The dead willow loomed over Tin Hut Gully, a bleached-white skeletal monarch slumping under the endless, cloudless sky. She’d used an infrared filter, pushing the tonal capabilities of the black and white film to its extreme and as such, the clear blue sky appeared almost black, the atmospheric haze casting the willow in a ghostly white aura. The few tufts of tenacious, spindly grass surviving the drought seemed to radiate white heat, and where shadows fell over the dusty ground, the tiny images looked to be stained with dry, black blood.
Even with the dimness of the darkroom and the liquid chemical rippling over them, Tess knew the tiny photos of the willow were powerful, an evocative statement to the brutal nature of life in the Australian outback. Enlarged to the size of a large plasma television, they would be breathtaking.
Pulling the now completely developed page of negative proofs from the first tray, she slid it—face down—into the second, brushing away an errant strand of hair tickling her neck with the back of her free hand as she did so.
Perspiration licked a line along her collarbone, almost caressing her flushed skin. She closed her eyes, enjoying the somehow erotic sensations the cool trickle of sweat created as it slid down her chest. A silent snort escaped her and she shook her head. Christ, she was in dire straits if sweating in a dark room turned her on. Her nipples pinched tight and she let out a slow breath. It wasn’t the darkroom and the sweat.
It was Jared Pierce.
Jared Pierce—the stranger she’d bumped into outside the post office earlier that day—had awoken something in her long repressed, a yearning her dreams had recognized since moving to the Creek. Even the few moments in his company (“just in case” he’d called after her) had affected her so much she was questioning her sanity.
What would she do if she saw him again? In real life, this time?
Who?
The word whispered in her ear, a barely-felt breeze. She rolled her head to the side, pulling another breath. Who indeed. A stranger.
Opening her eyes, she removed the sheet from the wash and dumped it into the fixer.
“Sixty seconds, Darcy,” she growled, swirling the paper around the tray. “Just go sixty seconds without thinking about him, okay?”
Fifty-one seconds later, pulse pounding, her pussy still fluttering, she whipped the contact sheet out of the tray, gave it a hasty, perfunctory wave under the running tap and hit the light switch.
Bright, white light assaulted her, burning her retina and blinding her for a split second. She stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the harsh incandescent glare, the room leaping and moving with new shadows around her. Grabbing her magnifying loupe from the dry shelf, she slapped the contact sheet down on the counter, the twisting tension in her stomach growing stronger.
“Okay, Darcy,” she muttered, pulling in a deep breath and placing the loupe on top of the proof sheet, “focus.”
More churned up than ever, Tess bent at the waist and pressed her eye to the small magnifying lens.
The lifeless willow looked more ghostly and evocative in the revealing light, a somewhat chilling statement of the temporal existence on the driest continent on the planet. She studied each shot, starting from the first frame, noting areas that would require extra exposure, discarding some, mentally cataloguing others for later enlargement as she moved the loupe along the proofs.
And then she slid it over frame fifteen and her mouth turned dry.
Spinning back to the contact holder, she whipped out the negative strip, holding it up to the light. Was it…
No. It can’t be. Your eyes are playing tricks on you.
Snatching the negative carrier from the enlarger, she placed frame fifteen into it, ramming the small metal frame back into its place in the enlarger with hands she refused to let tremble. Killing the incandescent light, she dialed the device’s lens aperture to a few stops short of fully opened and turned it on. An enlarged version of the frame illuminated the enlarger’s baseboard, surreal in its negativity. Not allowing herself to stare at any part of the tonally reversed image except the trunk of the tree, she gripped the focus knob of the enlarger’s head and dialled the image into focus. Sharp focus.
Shutting the enlarger off, refusing to listen to the rising noise in her head, the rising whispers telling her she was wasting her time, what she saw in the negative, on the contact sheet was really there, really there, she yanked a sheet of clean photographic paper from the packet and slapped it onto the baseboard, aligning it by feel alone under the enlarger’s head.
Operating completely on gut instinct, mouth dry, pulse pounding, she turned the enlarger back on, counting a slow eight before killing the light and snatching the paper from the baseboard.
