‘Yewww,’ Tom says. ‘Do you know how many germs there are in dog spit?’
‘It’s Zelda,’ I say. ‘It’s fine.’
Mum and Stacey are at the counter talking to the vet and paying the bill. Mum was joking about gold-plated water bowls on the way here, so I guess it has cost them a bit.
‘Did they figure out what was wrong with her?’ I ask as we head back out to the car. Zelda sticks close beside me, almost stepping on my feet as we walk.
‘They ruled out snake bite,’ Stacey says. ‘Reckon they checked her head to toe and there wasn’t a mark. Some kind of poison seems most likely. She might have found an animal who’d died from eating a 1080 bait or something like that.’
I guess that would be an explanation. But some small part of me wonders still – was it really just an accident? Then I think of what Leah told me about the house. She’s right, I’ve been thinking about Rebecca O’Reilley too much and it’s been getting to me. I start to see threat and danger everywhere. I have no reason to think that what happened wasn’t exactly what Stacey said. It probably happens all the time out here.
Andy’s ute is parked in the driveway when we get home, and a ladder is leaning up against the side of the house.
‘Oh good, he’s doing the gutters,’ Stacey says. ‘I’ve been meaning to for weeks.’
‘Apparently, it’s a critical part of bushfire preparedness. Get all the flammable stuff off the roof.’
‘Huh. Who would’ve thunk it,’ Stacey says, raising an eyebrow.
‘I think he thinks we’re hopeless city folk who are a danger to ourselves and society,’ Mum says and they both laugh. ‘Ah well. We’re contributing to the local economy I guess,’ Mum says.
We all get out of the car. Zelda stays close beside me, almost like she’s glued to me or something. Andy gives us a wave from up on top of the roof and keeps working.
I try to get started on my homework but I just can’t concentrate. I’m distracted thinking of the O’Reilleys’ house, the fact that it’s for sale, the fact that Leah reckons it was the same house that was used in the filming of that movie. I open my laptop, fully intending to work, and instead find myself Googling Bloodbath Manor. It’s one of those films that never made it to the cinemas and has all but vanished into oblivion except for the shell of a profile on IMDB and reviews by a few fanatical horror fans who love to treasure the worst of the local B-grade.
I find some still shots of the main characters covered in blood. And there’s a poster which includes the silhouette of the house, the drive lined with pine trees. I study it closely, leaning in to the screen like I can dissect the individual pixels for information. It certainly looks like it could be the O’Reilleys’ house.
I jump when Tom sticks his head in the door.
‘Hey, Stacey made cake. Mum says do you want some?’
‘Thanks. I’ll be there in a tick.’
I shut the browser down and close my laptop. I feel guilty, like I’ve been caught out, though there’s no reason for it. I head down to the kitchen, wondering how I might be able to get a copy of that movie.
When I walk in the door there’s a massive cake in the centre of the table – some type of sponge laden with mountains of chocolate and cream and cherries.
‘Writing going badly?’ I ask Stacey. This is what happens when Stacey’s words get blocked: everything turns to cake. Mum calls her a procrastibaker.
‘It’s just… a bit slow at the moment…’ She waves her hands at the table.
‘Hey,’ I say to Andy, who’s sitting waiting for cake. ‘We’re going to need all the help we can to get through this one.’
I see him looking at me, just for a moment, like he’s taking me in. I see guys looking like that at Leah often enough, so I know the look and what it means. But it’s just a flash. It only lasts an instant. And given as how it’s me and not Leah, I figure I’m probably imagining it. But still, I feel myself blushing, the red staining my cheeks and burning my neck.
‘You’re really red Abbie,’ Tom says.
‘Geez thanks for that Tom,’ I say, wishing I could crawl under the kitchen table and die about now.
‘Hey, I saw that article you wrote,’ Andy says to Stacey.
‘Stace you never mentioned anything,’ I say. ‘How exciting! What was it?’
Stacey and Mum exchange a look. ‘Ah, I had a bit of a spread in today’s paper. The old O’Reilley house is up for sale. They asked me to write about the history of the house, you know, the past hundred years or so.’
