This is dangerous. The humans are around. They are a threat. She waits. She waits until she can hear nothing. She hears nothing for a long time. She approaches the square. She stretches her head out. She looks. The humans are there, but they are not moving.
She steps onto the edge, her claws making a hollow sound on the surface. She hops down onto the grass. She freezes. She waits.
She stretches her neck and walks slowly and evenly away from the small world. There is a fallen tree by the creek. She moves to it, one foot at a time. She doesn’t hurry. It is a familiar place. An old place from a time before. She reaches the fallen tree and steps among the broken branches and fallen leaves, camouflaged against the debris.
She hears the humans give a great cry all together. It is loud. But it is not so loud that she can’t hear the sound that is much closer, the soft, muted whistle he makes when she gets close: the greeting whistle of her mate.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Mandy Apps, Mel Bardell-Williams, Cameron Bayley, Claire Craig, Sandy Cull, Sue Gillett, Kathryn Hall, Anna Hedigan, Simmone Howell, Eve Jackson, Liz Kemp, Natalie Kon-yu, The Koorie Heritage Trust, Kirsten Krauth, Ali Lavau, Maya Linden, Jo Lyons, Clive Mander, Melina Marchetta, Martine Murray, Pam Nieman, Vanessa Pellatt, Cassia Read, Maggie Scott, Chris Thompson, and The Wheeler Centre. And a heartfelt and rather sizeable thank-you to Miriam Sved and David Holmes: because really, I don’t know how anyone ever writes a book without them.
About Christie Nieman
Christie Nieman writes fiction and non-fiction and is an award-nominated playwright. She lives in Central Victoria and is visited daily by a regular crew of wild birds. As Stars Fall is her first novel.
First published 2014 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Christie Nieman 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781743518137
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group
Cover design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko
Cover images: Emily White (main image); Kim Wormald (Bush Stone-curlew)
The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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