by Cathryn Hein
‘Teagan? Teagan talk to me. What’s wrong?’
But the sobs were coming too hard and hoarse to answer.
‘Where are you? Teagan? I’m here for you, Blissbomb, like always. Tell me where you are and I’ll come find you.’
‘It’s too far.’
‘Nowhere is too far. You’re my friend, I love you. Jas loves you. Astra misses you like crazy.’
Teagan sniffed.
‘Come on, where are you?’
‘The Falls.’
‘Are you at your aunt’s place? Teagan? Talk to me. Where in The Falls are you?’
Teagan lowered her head and caught sight of her reflection in the pond. A hollow-eyed crazy person stared back. She kicked out, destroying the pool’s mirrored surface. But the waves settled and the image returned, haunting and horrible.
She let out a sad, exhausted sigh. ‘How’s Astra?’
‘She’s good. Missing you, like we all do. Did you know we’re bringing her up to you? It’s all arranged.’
‘When?’
‘I spoke to your aunt. It’s all worked out. Lucas – that’s your boyfriend’s name, isn’t it? – he says there’s plenty of room at his place. He must love you very much. Like we all love you.’
Teagan went cold. More conspiring behind her back. Lucas. Ness. And now her best friend.
Without another word, she hung up. For a long while she stared at the phone. Finally it beeped at her. The familiar ‘you’ve run out of time’ beep that sounded before it went dead.
Her expression like stone, she threw it in the pond, killing the connection for good.
Vanessa handled the Alfa Romeo like a rally car. Penny was in the passenger seat, urging her to go faster. The panic in her voice was contagious, but Vanessa was at her skill limit for the windy dirt road.
Thank God for Emily Wallace-Jones. Without her call they’d still be searching. Lucas was out scouring The Falls, Dom doing the same. Everyone else was at the bowlo, getting plastered. Vanessa had honestly thought Teagan would turn up. Lucas had batted brilliantly and only just missed his ton. To his and Vanessa’s delight, Dom had taken a wicket. As had Peter Somersby, who had turned out to be a rather sneaky swing bowler. Everyone from the Falls Farm cheer squad, apart from Stacey who was on baby duty, was drunk and now getting drunker celebrating the Falcons’ first victory.
From the moment Lucas came off the field and learned what had happened he’d taken charge. Still padded up, he’d dragged Dom, Penny and Vanessa aside and ordered them to start searching for Teagan properly. Though it was obvious to everyone that something was wrong, Vanessa had waved off their enquiries and offers of help. The Falcons had a match to win. Plus this was Bunny’s special day, and she didn’t want her friend’s celebration spoiled by something that could turn out to be a silly panic over nothing.
On Lucas’s instruction Penny had called the police but little could be done. Teagan was an adult. She’d been gone only hours. Chances were she’d turn up when she’d calmed down. Which left the four of them to hunt.
After searching all the obvious places – Astonville, Falls Farm, Belgravia, even the bowling club and village shops – they’d regathered on Vanessa’s verandah to try to decide what to do next. It was then that Col had arrived. Everyone had groaned. He was the last person they wanted interfering but Col had been genuinely distressed to hear Teagan was missing and wanted to help. Besides, he knew The Falls better than anyone.
‘We have to find her.’ Vanessa’s voice was tremulous with anguish. What if she’d been hurt? But worse was the worry that Teagan might hurt herself, that her depression was even deeper and darker than any of them imagined.
Penny let out a sob. ‘It’s all my fault.’
‘Shh, stop that. It’s nobody’s fault.’ She looked at Dom and then at Lucas. Guilt ran across their faces. The secrets they’d kept had become furrows of fear in their skin. Except this was not the time for self-reproach. What they needed was to find Teagan. The rest could come later. Curbing her own anxiety, Vanessa injected practicality into her voice. ‘She’ll be all right. We’ll find her.’
‘We need to get back out there,’ said Lucas, scraping his hand through his hair and staring towards the road. ‘But where to start?’
‘She was on foot,’ said Vanessa. ‘Wearing sandals. That has to narrow it down.’
‘Can’t have gone too far,’ agreed Col. ‘Not too many footpaths in The Falls.’
