Lyrebird Hill

by Anna Romer

  I stumbled up the steps to Pete’s front door and burst inside. Going straight to the phone, I dialled triple-0 three times before I got it right, then wasted a full minute holding my breath for an in-control voice to answer and reassure me that emergency services and police were on their way.

  Then I realised the line was dead.

  I wasted more time rattling the cord, checking the connection. Then I remembered that Rob had grown up on the next property over, and would have known about the cottage. In typical fashion he had covered all bases and effectively cut me off from any link to the outside world.

  Slumping against the wall, I closed my eyes and dragged in breath after breath, trying to find my calm centre so I could think. Pete’s keys were in my pocket, but it was likely Rob had immobilised the Holden, just as he’d done with Esther’s Morris.

  As I stood trembling in the darkened room, breathing in the scent of books and dogs and Pete’s comforting presence, the tension in my head momentarily eased. A tiny window opened, and the breeze of a thought blew in. I looked at the cupboard under the sink. Went over and opened it.

  There on the top shelf sat a small bright yellow device: the personal beacon Pete had told me about the morning after Esther’s death.

  If only she’d carried the PLB, she could have signalled for help.

  I grabbed the beacon, then found a first aid kit. Filling a bottle with water, I stowed the lot in a haversack, which I slung over my shoulder.

  The track that led back to the river looked clear, but again I ducked into the trees and ran silently downhill, my bag banging against my side. I allowed myself a moment of relief; I was going to make it, I was nearly home free. But as I rushed towards the shoreline, I heard footfall behind me. Rob shouted my name.

  Panic took hold and I veered directly down the bank, crashing onto the pebbly beach, stumbling into the shallows as I tried to create distance between us. Of course he would have known I’d try to use Pete’s landline. Now he was close, but I couldn’t risk hiding, couldn’t risk getting cut off from the stepping stones that bridged the river. My feet and jeans were wet and my runners slid on the smooth rock, but within moments I reached the opposite embankment.

  Rob’s voice rang sharp and loud behind me and I chanced a look over my shoulder. He was closer than I’d hoped, already bounding across the rock islands that glistened wet with my footprints. I saw his shoe skate on the slippery surface, then as he righted himself, the dying light caught a metallic flash in his hand. He stopped mid-river and raised his arm, took swift aim.

  I turned and stumbled up the bank, climbing onto the granite shelf that jutted above the rapids, half-hoping to find the overhang I had taken shelter in the night Bardo had found me.

  The crack of gunfire made me hit the ground. I lay trembling on the damp rock, gasping the scent of rotting vegetation that wafted from the crevices that carved between the stones, fear seizing control of my limbs. This was real. Rob meant me harm. Big gentle Rob with the warm smile was gone, his mask removed; in his place, the killer I had been trying to forget for most of my life.

  Another shot blasted out, and shards of stone exploded nearby. Rob had crossed the river and was running along the shore towards me. His face was pale, but his eyes were dark hollows in the dimness, and his chest rose and fell with his ragged breathing.

  I scrambled backwards and somehow got to my feet, my wet shoes leaving water trails on the granite. I kept my gaze fixed on Rob, but saw, on my periphery, a cluster of boulders nearby. Dark shadows gathered between them, gaps that might provide me shelter. But I was too slow, my reflexes dulled by panic; Rob swiftly climbed onto the shelf and strode towards me.

  ‘Hey, babe.’ His shirt was smeared in blood, torn along one sleeve. His gaze was fierce in the gloom, and as he levelled his weapon at my head, his hands shook. ‘I guess it’s goodbye, after all.’

  ‘So much for all your letting-go crap,’ I said, my voice harsh with nerves. ‘You might have gotten away with it. But you couldn’t forget her. That’s the real reason you were with me, wasn’t it?’

  Rob hesitated. The handgun wavered. His eyes narrowed and he appeared to consider my words. ‘You’re so like her,’ he said after a while, and his voice softened. ‘You never quite understood how much you resembled her.’

