Under the Midnight Sky

by Anna Romer

  As the silence settled, I whispered goodbye to my friend. The woman who had taken me under her wing and shown me the acceptance I’d always craved, yet whose actions – known to her or not – had caused such pain. Not only to me, but to the families and loved ones who, even all these years later, were still grieving for the girls they’d lost.

  The hardest person to forgive is always yourself.

  All became quiet. I sat with my head bowed, reluctant to move. Somewhere, a clock ticked. My tears turned cold on my cheeks. In my mind I could still hear her singing, just as I’d heard it earlier from the hall. Her voice was thin and rusty and frail, hauntingly beautiful as it echoed through the night. Leaving behind a ghostly trail in the stillness.

  36

  Tom saw her before she saw him. A tall woman with a mess of brown hair, some strands turned gold by the back verandah spotlight. The elbow of her moss-coloured cardigan was torn and leaves clung to the grubby wool.

  ‘Tom?’ She hammered on his back door, then she walked along to the kitchen window and rapped on that, too. Then she called through Poe’s gap, ‘Tom, are you in there?’

  ‘I’m here,’ he said quietly from the shadows.

  She whirled around. Grime and tear trails streaked her cheeks and she’d bitten her lips raw. Her eyes were red-rimmed, huge and shining with tears as she found him in the darkness.

  He was across the verandah in two strides, pulling her against him. There were no words in his mind, only an urgency to wrap her up, hold her safe. Find a way to soothe whatever had upset her, the way he’d done that day under the tree. But this wasn’t like before. She wasn’t simply rattled. Something had happened and by the look of her, she’d borne the brunt of it. He gently touched her face.

  ‘Honey, what is it?’

  ‘I found Shayla. Thanks to you, in a way. That document you sent put me on the right trail, and I found her. She’s alive and safe with her mum, thank God, but she—’ Her face crumpled. ‘And Lil was . . . she’s— Oh, Tom.’

  Taking her hand, Tom led her over to the redwood bench where – exactly a week ago – she had confessed her fears for a young girl’s life. But tonight as he sat beside her in silence, she unravelled a different story. How she had found Frankie’s diary, and then confronted Lil about what she’d read in it. How she had followed Lil and finally found the logging hut. And then afterwards, when Lil had understood the truth of what she’d done . . .

  As Abby finished speaking, she deflated like a rag doll. Tom drew her against him, smoothing her hair as she nestled close. After what Abby had been through tonight, she would need time to heal. Time to let the scar tissue grow over her heart. To process what had happened and make her peace with it. And as much as he wanted to hold her close and comfort her, to safeguard her with everything he was – he also understood that there were some things a person just had to face alone.

  37

  Six weeks had passed since the afternoon I’d found Shayla. Autumn had shed the last of its leaves and many of the trees flanking Gundara’s streets stood bare. Outside the courthouse, I shivered in the wintry air. My fingers were locked around Frankie’s diary, which had come back into my possession after its contents were scanned into the police evidence database.

  A closed court hearing deliberated over the evidence, as well as testimonies from those who’d known Lil, and of course my account of her time at Ravensong. In the end they decided that she had been suffering from prolonged PTSD, a result of her kidnapping as a child and the consequent traumatic death of her sister.

  On the strength of this evidence, Jasper Horton was released after twenty years’ imprisonment. Although the compensation he received would never restore the time he’d lost, Jasper, at the age of fifty-one, was now a free man.

  I left the shadows and walked out into the bright sunlight, but something made me look back. Two figures emerged from the rear of the building and hurried towards a battered Hilux parked on the kerb. The sheepdog tied in the tray began to jump and yelp at the sight of them.

  Roy Horton stopped to light a cigarette, brushing ash off his grey suit. Then he looked up at the man beside him and patted him on the shoulder. Jasper seemed to perk up at the contact, and happened to look over to where I stood. He tipped up the bill of his baseball cap to see better, then leaned into Roy and must have spoken. Roy puffed a cloud of smoke and looked across. Jasper lifted his hand in a wave, friendly and somehow uncertain. Beside him, Roy gave a little nod.

