Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  She pictured Maisie sitting in their classroom with a new best friend in the seat that used to be Ellie’s, a new friend to share all of her pencils and giggles and games.

  ‘Please don’t forget me, Maise.’ If only she could have just one more letter or picture, she would know that Maisie hadn’t forgotten her. What if Maisie thought that Ellie didn’t care? That she really had gone away, like Daddy told people? Ellie decided she would leave a letter for Maisie the next time her grandmother took one of her afternoon naps. Ellie waited until she heard the sound of her grandmother’s breathing deepen. She tiptoed down the corridor. Grandmother Clements sat in the armchair with her head bowed, hands stilled on her lap. Ellie listened to the gentle nasal snores, counted to twenty, then tiptoed to the kitchen. If she got caught… Ellie shuddered. She would have to be quick.

  Hidden behind the ferns, Ellie took a deep breath. She wanted to run away, but she had to leave this picture for Maisie. Ellie placed her drawing between the palings and picked up a stick which she wiggled above it. Maisie, Maisie, Maisie. She tapped the stick back and forth to the rhythm of the gusting winds and the words in her head, as if the action would cause Maisie to materialise. When the screen door of Maisie’s house had squeaked open and Maisie ran into the yard, Ellie stopped with the stick held mid-air. It had worked!

  ‘My friend,’ she whispered. She couldn’t call out; Grandmother might wake. ‘Please, see me.’ She stared at Maisie, willing her to make her way over to their secret place. Afraid that Maisie would disappear as quickly and miraculously as she had appeared, Ellie waved the stick again. It felt powerful now, a magic wand in her hand.

  ‘Please, come here,’ she breathed. It worked again!

  ‘Ellie!’ Maisie ran to the fence. She pressed her forehead against the wood and one eye peeped through the gap. ‘You’re here. You’re really here.’ A wild grin, the smile Ellie had missed, bloomed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ellie’s voice was a scratchy whisper and she felt a burst of shyness.

  ‘My mum said you’d gone away, with your mum.’

  Ellie’s lower lip began to tremble. Mummy had gone without her. Left her with Daddy.

  ‘I got your letter so I knew you didn’t, but Mum said I was being silly.’

  ‘No.’ Ellie mouthed the word. Not silly. Maisie had believed in her.

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ Maisie’s voice rose in pitch. ‘I’ll tell her she’s wrong.’

  ‘No.’ It was Ellie’s turn to speak up. Daddy would be so mad, so angry. He’d hurt her. She shook her head. ‘You can’t tell. Not your Mummy, not anyone. It’s a secret. I’m a secret.’ I am ‘gone away’, she thought.

  ‘Huh.’ Maisie peered quizzically through the gap in the palings. ‘What have you got on your head?’

  Ellie cringed, shrinking further into the space between the shed and the fence where she’d hidden. She had been so happy to see Maisie, she’d forgotten about the horrible wool beanie scratching her face. With nervous fingers, Ellie fiddled with the ugly, knitted balaclava she’d put on for disguise. She pulled it away from her mouth.

  ‘I don’t… It’s my hat…because of what the dogs did… I…’ Ellie didn’t know what she should say. Would Maisie be afraid of her now? Would Maisie call her names and not want to play with her anymore if she knew what Ellie really looked like?

  Maisie squirmed closer to her side of the fence and tilted her head up to look at Ellie with her other eye. ‘Aren’t you hot with that on your head?’

  Ellie shrugged and tentatively pushed the balaclava up a little higher, exposing more of her face.

  ‘You,’ Maisie screwed up her nose, ‘you look funny.’ She squinted. ‘I can’t see properly, show me in the light.’

  ‘No.’ Ellie shook her head.

  ‘Come on, show me.’

  Ellie hesitated, and then pulled the balaclava off. She tried to ball it in her fist.

  ‘It looks,’ Maisie’s voice dropped to a whisper, ‘bad.’ Maisie looked as if she were going to cry. ‘Can I touch?’

