‘Interesting that you brought up Hannah Holt,’ Dad says. ‘I’ve heard a rumour the Dean family are moving away from Swanston.’ He’s watching me a little too carefully. ‘Their house is on the market.’
‘So?’ I busy myself with packing my bag. ‘I told you, I gave up on that idea.’
‘Then there must be a very good reason why you’d go along to the open inspection.’
Shit. Lucy Babbage did see me. ‘I was just curious, Dad. Curious and bored, that’s all. There were about a hundred other people there, too.’
He frowns. ‘That house has been vandalised countless times in the last twenty-three years. No doubt they’re moving away because of curiosity and boredom just like yours.’
‘You’re talking about the Deans?’ Cody butts in. ‘They’re moving because the old man’s retired.’ Dad throws him a warning glance, but Cody keeps going. ‘How’s this—they’ve had to replace their son’s headstone seven times. So they dug him up recently and had him cremated. They’re taking him with them.’
My stomach begins a slow, queasy slide. They exhumed William Dean?
Dad smacks the egg flip down on the counter and Cody and I jump. ‘We know what it’s like being on the receiving end of the muckrakers in this town. I expect better from both of you. Cody, quit flapping your gums, and Grace, that folder of clippings I found on your desk—get rid of it.’
‘You went through my stuff?’ I snap.
‘Damn right I did.’
Cody slinks off to his room.
I drop my head. ‘I’m going to school.’
Dad nods. ‘Counsellor. Three-fifteen.’
My skin is prickling with aftershocks. I’m furious that Dad’s been through my desk, but I’m more disturbed by what Cody said.
I fell into William Dean’s grave at the cemetery—I touched the urn containing his ashes when I bumped into Mrs Dean. I’m sure of it.
Nobody pays me any attention as I wander past the wall. I’m yesterday’s news. I throw my bag in my locker and grab my Biology book and pencil case, ready for first class.
Amber’s already in homeroom when I arrive. She has moved from our shared desk and is sitting by herself at the back of the room. She gives me a darting glance, dismissing me the way she dismisses everybody else, but her legs are jiggling underneath the desk and she appears to be studying the poster of the periodic table of elements. I know her well enough to read her expression as deliberate disdain, not her usual innocent scorn.
‘Just a reminder for those of you in Mr Geddes’ History class, you have a triple external study session tomorrow morning. Bring your bus passes and a hat, please,’ Mr Hamley announces. ‘And Friday you’re supposed to have completed your first-person interviews for English. I’m telling you because I know at least half of you haven’t started.’
Shit. It’s one of those assignments I put off.
Amber’s phone trills in her pocket.
She doesn’t even twitch, but Mr Hamley taps the container on his desk. ‘Amber Richardson, come on down. Anyone else? No?’
I slip my hand into my pencil case and switch my phone to silent.
Amber wanders over to his desk and drops her phone into the container. ‘I’m waiting for an important message. My aunt is sick.’
‘If your sick aunt calls, I’ll be sure to let you know,’ he says. ‘You can collect your phone after school.’
She groans. For some reason, she turns and gives me a desperate look.
What does she want me to do about it? I can’t do anything.
As I pick up my stuff and move out with everyone else, there’s a tug on my sleeve. ‘What?’
‘Can you meet me at the toilets in ten? I have to tell you something.’ She’s flushed with drama. ‘What have you got…Maths? Ten, okay? Bring your phone.’
I brush her hand away. ‘So now you want to talk?’
She flashes her best poisonous smile. ‘Stop being so self-centred. This isn’t about you.’
I’m intrigued. And nervous. At ten past nine I ask to leave class, tuck my phone in the folds of my dress, and run down to the Year Twelve toilet block.
Amber’s waiting inside, sitting up on the basin, her back to the mirror. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’ She wiggles her fingers. ‘Did you bring it?’
‘You want to call your aunt?’ I say, handing it over. ‘This better be good.’
‘Shut up. We don’t have much time.’ She logs in to her Facebook. ‘This is going around. You probably haven’t seen it because…’
‘You blocked me. Yeah.’
