He took a deep breath before speaking again. Like he’d decided it was all right to tell me stuff. ‘It was crowded but we were happy in our home,’ he said. ‘Besides, we would spend most of our time outside or at school. I enjoyed school very much.’ His face darkened again. ‘Until Papa stopped me going.’
‘Sounds like he needed to chill out big time.’ I bit my lip. ‘I mean, I don’t think your papa was very fair.’
‘No,’ Isaiah mumbled. He turned and began walking down the path to the house.
‘I couldn’t stand it if Mark was like that,’ I said, following him. ‘I wouldn’t put up with it. I’d be off out of there.’ I clamped my hand over my mouth realizing what I’d said. This time, Isaiah seemed to understand me, and nodding he answered, ‘Yes, that is what I did. Off out of there.’ He gave another tiny nod.
We walked in silence until we reached the butterfly glade. Again we watched the butterflies and Isaiah began to relax, talking about his mother again.
‘Did any of your sisters have blonde hair?’
‘Why?’ he asked.
I told him about the pictures. ‘There was a beautiful woman with blonde hair. She would have been your great-grandmother. They must have been mega rich. You should’ve seen her jewellery. I would just die for that necklace.’ I rolled my eyes when he shook his head, confused. ‘You look just like one of the sons. You’ve got the same eyes. I know they were your family, but it was sort of creepy.’
‘My family,’ he whispered. ‘Papa never spoke of them.’
‘I haven’t got to the juicy bit yet.’ When I told him the story about how she left with another man, and Joshua began drinking and gambling, Isaiah’s eyes grew huge in his face. He looked like he was going to throw up.
Chapter 33—Isaiah
Are you all right?’ she said. ‘You’ve gone all pale.’ I barely felt her touch my arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Me and my big mouth.’
‘Yes. No. I’m…’ I stumbled to the break in the clearing. My heart hammered in time with the pounding in my head.
‘Isaiah?’
When I glanced back, Becs’ face was full of worry. She looked just like one of my sisters the day they’d left.
Drinking and gambling. Oscar had said something about it when I asked about the house. Had he known the story all along? ‘Herrick House is just wood and brick and plaster…There’s no evil there except wood rot and mould.’
Joshua Herrick. My great-grandfather. Papa’s grandfather. ‘That’s why he left,’ I mumbled to myself. It all began to make sense. And at the same time—no sense at all.
‘What?’ Becs ran over to me.
I looked up. ‘That’s why we didn’t live in the big house. All this time, Papa was ashamed. He always told us, “Living a good life will wash away the sins of our fathers from our souls.” All our lives he was trying to make up for his grandfather’s sins.’
‘But that’s stupid,’ said Becs. ‘It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t even born.’
I nodded. ‘You never met my father. He was very devout with strict rules on how people should live. Alcohol and gambling were forbidden.’
Becs screwed up her face. ‘Did he think you’d all turn into his grandfather if you lived in Herrick House? That’s so dumb. Joshua Herrick had a reason to be sad and depressed. Your papa didn’t. He sounds as crazy as his grandfather.’ She tugged on my arm. ‘Come and sit down. You still look wobbly.’
I followed her back into the clearing. Was Papa crazy? Had hiding his grandfather’s sins made him that way? I sat in the centre of the clearing trying to remember what finally sparked his decision to leave it all behind.
It had been only months ago. I had spent a few nights alone in the bush. It happened more and more as Papa and I argued about things. Mother had sent one of my brothers to find me and I returned for a meal with them. Papa did not speak to me, and I did not speak to him. My sister whispered he still wasn’t talking to Oscar either. They had fallen out weeks before, but I did not know what about.
Mother had asked one of my brothers to say grace and halfway through, my smallest sister asked, ‘When are we moving to the big house? My teacher said we should live there. My teacher said we should all learn our family history and be proud of it. My teacher—’
Papa let out a roar so loud, the little ones burst into tears. Mother jumped up and tried to bustle them out of the kitchen but Papa yelled even louder. ‘Sit down!’
