Under the Midnight Sky

by Anna Romer

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  I shook my head. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m okay.’ He dropped his hands and stepped away, coughing. ‘So much for my fancy new smoke alarm.’

  ‘How did it start?’

  Tom went back into the room and I followed him into the doorway. His beautiful Indian mat was ruined, the curtains gone, part of the windowsill burned away. A classic old Art Deco lamp lay on the floor, its leadlight shade broken and its cord a charred lump.

  ‘There’s the culprit.’ Tom nodded at the lamp. ‘I had the place rewired before I moved in, but the lamp came with the house. The old cord was a bit frayed but I thought it’d be all right.’

  He crossed the room, slowly, the cast making him awkward without his crutches. He regarded the lamp, then went over and flung open another window. He returned to where I stood in the doorway, and switched on the overhead fan.

  I slumped against the wall, watching the blades revolve as I tried to breathe away the image of him fast asleep on the bed while the fire raged nearby. ‘Why didn’t the lamp short the power?’

  ‘It was plugged into a self-sacrificing power board. Pity it didn’t stop the old cable catching alight, too.’ He moved towards me, and hooked a lock of hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. ‘You’re trembling. Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’ I pulled away from him and ducked through the doorway. ‘Though I’d be glad of some fresh air.’

  • • •

  Tom watched her in the moonlight. Or rather, he watched the cocoon of quilts she had disappeared under several hours before. They had set up camp under the magnolia tree, away from the smoky air of the house, piling blankets and quilts from one of the spare rooms onto the grass. Far above their makeshift nest, the slender crescent moon cast almost no light, while the Milky Way blazed like diamond dust on black velvet.

  In the silvery light he could make out a dark coil of Abby’s hair on the whiteness of her pillow, but the rest of her was submerged beneath a mound of quilts. He pictured her hatching in there, like a colourful butterfly. Shedding the woman she’d been with him these past few weeks, and emerging in the morning her old self again, eager to fly back to her cottage in Gundara. Now that she had her interview, and his tick of approval, what reason did she have to stay?

  • • •

  The outdoorsy scent of damp grass permeated my dream, and I stirred, trying to wake, but the call of the past was too strong. It was afternoon, and Alice was standing with me at the school gates, our faces and arms dappled with tree shadows.

  ‘We’ll find it,’ Alice insisted, stamping her heels on the footpath. ‘We’ll ride our bikes out there tomorrow, just you and me. We’ll retrace your steps, and find the cave ourselves. Then everyone’ll believe you.’

  I shuffled my feet, staring down at my shoes. ‘I don’t know, Alice. Dad says we can’t go there any more.’

  ‘Come on, Abby.’ She nudged my arm. ‘If we find it, you’ll stop being sad, won’t you?’

  I stared at the ground. ‘I’m scared of going there again. What if he’s there?’

  Alice wrapped her arms around me and rested her forehead against mine. ‘You won’t be alone this time. I’ll be with you, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. Cross my heart!’ She grabbed my hand and found my index finger, held hers up beside it. The pinpricks we’d made a few days ago had almost faded, tiny red dots on our fingertips. ‘Blood sisters, remember?’

  We touched our fingertips and said goodbye, promising to meet first thing the following morning behind the school bus shelter. But when morning arrived, I found myself dawdling. Sweating and trembling as I ate my cereal, heart racing as I walked my bike towards the schoolyard. When I got there, I hid behind a hickory bush. Alice was pacing in front of the shelter, hands on hips, kicking her shoes on the gutter as she searched up and down the road, her ponytail lashing like a thin black tail.

  All of a sudden, my body was slick and damp, my throat parched. Tremors began in my chest and by the time they reached my feet I was shivering so violently I could hardly stand. Turning my bike around, I rode home. Alice would understand. She’d wait another twenty minutes, at most. Then she’d give up on me and go back to the little house on Green Street where she lived with her mother.

  ‘Abby—’

  Alice didn’t come to school on Monday. At lunchtime, I rode my bike over with some comic books, thinking she was sick. No one answered the door. I went again the following day, but it wasn’t until Friday that I saw her face again. It was in a colour photograph that the police brought around when they came to question me—

  ‘Abby!’

