The Bluffs : A Novel (2020)

by Perry, Kyle

  It was low, and she hated herself for saying it, but it had the desired effect. Darren hesitated, emotions in conflict on his face.

  ‘What could we possibly hope to find up there?’ The lines in his face were hard. ‘You’re putting me in a difficult position.’

  ‘Who knows what we might find,’ said Eliza. ‘Clues, maybe? Evidence. Answers.’

  Darren watched her, suspicion plain on his face. ‘Alright. Let’s go.’

  As they stepped off the track and walked towards the ridge, Eliza heard Tom’s voice in her head. Leaving a trail in the Great Western Tiers is an exercise in suicide. Do not attempt it. He’d given the whole camping group that speech before they left school.

  But surely it wouldn’t be so bad. This area was a little more open than most, and they had that grove of white gums to orient themselves by.

  But she should’ve known it wouldn’t be so easy. What looked like low shrubs from the rise of the trail were in fact bushes that reached up to her shoulders, even over her head in some places. Underneath them, the ground was craggy and uneven and full of inexplicable swampy patches.

  ‘Let’s stop here a moment,’ said Darren after ten minutes. Even though it was fairly flat land, it was tough hiking. They were among copperleaf snowberry, a plant that was found only in Tasmania. It had dark green, serrated leaves and clusters of little white flowers shaped like urns. It was starkly beautiful, smelling wild and free, flowering and perfect out here in the wild.

  ‘Close your eyes and turn around three times,’ said Darren.

  ‘What?’ said Eliza.

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  Eliza closed her eyes and turned, then opened them when she heard the crash of Darren through the shrub. She leaped back, the sharp leaves drawing a thin line of blood from the back of her hands.

  Darren was standing behind her now. ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘I want you to point back to the trail. I moved so you wouldn’t have a reference point. Point back to where we came from.’

  Eliza pointed.

  Darren shook his head. ‘Wrong. Try again.’

  Eliza hesitated, then pointed forty-five degrees from her first attempt.

  ‘Wrong again. Now you’re dead. Lost in the wilderness. And we’re what: ten minutes from the trail?

  ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Yes.’ He lifted his sleeve to show a waterproof compass strapped to his wrist by a paracord bracelet. ‘Because I know I can’t rely on my own sense of direction, not out here.’

  ‘But do you still know the direction to the ridge?’ said Eliza.

  ‘I’m trying to help you understand. Setting out, just the two of us, is stupid. Thinking that there might be something up there on the ridge, after all this time, and the weather we’ve had, is stupid. Searching out here, when we should be back where we know the girls have been, is stupid.’

  ‘Why agree to come, if I’m such a stupid little girl?’

  ‘Because, Miss Ellis, you aren’t a little girl and you aren’t stupid. Either you know something you’re not telling me or you’re driven by some emotion that’s overriding your better judgement. I’d like to know which one it is.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Darren pushed his sleeve down over the compass. ‘Well, we’re not moving until you tell me.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘I want to find these girls more than you could possibly know,’ said Darren. ‘Until I find out what you’re hiding, we’re not going back to the trail.’

  ‘Darren . . . listen to me. Just get me to that ridge.’

  ‘Are you even listening to me?’

  ‘Fine.’ She pushed past him. ‘I’ll head there myself.’ She ignored the sting of the leaves and the drone of insects.

  The copperleaf snowberry abruptly gave way to a small stretch of blueberry flaxlily, offering far better visibility of the ridge. She stomped through it, watching the sandstone ridge and its white gum directly ahead.

  She could hear Darren walking behind her. She heard his low chuckle, and it made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. ‘You know what’s really interesting, Miss Ellis?’

  She ignored him, eyes on the ridge.

  ‘A second ago you had no idea which direction you were facing.’

  ‘You’re not the only one who knows how to read a compass, constable.’ She continued to stomp through the scrub covering the ground.

  ‘I’ll get to the bottom of it eventually, Miss Ellis,’ he said. ‘Whatever it is. I always do.’

  You won’t have to wait that long, she thought to herself, Madison’s face appearing in her mind. Con would probably be waiting for her, back in town.

