by Anna Romer
Now I’m sitting here in the dark, just my little torch beam to write by. The bundle of letters is zipped inside my windcheater pocket. It doesn’t weigh much but somehow it feels like a brick. My thoughts about those letters are a muddled mess, I can’t even write about them. Every time I go there, my mind shuts down. Not true, it says. Just not true.
The wind is flying through the trees, making the leaves hiss and the branches groan. Half an hour’s gone by but the rain isn’t slowing. I’ve still got time to meet Ross. It took five minutes to pack, forty to get here – so I guess he won’t show for another fifteen, providing he’s on time. I should just brave the rain and run down the hill to Grandfather’s house now, but there’s no electricity and the place is creepy when the shadows come out. I’m freaked out enough after what I read in the letters.
It’s silly, but I keep remembering something Corey once told me, about that old cabin up in the hills on the park border. It’s a spoogly old place, I’ve only been there a handful of times ’cos it gives me the willies. Tony and Danny swear it’s haunted. Doesn’t seem to worry them, though – they’re up there all the time when the weather’s dry, doing whatever it is that boys do in the bush, pretending to be bushrangers or whatever.
Anyhow, one day Corey told me she dreamed about the old cabin. ‘I was standing in the doorway,’ she said in a whispery voice, ‘looking inside. It was dark and someone was in there. I wanted to run away but was too scared to move. The cabin was dark, but over by the window stood a woman. The moonlight fell on her and I saw she was smeared all over in blood and could tell she was dead. But here’s the worst part. She must’ve sensed I was there because she looked over her shoulder and stared right at me. I woke up screaming.’
‘You baby,’ I told her, rubbing my arms to chase the creeps.
‘But Glenny,’ she’d whispered. ‘This woman . . . she had your face.’
Shit, what a drongo. It still scares the daylights outta me. I shouldn’t have written it down. That’s the one thing I worry about with writing stories – all those twists and turns in the tale, some of them scary, some sad – how does a writer avoid attracting that stuff into her own life? Ross says writers – artists and musicians too – are protected by their muse, but I’m not so sure. I once wrote a story about a girl whose mother died, and soon afterwards Mum went to bed for a week and refused to get up. I was so scared, I thought she was going to die. Worse, I convinced myself that because of my story, I’d killed her. And then one day she just got up, had a bath and washed her hair, then carried on as if nothing had happened. But it made me wonder – just how much power do words have?
I wish I had that power now, I’d make the rotten rain stop this instant. I just poked my head out. The landscape is lost behind a watery curtain, the trees are dark blurs, hazy as ghosts . . .
Damn. Ghosts again. I’d forgotten how spooky Grandfather’s place can be at night. No one ever comes here except me and Tony . . . and just that once, Mr Miller. He looked a bit like a ghost that day with his crazy white hair, and eye bandaged and blotched with blood like something out of a horror movie –
Shit. I have to stop scaring myself. I need to wee again, and now I’m all nervy and jumping at shadows. Hey, the rain’s stopped roaring on the leaves, it must be letting up. Just checked my watch, I’ve still got a couple of minutes to run down the hill and meet Ross –
God, who’s that? Someone’s calling my name.
It must be Ross, got here early and come looking for me.
Hang on, I’d better go and see.
That’s where it ended. I flipped through the diary, causing a few careless rips in my eagerness to find just one more entry – a paragraph, a single sentence, anything. But the remaining pages were blank.
For a long while I huddled in my desk lamp’s bubble of light, surrounded by darkness. My thoughts whirled like moths in a windstorm, battered this way and that by the fierce gale of my growing unease.
I realised I’d just read the diary entry Glenda had written the night she died. October 1986, directly before Corey’s sixteenth birthday. I recalled something else Corey had told me, about Glenda leaving home because of her parents’ row. Only there’d been no row. Glenda had come home early from school that day and found a bundle of letters in her father’s shed. Letters with old stamps, tied with ribbon. Letters whose content had disturbed her.
Love letters, perhaps. From Hobe Miller to her mother?
