by Anna Romer
I pulled up the chair, and when I turned back to her she was holding something in her hand. A rumpled wad of pages with wrinkled edges and lines of tiny writing.
‘Read them. Please, Abby. It’s all there. Afterwards, you can show the police and explain what happened. You’ll have enough. But now just read what my sister wrote. Perhaps it will help you understand.’
Taking the pages from her fingers, I unfolded them and smoothed them on my lap.
Friday, 22nd May 1953
My head hurts. I want to sleep because it’s after midnight, but I can’t. Lilly’s not here. After she bandaged my head, she ran out and I haven’t seen her since.
Everything is a jumble. I keep crying, which isn’t helping this horrid headache. From time to time I have to stop writing and wipe off the blood leaking down my cheek. Lilly says I need stitches. She ran and got a needle and thread, offered to do it herself. But I shoved her away.
I can’t bear her to touch me. Not now. Not after what she did. What we both did.
‘Ennis?’
He doesn’t answer. He’s lying on our bed with his eyes closed. Sleeping, I tell myself over and over, hoping that if I say it enough it will be true.
I try not to look at the blood. Trailing from the bandage around his neck and soaking the pillow and sheets beneath him. I pulled the covers up, but it soaked into them as well.
There’s a noise outside. Louder than the sizzling candle on the floor next to the bed. Louder than the snuffling of my tears. It’s a sort of hacking noise. Whomp, it goes. Whomp. Then it hits me. Lilly is digging a hole.
I slapped my hands over my ears and started crying. That was a lifetime ago. Now, my tears have dried. I’ve become numb to the horrible sound. Resigned. If only I could turn back the clock. To the moment when Ennis gave me the knife. When he asked me to do the unthinkable. But I can’t wind back, and so it plays out in my mind over and over, haunting me.
Lilly was sitting on the floor when I went in, knitting by candlelight. I always nagged her she’d ruin her eyes that way, but last night I said nothing. I sat down beside her, pulled the knitting from her fingers, and held her hands.
‘Listen, Lilly. The truck is packed. Ennis has gone to fetch a drum of water from the tank so we can take it with us. He won’t be away long, ten minutes at most. If you slip out now he won’t even—’
‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Not without you.’
I touched the knife in my pocket and glanced over my shoulder at the door. ‘If you don’t go now, you won’t leave at all. Please, Lilly. This is serious. After all the trouble you’ve caused, you have to listen. Ennis has asked me to—’
The door burst open and we twisted around.
Ennis loomed in the doorway, looking from me to Lilly and back again, frowning. He must have been listening and overheard my plan because he strode across the room and shoved me out of the way. I sprawled on the floor, stunned. He grabbed Lilly by the arm and began to drag her towards the bed, but she raised her fist and punched him right in the face.
‘You’ll hang for what you’ve done to us,’ she cried. ‘They’ll tie a rope around your neck and string you up, and I’ll be in the front row, cheering.’
Ennis’s ears turned scarlet. He rubbed his cheek, then studied the smear of blood on his fingers.
‘I’ll tell them what you’ve done,’ Lilly went on. ‘You’ll swing, that’s a fact.’
‘Damn you, Lilly. You’ve ruined everything,’ he said.
‘You’re the one who’s damned, Ennis. You’re the one they’ll string up, not me.’
She’d gone too far. In a flash he went from the boy I’d grown to love into something other – the damaged one we hadn’t seen in a while, the one who used to rant and rave and bellow about the horrors in the war.
He rushed at her and gripped her by the throat and squeezed, roaring into her face. His words made no sense, they were just a string of nonsense spilling from his mouth, and they came in such a torrent that my blood went cold.
I sprang across the room to pull him away, grabbing his arm but his elbow swung back and clipped me across the chest. Stumbling backwards, I fell and my head slammed on the corner of our trunk. I swam in blackness, my ears ringing. It seemed to go on forever. Then I could hear a dull thumping.
Blood pounding in my ears, I thought at first. But it was Lilly, still in Ennis’s grip. She was banging her fist on the wall, as though somehow the action might help her to breathe. Her face was swollen and mottled, her eyes bulging.