‘Somewhere in the village?’
Lucas snapped his fingers at Dom. ‘You search the south streets. I’ll search the north.’ He turned to Vanessa. ‘I’ll have my phone. Anything, anything at all. Call me.’
She nodded and bit her lip.
As Lucas jogged for his ute, Dom lingered beside her. He touched her face. ‘I love you.’ Then he kissed her lightly, nodded at Penny and was off.
Fifteen minutes after they’d gone Vanessa’s mobile rang. Expecting either of the men or perhaps, sickeningly, the police, she snatched it up and answered without checking the screen. It was Teagan’s friend, Emily. The panic in her voice made Vanessa’s heart race. Then she registered the words.
Teagan had called her, only a few minute before.
‘She said she was at The Falls,’ said Emily. ‘When I asked where exactly she changed the subject then hung up. But there was a noise, in the background. Like . . .’ She could hear Emily breathing hard as she thought. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. But it was distinct. Loud. Not a road but . . .’ She made a frustrated sound.
A sharp cold feeling crept down Vanessa’s spine. ‘Could it have been a waterfall?’
‘Water? Oh, God, yes. That’s it. Please, you have to hurry.’
The Alfa skidded around the last bend, its headlights flooding the canopy of green that surrounded the watercourse. They swept towards the pool. A forlorn figure was huddled by its edge. Then Teagan turned her pale face and huge eyes on the car.
Penny’s door was open before Vanessa could slide to a halt.
Vanessa pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and gave into a quiet sob of relief. When she looked back up, Teagan was in her mother’s arms, the pair of them hugging and crying and apologising.
By the time they made it to the car, Teagan had quietened. She sat in the back wrapped close to her mother and a hollow, gone-elsewhere stare to her gaze. Vanessa tried to get her attention in the rear-vision mirror, succeeding only when the car turned onto the steadier surface of the main road.
‘We just wanted to help.’
But Teagan shook her head and looked away.
Vanessa swallowed at the pain in her throat. How badly she’d judged this, and how arrogant she was to think she could help Teagan on her own. A person in her niece’s mental state needed professional treatment, not homespun remedies. Not an error she would make again.
‘Teagan?’
Her niece looked up.
‘I’m going to call Dom.’ She hesitated. ‘The centre has an on-call GP and psychologist. I can ask them to come to the farm.’
Teagan closed her eyes.
‘Sweetheart,’ said Penny, stroking her head. ‘Please. It’s for the best.’
‘I don’t want anyone to know.’
‘Know what?’ Penny stopped her stroking, and stared at Teagan’s crumpling face. ‘Know what, honey?’
When Teagan remained silent, Vanessa answered for her. ‘You don’t want anyone to know how depressed you are?’
Slowly, she nodded.
‘But they can help you. Don’t you want help?’
Teagan dropped her head and turned away.
Catching Vanessa’s eye, Penny nodded. Grim-faced, Vanessa made the call to Dom, while in the back seat, Teagan quietly resumed her sobs.
Lucas was at the main gate when they arrived. Desperate to check on Teagan, he followed them up the slope, jogging alongside the car, but the sight of him only made her hunch further in on herself and bawl even harder. He broke off halfway up the drive, hands on
his head and looking as if he, too, wanted to cry. If Vanessa weren’t in such a state herself, she would have cried for him.
She pulled up near the fence and turned off the engine, unlocked her seatbelt and took a deep breath before twisting around to check on her sister and niece. Penny was stroking Teagan’s back, making soft shhing noises. She locked eyes with Vanessa and gave a tiny, helpless shake of her head.
Vanessa responded with an encouraging smile. They’d get through this. Whatever it took, she would see her broken family whole.
With a final glance at Teagan, she stepped out and bumped straight into Lucas.
‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’ He was panting from his sprint up the drive, attention lasered on the Alpha’s back seat. ‘She’s not hurt?’
‘Only inside.’ Vanessa squeezed his arm. ‘I think it’d be best if you kept your distance.’
His eyes were limpid in the moonlight, his voice autumn-leaf fragile. ‘But I love her.’
‘I know.’
