Lyrebird Hill

by Anna Romer

  My back flushed ice cold, while my face and hands were on fire.

  ‘Jindera?’ I managed to whisper. ‘Mee Mee?’

  My father shook his head. ‘Gone, my little love. All of them, gone.’

  I slumped back as if struck in the face. My thoughts were scrambled. I wanted to clutch for a logical explanation, an escape from the horror, but I was in a maze of fear; everywhere I turned, my way was blocked. I moaned softly. My skin was clammy. I swayed forward, willing myself to slide into unconsciousness, willing the ache in my chest to somehow drag me under.

  Finally, I found my voice. ‘Is there a chance that Jindera or any of the others might have escaped? Like they did that other time, when they hid in the cave along the riverbank?’

  My father stared towards the window. He was wide-eyed, as if he had just woken from a nightmare, his nostrils flaring, his breath coming short and sharp.

  ‘I saw the pyre,’ he said, his voice cracking with grief. ‘The men lit it and dragged the bodies into the flames, but they didn’t tend it well. It never burned, just . . . just—’ He stared fixedly into the shadows. ‘I am to blame. They are gone. Our people are gone. And I am to blame.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered, wanting to reassure him, but my voice jammed in my throat. Fa Fa spoke his bitter words from the unreliable standpoint of his grief, but it was clear to me that he bore no blame for what had happened. Clear to me, too, that while guilt ate away my father’s kind heart with the ferocity of acid, the real offenders had escaped without reproach.

  Owen entered the room and hurried to my father’s side. He lay at his feet without a word to either of us, and closed his eyes. He began to cry quietly, but when Fa Fa reached down and placed his hand on the boy’s head, Owen became still.

  Beyond the open window the sky blazed blue. The grass was golden, and leaves gusted through the winter air. By all appearances, life was going on. Out there, out in the world, the destruction of my small family had made no impact; and yet here in my father’s quiet, familiar room, the very heart of time had come to a standstill.

  My father let out a great shuddering sigh. Lying back on the bed, he rolled to face the wall and dragged the coverlet up to his ear. He began to sob – dry, wretched gasps that echoed after me as I shut his door and descended the stairs on shaky legs.

  Dawn lightened the sky across the mountains. I sat in the dappled sunlight beneath the red gum where once wallaby skins were hung to dry. Where once, on a sunny afternoon, my grandmother had scattered a handful of black seeds onto her grindstone, to pound into flour for cakes.

  Where once I had stood with Jindera, promising to return.

  The shady encampment was now a blackened scar of land. The huts were gone, the campfire had been scattered. Despite the passage of weeks, the smell of burned flesh lingered in the air.

  I found the site of the pyre that my father had described. Nothing remained of the bodies that had been burned there. The ground had been raked clear, the debris dragged away, the corpses buried. I wondered what it had cost my father to see the ruin brought upon the people he had loved so dearly.

  Everything. It had cost him everything.

  I lay down at the centre of the scar and looked up at the sky. Clouds drifted past, and the sun blazed in my eyes, forcing me to close them. Blood-red behind my lids. After a while I drifted – not into sleep, but into a sort of waking dream.

  Jindera stood before me. The favoured yellow dress that Aunt Ida had once given her was gone. Instead, she wore a large wallaby skin blanket around her shoulders, its ragged hem reaching past her knees. Around her neck she wore a necklace of snake vertebrae, each fragile bone bleached salt-white.

  Approaching, she held out her hand.

  A small silver object gleamed on her palm. She gestured for me to take it, but when I tried to grasp the object, it puffed through my fingers like smoke.

  No cross water, Bunna. Danger there. Bad spirits.

  I thought of my journey to Tasmania, of the months I’d spent at Brayer House. Jindera had been right; I did not belong under that distant roof, confined like a caged bird. And yet I couldn’t help wondering where I would be now if I had listened to Jindera’s warning. Would I have been able to prevent the massacre? Or would I now be resting in the nearby ground, my body charred, consumed by the same flames that had consumed hers?

