Who, professing he needn’t waste money on the picture palace when he and his wife could view a drama of the olden times performing in their own household every one o’clock in the morning, sold it on without warning or explanation to an avid collector, Mr Dillet, the owner of a motor car, a fine house and a keen eye for bargains.
Who, frightened into a disquieting state of nerves requiring sea air medically prescribed, had the dolls’ house covered with a sheet and conveyed to the loft.
John Merewether sees his late uncle and aunt in murderous conversation in the dining room, lit by a single candle.
The antiques buyer sees the man in blue satin shake a fist at the upper window.
Mr Chittenden and his wife watch the old man start up in his bed, face flushed, eyes glaring, hands at his heart, foam at his lips.
Mr Dillet sees a coach with flambeaux pulling up before the front door, a white-wigged man all in black alighting.
A figure, wrinkled, toad-like with scant white hair about its head, peers into the dolls’ house windows as in the nursery a figure, wrinkled, toad-like and with scant white hair about its head, looms a deliberate moment above the truckle beds so that their occupants may see and cry out before cold and wrinkled hands reach down to work among the pillows . . .
Of Gold and Dust
Michelle Goldsmith
North of Ballarat, Victoria, 1853
It darts amidst the river gums, an amorphous shadow flickering in and out of visibility between the twisted trunks. No sound heralds its passing, not the crack of a twig, nor the rustling of leaves.
Instead, a slight lull in the usual forest noises accompanies its presence, a strange faraway quality to the hum of insects, the intermittent cries of birds and the far-off trickle of a stream.
Yet to the entity itself, the bush abounds with music. It is aware of every sound, the steady song of sap moving through the trees, the soft snuffling of nocturnal creatures sleeping in hollows and crevices, the sigh of bark sloughing off trunks, and the thrumming of rock and metals buried deep below the earth.
Its progress slows as it nears its destination. It hovers among the boughs, enveloped in the shadows of the treeline. Silently it watches the strange beings around the river. They are humans; yet unlike those it has known before. These behave strangely, constantly digging and searching, like ants, but with less obvious purpose.
Too many, it decides. Too many separate bodies, minds and motives for it to leave the cover of the trees and investigate.
It waits and observes.
* * *
Nothing, thinks Tom, sifting through a handful of river grit. A whole lot of bloody nothing. As usual.
He casts the grit back into the ditch at his feet and leans on the handle of his shovel as he waits for his heartbeat to slow. His muscles ache, every sinew in his body seeming to cry for rest as beads of sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades. The song of bellbirds rings out over the sound of his heavy breathing. Otherwise, silence. His gaze falls upon a lone shovel protruding from a pile of earth. Nearby, the cradle, which his brothers should be using to sort gold from slurry, sits still and abandoned.
“Will? Jack?”
No answer.
Tom sighs. Lazy buggers. Just like them to wander off while I’m working my arse to the bone.
He straightens his aching spine and sets off to find them.
* * *
Things had been different when the brothers first arrived at the goldfields. The township of Ballarat, once too small to mark on a map, had become a bustling population centre, ringing with the sounds of tools, trade and harness. Excitement crackled almost palpably through the atmosphere, and every hour brought with it more men, eyes bright and feverish with dreams of untold wealth.
Tom watched his brothers’ faces as they traversed the hectic main street. Will walked in a daze, his eyes wide with wonder, while Jack laughed, and clapped his younger brother on the back.
“Ha! You hear that Will? That’s the sound of wealth. We’ll be filthy rich within a year!”
He turned to his elder brother with a smirk. “And to think I had so much trouble convincing you to leave the old farm.”
Tom grunted noncommittally.
We’ll only be rich if you don’t squander any gold we find on grog, dice and women, he thought. He had not forgotten the debauchery they’d witnessed passing through Melbourne. Rampant gambling, booze and decadence. Fortunes made in a day and lost in an instant. Tom also recalled the hungry gleam in Jack’s eyes as he’d taken it all in. Keeping the deathbed promise he’d made to his mother to keep ‘her boys’ out of trouble seemed more impossible each day.
