The Stone Flowers

by Nora O'Keeffe

  Jackson dropped his head, his dark hair lifting in the breeze. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t gossiping. I just... I don’t know. I mean—”

  “No. I’m sorry, Jackson. I’m just on edge.” She glanced up to where the birds were congregated. “I know you care about Tess and Ollie and…” She couldn’t bring herself to say Eddie’s name aloud.

  “That’s okay. You’re a picnic compared to my mum. My little sister’s sick, she’s got a temperature and feels fluey. It’s got Mum in a flap.”

  She grabbed his upper arm. “Get her out of town.” The words were out before she knew she was going to say them. Suddenly it seemed vital that Jackson get his little sister as far away from Thorn Tree as quickly as possible.

  Jackson blinked in surprise, but rather than stepping back, he brought his left hand up and put it over Maggie’s, holding her hand in place on his arm. He nodded. “That’s what Gran said. She kept going on about it not being safe for kids here. She wouldn’t stop until my mum got so worked up that she’s taking my sister to Perth to stay with my aunty. That’s why I’m filling up Dad’s car.”

  Maggie was about to ask what his grandmother had meant by not safe for children when the distant wailing of an ambulance silenced them both. It drew nearer, following the same route the police car had taken not ten minutes earlier. The wailing sliced through the air and sent the gathering birds into a frenzy of squawking and flapping. Jackson looked up at the crows and laughed nervously, but there was no humour in the sound.

  ****

  “I know it’s hard, but Ollie needs you.” Maggie sat down on the bed next to Tess while Sandra slipped a pair of trainers onto her daughter’s feet. “You have to keep going even though you don’t want to,” Maggie tried again.

  She’d left the petrol station intent on asking Tess what happened when they were driving into town. How had Ollie, usually a safe driver, ended up in a coma? Nothing made much sense. The roads would have been deserted, how could things have gone so wrong? But whatever questions she had, they’d have to wait. Her friend was not in a state to give answers.

  Tess stared at the top of her mother’s head. She’d let Maggie and Sandra dress her, cooperating and answering simple questions. But when Sandra explained that they were driving to Perth, her body had stiffened. “No. I can’t, it’s too much.” Her voice was flat, as if it belonged to someone else.

  Maggie took her friend’s hand. Tess didn’t try to pull away, instead allowing her cool, limp fingers to rest against Maggie’s.

  “Ollie’s hurt – badly. You can’t just let him lie there alone; you’re his wife.” Maggie knew she sounded harsh, but maybe that’s what Tess needed.

  Tess tore her gaze away from her mother’s head and for the first time since Eddie’s death seemed to focus on what was being said. Her eyes were bloodshot and her usually bouncy brown hair hung around her face in lank strings.

  “I can’t lose Ollie too.” There was emotion in her voice now, raw and urgent. “I can’t sit in a hospital and watch him slip away from me, just like my...” Tess’s voice broke and a shuddering sob shook her body, vibrating through her hand.

  Sandra got up from her knees and sat on the other side of Tess, taking her daughter in her arms. “You won’t, I promise you won’t.” She held Tess in firm arms, her own eyes shiny with tears.

  Tess pulled her hand free from Maggie’s grasp and wrapped both her arms around her mother. Sandra held her as if she were a child and whispered assurances. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll look after Ollie together and we’ll make sure the doctors take care of him. He’ll get better, I know he will.” Sandra looked at Maggie over her daughter’s shoulder. They both knew that she was making promises she didn’t know if she could keep. But the desperate look in Sandra’s eyes told Maggie she needed to make everything all right for her daughter. God knows Tess needs hope.

  “Ollie’s strong. He’s healthy. If he can hear your voice, he’ll find his way back.” Maggie put her hand on Tess’s trembling back. She hoped to God she was doing the right thing. If Ollie didn’t regain consciousness, what then? But if he died and Tess wasn’t there, how would she live with herself? There were no easy answers, Maggie just prayed she was doing the right thing by encouraging Tess to believe everything would work out.