  ‘And now you’re going to kill her all over again.’

  He shook his head, parting his lips, baring his teeth in a grim smile. ‘If it means saving the career I’ve worked so hard to build, then yes. I’ll hate myself for all eternity, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.’

  I shuffled backwards, my whole body quaking, my breath coming in gasps.

  Rob watched me, and I saw the excitement in his face, the way his gaze sharpened to absorb my distress. As I retreated, a distance grew between us, but then, slowly, he began to walk towards me. I continued to take small steps, keeping the cluster of boulders on the edge of my vision, noting how the dusk now enveloped them in shadows. I wanted to run, but fear made me stumble and I only managed a few steps before I tripped and fell.

  Rob moved suddenly, readjusting his aim, but as he shifted his balance his brogue skated across the wet trail of footprints I’d left behind. His foot went from under him and drove sharply downwards into a gap in the rock. He let out a yell and tried to pull free, but his foot appeared to be jammed fast. There was an awkward angle to his leg, and he was hunched over himself, the handgun gripped loosely, almost carelessly now, as he focused on his trapped foot.

  He let out an animal noise of frustration, then swore loudly. ‘Ruby, don’t just stand there like a frigging post. Get over here and help me.’

  I climbed to my feet. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Rob’s lips were white, and his face grey as the stone we stood on. Judging by his twisted grimace, he was in horrible pain.

  ‘You cold-hearted bitch, help me.’

  I shook my head, backing away. ‘I’ll let rescue services know you’re here, but I’m not coming near you. Not now, not ever.’

  My stomach knotted, but I forced myself to turn and walk towards the edge of the stone plateau; towards the safe shadows of the tall rock formations.

  ‘Ruby, get back here.’

  I looked back. Rob swung the gun and aimed it at my head, gripping it with both hands. Sweat glistened on his forehead. I knew the pain in his ankle must be inching up to near intolerable. The hollowness in his eyes had grown darker, his skin was grey.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he said, his voice cracked and hoarse. ‘I’ll finish you, Ruby. I’ll shut you up for good.’

  ‘Your ankle’s swelling fast. It’s jammed tight in that crevice. You’re already in a lot of pain. In twenty minutes you’ll feel as if your leg is being crushed in a vice. Even if you were able to wrench it free, there’s no way you’d make it across this terrain with an injury like that. Especially now it’s getting dark. I’m your only hope of survival. If I die, you die, too.’

  ‘But if I let you walk away, you’ll tell them about Jamie.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He raised the gun. ‘I’ll take my chance.’

  Time slowed. I thought of Pete in the darkness of the lyrebird cave. His pulse slowing, his blood seeping through the compress. How long did he have? Maybe he was already slipping away.

  I looked at Rob, the man who had once held over me a magnetic power I’d been unable to resist. All I felt for him now was pity. He had built a smokescreen around himself – respected psychologist, bestselling author, advocate for emotional freedom – but his life was based on a lie. And a life based on lies, as I’d learned the hard way, was no life at all.

  ‘I’m going to signal for help,’ I told him. ‘Try to keep still until the medics get here.’

  ‘Ruby, don’t you dare leave me here!’

  I walked across the flat rocks, shakily retracing the steps I’d taken eighteen years ago as a frightened twelve-year-old. My fear was ebbing, leaving in its wake a sense that time was speeding up,
that the clock had recalibrated and had started ticking forward again.

  A shot rang out.

  I stumbled and fell. The granite was warm under my palms, hard under my knees. The world seemed to vibrate. I waited for the pain, for the blaze of understanding to lift me upwards and carry me into the wide dark sky . . . but it never came.

  Slowly, I got to my feet.

  I stood for a long time, breathless. Listening. Any moment now, his voice would shatter the stillness, his words ringing over the rushing hiss of the river. He would call.

  Ruby, don’t leave me.

