The Things She's Seen

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

She made a gasping sound, as if someone had struck her chest. “How could they be a part of this? How could anyone? And for money?”

  “Not just money. Power. Importance. The kind of sick delight people like that get out of things like this. I never did meet Cavanagh or Flint.” His gaze flicked to me, then away. “But they strike me as people with no moral core.”

  No heart, no guts, no core. Here, they serve the Feed.

  Allie’s eyes widened. “We need to put a warrant out for Alex Sholt! He could be—”

  Dad held up a hand. “First, I asked my boss yesterday to get people onto Sholt. But second, I’m certain we’re going to find that the body from the fire at the home is Alexander Sholt.”

  She blinked, absorbing that. Dad drew in a deep breath, as if he was preparing himself for something, and I knew what it would be. He was looking at Allie with such compassion that it was obvious what news he was about to break. I wished he didn’t have to tell her. I figured he probably wished that too, every time he had to tell a family that someone wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know how he could bear it.

  He gave her one piece of information at a time, trying to lead her to it: “I think Derek Bell and Alexander Sholt started down this path a very long time ago. Back when they were teenagers. We’re going to have to bring in dogs to search this area for bodies, and we’ll find more than one. I think we’ll even find the first one.”

  She nodded, like that made sense. She didn’t understand. Not until Dad added gently, “And I think the first one was buried around twenty years ago.”

  Shock rippled across her face. “No.”

  He sighed. “Allie—”

  She took a step back, holding up a hand like she could ward off his words. “Sarah’s not dead. She’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to find her!”

  “I’m sorry,” Dad said quietly. “We are going to find her. But not alive.”

  Her hand dropped. She staggered to the fallen log and sat. Dad went over to sit beside her. Dad was still tall, but Allie had become little and was growing littler by the second.

  When she spoke, even her voice was tiny: “We need to get police out here. To process all this. And it has to be the ones from the city.” Her lips curved into a bitter snarl. “Not me, or any other cop too dumb to see what their boss really was.”

  “You—”

  But she rounded on him. “Don’t even try to tell me this isn’t my fault. I should have known. I was her best friend. And I’m a police officer.”

  “Then be a police officer!” he snapped back.

  Her mouth fell open in surprise.

  Dad waved at the bunker. “You think this is the end of the investigation? It’s just the beginning. Did children go missing from that home? And how many people, whose job it was to check on the welfare of kids, failed to notice something was wrong here? Who else around here did know? I can tell you now, I think Derek’s father covered for his son. I’ll bet Alexander Sholt’s father knew something too, even if it wasn’t all of it.”

  Allie closed her mouth, an arrested expression on her face. “That was why Gerry Bell didn’t investigate properly? It was on purpose? How about the deaths of Flint and Cavanagh—do you think Derek had something to do with that? But…he was killed too.”

  “He was, and probably with the same weapon,” Dad said. “Sholt died first. So maybe there was a falling-out between Sholt and Derek, and Derek kills him. The fire’s just faulty wiring, bad luck—but it throws everything into chaos.

  “After that, I think it could have gone something like this: Derek convinces Charles Sholt to say nothing about his son being missing. Maybe he tells him Alexander is on the run; maybe he tells him the truth about Alexander being dead but throws the blame on someone else. He convinces the old man to keep quiet for the sake of the family name and to give Derek a chance to cover things up.

  “Then Derek has to get rid of the director and the nurse, presumably because they know what he’s done and he doesn’t have the cash to pay them off—the money they’ve gotten in the past all came from Alexander Sholt. So they die next. But now…”

  Dad shook his head. “Now old man Sholt is getting suspicious about what happened to his son and has the resources to hire someone to do something about it. You saw those windows at Derek’s house; he was trying to protect himself from someone. And if this is how it all went down, then having Derek killed with the same weapon—which Derek probably had somewhere in that house—might have been Charles Sholt’s idea of an artistic touch.”

  Wow. For a complete fabrication, I thought that was really quite convincing. Allie was certainly buying it. She’d been nodding along with Dad’s words, and I could see that he was pleased with her reaction. He was testing out the story, I realized, to see if people would believe it.

  Because he absolutely couldn’t tell anybody the truth.

  “It might have gone differently, of course,” Dad said. “We’ll probably never know all the details. But one way or another, there’s going to be a lot to do to make sure justice is finally done for every girl Bell and Sholt hurt. If you’re not up for that, you’d better tell me now.”

  Allie lifted her chin. “I’m up for it.”

  I was relieved to hear that her voice had expanded back to its normal size. In fact, all of her seemed to be expanding. She was still reeling from this, and would be for a while, but she’d be okay for as long as she had something to do. For as long as there was justice to be done. And I guessed there always would be justice to be done for somebody somewhere. So Allie would be okay.

  Dad gave a brisk nod. “Good. I’m going to start making calls. But my colleagues from the city aren’t going to be able to find their way out here from the home unescorted. Do you think you could go back there and wait for them?”

  “Of course.” She rose to her feet, shoulders squared, and went marching through the trees like a soldier with a mission.

