‘Jimbo?’ said Lucy. ‘Why are you calling him that?’
‘I can call him what I like!’ said Lulu ‘He’s my friend, not yours.’
Lucy frowned. Her grandmother was nothing like she’d expected.
Lulu turned to Jimmy. ‘I know you think she’s your guardian angel but maybe she’s a spy or something.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ snapped Lucy.
‘There is a war on, if you didn’t know.’
Jimmy put his hands up to quiet them. ‘Whoa! You two firecrackers need to settle down. Don’t forget, Lulu, this girl saved me and your sister.’
‘How can I forget! It’s all you and April talked about for months.’ She turned to Lucy and glared at her. ‘It was very mean of you to sneak off with Tom first thing in the morning and never even say goodbye. You could at least have sent us a postcard.’
Lucy was ready to punch the girl, but Jimmy stepped between them.
‘Lulu,’ said Jimmy, putting one hand under her chin and turning her face up to his. ‘Settle down.’
When Jimmy looked into Lulu’s eyes, it was as if he turned on a light inside her. All the crossness in her face disappeared and she smiled, a smile so big and bright and so like Claire’s smile that Lucy caught her breath. And she realised that Lulu was already in love with Jimmy Tiger.
Lucy wanted to say something, but she bit her tongue. She knew if she said anything that upset Jimmy and Lulu’s friendship she might never be born. She had to remember exactly what she most needed to do. Save Tom.
‘I have to talk to Tom, right now.’
No sooner had she spoken than she saw him. He was riding down the track dressed in his uniform, galloping across the creek and up the hill to rein in the big black horse right beside them.
‘Saint Lit of the Fire and Flood!’ he cried, looking astonished to see Lucy.
‘Why does everyone keep calling me Saint Lit?’
‘It’s what we started calling you after your last visit,’ said Tom. He stared at her so hard she couldn’t help blushing.
‘Tom,’ said Lucy. ‘I need to talk to you. In private,’ she added, glancing for a moment at Lulu’s suspicious expression. ‘It’s kind of urgent.’
Tom smiled and reached out a hand to her. ‘Come on up,’ he said. ‘You can tell me your troubles while I brush down Midnight. I had to have one last ride through the valley before they send me to New Guinea.’
The blood drained from Lucy’s face. New Guinea. She stretched one hand up to Tom and he hoisted her onto Midnight’s rump. She wrapped her arms around Tom and leaned her cheek against his back. He was so strong and warm and real it was impossible to believe anything bad could ever happen to him.
Tom dismounted outside the stable and stretched both his arms out to catch Lucy as she jumped from the black stallion’s back.
‘We’re overdue for a chat, Saint Lit,’ said Tom. His voice was stern and Lucy felt her stomach churn as she followed him into the new stables. Inside, slivers of golden sunlight fell in stripes across the horse stalls. Tiny dust motes and specks of straw danced in the dappled light and the other horses nickered a welcome as Tom led Midnight inside.
‘So what is this urgent thing that you need to tell me? I’ve got a few things to say to you too. But you go first,’ said Tom, reaching for a raggedy towel. As he rubbed down the black horse, he kept his gaze firmly fixed on Lucy, as if to be sure she wasn’t about to vanish.
‘You can’t go to New Guinea,’ said Lucy. ‘You mustn’t go.’
Tom gave her a steely look. ‘That’s a strong statement. What makes you think I shouldn’t go?’
Lucy looked at the ground. She couldn’t bear to say it. ‘Something terrible will happen if you do.’
Tom laughed, as if Lucy had told a joke and not the bitter truth.
‘And I’m not going to live forever?’ he said. ‘Is that what you’re going to say again? Because that’s what you said last time, before you disappeared into the wall. I’ve spent more than a year thinking about that moment. It still makes no sense to me.’
‘I told you. I’m from the future and you have to listen to me!’
Tom pointed his finger at Lucy. ‘No! Don’t say another word. The one thing that your visit made clear to me is that you can’t spend your life constantly worrying about when it’s going to end. I’ve lost mates this year, Lit. Men who won’t live to see the future we’re all fighting for. I know now that all you’ve ever really got is this moment, the moment that you’re in right now. And you have to make the most of every moment because nothing lasts forever.’