  I stood up. My clothes were streaked with charcoal and dust. I began to walk without knowing where I was going. I don’t remember taking the track down to the river, but sometime later I found myself on the rocky embankment overlooking the rapids. The water had receded from the banks, exposing pebbles and turning them dull with silt. Looking along the mud bank, I saw a half-moon-shaped impression.

  The mark of a horse’s shoe.

  Further along, I found more tracks. They continued on the mud bank for a while, before disappearing higher up the verge. I kneeled beside one of the indentations, dipping my fingers into the curve. A rider had come this way, perhaps in pursuit of someone. I looked along the riverbank, but saw no sign of any cave or cleft in the rocks that might serve as a hiding place.

  The sun went behind a cloud and the horse tracks turned dark with shadows.

  All the time I was away, I had daydreamed about the moment I would tell Jindera what I’d learned from Aunt Ida and from my father. I had envisaged her face as I spoke the words that acknowledged her as family. She would beam, her round face alight with pleasure. We would laugh, and she would clasp me tightly against her, and our joyful tears would wash away the sorrow and loss she had buried inside herself the night my mother died.

  The sun emerged again, and the shadows shrank away.

  A glimmer caught my eye.

  I searched the ground until I saw a soft glint beneath a feathery brown clump of winter tussock. I pushed back the grass and stared at the object partly submerged in the dust.

  It was a silver chain, attached to a dirt-encrusted locket.

  I picked it up. An expensive treasure, to be lost out here by the river. One of the riders must have dropped it as they gave chase along the embankment.

  The sun retreated behind a cloud and the shadows shifted again. Opening the locket, I stared at the miniature portrait.

  The woman’s ash-blonde hair was pulled into a loose knot on the top of her head. Her pale blue eyes were framed by lashes so fair they were almost invisible. Her cheeks were plump and pink, and a wreath of yellow flowers adorned her hair. She was smiling prettily, almost dreamily.

  ‘Mama,’ I whispered.

  For a long time I stared at her likeness, so pleased to see her familiar features that a lump formed in my throat. But as the minutes ticked away, other feelings arose. Unease. And the queasy sensation that I stood on the brink of some terrible realisation.

  Why was my mother’s portrait out here in the dust, fallen by the riverbank, so close to the horse tracks I’d found? Had my father dropped it when he’d buried the bodies of the clan; had he wandered beside the river in a daze, as I had just now?

  I snapped the locket shut, and rubbed away the dirt. A design emerged. A stylised representation of a lyrebird’s tail, the long feathers curved into a decorative harp.

  My queasiness became a solid lump, cutting off my air. I couldn’t breathe. Blood thundered in my head as the truth settled over me. I had seen this locket before. Not in my father’s possession, but sitting on the writing desk in my bedroom at Brayer House.

  It had gleamed in the lamplight, and at first I had mistaken it for a fob watch. My husband’s fob watch. Only, it hadn’t been a watch at all.

  I closed my fingers over its ornate face, gripping it so tightly my knuckles popped. I struggled up the embankment on shaky legs. When I finally reached the encampment, I started to run.

  Through my tears, I could see Carsten’s face, that night in the library. Carved through with devastation, hollowed with shock and hatred. He had glared at me with dark eyes and made a promise, that now rang ominously in my ears.

&
nbsp; You’ll all be sorry you crossed me—

  ‘No, no.’ I tripped and hit the ground, but climbed unsteadily and stumbled on. Michael told me Florence had a baby that year, he had said. I thought she was—

  She was the woman in the locket.

  Florence. My mama. The woman Carsten had once loved, but lost to another man. To my father.

  Your father took my money to save his godforsaken land . . . by God, he has a bloody hide . . .

  Fa Fa would know. He would know how to make sense of the words, the snatches of memory, my mother’s likeness in the locket. If anyone could explain what I’d found, it was my father.

  I pounded upstairs to my father’s room, then paused. The house seemed very quiet. Too quiet. I knocked, and when there came no answer I put my head in and called softly.

  ‘Fa Fa, are you awake?’

  He lay where I had left him, curled towards the wall with the sheet drawn up to his ear. Tufts of hair spread like grey smudges on the pillowcase, and one hand was flung palm-up on the coverlet.

