by Averil Kenny
Fable disregarded this. ‘There’s nothing worth coming back for?’
Raff smiled. ‘Since I don’t have any other baby sisters graduating . . . not likely.’
Fable busied herself picking at stray foliage in her hair, a corner of her mouth gathering.
Marco, unnerved by Fable’s uncharacteristic boldness, lunged in. ‘What’s it been anyway, two years since you were last home? You’ll hardly recognise Noah now, so many new shops going in on Main, they’re even talking about a department store coming! John Belden’s finally subdivided, and there’s a brand-new crew at the Paragon, too.’
Raff laughed. ‘I think I’ll manage to find my way around. Most things change pretty slowly in good old Noah.’
Fable snorted. ‘Yes, we’re just a primitive backwater here.’
Raff went to speak, but seemed to think better of it. Fable moved to gather her art roll, back placed firmly to them.
Marco pushed through the gate after Fable. ‘You want to come with us to the creek, for old times’ sake?’
‘No thanks,’ she said – too quickly.
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
Marco found himself blathering. ‘I was telling Raff about your paintings, you should show him the one of the Glade!’
The look Fable turned was incredulous. Too well Marco knew her fierce predilection for privacy to have suggested a thing in forgetfulness.
‘She’s way too shy,’ Marco told Raff, ‘I keep telling her she’s got to get her stuff in a gallery. People would go nuts for it.’
Fable’s packing up had quickened to a flurry. Perhaps it was her modesty, then, which finally pushed Marco over the line. He swooped on her art journal, opening it to Raff.
‘Seriously, you have to see these. She’s amazing!’
Marco was flipping pages as Fable dived towards them. Raff stepped back from the fence, hands up. ‘No advance previews unless the artist permits!’
Marco’s hurried page turning halted with a triumphant cry. He shoved it across the fence, into Raff’s face.
‘Recognise these?!’
Fable stopped short, too late to intervene.
‘Undoubtedly,’ Raff said, after a tremendous pause.
‘Give it to me,’ Fable hissed through her teeth.
Raff pushed the journal, still in Marco’s hands, back towards Fable.
Fable clutched her image of the faerie-filled Glade against her chest, glaring at Marco.
But Marco had come too far now for remorse. ‘No one will know how good she is as long as she keeps pretending she’s mucking about, she’s got to get it out there—’
Raff cut through. ‘Were you inspired by Faerie Falls?’
‘What’s Faerie Falls?’
‘You haven’t discovered them yet? Honestly, it’s something straight out of your drawings.’
‘Is it nearby?’
Raff nodded at Marco. ‘Yep, get this lad to take you up for the day. There’s no pathway, so you’ll need the guide. It’s accessed off the top of Moria Falls, fair climb.’
‘I don’t know how to get there, Fabes,’ Marco muttered. ‘Wouldn’t have a clue.’
Raff grinned. ‘You young fellas these days spend too much time haunting the public baths on weekends, you’re letting the old valley secrets fade away.’
‘Sounds more like the old guard hogging the valley secrets,’ Marco flashed.
Fable turned to Raff then, raising eyes wide and gold and luminous.
‘Would you take me to see it?’ she asked.
For a moment, less than a second really, an expression crossed Raff’s face that Marco had never before glimpsed there. Almost instantly, it was covered by amiable agreement.
‘Sure, I can probably make time for that. You guys get the crew together, I’ll take you for a look.’
There was no hesitation from Fable. ‘Tomorrow!’
‘I can’t, Fabes!’ Marco cried. ‘I’m working at Perroti’s all day.’
‘Can’t you change your shift?’ she asked, not looking in his direction.
‘I’ll try,’ he said miserably.
‘What time do you want to head up?’ she asked Raff.
Raff looked between the younger pair. ‘So long as my old man doesn’t rope me into anything on Summerlinn, we could set off at eight. I’ll have the truck ready to go. It’s a long, steep hike. Bring food, water and so on.’
‘Righto,’ Fable said, with a pat on Marco’s shoulder. ‘See you bright and early.’
