Scatterheart

by Lili Wilkinson

  James was standing to the left of Captain Gartside. He was staring at her. He flashed a glance down to the hemp wreath, and then smiled strangely at Hannah.

  Did he know? She looked down at her hands, feeling panic rise.

  ‘For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquiets himself in vain. He has heaped up riches, but cannot tell who should gather them.’

  Hannah closed her eyes and wished to be transported to wherever Thomas was. She remembered how terribly she had treated him in London. She had been no better than James, really. She glanced back up at him. He was still staring at her.

  ‘As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.’

  Captain Gartside shut the Bible and turned to look at the ocean. Everyone waited for him to speak again.

  Hannah felt tears rising. Why hadn’t Long Meg had a funeral? Why hadn’t the sailors taken their hats off and bowed their heads to her?

  Hannah wondered what had happened to her body. She imagined Dr Ullathorne and James dumping it over the side of the ship in the middle of the night.

  Captain Gartside sighed, and turned back to the crowd.

  ‘We therefore commit their bodies to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless them and keep them.’

  ‘Amen,’ muttered the assembled men and women.

  ‘Amen,’ said Hannah fiercely, remembering Long Meg.

  The four sailors holding the planks tipped their ends upwards, holding onto the corners of the red flags. The canvas-wrapped body and the hemp wreath slid from the planks and fell into the water with a splash. The wreath bobbed on the surface, but the body was pulled under immediately.

  Three days later, Hannah was awoken by the sound of shouting. Men were yelling on the upper deck. She could hear the pounding of feet on the boards above.

  She strained her ears to try and hear what the men were yelling. The other women were awake as well, sitting up and listening. Susan, who slept closest to the stairs to the gun deck, gave out a hoarse cry.

  ‘Land ahoy,’ she said. ‘That’s what they’re sayin’. Land ahoy.’

  Like the bursting of a dam, the women poured up the ladder and onto the decks. Hannah pushed through the crowd of women and sailors and scrambled up onto the forecastle, Molly hot on her heels. She averted her eyes from the place where the doctor had fallen. She leaned as far as she dared over the side of the rail, and looked.

  There was a dark shadow on the horizon. Hannah burst into tears.

  The smudge on the horizon was not Port Jackson. It was Van Diemen’s Land, the very bottom point of the southern continent. Port Jackson, Navigator Dollard told them, was another three weeks sailing. But the smudge meant that they had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Ocean. They were in Parts Beyond the Seas.

  Hannah was haunted by Dr Ullathorne’s white face in her dreams. She tried to put it out of her mind, and concentrated on imagining their arrival in Port Jackson, and her reunion with Thomas. By this stage, her tales of Mr Bear’s adventures had become so wild and fantastic, that she was half-imagining Thomas greeting her at the harbour astride a white elephant, his head wreathed with garlands of flowers bestowed on him by grateful natives, after having saved their village from marauding bandits.

  ‘What did Mr Bear do after he left the savages’ village?’ asked Molly, as they sat on their beds late one night.

  Hannah yawned. ‘Oh, something to do with a volcano,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He, er, had a treasure map that led to an amazing hoard of treasure in a volcano.’

  ‘And was he all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hannah. ‘Not so much as a singed hair.’

  ‘So when did he meet the witch?’

  ‘What witch?’

  ‘The witch,’ said Molly. ‘The one who turned him into a bear and sent him to the land east o’ the sun and west o’ the moon.’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘That’s a different story. A different bear.’

  ‘No it isn’t,’ said Molly. ‘It’s Mr Bear. In both.’

  It took three weeks for the smudge on the horizon to become land. Hannah counted the notches above Long Meg’s bed – they had been at sea for five months.

  All the convicts were on the upper decks, leaning over the railing or out gunholes. They clutched rolls of fabric containing their blankets, and their few meagre possessions. Hannah had left her blanket in the orlop deck. She wouldn’t need it, Thomas would have a proper one for her.

  All she carried was his handkerchief, neatly folded. It was a drab, tattered square of fabric, but Hannah held it gently and carefully.

