Joe kneeled down and felt under the surface. “It’s here, somewhere.”
Bree’s expression was bleak. “I don’t see how . . . ”
“We have to try.”
“What if . . . ? Oh, God.”
“I know. Just help me. Get Carrie, too.”
They were trying to get me out.
I was about to show myself. I took two steps clear of the tree cover and waved. At that instant, Arden appeared.
She raised her hand—a mirror of mine—whipped her arm back, and released. Her knife flew true. It buried its blade in a beam, inches from Joe’s head.
Joe lost his balance and fell back against Bree. They huddled together with the water lapping at their chins.
“What the fuck, Arden?” Joe yelled, his face dripping. “Are you trying to kill all of us?”
Arden didn’t waver. “Just stop it,” she said. “Stop trying to save her. Come inside now.”
“It’s wet in there,” Bree said, shocked.
I lowered my arm and swam off, picking my way carefully through the trees. I kept the direction of the road within sight so I wouldn’t lose my bearings.
That knife and the look in Arden’s eyes made everything seem impossible.
I forged through thigh-deep water, stumbling into unseen holes, dunking under countless times, heading in the direction I figured they would have set out in the car. Every second, I expected to see Malik coming after me. I got lucky. Just when I thought I might have to turn back, the car appeared around a bend in the road like a mirage I’d summoned.
They’d only made it about a mile down the road before they’d got bogged. It was stuck in a rut, the keys still in the ignition. The front tires were almost completely submerged. Mud spray covered the whole body, camouflaged it. If it wasn’t for the glint of sun on metal, I’d have waded right past.
A troop carrier will take you anywhere—if you lock the hubs and ask it nicely. When I was fourteen, Vivienne got a job as a cook on a cattle station. She would let me take lunch out to the men in the paddocks, so I learned to drive anything that was handy—motorbikes, four-wheel drives, quad bikes and, once, a tractor.
I felt for the hubs beneath the water and turned them. No wonder they’d got bogged—two-wheel drive was useless in mud. If I could just drive the car out of the ruts, maybe I could get help.
Inside, the floor was muddy and strewn with crumbs and paper. They’d eaten everything. There were some dry clothes in the back but it seemed pointless to change. My stomach was so empty it felt like it was folding in on itself. In the glove box, right at the back, I found a half-empty water bottle. I gulped the water down. It tasted like liquid plastic, but at the same time, heavenly. Clean.
My hands were sweat-slick. I wiped them on my jeans and turned the key in the ignition. The engine started in gear, the car jolted forward and stalled. I depressed the clutch and turned the key again. The sound of that engine was the most beautiful music, but it was loud. Would the sound carry? Could Arden hear it from this far away?
I was lightheaded with panic and hunger. My hand fumbled with the gears; they crunched and ground and the engine stalled again. Even if she heard, it would take them fifteen minutes or more to reach me. I had time.
Slow down, Friday. Think.
I found four-wheel drive and eased off the clutch. The wheels spun and an arc of water and mud shot out behind. The engine was screaming, but the car was going nowhere.
I slumped back in the seat. It was useless. I’d have to swim out.
I got out of the car. Listened. The bend in the road made it impossible to see if anyone was coming. The bush was alive with birdcalls and insect wings.
I had nothing left—no energy, no will, no faith. Not even tears. My head ached. I found the source of it: a gash behind my left ear that had crusted over but was still tender.
I climbed the nearest tree—a big redgum with a trunk as wide as four of me—if only to get away from the water. Straddling a horizontal branch, safe up high, I could just see the church in the distance. There was no movement.
I wondered if they knew I’d gone.
Then it hit me. Darcy was waiting for me. Silence, in his own way, in death, was waiting for me, too.
Think. Do something. Start walking. Something.
I clambered back down and felt around underneath the back wheels of the car. Just mud and slop. I couldn’t even have dug it out if I’d had a shovel. My arm came away caked in mud to the elbow.
Let the tires down.
The thought came from nowhere—something I knew, without understanding how I knew it. I found a sharp stick, unscrewed one of the caps and let the air escape from a tire until it was half-flat. The car sagged to one side. The next one was harder. The valve was under the water and my fingers were slippery. Once I had a steady stream of air bubbles, I kept up the pressure until my shoulders burned with the strain.
Two down. Two to go.
The last tire refused to go down. I was panting, worn out. My fingers were claws, rigid with cramp. My teeth were chattering. Three tires would have to be enough.
I started the engine, shifted into first, and pressed the accelerator. The car lurched forward, but the wheels still spun.
In desperation, I slammed the gearstick into reverse. For a second, the wheels turned on the spot, then the car launched itself backward, out of the ruts. It rammed the base of a tree and stopped.
I smacked the steering wheel in celebration, then glanced over my shoulder. Did they hear?
I eased forward, avoiding the section of road where the car had got bogged. Slowly, I followed the line of trees, the gap between the river and the scrub, where the remains of the road would be.
Exhilaration gave me strength I didn’t know I had. The steering was hard work, but the car was moving, pushing through the water, leaving a widening wake behind it. Doggedly it kept going, and I had to stop myself from putting my foot down and leaving that town far behind.