He was killing her.
Scrambling to my feet, I ran over and dug my nails into his knuckles, trying to pry apart his fingers. Lilly’s lips were turning blue, her eyes rolling. I shrieked at Ennis, hammering him with my fists. His body was so tense that his arms were like steel, and he seemed not to notice my blows.
My legs turned rubbery. My arms flopped by my sides. Sticky heat dripped into my eyes, and when I wiped them, my hand came away red with blood.
Lilly was gagging and I ran to her, but Ennis shoved me away again. This time the motion blurred my vision and the room began constricting around me. Black sparks swarmed across my eyes and I swayed on my feet. I thrust my hands into my pockets.
Something pricked my palm. A sharp sting, and it cleared my head. I drew out the knife Ennis had given me.
Hours ago he had closed his fingers around mine and shown me how easy it was to force the blade into flesh. But it wasn’t easy. The blade must have caught on something, a bone. It seemed to jam. Still, Ennis didn’t flinch. And so I put my weight behind the knife and shoved myself hard against him.
He grunted, then lurched away from Lilly and slapped his hand over his neck.
He turned to look at me, his eyes round, the whites engulfing his pupils. ‘Frankie,’ he said in a strange voice, and fell onto his knees. ‘What’ve you done?’
Lilly dropped to the floor beside him, gagging. She began to cough, hacking the air out of her lungs, then gave a long, shuddering moan as she tried to draw it back in. Ennis collapsed face down. Blood pooled around him, soaking into his white shirt. I knelt beside him.
‘Lilly, help me get him into bed. He’s hurt.’
But Lilly just looked at me, her eyes wide and streaming, her face shiny with tears. She didn’t seem to understand. Her chest heaved as she gulped the air back into her lungs.
I tried to drag Ennis to the bed. He was too heavy. When I looked around and cried out again for Lilly to help me, she was gone.
Monday, 25th May 1953
For two days Ennis lingered. I left his side only to use the privy or rinse his dressings. Otherwise I just sat there, not even writing in my diary. Just staring into the shadows, trying to wish myself away to anywhere but here.
Then late in the afternoon, as the shadows in the corners began to blacken, I became aware of the stillness.
‘Ennis?’
I shook him. When he didn’t move I pressed my ear against his chest, listening. Then I felt around his neck for a pulse, thinking he must be asleep. So I laid down next to him on the bed, draped my arm across his chest and rested my face on his.
The next morning, Lilly returned. She had slept the night downstairs on fresh sheets in a bed she’d made up herself. She stepped into the room and wrinkled her nose.
‘What’s that smell?’
Lilly’s words came out in a whispery rasp. Her throat was black and blue, and one of her eyes looked bigger than the other, a purple half-moon blooming beneath it. Her lips were bitten and she had a vacant look about her, almost as if she were sleepwalking. I barely recognised her as my sister. She had changed so much, withdrawn into herself somehow, become a shell. Escaped to a place where even I could not reach her.
‘Go away,’ I whispered.
She turned away, casting a dead-eyed glance over her shoulder at me before disappearing through the doorway into the bright room.
Tuesday, 26th May 1953
We buried him in the garden in the hole that
Lilly had dug. I helped her carry him from the house. He was heavy, and it took us forever.
Getting him down the stairs was the worst, and then along the hallway, through the kitchen and outside onto the verandah. I almost cried when I saw the steps leading to the garden. Lilly suggested we roll him down to save ourselves the effort. Her callousness made the blood rush to my head. My fist shot out of its own accord and struck her ear. She yelped and started to cry.
‘Bury him yourself, then!’ she cried in her hoarse whisper. ‘I’ll just run away, shall I? Leave you here with a corpse. Have fun rotting in hell together!’
We continued in silence after that. She got her way at the hole, and simply rolled him in. He hit the bottom with a horrible wet sound, and I thought I heard something crack. I sank to my knees in the dirt at the edge.
I wanted to wail, but no sound would come out. I wanted to throw myself into the hole with Ennis, but my body was frozen and wouldn’t move.
