Kevin had hinted at: the Reverend's infatuation with his developing daughter, Rita's concerns and Bessie's own decision to move in with us after Rita had died; 'just to be another woman in the house'.

"I never seen him touch her! I'm not saying that! But you could tell . . . from the way he watched her – the way he kept her at arm's length. She'd be like a cat, there, purring around him, never knowin' what he was goin' through. But your ma saw it. An' I saw it. An' eventually, even Johnathon Cranna saw it!" Bessie began to cry and Frieda followed suit. "When I talked about Johnathon whisperin' to your dad, I think . . . I know . . . it had a lot to do with that. The final straw he used to convince Jacob to go. To protect her, ye see? And you. And himself. But Jacob . . . don't ever believe it was easy for him, Ruth."

At the end of the story, Frieda reached out, grasping both Bessie's and my hands. "God bless ye, Bess!" she blubbered. "God bless you for being there."

It was a lot for me to process. I couldn't put myself in the Reverend's shoes, obviously, but I had an inkling. All those strengths, defeated by one weakness!

"Why didn't I know about this?" Morrow demanded.

"Beause you didn't need to, Cecil," said Bessie. "The Reverend was a mighty man. He knew what temptation was an' he fought it every day! You never saw a stronger hand than that man's! If that was all, he'd o' won! Worse luck for him, though . . . he didn't know how to fight shame."

Morrow's eyes fell to the table and went blank. Somewhere in there, his mental file was being re- re-organised, another fact being fitted into its appropriate spot. When he looked up, it was to exhale a mighty breath, at the end of which he said, "Shit."

* * *

I guess I sort of collapsed into myself for a bit there. It occurred to me that I'd been prepared for, and exercising, all sorts of anger and resentment, ever since coming across that first letter in Bridie's bedroom. I was good at anger. I was almost a professional at it. (Dale, standing there behind me, could safely vouch for that.) And yet, at this point where it was surely would've been a useful response, it fell away from me entirely! Leaving just an incredible sadness for people.

Like the Reverend; so proud of, and respected for, his wisdom and high standards! What a sad, surprised and frightened man he must have been when he looked in the mirror. Because what else was he? What else were any of us? What did I really know of Bridie or Asael or Kevin or Amalthea? Or of Johnathon Cranna or Dale Sutton! Even of myself! I'd had the Reverend sorted in my mind for years; hated him for years! But if he was really, in the end, undermined by his own God-given character, he hardly warranted hatred. He truly was, like all the rest of us, just one of the little jokes the universe seemed to enjoy seeing enacted. Even there in New Guinea, spreading his message of spiritual purity while bare breasted, teenaged Agnes waited on him in their hut! Just a sad, sad joke, and the laughter too strange and far away to understand.

And you'd never guess where my thoughts bounced to from there! It was straight to the message that Amalthea had left on the Grand Gourd: 'We follow. Now we follow.' I'm not saying I had some great epiphany about it; only that it was suddenly there, like a little anthem. And its message was: Pay attention! Because jokes only make sense when you get to the punch line.

"Anything else?" Morrow asked us finally and that's when Dale told his story about the knife. The knife that was used on Rosemary – the one Amalthea had delivered to the police station: "I stole it from Ansell Williams' shop," Dale said. "But then I lost it." Morrow nodded through the story and also through Dale's claim that he had been at home with his parents and brother through the whole of the Night of Mayhem.

"Well I'll be talkin' to Ansell and Snowy 'bout you, won't I! Anyone else?"

I was wondering if I'd have to bring up Hoggs' fake confession at Amalthea's but thankfully, Frieda jumped in and told the tale. She included Hoggs' misguided motivation – thinking he was protecting his father – and pointed out that Morrow himself knew where the mayor had been and what condition he'd been in, so surely that was alibi enough?

She didn't, however, mention Isak's presence at Amalthea's, so I did that, explaining how he had come to us, following the trail we'd left while hauling Queenie out of the cane.

"He thinks it's kind of alive. And that it's told him stuff, or reminded him about stuff . . . what happened with Les and Grandma Gracie and everything."

"Yeah? An' the 'Les havin' accomplices' story, I suppose?"

"Yeah."

"It tell him anything else?"

"I don't know. He wants to talk to Doctor Dabney; about why Grandma Grace died. And he's got a gun."

"Yeah?" He shook his head thoughtfully. "Licensed shooter is Isak, so I guess he's got a right. Sorta shape's he in?"

I shrugged. "Pretty good, I guess. A lot better than two days ago! It was him found Rosemary."

He cocked his head questioningly and I reminded him, "Rosemary's the goat? Amalthea's goat? The one that got killed?"

"Yeah yeah! The second one! Still dead, is it?"

I nodded.

"An' Isak found it? What, in the night like?"

"Yeah. He . . . put her out of her misery. And brought her home."

"Uh-huh. The ol' fella say where he'd been, out walkin' around in the night?"

"No. But like I say, he'd got a gun and some other stuff so I guessed he'd been to his place. Musta just got what he wanted and come back to be near Queenie – the Space Thing."

"Righto. Okay. Good. So. 'Cept for this space gizmo interest, seems like he's got over his fit. An' he wants to talk to Dabney. An' he's got 'years ago' on his mind – jus' like every other bugger in town these days."

I watched him write the words 'Isak', 'gun' and 'Dab' in his notebook. He studied it for a moment, then added 'space junk' and banged down an exclamation mark.

He asked Lyle to fetch Hoggs in then and I got up to go. I'd already heard Hoggs' story once that day and I didn't want to sit through it again. I needed air, I said, and I wanted to get back to Asael, to make sure he was coping alright. That part of it wasn't really true: between Amalthea and Queenie, and having spent the morning with Bridie, I knew he'd be fine. But I did need air.

A moment after my feet hit the ground I heard heavier footfalls behind me.

"Go for a drive?" said Dale.

Chapter 21 - Revelations

He had his father's farm Ute; not the new one that had carried the Grand Gourd in the parade. The roof was gone off that one, torn off by Johnathon's Tiger Moth.

"Why've you got this?" I asked.

He was determinedly patient. "I got this 'cause I went home after listenin' to you go off this morning. And my ma was one of those on Frieda Hoggitt's hotline. So I hauled back a tent and some cooking gear for her and got her set up."

"What, so she's one of these campers?"

"Yep. She loves camping. Steak and plonk under the stars and she's happy as Larry! The ol' man'll come in later and stay the night with her."

I looked sceptically at the Ute. I hadn't thought about actually going anywhere. And I certainly wouldn't have thought of going anywhere with Dale Sutton! Until that moment.

On an impulse I said, "Okay, I'm in! Let's drive."

His brows shot up, but he recovered quickly, jangling the keys and a nervous smile at me, and we got in.

"To the river," I said. "To the boat ramp! Get us a gasp of fresh, clean ocean air."

So that was where we went. It wasn't a long drive – eight or ten kilometres of quiet back-country road to the tidal end of the river. There's a small gravel parking lot there, surrounded by gums, with a narrow stretch of concrete that passes through thirty metres of adjacent mangroves, straddles the mud flat and pokes a dentist's finger into the grey salt of the river's mouth.

I was surprised and impressed at how carefully and attentively Dale navigated the winding little road. It was so relaxing, in fact, I rolled down the window and leaned my head on the sill, losing my thoughts in the drone of cicadas.

"So," he said at one point, "staying with the goat-lady! That's gotta be weird!"

I gave him a glancing look. I was torn between answering with an off-hand 'I've seen weirder' or telling him the full story of Amalthea actually being Kevin's daughter, even though Kevin didn't know it and was probably never going to be told. I opted for the off-hand. He went quiet for a minute then tried a different tack.

"What's the old man like? Old Isak? He's gotta be not right in the head, eh? Ye reckon Morrow should go confiscate his gun?"

Again, I had choices. Isak was the town loony and a complete loner. Yet somehow he'd wound up closer to Grandma G than anyone else I knew! In his time, he'd been a murderer and a lover! And he and Asael – you couldn't get two more different people, but they had something in common. Their sensitivity to Queenie, at the very least. Isak was all tangled up in my mind.

"Naw," I said to Dale. "He's okay, I think. Just old."

Silence again. The hum of the insects and the rush of the wind. I took my hair band out and shook my ponytail loose, wondering if the smell of the eucalypts could get caught up in it. I caught Dale glancing at me.

"What?"

"Not a thing," he said. "Just wish you'd stop yakking."

"Oh. Right. Funny."

"No, maybe not. But I tell you what mus' be funny! Thinking about Asael, eh?"

"Why? Whaddya mean?"

"Well like, all this time he's been your brother and now . . . !"

"Now what?"

"Now folks're saying . . . you're actually his auntie! That's gotta be weird!"

I sighed.

"Don't go there, Dale."

We parked in the gravelled area, alongside a big Pajero with an empty boat-trailer attached.

"At least someone's got the right idea," Dale said, sizing up the rig. I walked down the ramp, past the 'No Parking' sign and the 'Estuarine Crocodiles' sign with its 'no swimming' symbol. Dale followed close behind.

"You don't see 'em if they don't want you to, you know," he said, indicating the sign. "My ol' man saw a fifteen-footer sunnin' itself right here on the ramp a couple o' weeks back. He turned 'round an' went straight back home. No way he was goin' anywhere near that water. Could be lyin' there in two feet o' water, even now, an' ye wouldn' know 'til it jumped out an' grabbed yuh."

I walked almost to the water's edge, until the muddy slime became too treacherous to stand on. A kilometre or so away to the left lay the Coral Sea; to the right, the tidal stretch of the river narrowed, turning first into a maze of muddy, mangrove-lined channels and ultimately into the dry, sandy cut that passed through Sugar Town. In the mangroves, there were heaps of footpaths, I knew, pushed through from the road by prawners; just wide enough for a man with his bucket and cast net. I'd been down one or two of them in times past and the memory of it made me shiver. The gloom – the suck and buzz and plop of secretive, scuttling things! The mangroves are no place for people.

"Somewhere back up there," I said, pointing toward them, "that's where my mother died."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Down one of the paths. Prawners found her." And I told him the story of the tide coming and going and of Asael's dreams of her, still whole and beautiful, except for her skeleton feet.

"Holy shit! The poor little bugger!"

"Yeah. Poor little bugger."

"Why'd she do it?"

"What, aside from the obvious, you mean? Her mother'd been murdered and her daughter raped. She was raising a kid who wasn't hers and trying to look after Bridie who was an even bigger basket-case than she is now. Seems like she was trying to keep alive a relationship with a man who was a cold fish and maybe feeling guilty about the success of the one she was having with a hot baker! Aside from that, who knows? I've got a newspaper clipping that said she was depressed which I guess . . . who wouldn't be? Nothing in her life coulda been making much sense! What do you think?"

He made a sucking noise with his lips and shook his head.

"It's a cow, all right!" he said.

"Yeah. A cow. Moo."

"You wanna go look?"

"Go look at what?"

"I dunno. Where she died, I guess."

"And why would I wanna do that?"

"Dunno. Just an offer. I just thought . . ."

"What? What did you think, Dale?" I was prepared to rip a strip off his stupid hide which, of course, made him get his back up straight away.

"Just keep your feet on the ground for a minute longer, eh! Give listening a go for a change! All I was gonna say was that sometimes, when you go to the actual place where someone died, you can kinda get a bit of a feel for them! That's all! Like at Port Arthur, where all them people got shot! I bin there! And walkin' around under the trees where those people died . . . I swear, Ru'! In some kinda way . . . they're still there!"

"Don't call me 'Ru'," I said. "Call me . . . !"

"Ratbag. What about I just call you 'Ratbag' from now on. How'd that be?"

I clenched my teeth and did a slow burn, counting to ten in my mind. Then I said, "Right. Let's go do it then." And I marched back to the Ute, leaving him standing like a stunned mullet on the boat ramp. It would have been the perfect time for that croc' to jump out and grab him but it must have been off somewhere else, watching some other big gonzo creature scratch its head.

* * *

I had no idea which path it was, of course, or even if it could actually be seen from the road. The prawners don't go out of their way to make them obvious. But we found one and started down it anyway, Dale leading and me following. It was little more than a bony outcropping that stuck up two inches out of the mud, but at least the footing was relatively dry. We lost the sun immediately, though, and a cloud of mosquitoes rose like a mist. Three minutes in, I called a halt to it. Dale, his t-shirt already drenched with sweat, came tip-toeing back, shaking his head.

"Doesn't make sense, does it?" he said. "Coming to a place like this? I mean how'd she even know these paths were here, or where they led? How'd she find one? And you said she walked? All that way! And nobody saw her! Nobody stopped and said, 'Whatcha doin'? or 'Where ya goin'?' or 'D'ya need help?' I don' get it at all!"

We stood there looking at one another, walking on the spot, waving our hands, fending off the mozzies. Suddenly one of his big hands flashed in front of my face and the heel of it thudded against my forehead. I staggered a step and one of my feet slipped off the path into the mud.

"Sorry," he said, half-lifting, half pulling me back onto the ridge. He showed me the heel of his hand with a splotch of my blood on it. "Little bastards'll have us drained if we stop here."

He slid past, holding me in place by my shoulders, brushing against me on the narrow trail. I watched him move away, edging between the grey trunks, the big farmer's muscles in his back moving under his damp shirt. He was like a troll, I thought. Who's that, walking on my bridge? It's just me . . . a little goat who needs to get home.

* * *

We didn't talk much on the drive back to town. I used my fingertips to pull off the sandshoe that had filled with, and been coated by mud. It stank and oozed like something that was half alive, but also half dead.

"Don't get that on the carpet, will ya!" Dale said.

The 'carpet', being the floor of a farm Ute, was barely visible through bits of cane trash, hand tools, lolly wrappers, empty drink bottles and random orders of plain dirt. I looked at him.

"The ol' man's a bit particular about it," he said and that little something that happens to your eyes when you're happy, happened to his.

I hung my shoe from an outstretched finger and placed my heel very lightly, toes up, on a scrap of paper.

"Sorry," I said. "My bad."

He looked out his side window and I looked out mine, both of us, I guess, preferring to share our smiles with the late afternoon countryside rather than with each other.

* * *

It was after five when we got back to Amalthea's. The first thing I noticed was a little pop-up trailer parked in the yard with the ambulance pulled up behind which, I assumed, meant that Marybeth had chosen to extend the vigilante camping effort away from the Showground. She and Dorrie Gunster, who did everything else together, had come to share in the warding off of evil. The second thing I noticed was the thin plume of smoke that continued to rise from Rosemary's funeral pyre behind the house.

It was the smoke alone that caught Dale's attention.

"Iron bark sleepers," he muttered worriedly. "Could smoulder for days. I might just have a look."

And off he went around the house. It was sparks he was thinking about, I knew. If a few live ones got into Alf's cane, those tonnes of fuel in there could go up like a bomb. Not that it wasn't going to be burnt soon anyhow, but controlled burns were a whole different kettle of fish from wild ones.

Dale was barely around the corner when Amalthea came out onto the veranda, looking as stern and unhappy as I'd ever seen her.

"What's up?" I asked, limping toward her, one shoe off and one shoe on. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing that won't come right. With time."

She flicked a glance over my shoulder and I turned to see Marybeth, nodding and waving from the door of the caravan.

"It's okay, dears!" she called. "Just making sure we're all safe! Pay us no mind. Unless you need us, of course! That's what we're here for!"

Then I thought I heard the rumble of a man's voice from inside the caravan. Marybeth glanced behind her, gave us another wave and disappeared back into the tiny room. I looked a question at Amalthea and she shrugged.

"Isak's out there with them. I think they're cooking up something. You all right?"

"Yeah, sure! Why wouldn't I be?"

"No reason. Just, you said you were going to be gone an hour. That was four hours ago."

"Oh! Sorry! I guess I left in such a hurry . . . I forgot my phone."

"Mm. I guess." And indicating my muddy shoe and foot, she added, "There's a tap around the side. I'm doing stir-fry. Is your friend staying?"

"Who, Dale? No, he's not!"

"Not what? Not a friend or not staying?"

I'd known Amalthea had a temper, of course, but I'd never before seen her be just plain sullen. My blank expression must have told her as much. She shook her head and clenched her lips.

"I've got stuff I should be stirring. Dinner's in ten if you want any." And she turned away.

I legged it around to the tap and met Dale coming back.

"Truckie's watching it," he said. "I reckon it'll be okay." Then he said, "So I'll be off," and stopped dead in front of me, studying my shoe, my filthy foot and, it seemed to me, other parts of me as well.

"Okay," I said, turning sideways and waving him past. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

"No fear," he said, giving his little edge of a smile.

I let him go only a few steps before I spoke his name again. He turned a wary look on me and I made a show of putting the filthy shoe aside and wiping the bit of mud from my finger onto the grass.

"I think I might owe you an apology after all, Dale. I started off thinking some very dark things about you. But it's possible I was wrong."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." I stepped up, quite close to him – almost as close as we'd been on the path in the mangroves. "You spoke up for me . . . at the mayor's caravan. And the drive to the river; and what you said about mum; that was kind. You didn't have to do any of that." I reached up to touch the bruise under his eye, (mostly, I confess, to remind him it was there). And I looked him steadily in the eye, like I do with Asael when I'm trying to hypnotise him into doing what I want. "I'm grateful, Dale," I said softly. "And I'd like to give you something back. Would that be all right with you?"

I took the last half step that brought me right up against him and I glanced up, giving him my most innocent, poor-vulnerable-little-me smile. He swallowed and squinted suspiciously down at me and his mouth opened but no words came out. It's really almost pathetic, how easy guys can be! It was all I could do not to laugh! Then, holding his gaze, I slowly lifted my muddy foot onto his, wiping congealed muck onto his sandal.

He looked down to see what I'd done, up to my innocent smile and back down again. The moment was fleeting, but lovely – a little reminder that I wasn't anybody's chump. He chewed it over for a minute, then put his big paw on top of my head and mussed my hair, the way you see heroes in the movies do to small, pathetic orphan kids.

"My pleasure, Ratbag!" he said.

And he walked away. Laughing. Which was definitely not what I'd intended! I snatched up the muddy shoe and almost let myself heave it at him. But then I thought, No! There'll be other times, other ways. And I'll enjoy the task of finding them!

* * *

I rinsed the shoe and foot under the tap. Then I rinsed the shoe a second time, realising that, as a result of the house fire, these were now the only shoes I owned. And the clothes I was wearing were all I had to put on. I hoped Amalthea's bad mood wouldn't stop her from lending me something clean.

Carrying on around the back, I came across Kevin and Asael and Garlic. Kevin was using a long-handled rake to drag smouldering bits of timber into the remaining pool of flame. Asael sat on the ground, watching Kev' and stroking Garlic, who lay beside him. Clutched in his lap was the old poetry book that Amalthea'd read from when we lit the fire.

"Hey!" I said "Still going, eh?"

Kevin nodded without looking up, Asael gave me a kind of pleading look and Garlic raised his blind eyes to the sky, where a rising breeze was dispersing the last of Rosemary's ashes.

I started to fluff Asa's hair, then stopped, thinking how Dale had just done that same patronising thing to me. Instead, I scoured my hair band out of my pocket, hung it from my lips for easy access and started pulling my ponytail back into shape.

"Whatcha got there, As'?" I mumbled, indicating the book.

"Old book," he said. "Kevin an' Amalthea are arguing over it, so I'm holding it out of the way."

"Oh?" I didn't know what he was talking about, but the mention of them arguing drew me back to where they'd been when I left: Kev' confessing a relationship with Rita and Thea not able to disguise her disgust.

I got the band into my hair and went to stand beside Kev'.

"Y'okay?"

He nodded again. The metal end of the rake looked hot enough to brand a cow with. I wondered if I should tell him that, apparently, the whole town had known about, or thought they'd known about – or at least speculated about – what went on between him and Rita. I wanted to remind him that I was okay with it. Far be it from me to begrudge anyone their happiness! And I wanted to tell him that he needn't worry about Bridie's or Asael's reactions, either; I could handle them. I wanted to tell him those things, and I could have, but I knew that they weren't the real problem. The real problem was one I couldn't talk to him about – Amalthea's perception of what kind of man he, her birth father, might be. Was he one who would take advantage of an unhappy, vulnerable woman? And was that what had happened with Amalthea's mother?

I patted his shoulder. "C'mon, you lot. Apparently Amalthea's cooked us a dinner. Just got time to wash up."

I had to take the rake from his hands and lay it in the dirt.

"C'mon! I got so much to tell you all! It's been a crazy afternoon! Did Marybeth tell you what's happening over at the Showgrounds? I talked to Bessie and the Hoggitts, and Sergeant Morrow was there and then Dale took me for a ride to the river and we looked for the place where Rita. . . . !" On and on I went.

* * *

Isak stayed out in Marybeth's caravan – probably trying to convince her that 'saved' souls couldn't possibly look like his! So we were four at the table and only I seemed interested in talking. I nattered out almost the entire story I'd heard at Hoggitt's caravan, minus two bits. I left out the speculation that Kev' and mum had been an item, it being obvious from the ragged silence that that sore point didn't need prodding. And for Asael's sake, I left out the 'Morning-After Pill' references. I talked about going down to the river with Dale and hiking into the mangroves and Dale wondering how mum got there, let alone why, and what a good question that had suddenly seemed to be.

When I finally ground to a halt, it was for two reasons. The first was that a wave of exhaustion suddenly steam-rolled me, like a Mac truck rolling over a bandicoot. And the other was my realisation that they'd all finished their meals and I'd barely touched mine.

"Been a big day all right," Amalthea said and my motor mouth started up again, trying to apologise for leaving in the middle of Rosemary's send-off. She waved it away.

"You were right to go. The dead have their roads to walk and the living have theirs. Nobody's supposed to come to a halt."

"Me 'n' Isak," Asael said, "we showed Queenie to Sergeant Morrow again. He didn't touch her this time, but he says she'll have to go to the gov'ment."

"Sergeant Morrow was here?"

"Not long after you left the Showground, apparently," Amalthea answered. "He said he wanted to see Rosemary – see what evidence he could gather about last night. Too late for that! Anyhow, I think what he really wanted was to see Isak. I guess Franz told everyone he was here."

"Was there a problem?" I asked, picturing the old man menacing the Sergeant with his gun.

"No, not at all. I don't think that old man's screws are as loose as he makes out. Morrow tried to coax him back to the hospital but Isak said he'd let Garlic do open-heart surgery on him before he'd risk another stay under Dabney's care. He suggested Dabney come out here if he's so keen to check on him."

"Wow! He's just really got a trust issue happening, hasn't he?"

She looked across at Kevin, who was absently sorting the vegetables in his stir-fry, and said, "They're more common than you'd think."

At that, he pushed his chair back and stood up.

"Thanks for this," he said quietly. "I'll wash up and get out of your way. Early start tomorrow."

"No problem," Amalthea murmured.

I looked from one to the other and to Asael who, I noticed, still had the old book in his possession. I had a flashback to Amalthea reading from it for Rosemary, and to Kevin's agitation when he first saw it. That was when it came to me that, somehow, this quarrel between Kevin and Amalthea had moved on to a new level. I stood up.

"We'll help," I said. "I just want to check something in my backpack first."

I squinted hard at Asael and dipped my head toward the living room. He brought the book with him, as I knew he would, and handed it over without question.

"All right," I said, flicking through the pages, "tell me again. Why are you hanging onto this?"

"They're fighting over it," he said. "Because of what's written in the front."

I flicked to the first, blank page and found a faded piece of writing. It said, 'L. Page 90. K'. Page 90 turned out to have several short poems on it but one of them, only half a dozen lines long, had an asterisk. It was called 'Year That Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me'.

"I don't know what it means," said Asael, "But they quarrelled about it. He said, 'Where did you get it?' and she said, 'A second-hand store in Wagga Wagga' and he said, 'I don't believe you' and she said 'Here, have it if you want it' and he said 'No' and then neither one of them wanted it so I took it. What do you think it means?"

"I don't know, As'!" I said, scanning the half dozen lines for a second time. 'Your summer wind was warm enough but the air I breathed froze me.' And second last: 'Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?' The name on the cover was Walt Whitman.

"I truly don't know! It's a mystery!"

In the kitchen, I could see Kevin's back as he stood at the sink, washing dishes. Behind him, at the table, Amalthea sat in silence, watching him. "I might see if I can find out though, eh?"

* * *

The sun was about done for the day and Amalthea was in the shower when I walked Kevin out to his motor bike. In the blue light of the dusk, I held the book out to him.

"What's this about, Kev'?"

He shook his head, but he took it from my hands nonetheless and opened it to the inscription.

"I wrote that," he sighed. "Twenty-two, twenty-three years ago. Forever ago."

"Yeah? And what, you gave it to . . . L?"

He nodded. "At the end of a year that trembled." He flicked it open to page 90 and handed it back to me.

"I read it already," I said. He flicked a glance toward the house.

"Thea said she found it . . . in a second-hand store . . . in Wagga Wagga."

"Oh. And you don't believe her?"

"I got no idea what I believe, Ru'."

"No, well. Join the club then, I guess. So who was 'L'?"

" 'L'? L was Elle. E-double L-E. A woman who was very important to me at a stage in my life."

"Yeah? Wow! You wouldn't read about it then, would you – the coincidences there!"

"Where? What do you mean?"

"Well, Amalthea's mother's name, I happen to know, because I snooped, was E-double L-E! What're the odds of Am' wandering into a second-hand book store in Wagga Wagga and picking up a book meant for someone with the same name as her mother! Then coming to Sugar Town and meeting you! The very bloke who wrote in the book! I mean that's crazy coincidental, isn't it?" And then, because I'm nothing if not heavy-handed, I added, "I wonder how old Am' is!"

It wasn't something I should have done, I know. But I hadn't said anything directly. I'd just kind of dusted off the clues and put them together into a nice, obvious little outfit. What he made of it wasn't anything to do with me!

What he did was to furrow his brow and shake his head slowly from side to side, as though intent on keeping those clues from settling. I could actually see the moment when, finally, they beat him, locking themselves into place.

"No!" he said. "No way! I would have known! Someone would have told me! She wouldn't have gone through that on her own and not . . . ! Would she?"

I looked at him, eyes wide and innocent.

"But that would explain . . . !" he went on, arguing himself into submission. "Like the other night, at the bakery! And so many other times! That something in her tone, her gestures . . . the way her hair curls!" To me, he said, "There's this look that she gets. It's like . . . !"

I waited but couldn't wait forever. "Like what, Kev'? What're you thinking?"

"Jesus H. Crucifix!" he said, and I knew he was truly agitated because that was closer to swearing than I'd ever heard him come. "What're the odds?" He was back talking to himself again. "That she'd be real, and I wouldn't know! And on top of that, that she'd find me! Not by accident, no way! That'd be just too nuts! So why hasn't she said something? Because, you blind numb-nut, she thinks you abandoned them! She just wanted to know for sure! And now she thinks, because of Rita . . . you're just a . . .! And that's why she's . . . !"