  Darren’s words returned to her mind: You’re driven by some emotion that’s overriding your better judgement. There was an uncomfortable truth to that.

  She thought of the permission slip in her pocket:

  I give permission for Eliza Ellis to be strong.

  Signed, E. Ellis.

  The sandstone ridge was steep and surprisingly craggy, bluff snowgrass covering it like a cramped garden. Up here, on the edge of the ridge-fin, Eliza was especially exposed to the biting cold wind that drowned out all noise: Darren’s footsteps behind her, even her own breath. Nothing but the mountain wind.

  Eliza stopped, closing her eyes, as the noise blew past her like a train, wrapping her in isolation. Fresh and clear and free. For a moment.

  She opened her eyes and wiped away the tears. Up ahead was the giant white gum. Beyond it stretched a heart-stopping view of misty tiers of hills and sombre mountains, thick wilderness.

  She walked to the gum and touched it with her hand; it was cold. She looked over it, she studied the ground, pushed back blades of bluff snowgrass to check the soil. She was looking for footprints, scuff marks, scraps of clothing, anything.

  There was nothing. No clue to indicate who might have stood here, who had hit her on the head, whose footsteps she’d heard. Just like Darren had said: nothing to see at all.

  But she had found it. Darren could direct other searchers to cover this area. She wasn’t entirely useless.

  ‘Miss Ellis,’ said Darren.

  She shook him off. ‘Cierra!’ she shouted into the wind. ‘Bree! Jasmine!’ The wind blew her words back in her face. ‘Cierra! Bree! Jasmine! Cierra, where are you?’

  ‘Miss Ellis, look at the clouds. We need to be getting back —’

  ‘Cierra! CIERRA!’ she shrieked.

  The wind didn’t care. The mountain didn’t care.

  Her knees weakened, but still she held onto the tree and screamed. ‘BREE! JASMINE! CIERRA!!’

  Where are the girls? Where are the girls? Denni, why couldn’t I save you?

  Now she fell fully to her knees. The sun grew dim behind a shroud of thick cloud and she saw the rainclouds rolling in. The first thick droplet hit her cheek.

  She couldn’t scream anymore, couldn’t say their names. She wrapped her arms around her knees and, for a moment, completely whited out.

  Darren took his raincoat out of his pack and she felt him wrap it around her, his arms warm. Shame and guilt and pain rushed through her, making her feel small and friendless, adrift in a sea of wilderness.

  When the rain grew heavier she allowed Darren to pull her to her feet and lead her back to the trail through the mountain plants, numb and wooden.

  The return trip seemed to take no time at all, the icy rain leaching all feeling out of her face and hands. Darren kept looking at her with concern, but her ability to care had been snatched by the wind along with her screams.

  Madison is going to tell the police.

  The motorbike was where they’d left it. Eliza struggled to feel anything when she saw it.

  Darren spun her around, facing her. ‘Listen, Miss Ellis, I know it’s cruel, but you might still be the only way we have to find those girls. You’re a good person. It’s not your fault they went missin
g.’ She wished he’d stop, but he kept talking. ‘You can’t give up yet . . . stay with us —’

  She looked up into his eyes. She struggled to focus. She looked back down.

  He sighed and turned the ignition.

  The motorbike roared into life, the sound of the engine blocking out the wind and the rain, warming her, a reminder of technology and civilisation, as they set off, back towards town, away from the wilderness.

  All the while, Eliza thought of her niece.

  And of what was to come.

  CHAPTER 29

  MURPHY

  The dream was familiar enough by now that he could almost remember he was dreaming.

  And he fell slower now, the foggy ground taking longer to reach him.

  We’re going to find you, Jasmine. We’re going to find you.

  He expected to see his daughter, waiting for him on the ground, but it wasn’t her . . . It was his wife.

  Sara stood, face upturned, hair tousled in the wind, laughing as she reached up for him. A lavender dress left her shoulders bare; her teeth flashed white, excitement in her eyes, as he crashed into her.

  He jerked awake. He took a few heavy breaths, then rolled onto his side and stared into the darkness.