‘Please, Tom. Stay here. Don’t go to New Guinea.’
‘Lucy, there’s a war on. It’s not a tea-party that I can just decide to not attend. I have to go where I’m sent. I can’t disobey orders.’
Then he patted Lucy on the shoulder, as if she were a little girl, as if she was too young to understand what it meant to be a soldier.
‘Don’t you worry, little cobber. I’ll be extra careful and try to keep my plane on a steady course. I’ll say a little prayer to my guiding light, Saint Lit, and get myself home one way or another.’
Then Lucy did something so embarrassing that she turned bright pink. She began to cry. ‘You have to listen to me,’ she said between sobs. ‘April’s heart will break if she loses you. She won’t ever get over it. She’ll be sad forever and ever. You don’t know what it’s like, to lose a big brother or a big sister.’
Lucy put her face in her hands and tried to press back the tears but they wouldn’t stop flowing. Tom took her hand and led her over to a bench outside the stable, forcing her to sit down. Then he handed her his handkerchief so she could dry her eyes.
‘Don’t cry, Lucy. I know you’re trying to help me. But you have to understand that I’m fighting for what I believe in. There’s nothing you can say that will change that. I know what I’m doing is important.’
‘But I don’t want to lose you,’ sobbed Lucy.
Tom put his arm around her and hugged her. ‘Nothing is lost as long as it’s remembered, and we’ll never forget each other.’
Tom being nice to her only made Lucy cry harder.
‘Cheer up, kiddo,’ said Tom. ‘I hate to see you cry. You’re like my third baby sister. I want you to be happy.’
Lucy cringed when he talked about her as a baby. But of course, in his uniform, all grown up, Tom was a man. And she was still not even a teenager. No wonder he wouldn’t take her seriously.
Then Tom reached into his pocket and took out a small parcel. ‘I won’t lie to you. I bought this for April, but I want you to have it. I’ll buy her another one to match yours, so you two can be twins now and forever, my very own Big and Little.’
Lucy took the little white package from Tom and held it in both her hands.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Open it and find out,’ he said.
Lucy dried her eyes and carefully unwrapped the tiny present. Inside layers of soft white tissue paper lay a brooch, a small blue enamel brooch of a bluebird.
‘It’s the bluebird of happiness,’ said Tom. ‘Like the song says, when things look bad, you just have to keep looking for that bluebird.’
Lucy nodded and felt another tear trickle down her cheek as Tom took the brooch from her and pinned it on her cardigan above her heart.
A Wing and a Prayer
Lucy stood with Jimmy and Lulu and waved goodbye as Tom drove off with Mr and Mrs Showers to catch the train in town.
When they disappeared around a bend in the road, Lucy felt her body slump with misery. Jimmy glanced across at her with a worried expression.
‘Lulu and I were about to go riding, up to Pulpit Rock, you know, up at the top of the valley. Do you want to come?’
‘Up to April’s Empire?’
‘April’s what?’ asked Lulu.
‘Never mind,’ muttered Lucy.
She was glad to hike up to the stable with Jimmy and Lulu to saddle the horses. Why had
she imagined that Tom would listen to her? Even if she could walk through walls and travel through time, she only seemed to change things by accident.
There was a new horse in the stable, a beautiful white pony that Lulu saddled. Lucy rode Smoke and Jimmy took Midnight, who was less skittish than on that first spring day when Lucy had watched April galloping him across the valley. Everything was changing. Although it was less than a week since Lucy had first walked through the pictures, nearly three years had passed inside the painted world.
As they rode up the winding track that led to Pulpit Rock, Lucy felt as though everything that had ever happened in the valley was going on around her: as if just on the other side of time, Claire was playing beneath the big old wattle tree, her mother was driving down into the valley to bring her father to meet Big, Lucy was climbing out of the car with her dad, as if every moment that had ever been and every moment that was yet to come was unfolding around her, and she was powerless to stop any of it.
April’s Empire looked abandoned. The little hut was missing part of its roof, and the bush had begun to creep back to take over the glade. Moss lay thick on the logs around the old campfire and ferns sprang up outside the hut’s doorway.