‘I’ll try to talk Vince into working for me,’ Marco said, without expectation.
‘OK, do that!’ Fable chirped, already flitting away.
Marco kicked at a fence paling, no longer in the mood to swim with Raff Hull at all.
CHAPTER 26
FAERIE FALLS
I
f she slept a wink that night, Fable didn’t note it; as every fibre of her being strained, in suffering impatience, towards the dawn. Countless times she threw herself from bed to window, double-checking the sun had not, as she feared, forgotten to rise.
Would morning never come again? And if it did, would she discover Raff’s materialisation had been only a lucid dream born of the achingly long years she had watched for his overdue homecoming? Only deafening rain on the cottage roof served to reassure her fears. It might be a month too early, but Raff Hull was here.
He’d once again brought the rain.
By the time dawn filtered through the bay window in a hushed glow, Fable was already at her dresser: massaging blemished cheeks with the unguent appropriated from Olive’s bathroom cabinet; struggling to mask her acne with none of the usual deft steadiness of her artist’s hand; knocking her precious makeup pots off the dresser in her shaking rush. It was no use; she was making a mess of it!
She took a washer, wiped her face clean again, and looked critically. Her flaws were exposed, but her bare eyes shone with hope and wonder; those violet shadows and amber pools brighter than she’d ever seen. And that, today, would have to do.
She rose from the table.
Discarding thirteen outfits of varying levels of earnestness, Fable settled finally on a halter-neck playsuit with her brand new high-waisted bikini underneath, something she’d never had the courage to wear publicly. Why was obvious – she spilled.
Fable flew out of the door at 7.45, high pony swinging, hasty note left for Sonnet with no mention of the day’s company. She had fruit shoved haphazardly in her rucksack, but not a bite to eat in her tummy.
The valley was resplendent after the first spring rainstorm, draped in mist and tented by a white canvas, beneath which white cockatoos dived and squawked.
Her heart battered wildly against its moorings as she crossed the bridge towards the Hulls’, and the dream she had nurtured so fervently, so foolishly, for so long: Rafferty.
Her eyes fastened on the truck idling beneath the mango trees, as promised. Her breath tightened to a pinhole as she remembered the last time she’d stepped foot on Summerlinn. She squinted for a glimpse of Raff’s fair head in the driver’s seat.
No need to pinch herself, for there he was – already waiting.
Fable was within a few feet of the truck, when, before her disbelieving eyes, the tray of the truck filled with kids – Adriana’s dark head instantly recognisable.
An icy hand grasped her heart, squeezing.
To the watching eye, and blue eyes were certainly watching her approach, Fable glided serenely up to the truck without a ruffle of dismay. She tendered an offhand greeting and swung on-board, neglecting to address the driver himself, or his co-pilot, Eamon.
Raff leaned out of the window. ‘We waiting for Marco?’
‘Not coming!’ Fable sang, squeezing in beside her tray mates with the nonchalance of one slipping into a peak-hour train.
The truck rumbled into answering life.
‘Ooh, look whose boyfriend stood her up,’ came a nearby snigger, to tittering response.
It was Christy Logan. Of course it was. Fable’s wretched disappointment would not have been complete without Christy in attendance today.
Fable knew better than to react. Nevertheless, ‘Where’s yours?’ she asked sweetly.
Christy, so recently humiliated by the loss of hard-won and even-harder-kept Van the Man to a younger, prettier, less inhibited version of herself, made no attempt to curb her loathing lip. ‘Least I don’t go round sucking dago dicks.’
That Christy had gone too far was evident in the group’s hollow laughter.
Adriana, rarely one to address Fable directly, spoke quickly to redress the balance in Christy’s favour. ‘Why are you here anyway, Hamilton? No one even invited you!’
On they all piled now. Isabella, Jessica, Megan, Christy again . . .
‘And what are you wearing? We can see everything in that suit.’
‘You’re always desperate to make yourself the centre of attention. Runs in the family.’
‘No wonder you wear so much makeup to cover that complexion.’
‘Look out, Mount Vesuvius is erupting!’
