by Margaret Way
“Yes, they do, Ivy.”
“I see Mummy, you know.”
“Do you?” Mallory asked gently, unsurprised.
“I don’t speak about it, but I do. I don’t want to frighten Nanna. And you know what?”
“I think I do, Ivy,” Mallory said. “She sees you.”
Ivy’s little face shone. “I knew you’d know, Mally, ’cause you’re a skycrist. Did you see your mummy after she went to heaven?”
Mallory squeezed Ivy’s hand. “For you and for me, Ivy and for countless others, our mothers will never die. They’re alive inside our hearts and our heads.”
“Isn’t that lovely!”
Mallory had the feeling this little girl would be one of those fortunate individuals who would go through life with a controlling hand on the rudder. But Ivy would need ongoing counselling. It would be absolutely necessary. She was very grateful she was well placed to do it.
Downstairs again, Ivy ran to her anxiously waiting grandmother. “Mally says it’s all right. We can go over to Moonglade when we want to, Nanna. I’ll get Mrs. R. to write down her recipe for fairy cakes. Is that okay?”
Margery Cartwright’s anxious expression turned to a shaky smile of relief. She found Mallory’s eyes over Ivy’s head. They were alight with gratitude. “Of course it is, sweetheart.”
“From now on I’m going to ask everyone to call me Evie,” the little girl announced. “It’s got a nice sound to it. Everyone must call me Evie from now on. Mummy never liked Ivy. She said I came by it by way of Aunt Jessy. Mummy will be happy with Evie.” The little girl turned to look directly at Mallory. “What do you say, Mally?”
Mallory had recovered from her surprise. “If that’s what you want, Evie, it is. I’m sure Nanna agrees.”
So Ivy became Evie, increasingly Eve, with no fuss whatever.
She knew she had died. Or her body had died, but that was okay. She didn’t need it anymore. She was doing just fine without it. She wasn’t lonely. There were others drifting around with her, the ones, like her, who had reasons to keep them connected to the other life. She didn’t know exactly what dimension they were in. She didn’t care. Care had left her. She had never experienced anything like this wondrous state of calm. She had never been surrounded by an aura, a smoky white substance that framed her and all her airborne companions.
She didn’t think they were angels No one had wings. It wasn’t important to be an angel anyway. They all wore similar garments as misty as the clouds they were floating around in. All of them were waiting, waiting for something to happen to send them onwards. None of them had voices, yet they all knew what the others were thinking. All of them had stories. Stories of what had happened to them when they were living, breathing human beings.
Now they were souls in transit. They all had questions that needed answers. That was essential before they could move to the next level. She had to have Mallory’s help. She had to make Mallory understand. Mallory had greater powers than she knew.
The dreams kept coming as visions. She always woke with the visions clear in her mind; Kathy dressed in a long white transparency to cover her nakedness. Kathy who drew closer and closer, bending over her, until their faces were almost touching.
At that point with a great lurch of her heart Mallory always woke up. Her dreams were too compelling not to have real purpose. Her job was to find out what that was. Blaine, her great strength and solace, lent calm to her, in body and mind. Blaine was always there for her. He was her psychological escape hatch.
* * *
As he was leaving the house the following morning, Mallory mentioned a plan she had in an offhand way that she knew wouldn’t fool him for a minute. “I think I’ll take a look around the bungalow today.”
“Instigate a thorough search, don’t you mean? Couldn’t it wait until I get home?”
“You think I’ll take off without you?”
“I surely do. We’ll both go over this evening. It’s as I told you. There’s nothing there, Mallory. We could let the foreman and his wife have the bungalow. What do you think?”
“Best to wait until things settle. Kathy’s suicide has unnerved the whole town.”
“God, yes!” he agreed. “Quite a few are feeling guilty about how they treated Kathy in the past. Wouldn’t you think Jason would have the decency to come home? And why do you suppose we’re all finding it easy to call Ivy, Evie?” His tone had changed to wry amusement.
“It suits her better. Besides, I think being called Ivy reminded our newly christened Evie of bad things.”