She spun to the developing trays, shoving the sheet of exposed paper into the first with such force the chemical sloshed over the sides, splashing her hand and wrist with the viscous, pungent liquid. She didn’t care. Using her fingers, she agitated the sheet in the developer, watching the image slowly, slowly, Goddamn it, slowly materialise.
Tess shook her head. No. No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t seeing—
Yanking the sheet from the developer, she plunged it into the stop bath and then the fixer, uncaring of chemical contamination. The darkroom’s safelight shrouded the tray in shadows, as if it somehow was in on the conspiracy. Let’s send Tess Darcy insane.
“Sixty seconds in the fixer, Darcy,” she ground out, swishing the sheet of paper around the tray with increased agitation as she watched the second hand of her watch tick its way past the numbers. “Sixty seconds or the whole thing goes black when you turn on the light.” And she couldn’t have that. She needed to see this photograph’s image more than anything. She needed to… Squeezing her eyes shut, Tess fidgeted on the spot. Goddamn it, how long did sixty seconds need to be?
She opened her eyes and stared at her watch. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight.
“Fuck it.” Jerking the sheet from the tray, she crossed the darkroom in a single step, slammed the side of her fist against the power switch and flooded the room with light.
The print was underexposed and streaked with glistening patches of fluid, but still more arresting than the most precisely developed photograph ever could be.
She stared at the image, a perfectly focussed, creatively composed shot of a dead gumtree with a stark, cloudless sky behind it.
It was an incredible image. She could almost smell the surrounding eucalypts now, could almost feel the heat of the day on her face, but it wasn’t the technical perfection of the shot that caught her breath in her throat.
It was the man standing beside the tree in the gully. The man whose lips curled in a smile of possessive arrogance and open hunger even as he stared into the camera.
Tess’s blood turned to ice and her body began to tremble.
Chad Fisher.
The tickle of hair on her neck turned to a soft caress. Yes.
She blinked, and just like that a tsunami of images crashed over her. Images she couldn’t pass off as just messed-up fantasies: Jared Pierce kissing her on Hill Street, in her living room, telling her he could protect her from Chad, he could save her, the library—oh, God, the library, the walls changing, Robyn Jones, the massage, her underpants lined up in a row, the photograph of her and Chad, the photograph she’d destroyed twice so far…
Chad. In the photo she now held in her hand. A photograph she’d taken over two weeks ago.
Tess’s eyelids fluttered and for a sickening moment, the darkroom spun, the stench of chemicals eating into Tess’s body like acid.
Oh God, it was real. All of it.
Dropping the wet print to the floor, she’d turned and crossed the darkroom, opening the door and stepping out into the night, the baking heat wrapping around her with greedy haste. She walked the five steps it took to move from what had once been her laundry to her back door like she was asleep, limbs numb and heavy, the scar on her back tingling with icy heat, growing colder, colder, with each step s
he took until it felt like someone was slicing into her flesh with an icy razor.
She pulled open the door and entered her small kitchen, closing her eyes momentarily at the inferno smashing into her as she did so. The heat didn’t concern her. She knew where it came from. The fireplace. The empty fireplace.
Sweat pouring from her, drenching her shirt, turning it into a clinging second skin, she walked through her home, wanting to run from the rooms, run away from the sweltering heat but knowing she couldn’t. Not until she saw—
The fireplace seemed to shimmer, the frenzied flames leaping and writhing and dancing there. Consuming the entire wall. Turning the air to liquid.
Tess crossed the room, the wooden floorboards burning the soles of her feet, despite the heavy rubber tread of her running shoes, the heat blistering her lungs every time she drew breath.
She crossed the room to the fireplace, and, the heat devouring her, dropped into a crouch, her fingers finding the small rectangle of paper lying on the floor without any effort. As if they knew all along what would be waiting for her on the scalding, blackened hearth.
Two people smiled back at her from the immaculate, pristine photograph, the woman with an uncomfortable light in her eyes, the man with a crazed light in his. Two people beneath the Statue of Liberty, bone-white clouds slashing the stark blue sky behind them.
