Those Hamilton Sisters

by Averil Kenny

  A

  fter that night, Fable knew what she must do next, though it took four weeks to summon the courage. Four long, lonely weeks, in which she came to imagine herself as a tiny crustacean stripped of her pearlescent shell, and left under the white-hot tropical sun to bake alive. The glare of peer opinion and recrimination was unbearable, yet bear it she must.

  Each day, Sonnet dragged her out of bed and marched her bodily to the bus stop. Each day, Fable made herself as smooth and flat as a creek-polished stone. And it worked – the insults appeared to roll right off. In fact, with her aloofness and eyes shaded like lamps, Fable was deemed ‘stuck up!’ by her detractors.

  Her critics were many, and strident. Adriana, the ringleader, Christy, her loyal, rapid deputy, and a gaggle of she-geese honking after them . . .

  ‘Bastard!’

  ‘Fable’s got her mother’s legs, easily spread!’

  ‘Your mother’s the town bicycle – everyone’s had a ride!’

  ‘Daughter of a whore!’

  ‘Home-wrecking Hamiltons!’

  And, much to the amusement of the teachers who had caught wind of the latest slur: ‘Aesops!’

  Well, at least that one was witty, they concurred in staffroom whispers, and proved the little blighters paid attention some of the time. Besides, anyone who gave their daughter such a ridiculous name should also have equipped her with the backbone to handle it. Everyone knew kids were bound to be cruel.

  All the while, Fable had Sonnet’s bustling bravado in her ear: ‘If you hit back, they win. They’re just bullies, ignore them and you take away their power. Don’t let them get to you. They’ll soon forget about it.’

  Fable looked stubbornly away from her sister’s piercing gaze, and past the hate-contorted faces greeting her at every bend, as though they were gargoyles fashioned into the buildings themselves.

  Nightmares plagued her. Haunting visions played out across the unfamiliar tropical landscape, filled with the terrible unravelling of family, love and safety. Always, in every dream, Fable was searching for a mother locked away in an unseen room, Mama’s voice fading out as Fable scrabbled desperately to get a foothold, or move an inch forward.

  In her waking hours, she chased the face of her mother – and it eluded her there, too. She could summon any other face – imagined or otherwise – yet her mother stayed a darkened silhouette.

  Fable blamed herself. She had rejected her mother’s memory, and spurned those ephemeral sunroom visits when she turned her ear to the malicious slander of these Noah Vale children. She had let them make her mother a stranger.

  But no more! If she had a hope of seeing her mother’s face again, or feeling her presence in the near-waking veil, then dull their voices she must. She would find that beloved face and never let it go.

  *

  Yesterday afternoon she had evaded Sonnet’s supervision, slipping up to Heartwood. Olive, weeding her pineapple patch, squinted questioningly at the young niece who appeared before her, backlit by low rays. Fable offered a weak pretence about needing to consult an encyclopaedia from the living-room library, and Olive waved her inside without probing.

  Fable had spotted a row of photo albums in Heartwood’s towering bookshelf weeks ago. They were heavy, formal and bursting at the seams with old photographs. Each time Olive attempted to bring out the albums at the Heartwood dinner table, Sonnet terminated the conversation. She would tolerate Olive’s Hamilton stories only so far, and photos were overstepping by leaps and bounds.

  Fable knew it was a betrayal of her older sister to seek the albums. Guiltily, she pulled a pile onto her lap, hands tripping over each other in her flipping rush.

  The albums lost their illicit pull almost immediately. The faces and houses and landmarks were alien to her. She was flicking through strangers’ lives, rendered in washed-out sepia, and black and white tones.

  A lump formed in Fable’s throat as she realised she’d reached the second-last album without spotting a single image of her mother – only empty, yellowing slots where her mother’s luminous face must once have beamed. The Hamiltons had expunged all evidence of their daughter when they expelled her. What kind of person tried to wipe out even the memory of their child?

  On the very last page, beneath tissue guard, Fable found what she was looking for. Young Esther, in grainy black and white. She was not much older than Fable now, albeit curling at the edges, and fast fading. But it was Mama, all the same.

  With immense relief, Fable rested her eyes upon the image of her mother: heart-shaped face of gentle slopes, wide-set eyes, Cupid’s bow on full, pouting lips, and fine, small nose.