“Like what?” Concern darkened his dynamic face.
“Secrets. Things shoved to the back of her mind. God knows what she saw or heard. It’s quite extraordinary how children can suppress memories that frighten them. They hide them well away. I’ve seen too much of it, the bad things children suppress. But sometimes fragments come back in dreams.”
“That poor kid! God knows what she had to deal with.”
“She’s tough,” Mallory said, with pride and affection.
“She’ll have to be. Rumour has it the twins are staying with Jessica’s hippy friends, the Volkers.”
Mallory had a sudden vision of greyish white fungi lighting the forest floor. “Jessica had purple stains on her fingers at Uncle Robert’s wake.”
“Maybe soap’s a luxury at Jessica’s place,” Blaine said.
“A violent purple stain.” Mallory wasn’t distracted. “Like mulberries, but much harder to clean off, apparently. Jessica is supposed to be something of an authority on rainforest plants. The Volkers too.”
“What are you getting at?” Blaine stared down at her.
“It wasn’t Kathy who was making Evie sick.”
“You’re saying Jessica is behind all the illness both Evie and Kathy experienced? Much as I dislike Jessica Cartwright, I have difficulty accepting she harmed her own niece.”
“I’ve reviewed the whole situation. Jessica has monstrous traits.”
“But why would she do it? What could she hope to achieve? She wanted Evie out of the way? I’d have trouble with that.”
“I believe Jessica wanted Kathy out of the way. Haven’t you ever heard of good old-fashioned wickedness? Jessica got rid of me.”
“For which we should both go down on our knees. This is all conjecture, Mallory. You’re making quantum leaps.”
“I realize it’s only conjecture, but Kathy won’t let me rest.”
Blaine remained a man out of his depth. “Kathy’s dead, Mallory. Her short, unhappy life is over. Robert’s dying and then Kathy’s suicide coming on top of it would unsettle the strongest nerves.”
Mallory shook her head. “My nerves are fine. You mustn’t think they aren’t. I have to see this through.”
“And nothing and no one on earth is going to stop you?”
Her mouth tilted up. “Your job is to stay on side while I put the wrongs right.”
He held her by the shoulders, shook her gently. “Just remember I won’t allow you to make yourself a buffer between this world and the next.” It was the only response he could make.
“I’m on the side of Light, Blaine,” she explained, smiling up at him. “So off to work.”
“I want to stay at home,” he muttered.
“You can’t stay at home.” Her whisper was a little ragged.
“Why not?” He slid his arms around her.
“Don’t tempt me.”
The hot blood was rushing. She could feel herself catching fire. In another second she’d forget they both had work to do. Resolutely she put her hands against his chest, pushing him away. “Off you go.”
He caught hold of her again. Kissed her. “I’ll be back. Meanwhile try to keep out of trouble, if you possibly can.”
* * *
The rain, patchy at dawn, increased throughout the morning. Mallory waited for a break. Storm clouds had spread massive dark wings over the plantation. From time to time radiant white light split the bruised sky, ro
bbing the world of colour. When the rain came, it poured hail, firing down like silver bullets on the house, the gardens, and the lawns. The break didn’t come until around lunch, though she suspected the blue canals that cut through the waterlogged grey skies wouldn’t last for long.
She made herself a sandwich and a cup of coffee, after which she intended to go over to the bungalow. Blaine had rung mid-morning, fully suspecting she wouldn’t wait for his return that evening. He knew her sleuthing instincts. They spoke for a few moments before he had to go, but she didn’t reveal her intentions. She knew he wouldn’t be back until 6.30 p.m. at the earliest. She couldn’t wait that long.
A raincoat with a hood served the purpose. She didn’t bother about an umbrella. If the wind picked up, it could blow an umbrella inside out.
It was truly amazing how the plant life, the flowers, the trees, the very leaves, responded prolifically to the rain. Native lilies were shooting up everywhere and all the nectar-eating birds, the honey eaters, and the brilliantly plumaged lorikeets were out revelling in the stormy weather. The very air vibrated with the whirr of wings. Nature was signalling the big Wet was coming. On the banks of the tropical rivers the “salties,” the saltwater crocodiles, would nest, building mounds of vegetation in which to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, the male crocodile took great delight in eating its young.
