Finding Kerra Read online

  ‘But the pari had a demon lover who wouldn’t let her go. So enraged was he that he flooded the entire valley. But the prince and the pari lived together in a cave above the lake and escaped the flood.’

  ‘Did the other fairies drown?’ Kerra didn’t sound worried and her clinical tone made me uneasy.

  ‘Some say they can still be seen dancing on the grass and bathing themselves in the water, especially on a night when the moon shines its brightest. It’s a magical place.’

  ‘You’ve been there,’ Kerra said flatly.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘I could see the sky-lake in my head.’

  I sat stunned. After a pause, I said, ‘Come on. I have to get dinner ready. What would you like tonight? Italian lamb casserole?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘With cheese on top?’

  ‘Cheese sounds okay.’

  We had just reached my room. Kerra had reverted to discussing rabbits: how Blake skinned them, how their innards fell to the ground in a huge plop and how Mrs Cowped made pies. I was wondering how to get Kerra off the subject again when she stiffened.

  A door banged outside, I heard Richelle’s laugh, then, Blake shouting, ‘Kerra! Kerra! Where are you?’ I didn’t recognise his voice at first; I’d never heard him use that tone. Before he came striding into the house, Kerra had slipped out my bedroom window. There wasn’t even time to ask her what was wrong.

  Blake was heading for my door when I met him in the hall. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Where’s Kerra?’

  No Hi, did you have a good afternoon? Are you enjoying Mulga Spring? Just Where’s Kerra?

  ‘She was here a minute ago.’ I didn’t say how quickly she’d left. Hearing her brother shouting must have spooked her.

  ‘I bet she was, the little brat.’

  I’d never seen Blake so annoyed. ‘What’s she done?’

  ‘Been in my room—’

  The anger didn’t seem to match the crime. ‘She’s been with me all afternoon.’

  ‘She must have gone in before.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because one of my cowhides has fallen off the wall. It was Mum’s fav—’ He paused. ‘Kerra knows she’s not allowed to touch them.’

  I stared at him. What was the problem? Elly was often in my room; she even used my makeup one time, but I wasn’t this cross with her.

  ‘No damage is done, is it? Why don’t you talk to her? She’s a sharp kid.’

  ‘That doesn’t work. She never does what she’s told—never has. Kerra’s a pain in the butt—’ He stopped.

  Maybe it was the look on my face, or was it Richelle walking up the hallway towards us? Whatever it was, he blew out a breath, looking sorry. I couldn’t help thinking it was Kerra who should be seeing that look, not me, but Richelle was taking his arm, steering him out the side door to his room.

  ‘I’ll see you later, then?’ I heard her say to him. She barely looked at me.

  I went straight to the kitchen to prepare the vegies for dinner. I didn’t want to see Blake give Richelle any private looks. No doubt they grew up together, had a special ‘thing’. I was beginning to get an uncomfortable sensation in my gut. Life’s fine if you can sail through with nothing touching you too deeply, but real life isn’t like that. As soon as something bad happens—a loved one dies or you find yourself liking a guy so much it matters who they spend their time with—all these weird feelings start festering. I knew I’d have to sort them, turn them over like a rock collection; decide whether to discard that one, put another on the top shelf, polish it a bit. I wanted to throw this one out and couldn’t. I hoped it wasn’t jealousy. Maybe it was I’m-being-left-out self-pity. Either way, it would need to be dealt with or I’d have a terrible few weeks wishing I could strangle Richelle every time I saw her. With an angry passion directed more at myself than Richelle I threw the potato I’d peeled into the sink.

  ‘Jaime?’

  I jumped. It felt as if all my thoughts had been on a screen above my head. Then I relaxed. It was Kerra.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘That’s because you were banging.’

  I waited. With Kerra words didn’t always come out immediately.

  ‘Jaime, can I bring Sasha with me next time you tell me a story?’

  Nothing about Blake, I noticed, as if his outburst didn’t happen. I also didn’t overrule her assumption that I’d be at her beck and call for stories.

  ‘Sure. Who’s Sasha?’

  In her usual way, Kerra didn’t elaborate. ‘She’s my friend.’

  It was late when Mr Townsend came in for tea, but I had the food ready. I needed to keep busy and I was pleased with the result: lamb chop casserole and salsa (we had variations of lamb most nights) and peas, fried pumpkin, mashed potatoes with butter. Mum would have been proud.