Lilly left me alone. Sometime later I woke to a thumping, rasping sound. It was Lilly’s shovel. I must’ve been asleep for hours, because it was afternoon and the grave was filled in.
For the rest of the day I sat staring at the shadows. I asked Lilly to fashion a memorial with the date and his name, but she refused.
When night came, it got very cold. We went back inside and Lilly lit the Warmray. She wound a fresh bandage around my head, and for the first time in days, peered into my eyes. She chafed her fingers over my cheeks, and then tried to squeeze the warmth back into my hands, the way Mum used to do when we got sick. But they stayed like ice.
Wednesday, 27th May 1953
This morning I wrote for a while by candlelight. Writing everything down makes me tired, but my head is jumbled and I can’t think straight unless I arrange my thoughts on paper. And I need to think straight. Everything’s so unclear. Even though the sun poured through the window in the bright room, I seemed to be looking through a dim haze. Lilly packed a bag with our supplies. We could have taken Ennis’s truck, and for a while I argued with her. Neither of us knew how to drive, though it couldn’t be that hard to learn, could it?
But Lilly said the truck would link us to Ennis. To this place. Someone might come looking for him, might find the grave and work out what we’d done.
‘We killed him, Frankie. We’ll hang like Jean.’
You killed him, I wanted to say. I might’ve plunged in the knife, but only to save you. You were the one who provoked him. Who riled him up and sent him over the brink.
But I didn’t say that. Didn’t say anything.
Talking made my head hurt.
When the afternoon came, I nagged to stay another night in the house. But Lilly came up close and peered into my face, her brows knotted in that worried way she has.
‘You need a doctor,’ she said. ‘That gash on your head needs stitching. And you’re very pale. Not yourself. To be honest, Frankie, I’m scared.’
Saturday, 30th May 1953
At least, I think it must be Saturday. Sunday at the latest. It’s early in the morning. I’m huddled on the cold ground in a patch of watery sunlight. My feet are ice blocks, but at least today I can move my fingers.
For three days we walked along the road. With every step I grew more tired, began dragging my legs. The food we brought is gone. We have a little water left, but only enough to fight over. After that runs out, what then?
Just before dusk, we came to a crossroads. At least, that’s what it looked like. A stretch of dirt cut across the road we were on, disappearing into the trees to our left. We hadn’t seen a car all day. We hadn’t seen anyone, and without knowing how far away from town we were, we had no way of knowing how much further we had to walk. Or even which direction.
As it was getting dark, rain started belting down. Thunder roared overhead and Lilly screamed. A spear of lightning struck a nearby tree, which came crashing down on the road just ahead of us and seemed to explode. This was no place to be in a storm, so we ran along the stretch of dirt into the trees. We took shelter near a big rock, and in the morning the storm had passed.
We tried to find our way back to the main road, walking this way and that through the trees, but we couldn’t even find the narrow track. All around were boulders pushing out of the ground and prickle bushes that forced us to skirt around them.
When we reached a deep gorge, I knew we were lost. Lilly wanted to keep going, but the wind was so bitter, and my fingers and feet were numb. My legs refused to go any further and I crumpled onto the ground. Lilly flopped beside me. She was trying not to cry, but tears made lines down her dusty face.
‘It’s his fault,’ she blubbered. ‘We’re going to die here, and it’s all his fault.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I mumbled. ‘No one’s going to die.’
Lilly cupped her hands around her mouth and rasped up at the sky, ‘I hope you’re happy, you rotten bastard!’
I fell back, wishing she’d shut up. The droning of her voice was giving me a headache. Shouting and carrying on just made it worse. For the last twelve months I’ve put up with her whingeing and whining. Quite honestly, I’m fed up. Sometimes I even wonder if it might have been better to have plunged the knife into her stupid neck, instead of poor Ennis’s.
Monday, 1st June 1953
I can barely write, I’m so cold. My teeth chatter and my fingers are as stiff as the twigs that poked into my ribs last night and kept me awake.
Lilly made a campfire, but it fizzled out. We huddled together for warmth, but still froze half to death. After five years you’d think we would have acclimatised to the dry air up here, but no such luck.