‘It was a good piece,’ Andy says. ‘I’m always interested in history.’
Mum passes him his drink and Stacey slides a slab of cake in front of him, like they’re some kind of synchronised catering team.
‘Well it’s basically free advertising for Taylor and Co Real Estate Agents but the story was pretty interesting, actually. The O’Reilley family had been living there for generations. It’s kind of sad that it’s leaving the family now.’
Then cake is served up for Tom and me, and there’s a minute or two of deep silence as we all eat.
‘I did some work there,’ Andy says. ‘A while back. It’s a pretty amazing place. I mean I basically grew up in a shack. My parents never had money. Our place was fibro board, no heating or cooling, too many animals and kids. No space, no privacy. I didn’t think about it at the time, it’s just what I was used to. But when I went to the O’Reilleys I was like – wow. This is how people live? I never even had a room to myself when I was a kid. Rebecca O’Reilley basically had her own suite.’
‘Leah reckons the house was in a film,’ I say. ‘We walked past it on the weekend. Did you find anything about that, Stace?’
‘I can in fact confirm that the house was immortalised on the silver screen as the setting for Bloodbath Manor, one of the least successful Australian independent movies ever shot, and that is setting the bar high.’
‘We watched it once I think,’ I say. ‘When we were going through our horror movie phase.’
‘Thank god that’s over,’ Mum says. ‘I don’t know what you girls saw in those films.’
‘I don’t know why you let us watch them,’ I say. ‘They were awful.’
‘You never let me watch anything like that,’ Tom says. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Count yourself lucky Tom, I’m still having nightmares,’ I say.
As Mum pours another round of tea and Stacey tries to force feed us all more cake, Andy says: ‘Did you hear there’s going to be a meteor shower tonight? The sky is nice and clear, should be a pretty good view.’
‘Wow, that’s cool!’ Tom says.
‘I’ve got my binoculars in the car. I was going to head out to the lookout later on. You can all come with me if you want.’
‘Really? That would be awesome!’ Tom is bumping up and down in his chair with enthusiasm. ‘Can we Mum? Can we please?’
‘Of course,’ Mum says.
‘You keen Abbie?’ Andy says. Something in his look makes the reply catch in my throat.
‘Sounds educational,’ I manage to say, then regret it. Sounds educational. Sounds like an idiot is more like it.
Chapter forty-nine
Andy says he has a spot that his uncle used to take him to, so Tom and I climb into the ute with him. I sit in the middle, Tom on the window side. Andy’s car smells like a mixture of sawdust and oil and cigarette smoke. There isn’t much room, and the suspension makes the car roll like a boat as we go over potholes in the road. I find myself leaned up against Andy in the darkness.
Tom keeps up his usual stream of conversation. An unfamiliar adult in an enclosed space gives him great scope to talk. It’s amazing how many words he can fill the silence with when I find myself struggling to even say hello sometimes. Andy encourages him with just the right number of reallys and huhs and the occasional leading question. I sit and look at the path of light that the high beams cast on the road in front of us. I can’t help but see Andy’s hands on the steering w
heel in my peripheral vision. They’re so different to Zeke’s hands. Bigger, rougher, with scars and callouses; hands that do things, know things. I find myself wondering momentarily what it would feel like to be touched by such strange and alien objects, then I rein the thought in. Zeke, I remind myself. Happy warmth radiates through me at the thought of him. Zeke.
‘Almost there,’ Andy says, turning off the main road. ‘You guys are about to get the best view in Derrington.’
We’re driving up a rough dirt track and the hill is getting steeper. After a while Andy slows and stops, pulling the handbrake on.
‘Could you get the gate Tom?’ he says.
Tom jumps out and skips into the beams of light.
‘Is this private property?’ I ask.
‘Council land,’ Andy says. ‘They don’t encourage people to come here but it’s not illegal.’
He looks across at me in the semi-darkness. I’m glad for the semi-darkness, because I feel my face flush. Again. And then the door opens and Tom jumps back in.