By her diary entries, I’d surmised that Glenda had been closer to her father. I could understand how finding evidence of her mother’s betrayal of him had driven Glenda to seek support from a trusted teacher. She’d telephoned Ross, left a note for her mother, and escaped out her bedroom window.
And then the storm. The rain.
The hollow tree.
God, who’s that?
The following day, Luella had discovered her daughter’s body in the gully, almost a mile from the tree. Glenda had died after an apparent rockslide sent her plunging down the steep gully wall to the rocks below. An accident. A tragedy. Case closed.
And yet . . .
Less than a week ago, Bronwyn had found Glenda’s haversack hidden in the tree where Glenda had sheltered that night. Had Glenda’s meeting with Ross resolved her fears about the letters she’d found? Had she changed her mind about going to Corey’s, and headed home instead? If so, then why had she left her belongings hidden in the tree – her clothes and makeup, her hairbrush; the tin box that held her treasured diary?
I nibbled a ragged thumb nail. Again I had the feeling that a breach existed, a gap between the facts and my understanding of them. I knew I was overlooking something, missing a vital link . . . but whichever way I turned, the truth shifted, changed shape, morphed into something darker and more worrying.
A picture was forming. One I didn’t much like.
An accident that might not have been accidental.
A death that wasn’t what it seemed.
Then, another image broke into my mind’s eye. A tall scarecrow of a man balanced on the ladder-like branches of the hollow beech tree in the clearing. His arm sunk to the elbow in a fissure at the tree’s fork, searching for something that had lain hidden in the dark cavity for twenty years.
16
‘Mum, did you realise there’s a type of wasp that preys on cicadas?’
The morning air was cool and damp. It was eight o’clock and I’d just stepped out of the shower. Still in my robe, I made a beeline for the coffeepot. Bronwyn was already at the table, a plate of toast and jam within easy reach as she pored over a battered library book.
Scooping fresh grounds into the filter, I set the pot on the stove to boil. ‘I expect I’m about to.’
Bronwyn bit into her toast, chewed and swallowed, her eyes never leaving the page. ‘It’s called a cicada-hunter, and it flies up into the treetops and stings the cicada to stun it. When the cicada falls to the ground, the wasp mounts it and rides along on it, sort of pushes it ahead with its hind legs, sometimes as far as a hundred metres!’
‘Fascinating.’
‘The best part is when the wasp drags the cicada down into its burrow and files it in a shelf with a whole bunch of other numb cicadas, then lays an egg right inside its paralysed body. Later, when the egg hatches, the baby wasp grub has a ready-made food source. Talk about gross,’ she added raptly.
I blinked through the window, trying without much success to banish the vision of a helpless creature trapped in some ghastly hole, awaiting its fate as grub-food.
‘Thanks for sharing that,’ I muttered, ‘it’s really made my day.’
Bronwyn wasn’t listening. Her head was bowed back over her book as she nibbled a toast corner, shaking her head in private marvelment. ‘I can’t wait to tell Jade.’
I hovered at the window while my coffee brewed. I’d had little sleep after reading Glenda’s final entry, haunted by why she’d abandoned her belongings in the hollow tree. And by why, all these years later, Hobe Mil
ler had gone in search of them.
There was one person who might know.
‘So how are you liking your new teacher?’ I asked Bronwyn. ‘Mr O’Malley, isn’t it?’
I’d been expecting her usual preoccupied monosyllable in response, so was surprised when her head jerked up.
‘He’s a creep,’ she said darkly.
My brow twitched, but I knew better than to probe. The moment she detected the merest hint of curiosity she’d clam up and any useful snippets would be sucked into the black hole of info that was too good to be given out for free. So I poured coffee, feigned absorption in the newspaper, then said in a bored tone, ‘That bad, is he?’
‘Oh Mum, he’s a total sicko. Jade hates him as well; she says he picks on me, and it’s true. He’s always asking me dumb questions, always staring. And he’s coming to the school camp next week, worse luck.’ Flipping the library book shut, she scrambled from her chair and delivered her plate to the sink. ‘Why are you so interested, anyway?’
‘I’ve got a meeting with him tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Great,’ she said bleakly, tucking her book under her arm and heading for the door. ‘Might as well prepare yourself to be depressed.’
