by Karen Manton
‘Go and play with the others,’ Greta said. ‘You don’t have to stay in here.’
He left, pleased with that idea. Her hands went to the trinket box. She sat on the bed, mattress sagging under her, to wind the key at the back of the box and flip open the lid. A ballerina doll popped up and turned to ‘Greensleeves’. Greta laughed softly.
The doll wore a mint green tutu. She’d lost her leotard, but someone had drawn a bikini top on her in green texta. Behind her was a mirror, stuck into the lid. There was no jewellery in the box; instead, an audio cassette, four photos and three Kodachrome slides held by a sticky rubber band that broke when she touched it. She hesitated and glanced up at the bracelets, the cobwebbed window and the rack of mostly adult clothes.
No one has been here in a long time, she reassured herself. There was no harm in a quick look.
In the first photo a teenage boy was knee-deep in a creek. He held a fish on a hook in each hand. Something made her think it must be Danny, brother number five, the one Joel was closest to in age and friendship. He was in the next photo too, with Joel and another boy. She laughed to see her husband so young and fresh-faced. He had the same intense gaze she knew. The third photo showed Joel on a horse.
Her worry eased. Obviously these weren’t the girl’s photos.
The last print was black and white. A woman held a baby in a stiff white dress, clutching a painted Easter egg. The woman’s hair was as dark as the child’s was white. Maria and Magdalen, Greta thought. Beside them an unsmiling Joel stared up at the camera. Greta’s fingers gently touched his face. She wanted to pick up that little boy and hold him.
The music box slowed its tune, the ballerina jolted to a stop.
Greta went to the doorway for better light to see the slides. There was the homestead before it burned, with lush greenery around the house; and a wicker chair on the verandah, with a peacock woven into the back; and Maria sitting in it, smiling at the camera.
A shout came from outside. Greta held her breath. What if she’d been wrong and the girl did live here? What if the box and its contents were part of an obsession with Joel?
Her children’s voices settled down among honks of geese. She went back to the jewellery box and took out the cassette.
A white chrysalis was spun over the plastic cover. She broke it open to see inside. The Six Swans was handwritten on the front of the insert. A piece of paper was folded behind the tape. She opened it to see a pencil sketch of the boy with a swan wing. Underneath his foot was the letter J.
She knew what this must be. Joel’s sister didn’t read, he’d told her, so his mother read books onto tape. Joel did too, or he made up stories and drew pictures. Greta imagined him in a branch of the mango tree, with Magdalen nestled into him, listening. Perhaps this hut had been a cubby where they’d all played by the creek.
A chair scraped the floor near the table, startling her. Raffy shuffled over. His brothers were ganging up on him, he said.
‘Look what I’ve found.’
He took the cassette from her. ‘It’s like Dad’s old music tapes.’
Joel played them often along the highway.
‘I think it’s your grandmother telling a fairytale. The Six Swans.’
‘I know that story!’
Did he? Greta wasn’t sure she liked it for bedtime. She’d clipped the pages together in his fairytale book. But a clip will come undone. Toby would relish the horror notes of this tale and embellish them for his wide-eyed little brother.
‘Who drew this?’ He held out the picture of the swan-wing boy.
She pointed to the initials. ‘Your dad.’
She opened the box and took out the photos. He laughed to see his father so young.
‘My guess is that’s Uncle Danny,’ Greta showed him the boy with the fish.
‘Who keeps these here?’ Raffy asked.
‘I don’t know.’ She packed everything back in the box and turned the music key for him to delight over the ballerina while she took photos of the kitchen area and the clothes rack, and then came back to focus on the bracelets.
Raffy was lying on the bed whispering to the rabbit. They were peering through a knothole in the wall to spy on the outside world—brothers, friends, enemies.
She decided not to disturb him and turned to the opposite wall, which had sections covered in newspaper to keep out rain or stop outsiders looking in through gaps between the wall panels. Lindy Chamberlain caught her eye, with those sunglasses. Greta remembered the news stories from her childhood. A newborn taken. A mother judged. A nation caught in a frenzy, spinning convictions. Most of the other newspaper cuttings were local, unknown to her, from the late 1970s, into the 80s, 90s. Last century, Toby would remind her.