  Ellie crawled closer to the fence, put her face up against the paling, closed her eyes, and waited. Within seconds small fingers poked through and Ellie felt their feathery touch. She tried not to flinch. No one, apart from the doctors in the hospital, had touched her mangled face in months. Ellie pulled back when Maisie groaned. The hand clutching the beanie was damp with sweat. It was true. She was a monster. Maisie wouldn’t be her friend anymore. She was too ugly.

  Maisie smiled. ‘You’re just like the scarecrow in the story Mrs Burton told us. It’s good; it’s got witches and flying monkeys and everything. I can tell you all about it if you want.’ Maisie’s grin grew larger. ‘So, do ya want to hear it?’

  Ellie crossed her fingers and hoped that her grandmother would stay asleep. She looked directly at Maisie through the palings. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I do.’

  Weeks passed before Ellie had the opportunity to leave the house again. Her grandmother, dozing on the couch, had left the back door unlocked after she had hung the washing on the line. Ellie couldn’t believe her luck. She jiggled from one foot to the other before opening the door as quietly as she could. Stay sleeping, Grandmother, she willed as she took a step into the backyard.

  The sky outside was grey and unwelcoming; nevertheless, it beckoned her. The air was so fresh after the stale house. Spiralling gusts pushed dark clouds towards her. A southerly was looming. Grandmother would be mad if her washing got wet. Well, Daddy’s washing. Ellie fingered one of the towels. It was still damp. Grandmother would also be mad if her washing was taken in damp. She would know Ellie had been outside. Ellie sighed, either way, she would get into trouble. She left the towels hanging.

  She felt wicked as she sneaked into the yard, but the temptation was too great to resist. If only she dared to go further, outside the fence, but she was afraid. Scared of what people might do if they saw her and terrified of what Daddy would do if he found out. In her hand, Ellie clutched the latest drawing she’d done for Maisie—a little girl in a red cardigan next to a smiling raggedy monster. ‘Friends forever,’ she’d scrawled underneath.

  The gusts of air sent a chill across her scalp. Her hair had started to grow back and her whole head felt bizarrely rough and new. The scars were tight and itched sometimes where the skin knitted together. Ellie jumped as she heard a thud, then a second, and a third. She looked behind her. No one. The thud sounded again. The sound was coming from next door. Ellie crept over to the fence. There was Maisie, throwing a ball against the wooden palings, looking bored. Spotting Ellie, she dropped the ball and skipped closer.

  ‘I thought this time you’d really gone.’

  Gone away. Ellie’s gone. Maisie’s voice broke through her fearful thoughts.

  ‘I never saw you again. Where did you go?’ Maisie looked away as thunder rumbled in the distance.

  ‘Nowhere. I just stay here.’

  ‘Inside?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Like in a fairy tale, like Rapunzel in her tower, except you don’t have the right hair.’ Maisie looked downcast for a moment.

  ‘How come you’re here? Home, I mean.’ Ellie asked, the smile stretching across her face. This was something special. It was a day Daddy had gone to work and Grandmother Clements had arrived in her grim fury to wash and clean. Those things meant it was a school day for the other kids like Maisie. The real kids. The ones allowed out into the world.

  ‘Got to stay home.’ Maisie grinned back. ‘My brother’s got chicken pox and Mum said I couldn’t go to school in case I had it too.’ She shrugged. ‘Where’s your funny hat?’

  Ellie shrugged in return.

  ‘So, wanna play in here? Or you want me to climb the fence and play on your side?’

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

/>   ‘Grandmother…’ Ellie shook her head. ‘I’m not supposed to be outside. I can’t.’

  ‘Sooo, we play here.’

  ‘What game?’ Ellie dropped her voice to a whisper, afraid that if she spoke too loudly she would break this magic spell and Grandmother Clements would wake and drag her back inside.

  ‘It doesn’t have a name; I made it up.’

  ‘It’s gotta have a name.’

  ‘Okay. Um, it’s called Escape.’

  ‘I haven’t played that game before,’ Ellie was wary.

  ‘You’ll like it. We’re captured by a wicked witch…’

  ‘Witch?’

  ‘She’s evil and nasty and mean and we have to dig a tunnel to escape.’

  ‘Why do we have to dig a tunnel?’

  ‘Because we’re in a prison—no, a dungeon.’