  Fable slipped the photograph from its corner mounts and pocketed it, before streaking out of Heartwood past Olive’s carefully turned back as she stood chopping at the kitchen bench.

  *

  A week later, the photo was a talisman hidden in the pocket of her school dress, as she nestled high within the shadowy heart of a banyan tree. Under the school building, boys were playing ‘Beamey’ – lobbing tennis balls against the bearers.

  The school library sat on the opposite side of the quadrangle, waiting. No one frequented the library at lunch, and none of the Beamey players paid her any heed. For a week running, Fable had returned to the banyan, ready to enact her plan; unable to cross the last fifty yards. Now, it was time.

  With a decisive jolt, Fable slid down the root tendrils, determined not to baulk again. Inside the library, all was silence. A ceiling fan stoked the warm air. The librarian, looking up from a sandwich, shot her an obligatory glare, accompanied by a shushing finger.

  Fable nodded meekly, making straight for the wall of gilt-framed photographs beyond the concertina door of the study annex. Decades of staff, graduating classes and school captains adorned this glory wall.

  He was sure to be here, somewhere.

  Fable cast a look over her shoulder, but Mrs Kent, back still turned, was busy catching sandwich debris.

  First, to find Mama. Quickly, she scanned the years until she found the Graduating Class and Staff of Noah Vale School, 1935. She skimmed across the many rows of clean-cut, grinning boys to the single row of primly seated girls; all gangly and ungainly, still not grown into themselves. Except for one.

  Esther.

  She glittered within that line like a crystal caught in a blade of light; natural sensuality and poise combining to alluring effect. In the midst of those adolescent girls, Esther alone was a woman. Even in black and white, she was no less startling.

  Fable had to force her eyes away, resisting the urge to sink against the glass itself. She hadn’t come for Mama, not this time. It was him she was after. She searched the staff names listed below, locating the face matched to ‘Archer Brennan, Vice-Principal’.

  He stood as the tallest of the male teachers, in the centre of the back row – blindingly handsome, blond and young. Fable studied his face for Sonnet and found her there in his height and posture, the attractive angularity of features, the athleticism of his form. This was where the strength of Sonnet’s presence came from.

  Sonnet’s father, Fable mouthed incredulously. The very concept of belonging, by blood, to a man was outlandish to her young mind. Her whole life, all she’d known was the bosom of sisterhood. Here, at last, was a male wellspring.

  For the longest time Fable simply stood, beholding his proud face, seeking to understand it all. She thumbed tentatively back through the pages of an imaginary family photo album – the only one the Hamilton girls had ever known – seeing, with dawning clarity every gaping, ugly hole Archer Brennan might have filled.

  Slowly then, softly, revelation came to settle upon her heart.

  When finally she turned and left the library, it was into an entirely new world.

  *

  For the first time in a month, Fable slept dreamlessly. In the wee hours, she awoke with a ragged start, aware of a presence hovering inches above her own. The floating weight seemed to draw back as Fable opened her
eyes. She clutched at empty air and fell back against the pillow, surveying her dark bedroom. The moonlight filtering through her curtains offered insufficient illumination of the mysterious hollows and shapes of this yet-unfamiliar room. There was a flash of movement, near her armoire. Were her eyes deceiving her, or was that not the trail of a green gown susurrating away through the French doors?

  Fable flew from the bed, knocking her bony elbows against the dresser in her rush to catch the dress, and its wearer. The hallway was empty; moonlight through the front door lay as a long bar over the wood floor. A shadow moved across the pane of glass.

  Fable hurried up the hallway and eased out of the door, breath held in anticipation of its telltale screech.

  Night air hit with unexpected chill. She paused, rubbing goose pimples away, her thin nightdress proving inadequate for the first time in this tropical winter.

  The garden gate squealed ahead, and the cold was forgotten. Fable surged down the stoop and across the garden path, certain now of what she could see, melting into the darkness of the creek: a barefoot, fleeing woman, wearing a beaded ballgown.

  ‘Mama! ’

  Heedless of wakening Sonnet, Fable threw open the gate and tore into the gloom. The grass was cold and slimy underfoot. The forest wall rose out of mist, a looming blackness in the pale moonglow.

