Blood Fugue (17 page)

The kids were still intrigued by the prospect of finding the bones of their ancestor — or even just a gravestone marking his last resting place. The tent was ready quickly, positioned right at the edge of the arbour, and Maria was able to prepare hot water and food on the camping stove.

‘Can we go look at the tree?’ asked Luis.

‘Five minutes only and don’t wander off,’ said José.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ asked Carla.

‘No, I want to see it in its full glory. I’ll wait until the morning. Be quick now.’

They ran to the tree and Maria stared after them. They remained just visible in the twilight as they inspected the enormous trunk. She watched with her arms folded.

‘I don’t like it when they go off alone like that.’

‘Don’t be silly, Maria. They’re right in front of us.’

‘Still. I’m not comfortable in this place.’

‘I thought it was Carla who had a problem.’ said José.

Maria silenced him with a look.

‘Keep your eye on them while I do this,’ she said.

José didn’t argue. Unsheathing the machete, he played a whetstone along its blade, honing it back to the razor edge it possessed before the trail breaking had begun.

Maria laid out the plastic plates for the meal and checked the temperature of the beans and hot dogs they would be eating. Each day the packs got lighter as they used up the supply of tinned, bagged and dried foods. She sniffed the steam from the meal she’d made with distaste.

‘If we walk quickly on the way back, maybe we could reach Hobson’s Valley the day after tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Then we can all eat some fresh fruit and vegetables. Segar’s Cabin looked better than a lot of the other places we’ve seen. We could spend the night there and try their restaurant before we drive back to Nampa.’

She doled out piles of food onto each of the plates, making sure the portions were perfectly equal.

‘You can call them back now.’

It was only as she poured the water for coffee that she realised the sound of José scraping the machete blade had stopped. She glanced up. He was no longer sitting there. Rising to her feet, she saw him racing across to the tree, the long knife still clutched in his hand. It gave off dull flashes and a whooshing sound with each sprinted step. The noise and flashing diminished as he ran. The darkness was descending swiftly by then but Maria could still see that only two members of her family were standing. The other was lying unmoving on the leaf-covered ground.

Then Maria was running too.

Kath had taken to sitting for hours at a time on her front porch overlooking the Terrace.

As she watched the kids play in the street in the afternoons she thought of her own childhood right there in the valley. Once she’d been just as full of energy and innocence as any of the children that lived there now. Some of them might die young but most would likely live to an age at which they’d sit on porches wondering where their lives had gone.

The sheer plainness and inevitability of it all weighed her down. Nothing anyone could do would change a single thing. There was a matter-of-factness about the rules of life that had always made her a little blue. Now that Burt was gone, it made her unhappier than ever.

At the hospital, a nurse had passed her some leaflets about bereavement and the grieving process. Kath had wanted to rip them up and throw them in the girl’s face. What could a nurse know about losing someone she’d spent most of her life with? And who had written those leaflets, some young pup with a crisp new degree? She’d held the rage back but had crushed the leaflets in her hand as Maggie had driven them home.

Without Burt around, Kath had taken to spending almost the entire day outside. Partly because being indoors reminded her of him. Every room she entered had his smell or his imprint upon it somewhere. She needed to be free of that. It was bad enough lying all night in the double bed without him wheezing away beside her. The silence stopped her sleeping.

So Kath watched The Terrace for hours at a time.

It was strange to watch the street drain of activity and become deserted but that was what happened each day when the sun dipped beyond the mountain. She’d never noticed it until these last few days. But then, when she thought harder about it, she realised that one way or another, people in the valley had always escaped the twilight by heading indoors. She’d spent so many of these last few years inside she’d forgotten how it was. Now she wanted to see the twilight again, to experience it the way she never had.

With her hands folded into her lap, she watched the day dying out of the valley. The silence of the Terrace deepened with the ebbing of the light but in the green spaces between the houses, other sounds were starting. Crickets rasped out coded communications and turtledoves called their simple love songs to each other. Far away she heard the skittering squall of a quail.

The only life in the town now was behind its doors. Outside, the valley haze stretched invasive fingers across the forest and into the town, giving Kath a sense of greater beings than humans, spirits that lived in stone or stood in trees, and the giant mind of the mist that laid itself like sleep across the land.

The temperature dropped making Kath shiver. They’d been lucky with the weather this year but it couldn’t last. Summer would turn to winter without pause for fall when the time came. Kath could feel the ice in the air. Perhaps it would snow soon. It seemed odd to think of snow when the valley had been so warm. Kath was aware she was readying herself for longer nights and the gloom that would grip the town for so many months. She’d made this mental preparation all her life but this was the first time she’d caught herself and understood why.

On the other side of the street, in the half-light she thought she saw movement. The Terrace had become so deserted that the idea of a person being outdoors at this time of the day almost frightened her. It was a woman. She walked as if she had no intention of arriving anywhere. In the dimming light that was about all Kath could make out. She couldn’t see the woman’s face but she seemed to be wearing unusual clothes.

The woman came to one of the trees that lined the Terrace and stopped. Although Kath hadn’t moved, the woman seemed aware she was being watched. She scanned Kath’s side of the street. Had they been near enough to each other, Kath would have said their eyes locked but at this distance, she felt the connection more than she could see it. She thought about waving to dispel any suspicion and to break the moment but couldn’t quite bring herself to move. She was within her rights to watch the street, after all. If the woman didn’t like it, well, tough.

The woman stepped away from the tree, letting her hand linger as though she didn’t want to let go of anything while the rest of her body moved on. She walked out onto the street at that same meandering pace, like she’d never even heard of cars. As she came closer, Kath saw her blonde hair and realised she looked so strange because she was wearing a bathrobe. She wore nothing on her feet. She scuffed her feet over the rough surface of the road and looked like she might change her mind and go somewhere else. Everything she touched or saw distracted her.