  The wind chased after her, swirling leaves into her path and ruffling her hair. For a second, Allie stopped, looking upward to a sky that would be littered with stars come nightfall. The turmoil inside her seemed to lighten a little. Then she kept walking.

  Dad stayed quiet until she’d vanished from sight. Then he asked, “Do you understand now, Beth?”

  “Yeah.”

  But I could see from his expression that he thought I was missing something. Then he did something terrible. He looked at me with the same compassion he’d shown to Allie.

  “Beth,” Dad said slowly, “Isobel Catching didn’t survive.”

  That made no sense. “What? No—she escaped, the night of the fire—”

  But he was shaking his head. “She died, Beth. The night of the fire, or before that.”

  “That’s impossible! She’s the witness. She’s in the hospital—how can she be dead?”

  “Do you remember what happened at the hospital, right before we met Catching?”

  I did remember. I’d looked through a door into a room, and seen a dark-haired girl. Then Catching had called out to Dad and— Oh.

  “You think that other girl was the witness?”

  He nodded. “She’s the girl who ran away from rehab. Catching came here exactly as she said, on a road trip with her mum. A few months ago, because that was when the storm hit, the big one that caused all that property damage. No one was reported as dead, but that’s not because no one died. No one was found, probably because Derek Bell covered up the accident. Catching wandered away from the wreck—wounded and disorientated—ended up near the home, and was discovered by the director and the nurse.”

  “But you can see her! You’ve been talking to her all this time.”

  “Yeah.” He rose to his feet. “Just the way I talk to you, Beth.”

  He thought I wasn’t the only ghost he could see. What Dad was s
aying made sense. So why was I still so certain that Catching wasn’t dead?

  It was something to do with the story. Something in it told me she’d made it out alive…only I wasn’t sure what. Before I could think it through, Dad spoke again: “I thought I could help her. But we didn’t get here at the beginning. We got here when it was all over. We got here at the end.”

  He was right that we’d arrived after the fire, the night the world exploded. But he was wrong about it being all over…for a reason I couldn’t quite articulate.

  Then a voice from behind us said it for me. “Of course you’re here at the end. So what? It’s the beginning that hasn’t happened yet.”

  I swung around to face Catching. She wasn’t wearing the hospital gown anymore. Instead, her long jumper had grown longer, flowing around her arms and legs to clothe her in green brightness. There was a glossy black bird perched upon her left shoulder. Crow. Sarah.

  Living people couldn’t pop into existence like this. My heart sank.

  “You’re dead?” I whispered.

  She shrugged. “Just appeared out of nowhere, didn’t I?”

  But that wasn’t a yes. It was a Catching evasion, one of her answers that wasn’t really an answer.

  I’m not wrong. I’m not. I began to run through the story in my head, trying to figure out what had truly happened to her. But Catching wasn’t finished speaking to me yet: “Do you understand what the story was for now?”

  To be heard. Except I wasn’t sure even Catching knew everything she’d been trying to say. But I knew what she’d wanted me to hear. And I knew she’d never been telling the story to Dad. “You told the story to show me how to move on.”

  Catching waved in the direction of the home. “Crow saw you there, the day you came. She thought you might be trapped. So I put myself in your way, to find out why you were still on this side of the world.”

  Crow tilted her head to one side, fixing a bright, hopeful eye upon me, like she was asking if I remembered her.

  The crow on the rubble. The one that I’d waved at, not truly believing it could see me. “I remember.”

  She preened and flapped off to land on a branch of a nearby tree. Dad tracked her path through the air with a faint smile on his lips; I could tell he was pleased to see Sarah Blue flying free.

  Then he turned to Catching and said, “I promise you I will make sure Gerry Bell and Charles Sholt, and anyone else who was involved in any way and is still alive, is held to account. But you have to leave this to the police from now on.”

  Why was he ignoring Crow? Catching’s glance met mine, and I saw the laughter in it. That was when I realized: Dad didn’t know.

  “Um, Dad? It wasn’t her.”

  Dad gave an impatient shake of his head. “She’s different to you, Beth—she can affect things in this world, Beth. I’m sure of it.”

  “It’s not that,” I told him. “You’ve missed all the clues. Flint and Cavanagh were dragged out of Sholt’s second-story window and dropped into that drain from above. That was why the window was smashed, and why there was no broken lock on the fence. The fire screen in Derek’s house was knocked over because something came down the chimney. And the blade with the curve? It wasn’t a knife. It’s a beak.”

  Dad’s mouth fell open. Then his gaze went to where Crow was sitting with her shadow stretching out behind her. A thing of claw and wing and bite.

  He let out a startled exclamation and took a hasty step back.

  Crow threw back her head and cackled.

  Dad kept staring, his gaze flicking between the shadow on the ground and the bird in the tree as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing.

  “She’s lots of things at once, Dad,” I said. “Little, and really big. Old and young. A girl and a bird. She’s…Crow.”

  After a second, Dad stepped forward again and called up at Crow: “I know you were failed by the police. I’m so sorry for that. More sorry than you can know. But you can trust me to do this, and you can trust Allie. You’ve stopped the Feeds. You’ve stopped the Fetchers. Let us deal with the rest.”