  Later that morning, Murphy stood on the footpath outside his house, reading the profanity that had been marked into his front lawn with weed killer.

  An old woman power-walked past: her daily exercise route. She slowed and pointedly looked at the words. She made a noise and glared at Murphy, before power-walking on.

  ‘Well I didn’t write it!’ he shouted after her.

  She just increased her pace.

  Across the road were two parked cars: a police car, the cops inside watching Murphy, the second a journalist’s, who stood there snapping photos of him. Murphy slowly scratched his balls, looking the man dead in the eye, then stalked back to the front door. He slammed the door shut behind him.

  ‘Don’t do any more damage to the bloody house,’ muttered Butch, wearing his Blundstone boots to clean up the broken glass scattered across the kitchen floor, the window broken during the night by another brick. It seemed Madison’s heartfelt video declaring his innocence hadn’t convinced everyone.

  Murphy threw himself into the couch. He looked at the TV and turned away. The TV had a hole in the middle of it: that had been Butch’s foot.

  Apparently last night, after Skinner had left, Butch had come inside to watch the 24-hour coverage, and yeah, he’d still been high on the angel dust, but he’d just become so enraged that he’d kicked in the TV screen. The latest development had surrounded Murphy – ‘we don’t sell weed to minors’ – and how he seemed to hold power over Madison Mason, enough to make her adamantly declare he had nothing to do with the disappearances.

  Madison Mason . . . Murphy would usually never hurt a girl, but he wanted to throttle the little bitch.

  His heart lifted. Sara had appeared in his dream. Did that mean she’d heard his prayer? Maybe.

  Still, Madison was to blame. She had constructed this plan and now his Jasmine was missing. Or maybe she wasn’t missing, just didn’t want to be found.

  Hope and fear mingled within him, making him even edgier. Where would she go? Her backpack presumably had the same gear as the ones at the Hut. So where would she set up camp, where would she think no one else would know to look?

  It hit him. Of course. The crop.

  She wasn’t supposed to know where it was, but Murphy had always suspected Jasmine had followed them there, at least once.

  He got off the couch and found his brother. ‘Let’s go check on the crop.’

  ‘Bad idea, lad,’ said Butch. ‘The cops are watching.’

  ‘Good. Let them. You know we’ll lose them in the gully. And we have a right to walk through the bush if we want to.’ He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice, but he didn’t want to tell Butch the real reason.

  ‘It’s just adding fuel to the fire. If they catch you in the bush, they’ll think you’re off to bury the bodies or something,’ said Butch. ‘What’s gotten into you, lad? Usually it’s me wanting to do the risky shit.’

  Murphy hadn’t told Butch that Jasmine had intended to disappear. It was stupid, but there was always that sibling rivalry when it came to raising Jasmine. He wanted Butch to think he was a good dad, even though his daughter had captured the entire world’s attention by . . . It’d come out sooner or later, but if he could find Jasmine today, then maybe it wouldn’t be as bad . . .

  And well, maybe, he wanted to protect Jasmine’s reputation in Butch’s eyes. He thought the sun shone out of his niece.

  ‘Let’s just go check the crop. I know it sounds stupid but . . . maybe Jasmine is there.’

  ‘It’s too risky. We’ve never been watched this closely.’

  ‘Bro. Jasmine could be there.’

  Butch threw his hands up and went to get changed.

  Almost immediately after leaving their property, they were enveloped in scrub. Cool green dogwood and musk, and the cak-cak-cak-cak of a native hen. The sounds of the town were lost behind them as the ground rose, rocky and heady.

  They climbed. The harsh cries of the native hen mixed with a forlorn-sounding kookaburra, a loner up high in the ghostly white gums. This whole place felt haunted – Murphy had always hated this walk as a kid, whenever Dad had made him hike up here when he was too lazy to check the crop himself. Dad had known how much it scared him, so it was one of his favourite punishments, other than belting the shit out of him.

  Butch seemed to read Murphy’s thoughts. ‘What do you reckon Dad would tell us to do?’ he said, voice hushed, subconsciously respectful of the sacred quiet of the bush.