Satisfied to have exposed their ugliness, Fable settled back against the rattling tray. A salty plum from her bag provided relief in the cat’s-bum-sneer elicited. She’d suck salty plums all day, if she had to.
Fable turned lash-hooded attention to her remaining travelling mates – two new guys from St Ronan’s plus Adriana’s latest crush, fellow school captain, Greg Hadley. The group’s objectives were clear. Escape from the drudgery of Sunday-morning services and lifeless Main Street for the consumption of contraband: alcohol, and a Playboy magazine, over which boys and girls alike would huddle – the boys, with explicit comparisons against their classmates; the girls, with offended huffs, and studying eyes.
It didn’t take long for deeper motives to reveal themselves in breathless tones. There were several ardent admirers of Raff Hull present and vying for the attention of Noah’s Most Eligible Bachelor today. Adriana, usually fanatically possessive of her brother, was strangely certain Raff was not only enamoured with at least two of her friends, but had always harboured a specific type: green-eyed brunettes of Isabella’s exact dimensions. He had literally begged her to bring along her girlfriends today, even though they had better things to do.
The girls were all a-twitter.
Oh, the lengths Raff Hull would go just to avoid being alone with her. Fable had misjudged the tone of today’s adventure entirely – she was the postscript. Well, she still had the option of throwing herself head first from the truck, and this doomed mission, into the dizzying depths of the gorge.
Thankfully, before she had to, Moria Falls rose thunderously out of the forest. Fable leapt into the car park, braced rucksack straps and nerves alike, affected blasé indifference to Eamon’s sly breast-nudge as he squeezed by, and took up the rear.
A chorus of laughter broke out in the assembling group as one of the boys sent a brush-turkey squawking off with an imitated footy kick.
The stream of hikers, under Raff’s lead, was absorbed through an unsigned slit in the forest wall. Had Fable’s eyes not been locked on that tall, broad back – with its throng of giggling admirers and trailing deputy, Eamon – she might have overlooked the path altogether. Dallying behind, Fable considered turning around in her see-everything suit and not-covered-enough skin, and fleeing. She wouldn’t even be missed. It was only refusal to look childish in Raff’s eyes that drove her on.
Her reward was instantaneous: cool, pungent cloak of rainforest; her familiar, draping solace. She inhaled slowly.
The trail, deep with mud, climbed abruptly, and Fable smirked at the rising complaints from the girls clamouring at the fore. The quiet burn of her thighs was a wicked pleasure. After years of tagging along up mountains with the boys, here was something Fable knew how to do well. When Raff finally decided to look back, he’d be sure to see only one girl belonged here today.
Squeal on, dimwits!
They were following a goat track up beside Moria Falls. The roar was a colossal, chest-filling presence. Fable wanted to fling her arms wide and allow it to engulf her. A break in thick vegetation afforded a momentary view and Fable’s heart thudded from both the pleasure of exertion and the plummeting heights they were attaining above the sheer drop of Moria Falls. The altitude of their expedition had revealed itself to all, thanks to the large rock Eamon decided, in typical wisdom, to unhinge and push over the cliff face. The sound was of a landslide setting off. Back-thumping cheers from the boys only fuelled the sense of precariousness invading the party.
Isabella started into a panic attack, feigned or otherwise, and fear became a palpable cord running back along the party. Raff was saying something to soothe beautiful Isabella’s angst, but his words were lost to Fable at line’s end.
Deep in the cloud forest now, any pretence of a pathway gave way to a steep, root-choked tumble of boulders. Progress was slow – they might have been climbing a giant’s marble toss. It was arduous, dirty, and a satisfying challenge.
Or at least Fable thought so. Perfectly competent hikers had somehow disintegrated into a gasping flock losing shoes, sunglasses; their strength. Girls insisted on being hoisted between rocks, predictably by no less than their handsome, intrepid leader, though Eamon leapt forward with a hand under a pert bum or three. The affectations of female helplessness rendered Fable white with rage.