He looked back at the house and then, from the side of his eyes, at me.

"You knew!"

"Knew what, Kev'? Jeez! You haven't finished a sentence in the last ten minutes! I'm not a mind-reader, you know!"

The sun had already dipped and the light was nearly gone, Still, I folded my arms and gave him my best 'what-are-you-picking-on-me-for, it's-not-my-fault' look. He pointed a dark finger at me.

"A mind-reader is exactly what you are, Ruth!" Calling me 'Ruth' wasn't a good sign. He only did that when he was truly out of sorts. "This might just be the biggest thing that's ever happened to me and if you mess me about over it, I can promise you . . . there'll be no more freebies for you at The Harmony Bakery."

I was too tired. I wagged the poetry book at him and said, "If you ever say that I said, I'll deny it! And you can keep your old cream buns!"

And I told him about Amalthea's Memory Book; how Asa'd stumbled across it and we'd looked in it and how there were photos of him, as a young man. And how, that very morning, when Hoggs was waiting for Isak to shoot him, Amalthea'd told him that she was here looking for a father. Someone she'd lost, long ago. I didn't go on with the 'fathers-should-be-there' part of it because that would have seemed unnecessarily cruel – not that I had any idea why Kevin hadn't been there for 'L'.

He shifted his weight a little to get off the bike, I supposed to go back in the house. I blocked his way.

"Do you think now's the time?" I asked. "I mean, it's already been a big day; a huge day for all of us! Am's lost Rosemary. And she's suddenly found herself stuck with As' and me. And Isak. And Queenie. Not to mention Marybeth and Dorrie, and all my family's problems. Couldn't you pick another day to let her get stuck with a father?"

"Stuck?" He settled back into the seat. "No! Right! We don't want anyone to be stuck!"

He sat for a long while, looking into some past place that only he could see.

"Amalthea told me," I said, "that her mum died a couple of years ago – of leukaemia. Definitely leukaemia. Not a broken heart."

He sighed deeply. "Well. There's a mercy, then, eh?" Then he sat up straight, put on his helmet and turned the ignition. He revved the engine a couple of times and, even in the gloom, I could see his teeth, peeping through a broadening smile.

He moved the bike ahead a couple of feet and stopped, holding out his hand. "Put her there, Ru'!" he said, and I took it for a shake. It was warm and dry, as always – a workman's hand. Also, I thought, the hand of a man who loved women – kind of a scary thought. And yet a comforting one because I believed it was connected to a very good heart.

"Congratulations, Kev'," I said and he said, "Thanks, mate. Come by the shop tomorrow and I'll shout you a cigar."

"I'll hold you to that!"

"I know you will. I'm counting on it."

"You going straight home now? You're not going to go do something crazy and make me worry, are you?"

"Almost straight," he said. "I might stop and see Bridie on the way. Want to come?"

"I can't," I said. "I'd like to, but I'm so knackered! Ten minutes from now, I'm going to be asleep – even if I'm still standing here in the yard. But say hi to her for us, eh! Tell her me 'n' As'll be there bright and early. Oh, and you can tell her, if you want, because I forgot to, that Johnathon Cranna's organising another place for us. Something about promises he made to the Reverend, years ago. So that's one less thing for her to worry about."

* * *

I waited until his tail light disappeared and then until the sound of the engine faded away. The evening star was out. The smoke from the mill's stacks rolled into the dark sky like a tower of boiling milk. Someone had spread sand over the stain of Rosemary's blood.

I turned back toward the house, only to find Marybeth and Dorrie tip-toeing across the veranda toward their caravan. Dorrie put a finger to her lips and nodded toward the caravan.

"Isak's asleep already, poor man! Exhausted with his memories and his salvation. We've let him have our bed since we won't be needing it. You sleep tight too, love. Everyone can sleep tight tonight. Marybeth and Dorrie are watching."

I moved to pass them but Marybeth clutched my arm for a final comment. "Your father was a good man, dear. He'd have known! About the Heavenly Object, and what it means! He'd have known!"

Amalthea insisted that Asael and I sleep in her room, in her big double bed, while she took the couch. I was too tired to argue. The last thing I remember was Asael squirming under the sheet until his back was against mine. He wanted to talk and I could feel the vibration of his voice, coming through my spine. My brother / my nephew.

"It's going to be okay now," he was saying. "I know it is. Queenie's going to see to it. Before the gov'ment comes to take her away."

* * *

The light from the corridor falls across Bridie's lap as she lies in her bed, staring into a scene that's been trying for hours to play itself out against the ceiling. That night, those shadows, the voices. Over and over, they try to resolve themselves into something familiar.

One part is newly clear – a vision of herself, the little thirteen year-old – but this time alone on the dark street, crying. Crying for her mother; crying for her father; crying for her lost shoes. The one who comes and finds her is her father.

Jesus Mary and Joseph! NO NO NO! What's happened? What's happened to you?

My shoes! I lost my shoes!

And he carries her off to their home, to her mother who cries anew: Who has done this? What animal? Who was it? Can you not remember, Bridie? Can you not?

* * *

She could not then. Now, she has been trying. To remember. To not remember. It's all silence. Until, out of the vision comes a new voice. Voices. Sly, urgent, whispered voices. She hears them.

No way!

You can't do that!

Don't tell me what I can't do! I do what I want! And I want this! Now!

She trembles, deep in her bowels. That voice! She's wanted / not wanted to know it since waking from her drugged sleep. And now she knows it. She knows them all. All three.

* * *

'You can't be doing this, you fool! Get back in your room!'

' _Don't tell what I can't do! I do what I want. You, of all people, should know that by now.'_

The ceiling becomes, once again, just a ceiling as the shadow of a man forms in the light that lies across her bed. She closes her eyes and feels his approach. She hasn't moved. Her breathing hasn't changed.

' _Bridie?'_

It's Doctor Dabney, speaking very softly. She doesn't move. She wills herself to utter stillness. As before. Until he leaves.

' _She's asleep', Bridie hears him say. He's back in the corridor. 'What the hell are you playing at? Don't you see how dangerous this is?'_

' _Just paying a visit,' says the other voice. It's Johnathon Cranna's voice. There's a squeak of rubber as he turns his wheelchair._

' _We've been having some nice chats, Bridie and I,' he says, again sly and whispery. 'Like the old friends we are.' He laughs, softly, far away now, the sound cutting off as Doctor Dabney pushes him back into his own room._

She opens her eyes and, in one of them, a fat tear wells up – not quite big enough to roll.

Asael, she whispers. You'll never have to know.

And she turns her back to the light.

Chapter 22 – More Revelations (Tuesday)

"A paternity test'd be the answer. Damn soon put an end to this whole shemozzle, once and for all. Check out the DNA, I say!"

Asael and I were passing Johnathon's room and I had just glanced in, only to find that it was empty and the bed had been stripped. The words had come from Bridie's room further down the hall and, before they were half out, I'd grabbed Asael's arm and spun him back toward the lobby.

"Hey!" I blathered. "We're a pair of dummies! We didn't bring chocolate!"

I slapped my rucksack into his hands and said, "There's five dollars in there, down the bottom somewhere. How 'bout you go back to the machine in the lobby and get something nice and I'll just go make sure she's decent, okay?"

Thankfully, he went. Not without a grumble, but he went. And I tip-toed on, to stand just out of sight outside Bridie's door.

It was Sergeant Morrow's voice that I'd heard and I gathered that, while I was fussing with Asael, some point had been made about the difficulty of collecting DNA samples from unwilling citizens. I tuned back into the conversation with Morrow saying, "There's ways 'n' means, Roger. I'll get 'em, or I'll know the reason why!"

Then Bridie piped up with, "There won't be any tests." Even in the hallway, I raised my eyebrows at how firm she sounded.

"Now don't be hasty!" Morrow started again. "If you're worried about someone botherin' you, I can promise you absolute, perfect security! No one's gonna get within coo-ee o' you, I guarantee it!"

"The only person in Sugar Town that I'm worried about right now," she said, "is Asael. Right now, he has a father who, though he's far away, is a good and holy man. That's the only father I ever want him to know."

"But the law . . . !"

"He that is filthy, let him be filthy still, Sergeant. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. The Revelation of Saint John."

"Oh, bugger Saint John! We aren't talkin' about Saint John. We're talkin'about. . . !"

"Enough, Sergeant!" Roger Dabney roared. "It's enough! I've stood by long enough, this morning, allowing you to harangue my patients! First Johnathon, with all that ridiculous, fanciful claptrap that people have cobbled together for you! Ignorant, conspiracy-theory mumbo jumbo! And now Bridie! It's more than enough! She's made her wishes perfectly clear!"

He paused and started again, making an obvious effort to sound calmer and more judicious.

"My suggestion, Sergeant, is that you – we – all of us – respect Bridie's very sensible wishes! The matter should never have been resurrected in the first place. And it most certainly serves no one's best interests to carry it on! Now, if you've nothing else to ask about, I must ask you to excuse us. I'd like to examine my patient."

There was a mutter and a muffled curse from Sergeant Morrow, followed by, "Right! You do that! But I tell you what! Wishes or no wishes, I'll be carryin' on with my examinin', as well! And I will get to the bottom o' this! That's a gold-plated promise!"

And he stomped out, with barely a glance in my direction. I drew a couple of deep breaths, put on a goofy smile and, trying to pretend that I'd heard nothing, went in.

"Hiya, Sis! Hello, Doctor. Is this a bad time?"

Both of them turned startled faces to me and Doc' Dabney's face pinched up like a crab-apple doll's.

"Does no one in this town understand the concept of visiting hours?" he snapped. "Ten o'clock! That's when they start! Go back to the lobby and wait – at least until I've finished my examination."

My instinct was to shoot straight through and, given another blink of time, I would have. But Bridie, to my absolute joy and astonishment, swung her long legs off the bed, gave him a sadly reproachful look, and dismissed him as though he was a naughty kid caught picking his nose in Sunday school.

"I won't be needing your examination, Doctor," she said simply. "You can go. Ruthie'll stay." And after a minute, because he stood there, shuddering with disbelief, she nodded toward the door and said, "Thank you, Doctor."

He actually staggered a step then, but only one, and, sputtering and spitting, he gawped back and forth between us, like it had suddenly occurred to him that we'd arrived on broomsticks. I enjoyed it immensely. Not because I like seeing people made uncomfortable, but because I like seeing arrogant, self-satisfied, out-of-touch people made uncomfortable. Introducing them to a lower peg just makes communication so much easier. And it was fascinating to see the rich tomato-y colour that crawled out from behind his ears, giving the impression that his head was about to explode.

"How dare you speak to me in that manner! This is my hospital! And until I'm satisfied that . . . !"

"Do you know," Bridie interrupted him, with degrees of volume that I hadn't known she could produce; "Do you know the four things that are never satisfied, Doctor?"

"What? What are you . . .?"

"The grave, a barren womb, the dry earth and the fire!"

"What?" he stammered again. "What on earth . . .?"

"The Book of Proverbs," she said, stamping it out as though it was the ultimate authority. As though that should make it clear what she was on about (which it certainly didn't for me!). "Now if you'll be so kind, I'd like to talk to my sister . . . in private. I believe your friend Mister Cranna is being discharged this morning. I'm sure he'd appreciate hearing your supportive thoughts on the 'ridiculous, fanciful claptrap' that people in town have 'cobbled together'!"

My first impression, judging from the expression on his face, was that he figured she'd slipped her moorings. Even though I was thinking that I'd never seen her saner or more in-control.

"What? What did you . . .? What are you . . ?"

The colour rose even higher in his cheeks and he looked between us, then to the floor, as though his dignity might be found there, lying in a wounded little pile, like a discarded sock. Then he gathered himself together and strode from the room, tossing an uncertain, "We'll see about this!" over his shoulder. And it struck me.

'Holy crap!' I said to myself. 'She's frightened him! How did she do that?'

* * *

"Wow!" I said to Bridie when he was gone. "What just happened?"

She held her rigid pose for a second longer, then she began to crumple.

"Oh Ruthie!"

For a second, I thought she was going to fall and I moved to brace her against the bed.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she breathed. "You came at just the right time. Where's Asael? Is he all right? Didn't he come with you?"

"Here I am!" He was at the door, anxious to come in, but obviously nervous about her apparent state.

"Oh, As!" She held out her arms to him. "Look! We're okay! Let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth! Ecclesiastes."

And, with a visible effort at restraint, he sauntered across to her, holding out his chocolate bar.

* * *

We spent twenty minutes or more talking and laughing, skirting around the thorniest parts of the issues that neither Bridie nor I wanted to raise while Asael was listening. She told us about Morrow's visit which, in her telling, was nothing more than part of his follow-up investigation into the Night of Mayhem. And I told her of the gathering in the Showground, making the same claim – that everyone was concerned to catch whoever might have burned our house and done the other creepy things that had been done. Asa' told about Marybeth and Dorrie camping at Amalthea's place and how they'd tramped around the yard all night and peeped in at the doors and windows, checking, we thought, mostly on Queenie.

"That's the space thing," I explained to Bridie. "Queenie's what Isak started calling her. Kinda catchy, eh?"

We told how, when we'd left, Marybeth, Dorrie and Isak had been sitting in the lounge room beside Queenie, chatting softly and secretively while Amalthea idled in the back yard, raking through the ashes of Rosemary's pyre.

"Oh, my!" Bridie said. "That poor little goat! I hope someone said some nice words over her?"

Again, it was Asa's story. "Amalthea read some poem-bits but Kevin didn't like it and they argued about it afterwards."

"No, did they? Kevin didn't like the words? That's not like him! Usually he likes any kind of words! Is he all right?"

She looked to me for confirmation and I shuffled my eyes around. I didn't want to give away his and Amalthea's secret but, on the other hand, I didn't want to keep it, either.

"I think it's because they're related," Asael said. "Me 'n' Ruthie saw Kevin's photo in Amalthea's memory book from a long time ago. We weren't peeking! It just fell out!"

"You what?"

So then I had to tell the story, as much of it as I knew. At the end, I shook a finger in Asael's face and warned him, "Neither one of 'em knows that the other knows, Asael! So you say even a peep about it to either one of them and I'll cook your goose for you! Understand?"

"Ruthie!" Bridie said. "That's no way to talk! We're family, us three – sisters and brother! We need to look after each other's gooses! And the gooses of our friends, as well, eh, Asa'?" She winked and smiled at him, enjoying her little joke. "You wouldn't spoil Kev' and Thea's secret, would you mate?"

He shook his head and she added, "Course not! And somewhere along the way, if God wills it, they'll discover the truth about who they are. He shall light a candle of understanding in their hearts, which shall not be put out. Apocalypse."

Well, there were two things there that just sprinkled a little cold water on my mood. The little one was her pulling me up as though she was back in charge of the family, even though I was the one that seemed to be carrying the brunt of things at present. And the bigger one was the reference to discovering 'the truth about who they are'.

Now, I didn't have any impulse (and still don't!) to let Asael know that his real father was a maniac rapist! But I wasn't a kid! I was a teenager (even if only barely) and a girl (which, I don't care what anyone says, gives you some insights) and I looked like, potentially, having to take a fair hand in caring for both of these people. I reckoned Bridie and I needed a chance, soon, to have an honest, adult conversation.

"Hey, we're gonna eat this bar in no time! What about we get her another one, for later, As'?"

I pushed the last of my change at him and shooed him out the door. "Get us something nice, eh? No raisins, but!"

When he was out of sight, I turned back to Bridie. Neither one of us was smiling.

"Only truth between us," I charged. "That still stands?"

"It stands as tall as it can, Ruthie. As much truth as either of us can bear to tell or hear. That's all I should ever have promised."

So I told her that I'd heard Morrow's suggestion of a paternity test and asked why not. Didn't she want to know who? She swung her legs from the bed and gazed down at her feet.

"I do know, Ruthie."

I was gob-smacked. Not that I hadn't thought it possible that her memory might come back; but I hadn't thought it possible that she'd be lying here, so calmly – tousling Asa's hair and making feeble jokes – once she knew! If it was me, I'd be out looking for a gun!

"You remember?"

She nodded, a gesture that she halted by pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. "Enough. Too much."

"And?"

"For the moment, Ruthie, 'And . . . nothing!' I haven't told anyone else. I don't intend to tell anyone else and I'm counting on your silence as well."

"But why, Bridie? Surely they . . . !"

"Keep your voice down! I don't want Asael to hear! I don't want him ever to hear. I don't want him ever to think that he isn't the child of the same loving parents as you and I. He's not at fault in this and he should never have to pay for it."

And no matter what I had ever thought or felt or suggested or hinted at before about my sister – in that moment – for that moment – knowing what it must be costing her to say nothing – I guessed she was as close to perfect as anyone can probably get. But I wasn't. And I needed to know.

"Were there . . . was it Les, like everyone guessed? Shouldn't you at least tell Bessie?"

"No. Bessie's fine with what she knows."

"So it was Les then! Which means that Isak was telling the truth! And he's not crazy and he really did murder Les! Which is excellent! He fully got what he deserved!"

"Ruthie, let him go. As I am. As it says in Exodus: Let him go for a scapegoat, into the wilderness."

"Scapegoat? What do you mean, 'scapegoat'? He was a monster! Listen, Bridie, if you don't want to stand up for yourself, that's one thing! But you're not alone in this, you know? There's Asael as well! And Grandma G! Lot's of people have been hurt and cheated!" I wanted to add myself to the list, but I wasn't at all certain I could explain my sense of loss. "You have to be strong in this – for them, if not for yourself!"

"I am strong, Ruthie. When I'm weak, then I'm strong. Remember that? From Corinthians? 'Take delight in hardships, in persecutions and in difficulties.' It's what we endure that measures our strength, Ruthie; not who we manage to punish."

And that was the end of her perfect moment. Fragile or not, I was set to tell her how, unless the purpose of people was to be battered like punching bags, Corinthians was a load of pig swill. The frantic howl of Dorrie's ambulance, however, threaded its way into the room at that moment, completely de-railing my train of thought.

"What the . . .?"

We couldn't see through the courtyard greenery but we could tell from the sound that the car sped up to the emergency entrance, slowed and then zipped away again, siren still blazing. Why would it do that, except maybe to pick up Doctor Dabney? But for what? Only the direst emergency would have pulled Dorrie away from her vigil at Amalthea's or the doc'away from his hospital!

And somehow the thought of people we knew being in distress became the proof of my argument against Corinthians. If we had any value at all to one another, surely it was in providing some respite from each other's hardships and persecutions! Some promise that we were not alone in our enduring! Which meant that she owed the truth at least to me, if not to anyone else! I turned on her.

"Why did the doc' scuttle off like that, Bridie? And what was that about 'ridiculous claptrap' and talking to Johnathon? If you know stuff that the rest of us need to know . . . !"

She drew breath and, because once I start pushing, I have trouble knowing when to stop, I barked at her, "The truth, Bridie! Nothing else'll do!"

Almost immediately, I had to step back from her. She snapped onto her feet and loomed over me, becoming, just for a nanosecond, the bitter, crazy-with-rage, inch-away-from-killing, nutso- person that I'd challenged her to be. Her hands became claws between us and a demon's face leered down on me. For the first time ever, I trembled at the power of the person who lived unseen inside her head.

"The truth?" she spat. "Because you're so grown up, is that why? So ready to face it all? Ruthie? Or whatever you're calling yourself today! You know what's best?" She leaned into me, her face twisted with pain. "The truth," she hissed, "is that I remember three of them. Three of them and me. In the street, in the darkness. And Doctor Dabney was not one of them. Is that enough for you? Or would you like the gory details as well? Would you like to know what it feels like to have your . . . ?"

I gaped at her, clapping hands over my ears.

"No-No-No! Stop! Please! Don't! I'm sorry! I . . .!" But I couldn't help myself. "I just . . .! Can you tell me . . . ! If Dabney wasn't one of them . . . was Johnathon?"

She might have railed at me again but, as fierce a thing as her rage had been, she'd already begun resolutely to reel it in and put it back in its cage. She was shaking like a leaf but her head was shaking most of all, which I, with great relief, took for a negative. But we got no further. Asael came bursting back into the room, propelled, her hands firmly planted on his shoulders, by Dana Goodrich.

* * *

They bowled into the room like a pair of fugitives, both of them with eyes the size of mangoes.

"Kee-rist!" Dana was blurting. "Shit on a biscuit in Sugar Town today!" It seemed she was about to explode with news.

"Why?" I demanded. "What's happened? What's going on?"

"What bloody isn't, more like! Zif it wasn't enough, youse two getting the Doc' lit up like a friggin' sparkler! Him rippin' a fart up the matron then spendin' fifteen minutes screwing the ears off J.C.! We barely get 'im under control an' Dorrie pops up with a riot!"

"Riot!" Bridie stammered, clutching her arms to still her trembling. "Don't be ridiculous, Dana! Nobody riots in Sugar Town!"

"Riot?" Dana blustered. "Who said 'riot'?" She twisted Asael about to face her. "Did I say 'riot'?" she demanded and he nodded mutely.

"Crap! I wasn't supposed to say 'riot'! Matron told me not to go talking about it, didn't she, As'!"

She twisted him back to face us and shook him slightly, as though he was a large clock she was trying to get started. It worked.

"At the Showgrounds!" he rattled out. "The Showies came back! That's what Dorrie said! I heard her on the radio. Dana was showing me the two-way an' we called up 'er an' she answered an' I asked how Isak an' Queenie an' Marybeth were going an' she said excellent! Them an' her, they'd come up with a plan to bring something to a head, she said, an' she had to go and then she called back straight away, like, to tell Doctor Dabney they needed 'im at the Showground 'cause the Showies've come back to fetch Bessie an' Arturo', she said, an' Sergeant Morrow was there an' there's a riot!"

He stopped, his eyes flicking excitedly back and forth between Bridie and me. She sank back in disbelief, onto her bum and I, unable to take it in, tried to erase it.

"Rubbish! No way! The Showies? For Bessie? Rioting? In our Showgrounds? No way!"

But they both nodded, happy as a pair of magpies, and Dana chirped, "That's the Dorrie story, Rory!"

I mustered my deepest reserves of sarcasm. "So she said there've been actual injuries then, did she? Sugar Town people and Showies are actually going at each other?"

"The wounded, the crippled and the lame!" Dana shrugged. "Sugar Town's own Gallipoli, the way I heard it! All ashore that's going ashore!"

And then, as though her breasts were that fabled shore, she pulled Asael's simple little head back against her and crossed her hands on his chest, allowing him to snuggle comfortably between. Leaving Bridie and me to slop around alone in the deep water.

"No way!" I repeated. "Can't be!" Tripping over a terrible image of Bessie huddled in the midst of a melee, being tugged in opposite directions. And then I thought, and asked, "Why would they, eh? Why would they fight? Why wouldn't it be obvious to everyone that they were all there to protect Bessie and Arturo?"

I looked to Bridie for support, but she only gripped the side of the bed and leaned forward as though about to vomit. "OhmyGod! OhmyGod!" she moaned. "Please don't let that be!" And then her head snapped up. "Wait! Wait, wait, wait!" and clapping a hand on Asa's shoulder, she demanded, "What did you say Dorrie said? That they'd come up with a plan? To bring things to a head?"

"Pinch it like a pimple!" Dana declared. "That what she said, As'?"

His joyous nod was deadly close to earning him a pinch from me, partly because I was a hundred and one percent certain he had no clue what 'it' was! And partly because not even the knowing wag of Dana's eyebrows prompted him to ask.

"But Sergeant Morrow's there!"

Dana's eyebrows once again gave their deranged puppet waggle and Asa's ears bumped merrily against her breasts, but something in Bridie's tone, as though she was finding the footing that was eluding me, pulled me back.

"And Ruthie, you said it was Frieda and Lyle who organised the people at the Showground! To protect Bessie! And to get to the bottom of . . . the situation? Our house and Rosemary and the threats and all?"

This time it was me who nodded, an action that seemed to throw some acceleration switch in Bridie's recovery program. She bolted upright, flashed across the room and plungied into the little ccorner closet.

"All right!" Dana declared, as though that was exactly the response she'd been waiting for. "Here we go!" She pushed Asael upright and, "I'm gonna give Truckie a call! If there's Humphrey's Own Hell happening around the old Bess', he'll wanna be there to put his two-bob's worth in!"

She pulled Asael's face around and made a loud mock-whisper: "Hey! I'm leavin' ye here, but don't you go telling yer sisters my secrets now, will ya, Big Fella!" And she left.

"No clothes! Where're my clothes?" Bridie was crying from the closet. She popped out, looking at me as though about to demand mine, before snapping, "Go! Go after her, Ruthie! Tell her I need my clothes! And tell her to get Kevin to pick you two up on his way to the Showground!"

"But the riot . . .!"

"There's no riot, Ruthie! Think about it! This is Sugar Town! Nobody riots in Sugar Town. But listen! Get Kevin to drop Asael at Amalthea's on the way."

"Aww!" he started, but she put an end to it straight away.

"Listen, mate. I can't leave until I get some clothes. I need Ruthie to check on Bessie. Because Bessie's like one of our family, understand, and nothing can happen to her just because she's tried to help us. And I need you . . ." she snatched up my rucksack, rummaged out my phone and put it in his hands, ". . . I need you to be with Amalthea and Isak and . . . Queenie. Because if something bad IS happening – and I'm sure it's not but if it was – we wouldn't want anything to hurt them, would we? So you have to watch over them for a bit! Anything strange, anything that seems wrong to you, anything you're just worried about . . . you ring Kevin's number, okay?"

And just like that, a bunch of stuff was organised. It wasn't until we were well gone that it occurred to me to wonder where Bridie would be going, once she got her clothes.

* * *

I'm not sure what I expected: screaming, shouting, fists flying. Bombs going off. There was none of that because, as Bridie'd predicted, there was no riot. There were some obvious out-of-towners who stood out the way outsiders always do; marked by a sense of wariness. But mostly, the campers were still determinedly camping, sprawled on chairs, sipping coffee, leaning together in small, familiar groups.

The liveliest and noisiest group, which included several of the outsiders, was gathered around Dorrie and her ambulance, immediately outside Hoggitt's caravan, listening to tales about Queenie.

"Mate," one of them was saying to her, "I once knew a bloke who had a machine that could tell your future! No joke! And your past too, if ye wanted! It mighta come from out-o'-space too, I reckon!"

"That wasn't a machine, Jacko," another said. "That was Madame Zodiac! You ever let her look into your hand? Where is she, anyhow? I thought we come here to get her an' Arturo! Not stand aroun' here like stale bottles o' you-rine!"

"Inside," Jacko answered. "The both of 'em. Seems the good folk of Sugar Town decided to look after 'em after all! Hey, you blokes remember Jimmy Blackbutt? Man, that fella was kidnapped by an alien space thing once! When they brought him back, they give him a type-written letter to show his missus – jus' to prove he hadn' been off on a spree somewheres! Very considerate, aliens are!"

