The Locket of Dreams

by Belinda Murrell

  Mr McLaughlin urged his horse forward to pull the rope, tied to the calf.

  ‘Steady, boy,’ ordered Mr McLaughlin. ‘Easy does it, boys. Now heave.’

  The mud sucked hungrily around the legs of the calf, refusing to yield its prey. The calf bellowed and its mother mooed in distress. The boys floundered and heaved. The horse strained and pulled, then with a loud sucking, gurgling noise, the calf was dragged free onto the bank.

  The mother charged towards the calf, licking it lovingly. The calf struggled up the bank on trembling legs and collapsed next to its mother, suckling frantically.

  ‘Hurray,’ cried Nell.

  ‘You did it,’ shrieked Charlotte. ‘Well done.’

  The boys climbed out of the quagmire, half sinking in the deep mud. They splashed cleaner water over themselves to try to wash away the worst of the mud.

  Charlotte and Nell slithered off their ponies and carried pannikins of water to wash the mud off the distressed calf, transferring most of the mud to themselves.

  When the herd had been mustered, the stockmen turned the mob for home. The cattle walked quietly now in the afternoon heat, swarms of flies buzzing around the cattle, horses and riders.

  Near the homestead, the cattle were herded into the narrow entrance to the stockyards. They jostled and broke away, jumping on each other’s backs in panic, charging and tossing with their horns. The men rode tightly around the herd, cracking the stockwhips constantly.

  ‘Stay right away, girls,’ warned Mr McLaughlin. ‘Some of those steers will cause trouble going into the yards. Watch from outside.’

  Sophie swung with the girls, climbing on the stockyard fence.

  When all the cattle were safely in the yards, Mr McLaughlin, Henry and Will came to lean on the fence rails, beside the girls.

  ‘Well, a good day’s work, thanks everyone,’ said Mr McLaughlin, pushing his hat back and mopping his sweaty, filthy brow with a handkerchief. ‘What did you think of your first muster, girls?’

  Charlotte and Nell glanced at each other, grinning. They were both splattered with mud, covered from head to toe in dust and bone tired.

  What would Nanny think if she could see us now? thought Charlotte. She would be horrified.

  ‘I loved it,’ replied Nell with shining eyes.

  Sophie swooped above the homestead, brushing the blue-green gum-tree tops with her bare feet. Down below she could see the horses grazing, Edgar and Ernestina the emus pecking for grain, and a flock of woolly-backed sheep clustered in the shade of the eucalypt trees.

  Sophie loved the sensation of flying. It made her feel so free. She zoomed around the sheep, scattering and chasing the lambs. A strong breeze, blowing from the west, gusted and buffeted Sophie as she floated on the air currents; it whipped the tops of the gum trees and flattened the grass in the paddocks.

  A spark wafted past her, glowing red hot as it fell.

  Sophie breathed deeply. She could smell something different on the air today, something smoky. She banked and dived, pirouetting as she fell, then turned and headed straight into the wind.

  It took a moment for Sophie to recognise what was in front of her. A thick black cloud of smoke blanketed the western horizon, billowing and boiling.

  Bushfire, thought Sophie, her mind reeling in panic. A bushfire racing straight down the valley, towards the homestead. I must warn Charlotte and Nell!

  Charlotte and Nell were inside in the dining room, working on their lessons.

  ‘It is so hot,’ complained Nell, pushing back the damp curls from her forehead. ‘I feel exhausted.’

  ‘It is like an oven in here, and my brain does not work,’ moaned Charlotte, throwing down her pen. ‘I would love a swim.’

  Sophie burst through the dining room door. How could she warn the girls?

  Emotion, such as grief, anger or fear, made her stronger in the past world. Sophie concentrated as hard as she could, summoning up her fear, concentrating on making herself visible. She could feel her body thickening and becoming heavier.

  ‘Charlotte, Charlotte,’ cried Nell, grabbing Charlotte’s hand. ‘Look!’

  Charlotte stared. A shimmery figure wearing a white gown and with bare feet and tangled fair hair stood next to the table. The figure wavered and faded, then grew sharper.

  ‘Quick, there’s a fire coming, a bushfire,’ called Sophie urgently. ‘You must hurry. It’s coming fast.’