  Fable strained for Mama’s fleeing figure. She was heading, by instinct, for the train bridge when she espied a glimmering further north: moonshine catching shimmering peridot, as the woman faded into the forest. Fable turned smoothly in a northward direction, and into the thick fortress of trees.

  *

  A scream rent the predawn darkness apart, tearing Olive from slumber. She was out on the veranda, chest thumping, in what felt like a single leap. Behind her, Gav crashed about for a flashlight. Zephyr’s paws scrabbled madly at the door, seeking release.

  ‘Olive! Gav!’

  Olive scoured the darkness. The scream was coming down Orchard Hill.

  ‘Sonnet?!’

  The veranda light flipped on, and Gav arrived at her side with a flashlight. The light arced into the garden, striking upon Sonnet, sprinting across the grass, with Plum wrapped around her waist.

  ‘Sonnet!’

  Olive and Gav banged down the stairs and Sonnet came slamming into them, throwing Plum into Olive’s arms.

  ‘Fable’s disappeared! You have to take Plum for me!’

  ‘What do you mean she’s disappeared?’

  ‘I don’t know – she’s missing!’

  ‘Could she be curled asleep under something?’

  ‘No! I’ve checked everywhere – she might be drowning in the creek! Just take Plummy!’

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ said Gav. ‘Sure she’s not in the loo?’

  ‘I searched there straightaway.’

  ‘But why would she go outside?’

  Sonnet gave an exasperated scream. ‘Olive, she’s gone, I need to search! Will you help me or not?’

  Gav thrust a flashlight into Sonnet’s hands. ‘Here. I’ll grab another. Fable can’t be far, we’ll find her together.’

  ‘Hurry, Gav.’ Sonnet turned despairing eyes on Olive. ‘I heard screams. That’s what woke me. I couldn’t bear the sound. I went to check on Fable, and she was gone. Even when I was running up here, I heard them again – such God-awful screams.’

  ‘You need to calm down,’ Olive said, covering Plum’s ears. ‘You’re scaring her. If Fable’s screaming and you can hear it, she must be close! We’ll follow the sound.’

  ‘She sounds so heartbroken.’

  Gav walloped down the stairs, Zephyr hot on his tail.

  ‘Let’s go. Olive, you wait at the cottage for her.’

  Up Orchard Hill they charged, voices impeaching Fable in unison, torchlight raking black foliage. Down the slope they ran, bellowing, to the cottage. Olive ducked inside while Sonnet and Gav turned towards Serpentine Creek.

  ‘It’s going to be morning soon,’ he soothed.

  Sure enough, profound blackness was lifting to grey; shapes separating out. Even as she watched, the dark vein of creek distinguished itself from the void.

  ‘It’s those screams. I can’t get them out of my head.’

  Gav pulled her into his large armpit. ‘Don’t immediately think the worst, pet. She can’t be too lost, she’s a Hamilton; this land’s in her blood. We’ll make for the train crossing and check the bottom of Hulls’ first.’

  Their shouts seemed to chase the night away, light hastening into the world to aid their search. Crushing dewed spider webs underfoot, they charged across the paddock. Nearing the creek rush, the plangent keening started again.

  ‘Oh, Gav!’ Sonnet cried, clutching at him. Don’t take her too. I won’t survive it!

  Gav gave Sonnet a squeeze. ‘Pet, that’s just the curlews calling. “Wailing Women” they call them. Flamin’ awful-sounding birds they are at night, don’t blame you for thinking someone’s being murdered—’ He cut off, abruptly. ‘Come on, we’ll find her in a flash, safe and sound.’

  *

  For an hour they searched the track along Serpentine Creek, until the trail turned away into canefields and, ultimately, the road into town.

  ‘If she’s gone that way, a car will spot her soon enough. Best we double back up the creek,’ Gav said.

  North of the train bridge, Gav led Sonnet up an overgrown trail running along the Hamilton side. Branches thrust into their faces, tree roots slithered over each other in the rush to topple them. Sonnet yelped as a viciously barbed vine tore into her limbs.

  ‘Get it off me!’

  ‘Flamin’ wait-a-while,’ Gav cursed. ‘No time to wait today.’ He ripped her free. Blood beaded along her skin.