Behind her, Raffy called out, ‘Can I take a picture? Through this little window.’
She helped him line up the lens with the knothole, but then he wrestled the camera from her.
‘Let me do it, let me.’ Click. Click. Click. Click. ‘There! Whatever I’ve taken will surprise you.’
She smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s see what’s outside.’
He replaced the rabbit carefully and crossed its lanky legs. She led him around the back of the hut. A cast-iron oven lay belly up on the grass. Raffy called her over to a mound of dirt clogged with shards of glass and rusted metal, brown longneck bottles, burned beer cans, a star picket draped with barbed wire.
She let him photograph it, then took the camera back to walk among the cycads. She passed her hand over the fronds. They were exotic feathers, soft and velvety to touch. Cycas calcicola, Griffin had told her. Rare, and here with the dinosaurs.
‘Look,’ Raffy called her over. ‘It’s a cauldron.’
He’d found an iron bowl with a hole in the bottom of it, sitting on a stand. Not far from it was a hand crank blower and an anvil in the grass. Raffy picked up a pair of blacksmith tongs.
‘Wherever you go it’s stranger and stranger,’ he said very quietly, and passed her the tongs so he could run off to the mango tree.
Yes, thought Greta. Stranger and stranger. And she wondered whose homemade forge this had been.
She set up the camera and tripod, feeling like a photographer at the scene of an unnatural event, where the people had vanished but left parts of themselves. The fire bowl, the hut, the chimes. Bracelets on a wall. What were they trying to tell her?
She remembered her mother picking up an abalone shell out of wet sand. It had a hole in it, which she put straight up to her eye and then gave to Greta to do the same.
It’s all about focus, how you frame the shot.
Vivian. Vivian, whispering down here in the secret valley.
What happened to that shell? Greta asked herself now. She’d kept it in her coat pocket and used it often. At the beach, at school, walking along the main street.
She checked her father’s watch. It was time to go. She called the children and went to photograph the chimes along the verandah. It was harder than she thought. The strings insisted on moving, twirling in an uncanny air, a numinous breath that hovered under the eaves.
Raffy was the first to appear. ‘Who made these do you think?’ he asked, gently tapping them.
‘I’m not sure.’
It’s the girl! It’s the girl! sang the chimes.
Who else could it be, this careful scavenger, seeking little pieces of metal and foraging for small bones to whittle and shape? Greta could see the girl sifting through that pile of dirt out the back, wandering from car wreck to car wreck and combing the grass by the old forge bowl.
Again she wondered if perhaps the girl was here from time to time, after all. I hope she doesn’t mind we’ve visited, she said to herself. And taken photographs. She snuggled the camera into its bag.
Raffy had the whole row of chimes singing. He moved up and down the verandah, tapping his instruments.
‘Boo!’ Griffin leaped from the hut.
Raffy froze, shocked. Greta stepped back into dangling strings. A littl
e wishbone caught in her hair.
‘See?’ He grinned and held up her backpack. ‘I catch the things you miss.’
She freed herself and planted a kiss on his forehead.
Toby arrived then to upset Raffy’s game. He smacked the row of chimes with a stick. They swung out and up, ready to fly off.
‘Leave them!’ she told him and grabbed Raffy’s raised fist. ‘We’re going now.’
She settled the rattling objects and glanced up the slope behind the mango tree to the outcrop. If she were alone she’d try to find her way to the other side. For now, with the children, she led the way back to the bridge. Before crossing they all turned to look back.
‘It’s like a magic place,’ mused Raffy. ‘But I don’t think we should visit without you.’
‘Yes. You mustn’t come here alone. I think this is the only time for you.’
‘Why?’ Griffin was disappointed.
‘The bridge is broken. And it’s too far from the shack if you hurt yourself. I’d never know.’
‘A troll could half eat you and take out your eyes and you’d just have to lie here dying,’ confirmed Raffy.
‘There’s no trolls here,’ Toby told him. ‘We’re not in your fairytale book.’
