by Anna Romer
His beautiful Clarice was afraid, and nothing he nor a battalion of well-meaning doctors could do or say would put her mind at rest. When the baby came, she would improve. That’s what he kept telling himself. Once she held that tiny healthy bundle in her arms, she could stop worrying. Her fear was only natural, after what she’d been through with Edith and baby Joyce, and Edwin had made it his life’s mission to protect her.
The hammering came again.
Clarice did not stir, thanks to the potent draught. Orah would still be sleeping. Her room was tucked away at the top of the stairs, out of earshot of the front door. On any other day, he may have ignored the ruckus, let the intruder go on their way and return at a more reasonable hour, but if Clarice woke, she’d be wan and fretful all day. Besides, Edwin had a restless feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was probably Hanley. Edwin had knocked quietly on his door just after ten, and slipped him a tight bundle of notes; more money than Hanley Dane had seen in a month of Sundays, evidenced by the widening of his greedy eyes. He had blustered and tried to push the money back, but Edwin would not take it.
‘Leave now,’ he’d cautioned. ‘While the girl’s asleep. She’s happy here with us. We can provide for her, give her a decent home. Can you honestly say you could do the same?’
Hanley had stared back at him, his weather-beaten face a picture of sorrow. Edwin’s heart went out to him, but what could he do? They both knew he was right.
The hammering had stopped.
As Edwin descended the stairs, he heard an engine cough to life somewhere on the other side of the hedge. It quickly faded, lost to the crash and boom of waves against the rocks. On nights like this, when the tide was high, the roar of the sea was all you could hear; a bomb might go off and they’d be none the wiser.
In the sitting room, Edwin went to the window, but could see no sign of the automobile. He waited, and then caught a glimmer of it speeding along the narrow strip of road back in the direction of Stern Bay. Edwin breathed a sigh. It was over. Life could return to normal, he could carry on with a clear conscience now, and best of all – and here a spark of joy began to burn brightly in his heart – Orah was theirs at last. Not stolen, not theirs by devious means, but truly theirs. She would forgive them in time. She was a sensible girl, she would come to see that they had lied only to protect her. Now that she’d seen with her own eyes the sort of man her father was, she would understand their motive.
In time . . .
He considered going back to bed but something drew him to the front door. He told himself he wanted to be sure that Hanley had really gone, but it wasn’t just that. Something niggled. A shabby coat hung on the rack, reeking of smoke and grime, but it wasn’t that either. Nor was it his irritation with himself about the letter.
Opening the door, he glanced down.
The cry that shot from his mouth left him winded. He prayed that he was mistaken, that his eyes were playing tricks – even as he fell to his knees and gathered her into his arms. A mistake, please. Let it be a mistake. It can’t be her, it can’t be—
As he carried her inside and laid her gently on the couch, careless of the blood that seeped onto the fine silk cushions, he continued his silent pleading. It can’t be . . . It can’t be. It kept on long after he knew that it was no mistake, that the broken and bloodied creature in his arms was indeed his beautiful Orah, the sweet golden-haired girl who had brought his family back from the brink.
‘Clarice!’ he roared. Curse the sleeping draught. Why had he given her so much? ‘For the love of God, Clarice!’
Orah made a mewling sound. She was crumpled like a broken doll, her skin slick with blood, her poor head crushed. He could see the black stain above her ear, growing larger, eclipsing the bright gold of her hair. Edwin’s mind spun. He wanted to race into the hall and telephone the doctor, but dared not leave her. What if she slipped away while he was gone? And then the wait for help to arrive. Thirty minutes from town, possibly an hour at this time of night. Did she even have that long? What if she—
‘Clarice, get down here!’ Orah couldn’t die. He wouldn’t let her. He would keep her alive by sheer force of will. ‘Clarice! Oh . . . God.’
A murmur, a sigh from his sweet girl. He lowered his face to her. ‘Orah, love, can you hear me?’