  Tess pulled back from her mother and turned to Maggie. She saw a small flicker of the old Tess, the one that took charge of every situation with a natural confidence, or at least she hoped that’s what she saw.

  “Yes, I should be there. I should talk to the doctors.”

  Maggie put the last of the bags in the boot and Sandra slammed the lid.

  “Thank you, Maggie.” Sandra hesitated, studying the keys in her hand. “I know you think I shouldn’t have promised Tess that Ollie would be okay, but—”

  “I think she needed hope and you gave it to her.”

  Sandra nodded, but didn’t meet Maggie’s gaze. “Well, we’d better get going.” She gave Maggie’s shoulder a brief squeeze and headed for the driver’s seat.

  Maggie walked around the car and rested her forearms on the open window. She leaned in and kissed Tess on the forehead. “Give that to Ollie for me,” she said, sounding much brighter than she felt.

  Tess nodded, but continued to stare straight ahead. The little flicker was gone.

  “Let me know when there’s any news.” She nodded to Sandra and stood back as the car rolled down the driveway.

  She watched the car reach the corner and turn, waiting until it disappeared before getting in her own vehicle. Once inside, she rested her head on the steering wheel. The car felt warm from sitting in the afternoon sun.

  Maggie closed her eyes and thought about the look in Tess’s eyes, raw – desolate. She wondered if her friend would ever resurface from the sorrow that engulfed her. Her eyelids felt heavy and for a moment she considered sitting back and allowing herself to sleep. The sound of a car driving past startled her. She forced her body back into action, turned the ignition.

  The twenty-minute drive home seemed like a marathon. She’d been on an emotional rollercoaster for the last twenty-four hours, and judging by the way her limbs ached and her thoughts ran in circles, it was catching up with her.

  She climbed the front steps slowly, taking one at a time. There was a piece of paper, folded and wedged between the frame and the screen door. She grabbed the paper and opened the door.

  Dumping her bag and the paper on the coffee table, instead of sitting, she headed for the kitchen. So much had happened, there had been no time to really think. To grieve. Even though Eddie wasn’t her baby, she’d felt a joy and closeness to both Eddie and Tess through the pregnancy and the birth. For the first time in years, Maggie had been connected to something truly happy and hopeful, but now it was shattered, never to really be whole again. Her throat constricted and her chest tightened as if something were building up inside her, trying to get out. Maggie slumped on a chair and put her elbows on the kitchen table, hands clenched together as if praying.

  Doug’s words went around in her mind, “It’s been thirty years and that baby still weighs heavily on her.” Maggie wondered how long it would take Tess to come to terms with what happened. What did happen? Nothing was clear. None of last night made any sense.

  Her mind raced from one thought to another, throwing up images of Tess stumbling down the dark, empty street. Eddie’s face, distorted in death. She couldn’t rest. She needed to be doing something. She got up and wandered around the kitchen. Ignoring two days’ worth of dirty dishes, she chose instead to leaf through a pile of unopened mail on the counter, not really taking anything in. Any way she looked at it, there were unanswered questions. Things just didn’t add up. Babies died, she accepted that, but quietly. Eddie’s death was different.

  Why, she wondered, had Tess and Ollie decided to drive into town? If the baby was that sick, why not call for help? There was no doubt about it, something strange had happened. Maggie felt sure of it.

 
Chapter Nine

  Instead of going home when his shift ended, Harness headed for his old Jeep and sat behind the wheel. Usually content to be alone, tonight the last place he wanted to be was in an empty house. Resting his forearms on the wheel, he leaned forward in the seat, unable to shake off the sense that something was wrong. Death always seemed like an insult to the living, but what happened the night before went deeper. It struck at him in a way that stirred up a hailstorm of memories.

  He stared at darkened windows of his house, knowing if he went inside, he’d fall back into a hole filled with sadness. Sadness or loneliness? Was he trying to avoid being alone because thinking about Eddie’s death would push him back into despair, or was he looking for an excuse to see Maggie again?

