Currawong Manor

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘What have you done?’ I felt a tremor of foreboding in my stomach.

  ‘The photos – you know the ones I mean.’ Dennis’s face was flushed with indignation and contorted with distaste. ‘Disgusting, sick pictures no man should keep. I saw you leaving the studio that day upset, so I had a look. I’ve been thinking it over, wondering what’s best to do, and this morning I left them for Doris to find. She should know how depraved he really is. She might finally listen to me for a change. She’d be well rid of him.’

  I shook my head, scarcely able to comprehend his words. Although Dennis’s sentiments echoed my own revulsion when I had discovered the photographs, I found myself defending Rupert. ‘How dare you even touch his work! You should stick to what you do understand – plants and vegetables! You can’t expect an artist to think like other people!’ I went to push past Dennis, intending to run into the house and try to find the images before Doris sighted them. But as I did so, I heard Doris’s voice coming from the studio, angrier and more desperate than I had ever heard her before, and I knew I was too late. I could only decipher some of the words over the sound of other voices shouting and loud crashes as though objects were being flung across the room.

  ‘You and her . . . disgusting . . . vile, despicable, lying pervert. You’re a monster! Treating your own daughter as though she’s one of your stupid Flowers!’ Ugly lightning-strike words that pierced through the garden and struck the woods.

  I turned to stare at the manor and a dark wet cloud seemed to enshroud me. My heart quickened and my breath caught in my throat with a strangled gasp. Over the towers of the manor, more currawongs were gathering, like a bottle of black ink spreading.

  Dennis, who had been listening smugly to the altercation in the studio, noticed my horrified expression and spun around to witness the sinister sight. Then he swore loudly and began to run back across the lawn towards where Shalimar had been playing. I looked to see what had triggered his reaction, and a tremor of shock went through me. The fairy house was destroyed, flowers ripped into pieces, leaves scattered and Shalimar had disappeared. Panicking, I glanced towards the wooden fence that led to Owlbone Woods; beyond it, the dark trees, shadows and ferns seemed to mock and beckon me.

  A white cockatoo shimmered for a moment against the foliage – or was it a child’s dress vanishing into the bush? I thought I heard the laughter of children coming from the trees, and I was certain that that was where the girl had gone. I ran towards the studio, yelling that Shalimar had gone into the woods.

  Rupert came out of his studio and heard my screams. He ran straight past me, swearing and brandishing his palette knife. He sprinted into the woods, calling for Shalimar over and over. I followed him; as I ran, I was hardly aware of Kitty and Wanda following me, hastily pulled on robes, hair streaming behind them, stumbling on the uneven path, shouting at me to wait. We ran and yelled, frantically trying to reach Shalimar before she disappeared forever into those dark and waiting shadows.

  But before we found her body and called the police, I already knew that something terrible had happened at Currawong Manor. Because of those birds and their weird manifestation on the roof, every part of my being knew.

  Tragic Drowning of Mountains Girl! the newspaper headlines screamed. Yes, she was gone forever, roaming, playing and calling for her parents inside Death’s Garden.

  ***

  Ginger paused, taking a few deep breaths. She was nearly at the end of her story now, but she didn’t know if she could continue. Would confessing release her from the guilt she carried? And would Elizabeth ever forgive her for the part that the Flowers had played in the Partridge family tragedy?

  26

  The Wrong Path

  As Ginger was reliving the traumatic memory of Shalimar’s final day, Elizabeth was watching through the window of her Nest as drifts of snow fell from the grey sky. She had been planning to peruse some old photographs with a cup of tea, before meeting with Ginger, but instead found herself captivated by the world outside.

  The snow had magically transformed the garden, and it now resembled a black and white illustration from a Grimm’s fairytale, muffled in an eerie silence. The bare winter trees covered in white powder, the scarecrow bleakly silhouetted: everywhere she looked the familiar was made mysterious. In the folly a snow-covered Diana stood proud and defiant. Elizabeth knew she had to capture it. She put on a thick coat and scarf, grabbed her Canon, and left the cabin.

  She wandered through the grounds, snapping a couple of photographs of the manor with its roof covered in snow, the scarecrow, and a series of trees against the sky. Then she positioned the camera and directed it towards the drystone wall leading to Owlbone Woods. As she bent to look through the viewfinder, she realised that there was a figure standing at the wall. With a thrill, she realised it was Dolly Sharp, dressed all in black, her white face ghostlike in the grey light. She quickly snapped the image. Finally she had captured Dolly on film! The woman stared straight through her, apparently not caring her photograph had been taken. Then she turned her head slowly and walked into the woods. Without stopping to think, Elizabeth followed her.

  The bush was eerily beautiful in the snow. Amid the uncanny silence, Elizabeth could hear her own breathing as she crunched and slid along the track. Dolly walked so quickly that Elizabeth found it difficult to keep up with her, and tried to follow the other woman’s tracks as best she could before the snow disguised them. Where would Dolly be heading to in this weather? But Elizabeth already knew the answer to that question: she was willing to bet anything Dolly was heading to her mother’s old cottage. The idea that she might get to see the cottage – and, even better, photograph it – was intoxicating.

