Lyrebird Hill (46 page)

Finally my trembling subsided. I slid my hand into my dressing gown pocket, and drew out Esther’s silver locket. Sunbeams spangled on its ornate face, picking out the intricate design as it swung back and forth, back and forth, liquid bright. Then the light and warmth faded. In their place, the overcast sky of a rainy day; and drifting in the damp air, a smell: sharp and sweet and vaguely artificial, almost like insect repellent. It made me think of Jamie.

Miss high and mighty
, Rob had called her.

A glimmer; a question. How could he know—?

And that was all it took for the vault to crack open and spill forth my last remaining memory.

They were standing on the flat granite shelf overlooking the river, caught up in a heated argument. They couldn’t see me hiding behind the boulder, but I had a clear view of them.

Jamie, and Bobby Drake.

My sister had her back to me, but for the first time, I saw Bobby clearly. He was tall and heavyset, with stubble on his pale cheeks and a dark gaze that was fixed intently on Jamie. His hair was lank and mousy, curling over the neckline of his football jumper.

‘Where is it?’ he was saying. ‘Mum wants it back.’

Jamie said something I didn’t catch, and it seemed to infuriate Bobby further. He stalked away from her, then turned on his heel and came back.

Jamie went to sidestep him, but her sandals slid on a patch of moss. Bobby took her arm to steady her, but she jerked away from him.

‘Leave me alone, you idiot.’

She started walking along the rocky embankment, back towards the track that led home. Bobby lunged after her and spun her around to face him. Gripping her shoulders, he gave her a shake.

‘Just tell me what you did with the locket.’

‘I hid it.’

‘Mum wants it back.’

Jamie pulled free. ‘You shouldn’t have nicked it in the first place. Besides, you said your mum originally got it as a present from my great-grandmother.’

‘Yeah, years ago. So?’

‘So it’s rightfully mine. I’m keeping it. And if you hassle me about it anymore, I’ll tell everyone you’re a thief.’

Bobby made an angry sound in his throat, and shoved Jamie. The action sent her off balance again and her sandals skated on the mossy surface and skimmed from under her. She hit the rocks on her hands and knees, gasping in pain.

Bobby laughed.

Jamie flushed beet red. She struggled to her feet and rushed at him, swinging her fist into his face. Bobby grunted and stumbled back. Blood began to stream from his nose and seep over his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and when he saw the blood he looked at Jamie. Just looked at her for the longest time. Then he grabbed her by the arms, pinning them to her sides as he swung her around and shoved her against the tall granite boulder.

Jamie’s head hit the stone. Bobby pushed her again, and she started screaming.

‘Shut up,’ Bobby hissed.

He shook her really hard then, over and over, as if to wake her from a dead sleep. Each time, her head bashed into the rock. Then her scream cut out midway, and her head wobbled forward. She began to cry, and a bubble of blood came out of her mouth.

I flew from my hiding place. I was trembling so hard I could barely stand, but I charged at Bobby, digging my fingernails into his arm, trying to drag my sister away from him. Bobby elbowed me in the head, bringing stars to my eyes, but he released Jamie. She staggered against the boulder and then slid onto her bottom. Wheeling around, Bobby walloped me across the side of the head and I went skating backwards across the boulder, sliding over the edge onto the rock below. My shoe caught in the gap between two stones, and I couldn’t get it out, so I wrenched my foot free and left the shoe there. Scrambling back up the boulder, I found Bobby crouched beside my sister. Jamie sat crumpled on the ground like a ragdoll, her legs crooked beneath her.

‘Jamie,’ I said kneeling beside her, ‘are you okay?’

She didn’t look okay. Her face was greyish-white and streaked with grubby tears. Her hair stuck to her face, and when I lifted it away I saw that her ear was full of sticky black liquid. A handful of seconds passed before I realised it was blood.

‘Jamie?’

She looked at Bobby. ‘They’re here somewhere,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘They’re my best sandals, I don’t want them getting lost. Help me look for them, will you?’

Her voice sounded strange, slurred, the way Mum’s was after Dad died. Worst of all, her sandals were on her feet, right where she should have been able to see them.

‘Where are they? What have you done with them?’

‘Jamie,’ I said, touching her arm, ‘we better go home now.’

She looked at me, but Bobby tugged her around to face him. ‘Hey Jamie – you fell, remember? If anyone asks, tell them you fell. You understand?’

Jamie’s mouth dropped open and blood trickled out. She must have bitten her tongue. She touched her fingers to her lips, then stared at them as if she’d never seen blood before.

I tried to get her to stand up. Her hair was matted and wet, and all I could think was:
Maybe she should stay here and not move?
Her head was gashed, I could see the wetness through her dark hair. She might even have to go to hospital.

Her eyelids fluttered. She looked – not quite at me, but not quite anywhere else, either.

‘Get Mum,’ she said in a weird voice. She started shivering, I thought with cold, so I dragged off my cardigan and tucked it around her shoulders. She was still looking at nothing, moving her lips now. I leaned closer but her words were too mumbled to understand.

Bobby was looking at me in a shifty way, and I was suddenly wondering why he hadn’t already run for help. Jamie was hurt, badly hurt . . . Why was Bobby just standing there, staring at her?

‘You have to tell them you fell,’ he said firmly to Jamie. ‘That’s what you’ve got to tell your mum. You fell, okay? And don’t say I was here. You can’t tell. You know what I’m saying, Jamie? You have to say you fell.’

My mouth opened.

