The Shadow House(72)

‘You don’t know?’ Shannon looked stricken. ‘Oh, well, it’s not really my place to say.’

‘Shan, come on.’

‘Okay, but don’t repeat it, because Layla doesn’t want it getting around, for Amy’s sake. The poor girl had a bad experience at school last year. She was walking home from band rehearsal and some older boys followed her onto the beach. She stopped to talk to them and …’ She sighed. ‘The little shits assaulted her. Turned out it was part of a dares list; you know, do drugs, shave your head, have sex with someone younger, that kind of thing. Dickheads.’

‘Oh my god.’ I thought about Amy’s skinny arms, her tiny frame. ‘That’s … awful. She’s so young.’

‘Exactly. Brutal. That’s why they left Sydney and came here.’

Little Amy. My heart ached just thinking about what those boys must have done to her. Suddenly her introversion, her shyness, her clinginess, Layla’s smother-mothering, it all clicked into place. I gripped the handle of the pram a little harder. If anyone ever did anything like that to my little girl, I’d …

My eyes fell on the tray of party bags in Shannon’s hands. Something was poking out from inside one of them.

‘Shannon …’ I reached out to touch one of them. ‘What are these?’

‘Oh.’ Shannon rolled her eyes. ‘These are Maggie’s gifts. They’re super creepy if you ask me, but what do I know. She told me to hand them out so that’s what I’m doing.’

I picked one up and looked inside. I saw twigs, bound by gauze and ribbon. A head fashioned from candlewax. I snatched up another bag. And another. And another. They all contained stick dolls, exactly like the ones I’d found on my doorstep.

I plucked one of the dolls from its bag and turned it over in my hand. ‘What are they?’

Shannon shrugged. ‘Presents. Party favours, one for everyone here. Maggie does something every year; this time it’s dolls, because that’s apparently in keeping with the traditions of Satur … Satay …’ She squinted over her shoulder at the banner on the back wall of the hall. ‘Sa-turn-alia,’ she read slowly.

‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘No idea,’ said Shannon. ‘I think it’s some kind of pagan festival? Ancient Roman, maybe? I seem to remember Maggie describing it as Christmas before the Christians got hold of it? I don’t know.’

‘And Maggie made all of these?’ I brandished the doll.

‘Yeah, she—’

‘I fucking knew it. Where is she?’

‘What?’

I wheeled around, looking for that short crop of hair, those horsey teeth. ‘Where’s Maggie?’

‘I don’t know but … Alex, what are you doing?’

Ignoring Shannon, I turned the pram around and strode away, searching the edges of the party. I remembered the collaborative living list in Kit’s office, all the names and numbers and personal information displayed on the wall for anyone to see. Maggie would’ve had absolutely no problem finding out who I was and where I’d come from; she would’ve known about Ellenhurst and Ollie’s YouTubing before we’d even arrived.

You’re like a virus. You bring the world with you like shit on your shoe.

Bitch. Where the hell was she?





RENEE





32


Renee stood at the bathroom mirror again, staring blankly at the image held in its frame. It was like looking at a portal to a parallel universe: a glimpse of a place where everything was the same, yet very different.

Across the hallway, Gabriel’s room was exactly as he’d left it four weeks earlier. Or, rather, as the police had left it. Clothes lay in piles on the floor. Bedsheets had been stripped back and dumped in a heap at the foot of his bed. A thin layer of dust covered every surface. It was like something in a museum.

So, too, was her reflection. A stiff portrait: Woman Holding Toothbrush. An artist’s poor impression of something that had once lived.

Renee didn’t bother to inspect her appearance; her face had changed so much that it no longer felt like her own. Her skin was pallid and wrinkled, like the surface of hot milk left to cool, and her forehead had grown bold, springing forward as her hair withdrew and fell out in clumps. Her eyes were hollow, her cheekbones sharp, and her teeth felt too big for her jaw. Hello, she felt like saying to the spectral hag in the glass. Just hold still while I clean those for you.

She ran the brush around the inside of her mouth, then leaned over and spat into the sink. When she stood up, Michael was standing behind her.

At first, he said nothing, just watched her with an unreadable expression on his face. Perhaps he, too, was wondering about the woman in the mirror, who she was and where she’d come from.

‘Ren,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’

It was strange, Renee thought, that while she was ageing at a rapid pace, the reverse seemed to be happening for her husband. Over the last few weeks his skin had lost its dried, flaky texture and become smooth again. His eyes were bright, and his paunch had gone. She couldn’t understand it. Grief had decimated her but somehow looked good on him.

If they were still speaking, they might have talked about it. If they were still sleeping in the same bed, they might have discussed their feelings at night. If their relationship had not completely broken down within days of Gabriel’s disappearance, they might each have had some insight into the other’s suffering. But they had been pushed away from each other like repelling magnets: Michael to the farm, Renee to the house.