  The sun was bright and warm, though the wind still carried a chill. The salty, fresh smell of the ocean mingled with something else, something green and sharp and tangy. The convicts cheered and wept. Hannah held Molly’s hand so tightly she yelped and wriggled.

  The sun sparkled on the sea so blue and bright that it hurt Hannah’s eyes. Green hills dripped down to the water, a low, twisted, greyish green that made Hannah think of wild, impenetrable brambles and sleeping princesses. Strange trees rose over the green tangle, smooth and twisted, with pink, flesh-like bark. Their trunks had bulges and crevices that looked like human body parts. Some of them looked like they were flinging out their arms and waving in welcome. Others twisted in to each other, their cracks and wrinkles somehow intimate and obscene.

  Sailors pushed through the women as commands were shouted. The bosun’s whistle shrilled. Ropes were slackened. The ship’s wheel was spun around and around, and slowly, the Derby Ram turned towards the rise of grey-green.

  The ocean pressed up against the land and pushed in, until it became a river. It wriggled into the land like a snake, poking its nose into each white sandy cove and green inlet before moving on, pushing deep into the earth towards the rise of blue-green mountains to the west.

  Molly was leaning out over the rail as far as she dared, her bundle of bedding lying on the deck behind her.

  ‘Look, Hannah!’ she cried. ‘It’s like paradise.’

  Hundreds of pink and grey birds perched in the twisted trees. As the ship neared them, they launched themselves into the air, moving like a single creature. As they rose, they made a raucous squawking noise.

  Hannah laughed. ‘I don’t think birds in Paradise would sound like that,’ she said.

  Molly giggled.

  Hannah felt an overwhelming sense of peace come over her. This was it. Thomas would be waiting for her, and then everything would be alright.

  Molly smiled at her. ‘We made it,’ she said. ‘East o’ the sun, west o’ the moon.’

  Hannah craned her neck eagerly, trying to get a glimpse of Sydney Cove. Thomas would be there, wearing his uniform. She’d spot him instantly in the crowd of cheering onlookers. He would be able to explain the mistake about her arrest. She would be made free.

  They approached a headland, smooth and green with manicured lawns and neatly cropped bushes and trees. A woman dressed in a sophisticated if somewhat old-fashioned gown and pelisse sat on a stone seat on the headland, shading herself from the sun with a parasol.

  Hannah’s heart was beating so loudly in her chest that she thought the woman must be able to hear it.

  As they rounded the headland, Hannah saw Sydney Cove spread out before them. It was not much of a city: a sprawl of yellow stone buildings, surrounded by fields and, beyond it, forest. A river divided the tiny city.

  Hannah could barely stand still. She smoothed her grey serge dress and pinched her cheeks. Her hair had started to grow back, and was now a few inches long. She tried to tuck it behind her ears, wishing she had a proper looking-glass and some ribbon.

  As the ship neared the wharf, Hannah looked for Thomas. The cheering crowds she had imagined weren’t there. There were a few bored-looking officers waiting for them, and a handful of dock-hands wait
ing to help with disembarking.

  She couldn’t see Thomas.

  There were shouts and splashes, then a screaming noise as the anchor was lowered with a splash. A gangplank was lowered to the wharf, and Captain Gartside descended, flanked by a few other officers. They spoke briefly to the men awaiting them on the wharf, then Captain Gartside turned and signalled to the remaining officers on the Derby Ram.

  ‘All right then, ladies,’ shouted the bosun. ‘Form an orderly line. No pushing.’

  They shuffled down the gangplank. Hannah and Molly were towards the back of the line. Hannah stepped onto the wharf and looked around.

  He wasn’t there.

  The wooden boards of the wharf seemed to buckle and sway beneath her. Her head felt fuzzy and her eyes blurred. The detailed scene she had imagined, of her and Thomas flying into each other’s arms, weeping and laughing with joy, repeated over and over again in her mind, mocking her.

  He wasn’t there.

  Molly tugged on her hand. ‘Perhaps he’s running late,’ she said.

  Hannah nodded and swallowed. She balled up the handkerchief in her hand.

  For a moment, she felt a surge of panic as she tried to remember her conversation with Thomas. Had he really said he was coming to New South Wales? What if he wasn’t there at all? What if he had stayed in London? What if he was in France fighting Napoleon? What if he had been sent to Africa, or China?