  I startled awake.

  Tom shook me again, his hand warm on my shoulder. ‘Abby, you were dreaming.’ He was slumped beside me, his face rumpled and his brows drawn.

  I sat up, pushing hair off my damp face, rubbing my eyes. I breathed in the cold air, hoping it would chase away the remnants of my dream, but instead it filled my lungs with the dankness of leaves and earth, and the image of poor Alice in her shallow grave. Fresh tears leaked out, and I dashed them away.

  Tom drew me against him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and holding me close. ‘Do you want to tell me?’

  I leaned into him, breathing in the scent of his warm skin. ‘It won’t help.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Nothing helps.’

  ‘Try me. I’m a pretty good listener.’

  I wriggled out of his arms and looked at him. I hadn’t spoken about Alice, not since the investigation into her death. Not to Dad, not even to Duncan. But right then I wanted to talk about her to Tom.

  ‘I was dreaming about my friend. My best friend, when I was twelve. She started at my school mid-year, when she and her mum moved up from Sydney. She was bright and hilarious, and everyone wanted to be her bestie. I don’t know why she picked me. I wasn’t popular. I wore a hand-me-down uniform and big ugly glasses, and I’d recently been through . . . a rough patch. But the minute I met Alice, all that changed. All the old down-at-heel stuff no longer mattered. If we wanted to be duchesses dripping in jewels, then that’s where we’d go in our minds, and it would seem utterly real.’ I held up my index finger, the way Alice had done in my dream, and showed Tom my fingertip. ‘We pricked our fingers with needles one afternoon in sewing class, and became blood sisters. We crossed our hearts and declared we’d always be friends.’

  ‘You stayed in touch, right?’

  ‘Alice died five months later.’ My face crumpled, I couldn’t help it. The dream was so fresh, and the events of the past few weeks – finding Shayla, and coming here to Ravensong and learning about the Wigmore sisters, and then hearing Lil’s story – had reopened my old wounds. Silly how events from twenty years ago could still topple me. My hands came up to cover my eyes, but Tom caught my fingers midway.

  He drew my knuckles against his lips. ‘How did she die?’

  A ragged noise erupted from me. I tried to tug my hands away, but Tom held firm.

  ‘It’s okay, Abby. I’m listening.’

  ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

  A knot jammed in my throat as the images tore through my mind. Alice alone, riding her bike out to the reserve; my funny, kind Alice trapped in the dark, smashing her small knuckles on a door that would not yield; Alice crying in the blackness as she grew weaker, as hunger consumed her thin body; Alice lying silently in the forest under a pile of clammy earth and leaves.

  ‘Abby, what happened to her?’

  ‘Deepwater.’

  Tom frowned, and then his forehead rumpled. He sighed and lowered his head. Linking his fingers in mine, he gave my hand a gentle squeeze. ‘The local girl they found in the forest, she was your friend?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘God, I’m sorry. It must have been tough on you. That’s why you’ve been so worried about Shayla. But how can you blame yourself for Alice?’

  ‘Sh
e was at the reserve alone that day. We were supposed to ride our bikes out together, but I changed my mind. So she went without me.’

  ‘Poor kid. But you can’t blame yourself.’

  There was more to the story, but I’d already said enough. My bones had liquefied, my eyelids had grown heavy. It was always this way after one of my dreams. When I sighed, my whole body shuddered.

  Tom released my hand and pulled me against his chest. His pyjama shirt smelled of smoke. In my sleepy state, I wilted against him. Snug where our bodies made contact. If only I had the courage to reach up and pull his face close to mine, to taste the salty warmth of his skin against my lips. To bury my face in his hair, breathe in the smoky fragrance of him. If only I could break free of all my barricades and let the past crumble away. But I didn’t know how.

  We sat like that for a long time. Finally, Tom eased himself down onto the blanket and drew me beside him. I yawned, and settled into his embrace, melting against the warm solidness of his chest.

