When Theresa was young, she had wanted to be a nun. Late at night, alone in her bed, she would picture herself in a convent of red brick, surrounded by olive trees, birds rising into the bright sky in flight, her days filled with peace and prayer. But were these idyllic daydreams fantasies or memories? She could not be sure but, as she grew older, they gradually faded, leaving a faint sense of loss and yearning.
She loved her namesake, St Therese of Lisieux. Her godmother had presented her with a beautifully illustrated children’s edition of the life of St Therese, ‘the little flower’, as the book coyly called her. Theresa loved to read about the devout young saint and the tragedies she had suffered. Her mother had died of breast cancer, and her father was taken to an asylum for the insane. Even as a little girl, Theresa admired her because she was a saint who didn’t perform great miracles, but attempted to see the holy in everyday, ordinary moments. St Therese knew in her short lifetime she would never perform great deeds, ‘Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and those flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.’
Like her adored saint, Theresa would also practise small sacrifices. She would eat all of her dinner without complaining and then, to her parents’ bemusement, would insist on clearing the table and washing up afterwards. Later, as she lay in bed praying to Therese, she would congratulate herself on her good deed. When she prayed, she would smell flowers. Roses, jasmine, geranium, honeysuckle. When she smelt the flowers, she knew that her special saint, the lady of the flowers, was listening.
She would beg to be taken to Mass, and spent hours reading her children’s Bible. She loved old children’s books from the 18th and 19th centuries, in which children spent hours a day in Bible worship. All this became hard to take in a proudly agnostic family, who liked to debate with each other over dinner, quoting thinkers like Voltaire and Einstein. Theresa had never forgotten the shamed expression in her mother’s eyes when, as a young girl, she had earnestly gripped her mother’s best friend’s hands and told her she would pray for her after her husband ran off with her daughter’s friend.
Her mother had tried to laugh it off. ‘I don’t know where she gets all this spiritual stuff from! Obviously, from Neil’s side of the family — they’re all mad.’
As the years passed, the voices inside Theresa grew louder, their tongues clicking furiously, causing great waves of pain. Why aren’t I good enough? Why don’t they love me? Why don’t they take my photograph and put me on the wall? Why did I have to he born ugly? Their mouths never stopped, but Theresa was powerless to voice her feelings about her family’s behaviour.
Her nightly conversations with Therese ceased. ‘Jesus isn’t doing much to keep the conversation going,’ St Therese had famously stated once, when she had lost her faith and stopped praying during a time of personal crisis. Now Theresa’s prayers had begun to feel like a one-sided conversation. She began drinking, experimenting with whatever drugs she could get her hands on and sleeping around. She tattooed her body, dyed her hair and dressed in fashions that horrified her parents and caused Debra to look upon her in sad recognition of her younger sibling’s pain.
Theresa had come to hate social occasions with Debra. The surprise on people’s faces when they were introduced as sisters was very hard to take. ‘It’s all in your head!’ Debra had shouted at her once in one of their rare arguments. ‘It’s just a face, and I can’t help my face! God! Wake up to yourself, Theresa! You’re pathetic! People aren’t that superficial! Do you think life is any easier for me because of the way I look?’ But Theresa did think that Debra commanded respect and attention wherever she went, because she knew that life rewarded the strong and the beautiful.
Then a real crisis occurred. By the time Theresa was seventeen, she had had a series of deadening one-night stands, after she had been dropped quickly following the unsatisfying sex act. Enter Rupert. He was a tall Englishman with a timid smile and dark hair that fell to his shoulders. His parents had emigrated to Australia six months previously and, like Theresa, he was an outsider. They had fallen drunkenly into bed together shortly after they had met but, despite the sex being as unsatisfying as ever, this time there was a difference. Rupert had stuck around, and they had become friends.
The two spent hours together exploring graveyards, shivering in the cold Tasmanian sun, reading Keats and Tennyson to each other. Theresa tried not to move or even breathe, as Rupert sketched her. It was extraordinary to her that a man like Rupert desired her company, and a tiny bud of confidence began to unfurl inside her.