The children tethered the horses and began to climb. The rocks were smoother, slipperier in the cool of winter, and were speckled with damp lichen. Lucy felt a little breathless as they approached the top. Jimmy turned around and offered her his hand. She looked up into his face, so kind, so familiar, so like her brother Jack’s. Her hand felt small in his. Jimmy had changed too.
The three of them sat on the edge of the sheer rock face. Beneath them, stretching out in all directions, lay the valley in winter. The river was as blue as the sky, and the bush was a soft grey-green with flashes of gold where the wattle bloomed.
‘I never want to leave this valley,’ said Lulu. ‘Not even to go to Sydney. I want to live here forever and ever.’
Lucy stayed quiet. She knew that Lulu would leave the valley. That she’d leave and hardly ever return. It would be April, not Lulu who would stay. It all seemed so upside down.
‘April says she’s never coming back here. How can she say that!’ said Lulu.
‘She doesn’t mean it,’ said Lucy.
‘You don’t know my big sister. Maybe you don’t even know what it’s like to have a big sister. If you had a big sister, then you’d know that nothing you ever do will match up to what they’ve already done. There’s no point in me going anywhere. April will think I’m copying her.’
‘No she won’t!’ said Lucy. ‘And I do know what it’s like to have a big sister, but even big sisters can break sometimes. And sometimes their lives don’t turn out the way you think they will.’
‘Have you got a big sister?’ asked Lulu, softly, because this time, she could see that Lucy was upset.
‘Yes. But she was in a terrible accident. And she’s in a hospital, and no one knows if she’s ever going to wake up. And if she does wake up, she might never be the same. She might be broken forever.’
Jimmy and Lulu looked at each other and then at Lucy.
‘I’m really sorry, Lucy,’ said Jimmy. ‘I wish there was something we could do to help you.’
Lulu put one hand on Lucy’s knee. ‘There is one thing we could do. I don’t know if it will help but it might make you feel better.’
Lulu scrambled to the hidden stairway through the rocks and disappeared down into the crevice. A few minutes later she came back up with a load of twigs tucked under her arm. Then she began to lay a fire, right on top of Pulpit Rock.
‘April taught me this. We used to do it down on the banks of the river. It’s a secret ceremony for sisters. But we’ll let Jimmy be part of it, just this once.’
Carefully, Lulu built a little tent of sticks on top of the rock. Jimmy pulled out a booklet of matches and lit the dry leaves that Lulu had placed beneath the twigs and bark.
‘Give me your pocket knife, Jimmy,’ said Lulu. When Jimmy had flicked the knife open, Lulu took it and cut a long ringlet of her curling gold hair. Then she reached over and Jimmy allowed her to cut one of his red curls. Last, she cut a honey-blonde lock of Lucy’s hair. She twisted the three lengths together until she’d made a long, thin braid of glowing hair. She held it over the fire for a moment before dropping it into the flame.
‘Now we have to all hold hands,’ instructed Lulu. She reached out and took one of Lucy’s and one of Jimmy’s hands. The three made a perfect triangle around the small fire. The white smoke curled up out of the flames and rose in a pale line, high into the blue sky.
Below them in the valley, the wild bush lay thick and dark in the shadow of the hill. On the other side of the river, a patchwork of soft green-and-gold fields stretched to the far horizon. They sat in silence for a while until Jimmy broke the stillness. ‘What are we meant to be doing?’
‘We’re thinking. We’re thinking of Lucy’s sister and we’re holding her in our thoughts. We’re holding her above our valley and sending her all our love and sharing every bit of magic we can muster to make her better,’ said Lulu.
The sun moved behind a cloud for a moment, muting the light. When it came out again, it shone through a haze of soft rain that was falling on a distant field. A double rainbow arced over the valley.
Lucy felt all her longing, all her hopes for Claire and for Tom, pouring out into the winter sky. She looked over at Jimmy and Lulu, sitting so still, their eyes shut, their faces serene. A faint memory stirred in her of two radiant old people, whom she had lost before she could even get to know them properly.
