“I’m dying to have a go at the Ouija board, aren’t you?” I asked.
Tom nodded. “What if we get a different ghost than Shortie?”
I hadn’t thought of that. “I dunno. If we just ask for Shortie, it should be okay.”
Talking about the séance reminded me that I needed to get a pen and some paper so we could write things down. I left Tom in the tent and ran inside to get them. Brian was still nagging Dad to let him sleep in the tent, but luckily Dad wasn’t budging.
On the way out of my bedroom I spotted Hendrix looking at me from where he sat on top of my roughly made bed. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to take him before now. I picked him up and tucked him under my arm. I walked past Brian on the way out and resisted the urge to rub his face in the fact that he wasn’t allowed to sleep out with us. Mum was just as likely to overrule Dad if I did that.
***
We sat in the screened part of the tent playing Mastermind. I’d already won two games and now Raelene was versing Trevor. They were still officially going together since Trevor asked her on New Year’s Eve. Raelene told me that he even gave her a goodnight kiss after the fireworks.
“Tea’s ready!” Dad called to us from the corner of the yard. We piled out of the tent and lined up near the barbeque. We were having sausages and onions on hotdog rolls for tea. Mum said there were too many kids to cook anything else, plus it was too hot to cook in the house. Dad put a sausage and some onion on each of our rolls and we helped ourself to the tomato sauce. “Better not take them into the tent,” he warned, “if I know you kids, you’ll make too much mess.”
We sat in a circle on the grass eating our bread rolls. Everyone was really excited about the campout. Well, everyone except Brian, that is. He was still sulking because he had to sleep inside. We all brought lots of yummy food to eat and couldn’t wait for it to get dark.
Dad served Kate and Tracy and gave a roll to Brian to take inside for Mum. Once all the food was gone, he scraped down the barbeque and stacked up the cooking utensils ready to take inside. “What are you kids going to do tonight?” he asked.
Everyone looked at me expectantly.
“Lots of things,” I offered, “we’ve got a whole heap of games and we’re going to listen to the Top 40 on the radio and play spotlight when it gets dark.”
“I don’t want you wandering around in the bush after dark.”
“We won’t,” I assured him, “we’ll stay in the yard.”
Satisfied we had nothing too radical planned, Dad left us alone and took his gear inside. “Do you think he knows,” asked Ed.
“Why, what makes you think that?”
“Because he asked us what we were doing tonight.”
I shrugged. “Nah, he was just being polite, that’s all.”
Raelene giggled. “I can’t wait. I’ve never spoken to a ghost before.”
“Shush, don’t talk too loud. I wouldn’t be surprised if fart face is spying on us.”
Yelling loudly and tapping his hand against his mouth, Trevor got up and ran around the tent pretending to be an Indian. After finishing a lap, he stopped his war cry and sat back down. “Coast is clear,” he reported, “not a fart face within a mile of this fort.”
I still thought it was a bad idea to talk about the séance, so I thought about something else to talk about instead. “Let’s go to the cubby and get the candles.”
Tom and Trevor followed me to the cubby. I moved the branches away from the front door and went inside. I reached under the seat for the candles, but couldn’t find them. “Don’t tell me that little shit’s been in here. He’s gonna die when I catch him.”
Tom lifted the seat up so we could look all the way under. Luckily for Brian, the candles were still there. They’d rolled to the back of the seat and had wedged against the wall of the cubby. I picked them up and dusted the dirt off. The orange one with the red love heart and the blue one with the white circles were the same ones we used on New Year’s Eve. Apart from a few scratches and dents, they were still good and had ages left to burn. The other two were much taller and thinner and were going to be harder to keep upright without proper candleholders.
The matches were also where I’d left them. I picked them up and tore off a match. Instead of crackling to life when I struck it, the tip crumbled off leaving me with a soggy stick of cardboard.
“Bloody hell,” said Trevor, “they’re wet.”
“Now what?” Tom asked.