  But as the bush became denser, unease began to creep in. Dolly was nowhere to be seen, and Elizabeth could no longer make out any footsteps. Then the path she had thought she was on – the same one that led to Mermaid Glen – split into two, which led off in different directions. She paused, momentarily confused about what to do, then chose the track leading off to the left because imprints in the snow hinted somebody had recently trod there. A noise like a tree branch being snapped sounded on her right and she stopped, listening hard but hearing only her own ragged breathing. Was there something travelling alongside her in the bush – a kangaroo or deer, perhaps? Or had Dolly become aware that Elizabeth was following, and had she doubled back to play some silly game with her? Trying to shake off her fear, Elizabeth quickened her pace.

  Rounding a corner in the path, she paused at the sight of a small lane, half covered in shrubs. Was she near the dollmaker’s cottage? Feeling a renewed frisson of excitement, she turned off the track and ventured along the fern-covered lane. She reminded herself to tread carefully in the snow; she didn’t want to risk falling over and breaking her ankle out here.

  Five minutes later she emerged into a clearing. In the centre of it was a tiny cottage. Elizabeth’s heart was hammering with wonder as she stood and gazed at it. The old weatherboards were painted a sage green with brown trim, both muted, faded colours that would usually meld into the surrounding bush but which now stood out starkly against the snow. As the snow had camouflaged so much, it had also revealed what was once hidden.

  Elizabeth approached the cottage cautiously, wondering whether Dolly would appear from the door with her axe raised to repel tourists, but the dwelling had a vacant air. Overgrown vines and creepers half obscured the front porch. In the otherworldly silence and mysterious beauty of the scene, Elizabeth almost expected the dollmaker herself, with her long black robes and pinched, severe face, to open the door.

  Pushing aside some of the vines, Elizabeth stepped onto the wooden verandah. A rickety old chair sat there, and beside it was a small, battered red stool. Elizabeth stopped, struck by the poignancy of the scene. Was this where the dollmaker and her daughter had spent time companionably enjoying their isolation? The thought gave Elizabeth a strange pang. Miss Sharp was long dead and Dolly was now an elderly woman, living as an
unwanted guest on a stranger’s property. But once she had been a small, open-hearted child running free in these woods, unaware that perfect summer evenings and her mother’s love and protection wouldn’t last forever. Elizabeth, however, might never experience the joy of sharing the twilight with a young daughter. At this odd, deserted cottage, she had never felt more alone in her life. But it also felt slightly unreal, as if the cottage was a stage prop, and Elizabeth had simply forgotten her next line. Although she knew she should probably turn and walk away, and intrude no longer on this strangely moving scene, she couldn’t resist the chance to peek inside the house.

  Another twig breaking behind her interrupted her reverie, and she jumped and turned around, uneasily surveying the bush that surrounded her. ‘Dolly?’ she called into the stillness.

  The bush was silent, as if taunting her. Giving herself a little mental shake, she set her shoulders, turned back towards the cottage and tried the old rusty door handle. It was locked. Obviously someone had a key. A someone who locked the cottage to keep trespassers away. She moved to the side and peered through the cobwebbed front window, then gasped in surprise. There was very little furniture to be seen in the interior, only an old iron Kooka stove, near an open fireplace, and a tiny wooden table with two chairs and another shut door on the other side of the room. What had startled Elizabeth were the hundreds of cloth dolls that covered every surface and were crammed into every available space. A cottage filled with dolls.

  Why on earth had it been left so cluttered? Was Dolly keeping some sort of shrine to her mother? The image of Dolly and her axe appeared again in Elizabeth’s mind; the old woman wouldn’t take kindly to someone snooping around this intensely personal space. But Elizabeth’s intense curiosity overcame her fear, and she strode around the side of the cottage. Perhaps the back door might be unlocked?

  After trying the back door with its peeling blue paint and finding it was also locked, Elizabeth wiped the cobwebs and grime off the back window and looked inside. She could just make out a small area with a washing trough, a few boxes of Sunlight soap and a few dolls propped up beside it as if overlooking or even doing the washing.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ she muttered, and turned to investigate the back of the clearing. The rear of the cottage was just as unkempt as the front. Near a small wooden henhouse was a plot that looked to have once been a thriving vegetable garden; herbs now grew wild across the beds. Paint cans were stacked haphazardly, a rotting ladder lying on its side behind them. Elizabeth glanced around, still unable to shake the impression that someone – or something – was watching her. Just to the side of the wooden henhouse she noted a mass of small white crosses poking up out of the ground. She tiptoed closer and read what was scratched onto the crosses. The majority were marked only with dates, most from the 1920s to 1950. Three larger crosses simply bore names: Eleanor, Marilyn and Errol. It was a miniature graveyard, she realised, with a poignant twinge for the two women living alone in their bush cottage; a cemetery for pets, she assumed.

  The snow was falling more heavily now, and Elizabeth roused herself. If she lingered here too long she risked not being able to find her way home in the dark – something she wasn’t completely confident of anyway, given the strangeness of the fork appearing in the path she thought she recognised. She snapped a few shots with her camera, immersed in the strange beauty of this place seen through her lens. And then she heard another noise like a coughing sound from the front of the house. She tensed and listened hard.

