Crow Country

by Kate Constable

  ‘There was a warrior, back when the whitefellas first came. They called him Saturday. He fought for our lands, like a guerrilla fighter. He resisted; he was a hero. Uncle told me.’

  Sadie wished she hadn’t been so quick to call Saturday a stupid name. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Got killed.’

  ‘Oh.’

  They were silent for a moment. Sadie said, ‘Mum had a deal with Dad – if I was a boy, I would have his surname, but if I was a girl, I’d have hers. And I was born on a Saturday, so that’s what they called me. It could have been worse. I could have been Anzac or Melbourne Cup.’

  ‘Grand Final?’ suggested Walter.

  ‘Or Boxing.’

  Walter gave an appreciative snort. He was almost invisible in the dark. He was okay, Sadie supposed, but just because Ellie wanted to go out with David didn’t mean she and Walter had to be best friends. The harder Ellie pushed it, the harder Sadie would push back. She could be a resistance fighter, too, like Saturday the warrior . . .

  More stars appeared – silver sparks on blue velvet. The back door creaked open, and David called out, ‘Hey, you kids, aren’t you freezing your bums off out there? Come in and eat.’

  Warmth and brightness and the smell of Ellie’s fish curry spilled from the doorway. Sadie didn’t exactly elbow Walter out of the way; but she made sure she was the first one inside.

  'I can’t be bothered cooking tonight,’ Ellie announced on Friday night. ‘Let’s treat ourselves for once and have a meal at the pub.’

  Sadie looked up suspiciously from her maths homework, wondering if Ellie was trying to soften her up for something.

  Ellie pounced on her, and Sadie shook her off. ‘You don’t have to strangle me.’

  Ellie blew a raspberry on Sadie’s neck and danced away. Sadie hadn’t seen her mum so excited since – well, since she’d decided they were moving to the country. Usually, the only thing that catapulted Ellie into such a good mood was a new project. And this time the new project must be David, Sadie thought sourly. Did he have any idea what he was in for?

  Huddled in their parkas, Sadie and Ellie hurried through the frosty night toward the bright lights of the pub. When Ellie pushed open the door, a wave of warmth and noise rolled out to engulf them. It was surprisingly busy for a pub in a speck of a town in the middle of nowhere. Sadie hung back while Ellie pranced in and started chatting away to the old men who propped up the bar, shrugging off her jacket, shaking her long fair hair over her shoulders, laughing and joking with everyone.

  Sadie sipped her lemon squash and kept close to her mum’s elbow, torn between admiration for her mum’s determination to make friends from a roomful of strangers, and a creeping sense of embarrassment. Sometimes, she thought, Ellie tried too hard.

  Craig Mortlock leaned over and touched Sadie’s arm. ‘The kids are all out in the back room,’ he said.

  Sadie clutched her glass, unwilling to leave the protective force field of her mother’s presence. But Ellie gave her a nudge. ‘Go on. I’ll yell when our dinner’s ready.’

  Sadie scowled, plonked her empty glass on the bar, and stalked away, through the quiet back bar with its pair of shabby leather couches and open fire, past the toilets, and into a low-roofed, draughty extension that opened onto a trellised beer garden.

  A jukebox was belting out a daggy old Elton John song, and a group of teenagers clustered round a pool table. Sadie recognised some of them from school, though she wasn’t sure of their names. Her heart skipped when she noticed Lachie Mortlock leaning on a cue, talking to an older girl with spiky red hair, the only other girl in the room. The girl saw Sadie, but her eyes flicked away.

  Sadie slunk into a dark corner and wished she were invisible. These kids were older than she was; they didn’t want anything to do with her at school, and they were ignoring her now. They were all normal kids; birds would never talk to them. Sadie wished she was normal. She picked at a pockmark in the wall where the paint had chipped, and watched Lachie and the other boys play pool.

  No one spoke to her and after a while she drifted into a kind of peaceful trance. She began to work out names: the goofy boy with the freckles was Nank; the skinny, dark-haired one in the green shirt was Troy. Hammer was the square-headed, loud-voiced boy with no neck; he looked more like Craig’s son than Lachie did. The sharp-featured boy with the rat’s tail and the earring was Fox.

  Sadie forgot that she wasn’t really invisible; it was a shock to snap out of her trance and see the red-haired girl in front of her, holding out a cue.

