The Shadow House(64)

Dom threw a glance at the jade green of the trees behind him. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘It used to be all oranges, but my grandfather planted pecans back in the seventies when the market started to shift. Now, it’s mostly pecans but we still have a few good fruit trees down the back. Lemons and limes, too.’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘Sorry, that’s a lot of boring information you really didn’t ask for.’

‘No,’ I said, smiling at his blush. ‘It’s not boring at all. I’m interested. So you’ve been here a while, then?’

‘Yeah, it’s a family business. Most of the farms round here are. I grew up here.’

I took another sip of tea and looked towards the edges of the property. I could just make out a few buildings in the distance: a couple of sheds and a large storage barn. It would’ve been a quiet childhood. ‘I can see why the ecovillage was such a big change for you all.’

Dom laughed. ‘Bloody oath. All those trucks and diggers. And, jeez, the noise. Some of the locals thought the world was ending.’

‘I bet.’ I hesitated, wondering whether or not I should ask. ‘Did you know the previous owners?’ I blurted before I could change my mind. ‘The Kellermans?’

‘Mike and Renee? Yeah, our families used to be pretty close. Our dads were good mates, before they passed. Cancer, both of them.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. Just life.’ He gave me a lopsided smile, boyish and sweet. ‘We all used to hang out a little, back in the day. Len Kellerman was a good bloke. Like a mentor to me, in some ways. He taught me a lot about the land. Mike and I never really got along, though.’

‘Oh, really?’ Michael Kellerman’s jowly grey face swam into my mind; his voice rang in my ear. Fuck off. Yeah, that tracked. Not the kind of dude I could imagine anyone getting along with.

‘Nothing dramatic,’ Dom said, ‘we just didn’t really click. Did you know them?’

For a split second, I considered lying. Maybe if I fabricated a story about how I was an old friend trying to reconnect, Dom might share more of what he knew. But then I shook my head. I’d just tie myself in knots. ‘No, I just moved here. I don’t really know anyone. I just heard a little about what happened. I guess I’m curious.’

Dom let out his breath in a single laugh: Ha. ‘I don’t blame you. I’m curious, and I knew ’em.’

‘So, what’s the full story?’

Dom hesitated and tilted his head to one side. ‘I’m not gonna end up in the papers, am I?’

I laughed. ‘No, definitely not. Sorry, I’m being nosy, you don’t have to answer.’

‘Nah, it’s okay, I’m happy to chat. Good excuse to stop work for a bit. I don’t get much company up here, so …’ He tapered off and rolled his eyes gently as if to say, What a loser. ‘And there’s no denying it’s a strange story. Everyone round here still talks about it. It never made much sense at the time, and still doesn’t. To be perfectly honest, I think that’s why Mum keeps going down to Pine Ridge.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I think that’s what she’s doing. Trying to go back in time, to make sense of it.’

He paused as a russet-coloured butterfly fluttered between us, interrupting our shared line of vision. I put out my hand to see if it might hop on, but it flew away, eager to get on with its short life.

‘See, Gabe was like family to her,’ Dom continued. ‘I mean, I liked him, he was a good kid, but Mum was really fond of him. She used to babysit him when he was little. Renee would drop him here during the day so she and Mike could both work. Mum was lonely after Dad passed, and I’ve always worked heaps myself, so for a few years Gabe filled the gap.’ Dom gave a small mirthless laugh. ‘The two of them made a pretty funny double act, actually, always chatting away. But then Mum got sick, started getting forgetful, and her temper … she became erratic, unpredictable. We stopped going over there, and they stopped coming to us, and we all just lost touch. It’s a shame, but the drought was hard, and we were all busy.’

‘And Gabriel? What was he like?’

Dom’s face settled into a sorrowful expression. ‘Ah, he was a good kid. Bit shy, bit geeky, but nice. Always on his computer – I mean, always. Mike gave him shit for that, but I reckon the poor kid was just misunderstood.’

He paused, and I saw how upsetting it still was for him to talk about – and he hadn’t even been family, not strictly. He took a gulp of tea and swallowed thickly. ‘Mum took Gabe’s disappearance real hard. It sort of shattered her. And her mind was already Swiss cheese at the time, so now she can only remember little bits of it. That’s what I mean by her trying to make sense of it. All the things she says … I think it really torments her.’

‘So no one ever found out where Gabe went? He never turned up?’

Dom shook his head.

‘What do you think happened?’

He sighed, blowing his breath out through loose lips. ‘Oh, look, who knows? Police dropped the case, said he’d run away. Everything seemed to point that way.’

‘But I heard that …’

‘What?’

‘Well, I think I read somewhere that the Kellermans had reported intruders shortly before? And something about their cat?’