by Anni Taylor
“I know what they are.” Richard pointed towards the aquarium, where Kara was still loitering, despite her urging us earlier about making a start. “There are coins at the bottom of every section. My father—the miserly old bastard—has coin collections coming out his razoo. These are old Greek coins. See this one of the bee? It’s from the city of Ephesus. You can tell because it’s got the symbols for epsilon and phi on either side of the bee. I spotted that exact coin in the tank.”
“Not just a pretty face, are ya?” Cormack blew out a tight breath. “But how’s that gonna help us?”
Louelle gestured towards the door. “I think this might be the answer.”
“You mean we just leave and forfeit the challenge?” Richard shook his head angrily.
“No,” she answered. “Don’t you understand? The floor is damp.”
“What?” Richard demanded.
She looked at him askance. “It’s damp, which means someone’s been in the tank. We need to get in there, too, and fetch those coins.”
“But there’s no way in.” I wanted to be Duncan and scream at everyone to think. It wouldn’t help, but I couldn’t figure this out.
“Unless we can sprout wings,” said Saul. “But then, wings wouldn’t be any use in the water. I—” He broke off as if embarrassed by what he’d said.
Something clicked in my mind. A pattern—on the back of the door. Louelle had just pointed to it, but I hadn’t realised what I was seeing the first time. I turned back to study the door again. On either side of the clock were two sets of vertical parallel lines, with horizontal lines in between.
Ladders.
They were made of the same metal as the door and had just seemed like decorative patterns before.
I shot Louelle a broad smile. “You did it.”
Richard realised at the same time as me, racing to the door alongside me. We lifted the ladders down.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got ladders,” announced Richard, as if he were announcing a sale in a department store. He didn’t give Louelle any credit for her discovery.
I glanced back at the clock on the door.
Eight minutes left.
I watched the fish streaming past in the aquarium, trying to calculate how long it would take us to complete this task. “Okay, three of us to each ladder. Go!”
Cormack shrugged his shirt off. Louelle, Kara and I began stepping out of our clothing.
Saul backed away a step. “I’m not a good swimmer.”
“Well, you have to get in there, Saul.” Richard groaned under his breath. “Because I can’t. Someone needs to be out here, directing the others to the coins. Do you lot have any idea how cloudy the view is going to be under there? You won’t see shit.”
“Trust you to make sure you don’t get wet, mate,” quipped Cormack.
That left only five of us. “Quick! We have to hurry,” I breathed, turning to look at the tank. The water looked cold.
Louelle, Saul and I shared one ladder, and Cormack and Kara shared the other. Chill water rushed along my body as I jumped in.
Now, I had to get all the way to the bottom.
It was harder than I imagined to swim straight down. Despite kicking hard, I kept turning sideways. Determinedly grabbing onto the chains inside the tank, I ploughed downward.
On the outside, Richard raced from tank to tank, guiding people.
He was right. I couldn’t see clearly through the water. I had to make several grabs at the coins before Richard finally gave me a nod. Relieved, I nodded back. My lungs were burning, and a sense of terror at being submerged this far down was beginning to gnaw at me.
Keeping the coin tight in my fist, I kicked to the surface.
Louelle was slow, still at the bottom of her tank. Cormack was the quickest, already onto the second tank. I stepped out onto the ladder as Richard moved it across for me.
Taking the coin from me when I was halfway down, Richard ran across to tap on the glass in front of Louelle and show her where to go. Her face looked pale and strained under the water. I watched her grab her coin and swim frantically to the surface, willing her to go quickly.
Cormack splashed to the surface, flicking his coin out triumphantly.
Richard caught the coin and rushed it back to the hexagonal box.
Saul made gasping breaths as he broke the surface and tossed his coin out to the floor. Richard ran back to take it.
I glanced across at Kara’s tank. She was only halfway—why had it taken her that long? I realised then that she was struggling. Her challenge wristband had caught inside the link of a chain. She gave another couple of frantic tugs.
“Kara—she’s caught!” I sprinted over to the ladder in front of her tank and dashed up it.
Cormack hoisted himself out onto the second ladder, shouting at Richard. “Why weren’t you there to get her out?”
“I can’t do everything at once,” Richard protested. “I was checking the coins.”
Cormack was behind me in a flash. We entered the tank one after the other.
Desperately, I tried to see clearly enough in the haze. I held the heavy chain while Cormack worked on wriggling the wristband free.
Somewhere in the murky water, a small orange light sprang to life. I saw a face illuminated by the glow. She held a candle, her face terrified. Where? Then I realised, the glow wasn’t coming from inside the tank. It was coming from the outside. The other side. The tank that Kara was in must face the middle room of the monastery, the room that Brother Vito said had nothing in it. Then an arm reached out from the darkness behind the girl, extinguishing the light.
Was she one of us? It’d happened in a split second. Too quick.
Someone splashed into the pool above me.
Richard.
I thought he’d come to help, but he swam straight to the bottom of the tank and then straight up again.
I forgot about the girl with the candle.