Penny was helping her daughter out of the car. Teagan’s head remained bowed, her shoulders curled in, clawed hands raised to protect her throat, arms jammed against her chest. As Penny began to guide her towards the house, Lucas brushed out of Vanessa’s restraining hold and tried to put his arm around Teagan.
With an angry noise she jerked away from him. Lucas halted, mouth agape, and stared with agonised impotence as the woman he loved moved out of his reach.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Vanessa, giving him a last pat before following Penny and Teagan up the stairs.
Lucas had never understood the description ‘dead-eyed’ until now. But that’s what he’d glimpsed in the second Teagan had lifted her head and stared at him from the back seat of Vanessa’s car. She was there, he saw her. Tangled red hair and waxen, tear-stained face, but it was a shell. A shell that had instantly crumbled and given way to a sobbing woman that couldn’t stand the sight of him.
He didn’t know which scared him more.
Love and disbelief at her reaction had made him ignore Vanessa’s advice and attempt to go to her. But she’d made that bitter noise and shrunk away from him as if his intention was to hurt not help.
He loved her. He’d never hurt her.
Yet he had.
Lucas sank onto the stairs and covered his face with his hands. Grief and fear gripped his heart and made his throat tight. He was going to lose her. And it was his own fault for not being honest. For keeping things from her. Just like her dad had done.
The screen door banged. Stupidly hopeful, Lucas dropped his hands and looked up, but it was Dom. He trudged down the stairs to sit next to him.
‘How is she?’
‘Not bad, given the circumstances.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘The usual, which is very little.’ He smiled to soften the lack of information. ‘Doctor Johar isn’t one for breaking patient confidentiality. For now he’s given her something to help her sleep. Meredith will stay with her until she does. She’s in good care.’
They were reassuring words, giving Lucas hope that maybe sleep would bring Teagan back from wherever her hurt mind had transported her. He looked away. What a stupid thought. It would take more than sleep to make Teagan better.
‘Now what happens?’
‘Meredith and Penny will take her to see Doctor Johar in the morning. They’ll talk about medication and treatment. It’s pretty clear she’s clinically depressed. Meredith thinks there might be anxiety issues as well.’
‘And then?’
Dom scraped a palm up and down his forearm. ‘I’ve reserved a room at the centre for her, should she wish to take it.’
‘She won’t. Not after what happened to Penny. Anyway, I can look after her.’
Dom regarded him. Several heartbeats passed before comprehension finally dawned. Unless Teagan had an overnight change of heart, there’d be no return to Astonville. Or to him.
Lucas took several long breaths, trying to control his emotions when all he wanted was to run into her room to clutch her to his pain-filled heart.
‘Shit.’ He stood, fists tight, frustrated with helplessness. ‘Shit.’
And all because of their stupid secrets.
‘The first thing I want you to understand,’ the woman who’d identified herself as Meredith Burns said, ‘is that you’re not going mad.’
A thousand times Teagan had reflected on those words. Without them she would have been truly lost. It was the simplicity of them, the hope they held, that had brought her to make the most important decision of her life. A decision she should have made a long time ago.
She’d asked for help.
Teagan stared around her. The Wellness Centre’s rear garden was nice this time of day. Cool in the shade but dappled with light from the hot spring sun. At first she’d baulked at the idea of coming here but after listening to Doctor Johar outline her medical treatment, and Meredith’s suggestion for therapy, it had seemed the smart decision. Anti-depressants took time to take effect. Individuals could experience unique responses to dosages and types, and often finding the right drug was a matter of trial and error. Some reportedly made people worse before they got better, and the centre offered the safety net of twenty-four-hour medical supervision and counselling.
What it also offered was a place to hide.
Neither her mother nor Vanessa pushed, but Teagan didn’t miss the relief in their faces when she told them. A reaction that had cut deeply at the time, and made her feel even more useless and unwanted. But it was either Falls Farm or the Wellness Centre. Against the thought of becoming a zoo exhibit at Vanessa’s, with people tiptoeing around her and every move and mood fussed over and judged, the privacy-obsessed centre seemed the perfect sanctuary.
For two weeks now it had been that. The peace she was beginning to feel here made Teagan almost wish it could be forever.