  There was a stillness in the room that made the air seem cold despite the sunlight drifting through the window. The tea I’d poured for him yesterday sat untouched, a thin film of scum floating on its surface.

  The chair creaked as I sat down. My father didn’t stir. I touched his shoulder. It was cold, unyielding. My fingers crept to his wrist, and then gently to the hollow beneath his ear, but I could find no pulse.

  ‘Oh no . . . no, no.’

  I took his hand, gripped his rigid fingers. His skin was fragile and smooth, clammy under my touch, cold. I buckled over, resting my forehead on his knuckles, trying to swallow the black desolation so that I could, at least, whisper goodbye.

  I don’t know at what stage I remembered Owen. Only that when my tears dried and my shock had frayed into numbness, I became aware of sounds beyond my island of misery. A rooster crowed in the yard. A possum bounded over the roof. The clock chimed in the parlour. Once, twice. Three times.

  With profound effort, I sat up and tried to collect my thoughts. There were things I must do. Send Owen to fetch the minister, the doctor, the undertaker. Find my father’s best suit. Notify his solicitor and write a letter to the bank.

  Getting to my feet, I kissed the top of Fa Fa’s head and shuffled across the room. Closing the door gently behind me, I made my way along the hall and then downstairs. The old house creaked, the roof ticked as the iron expanded under the sun’s heat. A flock of black cockatoos flew overhead, their screeching cries violating the quiet.

  I paused a moment, breathing the air into my lungs.

  Then I went to find my brother.

  Owen wasn’t in the house. I searched the yard, looked in the chook pen and all his usual haunts around the garden, and ran along the riverbank calling his name. Harold, who shadowed Owen just as the boy had shadowed my father, was missing, too.

  Owen must have already found my father dead, and fled into the bush to grieve in private. My heart gave a painful twist. Fa Fa had been Owen’s world; how could he bear to lose him?

  I ran through the yard, calling. The silence and stillness was eerie, and I had the disconnected sense that I was stumbling through a dream. As I neared the stables, I saw that the tall doors had been dragged shut. I pounded my hand on the sun-warmed wood.

  ‘Owen? Are you in there?’

  The only reply was a warning growl from Harold.

  Dragging aside the stable door, I stepped into the stuffy darkness. Harold let out another rumble, and I heard something shift on the straw. Several heartbeats passed before my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

  At the far end of the stable, in the darkest corner behind the row of stalls, I saw Owen standing on a chair.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Harold whined, but Owen didn’t answer. He seemed very still. I took a step nearer.

  ‘Owen?’

  My throat was already tight with grief, but it had suddenly gone dry. I shuffled nearer the stalls, unable to shift my gaze from my brother.

  That was when I saw the rope. Ice went through me and my legs buckled as I stumbled across the dim space towards him. Harold rushed at me from the dark, barking. When I tried to shove past him, he sank his teeth into my hand.

  ‘Owen!’ I screamed.

  The sound of my voice drew an anguished yelp from Harold, and then he started to bark, great drawn-out crying noises that echoed off the stable’s inner walls and drowned out my sobs.

  Owen hadn’t been standing on the chair. He had simply used it as a stepping-off point. I grabbed his legs; his body seemed so pitifully small, yet it was too heavy for me to lift. I tried to untangle him from the rope, but the loop he’d tied in the end of it would not release him. In the end I let him go, and he swung away from me. I cried out and stumbled across the straw-littered floor, slamming into the wall where a row of tools dangled from their nails. Grabbing a curved knife, I rushed back to my brother and climbed the chair beside him, held him against me while I hacked through the rope. When the last strands finally frayed and gave way, Owen’s weight dragged me from the chair and we landed together on the floor.

  I gathered him to me, my fingers finding his throat, seeking the pulse I already knew would not be there. Harold stretched beside us, licking Owen’s face. I tried to shut my ears to the old dog’s wretched grieving, but the voice in my head was worse.

  Please, not Owen. Not my gentle little Owen who swam naked in the river like a fish and blushed crimson when the clan girls teased him. Not the little boy who clung to my father like a shadow and tripped us all up in his eagerness to be loved. Not Owen . . . please, please – not my dear Owen.