Rupert had an alternative life that did not involve her. She knew better than to ask him where he disappeared for days, and once, for weeks at a time. He was such a timid, fey creature of the light, that she was afraid if she questioned his movements, she would break the spell that bound their friendship and he would vanish into thin air. And so she swallowed her jealousy, and her fears kept her awake at nights.
His early death was shattering. He was killed instantly on the road to Seven Mile Beach. A truck had gone into the motorbike on which he had been a passenger. Kate, the motorcyclist, was also killed. Theresa did not know who she was, this young blonde now coupled with Rupert in death. Their faces even made the front page of the Island Daily.
For the first couple of months after his death, Theresa was protected by a numbing shock, punctuated by outbursts of tears. Then came anger. Who was this arty blonde slut who had ridden her only love into a truck? Why had Rupert kept her so secret? Had he been fooling Theresa all along? Was she just a screw on the side while he courted Kate? A recurring image came to her of Rupert propped up against a headstone, quoting Shakespeare, flicking his hair back from his eyes.
Ay, to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world. . .
He kept his gaze upon her as he quoted from the classics in that English accent never modified by living in Australia. He was the only man she had ever met who could quote poetry, the only man she had ever met who had said that she was pretty. A denial of her faith quickly followed anger, for what sort of God would take the life of a young innocent?
When she would try to pray to the saint of her childhood, her lady of flowers, Therese, the words dried in her throat and she felt as if she were simply praying to a superstitious idol. St Therese was not listening, she was just a long-dead woman. She had died at twenty-four, coughing up blood, giving thanks for her early death because God had allowed her to die at an age when she would have been ordained if she had been born male and a priest; so she didn’t have to suffer from not being closer to God. Pious, white-faced, choking on her own life fluids — she had never lived. Loved, lost, desired. Now a pile of bones, she had become a myth, a song of the wind that rattled through the skeletal frame of a dead Church.
Following anger came panic attacks. Now Theresa found it almost impossible to leave the house. Even the simplest of excursions left her unable to breathe, feeling she was going to die. Her heart would pound, her hands would go numb and she would feel dizzy and faint. Death seemed preferable to these debilitating attacks. It got to the stage where even her parents began to be disturbed at her withdrawal from life and sent her to a counsellor, who tried cognitive therapy on her. She was also put on antidepressants and, in a strange way, the medication did help. She became dulled to the pain of losing Rupert, and gradually, very gradually, the panic attacks, the enormous winterland of loss and pain within her, began to be replaced by acceptance.
For the following year
and a half, Theresa worked nights in a large psycho-geriatric unit in the centre of Hobart. Despite the demands on her body from the shiftwork, the graveyard shift suited her because she had to mix with so few people. The nurses spent the majority of their shift asleep in armchairs. Waking themselves up groggily for the two-hour wet rounds, they flipped the startled patients to prevent bedsores, and changed their wet and soiled sheets. The work was monotonous and easy and, because she spent most of her free time asleep, she could save money quickly. Soon she had enough money for a return holiday to England.
When she returned from overseas, Theresa found herself even more at a loose end. She had loved the English countryside with its mists, its drizzly rain and stone walls. She had thrived in London with its funky vibe, its Tate and British museums, its sense of history and tradition. Now that she had been away, she found it even more difficult to adjust to life in her home state, and memories of Rupert threatened to re-emerge.
Debra finally married patient, perfect Robert. She had deliberately postponed the wedding until Theresa’s return but, mercifully, spared her sister the indignity of being made a bridesmaid to Debra’s bride. Theresa thought the wedding was ridiculously expensive. Debra, of course, had looked stunning, drawing oohs and aahs when she had entered the church on her father’s arm. Theresa was painfully aware of the sympathetic glances sent her way when they posed for the family wedding shots. She had put on weight in England; due to the food being so expensive, she had lived on fish ‘n’ chips, and every roll of fat was painfully obvious in the red satin dress that she had been happy enough with in the shop. Now here, with its creases and its plunging neckline, it looked cheap and out of place. She spent a large portion of the night drinking, smoking and eyeing off Robert’s good-looking cousin.