  Crow stared down at him for a long moment. Then she bobbed her head in agreement. Dad’s shoulders sagged in relief and he pulled out his phone, striding away to make the call.

  I looked up at Crow. How many times had I seen crows around town and never noticed that one was just a bit bigger and a bit glossier than all the others? How often had there been mysterious gusts of wind at exactly the right moment? Crow had been there all along, trying to impart to me the gift of her hard-won knowledge— Wait.

  Something about that thought had triggered a connection in the part of my mind that was still puzzling over the story. What was it? But I knew. Gifts. Strengths! Everything came together, and I finally knew what had happened to Isobel Catching.

  I glared at her indignantly. “You’re not dead.”

  Something sparked in her eyes. “You reckon not?”

  “I know not. It’s all in the story. At the end, before you escaped, you found your way back to your self. You found your strength. That’s what gave you the hope you needed to start fighting the gray. You knew you could get out, because you knew what you could do.”

  She didn’t say anything. But I was sure I was on the right path. “Except your strength must have been growing in you before then. It had already helped Crow. That was why she could scratch your arm, when she’d never been able to affect anything before. It was why I could only make a light explode after I met you. Because you touch different sides of the world at once, and it makes you a kind of…conduit.”

  Catching watched me. Waiting for me to come out and say it. So I did. “I think the story of the gifts of the Catching women goes like this: Your Granny could hold on to her self, and your Nanna could swim like a fish, and your Grandma knew how to endure, and your mum could see people who’d passed over. But you?” I shook my head, still a little astonished by it. “You can walk all the sides of the world.”

  She grinned. The second actual smile I’d got from her today.

  “How do you do it?” I demanded.

  “Dunno. How did you do it? You almost got to another side once. The one with the colors.”

  For a second, I wondered how she knew that; then I realized Crow must have told her. It had been Crow who’d been chasing me, after all.

  “That was different! I’m dead; I’m kind of supposed to be on that side. I’m not even properly here.”

  She shrugged. “I’m properly everywhere. It’s all the same world.”

  Which I guessed made sense if you could see all the sides the way she must be able to.

  “You coming with me, Teller?” Catching asked. “Crow is.”

  “Coming where?”

  “I’m going to the colors. My mum’s there. I want to see her. After that?” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll stay in the colors forever. Maybe I won’t. I’ll decide when I decide.”

  From above, Crow made a plaintive noise, shifting from one foot to the other in an anxious dance.

  “It’s all right,” Catching told her. “Wherever we go, we’ll go together.” Then to me, “You coming or not?”

  No. I have to take care of my father. But those words didn’t feel true anymore. Instead, I said, “I have to talk to my father.”

  Who at that moment was in the middle of what looked like a super-intense conversation with his boss as he gave her the details of what had been going on in this town.

  “Um. Just not right now.”

  “S’alright,” Catching said. “We’ll wait.”

  She strolled over to sit on the fallen log. I sat with her, and Crow flapped to a perch in a tree above us. The three of us watched as the clearing filled with police officers.

  Dad was on and off his phone, talking to the city. Allie hung around the fringes, wanting to be
available in case any local knowledge was needed, but not wanting to put herself in the midst of the investigation into her dead boss.

  The morning grew warmer and the light brighter as the sun rose higher. And eventually there came a moment when I looked over at Dad, only to find he was looking at me.

  It was time.

  I rose and walked away from the clearing, waving to him to follow. I kept going until we were well into the trees, where no one would hear Dad talking. Then I turned to face him. Only I wasn’t quite sure how to begin this conversation.

  He began it for me. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  Well, yes, I probably was, but I’d been planning to gently build up to that. “Um. Yeah. Catching and Crow are going to the colors. I thought I might go with them.”

  “But you’re worried about me.”

  “Hey, stop saying my thoughts before I do! How do you even know them?”

  His eyes crinkled in amusement. “I know because I’m your dad. And I realize I haven’t been acting like it for a while. I’m sorry, Beth. It got so I didn’t know how to go on living. I didn’t even think I should go on, without you.”

  “That’s upside-down thinking, Dad!”

  “I know. I can see now that what I’ve been doing…” He shook his head, his eyes darkening with anger at himself. “It’s no way to honor who you were. Who you are. And I want to be someone you can look up to, Beth. I want to go on being your dad, even though…”

  His voice broke. He sucked in a deep breath and continued. “Even though you won’t be here. I want you to know, wherever you are, that I’m a dad you can be proud of.”

  There were tears running down his cheeks; down mine too. I knew I couldn’t stay, but that didn’t make it easy to go. This was hard, and awful, and it was making my heart twist in my chest. And I wanted something. I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything, ever. If strong emotions and Catching’s presence were the key to spirits being able to touch this side, then I had both.

  I flung my arms around my father. And I was solid. He gave a surprised grunt and hugged me back. We clung on to each other for a few last, precious moments. Then I felt my solidity fading, and I let him go.