Shaking my sleep-deprived paranoia away, I remind myself I chose to come here this time. I am not powerless. I am not a child.
I doze on the very knife-edge of sleep, the pulsing trill of cicadas seeping through the window cracks, preventing me from fully slipping under. The old house ticks and groans as the cool night pulls it closer, and my initial jitters give way to numb, exhausted indifference. When the floorboards creak on the landing outside my bedroom door, I give it a half-hearted glance with barely one eye open.
The door is ajar. A shadow hovers outside in the hallway.
“Ally?” I rub my eye with the ball of my hand. “What is it?”
I lean up on one elbow, straining to make her out in the dark. When I squint, the outline of her shoulder becomes more defined.
“Ally …? Are you okay?”
The shadow doesn’t move. My heartbeat thumps a warning while my bleary mind sifts through questions.
Can’t she hear me?
Does she sleepwalk?
Is that even Ally?
I shrink against the mattress, tugging the blanket to my chin. “I–Is someone there?”
The shadow shifts in the doorway. I blink rapidly, trying to distinguish shapes, refusing to let my mind wander where it shouldn’t–
this house, this place, where he first appeared
–and concentrate on logical explanations.
Ally’s just checking on me, or she’s got up to let Benny outside. Maybe she’s leaving now for her road trip to Byron Bay.
So why won’t she answer me?
I fumble for the frilly lamp on the bedside table behind me. The small room floods with golden light, spilling through the doorway and out into the hall. Apart from a few wispy cobwebs and peeling wallpaper, there’s nothing to see.
I kick off my sheets and march over to the bedroom door, throwing it wide open. The dim hallway is empty in both directions, and when I move to the top of the stairs, I hear only the ticking clock in the living room below. I pad down the landing to Ally’s bedroom door and press my ear up against the cool wood. The door swings inwards and I almost topple over.
I’m not sure what I was expecting on the other side, but it wasn’t Ally passed out across her bed, limbs splayed and fully clothed, Benny nestled at her hip. She makes a low groaning noise in her sleep and one of Benny’s paws twitches. An empty wineglass is upended on the rug beside the bed.
Standing in the middle of Ally’s bedroom, I watch them sleep for much longer than I need to. I’m almost afraid of going back to my own room, frightened to be alone with my thoughts. I eventually close Ally’s door softly behind me, then do a full circuit of the house, flipping on every light switch as I go. I check door bolts and window locks, inside cupboards and behind the shower curtain, until I’m satisfied no one could’ve possibly broken in.
But it’s no comfort at all.
If there’s nobody here, the only other place they can be hiding is inside my head.
*
On Saturday morning, I wake to the sound of Benny scratching. I think it’s at my bedroom door until I shake off the remnants of sleep and realise it’s somewhere downstairs instead. I feel completely wrung out, like I haven’t rested at all, though in actuality I must have snatched a few hours. I nudge a curtain aside to find powdery mist lingering over the surrounding hills, the violet-grey light hinting that the sun is on its way. And so, it seems, is Ally – her brown truck is gone from the driveway.
Benny’s scratching becomes insistent and it occurs to me he probably needs to be let outside. I shrug my hoodie on over my pyjamas and slide out of bed. The floorboards are chilly underfoot, and I glance around for my sneakers. Benny barks so urgently that I hurry downstairs to find him in the hallway. He’s not standing in the front entry, though. He’s pacing outside the cellar door.
“Come on, Benny-boy,” I croak, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “You wanna go outside?”
I open the front door and Benny scrambles for the verandah, launching himself onto the gravel driveway and disappearing around the side of the house. I trail into the kitchen, and everything’s exactly how I left it after cleaning up last night. No used coffee cups or dirty ashtrays, no cereal bowl in the sink. I guess Ally decided to leave early and get breakfast on the road, and really, can I blame her? Things got tense between us last night, and I feel sort of guilty about how we left it.
By the time I’ve put the kettle on and filled a bowl with dog kibble, Benny still hasn’t come inside. I find him growling at his reflection in the ground-level windows around the side of the house.