"Sure, sure," Dorrie told them through their laughter. "It's easier to mock than to believe!" She raised a finger skywards. "But the Divine Mystery is all around us, boys. Nudging us back from the brink. Oh, yes! The message may not be as simple as a page of writing." She opened her eyes wide and swung the finger from face to face. "But when the darkness yields up strange answers, ye gotta re-construct your questions to make 'em fit! And there's not a single 'maybe' in that bit of advice, my friends!"

"Yair, yer prob'ly right," the first one answered. "Ye know, I got a strange answer once, when I was a young bloke! She was lyin' on the beach on Hamilton Island, hot enough to melt sand. 'How you doin', darlin'?' says I. An' I can promise you, I never asked nobody that question ever again!"

Dorrie spied Kevin and I at that stage and drew us into the circle.

"See this girl?" she said to the men. "Well it's her brother – a boy not more than eleven years old – who was first summoned and spoken to by the Heavenly Object!"

"Well now!" one of the men said, winking slyly at me. "In that case, I think I just became a believer! 'Cause yer gonna be a Heavenly Object yerself one day soon, girl! Summon me whenever yer ready an' I'll come runnin'"

I looked at him in surprise; him leering down at me. And suddenly, instead of being a group of mildly entertaining strangers, the men became a wall of faces, each grinning emptily, like the plastic clown heads on Sideshow Alley. And all of them seemed to be leaning in on me. I had a flickering image of Bridie; my age, alone, in the dark, confronted by men like these. Men with emptiness behind their eyes. I'm sure they thought I covered my face out of embarrassment. But it wasn't that. It was purest horror. I needed to be out of there.

Fortunately Kevin didn't feel the need for a formal invitation. He yanked open the caravan door and guided me inside. It was fully an hour before I came back out, on my own, and I was shocked to find the men still there, sitting now on the ground, muttering quietly amongst themselves and to Dorrie. They fell quiet when I came out and the sly winker stood up. He took off his hat, revealing a thin blond fuzz of hair and a gaze that was so intense and direct I found it difficult to look at him.

"Miss," he said. "I apologise. For all of us; but mostly for myself. What I said was meant as a compliment. But it was inappropriate. Sorry." Then he turned to Hoggs. "Mate, I wonder if ye could ask Arturo or Bess to pop out for a word. If things have come good here, we're gonna make like a mob o' dirty shirts, 'n' be off."

Just then, there was a movement at the caravan's window and we all looked up. Doctor Roger Dabney's face was framed there, just for a second, looking very much like he needed to prescribe himself a tonic. When the door opened a second later, it was Sergeant Morrow who stepped to the edge and looked down on us.

He nodded an affirmation to Dorrie and, "Franz Hoggitt!" he said. "Step in here a minute, boy. Let's hear your story one more time." He stepped back and Hoggs slouched unhappily past him.

The door closed and, "Hallelujah!" Dorrie exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I'm feeling the Lord's nudge, Ruthie! And I see that brink moving away." Then she looked around, as though she'd suddenly realised a loss. "Where's your brother, Ruthie? Where's Asael?"

* * *

Johnathon is home, back on his own ground. One of the bar staff has helped him upstairs to his flat and settled him in and gabbled on excitedly about the crash of the Moth and the splattering of the Grand Gourd and Johnathon's miraculous control that saved the town's citizens from slaughter. Johnathon will go down in a couple of hours and take his dinner in the hotel's dining room. It'll be a party. He could use a party.

Meanwhile, he lumbers through the flat, pivoting this way and that on his borrowed crutches. He's troubled. He's always assumed – Dabney's always given him to believe – that Bridie McFarlane's memory was a ruined thing. A thing as un-reconstructable as the Grand Gourd. Over the years, he realises, he's come to count on that.

If it isn't to be the case (and Roger Dabney's whining panic seems to suggest that, unexpectedly, it's not) then everything else he's done has been for nothing. Or . . . everything else he's done hasn't been quite enough!

His father, he knows, would be disgusted with him. The opportunities he's had, to deal with rum-soaked Isak Nucifora! And crazy Bessie! He could have found her if he'd tried! Just grab what you want and get the hell out of the road, Johnnnie boy; before something runs over you! Because something's surely going to try!

In the bedroom, with the end of a crutch, he flicks a canvas bag from a high closet shelf and prods it open. Inside, there's a pair of pink, plastic sandals. And a pair of panties. Reminders of how stupid a man can be! That ridiculous, toffee-nosed Reverend! And his gorgeous wife, Rita – cold as linoleum; except to that little black baker! He bats the bag with his crutch. Why is it still here? Why was it ever here?

There's a knock on the door and he shouts out. I'm okay! I'll call you when I need you!

The door opens, closes, and he wheels into the living room, prepared to shiver someone's timbers.

She stands in the room, fearless and proud, looking at him as she did for that single instant of a Harvest Festival night so long ago. Bridie McFarlane. Back then, her face had been circled with light from the streetlamp and his had been lodged in the darkness. Until that moment, the chase had been nothing more than a drunken joke. A prank. A game. Until she stopped and turned and looked at him. So like her mother! As though she was so pure that nothing could ever reach out of the darkness and touch her. What could he do but teach her otherwise?

" _Ah!" he says tentatively. "I see you've escaped as well!"_

" _I used to think so," she says, looking around the room. "But now it seems not!"_

* * *

Getting Dabney out of his hospital and onto neutral ground had been Isak's dearest wish, though according to him, it was Queenie's idea – the only way she would ever grant him peace was if he finally sorted the details of Gracie's dying. Happily, the germ of a plan had arrived with Dorrie and Marybeth the day they parked their caravan at Amalthea's, and Dorrie was the key. Winning her over had been a work of many hours. On the one hand, all her training told her that the Doc's authority was not a thing to be trifled with. On the other hand, there had been the Night of Mayhem – a troubling indicator of Sugar Town's moral and spiritual need.

She'd listened to the arguments, examined her conscience, consulted Marybeth, crept into Amalthea's house to study Queenie, hoping for some inspirational contact similar to Isak's and Asael's and finally given in. Her justification being that the doc' would surely have nothing to hide. Let him confront his accusers and be done with it! So long as the meeting was safe and respectful. Morrow would have to be there. And Isak must leave his gun at home.

Morrow, already well out of patience with civilian interference in his job, had snapped, "Right! I want the Hoggits there as well. An' Bessie and Arturo. That makes six – plus the doc'. No one else, understand?"

The unexpected return of the Showie committee, come to lend their support to Bessie and Arturo, had prompted Dorrie to add the naughty but attractive spice of a fictional riot to her 'need the doctor' call. They were only bait, after all. Exterior pressure. They wouldn't be in on the discussions.

* * *

Lips, then, were well and truly pursed when Kevin and I bowled in on the meeting. I suppose my family's chronic instability was cause enough not to want me around. As was the fact that some pretty close-to-the-bone stuff was liable to be discussed. Still, they made room for us; even though I reckoned a pit bull with piles would've looked more at ease than did our good doctor.

On the night of the rape, he was grumbling, yes, it sounded right that the mayor had left the pub group early. ('Off to perform his public relations magic at the Harvest Festival, no doubt!') Leaving, possibly, if memory served, Johnathon, Les, Alf Caletti and himself. How certain was he of that? ('Not at all, Sergeant! It was nearly a dozen years ago, I remind you!')

Asked about the topic of conversation – whether it had turned toward my family or not – Dabney first fumed with indignation and refused to answer. Then he pled disinterest. ('Can you not get it through your heads, you people, that idle gossip is for the idle and the gossipy! Neither of which, I am!') And then, when Mayor Lyle's recollections were repeated to him, he managed a grudging concession. ('Yes, yes, all right! Possibly so, then! And so what? Pub talk! Meant nothing then, means nothing now! A criminal waste of my time, this is!')

It seemed briefly that he might storm out, but instead he launched into a rant that even I recognised as an old intimidator's refuge.

('Shame on you all! Wilfully disrupting the community's vital services! Whose head will it be on if someone dies in my hospital? Eh? All because a stupid, drunken imbecile [by which, I gathered, he meant Les Crampton] was overwhelmed by vulgar appetites a dozen years ago? I warn you, I will personally be calling you all to account on this!')

In answer to that the Sergeant had calmly placed his mobile phone on the table. The Matron was on speed dial. And vice versa. And her word was that all was quiet at the hospital; that in fact that his two most pressing cases, Johnathon and Bridie, had both discharged themselves.

"So I think ye got a lttle time", the Sarge had assured him, "for a chat."

"And we know you've got the town's best interests at heart, Roger!" Frieda had soothed. "Just like me an' the mayor!"

"Though it might be in your own interests as well!" Bessie had offered. "Your aura isn't at all healthy, Roger!"

"'Cause 'e's a feckin' coward an' a liar's why!" Isak had informed us. "Tell us whatchu hidin', ye feckin' earwig!"

Dabney had sighed several times, fidgeted with the Sergeant's phone, massaged his temples and sworn beneath his breath.

And then, "Fine!" he said. "All right! Anything to bring this charade to an end!"

The best he could do, however, was to repeat that, to the best of his recollection, the crowd had shrunk to just the four of them – him, Johnathon, Alf and Les. And since talk in the pub in those days often turned to my family's predicaments, it was reasonable to assume it did so that night as well.

"And the gist o' that talk, Rog'?" asked Morrow.

Dabney's eyes flicked from side to side and his mouth moved emptily, in a way that I just couldn't stand.

"Look!" I said, with all the clarity and simplicity I could muster, "I hope you're not pussy-footing around on my account! Everybody knows, number one, that my parents' relationship wasn't good! And two, that Rita's relationship with Kevin (who cringed, shame-facedly, at the corner of my vision) was better! And three – the Reverend might have had an unhealthy attachment to Bridie. I got that! We all got that! Have we all got that? Good! So can we move along? To stuff that might help explain my sister being raped, my house being burned and my. . . my friends being hurt? Okay? Can you please just blurt out what you know, Doctor?"

"Hear, hear!" Frieda said. "Everyone else's dirty laundry's on show, Rog'. Let's have a dekko at yours."

And that was when the new stuff started to eke out. His recollection (hazy though it was) was that, sometime after sundown, three of them had left the pub together, heading, of all places, for The Harmony Bakery. Why only three? Because somewhere in there, Les had disappeared – gone off on his own. Why go to the bakery? To find Kevin and invite him back to the bar. Oh? He was such a close mate? No, it would've been to ply him with drinks, I imagine! To maybe get the true goss on what was up between him and Rita, and the Reverend and Bridie. Blokey pub nonsense. And the outcome? He wasn't home. And so? And so, they'd all peeled off and gone their separate ways. Which, for himself, had meant straight back to the hospital residence.

"That's not how you told it back then, Rog'!" Morrow said.

"Of course it is! I'm sure it is! Check your records, you'll see!"

"Records were all burned up, Rog'! As you well know! But I got me own records . . . up here!" he said, tapping his head. "An' what I remember bein' told was that the three of you – you, Alf and Johnathon – stayed in the beer garden! Right through to when the call come from the hospital! All there together, 'at's what yez all said! I'd stake me left nut on that, Rog'! 'Ere was even some kinda corroboration from bar staff, which I'm suddenly havin' to wonder 'f it might o' bin coerced in some way!"

Roger Dabney clenched his teeth, folded his hands and said, "Ridiculous! In any event, I've nothing to add."

"You see any o' these men that night, Kev'?" the Sergeant asked and, to Kev's whispered, "No," he said, "Course not. 'Cause you were with Rita, weren't ye – and young Ruthie, here, not much more 'n' a babe in arms at the time – at the McFarlane house! While the Reverend and Bridie were at the church. I'n't that right?" He didn't wait for an answer but spoke to Roger instead. "See, I found that out straight away back then. 'Cause some folks were properly forthcomin' – even though it wunt comfortable for 'em! What I didn't find out 'til jus' now, Rog', is that some others maybe were more focussed on the comfort than on the forthcomin'!"

When Roger didn't answer, Bessie nudged the Sergeant's phone and said, "Check with Matron, Cecil. She could check the records; see where they fetched Roger from! Might save some time!"

"'Waste some feckin' time, more like!" Isak snarled. "He's lyin' 'n' she'd lie to protect 'im! Jus' like she done the night 'e killed Gracie!"

And Roger cracked. "I did not kill Grace, you pathological buffoon! And no one has lied! I've checked the records myself! I was fetched from the residence and I attended . . . doing all I was capable of doing . . . on both occasions!"

"You checked the records, Rog'? Why? Weren't ye sure o'yer memory?"

And Roger was cornered. The long and the short of it, he then reluctantly revealed, was that back then he was dealing, none too successfully, with what he called a 'pharmacological involvement'. A little too free with the alcohol. And with the occasional 'self-prescription' from the hospital stores. A young doctor, big pressures, etcetera.

On the night Bridie was attacked, an unfortunate mix and quantity had left him, as he said, 'rather severely out of focus'. Nonetheless, the records confirmed that he'd been roused from the residence; that he'd fronted up, supervised the clean up of Bridie's contusions, checked her for concussion and ordered a rape test.

"All perfectly appropriate responses, I assure you! At mention of the rape test, however, the records also show, Jacob had a panic attack! She'd been through enough of an ordeal, he said, and no one – especially not someone . . . someone in my state – would be violating her further. And he took Bridie home."

"He took her home?"

"He took her home."

"Without the test!"

"Without the test, yes. And I let him do so! I can only think that I was probably glad not to have to deal with it! I was, as I say, though functioning acceptably . . . not entirely . . . unimpaired. And before you ask, yes, I had recently been made aware of the rumour that there may have been a less than healthy relationship between the Reverend and Bridie. But I remind you, it was only rumour! Pub gossip! And prior to that event, I would not seriously have suspected . . . !"

"Now!" Morrow mused. "Suspectin' is what my job is all about, see? An' domestic abuse is a reportable crime! Are ye gonna claim you done that, are ye? As the law requires?"

Dabney glared defiantly.

"The man was a minister, Cecil! For God's sake! A moral pillar of the community!"

And then his head fell, hanging, it seemed to me, lower than I'd ever seen it.

"No I did not report it as I should've done! Nor did I lock the doors, as I should've done, and insist on a proper examination! I let it all go, all right? In that, and I believe in that alone, I'm culpable! When, eventually, Rita pried Bridie away long enough to allow me a proper look and we discovered her pregnancy, I did then offer an abortion. Which, yes, Sergeant, I know would've been illegal! But desperate situations, you understand? If the worst had happened and Jacob was the . . . ! In any event, Rita was doubly horrified by my offer. In her mind a child, no matter how it was conceived – even if it was conceived by a child – even if the child's father was responsible – not that we discussed that in any way – had to be part of some 'greater plan'! However lunatic that plan may be!

"And so the offer was refused and that was the end of my involvement! For all her subsequent check-ups – Rita took her out of town. Not, of course, that there were any physical problems, strong young girl like that! But her emotional state! As time went on, you could it see a mile away! Post-traumatic shock – partial amnesia – possibly a dissociative disorder! I did try to press them – not hard enough, obviously, but I did at least suggest – that they seek psychiatric help . . . for all of them! I hoped, when Rita and Bridie went off to Brisbane, that they at least would speak to someone. But I know they didn't. They came back. Rita had Asael. Bridie, for all intents and purposes, was as innocent as she'd ever been. And the Reverend . . . well, subsequent events – Les's confession to Grace, etc – put the lie to all the rumours!"

He pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief, mopped his brow, refolded it and put it away before looking at each of us in turn. It was as though he'd wiped away his guilt.

"Rita never again approached me for help and I, obviously, never perceived a need for insistance. Even though others spoke to me on occasion about her behavioural changes, her emotional stability. Rita's, not Bridie's! Post-natal depression, I told them. Well why not? It was the popular delusion at the time! Exacerbated by Grace's death, of course, which undoubtedly was the truer cause! But she obviously needed time and space, and I advised inquirers to give her those things. I'm not trying to excuse myself, understand! I damaged their initial trust. But I did get my career back on track and Rita, at least, was astute enough to have seen that! If she'd only allowed herself to re-engage with me. If she had, I believe we could've averted those final terrible steps."

He sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose, coming to the end of his story.

"A year or two later, Jacob left and Bridie came back to me. I realised then that whatever doors had closed in her mind were closed for good – and I mean that in both senses of the word. She'd found her own sort of peace; and supporting that peace, medically, was my most responsible choice. Just as supporting it socially was the town's most responsible choice! And should remain so!"

He looked around at us, defying us to challenge him.

"And now . . . I do hope that's enough 'dirty laundry' to bring this scurrilous exercise to an end. Because that's all there is! Except to say: you all know the dedication I've given to this town! I've been a good physician. If it seems now to be the case that, for that brief period of time, years ago . . . for that temporary lapse . . . I owe an apology . . . you may now consider it delivered!"

If the rest of us dropped our heads at that point, Sergeant Morrow certainly did not.

"'If that's all there is'," he mused. "'At's exactly the question, innit! So jus' to be clear! You're tellin' us yer problems made it so's you couldn' protect Bridie, right? An' maybe Gracie too, if Isak's right! Which I get! But what I'm wonderin' – an' I want you to think carefully about this before you answer, Rog', 'cause I'm thinkin' the nub o' this problem is just here beside us somewhere – what I'm wonderin' is . . . is there anyone ye're tryin' to protect now! For instance, we both know that you never told me about the three o' youse leavin' the pub together on that night!"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Dabney hissed across the table. "I don't know what I told you back then! Or even, for certain, what I did back then! I was out of it for days at a time! I accept responsibility for that! But I pulled myself out of that doldrum, and I also claim responsibility for that, and for all that I've been to Sugar Town since. So if you're asking me, Sergeant, to tell you more about who did what to who, I can't! Because I don't know! And I'm not going to cast aspersions just to help a lynch mob with issues that are apparently beyond their capacity to understand! And furthermore, I put it to you Sergeant, that finding evidence . . . either old or new . . . is not my job! It's your job!"

If there was any sting in that for the Sergeant, he didn't flinch.
"Right. So, when Les went missing a couple months later," he persisted, "and the rumour mill said that he was the one . . . ?"

"Oh please! He was a violent obsessive! He was in the street! He spoke to Grace Albion about it! Who else would it have been?"

"Mmm. He was in the street. But ye see, according to what you just tol' me, for a while at least, he wun't the only one in the street! Eh?"

"What I been sayin' all along!" Isak snarled.

Anyone other than Doctor Dabney, hearing Isak's tone and sensing a chink in his story and having just publically humiliated himself, might have been inclined to subside at this point. Anyone other than our doctor, whose argumentative spirit was unquenchable.

"Les left first," he droned mechanically. "Alone! The rest of us left later. Together. That, I believe to be true. Les was an angry, resentful, morally ambiguous person. That, we all know to be true! I also point out that, of the three of us you're now apparently expressing an interest in, on the most elemental level, Johnathon appears to have no difficulty finding willing female friends, so why would he ever have attacked a child? And Alf's commitment to Vivian is so rock solid, his nature so shy and yielding, that for him to intentionally harm anyone is virtually inconceivable! And I – whatever else you may think me capable of – I invite you to confirm that I was asleep in the residence when Bridie was brought in. Now if these incontrovertibly mundane observations don't suffice, and if the contributions we've made to society aren't proof enough of our probity, let me also point this out to you! There exists no evidence – none at all – to say that that rape was anything other than a lone sexual deviant's attack. Someone in whom Bridie'd, perhaps all unwittingly, aroused a violent passion! Who do we know who was subject to violent passions? Yes, that's right! Les! That being said, it remains only for me to warn you! Be very, very careful about impugning the reputations of upright citizens now living in Sugar Town! People who are active, contributing, law-abiding citizens! And finally, may I remind you, Sergeant, of what Bridie herself told you, just this morning. She'd prefer, for Asael's sake, that things stay quite exactly as they are!"

He turned what I'm sure he hoped would be a kindly look on me then.

"I'm sorry, Ruthie, for all the unpleasant things you've had to hear these past days. And I sincerely hope that one day, when you're older, you'll be able to forgive us the shortcomings that've caused hardships for your family. But you have to know," he cast his gaze around the room, "that witch hunts seldom turn up real witches. Scapegoats yes, witches no! And the best thing that can happen to this retrospective investigation is for it to stop! Here and now! Before innocent people are hurt!"

I had no answer to give him. Innocent people had already been hurt. And Bridie, knowing whatever she knew, had already identified Les as a scapegoat. And she'd said, in my own hearing, that she'd prefer to see it all dropped! Which, maybe, since it was for Asael's sake, was what I wanted too! But Morrow was in a whole different place.

"The best thing that can happen, Doc'," he said, mimicking the doctor's words and tone, "is that I get my hands on whatever bastard's runnin' amok in my town, right now! Which is precisely why it'll be me – no one else – who decides when persons of interest stop bein' of interest!"

* * *

The argument had gone back and forth then, with the Hoggitts supporting Dabney's 'drop it' point of view and Bessie and Arturo taking the sergeant's side, insisting that it be followed to its true end. Isak's only demand was that the doctor explain why Gracie had died when her injuries had seemed so superficial. The sergeant himself leaned back in his chair, oblivious to both sides. He clasped his hands behind his head and seemed, once again, transfixed by the ceiling.

"Something, something, something," he muttered to himself. Then he flopped forward and began flipping through his tattered little notebook.

That was when I decided to slip out. My stomach was in a knot, my head was spinning and I'd begun again to wonder where Bridie would have gone once she left the hospital. My best guess was to Kevin's, to The Harmony Bakery. I whispered as much to Kevin on the way past him and he said that she knew where the key was and we'd go in a minute. He just needed to hear the end of this. I told him I'd wait by the delivery van.

Outside, the sly winker apologised to me and Morrow came to the door with a glint of insight in his eyes. "Step in here, boy!" and Franz went to tell his story of the Night of Mayhem one more time.

And, "Hallelujah!" Dorrie said. "Where's your brother, Ruthie? Where's Asael?"

Chapter 23 – Looking for Bridie

" _Bridie, you know none of that's true!" Johnathon simpers, a wise parent to a confused child. "It's the power of suggestion, coming from bitter, ignorant, confused people; people who want to use your vulnerability for their own ends! That's all! I have enemies, you know – people who resent my standing in Sugar Town. People who would like to see me brought down. But you're not one of those, Bridie! You remember, don't you, how close your father and I were? How I've always been a friend to you and your family? Why just yesterday, I was telling Ruthie how I've organised a new house for the three of you! Did she tell you?"_

" _You're not to talk to Ruthie, again. Not ever! Nor Asael."_

He's lowered himself into an easy chair, groaning with the pleasure of it, while Bridie stands before him, tall, straight and balanced, hands clenched at her sides. She's so beautiful; so self-possessed; so like her mother. He has to stop himself from groaning a second time, with the second pleasure of looking at her. But he keeps his face blank, except perhaps for a hint of concern that he allows in his eyes and the tilt of his head. Nothing more.

" _Sit down, Bridie. Please. Don't stand there like I'm your enemy."_

She ignores him, looking about the room as though its shadows might come for her, take her unawares. From where he sits, Johnathon can see the canvas bag on the floor in the bedroom – the bag with her little-girl shoes and panties.

" _You've nothing to fear," he says to her. "I'm alone here. Just a harmless, broken old bachelor in his primitive cave. Let me get you something! A drink! A cup of tea?"_

She's suddenly not sure herself why she's here. What did she want from him, other than to look in his eyes and tell him that she remembers? I remember your voice, Johnathon Cranna. She also remembers Alf Caletti's voice and Les Crampton's voice. But she needn't tell him that. Because neither of them touched her. Only this man touched her.

" _You know, Bridie," Johnathon says, weighing his words like the careful poisoner he is, "there are people in town, to this day, who think that the Reverend might be Asael's father! I know! I know! It's a terrible thing even to contemplate. But if you're really so intent on discovering the truth. . . !" He leans forward in his chair, gazing up at her, speaking to the child she used to be. "Can you remember . . . how he used to look at you, Bridie? How he used to speak your name? How he used to touch you? He was a good man, Bridie! But you were his downfall. That's why he's gone! Because he didn't know how to love you the way a father should! Because the way he loved you, and the way you loved him back, frightened him. I encouraged him to go away, Bridie . . . to save you! I did that!"_

She looks at him, but in her mind's eye she sees the Reverend, pulling her to him, shedding tears against her chest. 'Forgive me. Forgive me.'

" _He's still a good man, Johnathon," she says. "A great man. And if there are people who think otherwise, they are wrong; wrong in every regard."_

She turns to the door and grasps the handle. So far, for Johnathon, it's the most frightening thing she's done. Why has she come? What does she want? What will she do when she leaves? He's reminded of the childhood game of 'truth or dare'. Tell me a true thing or carry out my dare. She's challenged him to tell the truth about the rape. He's refused and she's walking away, daring him to stop her. It's a game that he can also play.

" _Bridie?" His voice is sharp, edged with his own challenge. "Why not get a paternity test? And then you'd know, wouldn't you? And your . . . son . . . would know. The whole town would know. What your father did to you."_

Dabney has already told him of her refusal to allow a test. But still, it's a dangerous dare. She might hate him enough / believe her new memory enough, to follow through on it. And then he'd be lost. But could she risk being wrong? Could she risk having her beloved father's public standing in Sugar Town rubbed in the dirt? Does she want the truth badly enough to risk that? He feels deliciousness in the danger.

" _You mean, what you did to me," she says calmly, turning back to face him. "And for that, I don't need a test, Johnathon. I don't even need revenge. Because, in a way that I doubt you'll ever understand, though you took from me, you also gave to me. Asael. He's my gift; my proof that God can and does wash away evil – calls flowers forth, even from filth. Asael is of you, Johnathon; but he's no part of you. What I offer you is this. You stay completely away from us – from my family, from our friends. You and your partner both. And in return, my memory will be as incomplete as it's always been. But if you, or he, ever attempt to involve yourselves or interfere in any way, ever again, with anyone in my family, for good or for bad . . . may God help you, Johnathon."_

She goes and Cranna sinks back into his chair. His heart is racing and sweat has beaded on his brow. She's actually threatened him! He shakes his head in wonder and a smile creeps across his lips. She is so magnificent! So defiant, so fearless; so confident in what she knows and what she believes she knows. As her mother was; right to the end.

In another time, Cranna would feel a compulsion now to head for the airport and the Moth. So easy there, in the cockpit, to deal with this need for mastery. To force the little ship's nose this way and that; to rip every ounce of strength from her engine; to face her skywards and push her on and on, daring her to break apart around him.