  When he first set eyes on her three years ago, she’d been standing on the footpath outside her café talking to Doug Loggie. Harness, sitting in the squad car across the road, glanced over just as she tilted her head to one side and laughed at something Doug had said. Watching her, he found himself smiling and thinking about what it would be like to be close to someone again, to make plans for the future. To do all the ordinary things people did when they were in a relationship. But being close to someone meant taking a risk. He wasn’t ready to put his tenuous hold on a steady, if not happy, life on the line.

  Three years later and he was still stalled in the same rut he’d carved out for himself when he arrived in Thorn Tree six years ago. In the city, he’d dealt with tragedy on a regular basis. It was a part of the job he’d grown to accept. But when tragedy hit his own life, his family, he could no longer compartmentalise the two. Being a cop was all he’d ever known, so he opted for the slow-paced world of country policing. But watching the doctor examine Eddie made him realise he couldn’t hide from the world any longer.

  He didn’t want to let grief into his life, not again. But he’d nursed his wounds for long enough and didn’t want to be alone anymore. He thought of Maggie, the way she flushed with embarrassment when he’d pulled her car over. She was smart and funny, somehow managing to be confident and vulnerable at the same time. In the midst of all the chaos last night, he found himself admiring her calmness.

  He turned on the engine and reversed out of his driveway. It was almost dark. Clouds the colour of granite were gathering in the sky. Leaving the lights of town behind, he headed west. Harness had no idea what he would say to Maggie when he turned up on her doorstep, but he knew he couldn’t wait another three years.

  ****

  Dark clouds swallowed the late-afternoon sun, leaving the sky the colour of ashes at the bottom of a long-extinguished fire pit. Maggie turned on the lights in the lounge room and pulled the curtains closed. She’d been wandering around the house all afternoon trying to keep busy. With the initial shock subsiding, she was left with an invisible weight pressing down on her shoulders like tired hands. Unable to shake the need for action, she decided to ring Jackson and ask if he could open the café tomorrow – keep things going until she got there. She’d also have to call Cilla. Monday was supposed to be her day off, but Maggie hoped she’d consider working half a day.

  Maggie figured she’d call Cilla first and make sure Jackson wouldn’t be left alone to cope with the morning coffee rush. She shuffled into the kitchen and grabbed her mobile phone. The pane rattled as a tongue of wind lapped at the window. The thought of another storm made her nerves jangle. Turning away from the window, Maggie found Cilla’s number and pressed call. The line engaged and rang. A hiss of static spurted into Maggie’s ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Cilla, it’s Maggie.”

  “Maggie, I... Static.”

  She could barely hear Cilla’s voice.

  “Cilla, can you work tomorrow?” Maggie waited, not sure if the other woman could hear her.

  “Robert... Static... So sick... sorry.”

  “Cilla?” The call dropped into dead silence.

  Maggie stared at the phone in her hand. Robert, Cilla’s nine-year-old son, battled severe asthma. It wasn’t unusual for him to be unwell, but she usually left him with her husband rather than miss out on an extra shift. Maggie’s fingers hesitated over the phone. First Eddie, then Jackson’s sister, now Robert Edgell. Could their illnesses be connected? It was possible. Weird strains of flu popped up everywhere. Thorn Tree was a tourist town, maybe someone carrying a virus… Recalling the moment she opened the fuzzy blue blanket and saw the baby’s dead face, her thoughts wavered. She had no real medical knowledge, but it didn’t look like the flu killed Eddie.

  She called Jackson. The line hissed static into her ear. In the instant before pulling the phone away from her head, the sound changed. The hiss ramped up in volume, spitting out what sounded like a choir of whispers. So many urgent voices, it was impossible to make out any one word. Startled, Maggie dropped the phone on the kitchen table, watching it spin to a slow stop. It had to be the storm interfering with the satellite. But there’s no storm, not really. Just the wind.

  Maggie glanced at the kitchen window, the glass black like a frozen lake. Suddenly the light from the kitchen wasn’t enough. She shivered and turned on the lounge room lights. Usually she didn’t mind the solitude of living so far outside of town, but without the phone, she felt alone, vulnerable. She knew half the people in town, but except for Tess and Ollie, Doug was the only other person she felt close to.