The older kids and I helped to calm the little ones as Papa stood at the head of the table. ‘I am the head of this family,’ he thundered. ‘I will decide where we live. I will not listen to what the teacher thinks, or the shopkeeper or the other nosy people in town. I have condoned their gossip for years. We will be leaving before they can corrupt you any more. I will not have it!’ And within weeks they were gone.
I looked up at Becs. This townie who lived in my home and discovered my secret had answered the question that had haunted my whole life.
Chapter 34—Becs
Somehow, my spilling the family secret scored me huge brownie points with Isaiah. He looked like he would faint from shock at first, but the more we talked about it that day, the more relieved he seemed to be. It was all totally weird to me. His papa sounded like a real basket case—avoiding a house because of who’d lived there. It didn’t make sense. It was just another reason for me to keep working hard at the house so we could get home to the city. Living in the middle of nowhere too long could send you loony.
Isaiah appeared more often after that and soon we met every few days. I’d tell Mum and Mark after work each day at the house (or on our days off) that I was going for a walk or going to read my books in the bush. I made sure Nick wasn’t following me before meeting up with Isaiah in his mum’s butterfly glade.
Mark got some contractors in to help with laying pipes and installing new water tanks, so Mum, Nick and I only worked mornings for a while. I killed time writing home (I’d finally received a letter from Lexi, but she didn’t say much), doing my correspondence (when Mum nagged me), and meeting Isaiah.
We spent ages watching the butterflies lay their eggs, which would hatch and grow. My mates would die laughing if they saw me glued to a swan plant instead of the TV or computer. I would never tell them that the best bit was watching the caterpillars curl up and then wriggle and wriggle until their skin crinkled off to show their bright-green body inside. It was like they’d taken off their day clothes to show off their evening gowns with a tiny necklace of gold dots around the top of the chrysalis. They always reminded me of Isaiah’s great-grandmother and the beautiful necklace she wore.
When Isaiah caught me engrossed in a butterfly hatching one day, he decided I needed to know everything about the bush. And that’s how it began. Me trying to convince him the city was the best place in the world and him trying to convince me I should stay in the country.
I screwed up my face when he told me about pukeko pie, possum patties and rabbit stew. The home-grown veges and eggs didn’t sound so bad, though. It surprised me how that sounded normal already. Mum’s veges were growing and the chickens gave us eggs every day.
I talked about school, going to the movies and hanging out with my friends in the shopping malls for hours.
‘Did you have a lot of money?’ Isaiah asked.
‘No, why?’
‘Why did it take so long?’
I laughed. ‘We would just talk and meet others there and maybe buy a burger or something. It was fun.’ He shrugged, shaking his head. I suppose it did sound strange.
‘Tell me more about your school.’ I told him the subjects I wanted to do at high school (because my friends were doing them). I hadn’t decided on what I wanted to do for a career yet.
‘I didn’t know you could do so many things on correspondence,’ he said. ‘I would like to do these too. We could do them together?’
‘No, I’m going—,’ I began. He looked so excited I couldn’t tell him the truth. I nodded.
As the days went by, the more he opened up about his family. At thirteen, he was the oldest. He had had four brothers and four sisters. I still couldn’t imagine that many people in one family, let alone all living in the shack.
He wanted to know more about my family. I don’t know why. We were pretty normal, but he was fascinated in the most boring stuff. All the day-to-day stuff like where Mum and Mark had worked, me catching the school bus, Nick’s soccer practice (super boring!).
I told him about meeting Mark and Nicola for the first time and how they became part of my family. ‘I hated them so much at the beginning,’ I said. ‘I wanted me and Mum to stay the same.’
Isaiah frowned. ‘Mark is your stepfather? Where is your real father?’
I stared at him. No-one had asked me that for a long, long time. He stared back, with the same serious look he always wore.
‘He left when I was three,’ I mumbled. ‘I don’t know where he is.’
