Mirror Me

by Rachel Sanderson

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I say.

  ‘Not bad hey,’ Aaron agrees.

  ‘I need to pee,’ Leah says.

  ‘You’re going to have to go behind a tree, sweetheart,’ Aaron says. ‘We’re out in nature now.’

  ‘Well pull up then. There’s plenty to choose from.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ I ask, thinking of Leah’s hatred of snakes, spiders, worms, bugs, most birds, lizards. Basically, just about anything you might find whilst peeing in the bush.

  ‘I’ll be okay. If I’m not back in twenty, a snake bit my bum. Abs, you can have all my shoes.’

  Aaron stops the car and Leah jumps out and wanders out of sight.

  ‘She’s missed you,’ Aaron says after a minute of silence. ‘It’s been hard work, without you around.’

  ‘I’ve missed her too,’ I say, feeling the pang of it.

  ‘When she broke up with Brendan, that was the worst. I did the best I could, but I’m a very poor stand-in for you, Abbie.’

  I swallow. Leah never told me she’d broken up with Brendan. Last time she mentioned him it sounded like everything was fine. I don’t tell Aaron that though.

  ‘Did you give her chocolate?’ I ask.

  ‘Lots of chocolate, yes. But somehow it didn’t have the same effect as the chocolate you provide.’

  ‘Try the Lindt 70 percent dark chocolate with raspberries,’ I say.

  ‘Hmm. I suspect there’s more to it than that,’ he says.

  We drive for another forty-five minutes. In places, the track is uneven, the surface worn away by rain into gutters and pot holes that make the car judder and bump. As we travel deeper into the forest I have the sense that we’re being consumed, that all our traces are being erased. We could vanish and nobody would ever know where to look for us, and there’d be nothing left to find even if they did.

  Zeke seems like a good navigator, given that there are no landmarks or road signs or any of the usual things you’d use to orientate yourself. He tracks the distance we’ve travelled on the odometer, has pulled out a handy compass – a COMPASS – like some twentieth-century boy scout, and is following the curves and bends of the trail intently, tracing our turning against the lines on the map.

  Eventually he says: ‘There should be a spot to pull off coming up. Then we have to walk I think.’

  ‘Bingo,’ Aaron says enthusiastically. ‘Can’t imagine how I’d have found it on my own Zeke. Good to have you on board.’

  Zeke grins. ‘Nah no worries. I’ve been wanting to check the caves out for donkey’s years. Crazy to live so nearby and never come here.’

  We pull up and stop the car and Aaron and Leah engage in a short argument about what constitutes suitable footwear.

  Zeke and I grin at each other like idiots, and I barely resist the urge to throw myself into his arms, until the argument is concluded. Then Leah pulls some heavy walking boots on and we get moving.

  ‘Should be about a half-hour walk I reckon,’ Aaron says.

  We settle into silence. The track is narrow so we walk single file. In some places, we’re pushing our way through scratchy branches and tall grass. I’m mostly just looking out for snakes. There are no human sounds. I mean our place is quiet compared to Sydney, but there’s always something: a motor in the distance, a dog barking, some music blaring across the valley. Here there’s nothing except for bird calls and the buzzing of insects and the noises we make – footsteps, breathing, the brush of vegetation against our legs.

  ‘Ouch!’ Leah says from behind me. Aaron and Zeke have taken the lead. I’m following and Leah is in what we would usually refer to as ‘first sacrifice to the monster’ position. We went through a horror movie phase in year nine, and even though we joke about it, I think we both still try to avoid being the one most likely to die.

  ‘You okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Just a spiky bit of grass I think. This is certainly very… outdoorsy… isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you mind?’ I ask, slowing and waiting for her to catch up.

  ‘I am totally willing to deal with grass and pee behind a tree if it means I get to hang out with my best buddy for a weekend.’ She puts an arm around me and squeezes. ‘Though I hope you realise if you’d come to Sydney we would have been sipping chai lattes and eating cupcakes right now. There’s a new one. Passionfruit and white chocolate. I was going to bring some but the bakery wasn’t open when we left, which was basically still night-time.’