  ‘I don’t want to be in a dungeon.’

  ‘There’s a way out,’ Maisie suggested, but Ellie cut her short.

  ‘There’s never a way out.’

  ‘You’re no fun. Don’t you wanna play or not?’

  ‘I do, I do want to play, it’s just…’

  ‘We could dig a tunnel under the fence, and then you can come in here and play, and I could come into your backyard too.’

  ‘Yes!’ Ellie pictured it, and the image turned terrifying. ‘No!’ A tunnel to Maisie’s yard would be perfect, but if her father saw it, he would know she had disobeyed him and had been outside. Ellie trembled. ‘Daddy won’t like that.’

  ‘Look at that!’ A flash of lightning made both girls jump. Ellie craned her neck and gazed up at the bitumen sky. The clouds were harsh, punishing. As a low rumble of thunder sounded, loaded droplets started to fall, thumping the earth.

  ‘Aw, not fair,’ Maisie groaned, all of her plans destroyed. ‘Bum!’ Both girls giggled.

  Another lightning flash and, as Maisie squealed, Ellie giggled again. Storms were different outside.

  ‘I’m gonna rescue you one day,’ Maisie smiled. ‘I will. See ya later, alligator.’ Maisie turned and ran back to the shelter of her house.

  ‘In a while, crocodile.’ Ellie didn’t know if Maisie had heard her, but right now, it didn’t matter. As heavy beads of rain fell upon her, Ellie smiled her crooked smile. She hadn’t felt rain in so long. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been outside in a storm. Ellie crawled alongside the shed and stepped into the open space of the yard. With her arms outstretched, she’d let the drops pummel her body. She giggled and twirled, her fear of the thunder lessening, as she danced around the clothesline.

  ‘Child, where are you?’ Her grandmother’s voice could be heard, moments before she appeared at the back door. Ellie dropped her arms to her side and stood still. Now she was in for it.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing? Get back inside,’ her grandmother hissed.

  ‘I, I,’ Ellie stammered, ‘um, the rain…I thought I’d help, um, get the towels off the line for you… It’s raining.’

  ‘Huh.’ Her grandmother looked unconvinced, but as the skies opened further, she stalked towards the clothesline and started unpegging the towels at speed. ‘Well, don’t just stand there. Hold these, then get back inside. And don’t tell your father.’

  

  ‘My mum reckons they’re devil’s tools, reckons you can call the spirits.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  Arthur had looked at Jack in disgust. ‘Since when do you listen to what your mum says?’

  Jack had shrugged self-consciously. ‘She was saying you bring the spirits to you, that your dad is playing with fire, with Satan, when he uses them rods.’

  ‘They’re just stupid divining rods he uses to find water, just bits of bent wire.’ He snorted. ‘Anyways, your mum says a lot of things; don’t make them true.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘So, nothing. My dad doesn’t call up Satan; he just finds water.’

  ‘It’s a trick if you ask me. All bollocks.’

  Arthur silently agreed, but he wasn’t going to let Mrs Fordham’s religious claptrap win an argument. He certainly wasn’t going to admit that his mother had once made the mistake of saying something similar to his dad. She had only made that mistake once. She had learnt to keep her opinions to herself.

  ‘Well, if you and me get lost in the bush, I’d rather be with my dad than your mum. She’d be hollering and preaching and praying. She’d be useless. Least my dad would get us a drink.’

  Jack had grinned. ‘Yeah, but I reckon I could just walk to the bottom of a gully and find a creek myself. Don’t need no bits of wire to tell me that.’

  Now it was Arthur’s turn to grin. ‘Devil’s rods, don’t you mean? Better not hang around with me, you might get possessed or something.’ He had grabbed two sticks off the ground, pointed them in Jack’s direction and started to shake his arms, groaning as if possessed. Jack had laughed and changed the subject, but walking home that afternoon, Arthur had mulled over his words. He hadn’t liked hearing that the Fordhams talked about his family, insulting his dad like that. Hell, Jack’s mother was a religious old cow, but the words stung. He wouldn’t mind calling a spirit or two down on her.

