‘Look at me when I’m talkin to you.’
I force myself to look her dead in the eyes. ‘I swear on the Bible, Mum, I don’t know where she is.’ This is the most solemn oath you can make in my family. We’re taught that swearing on the Bible and lying means you go straight to hell. I’m not sure if I believe that so much anymore, but I know that oath is sacrosanct. ‘She told me she was goin to hang out with Troy.’
‘And how long has that been goin on?’
I want to smack myself on the forehead. Ah well, might as well get it over with. ‘Since she got with im.’
‘When was that?’
‘After school finished last year?’ My eyes drop before I can stop them and I curse myself upside and down.
‘Are you askin me or tellin me?’ Her voice is diamond hard.
‘That’s what Laney said.’ I can’t seem to keep still.
‘But you know different.’
‘She don’t tell me everythin!’ Anger, the last desperate ploy to divert her. Sometimes it even works. Seeing Mum’s nostrils flare is how I imagine a shark scenting blood must look.
‘But she tells you the most, and you suspect somethin different. Spit it out right now or so help me, Stacey Thomson, they will write dirges about your fate.’ Mum likes reading, a lot. Sometimes I hate that I do too, maybe then I wouldn’t know what she was on about.
‘Since just after our birthday.’
A horrible silence follows. It is always worse when Mum goes quiet.
‘So September? And how many times did she sneak off with Troy?’
‘She rings him whenever you’re on a late shift.’ Mum stewing is like a rumbling super-volcano. You know you’re standing too close and no matter what you’re going to get caught in the fall out. The difference is that running from a volcano might reduce the damage, whereas running from Mum only guarantees more.
She moves off the bed and faces out the door she came in, putting her back to me. I can see her biceps working as she clenches and unclenches her fists. When she finally turns I think I’m ready.
‘“Grounded” is too small a word for what you are.’ Her soft tone fills me with dread as she enunciates each word. ‘From here on consider yourself imprisoned. This house is your cell block, school is your yard and I am your warden. You will not go anywhere other than those two places until I say otherwise. Is. That. Clear?’
‘But I didn’t break curfew!’ The injustice of my sentence hits me full tilt. Mum advances towards me, her body held taut. She’s vibrating like a tuning fork.
‘No. You LIED TO MY FACE for FIVE MONTHS!’
I feel the guilt stab as her accusation hits home. But dammit, I am the boring one who stays home all the time. This is so not fair!
Seeing my mouth open Mum beats me to the punch.
‘And if you keep runnin your mouth I’ll give you what your sister’s gonna get when she finally shows her face. You think you’ve got it bad? That girl won’t be able to shit without my say so.’
Clamping my mouth shut because I know full well she’ll follow through on her threat, I give her my own angry, tight-lipped glare.
‘Your uncle and I are gonna go for a run. Keep close to the phone in case anyone calls.’
I nod and she turns to leave, stopping to look at me. ‘Please don’t go anywhere.’ It is possibly the first time I’ve ever heard my proud mother beg. She’s out the door before it registers.
Someone is crying.
The complete absence of light has my neck hairs lifting. There is water dripping somewhere but that is the only other noise. Muffled sobs bounce around, sounding close. Lifting my head off the dirt floor I smother a groan. My head is killing me!
‘Hello?’
The sobs stop on a gasp, there is nothing after that. Talking makes my tongue ache, reminding me that I’d bitten it.
‘Who’s there?’
A scrape of cloth on hard-packed dirt, a stirring in the air and I can feel the someone moving closer. Panic sends me scrambling backwards, the explosion of pain from my ankles only slows me a little. The someone moves faster, closer; screw the pain!
‘Stop it!’
Shoulders hitting a wall, I try to keep crawling through the pain. It takes a moment to realise the someone has stopped moving. I’m happy about that until I realise I don’t know how close they got. I can’t even tell if they are a few feet back or within touching distance.