Yet he still clung to a small hope that some hard work might do his brothers good.
Unfortunately, barely a week had passed before it became evident that the reality of the goldfields was far from the romantic ideal Tom’s brothers had envisaged, involving far less riches and far more hard work, dirt, disease, sweltering hot days and freezing cold nights. Just as Tom had feared, Jack was the first to tire of the labour, and where Jack led, Will soon followed.
* * *
Tom finds his brothers some way up the river, sitting on a log with the remains of a meal at their feet. They barely acknowledge him, their attention entirely absorbed by the inhabitants of a nearby claim.
“Look at those yellow bastards,” says Jack. “They’ve gotta have plenty of gold by now. It ain’t right.”
“First the bloody licence fee, and now this,” agrees Will.
Nearby, a middle-aged Chinese man shovels earth from the riverbed as if fatigue is an entirely alien concept. Dirt and sweat encrust his weathered features, testament to long hours spent digging. Beside him, a younger Chinese man works tirelessly at the cradle, sorting earth and picking out likely specks with deft fingers.
As he looks on, Tom can’t help but wish his own brothers were half as efficient.
“What do they even want with it?” says Will. “It’s not like they’re gonna set up here permanently. Are they?”
“How would I know?” says Jack. “I hear they send it back to China and use it to build shrines to their gods. Or burn it to send it to their ancestors, or something.”
“That can’t be right,” says Will. “Gold don’t burn.”
“Who cares what they do with it,’ says Tom. “Maybe if you two layabouts spent less time worrying about them and more time working we might find some gold of our own!”
“What’s the point?” says Jack. “Bastard Chinaman’s probably taken it all. You know they say his daughter’s a witch?” He glares over to where a small girl can now be seen handing over what appear to be packages of food to her father and brother.
“Don’t be an idiot,” says Tom, unable to contain his frustration. “Ain’t no such thing.”
“How would you know?” says Jack. “And still, it ain’t right. Someone ought to do something about it.”
“Less talking, more digging,” says Tom, hefting a shovel into his brother’s hands.
Scowling, Jack returns to work.
* * *
It was hard to forget the day the first Chinese miners arrived.
It had been a hot December afternoon back when surface gold was still plentiful, and men would dig yards from their camps in a sprawling tent city that stretched on for miles.
As always, a steady stream of new arrivals trickled into the goldfields, barely noticed by the men already hard at work.
Tom had been passing through on his way to town for his fortnightly supply run, winding his way through the maze of campsites and stopping to chat with a familiar face here and there, when an unexpected lull fell over the usual goldfields cacophony. Shovels stopped digging and cradles stopped rocking one by one. Conversations ceased mid-sentence as men looked around, searching for the source of the diversion.
A group of strange figures approached on the road, the other travellers giving them a wide berth. At the head of the party was an elderly Chinese man who
, despite his age and diminutive stature, appeared to carry twice his bodyweight slung across his shoulders in baskets tied to either end of a wooden pole. After him came a crowd of others. Dozens of men, a few women and one small girl, no more than seven years of age.
Strangely shaped pots and pans, shovels, bedrolls, wrapped canvas tents. It seemed they carried all their worldly possessions on their backs.
“Who the bloody hell are they?” said the man Tom had been talking to.
He was not alone in the sentiment, a speculative murmur rumbled across the diggings.
Seemingly oblivious to the stir they had caused, the Chinese miners continued on until they reached an unoccupied patch on the far edge of the main diggings. Here they stopped and began to pitch their tents.
Slowly the other men returned to their own tasks, although not without the occasional hostile glance shot towards their new neighbours.