‘I was going to say because you’re living on another planet, but whatever. Check it out. It’s everywhere.’
‘Jesus, Amber, what is it?’
She passes my phone back. ‘You’ve noticed Kenzie’s not here today?’
‘We’re not really talking.’
‘Right. Well, this is why she’s not here.’ She points. ‘I thought it was you at first, to be honest. It seems more your style.’
I scroll through a series of pictures. Kenzie’s lying on the ground near a white letterbox. She’s wearing one of our matching dresses, a high-waisted, blue flouncy thing I only wore once, to the Year Eleven school formal. The dress is riding so high you can see her knickers and the skirt is stained with vomit. So is the grass. The shots are taken from all angles, including one close up underneath her skirt. In this light, her hair looks as dark as mine, and you can’t see that it’s much longer because it’s tucked underneath her body. Her tattoo is hidden. She’s completely out of it.
It could be me, except I know it’s not.
‘Is she…okay?’ I say. ‘Is she…?’
‘As far as I know, the only thing she’s suffering is total humiliation and an epic hangover.’ Amber slides off the basin, pulling down her dress. ‘Oh. Don’t read the comments.’
I shake my head. ‘How did she get like this? She hardly drinks. Who took the photos?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there. They’ve been shared so many times and nobody’s owning up.’
‘And where was Mitch?’
‘I wasn’t there, Grace. Let me log out.’
‘You don’t trust me?’ I say.
‘No, I really don’t. Anyway, I thought you should know about Kenzie.’
She slips out through the door before I can ask whether Pete or Gummer were at the party, too. I’d say not—they wouldn’t have let her get in that state. But Mitchell…I’m furious. Because of him, Kenzie’s today’s news.
I head back to class, and get my third blue slip for being late. Another detention.
Detention, or counselling? Or Kenzie? It’s a no-brainer. During afternoon homeroom I scribble a quick note for Call Me Connie and, after the bell goes, I stick it on the notice board outside her office door. As for detention, well, I’m no stranger to a double. I hit the road and start walking. As long as I’m home by four-thirty, Dad won’t know I’m missing unless either he gets a call from the school or another local busybody outs me. Spies, spies everywhere.
Kenzie’s parents might as well be my grandparents. Her house is as familiar to me as the farm. When the last of her sisters moved out, she graduated to the detached rumpus room and turned it into her bedroom. She has a welcome mat outside her own front door, a fridge, a kettle and a sandwich-maker. We used to joke we could survive the apocalypse out here, living on cheese toasties and cans of Coke, but that was before Mitchell started sleeping on my side of her bed.
I slip through the garden gate to avoid knocking on the door and wasting precious minutes talking to Kenzie’s dad. Baxter, their fox terrier, shoots around the corner and gives a warning bark, but shuts up when he realises it’s me. I scratch his ears and throw his ball, making him skitter sideways into the back fence.
The faded curtain in the rumpus room twitches.
‘It’s me,’ I say.
I let myself in, closing the door behind me. Kenzie’s madly scooping up clothes and debris from the floor, still
wearing her pyjamas. She has her back turned to me. One side of the room is a wall of plastic storage containers and old suitcases, stacked so high they cover a window. Her bedroom makes it look like she’s a chronic hoarder, but it’s mostly things her sisters left behind.
‘Since when do you feel the need to clean up when I come over?’
‘I was doing it anyway,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’
Not so long ago I would have thrown myself onto her bed, but that seems too awkward, too intimate. I move a stack of sheet music from her piano stool and sit down instead. ‘How are you?’
She pauses, still not turning around, a bundle of dirty clothing hugged to her chest. ‘Not so good.’
‘Amber told me today at school. I’m going to find out who did it.’
‘You’re talking to each other? That’s good.’
I snort. ‘Not exactly. Let’s just say we’re both united in our disgust.’ Her shoulders tense. She’s taken it the wrong way. ‘Oh God, not you, Kenzie—whoever posted the pictures.’ I cross the room and wrap my arms around her waist. I rest my head on the back of her neck. ‘I know it’s humiliating, but it won’t be as bad as you think. That’s what you told me, right?’