He would die there happily before he'd let up. Because compliance is everything. Not compliance that's given casually, off-handedly or with the caveat of a threat. It's little more than a courtesy that way – which is hardly different from a dismissal – which amounts to contempt. No! Real compliance . . . the kind that satisfies . . . comes when the one complying realises that no other option exists. None but the one he's chosen. If that requires a demonstration, then so much the better. First comes mastery: then comes compliance.

He thinks of Bridie's last words: May God help you.

Smiling, he says aloud, to the empty room, "He helps those who help themselves, Bridie! Haven't you learned that yet?"

And, still smiling, he reaches for the telephone.

* * *

I lasted only a few minutes by the bakery van before the lure of the crowd became too great and I wandered off amongst the tents and caravans. It was like some newly conceived community festival was being trialled. People were talking, sprawling, crocheting, eating, studying engines, playing cricket – the smell of cooking was everywhere. It had a sort of, 'Looking-Out-For-Our-Own' Festival feel about it. The schools, I thought, must be half-empty! And how many businesses had simply failed to open?

Heaps of people spoke to me, offering encouraging words to pass on to Bridie, remembrances to pass on to the Reverend and plenty of laughing comments about 'The Space Thing' which, though few had seen it, everyone had heard about. Morrow's near-death experience with it, and Asael's resurrections of both Garlic and Bridie had already become the common property of Sugar Tonians. I had the feeling that, if the government truly was coming for it, they'd meet more than just Asael's opposition.

It was interesting how my heart skipped just a little and my feet decided to follow suit when I saw Dale and his mother in front of their tent. He was sitting on the ground, poking listlessly at a fire. His back was to me, but it was unmistakably his large and bullish back. His mother, a heavy, big-boned, sweet-natured woman, was perched on the edge of a folding chair that looked like it was ready to fold its last at any moment. She was leaning forward, elbows on knees and chin in hands, listening carefully to whatever he was saying. It looked very much like a 'deep and meaningful' was in progress, but I bowled on up to them anyhow.

"G'day Missus Sutton. How's the camping?"

"Oh, hello dear! We were just talking about you! Here, Dale, fetch a chair for our company would you, love!"

"No need," I said, plunking myself down on the ground next to Dale who gave me a look that I could only describe as hopeful nervousness.

"I hope he hasn't been telling you that I beat him up, Mrs Sutton. I know for a fact that he got those black eyes from stumbling over a kitten in the main street!"

"Did he really? And here I was hoping they were wounds gained from fighting the forces of evil!"

"Ha ha to both of you," he said. "You should form a comedy team. Ma and the Kid. You'd be huge . . . somewhere way out west, maybe."

I would have asked what they'd really been saying about me, but I didn't get the chance.

"So," she said with her characteristic directness, "we saw you over by the Mayor's caravan, Ruthie. How are they going at solving our little town's crime wave? Poor Masher! He's fine for bumping heads together of a Saturday night, you know, but I'm not certain he's entirely up to actual investigations!"

"I really don't know, Mrs S. It's all so complicated. Stuff from way in the past – unresolved stuff, you know? All mixed up with stuff happening now! It's really . . . I guess it's kind of hopeless at this stage."

I was thinking of Bridie's decision. She was the only one who could sort of release us. She knew, at long last, who was at the heart of Sugar Town's terrible secrets . . . and she'd decided to keep that information to herself. For Asael's sake. And it registered with me for the first time, with a jolt of guilt, that she and I were now two out of possibly only three or four people who knew how easily it could all be solved and how impossible it was that it ever would be.

"Now listen to me, love," Mrs Sutton said, pointing a long, strong finger at me. "I know your sweet mother would have told you this if she'd been here, but she's not so I'm going to take her place for a minute. Hopelessness is a soggy cracker, Ruthie. You don't want it in your kitchen. It'll attract mould and it'll never have a use. You throw that hopelessness straight in the bin, right now! And be clear on this! There isn't a soul in Sugar Town that doesn't know of the terrible thing that happened to your sister years ago. And your brother! Your dear innocent brother! You mark my words! The whole of Sugar Town will be flushed down the river and out into the Coral Sea before anyone here allows further harm to come to anyone because of what happened back then. Do you take my meaning?"

"Yes I do, Mrs S! Thank you. Yes I do."

Which'll mean, I thought to myself, that you lot could be camping out for the rest of your lives. Unless someone, somehow, figures out how to make it clear to whoever was responsible for the Night of Mayhem that, even though people like Bessie and Isak may pop up from time to time with accusations, the secret is safe. In fact, the only person who could make that clear was . . . !

I know my mouth fell open at that point because Dale put his big fist under my chin and gently pushed it closed.

"She's a jaw-dropper all right," he said, nodding toward his mother. "But we try not to let ourselves become fly-traps over it."

"No, no! You don't understand!"

I was on my feet in an instant. A block of ice had suddenly materialised between my shoulder blades. What if Bridie hadn't gone to the bakery? What if she'd gone to visit someone? Someone she thought she could warn off? Someone who had cold-bloodedly slashed Rosemary's hamstrings and left her to die in the street! Someone who had shifted Bessie's gas tanks in anticipation of causing an explosion!

I was on my feet but I didn't know what to do, where to go. I needed Kevin.

I set off at a run, heading for the van. By the time I pulled up against it, my need for action had been sated but I still didn't know what should follow. Several of the returned Showies, who were still lolling on the ground, despite their stated intention to leave, turned lazy looks on me. I leaned there, panting, trying to think.

Settle yourself, Ruthie! Kevin will come, of course he will! But where should we look? At the bakery first, but if she isn't there?

I thought about Dabney's story – Alf Caletti and Johnathon Cranna were the only actual names I could think of. But they were both so unlikely! For one thing, Johnathon and Bridie had spent days in the hospital, only rooms apart! Surely, if she had anything to say to him, she'd have said it there! And Alf! Big, quiet, compliant Alf! Even if she wanted to speak to him, which was an incredibly distant likelihood, how would she (or we) find him? He could be anywhere on the vast acreages of his farm!

All this before the dust had settled around my feet. I looked up. Dorrie was moving toward me from the ambulance, a concerned look on her face. And Dale, having loped after me, had slowed to a careful walk for the last few steps. The muscles in his arms quivered expectantly.

"Ruthie! What is it? What's wrong?"

Before I could answer, the door of Hoggitt's caravan opened and Kevin came out. He came out slowly, his phone pressed to his ear, his brow deeply furrowed. It was obvious that whatever he was hearing was troubling him and somehow the block of ice between my shoulders slammed frozen tendrils down into my legs. I felt Dale's arm slip under mine and around my back. Just one arm. It was easily enough to keep me upright.

"Steady on," he whispered. "I've got you."

* * *

Into the phone, Kev' was saying, "What's happening?" Pause. "No, no, mate! You're absolutely right to ring! So look, is Thea there?" Pause. "No, okay, fair enough. Listen, Asa', I'm just going to put Ru' on for a sec', okay? You go through it once more with her, okay, while I finish what I'm doing! Here she is."

I pictured Asael at Amalthea's, with my phone and Bridie's insistence that he ring Kevin if anything suspicious or out-of-the-ordinary went on. I wanted to kick myself for not seeing what she'd seen. I'd assumed that she was thinking about the 'riot' scenario – worried for Bessie's safety – and that dropping Asael at Amalthea's place had been simply a way of keeping him out of harm's way. But now I realised that she was thinking, not of a big crowd but of a very small crowd. Maybe just an individual! She was thinking that stirring the doc' could well result in stirring someone much more dangerous! A loose cannon! And she, knowing who that cannon was, had gone off to confront him on her own! I grabbed the phone.

"Asael, is Bridie there with you?"

"No, but she said to call Kevin if anything strange started to happen!"

"Yes, yes, okay! So what's happening? Are you all right? Make it quick 'cause we need to find Bridie."

"It's Queenie. She's crying!"

"What? She's what?"

"Crying! And she's kind of floating . . . a little bit!"

"She's floating? You mean, off the floor?"

"Yeah."

"And crying? You can hear her crying?"

"Yeah."

Even though I'd begun, under the influences of Asael and Isak, to refer to Queenie as 'she' and even to think of her as a sort of listening presence in Amalthea's house, I wasn't prepared to think of her as having animate, human properties.

"Asa', you haven't been taking your medication like you're supposed to, have you?"

"Yeah, I have!" He was clearly hurt by the accusation, but just as clearly lying.

"No you haven't! Where's Amalthea? Put her on for me!"

"No! She's busy! I only rang 'cause Bridie said to. If you don't care then neither do I!"

I could sense him fumbling for the cut-off button and I tried to get a last word in. "It's the epilepsy, Asa'! Hallucinations happen when . . . !"

The line went dead. I looked around in exasperation and Isak was there, standing by Kev', watching.

"Trouble?" he asked.

"Asael. He's seeing things. Apparently Queenie's begun to float. And cry."

I said it with all the sarcasm I could muster, hoping to ensure that they'd dismiss it as I had. I grabbed Kev's arm and pulled him away, turning my back on Isak and Dale. I didn't want to break my promise to Bridie until and unless I absolutely had to, so I just told him as urgently as I could: "We have to find Bridie, Kev'! Now! It's super important! Can we check the bakery, please?"

"Sure! Of course! I'll just ring. If she went there, she'll have let herself in, I expect."

"Here, give me your phone! I'll ring while you drive!"

Behind us, the caravan was emptying out. Dabney went straight for Dorrie, demanding that she return him to the hospital immediately and start praying that he didn't lodge a formal complaint against her. Sergeant Morrow squared his cap on his head and strode off purposefully into the network of campers. Bessie and Arturo melted, with visible relief, into the crowd of Showies and Frieda and Lyle stood like a pair of conjoined twins in the doorway, their arms about one another's waists, their faces grim with recent news. And Hoggs, his face framed in the window, looked down on us all with a petulant expression that seemed to cry out, 'I told you it wasn't my fault!'

As Kevin and I clambered into the van, I looked back on them all and on Dale, who still twitched with frustrated protectiveness. And it occurred to me that those big, eager muscles might well come in very handy.

"Don't just stand there, Dale, like a wingless fruit fly! Get in!"

He did. And that left Isak on his own. I hated to abandon him, but it wasn't a long walk to Bessie's or to Amalthea's or, for that matter, anywhere else in Sugar Town that he might want to go. And we were in a hurry. Still, it was him I was watching as we fumbled our seatbelts into place. He was mumbling distantly. I'm not a lip reader, but I was fairly certain I picked out: "She's floating?"

* * *

Alf looks at the phone in his palm as though it's a baby peewit that's fallen out of a nest. It winks sadly at him and asks him in its bird-like voice, which has the far-away cadence of Johnathon Cranna's voice, "You still there, mate?"

He nods at it and closes his hand around it. He thinks of the work that hand has done over the years; work that's often been hard and dirty but sometimes – too seldom – gentle; work that's usually been effective, often productive, but sometimes regrettable. It's a hand that's been cut, grazed, crushed, pounded and burned and has been known to act like it has no connection to his brain. In its grip, the plastic cover on the little phone bulges, cracks and pops. He's a little puzzled by the fact that its voice still buzzes.

" _It's the only way, Alf; I promise. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time. You'll lose everything you've worked for. You'll lose Vivian. One little accident that needs some help to happen . . . and we're safe forever. We're in this together, mate! This'll be the end of it, I promise! I'd see to it myself, you know, but I'm laid up here! Alf?"_

Alf drops the shattered thing behind the big tractor tire which will press it and all the little voices deep into the earth when he drives away from this spot. He's on a headland between the old rental place and the river, where he's been slashing, readying the paddock for burning and harvesting.

Just behind him is the swath of downed and useless cane where the space thing crashed only four days ago. These river paddocks, he thinks, are cursed. He should sell them. He should sell the whole farm, in fact. Take Vivian and go to Rome for an extended holiday. He imagines himself bumping into the Pope as the two of them take their constitutionals in Saint Peter's Square.

' _Bless me, Holy Father,' he would ask of the great man, 'for I have sinned like you would not believe.' And the Holy Father would wipe his forehead with the sleeve of his cassock and say, 'C'mon up to the apartment, Alf. We'll have a lemonade and a chat.'_

There was a time when Alf hadn't thought of himself as a bad man though he's always known that he's not a bright man. He's worked like a dray horse, it seems, every day of his life, trying to maintain these inherited farms and to establish some kind of standing in the community. As a younger man, shy and awkward and insecure, he'd taken to pub-life where, with half a dozen schooners under his belt, he could enjoy at least a back seat view of the finagling that went on never-endingly in Sugar Town. He'd become a follower and a watcher. Then Vivian had come to him, late in life, and her light had shone into corners that he hadn't known existed. To his astonishment, she'd accepted him for what he seemed to be and his gratitude had been immense and humbling. He'd given up the drink and the pub life. But he was already a man with terrible secrets to protect; secrets gained mostly from being simply too slow to understand what was happening – too slow to walk away.

He wants to walk away now, from this farm, from this town, from the little voice in the telephone, from the disappointed look that he ever fears to see in Vivian's eyes. And he does set off walking. But it's not away; it's towards . . . the little rental house where, according to Johnathon, the solution lies; where the tornado that keeps sucking him back into the past can finally be put to rest.

* * *

As we drove to the bakery, me squashed in the middle between Kevin and Dale, I had them both scanning the streets, watching for Bridie.

"What's the urgency?" Kevin wanted to know. "What have you found out?"

And, because I could see no other way, I told them part of Bridie's secret. I told them that she'd hinted that she might have a vague memory of the night of the rape and that it had suddenly occurred to me that she might be using the distraction of Dorrie's 'riot' to go talk to someone – someone who might have been involved in both that night and the Night of Mayhem. And of course then I had to explain that she didn't want Morrow involved because she didn't intend ever to expose Asael to the knowledge of a cruel and vicious father.

"This is strictly, absolutely, unendingly confidential!" I growled at Dale. "And if you ever repeat it to anyone, I'll . . . !"

"Hey!" he interrupted, frowning narrowly at me. "Just ask. Don't threaten."

"I wasn't threatening! I was . . .!" But of course, that's exactly what I was doing.

"Well, we'll check the bakery," Kevin said. "But if you're right, I think I know who she'll be looking for! The same person the sergeant's gone looking for – Alf Caletti!"

It was the same name I'd been left with, but I just couldn't come to grips with it. He was a man with substantial weight that he could push around, but I'd never heard even a rumour of him doing so; he was the shyest, most retiring and gentle-seeming guy you'd meet! And he doted on Vivian; she was his life! I wanted someone to convince me.

"It's starting to look like the only answer!" Kevin said, repeating the argument that we seemed all to have been constructing over recent days. "There was only him, Johnathon, Doc' and Les left at the table in the pub that night. If Dabney was genuinely back at the hospital by the time the attack happened, that left three of them. And given the questions about Les's part in it, that leaves just Johnathon and Alf! But if Johnathon was part of Bridie's memory, well . . . surely she had more than enough time and opportunity to . . . have him dealt with somehow . . . at the hospital! So that leaves Alf. But that's not all!

"When Morrow took Hoggs back through his story – you know, about what he did and saw and everything, the night your house got burned and Rosemary was killed – there was a detail he hadn't mentioned before. Hoggs has sworn all along that he didn't see anyone – only Isak! And that was after finding Rosemary. No one else on the streets, which is exactly what you'd expect, late at night in Sugar Town. BUT, he did see Alf Caletti's Ute! He said it was parked in the alley beside Tepperman's Hardware. He said he figured maybe Alf had stopped back at the station for a bit of a de-brief about the fire or maybe he was rostered on for the night. But the funny thing was, the station was one of the places he looked for the mayor and he hadn't been able to raise anyone. Add to that the fact that Morrow says he knows for a fact Alf didn't go back to the station at all after the fire! He says he ran into Alf the next morning and Alf was just then taking his gear back!"

"His water-proofs?" Dale said. "Bugger me! Whatchu reckon, he spies that little goat on the street, thinks about the goat-lady getting up his ribs at the fire and decides to do a mischief? Man, if you were someone doin' a bit of slaughtering, you couldn't be wearing much better gear, could you? I mean, just hose it off and you're sweet! If I was Morrow, I'd be getting that gear checked for blood, you know?"

"My God!" I had to say. "Can we really be imagining Alf doing any of this stuff? Attacking Bridie? Crippling Rosemary? Threatening Bessie?"

"Beggars belief, doesn't it?" Kev' said. "Reminds us what shadows we all are! Anyhow Morrow's gone looking for Alf now – if not for him, then for Vivian, to find out which farm he's working on. He's got to ask the questions, Ru'. Let's hope, for Alf's sake, that the answers make sense. And for Bridie's sake that she's not trying to take things into her own hands."

* * *

The doors to the bakery and Kevin's flat were still locked but we went in anyway, dashing through the shop and up the stairs, calling her name. There was no sign that she'd been there.

We decided to try the burnt out remnants of the house, thinking maybe she'd swung by there from the hospital, to see for herself the extent of the damage and what might be salvageable. She wasn't there either.

Then it was a quick stop at the hospital. Maybe she'd been waylaid by Matron or one of the nurses. Dana Goodrich was at the desk in the lobby.

"No, she's gone, guys. And I'm missing her already!"

From there, we swung by the church. No one was there. I thought then of Johnathon. We'd assumed that Bridie would have said all she wanted to say to him at the hospital. But he'd told me he was organising a new house for us. Had I passed that on to her? And he'd offered, to Asa' and I, at any rate, temporary accommodation at the pub. Maybe she was taking responsibility for re-organising our lives and had gone to see what arrangements could be made.

The three of us galloped up the stairs to pound on the door of his flat in the pub.

* * *

Isak waddles at top speed down the centre of the bitumen, cursing the arthritis in his hips and knees, muttering over the inability of supposedly smart people to see the obvious. Morrow gone off, with absolutely no idea where to look for Alf! And the other mob with the baker, racing away in their little delivery van to look for the girl! Were they deaf? Hadn't young Asael just whispered the answer in their ear holes? Queenie is floating! And crying! If you need more than that, he thinks, then you're likely better off somewhere else, out of harm's way.

He's pleased enough with what they got out of Dabney, though not nearly enough of it was about Gracie. Only at the end, as the others were getting up to go, had he pinched Dabney's arm and accused again: 'Ye let her die, ye low bastard! Ye weren't up to it then an' yer not up to it now!'

' _She died,' Dabney had said in exasperation, 'because she had a brain injury, Isak; a severe brain injury. Either she wasn't walking and talking like you said she was when you found her, and you were hallucinating, which is highly likely in my books, or something else happened to her between then and when she got to me!'_

Dabney had stopped talking then and blinked curiously, as though surprised at the words he'd just uttered. Then, 'I have to get back to the hospital,' he'd stammered angrily. 'But don't assume I'll forget your part in this charade today, Isak! If I haven't got you committed by the end of the year, I'll hand in my licence!'

' _Arrgh!' Isak snarls into the gathering darkness, waving the threat aside. 'Do your worst, ye mongrel!'_

Isak knows there's something much more important than a threat in Dabney's words. There's a clue; something he'll have to come back to and think about more carefully. But right now, there's the question of Queenie.

' _Don't you go flyin' off before I get there, darlin'!' He says the words aloud, as though Queenie might be only two steps ahead. 'Jus' so's I know for sure who I'm dealin' with, eh! Then ye can go back.'_

And he too thinks of Alf Caletti and wonders what all the man has done – what he yet might do.

* * *

"A visit from Bridie?" Johnathon happily crowed. "My word, yes! And isn't that the most thoughtful thing? I mean, it's not like we didn't have a great catch-up at the hospital, you know! Still and all, we both realised how unforgivable it is for old friends like us to lose touch with one another. Sad and strange. Hard times, though; they bring us together at the end, don't they? I mean it's not like we don't all have the best intentions, is it? But time gets away, as they say. And first thing you know . . . it's a whole new millennium! Ha ha!"

He waved us in as he spoke, retreating on his crutches to plop into a heavy chair. It wasn't clear, I guess, to any of us, whether Bridie was still there, in the flat and we filed in, closing the door behind us.

"Of course you young folks won't be aware of that yet," he continued.

He poked at a footstool with one of the crutches and I stepped across to arrange it beneath his damaged leg. I took a moment then to look around. There was an attached kitchenette and I could see into a bedroom, beyond, where it looked like he'd been ferreting in one of the closets. If Bridie was still in the flat, I thought, she must be in one of the other adjoining rooms – probably the bathroom. And with the noise we were making, she'd be out in short order.

"Thank you, darlin'," Johnathon smiled at me, before going back to his ramblings. "Kevin and I on the other hand, would be only too aware, wouldn't we mate – of the irrevocable passage of time."

He was busily waving us into chairs as he spoke, yet another indicator that maybe Bridie would emerge to greet us, if only we were patient. We all sat. I don't know about the others, but I had a sudden inkling of how empty this flat would be for him, just out of hospital, with no one there waiting for him.

"Yes Sir, young Sutton – Dale, isn't it? – and Ruthie! Here's a life lesson for you both. Never pass up an opportunity to talk with people you value. Talk about times gone by and times yet to come . . . and the various meanings of life! What can I offer you? Tea? A soft drink?"

"You and Bridie talked about times gone by?" I asked, trying to picture her chatting, with anyone, let alone with Johnathon, about her memories of being raped. "Like what? What times?"

"Oh of course we did, Ruthie!" He leaned forward, waggling his eyebrows in mock confidence. "Your sister and I were quite close once, you know?" And then, as though trying to take back the implication, he continued, "As were your parents and I, as you know. All good mates at one time. Not . . .," he smiled self-deprecatingly in Kevin's direction, "that I was ever as close to them as you were, Kev'!"

Kevin shuffled in his seat and said nothing. Johnathon went on, dreamily.

"Yes Sir! You won't remember this, Ruthie, and I'm not certain that even Bridie does. But during some of those terrible times your family went through – you know . . . deaths in the family and . . . and other things – Kevin was a pillar of strength for your parents. Particularly for Rita, who suffered so dreadfully with depression toward the end. Yes indeed. It was often said in town that Kevin was a man you'd trust your wife with!" He laughed and covered his mouth. "Oops! Did I say 'wife'? Trust your life with, I meant. Freudian slip there, mate! Sorry 'bout that. Must be the pain killers"

Kevin said through narrowed lips, "We need to talk to Bridie, Johnathon. Is she here?"

"Here? Lord no! I mean, we're all adults, aren't we – or almost adults," he said, indicating Dale and I, "and a brief visit's one thing! But for Bridie to be hanging around here, unchaperoned, in my flat – well, that would start tongues wagging, wouldn't it?"

Dale got up then and walked into the kitchenette.

"I'll take you up on a drink o' water, Mister Cranna, if that's okay."

Johnathon waved his hand dismissively and, from the sink, Dale held up a half empty bottle of whiskey to wave at Kevin and I. Then he waved a box of pills and shrugged helplessly.

I got up from my chair and went to kneel in front of Johnathon. His eyes had begun to roll noticeably.

"Did Bridie say where she was going, Johnathon? When she left? We really need to find her."

He touched my face, studied his watch and then tapped his lips in concentration.

"Yes, important that you find her. Where would she go, I wonder?"

On an impulse, without even knowing I was going to do it, I asked very gently, "Who raped Bridie, Johnathon? All those years ago. Who did it?"

His gaze came back to me and, though nothing else in his demeanour changed, the film seemed to burn away from his eyes.

"You ask me that!" he said squinting down his nose at me. "Because you know that I know, don't you! You know that I know what a great injustice Sugar Town has permitted."

"Tell me," I begged, scooping up his hand between my two, as if, between the three of them, they might be able to stop the hammering in my heart.

He shook his head. "I've made promises, Ruthie. I've given my word. And for others, it was too late, right at the beginning. Too late."

I started to cry then. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dale start toward us, as though he might squeeze the juice of truth out of Johnathon, but Kevin stopped him with a gesture.

"It's not too late, Johnathon," I pleaded. "Not too late to help Bridie. She remembers it now; since Bessie came back and since Isak . . . .! But she won't tell me! And I'm frightened she'll do something crazy. That's why we need to find her! Johnathon, please! Tell me!"

He sighed again and groaned and it seemed to me that his eyes began to glisten with unshed tears.

"Ruthie," he murmured. "So much for you to bear. Injustice upon injustice! Well, maybe you're right. Maybe it's time." Then he brought his other hand up and suddenly all four of our hands were clenched between us.

"But listen! You have to understand!" He swung his gaze around, to include Kevin and Dale. "Memories that come back after so many years . . . Bridie's memories . . . we have to accept that they'll be . . . unfocussed! All the ideas that have been put in her head . . . by Bessie, bless her heart, who no one would blame. Not after what she's lost. And by the . . . the mythology the town has created around that terrible time. Those memories . . . they won't all be real! Understand?"

"We understand," I whispered. "There were four of you together, we know that. And one of the group, Les, they say raped Bridie. But Bridie says there were three men there. Were you one of them, Johnathon?"

Believe it or not, a tear fell from each of his eyes.

"I was," he said. "I was one of, actually, four. I remember, we'd gone off to find our friend Kevin, here, to invite him back to the hotel for drinks and we heard the Reverend's voice, echoing through the empty church. He was practicing a sermon and we stopped outside to listen: Les, Roger, me and . . . and Alf Caletti. He was such a fine preacher, your father, Ruthie. A great speaker. The others were awfully drunk, but I insisted we stop to listen. Just a spiritual moment, you know? Our own private sermon under God's stars on Harvest Festival night! And then we heard Bridie's voice and your father was sending her home! I don't know why. But I remember I stopped Bridie outside the church. She was so young . . . so innocent. What was she, thirteen? And the night was so dark. I stopped her to ask if she was all right . . . if she wanted us to see her safely home. But she didn't. And God help me, I didn't insist. If only I had, things would have gone so differently."

He stopped speaking and foraged in his pocket for a tissue. We all waited. He blew his nose, wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve and forced a great breath out through narrowed lips. Then he continued.

"We went our ways after that. Roger back to the hospital – he was on call – me back here, to my flat, and the other two – I thought – off for home. That's what I thought was happening. I spoke to all of them the next day, after we heard about the attack, and they all swore to me that that's exactly what they did. And who was I to not believe them? Sergeant Morrow, I thought . . . if anyone could get to the bottom of that vicious act, it'd be him! But months passed and he got nowhere. And you know the rest of the story . . . that Les eventually let it slip in the pub, to Gracie, that he . . . 'knew' something. But what that something was, we never found out. Because Isak Nucifora murdered him! But here's the thing! I believe Les was innocent! Yes! Innocent! Because he actually came back here shortly after I did, on that night – to get his notebook. He didn't stay, but it meant that he couldn't have followed Bridie, either! So Isak murdered an innocent man! It's my belief that Les went to Gracie's that day to tell her that she was in danger! That her landlord . . . Alf . . . was . . . !"

He pulled his hands away and rocked back in the chair, as though he'd come to end of his strength. We all stared at him in silence. Even though his story pointed at exactly the man who'd been filling all our thoughts, I was gob-smacked to have it spelled out so clearly.