“I’ll have to get some more from inside.” I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to do that. Mum and Dad usually watched television after tea, so the lounge room would be occupied.
***
Dad turned the gas lantern off and unplugged his record player so no one would trip over the cord in the dark. “Goodnight kids. Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
It was almost ten thirty and Mum and Dad were going to bed. We were still sitting in the sunroom pigging out on lollies and chips when Dad turned the light out. “Don’t stay up too late,” he said, stepping out of the tent and zipping it up behind him. “I’ll leave the back veranda light on so you can see what you’re doing if you need to use the toilet.”
Even though the gaslight was out, the room was not that dark. Between the moonlight shining through on one side and the back veranda light on the other, there was just enough light to make out who everyone was. We didn’t mind. It meant we could save the torch batteries for playing spotlight.
Speaking of spotlight, I thought we should play it before the séance just in case we were too frightened to play in the dark afterwards. Of course I never told the others that was the reason. I said I wanted to be certain everyone in the house was asleep for sure before lighting the candles. Besides, I still hadn’t got the matches from inside. I was waiting for Mum and Dad to go to sleep and then I was going to sneak in and get them.
As soon as Dad left, Ed asked, “who wants to hear a ghost story?”
Ed’s always making up stories, some of them are even pretty good. He’s won awards and everything. He reckons he’s going to be a writer when he grows up. I’m hopeless at making up stories. I can never think of a good ending. I’ve won awards from the Sun Herald for my paintings and drawings, though. Mum’s got a whole stack of them saved.
“Is it one of yours?” Chrissy asked.
He sounded defensive. “Why, does it matter?”
“No, I just like your stories, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Even though I couldn’t make out his face in detail, I swear he was blushing. “Yeah, it’s one of mine. I wrote it when I was off school with Chicken Pox. I probably can’t remember all of it, but I think I can remember enough.”
“Come on then, let’s hear it,” said Tom.
“Let’s go in the back room where it’s darker,” Ed suggested. “It’ll help set the mood.”
We piled into the back room and zipped the door up. Apart from a thin sliver of light that snuck in around the edge of the tie-down window, the room was pitch-black. Being careful not to sit on anyone in the dark, we arranged ourselves in a circle on the sleeping bags, facing Ed.
Trevor put the torch under his chin, pointed it towards the roof, and turned it on. Only his face lit up, making him appear bodiless. “Oooh…oooh…” he said in a shaky voice, “here lies the body of Trevor Preston.”
“That can be arranged,” Tom joked.
“Come on,” Chrissy whined, “let him tell his story.”
Everyone sat quietly and waited for Ed to begin.
“What’s the story called?”
“Raelene!”
“What?”
“Just let him start will you,” Chrissy insisted, “or I won’t show you how to do a séance.”
Ed waited a short time to make sure the bickering had stopped. Once he was certain he had everyone’s attention, he started. “It’s called, “The Ghost of Maxwell Parker”.”
“Who’s Maxwell Parker?”
Chr
issy sighed impatiently at Trevor’s interruption.
“Maxwell Parker is the grandson of Old Man Parker.”
As if that cleared things up.
“Yeah? And who the hell is Old Man Parker when he’s at home?”
“Old Man Parker was a hermit that lived in a log cabin out in the middle of the Watagans.”
“Deadset?” Tom questioned, “I’ve never heard of him.”
“It’s not true you nong,” Chrissy said, “it’s just a story.”
“Oh no,” Ed said seriously, “it’s true. I just put it into a story, that’s all. It happened about a hundred years ago. That’s probably why you never heard of it.”
“Really?”
Ed nodded. “Uh huh”
Everyone stopped talking and waited for Ed to continue.
“Ever since his dad died, Max had been getting into all sorts of trouble. At first his mum made excuses for his bad behaviour. He’s just lost his dad, he’s confused, he doesn’t mean any harm; that sort of thing. But after a year or so, Max’s behaviour got so out of control that his mother sent him to live with Old Man Parker. She thought it would do him good to get away from the city and go someplace where he couldn’t get into trouble.
