The Island(57)

Heather was drenched with sweat. She had bitten two sticks in half.

“I got it!” Petra said.

Heather gasped for breath in the sand.

She was weak. So weak.

She went down to the sea to bathe the wound.

She was her mother’s favorite saying come to life. The cure for everything is salt water: tears, sweat, or the sea.

The water was warm. It cleansed her. Floated her. Helped her. She wished she could stay in the ocean, but most sharks were night feeders.

She waded out of the water and sat on the beach with her knees tucked under her chin. Petra placed a poultice of wet sand and eucalyptus leaves over the wounds.

“Are you OK?” Petra asked.

“How are the kids?”

“Fine. Sleeping,” Petra said.

“Sleeping? Really?”

“Sleeping.”

Heather nodded and found that she wanted to cry some more, but crying was a luxury and there were no tears left.





25



A black iron nothingness. An ellipsis of time. Perhaps a minute; perhaps ten thousand million years.

A nimbus of yellow goblin light.

And from the nothingness, a poker stirring the cold gray ash of sentience.

Pain, diffuse and weird. A surrender to a more urgent, primal logic. The rawness of now.

“He’s awake.”

“I see that. Will he live?”

“I doubt it. Who knows? I’ll put a couple more milligrams of morphine in his drip.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Do you want to take over?”

“No.”

Diminishing pain.

More darkness.

Another ellipsis.





26



The sun, never tiring of the human comedy, was coming up on the eastern side of the island.

Blue-dirt sky. Red-dirt sky. Yellow-dirt sky.

Heather was up on the mesa, sitting in the long grass, keeping watch.

No vehicles yet.

No movement from the ferry.

Clouds under the fading final stars.

The sea shape-shifted from rough to smooth, from black to dark green to a brilliant magenta.

It was Valentine’s Day. Tom would have remembered to get her something. He never forgot anything. He remembered big chunks of every book he’d ever read. Could recite fifty lines of poetry at a time. He had helped so many people with his knowledge of knees and ankles and everything in between. And those scumbags had killed him like he was nothing.

She looked out across the water. It was amazing to think that less than ten miles away were the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Police, lawyers, doctors, churches, hospitals, and everything you needed for civilization to work. Just across that little strip of water and over those fields. Help.

But it was no good thinking about that. The ferry was on the other shore, waiting. Waiting for the men with dogs. Trying to raft it or swim the channel with the kids would be suicidal.

She watched a plane fly toward the city. How long until someone realized that they weren’t coming home? How long until someone figured out where they’d gone? The O’Neills wouldn’t deny that they’d come over to Dutch Island; there were witnesses who would corroborate that. But that wouldn’t bother them.

Heather could just see Matt standing there, grinning and being all cooperative, a couple of days from now when they were dead and buried. Yeah, that’s right, your witness was correct, Detective. They did come over here on the ferry. They took a few photos and went right back. Just ask Ivan, he took them over. I expect you’ll find their car stuck in some ditch over there somewhere.

And that would be that; the cops would find the car stuck in some ditch over there, and what had happened to the family would be one of those unsolved mysteries TV shows loved to talk about.

Flies and wasps flew about her head. Her belly rumbled. Her belly ached. No food for anyone for over a day and a half now.

But at least they had water.

She walked back to the beach and checked on everyone. Olivia and Owen were sleeping together under Owen’s big hoodie, which he had draped over them like a blanket. Petra was lying beside them with a protective arm over the boy.

Heather smiled. Thank you, Petra.

She tapped Petra on the shoulder. “It’s OK, it’s only me,” Heather whispered.

Petra stirred, shivered. “Is everything all right?”

“So far. I’m going back to the mesa to see what’s happening.”

“OK,” Petra said, reluctant to move and wake the kids. “I’ll look after them,” Petra added.

Heather nodded and walked to an old gnarled gum tree that had been burned to charcoal. A bird with blue feathers and a long beak was sitting on the upper branches gazing at her.

The bird squawked.

“Same to you,” she said.

She sat at the base of the tree.

The dogs were coming today. Dutch Island was not big. There were no forests, no mountains, no places to hide. The dogs would find them.

If they gave themselves up, she knew exactly what would happen. Probably only Olivia would survive. And that wouldn’t be much of a survival.

Better to risk it with the sharks.

“What would you do?” she asked the bird.

It was looking south.