Kara stopped struggling, her body going slack.
She was going to die.
Frantically, I pulled at Kara’s wristband.
Richard climbed over the top of the tank wall and down the ladder. Hurrying across to the shelf on the hexagonal box, he placed the last coin.
Far beyond Richard, a light blinked from red to green—the light beneath the clock on the wall. We’d won the challenge.
But in here, in the tank, we were losing everything.
I felt my head grow hazy, like pins and needles. My lungs screamed for air. Cormack’s movements were slowing. We were beginning to drown, just like Kara.
Hooking my fingers inside the bracelet, I tugged along with Cormack, my other hand still holding the chain.
Kara’s arm came free.
Gathering her in his arms, Cormack swam upward.
The door of the challenge room swung open.
21. I, INSIDE THE WALLS
ONCE YOU SEE ME, THE REAL me, it will be too late.
All the tiny things that worry you, they will all become like dust. Because you’ll see, for the first time, the real monastery.
I will kill them all, every one of them, before the others get to them.
Santiago, stop worrying, stop fussing. Don’t think.
None of this is our doing.
You can’t change the universe.
22. GRAY
WHO WAS EVIE WITH AND WHAT was she doing?
I couldn’t turn my mind off.
Taking a beer from the fridge, I went out and sprawled on a chair on the back verandah, from which I had a prime view of three neighbours’ yards: a trampoline with half of the springs missing, a dented wading pool filled with dark water, and weedy vegetable patches. It was different in summer, here. Not any more classy, but people actually used their yards then, and it all looked a bit more hopeful.
The sky darkened to a featureless shade of grey. It’d been raining for hours, and the day was about to smudge into night.
What happened next with Evie and me?
; Divorce papers. That was what happened next. Nothing to divide up but a few sticks of furniture. I’d be seeing my daughters on the weekends.
No, scratch that. I’d go to court and try for full custody of the girls. Who knew what Evie was getting up to? But what did getting custody of the girls mean for me? Me not working for the next three years until both Willow and Lilly were at school? And never being able to build a real career even after they started school?
After going through what I did with my parents, I always said I’d give my own kids a real family. My childhood had been brutal. Parents who were in and out of jail ever since I was small, both dying of a drug overdose one day when I was at school. I was the one to find them like that, slumped in their chairs.
Somewhere in the post-mortem of my marriage, maybe I’d figure out what went wrong. Right now, I was bloody clueless.
A series of small spasms travelled along my back and arms before I realised I was sobbing.
Lilly wandered out onto the verandah and curled up on the uneven wooden planks, wrapping her arms around my ankles. It was a thing she did when she was tired and wanted my attention but couldn’t be bothered speaking. Lilly was economical with words.
I inhaled the chilled air, squeezing my eyes shut a couple of times to dry up the wet.
“Up you get, Lilly. Too cold down there.”
Her cheek felt hot against my arm as I picked her up.
Too hot?
Angling myself back, I studied her face. There were high patches of red in her cheeks, watery eyes.
I carried her into the kitchen and set her down on the kitchen table.
It was Evie who always took care of taking the girls’ temperatures when they were sick. I rifled through the medicine cupboard and found a thermometer.
Lilly grumbled softly as I pressed the button and held it inside her ear. It beeped at 40C/104F.
Okay, that was hot.
It was always Evie who made the decision about whether Lilly needed a doctor or not. Something about looking for other signs.
Lilly looked wilted.
Breathing faster than usual.
It was enough.
“Willow!” I turned and bellowed up the stairs. “Come down here, honey.”
The silence on the way to the hospital was unnerving. Normally, I couldn’t stop the girls from poking each other from their car seats or complaining that the other was making faces at her. But neither of them made a sound.
When we reached the emergency department, my heart sank as I saw that the chairs were three quarters full. A busy night. But the triage nurse took one look at Lilly and asked me to bring her straight in.
A different nurse took her temperature. “How long has her temp been at 40 degrees?”
“I’m not sure. The girls were watching a movie upstairs . . .”
“What about her breathing? How long has she—?”
Lilly collapsed on the hospital bed, a small, floppy doll suddenly without any bones.
The nurse yelled out something. Doctors and nurses came running. They rushed Lilly to another section of the emergency ward. Willow and I ran behind. I watched them lay her little body down on a bed to resuscitate her. She didn’t wake again.
Willow grasped my hand so tightly that her small fingernails were digging into my flesh. “Did she die?”
“No,” I told her firmly.
A nurse—or a doctor—I wasn’t sure which, turned back to me. “Has she had an asthma attack before?”
I looked back at her, stunned. “She doesn’t have asthma.”
“It seems that she does.”
“Is she okay?” She didn’t look okay but I wanted them to make her okay.
“She’s responding well. She’s getting enough oxygen now.”
When they’d stabilised her, they moved her to the children’s ward.
Willow and I sat beside her bed, watching her sleep.
I was still in a state of terror.