I knew if I hit asphalt, I wouldn’t be able to go over twenty-five. The tires would blow. That meant it could take hours to reach the nearest police station.
It was about another mile before the floodwater started to recede. An incline led up and out. Small hills rose above the drenched valley. There, on the side of the hill, a mob of kangaroos watched me curiously.
I parked the troop carrier on dry land under a she-oak tree. I left the keys in it and headed back the way I had come, soaked through, shivering, but triumphant.
I had a plan.
It was the most insane decision I’d ever made—to go back. I’d never had possessions. All things were disposable. Sometimes Vivienne and I would leave with nothing but pockets full of dust; there had never been anything I couldn’t bear to leave behind.
But this time there was something I wanted more than escape.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I HAD LOST TRACK OF time. How long had it taken me to get back to Murungal Creek? More meaningless time passed as I sat, hidden in a tree near Silence’s tomb, waiting. A chill breeze started as the sky turned pink, then orange, then purple. Being seen was not my biggest problem now. Falling asleep was. My head nodded, my chin hit my chest and, snap. Over and over.
While it was still daylight, I could see and hear almost everything. Carrie, AiAi, Joe, and Bree were huddled together on the roof of one of the houses. Arden and Malik came and went from the church. Darcy was sitting on top of a rainwater tank, apart from the others.
In the late afternoon, Carrie stripped off her wet clothes and laid them out on the corrugated iron to dry. The others soon followed.
In my hiding place, I did the same, except I hung them over a branch.
An hour later, I dressed quietly, careful not to lose my balance. The clothes were more or less dry, apart from the insides of my pockets and the crotch of my jeans. Everything smelled like wet dog. They were going to get soaked again, so I appreciated the lingering warmth from the sun while it was there.
There wasn’t much conversation. Silent despair seemed to be the mood. A couple of times I felt the burn of Bree’s stare, but then I realized she was looking at the big tank. Where Silence was.
Twice, Joe begged Arden to check the cellar. Arden responded with a shake of her head and a tiny smile that made my blood run colder, my heart beat faster, my hate grow stronger.
I waited until the horizon turned black.
An eerie, yellow moon hung like a Chinese lantern in the sky. It draped a glow over the outback, threw long shadows onto the ground. Complete darkness would have been better—but there was no conversation, no torchlight, just sleeping bodies on roofs and enough breeze rustling through trees to cover any noise I might have made.
I dropped into the water with barely a splash, stifling a gasp as the cold hit my skin. I moved in slow steps through the floodwater, swinging my legs in smooth arcs to dull the splashing. I worked my way over to the tank where Darcy was sleeping on top.
“Darcy,” I called softly. “Here.”
She rolled and peered over the edge. “Shit! I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“Listen, the car—it’s parked up on a hill about two or three miles out that way.” I pointed. “Take the others and stick to the road. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“If I’m not there soon, go without me. The tires are down but it’ll go. Keep it in third gear and don’t go over twenty-five.”
“I can’t drive.”
“Joe can do it, he has to. Wait for a sign.”
“What kind of sign?” she asked.
“You’ll know.”
“Arden has lost it.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Give you time,” I promised.
◆ ◆ ◆
Behind the church, I found the coil of barbed wire, the ax in the tree, a stone the size of two fists. One by one, I lugged them over to the tank. One by one I set them in place: I left the stone and the ax by the side of the tank; I unrolled the wire and strung a snare between the base of the tank and a tree, just beneath the surface of the water.
I went back again.
The boat, once the most foreign object in that barren landscape, was now the only thing that belonged. It was jammed between two trees, but afloat. A few inches of water pooled in the bottom, but it seemed to be a slow leak.
I used my whole body weight to push it free and set it adrift. I waded out, towing the boat behind me, until I was at the corner of the church. I got behind it, gave it a hard shove, and sent it sailing out into the open.
The hull glowed in the moonlight. The boat slowed, turned, and bobbed gently, like a ghostly apparition.
A boat—a boat—in the desert.
I felt Vivienne’s magic all around me. All the pieces of my life, aligned, all the roads that led me there, signposted. The stars were my witness, and the trees, the moon, the drowning town. Throw stones, make waves, she always said. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, she would sing, out of tune. Her beads would rattle and her bells would jangle and she’d look a little crazy and wild. But now I knew, although her words may have belonged to others first that didn’t make them untrue, just as her stories didn’t make me less than who I am. I am me because of them, because I believed.
I watched the boat for a while. It was surreal, the stillness of it, when all around, the trees swayed and the water rippled.
I thought of the statue in the park, the newspaper clippings stuck to the walls of the squat, the night we torched Vivienne’s car. Grandfather’s lamp.
I thought of Wish. Whatever we’d had together, however brief and wrong, it had made me believe that it was possible to connect with another human being.
And I thought of Silence. New memories were no less precious than old ones, and I vowed that I would tell his story one day. It was unfinished, even though he was gone. Vivienne wasn’t the only person I’d ever love.
Someone was awake. I heard a gasp, then low voices. Silhouettes, standing on the roof. Arden pointed at the boat and said something in a quavering voice.