  My fingers were clenched so tightly around the diary that for a moment I couldn’t unclench them. Then Lil’s voice trembled in my memory. The hardest person to forgive is always yourself. With a lump in my throat I released my death grip on the diary and waved back, then watched the two men climb into the ute and drive away.

  I drove to the florist and bought the biggest, most glorious bunch of flowers they had – roses and gerberas and orchids that had probably been grown in far north Queensland, laced with leafy sprigs of white wattle. It was definitely too much of a good thing, but seeing how far overdue the gesture was, I knew Alice’s mother wouldn’t mind. I bought a cheesecake at the bakery for good measure and then drove over to Green Street, where Helen Noonan still lived alone.

  Later, when it was dark, after Helen and I had wept and talked and then finally laughed the afternoon away, I promised to visit her again soon, and headed home.

  My nerves were frayed; all I wanted to do was strip off and get in the shower and scour away the day. But there was one last thing I had to do while I still had the courage.

  Out in the yard, I made a pile of newspaper and kindling in my old brick barbecue and set it alight, waiting until the fire blazed up and became hot. Then I took out Frankie’s diary.

  Crouching before the flames, I held the tattered little red book tightly in my hands. Already in my mind I could see it burning. I could see the pages of familiar handwriting curling and turning black, and then collapsing into ash and puffing out of existence. But for a moment I hesitated.

  Tom’s words drifted back. What makes a good person do bad things . . . and a bad person go beyond the scope of normal human experience and commit the unthinkable?

  There was no way to answer that, but Frankie had come close. Bright little Lilly had been unstable as a child. Frankie had seen it and worried for the girl, especially as those dark days of their confinement drew to a close. And despite what Lil said about being happy at Ravensong, it had been a dangerous sort of happiness and in the end the three of them had paid a heart-breaking price for it.

  A price that some of us were still paying.

  Remember the good times, my brother was always saying, and stop torturing yourself over the bad. Maybe there would come a day when I’d remember the swans and the riverweed and the smell of strawberry tarts; and the sight of a tall woman with a smile like sunshine, twirling in the doorway wearing a hand-dyed gown she had refashioned herself. Maybe there’d come a day when I would remember with a light and forgiving heart.

  But that day was still a long way off.

  ‘Goodbye, Lil,’ I whispered, and then threw the diary into the flames.

  • • •

  When my doorbell rang one evening a few weeks later, I scuffed out in slippers and pyjamas to answer it, assuming it was probably my brother. It wasn’t.

  Tom stood on the threshold, his arms laden with the biggest bunch of magnolia flowers I’d ever seen. The giant pink blooms were woven through with eucalypt leaves and they filled my hallway with the scent of the bush.

  He hesitated, as if gauging my reaction to his unannounced arrival. Then he placed the flowers into my arms. ‘I heard about your new job. I’m really happy for you, Abby.’

  Lowering my face to the bouquet, I hid my smile in the flowers. ‘Yeah, thanks Tom.’

  He shuffled, dipping his head to catch my eye. ‘Editor, hey? About time, if you ask me. Kendra resign, did she?’

  ‘Not exactly. The network thought the paper was becoming too sensational.
Not reflecting the visions and values of the community, they said. So they sacked her and offered the position to me.’

  ‘Sweet.’

  ‘Yeah, it really was.’

  His smile grew wider and he laughed softly, and then we fell into an awkward sort of silence.

  I hadn’t seen him since Lil and Joe’s funeral, where he’d held my hand through the service and then kissed me and whispered goodbye. I was grateful for the space. I had done a lot of thinking. A lot of grieving. Not only for Lil and Joe, but for my father, and my mother, too. And for Alice Noonan. I wasn’t exactly at peace, but I now felt confident that it would come. The road ahead would be a rocky one, but for the first time in my life I felt equipped to travel it.

