Hexenhaus

by Nikki McWatters

  It’s only a fifteen-minute ride out of town, maybe twenty, but without mailboxes and rubbish collections or tarred roads it all feels a bit primitive and wild, like bushranger country. What is so eerie is the isolation and vastness of it all, and the sameness. It seems to stretch out forever. In summer you have to be wary of any number of deadly snake and spider varieties.

  ‘Claire said she’s going to throw a big bush dance when she gets back,’ Brent tells us. ‘We can listen to some band and do crazy dancing and wear flannelette shirts and big cowboy hats.’

  ‘Sounds horrible.’ Em laughs.

  ‘We just need to turn on the electricity and hot water so the place is ready for her and sweep the leaves out of the guttering and stuff like that. Just make it look homely and inviting for this new boyfriend of hers whose name, incidentally, is Leroi.’

  ‘Leroi?’ Emily laughs again. ‘Sounds like a player or a hipster and definitely someone who does not belong out here.’

  We all look out the windows as Brent takes a right turn into a dirt driveway leading down to a clearing where a small wooden shack sits back from the road. A single metal flue juts up from the roof. The ground around the place is sparse with the beginnings of flowerbeds that never quite got off the ground and the shed looks like it was half-built and then tacked together on the end with a tied-up scrap of tarpaulin. A very dilapidated and dated bubble of a caravan with one cracked window sits dusty and abandoned.

  ‘It’s a fixer-upperer. One that Claire’s never quite gotten round to fixing up.’ Brent shrugs. ‘Claire and I inherited some money from our grandparents.’

  ‘You’re an heir? How much?’ Em says, enthusiastically.

  ‘That’s a bit rude, Em.’ I laugh at her as we pull up and Brent kills the engine. ‘What? You reckon you might ask Brent on a date if he’s got some dosh in the bank?’ I look back and see her blush.

  ‘Nah, it’s fine.’ Brent laughs and flips off his seatbelt. ‘We got three-hundred thousand each and mine’s in a trust until I turn twenty-one. She’s six years older than me and picked this dump up for a steal and plans to do great things, unless she’s spent all the money in London over the last year, which she probably has.’

  ‘Man!’ Ben whistles as he gets out of the car and stretches his arms above his head. ‘I did not know you were some hundred-thousandaire. I hope you’ll be funding an awesome Ben-and-Brent world tour in four years’ time.’

  ‘Sure, bro,’ Brent says, peering over his sunglasses, sounding just a tiny bit sincere. ‘Mum came out here about two months ago but she’s really just wanting us to tidy up. Shouldn’t take long.’

  We are greeted by the crazy cackle of laughter raining down on us from a row of kookaburras sitting on a gum branch high above.

  ‘How much land has she got? ’ Ben asks.

  ‘Don’t know exactly. But it goes all the way back to a creek so, I don’t know, thirty hectares or something like that, I think.’

  We kick around in the dust for a bit listening to the shrill pings and whistles from the bush critters, birds and insects, singing that familiar Australian bush anthem.

  ‘Well, we menfolk will do the outside work and check the water tanks for dead possums,’ Brent says, ‘and you girls can go do the dusting and make it all pretty inside. The fridge will probably need a wipe out and the place will need a vacuum.’

  ‘Talk about gender stereotyping,’ I say.

  ‘Can you operate a chainsaw?’ Brent looks at me, wiggling the sunglasses. ‘Because I would love to see that, Paisley. You taking down pines like a crazy lumberjack.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll vacuum. Give me the keys.’ I smile sweetly and catch them with an over-arm swoop as he pegs them at me fast.

  I take my drink bottle and Em and I go and let ourselves in.

  The first thing I see when I walk in is the broken window with a view over the valley. It has a gaping hole in it. Huge, so that the weather has fluttered in a blanket of dried leaves and dirt and I suspect birds and possums have been pottering about inside as well.

  ‘Maybe a bird flew into it and broke it,’ Em says, hands on hips surveying the mess. ‘We have stupid lorikeets and minor birds banging into windows all the time.’

