The January Stars

by Kate Constable

  ‘Watch it!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  The bitumen petered out into a red gravelly track, pocked with potholes and scored with wheel ruts. They struggled on, more and more slowly, as the sun filtered through the leaves, making leopard-spots of light and shade on the path. The track snaked up and down hills, and even with Clancy’s help, it was tough work to move the wheelchair.

  Tash stopped to take a swig of water. ‘Have you put on weight, Pa?’

  ‘Sp-sp,’ Pa grumbled.

  ‘Well, we can’t go any faster.’

  Pa made as if to get up and walk, but Clancy and Tash were too tired and hot to even pretend to laugh.

  ‘My turn,’ said Clancy bravely, and Tash stood back to let her push. But though she heaved and strained with all her might, Clancy couldn’t make the wheelchair budge.

  ‘Hey!’ she said, examining the wheel. ‘Pa’s got a flat tyre.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Any excuse.’

  ‘I’m not joking. Look.’

  The left tyre was flat as a Mexican wrap. Tash yelled out a swearword.

  ‘You must have run over a piece of broken glass, or a nail or something,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Oh, ya think?’

  Tash squatted by the path, pulled out her ponytail and retied it, her face screwed up in thought. She retied her hair again, and then a third time. Clancy waited. Tash wandered up the track to scout for passing traffic; but they hadn’t seen a single car since they’d turned off the main road. Clancy tipped her head back to look for Nan’s moon, but the sky was screened by the trees and she couldn’t see it anymore. Nan had deserted them.

  Pa rubbed his bristly chin and said, ‘Hm …’

  Which wasn’t a helpful contribution either, but Clancy noticed that Tash didn’t tell him off.

  ‘Okay,’ said Tash at last. ‘We can’t keep pushing the wheelchair with a flat tyre. A: it’s really impossible to do; and B: it might damage the wheels.’ She looked at Clancy. ‘One of us has to go and find Bee and bring her back with a car to pick up Pa.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Well, I can’t go,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Why not?’

  Clancy began to panic. ‘I don’t know where her house is! I don’t know what to say to her! I can’t talk to people!’

  ‘It’s not “people”, it’s just Bee. You know Bee.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her for, you know, ever? I’m not going. You can’t make me.’

  Tash folded her arms. ‘Cool, cool, cool. So you’ll wait here with Pa? While it gets dark. And you’ll be fine if he needs the toilet. Or if a car comes past with a murderer inside.’

  Clancy was silent.

  ‘Off you go then,’ said Tash. ‘Number five hundred and forty-six. Better hurry.’

  Clancy muttered, ‘I said I don’t want to.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘No!’ shouted Clancy. ‘I said no! I’m not going!’

  Tash’s fists were on her hips. ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘No! I’m sick of you ordering me around. I’m leaving. I’m going home.’

  Clancy turned and began to stomp back along the red dirt track toward Quoll Creek. She was so angry that she could hardly see. She stumbled over the ruts and dips in the road, sweat stinging her eyes. She could hear Tash calling, but she didn’t turn around.

  There was a pounding of feet along the track, and suddenly Tash was there, grabbing at her sister’s shoulder. ‘Clancy! Wait!’

  ‘Leave me alone! I hate you!’

  ‘Don’t – Clance, don’t go.’

  Clancy set her jaw and stared into the trees.

  ‘Please. Please. Clance, I need you. You can’t go. I can’t do this without you.’

  Clancy chewed her cheek.

  ‘Pa’s upset,’ pleaded Tash. ‘He wants you to come back. He doesn’t understand. He tried to wheel himself after you …’

  Clancy took an involuntary step back in Pa’s direction, then stopped herself. She stared down at the red dirt. There was silence.

  ‘I’m sorry, all right?’ said Tash at last. ‘I thought you liked me being in charge.’

  ‘Mostly I do,’ mumbled Clancy. ‘Just not all the time.’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Tash threateningly. ‘I really need you.’

  Clancy thrust her hands into the pockets of her shorts. One hand curled around the envelope with the photographs of Nan. She drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll go. I’ll do it.’

  Tash blew out a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks, Clancy.’