  ‘Come on,’ said Molly, pulling on her hand.

  Hannah took a step forward, her mind whirling. The wharf seemed to disappear beneath her, and her foot fell forward into blank space. She toppled after it, falling face-down on the deck.

  Strong hands lifted her up from behind.

  ‘You need to get your land-legs back,’ said a voice. Hannah remembered being carried on to the Derby Ram by those arms, spoken to with that voice. She turned around.

  It was James, smiling gently and sweetly at her, as if no bad words had ever passed between them. Hannah noticed the fresh white scar on his finger where she had bitten him. She felt hot tears burning in her eyes, and squeezed them tightly closed. A lump of misery lodged in her throat. He wasn’t here. He hadn’t come.

  She stumbled forward, James’s hand on her back, as the ground rocked and swayed beneath her.

  Through a haze of tears, she made out wide, unpaved streets fringed by sand-coloured stone buildings. Horse-drawn carts and buggies rumbled along the dusty streets. On the fringes of the tiny city, the golden buildings were replaced by wattle-and-daub huts, and Hannah could see some crude lean-to’s snuggling into the grey rocks that hung over the hillside. Children ran barefoot amongst the rocks. They looked wild and savage. Hannah thought of the ragged children she had seen playing hussle-cap back in London, and thought that they seemed like well-behaved children of Quality compared to these fierce creatures. The light was bright and harsh, everything looked too clear and crisp. Hannah’s head ached with the brilliance of everything.

  A man leaned against a building, wearing nothing but a scrap of cloth around his loins and some kind of animal-skin cloak. His skin was as black as the bottom of a coalscuttle. He looked at Hannah, and she was startled to see the whites of his eyes standing out so drastically against his dark face. He grinned at her; a challenging, threatening grin. His teeth were white also, whiter than any teeth Hannah had seen before.

  All around them rose gentle sloping hills, covered in grey-green that looked curly and dense, like the fleece on a sheep’s back. The air smelled of something tangy and earthy.

  A part of Hannah was expecting Thomas suddenly to appear from behind a building, or come galloping up on a sweaty horse. But another part of her knew that he wasn’t coming. She stopped, unable to walk any further.

  The ground pitched beneath her. The lump of misery in her throat swelled, until she couldn’t breathe.

  ‘It’s all right, Hannah,’ said James. ‘I’m here. You’re just land-sick.’

  She turned to look at him. He was as handsome as he had ever been. His eyes were still large and gentle, his skin still white as snow. He smiled at her.

  ‘Hannah?’ he said gently.

  The lump in Hannah’s throat cut off her breathing entirely, and she coughed violently, vomiting bile onto the dusty brown earth beneath them. A sour, bitter smell rose hotly in the air. Hannah felt it overwhelm her.

  She staggered after the other women, who were being loaded in groups onto flat-bottomed barge at the other end of the wharf.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Molly in a quiet, frightened voice. ‘Aren’t we there already?’

  ‘No,’ said James. ‘They’re sending you up the river to a town called Parramatta. It’s where all the unmarried women go.’ He gripped Hannah’s arm. ‘Hannah, it doesn’t have to be like this. It’s not too late.’

  She twisted her arm free, and scrambled onto the barge, and then leaned down to help Molly up.

  ‘I’ll come for you, Hannah,’ said James. ‘Don’t worry.’

  She didn’t look back as the barge cast off and drifted slowly away from Sydney Town.

  The river glinted silver, reflecting the tangle of greys and greens and browns that crowded greedily around its banks. Farmland stretched off into the distance, brown and gold, dotted with the occasional sheep. Birds rose from the trees in rainbow-coloured fluttering clouds, screeching and calling. But to Hannah, everything was bitter, tainted by the taste of bile in the back of her throat.

  PART III: East o’ the sun, west o’ the moon

  twenty-six

  The north wind whisked away, dropping a single acorn on the beach next to Scatterheart. She picked it up and put it in her pocket with the other three.