In the months that followed more Chinese miners arrived. They came in the dozens or the hundreds, setting up their own growing community. Whispers of their alien customs, their strange foods, tongue and gods, slowly spread. And while most of the men tried their best to ignore them, others became paranoid, scared for their gold or fearful that their wives and daughters might be seduced away with strange oriental magics or promises of wealth.
Jack especially was displeased when a Chinese family began to work a nearby claim.
“It’s like they’re trying to rub it in our faces,” he said. “Bloody heathens.”
Tom couldn’t help noticing that, most of all, it was the Chinese family’s success at finding gold that did little to endear them to their neighbours.
* * *
Tom works tirelessly, hefting shovelful after shovelful of earth long after both Will and Jack have turned in for the day.
Probably already half-drunk starting fights in some filthy sly grog den, he thinks.
Willpower alone staves off the fatigue lingering on the edge of his perception, and drives his limbs to keep moving far beyond their usual limits. He dares not pause lest his muscles finally give in to the inevitable.
Despite his efforts, he barely has enough gold specks in his pouch for the next week’s supplies. And even then only if the brothers agree to ration. Tom can guess who will end up having to go without when they run out of flour to make damper. The necessary sacrifices of being the eldest, he tells himself. They’re your brothers. And out here, if you ain’t got family what else have you got? Yet he can’t repress the resentment brewing in his stomach like some cheap, bitter ale.
He casts his shovel aside and crouches down on a nearby log, wiping sweat from his eyes and taking a long swig from his water skin.
When he looks up, he finds he is no longer alone. The small Chinese girl hovers nearby, watching Tom with wide eyes, bright and curious. Her long hair is black and silky, her skin is smooth and unlined and seemingly impervious to the dirt and dust all around her. Had he not seen her often at a distance, Tom might have mistaken her for an apparition of youth personified, come to bid farewell to a weary man.
Nevertheless, Tom is glad for any company to distract him from his aching muscles and growing frustration.
“Hello,” he says. “What’s your name?”
The girl takes a step closer, but doesn’t reply. Wrinkles furrow her brow.
Of course, Tom thinks. She doesn’t know much English. If any.
“Tom,” he says, thrusting a thumb towards his chest.
A smile breaks out across the child’s face.
“Li,” she says, copying the gesture.
“Leah,” repeats Tom.
His mother had been called Leah.
That’s not so strange and unpronounceable.
“Well, Leah,” says Tom. “It was nice to meet you, but I’ve got a lot of work to do. Wanted to have this lot sorted by sundown.” He gestures to the pile of freshly dug earth.
Li smiles again and skips over to the cradle.
“Alright, so you’re going to stay a while?” says Tom. “I guess we can deal with that.”
Wincing as he stands, Tom sets back to work.
To Tom’s surprise, the child does not soon grow bored and leave. Instead, she darts to and fro, attempting to help him in her own small ways. She scoops handfuls of dirt to replenish the cradle or sorts through the discarded grit to find small gold flakes that Tom’s older eyes have missed.
Some distance away her father pauses in his own work and looks on. Eventually, seemingly satisfied that Tom is not angered by Li’s company and poses her no threat, he returns to his digging.
Later, Tom and Li sit on a log by the river and share a scant afternoon meal. They watch the trees swaying gently in the breeze of early evening and listen to the intermittent song of small finches hidden deep in the brush.
As they begin to fold away the cloth that once wrapped their stale bread, Li stops suddenly, staring intently at something in the trees.
“What’s wrong?” Tom asks.
Her eyes dart to and fro as through following something Tom cannot see. Then, she darts to the riverside and starts sifting through the grit in the shallows.
“What you looking for?” says Tom.
Li pulls something from the water and reaches out to Tom.
A nugget the size of a coin rests in the centre of her palm.
“For you!” she says, dropping it into his hand.
Tom turns the lump of metal over and over in his fingers, staring in wonder. It’s gold alright. Unmistakable.
“But you found it,” he says. “It’s yours.”
He tries to hand it back.
Li just shakes her head and smiles. Then she runs off back to her family as they begin to pack away their things for the night.