  Sadie blinked. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said, do you know how to play?’ The girl smirked over her shoulder at the others. One of the boys guffawed.

  ‘A bit,’ Sadie muttered.

  The red-haired girl tossed her the cue and racked up the balls. She wore a red tartan miniskirt and black tights with ladders in them. Sadie clutched her cue in a sweaty fist, feeling very small and young. The boys lounged back against the walls, nursing Cokes. Lachie was perched on the back of a vinyl-covered chair. He gave her a smile and a wink, and Sadie’s heart flip-flopped. She smiled back.

  The red-haired girl messed up her first shot and swore. Nank sniggered. ‘Nice one, Jules.’

  Sadie lined up her first shot carefully, and potted her ball. She potted the next two before she realised the boys ringed around the walls had fallen silent, watching, and then she got nervous and fluffed the next shot.

  ‘You’re not bad,’ said Jules grudgingly, and Sadie glowed. She didn’t dare glance at Lachie.

  Sadie won the game. Lachie and Troy were waiting to play next.

  ‘You’re Sadie, right?’ said Lachie. His fair hair flopped into his eyes. ‘Ellie Hazzard’s your mum, yeah?’

  Sadie nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘Thought so. Seen you around school. You should have a look in the front bar some time, and down at the Sports Centre. There are photos of the footy team and the cricket club. Your grandpa Phil’s in just about all of them. There’s been a Hazzard in every team for the last hundred years, just about. Sporting family, hey? Where’d you learn to play pool?’

  ‘Mum taught me.’

  ‘Yeah, and my dad probably taught her.’ A knowing laugh ran around the room. Lachie said, ‘Give us a game after this one?’

  Sadie swallowed; was he serious? She gestured feebly to the front of the pub. ‘My mum . . . dinner . . .’

  ‘No sweat,’ said Lachie. ‘Next time, hey?’

  ‘Come on, Lachie, get on with it,’ said Troy.

  Lachie bent over the table to make his first swift, confident shot. The red ball slammed into the pocket. He winked over his shoulder at Sadie, as if they were two pros together. Sadie’s stomach turned inside-out. She didn’t even hear Ellie calling her to dinner.

  ‘Was that Lachie Mortlock?’ Ellie’s eyes danced.

  Sadie picked at her peas. ‘Mm.’

  ‘It’s bizarre seeing Craig and Amanda with a teenage son. I remember when Craig was ten, he had these white-blond curls . . .’ Ellie mimed a halo of hair. ‘And now look at him, he’s the president of the footy club, head of the progress association . . . We all used to go down to Lake Invergarry together for yabbies, get plastered in mud. Nana would do her block.’

  ‘I saw the lake the other day,’ said Sadie. ‘Your lake, I mean. It’s all dried up.’

  ‘Really?’ Ellie looked up. ‘I guess it would be, with the drought. It never was very deep.’

  ‘I saw some ruins sticking up through the mud. They looked like old buildings.’

  Ellie popped a sliver of steak into her mouth. ‘That would have been the Mortlock’s old homestead, where they lived when they first moved into the district. Then someone had the bright idea to flood the valley and turn it into a dam. They built the big new house up on the higher ground. The mansion.’ Ellie pulled a face. ‘All very grand. I think they had visions of boating parties, picnics, that kind of thing. But the lake was always a dud. It was neve
r much good for anything but yabbies. Just a big, shallow, smelly swamp.’

  ‘When did they build it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ages ago. In the 1920s, maybe?’

  Sadie hesitated. ‘I thought I saw some – some graves.’

  ‘Did you?’ Ellie shrugged. ‘There could have been some Mortlocks buried there before they opened the cemetery out on the Wycheproof road.’

  ‘Do you think there are any Hazzards buried at the lake?’

  ‘No way! The Mortlocks wouldn’t let any old corpse into their private graveyard. Snobby family, those Mortlocks.’

  ‘They’re not snobby now.’ Sadie was thinking of Lachie, but she said, ‘Craig’s very friendly.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Ellie stabbed a potato. ‘Amanda, not so much.’

  ‘Do you—’ Sadie hesitated again. ‘Do you want to go and look one day? At the lake, I mean?’

