The Shadow House(48)
The witch took the farmers’ kid.
Kit had told me about the farmhouse. I definitely hadn’t imagined that.
I put the Tupperware container back in its hiding place and returned to the kitchen to snatch up my phone. I discovered that the flower farm on which Pine Ridge had been built was called Kellerman & co. There were a few old listings on sydneymarkets.com.au, Localsearch and White Pages – nothing since 2012 – and an announcement on a New South Wales business awards website that Leonard Kellerman was named Flower Grower of the Year in 1991, 1993 and 1994. I found a local community newsletter from 1996 that confirmed Leonard’s death and the passing of the business to his son, Michael. And in August 2011, a handful of news articles reported the disappearance of sixteen-year-old Gabriel Kellerman, son of Michael and Renee.
The pieces were short, though, and without much detail. All I could find out was that the boy did indeed vanish, but that the case was eventually closed. He ran away, they all said. One article mentioned in passing that the boy had been upset after the mysterious death of his cat; another said that the Kellermans had reported intruders on the property in the weeks preceding his disappearance. But no specifics were disclosed, and the reports stated emphatically that after a full investigation, the police had ruled out any foul play.
I put my phone down and poured more wine. Then, carrying my glass, I went to the front-facing window and gazed out across the valley.
Alone on the hill, backlit by the morning sun, the farmhouse returned my stare.
RENEE
20
Renee steered the vacuum cleaner over the bedroom carpet, feeling utterly disconnected from her own body. Her hands belonged to someone else; her feet weren’t quite attached. She was less a person, more a receptacle. A bucket of water, full to the brim.
Fat lines appeared then disappeared in the plush pile. Secret paths. Hidden ways. Follow the yellow brick road. Renee pictured herself throwing down the vacuum and walking away without even turning the damn thing off, heading off over the rainbow, never to return. Instead, she finished the job, switched off the vacuum at the wall and wound the power cable neatly back into place. The hum of the motor was replaced by rain drumming on the roof.
‘Really, Renee,’ April called from the bathroom. ‘The state of your bathroom. I’m going to need a chisel to get the limescale off these taps.’
Renee closed her eyes, wishing for the umpteenth time that she hadn’t accepted her mother’s offer to help with the housework. A little assistance isn’t going to hurt, Frank had said, firmly. You won’t even know I’m here, April had chimed in. And Renee, tired and overwhelmed, had agreed. Now, though, the house felt too small, too loud; the more April cleaned, the less space there seemed to be.
‘And don’t even get me started on the grout. My goodness, I’ll be here for weeks.’
Dear god, I hope not. Her parents had always been intense; it was one of the main reasons Renee had married so young, and for a long time after the wedding even phone calls had been too much. Eventually, with the help of some literal and figurative distance, a husband with a good sense of humour (where had that gone?) and a father-in-law with directly opposing world views, Renee had been able to let them back into her life on her own terms. But lately it felt like her carefully laid boundaries were blurring, and the old intensity was not just back but had mutated.
With her fingers still wrapped around the vacuum handle, Renee stood at the window and watched the water pound the roof of her car and drip from the trees. It collected in pools on the driveway and gushed from the gutters, rushing down to the dam and bursting its banks. It hadn’t stopped for days now, and the incessant white noise was starting to itch, like a lining of coarse wool on the inside of her skull.
Pressing her forehead against the glass, she stared down to where the greenhouses were little more than ghostly outlines at the bottom of the field. Somewhere out there, she assumed, Michael was getting on with the jobs. Picking, wrapping, cooling. Ploughing, raking, planting. The greenhouse roofs needed reinforcing. The plastic sheeting on one had already ripped; if they didn’t act quickly, it wouldn’t be long before the sheer weight of the gathering water did the same to the rest.
She hadn’t spoken to her husband in weeks, though; he could be anywhere. And quite frankly she couldn’t care less about the greenhouses. She had more important things to think about.
A soft knock made her jump and she turned to find her mother in the doorway, a bright yellow rubber glove on each hand.
‘Ren, love,’ April said. ‘I think the doctor’s here.’
‘Well, you can rule out anything bacterial or viral,’ said the doctor in the kitchen afterwards. ‘Those wounds have been self-inflicted.’
Renee threw a glance down the hallway to the porch where April was beating the dust from the welcome mat. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, he denies it, of course, but the lines are clearly demarcated from the surrounding skin, and the pattern is geometric. Not the kind of thing you see with a rash. And he’s very cagey about them, which is a sure sign. There are the other red flags, too: moodiness, insomnia, even a possible eating disorder. If I were you, I’d be getting your son some psychiatric help as soon as possible.’ The doctor rifled through her bag. ‘And maybe limit his screen time. There’s a direct link between technology and teenage depression.’