by Nicola West
I saved them in a hidden folder on my hard drive, before backing them up on a USB. As a final precaution, I emailed them to myself. I then erased them from the camera’s memory card. To an outside observer, it was like they’d never been taken. My dad’s secret was safe – for now – and so was mine.
I looked at the time. It had been almost five hours since I’d discovered Lily’s body, and yet it felt like both more and less time had passed. It was early in the morning and I should have been asleep but I knew I wouldn’t be able to. My gallery for the paper was due in a mere matter of hours but I was unsure if it would actually run given the night’s events. Still, it was probably best if I got it done. It would show my editor, Mark, that I could make a deadline under any circumstances.
The newspaper’s office and printing press were just around the corner from me and I considered physically going in. It was likely that Mark was already there. After all, he had enough ears on the ground to know when something big like this had gone down. Normally, I would have expected a call – one of my only advantages over Lily was that I lived much closer to the paper than her – but Mark also likely knew that I’d found the body and would assume I was unavailable. But I wasn’t, and I was undeniably the story’s biggest asset. I just had to convince him of that fact.
To my surprise, when I arrived at the office the main lights weren’t on but a faint glow was coming from somewhere in the back – the editor’s office. Mark must have been there, but he clearly hadn’t called anyone else in. I smiled. It was the perfect opportunity for me to pitch my angle for the story on Lily. I tried the door. It was unlocked.
I carefully navigated my way through the pitch-black bullpen. The paper was another relic from the 1800s but, as the office lacked the familiarity of my home, I found it slightly unnerving. The only other time I’d been here this early was on printing nights, and right now I missed the comforting drone of the press whirring out back.
I managed to make it to the editor’s office without bumping into anything. The door was open, so I peered in and saw that the space was empty. There was an opened bottle of rum on the desk, as well as Mark’s mobile phone and keys. It was odd for him to have left them.
‘Mark?’ I called out.
‘What are you doing here?’ a voice croaked from behind me.
I spun around, shocked, but couldn’t make anyone out among the darkened desks.
‘Mark?’
‘Bring the booze,’ the voice commanded. It was definitely him.
I grabbed the bottle off the desk and walked back out into the bullpen. I still couldn’t figure out exactly where he was seated, so I flicked on one of the large banks of lights. One by one, the fluorescent tubes illuminated, casting a blinding light over the room.
‘Don’t!’ He covered his face with his arm.
But it was too late, I’d already seen him.
Mark was hunched over Lily’s desk, looking dishevelled. His eyes were red and puffy. He’d obviously been crying. He’d been drinking too. The bottle of rum was far lighter than I’d anticipated, and the ruddiness of his face suggested it had been a fresh bottle only hours before. I knew he was close with Lily’s parents, but his behaviour seemed like an odd response to her death.
I plonked the rum down on the desk, trying to avoid the random clusters of crystals Lily had accumulated. She’d recently been going through a hippy phase, extolling the supposed virtues of shiny rocks and other mystical paraphernalia to anyone who’d listen. She’d bought me an expensive-looking necklace with two large blue stones for Christmas. I was never a fan of statement jewellery, so it had remained in its gift bag on my dresser at home. I’d intended to wear it at least once in her presence and I felt bad that I would never get the chance.
‘You shouldn’t be here, Lo,’ Mark grumbled.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I said, leaning up against the desk next to Lily’s and removing my camera from my bag. ‘And I thought I might as well get my gallery done.’
‘We’re obviously not going to run it now.’
‘Well then, I’m here to help,’ I said, removing the memory card from the camera and inserting it into the computer. ‘What better person to write the article than the one who found her?’
‘Jesus.’ He looked at me with repulsion and took a swig of the rum. ‘Go home, Marlowe.’
I was shocked by the vitriol in his tone, but I was determined to persevere. I knew the story could be my big break. On the computer screen, pictures from the show flickered as they were uploaded. For a split second, I saw Lily’s horrified face as she ran from the ghost train. It gave me chills.
