The Shadow House(49)

She issued a referral to a Sydney clinic and wrote out a prescription for a ‘light’ antidepressant. ‘See how he goes with that, and I’ll see him again in a month.’

Renee started to cry. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just feel so useless.’

‘I know it’s difficult,’ said the doctor, kindly. ‘But self-harm is, sadly, quite common. Kids do dangerous things to put the world to the test.’

As soon as the doctor left, Renee called the clinic, but the earliest appointment wasn’t until the following week. She marked the date in the calendar with a fat red pen, waves of worry roiling in her gut. At least she had a week to figure out the logistics of physically getting Gabriel there. Until then, she would keep him home from school. And she would stay with him. Because it wasn’t just Gabriel; everything else was getting worse, too.

They’d buried the cat; Michael had successfully cleaned the red splashes off the house and painted over the stain, and they’d tried to move on. But Renee kept hearing footsteps outside the house at night, and the phone rang constantly. In fact, they’d received so many prank calls, they had to unplug their landline and screen all their mobile calls. The farm’s website and Facebook page had both been hacked. Someone had posted photos with the Kellermans’ heads photoshopped in: Nazi rallies, pornography and scenes of grotesque animal cruelty. They’d received so many alarmed responses from customers and clients that they’d had to delete their account and shut down the site.

Michael had called the police and spoken to an officer who suggested that they were being ‘trolled’. The advice was to stay off the internet for a while. ‘They can’t do anything,’ Michael explained impatiently when he eventually put the phone down. ‘The Facebook stuff is impossible to trace, and we don’t have evidence of any actual physical threat.’

‘Are you joking? Our cat was killed,’ Renee said.

Michael shrugged. ‘She could’ve been hit by a car up on the road. Maybe someone recognised her and brought her back.’

‘Do you really think that?’

A silence fell between them.

‘What did we do to deserve any of this?’ Renee whispered. ‘Why is it even happening?’

‘Who the hell knows. There are some sick people out there. But, like the cops said, if we stay away from the internet and try not to react, they’ll get bored eventually.’

Renee had wanted to scream. What if the internet didn’t stay away from them? Everything they did now was online.

Sighing deeply, she went to the laundry and grabbed the basket, then set off back to the bedrooms to collect the dirty linen. In the hallway, she stopped.

April was outside Gabriel’s door again, a cloth and a spray bottle of cleaning fluid at her feet. She was standing with her face pressed right up against the wood, eyes closed, mouth moving, one hand raised. She was murmuring something, but Renee couldn’t make out the words.

‘Mum?’

April stopped her muttering and opened her eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘What are you doing?’

April looked down at her feet, then up at the ceiling. She patted the door as if it were an old friend. ‘Helping,’ she said, mildly. ‘I’m just helping.’

Then she picked up the cloth and the bottle and swept away to another part of the house.


‘How are you going with the medication?’ Renee sat on a chair next to her son’s bed, stroking the oily hair from his head. ‘Are you taking it?’

Gabriel didn’t answer. He lay on his bed beside her, fully clothed in the same old shirt and tracksuit bottoms, his eyes closed.

In the six days since the doctor’s visit, Renee had given him a little white tablet every night before bed. She couldn’t be sure whether or not he was actually swallowing them, but he was already confined to his room, and forcing pills down his throat felt too much like prison. She consoled herself with the thought of their first clinic appointment, scheduled for the morning. The psychiatrist would be able to tell her what to do.

‘You know we’re going to see someone tomorrow, right? To help you get better?’

She’d thought about trying to trick him into getting in the car. We’re going for ice cream! Would you like to choose a new toy? But it wouldn’t work, not like it used to when he was younger. She’d just have to be honest and hope for the best. Worst case scenario, she’d call an ambulance.

‘Would you like to talk to me a little bit before we go? Just so I can help when we speak to the new doctor?’

Gabriel didn’t answer. His eyes were bloodshot, his body limp. It was like he just wasn’t in there anymore.

Renee persisted. ‘He’s going to ask you questions about the … marks on your body. How you’re feeling. It might be easier if you get used to saying things out loud.’

Blank stare. Slow blink.

‘Gabriel, please tell me. Did you do those things to yourself? Or did someone else do it?’

Always the same questions, every day for the last week. He never gave her even a flicker of a reply.

‘Was it someone you know? Someone close to you? A friend from school, or …’ She couldn’t go there, couldn’t say it. Couldn’t even think it.

For the first time, though, Gabriel shifted and the look he gave her shattered her heart.