‘Edwin?’
‘I’m here, little one.’
‘Where’s Pa?’
Hot tears stung Edwin’s eyes. ‘Did he do this to you, Orah? Did your father do this?’
‘I tried to go with him,’ she murmured. ‘But he . . . oh, Edwin, he didn’t . . . want me. You were right . . . Clarice said . . . he didn’t—’
Edwin began to weep silently. He longed to gather her against him, to hold her tight and make the pain go away, but he was terrified of hurting her. Jumbled words clamoured in the back of his mind, words of comfort and explanation, words of encouragement – but he could not give voice to any of them. He was losing her. He recognised no particular sign of that loss, just a dark foreboding that pushed against his mind. After the female silkworm moths laid their eggs, they only lived a few hours; he had often watched them fluttering on the windowsills, their movements growing erratic as the strength ebbed from their wings. Many thousands of times he had witnessed the dying of the moths . . . and the presence of death never failed to chill him.
Just as it chilled him now.
‘He’s here,’ Orah whispered. Her eyes widened, focusing on something over Edwin’s shoulder. She smiled. Her fingers fluttered weakly, and then her hands lifted from where Edwin had placed them on her chest. They hovered in the gloom, a pair of moths beginning their death dance.
‘Orah, stay with me,’ Edwin breathed. He grasped her hands, kissed the knuckles, willing her fingers to tighten, even for an instant, around his own. Instead, as though melting under the heat of his terror, her fingers relaxed and the sudden weight of her arms dragged them from his grasp. Her eyes, a moment ago so bright, trembled shut. A sigh whispered from her, and then she vanished into a stillness so profound that Edwin felt his heart vanish with her.
‘He’s here.’
Orah could see him clearly, just behind Edwin’s shoulder. Standing in his proud way, his dark eyes fixed to hers. Warra, she called. Warra, am I seeing you with my heart?
A breath, or a sigh. Yes.
Heaviness settled over her. She reached for Warra with both hands, expecting to feel his strong fingers grasp hers, but there was only emptiness and shadows. She was no longer in the sitting room at Bitterwood. All was dark.
Warra, where did you go?
A whisper nearby. I’m here, Orah.
She saw him then. Dear, beautiful Warra. He wore a wallaby skin at his waist and a necklace of wildflowers. His dark hair formed a halo around his head, and he was smiling so sweetly that it made her heart squeeze.
Put your arms around my neck and hold on, he told her. Climb on my back. Hold tight. Don’t be afraid. I’m a good swimmer.
She knew he was a good swimmer, she’d seen him in action. But why was he telling her now? There was no water here . . . Yet even as the thoughts formed in her mind, she heard a soft whooshing sound nearby.
It’s the ocean, Warra whispered, his breath warm on her cheek. Now his hand grasped hers and pulled her lightly to her feet. To Orah’s surprise, they were standing on the headland. Not the gravelly embankment high above the rocks where she’d been earlier, but the gently sloping grassy hillside Warra had taken her the day he’d made the daisy chain. It was early morning. The sandy path that led down to the beach meandered around the headland like a white ribbon. The cloudless sky shimmered a perfect shade of blue. Below them stretched the indigo sea, trimmed with foaming waves. Look at that water, Warra said. Beautiful, eh? And all that sunshine, friendly as a smile.
All around them, paper daisies raised their white and yellow heads between tufts of soft green grass. Above them soared a pair of sea eagles. Orah smiled and thought her world complete. Here was t
he place she’d dreamed of, a place where everything – every stone, every tuft of grass, every tree – was a mirror, in which she could see herself reflected.
Someone called her name. She looked around, and joy exploded in her heart, for there was Mam, her very own dear mam striding towards them along the sandy path, her arms outstretched, her lovely face flushed pink from the sun. Orah let go of Warra’s hand and ran towards her mother. The last of the heaviness left her limbs, she was now as light as a bird. Flying free, she thought, as free as a cloud. But the notion only lasted a heartbeat. Here was Mam at last, weeping for joy. Orah’s own glad tears streamed from her eyes as she threw her arms around her mother’s neck and felt herself disappear into that warm, strong, loving embrace that she knew so well.