  Was that all she’d wanted, just a simple thank you? But somehow the words made Clancy feel included, as if she were a full partner in this quest, instead of someone just tagging along, a satellite helplessly circling Planet Tash.

  Hand in hand, the sisters jogged back to where Pa was sitting.

  ‘Ah!’ he sighed, when he saw them coming.

  ‘Help me get him off the road before you go,’ said Tash. ‘In case a car does come.’

  Together they heaved and pulled and pushed and managed to shift the wheelchair across the gravel and into the bracken at the side of the track. ‘Bugger!’ shouted Pa as the chair lurched suddenly, then stuck, listing sideways, one wheel trapped in the ditch none of them had noticed. ‘Ah, no, no, no!’

  Tash swore, a yell of frustration, a worse word than last time. The two girls hauled and shoved, but they couldn’t free the chair.

  ‘Just go!’ panted Tash at last. ‘Run!’

  ‘Sorry, Pa!’ wailed Clancy. She began to run down the track, skidded to a halt, then ran back, dropped a kiss on the top of Pa’s feathery head, then ran off again. At the next bend in the road, she turned to wave. Tash and Pa waved back. But then the trees swallowed them up, and she couldn’t see them anymore.

  Clancy stumbled along the track, her eyes darting from side to side so she wouldn’t miss a signpost or a mailbox or a house, something that might tell her how close she was to Bee’s, or a signal from Nan – a star carved into the trunk of a tree, like there had been at Rosella, or a moon-shaped stone. At this point, she’d take anything.

  Nan? Are you there?

  The sun slanted low through the leaves. She wished she had a watch. She wished she’d brought her water bottle. What if she couldn’t find Bee’s house? How far should she go before she turned back? Part of her longed to turn around already, but she couldn’t face Tash’s anger, or Pa’s disappointment. She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the envelope of photographs for reassurance. Go on, said an encouraging voice inside her head. Or was it the chime of a bird from deep among the trees? Go on, go on!

  Clancy went on.

  But then a movement in the undergrowth caught her eye. She stopped, frozen. A pair of dark eyes stared back at her. Nan? Clancy held her breath, her heart knocking.

  A face swam into focus around the dark, solemn eyes: a furred grey mask, a dark muzzle. Clancy burst out laughing with relief, with disappointment. It was just a kangaroo, about ten metres away, gazing gravely at her across the curling bracken.

  For a long moment Clancy and the kangaroo stared at each other. Its face seemed so kindly, so wise, so gentle. For a second Clancy had a wild fantasy that it might lead her to Bee, like a magic animal in a story. Tentatively she held out her hand toward it.

  The kangaroo’s ears twitched, its head turned, and before Clancy’s hand had dropped, it gathered itself and bounded silently away, leaping through the ferns and across a clearing between the trees, and vanished.

  Clancy let out a long, trembling breath. Was this a sign from Nan? Was she supposed to follow? Kangaroos didn’t have anything to do with the stars or the moon. If it had been an emu, then maybe …

  Squinting across the clearing, she glimpsed a cottage in a paddock, on the side of a hill, a little farm house just like the one she’d imagined. But it was so far off the road, surely it couldn’t be Bee’s place. It didn’t look as if it belonged to Ginger Gully Road a
t all.

  As she stood there hesitating, the bird call chimed again, from further down the track. Go on, go on!

  Maybe the kangaroo didn’t have anything to do with anything, Clancy told herself sensibly. Maybe it was just a kangaroo. Wasn’t that amazing enough, to have had a close encounter with a kangaroo, without bringing ghosts and magic into it? And Pa and Tash were waiting.

  She hurried on along the path, through the afternoon light that seemed to be gradually thickening, like golden syrup dripping from the trees.

  Dripping … dripping … Clancy became uncomfortably aware that she needed the toilet. Once she’d allowed the thought to surface, she knew she was busting; she couldn’t hold on any longer. She stumbled off the track until she was waist-deep in bracken, fumbled with her shorts, squatted down and let go. The relief was exquisite.