‘I lied.’ She disentangles herself from my arms and pushes me away. ‘See?’
Her nose is red and swollen. Both eyes are black. She bursts into tears and covers her face. ‘I drank too much and I passed out. I face-planted.’
‘Now we both look like shit,’ I say, shocked. ‘Whose party was it?’
She sits on the edge of her bed. ‘Just some random from Heart. One of Mitchell’s parents’ friends’ sons or something…It doesn’t even matter. I was mad with myself for calling your dad, and for saying those horrible things to you, and Mitchell was acting weird and ignoring me, so I got messy drunk.’
‘They weren’t that horrible.’ I hand her a tissue. ‘And where was Mitch during all of this? Didn’t he come looking for you?’
She holds up her hands. ‘It wasn’t his fault. Don’t look for another reason to hate him. It was my fault—my fault for calling your dad even when Gummer told me not to, my fault for drinking too much, my fault for those pictures.’
‘No. Not the last one. You’re hardly the first person to get drunk and fall on your face.’
‘I wore our formal dress,’ she mutters. ‘And heels. Everyone else was in jeans and sneakers. I’m so stupid!’
‘I hate that dress,’ I say. ‘On me, I mean. On you, it’s beautiful.’
‘Even up around my ears?’
‘Especially then.’
Kenzie laughs, and winces. ‘Ouch.’ She goes to her desk, opens the top drawer, and takes out a sheet of paper. ‘I need to ask you something and I want you to tell me the absolute truth.’
‘You’re freaking me out,’ I say.
She’s serious. ‘I talked to my mum about you that night. I was worried after and I couldn’t sleep. I kept playing over something you said.’
‘When? After the pool thing? We didn’t speak.’
‘No. Not the pool. Before. The night I rang and asked your dad to go upstairs and check on you. Do you remember? You said, “My heart is a room with an unwelcome visitor.” Have you ever heard that before? Have you seen it? I need to know. Cross your heart.’
I remember saying it.
I cross my heart. ‘I’ve never, to the best of my knowledge, seen or heard that before. Hope to die.’
Her face turns white. ‘This is a copy of a letter found in Hannah Holt’s bedroom after she disappeared. When they failed to arrest William Dean and the case went cold after a year, apparently Hannah Holt’s mother went around door-knocking and sticking these flyers on windscreens and in people’s letterboxes. When I told Mum what you said, she remembered where she’d heard it before. She said you were probably mucking around again.’ She taps the paper. ‘Tell me you aren’t messing with my head.’
‘I’m not.’
She passes me the paper. I scan the first few lines. I’m winded, as if I’ve been punched. It’s the flyer, the one the newspaper blacked out, and it’s not a letter—it’s a poem, written by William Dean.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Mum said it was in our letterbox. Like, years ago. Before I was born.’
‘And she kept it?’
Kenzie gestures at the wall of containers and suitcases. ‘She keeps everything.’
‘Why didn’t you show me this before?’ I snap.
She takes a step back. ‘Because I didn’t want to get caught up in your…’ She stops. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Outside, Baxter barks.
‘Then why are you showing me now?’ I say quietly.
She looks away and shrugs. ‘Because part of me wants to believe you.’
There’s a tentative knock at the door. ‘It’s Mitch.’ She holds out her hand for the paper. ‘I haven’t told him any of this.’
‘I need to keep it for a while.’ I tuck the flyer into my pocket. ‘I won’t stay. Three’s a crowd and all that. Will you be okay?’
She nods and opens the door.
Mitchell is standing there, leaning against the door-frame. ‘Grace,’ he says.
‘Hey.’ I can see the appeal: Mitch has grown up nicely—broad-shouldered, thin but athletic, a nice, even smile—but out of the boys he was never my favourite. There was always something judgmental about him. ‘Look after her,’ I threaten. ‘Better than you did on Saturday.’
His mouth twists and he shoots Kenzie an aggrieved smile. See what I put up with for you?