‘Think about it,’ I began. ‘This story will be national news in a matter of hours. Out of town journalists will soon be swarming. If we don’t act quickly, they will be the ones who control the narrative. We owe it to Lily to be the ones shaping her story.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Nice try, but we both know you don’t actually believe that. For god’s sake, Marlowe, her body’s still warm. I would have thought you knew that better than any of us.’
‘Which is precisely why I should be the one to write the story.’ I could feel myself getting desperate. ‘I know things. Things that I know the cops won’t release to the press.’
He rubbed his eyes and sighed. ‘I know that you’ve had a shitty evening, but you need to leave before you embarrass yourself any further. For the last time, go home.’
Panic began to grip my body. I could feel my only chance to leave this town slip away. Before I knew it, I’d blurted it out.
‘There was something strange on her back!’
He sprang to his feet, almost pinning me against the desk. His flushed face was mere millimetres away from mine. ‘You are a vulture!’ he shouted. ‘This – this – is why she got the job over you.’
With every syllable he uttered, I was drowned in the scent of rum. My heart pounded against the wall of my chest.
He seemed to sense my fear and lowered his tone, but I was still trapped against the desk. My entire body was shaking.
‘You’re dangerous. You’d do anything for a story, and that’s a liability. People can sense your desperation and they know you’d throw anyone under the bus if it got you what you wanted. I need people in my newsroom I can trust. You can forget about Lily’s job, and you can forget about your internship. You’re done here. Forever.’
My mouth gaped. But, looking into Mark’s rage-filled eyes, I knew there was no point in arguing. The unnerving feeling I’d experienced since I’d walked into the paper’s office had become suffocating. And Mark had snapped the moment I’d mentioned the markings. It was clear that I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. I picked up my camera and backpack and left without saying a word.
As the front door swung shut and the cold night air engulfed me, streams of tears began pouring down my cheeks. My shaking became even more violent, and my teeth chattered loudly. I slumped against the office’s front wall, trying to calm my breathing, but I was on the brink of hyperventilating. I could still feel Mark’s inebriated breath caressing my throat. It made my skin crawl. I knew I had to get back home, but my legs felt like jelly.
Nevertheless, I ran.
CHAPTER 9
I never dreamed before she died. Or if I did, I never remembered it. Which was why I was so unnerved when I awoke in my bed hours after I’d fled from the paper. I hadn’t realised how exhausted I’d been, and when I crawled under my covers – still fully clothed and sobbing violently – I never anticipated I’d actually fall asleep.
But, before I knew it, I was back at the showground.
I was running between the showbag trailers again, heading towards the stables. I knew what I was going to find, yet my pace didn’t slow. Something kept propelling me forward, even though I didn’t want to go any further. She’d be there. She’d always be there. I didn’t need to see it to realise it.
I tried to stop myself, but I had no control over my body. It was on a predestined path
and it was pointless to resist. My pace finally slowed as I reached the stables. But still, I edged forwards – straight towards the opened door of Lily’s stall. I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. And, as I rounded the corner of the door, the nausea I’d felt in that moment made a disorienting comeback.
But the first thing I saw was not Lily’s body. Instead, it was my dad, hunched low to the ground over her corpse. He was doing something to her. Something I wasn’t supposed to see. Something far worse than just covering her markings. I began backing away but fireworks erupted above us. He turned, surprised, and locked eyes with me. My blood turned cold.
Because it wasn’t my dad, it was Mark. And when I looked at the body in the stable, I realised it wasn’t Lily.
It was me.
I ran. Just as I had run from the paper’s office but, in my dream haze, the chasm between the two rows of stalls stretched on, seemingly forever. It was as though I were running on the spot because I could see the end of the stables and the edge of the showground but I couldn’t get any closer. I could also see her, standing on the cliff’s edge, that crown of lilies still perched on her windswept hair. Her back was to me, so I screamed out her name.