Freezing against the rock wall, I strain to hear anything, too scared to call out again. What if that’s what they’re waiting for, so they can find me in the darkness? I’ve never understood the phrase ‘heart in your throat’ until I feel the thing clogging mine up. I have to force every breath past it. The last thing I remember is being dragged from under the car, watching Troy’s shocked face get further away. That explains the raw feeling along the front of my body. They must’ve knocked me out because everything is a blank after that.
Anger comes to my rescue, like it always does. I force my backbone straight. Fear tactics are for bullies and I don’t stand down from cowards. The stupid pricks have locked me up somewhere, which is illegal these days no matter your skin colour. They’re probably trying to scare me into talking.
Taking deep breaths I think about why we’d come here in the first place. It was just like the first time – a look around for valuables, maybe trash one or two things on the way out. Just us taking back some of the riches they’ve stolen from our ravaged land. Like we’re bloody Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The idea makes me want to scoff now. There wasn’t supposed to be that many men out there. I worry about what they’ll do to Troy; anything but think about what a lone girl might be vulnerable to in this kind of situation. Okay so maybe I was trespassing, but this is kidnapping, deprivation of liberty or some shit!
Giving myself a proper pep talk calms me down enough so I can speak again. It takes time to wake up my voice and even then it is a shaky thing.
‘What do you want?’
Bracing in case I have to move instantly away, I wait. There’s only so long you can hold yourself tense. The lack of response slowly, so slowly, has my muscles relaxing. That’s when the noise comes from my left. Not a growl or a sigh. More like the rumble of a person thinking something over. It isn’t the ‘hmmm’ that gets me though. It’s the fact that the breath of it brushes right over the tip of my ear. Striking out wildly a sharp burning flashes across my knuckles as I connect with flesh that gives way to something sharp. Swinging again I descend into mindless screaming.
Day 1, Midnight
‘Mum!’
I jerk awake on the couch and look around wildly. The movie is long over and the blue screen is throwing a weird light over every surface.
‘I can see. I can see.’
Whispering it to myself I run to switch on the light. I look over the room again, ignoring the head-to-toe goosebumps and the stabby feeling that has spread from my guts to my chest. My sister is in danger.
My hand on the light switch, I search every nook and cranny of the room as if I expect something to jump out at me, I start to feel stupid. Almost seventeen for God’s sake and I’m letting a few nightmares completely mess with my head. Next thing I’ll be asking for a babysitter when my mummy is at work. If Laney were here she’d be pissing herself laughing.
Smacking the wall out of frustration, the sharp sting across the back of my hand pulls me up.
Don’t look, my mind whispers. There’s nothing there anyway.
Well, if there’s nothing there then why are you scared?
Shut up!
Reason over superstition, big girl.
Turning my head, I scream at the cuts on my knuckles.
The front door bangs like something has hit it and I sprint straight for the toilet. It’s just off the sunroom and in full view of the front door. I make it inside as another bang sends the door flying
open.
It is all instinct – none of the rooms in the house have any locks, which means I can never keep my nosey twin out of my stuff. But in the toilet I can bar the door by bracing my back against it and kicking my legs up on the opposite wall. Especially handy if you’ve got a sister out for your blood because you might’ve tricked her into eating something gross, like off milk. I flip on the light, drop to the floor and assume the position – arms braced outward, body tensed up and waiting, listening to the running footsteps that come straight for the toilet door.
The door handle rattles violently and a weight hits the other side. A noise slips out of my mouth, one I’ve never made or heard before.
‘Tace! Tace, are you alright?’
Rhi’s frantic voice comes from the other side and all of the tension whooshes out of me.
‘Stacey Thomson, you open this door right now!’
My legs are too shaky to hold me so I do a 180 on my moondee and squeeze up against the opposite wall to let the door swing inward. Rhi near about skins my shins shoving it open. She gives me a quick once over before screaming:
‘You scared the absolute shit out of me!’
I open my mouth intent on a sarcastic reply. To our horror I burst into heaving sobs of one-part relief and two-parts fear. She crouches down, wrapping me up in a big hug. It isn’t long before those first sobs calm and Rhi leans back to look me in the face. Sweeping tears off my cheeks she offers me a watery smile.