"So," Johnathon finished, looking at each of us in turn, "if Bridie says she remembers me being out there in the dark with other men, she's telling the truth! I was there. It's the biggest regret of my life that I wasn't there longer; that I didn't stay with her, to protect her."

"And Les . . . !"

"Was a scapegoat, in the end. Nothing more."

"And Alf . . . !"

"Yes."

"But you never . . . you never told anyone!"

"I couldn't, Ruthie. Promises to your father and your dear departed mother! They just wanted it all to go away! They accepted poor Asael as their own and, by some miracle, Bridie's innocence was preserved. She never seemed to realise – not for a minute – what had happened to her! That was how it was and that was how everyone seemed to want it to stay! On the town's behalf, I'm ashamed to say that most, including your parents, Ruthie, after hearing about Les's disappearance, simply preferred to believe that the guilty had been punished. I could have told the truth, but I had to protect your parents – and far more importantly, Bridie and Asael and you! And to do that, I had also to protect Alf. Oh, I took some small steps of my own, of course! I let him know that I knew what he'd done. I made him swear off the booze and I promised him that, if ever there was even the remotest suggestion of him harming anyone ever again, I'd turn him in, in the wink of an eye. Promises or no promises!"

He covered his face with his hands and murmured, "Up until now, it's worked."

I could barely bring myself to speak. "Up until now?"

He lowered his hands and his eyes bored into mine.

"The fire at your house, Ruthie! And . . . other things I heard about! I'm not saying Alf was responsible but . . . I just worry that, with all the recent talk about those old days, he might be the sort of person who'd panic, you know? Snap! You can imagine, can't you, that someone who's done what he's done . . . when things begin to unravel . . . ?"

"She's gone looking for Alf!" I whispered to the others "To tell him to back off! To tell him that . . . all she wants is to wipe it from her mind! That it can all be forgotten again!"

Dale, standing over us, raised his hands as though checking for rain and, in a loud exasperated voice, said, "No it can't! Isn't it obvious? The guy's a nutcase! He can't be left just wandering the streets of Sugar Town! I mean, even if he was willing to go back into his hole, what're the guarantees, eh?"

Deep in my heart, I probably knew that he was right, but I didn't want him to be. I wanted to think things could go back to the way they were. I looked to Kev' for support, but he seemed hardly to be paying attention. He turned away and walked slowly back toward the door, rubbing the back of his neck and staring into some distant scene. It was Johnathon who answered.

"You're right, of course!" he said to Dale. "Something has to be done. Something serious."

"No! No!" I cried. I was thinking of Bridie now, and the possibility that she might be somewhere, at that moment, preparing to confront Alf. "If he knows that he's safe . . . ! Anyhow, there's no proof, is there? After all these years! No witnesses! No evidence! It just has to be made clear to him! When Bridie's done that, he'll understand!"

Johnathon did something unexpected then. He cupped my face in his hands and pressed his lips to my forehead

"Ruthie. So young! So innocent!"

I started to protest, to insist again that nothing needed to happen, if only Alf could be made to listen.

"You talk to him, Johnathon! Tell him it's over! You could ring him!"

But he cut me off.

"No, Ruthie! Dale's right! We've tried that. And it didn't work!" I could smell his lovely cologne but, through it, also the stale sharp odour of whiskey. "I'm to blame," he continued. "I know that now. I thought I could somehow protect both my mate and my neighbour. But I was wrong. I shot my arrow and it fell short. That makes me partly responsible for whatever happens, now that he's been found out."

"You could try!" I whispered. "He's listened to you in the past! I just don't want Bridie to be hurt. Not again!"

I looked at him and realised that he was watching his thumbs, playing in the hair that was loose at my temples. I took his hands from my face and held them again between my own. "Please, Johnathon."

He sighed and nodded and gestured toward a mobile that was lying on the kitchen counter. Dale went to fetch it for him.

"Ruthie, I'll try. For you. And for Bridie. But first, you have to do something for me."

"Of course! Anything! What is it?"

He put the phone in my hand.

"A minute ago, you said there was no evidence to connect Alf to Bridie's rape. But Alf's not a smart man, Ruthie. I fear that he might think along different lines."

Even Kevin stopped his pacing and came back to listen. Johnathon leaned back in his chair and shifted his cast, wincing with the effort. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts.

"I don't want you to panic or to go off half-cocked," he started. "But Ruthie! I know you and Asael have been staying with Amalthea Byerson. And I believe that Isak Nucifora's been staying there as well, is that right?"

I nodded and the hair began to rise on my neck.

"Okay. What I need you to do is talk to Isak. Now! I know you'll likely have to go through Amalthea to do that, but that's all right. Do you have a number you can reach them at?"

Amalthea didn't have a phone, but Asael was with her and he had mine. Kevin said, "I know the number. Why? What're you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that Isak won't be there without a gun!" He raised his eyebrows at me in a question and again, I nodded. My tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth, as though it had decided never to speak again.

"Good. That's good. Because he's the one person I know who can be relied on to . . . do whatever it takes."

"What are you talking about, Johnathon?" Kevin demanded. " 'Whatever it takes!' What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm talking about protecting the evidence, Kevin. DNA evidence!"

The room went quiet for the space of two long breaths.

"Asael?" Kevin said and before the word had fully left the air, I was clambering to get my feet under me and I heard a high, fluttery, terrified sound coming from my throat. If Asael were to disappear, the way Les Crampton disappeared . . . ! The river! The crocodiles! Johnathon grabbed my shoulders and held me down.

"Okay, okay!" he said. "It's okay! Give the phone to Kevin." He took it from my trembling hands and passed it over. "As soon as he's made his call to Isak, you'll get over to Amalthea's, the three of you. And you'll get Asael and he'll be safe! And in the meantime, I'll call Sergeant Morrow and alert him. And then I'll try Alf. And pray to God that he hasn't done anything foolish!"

Kevin tried my phone, then tried it again and then a third time. No one answered. And then Dale, who was hopping from foot to foot, said, "Screw this! Let's go!" And we did.

* * *

' _Oops!' Johnathon says softly, as the door slams shut behind them. 'Too late, you say? Aww, my bad! For keeping you chatting so long."_

He drops the phone between the cushions of the chair and groans to his feet.

" _Tell you what, though. A little drink to wet the whistle, and I'll get right onto those emergency calls. Oh, my word!"_

Chapter 24 – Queenie Goes Home

Amalthea dawdles down the road on her bicycle, glancing at the grocery bags in the basket, wondering how many she might have in her house for dinner this evening. Bridie, she knows, is out of hospital and, from all accounts, determined to put her troubles behind her. Amalthea can't imagine what it would be like to learn that, all unsuspecting, as a child, men had held you down and raped you. It happens all over the world, she knows, that women and girls are targeted like that. But how such men can live with themselves and their shame, she can't imagine.

She puts the ugly thought out of her mind as she passes the Showground where Dorrie's mock riot looks as it always did – a peaceful gathering of concerned citizens. She wonders if Bridie's gone there, to share their support. Or if she's gone to The Harmony Bakery. Maybe she and Kevin and Bessie and Ruthie and Asael will all end up there tonight for dinner and reminiscences, now that Morrow must certainly be back on track for catching whatever berserker is loose in Sugar Town. Maybe it'll just be herself and Isak and Garlic for dinner. Or maybe just herself and Garlic. That wouldn't be so bad. Just the two of them, to commune and remember.

As she approaches her road, the windy huff of flame causes her to lift her head and then to stand on the pedals, the better to see.

" _Oh Christ, no!" she hisses and the frame of the old bike groans as she spurs it to speed._

Marybeth and Dorrie's caravan is still in the yard but there's no one near it – no one at all to be seen. The front of the house, all across the little porch, and down the side beneath the Poinciana, is alight. She drops the bike, spilling vegetables and meat on the ground, and charges at the house, but the heat stops her.

" _Asael!" she screams. "Asael! Garlic!"_

She runs down the side, not believing it. "No-no-no-no!" she's crying. She's crying it with such devotion that she pelts straight into Isak, coming the other way. His hair is singed and his face and hands are blackened. He holds up his rifle in one hand and points at Garlic, following close behind, with the other. She can see his lips move but the roar of the fire swallows all other sound. "Got 'em!" his lips seem to be saying.

" _Asael?" she screams, holding up her hands to shield her face from the heat. Isak shakes his head and she makes as if to run again, back where he's come from. He grabs her arm and pushes her, drags her away, until the gnarled old trunk of the Poinciana shelters them from the heat and noise._

" _Not there!" he yells, two inches from her ear. "Him nor Queenie! Both gone!"_

Minutes later, they're back in the relative safety of the street, Amalthea, Isak and Garlic, watching the ancient house, with its history of horror, be consumed. Amalthea drops to her knees, wrapping her arms around the neck of Garlic, whose blind eyes flit fearfully from side to side. Isak sniffs the smoke laden air and studies the illuminated yard.

" _She was fresh lit when I got here, girl. But them ol' timbers! Nothin' gonna stop 'er now."_

" _You're sure he was out, Isak?" Amalthea's crying. "You're positive? Did you look in the bathroom? In the toilet? In the closets? Maybe he climbed into a closet! Maybe he had a seizure! Maybe he was playing with the candles and had a seizure! Oh, Christ, why didn't I put those candles away? I was going to! I just thought . . .!"_

Isak is not interested in self-recrimination. He knows only that Queenie was floating, that the boy alone, out of all the rest of the town, would have understood the significance of that and that he can smell a residue of diesel. He turns from the flames and studies, with his tracker's eye, the softly illuminated grass. When Amalthea next tears her eyes away from the fire to look for him, Isak is gone.

* * *

'Déjà vu' is what they call it; 'already seen'. That's what I first experienced as we drove toward Amalthea's house and saw the flames reaching above the trees. Not again! What is it with this town and fire?

I don't know if there's a word for 'I smell a rat' but that's the one Kevin had been looking for just moments before.

"Something's not right about it, that's all I'm saying."

I'd made a comment on how difficult it must have been for Johnathon, first of all to keep his promises to the Reverend and Rita for so many years and, secondly, to go back on them. Awareness of the unsavoury impulses of my father in particular, and of Alf's terrible crime, would have been, I thought, a fair burden for anyone to have to carry in silence.

"Keeping mum to protect friends – even when they've gone beyond the bounds of decency! There's a sort of backward honourable-ness there, don't you think?"

"Maybe," said Kevin. "But I'll tell you what! Despite what he says, he was never Rita's friend! She always said he gave her the creeps; like something unpleasant that way came. And Rita had a very good nose for character!"

"Yeah?" I really didn't have any idea how perceptively Rita nosed character. But I did understand that she was like candy on a stick to men and that men were clumsy and oafish and a little bit out of control when they were around women like her and Bridie.

"Yeah!" Kevin went on. "And also, that story he gave us about them wanting to cover up what happened to Bridie? That, I can promise you, was not Rita! She might've kept quiet to appease your dad but, given her way, she'd've howled this town apart! If Johnathon was such a friend, he'd've known that! And another thing! That thing about him offering to conduct Bridie home that night and then they all split up and everyone can be accounted for except for Alf? I mean, it's similar to Dabney's story but . . . did you buy that, Dale? Can you see a hole in that?"

"Well," said Dale from the back seat. "I sort of buy it, I guess. Except . . . !"

"Except what?" I demanded. I was already moderately convinced that both of them were just a little jealous of Johnathon.

"Except . . . well, he reckons to us that the only one not accounted for on that night was Alf. But I guess the only one who really is accounted for is the doc'!"

"Exactly!" Kevin crowed. "Which means that, with Les gone, it's Johnathon's word against Alf's! And I'll tell you what else! This thing about Les being innocent? If everything else we've heard is true, that's a crock! If he was innocent, what did he whisper to Gracie?"

"Ye'd wonder, wouldn't ye?" Dale said. "But on Mister Cranna's side, ye'd also wonder why he'd pretend Les was innocent! I mean, what's to gain? 'S not like Les's comin' back for a trial, is it?"

"No," said Kevin, "it's not."

He fell quiet for a bit, then added, "Could be a red herring though! After all, if Les wasn't guilty, then Isak murdered an innocent man! Which'd make Isak the real homicidal maniac!"

I think I almost made a connection there. I had a flicker of Johnathon's face and words: 'Does Isak have his gun? Good! He'll do what needs to be done!' But that's where the argument halted because that's when we saw the fire.

A house on fire is a chaos all on its own, with the noise and heat and light and fear and fascination. But you look straight away for the living and Amalthea was right there, kneeling in the yard, holding Garlic. She was trembling and agog but, on the whole, about as calm as a person could be while watching their home burn down. I took my cue from that, assuming that everyone must be safe and accounted for.

Kevin, though, with his newly minted parental perception, needed more than the evidence of his eyes. His face screwed into this terrible mask of horror and he virtually collapsed in front of Amalthea, dropping to his knees.

"My God, my God! Thea! My God!" He ran his hands, not quite touching, beside her face and shoulders, like he was a human injury detector and she was a walking catastrophe. She gave him a meagre, weary smile which seemed like permission for him to wind her in his arms.

"You're all right! You're all right!" he sooled, rocking her wildly, and she patted his back, nodding. "Yes, yes, I'm all right! It's all right!" It was hard to tell who was comforting who. Then he held her away at arm's length: "My God! All I could think was, what if I lost you? I only just found you and what if I lost you?"

She looked over his shoulder at me and I looked away. Obviously, though people like Johnathon could keep secrets for years, secrets in my keeping had about as much chance of survival as a wren in butcher bird's nest.

"I smell diesel!" It was Dale, at full volume against the din of the arriving fire truck and spectator vehicles. "You got fuel stored around here?"

"No! No fuel at all! Just the house!" Thea shouted.

"So where's As'?" I bawled. "Where's Isak?" I made a move toward Dorrie and Marybeth's caravan, thinking they must be there but Amalthea waved me back.

"I went to town for groceries!" she shouted, indicating the packages on the ground. "And when I got back, it was burning! Isak got here just ahead of me! He said Asael wasn't here! I hoped maybe he'd come to you!"

"He wasn't here? What do you mean 'he wasn't here'? He phoned us from here less than an hour ago!"

"He did? Oh God! Isak swore he wasn't here! Only Garlic! As'and Queenie both, he said! Both gone! Where's Bridie? Could he have gone to her?"

"We don't know where Bridie is!" It was Kevin's turn to try his voice against the noise. "We were hoping to find her here!"

"No, I haven't seen her! But maybe she came while I was out! Would she have come and taken Asael away with her?"

"She wouldn't just take him!" I yelled. "She'd at least've left a note!"

And we all looked toward the flaming building in which that note presumably would be. The volunteer Firies had begun to spread out around it. There was no town water and they couldn't get near the tank, but they were busying themselves clearing a perimeter and stamping out flare-ups.

"I don't see Alf!" Dale roared, nodding toward the group. "Wouldn' be like him to miss a fire, would it? 'Specially on his own property!" And, after a quick scan of the rest of the gathering, he asked Amalthea, "Where's Isak?"

"I don't know! I don't know! He was here! He rescued his gun and Garlic! We came out here, we were talking, I looked away for a second. And he was gone!"

* * *

Alf hasn't been inside the rental house in over a decade and has no intention of going in now. That time, he was supposed to be stopping Les from getting to Gracie. 'Just get there before him, mate!' That's what Johnathon had said. 'You don't have to do anything else. Best thing is if no one else even sees you! Tell him I need to talk to him. And Alf? This is in your interest as well as mine. Don't take 'no' for an answer. Okay?'

That had gone about as badly as anything could.

He shifts the tin of diesel to his other hand and tells himself it's the house he's going for. Nothing else. No more errands for Johnathon. He just hates that house.

Ahead of him, a small figure appears, carrying a load. Bloody kids, he thinks; buggerizing around in the headlands. Can't seem to get it through their heads that farms are dangerous places. People get hurt – even killed.

As the gap closes, Alf sees that it's Asael McFarlane. He stops at the crossroad in the headland, puts the tin of diesel down and waits. No one else appears. It's just Asael and his cargo.

" _Cha doin', young fella?"_

" _Hi, Alf! I'm taking her back to where she landed. She wants to go, I think. She was floating. And crying. Prob'ly 'cause the gover'ment's coming to get her."_

" _Yeah? That yer space thing, is it?"_

" _Yeah. Did you see her come down?"_

" _Nuh."_

" _Okay. I better get on. Amalthea doesn't know where I am. I'm just gonna put her back there so she can, you know, figure out what to do."_

" _Good one. I'd give ye a hand but I got sump'm to do."_

" _That's okay. I don't think she likes to be touched much by other people anyhow. I might sit with her a bit before I go back. I reckon she's disappointed we never figured out anything about mum and Gramma Grace and everybody."_

It's only minutes before Alf makes the return trek, with his empty tin. He wonders if anyone was in the house. Perhaps he should have checked. Then again, it's better that no one's seen him. Not counting the boy. He's not certain now, what to do about that.

He picks up a torch from the tractor as he passes. He doesn't need it yet, but the sun has already begun to set and it doesn't take long. Even if it was dark, though, and he had no torch, he could still find the boy by following the sound. Asael is sitting on the ground facing the space thing, in the slash where it came down, chatting to it as though it was a person.

Alf watches in silence, filling his mind with the scene. The boy is small for his age, hunched and owl-eyed – and obviously not the full quid! And his space thing! Like a big, pear-shaped, aluminium pumpkin, Alf thinks; a Queensland Blue. But empty, obviously, because the boy carried it easily. Must at least be wiring in it though because, by all accounts, it close to killed Morrow. For a moment, he wonders what it is. Then he shrugs. In the grand scheme of things, what does it matter?

His mind turns to the events that started him on the path to this evil place and time; that Harvest Festival night, a decade ago. He'd drunk himself half blind and had gone with the others to find Kevin Truck. But he hadn't touched the girl. It wasn't him. On the other hand, though, he hadn't done anything to stop it, either; hadn't known how.

" _It's not your fault," he hears the boy say and Alf shakes his head in agreement. No it's not! How could I have known what he'd do?_

" _People get scared, is all," says Asael; "when they don't understand things."_

That's true, thinks Alf. I was scared! And I froze up. What was I scared of then? What didn't I understand?

" _I know Amalthea and Ruthie aren't scared though," says Asael. "And I'm not either. Not any more!"_

No? thinks Alf. Maybe you would be! If you knew how, sometimes, things get done that can eat you up an inch at a time and make you a part of them!

" _I bet," says Asael dreamily, "if we had more time, we could figure it out."_

Yes, time! We're short of time. Alf looks back over his shoulder at the glow of fire in the sky.

" _But I guess you got stuff you need to be doin', somewhere else," Asael continues. "Maybe it's not even up to you. Maybe you got no choice."_

Alf blinks slowly. I don't know. Do I have a choice?

There's a long silence during which he weighs his options. No one knows where the boy is. If he disappeared, would Johnathon be safe? And if Johnathon was safe, would Alf also be safe?

Look what's happened! What with their cremating goats and burning candles, they set my rental house on fire! The boy set it on fire! Then he musta run away. Did someone get burned up? That's awful! But boys play with fire all the time. Bad things happen when boys play with fire. Particularly in old houses. An' out in the cane paddocks. It's awful, but it's not my fault! Should teach 'em better in school!

That's one option.

What's another? Surely there's another. A man should not let himself be eaten up like this, by things he's not responsible for.

" _I guess you'll be glad," the boy says, "when this is over. Glad to get back to wherever you came from."_

Where I came from? Alf thinks of his parents, side by side in the cemetery. He thinks of Vivian, in the kitchen at home, keeping his supper warm. He thinks of Sugar Town, barnacled onto the coast of the Coral Sea. Somehow, as he stands here amidst the cane, every bit of it seems too far away to ever get back to – like he's in an ocean of space with no idea which way to go to get home. His mind throws up a memory of the river bank, where he often played when he was a boy. Find a big paperbark that leans out over a swimming hole. Swing on a rope and fall through the air. Just let go and the fall takes you home.

" _And you don't have to worry anymore, about how to help us."_

Not to worry anymore; that'd be nice. Alf sees that the space thing is glowing orange around the wide part of its bell and, at the top, a patch of sky seems to have snagged; blue-black, velvety and dotted with stars. Strange, how it's caught those reflections, he thinks – of distant fire and even more distant sky.

" _You don't want the gov'ment to get you though. They'd lock you up and study you and never let you go. You'd never get away from them!"_

The hair on Alf's neck stands up. He flicks on the torch and shines it on the boy, who turns his face, pupils the size of pennies, full into the light.

" _Alf?" he says with a faint note of surprise. "We didn't know that! We thought you meant Isak!"_

" _What?" Alf says. "You didn't know what? Meant Isak what?"_

The night erupts with noise. Instinctively, Alf swings about in a defensive crouch, ready to fend off the government itself, should it come charging through the cane at him. But nothing charges. The sound is the engine of his tractor. Someone's started it up! Its tricky transmission begins to snarl and grind, rejecting efforts to make it engage and Alf, with a swelling sense of panic, swings back to the boy.

" _You didn't know what?" he demands, shaking Asael with unintended ferocity. "What did you mean about Isak?"_

In answer, Asael points tearfully at Queenie and mumbles, "He's the key! Don't let them forget!"

" _What's that mean? He who? Me? I'm the key? I'm no key! I wasn't even supposed to be there! It's Cranna! Not me!"_

He has Asael half-lifted from the ground, his fist encircling the thin bone of the boy's arm. The tractor growls and champs horribly, doing its best to reject its new rider. Then a new light flickers through the cane; the switch for the headlights has been found. Alf gnashes his teeth and stamps his feet. He needs time to think. 'If we had more time,' Asael had said, 'maybe we could figure it out!' The only way he can think of to make time is to make distance. He grabs Asael in his two hands, flings him over his shoulder and slides into the cane, heading for the river. Behind him, the tractor, with a sound like chains on concrete, roars its disapproval.

* * *

Sergeant Morrow was like a man with a fishbone stuck between his teeth.

"Tell me," he roared at Amalthea, pointing at the burning house, "that this was an accident! Tell me your goat knocked over a bucket o' fuel an' a lightnin' bolt come outta the blue and lit it up!"

At that stage, she and I and Kevin were gathering up her scattered groceries while swapping ideas on where Bridie and As' might be. Dale, sitting astride Amalthea's bike, was trying for the tenth time to ring my phone, in hopes that Asael might have remembered to take it with him and would get around to answering.

Amalthea's equanimity, I could see, was starting to disintegrate.

"I wasn't here!" she howled. "I was off getting these! So I don't know how it started! There were candles! But none of them were lit when I left!"

"Candles? This ain't from candles! You smell that diesel?"

"There was no diesel! No fuel of any kind! I don't even have a lawnmower! Alf looks after all that!"

"So you saw him, then?"

"Him who?"

"Alf! Alf! Don't be dense, girl! Alf Caletti! Did you see him, or no?"

"Stop right there!" Kevin intervened, stepping to an angry defence as Amalthea subsided. "No one's trying to keep anything from you, Sargeant! But right now,who lit this fire is probably the least of our worries, okay?"

That was the point when Dale suddenly clasped a hand over his free ear and started shouting into the phone.

"Hello? Hello? Asael? Izzat you? Who? Who? It's me, Dale! At the goat lady's place! At the fire! Where are you?"

And we all followed as he turned to look at Dorrie and Marybeth's caravan. Marybeth herself stood in the doorway, with my phone pressed to her ear, waving.

* * *

There was no guessing how or why the phone was in the caravan. Had Asael taken it there himself? Had someone else put it there?

"You telling me," Sergeant Morrow bellowed, "that the kid's missing?" He looked to the exposed, glowing ribs of the house. "Hope to Christ he's not in there?"

Amalthea shook her head, slashing tears from her eyes and Kevin told what little we knew. "Isak was the last one out! He brought out Garlic! He said he looked for Asa' but there was no sign!"

"Isak?" Sergeant Morrow barked. "Where the hell is he then?"

He got bewildered looks from all of us and so, swearing uncontrollably, headed off to search the crowd. His walk, I noticed, was still wobbly and uncertain from the shock Queenie'd given him. Which made me suddenly think: they're both gone! Asa' and Queenie are both gone! And like, would he have allowed himself to be parted from her? Even by Bridie?

I looked at Kevin, then, who had taken the last call from Asael – the one where he'd claimed that Queenie was floating. And crying. And I knew! As sure as we were standing there, I knew where Asael was. I set off at a run, aiming for Marybeth and all but tackled her in her doorway. I commandeered her emergency torch then raced into the street, out of the glare of the firelight. At the verge where the road turned into grassy headland, I stopped to let my eyes accustom themselves to the dusk and Dale spun to a stop beside me on Amalthea's bike.

"Wanna tell me what's happening? Or ya just gonna hike off in every direction on your own an' hope for the best?"

In answer, I pushed between his arms and settled myself on the crossbar.

"Go! Go! Go!" I ordered, aiming the beacon into the grass ahead. "Follow the light! I'll tell you when to stop!"

* * *

Up over the levee he goes and down into the dry bed of the river. He's barely aware of the weight of the boy on his shoulder. In the back of his mind, he knows there'll be snakes down here, come to drink in the cool of the evening. But even they don't concern him overly. His attention is fully engaged with the sound of the tractor in the paddock above. A gear has been found and, in his mind, he has followed its progress, crashing through the barrier of cane into the crushed area where the space thing sits. It's stopped there for long minutes, precious minutes that Alf's used to put more distance between himself and his pursuer.

He's glad the monsoon hasn't come early as it sometimes does. Then, the water in this channel would be twenty feet deep and racing like stampeding brumbies – as it was the year Isak Nucifora dropped Les Crampton over the bank. This year, the bed is mostly dry, with deep swimming-pool-sized potholes here and there where council workers have excavated for sand. In good years, like this one has been, the water table keeps those pot holes full – six or eight feet in the middle, sometimes. And farmers like Alf, who are lucky enough to be next to the channel, can put irrigation pumps in for endless water.

That's where he's headed now; for a tiny, movable storage shed of his own devising. There's equipment there; petrol for the pump and tools for maintenance. The shed is very near, but panic is much, much nearer. He tries to steady his mind, as he creeps along with the boy on his shoulder, by forcing his attention onto 'normal' things; farm jobs. He must, for instance, get this stuff out of the river soon. If the rains start or a cyclone blows in he'll lose the lot, for sure! Knowing all the while that it'll be a wildest quirk of Fate if he hasn't lost everything already!

He puts the boy down roughly, forgetting for a moment that he's been carrying a human being. The boy cries out and only then does Alf bend to investigate. Alf wants to question him more about 'the key'. Who said he was 'the key'? Why him, more than Cranna or the doc' or old Isak? How do people get things so wrong? The boy whimpers, holding his arm. Perhaps it's broken; perhaps from the shaking Alf gave him in the paddock.