  ‘No,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘No thanks.’ She propped her cheek on her hand and stared at Sadie. ‘It’s a spooky place, that lake. To tell you the truth, I never liked it. Even the yabbies tasted weird.’

  Sadie didn’t answer. Ellie wasn’t a superstitious person. She had no patience with ghost stories or fears of the dark or monsters under beds. It was most unlike her to admit to feeling spooked about anything.

  ‘Did you feel it, when you were there?’ Ellie said. ‘A bad atmosphere?’

  ‘It did feel – strange,’ said Sadie.

  ‘Might be a good idea to keep away from there, okay?’

  ‘Mm.’ Sadie kept her eyes on her plate.

  But she had to know if she’d dreamed the talking crow, if the stones with their mysterious markings were real. Whatever her mother said, she already knew that she had to go back.

  'I thought we were going for a walk around Little Lake?’ Ellie tapped Sadie’s pyjama-clad leg. ‘Come on, you’re always complaining that we never do anything. Let’s go before it rains.’

  ‘It never rains.’ Sadie stared at Saturday-morning TV.

  ‘Like my new scarf and hat?’ Ellie twirled. ‘Black and white, for the Boort Magpies. Gotta show whose side we’re on.’

  ‘Crows are better than magpies,’ muttered Sadie.

  ‘Crows?’ squawked Ellie. ‘Who are the Crows?’ Her phone trilled its cheerful tune and she snatched it from her pocket. Even before she spoke, Sadie could tell from the way she pirouetted from the room that the call was from David. ‘Hello!’

  Sadie swung her feet from the coffee table and made a dash for her bedroom. She threw on some clothes and slipped into the hallway. Ellie was sprawled on her bed, phone to her ear. ‘So . . . footy this afternoon?’

  Sadie eased the front door shut behind her and set off down the road to the centre of town. The sky was muffled with a layer of grey cloud.

  She saw Jules hanging round outside the shops with Fox and the skinny boy who’d played pool with Lachie the night before – Troy. She kept one eye on them as she walked past, pretending not to have seen them in case they ignored her, but Jules raised a languid hand. Sadie gave them a quick wave back, then jammed her hands into her pockets. She marched on, fast and purposeful, down the hill and across the railways tracks.

  Lake Invergarry was a mustard-coloured stain, like paint spilled over the landscape. The grey sky lowered over the mud. Dead trees leaned drunkenly from the silt and for an instant Sadie saw them as skeletal hands, groping bony fingers in the air. She halted, feeling lost. She couldn’t remember how to find the stones. Had she really dreamed them?

  But then a black shadow swooped above her head, gliding under the sky that fitted over the land as snugly as a lid on a box. Waah – waah!

  Sadie broke into a run, stumbling after the crow, a dark speck against the iron-coloured sky. Clods of mud stuck to her shoes and spattered as she ran.

  The crow flung back a long drawn-out waaaah that echoed across the valley, and Sadie caught her breath. There was the dip in the valley that hid the secret place from view. And there was the circle of stones, tall and proud, glowing orange-red like columns of flame. And a crow was waiting for her.

  Sadie stopped, gasping for breath. The crow watched her, its wings folded back, its eyes gleaming like stars. Silence stretched around them.

  After a minute Sadie lowered her eyes. What was she doing here? The crow hadn’t spoken, but somehow Sadie knew that it was mutely laughing at her.

  At last, the crow opened its beak. Again, its words sounded like waah-wah, but Sadie understood. ‘This is Crow’s place.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sadie. ‘You told me that already.’

  ‘Crow has a story for you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sadie. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Sit!’ ordered the crow.

  ‘Um . . .’ Sadie looked at the stinking yellow mud. She shrugged off her parka, spread it out and lowered herself gingerly down.

  ‘This is a secret place, a story place.’ The crow tilted its head. ‘Crow’s people came to this place. Now they are gone. The stories are always. Who tells Crow’s stories now? Where are the dreams when the dreamers are gone? Where are the stories when no one remembers?’

  Sadie didn’t know what to say, but it seemed the crow didn’t expect an answer.

  ‘Country remembers,’ it croaked softly. ‘Country remembers. Crow remembers.’

  The bird stepped closer, watching Sadie with its bright, cunning eye. She inched back, away from the sharp talons, the strong, gleaming beak.

  ‘This story belongs to Crow. And it belongs to you.’