She still struggled to remember the day of the cricket match. The details – exact words, exact faces, the run – remained fuzzy. The emotional pain didn’t. That remained vivid and mostly centred around Lucas and his betrayal. Except it wasn’t really betrayal. She understood that now. He was trying to help, like the others, but for some reason that scab remained itchy and unhealed.
She looked sadly towards the tree canopy. Lucas was over now. The Falls was over. As soon as she felt strong enough she was heading back to Levenham. Like the Wellness Centre, it was safe there. No one bar Em knew what had happened in her time away. No one would look at her with mockery or pity. There’d be no contempt for causing a fuss and ruining a cricket victory.
Teagan jerked as a twig cracked behind her. Her fingers gripped the timber seat’s arms. She clenched her teeth, wishing he’d leave her alone. This was all his fault. Why couldn’t he see that? Having him come talk to her was like suffering an encounter with the two-faced god Janus. One face a mask of contrition, the other secretly laughing.
She breathed hard through her nose and said nothing as he dragged a chair close and set it at right angles to her.
‘Lovely day.’
Teagan looked deliberately in the other direction. When she’d brought up his visits with Meredith she’d said that it would help if they talked. But Teagan didn’t want to talk, not to him.
He never seemed to mind that she ignored him. The words kept coming regardless, as if she was actually listening instead of humming in her head to block him out.
‘Penny said Emily called. She’s going to bring up Astra for you next week. That’d be good, wouldn’t it? Seeing Astra.’
Despite herself, a tear slipped down Teagan’s face. Astra. She missed her horse so much. Sometimes she thought that it was leaving Astra behind that had worsened her depression. The lack of her silky coat to cry onto, the comfort of her soft nuzzles as Teagan poured her heart out, the understanding in Astra’s kind brown gaze, had led to bottling up her fears and emotions until they turned rancid.
‘Lucas said he’s building a stable for her. W
ell, not really a stable, more a three-sided shelter with a yard, but it’ll give her a bit of shade and somewhere to stand in a storm.’
At the mention of Lucas, Teagan breathed even harder. They all talked about him as if the two of them were still together, when she knew that was impossible. He’d visited once, in the early days. She was fragile and unwell with side-effects from the anti-depressant she’d been prescribed, and the visit was hard to remember clearly, but it was here, in her favourite place on the grounds. She’d been sitting down, staring at nothing. Imagining herself a different life. One in which she’d copied Ness and disappeared overseas instead of burying her soul in Pinehaven’s rich soil.
He’d crouched in front of her and taken her hands, his eyes very blue and strangely liquid. He’d licked his lips, his chest moving up and down from his shallow breaths. ‘How are you?’
Sad, she’d wanted to answer. Sad and hurt and guilty and miserable and worst, worst of all, still in love with him. Instead she’d blinked and let the tears slide.
He’d seemed to take it as some sort of positive signal. He’d said her name in anguished tones and tried to embrace her. For a moment she’d let him. Her eyes had closed and she’d seen sweet white light behind the lids. Then she’d remembered all he’d kept from her. The collusion. The lies. In a rush she’d thrust him away and stood, panting. Checking left, right, left again. Not knowing where to run. Only knowing she had to before the hurt shredded her further.
He’d stepped back, apologising, his hands spread. ‘I’m sorry. I just needed to see you.’
His voice was thick and caught her attention. She’d stared at him, the ponytailed hunk who’d voiced his attraction on first meeting and never took it back, and for a wonderful second the dark curtain of her heartbreak and sickness had parted and she’d believed. Sweet white light. Hope.
‘I’ll come back another time.’
Too much. Too many words. None of them the right ones because there were no right ones. The curtain had closed back over.
‘No other time. No more.’
His expression had collapsed. He’d stood helpless the way she felt helpless. Then he’d nodded and walked away with his hands on his head and his head tilted back. She’d followed his progress, certain from his body language that he was going to turn back. When he’d reached the path he’d paused, but it was only to look at her. She’d taken a step towards the shadows, not wanting him to see how hard she was crying. His hands had fallen, his shoulders had slumped. Without another glance he’d trudged on.