  Breathing in the sweet citrusy scent of the flowers, I thought of my moments with Tom under the tree in his garden, and felt the warmth rush to my face. ‘Magnolias. Wow.’

  He swayed towards me. That look came into his eyes, the bleary eyed look he always got before he kissed me. I bit my lip, almost leaned forward and beat him to it, but caught myself in time.

  ‘Where are your crutches?’

  ‘Gone. I’m a free man.’

  ‘You wanna come in for a minute? I’m making tea.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

  I went to find a vase. Tom shut the door and followed me into the lounge room. I arranged the flowers on the dining table, and set the kettle to boil. Then I stood, hand on hip, waiting for him to speak.

  He checked his watch and gazed about, then checked his watch again. Did he have somewhere to be? My heart deflated. Had I misread his reason for being here? He was tying up loose ends, wasn’t he? Bringing me flowers to sweeten what was coming – ‘the talk’ about how it’d been nice knowing me, but now that things were all weird and awkward between us, it might be best if we parted ways. Permanently.

  He wandered over to the television and switched it on, cranking up the volume. Then he settled on the sofa and patted the cushion next to him. ‘You might want to take a seat.’

  But I continued to stand, staring at the television. Tom’s face had appeared on the screen. The camera panned back to show him sitting opposite an attractive, middle-aged female presenter.

  I tore my attention from the TV and looked at Tom, my eyes wide. ‘What the?’

  Again he patted the seat beside him. ‘Just sit, will you?’

  I flopped onto the cushions. ‘Tom, what the devil are you up to?’

  ‘Shh.’ He laughed, putting his finger to his lips. ‘You’ll miss the good bit.’

  For the next twenty minutes, I sat in gobsmacked silence as Tom laid himself bare on national television. He talked about his early struggles as a young writer before he got published, and how it felt to have his books adapted for the screen. He opened up about his inability to cope with being thrust so suddenly into the spotlight, and how he’d turned to drink for a while. He spoke regretfully about his doomed marriage, his failings as a husband, and how hurt he’d been when his journalist wife had retaliated by publicly humiliating him via the media. And then – while my face burned in a red-hot flush of delight – the interviewer asked, somewhat flirtatiously, if Tom was seeing anyone.

  ‘There is someone,’ he told her. ‘Someone I’m crazy about, who I might even love. Who I do love,’ he amended. ‘But me being me, I said some stupid things that I regretted immediately. But it was too late to take them back.’

  The interviewer asked if, given a second chance, he’d do anything differently.

  Tom nodded. ‘I’d trust her. Absolutely and utterly, with all my heart, you know?’

  When the show finished, Tom switched off the TV.

  I stared at him in amazement. ‘You just bared your soul on national television.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘The writer most notorious for his refusal to be interviewed?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘On the same show that approached you years ago and you replied by smashing the cameraman’s very expensive equipment?’

  Tom grimaced. ‘Not my proudest moment.’

  ‘So what changed? I mean, the Hermit of Ravensong exposes all on national TV?’

  ‘Hermit, well, yeah. Fair enough.’

  ‘But why, Tom?’

  ‘For you,’ he said. ‘I knew you felt responsible for Kendra’s article. And when you stayed away, I finally realised that was why. So I decided to beat the media at their own game and bare all. That way . . . well, it’s all out there now and people can make of it what they will. I just wanted you know that I don’t blame you for what Kendra did.’

  ‘You should,’ I said quietly. ‘I left all my research notes on the disk I gave her.’

  ‘Well that explains how she knew so much.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, that article was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  I stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I was so scared of the past repeating, of getting hurt again, that I shut myself away from life. You were right, I was like a bear with a sore head, protecting my safe, lonely little world. Then, when you came along . . . I fell hard and fast. I took a chance and, for a while, everything was coming up roses.’

  ‘And then the article. With my byline.’