  Panic sought to choke Sonnet. How could Fable possibly have found her way along this twisting, jarring path, in the black of night, with unearthly birds screaming at her? She looped her arm through her uncle’s. Gav knew what to do. She wasn’t alone in this, at least.

  The path narrowed further, funnelling the pair into a shadowy, circular grove formed by a leviathan tree. Mossy buttress roots rippled out from the trunk, forming a skirt of deep valleys and hollows.

  And there in a curving cleft, like a foetus within womb’s embrace, or a faerie fallen from her sky, lay Fable Winter.

  ‘Fabes! ’ Sonnet cried, lurching forward.

  Her sister stirred, whimpering.

  Sonnet’s hands ran all over Fable. ‘Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?’

  Fable grimaced, fingers going to her neck. Recalling herself, she cast about wildly. ‘Where is she? Where’s Mama?!’

  Sonnet exchanged a glance with Gav, who’d come to kneel quietly at her side.

  ‘Fable, she’s gone. Remember, sweetie?’

  Fable struggled out of her embrace. ‘No! I followed her last night!’

  ‘Is that why you came here? Looking for Mama?’ There was pity in her voice and Fable recoiled from it.

  ‘I’m not an idiot, I saw her! Mama was in my room. I followed her until she stopped. She was standing here, just looking at the water – so still. I was waiting for her to turn and speak to me. I didn’t want to frighten her away. Then I must have fallen asleep. But she was here, Sonnet!’

  Gav had whitened, but said nothing.

  ‘Fabes, Mama’s not here anymore. She’s just not here.’

  Fable pushed her mollifying hand away. She rose unsteadily, scanning the grove. Sonnet stepped back, arms aching to grab Fable near. Water rushed callously by.

  When Fable turned back, it was with a countenance laid bare; bereft. Tears seeped long down her cheeks.

  Sonnet stepped forward, but Fable’s gaze travelled beyond her to the giant tree. A strange smile, wise beyond her years, lifted her lips. She pushed past Sonnet, reaching for the tree. She stood, hand to tree, and then, placing her forehead to the bark, she whispered, ‘Mama.’

  Mama? It’s a ruddy tree! Sonnet fought the urge to correct. Even in her cynic
ism, she could admit the tree’s eerie resemblance to a woman, one sheathed in a trailing gown. No wonder Fable had been mistaken in the moonlight. Eyes playing a trick, that’s all there was to it. She could say nothing this minute to ease the stricken horror on Gav’s face, though.

  Fable’s lips moved again; a little broken murmur: ‘She is not thou, and only thou are she.’ Finally, she turned. There was a wet blaze in her eyes. ‘Here. This is where we have to scatter Mama’s ashes – under the Green Woman.’

  CHAPTER 7

  SECRET GARDEN

  September 1955

  T

  he bright yellow paint of her bicycle gleamed as Sonnet sailed, red strands whipping loose, down the row of towering sugarcane, their silvery-pink headdresses resplendent in the spring sunshine. In her wicker basket jiggled a string bag filled with fresh fruit and vegetables. The cloying odour of the crowded farmers’ market still clung to Sonnet. She had procured a dragon fruit for Fable to sample, and she couldn’t wait to see her face when she cut it open to discover the outlandish hot-pink flesh.

  Olive wasn’t the only one who could impress Fable!

  Sonnet’s heart was light. With happiness, perhaps; or something so much like it she didn’t care to analyse the difference. Here was a morning alone for the first time since her mother had passed. No pressing cries or cleaving hands, only the simple pleasure of gathering food for her family.

  The solitary outing had been Olive’s idea, but even she must have been surprised by the speed at which Sonnet had accepted the offer. And who could blame her? For every two steps Olive made into their lives, Sonnet beat her one step back. Even as Sonnet chafed at Olive’s doggedness, she recognised herself in it. Sonnet would never admit it to Olive, but she was relenting. The fear and powerlessness of the dark morning Fable disappeared had softened something in her.

  It was Gav who had carried Fable home to the cottage from that creek-side grove. Olive who had bathed her slender feet and hands, made Fable a warm breakfast and sweet milky tea and administered an aspirin from her pocket – as an anodyne placebo, it seemed. Gav, again, who sat Fable at the kitchen table and explained just how many aspects of the rainforest conspired to harm her during a midnight foray.