Trapper might pass for one, thought Greta. She warned them to tread wisely and remember the gap Griffin had made. Toby went first with Griffin following. Raffy was more hesitant.
‘It’s very dark in here,’ he said in a low voice.
He didn’t like the way the bridge shuddered with their footsteps, or the shadowy water underneath. He tightened his grip on Greta’s hand as they approached the hanging car. He edged past it with one hand over his face, peeking through the gaps between his fingers.
‘I keep seeing it as what it’s not,’ he breathed through his hand mask. ‘I keep thinking that car’s a creature.’
13
They arrived home from the hut adventure to find a faded blue ute parked outside the shack.
‘I hope that’s not Trapper,’ said Raffy.
But the man who eased from the car was a stranger.
‘Joel around?’ His eyes were a gentle blue-grey. He was thin, edgy.
‘He’ll be back soon,’ Greta said, and introduced herself.
‘Gabe.’ He shook her hand.
So this was him. Brother number seven, Joel called him. Separated from family, Greta didn’t know why. Maria took him in as one of her own when he needed it. He might leave for a few months, a year, and then return. He and Joel had worked together for years on this and other properties, meatworking, fencing, mustering, haymaking. They were a team. More than that, Tori said. They were like blood.
‘Got you a couple of geese.’
He leaned over the side of the ute and pulled out two dead birds. They were large, big-winged. Greta thought of the swan story. Toby came over to hold one by the neck and feel its weight, and ask about the goose-hunting season. He was interrupted by Joel’s quad bike.
The two men greeted each other.
‘Been looking for that cow of Trapper’s,’ said Joel.
‘She tried to eat our vegies last night,’ Raffy added, ‘but we chased her off.’
Gabe smiled about the cow and handed Toby the other bird. ‘One for now, one for the freezer,’ he said.
‘You’ll stay and eat with us?’ Joel asked.
Toby and Griffin lit the campfire near the cabin, where they’d made a firepit with a circle of rocks and a log for seats. They went to find more wood, while Greta boiled water in a metal bucket to pluck the birds. She worked under a tree, a little way from the fire. Raffy watched her dubiously.
‘What is it?’ she asked him.
‘I was wondering,’ he whispered, as she rhythmically pulled feathers, ‘if these come from the hut.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘How do you know?
‘Because I don’t think they look like your magic geese,’ she said. ‘I think these are normal.’
He wasn’t sure they were, on account of their half-webbed feet. ‘I have never seen bird feet like it,’ he told her.
Back at the fire, they raked a bed of coals for corncobs and sweet potatoes, and then joined Gabe and Joel at the cabin site. They were looking over the new floor, and talking about starting wall frames. Gabe was keen for the work. Raffy proudly mentioned the ironwood stumps that were termite-proof. And that both parents had worked on the foundations—kids too if you counted carrying away dug-up rocks. It had been an effort, Greta agreed, cementing in posts, making sure they were all level. She’d felt like an overly taut stringline by the end.
When the time came to cook the meat, no one could find the campfire grate. Joel and Gabe dragged over the old bed frame from the shed and set it over the fire. The springs were soon redhot coils.
‘You could cook a lot of food on that,’ said Raffy.
Gabe cut the meat into a butterfly and threw it flat on the bed. He grinned. ‘Best way to cook goose.’
Fat dripped into the flames. The meat sizzled.
The smell of it through the smoke reminded Greta of the girl and the hut.
When the food was ready, Griffin clanged a saucepan. Toby rolled the vegetables out of the coals. Joel cut up the goose meat. There was little talk at first apart from murmurs about the good food. But then Raffy piped up, ‘We found a hut today, down in the valley. You can’t see it from here.’
‘The meatworker’s hut?’ Joel glanced at Greta. ‘I thought that would’ve fallen down by now.’
‘No.’ Raffy’s cheeks were bulging with sweet potato. ‘It’s fully standing.’
Joel peeled the burned sheaths from a corncob, and let them fall into the coals. There was a sudden flare of the papery skins, a quick return to nothing.