  ‘Thanks Leah,’ I say, and I want to say something more but the words don’t form themselves in my mouth.

  ‘No worries. I’ve been worried about you. And then your mum told me about the guy that died…’

  ‘Dave,’ I say, feeling a shiver pass over my skin as I say his name.

  ‘Yeah. Was he a friend of yours?’

  I snort then feel instantly terrible about it. You can’t snort about recently dead people. Then I remember all the awful things Dave said about Becky and feel less bad. Maybe it was an ironic snort. Maybe that’s okay and I’m not a terrible person after all.

  ‘But anyway, you knew him and he died and on top of all the other stuff, well it must have been pretty horrible for you,’ Leah says.

  ‘Yeah, it was.’

  Leah slows even more so the gap between us and Zeke and Aaron increases. I feel unaccountably anxious. I don’t want to be alone with her right now. I don’t want to have this conversation at all.

  ‘And how’ve you been feeling? I know it’s hard to talk over the phone sometime, but if there’s anything you want to tell me about, seriously, now’s the time to spill. I’ll listen. I won’t judge.’

  I give her a small, pale smile. ‘I just think I’m going a bit crazy Leah, I don’t know if I want you to know about it.’

  ‘Excuse me, what do you think my job is? Who else are you going to tell all this stuff to?’

  My gaze unintentionally flicks forward a second, towards Zeke, and by the time I see Leah register the movement it’s too late. The hurt is already written on her face.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘I approve. He’s hot and lovely and he can read maps. And he’s clearly mad about you. A totally unbeatable combo.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you. It’s just, it’s been so full on…’

  ‘Abs, last time I talked to you, you told me you were re-living a dead person’s memories in your nightmares, then you basically went off the grid and next thing your mum is calling saying she’s scared for you and someone has died and you need me. Which all sounds like big, serious stuff. So, I’m here. Fill in some gaps could you, please? I’m worried.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay. I’ve been having a lot of nightmares. You know, about Becky. It’s starting to feel like it’s kind of bleeding into my real life. I can’t get rid of the feeling. And I just have this kind of itch – I need to know more about her, about what happened. There are things that don’t make sense. I don’t think her brother killed her…’ It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud and as soon as I do I know that it’s true. It started as a niggling uncertainty, grew into doubt, and now I realise that is the purpose of all the circling and questioning and wondering I’ve been doing.

  I don’t think Damien killed the O’Reilleys. And that means the killer might still be free.

  And then I think of Dave, who was a dick, but I’m pretty sure was not a murderer, and who anyway is dead now too. For taking me to see Becky’s best friend so I could talk to her about what happened to Becky. I shudder.

  ‘You guys coming?’ Zeke calls from beside a tall, moss-covered boulder. ‘I think we’re nearly there.’

  ‘Abbie?’ Leah says.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘You don’t look okay,’ she says.

  ‘We’re coming,’ I call to Zeke.

  Chapter forty-three

  A few steps in and daylight seems a distant memory. My skin rises into goosebumps with the sudden drop in temperature. The cave is damp and smells o
f moist earth: a fresh, clinging aroma.

  ‘Remember, we stick together now kids, and be careful where you put your feet.’

  Aaron has uncoiled a rope which we hold as we walk. We’re strung out along it at intervals like washing on a line. It seemed like overkill in the daylight and open air when he first brought it out, but it doesn’t now we’re in the cave. Every step is taking us deeper. Every step is into darkness. I find myself holding the rope tight, like it means something, like it will keep me safe and help me find my way home.

  ‘What was this one called?’ Leah asks.

  ‘Potter’s Turn,’ Zeke says. ‘I think. It’s a bit hard to tell from the map though.’

  ‘Which is why we stick close and don’t take any chances.’ Aaron swings his torch in a wide arc, illuminating a broad archway of stone above us, a smooth rock floor, a glimmer of moisture.

  The first cave we tried narrowed away into nothing almost straight away so we turned back and headed out, grateful for the light and fresh air.