Andy revs the car and then we inch our way through the gate and on up the hill.
Derrington is a tiny smudge of light far away. All around us, the land is a velvety black and over and above us the sky is vivid, throbbing with light. I thought all stars were white but now I see I’m wrong. There are different shades – bluer, dusty pink, a few points with a golden hue.
‘I reckon we’ll see something over to the north-east,’ Andy says, pointing. ‘Yep, there you go…’ And I see movement, a quick, tiny trail of light. ‘Binocular time.’
He hands them to Tom first, points him in the right direction.
‘Wow! That is so cool!’
Andy doesn’t say anything.
When it’s my turn, Andy stands behind me and helps me find the right patch of sky, reaching around me to adjust the scopes. I almost can’t breathe with him so close.
‘There?’ he says.
I see the first trail and nod. ‘Yep.’ He steps away and I fall into the wonder.
There are seconds where there is nothing to see but they are only seconds. The scatter of light is almost constant. I try to imagine what this means – how many rocks must be passing us by in space, how big that space is and how tiny our planet is and how even more miniscule is the chance that a living, thinking, seeing being exists to observe all these phenomena – but my brain just can’t conceptualise it. I sense the probabilities dropping away, the freakishness of my existence in the cold, vast, empty universe growing exponentially.
‘Cool huh,’ Tom says. ‘Can I have another go?’
I watch for one more minute and then hand the binoculars back to Tom, disorientated by the shift in my vision as the world rearranges itself at normal size around me.
‘Hey, I’ve got something I wanted to show you,’ Andy says. I follow him, feeling a sudden uneasiness as we leave Tom at the lookout and walk up a short trail to a flat circle of concrete with some weird-looking metal structures on it.
‘What is it?’
‘An old bunker from the Second World War. They built it up here when they thought the Japanese might invade. Kept it stocked with supplies.’
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘It’s amazing that it’s still here.’
‘Isn’t it? I spent so much time here as a kid,’ Andy says. ‘I’d ride my bike from town, can you believe it? Those are my happiest memories. When everything else was shit, I always had this. Darkness and stars. I used to imagine that the enemy had come and I was the last survivor from Derrington and this was my base. Have you ever read that book, Tomorrow When the War Began? Like that. Sometimes I think I kind of enjoyed the idea that everyone else had been wiped out. My family wasn’t the easiest to grow up in. Too many kids, not enough money, you know. And my dad was always angry about something. Not like your family. Your mum and Stacey know how to look after you.’
I’m suddenly aware of him watching me in the darkness and I feel a sensation like the lightest touch of air moving over my skin. I step back quickly, almost tripping on a loose rock, and find he has a grip on my arm, steadying me. ‘Maybe we can come back here sometime?’ he says.
‘Um, sure, I reckon Tom would like that too,’ I say, floundering, not wanting to misinterpret what he’s saying, not wanting to encourage him.
I see something shift in his expression.
‘Better see how he’s going with those binoculars. They’re an expensive piece of kit.’ He walks past me, back down the trail and I find myself unable to move for a moment. My heart is pounding, my pulse a tricky thing in my veins and in my ears. And for a moment I wish I’d said something different – I imagine not stepping away, letting him touch me, letting him hold me. I feel a guilty warmth tangle in my belly and sap the strength from my limbs. Then I think of Zeke and as soon as I do I miss him more than seems possible. I turn and head back down the path, to where Andy and Tom are deep in conversation about the structure of the universe. I can’t wait to get home.
Chapter fifty
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’
Duncan doesn’t even say hello. He just comes and sits down at the table next to me where I’m waiting for the bell to go for class. He looks as tired as I feel.
‘What did I say?’ I ask.
‘About Damien. And the fact that I haven’t contacted him.’
I look away. I don’t want to think about the O’Reilleys. I want to get on with my life – me, Abigail Fray – and not think about them anymore. The dreams were just dreams. The house is being sold. The paintings in the cave are just pigment on stone. It’s over. Done.