“Come here, you old coot.” I pat my thigh and hold up the dog bowl. “Time for breakfast. C’mon.” He gallops over and follows me inside. Once he’s eaten, he trails behind me upstairs and waits outside the bathroom door while I shower. I’m grateful for it. The house is too quiet and I can’t wait to get outside.
I grab my camera and barely touch Benny’s dog lead on the entry table before he comes bounding towards me with a look of goofy expectation on his face. The sun has burned off the dawn mist, leaving the morning bright and crisp – my favourite kind of light to photograph in. We hit the dusty backroads of Willow Creek, steering clear of the bushland behind the house, well away from the creek I’d be happy to never visit again.
Benny runs ahead of me chasing butterflies and things that whisper through the tall grasses on both sides of the road. I call Sadie, and she fills me in about last night’s cocktail party. Her neighbour Lilly dropped a tray of spring rolls into a pot plant, and Alice, her crush from the Seaspray, was a guest at the party. She and Sadie have now added each other on Snapchat.
“What about you?” she asks. “How was it hanging out with your aunt?”
“All right.”
“By that you mean weird. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Yeah. Things got a bit tense. Seems she’s got a few million hang-ups about my family.”
Sadie snorts. “Lucky she didn’t smother you in your sleep then. You sure she doesn’t have an ulterior motive for inviting you?”
Sadie chuckles to herself, but her words unsettle me. What did prompt Ally to invite me here? Why did she get so hostile when I brought up that summer? And why did she leave this morning without saying goodbye?
“Funny you should say that,” I tell Sadie, trying to keep my voice light. “I thought she was standing in my doorway last night watching me sleep.”
“Ding, ding, ding! Creeper alert!” Sadie laughs. “Please tell me you pegged a pillow at her.”
I force a laugh as well. “It wasn’t her. I mean, it wasn’t anyone. It was just my sleepy head playing tricks.”
“Or,” Sadie says, lowering her voice and adding a quiver, “it was the ghost of Convict McPants coming to check out your frilly little nightie.”
“McTavish,” I say, sniggering. “I wish I’d never told you that story. Stop trying to spook me.”
“Didn’t he die in the pantry or something?”
“The cellar, supposedly. He was the Blackwell family’s servant, and the cellar was his living quarters. There’s no record of him actually dying at Willow Creek House, though. He probably finished his sentence and happily trotted off to Sydney.”
“Yeah, you hope.”
We continue chatting about everything and nothing while Benny bounds ahead of me up the side of a hill. It’s not until I reach the top that I realise we’ve made it all the way to Greenwillow. We’re standing in the middle of Old Meadow Lane. I cross the road on autopilot and follow the gravel shoulder towards the open field that served as Greenwillow Carnival’s car park.
“Uh-oh,” Sadie says in my ear. “You’ve started responding in Vague-a-nese.”
“Huh?”
“You keep doing this lately. You flake out halfway through a conversation like your brain’s gone AWOL.”
“I’m just distracted by Benny,” I say, long grass whipping at my legs. “I’m trying to keep an eye on him.”
“S
ure, chief. Don’t worry, I’m going anyway. Gotta see a girl about some ice cream.”
I’m hungrily rummaging for my camera by the time Sadie hangs up, my attention fixed on the scene ahead of me.
The carnival site is a graveyard of grungy amusement rides, dead mechanical arms bent at the elbows as though struggling to keep upright. The dry grass is littered with hollowed-out rocket carriages, sun-bleached and brittle, like a minefield of oversized cicada shells. Broken sideshow games slump into one another, lightbulbs missing from their signage and leering clown faces riddled with graffiti. One or two grubby stuffed animals hang here and there, too high to bother with. Benny barks at one before trotting off to mark his territory on everything possible.
Even in its heyday this place would have been eerie without people around. Now, abandoned and dying, it’s so surreal it feels like a dream. I dig out my phone and dial Morgan’s number without thinking.
“Hey!” he answers. “Are you here? We arrived last night.”