“Some say Old Man Parker was crazy. He spent all day roaming the forest, looking for bears. He never did find any of course, but he kept up his search until the day he died.”
“How did he die?” Tom interrupted.
“No one knows for sure, but the story goes that Max got so sick and tired of the old man, having to live with him, day in and day out, doing the same thing all the time, that he killed him.”
“So what happened to Max?” Raelene asked. “Did he go back to his mum’s place?”
“Well, this is where it gets interesting. Apparently Max didn’t just kill the old man because he thought he was boring and crazy; he killed him in a fit of rage. Max was terrified he would be stuck in the forest for years with no one to talk to except a crazy old man and nothing to do except hunt for bears that didn’t exist, so he asked the old man to take him home.”
“But the old man refused?” Trevor guessed.
“That’s right, he did. Max decided that if the old man wouldn’t take him home, he’d run away. So, one night when the old man was sleeping, Max crept into the forest to make his way home. Only, he didn’t get far before he realised he had been in the bush so long that he could no longer remember the way home. The next day he asked his grandfather again to show him the way home, but the crazy old man laughed at him and told him the bears would get him if he left.
“Max panicked. He was certain he’d be trapped in the Watagans for good. He tried a number of times that day to persuade the old man to take him home, but the old man refused every time. Eventually Max lost his temper and killed him.”
Chrissy jumped in. “That was stupid. Why would you kill the only person who knows the way home?”
Trevor nodded. “Exactly! Now Max will be trapped in the forest forever.”
“That’s right,” Ed confirmed, “he was.”
“What do you mean was,” I asked, “did he get out or not?”
“Not exactly,” Ed replied. “The story goes that he also went crazy. Only, he didn’t go harmless crazy like the old man, he went nasty crazy. He spent his whole life waiting for a chance to have his revenge; only he never got it. Well, at least not until afterwards.”
“When afterwards?”
“Afterwards, when he died. The freedom of being a ghost meant he was able to travel anywhere he wanted. Only, he chose to stay in the Watagans so he could get his revenge.”
“Did he?” Chrissy questioned.
“Uh huh,” Ed nodded, “the very next day after he died, Max’s ghost killed a pair of hikers.”
Raelene interrupted him this time. “How do you know it was Max’s ghost who did it?”
“Because,” Ed lowered his voice to a whisper, “the bodies looked like they had been clawed to death by a bear.”
“So, maybe a bear got them,” she reasoned.
“Don’t be a bloody dill,” Tom sniggered, “everyone knows there are no bears in the Watagans.”
“There are no bears in Australia.” I corrected.
“There are so,” argued Trevor, “what about Koala Bears?”
Chrissy let out an impatient sigh. “God you’re stupid, Trevor. Koalas aren’t real bears; they’re marsupials.”
“Can I please finish this story?” Ed asked.
The tent went quiet.
“The police reports said they were hacked to death with an axe, but others said that it looked like they’d been torn apart by a bear. They even had claw marks on them and everything.
“Also, not long after the hikers were killed, a bunch of loggers said they saw a ghost. They said it was the ghost of a man, but that he was wearing a bear’s skin and that he had claws like a bear. They said the ghost had a scar above his right eye and there was a gap in the ghost’s eyebrow. Apparently Max Parker had a scar just like it. His mum said he fell down the front stairs when he was a baby and nearly lost his eye.”
Everyone sat quietly, waiting to hear the rest of Ed’s story.
“Since that day, there’s been at least six other murders in the Watagans and an untold number of people reckon they’ve seen Max’s ghost. In fact,” Ed leaned forward so that his whisper could be heard by all of us, “some say Max’s ghost still lives in the Watagans to this day. If you go camping there, you need to leave your campfire burning all night to scare his ghost away. Apparently, everyone that was murdered let their campfires go out during the night.”
I was suddenly sorry that the fire ban meant we couldn’t have a campfire tonight. We were a fair way from the Watagans, but Ed’s story had still managed to give me the creeps.