He lifted her with infinite care, adjusting the slight weight of her in his arms. Through the dark house he went, out the back door and into the garden. Picking his way across the grass, he followed the path downhill into the orchard. It was a starless night; shadows seemed to gather around him in the garden, as though paying their last respects. He walked past them, trying not to think of what lay ahead.
When he reached the icehouse, he paused to fumble out his keys and open the door. Pushing into the deeper darkness, he entered the damp passageway that smelled of earth and stone and staleness. The cool breath of the icehouse wafted around him.
He knew his way by memory, had ventured here so often since he was a boy that his internal compass was finely tuned to the number of paces he must take, the exact moment to turn, when to duck his head to avoid the lintel over the narrow entryway into the heart of the icehouse. In the room that had once stored blocks of ice throughout the long summertimes of his childhood, he finally laid her down. He tucked her back against the solid sandstone wall, her body on her side, the way she liked to sleep, and then, as an afterthought, he took off his cardigan and rolled it into a pillow under her head.
Fumbling in his pocket for a box of matches, he lit the old kerosene lamp. The cool yellow glow sent fingers of light exploring into the corners, chasing the shadows, making them dance sinuously up the walls. There was nothing left to do, but still he lingered. He wanted to hold her one last time, but how could he bear her deadweight again, when the act of carrying her here had almost finished him?
A shadow of cold. He and Clarice had wanted only to love her, but instead they had smothered her. Both of them, wanting so desperately to keep her safe, protect her, give her the life they envisaged, a good life. Instead, they had clipped her wings.
And now . . .
The ice room had become hollow, the air around him unearthly still. He could hear the soft whistle of his breath, the heavy thump of his heart – and, as though from another world, a muffled voice calling his name.
Pausing in the narrow entryway, he looked back.
The glow of the kerosene lamp washed her hair gold. Her small hands lay folded beside her face, her brow as smooth and white as a pebble. If he half-closed his eyes, he could imagine that she was only sleeping. That the stains on her skin and clothes were nothing more sinister than shadows; that her deathly stillness was only that briefest of moments before the next intake of breath.
He cursed himself. More tricks, he told himself. Nothing more. Yet that fleeting, knife-jab moment of hope held more pain than he believed anybody – least of all a man like him – had the capacity to bear.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. His voice bounced off the walls, tight with pain. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’
With the echo of his words turning to dust in his ears, he ducked beneath the lintel, along the passageway, through the door and out into the brilliance of a frosty dawn.
36
Bitterwood, June 1993
Ducking through the low doorway, I continued on my way into the heart of the icehouse. The air was so cold it felt moist on my skin, the darkness so dense it deadened my torchlight. I shuffled into the room, pushing aside strings of cobwebs. Thunder echoed dimly through the thick walls. Earth and grit sifted from between the roof beams. I trained my light on a spot near the entryway.
Long ago, I had spent the night in this place. A dark night, in the company of spiders and cockroaches, rats. And . . .
The torch wavered in my hand.
Memory froze me in place.
That distant night, I had stumbled backwards and come to rest on that spot, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. Scrabbling my legs, trying to disappear, arms locked around my shins, my face pressed into my knees. I had not cried, hadn’t made a sound. Was too scared. Just breathed, and tried to think, think of anything. Tried to think lovely thoughts. I had told myself a story, I remembered. One of my father’s fairytales from the days before he got published. Picturing myself as the fearless princess who disguised herself in a bearskin to rescue her prince. Over and over I told it, as though it had the power to ward off the terrifying vision on the opposite side of the cramped room.
In a way, it had.