  ‘It would have to have been a bald eagle to make that sort of a hole in the window. Or a cow.’ I frown. I take in the living room that looks into the kitchen and I freeze. There are dirty plates on the sink and a coffee cup on the kitchen table. I go to it and look in at a dull scum and, smelling it, give a thoughtful nod. Coffee. Milky coffee.

  ‘Em,’ I say quietly with a tremor of nervousness in my voice. ‘If you were going overseas for a year and you were a girl, not a slob of a boy, would you leave milky coffee on the table and not bother with the washing up? Really?’

  ‘Well I might but I can see how that wouldn’t be a very hygienic thing to do.’ She shrugs. ‘Maybe Claire is a total slob.’

  I shake my head at her, my mind ticking over fast. ‘Milky coffee would be kind of evaporated and mouldy after a year. This is pretty fresh.’

  We look at the plates and the saucepan in the sink. The residue seems a little stale but not maggoty. A further investigation of the house shows that the bed in the one bedroom is unmade and the toilet seat in the one small bathroom is up and the toilet bowl is kind of disgusting.

  The back door leading out to a decrepit veggie patch, which grows nothing but wild pumpkins and the skeletal stakes from tomatoes past, is unlocked.

  ‘Brent!’ I shout and move back out through the front door with Emily at my heels.

  The boys look up and salute us as they shield their eyes with their hands. I stride over fast, panting as I walk.

  ‘Two quick questions,’ I fire at Brent. ‘Did Claire live here alone and was she a bit of a slob?’

  Brent gives a startled, confused sort of laugh in the back of his throat and shakes his head questioningly. ‘Um, random.’ He smiles. ‘But yes and no. Yes, she lives here alone or at least did and no, Claire is the opposite of a slob. She’s anally retentive about keeping house. She’s obsessively tidy. It’s a bit sickening. Maybe a bit OCD. Why?’

  I give a big sigh and put my hands on my hips dramatically.

  ‘Well, Houston, we have a problem.’

  Like some hardcore SWAT team we storm the house, pumped.

  ‘Maybe we should just call Constable Amy and wait for her so she can take fingerprints or whatevs,’ I say, kind of deflating the vibe a bit. ‘’Cos someone has clearly broken in here. Can you tell if anything’s been stolen?’

  Brent whips off his sunglasses and wedges them into his pocket, looking around, keenly alert. ‘This is not good,’ he mumbles to himself. ‘What’s with the window? Has someone smashed it? Man, who did this?’

  ‘If we’re the three bears plus one and we’re looking for Goldilocks, we’re looking for someone who cleaned up the glass because, look.’ Ben points to the stack of shattered glass piled up beside the easy-lean chair.

  ‘And someone’s been sleeping in Claire’s bed,’ Brent says as he ducks his head around the corner into the bedroom.

  ‘This is so weird,’ Em says. ‘All the way out here. A squatter? Freaky.’

  I walk around the small kitchen, more of a kitchenette, and look at the debris, assessing it like a detective. I touch the fridge; it’s purring.

  ‘Didn’t you say the electricity was off?’ I ask Brent.

  ‘Mum said it was,’ he replies, looking around and out the back door.

  ‘Well it’s on now,’ I say, opening the fridge to find a carton of long-life milk and an opened can of tomatoes, half full. I smell both. ‘And this milk isn’t off, which it would be after a year. Someone is definitely squatting here.’

  ‘But surely it would have to be someone who knows Claire’s away,’ Ben says. ‘I knew because you told me, Brent. But your mum is a bit of a gossi
p and tells anyone who’ll listen about her baby who’s been living in London. So it’s likely to be a local or someone who knows a local.’

  ‘But who would want to come and hide out here? It’s kind of weird. Unless they were …’ and then I stop mid-sentence and swallow the words, my breath suspended with the sudden thought. ‘Oh my God! Isaiah Hooper!’

  We stare at one another our thoughts racing. Then we all pile out the back door and begin walking around the perimeter of the house.

  ‘There are two paths that have been cleared,’ Brent tells us. ‘One down to the creek and another one that leads out to a view over the escarpment. Let’s not frighten him. We’ll just search and call and hope for the best. Or we could just get Constable Amy out here.’

  ‘I’ll go with Brent,’ Em says and points at Ben and me, ‘so you two can go together.’