Isaiah sighed. ‘Just like mine.’
Chapter 35—Becs
I thought a lot about that afterwards. Sure my father left, but he didn’t take Mum with him. Mark and Nick might’ve invaded me and Mum, then dragged me out into the sticks, but they weren’t that bad. Even without my mates, no phone and having to live in the shack, I was doing OK compared to Isaiah. At least he had Oscar. Still, it made me pull my head in a bit about stuff.
‘What’s Oscar like?’ I asked the next time we met.
Isaiah sighed and looked up from a book I’d lent him. ‘Always questions, Becs.’ He smiled. ‘Oscar is kind. He treats his dogs well, and cares for the bush. He looks out for me.’ He looked thoughtful for a second. ‘Oscar is like a stepfather.’
I smirked. That wasn’t the man that I’d seen. ‘Yeah, but what’s he like to live with? I bet he snores his head off and never changes his socks.’ Which was a dumb thing to say because Isaiah always wore the same clothes. He didn’t smell that bad, though, and I figured he must wash sometime.
‘I do not know. I stay in Oscar’s skins shed.’ He went back to his book.
‘What? He doesn’t even let you sleep inside? You’re not one of his pig dogs—you’re a person!’
Isaiah shrugged. ‘Oscar’s house is only made for one. I am not in his way and come and go as I please from the shed.’
‘No way!’ I said. An idea leapt into my head and I blurted it out without thinking. ‘I’m going to tell Mum. You can’t live like that.’
Isaiah leapt up, his book dropping to the ground. ‘No! You cannot tell!’ He shook his head, his scraggly hair swinging around his face. ‘I will not leave the bush. I will not live with Papa again. If you tell, they will make me.’
‘Who’s they?’ I demanded.
‘The government people. Oscar said it is so.’
‘But—,’ I began. He was gone.
Chapter 36—Isaiah
Would she tell? I should have listened to Oscar. I should have stayed away from her. Why did I trust a townie? I had told her so much.
I hardly slept, wondering, worrying. I made up a pack, ready to run if someone strange came looking.
I jumped every time I heard a noise behind me in the bush. Would they come for me? Would Papa punish me when he had to take me back? Or would he pretend I was a stranger? It all swirled through my nightmares and during each day, until I saw her again.
Chapter 37—Becs
Me and my big mouth. I wasn’t going to tell, but Isaiah didn’t know that. I couldn’t forget the look in his eyes. He’d been so angry. And scared.
I left notes under rocks in our meeting place. Every day after working at the house I would race off to check but found them all unopened. He hadn’t come back.
Nick was getting harder to shake off every day, and I had to be even more careful she didn’t see where I went. I walked up and down the tracks looking for any sign of him. I felt more awful each day that passed. With everything that had happened to him, I had to go and make it worse. What if he’d really run away this time? Where would he go?
I’d learnt most of the paths in the bush around the shack. There was one to Herrick House and the ones around the tree house but I had never ventured down the ones that led to Oscar’s. It wasn’t that I was scared of him or anything, just that I’d never had to go that way. Now I knew I had to.
The next day at Herrick House I helped Mum in the kitchen. We’d opened it the week before and Mum was in heaven. Well, she would be when it was tidied up. Wide wooden benches stretched along one side and a huge black stove was at the end. Mum was keen to replace that after using the shack stove, but had oohed and aahed over the carved wall panelling and deep wood shelving right up one wall. All I saw was dust and muck where birds had got in and made nests.
Mum passed me a broom. ‘Let’s see what we’re up against, Becs.’
After sweeping and scrubbing until my arms were going to drop off, I stopped and leaned against one of the benches. I gave a big ‘drama queen’ sigh. One of my specialties.
Mum stopped scrubbing. ‘Are you OK over there?’
‘Just a bit puffed,’ I said. ‘I’m feeling a bit weird. I think I’ll get some air.’
Mum stepped back from the shelf, a little frown crinkling her face. ‘That’s a good idea. You’ve been a bit quiet the last few days. Is everything OK?’