At the reception, she was standing outside smoking, eavesdropping as he stood with a group of male friends discussing the talents of the women at the wedding.
Debra was the pick of the bunch, was the unanimous decision, ‘gorgeous and with brains to match’. Then, ‘You could always have the sister,’ came from a tall man with a receding hairline. There was a burst of laughter from the men, their voices carrying easily on the summer evening. Theresa could feel her face glowing red as she waited anxiously for the handsome cousin’s reply. Her heart seemed to miss a beat. He laughed. ‘Her?’ he said, and that one single word seemed to pierce Theresa’s heart with a bolt of agony. ‘Not my type, I’m afraid.’
‘Good tits, though,’ another voice said, and they laughed again.
Later that night — and she was never sure exactly how it had happened — she had drunk so much she found herself astride the handsome cousin. They didn’t bother to leave the grounds of the wedding reception; he had just driven down the driveway in his car, and paused near bushland, where they had sex in the back seat. As she had moved on top of him, she remembered his denial of her when his friends had suggested setting them up, and she had cried as she watched him climax. Later, back at the reception, he spent the remainder of the night avoiding her and chatting up one of the bridesmaids. Theresa had thrown up three times that night. Her sister became Debra Pinker, and Theresa had made her decision to leave Tasmania.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Before the snow falls from the sky the earth will move to release her. Not realising her fate, her friends will fall into dust at her feet. Blood will soak the Hollow Hills.
— Condensed from the Tremite Book of Life, Column XXVII BM X
By hiss and claw, it was a sight never seen with our eyes, mouth and wings in the Hollow Hills. My pen has no voice to express my horror. My legs have not stopped shaking and my wings are flat. For I, Jig Boy son of Elven Foot and trusted scribe, fell asleep at my book and missed the entire event. Such a night! Oh! Such a night! I am the saddest Winski that ever lived.
Account written by Jig Boy, son of Elven Foot, forgotten what Turn of the Wheel.
— Extract from the Winski Book of Life
Patricia and Ellie-Jane were in the process of their time-consuming monthly chore of re-dyeing the Faeries’ clothes with dyes extracted from the alder tree: brilliant shades of red, green and brown. Their hands and faces were smeared with the colours by the time Maya emerged from her bedroom.
‘Whooosh! Our fine lady has finally emerged!’ Patricia grumbled to Ellie-Jane. ‘She times her entrances well, does she not? She doesn’t want to see those lily-white hands of hers soiled in dye.’
Maya ignored her; she was used to Patricia’s grumbles. She patted Lillian, one of the enormous Maja tarantulas that lived in the Hollow Hills.
‘Stop your babble, old ugly one,’ she said. ‘My belly is empty for food.’ She glanced hopefully at her old nanny, who shrugged, ignoring her.
Maya looked at the large wooden dining table. All that remained of the breakfast feast was a small dried cheese and a few slices of pickled ham.
‘Why is there never anything left for me?’ she pouted.
‘Why do you not eat your meals at a normal time?’ Patricia retorted. She shot Maya a look, hands on her hips, and Maya sighed, realising that a lecture was to follow.
‘You’ve been having those dreams again,’ Patricia accused her. Maya shot a look of anger at Ellie-Jane, who visibly cringed.
‘What dreams are you referring to, old senile one?’ she asked icily.
‘Those dirty dreams about that filthy big rock!’ Patricia retorted. ‘The whole of the Hollow Hills could likely hear you. Squealing and moaning in your sleep like a common Faia whore!’
Several Winskis, eavesdropping shamelessly in the air, tittered to each other.
‘Is nothing private in these fucking Hills!’ Maya retorted, slapping her hands in the air to ward off the Winskis.
‘No need for coarse language!’ said Ellie-Jane smugly. Maya resisted the urge to throw the breadknife at her.