In an attempt to cover his jumpiness, Trevor pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered them around. “Who wants a smoke?” They were the same packet he’d knocked off from Mr Morley on New Year’s eve.
Grateful for the distraction, I reached over and took out a cigarette. Tom and Ed did the same. Chrissy and Raelene declined.
Trevor pulled out a lighter from inside the packet and reached over to light my smoke.
“Hey, where did you get that?” I asked.
“From the kitchen drawer. Why?”
“You were going to send me in for a box of matches and you had a lighter the whole time.”
Trevor looked at his lighter. “Yeah, did too. Sorry, I forgot.”
Tom hit him across the head with his pillow. “You bloody twit.”
I was secretly relieved. I didn’t feel much like walking through the yard in the dark and venturing into an even darker house to get the matches.
Chapter 59
Tuesday, 17 December 1968
Maggie poured herself a cup of tea and lit her first cigarette for the day. Surveying her tranquil surroundings, she had trouble believing that only three days had passed since her nightmare had begun. It felt much longer than that. Despite the early hour, the sun was burning bright and hot. The squawk, squawk of young Magpies somewhere off to the side of the cottage drowned out the Bellbirds’ usual song. Maggie was reminded of the Magpie that had come to visit the past couple of days and wondered if the hungry chicks belonged to her.
She stood up and smoothed the front of her kaftan. A pair of vibrantly coloured Rosellas eyed her boldly as she walked down the back steps and into the shade of the Oleander tree that grew beside the veranda. Maggie knew that if she took the time to look, she would find lots of black and orange caterpillars crawling amongst the pink blooms and waxy green leaves, perhaps a few silver chrysalises in the midst of metamorphosis. Already she had seen a number of the familiar butterflies fluttering about, as well as other lime green and white ones.
More interested in the squawking Magpies than the caterpillars, Maggie rounded the corner to get a better look at the family of birds feeding on her lawn. It was not the same bird that had be
friended her on her arrival; this one was much larger and had a whiter face. Content to stand and watch the two younger birds vying for their mother’s offerings, there was no denying Maggie felt better than she had in days. So much so that she considered what she would do with the rest of her day and even included Christmas shopping on her list of possibilities. It was not unlike Maggie to leave her gift buying until the last minute. If truth were told, she left it this late every year, only this time she felt justified in her tardiness.
Having made up her mind to spend some money, Maggie decided that she would stand a better chance of completing her shopping if she ventured as far as Toronto. Morisset was closer, but it undoubtedly had less to offer than Toronto, and Martinsville and Dora Creek were out of the question when it came to shopping for anything other than groceries.
Maggie stubbed out her cigarette and dropped it into the ashtray on her way inside. She decided she would change into a pair of shorts and a blouse in anticipation of what looked to be a hot day. She didn’t bother clearing up her breakfast dishes; they’d still be there for her when she got home, so what did it matter? Thankful that she had not found the time to bank her and Peter's last week’s wages, she flicked through the notes in her purse with a sense of satisfaction. There was more than enough money to fund a Christmas shopping expedition and still have plenty left over for the rest of her stay.
Thinking about the remainder of her time at the cottage, she supposed she had better call Peter and let him know that she was okay. She had been putting it off until now knowing that he would be expecting her decision on whether or not she wanted him to join her. She had spent some time while she was lying in bed that morning thinking about just that. She didn’t think it was fair on the kids not to let Peter come and stay. Although Michelle was not planning on visiting until after Christmas, Maggie had already arranged for her and Peter to call in at Bea’s sometime before Christmas and see Michelle. To call off their trip now would pose too many difficult questions. Besides, Stephen would still be expecting his annual holiday. To prevent him from coming because of something he had nothing to do with would be selfish.
Maggie decided that she would call Peter after she had finished her shopping. She disliked shopping as it was, and since she had no idea how the conversation with Peter would pan out, she didn’t want to risk spoiling her surprisingly good mood by calling him first.
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