  ‘It’s the inheritance, isn’t it?’ Brent gives her a look and laughs. ‘You suddenly dig me now that you know I’m like some eligible bachelor with a trust account.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Em scoffs. ‘I’m going with you because you know this place and I don’t want to get lost. I hate the bush.’

  We split up and take to the paths, calling loudly. ‘Isaiah. Isaiah?’

  Ben and I hold hands and scuff over exposed tree roots and rocks that have lain on the path untouched for some time. I make some lame joke about looking for broken twigs and bent leaves like a tracker but we are just bulldozing through the bush without a clue.

  ‘Isaiah. Hello? Are you out there? We’re just trying to find you and help you, buddy,’ Ben calls into the bush. We listen and can hear Brent’s voice echoing back to us.

  It gets very cold in the damp dim canopy as we track downhill toward the creek.

  ‘He’s not going to be dangerous, is he?’ I whisper to Ben. ‘He’s been missing for over a month now. And what if we’re wrong and it’s some escapee from Goulburn maximum-security prison? That’s not too far away.’

  ‘Stop it, you’re spooking me out,’ Ben says with an awkward laugh. ‘Really.’

  He picks up a big stick and carries it like a staff.

  ‘It’s too cold for snakes, isn’t it?’ I smile.

  Ben nods but then stops stock-still and looks up, holding a hand to silence me, listening. We wait, with only the sound of our breath coming softly, and we hear the usual hum of the forest and scurrying and rustle of creatures in the undergrowth: little marsupials, small wallabies, and scrub turkeys. We listen to the trill of a lyrebird and the gurgle of water over rocks.

  Without even discussing it, we’ve stopped calling for Isaiah. I’m thinking of my escaped fugitive theory and don’t want some serial killer leaping out from behind a tree to slaughter us and bury us in shallow graves.

  We reach the creek and look at the swirling sticks on its surface and watch a buzz of insects hover like a cloud over the shallow pools, darting for water midges. Moss-covered logs lie fallen and half submerged.

  ‘Okay,’ Ben says with a slap of his hands. ‘Let’s get back now.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll race you.’

  And I take off up the track, jumping over knots of roots and sliding vines. Ben comes up behind me and grabs me and tries to turn me around for a kiss, but I duck out of his arms and run like the clappers, leaping like a gazelle. I’m nimble when I want to be. I run, laughing and panting with the heavy thud of Ben’s footsteps behind me. I’m warming up from the exercise, feeling sweat in the curve of my lower back. I run all the way back to the clearing and take to the safety of the cottage, running through the back door to where I’ve left my water bottle. I’m thirsty.

  I stop with a gasp to see Isaiah Hooper sitting on the couch with his hands in his lap, staring at me with frightened brown eyes, a mess of hair above a sweat-stained, red t-shirt and pyjama pants.

  ‘Hi, Paisley,’ he says in a flat voice.

  ‘Hi, Isaiah.’ I nod with a gulp as I gather my breath, hands on hips, letting my heartbeat settle. Ben comes in behind me, panting, and gives the boy on the couch a casual nod, too.

  ‘Hey there, Isaiah,’ he simply says. ‘Glad to see you’re okay, mate. We’ve been worried about you.’

  We all just look at one another. Nodding. Breathing.

  ‘Water,’ I say. I go and retrieve my water bottle from the kitchen table, drink and come back and pass it to Ben.

  ‘Paisley,’ Isaiah says in a soft voice. ‘I think I owe you and your mum an apology.’

  The others go outside and I sit next to him.

  ‘Everyone’s been so worried about you,’ I say gently. ‘Your mum’s been going spare. She’ll be so happy to know you’re okay.’

  ‘Really?’ he says coldly.

  We sit in silence for a while with just the whip of birdcall coming from outside and the low hum of the refrigerator.

  ‘Your mum helped me more than you know, Paisley,’ he says flatly. ‘I was ready to … I was so low … and she … well, she made me feel like maybe I wasn’t useless, that maybe I could do something with my life.’

  ‘Mum’s good to talk to.’

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lump of yellow rock. Carnelian.

  ‘I just needed to get away from my folks’ poison, you know? Always complaining and hating on everyone.’

  I nod.