  In my mind’s eye, wings sprouted from my shoulder blades and carried me up into the wide blue. Through the eyes of a bird, or an angel, I saw two small figures on the granite embankment below. One stood shakily, frozen in place, unable to look back; the other was slumped, his heavy frame listing to one side, his face – his beautiful, treacherous face – now forsaken to shadow. Beneath him a black pool was spreading, slowly darkening the stone, seeping into the crevices, finding its way down through the granite into the rushing water below.

  By the time I reached the lyrebird cave, the sun was sinking. I stumbled around in the gloom for ten minutes before I finally located the cave entrance. When I did, I placed the PLB on the ground and activated the satellite connection that would alert a chain of emergency services and give them our position. Then, pushing my way into the cave opening, I fell beside the dark shadow huddled against the wall.

  ‘Pete?’

  He was shivering. Stripping out of my jeans, I placed them over him as a makeshift blanket. Settling beside him, I put my arm gently across his chest and pressed close for extra warmth.

  ‘Roo?’ His voice was barely a whisper, but when I gripped his hand he held firm.

  ‘I’m right here,’ I said. ‘Help’s coming. We’re going to be okay.’

  As the last rays of daylight dissolved, the darkness in the cave deepened. Pete’s body grew warm beside me, and his breathing steadied. As I held him, I could feel myself sliding into that other world that existed in the cracks of this one; a mythical world where beasts roamed moonlit hillsides, and wolves wore masks, and stories spun out like spider webs to trap you in their sticky threads.

  Pete murmured, whispered reassurance, and moved closer. Warmth began to spread between us where our bodies touched, and as I drifted in the hazy twilight, I clung to the steady rhythm of his breath. My heartbeat slowed and, somehow, a lifetime’s worth of guilt and self-blame began to ebb away. For the first time since that day on the rocks twenty years ago, my sister’s ghost settled back into the past and finally found peace.

  22

  The mask you wear might be grotesque, or quirky, or plain; or it might be one of extraordinary beauty – but it’s still only a mask. If you peel it away and look in the mirror, who do you see gazing back?

  –ROB THISTLETON, LET GO AND LIVE

  Ruby, September 2013

  I trailed my fingers over the dusty book spines until I found what I wanted. A slim volume bound in red leather, its face embossed with silver patterns. After reading Brenna’s journal, I recalled glimpsing the book when I’d scanned Esther’s bookshelves soon after my arrival here.

  It was Aucassin and Nicolette.

  Inside the cover was written: To my beloved Adele, from Father. Christmas 1891.

  The pages were heavy and the print had the slightly crooked uniformity typical of an old printing press, each black letter embossed in the fibre of the paper. As I flicked through the pages, a letter fluttered out. It was tattered and well-thumbed, the folded edges torn as if it had been read and reread countless times. The handwriting was spidery, clearly written in haste and barely legible; tiny drops of ink splashed the page, and many of the words were smudged or ran together. I checked the signature, intrigued to find it had been written by Adele Whitby.

  9 July 1899

  My dearest Brenna,

  The light is fading and I am growing weary. Sleep will come soon and I will surrender to it with a glad heart, but first I must beg your forgiveness. I hated deceiving you, but I knew that you would never agree to my plan.

  I wasn’t being selfless.

  It was simply a waste of life to let you die.

  Dear one, you may have wondered at my visits to Launceston, and perhaps noticed the many tonics I habitually took. There is a herbalist who lives on the hillside among the rocks and trees of the wild western shore. She runs a small sanatorium for those, like me, who suffer weakness of the lungs. Her salt baths and herbal tinctures did me much good and even now I swear they prolonged my life; but even those marvellous concoctions had not the power to recover a system that was clearly failing.

  My time had run out.

  Which is why I convinced Quinn to help me free you from this dreadful place. To her credit, she didn’t question my order, but even as we made plans to drug you and steal you to safety, tears leaked continuously from her eyes. She raised me, you see, from a tot, and she loathed for us to be parted.

