The year Joelle turned fifteen, when she moved to Darla’s sunny house in Launceston, she had finally learned to read. For hours and hours, she had sat beside Darla on her pretty yellow bedspread reading aloud from the illustrated readers. Joelle’s husband, Brian, had learned to read before he even started grade one. He was a businessman. He belonged to the Chamber of Commerce and Rotary. He knew the geography and history of the area, even things that no one else knew, like why the pretty estuary at the edge of the Lilys’ farm was really called Murdering Creek, not Hollybank Creek like the new sign said, and why everyone in the car had to be silent each time they drove past it.
Brian had a hopeless brother who lived way up north in Cairns. On the illustrated map in the twins’ bedroom, Cairns was a small speck at the top of the Australian mainland. It was decorated with a picture of a palm tree and a rainbow-colored fish. Beside the town the ocean was dotted with tropical islands. That was the end of the line, Brian often said, as far as you could get from Tasmania without needing a passport. His brother had a drug conviction. Brian hated drugs so much he had not been able to invite his brother to their wedding. Luckily his sister, Nicky, hated drugs too, so she was allowed to be a bridesmaid, and because she had never worn a dress in her life, she wore a nice three-piece suit. If Brian had seen what Joelle saw at the fair today he would report it to the police. Questions would be asked. Brian would be distressed if he knew the answers to some of those questions.
She stopped pegging the sheets, frightened at the thought.
Darla had lots of wise words. Joelle repeated some of them: Some things are meant to be kept private. Especially from an intelligent, respectable man like Brian. You mind your own business and people will leave you alone, her foster mother had said.
It was true.
Brian was an educated man; even so, Joelle knew more about some things than he did. She knew it would not be smart to tell him about men doing illegal activities on school grounds. You had to look after yourself first. That was common sense—life experience—that counted more than any high school test.
He was standing on the back doorstep, looking down at her with a soft smile.
“Something smells delicious in the kitchen,” he said.
“Curry. And it tastes even better than it smells.”
“I bet it does. I’m about to have a beer. Can I make you a drink?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“And then I want to tell you a funny story.”
“I love funny stories.”
“Come on, then,” he said, opening his arms to her.
He cupped her face and kissed her softly. She hugged up against him and they stood there, looking up at the vaulted branches of giant blackwood and sassafras trees in the rain forest. The rain had stopped hours ago but the sound of running water was everywhere as tiny waterfalls sprang out of the forest and bubbled into the creek.
Chapter 3
Sunday, August 20
Cliff
Vanishing Falls forest
At dawn, on the way up to the Vanishing Falls car park, he hit something. A potoroo, most likely, the possum-like wallabies who were small enough to cope with the freezing highland winters. He wasn’t stopping to find out.
In winter, this was one of his favorite places to get high. No one came up here when the mist clothed the forest thickly; only the most dedicated jogger. When he was done, he double-checked that the leather bag with the pipe and such was well hidden under the seat. When this gear was gone, that was it. He would be more like Jack, who only dabbled with the drug socially.
Over the past year he had watched one of his dealers decline and it was ugly. This kid was nineteen and he looked a decade older. He could not hold his cigarette steady. There were small fleshy craters in his face where he had picked the skin away. His teeth looked like they had melted into black stumps and his breath was foul.
Cliff was considering going home, so he would be there when they all woke up and wouldn’t have to answer questions, when a flutter of pink appeared. He thought it was a rare bird. It disappeared between the trees and he wondered if he had imagined it. Sometimes he saw things that weren’t there.
A moment later Celia Lily emerged from the forest. She was wearing her pink tracksuit. She jogged with a long stride, her chest thrust upward. This was not the first time he had watched her run through the forest up here. Up close, you could see the pinkness of exertion coloring her face and the perspiration beading. Even from this far away you could tell she was a spectacular-looking woman.
Yesterday, when Jack was fawning over Kim, packing up a doggie bag for her like she was a child, Celia had caught his eye and raised an eyebrow. It was a brazen look, and he was smart enough not to react. Earlier, as they swapped a cigarette back and forth, on his turn he found that it was wet from her lips. Smiling, watching him, she had given that husky laugh and said, “Anyone watching would think we’re having an affair.”
He mulled this over as he watched Celia jog down the horse trail that led to the river and the apple orchards surrounding the Calendar House.
* * *
Joelle
The Smithtons’ house
Everyone had piled into Brian’s butchery pickup truck and gone to church. The house was wonderfully quiet. She hung out a load of washing, peeled the vegetables for dinner, and sang as she made cupcake batter.
Her foster mother, Darla, had taught her to cook. In Darla’s kitchen there was always something simmering on the stove or cooling on a rack, ready for all those kids. Some kids were there for only a few nights or weeks. Others, like Joelle, were lucky to stay for years and call Darla’s house their home.
She could hear Darla’s voice as she made marble cupcake batter. Divide the mixture into three bowls and color each: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Swirl them gently together into each cup. Joelle tidied as she worked, putting each ingredient back in the fridge or on the shelf before taking down the next item the recipe required.
While the cupcakes baked she took the scrap bucket out to the rabbit hutch. Brian was building a new one, as the rabbit had been pregnant when they brought her home. There were six black-and-white fur bundles hopping around in the old cage. They needed more space.
The washing had blown off the line. A pair of her underpants was draped over the garden gnome. That made her laugh.
Her bra hung from the birdbath. Down near the creek her sunflower sweater was tangled in a muddy heap in the bulb garden. She collected everything and paused at the rabbit hutch.
She gave the silky mother rabbit a long cuddle. “You have to be grateful it’s just my stuff and not Brian’s work whites,” she told the rabbit. “I’d never get his clothes washed and dried by tomorrow.”
Behind the rabbit hutch, in the dirt beneath a row of bony lavender plants, lay her undershirt. She picked it up, particularly annoyed that it was the shirt that had one of her favorite appliqué designs—a four-leaf clover. To her surprise, she noticed a huge footprint in the wet earth. It was truly enormous.
She put her foot on it. It dwarfed her shoe. The imprint was far bigger than any of Brian’s boots. For a horrible moment, she looked around, wondering if the owner of the big shoe was still in her yard. But that was silly. Brian would say, Don’t get carried away.
“Don’t worry,” she told the rabbits, “it was probably someone who wanted to see how cute you are.”