  ‘To me?’ repeated Sadie, startled.

  ‘Waah! You come to listen, not to speak!’ The crow’s eyes closed. Its head dropped.

  Sadie waited, her heart beating fast.

  At last the crow said, ‘Crow cannot see. This is Crow’s own place, but he cannot see. The end of this story is hidden in shadow. This is your story, too. You must finish it.’ The crow blinked once, twice. ‘You do not belong to this place. You do not belong to Crow. But this story is your story.’

  Sadie couldn’t keep quiet. ‘What story?’

  ‘Waah!’ The crow gave a sudden laugh. ‘The story of a clever man!’

  ‘A clever man?’ repeated Sadie, bewildered.

  ‘Wah! You must be quiet!’

  ‘S-sorry,’ stammered Sadie.

  ‘Crow’s people know how to listen! Crow’s people know how to be still! Your people cannot be silent. Your people cannot sit quiet to listen. There are stories all around you, and you cannot hear! Waah! If you cannot listen, Crow must show you!’

  Without warning, the crow unfurled its wings. Darkness streamed from beneath its wings, blotting out the earth, blackening the sky. The bird cried, ‘You must finish this story. For Crow, and for the spirit of the clever man, which cannot rest!’

  Sadie cowered. The crow’s wings beat where it stood. Its cries drowned out every other sound, they filled the valley like the roar of thunder, and the ground shook beneath Sadie as she struggled to her feet.

  Then the crow’s scream rang out, and the bird’s talon-feet gripped the earth, slicing into the ground.

  Sadie imagined her flesh torn by those talons, her eyes jabbed by that pitiless beak, and she ran.

  The sudden night was thick as tar; she didn’t know if her eyes were open or shut. Wind whistled and roared about her, screaming with the crow’s voice. She didn’t know if she was running or falling, dreaming or awake. She was plummeting into the darkness, and the dark was choking her, like soft black feathers in her throat.

  Sadie was running, her feet striking the ground with a rhythmic thud-thud-thud. She could hear her own ragged breath, each gasp tearing into her side like a wound. She was still real, then; she was still here, somewhere, though the darkness was thick as porridge all around her.

  Then she realised she could see a light ahead, a tiny yellow pinprick no bigger than a solitary star.

  She slowed to a jog-trot, shuddering for breath, and held onto her side where the stitch stabbed her. Lights glowed abo
ve her, too: the silvery dust of stars, and the thin curve of the moon. The yellow light ahead was larger now, and square-shaped: a lighted window. She could make out other shapes in the shadows, trees and buildings, flares of lamplight.

  She slowed to a walk. Nothing to be frightened of, you silly duffer, she scolded herself. What’s got into you? Scared of the Hobyahs?

  She imagined long fingers reaching out of the dark and quickened her pace. She was carrying a basket; she knew that she should carry it carefully. Even when she’d been running full tilt, she’d been careful to balance the basket. She remembered now that it was full of eggs.

  She was wearing boots and a frock and her blue cardigan that Gran had knitted, and her hair was tumbling down out of its bobby pins as usual . . .

  And somewhere inside her was Sadie, thinking in amazement, Who am I? This isn’t me! I’ve turned into someone else! But somehow she wasn’t concerned about this unexpected transformation. She was astonished but not anxious. She walked steadily toward the shop, toward home, the lamplight streaming from the kitchen and the basket of eggs from Mrs Williams on her arm.

  She let herself into the stuffy kitchen, warm with the heat of the stove, and set the basket on the dresser. Mum was draining a saucepan of potatoes. John was at the table, bent over his schoolbook, legs wound round the chair legs, tongue poking from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Bless you, love, you’re just in time.’ Mum’s face was flushed and a curl of dark hair had escaped from the scarf tied round her head. She wiped her hands on her green-flowered pinafore. ‘Mash these spuds, will you? I can hear the baby.’

  She whisked out of the room, and Sadie, without thinking, pulled open the right drawer, found a fork and began to mash the potatoes. She looked round for the milk jug and found that and the butter dish on the table. She added milk and butter to the potatoes, beating them to a creamy mash. Just the way Dad likes them, she found herself thinking . . .

  Sadie knew that these weren’t her thoughts, they belonged to someone else. She wondered, without panic, whose thoughts they were, whose life she had stepped into.