“Morgan, you have to see this,” I say, poking my head inside a red-and-white striped ticket booth. Somebody’s scraped the words No ticket, no ride! on the dirt-covered countertop with their finger. A roll of green paper tickets is unravelled all over the floor. “I’ve found us our dreamscape. It’s seriously perfect. You need to get over here with your sketchbook.”
“What, here? In Greenwillow?” He sounds excited, his voice muffled like he’s pulling on a jacket. “My parents said we can use their car today. Mal and I can leave now. Whereabouts are you?”
It suddenly hits me – where I’m standing, what I’m suggesting. I glance towards the rear of the grounds where the concrete toilet block is perched on the edge of the hill overlooking the car park. “Mallory wants to come?”
What the hell was I thinking? I can’t invite them here! Either of them. It would seem like some kind of sick joke at their expense.
“Yeah. She suggested it, actually.” Morgan lowers his voice. “I think she feels bad about what happened last weekend. She wants to show Mum she’s making an effort to socialise.”
I keep my voice low too, although Mallory can’t possibly hear me. “Listen, it’s a bad idea. Forget I mentioned it. We can find something else.”
“Are you kidding?” Morgan says. “We’re the only group in class with nothing to show so far. If you’re that excited about it I will be too. Let’s go for it. Just tell me where you are.”
My shoulders slump. “I … I’m at Greenwillow Carnival.”
There’s a pause so long on the other end of the phone I think Morgan must have hung up on me. Common sense tells me I need to suggest somewhere else right away, but a defiant internal voice urges me to stay. Recording this decay might help me think of this place differently. It might help me move forward. I selfishly need to do this for me.
I’m about to end the call when Morgan exhales. “So, are we going for the nightmare angle or what?”
“I’m sorry. I just stumbled across it while I was out walking. You really don’t have to come here. I can meet you somewhere else later on.”
“You know what?” His voice is a little more upbeat. It’s hard to tell whether or not it’s put on. “Didn’t Mrs Liotta say our best work will stem from something that actually holds meaning for us? Maybe it’s time to go back there, face this particular demon head-on.”
“You sure?” I say. “But Mallory …”
“I’ll tell her where I’m meeting you. It’s her choice whether she comes or not.”
“And your parents …?”
Another pause. “They don’t have to know.”
*
I’ve taken close to fifty photos by the time I see a black SUV pull into the field below the carnival. I think Morgan might be alone until the passenger door opens too. I press a firm hand against my stomach to quell the nerves before moving to the edge of the hill to raise it in greeting.
Morgan follows the dirt track up from the field, sketchbook in hand, Mallory trailing a couple of metres behind. I catch only glimpses of her head or her shoulder behind her brother, as though she’s using his frame as a shield.
“What happened to this place?” Morgan calls, his eyes drawn to what remains of the carousel. It’s been hollowed out and stripped of ornamental horses, the elegant fretwork and mirrors shot through with holes. “Why isn’t this all fenced off?”
“My dad said they closed it down a few years ago,” I tell him, as Benny trundles over to meet them. “Maybe they want people to come and steal stuff so they don’t have to cart it all away.”
Morgan leans over and sinks both hands into Benny’s fur, murmuring, “Who’s a good boy?” and, “You are. Yes, you are.” It’s Mallory my aunt’s dog is most interested in, though. He sniffs around her legs, panting up at her, his tail wagging hopefully.
“Hi, Mallory,” I say. She nods in response, avoiding eye contact. She places her earbuds in and turns away from us, wandering towards what’s left of sideshow alley.
Morgan’s barely looked at me, distracted by the deterioration of this once flamboyant place. He seems in awe of its decline, but also wary, as though this fallen beast might still have some teeth.
“This is not what I expected,” he murmurs, more to himself than anything. The faint smile on his lips tells me he recognises the artistic possibilities. Without saying another word he slips off his jacket, finds a place to sit and opens his sketchbook. I leave him to draw while I seek a path through the overgrown grass to the Ferris wheel on the other side of the park.