  Charlotte and Nell leapt to their feet, all lethargy forgotten. ‘It’s our guardian angel,’ blurted Charlotte. ‘Have you come to help us again?’

  ‘Come with me,’ called Sophie, leading the way out onto the verandah. Sophie went straight through the French doors; Charlotte had to open the doors so she and Nell could follow.

  Sophie flew around to the back of the house, facing west, the girls running behind her.

  Down the valley, from the thick bush on the hillsides, came a high wall of roiling, surging black smoke, fanned by the wind.

  Charlotte and Nell felt their stomachs knot. They had never experienced an Australian bushfire, but had heard stories of the deadly fires that swept the countryside, killing and destroying everything in their paths.

  ‘Annie, Annie,’ screamed Charlotte.

  Annie came running from the dairy, where she had been churning butter. Sophie could not maintain her visible form for very long, and faded away to invisibility.

  ‘Annie, look,’ cried Nell, pointing to the horizon. ‘A bushfire.’

  Annie stared in horror.

  ‘Oh my goodness, it’s heading straight towards the homestead. Why is Edward always away when these things happen? There’s only the three of us here.’

  Mr McLaughlin, Henry and Will were near the outlying boundary of the property with the stock hands mustering sheep. Mr and Mrs Gregory had driven the wagon into town with Pot to fetch supplies.

  Annie thought quickly, sketching out a plan in her mind.

  ‘We need to change into something more practical for fighting fires,’ Annie decided, indicating their pale long skirts. ‘We can borrow shirts and trousers from the boys.’

  Annie, Charlotte and Nell emerged a few minutes later wearing trousers and shirts, with elastic-sided boots, their long hair caught up under hats. Charlotte thought it felt so strange to move without the usual hot weight of her full petticoats and skirts, almost as if she was just walking around in her underwear.

  She was glad there was no-one else to see her.

  ‘Now we need to gather up all the buckets and sacks we can find,’ Annie ordered. ‘Look in the barn, while I search the kitchen.’

  ‘Bring the buckets over here by the pump,’ cried Annie. ‘Throw the sacks in to soak in the copper. Now, Nell, you pump, while we carry buckets.’

  The buckets were filled with water from the pump in the laundry, and splashed over the walls and roof of the homestead and outbuildings to soak the dry timber. Everything was flammable: the slab walls, the wooden roof shingles, the support posts and fencing.

  Charlotte and Annie ran back and forth, ferrying the buckets from the pump to the homestead. The drenched hessian sacks were draped over the outside walls and roughly nailed into place.

  Charlotte scrambled up on the roof and Annie passed buckets up to her, to slosh over the roof and walls.

  They worked as fast as they could. Every now and again, they glanced up to see the big black cloud moving ever closer and closer. The light had grown dim and red and menacing, as smoke obscured most of the sky.

  The horses in the paddock were whinnying frantically, galloping up and down the fence line, pawing the ground and snorting in fear.

  The pet wallabies and emus, sensing the danger, wriggled through the fence and bounded for the creek.

  Nicky the dog paced up and down nervously, looking out towards the encroaching fire and whining nervously.

  ‘All right, that should do it,’ announced Annie. ‘Now we need to catch one of the horses and hitch it to the water cart.’

  Charl
otte, Nell and Annie took quite some time to catch one of the frightened horses and hitch it to the old water cart, which was always kept filled and ready near the barn.

  ‘Come on, Blackie, steady girl,’ clucked Annie calmly, as she manoeuvred the water cart over to the paddock.

  Together Annie and the girls tore down armfuls of green leafy branches to use as fire beaters.

  ‘Now we need to burn a firebreak,’ ordered Annie. ‘Charlotte, start some flames halfway across the paddock and we will extinguish them when they have burnt right across the grass.’

  Everyone ran to take their positions. The wind whipped up the flames and sent them racing through the dried grass. Sophie floated between Charlotte and the fire as though she could shield her with her filmy presence.

  Annie swung the canvas hose from the water cart to control the blaze, while Nell and Charlotte beat the flames with the leafy branches to douse the flames.

  It was difficult to judge the fire, to let it blaze through large areas of grass without letting it get out of control and endanger the homestead. Whenever the fire did race away out of control, Annie and Nell would pursue it, swirling the hose and beating the ground.