I shone my torch at the centre of the floor. Set into the flagging was a large rectangular grate. Beneath it was a shallow drain which had once carried away the meltwater produced by stored blocks of ice. Once allowed me to escape this place.
The torch beam crawled. Slowly, to the other side.
There, in the corner.
Not a pile of discarded bricks after all. Not a bundle of old rags.
But someone. A small someone, slumped on the floor, back against the wall as though sleeping.
I went over. The skeleton was delicate, the jumble of small bones blurred by dust, collapsed within the decayed confines of what had once been a girl’s dress. There were shoes, and a long thin strip near the skull that might once have been a ribbon.
I kneeled beside her. ‘Orah.’
My voice whispered around the walls. As though in answer, muffled thunder cracked somewhere overhead. The tremor that followed drew a shudder from the support beams around me. More earth rained down from the ceiling, drawing my gaze upwards. Solid, I told myself. The icehouse had already endured more than a hundred years. It would not collapse now.
I looked back at the girl.
A network of spider webs, as fine and white as silk, shrouded her bones – connecting a shoulder blade to the wall, lacing between delicate finger bones, creating a veil over her ribs and spine.
Who was she, really? She had survived a shipwreck, lost her mother in the dark water. Clung to a lifeboat until the early hours of what must have been a terrifying night. She had been rescued by a boy she came to love. She had gone to live at Bitterwood, and filled two empty hearts with hope. How glad she must have been to discover her father alive, only to plunge into bitter disappointment when he left in the night without saying goodbye.
And then, her fall.
I could see Hanley gathering her from the rocks below the headland, rushing with her back to the house. Weeping quietly over her stillness as he laid her on the doorstep, promising that everything would be all right. But it hadn’t been all right. She had died of her injuries, and Edwin had brought her to this icy crypt, locked her in the darkness, kept her here for more than sixty years. He had guarded her memory, and then, when he knew that his own death was near, he’d burned the album containing her image. Burned away all trace of her – or so he’d thought – to stop anyone wondering, asking questions. To stop them uncovering what he’d done.
Thunder rumbled outside and more rubble sifted from the ceiling. Still, I lingered. It seemed infinitely sad to think of this bright girl entombed here, while year after year and only a few feet above, butterflies danced in the wildflowers, and the song of the ocean drifted up from the cliffs below.
My fingers tightened around the ruined bracelet in my hand.
Understanding came in a rush.
Mum had been here that day. She’d been inside the icehouse. Located the keys, perhaps, or simply discovered the door unlocked and gone in.
Where she had found the remains of a young girl.
I thought about my dream. About the crushing guilt it always inspired in me, bringing with it the echo of my mother’s voice, drifting from far away.
I’m trapped here, Lucy. Why did you lie?
Loosening my fingers, I looked down at the bracelet in my palm.
It hadn’t really been my mother’s voice calling through my dreams. Just my own guilty conscience laying blame where no blame belonged.
Into the darkness, a whisper.
You only see what you want to see, Lucy . . . If you believe something to be a certain way, then that’s exactly how it appears to you.
The truth, I realised, wore many masks. Eyes were deceptive, seeing what you told them to see. The heart, on the other hand, never lied.
Somewhere in the dark behind me, the wind murmured against the walls. I became aware of a muffled scraping and tearing. The wind picked up, and I wondered if it had caught the door and was preparing to slam it shut. But the tearing noise increased, as though the earth itself was splitting down the middle. Soil and gravel began to rain around me, falling faster and thicker than it had before. I shone my torch to the rafters and saw a steady stream of dirt and small stones sifting down.
It was time to go.
Lifting the ribbon from around my neck, I drew out the gold heart charm and placed it on the floor beside Orah. Next to it I laid the bracelet chain with its tiny padlock clasp. Then I got to my feet.
‘I hope you found Warra,’ I whispered. ‘Wherever you are, I hope you’re loved.’
Then I turned and, feeling somehow lighter in my spirit, I hurried out.