  Sometime later, I woke. Tom was asleep, his arms holding me loosely, his body heat warming me. He looked so peaceful in the starlight, sleepy and rumpled, his tawny eyelashes dark against the pallor of his skin, his lips slightly parted. Reaching up, I brushed a lock of hair away from his brow, the silky strands tickling my fingers. Good thing he was a deep sleeper. I inched closer until I could feel the soft beat of his breath on my skin, his body warm against mine. A flush of awareness burned through me.

  What was one kiss? Tomorrow, I’d be gone. Out of his life, probably forever. Now that the interview was done, there was no reason for me to stay. Besides, Tom would be glad to return to his solitude, all the better to focus on his book. What was one kiss, especially if I was the only one to know about it? It would only be fleeting. The brush of butterfly wings on skin, there for an instant and then gone.

  Tilting my face upwards, I pressed my lips lightly against his mouth. And melted. He was so sweet and warm. I wanted to linger, savour him a moment longer. So I leaned nearer, my blood beginning to smoulder as I tasted him more deeply. That’s enough, warned a tiny voice, what if he wakes up? But I only shifted closer. Tom stirred and rolled fractionally towards me. I held very still, my silent breaths matching his, our lips still touching. Then he growled, a soft rumble in the back of his throat, and shivered into wakefulness. My heart began to punch against my ribs. Tom drew back and blinked down at me, and I stopped breathing. But then his hand slid up to cradle the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair, and with another murmur he crushed his mouth against mine.

  As the cold starlight touched my bare skin, I forgot about my dream. I forgot the girls in the hidden room, and I forgot about leaving Ravensong. Forgot everything. There was just Tom and me under the sky, and this smouldering thing between us. I almost forgot to breathe as I roamed my mouth along his whiskery cheek and then back to his lips, and pressed myself so close that his heartbeat raced mine through the thin cotton of his pyjama shirt.

  ‘This really has to go,’ I whispered, fumbling with the buttons.

  He laughed, a delicious husky rumble, and struggled out of the shirt, then flung it into the grass.

  23

  ‘Someone please,’ Shayla whispered into the dead darkness. ‘Please find me.’

  As if they’d hear that. Her voice was raw from screaming. Her hands throbbed. Her fingernails were pulpy and bleeding after hours of trying to prise open the steel door. She knew it was steel by how cold it was, and by the way her fingers slid across it. It might as well have been solid rock for all the good her hammering did.

  Her legs sagged beneath her like noodles. She hit the floor and slumped forward, her stringy hair falling over her face. She opened her mouth and tried to squeeze out a few more tears, but it was a no-go. It was as if she’d dried up inside like one of the old sponges her mother tossed into the yard.

  Her stomach rumbled. It must be time for the food. Often it seemed it didn’t come for ages, although she had no way of measuring time. Maybe some days she was just extra-starved and her hunger made time drag.

  Shutting her eyes, she curled on her side and thought of pizza. Normally she went for thin crust, but from now on she would go for thick. The kind with cheese in it, so when you bit into it the bread squelched and filled your mouth with salty mozzarella. She’d go for the meatlover’s too, something to sink her teeth into. Her fingers and hands might be shot to bits when she – if she – ever got out, but at least she still had her teeth . . .

  She sat up. Tucking her throbbing hands in her armpits to warm them, she stared wide-eyed into the blackness. Before being in here, she remembered lashing out at someone. Hearing them grunt as if in pain or shock. And then she’d run, lurching and stumbling, not knowing or caring where she was heading, just that it was away. And that for a while, hours maybe, she’d been free.

  She raised her hand to her lips and rested her teeth on her knuckles. Bit down a little to test her new weapon. And when she felt the nip of sharpness on her skin she heard her mum’s voice.

  You listen to me now, Shay. If I’ve learned one thing from all the crap I’ve taken in my life, it’s this. You don’t just lie down and let the pricks stomp all over you. You fight back, okay? Scratch and kick and bite, ram them with your head. Any way you can, you fight back.

  ‘Yeah, Mum.’