‘Lily!’
Slowly, she turned to face me, that haunted look from the ghost train etched on her features. She was alive. I finally stopped running. Relief washed over me. It was okay, it was all going to be okay. But she still looked so scared – staring through me like I didn’t exist. I looked over my shoulder. There was nothing there. Not my dad, not Mark and not my corpse.
‘It’s okay,’ I called out. ‘You’re okay.’
Tears were streaming down her cheeks, she shook her head from side to side, and then she jumped.
I screamed her name, but it was too late. I ran to the edge of the cliff, terrified of what I’d see. When I stared down at the roaring ocean below, there was no sign of her. But something else caught my attention. The jagged rocks weren’t rocks, they were crystals. In fact, the entire cliff face was made up of the glistening gemstones that had adorned her desk.
I knew what I had to do.
I jumped.
* * *
I awoke with a start. I was drenched in sweat, tangled up in my sheets, with my body awkwardly contorted. I looked at my hands. My fists had been clenched so tightly that there were nail marks imprinted in my palms. It felt like I hadn’t slept a wink, but the pale light filtering through my window had an afternoon quality. My brain reminded me of the previous night’s events, and I felt something in my chest drop like a stone. I just wanted to go back to sleep.
I hauled myself upright and dragged my fingers through my hair. I was still groggy, but I knew I had things to do. I spotted the golden gift bag that had been sitting – untouched – on my dresser since Christmas Eve. It was elegant and understated, just like Lily. I grabbed it and sat back down on my bed, carefully digging through layers of tissue paper to reveal a large velvet pouch. I removed the necklace, admiring its lustre.
It was a silver lariat pendant with two stones: one triangular piece that rested in the hollow of the neck and one long shard that hung past the sternum. The crystals were a deep blue, with flecks of gold and white that looked like land masses and clouds over a vast ocean. A satellite image of the earth captured in stone.
I hadn’t appreciated its beauty at the time; too caught up in my own personal taste. I remembered being frustrated at her for buying it. Not only did it not fit my style, but it was also clearly expensive. It had made my gift look paltry in comparison.
And yet, she’d smiled so warmly when she opened the trio of leather-bound journals that I couldn’t help but feel pleased with my choice. I’d told her she could use them during her cadetship, but she’d said they were too nice for that and that she had a better use in mind. She always had a way of making things seem special, even if they weren’t. After all, even Dan had said they were a lame gift when I’d shown them to him.
I noticed something else in the pouch and carefully pulled it out. A small card embossed with gold-foil letters. On the front, it said:
Crystal Clear
Gift Shop
The Terrace Houses, Kiama
And on the back:
Lapis Lazuli.
The stone of truth.
Expose secrets, reveal hidden realities,
unravel the mystery.
I ran my fingers over the card’s embossed letters, a small smile creeping up my cheek. Combined with my dream, the whole thing felt prescient – like I was being guided by something or someone unseen. But, before I had sunk too far into my flight of fancy, my pragmatic side kicked in. Had there been more to Lily’s sudden interest in mysticism? And, if so, was it connected to the symbols on her back? At least I now had a starting point. I fastened the pendant around my neck. As pragmatic as I was, I knew I needed all the help I could get.
CHAPTER 10
I typically avoided the town on Sundays. The main street of Kiama became almost impenetrable, the footpaths clogged with tables and chairs full of alfresco diners soaking up the sun. Brunch became an endurance sport, as breakfasts stretched into lunches and lunches transformed into dinners. The tourist/local divide was always in full effect, with locals retreating to hidden hole-in-the-wall establishments over the flashy yet overpriced tourist traps. In most cases, it was best to avoid Terralong Street altogether. Even the best coffee in town wasn’t worth a half-hour wait.
