The Valley of Lost Stories

by Vanessa McCausland

  CHAPTER 43

  Nathalie

  Mike entered the hall with Richie strapped to his front, her son’s little legs kicking madly. She felt a rush of love. Relief. She went to them and kissed them both on their cheeks. They were cool from walking in the evening air.

  ‘He wouldn’t sleep in the car, so we went for a long walk, didn’t we buddy?’ Mike looked Nathalie in the eyes. ‘You okay, Nat? You were dead to the world. Richie was crying in the travel cot and you were out of it. I couldn’t even wake you.’

  Nathalie’s cheeks burned. She felt everyone’s eyes on her, and the shame lit up again deep within her. She wanted to cry out right now – I wasn’t drunk. I know, I have a drinking problem, but I swear, this time it was something else. This was Macie.

  But instead she swallowed the shame and the panic down, bowing her head and mumbling her response. ‘Sorry. I’m really tired at the moment. I’ll go fix Richie his bottle.’

  The kitchen was empty – a small comfort. She couldn’t bear to be close to either Macie or Caleb. She’d avoided both their eyes, kept her head down. The last thing she wanted was to have to be alone with Caleb. She prepped a bottle for Richie and put it in the microwave. She was testing the heat on her wrist when Caleb came in carrying an empty tray.

  Their eyes met and Nathalie looked away first. Caleb was next to her before she had a chance to escape.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, his breath hot on her bare shoulder. ‘You’ve been avoiding me. I knew you wouldn’t meet me last night.’

  She moved away from him, but he grabbed her arm. She disentangled herself from him and held up her hands in protest. ‘Caleb, I’m sorry, my family’s here. I’m not sure what you expect from me. I’m sorry. Pen is missing. It’s–’

  He took her by the shoulders and forced her to look him in the eye. ‘We’ve been so honest with each other. Admit it. We have. You’re hiding that part of yourself now. The real part. You’re numbing yourself with alcohol again because you can’t face the truth.’

  Anger flared in her and she manoeuvred out of his grasp. She wanted to tell him about what had happened under the tree, what Macie had told her about his mother. But she knew she couldn’t.

  ‘The truth. Caleb, do you have any idea?’ She shook her head and screwed her hands into fists, trying to steady her breath. ‘Did you tell Macie you gave me the key to her office?’

  Hurt flashed over Caleb’s face and he was a boy again. Vulnerable and alone. Regret washed over her and she squeezed her eyes shut. He hadn’t told Macie. He was a victim, too.

  His gaze dropped to the floor. ‘I really thought we had something special, you know? A connection. An understanding.’ His eyes met hers. ‘If you knew me at all, you’d know I’d never do that.’ He turned away.

  She reached for him. ‘I’m sorry, Caleb.’ He pulled her towards him and kissed her hard, their bodies pressed together. She was stunned, immobilised. The bottle of milk slipped from her hand. She broke away from him and dropped to the floor to pick it up, gasping, her face flushed with emotion. She touched the bottle with trembling hands.

  The door opened and suddenly Mike was in the room. She could hear Richie fussing. ‘Where are you, Mummy? I’m hungry,’ said Mike.

  ‘Sorry, I spilled his milk,’ Nathalie said, standing up too fast, dizziness overtaking her. She looked between Caleb and Mike. Caleb handed her a roll of paper towel.

  ‘Well, we won’t cry over spilled milk, will we?’ said Mike, chuckling.

  Nathalie felt the tears come then, unbidden. She had to get out of here. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said and ran towards the screen door at the side of the kitchen. As she escaped out into the night, she looked back to see both men staring at her.

  The air was cool on her cheeks, the moon a slip of light in the sky. She could feel the ghosts of the valley all around her. Strange animal cries, the hum of crickets and insects still warm and buzzing from the heat of the day. The cliffs were black, foreboding, a dark curtain. She wanted to part them, go beyond this strange, haunted place. But she was trapped.