‘I called Damien’s lawyer.’
I feel a prick of interest. ‘Really?’
‘I wanted to see how he’s going. Don’t tell anyone though, Dad would kill me.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Just that Damien’s finding it tough. He’s struggling to come to terms with what has happened to his family. His memories of the night are…confused. I’m thinking about going to see him.’
‘Seriously?’
‘I turn eighteen in a couple of weeks and after that I wouldn’t need Dad’s permission. The lawyer said if Damien agrees I could go with him on one of his visits. I’m thinking about it. It scares me though,’ he says and looks directly at me. ‘Damien’s stuck there twenty-four seven and I’m scared about a twenty-minute visit? Pretty brave, hey.’
‘Go,’ I say. ‘If Damien didn’t do it, then he’s just lost his family and been locked up and he’s completely isolated from everything that has any connection to his past life. Can you imagine anything worse?’
Duncan looks down at the ground. ‘You’re right. Yeah, I reckon you’re right. I’ll do it.’
‘Let me know how it goes,’ I say.
There’s a pause. I feel like he wants something more from me, like he’s waiting for me to offer to come with him, to hold his hand, to talk him through the whole thing, but I don’t. I won’t. I want to be done with all of this.
He needs to do what he needs to do, and I need to walk away.
That afternoon Zeke drives me home from school. We park under a tree ten minutes away from my house, just down a small dirt track that looks almost unused. He pulls me towards him. He tastes sweet, like he’s been eating lollies. His tongue presses against mine as his hand works its way down the buttons of my dress.
‘Back seat?’ he says. His voice sounds breathless and strange, not like the Zeke I know. I nod and he opens the door for me then we both climb in and close it again.
‘Leah would warn me not to do this,’ I say as we fall into another long, lingering kiss.
Zeke pulls back. ‘Doesn’t she like me?’ He looks hurt and I feel a stab of guilt. The last thing I want to do is hurt him.
‘No, it’s not that. Just, you know, horror movie 101. Don’t make out in the car in the woods...’
He looks at me for a moment, eyebrows knitting into a puzzled frown, then his expression softens. ‘Pfft. We don’t
have woods in Australia, do we? Isn’t this the bush? Now, at risk of dismemberment…’
He undoes another button and then another. I feel an unfamiliar ache as my dress falls open and Zeke’s gaze moves down my chest.
Okay, so I bought a new bra after we got together and I’ve been wearing it every day since then, just in case. It’s creamy silk and lacy, fancier than anything I’ve ever owned before. I didn’t want his first view of me half-naked to be of my standard faded-grey sports bra. Now I look at the expression on his face I wonder if I’ve made a mistake. I don’t want him to have a heart attack on account of my boobs.
‘Can I – touch you?’ he whispers.
I nod. My mouth is too dry to talk. He reaches a finger and draws it down my sternum, traces my collar bones, then runs a fingertip around the edge of my bra. It feels like my skin is burning.
‘Did you know you’re really pretty?’ he says.
‘Thanks,’ I say smiling.
‘No, I mean it Abbie. You’re gorgeous. And you know, smart and funny and kind and I honestly don’t know how I got this lucky.’ He looks up at me with a kind of pained wonder in his eyes and my heart melts.
‘You’re not too bad yourself, Ezekiel Matthews,’ I say, and pull him towards me and kiss him.
‘I’ve been dreaming about this for so long,’ he whispers.
‘Well, probably only a couple of months, because that’s how long I’ve known you for,’ I say and I feel him pull my bra down and move down my body to take my nipple into his mouth. And then, as I see him there, that mess of dark hair, the feeling of piercing heat that moves through me, I have a sudden thought. I try to push it away but it’s too late.
‘What do you mean, for so long. How long?’
He looks up at me. ‘Well, since I met you I guess.’
‘Not before then?’
‘What do you mean?’ His voice breaks slightly. I see a look on his face that I don’t know how to interpret.
‘Not, you know, since Becky was alive?’ I say, pretend-lightness in my voice.
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