Griffin leaped up and ran over to the shack, returning with the musical jewellery box. ‘We found this.’
He offered it to Joel who seemed bewildered at first, as if he didn’t want to take it.
‘You should have left that where it was,’ Greta told Griffin. She understood now what he’d been up to with her backpack in the hut.
‘Why? No one’s there.’
He wound the key at the back and pressed the box to Joel’s chest. Joel took it this time, though Griffin had to open the lid. The ballerina popped up and started her dance. Specks of glitter on her tutu glinted in the firelight. The texta bikini was a poor match.
‘She needs a shirt on really,’ said Raffy.
Greta laughed, and Gabe echoed her softly.
Raffy was solemn, unsure of what he’d said.
‘Whose is it?’ asked Toby.
‘Magdalen’s,’ replied Joel.
Raffy put a hand on his father’s shoulder.
‘I didn’t know,’ Griffin said quietly, closing the lid.
Greta breathed a secret relief it didn’t belong to the girl.
Joel put the box between his boots and picked up a goose bone to nibble off the last of the meat. ‘She wouldn’t mind.’
‘If she did, she can’t do anything about it now.’ Toby threw his chewed cob into the fire. The flames hissed.
‘Toby.’ Greta frowned.
Everyone was quiet again. Then Joel and Gabe dragged aside the bed frame and built up the fire. When Joel sat down again, Griffin reached for the box and opened the lid just enough to take out the audio cassette without starting ‘Greensleeves’.
‘Look, Dad,’ Raffy said. ‘It’s a tape, like your ancient music stuff.’ ‘Mister Looky-Here with his ancient stuff,’ said Joel, shuffling along the log to make room for him. He seemed to have recovered from the unexpected box.
Raffy snatched the cassette from Griffin to pull out the insert. ‘And there is your picture!’
Joel took it from him, amused.
‘Can we listen to it in the four-wheel drive?’ Raffy stood up, ready.
Joel shook his head. ‘Tomorrow, matey. We’ve got a visitor.’ He nodded towards Gabe.
‘What is this tape?’ To
by took the insert from Raffy.
‘It’s my mother telling a story for Magdalen,’ Joel said. ‘We recorded heaps of them. The others went up in smoke with the old place. I don’t know how this didn’t go the same way.’
‘The Six Swans is in my storybook,’ enthused Raffy. ‘Six brothers are turned into swans and their sister has to save them, but she’s not allowed to talk for six years and has to make them six nettle coats. It’s all about six.’
‘It’s all about wicked stepmothers, actually,’ said Toby. ‘The kids’ wicked stepmother turned the boys into swans. And their sister ends up marrying a prince, and his mother is a wicked stepmother too—’
‘That’d be a mother-in-law, not a stepmother,’ said Greta. ‘Neither are much loved in fairytales.’
‘Sexist,’ noted Griffin.
‘Yes, well.’ Toby paused to check his logic. ‘The mother-in-law steals the babies and lies to the prince, her son, that his wife killed them. His wife can’t tell him it isn’t true because she’s not allowed to speak. So the prince puts his own wife in jail.’
‘Bastard!’ shouted Griffin.
Gabe grinned.
Raffy gave the tape to Griffin to look after while he acted out the rest of the story.
‘When the sister is about to be killed—’
‘Executed,’ corrected Toby.
‘—she calls out to her swan brothers and they fly in! Quickly she throws the nettle coats over them and they change back into men. But the last boy’s coat wasn’t finished, the left arm was missing. So he ends up with a swan wing forever. He was the youngest.’
Griffin took the picture from Joel and waved it to the audience. ‘This is him.’
Raffy’s fingers lightly touched his father’s scarred arm. ‘Did she save you, your sister?’
‘Dad saved her.’ Toby spoke with passion. ‘Dragged her from a burning car, didn’t you, Dad?’ He looked to Gabe, who must know the story.
Gabe nodded with a quick glance at Joel, who said nothing.
‘But she still died.’ Raffy was confused.
Griffin held out a photo for Joel to identify.
‘My mother, Maria. And Magdalen. Before she was sick.’
‘What made her sick?’