  Fresh tears fell down her face and she brushed them aside. She looked back and the only light in the whole valley was coming from the hotel dining room. Everything else lay in blackness. She couldn’t breathe. She forced the air into her lungs, gulped it down. What was she going to do? How could she escape this situation? She wished she had a bottle of wine. She wished for the numbness, the relief. She should have grabbed one from the kitchen. She followed the gravel path around the side of the hotel until she reached the front garden. This was where the cliffs were highest, magnificent and frightening, looming like gods, shadowed against the stars.

  She moved through the dark garden, the statues luminous in the pale moonlight. Nymphs, unearthly women, horned, mythical creatures. She came to the car park. Again she felt it. The urge to flee. To get in the car and just drive.

  A scuttling in a nearby bush startled her. ‘Hello?’ Her voice was puny against the deep hum of the night. She despised her voice. She was so weak. So pitiful. To even contemplate leaving her children, even for a second. She would never do it. Pen would never do it. She felt this chime deep inside her. She imagined Pen outside now somewhere, lost in this dark, bewitched place. Alone. Or worse. Her chest ached and she pressed her hands against it.

  She thought of Macie. What Emmie had said she’d found at the library. Teresa, Caleb’s mother had to be the other woman who had gone missing in the valley. There was a strange equation at work here, and on a gut level she knew she’d already worked it out. She tried to quiet her mind. Listen to something more elemental inside her. She felt painfully sober.

  She looked into the deep bank of bush in front of her and took a step into its shadows. And another. Until she was entangled by dark branches. It was eerie, quiet, but the ground beneath her seemed to scuttle with life. Animals. Insects, unknown things. She thought of Clara Black, the woman who had been lost in this valley so long ago. Had she run into the bush? Had it been a night like this? Of Teresa, a woman labelled a drug addict and a neglectful mother. No one even trying to find her. Of Pen, who was gone so suddenly.

  She looked up but the stars were obscured by trees. Her heart was beating fast, ricocheting through her body like a train. There was a clearing up ahead, where the moonlight lit an expanse of rock, like a silver pool. It felt cool and she lay down and looked up. She could see the stars here. The cliffs were gone. She forced herself to face what was in her heart.

  Could she do it? Could she give up her life? Mike, who was just coming back to her. She imagined his face twisted in anger at her betrayal. All her security. What would she do as a single mother who hadn’t worked in years? How would she survive? Where would they live? She was weak. She wasn’t capable. She was an alcoholic. As she admitted this to herself an awful choke sounded from her throat. She wished she could erase the past week of her life. Go back to the innocence of that time before they came here, where everything existed silently just under the surface, able to be pushed away, ignored, skimmed over, numbed. She wished Macie had never told her what she had under that weeping mulberry tree. That she’d never discovered the truth about what was in that office. That she’d never gone to that cave with Caleb.

  But as she lay bathed in moonlight, she heard the trees whisper in the wind. They did not whisper to her. She was inconsequential. She felt the strength of this old, dark place, of its past, of all the lives it had borne witness to, of all the lives that would come after she was gone. She felt her own smallness in the long thrum of life.

  She was not drunk. She was clear-headed, her senses alight. The certainty of the rock beneath her back. The ancient trees, the ancient cliffs. All the lives that had been lived here before her, that she could feel, they could all feel. All those stories lost forever. Her own was tiny, part of something bigger, something unknowable and huge. It terrified her.

  But she’d seen a glimpse of what free
dom, what truth, what courage felt like. It was Caleb who had shown it to her. He had shown her who she used to be. Before Mike, before the kids. She’d been strong. Fearless. Free. Where had that woman gone? An image came to her bright and clear as though it were her own memory – a mother strong and fast and brave, her baby strung to her front, her feet never stopping. Running, running for her life, for her child, escaping as terrible shots rang out through the valley. Nathalie sat up and realised she was alone, surrounded by the dark bush. But she wasn’t afraid. And she knew what she had to do.