  ‘But I’m not nuts. And I’m not going to let my parents tell me I’m worthless if I don’t agree with every last thing they believe. It’s not me. It’s them.’

  ‘Good for you, Isaiah,’ I say and pat him on the leg. ‘You want to come home now?’

  He looks at me for a moment, deep in thought, and then smiles and nods. ‘Yeah.’

  VERONICA

  BAMBERG, FRANCONIA, 1629

  I grew stronger through those fresh days of spring as the snow melted and the flowers began to bloom. I grew stronger still through the summer as the sun warmed my body, and as the days lengthened my spirit also rebuilt itself. At first I had been plagued by crippling nightmares and jumped with terror at the call of crows. I scanned the forest for unwanted shadows and missed Christoff through the warm months. He had gone to help his mother move away from the town to somewhere far from the witch hysteria that had infested Franconia.

  I was still what Frau Berchta called ‘elf-thin’ and my hair had not yet reached down past my shoulders, but my legs were healing and the scars were simply the trails and shapes of a story that eventually had a happy ending. I traced a finger over the ridges and valleys of skin, pulled tight across the memory of the burns.

  One day Frau Berchta called me into the cottage and sat me down. She was more frail and paler than usual. Her hair was thinning around her face as if she was a thistle being blown away in the breeze. I watched as she pulled a book from the cupboard and put it on the table.

  ‘My mother gave me this book,’ she told me. ‘It is the bloodline of the Goddess. I want to pass it on to you because I have no blood daughter. All the children who came through were visitors, runaways, but you, Veronica, are different. You carry the blood of a wise woman.’

  She opened the last page carefully and pointed. ‘This is me, Anna Maria Mueller – born in Ystad. My mother, Joanna Jonsdotter – Gammelstad. All the way back many, many years to Freyja and her mother Nerthus.’

  Frau Berchta looked up at me and I smiled because she did look like an Anna Maria. She asked softly if she might write my name in the book as her daughter so that I could then carry on the tradition with my own daughters one day. It meant so much to the old woman that I agreed and let her write down my name, Veronica Junius – Bamberg, beneath hers. But beside it I wrote the name of my own dear mother, Rosa Dressler – Würzburg.

  ‘Keep it safe, my dear Veronica. May it travel through the ages,’ she smiled at me, ‘so that we might live forever.’

  As the summer heat eased, I felt my hear
t swell when Christoff appeared at the edge of the clearing with his cart. He had returned and I watched as he spent weeks teaching Hans how to work with timber. Together they built another small cottage and repaired the rotting wood planks at the back of the main one. The shed was mended and the fence around the goats and their kids was fortified. My little brother was growing tall and strong and he worked hard.

  ‘My mother sold the house in Ebrach,’ Christoff told me one day as I churned the butter. ‘She is working as a nurse and maid for a Jesuit scholar in Peine. He is a good man who is appealing to the Pontiff to put an end to the witch-hunts. Your own torturer, the Hexenbischof, is under investigation and there is talk of tearing down the Hexenhaus.’

  ‘Praise be to God,’ I had said, shutting my eyes, trying not to think of the thousands of poor souls who had passed through that evil building.

  Christoff had grown a beard and no longer had the bluster of youth. He was a man. His fair eyes were bright and filled with happiness and I hoped that some of his joy had a place for me.

  ‘Will you go north to Peine to be near her?’

  He shook his head. ‘She has given me the proceeds from the sale of the house as she has little need for it when she is being paid full board for her service. I will,’ he paused and looked away, ‘I will find myself somewhere and build a farm to raise a family on, with just enough crop and livestock to sustain us, and perhaps some leftover for market.’

  He gave me a long look after saying his piece, a look that made my heart hammer. I returned my attention to the butter, raising and dropping the plunger until the lump of thick sludge fell to the barrel below.

  I looked up to see that someone was approaching, cutting away from the forest. I startled and felt panic rise in my chest but calmed when I saw that it was a woman carrying a small child in her arms. Wiping my hands on my skirts I stood and limped down to the creek to greet her, grateful for the distraction from Christoff’s conversation. I walked across to the stream and looked out. The hills behind the visitor were a muted pink and the scent of sweet, damp grass lingered in the cool air.