  ***

  Late that night, the barge pulled up in Parramatta. A few dim orange lights burned in the windows of the huts clustered on the riverbank. The darkness otherwise was absolute, and Hannah shivered, imagining what might be lurking just beyond the ring of light cast by the boatman’s lamp. She remembered the challenge in the face of the native in Sydney Town. She held Molly’s hand tightly.

  They were lined up along the waterfront, on a rickety wooden pier. A handful of men and women huddled together, watching. Some looked like farmers, with coarse hands and broad hats. Others were clearly people of higher rank, women in long skirts and bonnets, and men wearing top hats and carrying canes.

  A man in an officer’s uniform, carrying a lamp, paraded up and down in front of them. He examined each of the women, looked at their teeth and into their eyes, asked their names and the crime that had sent them to New South Wales.

  Some of the women he assigned to the people waiting on the pier, others he left standing. When he reached Molly, he bent down to look her in the eye.

  ‘What’s your name, little miss?’

  ‘M-molly,’ she answered.

  ‘What’s your last name, Molly?’

  ‘Just Molly.’

  ‘Well, Just Molly, how old are you?’

  Molly shrugged, relaxing a little. ‘Seven, eight, nine. Not sure.’

  He nodded, and waved at a woman waiting in the crowd.

  ‘Take her to the orphanage,’ he said. ‘She’s too young for the factory.’

  Molly gripped Hannah’s hand as the woman came for her.

  ‘Wait,’ said Hannah. ‘She’s … she’s my sister.’

  The officer shrugged. ‘Makes no difference if she’s your own child. She’s to the orphanage.’

  The woman tried to take Molly by the hand, but Molly hissed and spat at her.

  ‘I ain’t no orphing!’ she said. ‘I want to stay with Hannah.’

  The woman grabbed Molly around the waist and picked her up. Molly kicked and bit and yelled, but the woman was strong. She carried Molly away.

  ‘Hannah!’ Molly cried, her voice shrill. ‘Don’t let them take me.’

  Hannah caught a glimpse of Molly’s face, pale and frightened.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Molly,’ said Hannah helplessly.

 
; As the woman and Molly disappeared into the darkness, Hannah heard a wailing cry that tugged at her, somewhere deep inside.

  The officer turned to her.

  ‘Name?’ he asked.

  ‘Hannah Cheshire,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Age?’

  ‘I’m fourteen,’ said Hannah, and then realised that it wasn’t true. She had turned fifteen somewhere during the voyage and not realised.

  ‘Crime?’

  Hannah frowned. ‘I committed no crime,’ she said. ‘I’m here by mistake.’

  The officer raised an eyebrow. ‘Aren’t you all?’ he said.

  He grabbed her by the chin, and forced open her mouth, looking at her teeth. Hannah felt humiliated, like a horse being examined by a prospective buyer. She thought of the tooth she had spat onto the deck of the Derby Ram. The officer glanced at her short hair.

  ‘Got punished on the voyage, did we?’ he asked. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she said. For a moment she saw Dr Ullathorne’s face as he tumbled into the ocean. ‘I need to find Thomas Behr. He’s an officer.’

  The man looked sharply at her. ‘Thomas Behr, you say?’

  Hannah’s heart leapt. ‘Yes, do you know him? Is he here?’

  The man paused, considering her. Then he shook his head. ‘There is no one here by that name,’ he said. ‘You’re too saucy for service. Off to the factory.’

  The Female Factory was a wretched loft above a gaol that was not much bigger than their room in the orlop deck, but filled with nearly twice as many women.

  Hannah crowded in with the rest of the new arrivals, and stared around in horror. The building seemed barely to hold together. The wind whistled through gaps between the roof and walls, and the floorboards were so buckled that Hannah could fit her fingers through the gaps.

  She spent the first night shivering in the draughty room, wishing she had not left her blanket on board the ship. They were not given any bedding, or clean clothes. Shortly before dawn, it started to rain. The roof leaked, and cold water spattered and dripped onto Hannah.

  The women who lived in the factory were the ones who weren’t selected to serve in the houses of the Sydney and Parramatta residents, or on neighbouring farms. They were the worst of the convict women; the evil, the sick, and the elderly.