After an hour, we reconvene in the picnic area where the food trucks used to sit. Morgan spreads his drawings out across a wooden table so we can decide which ones might work best overlaid with my photos. I scroll through the images on my camera, offering him a look at the LCD panel. He slides closer on the bench seat until our shoulders touch. There’s a brief lull in conversation as I enlarge an image on-screen to see if it’s in focus.
“Are we okay?” Morgan says quietly.
I half-turn towards him. “Yeah, of course. What do you mean?”
He drops his gaze to the papers spread out in front of him. “You just haven’t said anything about … you know.” He taps the pad of his finger against a splinter on the edge of the table. “I think I may have misread the situation.”
His sentence ends with an inflection, as though it’s really a question. My pulse races. Is he talking about our kiss? Or does he mean what happened in Mallory’s bedroom? I place the camera down and rub my palms across the thighs of my jeans.
“I have a habit of jumping into things too quickly,” he says. “I guess I panic that anything good in my life is going to get wrenched away.” He glances in the general direction of his sister, but he could just as easily be talking about his hometown, his happy childhood. “When Mallory disappeared, I was swallowed up by this overwhelming bleakness, like I’d never feel happy again. I’d always complained about my little sister tagging along with me everywhere until suddenly she wasn’t there any more. I hated myself for every time I wished she was out of my hair.”
Nodding, I wait for him to go on.
“When they found her, it was like I’d been given this second chance. I made a pact with my eight-year-old self then and there: don’t ever take good things for granted, and hold onto them tight so they can’t be snatched away.”
I stare down at the table, my chest aching for everything eight-year-old Morgan went through.
“Only problem is,” he says, strumming his fingers against the table, “sometimes I get a bit full on. I completely understand if you just want to be friends.”
“Morgan?”
He slides me a sheepish look, as though he knows what I’m going to say next. He looks as surprised as I feel when I slip my hand onto his knee and lean my face up to his. For the briefest of moments, I’m breathing in the same delicious air he’s breathing out.
He holds eye contact as he brushes his mouth against mine, as though needing visual confirmation
this is really what I want. I open my mouth slightly and catch his bottom lip between mine, tugging softly. It’s all the invitation Morgan needs for his eyelids to flutter closed, for his hand to slide to my jaw as he tentatively explores my mouth.
A nagging voice questions whether I actually deserve this. Would he still want me if he knew things are more than a little messed up inside my head? But as the kissing intensifies, I can’t think straight. I close my eyes and surrender to it, every nerve ending in my body on fire. All that exists is the taste of Morgan Fisher, the heat of him through his T-shirt, the tremble in his breath in the brief moments our mouths break apart.
I don’t know how long the kiss consumes us before there’s a loud thump on our picnic table. Morgan pulls away from me and we both jerk around to find Mallory glaring at us from across the table. She’s gripping an empty water bottle, her chin jutting towards Benny sniffing around some old bins.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what you …?”
Mallory rolls her eyes and pushes herself away from the table. She strides towards the rear of the park with the bottle in her hand. Morgan chuckles as we watch her go.
“What’s her problem?” he says, shaking his head.
The penny drops. “Water,” I say, jumping up. “She wants me to get water for Benny.”
“Well, she’s doing it now,” Morgan says, standing too. “So you don’t have to go anywhere.” He threads a hand through mine and tugs me towards him, his shy smile sending a tingle through me. As he moves to kiss me again, something occurs to me.
There’s only one place with running water around here.
Mallory’s headed towards the carnival’s toilet block.
“I, um–” I slide my hand out of Morgan’s and stumble over the bench seat. “Sorry. I’ll be right back.”
His raised eyebrows tells me he’s more amused than offended. “Okay. But this trend of you running away every time I kiss you is a bit worrying.” He smiles to himself as he starts gathering up drawings to slip inside his sketchbook.
I force myself to walk casually even though I’m dying to sprint after Mallory. I’m not sure why I need to stop her going inside that toilet block. Do I even want to? Maybe I’m following her because I want to witness what will happen if she does.
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