* * *
Over the weeks, Tom and Li’s friendship grows. Tom finds himself growing less bothered by his brothers’ increasingly frequent absences. He even begins to look forward to them, as only when they are away does Li visit. Tom talks to her as he works, finding it makes the demanding physical labour more bearable. And although they do not share much language, over time an understanding develops between them. Her easy company is especially welcome as Tom’s arguments with his brothers grow more heated with each passing day, Jack returning home drunk most nights to accuse Tom of sequestering coin and holding out on him.
One afternoon as he and Li sit by the river eating lunch, Tom hears a rustling in the nearby bush. A foraging wombat shuffles out from amidst the undergrowth on the opposite side of the stream. Tom and Li stay still and silent as it ambles by, snuffling through the leaf litter before finally vanishing back into the forest.
Tom notes the delight on Li’s young face.
That evening he begins to carve the creature’s likeness for her. Each night he takes his knife and whittles away at a block of wood by the campfire.
When the toy wombat is finally finished he presents it to her. The workmanship is undoubtedly crude, but Li seems to think the gift is wonderful.
Tom admits that she can be strange at times, watching things that aren’t there. But aren’t all children like that? Always imagining things and getting lost in their own little worlds?
He’s heard the rumours of course. About Li being a witch and consorting with demons to find gold. Yet he doesn’t give them a moment’s thought. She’s just got a nose for it, he thinks. Besides, she and her family work hard. Unlike others he could name.
Sometimes Tom thinks that if he ever escapes this place and has a family, he would hope his daughter would be a lot like Li.
One afternoon Tom is digging when he senses something wrong, a softening of sound and a strange quality to the air around him. Beside him Li is silent, staring at a spot in the shadow of the river gums some distance away.
Tom follows the direction of her gaze. He looks on with shock as a nebulous shape resolves in his vision.
It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. A strange shifting mass of fur, feathers, bark and scales, dia
phanous as though composed of smoke and emitting a soft light, like some luminous fungus. Something that by all logic shouldn’t exist.
Yet Tom feels surprisingly calm in its presence. It gives off no sense of enmity. It merely is.
So this is what Li has been seeing.
As if sensing his recognition, the creature shifts forward to hover purposefully over a nearby section of riverbed.
Then it begins to fade, its form slowly ebbing away until no trace remains.
Li runs to the riverside, gesturing Tom to follow. He picks up his shovel and digs into the indicated spot. Hope leaps in his stomach as he feels the blade connect with something hard. He lifts the shovel free to find a gold nugget, almost twice as large as the one Li had found for him, resting amidst the grit and pebbles.
* * *
Later that night, as he lies restless in his tent, Tom tries to make sense of what he’s seen.
It couldn’t have been real, could it?
The gold in his pouch testifies otherwise.
Why not? he eventually decides. After all, hadn’t the native folks said the bush was full of spirits?
Besides, Tom thinks, if a bush spirit was lingering around here, why wouldn’t it choose Li to befriend? The rest of us had dismissed it as primitive nonsense. And to an ancient spirit we’re probably all newcomers, European and Chinese alike.
Satisfied in this conclusion, Tom sleeps at last.
The next morning Tom leaves for Ballarat on his fortnightly trip for supplies.
Walking to town by foot, exchanging their meagre gold findings for coin and negotiating provisions often keeps him overnight, which means leaving Jack and Will to their own devices. And thanks to Jack and Will’s rampant spending, even with the extra gold he and Li have found Tom will barely be able to afford enough to see them through. Yet as much as Tom hates to leave the claim in his brothers’ careless hands, his desire to keep them away from the many temptations of town is stronger. Especially lately. He’s heard talk of drunken brawling and although both his brothers vehemently deny any such thing occurred, Tom is sure the scrapes on Jack’s knuckles aren’t there from digging. He can just imagine having to spend his last coin bailing someone out of the lockup.
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5) Page 46