I paused on the corner of Shoalhaven Street, staring up at the paper’s offices, and tried not to think of my encounter with Mark. It still hadn’t quite sunk in that he’d fired me. Across the road, Daisy – a life-size papier-mâché cow – stood guard outside The Old Fire Station Art Gallery. Locals painted her once a month, and she was currently a striking black with colourful bursts of fireworks and the show’s dates emblazoned on her body. I could feel the town’s prying eyes, so I kept walking.
I hated running into people on the best of days, let alone when I knew everyone would want to grill me about my discovery. But I had no choice – to get to the gift shop at the terrace houses, I’d have to run the gauntlet of brunchers. I’d resorted to wearing the international signs of ‘don’t talk to me’ – a hoodie, visible headphones and obnoxiously large sunglasses – but Kiama was anything but international. There was no such thing as personal space or privacy in a small town.
Which was why I was so surprised when I made it down the first half of Terralong Street without so much as a single greeting thrown my way. Don’t get me wrong, I’d spotted locals and they’d certainly spotted me. But no one attempted to interact with me. Instead, they stared and whispered, elbowing their fellow tablemates and surreptitiously nodding in my direction. It was an unnerving, yet not entirely unwelcome experience.
I thought of the text messages. There had been so many before anyone knew that someone had died. Before they knew she had died. It was clear from their faces that the news had since made the rounds. Sure, people were still brunching, but there was a sombre atmosphere hanging over the street, and my presence was clearly not helping. I was a reminder of what had happened; that the town was not what they thought it was.
I imagined the conversations that had been occurring while I’d slept the morning away. They all broke down into two phrases: ‘Not here’ and ‘not her’. People didn’t get murdered in Kiama, least of all people like Lily Williams.
Continuing down the main street, the sickly smell of freshly made waffle cones filled the air and I instinctively scratched at my forearms. As a teenager, I had worked at the town’s self-professed ‘famous’ ice-creamery and had the war wounds to prove it – crisscrossed scars – from the industrial-sized waffle maker. It was something of a rite of passage for the town’s teens, and I had fond memories of my friends and me playing tic-tac-toe on each other’s grid-like welts. My mind floated back to Lily’s markings. We’d both been scarred by the town, in more ways than one.
As I passed the ice-creamery – trying not to
make eye contact with anyone inside – I froze. I hadn’t been expecting to see those two-toned eyes again. And yet, I shouldn’t have been shocked. After all, the photos from the show ball had been on the photography lab’s windows for the past two months. I’d long stopped noticing them as I walked past, but they were impossible to ignore now.
A large number featured Lily. She hadn’t been crowned showgirl at that stage, but there were far more photos of her than there were of her competitors. I suppose it was unsurprising. She was a shoo-in for showgirl, and everyone knew it. Not only was she beautiful, well-spoken and intelligent, she was also the by-product of two of the town’s most prominent agricultural families.
Both families had always been part of the town. And while Lily’s dad, Michael, had forsaken the Williamses’ dairy heritage for a career in psychiatry, Lily’s mum, Sharon, was living up to the Roses’ farming roots as the owner of a prize-winning vineyard and winery. She also happened to be an ex-showgirl herself – further cementing Lily’s apparent destiny. The other entrants hadn’t stood a chance.
I looked at a photo of the three of them. There had long been rumours that Lily was actually adopted and, looking at them, it was easy to see why. She looked nothing like either of her parents. Her mum was prim and birdlike, with blanched skin and long auburn hair. In contrast, Lily’s dad was a wiry and intense-looking man, with thin lips and piercing blue eyes.
They both dressed far too formally, as if to constantly remind the townsfolk that they were better than them. Sharon in old-fashioned dresses, and Michael in suave three-piece suits. They both lacked Lily’s warmth and approachability; that special something that commanded attention. The fact that Sharon was older than Michael had done little to quell the gossip that she’d been infertile long before Lily was born. However, if she had been adopted, it was a secret the family were determined to keep.