Lilly had asthma? She’d been checked for asthma. Three or more times. She’d been checked for all kinds of things. The doctors had said she just had wheezy lungs. Something she’d grow out of.
An hour ticked past.
Willow slipped into sleep on the chair beside mine. I could remember what it was like to be four, thinking that the adults were in control. When you became an adult yourself, it became scarily apparent how not-in-control the adults actually were.
I needed Evie here now.
There was only one way of contacting her.
Switching my phone on, I navigated to the companions website and logged in.
Evie, I wrote, this is Gray. Yes, it’s me and I know what you’ve been doing. We’re in the hospital. Lilly’s really sick. She stopped breathing earlier. You need to get back here.
Before I closed the page, I noticed a row of girls’ photos slowly scrolling across the top of the screen. A carousel of girls to pick and choose from for wealthy sugar daddies. One picture in particular caught my attention, s young, blonde girl with day-dreamy sort of eyes.
Where did I know her from?
I clicked on the picture, and then I remembered. The woman who’d come to the door looking for her daughter—this was the daughter. The daughter’s name had been Kara. She called herself Lilac Lolita on this website. Great name for an escort of what—seventeen? She was a kid. Was she trying to attract paedophiles with that name?
I shoved the phone back into my pocket.
Lilly slept on for hours, her fever dropping but not going away completely.
I caught snatches of sleep here and there, then I’d startle and check on Lilly and make sure Willow was still beside me. I wasn’t used to keeping an eye on the girls like this. The only times I’d been alone with the girls was at home, and then only for a couple of hours here and there when Evie went to do some shopping or something.
Evie. Had she replied to my message?
I pulled out my phone and checked.
No reply.
Nothing.
I clicked on my sent messages folder, making doubly sure it had gone through.
Yes, I’d sent it.
Below my message was the conversation I’d had with her.
Nope, don’t read all that again.
Don’t do that to yourself.
In frustration, I clicked on Evie’s profile again. Under her username—Velvette—was a record of the last time she’d logged in. One hour and six minutes ago. I’d sent the message about Lilly over three hours ago. She’d seen it. And ignored it.
I formed another message to her in my mind—a message filled with rage and accusations.
No softly-softly this time.
I checked again that the girls were sleeping and started typing.
The indicator beside her name went green.
She was online.
My brain flashed red as I wrote a short, sharp message and hit send.
There.
She was in no doubt now what I thought of her. I didn’t hold back.
Cold satisfaction turned to confusion as the screen turned white.
Her profile had vanished.
Fumbling, I typed Velvette in the search bar.
The page returned to the home page of the website.
No username found.
I tried one more time, making sure I got the damned name right.
No username found.
She’d deleted her profile. She’d seen what I’d written about Lilly, and she’d deleted it.
Shivers rained down my back.
My wife had become like a stranger.
23. CONSTANCE
FROM MY HOTEL ROOM WINDOW, I watched the endless journeys of ferries and yachts out on the dark Sydney Harbour. Just streaks of light on the faster boats, their crisscrossing through the night making me dizzy.
I wanted to feel a fresh breeze on my face, but there were no windows to open in this high-rise hotel. The recycled air had a clinical quality to it.
What was I going to do now
?
Every path I’d taken so far in my search for Kara had led nowhere.
Had she been lying dead somewhere all this time? In an alley dumpster? Murdered?
I had to stop thinking those awful thoughts.
Stop thinking.
Dropping to the floor, I carried out my daily exercise routine.
Forty push-ups, forty sit-ups, variety of crunches and planks and squats. All up, it took just under an hour. At home, I also attended the gym twice a week and went for runs on a track along Sardis Lake. It was important to stay fit.
Clean body. Clean mind.
Push the negative thoughts out.
My skin warm and perspiring, I folded myself into my meditation position.
No, wasn’t working.
Couldn’t meditate.
Mind spinning.
Spinning.
Spinning.
Stretching over to the bedside table, I grabbed another four Promaxa tablets and swallowed them with a glass of water. I’d seen a doctor yesterday afternoon and told her I’d forgotten to bring my prescription to Australia. The doctor had only allowed me the 0.5 mg strength.
Doctors tended to make you feel like a desperado if you wanted more than they were willing to prescribe. I wasn’t addicted. I’d just needed a little more to get me through these past few months. Surely I could decide if I was overdosing myself or not? Yes, I was feeling jittery and experienced a rapid heartbeat at times, but that wasn’t the medication. It was my anxiety.
In truth, I didn’t know which was which.
A mental picture of the note I’d found in Kara’s jacket two days ago pressed into my mind.
Had Gray heard from his wife yet? Even if she’d left him permanently, surely some contact would need to be made. Child custody arrangements, personal effects and furniture. Lots of heated discussion and accusations and hurt.
I debated whether to call him again so soon. But I was desperate for answers. If Gray had heard from his wife, I knew I would be the last person he’d bother to call. It was up to me.
As I took out Gray’s number from my handbag, I prepared myself to have the phone slammed down in my ear.
Steeling myself, I listened to his anxious hello.