I want to go back to Ravensong. Our bed was cosy, and there was a load of firewood for the Warmray. Veggies in the garden and eggs from the hens. At least we’d be warm and fed. But Lilly’s got it into her head that if we go back, even for a little while, the authorities will find us and hang us for murder.
‘We lived there for five years,’ I reminded her, not bothering to hide my irritation. ‘No one found us. What makes you think things are any different now?’
She didn’t answer. Just tipped back her head and glowered silently up at the sky.
• • •
The diary ended. I folded up the pages and looked across at Lil. She was watching me, her eyes tiny and her face chalk white.
‘The next morning,’ she whispered, ‘I couldn’t wake her. I don’t know if it was her head injury or the bitter cold that took her in the end. I sat with her all day. I don’t remember doing anything else, just sitting and talking to her. You see, there was so much I needed to say. Once upon a time, we’d been best friends. We’d shared all our secrets and dreams. But somewhere along the way we turned against each other.’
‘You buried her there, didn’t you?’
She nodded, shifting on the bed.
I sat forward. ‘That was when Roy Horton found you. He and his dad took you back to town. Do you remember?’
Lil glanced at me, lines creasing her brow. ‘There was a boy. He ran away and then a man came. The man found some heavy rocks and put them on Frankie’s grave. He said that way, the animals would leave her alone.’
‘Oh, Lil.’
‘You know, sometimes I can still hear her. When the moon is high and the stars shine bright, I can hear her crying.’
‘Can you hear her now?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does she say?’
‘She says that the hardest person to forgive is always yourself. But Abby,’ she said softly, ‘I don’t think it’s possible to forgive what . . . what I’ve done.’
I groped for words to comfort her, to say, as she once said to me, Anything is possible if you want it badly enough. But the words jammed in my throat. Shayla flashed into my mind, the desolation on her face as she’d gazed back at the black hole from which she’d just emerged. I wondered if what Lil had said about forgiveness might be right.
‘One girl got away,’ Lil murmured. �
�At least I’m thankful for that.’
At first I thought she meant Shayla. But then I remembered the night I’d found Lil wandering in the reserve. The cold eyes and pale, slack face, the stranger staring back at me through Lil’s eyes. I remember you . . . all grown up.
I thought of the cast-off padlock I’d found earlier at the cabin, and it dislodged another image: I was twelve again, locked in the darkness, afraid; the door shrieked open and a painful brightness blinded me, and then somehow I had pushed outside into the sunlight, my eyes streaming as I stumbled away into the trees. The memory was vague and haunting, but at last I understood what it meant.
‘It was me, Lil. You let me go. The way you let Shayla go this afternoon.’
She searched my face for a long time, tears spilling down her cheeks, her naked gaze blue in the lamplight. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘So very sorry, my dear.’
Confronted by such raw grief, the sort that has no words, I found myself sliding back into the darkness, not just of my own confinement, but of Shayla and Alice’s and even that of the two runaway girls whose names I would never know. I thought of the hickory bush I had hidden behind, the day Alice had gone alone to the reserve, and I thought of Shayla’s mother, so downtrodden by life that she had almost let her daughter slip away. Where did the blame begin, and where did it end? Was there a source of evil, a source of blame? Or was there just a long chain of random events, leading a person inevitably towards their fate?
I wiped my face and looked at the woman I had come to love. ‘I know you are, Lil. I’m sorry too.’
She gathered Joe against her. ‘I’m tired. Terribly tired. I think we’re ready to go.’ She crept her hand across the quilt. ‘Abby?’
‘What, Lil?’
‘Will you sit with us? Until . . .’
A lump wedged in my throat. I didn’t answer. I just took her hand in mine and held it tight.
She settled back against the pillow.
In the stillness, I wondered how different her life might have been had Frankie ignored the young soldier that day in the hospital grounds. If the sisters had kept walking. Or even if they had lingered, listened for a while to his stories, but then been satisfied to go on their way. I wondered how things might have been if their father hadn’t died at war; if their mother hadn’t sought comfort in a bottle instead of with her daughters. Or even if she’d tried harder to love them instead of turning away.