  CHAPTER 44

  Nathalie

  She heard voices calling her name. Emmie’s was higher, more urgent than Alexandra’s lower octave. A new energy poured into her. She called back, rushing through the bush, feeling the sting as branches bit at her bare legs, cutting her skin. But she didn’t care. She was breathless by the time she found them in the garden.

  ‘Macie. We have to find Macie. Please.’ She grasped at them in the dark. ‘We have to do something.’ The words rushed out of her. ‘I couldn’t say before. I’m so sorry.’

  Emmie drew her into a hug before studying her with worried eyes. ‘What’s going on? You’ve got blood on your face. Mike is so worried about you. He said you ran off into the night.’

  ‘I don’t have time to explain everything.’ She looked about, the garden’s nymphs and sirens, glowing in the dark like little ghosts.

  Emmie led her to a marble bench next to the fountain. Alexandra sat on the other side of her, wordlessly encircling her with her arms, then taking her hand. Nathalie knew her friends thought she was just drunk.

  ‘I’m not drunk, I promise. I’ve never felt so clear about anything. I know things, about Macie. I should have told you earlier, but she threatened me. She blackmailed me.’

  ‘Blackmailed you?’ Even in the dark she could see Alexandra’s face was screwed up with disgust, but she pressed on.

  ‘The picnic Macie had under the tree for the children, she drugged me. I know she did. I only had a few sips of the wine, and it knocked me out completely. I don’t even know how I ended up in my room. Mike said I slept through Richie crying and I never do that. I literally can’t, even when I’m drunk. And the things she told me.’ Her voice broke.

  Alexandra dropped her hand and stood. ‘Oh my God, Nathalie, what the hell do you have against Macie? Do you hear what you’re saying? That this woman, who has been nothing but kind to you and your girls, drugged you? That you weren’t drunk? My God, can you hear yourself? I love you dearly but . . .’ She shook her head. ‘You’re an alcoholic telling us that you passed out and blaming Macie for drugging you? Do you realise what that sounds like?’

  She felt nauseous at Alexandra’s words. Her head spun. What a joke she was. She’d known they wouldn’t instantly believe her, help her. She felt her stomach drop, her skin bead with sweat. The night they’d all gone out for drinks at the beach flashed back to her and shame crashed over her. She’d been so drunk they’d had to carry her back to the car. She’d passed out on a school night. Why wouldn’t she pass out at a kids’ picnic? Who was she kidding?

  She felt Emmie squeeze her arm then and she turned to face her. ‘I believe you,’ Emmie said. ‘Tell me. I’m listening.’

  Her face was suddenly wet, and she choked back tears. ‘You do?’

  Alexandra let out a huff and crossed her arms, but she didn’t move.

  Nathalie took a deep breath in and exhaled a shuddering one. ‘I’m not sure where to start.’

  ‘Just start at the beginning,’ said Emmie.

  ‘Caleb’s not just a hotel manager. Macie brought him up after his mother abandoned him here as a baby.’

  Emmie’s body went rigid beside her. ‘What? I thought he was just the cook. I mean, I didn’t mean just the cook.’

  ‘He told me Macie found him in the garden when he was tiny. She and her mother raised Caleb here.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Emmie.

  ‘I won’t pretend I’m not shocked about Caleb, but I think that’s pretty amazing to take in an orphan,’ said Alexandra. ‘I don’t see why this somehow makes Macie out to be the baddie.’

  ‘I take it you didn’t know any of this?’ asked Nathalie. ‘Even though you two went to school together.’

  Alexandra waved her hand. ‘Oh, that was years ago. I hadn’t seen her in 27 years. You do realise Macie splits her time between here and a house in Sydney. She’s only out here to host us.’

  Nathalie nodded. ‘The house in Sydney. That’s where Jacob died.’

  ‘Jacob?’ asked Emmie.

  ‘Her son. The one whose pictures were all over the walls of her office I told you about. I found newspaper articles inside a book about grief. He died in the bath when he was three. I know. It’s awful. Macie went to get a towel. It was just a terrible accident.’

  Alexandra pressed her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God. That’s awful. Heartbreaking.’