I worked my way back from the church and climbed up the ladder onto the top of the tank. I stretched out flat and raised the rock in my fist.
Sorry, Silence. I’m so sorry.
I bashed the roof of the tank with the rock. Pieces of it broke away and ricocheted into my face, but the sound rang clear and true.
Clang, clang, clang.
Clang, clang, clang.
Like a ship’s bell.
On cue, torchlight swung in my direction. A babble of hysteria rose.
I kept hitting the tank.
Clang, clang, clang.
The sound was mournful in the night and my chest was tight with emotion. I realized the rock had split in two and I was crying. I threw the pieces of rock into the water and waited.
The torch flicked off.
As I’d suspected, Arden sent Malik.
His hulking body moved toward the tank. A dark shadow with a bullet-shaped head. Twice he stumbled and fell, landing facefirst in the water. I watched him go under, surface, then continue in his silent, relentless way.
Come on, come on. That’s it.
As if sudden instinct kicked in, he veered the long way around the tank.
Shit! I didn’t know if I’d said it aloud, or just thought it, but Malik looked up. Our eyes met. His shock passed quickly and his eyelids flickered in a slow, crocodile blink before he disappeared from sight. The ladder creaked and a torch came on again. The beam played over the top of the tank and hit me full in the face.
I wriggled to the opposite side, levered myself over the edge, and dangled from my fingertips. I couldn’t find the platform with my feet. I was just hanging there, above a stack of wood jutting out of the water, deadly as a reef.
I heard Malik walking over the top of the tank toward me and, when I looked up, my knucklebones were bloodless and gleaming like they had no skin.
Malik reached down, gripped my forearm, and tried to haul me up.
It would have seemed the act of a savior, but my skin crawled. I would rather have fallen. I grabbed his arm with my free hand, yanked myself up toward him, and bit down on the base of his thumb.
Malik yelped and let go.
I planted my feet against the side of the tank, pushed off, and back-dived over the stack of wood.
The water hit hard. I went under, felt my nose burn, the soft ground against my back. It was enough to break my fall but the impact stole my breath. I came up with a whooping gasp, arms flailing. I stood, dripping.
After the blackness underwater, the moon was unbearably bright. Malik was frozen in a diver’s stance, poised on the edge of the tank. At Arden’s shout, he jumped.
His body took my legs out from under me. His arm was a garrotte around my throat, dragging me back under.
This time, my lungs were full to bursting.
I struggled weakly. After about thirty seconds, I let some air go, made my body go limp. Concentrated on counting to the steady whump of my own heartbeat. Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven.
Malik’s arm still pressed down, his other hand on top of my head. I imagined his hand was Vivienne’s, that she was singing a whimsical song. It was just a drill. At any time I could tap her hand and she would let me up, but I wanted her to be proud. One-forty-six, one-forty-seven . . .
I was twelve years old, in the deep end of the public pool in Warrnambool and all around me there were other children, splashing, playing, diving. I was quiet and still, sitting cross-legged on the bottom. One-sixty-six . . . I had gills and a pattern of blue-green scales where there should have been skin . . . One-seventy-two . . . the pressure on my head was gone and I floated up, up, but I wasn’t ready, I could have stayed longer. When I broke the surface, a man had hold of Vivienne’s arm and he was shouting at her about drowning and child abuse and she was yelling back at him, you don’t understand, she needs to do this, and he was shaking his
head and calling her crazy . . . one-seventy-nine.
I could have stayed down there forever. The water was getting warmer. Down there, Vivienne was so close. I opened my eyes. The murk shimmered and shifted until the water was dimpled and blue. There were symmetrical patterns of tiles all around me. Kids’ flailing legs and plunging bodies that swooped down in a plume of bubbles. One-eighty-six. Vivienne was so close I could see her. Her hair curled like octopus tentacles and her skirts were the billowing body of a jellyfish. She was mouthing words I couldn’t hear. No bubbles escaped her lips.
One-ninety-four. Best time ever. Are you proud of me, Vivienne? I can’t hear you! Please . . .
She drifted away.
I caught the corner of her skirt and reeled her in.
She kicked out and I screamed, Stop! Stop running away from me!
The water rushed in.
Vivienne looked at me sadly and shook her head. She gave me a little push then drifted close.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her.
My lungs collapsed. The corners of my mind started to fade out.
Vivienne’s lips touched mine and I heard her voice. It was garbled and strange, full of dirt.
Drowning is easy. Breathing is hard.
I coughed and let go.
◆ ◆ ◆
I was floating, somewhere in-between. I had breath, but I was numb. My body butted up against something unyielding. The base of the tank. A trickle of muddy water leaked from the side of my mouth.
I sat up.
The water was so cold. How could I ever have thought it was warm? How long was I under? Everything was too clear and too painful not to be real.
Teeth chattering, I looked around. Nobody. Malik had gone.
I waded unsteadily out into the open. Overhead, the moon was past its highest point and starting to fall.
“God, don’t you ever die?”
At first, I didn’t see her.
She was so still, lying in the water underneath the tank, hidden by the stack of wood. Her profile was half in shadow, half illuminated, her chin tilted at an awkward angle. Her black box was held in the crook of her arm like a baby.
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