  In a box under my bed I found the revolver Aunt Ida had given me, and a carton of brass cartridges. The weapon was heavy. It took forever for me to find the catch that hinged open the frame. The cylinder had been cleaned and oiled, and the shells slid easily into their hollows.

  Downstairs in the yard, I placed a row of pinecones along the fence. Walking back twenty paces, trembling hard, I wasted a full chamber of rounds to shatter only two pinecones. Reloading the gun, I slowed my pace. Breathing deeply, I took control of my tremors. And instead of seeing pinecones, I envisioned my husband’s face.

  Six shots rang out, and six times his countenance shattered to dust. When my shells were spent, I returned to the house. Upstairs in my room, I wrapped the pistol in burlap and secreted it in the false lining of my travelling trunk, covering it with clothes. As I was packing it, I found the pouch of wolfsbane flowers I had picked that day in the glade. The deadly blossoms were withered now, and would crumble easily to powder. I slipped them into my pocket, and then stood in the dimness, hugging my arms, breathing the scent of wildflowers and perspiration-stale clothes and gunpowder, as I planned my return to Brayer House.

  19

  Belief in limitation breeds unhappiness.

  – ROB THISTLETON, EMOTIONAL RESCUE

  Ruby, May 2013

  A few days after my ordeal on the rocks, Pete drove me into Armidale to have my ankle checked by the doctor. The swelling had mostly gone down, but Pete was insistent.

  ‘Just in case,’ he told me. ‘Besides, I’m going in anyway, I’ve got a delivery of seedlings to make to the Landcare group’s nursery. And,’ he added with a grin, ‘I’m becoming quite addicted to your company.’

  I rolled my eyes, but was secretly pleased.

  ‘Hey, I’m serious,’ Pete insisted. ‘I’m hooked, Ruby . . . and and so are the kelpies.’

  I glanced over my shoulder at the cab window. Sure enough, two pointy brown and tan faces with lolling tongues were gazing raptly back at me. A few weeks ago, I would have shuddered at the sight; but a funny thing was happening. I was moving through tolerance, and into the first shallow waters of acceptance.

  And I had the sneaking suspicion that they knew this. Lately, both dogs had turned deaf to Pete’s commands to leave me alone; they followed me wherever I went, flopped beside me when I sat on the ve
randah, and gazed, besotted, up at me when I reached towards them to tickle the tips of my fingers over their silky ears. I hadn’t quite progressed to rolling on the ground and cuddling them – as Pete often did – but it was a start.

  Half an hour later we drove through Clearwater and my phone made a succession of chirps. I checked the register and found eleven missed calls; two were an unknown number, the rest were from Rob. I deleted them all, glad I’d been out of range. Which was why, when we reached the Armidale town limits and my phone began to warble, I was reluctant to answer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Ruby Cardel?’ a woman asked. ‘We’ve been trying to contact you for several days. My name’s Anne Arding, from New England Solicitors. I was hoping to arrange an appointment with you to discuss a matter regarding the estate of Esther Hillard. How soon can you be available to come in?’

  I did an internal double take: Esther’s estate? My good mood plunged. Had someone complained about me staying at Lyrebird Hill, a long lost family member who had somehow gotten wind of my extended visit?

  ‘I’m in Armidale now, if today suits you?’

  We agreed on a time, and Anne explained how to find her office. I hung up, and slumped.

  ‘I think I’m in trouble,’ I told Pete.

  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing,’ he replied, and a secretive little smile touched his lips. ‘Was that Esther’s solicitor?’

  ‘She wants to see me.’ I looked at him worriedly. ‘Can someone get sued for overstaying their welcome?’

  ‘That depends.’

  His serious tone made me look at him more closely. He was studying me, not exactly smiling, but there was a hint there, as if he was on the brink of a laugh.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  The laugh finally erupted. Suddenly Pete was all teeth and twinkling sapphire eyes, and a merry gaze that locked onto mine – and even though I clung fiercely to my annoyance, I felt the quiver of a smile take hold, and then the bubbling urge to laugh along with him. How did he do that?