When she reached the side of the Terrace on which Kath sat, the woman paused and looked back from where she’d come. She turned towards Kath before casting her gaze up and down the street. Kath became aware of just how deserted Hobson’s Valley was at this time of day. Then, when it seemed like they were the only two people in the world, she heard an engine coming their way from out of town. The woman heard it too and stared along the road. The car slowed, its revs decreasing as it entered the residential area and a few moments later it passed them. It was a red Ford Explorer. Kath didn’t recognise the driver. The engine sound faded further into town, turning off the main street somewhere in the distance. Then the silence returned.

The woman turned towards Kath.

She was close enough that she could have said ‘hi’ and been heard easily. Kath wondered if she should get herself indoors. She’d left it too late, though. First she’d have to struggle up from the rocker and it would take her a few moments before she could walk comfortably. Then she’d have to make it to the front door and get inside before the woman ran the few steps from the kerbside to the porch. Why she hadn’t moved earlier she didn’t know. Now, she was stuck.

‘Hi there,’ she said after too long. ‘You okay?’

The woman didn’t answer for almost a minute.

‘Yeah. I wanted to feel the twilight. Can you feel it?’

It was strange talk; crazy talk perhaps, but Kath felt better now that they weren’t just staring at each other.

‘I guess I can. You need any help, ma’am? You look a little lost.’

‘No, I’m not lost. I know where I am. I know where I’m going.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Kath.

‘To the forest.’

‘Uh huh. Well, the forest is the other way. You’re heading out of town.’ Was having this conversation the right way to go? Maybe she ought to get herself inside and call the law instead.

‘The forest is all around us. Out of town is the forest.’

Kath didn’t want to argue with the woman’s peculiar logic. Now that she’d had a chance to see her a little closer, she thought she recognised her. She’d seen her working at Olsen’s in the days when she could still be bothered to shop there.

‘Sure it is,’ she agreed and then, as if it was urgent added, ‘I’ve got to be getting some supper ready. Guess I’ll see you.’

Kath took the opportunity to stand. It wasn’t easy. She’d been sitting there for so long that her ass was numb and her legs were cold and stiff. Still, she pushed herself upright and began to walk towards her front door. In those long moments she didn’t look back towards the street but she felt the woman watching her. She didn’t like the way it felt to be watched like that and didn’t think she was imagining the dynamic between them; stalker and prey.

She fumbled at the door handle, her fingers failing to gain the necessary purchase. All the time she felt the insistent eyes on her back, waited for the hand to fall upon her shoulder and spin her around. She managed to grip the handle and turn it. Leaning her weight against the door, it opened and she turned to close it before the woman could make her play. Through the glass panes in the door she saw the woman still standing on the sidewalk staring. She hadn’t moved. Kath drew a small drape across the door and backed away.

Chapter 19

Was the woman dangerous?

Or am I just scaring easier now I’m on my own?

Maybe the woman was drunk or high or something. Maybe she meant no harm at all. Hell, for all Kath knew, the woman could be depressed or confused. She was probably more in need of help than she was of a ride in a police car. But Kath had closed her door and that was that. She turned the lock over.

The feeling was slowly returning to her backside, making her realise how much it ached from sitting so long. She kneaded her soft loose flesh and felt the bones beneath. They seemed more prominent than ever and she sighed at her advancing frailty. What a thing it was to be young and what a terrible thing it was to lose that youth. None of her musings out on the porch made any of it easier. Maybe thinking about things too much would always lay a person low.

A cup of hot chocolate and a crossword puzzle was the only remedy she could think of for the blues. She went to the kitchen, still dragging her feet a little, to put on a pan of milk. Dingbat was nowhere around; he tended to spend most of every day out back, prowling through their overgrown acre of ground. It had featured a lawn and vegetable patch until a few years previously, but now it was a jungle; Dingbat’s kingdom.

She took a pan down from a hook above the stove and brought out a carton of milk from the fridge. Closing the fridge she turned back to the stove and dropped the milk. It hit the floor and split, spraying a brief white explosion across the tiles and then bleeding the rest of its contents more sedately into a spreading creamy pool.

The woman was looking in at her through the back door.

Kath’s hands went to her heart as it lurched and fluttered in her chest before finding a rapid rhythm and beating it out hard enough that she felt a small stab with each thump. She prayed that she’d remembered to lock the back door but didn’t dare try and cover the distance. The woman would beat her so easily there was no point trying. They stared at each other for what felt like minutes and, as each one passed, the daylight faded further, draining all colour from the kitchen as it went.

Because she was so still, Kath began to think once more that the woman just needed help. That notion gave her courage. Her heart settled down a little and she found her voice.

‘I thought you were headed for the forest.’

‘I am.’

‘You won’t find it in here, sweetheart.’

But the woman’s reply was more crazy logic.

‘The forest is in everything. It’s inside me. Wherever I go, the forest is there.’

Kath had to find a way of getting rid of this woman.

‘Is there something I can help you with?’

‘Yes. You can help me.’

The woman reached out and twisted the doorknob. Kath watched as the door swung inwards and the woman stepped into the kitchen. The door slammed shut behind her. Kath felt the milk soaking through her house slippers. The woman looked at her. She seemed normal in every way but there was something wrong with her that Kath couldn’t define. It wasn’t just the trance she was in; her body seemed wrong but in the gloom Kath couldn’t see why. The woman stepped towards her and Kath backed away. She had nothing to protect herself with. The knives were out of reach in the drawer and the broom was in the cupboard.