Two people. Tess Darcy and Chad Fisher.
Forever embracing in a photograph.
A harsh sob ruptured from Tess’s mouth. “Oh, God, no.”
She stared at it, sweat stinging her eyes, and shook her head. You’re going mad, Tess. That’s all. You’re having a psychotic episode.
No, you’re not.
An icy breath slipped into her ear, like a tickling wisp of hair, and she lifted her head.
Tessa…
She recoiled, stumbling backward, eyes wide. Her ass bumped into the edge of the sofa, sending shots of sharp pain up into her spine, but Tess didn’t take any notice.
The living room walls warped and twisted before her, one moment clean and wallpapered, the next dark and rusted, smooth plasterboard to corrugated iron to plasterboard again, as if two realities fought for existence in the same space.
She sucked in a breath, icy air invading her lungs, engulfing her in a hideous compression. Icy, not burning, despite the fire still roaring in the fireplace. Her flesh rippled into goose bumps, pinching her nipples into painful rock-hard points. Her scar erupted in pain, an excruciating tear in flesh both chilled and burning.
All around her, the walls continued to warp and bend, bleeding from one surreal state to another. Rusted metal. Wallpapered plasterboard. Pulsing and distorting like a living, breathing thing. A living, breathing hideous thing intent on shattering her sanity.
Another cold gush of dead air struck her, wrapping around her sweat-soaked limbs, her perspiration now beads of frosted ice scalding her skin. She shivered, teeth chattering a violent tattoo. Oh God. What was happening to her?
Ice-fingers smacked at her thighs. She flinched, wild stare snapping to the grime-covered headstone where her television should have been, thick, old blood the color of poisoned oil oozing from its cold pores to stain the rug underneath. A rug wavering between freshly vacuumed plush pile and old rot reeking of decay and mould.
Welcome home, Tessa…
The deep, empty voice seeped into her head, a parasite seeking the rich nourishment of her sanity. Those fingers of ice brushed over her cheek, across her lips, deathly cold and dry. Tess jerked backward, elbows cracking the edge of her cluttered bookshelf. “Get the fuck away from me!” she gasped, staring at the frosted air.
Why would I do that when I’ve been waiting for this moment?
The walls wavered again, growing black with old rust. The lounge grew fat, seemed to bloat and stretch until a bed stood in its place. Liquid-red sheets undulated across the mattress, alive with insidious need.
Tess flattened against the bench, palms pressed to its solid wooden surface, her heart frantic as she stared at perversion around her. Not real. Not real. It’s not real, Darcy.
Yes, Tessa… Those cold, dusty fingers slid across her cheek again, across her bottom lip to snake into her mouth. It is.
Dirt filled her mouth. Dirt and rotting, putrid flesh. As the lifeless fingers stroked her tongue, her throat filled with the taste of decaying meat. She gagged, flinging her head to the side, trying like hell to escape those fingers.
This is not real.
“Not real.”
A soulless chuckle sounded in her ears and powerful, solid hands closed around her breasts. Real hands. “Yes. It is.”
Tess snapped back her head, staring straight into ice-blue eyes. Ice-blue eyes burning with possessive lust.
Chad Fisher’s eyes. The blood drained from Tess’s face. He stood before her. Towered over her. Dressed in an ink-black suit and black tie. Right there. Indisputable. Flesh and blood.
A smug smile curled his lips. “Not quite, Tessa.” Rancid breath fanned her face as thighs that felt like steel pressed against her, pinning her to the door. “But getting there with each passing second.” He slid one hand from her breast up to her neck, circling the column with long, ice-like fingers. Tess felt her pulse pound against his palm as she stared into his blazing eyes. Stared through his blazing eyes. He was right. He wasn’t there yet. She could see the shifting, distorting walls behind him.
God, help me.
“He’s already tried, Tessa,” Chad murmured, dipping his head closer to her. “Tried and failed.”