  ‘Dolly! Are you there?’ She made herself walk around the side of the house, attempting to exude a confidence she didn’t feel. There was a chill at the nape of her neck, as if some deep and ancient part of her body was urging her to be cautious, that danger was near. She began to stride away from the cottage, treading the path that had led her here. But the fear returned in greater waves and her feet stopped walking as if of their own accord. She looked about wildly, all her instincts pressing her to return to the cottage as quickly as she could.

  Elizabeth had spent her career as a photographer following her instincts when it came to making decisions, and she had always been proved right in the past. She retreated hurriedly towards the cottage, scanning the woods around her. She was nearly at the house when she heard branches breaking and a rustling noise on the track behind her. It sounded close by. Don’t run, an inner voice warned. Looking up at a tree she saw something she hadn’t noticed before, something that sent another chill down her spine. Intestines dangled from an overhead branch like a bloody, glistening trophy.

  Her heart racing, Elizabeth stepped up onto the front porch of the cottage. Looking around, she realised she would have to break the window to get in. She picked up the little red stool and swung it at the window; the sound of the glass shattering was shocking in the deadened silence of the clearing. Gasping in fear, she quickly pulled herself through the window frame, oblivious to the jagged pieces of glass cutting her hands and tearing her coat, and landed awkwardly in the room of dolls.

  The room smelled pungently of dust and earth. She glanced about wildly for something to cover the broken window and spotted the small wooden table. She quickly dragged it across the room and tipped it on its side, upending the dolls heaped on it, then pushed it against the empty window frame.

  Her breath came in panicked pants as she listened for movement outside. For the first time it struck her that no one knew where she was, and that she had no way of contacting anyone. Why, for God’s sake, had she been so impulsive and stupid as to leave her mobile behind? Now she was at the mercy of whatever was out there, and no one would come to find her. She glanced around the room, meeting hundreds of indifferent button eyes, fearing that the intruder would find another entrance into the cottage – or had a key. What the hell would she defend herself with? Hit some maniac with a doll? The house was too small and sparsely furnished for her to hide.

  ‘Oh God,’ she muttered as she heard distinct sounds outside the broken window of more strange coughs. She pressed her ear against the door, listening, trying to assess what was happening outside. If she hadn’t listened to her body’s warning, she realised, she would have continued down the bush track and come face to face with whoever was out there. What sort of sicko strews guts and body parts from trees? And where was Dolly? Had she deliberately lured her here only to abandon her to some predator?

  She had the oddest feeling that whoever was outside was just as aware of her and was also trying to assess the situation. There was a scratching on the door and what sounded like another cough; a vivid pungent smell came from outside.

  Elizabeth had never considered herself a religious person, but in that moment she closed her eyes and began to pray silently to a god she didn’t believe in. ‘Dear God, please don’t let whatever is outside this door get in. Please, send me some protection.’

  Trying to breathe deeply, to stay as calm as possible, she made herself look around the room again, searching for something she could use to defend herself. Then her eyes fell on a small oil painting over the mantel. She stared, unable to believe what she was seeing. Leaving the door and window vulnerable to whatever was outside, she stepped closer to examine Rupert’s painting. Shocked disbelief replaced her fear. Why had Ginger lied to her? Or was it some joke of Rupert’s? And what on earth was the painting doing here?

  Another noise on the verandah roused her, and she hurried back to the door and pushed against it, trying to stop whoever it was from bursting through. Looking around again, she realised that the dolls were now just dark shapes in the dimness of the cottage, and she could no longer make out their colours and features. Night was falling, and soon the cottage would be totally dark. As she pushed against the door, to her surprise Elizabeth found herself thinking of her mother. She wondered if she would ever see Lois again, and she was surprised by her deep aching need to see her. And then she thought of Nick, and how much she wished he was here with her. Somehow she knew he would be able to make sense of the painting
and Ginger’s fabrications. Elizabeth sensed that the dots connected in a terrible pattern that she was yet to grasp.

  As night inexorably fell, the room became even colder. Shivering, Elizabeth found an old crocheted rug in the bedroom that smelled of damp but which she wrapped around herself for extra warmth as she crouched against the upended table and continued to listen for noises outside. It should have been a relief that there was no more, but the heavy silence outside was even more unnerving.

  She could only hope that the prowler wouldn’t return and force entry. But as she sat, shivering and straining her ears to hear in the pitch black, the main thought in her head was that Ginger had lied to her.

  27

  Tea with a White Rabbit

  Nick relaxed in an oversized leather chair in Patrick Bishop’s study as the elderly man fussed over a silver tray bearing tea and a china plate with chunky slices of fruitcake, and asked whether Nick wanted milk, cream or sugar. There was something soothing about being around Patrick, Nick thought. Perhaps it was the resemblance to Nick’s dead uncle Ronnie, whom Nick had loved visiting in Mosman on Sydney’s north shore when he was growing up. Today, Patrick wore a blue pinstriped shirt and a grey vest with a large fob watch dangling from the pocket, and Nick appreciated both the old-fashioned, refined air of the man, and his resemblance to the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.