  She mopped herself up as best she could manage with a handful of grass and pulled up her pants, wiping her hands on her shorts and making sure Nan’s photographs hadn’t fallen out of her pocket. She promised herself that she’d wash her hands as soon as she got to Bee’s …

  … as soon as she got back onto the track …

  With a stab of panic, Clancy realised she’d lost her bearings. She was standing in a sea of bracken, surrounded by trees in all directions, endless trees, as many trees as stars in the sky; she was absolutely alone, and she couldn’t see the path anywhere. A kookaburra’s sudden peal of laughter above her head made her jump. Slowly Clancy revolved, scanning for the path. This was how people got lost in the bush, wandering in circles, never to be seen again—

  Look up, Clancy. Look up!

  It was Nan’s voice, soft and clear. Clancy whipped around. Was that a shadow of a figure, moving in the bracken? Or just another a kangaroo?

  Look up.

  She looked up, and a shaft of sunlight made her blink. The sun. The Sun, that huge star, had been shining on her right cheek. If she walked back toward the sun, she’d find the path. Clancy stumbled through the bracken, the fronds scratching her arms and bare legs. And there was the road, just where she’d left it.

  She hardly felt her blisters as she sped along the track, the sun obediently glinting in the corner of her right eye. The wave of relief carried her straight past the tin sign nailed to the tree; she had to turn around and run back to double-check it.

  Quoll Crk Ashram

  546 GG Rd

  Hari Om!

  The battered sign was half painted with an elaborate, colourful circular symbol, with a smaller, swirly flourish in one corner. Clancy stared at it uncertainly. It was definitely the right address; she’d pulled the envelope out of her pocket to check. A dirt track, no more than two wheel ruts wide, turned off the red gravel road. It must be Bee’s driveway.

  What would Tash do?

  There was only one answer.

  Clancy hurried down the driveway. The track twisted and turned between the trees. Why would anyone need such a long driveway? Where was Bee’s house?

  At last she glimpsed a glint of silver through the bush, the gleam of a tin roof, and a few moments later she emerged from the trees into a car park filled with vehicles, with a low cluster of buildings beyond.

  Clancy took two steps forward, then stopped. This didn’t look like someone’s house, or even a farm. It looked like a school camp, or maybe some kind of hotel. Was Bee working at a hotel now?

  Clancy’s unwilling feet carried her slowly across the car park until she saw a sign.

  Reception

  Hari Om

  Those mysterious words again. What did they mean? Was it a spell? And there was the circular symbol, too; it was the kind of pattern that she’d seen in those calming adult colouring books. And the swirly symbol was there again, in the bottom corner, like a signature … An arrow pointed to the nearest of the low buildings, which looked as if it had been moulded from caramel mud. Please remove your shoes requested another sign by the wooden double doors, and Clancy obediently (and with relief) kicked off her runners, pushed open the doors and tiptoed into an empty foyer area. A second, single glass door opposite led into a courtyard garden, surrounded on three sides by single storey buildings.

  So far, despite all the cars, Clancy hadn’t seen any people. Fear gripped her gut. If this were a horror movie, then a pile of bloodied bodies would wait around a corner, along with a killer lurking with a butcher’s knife.

  Relax! she told herself sternly. Nan wouldn’t lead you into something like that.

  There was no one behind the reception counter. Clancy’s hand hovered over the bell. If she rang it, someone would come – but what would she say to them?

  That’s the whole reason you’re here! said Tash’s exasperated voice inside her head.

  I’ll just ask for Bee, Clancy decided, and without giving herself any more time to be scared, she banged her hand down on the bell.

  The noise jangled out into the empty space. As the sound faded, Clancy became aware of other sounds in the background: a distant chime, a faint murmur of chanting. So there were people alive here somewhere.

  Clancy tapped the bell again, more timidly this time, but it was less than a minute before the far door opened and someone came bustling in: a small, tanned woman, with close-cropped grey hair, about Harriet’s age, dressed in long orange robes and wooden beads. Clancy gaped.

  ‘Hari om, welcome!’ said the woman. ‘Havan has already started – well, it’s almost finished, actually, but you’re still welcome to join us.’

  ‘I— No, I don’t—’ stammered Clancy.

  The woman frowned. ‘Are your parents here? Have you come to stay for the weekend?’

