Those Hamilton Sisters

by Averil Kenny

  Fable chanced another glance up, and sighed. She narrowed her eyes on her watercolour – a waterfall, surrounded by naked rainforest faeries, their arms outstretched in an ecstatic worship. It was a recurring theme, one that had scandalised her fellow eighth graders when the nubile nymphs were revealed by the class boofheads, who had tossed the sketchbook between them, whooping over the ‘dirty’ drawings they had found.

  Fable cursed herself for having shoved the sketchbook in her port that morning with the intention of heading on to the Green Woman’s Grove after school. It was bad enough she had to conceal the book from Sonnet’s prying eyes, much less those buffoons, and it was her own fault for not staying guarded, at all times.

  The accusation that Fable was the creator of ‘French postcards’ – mere titillation for smelly boys – had been a crushing shame. But it was only the mocking laughter that had caused her shame. Fable could be no more ashamed of her art than she could of breathing. She was beholden to the creative energy coursing through her veins. She must create as inspiration compelled.

  Still, it hadn’t hurt to start clothing her faeries.

  Fable would never be so daft as to take her sketchbook to school again. She counted herself lucky the boys had been so taken with the nude pictures; scant attention was given to the blue eyes repeated on every other page.

  If her suspicions were right, however, and Adriana and company had been the ones to thieve the book from her port, then perhaps Fable’s deepest fear was realised. To imagine Adriana sighting those sketches brought waves of dread – a sister would surely recognise her brother’s eyes.

  And yet, she waited now at the Glade, only a few feet from Adriana, with the very evidence of her obsession held in ink-stained hands. Fable thrilled at her own daring. Now and then, when Adriana was annoying her sufficiently, Fable flipped back to a sketch of blue eyes; smug in furtive victory.

  You don’t own Raff!

  Some days she wanted to throw her book at the back of Adriana’s raven head. Even a river rock would do, at a pinch.

  *

  On the following Saturday, the gang bypassed the Glade, trekking further downstream to a place they called the Cathedral. Fable knew she’d only been included because Marco swung past the Hamilton cottage on his way through. To be honest, Fable wasn’t really in the mood to go – she’d been nursing a tummy ache all morning – but Marco looked woebegone at her initial refusal.

  The Cathedral was only accessible via a mile-long trek through thick vegetation. Marco, stampeding ahead, was undaunted even when the path became a funnel of jungle grass higher than their heads, humming with insects. Fable tried not to think of overlarge pythons, and felt thankful they’d moved on from the thicket of tar trees, which, Marco had been at pains to point out, could cause blindness. She had taken him at his earnest word. One could never quite tell what was or wasn’t urban legend in this part of Australia; so many otherworldly animals and plants seeking to maim the uninitiated.

  Only yesterday, Fable found a new treasure for her diverse collection of rainforest flora: a lurid blue fruit as big as her hand – and yet Uncle Gav had scolded her for it! Cassowary plums, he lectured, were poisonous to all except the giant, flightless cassowary birds after which they were coloured and named. Fable was marched off to the bathroom to wash her hands by an officiously smirking Sonnet, and Plum was close on their heels with her hands held out, pleading to know: was she a poisonous Plum, too?

  Fable decided she would just keep the next exotic fruit she discovered to herself.

  Ahead now, a banyan tree rose majestically out of the canopy, with branches spanning absurdly wide, tentacles falling as a thick curtain around the broad, multi-trunked cavern.

  They emerged from the grass into dwarfing shade. On the branches, even at dizzying heights, kids lounged like jungle cats, tossing insults or flirtatious banter. Two main groups had formed, allegiances drawn between the returned St Ronan’s boys and Noah Vale kids.

  Fable was still scanning their gum-popping ranks for Adriana’s dark ponytail, when a tall figure dropped from a branch above, to land beside them.

  ‘Hey, Marco,’ the man-boy said.

  He nodded at Fable, blond hair tumbling over his brow, and she felt herself staggering backwards, though she hadn’t moved an inch.

  Rafferty was here.

  And the blue eyes she had laboured over, from precious memory alone, were alive and blinking upon her once more.