  ‘It was just a bunch of words, Abby. The first time it happened, all those years ago, I crumbled. This time?’ He leaned closer and sighed. ‘I missed you so damn much I barely noticed anything else. But it wasn’t just the article, was it?’ He collected my fingers, his touch feather-light on my skin. ‘I know you’re still hurting after all that’s happened. Lil and Joe were your friends. Especially Lil. You loved her, and then you had to discover what she’d done. To those other girls. To Alice. And all those years ago, to you. You’re still reconciling all that, I understand. So I wanted to see if I could cheer you up. Maybe distract you a little. By . . .’ He wafted his hand in the air, apparently lost for words.

  ‘By making an utter arse of yourself on TV.’

  ‘Yeah. Did it work?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  He cleared his throat and let go of my hand. ‘I guess what I really want to say is this: if you ever need a friend, or a sparring partner, or even just someone to annoy, then my door’s always open.’

  He kissed me on the cheek, then got up and went to the doorway. He seemed about to say something else, but changed his mind. Without another word, he slipped into the hall and let himself out.

  I sat very still, replaying Tom’s TV appearance, and the open way he had talked about his life and failings. The things he’d said – his endless quest for growth; not only as a writer, he had come to see, but as a man. And just now, the trusting way he’d bared his soul to me. He hadn’t changed, I realised, not really. He was still my cranky, funny, wonderful Tom. But he had pulled down the barricades surrounding his heart and let himself come alive. Didn’t I owe it to him – and to myself – to be brave enough to do the same? Lil’s words tumbled through my mind: It’s not love that makes a person weak, but fear. Hadn’t I been fearful too long? Wasn’t it time to get my life back and start living again? Really living, not just rushing through my days, trying to outrun my guilt and fear. But truly, wholeheartedly living.

  I looked across the room at Tom’s magnolias. I could smell them from here and their faint lemony perfume made me crave something – something that, until that moment, I hadn’t known, at least consciously, I was missing.

  Scrambling to my feet, I hurried along the hall to my bedroom. I pulled on my jeans and boots, slung my bag over my shoulder and then dashed back into the lounge to grab the bunch of flowers. Locking the front door behind me, I ran into the yard.

  Tom was reversing out of the driveway.

  Squinting against the headlights, I waved my arm and the ute rolled to a stop on the kerb.

  I hauled open the passenger-side door and climbed in.

  Tom stared. ‘Abby, what—’

  He looked a little worried as I buckled up. Settling my flowers in the cavity
behind my seat, I leaned over and slid my arm around his neck, then kissed him long and sweetly on the mouth.

  I waved at the road. ‘What are you waiting for? Let’s go.’

  ‘Um. Where?’

  I caught his hand and linked my fingers in his. Cuddling up against his arm, I smiled into his gorgeous, mystified face.

  ‘We’re going home, Tom. Home to Ravensong.’

  He blinked at me for the longest time, and then beamed. Revving the engine, he gave a husky laugh.

  ‘That’s possibly the best idea I’ve ever heard.’

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost on my list of people to thank, is my agent, Selwa Anthony. Selwa took me on about sixteen years ago, and in the decade before I finally achieved my dream of being published, she was my rock. Reading the many novels I sent her, advising me how to improve them, sending them off to publishers and then urging me on after my many rejections. Finally, she was able to rejoice with me when Thornwood House hit the bookshelves. When I stayed with her this year at Easter to brainstorm the ending of Under the Midnight Sky, she was so kind, cooking me wonderful meals, showing me her photo album, and making me feel like a member of her family. And her creative input steered the story in a far more interesting direction than I’d originally planned! Selwa is so much more than an agent, and I love her dearly for all that she’s done for me.

  Thank you to the other members of my Easter brainstorming team: Linda Anthony, for untangling my story knots and deepening my understanding of the characters. Drew Keys, whose belief in this story blew me away; I’m just so grateful for his enthusiasm and insights, which enhanced the story greatly. I’m also indebted to Josephine Anthony-Phillips, who read an earlier draft and provided some very useful insights. Last but not least, Brian Dennis for kindly chauffeuring me around, and for always throwing his two cents worth into the proceedings.