‘Well, listen to the two of you! Judging me with pious expressions on your faces, you dried-up useless Bluites! I’ve got no control over what I dream, have I? If Morpheus and Hypnos reward me with dreams of a pleasurable kind, what say have I?’
The Winskis laughed again, and Maya snarled in exasperation at them.
In the corner, tethered to a large wooden post, a Crossa moaned in fear. It was a Bluite, a girl, no more than six. She was typical of the children that the Imomm loved to kidnap, with long golden curly hair and large blue eyes.
‘Where by King Pysphorrus’s beard did that come from?’ Maya asked, pointing her knife at the child.
‘Diomonna arrived with it last night,’ Patricia said. ‘I don’t ask no questions, I don’t get no lies.’ Maya surveyed the child with suspicion — would it be for the tithe to Hades? No, somehow she did not feel that the tithe was near. The child had wet itself with fear, a small puddle of urine at its feet. Maya sighed, putting down her ham.
‘Patricia, this place stinks of Bluite piss! Can’t you clean the wee thing up?’
Patricia shrugged. ‘I be busy, Miss Maya.’ Her insolent tone implied that she would not approach the child in a hurry. Maya looked at Ellie-Jane, who avoided her eyes.
With a resigned sigh, Maya got to her feet. She could not stand to see the child in that condition. On her way to fetch a bucket and some rags, she paused before the two.
‘What’s happened to you both?’ she hissed. ‘That thing be of your blood! She hails from the same race as you! How can you just watch her in that condition?’
Patricia grinned, showing empty blackened gums. ‘You think you not be from the same race?’ she asked mockingly. In a filthy temper, Maya stomped out of the room with as much dignity as she could muster.
The child trembled as Maya began to remove her wet clothing to wash her skin. ‘Mummy,’ she whimpered. ‘Mummy!’
Maya made faces as she cleaned her, trying to cheer her up. She had grown up with a succession of terrified children who had been abducted in the Hollow Hills. Diomonna used them as bargaining tools with Black Annis, and also for the tithe that wa
s demanded by Hades.
‘Never mind, small one,’ she whispered. ‘You will soon forget.’
She had most likely been one of those tiny children once. Sitting in her own urine and shit, crying in fear. Would they kill this one? Sometimes death was more merciful for them, Maya thought. Better that than to spend the rest of their lives in the Hollow Hills, belonging to neither race. The Winskis surrounded the child, giving sly tweaks to her golden curls and pinching her whenever they got the chance. A shadow fell over Maya as she worked.
‘What are you doing, big Maya?’
Maya tensed. She didn’t need to turn her head to know that Diomonna stood behind her. ‘Cleaning the child up,’ she retorted shortly.
‘Don’t waste your energy,’ the velvety voice said. A hand fell on Maya’s shoulder, the long nails digging into the fabric of her dress. ‘The tiny one will be dead by sun-up tomorrow.’
The Winskis cheered, and Maya looked down for a second, attempting to suppress her anger. She sensed that the Faery Queen was attempting to goad her, and she couldn’t resist the provocation. Unfortunately, her tongue often appeared to have its own mind.
‘Is it necessary?’ she asked. ‘So many sacrifices, so much blood beneath the Hollow Hills! Perhaps the Bluite Priestess in Faia is correct in her judgment of us — that we are just a bloodthirsty, ignorant tribe that should be outlawed.’
Now even Patricia and Ellie-Jane stopped their work to watch the drama in front of them. Diomonna moved to face her, a cruel, thin smile on her beautiful face. ‘Be careful!’ she hissed. ‘There are those in the Hollow Hills who would slit your throat and bring me your voice box for uttering words of praise for the Bluite slut! I know, big unwinged one, that you might find the ways of the Imomm strange at times; yea, it may seem cruel to your Bluite eyes. But, before you speak, take time to consider the atrocities that have been committed against the Imomm people! Hiss, claw.’
Bride of the Stone: Circle of Nine Trilogy 2 Page 17