  *

  Did the other kids see how she flamed sitting on this upper bough? Would she set the whole tree alight as she burned for that boy? Fable had taken refuge here from her own impetuosity, feeling like an unexploded firecracker. The urge to reach out and touch Raff had competed with the terror that he might, merely, look at her. All year she had waited; all month long she had planned for first sight of him, and yet still Raff dropped back into her world with the manner and effect of a falling bomb.

  Look at him down there: taller and handsomer than she remembered, arms crossed in his thoughtful manner, nodding at Marco as they chatted; now and then breaking out his gentle smile with no idea of its potency.

  She wiped sticky hands against her shirt and gripped tighter at her branch.

  Caustic laughter rang out and automatically Fable’s awareness moved to assess the threat. No barbs at her spine, so it probably wasn’t the cunning slide of Eamon’s regard. Casting further afield, she saw Adriana, Jessica, Megan and Isabella crouched in the lower branches with heads together, all eyes on Fable, and laughter leaking out . . .

  ‘Go and tell her now, so we can watch. It’ll be hilarious.’

  ‘You tell her.’

  ‘No one tell her! The bitch deserves it.’

  ‘She really does.’

  Fable reassessed her outfit choice for the day – boat-neck summer top tucked into belted white shorts; nothing controversial – and scanned back over her behaviour since she’d arrived. How had she sinned today? It had to be the way she was staring at Raff. She mustn’t look his way again, even if it killed her.

  Fable forced herself to follow the Tree Tiggy game getting started in the cavernous bosom of the tree.

  ‘Same rules as normal Tiggy,’ Vince Lagorio was saying, ‘but when you’re tagged, drop out of the tree. Last man standing picks who’s in next round.’

  Good old Kate was calling for her to join in, and Fable clambered down her branch towards salvation. Activity would provide release for her pounding anxiety. Or her heart might actually stop, in which case she’d still be better off than she was right now.

  Raff remained on the ground, while Marco climbed up to play, aligning himself with Fable. It was no surprise Adriana positioned herself on the limb with the St Ronan’s boys, leaning coquettishly over the shoulder of the one who referred to himself as ‘Van the Man’. What did concern Fable, however, was the way Adriana drew the boys into a ring, indicating Fable with a whisper. Laughing scorn was lobbed around. Fable heard her name on Eamon’s lips, then a braying laugh.

  Tree Tiggy began. Children swooped and screeched: a tree come alive with clothed primates. Fable was caught and tagged in a matter of moments by Van the Man – to much laughter from higher branches. She slipped from the tree; mortified to hit the ground first and find Raff smiling in commiseration. Fable rubbed her wrists meaningfully, as if some weird wrist condition or pre-existing injury explained her tagging. This juvenile pantomime humiliated more than actually losing.

  Over two more Tree Tiggy rounds, Fable was the first one returned each time to the ground. Anyone could see Fable was being specifically targeted by the St Ronan’s boys – to wide hilarity. By her third first-one-out tagging, Fable was enraged. She met Raff’s sympathetic smile with a scowl.

  He held up both hands. ‘Hey, I’m Switzerland!’

  Fable kicked away, fuming. It was Raff’s fault, anyway; refusing to play like some kind of grown-up, making her so uncoordinated and hopelessly in love with him.

  For the fourth ro
und, she would change tactics. If she couldn’t outmanoeuvre the bullies, she’d outwit them. Wishing she wasn’t wearing white on a day when camouflage was essential, Fable eased off quietly at the side of the Cathedral. Behind her, she heard Raff call, in a low voice. ‘Fable, you’ve got—’ She closed her ears.

  Watch this, Switzerland.

  She wove into the Cathedral’s underbelly, where hanging roots enclosed her like the tentacles of a prehistoric jellyfish. Light penetrated only weakly into the pungent miasma of swollen fertility.

  Fable faded deeper into the lightless, dripping underworld. Now here was something she knew herself the master of: hidden worlds. She grinned as she heard the first person – not her – drop to the ground with a dismayed cry, and Raff’s muted tones responding. A succession of dropping children followed. Not only was she surviving, she still hadn’t been sighted at all. She just had to hold tight here, a few moments longer.