‘Come on, cuz, let’s get a cuppa.’
Voice gentle and not demanding any kind of explanation, she stands and holds out a hand. After helping me up, she turns her back and I snag some toilet paper, wrapping it around my left hand. We sit at the kitchen table staring at each other, both unsure what to say.
Rhiannon is two years older than us. She’d been in school with Laney and me every year till she quit after year ten. Uncle Billy named her after the Fleetwood Mac song, and Mum said he was cracked because she turned out just like it. Much as I love her you just never know what she is going to do or how she’ll react.
‘You okay?’ she asks.
‘Mmm.’ I can’t quite lie. ‘Where you been?’
‘Oh man, you wouldn’t believe it,’ she begins … she always begins. In fifty years’ time Laney and I will still expect her to be starting stories like that. ‘I met this bloke down at the pub on Tuesday, totally hot and built for it, too. He was headed for Cracow and wanted me to come so I did.’
I ignore her wicked smirk and just shake my head. ‘Rhi, seriously? Don’t you ever worry one day you’ll get in the car with the wrong fulla? What then?’
Her eye roll doesn’t impress either of us. She is so beautiful, my cuz, I just wish she’d taken a bit longer to figure that out. Her mother is Aboriginal-Italian and she’d passed on some amazing hazel eyes, long lashes and thick wavy hair to Rhi. No one is sure where the flightiness comes from; her parents blame each other. Whatever the case, she’s a walking trouble bundle. Most of the time she comes out of everything with a laugh and a bloody good story, but I worry. No one is lucky forever. Look at Laney.
‘Wait, today’s Tuesday, so this was, what, last week?’ I glare at her.
She shifts in her chair. ‘Umm, yeah well, we might’ve had a fight and I got stuck, but I hitched a lift with a trucker and got in just now. Them fullas down at Keithy’s told me what was goin on so I came straight over.’
I shake my head.
‘So … why did you scream before?’
I sigh. I’d been hoping to avoid this.
‘I’ve had a couple of nightmares that Laney is in trouble. But they’re just dreams … right?’
Rhi quirks an eyebrow. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in special dreams and all that “stuff” anymore?’
She does the quote marks thing with her fingers and I cringe. I’d lectured them all after Nan died and we’d had the biggest fight. I’ve been so cocky. Maybe tomorrow once the sun is up I can defend myself, but with the dream so fresh and that rock in my stomach, all I feel is fear for my twin. I drop my head.
‘This feels different.’
‘What happened?’
Feeling slightly stupid but mostly scared I let the whole thing rush out.
‘The first one was last night, Laney was runnin from the property owners. They’d all split up to get away from them fullas. She made it back to Troy’s car, but a ghost bird swooped her and she climbed under the car. Troy turned up but something grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her away. That’s when I woke up.’
Rhi doesn’t say anything, just watches and listens.
‘Tonight she was somewhere so dark I couldn’t see anything and she’s hurt. She can’t walk. Someone was cryin but when she called out to them it chased her through the dark. She was so scared.’ The last bit came out so soft I doubt Rhi heard me. Taking a deep breath I brace myself for the rest. ‘It came right up and whispered in her ear. She tried to punch it and hit something, it felt like a mouth. And maybe … maybe teeth?’
I can’t finish. Shifting slowly, I put my left hand on the table between us. I peel back the bloody toilet paper and we both stare at the cuts that gouge my knuckles. Rhi takes my hand, tipping it to the light so she can get a better look. I can’t tell what she is thinking, but then I’ve never seen her dumbfounded before.
‘I don’t know, cuz. But you said you punched im so why’s it on your left hand? You’re right-handed.’ She looks up with an ‘ah-ha’ expression.
My hand starts to shake.
‘Mirror twins, remember?’
Rhi freezes for a long moment, then shakes herself.