Alf opens the door to the little shed and sticks a foot into the darkness, banging the metal wall to drive out snakes. Then he sticks Asael inside.

" _I'm sorry," he whispers, into the darkness. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm going to take you to the hospital and get you fixed up. Just need a minute to think first. Okay?"_

Asael doesn't answer. Doesn't whimper. Doesn't move. Alf pulls him half out of the shed and pushes hair from Asael's eyes. The eyes are open but it's like the brain has gone to sleep.

Good, thinks Alf. That's good! He'll be quiet for a bit, then. Alf drags a ten-litre tin of petrol from the shed, props the boy gently against the wall, closes the door and secures the latch.

" _For your own good," he says softly against the metal. "Case you get the wanders. Don't want you stumblin' into the water hole, eh?"_

He starts back along the river bed, following the sound of the tractor.

* * *

By the time we'd bumped a hundred metres into the cane on Amalthea's bike, I'd managed to stutter out an explanation: that this was where we'd found Queenie and that I was ninety-nine percent certain Asael had taken her back to her landing spot.

"Hold the light steady!" was Dale's only answer as we slammed back and forth between the wheel ruts.

"Just get in one of them, for cryin' out loud! Stop weaving all over everywhere!"

"Don't tell me how to ride a pushbike, Ruth! And shine the damn light down by the wheel! It's no use to me up . . . !"

And suddenly the bike bucked out from under us. I felt myself toppling backwards, with a horrible sense that I was about to be skewered through the spine by a handlebar. Somehow, I don't know how, Dale managed to get his leg out far enough to avoid having it crushed and, with one arm, he carried me clear of it. We bumped and rolled into the damp grass, finishing with me on top of him which, even then, I thought was much preferable to landing underneath him. We lay for a second, me wondering how I'd survived and him, no doubt, wondering why he was there at all.

"God!" he groaned. "I pity whoever winds up married to you! Medical bills are gonna be astro-bloody-nomical!"

I was about to inform him of how lucky a man my future husband would be and how little a dumb-ass like him had to worry about knowing me or my choice in men. At least, looking back, I hope that's the kind of thing I might have come up with. But I didn't get to say it because, somewhere in the darkness ahead, a tractor started up.

It was that time of day when the sky still has an oily bit of light and only five or six stars in it, but the land is already dark. Nonetheless, we jumped up and strained our eyes. Then the grinding started, as some inexperienced driver searched for a gear.

"That'd be Alf's tractor," Dale whispered, close into my ear. "But that's not Alf driving!"

* * *

There are some good-sized paperbarks growing on the levee and Alf creeps into the even deeper shadows that they offer. The tractor – his tractor – has been making a mess of his cane, hammering back and forth across the rows. But it's stopped now. The engine's still running and the lights are on, so he can see exactly where it is; back by the space thing. And it hasn't moved for the past several minutes.

The only person Alf can imagine being out there is Isak Nucifora. Why? Lots of reasons! For one, whoever it is seems pretty interested in that space junk. And the whole town knows that Isak was the first one to come across it – that finding it somehow caused him to slip his tether and finish up dragging the whole rest of the town off back into the past, to the terrible times.

Vivian's already rung him with the news that, when Isak slid out of Roger Dabney's hands at the hospital, he made his way back to the rental house, where Amalthea's let him stay. She told him of Isak and Dorrie's trick to get Roger away from the excuse of his patients. And Masher Morrow, she told him, had spoken to her, asking where he might find Alf. Alf had put her off, saying he was on the back blocks and would contact Masher later. That, he thought, had been smart on his part; give him time to think; give other things a chance to develop.Solve this Isak problem.

Of all the people in Sugar Town, Alf alone has actually witnessed the blind, mad rage that Isak is capable of – the sort that could see Les Crampton battered senseless and rolled over this very bank into a flow that would carry his bones, if the crocs didn't get them, all the way out to the Great Barrier Reef.

And there's one other thing Alf has to consider. Isak knows this ground. He has, after all,been shooting out pests on this farm for years – wallabies, feral pigs and the occasional dingo. He's a good hunter, is Isak.

I don't know why he did it, Alf whispers to an imagined audience as he creeps out from under the trees. Alcohol pickled his brain, maybe!

He twists the cap on the petrol tin and starts edging, quiet as a frog, along the edge of the cane. From shoulder height, the petrol dribbles against the stalks, running down, coating the dry tinder of dead leaves. When he reaches the end of the paddock, he turns into the headland and carries on. He's sparing of the petrol. There's plenty of natural fuel in the paddock, after all. But the quicker it takes hold, the better.

By the time he reaches the next headland, he's got his imaginary audience well in hand. Even Masher is there, nodding in sympathy.

So the mad ol' bastard stole your tractor? An' hauled that space junk out into the paddock! An' the boy! The boy was helpin' him, ye reckon? Or tryin' to stop him? How the hell would anyone know? First they burn up the rental house an' then, somehow, maybe by accident (only right to give a man the benefit o' the doubt) they put a fire through the cane! Christ but it's sad! What a shit of a way to go, eh?

He's moved on to thinking about how the harvesters might feel cutting that paddock, knowing that folks died in that fire, when a shadow detaches itself from the others that have crowded around him.

" _It was you, you bastard!" it says, using Isak Nucifora's voice. 'Wun't 'til Dabney said it that I figured it out. Someone else! Not jus' Les – between when I saw Gracie first an' after. Someone else was there. You! You crawlin' bucket o' spit! I been blamin' Dabney's doctorin' skills all these years, an' here was you, right under my nose!"_

Isak's half-way through the speech before Alf fully understands that this part of his audience is not imaginary. He looks around for the others who, a moment ago, were with him, on his side. Straight ahead, fifty or a hundred metres into the cane, he can hear the tractor, still idling. And off to the right, half a kilometre or more away, he can see where the rental house is being pulled into the sky in a column of flaming embers. But immediately in front of him, there's only Isak; Isak with a rifle in his hands, the muzzle pointed at him. Alf shakes his head, suddenly empty of arguments.

" _Ye wanna say why ye done it, Alf? Ye wanna clear yer conscience before I kill ye? 'Cause that's what I'm about to do!"_

" _Accident!" Alf coughs. "Accident! Never meant to hurt! Was there to stop him! But he got there. Musta mentioned me name to her! She was wild, mate! Wild, like I never seen a woman be wild. I just wanted to still her! So I could tell her that I never touched that kid! It wun't me!"_

" _It wun't me! It wun't me!" Isak cries, mocking him. "Course it was you, ye weevil! Jus'like it was you burned them kids' house an' slashed that little jenny goat an' set up that gas bottle at Bessie's. An' burned your own house now!" he snarls, jabbing the barrel of the gun upwards at a blanket of glowing embers which has begun to migrate on a freshening breeze. "What was ye hopin' for there, eh? No, don' tell me! I don' give a shit! To me, yer jus' one more pest that needs putting down, Alf! Jus' one more feral. . . !"_

Alf spends a minute pleading, swearing, explaining, accusing. And at the end of the minute, one of the embers, a little incendiary butterfly, discovers the fumes emanating from the ten-litre tin in his arms.

* * *

I still don't know who was right, but I know who got their way. When we heard the tractor accept a gear, it was me who hit the ground running and Dale who grabbed my ankle and brought me crashing back to earth.

"We don' know what's going on!" he pointed out firmly, pressing me to the ground. We could see the tractor lights, a yellow glow rising up from the cane in the distance, and the machine started slamming about in a random pattern that seemed bent only on destruction.

"That's not Alf on that tractor, I promise you!" Dale hissed in my ear. "Or if it is, he's fully lost it! So we don' wanna panic anyone or spook anyone or get run over ourselves, do we? We're no use to yer brother then, are we? So all I'm saying is, let's just not go off like a couple o' firecrackers!"

And so, though it took a huge effort of will on my part, we resisted going off like firecrackers. Instead, between us, we found a balance between a slow jog and a wary outlook. And when the tractor's crashing about finally stopped, we slowed even further, to listen. It was easier for me then because I realised quite quickly that the glow of headlights was in exactly the spot where I expected to find Asael and Queenie.

As we crept along, my thoughts turned more and more to Queenie herself. It seemed an age since As' and I and Amalthea and Rosemary had tramped out together, in answer to her eerie signal. Amazing enough to find her there, but she'd also presented us with Isak who'd given me Gramma G's ring and been identified by Asa' as 'the key'! The key, it turned out, to events that almost everyone in town had, with varying degrees of resolve, long ago learned to either ignore or forget. Events whose recollection, I'd since learned, someone in town would go to desperate lengths to impede. And Queenie had, if we could believe it, spurred Asael and Isak on with visions! Until at the last, maybe out of frustration, she had apparently begun to float! I wished I'd seen that.

When Dale and I finally peered through the last stalks of cane into the clearing, she was there, perfectly still and firmly in contact with the ground – the only way I'd ever seen her. She was, I admit, glowing, in the way that a luminous clock face glows, fuzzily and without any obvious point of power. I took it to be the combination of tractor lights and her peculiarly burnished surface.

She was there, but Asael was not. Nor was Isak, who I'd also half expected to see. Dale and I stepped cautiously into the clearing and he, ever the farmer, went straight to the tractor, looking under and around it for anyone who might have fallen victim to its power. I, muttering a little prayer of hope, went to Queenie and did the same, for the same reason.

Neither of us, of course, discovered anything and I found myself drifting to a hopeless stop in front of her. I realised that I'd been so certain of finding Asael there that I'd given no thought to what I'd do if he wasn't! I had no other ideas! So I put it to her: 'Where is he? I know he brought you here and you know what's happened to him! So tell me! Give me a vision!'

She sat, still and silent, tilted to one side as, I told myself, I'd known she would. Whatever she might be to others, for me, she was only space junk. 'Oh, what's the bloody good of you?' I demanded with disgust and, though it might have seemed I was talking to Queenie, I'm sure I was talking as much to myself. What my whole life boiled down to at that moment was that my brother, my nephew, my . . . whatever – it hardly mattered – had relied on me to keep him safe and I'd lost him. And I was reduced to standing in a night-time paddock, asking for help from an inanimate piece of space junk! I'd never felt more useless in my life.

If I could have punished myself in some way, I would have. But Queenie being the next best thing, I reached out and gave her the heel of my hand. That was the third time that I ever actually touched Queenie, skin to skin. And it was so quick that I didn't really get a sense of her at all. But she moved. I was startled to see how easily, even though I'd seen Asael lift and carry her most of a kilometre through the cane to Amalthea's house. I stepped back. Somewhere deep inside, I guess I had half a hope that, despite my scepticism about her, she really could, if she chose to, float up and lead me where I needed to go.

What she did instead was fall. She lurched through several centimetres before stopping at an angle that produced a whole new set of reflections. And central to them, absolutely clear in a corona of haze, was Dale. He'd climbed up to stand on the top of the still-idling tractor and, with his hands shielding his eyes against the headlights and the last of the sky-shine, was gazing off over the top of the cane. In the metallic mirror that was Queenie, he looked like an explorer, emblazoned against the sky.

"That's not a vision," I whispered to Queenie. "It doesn't count."

This was exactly the moment when a massive explosion shook the air; and it was the moment immediately before Dale landed with a whump, on his back, on the soft earth beside me.

I looked down at him in total confusion, and back to Queenie. Did she do that, I wondered? I bent over Dale and, when he didn't move, I poked his chest with a finger. He gasped, his eyes fluttered open, failed to find focus and fell closed again.

"Wha-a-a. . .!" he groaned, a single broken syllable, and he sipped gingerly at the air.

Only his knees rose and they did so slowly, as though they'd been abandoned by the rest of his body; as if to say, 'Don't poke him again, Stupid!'

I couldn't seem to process what had happened. I mean, it was obvious that the wind was knocked clean out of him; but by what? I straightened up and looked around.

In my thirteen and a half years in Sugar Town, I'd seen loads of cane fires – some, even, from fairly close up. But I'd never seen anything like what was happening in that paddock. Even from my five-foot-seven-inch height, I could see a surge of flame racing like a river down the western side of the paddock. I watched in stunned amazement as it reached the levee and, unbelievably, made a sharp right turn, flowing on faster than any dog could run, the full length of the paddock.

The sense of uselessness I'd felt a few minutes earlier was infinitely preferable to the uselessness and hopelessness I felt at that moment. Everyone knows that natural or controlled fires tear through cane paddocks in a hurry; that the hundreds of tonnes of tinder-dry fuel go up like a paper balloon. Nothing stops those fires. Get caught day-dreaming around one and you're history! And this one was anything but natural or controlled! It was instant, it was maniacally huge, it was already on two sides of us and it was running our way!

Knowing that, and knowing that we were smack in the path of a firestorm . . . I did the most unforgivable thing. I froze. I don't know where Asael is, I kept saying to myself! I don't know where he is!

I don't know how many precious seconds I wasted doing that. But I do know that it was the scrabbling of wildlife at my feet that finally released me. First a few darting movements that I barely took notice of; then a gradually increasing melee of rats and mice and bandicoots. All doing what I should have been doing – fleeing the fire. A taipan, well over two metres long and thicker than my arm, whipped out of the cane, slammed into Dale, raised its head for a brief look and fired off, over him and away. They were the smart ones. There'd be plenty that were hesitating, like me, or panicking in the wrong direction; plenty that were already as good as dead.

I pounced on Dale then, trying to drag him to his feet.

"Get up, Dale! Get up! The paddock's burning! We gotta get out!"

He rolled to his side and then managed to get his knees under himself, but he was still doubled up, his forehead pressed to the ground. I tried to lift him to his feet but he whimpered in agony and I couldn't unfold him. I thumped his back, I swore at him – I'm ashamed to say I even kicked him; thinking that, if I got him mad enough, he'd stand up. He only groaned and fell back onto his side.

I spun around in panic. If the tractor'd had a bucket on the front, I could have scooped him up with a load of dirt and carried him out that way. But there was no bucket. The front of the fire was, at best, forty or fifty metres away – a small number of minutes away – and the flames were so high that the sky seemed to be burning. I filled my fists with Dale's shirt, wrenching at him and screaming. I could feel the tearing of air in my throat but not even I could hear my pleas and threats over the howling roar of the fire.

"I'll leave you here! I swear to God I will! Get up! Get up!"

A feral cat the size of a wombat lunged out of the cane, gave me a wild, terrified glance and plunged back in – back into the path of the fire. And all the while Queenie sat, leaning casually, thoughtfully, like she was assessing my performance and finding it not very adequate. With no other thought on what to do, I lashed out with my foot, shrieking now at her.

"I'm not going without him!" I howled. And she toppled onto her side.

No sooner had she settled than I got pushed aside myself and Isak was standing there. Singed, blackened and filthy, with gouts of blood on his chest, arms and face, he looked like he'd staggered out of a war zone. But he was there, in all his grim glory and, for my money, God Almighty himself wouldn't have been more welcome.

He looked back and forth several times between Dale and Queenie and me, all of us now prostrate on the ground. Then he shrugged and threw his sinewy old arms around Dale. Together, somehow, we got him to his feet and got all three of us onto the tractor. Then Isak began hammering away at the gears while I forced Dale's arms open and slid inside them, trying to find a place where we could brace each other against falling. I was certain that this was our one chance. If one or both of us fell, there would be no second attempt. Finally, one of the gears engaged and, with the fire louring over us, seeming to suck the air out of our very lungs, we swung away from the clearing, directly into the wall of cane.

I pressed my face against Dale's chest and tensed everything I was capable of tensing. To my relief, I felt an answering squeeze from his arms, around my back. I wanted to see his face, for reassurance, but I could feel his cheek bumping against the top of my head and I knew that even that little contact was part of the wedging that held us in place. In my last glimpse of the clearing, the cane on the fire side was whipping violently, lashing its leaves at the tower of fire. The feral cat rolled, flaming, into the clearing, leapt into the air and, from all appearances, died before it landed. And Queenie, by some trick of the wind or the physics of fire, righted herself, even as I watched. I even thought, before we crashed through into the headlands and I lost sight of her, that she'd begun to float.

Chapter 25 – Ways of Healing (Wednesday and Beyond)

The searchers, who included Kevin and Amalthea, scoured that paddock the next day but no sign was ever found of Queenie. No token, no remnant, no puddle of metal. Nothing. But they did find Alf, his chest shattered by the force of the explosion in that petrol can. He, like the burning cat, was apparently dead before he hit the ground. Even so, when people got over the shock of it happening, they allowed as how he would have appreciated finishing there, on the land that he worked and loved, sharing the fire with his crop. And maybe they're right. Maybe, like they do for the cane, the flames might have cleansed him in some way.

In days to come, Sergeant Morrow would have an autopsy performed on Alf, just to be certain that Isak wasn't getting a little too comfortable with murder. But no bullets were found in the body and, when Isak's rifle was retrieved from amongst the ash, it proved not to have been fired. The verdict came down as 'death by accident' and, beyond that, there was no point in venturing.

I'm sure Isak must have told Morrow about Alf's part in Gramma G's murder, but Morrow kept that information to himself. And why shouldn't he? Vivian, after all, was one of the town's own and what profit can there be in destroying someone's every fond memory; even if they are delusory?

I got the story direct from Isak, I think only because he needed someone to know that he hadn't faltered in following Queenie's lead; and also that Alf had really set himself up for what happened. Karma, I suppose Amalthea would have called it. At any rate, that conversation with Isak was the one and only time I ever heard Alf's name connected by anyone, in even the vaguest way, with what had been done to both Bridie and Gramma G. And, like Sergeant Morrow, I never was tempted to repeat it, not even to Bridie. There should be a limit to the number of ugly things a person has to think about.

As for that night, when the tractor thundered out of the cane with the three of us clinging to it and to each other for dear life, there were already dozens of people streaming down the headlands toward us. The house fire, the explosion, the unnatural timing, speed and intensity of the cane fire and the dramatic escape of three people – there wouldn't have been a soul in town who doubted that something very big was coming to a head in Sugar Town. And no one was about to miss out on seeing it!

For myself, I know that when they dragged us off that tractor and pried Dale out of my arms I was virtually catatonic; partly with the shock of being alive but much more with terror for what I thought had happened to Asael. I couldn't make sense of the crowding faces or the crying out or the stream of people racing toward and past us. I remember pawing at them, pulling and pushing weakly as they surged by, searching amongst them for that one face that would allow me to carry on living. I felt like I was held together with glue and string and the glue was melting and the string was rotting but I couldn't stop, couldn't let go. Until finally I realised that one of the people crying my name and patting me down for injuries, was Bridie; and then I knew. I knew that there were only the two of us left. The last of the glue fell away and I collapsed against her, wrapping myself around her, wailing for all the losses we'd known and all the ones we had yet to share. Asael: God Strengthens. How I prayed that, at the moment when he needed it most, God truly had strengthened him.

Time went all rubbery on me then. Suddenly I was in Dorrie's ambulance, bouncing down the headland. Isak was strapped to a stretcher across from me, looking for all the world like he was dead, and Bridie was sitting between us, holding my hand. Up the front I could hear Dorrie ripping strips off Dale, telling him it should have been him in the back, not me. No way he should be sitting up, she was raging! And he, in a strangled voice, was gasping, "The potholes, Dorrie! For Christ's sake!" I realised I was whimpering with horror and despair and the realisation did nothing to make me stop.

"I lost him!" That was all I could think. "I lost him! I'm so sorry, Bridie!" And she cried along with me. Until we were quieted by a faint whisper that came from Isak's side.

"Listen to the song, girlies. Hush now. Listen to the song!"

* * *

Following that, there was a blur of faces and lights and hands and something injected that left me, eventually, numb and alone in a hazy, dim, emotionless place with nothing but my own breathing for company. To the extent that I could examine it, it was a fine place – kind of timeless and undemanding – far preferable to the world beyond. I was vaguely grateful for it and would have been content to stay there always. Except for the company that I gradually became aware of. Through a hole in the haze. It was a vision of that feral cat, sitting calmly, looking around, seemingly unconcerned that it was saddled by, and being consumed by, fire.

Then that soft place was gone and I felt the real-world weight of me again. I was sitting bolt upright, gasping behind my hands, crying out for the cat to go. Which it did, reluctantly, going and returning and going again, as though doubting my resolve. In time it fell out of focus, until only an outline of fire was left, burning in my mind's eye. And then it too faded, to a soft, shapeless glow which, despite my exhaustion and my hammering heart, I began to recognise as something else. A square of soft, orange light, filtering through a window in a closed door. I was in a room; a dark, soothing room whose walls seemed to be mumbling to one another. Far-away, muffled echoes and antiseptic smells. It was a hospital room! The door to the corridor was closed but the orange light that it permitted was all that was left of the flaming cat.

The outside window showed only darkness beyond. What time was it? How long had I been there? I checked myself for injuries. Nothing – nothing physical – seemed to be hurt. The smell of ash was in my nose but my hands and arms, my legs, my hair were all clean. Someone had washed me and I had no recollection of it at all!

I searched the room and saw that there was another bed, empty but unmade, as though someone had been there but had got up and wandered off. I couldn't understand it and I didn't trust it. I sat there for what seemed an age, refusing sleep, closing and opening my eyes, expecting there somehow to be another change. No one came. But the room remained, which meant that I was no longer dreaming. And finally, with a desperate effort, I turned my mind to that other bed.

Who had been in it and crept out in the middle of the night? Would they have put me a room with Dale or Isak? No, surely not! It could only be for Bridie! But where was she? And where had she been when we looked for her earlier in the day? I wanted her to be there! I wanted to blame her and I wanted to ask her forgiveness. I wanted to hate someone and I wanted to drive that burning cat away forever. I got up, woozily, opened the door and stepped into the lighted corridor.

Immediately I heard the buzz of conversation from the next room and realised that it was a buzz I'd been hearing, in a lesser form, ever since I woke. The mumbling of the walls! But now I recognised the voice. It was Isak, apparently in the midst of a long, slow tale – too muffled and indistinct for my addled brain to grasp. Names always jump out at you, of course, and several times, without knowing the context, I heard Johnathon's name and my mother's name. I remember thinking it was weird because, though Isak had talked to us continuously about Gramma Grace, he'd hardly ever mentioned Rita.

As I stood, trying to think about that, Isak's narrative turned into a question and a second voice provided an answer, "It's okay. She didn't hear." It was Dana Goodrich.

"Drifted off ages ago," she went on, her voice much clearer than Isak's. "And just as well, eh? I mean, if there was no evidence back then, there's even less than none now! An' even if there was . . . well, you know what she's like! God's will 'n' all that! But you know what I say? I say, bugger God's will! He can toss me to the Devil if He wants, but letting someone get away with something like that is not a good thing to will! An' I'm not gonna let it pass!"

Isak made another comment which, again, was little more than a murmurous hum to me. Then, "Right!" Dana said. "We'll see to it then, eh? Just the two of us! The two of us an' never a fuss!" And they both laughed softly.

I hadn't stopped there intending to listen. And I hadn't heard anything that made sense to me. But my feet began to move again, nonetheless.

"Well lookee here!" Dana put a hand on Isak, drawing his attention to me and ending their conversation. "Mister Popularity, you must be, Isak! What sorta mo-jo you usin' on these McFarlane women, eh? What's your secret? Two Ay Em in the morning and here comes Ruthie creepin' in your door! I never heard the beat of it!"

She was sitting in a narrow chair that was pulled up tight against his bed. I stumbled back a little with shock when I saw him. Bandages covered nearly the whole of his right arm and a faintly cooked smell wafted about the room, strongly apparent beneath the layer of antiseptic. In a chair in the corner, curled like a cat, Bridie slept.

At Dana's teasing, Isak blinked his eyes in my direction, waggled his bushy eyebrows and dragged in a rasping breath.

"Hey-ya, girlie!"

That was all the answer he gave, but Dana got up anyhow, waving me into her seat and gestured at Bridie.

"She fought like hell, poor thing; to stay wake. First to help get you cleaned up, then to be here for this ol' bag o' wrinkles. No fear, we all closed our eyes when we cleaned him up! Too much man for us ordinary girls to have to see! You okay here for a minute while I get her back to her bed?"

I watched as she coaxed Bridie onto her feet.

"Come on, Beautiful. Look! Ruthie's up and running around already, little squirrel of a thing! Just like we knew she'd be! She's gonna visit with Isak for a bit while we get you back into bed, okay?"

Bridie blinked at me, gave a vague, cross-eyed smile which I've no doubt mirrored the one I tried to give her, and she reached to touch my face.

"Ruthie," she mumbled. "What are we going to do?"

She could have been talking about anything: about Asael, about our state of homelessness, or just about surviving the rest of the night and all the nights to come. And I had no idea what to say. As it happened, I didn't have to say anything because Dana, chattering all the while, like the good-natured pilot she was, put an arm around Bridie and aimed her toward the door.

"We're gonna do as we're told," she scolded, "that's what we're gonna do, my lovely. We're gonna sleep and get well and strong! And then we're gonna sit back and watch this big old world take a much deserved kick up its hairy arse. Well and truly." And to me she said, "Ruthie, Isak saw Alf coming up out of the river bed, before the fire. He thinks Asael might be somewhere there. Matron rang the sergeant hours ago and I reckon half the town's out tramping the channels even as we speak. They'll find him, Ruthie. If that boy's not back here ogling my boobs by sun-up, I'll eat a dirt sandwich! So chin up, eh? You'll see!"

Alf? With Asael? Somewhere, in the clamber of the night, I'd forgotten all about Alf. That he was the linchpin! But he would tell where Asael was, wouldn't he? At least tell if Asael was safe? I looked at Isak, whose eyelids fluttered wearily, and one by one the pieces clicked into place. Sergeant Morrow looking for Alf – the fire at Amalthea's – Isak, disappeared into the night. Then the explosion, the frantic speed of that fire and Isak re-appearing in the midst of it. And somehow I knew that Alf, at least, wouldn't be telling anyone anything, ever again.

They talk about weights being lifted off your shoulders. Maybe that's how I should have felt about Dana's news. But I didn't. I felt kind of the opposite – more like a weight too many had been added and had finally collapsed me; like whatever tension had been keeping the air in me was suddenly punctured and I was emptying out. I nodded at Dana's cheery promise – nodded as though I truly believed that Asael was safe and then shook my head, knowing that no one in the world would ever be truly safe. The nodding jarred my mouth open and I didn't have the strength to close it.

"Find a smile for that dial!" Dana whispered softly from the doorway. "You're not the only one hurting around here." She indicated Isak. Then she said, "I'll be back in a minute. I don't want him to be alone. Okay?"

I continued to gawp at her, barely comprehending. Bridie sagged in her arms and murmured, "Yet a little slumber. A little folding of the hands to sleep. That's Proverbs, Dana."

"Proverbs, is it?' Dana tsked. "You're sure now? Sure it's not Sedatives?" And to me she said, "The doc' gave her one half an hour ago; made her take it. Can't fight that stuff for long. Sure you're okay?"