  The raspy croak must have come from someone else. It sounded nothing like her voice, all whispery and dried up. But it didn’t matter. She got the message loud and clear.

  Fight back, okay?

  24

  Joe startled awake. He felt Lil roll away from him and climb from the bed. He checked the clock. It was just after three. He waited for the familiar scuff of Lil’s slippers, then frowned when he heard the clump of her gumboots instead.

  Odd. He watched her move towards the bedroom door. He hoped she wasn’t having one of her turns.

  ‘All right, old girl?’

  ‘Fine, Joe. Go back to sleep.’

  He settled back, but his eyes stayed wide. He often woke in the early hours, trapped in the grey purgatory between midnight and dawn. These wee hours were long, and yet the days – the bright beautiful days he spent with Lil on the verandah, enjoying lunch or a cup of tea, perhaps a slice of her fruitcake, watching the clouds move across the sky, or enjoying the shimmer of sunlight in the trees – those days were alarmingly short. Lovely days, whipping by too quickly. And then the gloomy predawn again, dragging, dragging, as though nothing else existed and never would exist again.

  Tonight it seemed worse.

  He was restless, and his bones ached. His body felt heavy. Like knives were poking around inside his chest, making his eyes water. Since Lil disappeared into the reserve the other night, a shadow had claimed him. The angina was bad. He found himself using the spray more frequently than usual. Worse though, were his fears for Lil: if something happened to him, how would she cope alone?

  A soft bang came from the other end of the house, and he flinched. Was that the back door?

  ‘Go to sleep, you old fool. She’ll be back in a tick.’

  His nerves had never been good after the war. Loud noises bothered him. Chaos tormented him. He craved order and quietness. Not just craved it, relied upon it to keep him sane. The others had felt the same, his surviving mates. Needing order and harmony. Over the years they’d gone, dying one by one. He was the last, now. The keeper of the flame. The only one who remembered.

  Without warning, his bladder began to ache. Wonderful. Now he’d have to piss, too.

  Sitting up, he swung his feet over the side of the bed and into his slippers. He was heading to the door when the crunch of footsteps outside drew him to the window. Was that someone in the yard? It was just the barest shadow; was it even real? Figments came and went sometimes. The ghosts of his friends, the mates he’d lost in the war. They drifted in occasionally to say g’day, but he never minded. He had learned in the trenches that the membrane separating life and death was thinner t
han most people realised. Thinner, and far more fragile.

  He bent closer to the windowpane, focusing on the shadow.

  That was no figment. That was Lil. What was she doing out there in the dark?

  • • •

  Lil walked through the garden, the parcel clutched to her chest. She had wrapped the diary – and its restored page – inside an old cotton tote, and bound it with string. She carried it against her as she trod over the uneven ground. She had kept it long enough. Guarded it all these long years, a lifetime, really. Kept its secrets hidden from the world, from the people she loved. From Joe. But now the time had come to let it go.

  When the house disappeared behind her, she switched on the torch and made her way along the wallaby track. Ten minutes later she reached a tall tree with a thick white trunk and branches that clawed the night sky. She used the gardening trowel she’d brought from the house, to scrape a hole between the gnarled roots and kept scraping until the hole was almost two feet deep. Then she reached for the parcel.

  Her knees throbbed. Her back started twinging. Poor excuses, but she stopped and settled onto her bottom, sitting on the dirt, trying to catch her breath. Letting go had never been her strong point. Especially when it came to Frankie. She examined the string-tied parcel. Maybe she could read it one more time. Not the whole diary, but a page. Or two.

  Just to say goodbye.

  Sunday, 12th August 1951

  Since it was my birthday, Ennis took me for a walk in the garden. He showed me the caravan his grandfather had built, and the fruit trees his grandmother had planted around it, and then he took me to see the big iron birdcage. It was full of rust and some ivy had started encroaching the bars, and when I asked about the birds that had once lived inside it – the green and yellow finches and the family of blue wrens – he said they’d all flown away before the war.

  Still, it was heavenly to be outdoors.