  It was our favourite tale of Aucassin and Nicolette that gave me the idea. Do you remember how dear Nicolette dressed as a troubadour to reignite Aucassin’s love for her? Their story has provided inspiration for me since I first read it as a swooning girl; now, it has inspired me one last time, so that I, like Nicolette, may serve someone I love.

  Quinn used a measure of laudanum in the syrup I delivered to you, that day in the prison – just enough, you understand, to make you groggy and disoriented. Once your eyes began to drift shut, it was easy to convince you to shed your threadbare coat and don my heavy fur-trimmed mantle; it was one you’d long admired, and the cell was so very cold.

  Once the drug took effect, I called to the guard and said you were ill. I stood in the shadows weeping – a pretence I’d planned, but, when my moment came, there was no need to pretend. My tears flowed freely. I wept for joy that you would soon be safe, and I wept with sorrow knowing I would see you no more.

  Quinn was waiting in the guard room to collect you, and hurry you to the hired carriage beyond the prison gates, where baby James was swaddled in the arms of a trustworthy associate of Quinn’s. From there – by which time I had calculated you would be fully under the effect of the laudanum – the carriage took you and Quinn and little James to Devonport, and then onto the steamer bound for Melbourne. In Quinn’s possession was my birth certificate, which I knew would enable you to lay claim to what is rightfully yours. Destroy this letter, my dear. Let your identity die with me, and grant my last wish by taking my name. Take it to protect yourself and your child, and to benefit from my brother’s estate – to which you are rightfully entitled. Knowing you, my dear, you will rail against my plan, but I beg you, Brenna, if you cannot do this for yourself, then please do it for your little one. And do it for me. It is my gift, given in love and gratitude by a lonely, grieving woman whose life was so greatly improved by knowing you.

  God bless, travel safe, and always remember – whenever you feel the sunshine on your face, whenever you hear the whisper of a breeze in the treetops, or catch the sweet scent of those bush flowers you so dearly love – remember that someone in heaven is thinking of you.

  Your friend and sister,

  Adele Whitby

  The letter trembled in my hand. Going over to the window, I stood and gazed out across the landscape of flowers and trees and stark outcrops of granite, then down the grassy slope to where the river ran over boulders and stones and forged its journey inland.

  Brenna had made it home after all.

  The woman whose sorrowful face I had once studied in an old album, the woman my mother remembered as Nanna Adele, had in fact been Brenna Whitby, my great-grandmother.

  Meanwhile Adele, in a gift of love, had taken Brenna’s place in the prison cell so that her beloved friend could have a new chance at life.

  I was glad. So very glad.

  I folded the letter and replaced it in the little book and closed the covers back around the secret it had h
eld for over a hundred years.

  And as I hung my head and wept, my tears washed clean the darkness that had for so long shadowed my soul, and I felt Adele’s gift of life and love renew me, too.

  Months had passed, but at times I could still hear him.

  In the morning when the rush of the rapids was loudest; and in the afternoon when the sun’s heat lifted the scent of lichen from the stones; and again at dusk when the wind moaned in the casuarinas that grew along the river, and the memory of what had happened that day was strongest.

  Ruby . . . don’t leave me.

  Last night I walked down to the riverbank, certain the voice I heard was real. Bardo trotted at my heels as she always did since her ordeal; we were both worse for wear, jumpy and prone to nightmares. But, as Pete liked to say, we were birds of a feather, Bardo and I – far stronger than we appeared at first glance.

  As I stood on the embankment staring into the darkness, an owl cried in the casuarinas above us and Bardo whined softly.

  Heavy rains near the coast meant the river was up, and the black water rushed past, swollen high along the banks. The water was ink, the starlight so frail and the night so dense that there was nothing to see. I stepped nearer the edge, drawn by the soft call of the wind.

  Ruby . . . Ruby, don’t leave—

  I felt the squelch of mud underfoot as I neared the water. The current dragged at my legs, drawing me deeper.

  I slid my hand into my pocket. Drawing out the silver locket, I held it in my palm. Apart from the diary, it was my only link to my great-grandmother; the only object I owned that connected us.