Then she went, with Bridie little more than a rubbery extension in her arms, and I put my spinning head on the sheet beside Isak's burnt hand. Asael! Maybe Alf had put him somewhere safe! Of course he had! Why would he not? And the whole saga might be finished and done and explained before the night was out! And we'd all be together again.

I gasped along there for a dozen or so breaths, absorbing hope from the cool freshness of the sheet. I'm sure I'd have slept in a minute if Isak hadn't brought me back with a touch.

"Did ye hear her singin', kid? That was some kinda song, eh? Not cryin' anymore! Jus' singin'!"

I looked at him and guessed from the droop of his eyelids and the faint, far away rasp in his voice that he was, at least partly, off in a dream. The bandages, the rosy colour and smell of burnt flesh. He'd saved Dale and me from the fire. How had he known we were there? Why had he come? Knowing him even the little that I did, there was only one possibility. It wasn't us he'd come for.

"Queenie?" I asked. ""Do you mean Queenie?

"Who else, ya mutt? O' course Queenie!" If he was in a dream, it seemed I was part of it.

I hadn't heard anything from Queenie – no song, no nothing; not ever! Unlike him and Asael. But I thought it was little enough to give him, considering all he'd done for my family, including what he'd been to Gramma G.

"Yeah, I heard. Nice."

"I jus' hope she got away okay, ye know?"

Again I answered lightly, giving him what I thought he'd want to hear. "Sure she did. Floated right away."

He turned his head toward me, the corners of his mouth turned down, his eyes suddenly alert and suspicious.

"You saw that?"

"Oh, for sure! What, you didn't? When we were driving out, on the tractor? Floated away like a bird."

And it was only then that I began to remember that I actually had seen Queenie move! She'd stood up – just as the fire was breaking through into the clearing! And try though I might to doubt it, I began to believe that perhaps I had seen her lift off the ground! And because I didn't want to deny any part of the experience of our survival, in case it might yet be taken away from us, I backed up, looking for an answer that was, if not truer in fact, at least truer in spirit.

"Maybe not exactly like a bird, I guess. More like . . . like she was riding on the smoke, you know? Like she was one of the cinders, just swirling up! Like she was a natural part of the fire! She was beautiful, Isak. Very beautiful. I'm sorry you didn't see her."

"Ah!" The picture made him smile. "Me too, girlie! Me too!"

"Maybe she's just moved to somewhere safer. Maybe we'll find her again!"

"Naw. Don't think so. On'y so much ye can do for folks." He patted my hand and chuckled wryly. "Pity them who never saw 'er at all, eh?"

I asked him then if he thought Gramma G was finally at rest and he allowed as how she should just about be because Alf had been punished for what he did to both her and Bridie. That's when I heard the story that I never repeated.

"One more little job to do, mate," he finished up, winking slyly at me. "One little detail. Then she'll be sweet!"

I started to ask him what job that might be but Dana came back into the room and cut him off.

"Hey, what's this? I thought we had an agreement, old man! Not to be troubling others with stories!" She leaned over him and said softly, "Am I going to have to throttle you in your sleep, am I? 'Cause I'll do it you know!"

They both snorted with shallow laughter and she turned to me.

"Him, he's a medical miracle, did you know? Been killed at least a dozen times in his life, so he says! Been shot, strangled, stabbed, clubbed, poisoned, burned, blown up – sometimes all at once! Big responsibility for a country nurse like me! Gonna have to send you back to bed, Ruthie. They're dangerous, these ol' Sugar-Tongues; lead you down all kinds o' garden paths. Tell you what, I wouldn't risk it meself if I didn't have the training – impervious to his allure, right? C'mon, I'll give you a hand. You come back in the morning when his head's clear and he knows what he's saying, okay?"

She didn't give me any room at all for argument, conducting me back to the room and guiding me into the high bed. She lingered over me, smoothing the sheet, fluffing the pillow and tucking me in until, just as I began to wonder if there was anything in the world that could faze her, she whispered, "Your sister's an amazing woman, Ruthie."

She walked around to the other side of the bed and, with a sort of fussy intensity, started her settling-me-in routine all over again. Tired as I was, I couldn't miss the feeling that something more was coming.

"You think it's possible to be too forgiving, Ruthie?" she asked, and then quickly answered. "Probably not, I guess." She patted my shoulder, almost a gesture of condolence. "Not for folks in your family, anyway! Me, though," she whispered, confidentially, "I got this thing! That people who listen to the tune oughta be made to pay the piper. You know what I mean?"

I didn't. She saw that I didn't and she smiled, sliding warm, dry fingers across my forehead, tidying my hair. "I'm rabbiting, aren't I? Tell you what, though, Sweetie! There's ones who need to know! Need to know that not everyone's as forgiving as Bridie McFarlane. I mean, you have to be awake-up to the world, don't you? If you're going to live in it? Only fair and right, I say."

She stroked my forehead and I sighed my way back toward sleep; mesmerised by her touch; only vaguely aware that she had someone in particular in mind.

Before she left, I heard her whisper at Bridie's bed.

"Asleep already? Good for you, Darlin'. Good for you. Your friends are true, so don't be blue. Heh heh! Hear that, Bridie? A little rhyme I made! Just for you."

* * *

The dawn chorus was under way the next time I woke, so it must have been five or five-thirty. While I'd slept, a third bed had been wheeled into the room and in it lay a small, gently snoring figure. It was a snore and a shape I knew like the back of my hand – Asael! I got up and, though wobbly on my feet, edged him over just far enough for me to fit in beside him. He didn't wake but he did snuggle back against me as he always had and I held him, wondering what debt I owed to God for such a miracle. And thinking how glad Dana would be, that she didn't have to eat a dirt sandwich.

I closed my eyes to savour the moment and, when I opened them again, it was broadest daylight outside the window. Bridie was up and dressed and tip-toeing out with Amalthea so I slipped out to follow, leaving Asael asleep. To my surprise, I found that a crowd had gathered in Isak's room. Kevin, Bessie and Arturo, the mayor and Frieda, Doctor Dabney and Brian Johanson, owner and chief reporter of the Sugar Town Weekly, were all there. Dana Goodrich was there too, though how she hadn't dropped from exhaustion, I had no idea. I slipped quietly onto a chair in a corner, conscious both of not being invited to this meeting, whatever it was about, and of how little I had on under the hospital gown.

A hushed conversation was in progress and I learned from it that it was Kevin and Amalthea who had stumbled across Asael in Alf's little storage shed. They were part of a group that'd been scouring the river channel by torchlight, calling his name and getting no answer. The two of them had actually stopped to contemplate the ominous possibilities of the deep pool, black in the starlight, and Kevin had peeped into the shed on a mere impulse.

They'd found Asael sitting quietly against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, his pupils fixed. They got no reaction from him when they opened the door and barely any help from him when they lugged him up out of the channel to Dorrie's waiting ambulance. Doctor Dabney's guess was that Asael had been so long without medication for his occipital epilepsy that he might be lapsing in and out of a hallucinatory state. I kept my head down, feeling the sting of various glances at me. Nothing I could imagine would have made me feel more guilty than I already did. I was to blame. It was me who'd failed to supervise him.

Bridie had apparently learned to read minds – or at least my mind. "No one's to blame," she instructed the group. "He wanted to be independent! And now he knows what that means. The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul. Proverbs."

No sooner had she finished furnishing forgiveness for me than Brian Johanson harrumphed into life.

"Alright." He rubbed his palms with business-like readiness. "We've all got a busy day ahead of us, I'm sure; and a big night – a big week – behind us. So let's get down to business, shall we?" All eyes turned to him and I realised he had to be the instigator of this gathering.

"First, you should know that Bridie and I spent much of yesterday afternoon together, having a very informative chat about . . . Sugar Town's recent history – specifically about the role played in it by the McFarlane family." So that's where she'd been! No wonder we couldn't find her!

"Bridie," he continued, "not surprisingly, has concerns about public perceptions and awareness . . . what the rumour-mill is generating, if you will. And I have to say that she's convinced me utterly of the rightness of those concerns! Now, I reminded Bridie that a newspaper can't fail to inform the public debate. If it does, it's just blotting paper. And in return, she reminded me that 'fair comment' doesn't mean a reporter has to ignore personal, private sensitivities!"

Heads all around nodded at the wisdom of the exchange.

"So! Particularly in the light of all that's happened in this last week, culminating in the very tragic death of Alf Caletti last night – here's what I'm proposing. I'm proposing that between me (the public voice) and all of you (the 'insider-public's' eyes and ears) we establish, here, now, today, for all time . . . the public record! Amongst us, we'll get it straight. Then I'll get it published. And there'll be no more wild speculation. For once, we'll have a clear and proper ending. What do you think?"

From where I sat, I could see the glance and the swift wink that passed between Dana and Isak. It was there and gone, that wink, but it caused my mind to jump back to their night time comments. 'We'll see to it then, you and me.' 'People should be made to pay the piper.' It occurred to me that Brian's concept of a 'clear and proper ending' might be somewhat different from their concept.

When I tuned back into the conversation, Bridie had taken up from Brian's explanation. "Several books of father's sermons," she was saying, "were saved from the fire at our house, by Sergeant Morrow and by Amalthea. Brian's agreed to go through them and write a sort of retrospective on the Reverend. Just to remind the townspeople, once and for all, of what an upright and honourable man he was . . . is."

"Well now, yes I have!" Brian said, with a nod of deference to her. "And just to be clear – that's an example of what I was just saying. There were . . . there are . . . many sides to our beloved Reverend and that noble side is certainly a big one. At the same time, though, everyone in town knows that Jacob, like all the rest of us, had a weakness or two. Ha ha. He was a man, as the Bard said; take him for all in all! And I want Sugar Town to hear that story as well! Nonetheless . . . those sermons were full of the best intent and care for this community that we've seen in a long, long time. The Reverend deserves to be remembered for them; and Sugar Town – I think 'needs' might not be too strong a word – Sugar Town needs to be reminded that we were once and, I fully believe, still are worthy of them. That'll be a good start. And all being well," he looked meaningfully at Bridie who flushed and looked to the floor, "there might even be a surprise or two showing up in the pipeline, eh?"

"And Rita?" Kevin asked evenly. "She'll be part of it?"

"Kev' . . . she will! Would the Reverend have been who he was without her? Of course not! If the Reverend was Sugar Town's conscience, Rita was unfailingly our heart. Even when things got a little rough between . . . her and us! Er . . . !"

Brian seemed suddenly to realise that he was entering a very swampy place and he quickly back-pedalled. "I believe she gave back everything she could, Kevin. Under the circumstances. Which we don't need to dwell on. Above and beyond the call, let's just say: to the Reverend, to the town – and to her kids – all three of them."

The emphasis he placed on the number three was, I supposed, to make it perfectly clear that, until and unless Bridie decided differently, the public record concerning Asael's parentage would remain what it always had been.

"It hurts me to say it," Brian continued. "But I think we failed Rita worst of all. Seemed like none of us was able to be there for her in her time of need. We started out not wanting to see how things were and ended up not being able to see. She suffered for that. And that was wrong!"

This time it was Amalthea's sour look at Kevin that caught my eye. As if to say, 'Where were you? How many women have you not been there for?"

Isak must have caught the glance as well because he spoke up then, and he spoke directly to Kevin.

"Mate, I ain' in the business o' knowin' or carin' what goes on in other people's lives. But I know a bit about beatin' yerself up. I spent more years 'n' you got biscuits doin' just that. An' what I found out is, it gets ye bloody nothin'. Me, I never knew Rita real well, but . . . I do know you give that girl a kind o' happiness she didn' have much of. No one's fault an' I ain' pointin' fingers! But I know that for a fact – from Gracie. You got nothin' to answer for, son. Anyone who reckons otherwise is a damn fool."

He turned his gaze on Amalthea then. "An' you . . . you been good to me, girlie. Some folks'd say that proves you're a fool an' maybe they're right, I ain't about to comment. But I tell you what! I seen boozed up, tattooed, Friday-night piss-ants with nothin' but fightin' on their minds who got more fear in 'em than you got. An' on top o' that, you keep wantin' to get things right. Them two things . . . they're signs of quality, in my book. Signs o' quality. So maybe you're a fool and maybe not, that ain' for me to say. But donchu go lettin' yourself down, girl! No use walkin' all the roads God lays in front of ya if yer jus' gonna sit down with the sulks when you come to a crossroad. Understand?"

Silence filled the room. We were all of us, I calculated, astonished to hear so lengthy and so personal a comment from Isak. Brian was first to move. He lifted Isak's hand and gently shook it.

"If you want it, Isak," he stated with lofty admiration, "I've got a writing job for you! Obviously, 'Old age hath yet his honour and his toil! And some work of noble note may yet be done.'"

"Too friggin' right it will!" Isak answered.

They started, then, talking over the night's happenings and Brian made a suggestion that was to set the tone. So far as he could see, the public record should show that one of the town's citizens – poor Alf Caletti – had fallen victim to some cruel level of depression. Robbed of all reason, he was. Were there any objections?

No one moved a muscle and I knew they were all waiting for Bridie's and Isak's reactions. They were the ones, after all, who truly knew what the rest were only guessing at. Bridie, being Bridie, agreed immediately.

"Poor man! So awful for Vivian!"

For his part, Isak sniffed, threw off the sheet and swung his rickety old legs over the side of the bed.

"I gotta pee," he said. "Youse do what ye want."

And so they agreed. Even Roger Dabney, who'd remained uncharacteristically subdued to that point, was prepared to 'remember' harbouring concerns about poor Alf's mental state. No one doubted that Vivian would have similar memories, once she was reminded of them, or that Sergeant Morrow would accept the conclusion. I slipped out of the room and, on an impulse, went looking for Dale.

I didn't have to go far before the tinkle of excited laughter drew me in. He was sitting up in a bed, bare-chested except for a swathe of bandages around his ribcage, spinning out the night's tale for four rapt girls from his grade – sixteen year olds. When he saw me, he smiled broadly, waggled his eyes at my hospital gown and gestured for me to give him a twirl. The girls glanced at me, wrinkled their noses and looked quickly away. There was no point in going in. So I gave him my own gesture – my eyes to him – and mouthed the words, 'My hero!' Then I backed out the door, careful to show him nothing. I headed back to Asael, confident that, for the immediate future at any rate, everything was as near to right as it could be in Sugar Town.

* * *

And so, time went about doing what it does best – passing. The cane crush finished and Christmas and New Years came and went. The wet season also came and went, washing every kind of dust out of the air and flushing clean the riverbed. Wounds of all sorts seemed to heal, though I noticed there are subtle differences in the ways people heal. Lyle Hoggitt, for instance, announced before Christmas that he'd not be staying on as mayor, not even if he was asked. No one did ask and he resigned publicly, Christmas Eve, after Carols by Candlelight. Effective immediately. Brian Johanson, who'd been deputy mayor, quietly filled the position, declaring that he too would retire at the end of the summer, when the next elections were due. He had a book to write, he said, and no more time for the frivolous ways of politics.

Amalthea, made homeless by Alf's torching of the rental house, moved temporarily into Kevin's flat, which I took as a very good sign. But that lasted only a couple of days because, of course, the health inspectors couldn't approve of Garlic's presence. At the end of that week, to the dismay of us all, she and Garlic left Sugar Town, taking with them, it seemed, Kevin's entire sense of self-worth. He became glum and sullen and, though he and Hoggs still turned out bread and scones and sausage rolls, there seemed to be some sort of lift missing from them.

Then one day in March he came to the McFarlane household, smiling twitchily, with a letter. It was from her. She'd gotten back together with Brett, the boy whose desperate pleas Asael and I had read in her memory book. He was a very serious boy, Amalthea said. And she ('stuck at the crossroads') would appreciate it if her father would please come for maybe a week and give the boy the once over. There were free "Got-a-daughter' scones for days before he left and everyone agreed that they were at least the equal, if not the better, of the very best Grand Gourd scones.

Like Amalthea, we McFarlanes were also homeless in those early days. Johnathon Cranna came good on his offer of a new house but, for reasons I could never get out of her, Bridie refused it. Instead, we moved into Hoggitt's caravan which, in any case, was as sumptuous as any house. Lyle parked it at the back of our lot and, over a few weeks, the three of us picked over what little was salvageable from the burnt-out ruins. Then one weekend, a backhoe and truck arrived and took away the remains. After that, tradies and building materials began showing up at odd times and, with no input from us at all, a new little house rose out of the ground.

Asael and I started the new school year after Australia Day, but Dale didn't. He dropped out, opting for an apprenticeship at the sugar mill. He was one of the first weekend labourers on our building site and one of the last to leave when the house was done. While he was there, the older girls walked by often to see him, sweating and bare-chested, in our yard. They whistled and called his name and he waved to them and stopped to talk, leaning on the fence or on a shovel, making sure they couldn't miss the bulge of his muscles. It made me smile. He and I both knew why he was there.

Bessie and Arturo left before Christmas, to catch up to the Showies. They stopped by the caravan before going and Bessie read all our palms one last time. Because the emphasis changes, she said. We keep finding ourselves and each other, over and over, it seems. And each time we do, the person that we find is not quite the same person that we lost. Tomorrow depends on today and today on yesterday.

Still, it seemed to me that palms must keep many more secrets than they reveal. Asael, Bessie said, was going to dream great dreams and become a famous man. Bridie's palm, she studied silently for a long while before getting Arturo to join her. Heads together, they traced the lines with their fingers and argued over interpretations while Bridie smiled uncertainly. Finally, they agreed to say only that she was going on a journey; the wisdom of which was still being decided by the Fates; it could go either way. Bridie nodded at that. She knew how indecisive the Fates were inclined to be.

My palm also, Bessie and Arturo studied together. Long life, they laughed in the end and when I objected, saying that 'long life' was too little, what I got from Arturo was: "Some people born to be happy, Ruth. Some people gotta work at it; gotta understand it first. You one o' them." He shrugged and left me none the wiser or, for that matter, any happier.

Isak, when his burns healed, went back to being a roo-shooter / pest controller. It was what he did best, he said. But he did come around our caravan often. He and Asael spent many evenings out under the stars, gazing up and chatting quietly about things that neither would share with me. Isak also did an out-of-character thing in the New Year that had many of us scratching our heads. He took an easy part-time job at the airport, mowing the verges and cleaning up around the little hangars.

Doc' Dabney transferred down to Brisbane where he joined a private practice and we got, in his stead, a husband and wife team of South Africans who fitted into the community like hands in gloves. And Sergeant Morrow was assigned a new, young, ambitious off-sider who stood in obvious awe of the sergeant's unerring control over Sugar Town's affairs.

I rarely saw Johnathon Cranna and when I did, he always seemed to be too busy to talk – always on his way to something urgent. He was one of the two who nominated themselves as candidates for the mayor's job, the other being Dorrie Gunster. Dorrie won by acclamation in the end, of course, because Johnathon had his accident. Which was doubly a shame because, to everyone's amazement, he and Dana Goodrich had started to look like they could potentially become a couple! Everyone knew she'd been helping him with his rehabilitation but, shortly after he ordered his new Tiger Moth, rumours started to circulate that there might be more to it. The amazement stemmed from the facts that he had never been one to let women stay around and she had never shown more than a joking interest in any kind of man. They were a ripper source of gossip for a short while.

* * *

" _Whatsa matter, Dana, you scared? C'mon, climb in! I'm the miracle man, remember? The master! Harvest Festival? No power? Seat o' my pants? Force of will is all I need. C'mon!"_

" _Tell you what, Johnno! I reckon this little kite looks like a death trap. And I reckon you're not as young and untouchable as you once were. Maybe you should send this rig back – give up the flying gig. Whaddya think? Would you do that for little Dana?"_

He looks at her, agog, and snorts with derision. "Give it up? Girl, a thing you need to learn about me is, I never give anything up. Nothing for nobody! Not 'til I own it! That's my motto: Own it to the bone! You with me or not?"

She studies him, her eyes wide with a pleasure that he mistakes for admiration. "We'll talk about what you own, eh? Another time?"

And she walks away from the plane, pleased, knowing that nothing now could keep him on the ground. But she can't quite resist a final reminder. It should be in his mind, she thinks, on this day of all days.

" _Hey Johnno!" she calls, as though with an afterthought, "you know that spot in the mangroves where Rita McFarlane did herself in all those years ago?"_

" _What?"_

" _That spot! You know where it is?"_

" _What? What the hell put that in your mind?"_

" _Dunno, Joe! Just popped into me head, Fred! How 'bout you see if you can see it from up there? You know . . . like if you were a little satellite going by, looking down!"_

He looks at her for a long moment, wondering at the unfathomable turns of a woman's mind. But he also, as he always does when he thinks of hauling Rita from his car into the mangroves, gloats a little at how easy women are. He'd coaxed Rita with a simple promise of information and, naively, she'd come. It was Kevin Truck, he'd told her; that treacherous little baker who'd attacked her daughter. He wanted nothing in return for the information, he'd told her; except maybe a little gratitude? But Kevin, she'd told him, had been with her on that night! So there'd been no gratitude. Nothing but spitting anger and disgust and suspicion and accusations. And he couldn't have that.

It was nothing then to leave her there and let others arrive at their own conclusions. The only person in all Sugar Town who might have guessed what he'd done was Alf Caletti, who knew the true story of the rape and was only kept quiet by constant tweaking of his guilt. But now, with Alf finally erased from the picture, it's his secret alone.

Johnathon shakes his head. "Bloody women!" he says under his breath. He's thinking of Rita and Dana and Bridie and even, a little bit, of Ruthie. And a handful of other women in Sugar Town whose names don't need to be mentioned. Of them all, Rita is the only one he would have invited to linger.

He fires up the engine and taxis out onto the runway while Dana moves back into the shade of the hangar, where Isak Nucifora leans, rolling a cigarette.

" _Can't say I didn't warn him," she smiles and Isak chuckles under his breath._

Twenty minutes later, Johnathon has taken the little plane through a series of rolls and loops and dives and has, indeed, glanced down the snaking riverbed to the mangroves and picked out the spot where he left her. She, who both refused him and accused him. She who belittled his offer of himself. She who, on dying, left her weak and pathetic husband swinging by his tattered conscience, like a broken door in a high wind. Just waiting to be kicked away.

Strange that Dana should bring Rita up so pointedly! So out of the blue! As though she was hinting at a knowledge that she couldn't possibly have! It discomforts Johnathon and makes him uneasy. Only Alf! And even he had been dealt with – taunted into self-destruction.

With a growl of frustration, Johnathon yanks the stick, dragging the Moth's nose skyward. The propeller churns and churns at the air and the engine howls, but still he holds it there. Everything, he's thinking. I want everything you've got! There's nothing but blue in the windscreen. Blue, and a vision of Dana waving him goodbye from the shadow of the hangar. And that other, darker shadow beside her – Isak Nucifora. Isak, who was the last to speak with Alf. Surely he didn't manage to . . . ! He's brought back to the moment by a sound he's never heard before. It's the sound of a cable, snapping.

* * *

It's the sort of thing you wouldn't read about. Johnathon's brand new (to him) Tiger Moth disintegrated around him a kilometre in the air. We had descriptions of it from both Dana and Isak, both of whom, by strange coincidence, were at the hangar that day. Johnathon had gone up for only the second test run in the new plane. And in the midst of a steep, vertical climb, which he apparently held a little too long, something snapped. One thing led unbelievably to another and the plane scattered itself over half the shire. Johnathon himself came down, we later learned, in the same plot of Snowy Sutton's ground that had produced the Grand Gourd. Dana thought that was an example of irony.

"Imagine his surprise!" she said, in a tone that left me in no doubt that the rumours about her and Johnathon had been false. When I mentioned that, she explained, "That man thought he was invincible, Ruthie! You don't want to get close to that sort. Seriously! The Gods don't like that sort." She winked at me when she said it and, for an instant, it took me back to the wink she'd given Isak that morning in the hospital.

That evening when Isak came to the house, he looked more contented than I could remember ever seeing him. Johnathon's accident was the talk of the town, so I asked him: wasn't he sad that one of Sugar Town's first citizens had been killed in such a shocking and pointless way?

"Oh yeah!" He nodded expansively, shook his head, then nodded some more. "Real sad!"

Bridie and I sat in the yard with him and Asael for awhile, looking up at the stars. There was a sort of peace up there that it was easy to imagine was somehow leaking down onto Sugar Town. I looked around at the other three and thought, Ruthie! You could do a whole lot worse!

Extracted from 'The Sugar Town Weekly', October 15, 2010.

The Pride of Sugar Town

By Brian Johanson

This week, we bid 'Bon voyage' to Bridie McFarlane as she attempts to navigate a new and uncharted channel in her personal journey of faith and reconciliation. The jungles of New Guinea await her and we wish her the safest of paths. We also wish her great success in both locating her father, our own long-lost Reverend Jacob McFarlane, and in enticing him to return to his flock here in Sugar Town.

It's fitting that this week should also mark the launch of a much anticipated novelised history of recent events in our town. The events, seen primarily through the eyes of one of the central participants, are intended only as a reminder to us all of how little we can presume. Like the rivers on the coast of North Queensland, lives flow in deeply hidden channels. Sometimes there is black mud, ancient and fetid. Sometimes there is purifying crystalline sand. Sometimes the way is wide and deep and safe. Other times it's narrow and treacherous. Sometimes there is compassion, sometimes there are gross and inexplicable violences. No matter how richly imagined the sea, there are no guarantees about the nature of the journey that takes us there.

('A Week in Sugar Town'): available at local news outlets: $29.95.)

End

If you enjoyed this book, why not try another by the same author. "Children of Clun" (www.smashwords.com/books/view/290476) is a tale of familial challenge and political intrigue, set in the remote town of Clun, in Shropshire, in 1421, when England's feudal system was beginning to crumble. Though the novel is classified as a Young Adult work, the historical and cultural insights it offers are many.

About the Author

Rob Nicholls was born on the west coast of Canada in 1946, grew, married, took a degree in Education at the University of Victoria and taught briefly in the Prince George School District. In 1975, he and his wife travelled to Australia with the intention of undertaking a two year working holiday. Both gained employment in the Queensland Education Department, at Proserpine, Rob teaching high school English, History, Geography and Legal Studies, while Sandy took charge of the school's science lab's.

At the end of the two years, they simply stayed on. They bought an old Queenslander house, which they live in still, and in 1980 produced their only child, Jesse. Over the years, numerous of Rob's short stories were published in 'Australian Short Stories' and in 'Oz-Wide Tales'. Writing has always been a release and a passion, as has sculpting in wood and stone because things that a person makes themselves are good for that person's soul.

Extract

Following is the introductory chapter to a new novel, tentatively titled 'Rebuke'.