  Smile pityingly at me now, Rafferty Hull!

  Adriana and Van the Man’s crows sounded overhead. ‘Four straight wins – new record!’

  Fable recognised her cue to emerge as the true victor. Oh gosh, but what about little old me, she would ask. Adriana would hiss in defeat as Fable fastened her eyes on Raff’s beaming, upturned face.

  ‘Here I come, suckers,’ she whispered, not moving an inch.

  The darkness held her. Breath softened and flowed. Dreamily detached moments passed, measured out by the slow metronomic dripping of entombed raindrops.

  Fable sensed she was alone now in the tree, forgotten in an unheard departure. Fear was only a tiny flicker, easily extinguished. She could not even rouse herself enough to care.

  At slumberous length, Fable became mindful of stickiness in her undergarments, akin to having wet her pants. She went to reach inside her shorts, and stopped. From an unseen vantage point, twenty pairs of eyes were probably aimed to catch Fable with her hands down her crotch.

  Fable slid from her perch, enfolding herself deeper in the tree. She thrust two fingers under the hemline of her shorts, swiping. Even in the gloom, she could make out a dark gloop on her fingers. She sniffed tentatively and recoiled from the metallic odour. Automatically, she wiped it on her thighs before remembering, with a dismayed breath, the whiteness of her shorts. She scrubbed her fingers desperately on the roots hanging by, until they came away smelling of earth, and something more ageless still.

  Understanding surfaced from the murk.

  She pushed back through the Cathedral folds to find a beam of filtered light. She spun wildly, and found it: wide red smear, right up the back of her white shorts. All morning, she’d been bleeding for all to see – even Raff!

  Fable, you’ve got . . .

  . . . blood, all over yourself.

  She could just die. Right here, right now. The ache in her lower belly gripped like a reptilian claw, as the moisture in her pants spread further out.

  Beyond her sanctuary, Fable heard voices calling her name. So, she had not been forgotten in the exodus, after all. Fable steeled herself against a trunk, and discovery. She would stay quiet, hide out until night, then run for home. She pictured herself stumbling through the dark forest, straight into a stinging tree, getting strung up in wait-a-while barbs, going blind from a tar tree, tripping into a nest of feral pigs – or a spreading python’s maw.

  She heard a sing-song voice, close by. In her desperation, she fancied it the Green Woman, come once more to lead her out of trouble.

  ‘Fa-ble,’ cajoled the silhouette against the light. Fable recognised that shape as Kate, and realised she knew exactly where Fable was hiding. Pinioned against the tree, Fable watched the older girl ease herself into the darkness.

  ‘Are you there, sweetie?’

  Aw, hell.

  ‘I’m here.’

  Kate squinted, eyes adjusting. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m just . . . exploring.’

  ‘Oh, fun.’

  This was what Fable liked most about Kate compared with her cousin Adriana – with most people, in fact – that she bumped happily alongside others, like a leaf in a stream.

  ‘Are you ready to come home? Raffy and I are going now, if you want to come with us.’

  ‘Rafferty is out there?’

  ‘He was the only one who saw where you went. The others figured you’d taken off home sooking about losing. Everyone else has gone on for lunch at Summerlinn, want to come?’

  Fable’s mind ran in panicked circles: she would sprint out of the tree – streaming blood – so fast he didn’t have time to see a thing; no, she would stay here and demand they go on without her; wait, what if she lagged along behind them, barking, ‘Don’t look at me!’ each time they turned her way?

  Kate, however, had taken Fable’s arm in comradely fashion and was leading her out of this sanctuary.

  They came, blinking, into searing-green light. Fable shielded her eyes from a thousand exploding flashlight bulbs trained on her alone.

  And yet: no more gloating laughter, just Kate’s chatter and an empty clearing. For a second or two, Fable hoped Raff had already left.

  But no, there he was, waiting at the grassy jungle, scuffing at the ground with one foot. He glanced up, and Fable saw raw concern. Kate did not speak or let go of Fable’s arm, but in the exchange of glances between the older pair, there was an interaction that explicitly related to Fable.

  Raff nodded, turning quickly towards home. ‘I’m off. See you later, Katy, Fable.’