  Now the flames of the real bushfire were clearly visible, leaping and raging forty or fifty feet into the air. The scrub and bush on the mountain behind was well alight, huge gum trees burning like gigantic flaming brands. The wind gusted fireballs of burning fuel through the air, to land in fresh patches of bush and start new infernos.

  Charlotte and Nell could feel the heat in the air scorching their eyeballs, their throats, their noses, until each breath felt ragged and harsh. The baking earth seared the soles of their boots and blistered their gloved hands.

  There was now a wide swathe of blackened earth covering much of the paddock. Charlotte and Nell drove the horse and water cart down to the river to refill it, over and over again. Their arms ached with lugging heavy buckets, but fear and adrenaline drove them on. They drove the cart back and parked it close to the homestead once more.

  The fire had reached the edge of the bush, which was now a solid wall of fire from the earth to the sky. Swirling leaves and flying coals landed in the grass at the distant edge of the paddock, starting dozens of spot fires, which spread and joined, becoming a sea of fire. The red tide was coming straight towards them.

  ‘We cannot do much more here,’ decided Annie, wiping her black, perspiring face. ‘We have a good, wide firebreak so we just have to pray it works. We should pull back to the outbuildings now.’

  ‘What about the horses?’ begged Charlotte, as she watched the herd of horses plunging and rearing in terror.

  ‘Let the horses out,’ ordered Annie. ‘The horses will escape the fire if they have enough room to run. They will find shelter in the creek or work their way around behind the fire to a burnt-out patch.’

  Charlotte raced to open the gate to the pastures beyond. Sophie flew behind the horses, steering them out towards freedom. Nell and Annie stamped out a new spot fire, then gathered up their buckets and sacks and retreated to the stable yard.

  The hens were locked in the henhouse, which had been thoroughly doused in water, and Sophie herded the pigs and pet lambs into the barn. The cows had already been let out after the morning’s milking and had taken to the distant hills.

  The smoke was thick and acrid all around them, making it hard to breathe. Nell fetched a pile of cloths soaked in water, which they all wrapped around their faces, covering their mouths and noses.

  No-one knew how long they had been fighting the fire. The morning had seemed interminable. The fire reached the firebreak. Everyone held their breath, wondering if it would work. For a few moments the firebreak seemed to be working. The fire paused, licking along the boundary of blackened earth, but not advancing any further.

  The wind behind howled and moaned in frustration, then hurled a hundred sparks across the void. Some fell harmlessly on the burnt-out soil, but others were flung further and fell on fresh fuel. All eyes were peeled, everyone ready to race to each new spot fire and douse it with beating branches and stamping boots.

  For a while they seemed to be winning the battle. Then a large patch of tinder caught alight, burning and spreading before anyone could reach it. The stout timber logs of the stockyard caught fire, spreading to the paddock fences. The fire skipped across the stable yard and licked the walls of the dairy.

  ‘Fall back,’ shouted Annie, running with an empty bucket in each hand. Buckets of water were sloshed on the walls of the dairy, dampening but not dousing the flames.

  The fire took hold and roared through the timber walls of the dairy, jumping to the pigsty and racing to the chicken house.

  ‘It has taken hold,’ cried Annie despairingly. ‘I want you both to go inside the house. It’s too dangerous out here. I will keep fighting with the hose.’

  ‘No, Annie,’ argued Charlotte, dashing another bucket of water on the flames. ‘You need us out here to help, or we could lose the house altogether.’

  Annie paused, torn.

  ‘No, Annie, please, we want to help,’ begged Nell. ‘It would be more frightening in the house by ourselves. Please let us stay.’

  Another surge of flame silenced the argument. It was futile wasting breath on arguing when there was so much to lose. The threat to the house gave them all renewed vigour, despite aching arms, stumbling legs and raw throats. The fire was so close to the barn and the animals inside, and to the house, with everything they possessed inside.

  Nell ran to hurl water over the flaming beams of the dairy. The upright posts were alight, the seasoned timber roaring. There was a sickening crunch as the support beam cracked under the weight of the roof above.

  In slow motion, Charlotte saw the roof begin to fall with Nell crouched underneath.

  ‘Run, Nell,’ screamed Charlotte, racing towards her sister. Nell looked up and stumbled backwards.