Another wave of fetid air assaulted her, and she blanched, staring in disgust as Chad’s pale flesh began to ripple, rotting before her very eyes. His eyes rolled back into his head for a moment, as if a wave of absolute pleasure rolled through him, before he grinned at her. A wide, triumphant grin. Writhing white maggots spewed from his mouth, squeezing through the gaps where teeth once were to fall with a wet splat onto the hand groping and mauling her breast.
Terror spurred Tess. Terror and repulsed fury. “Get off me.” She lashed out, thrashing against Chad’s grip. Her flailing hands and feet seemed to sink into thick mud and a gaseous stink erupted in the air. But she didn’t stop. “Get the fuck off me now, you dead fucking bastard.”
Chad’s grip on her neck tightened. “Now, now, blossom.” Bony, skeletal fingers buried into her skin and he pushed his face closer. “You never said that when I looked like this.”
The air shimmied, the frozen air turned colder and suddenly her dream lover stood before her, smooth, long-fingered hands cupping her breast, her throat. The silent sexual master who’d taken her to erotic bliss and back every night since she’d arrived in the Creek.
He stared down into her face, eyes shining, sensual lips curving into a provocative smile that bespoke of passion, desire and twisted, unending obsession. “Hello, Tessa.”
* * * *
Jared’s jaw clenched. “Do not think to tell me what to do, K. You might be my Watcher, but you are just that—a Watcher.” His fists curled and he met her glowing stare. “Do you dare break the Rules too? What would happen to Actuality then, I wonder? Restrain me if you can, but nothing will stop me doing what I was sent to do.” He focused his will, concentrating on the seven hundred souls of Kangaroo Creek. Moving…
…nowhere.
“Judgement has been passed, Jared.” Mistress K’s voice was but a whispered sigh of regret. “For your sins, you are condemned to burn for all eternity in the very pits of Hell.” Blistering bands of molten fire unfurled below Jared’s feet, radiating torturous torment as they reached for him. Mistress K looked at him, face cast in flickering red light. “It’s time to—
Jared. A scream of infinite terror filled his head. Jared!
Jared’s eyes flung wide open and his heart froze. “Tess.”
“Watcher,” Mistress K shouted, glaring at him. “You are recalled. Recalled. It’s time for you to—”
Jared gave Mistress K a cold grin. “Go to He
ll.”
He closed his eyes.
And, with Tess’s petrified scream filling his soul, Jared went to the woman he loved.
* * * *
Tess struggled against the man that held her, although “held” was not the right word, and he was definitely not a man.
She flung her head from side to side, lips compressed, fists rammed to the dense firmness of his chest, bucking and fighting against the sheer weight of Chad’s body as he rammed her backward, nailing her to the kitchen counter. “Let. Me. Go!”
His face, still cloaked in the deviously handsome mask of her silent dream lover—the very face she’d fantasized about in the waking hours of her first few days in the Creek—hovered mere inches from hers, one hand curled around her neck, the other squeezing and pawing at her breast.
“I’m never going to let you go, Tessa.” Decomposed flesh filled her nose with each word, rancid and vile. “Don’t you understand that now? We were meant to be together.” The hand on her breast slipped down her ribcage, hooked under the hem of her shirt to flatten against her skin—dead flesh on living. “Your soul called mine.” Lifeless fingers slithered up her torso. “I felt your body crave my touch even in Limbo. Our love gave me strength to be here. I possessed a living woman for you. I denied Death for you.”
A scream rushed up Tess’s throat, hoarse and raw, but she bit it back. “I never loved you, Chad,” she snarled. “And I told you that so many times I lost count. Not only when I left you, but the countless times you called my cell, the countless times you turned up at my home, my work. The times too numerous to forget when you stalked me around New York, begging me to come back to you. I never loved you, but you never listened.”
Ice-blue eyes flashed and his perfect alabaster skin rippled, as if a thousand parasites writhed beneath its flawless surface. “Yes, you did.” His fingers sank deeper into her neck, grinding the tendons, sinew, and muscle with choking force. He pushed his mouth to her cheek, clammy lips scalding her flesh. “You do.” A tongue, wet and coated in greasy slime, slid up the side of her face into her ear. “I just have to remind you.”
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