  Fable quivered until his back had disappeared from sight, thankful for the soft arm linked in hers, and for Kate’s blithe nattering, which ceased not, the entire way home.

  CHAPTER 14

  BEHIND THE CURTAIN DRAWN

  January 1957

  S

  onnet jerked awake, gasping. She shuddered there, waiting for fear to take coherent shape. The darkness behind the lace curtains flapping at the window told her it was the dead of night. Torrential rain battered the cottage. A choir filled the attic room with ecstatic, swelling frog song. She might have stepped into an auditorium, a roaring football field, a holy cathedral. Profound, aching sadness beset her.

  Something’s gone.

  She scrounged around the bed for Plum’s curled shape before remembering, with mingled relief and disappointment, that she was spending her regular weekend night with Olive and Gav.

  Fable!

  Sonnet flung herself from bed, racing for the stairs. During the last year and a half, she had come to dread these night wakings, terrified of discovering Fable vanished into the wilderness again. Even the front door deadbolts Gav had installed had failed to reassure. She knew, ultimately, there was no true mechanism for keeping her sister restrained, or safe, much less happy. And lately, Fable seemed to be retreating further. She’d barely mumbled a word for days. It was exactly the kind of ‘Fable Mood’ which most frightened Sonnet.

  What if she’d gone chasing ghosts again?

  Sonnet charged into Fable’s sleep-out. The French doors were widely ajar, curtains billowing in the gusting rain. Sonnet shivered, tripping over her own feet. For a stricken second, she couldn’t make out Fable’s figure in the darkness. Her hands ran in panicked circles in the bedclothes. At last her fingers found an ankle, and Sonnet could breathe again. She pulled the sheet high over thin limbs, gently stroking tendrils from Fable’s brow.

  The curtains ballooned and flapped. Fable mumbled and folded away from the damp incursion. Sonnet turned her attention to the open window, kneeling on the seat to tug at the pane. Beneath her knees, the wooden board of the seat jiggled and lifted. She jumped off, fearing she’d broken it, and realised it was a removable lid. How had she failed to find it during her compulsive cleaning sessions?

  Clearly, Fable had not been so ignorant. Inside, she discovered secret artefacts – rainforest seeds, iridescent emerald feathers, two halves of a thunder egg, and a pile of linen shoved on top. Fable had appropriated it as a laundry hamper.

  Sonn
et shuddered at the rank odour of soiled clothing. Just what she needed, more washing when the outside line couldn’t be used and the clothing draped everywhere inside was refusing to dry in constant wet-season damp. She hauled out the pile, letting the window seat fall back with a clunk. If Fable woke right now, Sonnet had a few pertinent things she intended to say about such stinking, filthy habits!

  She’d get started on the soaking immediately. The grip of anxiety was not abating, and her hands needed something to do. Cane toads scattered as she descended the rickety back stairs to the outdoor laundry.

  She drew a pail of hot water and reached for the soap flakes, then stopped short. In the light of the swinging light globe, she was sure some of Fable’s clothes were bloodied. She squinted, sniffed, and drew back in shock. There was blood all over these garments, the odour of stale menstrual blood at once familiar and repellent. Fable had started her periods and said nothing! There was at least a week’s worth of clothing and linen shoved in that secret hole.

  Sonnet wanted to shake Fable from sleep and squeeze her for both excitement and frustration. But Fable had already greeted this momentous occasion with fear and shame, and, with that knowledge, tears came. Her sister had no mother to usher her lovingly into womanhood, and the fake mother she did have was clearly failing. For a week she had battled through her first period, with no sanitary products, no comfort. Goodness knows what she’d been trying to use to stem the flow. Knowing Fable, probably fig leaves knitted together.

  The image should have made Sonnet laugh, but tears coursed down her cheeks. Now she understood why Fable had refused to leave the house for days, why she’d rebuffed invites to church and, more worryingly, gatherings at the creek with wistfulness now tragic in Sonnet’s memory rather than confounding, as it had been at the time. Fable had not a true friend in the world. And even when her distress had been staring Sonnet brokenly in the face, she’d been blind to it.