  ‘Oh gosh. Poor Macie. I’m surprised she handles hanging around with the kids so much. She’s so good with them,’ said Emmie.

  ‘She’s been wonderful with them,’ said Alexandra.

  ‘So, what’s Macie done exactly? Why do you think she drugged you?’ asked Emmie gently, her eyes searching, confused.

  Nathalie swallowed hard. She tried to keep her voice steady, but it wobbled when she spoke. ‘I’ve been having . . . something . . . with Caleb.’

  She paused but there was only silence so she spoke into it. ‘I’m not proud, but Mike . . . he cheated on me. Last year. It broke me. I suppose I was getting revenge on him in a way. And I do feel a connection with Caleb. I don’t know. I have no idea. I’ve not been the best parent. The drinking. Sleeping with another man.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Alexandra’s voice was high, tinged with upset. ‘About Mike.’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t want it to be real. Didn’t want to face what it might mean for our family. For me. I was ashamed. Scared.’

  ‘So, you stayed with him?’ Alexandra’s voice held a note of contempt. Nathalie had been expecting this.

  ‘Yes. Yes, we’ve been doing counselling.’

  ‘I can see how that’s working out for you,’ Alexandra said. But then she squeezed Nathalie’s hand and her tone softened. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I’m telling you this now, okay?’ Both women were silent, so she went on. She felt the heaviness of their judgement and shame nipped at her bare skin like the cool night air, but she tried to ignore it. ‘When we were having the picnic under the tree Macie was acting weird. She told me about Caleb’s mother, Teresa. She was a drug addict who worked in the kitchen here. She said that Caleb was better off without her. That’s a different story from what Caleb knows. He thinks his mother abandoned him here. It doesn’t add up. Where did Teresa go? Was she the missing woman the librarian was talking to you about, Emmie? Didn’t she call her a druggie? And then Macie started talking about Will and how Pen didn’t love him and her going away was the best thing for him. Then she said if I said anything to anyone, she’d tell Mike about me and Caleb. And then I couldn’t keep myself upright. And the next thing I woke up in my bed.’

  ‘Why would she tell you all this if she had something to hide?’ Alexandra asked.

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t fully understand either, but I know her secrets – about Jacob, and about Caleb and his mother. Maybe she felt threatened by that. She said he’d never told anybody about his mother abandoning him before. And she knew my secrets. I got really drunk on the first night, and I told her about Mike’s affair and how I was too weak to leave him. She used that against me. Maybe she didn’t think I would tell. And she kept saying that she and I are the same because we do what’s best for our kids. Maybe she has this warped view that, I don’t know, we have some kind of bond. We’ve traded our terrible secrets. It’s like it’s some kind of sick game to her.’

  Alexandra let out a loud laugh, tinged with hysteria. ‘
Can you hear yourself? This is a woman who lost her child. Why would she hurt another mother? And why on earth would she admit that to you Nathalie?’

  ‘Because secrets are heavy burdens to bear,’ Nathalie said. She felt light with the truth of it.

  Alexandra grunted. ‘And yet you’re happy for her to look after your children. She’s in there now scooping out ice cream flavours.’

  ‘But don’t you see? That’s the whole point. She thinks she’s doing the right thing. Saving these boys from their neglectful mothers.’

  ‘Boys?’ asked Alexandra.

  ‘You think Macie’s done something to Pen, don’t you?’ asked Emmie. Their eyes met and understanding flashed between them. Nathalie gripped Emmie’s hand. Time seemed to still as they sat in the enormity of those words. Silence descended, as long and eerie as the shadows in the garden.

  Alexandra broke it. ‘I can’t listen to this anymore. It’s bullshit. All I hear is a story of a broken woman who lost her son and who has somehow had the good grace to open her home up to us and our horde of kids and look after them. And we could all see how much Pen was struggling. Will is a weird kid. All that ghost shit. It’s scary as hell. It scares me. That woman walked away from her child and left him here. That’s what neither of you want to admit. But that’s what happened. You’re just not prepared to face the awful truth.’