‘He can’t be that bad, Bron,’ I reasoned. ‘Corey mentioned him last night. He was her teacher when she was at school. He taught your father as well.’
Bronwyn looked back, surprised. ‘He taught Dad?’
‘And your Aunty Glenda. That’s why he stares, because you look like her.’ The noisy rumble of a car motor cut into our conversation. Bronwyn and I exchanged a look, then rushed into the lounge and peered through the venetians. A blur of white was parked behind a thick bottlebrush, but there was no other sign of our unannounced caller.
We both startled as footsteps thumped up our back stairs and along the verandah. The sound magnetised us to the kitchen window like a pair of iron filings, but our visitor had ducked out of sight into the alcove that sheltered the back door. There was a knock, and Bronwyn and I made a mad dash to see who it could be.
Hobe Miller beamed from the other side of the screen door. He was freshly shaved, his hair combed, and there was new electrical tape covering the lens of his glasses. While his shirt was still ragged, it was laundered and absurdly wrinkle-free, as though he’d spent the morning grappling with an iron. He was carrying a battered cardboard box.
‘Young Bronwyn in?’ he asked without preamble. ‘I’ve got something to show her.’
Bronwyn elbowed me in the ribs and peered over my shoulder. ‘Who is it?’
Hobe’s face lit up. His eye glittered like a blue diamond. ‘Hello there, young miss. Ever seen a boobook chick up close?’
The elbow dug into my ribs again, and this time Bronwyn managed to squeeze past. Shoving open the flywire door, she burst onto the verandah and stood looking up at Hobe, hands on her hips as she studied his clean but shabby attire, his taped-over lens, his wide grin, and the wispy skeins of hair that had escaped the smear of Brylcreem he’d applied and were now wafting greasily about his ears.
To my astonishment, she tipped her head to one side and offered her own hesitant smile. ‘What’s a boobook?’
Hobe made a sound – midway between a chuckle and a sigh of pleasure – and set the box on the decking. Like a magician unveiling a trick, he unfolded a cardboard flap for Bronwyn to peer in. Looking up at us from the centre of a loosely coiled towel was a disgruntled little powder-puff of a bird with huge gold eyes and brown and buff feathers.
‘Cute little fella, isn’t he?’ Hobe said. ‘He fell out of your fig tree a few days ago. I’ve been keeping an eye on him, got young Danny Weingarten to check him out for breakages. The little guy got a good report, so I thought it was about time I put him back in his nest. You interested in giving me a hand?’
Bronwyn tore her attention from the baby owl and twisted around to look up at me. ‘Can I, Mum?’
I dug my hands deeper into the pockets of my robe. I hadn’t yet made up my mind about Hobe. Outwardly he seemed kind, perhaps even someone I might have liked having around occasionally . . . but there was the question of his searching the tree hollow, and then his denial of having known the Jarmans when it was all too clear that he had.
Three sapphire-blue eyes were watching me – Hobe’s wide with hopeful expectation, and my daughter’s with a mix of curiosity and impatience.
Later, I would remember that exact moment. The sun blazed, but the air was still damp and delicate, touched by the sweet scent of blossoms and fresh-mown grass. A whip-bird was calling from the shadows of the garden, and a colony of bees hummed in the daisies. I was acutely alert, as though I’d consumed too much caffeine. Even so, I missed the one thing that should have been most obvious –
The moment passed. Hobe was still watching me. Bronwyn was already inching her way towards the stairs.
‘Come on,’ I told Hobe on a sigh, gesturing at the box, ‘no point keeping a boobook from its nest.’
Was it relief I glimpsed on his face as he bent to retrieve the box, or had it been a trick of shadows cast by the leafy tapestry over our heads? Whatever it was, there was no mistaking the change in Hobe’s attitude. He was suddenly chirpy; he stood taller and his face took on the aspect of a much younger man.
As I followed him along the verandah, I had a vision of him twenty years ago, face-to-face with Cleve Jarman. I could see him clearly – not the middle-aged man Glenda had known, but rather the older Hobe familiar to me now – pitiful in his shabby flannelette shirt and grubby workpants, the walking encyclopaedia who rescued fallen birds, the natural history expert who’d been pals with the local indigenous people. In my mind’s eye he was kneeling in his front yard, hunched in shock and pain, blood spilling through his fingers as he clutched his face . . .