  This one is different – bigger, broader, and as we begin to move in and down, the air gets cooler and staler. It’s unsettling enough being in here during the day with a bunch of other people. I can’t imagine what it would be like coming here alone, at night, like Damien did.

  We walk slowly, each step tentative. My torch is nowhere near as powerful as Aaron’s, which is almost as bright as a car headlight, but still I sweep the ground ahead of me with the pale beam, checking each step before I take it. It looks safe enough, but you never know what could be ahead: a sudden drop, a sinkhole, a barrier. Or just an unexpected angle that could trip you up. We’re a long way from daylight and even further from the car. This is not a place where you’d want to get a broken ankle.

  ‘What’s that?’ Leah says.

  I pause. I hear something – movement somewhere ahead of us.

  ‘Shhh,’ Aaron says. There is a rustling noise and then a strange high-pitched chirruping then a flap-flap-flap. Aaron swings his torch like a spotlight and we see it high up: a small dark figure, flittering through the cave.

  ‘Bat,’ he whispers.

  ‘Wow, cool,’ Zeke breathes.

  Leah doesn’t say anything. I can almost feel her anxiety and disgust being communicated through the rope to me. I feel sorry for dragging her out here. But whatever I feel is shadowed by a growing need that I just can’t ignore. I have to know. If there’s something here that links to Damien O’Reilley, some window into his world or into his life, I need to find it. It matters. I don’t know why, but I know it matters. I can’t ignore this urge.

  We continue for another ten minutes or so in a silent, painstaking shuffle until we hit the back wall of the cave. Aaron shines his torch on the walls and the ceilings, illuminating this rock that lies in darkness.

  ‘Head back?’ he says eventually, his voice ringing in the darkness.

  ‘Please, let’s,’ Leah says.

  We’re more relaxed on the outward walk. We know how far we’ve got to go and it only takes ten minutes or so until we can see the light of the entrance, and gradually the darkness dissolves into daylight.

  Zeke walks next to me, not saying anything, but I feel a sense of contentment emanating from him, like warmth coming off concrete on a sunny day.

  ‘There’s one more I wanted to check out,’ he says as we finally step back out, blinking at the sunlight. ‘Do you reckon we’ve got time?’ he asks Aaron.

  ‘There’s a good few hours of daylight left. We may as well do one more while we’re here.’

  Something in me tightens with excitement – maybe this will be it. Maybe this will be what I’m looking for, though I don’t know what that is.

  We break for water and peanut butter sandwiches made from Mum’s home-made rye bread. Leah is complaining of insect bites and scratching at her legs.

  ‘Do you feel dusty? I feel dusty. I feel like I’ve got dust in my hair and all over me and all through my clothes. I can taste it. Ugh.’ She looks tired of everything.

  ‘Alright, lucky last,’ Aaron says after checking his torch, settling his backpack, and re-lacing his walking boots. We follow the trail up a slight hill then I spot the entrance – a dark opening on the slope above us. We clamber over a pile of boulders that look as though they’ve tumbled down the hillside and landed willy-nilly. The rock is warm under my hands and gives off a faint smell. I don’t know the smell, but it feels familiar, comforting. Ancient.

  ‘Wow, cool check this out,’ Zeke calls.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, reaching him in a few steps.

  He’s pointing to a pale brown fungus growing under a tree a few feet away.

  ‘Magic mushroom,’ he says and grins.

  ‘Really?’ I say. It looks so innocuous.

  ‘Been a while since I’ve seen one of those,’ Aaron says.

  ‘Please Dad, no stories,’ Leah groans. She hates it when her parents tell stories about their wild youth, though I always find it entertaining.

  Then Aaron gestures ahead. ‘Someone’s been up here. Though not for a while by the look of it. Here’s where they had a campfire.’

  I clamber up the last of the rocks to a flat area before the cave entrance. There’s a small circle of stone around a pile of ash and some partially burnt logs. I take a breath and look back down to the valley below. All I see are tree tops and open skies, a big, wide vista. For a second, I imagine what it would be like to be up here at night time – stars overhead, a fire dancing, wood crackling as it burns and shooting fragments up glowing red into the air to be carried away by the breeze. It would be beautiful. And lonely.