No
, I wanted to say.
No, that’s not what happened. You did this, Bobby Drake. It was you, you hurt her
. But the words stayed within me, bottled up and, trapped by the lump that was suddenly lodged in my throat.

Bobby took a step towards me. His lips were wet with spit, and his brown eyes seemed to bulge, as though the pressure in his head was building. He glanced down at Jamie, then his hand shot out and he grabbed hold of my T-shirt. He dragged me up close to his face, and said sharply, ‘She fell, okay? That’s what happened. And if you say anything different, I’ll tell them
you
did it.’

That was when I saw the stone in his hand. I looked at that stone, and then I looked back at my sister. She hadn’t moved, but a puddle of blood had seeped from the gash on the side of her head and made a black stain on my cardigan.

I looked back at Bobby. My lips were numb, my tongue felt swollen, but somehow the words slipped out.

‘I saw you hurt her. I’m going to tell.’ Twisting like an eel, I tore free of his grasp and stumbled away. Regaining my footing, I raced across the slippery granite shelf towards the safety of the trees.

Mum would be home by now; she’d know what to do. Mum would tell the police, and they’d go and talk to Mrs Drake, and Bobby would be in serious trouble—

A gust of air rushed past my ear.

Then pain, an explosive pain that I’d never experienced before. It started in the base of my skull and erupted outward, sending shockwaves like broken bits of glass shattering through my veins and bursting out of my skin until I was no longer Ruby but a glowing fiery angel, an angel of pure, molten, blindingly brilliant pain. Wings burst from my shoulder blades and unfurled around me, easily lifting me off my feet and carrying me up, up into the wide blue sky. For a while I circled like a bird, gazing down with only mild interest at the three small figures on the broad granite embankment below. Then I breathed my newfound strength into my wings and soared away.

Brenna, August 1898

L
ate on Tuesday afternoon, I arrived back at Brayer House. As my hired carriage drew into the drive, I met Adele and Quinn hurrying across the gravel towards the black dray that awaited them. The dray was attended by one of the stockmen, I noted, and was packed with several large carpet bags.

‘I’m on my way to Launceston,’ Adele explained, holding me close in a warm embrace. She rattled out a cough and touched her handkerchief to her lips.

‘You are unwell,’ I said.

She nodded, then frowned and held me at arm’s length. ‘But look at you, my friend. You are troubled, I can see it in your face. What’s happened? How is your father?’

I was not yet ready to speak of Fa Fa or Owen, so instead I asked, ‘Where’s Carsten?’

Adele coughed again, her thin frame shaking. ‘In Hobart. He’s due back in a day or so. He was furious with you,’ she added quietly. ‘And with Quinn and me for helping you escape. After you left, he sank into one of his darker moods. I feared he would rush after you and try to bring you home, but he just kept saying that you would return soon enough.’ She squeezed my fingers
and searched my face with worried eyes. ‘You’ve been crying. And you’re trembling. I will cancel my trip and stay here—’

‘There’s no need.’ I glanced at Quinn, who had walked over to the carriage to speak to the stockman. I drew Adele into the shadow of the house. Taking the locket from around my neck, I held it in my palm.

‘Do you recognise this?’

She frowned. ‘It’s Carsten’s. Where did you find it?’

‘At the Aboriginal encampment at Lyrebird Hill. Carsten was there, Adele. Just as he was there twenty years ago, committing violent acts against helpless people.’

Adele’s eyes grew large. She looked at me for a long time, then took her handkerchief from her pocket, and held it against her mouth. She began to cough, and tears sprang from her eyes. Once the fit had passed, she seized my hand.

‘My brother was always so deeply bothered by his conscience,’ she murmured, her face blanched of colour. ‘Now, after what you’ve told me, I understand why – and I fear for his soul.’ She looked at me closely. ‘How you must hate him, Brenna. Why have you returned here, knowing what he’s done?’

I thought about the pistol hidden in the false lining of my suitcase, and decided Adele did not need to be burdened by my plan.

‘I came back for you,’ I said simply, fastening the locket back around my neck. ‘And for Lucien.’

Adele looked at me sharply. ‘Lucien has gone.’

‘Where?’

‘No one knows. I suppose he wanted to wait until his wounds healed enough for him to travel, but Quinn came in a few weeks ago and said that he was gone.’

Kissing Adele’s cheek, praying I was right, I said softly, ‘I think I know where to find him.’

Running between the trees, I headed for the south-west corner of the garden and the track that led to the glade. The grass was damp beneath my feet, the air tasting faintly of frost.

‘Lucien,’ I called, my voice as soft as the hoot of an owl. ‘Lucien, are you there?’

He must have been camping in the forest, always nearby; I had known he would not leave without me. He must have seen the arrival of my carriage this afternoon, and perhaps guessed that I would have picked this place to meet him.

A restless shadow broke from between the trees and came towards me, barely visible among the narrow-trunked trees that caged the glade. He hesitated, but when I rushed at him and flung my arms about him he swept me up and crushed me against him. He was trembling, and his closeness made me tremble, too.

In a jumble of words and tears I related to him what I’d told Adele – the horrible devastation of my family and the clan I loved so dearly; the evidence of Carsten’s locket on the riverbank, and the picture of my mother it contained.

‘Your mother?’ Lucien drew away. ‘Why would Mr Whitby have a picture of your mother?’

I recalled the yearning I’d seen in my husband’s eyes whenever he gazed at his treasure, and a shiver rushed through me. ‘He loved her once. He wanted to marry her, but she married my father instead.’