Pity pricked in my chest, a potent blend when combined with my current misgivings. I reminded myself of another Hobe – his arm sunk to the elbow in the old beech tree, seeking something that was no longer hidden there.
‘That’s why owls can fly silently,’ Hobe was explaining to Bronwyn. ‘Their wing feathers are very soft, almost furry because of the hairy little strands along the edges. Being silent gives them an advantage over their prey.’ He placed the box with its precious cargo on the ground and retrieved a ladder from his ute.
Bronwyn stood nearby, hands on hips, as she gazed up at the fork between two boughs where Hobe had pointed out the nest hollow.
‘What do they eat?’
Propping the ladder against the trunk, Hobe unfastened one of the callipers and lengthened the ladder’s reach until the upper rungs rested on the tree’s central fork.
‘Well, the southern boobook owl – or mopoke, as they’re sometimes called because of their distinctive call – fancy all manner of things to eat. Small mammals, like mice. Tiny birds, frogs and lizards, wee bats. And the usual bird-delicacies such as beetles and moths.’
Hobe made another trip to the ute and came back with a deep wicker picnic basket. The basket’s interior was a hotchpotch of leaves and soft bark, feathery dross and twigs: a makeshift nest. He placed the basket on the ground beside the cardboard box.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked Bronwyn.
Bronwyn nodded and slid on the leather gloves Hobe had provided for her, then dropped to her knees beside the box. She opened up the top of the box and peered worriedly down at the little bird. ‘He’s huddling right in the corner, Mr Miller . . . he looks scared. Are you sure it’s all right for me to touch him? Won’t his mother reject him if he gets human scent on him?’
‘Well, now.’ Hobe tested the ladder’s stability against the fig tree’s fork, edged it nearer the trunk, then sidled over to join Bronwyn. Kneeling in the dirt beside her, he gave her an appraising smile. ‘Birds are good mothers, she won’t abandon him. She’s probably been wondering where he got to. No doubt the old girl’s hiding somewhere up in the leaf canopy watching us, keen as mustard to get her little fella back into the nest and give him a de
cent feed. Get ready now,’ he added, giving Bronwyn a wink.
Bronwyn hesitated, but with an encouraging nod from Hobe, reached into the box. Her gloved fingers closed gently around the bird. She gasped. Her face was blotched pink, her eyes alight with awe.
‘It tickles!’ she said, glancing at Hobe. ‘So soft, I can feel his little bones! What do I do now?’
Hobe held out the picnic basket with its improvised nest of leaves. ‘Careful now, just lower him in. He’ll scrabble around a bit at first, but then he’ll settle.’
Despite her uncertainty, Bronwyn delivered the bird to the basket without mishap. Just as Hobe had said, the tiny owlet burrowed around for a moment, letting out a mournful chirr-chirr before tunnelling into the dross and settling to silence. Hobe beckoned me over, and the three of us peered down at the little owl.
Its fluffy feathers were buff-white with brown markings, its face described by a dark brown disc. Its golden eyes peered up at us, fierce for a creature so small.
‘Good luck, little fella,’ Bronwyn said, and we watched as Hobe climbed one-handed up the ladder, his free hand clutching the basket.
When he was close enough to the hollow fork, he propped the makeshift nest between his body and the trunk and extracted the tiny owl. I caught a glimpse of downy buff-white feathers as Hobe settled the bird into the hollow. He fussed a moment, transferring handfuls of leaves and twigs from the basket into the hollow, and then he was returning, his weathered old boots clunking down the rungs as he made his descent. When he reached the ground and found Bronwyn’s eager face peering up at him, he beamed.
‘Just as I thought . . . there were crow feathers in the nest. Rotten scavengers must have knocked our little friend out while his parents were off hunting. Anyhow, he’s in good hands now. I saw his mother watching from a leafy bough. Once we depart, she’ll fly down and give him a feed.’
Hobe peered up through the leaves, and Bronwyn followed suit.