  With a gasp, Clancy remembered what she was supposed to say. ‘No, but my aunt is here … I think. Bee Sanderson? Is she around?’

  The woman’s face cleared. ‘Oh, you mean Atma! She’s at havan.’

  ‘No, no, my aunt’s name is Bee, Beatrice Sanderson. I need to talk to her. It’s important.’ A lump rose in Clancy’s throat. Tash was right, she was hopeless, a hopeless human being. Clancy swallowed angrily.

  ‘Just wait there. I’ll get Atma for you.’

  ‘No, it’s Bee—’ Clancy tried to explain, but the woman in the orange robes had already whisked herself away.

  Clancy waited, shifting on the cool stone floor in her sweaty socks. She could smell them; they were putrid. Should she take them off?

  She was standing on one foot, with one sock in her hand and one half-peeled off, when the orange woman returned with Bee. Clancy wobbled, staggered, and almost fell into Bee’s arms. It was the shock more than the sock that unbalanced her: her aunt was bald now. Her curling hair had been completely shaven off, so that her skull was covered in dark, furry stubble, and she was wearing long robes like the orange woman’s, except all in white. It’s a cult! thought Clancy wildly. She and Tash had been counting on Bee to rescue them; were they going to have to rescue Bee instead?

  ‘Tash? Is that you?’

  ‘No, it’s Clancy …’

  ‘What the hell – I mean, what on earth are you doing here, sweetie?’

  Clancy heard herself starting to babble about Pa and the flat tyre and Tash and the train and the bookshop and Polly and The Elms and the police, and it took a few minutes before Bee understood that Pa and Tash were stranded and waiting for help.

  Bee pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘I’ll need to borrow a car. What about the wheelchair? Can Pa get into a car?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tash got one of those maxi-taxis last time.’

  They all turned their heads as the door from the courtyard creaked open, and a tall teenage boy shambled into the foyer. Clancy’s mouth fell open. It was the boy from Quoll Creek, the café boy, the toilet key boy. Now this was a sign!

  His eyes met Clancy’s, and his face split into a wide grin. ‘Hey!’

  ‘Hi!’

  ‘You two know each other?’ said Bee.

  ‘Not exactly …’

  The woman in the orange robes said, ‘
Tom – it’s Tom, isn’t it?’

  ‘Toby,’ the boy corrected her amiably.

  ‘Sorry, Toby,’ amended the orange-robed woman. ‘Do you think a wheelchair would fit in your mothers’ car?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Toby. ‘If it was folded up. And we could fold the seats down, too.’

  ‘That would be amazing.’ Bee gave him a quick, anxious smile. ‘If your mother doesn’t mind—’

  ‘Mothers,’ said Toby and Clancy together, and Toby grinned at her as he said, ‘Two of. They’ll be cool with it, for sure. Do you want me to go and pull them out of havan?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said the orange-robed woman.

  Clancy sagged back against the wall in relief. Finally, everything was coming together. This was what she’d longed for: adults to take charge. Toby returned with the two women she’d seen in the Neptune Café. There was a hurried conference with the orange-robed woman and Bee, where Toby’s mums exclaimed and sympathised and seemed very happy to pick up Pa.

  Clancy could smell food, and hear dishes clattering nearby. Any second now, someone would offer her dinner, and a shower – she hadn’t washed her hands yet, she remembered guiltily – and then she could go to bed … Whatever this place was (some kind of weird hotel or B&B, she guessed, if people were staying for the weekend), they must have beds … It would be so nice to sleep in a bed again …

  ‘Clancy!’ Bee shook her shoulder and Clancy jumped.

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Were you listening, sweetie? You’re going with Jen and Monica to show them where Pa and Tash are.’

  ‘But aren’t you coming too?’

  ‘I have to organise things here. This was quite a surprise, you know.’ Bee’s lips smiled, but her eyes looked panicky.

  Clancy knew that feeling. But Bee was an adult. She should have gotten herself together by now.

  ‘I could come along, if you like?’ offered Toby.

  ‘Oh, yes – that’d be great!’ said Clancy fervently. ‘Thank you!’