  ‘Satan, my arse, you crazy old bitch.’ He’d laughed. One day, he’d show her. No one insulted his family. No one insulted him like that.

  

  The keys. Where had she left the keys? Ellie tried to remember. She hadn’t noticed them when she’d gone in his room this morning to get his overalls and comb his hair. His room, his bed, his body… She shuddered. She didn’t want to go back in there. Didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk to him.

  ‘Think, you stupid girl.’ Yesterday she’d taken the keys from his bedroom, she’d gone outside, she’d returned home, and she’d put them… her pocket. Digging in the pocket of the jeans she’d worn yesterday, her hand shook as she once more held the keys on their old silver ring and chain.

  ‘I have to do this.’ Daddy would be so mad. He’d probably say she should be in here, keeping things clean. Dusting. She toyed with the keys, running them through her fingers, feeling their weight. ‘Have to.’ The shovel was in the shed. The key to the padlock to the shed was on his key ring. The keys jingled as her hand trembled. ‘Do this.’ She thought it was around twenty-four steps to the shed, which was easy. She could do that.

  ‘I have to dig. I have to bury him.’ It wasn’t right, him inside, talking. Ellie took a deep breath. How long had it been since she had been outside in the daylight? How many years? She didn’t know. What if someone saw her? There was nowhere to hide in the light. Her face, her freakish face, would be on display to the world. Ellie took another deep breath. She could do this, and she would.

  Ellie opened the back door. ‘One…’

  It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the muted light after she opened the shed door. There was a stale stench of dirt, undisturbed air, oil, tools, and the faint awareness of something else, something deeper, more elemental that lingered just below her consciousness. She had sat outside this shed before, but she had never been inside. This was her father’s domain.

  There were a rake, a shovel, some hand tools. A glove so entrenched with dirt it was fixed in the shape of a mummified hand. There were odd nuts and bolts, nails, and some screws stored in jars on the top of the low cupboard that she assumed had formed his work bench and, above that, a small pane of dirty glass covered with cobwebs and dust. There was a high shelf her father had constructed with chains and a long plank that hung, suspended from the beams. Boxes and dusty items had been crammed onto the shelf beside a small suitcase, a long wooden case, and a brown leather satchel. Ellie dropped her gaze to the bench top. At the left of the window were a couple of canisters stacked atop each other with images of bullets on their labels.

  On top o
f the bench, a clock was lying open, its inner workings exposed to the air. There were narrow metal coils and springs that she reckoned had come from the clock, discarded on the bench top. She pictured it trying to work in this dismembered state with the minutes growing longer and dulled chimes calling at irregular intervals. Why couldn’t it have its own time? Today she would measure time in shovel loads. ‘Tick tock.’ Ellie clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to summon bravery, and took a deep breath. The smell reminded her of Daddy, yet there was something else, something rotten, organic, and decomposing. It was somehow familiar. Like the humus around the side of the shed but worse, malignant.

  She remained in the doorway, feeling as if she were trespassing on enemy territory. Any second now she expected a hit from behind, a knockout blow in retaliation for entering this forbidden zone. She heard his voice—‘I told you never to come in here, girl’—and cringed, but no blow followed. Ellie turned, surprised not to see him standing behind her in his flannelette pyjamas, leering at her. She could picture him though, picture him pushing her into the shed, the door being slammed, the light shutting out, as the lock was bolted home and the padlock clicked.

  ‘I have to do this.’ Ellie stepped into the shed, her gaze fixed on the shovel. ‘Have to.’ He had to be buried or he’d be with her forever. She placed one hand on the handle of the shovel and the other atop the cupboard. She wondered what it held. Curiosity won out.

  She opened the cupboard doors and stared at the tottering pile of junk that was covered in years of dust and dirt that had drifted in from the escarpment, out of the bush, and up from the sea. She didn’t know where to begin; the clutter was overwhelming. It surprised her, this chaos. It was so unlike the precise system that Daddy had kept inside the house. There he had made sure all of their minimal belongings were ordered, and he’d erupt in fury if he thought Ellie had moved something from its designated position. Perhaps he should have sent her out here to clean, she smirked.