Not really, Mum, I thought. ‘Yeah, everything’s fine,’ I said.
‘Why don’t you go back and have a lie down?’
Bull’s-eye! ‘Yeah.’ I sighed again for effect. ‘I might do that.’ I wandered out of the kitchen and when I was down the other end of the hall I bolted through the rest of the house.
‘Where are you going?’ Nick called from the front lounge.
‘I’m feeling yuck,’ I said. ‘I’m going for a lie down.’
‘You don’t look sick to me. I heard you running.’
‘Whatever,’ I said waving her off. ‘See you later.’ I strolled off towards the shack, pleased I didn’t run into Mark and have to explain myself again.
My plan was to race off to Oscar’s, see Isaiah and tell him I wasn’t going to dob him in, then be back at the shack before they knew I was gone.
Mum had said once since we’d arrived in the bush that at least she didn’t have to worry about me sneaking out at night or anything. I wondered what she’d say if she knew? Didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. Isaiah was already a secret before I came along.
I got back to the shack, grabbed a bottle of water and raced into the bush. I had to move fast.
Chapter 38—Becs
It was further than I thought. Maybe I was on the wrong path? A couple of times I stopped and looked back the way I’d come. You guessed it. Just when I was thinking of scrapping the whole idea, I saw a chimney. Oscar’s house suddenly appeared before me in a clearing just like at the shack.
The house was even smaller than the shack, but a lot more modern. It wasn’t like he had a Sky dish or anything, or even a TV aerial, but it didn’t look like it’d blow away in a wind gust either.
I stepped back into the cover of the bush, not quite ready to face Oscar if he was home. I knew he was a hunter so that meant he’d have dogs. Scary, giant, slobbering pig dogs. Becoming dog meat was definitely not part of the plan.
I skirted around the house to check things out a bit more. There were three shabby sheds not far from the house. I screwed up my nose wondering which one Isaiah slept in. Was Isaiah even still there?
Only when I was one hundred and fifty per cent sure there were no dogs roaming the place (guessing they were off with their master), I crept into the clearing.
A tightly stacked pile of firewood ran alongside the house. Two tall water bins stood at the front end and three empty wire dog kennels sat down the back.
The front porch was tidy with several pairs of boots lined up on one side underneath a row of jackets hanging on hooks. It looked like three people lived there, not just one hunter, and a very tidy hunter
, at that.
I crept around the front of the house. Betcha the inside wasn’t as tidy as the outside, I thought. Mum was always teasing Mark about being a messy male and I bet Oscar was the same. I peered in one of the side windows. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light inside the room. I could see a table and a—
A strong grip landed on my shoulder.
Chapter 39—Becs
I spun around expecting to see Oscar in my face.
‘Isaiah!’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to say sorry,’ I blurted. ‘To tell you I haven’t told anyone. I wouldn’t.’
‘Why did you say it then? Why do people say things they do not mean, that are not true?’ He scowled. ‘You are just like Papa.’
‘No, Isaiah,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m not. I’m your friend.’ Yeah I know. It sounded corny. But I really meant it.
He stepped back, suspicion all over his face.
‘I’m not going to tell. I just freaked when you told me you sleep in a shed.’
I could see he still wasn’t sure. ‘I’ve got an idea.’ I looked over at the rickety sheds. ‘I don’t know which one you sleep in, but you can stay somewhere better if you want.’
He looked at me sideways. ‘Where?’
‘The house has—’
‘No!’ He took another step back. ‘I cannot stay there.’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘There are much bigger sheds. They’re old, but you’ll have more room.’
Isaiah frowned and glanced back at Oscar’s sheds. ‘I have to help Oscar.’
‘You can still do that. You were sleeping in the tree house before we came, remember? You still came to help Oscar, didn’t you?’
He nodded and motioned me to follow him. With a screech, he pushed open the door of the smallest shed, then stepped inside.
Too Many Secrets Page 7