  Thinking about Doug stirred her memory. She walked back into the lounge, eager to latch onto something that might take her mind off the memory of the whispering voices bursting through the static. It was just static. She snatched up the piece of paper she’d dropped on the coffee table and unfolded its crumpled edges; just as she’d thought, it was a note from Doug.

  Dear Maggie,

  Your yard’s as good as new. $80 should cover it.

  I remembered the name of those flowers: Stone Flowers. Hard name for something so pretty.

  I’m booked solid for the next few days, but if you get time, pop around on Wednesday after work. Maureen would love to see you.

  Take care

  Doug

  Maggie reread the note, the familiar scrawl like a lifeline from the outside world reminding her she wasn’t completely alone.

  Back in the kitchen, Maggie dropped the note on the kitchen table and grabbed a bottle of wine out of the fridge and a glass from the draining board. She sloshed some wine into the glass and took a sip, enjoying the sharp, clean taste as it slipped down her throat. She’d let the storm spook her. It’s not a storm. Was it any wonder, after what she’d seen over the last few days?

  The wind soughed, the sound reminded her of the ocean. Maggie took another sip of wine and frowned. In his note, Doug hadn’t mentioned the dead cat. Most likely he’d buried it, not wanting it to upset her. But another possibility crept into her mind. Maybe he didn’t see it and it was still out there, fur shredded and bits of flesh tangled amongst the branches. Maybe the birds carried it away in pieces.

  A thump on the front door madeMaggie jolt, splashing chardonnay over her hand. There’d been no hiss of tyres or rumble of an engine. Was it possible the wind had blocked out the sound? She put the glass down and without thinking, licked the back of her hand. Another thump, this time louder. Maggie took a step towards the living room and hesitated. She ran her hand over her mouth. Was it a good idea to answer the door with no idea who could be out there? Without the phone, she had no way of calling for help.

  She moved into the living room, trying to make as little noise as possible. Anyone outside would have seen the lights and known she was home. What if it’s the thing that killed the cat? Her heart rate kicked up a notch then fluttered

  “Maggie?” She heard her name, the voice almost eaten by the wind.

  Relieved that it was in fact a human being on her doorstep and not a feral dog trying to get in, Maggie stepped forward and took hold of the doorknob. “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded high-pitched, almost childlike.

  “It’s Harness.”
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  Chapter Ten

  Annabel’s mum was worried. She checked her phone for the second time before dropping back into the chair across the table from her daughter.

  “The phone’s on the fritz.” Her voice was too cheerful when she picked up the fork and pushed the pasta around her plate.

  The lights were on, but the darkness pressed in, casting long shadows around the kitchen. Her dad was late and her mother kept checking her watch when she thought Annabel wasn’t looking. Glancing up at the kitchen windows, she pushed another scoop of pasta into her mouth, even though each swallow made her tummy squeeze in and out like a saggy yogurt tube.

  Her mother broke the silence. “If you’ve finished, why don’t you go upstairs and put on your pyjamas? I’ll make us some hot chocolate and then we can watch TV till Dad gets home.”

  Annabel stole another quick glance at the kitchen window, hoping to see her dad’s headlights as he pulled up around the back of the house. She could feel the tension coming from her mother like an invisible arm reaching across the table and tapping Annabel’s forehead. She was trying very hard to keep Annabel and herself from worrying. Her mother was good at staying calm. She’d been a nurse before Annabel was born. Sometimes she’d tell stories about what it was like to work in a big, busy hospital. Her tales were always funny and would make them both laugh, but Annabel knew her mother was careful to leave out anything gross or sad so that she didn’t frighten or upset her daughter.

  Annabel loved hearing her mother talk about the hospital, remembering funny patient names and crazy situations. She liked the story about the old lady that wandered out of her room and sat at the nurse’s station. While everyone was busy, she started answering calls, telling people that they had reached the Prime Minister’s residence. Her mother’s blue eyes sparkled when she laughed. But Annabel could feel the sad memories that her mother kept private, things that she’d never told anyone, not even her dad.