Isabella was trailing Raff so closely she was practically being piggybacked. Fable wondered if she might actually faint into his arms next. And, if so, whether a good face slapping might help?
The ache in Fable’s clenched teeth increased.
They had entered a natural nave, formed of stone and sheer cliff face, roofed by canopy. Here, their path was ruptured by a crevice so black it might have been bottomless.
There was no way forward now, but over the breach.
Surprising no one, Isabella consented to continue only after cajoling inducement, and the promise of male arms to guide her over. What else did she need, Fable fumed, a marriage proposal on the other side?
Clutching her rescuer’s hand, Isabella flung herself across the cavity in a screaming spectacle.
Fable wished they’d all topple through the crack, straight to Hades, with Rafferty Hull leading the damned way! Unwilling to watch Raff hold the hand of every shrieking girl, Fable lifted her eyes to the immense bird’s-nest fern in the bower overhead. Nature’s chandelier, she thought, dreaming up a faerie ballroom.
A falling hush alerted Fable to her position at the front of the queue. Waiting on the opposite side of the breach and looking directly at her for the first time all morning, was Raff. A strong hand was already extended patiently. Behind him, every face fixed expectantly on Fable.
Raff searched her face; finding in Fable’s eyes both refusal and a warning. Almost imperceptible, but the message was received. He stepped back a few paces. Raff bore no small amount of concern, and his expression sent a frisson of fear into her belly.
Without giving herself time to overthink it, or in fact think about it at all, Fable took a breath, and flew over the chasm.
She landed well clear of the hollow, but stumbled for purchase on the slippery rock. Raff’s hand shot out to support her, even as hers went up to fend off assistance. Their hands met in a tight grasp, which released as quickly as it had formed.
‘Nearly there now,’ Raff said, cutting through the murmuring. Flirtatious mirth resumed around Raff at the column’s head, and on they journeyed.
Only then did Fable’s heartbeat take off on a renegade gallop. Her hand burned and shook. It required all her gumption to trail sedately on.
Soon, they ascended a crudely hewn pathway between giant fan palms, and into a faerie linn . . .
Every expanse of rock was bedecked with bright green moss and tiny, waving ferns. A long, slender flume plunged into a hidden grotto pool, rushing out of the rock in rivulets, to coalesce in a deep pool. Above the falls, trees were garlanded i
n silvery epiphytes stirring like seaweed in a current. The diffused light here conjured up a hundred faeries at play: dancing in tiny rainbows; twinkling between mossy streams; flashing in puddles of sunlight formed by snaking roots. The beauty struck Fable as a physical ache. She was ensorcelled.
Kids fanned out into the scene, shattering the serenity. Fable hung back, unable to invade it herself. Bitterness surged at the injustice of witnessing this magical realm trampled by a stampeding herd.
Her stalling sourness must have disappointed their escort, for he appeared quietly at her side.
‘You don’t like it?’
Fable turned a disbelieving look upon him. ‘I like it too much.’
His relief, plain to see, sank the hilt of aching wonderment deeper still.
‘It’s straight out of your paintings, hey?’
‘Like I dreamed it.’
He smiled.
‘Thank you, for – this.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘I wish I didn’t have to share it with anyone else . . .’ A high-pitched melee broke out as Eamon dragged a girl under the spray. ‘Hopefully they’ll all drown, and I’ll have the place to myself.’
Raff laughed. ‘Well, I know you’re being genuine.’
They smiled together, standing at a distance not quite apart, neither together. A waiting silence hung over them like a net.
Raff nodded coaxingly at the rucksack she clutched, the bound edge of her favourite journal clearly visible at its opening. Fable shook her head, drawing it tighter still to camouflage the beating of her journal’s heart, its yearning for release. Nothing on earth could induce her to open her book here today, before those vultures. Not even Raff Hull.
Screeches from the nearby pool made the pair turn. Eamon had found a stinkhorn mushroom – an outrageously phallic fungus with a lacy white net falling from its head like semen. Predictably, he was hollering after the girls with the phallus held at his thrusting groin.
‘Who likes mushrooms?’