No fatherly feelings there.
She hadn’t heard a word from her father. She didn’t expect to. There was too much angst between them.
* * *
The first thing she noticed was the front door was unlocked. She had thought they had all the keys, but someone had obviously been inside. She overcame a reluctance to go in. Had Blaine had forgotten to lock the door? It didn’t seem likely.
Not for the first time she thought she would buy a couple of large dogs. State-of-the-art security was one thing; she liked the idea of guard dogs. Two German shepherds to keep one another company. They were splendid animals and very protective.
She was aware her heartbeat had picked up substantially. One would have thought she’d been on a three-kilometre run. She put her head cautiously around the door, calling out, “Hello, anyone there?”
Do ghosts hang around in the daytime?
Her voice left no echo. She might not have called out at all. Yet nothing could have been louder than the silence.
What am I going to do if someone answers?
She marshalled resolve. She stepped across the threshold, feeling as though she had stepped across the portal to another world. She threw off her wet raincoat, shaking raindrops from her hair. The air was chill. She had become used to that. The chill overcame the heat and high humidity. The air vibrated not with hostility but with a kind of psychic pain. Sweltering only a minute before, now this. Inside, the bungalow was preternaturally quiet, except for the wind moaning outside and rattling a few windows.
Gathering her wits, she began to move around, feeling she wasn’t alone. It was a feeling she had experienced many, many times before. She had come to think of it as a split in reality, showing her not one but two worlds. If she was accompanied by a presence, she knew it wasn’t going to harm her. The answer would be here.
The rain was coming down in sheets, turning the world an opaque grey. She turned on a few lights. She didn’t recognise any of the furniture. There was nothing surprising about that. The interior was casually furnished, with a new open plan layout. The kitchen was set galley style along one wall with bar stools tucked under the black granite-topped bench. A sturdy pine dining table with four chairs around it had been positioned near the window. Comfortable seating was in the way of a large sofa and two matching armchairs, all facing the television. A tall bookcase held colourful paperbacks, half as many hardbacks, autobiographies, garden books, cookbooks, and some very good pieces of local pottery. It was the first time she had been inside the bungalow since Uncle Robert had had it transformed from the old country cottage to a modern dwelling. Uncle Robert had been a very kind and generous man. Only he had visited the terrible twins upon her.
The hallway led to the bedrooms and the bathroom. Modernizing changes had been made there as well. The main bedroom now boasted a small en suite. Across the hall was the family bathroom. Jessica had her own apartment in town, but where did she sleep when she stayed over? From all accounts Jessica had stayed over a lot. The hall light wasn’t working, turning the corridor into a murky underworld. She moved quickly into the main bedroom, switching on the light as she entered. Again she had the sensation someone had swished in with her. Another puff of cold air brushed her nape. She never had been able to do anything about her operatic imagination. “Supernormal intuitions” a colleague had once claimed she had. The way such knowledge gathered in her even she found strange. Was a presence with her?
A double bed, Asian chest at the bottom of it; two bedside tables with pale green shades on the lamps, to match the pale green and cream bedspread and the curtains at the windows. A large print of Van Gogh’s Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers. She had seen the original in the National Gallery in London, so much more than a portrait of flowers, more floral sculptures wrought by the world’s greatest jeweller. There was a niche for books. She would have a look at them after she finished going through the house.
In one of the spare bedrooms were twin single beds with a Queen Anne chintz for bedspreads, cushions, and curtains, a small cupboard holding a lamp separating them. In the other was a single bed with a charming wallpaper of yellow daffodils growing under sun-dappled trees and a sunshine yellow quilt. This was Evie’s room. Both rooms were the same size, different only in the furnishings. No secretaires with secret compartments, no desks, bookcases only.