‘Well, dream or not let’s get that cleaned up.’
A trip to the bathroom, a dose of stinging Betadine and some Band-Aids later, and we are trying not to stare at each other over our joined hands. Neither of us says anything, we are both too busy thinking. It’s strange to see my carefree cousin so deep in thought, she’s usually all action and no thought to consequences.
Rhi nods like she’s come to a decision and in the gentlest voice says, ‘Tace, listen. They were some bad nightmares and I know you’re worried about Laney. So am I. But I think they’re probably just dreams. And maybe when you threw the punch in your dreams you hit the floor or something, and the pain from that is what woke you up.’
Before I’d calmed down I might’ve fought her on it, but the longer the silence went on the stupider I feel. Pushing aside that increasing weight that has taken up residence down in my guts, I listen to her very reasonable argument. Hell, I want her to be right because that means Laney isn’t in that place and maybe she is fine.
‘Okay, I’m sorry I scared you.’
She rubs her hand roughly over my head and smiles. ‘It’s okay, cuz. But … are you okay?’
The blessed sound of Uncle Joe’s car rolling up saves me from answering. We rush to pack up the first-aid kit.
I hear Mum come in but she walks straight to her room. Rhi and I stand in silence, looking at each other. The tension is awful. Uncle Joe walks through the kitchen doorway looking like he’s aged ten years. His slight head shake is all we need and suddenly no one wants to make eye contact.
‘Your mum’s got a bad headache, niece, she gone straight to bed. Maybe leave her to it.’
‘Mmm. Want a cuppa, Uncle?’
‘Nah bub, I need to go get some sleep. All this night drivin really does the old eyes in.’
It was the first time I’ve heard an uncle admit to ageing. It is kind of frightening, although I’m not sure why.
‘Hey Unk, can I get a lift?’ Rhi asks.
‘Sure thing.’ Uncle Joe finally looks at me. ‘You be right on your own?’
‘Yeah, totally.’ My voice is a bit too bright to be real, but we’re all pretending things are fine, so they can just give me this one.
Uncle Joe n
ods. ‘Alright then, let’s go. Tell your mother I’ll see her tomorrow morning, first thing.’
Rhi finally realises I am going to be on my own and hesitates. Uncle isn’t a patient man and won’t wait for her to make her mind up. He drags Rhi out with him.
‘I gotta go let Mum know I’m back, but I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?’ she calls.
After they leave the panic from the dream creeps back in, leaking from the ceiling and dripping down the walls. I finish cleaning up the first-aid stuff, practising deep breaths all the way, trying to ignore the drips rolling across the floor, heading for my feet.
With no one left to distract me I set the kettle off and run to my steps. The wood is rough under my hands as I lower myself down on the second step. Years of untreated life and exposure to the elements has left the grain exposed and the planks splitting in places. The handrails might’ve been green at one point, based on the few chips of paint left. I rub my fingers across the deep marks in the step I sit on, grounding myself in it. Tucking my knees into my chest I wrap my arms around them, hugging myself tight. The town is silent. Everyone is probably asleep. I can’t even hear the Brown boys’ car. It is still hot and sticky so we won’t get any cool chill tomorrow. This will be the coldest part of the day. I put it at around 30 degrees.
If Laney were home we’d be fighting over the remote while Mum yelled and forced us to turn the TV off and go to bed.
The panic finds me again, dancing on the edge of my vision. Part of me wants to leap up and keep moving, keep avoiding it for all I am worth. But it isn’t helping. If anything it is feeding the panic, making it grow. As hard as it is, I swallow down my defences, dig my fingers into the step and let it come. Just this once while I am alone and can’t hurt anyone else with my pain.
Only it doesn’t swallow me the way I think it will.
What do you do when it feels like your limb is detached? When a piece of you that’s always been there, isn’t. Usually that severed chunk of flesh lies there. You can reach out and pick it up. The still-warm skin reminds you of holding some part of another, or maybe your nerves twitch in recognition of their own.
Ghost Bird Page 6