  Sophie swooped, zooming through the air, and pushed. Nell fell, hurtling into the dust, Sophie clutched around her. The roof collapsed, the burning beam and debris only inches from Sophie and Nell. Sophie felt winded and bruised, and her wrist stung where she had been burnt, but she had saved Nell.

  ‘Are you all right, Nell?’ screamed Charlotte, racing to help Nell to her feet.

  ‘Yes, I am fine,’ Nell said shakily, dusting off her trousers. ‘Come on, pass me my bucket. We need more water.’

  ‘Girls, that’s enough,’ insisted Annie. ‘Nell could have been killed. Your lives are more important than mere possessions. We should let the animals out of the barn to take their chances and we will go and lie in the creek. If the men were here we would have a better chance.’

  Where’s our guardian angel now? thought Charlotte desperately. Mama, Papa, don’t let us lose everything now.

  Sophie felt the despair eroding Charlotte’s strength.

  ‘Don’t give up now, Charlotte,’ whispered Sophie. ‘Don’t let the fire win.’

  Sophie ran her chilly fingers across Charlotte’s brow and down her arm, cooling her and calming her, helping her to think.

  ‘No, Annie,’ said Nell, holding her head high. ‘We have already lost one home. I could not bear to lose another.’

  Charlotte took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and threw another bucket of water on the blaze, then another, swamping a patch of flames.

  Nell and Annie worked beside her with superhuman strength, hurling bucket after bucket. At last, the fire in the chicken house was vanquished.

  ‘We are winning,’ shouted Charlotte with exhilaration. ‘We can save the house.’

  Charlotte suddenly noticed a change. She felt something lift and stir an escaped curl at the back of her neck. There was a soft breeze blowing, cooling the slick of perspiration on her neck. It took Charlotte a moment to notice its significance.

  ‘The wind has dropped,’ called Annie in excitement. ‘The breeze has swung around to the east.’

  It took a few minutes for the change to affe
ct the fire, but gradually the flames dropped, pushed back onto the burnt-out ground, away from the fresh timber.

  The three firefighters ran forward once more, dousing the flames, hurling buckets of water and stamping with the sacks. Sophie urged and cheered them on. At last the outbuildings were safe and the grass fire in the paddock had burnt out, leaving a desert plain of black ash and soot.

  Annie, Charlotte, Nell and Sophie stood staring at the desolation, their buckets and sacks dropped heedlessly. The telltale black scorch marks came within just a few feet of the homestead.

  ‘Look,’ called Nell, pointing. ‘Look at Mala.’

  Mala the koala was curled up in the crook of her eucalyptus tree, fast asleep.

  ‘I think she slept through the whole thing,’ giggled Charlotte. ‘Do you think she would sleep even if her very own tree was alight?’

  When a frantic Edward, Will and Henry galloped into the stable yard, followed by a group of mounted stockmen, they found the homestead transformed by an eerie silence.

  In the kitchen they found three exhausted, blackened bodies huddled around the table. The faces were so charcoaled and smudged that it was almost impossible to recognise anyone except for Nicky the dog, who was now piebald. Sophie felt exhausted and drained.

  ‘Annie? Charlotte and Nell? Is that you?’ wondered Mr McLaughlin. ‘Well, bless me, Annie, are you wearing my trousers and boots? And look, the wee lassies are wearing Will’s by the look of it.’

  ‘No, they are not yours, they are Henry’s, but I don’t think he will be wearing them again,’ explained Annie with a weary smile.

  ‘Oh, you clever, brave darlings,’ exclaimed Mr McLaughlin. ‘You saved the homestead and the outbuildings all by yourselves. I was praying all the way back that you would still be alive. I was sure the house would be gone and I’d find you all half cooked in the creek.’

  ‘The creek,’ sighed Charlotte. ‘What a wonderful idea. I need a swim.’

  Everyone laughed, bubbling with relief and joy.

  Charlotte and Nell stumbled down to the billabong, carrying cloths, soap and fresh clothes. They stripped off their filthy shirts and trousers so they were down to their underwear, and stepped gingerly into the pool. The water was warm after the hot day, and lapped around their tired bodies. Sophie splashed in beside them in her long white nightgown.