The family bathroom was attractively tiled in blue and white, and had a bath and a shower cubicle, long counter with two porcelain washbasins, medicine chest above it. Everything was clean and tidy.
She would make her start here. The cabinet yielded the usual contents. She shifted things about, looking at all the labels: shampoo, conditioner, eye drops, Listerine, moisturizing lotion, antiseptic cream, a still-packaged tube of toothpaste, and a four-pack of soap. Two small bottles with the labels removed, one with a dark blue glass, the other purple. Nail polish? The bottles were the right size. She knew dark colours were in fashion, only she couldn’t recall ever seeing either Kathy or Jessica wearing nail polish. For one thing Kathy’s nails had been bitten down to the quick. It had to be Jessica’s nail lacquers when she was out on a Goth evening.
Mallory was shutting the cabinet door when there was a sudden shrill scream in her ear that drenched her in an icy sweat. Ice was cold. It could also burn.
Take the bottles with you, Mallory. Take them. You must. Gather them up. Don’t leave them.
It was important she get through. Floating from side to side, she half circled the living woman. Only she could feel herself dimming. She couldn’t always retain the brightness. Daylight drained her.
For the next forty minutes Mallory searched the bungalow thoroughly: wardrobes, bookcases, fanning books in case something was lodged between the pages. There was a collection of books, fiction and non-fiction: very surprisingly a well-worn copy of Nabokov’s Lolita, a stack of romance paperbacks— poor love-starved Kathy—books on the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree, the Queensland Rainforest, Australian native plants. No books on poisons. Several very tattered books dating from the 1940s on tropical diseases and preventive medicines by Queensland’s own Sir Raphael Cilento, father of Diane Cilento, the famous actress who had been married to Sean Connery.
The pantry was next. There were poisons inside every pantry. A toxic substance would have shown up in the blood tests that had been run on the then malnourished Evie. She had been found to be deficient in the C vitamin, some B vitamins, and calcium, but not the D vitamin with Queensland’s abundant sunshine.
Ingestion of anything under the kitchen sink would have resulted in dire consequences and been easily identifiable. The interior of the fridge smel
led slightly rank, the culprit a half block of cheese turning mouldy. She pulled it out to dispose of it. Tomatoes, a cucumber, a couple of avocadoes, and a lettuce in the crisper, two large bottles of soft drink on the inside door, and at the back of one of the shelves a bottle of blackcurrant syrup, a rich source of vitamin C.
She was about to leave with the most likely harmless blackcurrant juice stowed in a plastic bag she found in a kitchen drawer when she experienced a ringing in her ear that caused her to stop and shake her head from side to side. The sound was like a bell rung under water. She couldn’t ignore it. It was making her so dizzy she felt like she might fall to the floor. Even her skull was tingling. She tried to steady herself, breathing in deeply. Without knowing or understanding why, she felt compelled to go back to the bathroom.
With barrel after barrel of rainwater cascading over the roof, the bathroom was engulfed in gloom. She didn’t stop to snap on the light. There was just enough illumination. She glanced in the mirror above the washbasin. She looked extremely tense. A woman on a mission. Quickly she withdrew the nail lacquers from the medicine cabinet, setting them down on the counter. She picked up the purple one, remembering the purple stains on Jessica’s hands, holding it shoulder high and shaking it vigorously.
The contents couldn’t be nail polish. They were sloshing liquid. She uncapped a bottle with some caution, sniffing the contents, finding the small brush used to apply varnish had been completely removed, if it had ever been there. There was no label to tell her what the bottles had once contained. She placed her forefinger over the top, allowing a dribble of the glistening purplish contents to come out. She touched the finger to her mouth, tasting the concoction—whatever it was—with the tip of her tongue. Actually it didn’t taste all that bad. Fruity, but extremely tart so that her tongue puckered. A fruit juice concentrate in a tiny bottle? What could be weirder than that? It had to be a concentrate. Perhaps a very powerful one. It would be palatable enough in a glass of cold water with a teaspoon or so of sugar. She put the cap back on, stowing the two small bottles in the bag. Quickly she left the room.