  ‘Hey guys,’ Zeke calls. He’s already made it to the cave’s entrance and is peering in, torch on. ‘You’ve got to check this out. This is amazing.’

  ‘It had better be,’ Leah mutters and we head up the last slope to where Zeke is waiting for us. When I see what he’s looking at, I stop.

  ‘Whoa,’ Leah says. ‘That is some weird shit.’

  The cave walls, from base to curving roof, are painted in a chaotic and complex collage of colour and shape. I can hardly take it in, but I see eyes watching, a bird, hands, fire, flowers, figures of a couple dancing or fighting, I can’t be sure. Interspersed through it all are figures that must be symbols of some kind, though they’re not symbols that I know. They look like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

  ‘Okay, photo time,’ Leah says.

  ‘No,’ I say instinctively. I don’t know why but I just feel, somehow, in some urgent and powerful way, that she shouldn’t photograph this. This isn’t something that you just randomly put up on Facebook for the world to see. This is something private. Something dangerous, even.

  ‘Are you okay Abbie? You look pale…’ Zeke says.

  I don’t answer, just take one step in, and then another.

  ‘Can I borrow your torch, Aaron?’ I ask, and he passes it across to me. I flick it on and take another step and then shine the light on the walls, moving it slowly, examining every figure, every shape, every stroke, every symbol. Nobody says anything. The silence feels heavy.

  I reach forward and trace a shape with my finger. It’s an upside-down triangle with an eye in the centre, painted bright yellow. And then I remember what Tina had told me, how once Damien O’Reilley had been found sitting naked in the stationery shop drawing occult symbols on himself. And I know. I know with more certainty than I even know my own name – these are his paintings. What I’m looking at now is the closest I’m going to get to an insight into what he was thinking about, how he was feeling, before his family were killed. And I think – this is where he was, the night it happened. It must have been. The police said they found him with hallucinogenic drugs in his system. This is where he was: in the universe he had created for himself. Alone.

  ‘Are we going in?’ Zeke says.

  Leah frowns. ‘Do we have to? This is some crazy shit. What if whoever painted it is still around?’

  Leah and Zeke are both looking at Aaron, wai
ting for him to decide.

  ‘I don’t think anybody has been here for quite a while Leah. We came all this way. May as well have a little look, hey? Lucky last?’

  And he looks to me for the torch, and I hand it back to him and follow him in.

  The area where we enter is like an entrance way – broad and open, with a high roof and smooth, arching walls. Almost every centimetre is covered in paintings, and they seem to shimmer and glow as the light from outside falls on them. I shiver, feeling as though they’re watching us, noticing our entrance. But I know it’s just pigment on rock, so I ignore my creeping feeling of dread and follow Aaron as he walks slowly deeper in.

  ‘Daddy,’ Leah has stopped and has her torch trained on a segment of the wall. ‘Please tell me that isn’t what it looks like it is…’

  Amidst the swirls of bright colours are some patches of darker, duller tone. Rusty-brown smears.

  Blood.

  ‘Nope,’ Leah says. ‘That’s it, you guys. I’ve had it. I’m ready to go home now.’

  We’ve only been away for a couple of hours, but I feel like something huge has shifted inside me. It feels like I’ve been on another planet. The darkness, the colour, the smells and feeling of the caves and the rocks and the paintings are filling my mind. My senses still tingle from them. I realise I’ve hardly thought about Dave at all.

  By the time we get back to the car it’s late in the afternoon and the light is taking on a burnished, fiery glow.

  ‘Oh, thank god. A seat with cushions,’ Leah says. ‘Please let me sit.’

  ‘How’re you feeling Abbie?’ Aaron asks, looking at me.

  I shrug and look away. ‘A bit tired. It was great seeing the caves though. Really amazing.’

  ‘Yeah they’re so cool. I’m definitely coming back,’ Zeke says. He’s the only one of us who seems to have some genuine enthusiasm left.

  ‘Those paintings were way too creepy though,’ Leah says. ‘Ugh.’ She does a dramatic full-body shudder.