The woman turned and threaded her way back through the dripping trees, the way they had come. She passed the open shack wherein Polly and Ester Grogan lay dead for no reason. She went through the clearing where the body of Crusher O'Hanlon sprawled, side by side with that of a lifeless brown dog.

The dust had settled into a layer of fine, clinging mud which leapt in gobbets at the backs of her heels. She paid it no heed. Nor did she heed the sobs of Disco Dougall, propped as he was under a tree in those cold mountains. She passed him and the ambulance and the commandeered Land Rover and she kept walking.

In the stony creek bed, a trickle of water had begun to flow. She stepped incautiously in and there, at last, she stopped. She sat on a large stone and watched the water swirling around her ankles, dipping and leaping, tickling the red clay from its ancient repose. Wearing down and building up. She sat for a long time until the cars came, bearing all the dead and the wounded. She looked up, hopefully, into the eyes of the common men and wondered how and where it had all gone so wrong.

One - Lightning

**Did You Know?** _The Greeks used to fence off areas where lightning had struck, to ensure that ordinary men would not inadvertently walk where Gods had been._

It's the tropical coast of Queensland in late November. Outside, the playing fields are brown and the grass crackles like popcorn under the feet. Beyond the goal posts, in the middle distance, stools of sugar cane slouch like ragged soldiers and between the regiments, the headlands, white dust and pale river grass, dwindle away toward the line of gums that marks the dry river.

The heat has coiled tightly about the classroom like a great carpet snake dreaming of rats and bandicoots and small, squashable dogs. Inside, the overhead fan gives a sudden shudder, remembering, perhaps, a weeks-past cross-draught. Then it settles back to its monotonous whip-whip-whipping of the syrupy air. Sweat beads and creeps like fugitive dreams. One after another, heads tip slowly out of balance, each on its stalk of a neck, before snapping back. Asleep, awake and settled back into limbo – all so quick that even the consciousness within the heads barely registers the movement.

Then comes O'Toole.

Nothing moves at pace in this heat unless it is driven by some deep inner need. O'Toole's movement is not fast but it's purposeful and, for a big man, uncannily silent. It's a knack he's developed, for taking the unwary by surprise. The dreaming heads are today's unwary and, by the time they've detected his approach, he is already past the open windows of the veranda, seeming to materialise in the room. Their eyes, as he glares down on them, scatter like mice.

O'Toole screws up his nose and purses his narrow lips. His disgust is palpable. He turns his back on them, like a man who's been cheated at auction, and steps between them and the teacher. He blocks out all view of the little man they call Mister P' - so close, a thin ham sandwich would barely fit between the two men. They can't see, but they know the drill.

"Might've guessed," O'Toole growls, low in his throat. Only the front row of students will be able to confirm the words. "Might've guessed it'd be one of yours, Pettigrew."

Behind him the students, hearing the growl, shrink back into their seats just as, though he wants not to, Mister P' shrinks back onto his heels.

O'Toole, they say, is mad. Not in the sense of being angry, but in the sense of being violently, unpredictably, totally out of whack in the head. Give him six feet four inches and add three more for chill factor. Give him twenty stone of once athletic solidity and add four more for middle-age resentment. Give him indecently merry-looking rose cheeks surmounted by tiny eyes that burn with unshakably delusional convictions. Give him a metre length of oiled whiplash cane, nodding jauntily from his hand. There are people who know people who swear they've seen that cane tied into a tight sheet bend, only, on a shake of release, to leap like an attack dog back to its original shape.

In O'Toole's hand, it becomes just that, hinging slowly from left to right, seeming to sniff the acrid whiffage that rises from the students' joints. One after another, it points its needle nose at and dismisses until, like the clever dog it is, it finds its true prey.

"That boy!" O'Toole snarls into the silence, and the cane rises to point. All eyes swivel, in melting, simpering gratitude. All eyes save those in fourth seat back, second row. It's Arnold Boyd! 'Crabpot' to his family and, therefore also to the many who enjoy his every discomfort. Crabpot, whose lumpish, sullen, under-achiever of a chin drops in dismay, exposing his fat worm of a tongue.

"Me?"

"You."

"What?"

"Out here."

"Why?"

The cane bobs with impatience and O'Toole's head tips to one side, like a tombstone in quicksand. His nostrils flare in a manner that says, I will dismantle you where you sit if you dare ask me that again. Arnold is not bright, but Crabpot is no fool. His feet, clad in sandshoes that have long been studying the arts of disintegration, skooch their way back under him and his scrawny legs hoist him trembling into the air. The feet of his chair slide and scrape, croaking their long, useless warnings: C-a-a-a-a-r-r-eful! And he steps out into the aisle.

The students are alert now, at last, as they haven't been all day. Boys lick their lips and lean forward. Girls cover their mouths, cross their arms over their breasts and look down into their laps. Violence, they know, is imminent. The Sensitive Twins (Karla and Keira) – known collectively as Two – begin to sniffle and sob. They want it not to happen – or if it must, not where they have to see it. They're among the few who understand that shame and humiliation for one is demeaning for all. It's a lesson the teacher has tried to teach, with less success than O'Toole is about to have.

He is an ordinary, inconspicuous, much over-looked, apparently inconsequential sort of a boy, is Arnold, without visible support from home or peers. He shuffles hopelessly forward, hands clenched at his sides, until O'Toole's cane reaches out to touch his wishbone. Then he stops. Dangling from the cane's midway point is a set of keys.

"Take those keys in your hand, Boyd," O'Toole commands and Arnold, pausing for only a beat, slides them down into his palm.

"What's that on those keys, Boyd?"

"Dunno, Sir!"

"Dunno, Sir? Well, well, well! What about where those keys were found, eh? Do you know that, young Boyd?"

"Dunno, Sir!"

"No? Dunno that either?" O'Toole's voice begins to rise, bobbing like a cork on a rolling tide of incredulity. "Well I just don't understand that, Boyd! I don't understand it at all! How could the particularly odious substance that's **on** those keys, and now on your hand as well . . . how could that fail to clue you in, eh? Considering it's a substance that comes from the backsides of fractious little **Boyds** like you, eh? Direct from mind to backside in your case, eh? Eh? Because someone who behaves as you have, must have nothing better working between his ears! Am I right, Boyd? Eh?"

* * *

Yesterday, with the self-same set of lost keys in hand and a tiny sense of the expectedness of things, Arnold had approached two teachers in the playground; two who, deeply engaged in the under-rewarded, over-stressed business of their day, first ignored him, then turned on him.

"We're talking privately here, Arnold! What do you want?"

Difficult to pin down an answer. What he'd wanted when he arrived at that spot was simply to hand over a set of lost keys. What he wanted when they began hissing their impatience at him was for them not to. What he wanted at the end of the question was to be somewhere else.

"Nothin'! I didn't want nothin'! I just . . . !" And he'd dangled the keys lamely between them.

"'Anything,' Arnold. You didn't want **any** thing . . . **Sir**! And what? You've found some keys? For God's sake, Arnold, surely you can deal with a little thing like that on your own, can't you? What's the most appropriate thing you can think of to do with them, eh?"

Doubtless they were thinking along the lines of 'Lost and Found'. The janitor's room. But as Arnold turned away, struck one time too many by the clarity with which his stupidity marked him, that obvious answer did not put itself forward.

"How would I fuckin' know," he'd murmured to himself as he stomped off the oval, "what's most a-fuckin'-propriate? Fuckin' bloody shitful dork-head dumb-asses! When did Crabpot fuckin' Cock-head ever know anything?"

But he'd put his mind to it nonetheless, thinking of, and quickly dismissing several things: dropping them back where he'd found them was one. Throwing them in the bin was another and tossing them in the bushes was a third. Each of which might have been the most appropriate response for some people, certainly; just as taking them to the janitor's office might have seemed most appropriate to some people – the Sensitive Twins, for example. It was the phrase 'most appropriate' that was the stumbling block – not just a 'right' answer was needed, but one that suited the entire tenor of what had been foolishly attempted and roughly rebuffed. What would be 'most appropriate' from a boy who seemed to be so dense that he needed to be roused on at every turn?

And then, as if by divine guidance, he'd discovered himself standing before a toilet, looking down into the muddy bowl. Tossing the keys in had been an impulse; grunting out a crap on them had been an inspiration. Truly appropriate? Absolutely! And very satisfying, to boot! Or so it had seemed at the time.

How could he have known, dim little bulb that he was, that the choice, when discovered – because those toilets would barely swallow a cigarette butt, let alone a set of keys – the choice would be seen as an ominous sign that the coconut of someone's impassivity had become dangerously loose? That only a small gust might be sufficient to bring that nut crashing fatally down on some poor, unsuspecting noggin? A better noggin than Arnold's would be needed to understand how terribly deeply a glimpse of that crap-encrusted metal was capable of disturbing those in authority. To Arnold, it was just a turd. To O'Toole it was a signal.

* * *

". . . nothing better working between his ears! Am I right? Eh?"

"Dunno Sir! Prob'ly! I guess!" There's a sense of resignation in the boy's answer. A chicken cornered by a wolf.

"Dunno Sir? Prob'ly? You guess?"

The cane whistles, faster than a hummingbird's wing, wrapping itself all the way around Arnold's left calf and biting him on the back of his right. He dances a step and gasps, his hand convulsing around the fouled keys, and O'Toole lours over him.

"What's your guess about this, then, Boyd?" he hisses menacingly. "Will you be leaving us? Or will we be detecting some calcium in that stooped little spine?"

And that's the moment when Arnold and each of the watchers knows for certain what's to come. O'Toole's Test. There's no caning in Queensland schools – hasn't been for years. But O'Toole's Test gives boys the option of asking for it, in preference to being ejected from the school. 'Success through endeavour' is the school's motto, but O'Toole's is 'Accept and acknowledge or defy and be gone.'

Mustn't confuse O'Toole with men who are merely cruel or sadistic, mind. It's his true belief that 'The Times' require boys to be **shaped** into men by adults who appreciate the need for hardness and discipline and resilience. Girls too! Though you can't flog 'em. But what you can do with 'em is hold up the contrasting examples of the weak and the strong. Point out the pansies to them. Warn them off becoming namby-pamby, sook-generating mothers. Remind them that simpering, do-gooder, touchy-feely, let's-talk–it-through-and-see-where-it-leads-us Abel Tasman Pettigrew-type teachers are not representative of true, stern Australian values.

That's where O'Toole's Test comes in.

Arnold Boyd is not a boy who's up for tests: doesn't like them, doesn't do well at them, doesn't want to know about them. Still, the choice is his to make. He looks over his shoulder at his leeringly unsympathetic classmates. They'd enjoy the sight of him being flogged, though they won't like him any better for taking it. He thinks of his parents, sour and unhappy in their lives. They'd much prefer him to be flogged and kept uselessly at school than released into their confused version of care. He looks up at O'Toole who, of course, would also like him to choose the flogging because . . . flogging is what he does! And so, if for no better reason than to deny them all their desires, Arnold – who is merely 'Crabpot' in the final wash-up – thinks to refuse The Test – to leave school and never darken a classroom again.

His hands have actually begun to creep toward his pockets when he sees that Mister P' – Mister Abel Tasman Pettigrew – has his eyes locked firmly on him and seems to be nodding his head minutely. Which, quite unexpectedly, causes something like a memory to materialise in the narrow little Inbox of Crabpot's mind. It's a memory that relates to all Mister P's boring history business and it reads: 'Sometimes the choices are illusions, boys 'n' girls. Sometimes you just have to accept that.'

Arnold virtually slumps with the simplicity of it. Sometimes the choices aren't real. All those round-about stories and hints and arguments that this teacher has bludgeoned the class with; do they really come down to such a simple fact? That there's really no point to struggling? Because whatever it is that's out there waiting for you like a toad under a street light – good, bad or indifferent – is not going to let you dodge around it? It's going to leap up and grab you by the balls and pull you down?

To Arnold, it seems suddenly so clear. The Test has been his destiny all along. Inescapable. If it's not to be today, then it will certainly be another day, in another format, with possibly more horrible and frightening consequences. Must he do it? Yes he must! Can he do it? Yes he can! Dealing with The Test will be like dealing with his father – gritting his teeth through the worst drunken rant and fist swing that's on offer. Getting it over with. Do that and the threat dies, and you can walk on until you do the same. If he only knew; that resigned acceptance is exactly the sentiment that O'Toole wishes to foster in his boys.

And so, though Crabpot had thought to turn his back and walk away, it's Arnold who sighs and raises his hand, allowing O'Toole's cane to sniff across his palm, to flick the keys away to the floor, to nose out the nerves that quiver beneath.

* * *

The lessons Crabpot was remembering were one of Pettigrew's annual highlights. Mild and unassuming in himself, he loved the safely distant drama of historical defiance; loved the titillation he could ring from it.

'' _Bushranging_ ,' he would scribble on the board:' _The Whys and the Wherefores.'_

He liked to start with Ben Hall, whose story so wreaked of injustice. False accusations, Biddy gone, the cattle dead. Up the Weddin Heights, troopers galloping behind – know where they are better than they do themselves. Find Frank Gardiner. Show the bastards what anger is; what a man will do when he's down and kicked.

The teacher's focus invariably drifted as he re-told the tales, and that of his students drifted with him, all caught up in the middle-finger-upness of those times. In their mind's eyes, they would see themselves, hearts dangerously ablaze, surveying pale, stony ground for a path that horses could safely travel. They'd smell the sweet eucalyptus that drifts explosively through the bush and they'd hear the nervous clatter of iron shoes as the animals stumbled, paused and lurched ahead. And they'd feel the earth shedding its heat as the raging sun crept down from the zenith where it had hung for hours like a baleful eye.

In these lessons and these alone, Pettigrew wrote large, single, dislocated words on his board, rapid as gunfire. _Gold_ he wrote on this side, _Rum_ , he wrote on that side, and in between, _Troops! Ballarat! Social injustice!_ And late in the lesson, when he came to the nub of it all, he wrote, ' _Why?'_

Why were they there, on the outside? What desperation, what yearning, what disappointment could have torn them from the support and protection of their homes and communities?

Freedom, you say? _(Freedom!)_ Oh my word, freedom is enticing, isn't it? To be completely without restrictions on where you go, what you do, who you do it with . . . or to! No bosses, no responsibilities! No explanations needed! Fabulous!

And what? Independence? _(Independence!)_ As in, to have no one relying on you? And, vice versa, no one at all you can rely on? Completely and totally on your own resources? You'd find out what you were made of then, wouldn't you! And what else?

Did I hear someone say ' _Danger?_ Ah yes! We're great consumers of second-hand danger, aren't we? We revel in it at the movies! Spies and serial killers! Hunter and hunted! We love to share even a hint of the excruciating aliveness that every near-death moment must hold! To know that all oppose us – that on our immediate actions and decisions, our very lives depend! That a moment's inattention could leave us smashed and bleeding on the ground with a red-hot bullet melting the memories out of our brains!

And here's another one! What about the simple desire for . . . _Recognition!_ The need to have an act of astonishment attached to your name? To be someone whose mention causes others to lower their voices, or glance over their shoulders, or tremble deep down in their guts? What about that? Are we still on the right track with that? To have others know that your blood doesn't flow through anonymous channels? That your mind isn't simply one more, blind worm in the hugger-mugger earth? To have them whisper: Be careful: that person's powerful and unafraid!

* * *

Pettigrew loved the words he scrawled so recklessly on the board and he loved the goggle-eyed attention of his usually sleepy audience; but mostly he loved the images. Images of fearful, isolated moments that potentially are all the future a man has.

Ben Hall, crouching in the lantana, biting his horse's ear to keep the animal quiet while Pottinger and the black-trackers followed up his false trails; Ned Kelly clanking out of the scrub behind the Glenrowan Hotel, seeing the coppers' astonished eyes as their bullets punched harmlessly into his armour; Captain Moonlight sending the coaches off with the ladies flushed and tittering, knowing their hearts would race in their fearful dreams of him; even poor Sam Poo scrambling in his rage across the burning ridges of a foreign land! Where else would you find so finely distilled an essence of life?

And there in the grey, becalmed classroom, Pettigrew enticed his students to sneak close to the heart of the matter.

"We can see how the things we've listed might influence a person's choices. But what about this? What if, sometimes, there isn't a choice? _(No choice!)_ What if that wild, forsaken, in-your-face life is something that, given their druthers, they'd've given anything to avoid? But they couldn't! Because of where and with what to whom they were born, they couldn't!

"When Ned Kelly stood on the gibbet with the noose around his neck and said, 'Such is life,' what was he actually saying? Was he saying, 'Oops, I stuffed that up.'? Or was he saying, 'I wound up here and you wound up there and there was never a damn thing any of us could've done to change that.'?"

Here was the pill hidden in Pettigrew's spoonful of honey. The question always was, would his students – would any of them – swallow it. Or would they spit it back into his hand?

"Hey Mister P', my ol' man says we shouldn' even be studyin, these blokes! They're all jus' thieves 'n' crim's 'n' killers, he says, 'n' never any use to anyone. 'F I have to tell 'im they were all good guys at heart, he's gonna be pissed!"

"Cranky, Rimi. He's going to be cranky – not pissed! But nevertheless, he's got a point, hasn't he, your old man! I mean, Ned Kelly's skull wound up a paperweight on a policeman's desk! Never having held much, it seems, but rage and a few songs. What was he – twenty-five? Twenty-five and finished? But I'm not sure that has to mean he wasn't useful! In fact I'm not so sure we don't actually **need** to people like him – need to study people like him! In hopes that the rest of us are really made to think about how life got to be so much better for some than for others. In hopes that **some** people – maybe even some of you – will notice the inequities one day and say, 'Hey! This isn't right! We need to fix this!' And I'm sure there're other things we could learn about ways of living! Don't you think?"

"Yeah? Like what, Sir?"

"Well, you know, your guess is as good as mine on this! But if you were asking me for an opinion I'd have to say . . . staying real, you know? Grounded! Like, don't let ourselves be misled into expecting miracles. For example, when you hear that ridiculous little mantra thing about 'be true to yourself' and 'follow your dreams' and you can achieve anything! So you're a metre high and look like a coconut on legs! And you have a dream to play for the Wallabies! Is it ever going to happen? Even if you dream it really hard? Of course not! Because metre high coconuts on legs don't have the physical wherewithal to be Wallabies! See what I mean? It doesn't help anyone to be given a sense of entitlement. 'I want it so I should get it'."

"Are you preaching despair for all, Sir?" required Elizabeth sneeringly; Elizabeth, whose dreams and capacities both focussed on the high righteousness and petty dominations of political office. "Or just for the otherwise abled?"

"No, Elizabeth! God, no!" he cried as Two's piteously injured gazes bumped wetly against him. "Just the opposite, in fact! And I'm not saying don't dream! We should all dream our hearts out! But confusing the presence of dreams with the presence of probability is like . . . like refusing to water your garden because you've dreamed the rain gods're going to do it for you. See? You have to know your veggies are going to die!"

"I don't get it, Mister P'. You tellin' us we're no-hopers? Like we're all coconuts're veggies or sump'm? "

"No, no, no, and no again, Rimi! Not at all! Not a coconut amongst you! What I'm trying to say is that realities impose limitations! Realities like . . . _Poverty,_ _Ignorance, Isolation, Prejudice, Poor personal choices, Poor genes, Poor luck!_ He wrote them in a circle around his other words.

"What if the outsiders who have been, or still are amongst us – what if they've been – and I'm not saying it's so, but what if they've been **made** to be outsiders? By circumstances! What if they dreamed, expected, were disappointed, embittered and then empowered by their bitterness?"

"Zat how come you're a teacher, Mister P'? Too poor an' ignorant an' full o' bad luck to make a better choice?"

"Well, I can see why you might think that, Marcus! But no. It was either this or window cleaning on the Space Station. And I chose you!"

"Are you disappointed and embittered with us then, Sir?" sniffed half of Two. "'Cause you seem to be a little on the negative side today!" And the other half clarified, "At least on the negative side of the historical side!"

"Oh no no, I'm not bitter! Not at all! And thank you, Two, for pulling me up on that. Because it's certainly not what I intended."

"So what you're saying, Sir," summed up wise Elisabeth, "is that sometimes things just don't work out? And we should be au fait with that?"

"Well . . . yes, I suppose! To some extent. What do you think, Elisabeth? How would that stack up – au fait-wise?"

Shaking her head in pity. "I dread to think what the Prime Minister's re-election prospects would be. Sorry, we spent millions but it didn't work out. Such is life."

"Well, they wouldn't be good, obviously, when you put it that way. But look! If we're onto politicians, consider this! If it's so hard for us to accept that the biggest smartest monkeys in the tree might sometimes find themselves on a rotten branch, what chance for respect would the poor little monkey have that was born on that rotten branch? And is terrible at climbing – unlike the Prime Minister, whose climbing skills are superb?"

"Tisk, Sir! Are the successful now to be villainised?"

And Trevor had come back into it with his dogged game of patient baiting.

"I don't reckon you're really givin' Mister P' a fair go, Elisabeth! What he's sayin' is, ye buggerise around, ye'll get the crap kicked out've ya an' ye'll die young! 'Why' is because yer a coconut or a veggie or a crippled monkey. Keep yer head pulled in, though, an ye'll stay on the branch an' live to get old! I'n't that it, Mister P'?"

"Well . . . close, Trevor. Might need a little more polishing next lesson but . . . I think we'll let it all percolate until then. Unless anyone has any last, quick comments before the bell goes?"

"Well," Trevor'd volunteered, the corners of his mouth trembling. "I know at least me 'n' Elisabeth'll be wonderin' this, Mister P'. See where you wrote Ballarat there? Well can you tell us why they called it that! I mean, did someone like, ball a rat there once an' they just wanted to, you know like, remember it?"

Pettigrew'd pursed his lips, squinted and ruminated. He'd thought of Thunderbolt, crashing down on the cocky, the smart-arsed and the self-satisfied, wiping the sniggers off their faces with show of his 44 calibre Smith and Wesson Schofield.

"Perhaps you could pop on-line and check that out for us, Trev'. The rest of you – I'd like you to watch a News broadcast tonight. Pick a story. Try to imagine where it started. Where was its beginning? What simple misunderstandings, what small mistakes, what seemingly insignificant decisions or actions might've set started it off? Are there really good guys and bad guys in the story? Or just the lucky and the unlucky?"

At which point the bell had jangled, books had slammed, chair legs had scraped and muscles had stretched. In a surge of flatulence and wry commentary, they'd packed up and left.

"Hey Two! Youse stopped snifflin' yet?"

"Leave 'em alone, mate! You wanna turn 'em into gangsters're sumpin?"

"Man I'm hungry! Give us a lolly, Elisabeth!"

"Beggars are always hungry, Hagman. Buy your own."

"Oooh, you cow! Teacher's pet! I'll tell Sir you got lollies!"

"See if I care! How did you get to be so repulsive?"

"From sitting next to ugly sheilas like you, most prob'ly."

* * *

Pettigrew had smiled his indulgence on them. In the classroom, he knew, they were like ships on a Sargasso Sea of knowledge – largely bored with it; becalmed and cut off from the real world. Their ages and their hormones had them temporarily out of reach of the winds of reason, let alone the winds of history. At home, show them the front end of a tractor or the back end of a cow and they'd show you competence like you wouldn't believe! Put them on a motorcycle or a pony or in the vicinity of bare flesh and they'd escape in a twinkling. But 'Life' hadn't yet jiggled out sufficient space in them for much slinging about of real thoughts.

Arnold Boyd had been the last out the door that day. He'd paused and given Pettigrew a querulous look, neither of which he'd ever done before. The dullest of the dull, was Arnold / Crabpot Boyd. He'd looked back into the room and then outwards, at the backs of his classmates. And then, true to his entire school history, he'd left, without question or comment. And now here he stands, apparently, unaccountably, holding out his hand for O'Toole's Test.

* * *

The cane whistles and whacks, splattering the brown bit of gore that's been returned to Arnold via stick and keys. And for Arnold, the cane seems not to stop there but to slice down through the meat of his hand, pulverising nerves, muscles and blood vessels into a shrieking agony of bruised jelly. Three strokes on each hand.

By the end of the ordeal, his eyes swim like salmon in rivulets of tears and a wail of pain leaps against the back of his throat, like a frog in a bottle. At a point, he fears he might vomit over O'Toole's shoes. But the hands stay out until the count ends and he can slide them under his arms, remembering too late the globules of shit which are now lodged like reprimands in the armpits of his shirt.

When release finally comes, he stumbles to his seat and sits like a statue, knowing nothing but the need to remain upright in O'Toole's presence. Further inanities of accusation and threat flow from O'Toole, over both Arnold and the rest of the class, but they're wasted on Crabpot – lost in the tidal surge of his blood. And when at last O'Toole is gone, he slowly lowers his head onto his arms, allowing his teeth to unlock and his aching tube of a throat to deliver itself of an absolutely, totally silent and undetectable scream.

Pain and humiliation. Humiliation and pain, and a sort of thrombosis of disbelief – enough to clog anyone's sense of a fair and just progress through life. The class finishes in irreconcilable discomfort for all. The teacher, trapped by authoritarian complicity, can say nothing. The other students, trapped by the magnetism that the infliction of pain holds, can only relive the terror in their own minds, again and again, with themselves as victims. Even O'Toole, for whom it has merely been a job, is trapped – by his unshakable resolve to build hard men, as well as by his level of compassion, which is as thin and useless as an oil slick on mud.

Only one knows the truth of what has transpired. Fourth seat back, second row. In the thin, dark bowel of his desk you can find the detritus of at least a week's gatherings: empty lolly wrappers, burnt matches, a half-eaten ginger snap, a crumpled bit of paper with a sketch of a bum and the words, 'this is yore face, Crabpot the faggot'.

Scratched into the inner metallic surface or painted prominently with white liquid paper, you could find, if you cared to look, the psychological oozings that have squeezed out of the various occupants of that seat: 'I wuz here', 'O'Toole sux', 'I hate school', 'Molly is 4 me'. A mild and anonymous catharsis, a communion of simple souls who ride the spinning world without care or conscience. These are not the things that Crabpot Boyd knows.

With tears in his eyes, a vile odour in his armpits and humiliation draped over him like a flag, these are the things he knows; the things that O'Toole and Pettigrew have taught him. One: sometimes you stuff up, without even trying. Two: you can't get away with it, because the laws are strict and because you have to own up to who and what you are. Three: it would be much nicer to be the one who frightens, rather than the one who's frightened. And four: somebody, some day, will have to have the legs to stand up and say, 'This is wrong. We gotta fix this.'

In some vague way, he's come to a belief, as well. The belief is that Mister Pettigrew might well be the one who has those legs.

In the droning heat of a North Queensland summer, when the northerlies sweat the land into a near coma of exhaustion, people really expect little in the way of action. But events, as Pettigrew has intimated, have their ways of occurring and accumulating in spite of expectations, and frustration springs from the heat like mushrooms from manure.