  ‘He’d probably be out here, night and day, looking for her,’ said Murphy. ‘A beer in one hand and the shotgun in the other.’

  His mind flashed to the Glock now stashed in his bedside drawer.

  ‘What about Sara?’

  Murphy was silent for a moment. ‘Don’t know.’

  They both bent down to all fours to scale a slope of scree, fingers in the slated rock.

  ‘Wish she was here,’ said Butch once they were at the top, upright and getting their breath back.

  ‘Me too,’ said Murphy. He wafted a spiderweb out of his way as they pushed through a copse of white gum and dogwood, a wallaby trail. Then: ‘I dreamed about her last night.’

  ‘Yeah? She say anything?’ said Butch.

  ‘Nothing.’ Murphy’s feet squelched over rotting gumtree bark, wet and slippery. ‘Just smiled.’

  ‘That’s a good sign,’ said Butch.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Murphy.

  Another stretch of silence. A brown wren flitted onto a fallen branch, its yellow eye on Murphy.

  ‘You’re a strong man, Murph,’ said Butch. ‘I dunno if I’ve ever told you that.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Murphy instantly. ‘I’m weak as piss.’ His voice caught. ‘I fell apart after she died – you were there, you saw it. Everything went down the shitter. Lost the landscaping business, the house. I wasn’t even there for Jasmine —’

  ‘You have always been there for Jaz. Always,’ said Butch. ‘Don’t say that. Every presentation night. Every netball training. Every bloody tantrum. Whenever she needed a chat you dropped everything. You were – shit, I don’t know – you were there for her feelings. You’re a bloody good dad, Murph.’

  ‘I’m a drug dealer, Butch.’

  Butch hesitated. ‘Lad . . . it’s only weed.’

  They pushed through into a glade of myrtle beech – a faerie-land. The singing trickle of a mountain stream wending through the roots and blocks of dolomite, the bright-red fungus of strawberry bracket spreading over the beech trunks. A mountain dragon the size of a beer bottle clung to a rock, its wise, lazy eyes watching the brothers. Ferns tickled the edge of the glade, moving in a mountain-breeze dance.

  They stopped. Murphy took breaths, tears threatening again. ‘What am I gonna do, Butch? What am
I gonna do if she doesn’t come back?’

  ‘She will come back. You saw Sara. I reckon that means she’s sending Jasmine back to you. She can do shit like that. Talk to the Big Fella and bring Jasmine back.’ Butch was always full of such certainty.

  The itch in his throat was the only warning before the tears came, hot and fast. Butch grabbed his shoulders, hugging him. Murphy clutched his brother’s broad back, fingers digging into his singlet, burying his head in Butch’s bare shoulder, stinking of sweat and marijuana.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . .’ sobbed Murphy, apologising to Butch, apologising to Jasmine, apologising to Sara, apologising to God.

  ‘Shhh, it’s okay, lad. You’re okay . . . We’ll find her. I promise, mate. I promise. We’ll find her . . .’

  The myrtle beech rustled above, as though in consolation. The mountain dragon blinked its lazy eyes and looked away.

  Before long they were in a gorge full of twisting King Billy Pine. Murphy’s weary mind kept spinning back to the day Jasmine had gone missing. Especially the night before. The amnesia tickled at him – something Skinner told him had come trickling back now. If I wasn’t in the house that night . . . where was I?

  He stopped, but Butch shoved him forward. ‘I said, don’t stop.’

  ‘What?’ said Murphy.

  Butch grabbed his shirt and dragged him on. ‘Didn’t you hear a word I said? There’s someone following us. Don’t turn around.’

  ‘Cops?’ said Murphy. He wasn’t worried. He knew they could lose them.

  ‘No. There’s only one of them.’

  Murphy nodded. ‘The usual, then?’

  They came to the head of the gorge and broke off to the right, where they came to a cave, the entrance fringed by ferns and spiderwebs and fallen branches. It was a crack in one of the smaller cliffs that held up the escarpment.

  Glancing around to check the coast was clear, they ducked inside.

  It was dusty, dirty, muddy, secret. Dripping bonnet mushrooms poked out of the olive-green moss near the entrance.