When I go outside, Kenzie follows. ‘I need some time to think,’ she says. ‘I need to get back on track with study and fix things with Mitch.’ She blushes. ‘And you.’
I grab her hand. Two of her fingernails are broken. ‘Kenz, that night at Tamara Fraser’s…I didn’t kill those birds. You might not trust me right now, but I’m begging you to believe that. I didn’t hurt them. They were already dead.’
She yanks her hand away. ‘What birds?’ she says, her eyes wide. ‘Grace, what birds?’
After leaving Kenzie’s house, I jog the short distance to Swanston Cemetery. My backpack is weighing me down, but my whole body is vibrating like a tuning fork and I feel as if I could run forever. I’ll be at least an hour late getting home, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Like the cropped photographs, the missing images—without context I couldn’t understand what was happening. We see what we want to see. We reach for the familiar. I haven’t been reading the signposts: my strange behaviour, craving different foods, fumbling for light switches, doing my buttons the wrong way and leaving the toilet seat up. Forgetting how to put on make-up. Diesel’s sudden aggression. I took the quantum leap from drawing stick figures to creating detailed sketches—I built a skeleton from the scattered bones, but I put the pieces together all wrong.
I drop my bag at the entrance and tear through the cemetery gate, skidding on the loose quartz on the footpath. An old couple laying flowers on a grave look up in alarm.
The man holds up his hand as if to slow me down. ‘Show some respect for the dead, girl.’
I think the dead would understand.
Overhead, hundreds of swallows fly in perfect formation like a dancing black cloud, and Maria’s angel gazes down solemnly as I pass. Above the noise of traffic out on the road, I hear the rustle of leaves. But there aren’t enough trees here to make that much sound. It’s voices. A chorus of whispering—real, or imagined, I can’t tell—that only gets louder as I approach the barrier of tape.
I stop at the edge of the grave. The cemetery is a dustbowl, but here it smells of moisture and decay. The bottom of the pit has flooded with muddy water; the sides are damp and loose. It’s just a hole in the ground now, but I don’t know where else to go to say the things I need to say.
‘I know it was you.’
My voice carries—the man and woman are holding hands and staring at me with pity. I tur
n my back to them, shrug off my backpack, and sit down.
‘You want me to find her, don’t you? You want me to find her body before they take your ashes away.’
The swallows swoop and settle in the trees in the centre of the graveyard, making it seem as if the trees are writhing.
I pull out the flyer and unfold it carefully. The handwriting is spiky and uneven, the words both beautiful and ugly. It’s a love poem. It’s a threat. It’s evidence. It’s a premeditation, or a confession. It’s proof of obsession. I may never know what the poem truly means, but it’s signed with a tiny sketch of a bird, and that has changed everything.
My heart is a room with an unwelcome visitor
every song is a ballad to her.
She walks with a lilt and she talks with a swagger
locks the room from within
leaves me raging outside.
She: careless, shrugging, restless, wild
gathering moonlight
soft glow
pale skin
painted with madness
the window her frame.
She.
Her.
Me,
raging outside.
Every song is a ballad to her.
It’s not Hannah Holt under my skin—it’s William Dean.
‘Tell me where to find her. I’m listening.’
A chunk of mud breaks from the edge of the grave and falls, crumbling, into the hole. The scent of death is in my nostrils, my lungs, leaching from the pores of my skin. I’m shaking all over and the ground feels unsteady, as if any moment the grave could turn into a sinkhole.
I grab my backpack, stand up, and back away—at the same time I’m fighting the urge to crawl into the hole. I feel rotten on the inside. His rage, his guilt, his despair: mine.
‘I’m listening now!’ I shout.
The sound sends the swallows in the trees screaming, scattering in all directions, and the old couple scurry through the gate.
Our triple study break is supposed to take place at either the library or the museum, but since we’re unsupervised, most of us sneak away for an extended morning tea instead. I left home without my bus pass and Gummer had to lend me money again. We’re sharing a seat on the bus, and I have William Dean’s poem and Mum’s plastic star in my pocket.
Ballad for a Mad Girl Page 16