When the smoke from the fire died down, Lulu carefully broke up the coals and extinguished the embers. Lucy put her hand over her bluebird brooch, clutching it tightly. The three children climbed down through the crevice in the rocks. Lucy nearly lost her footing and caught herself against the granite, sliding down to the soft earth. A light, cold sun-shower fell on them as they rode back down into the valley.
It was only when the horses were stabled and they were trudging up to the house that Lucy realised she’d lost the bluebird. She clutched the empty place on her shirt where Tom had pinned the brooch. She pressed her palm against her chest as if she needed to stem a flow of blood.
Tom was going to go and fight in the war and die, no matter what she did. She wished she’d never come back. She had broken her promise to Big for nothing.
Into the Inferno
Lucy could smell it even before she’d stepped through the wall – the hot, burning odour of bushfire. She could hear Jimmy and Lulu calling her from the kitchen, and she wanted to turn back. But a more powerful force was calling her to her own time. Something felt wrong. Something was burning. What if it was the house itself? What would Big do if she woke and found Lucy missing? She had broken her promise and now Big’s life might be at stake.
Lucy ran back through the wall. As soon as she passed over, she turned, hoping to see Jimmy or Lulu standing inside the painting, waving goodbye. But the wall was nothing more than plaster and paint.
The air in the outside–inside room was thick with the scent of bushfire. Lucy ran to the window and looked out over the valley. High above the hill, a full moon glowed blood-orange, and thick plumes of smoke rose black against the deep blue of the night sky.
‘Big, Big, wake up,’ cried Lucy, pounding down the hallway and bursting into Big’s bedroom.
Big sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her long silvery hair was in a loose plait and for a minute, in the half-light of the night bedroom, she looked exactly like April, exactly like the girl she’d once been.
‘What on earth are you shouting for, child?’ she asked, but even before she’d finished the sentence, her expression changed. ‘Smoke!’
‘There’s a bushfire, somewhere over the hill. The moon is red, as if it’s on fire too,’ said Lucy, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
‘Quickly,’ said Big. ‘Get dressed. We have to get out of the valley.’ When she saw that Lucy was alread
y dressed, she frowned but didn’t ask why.
Big leapt out of bed and hurried outside, still in her nightgown. She turned on a tap and began hosing down the roof of the house.
‘Lucy, hold this hose. If only I’d woken earlier. We don’t have much time. I’ll throw on some clothes and load the jeep. We’ll leave in two minutes. Keep hosing down the roof. It might save the house from embers.’
Lucy had barely sprayed half the roof when Big came running, fully dressed, with a pile of wet towels and blankets. She threw them into the back of the jeep.
‘C’mon Lucy. Leave that now. Jump in the car. We have to go.’
‘Now? But what about all your paintings and the photos and everything?’
‘You are more important than any painting, than any photo, than anything in this whole house, Lucy,’ said Big. ‘Jump in the car this instant and don’t argue. You know this isn’t the first fire to come into the valley and it won’t be the last.’
‘We should stay and protect the house, like Tom and I did.’
‘Lucy, Tom was a very fit, strong teenager. I am an old lady and you are a little girl and we are doing the only thing possible. Leaving.’
She grabbed Lucy by the wrist and hurried her over to the jeep.
As they drove down the hill to the creek, the smoke grew thicker, as if it was lying in the dale, waiting to smother them. Lucy began to cough.
‘Grab one of the wet towels, Lucy, and put it over your head,’ said Big.
The jeep roared up the road, but as they crested the first rise they saw the flames. The top of the hill was on fire. They were driving straight into the inferno.
Lucy heard Big gasp. She slammed the brakes on and reversed down the hill to a small bend in the road that had been gouged out as a turning circle.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Lucy.
‘We’re going to leave the only way we can. We’ll take the boat down the river, like we did in ’39.’
They stopped at the track that led to the boat ramp. The air felt clearer near the water’s edge. Lucy bounded down the steps to the boat ramp carrying the wet towels and blankets and flung them into the boat. Then she heard Big cry out. She turned and saw her aunt lose her footing and fall on the path to the boat ramp.
The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie Page 11