  ‘Nice potatoes, these,’ was all Blake’s father said throughout the meal. Apparently he looked after the vegetable patch when he had time, and Kerra did when he couldn’t.

  ‘Well, eat it all up. Stop playing!’ Blake was staring at Kerra’s plate. She was toying with her peas. I could sympathise: they came out of a tin. That sort always had loose shells on them. I opened my mouth and shut it again. I couldn’t interfere and, under big brother’s watchful eye, Kerra ate everything. At least her mouth did—I’m sure the inside part of her that decides things wasn’t eating anything at all.

  Mr Townsend seemed preoccupied at the table, as if he didn’t notice. Maybe he thought Blake was doing a good job, but to me it felt as though a battle in an unseen world was in full swing. Later, I caught the baleful look Kerra threw at Blake when he wasn’t watching, as if she had scored the last punch.

  Kerra helped me clear the dishes. I had my hand on the tap when I noticed Mr Townsend standing beside me. ‘You’ve cooked, love, I’ll do these.’

  He wouldn’t even let Kerra wipe up.

  Afterwards, Mr Townsend sat down to watch the footy since the satellite dish was working. Kerra crawled up on his lap. She was soon asleep and I thought how nice it would be if Blake picked her up and put her to bed. It was stupid of me to suggest it, but how could I have known? It wasn’t so much the colour that crept over his face like it had that afternoon; it was more like I’d asked him to share his toothbrush with her.‘Is there a problem, Blake?’

  His face switched to normal so fast that I thought I’d imagined it.

  ‘It’s just that she’s spoilt. Don’t let her fool you. She can get to bed the same as the rest of us—on her own two feet.’

  He was smiling, it was the old Blake, but it also seemed as if he was warning me not to upset their order of things, the way he’d told me that first night not to pet the dogs.

  4

  The next day brought another riding lesson and a happy Blake. His face lit up when he first saw me. ‘G’day,’ he said.

  He made me laugh. ‘What a hick. You never said stuff like that at school.’

  ‘Nah, but I like hearing you laugh.’ He brought Rainmaker over. ‘C’mon, you’re doing so well with your riding, we’ll be able to go anywhere soon.’ His hand brushed mine as I mounted. I wondered if he’d noticed.

  When he was like that, cracking jokes, throwing me compliments about my riding, I thought I must have imagined all the emotions from the day before. Every family had its bad days. Rainmaker was definitely learning to obey me; I hoped she would when Blake wasn’t there. My progress earned me a ride to another dam later on.

  ‘Want to come?’ Blake asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Sweet.’

  I was having so much fun that I was swept along like leaves in an autumn breeze. ‘Great, can Kerra come too?’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’ I mistook his reluctance for wanting to spend time alone with me.


  He came round to my side while I was still on Rainmaker. It was a moment before he spoke. ‘I’m glad you came, Jaime.’ I smiled, then he added, ‘Only, don’t mind…’ He didn’t finish, just reached up to take the reins. I smelt a mixture of horse sweat and Cool Waters as he helped me down. It took all my attention from what he had been saying. I liked it. Just as I’d always liked Blake. Here, he was home. At school he’d been Blake Townsend, whispered about in awe, but here he was an ordinary guy. Couldn’t I still like him on his home ground with his warts showing? Everyone had faults. So he was a bit bossy with his little sister. I determined to like him regardless.

  My decision was to be tested that very afternoon. The three of us reached the dam and Blake instructed me to give the edge a wide berth since cattle drink in it. I surveyed the sticky black mud, indented with hundreds of fresh circles, as it sucked on my boot and took a step backwards.

  ‘So you have two dams?’ Thoughts of the pleasant time Kerra and I had spent at the home dam filled my mind, even though she had gone on about dead rabbits.

  ‘Nup, twenty. About seven water stops altogether, where we pump water from a bore and run it into troughs for the sheep.’ He said all this as though he wasn’t actually sure how many there were. My eyes grew wider and he laughed. ‘We’re talking almost a thousand square kilometres, Jaime, if you count Bulcanna as well. We run the two stations together. That’s a 200-kilometre water run.’

  ‘How many sheep is that?’

  ‘Should be ten thousand. We’ll be shearing soon, and then we’ll see. Usually the dingoes get a thousand or more.’

  ‘So there won’t be ten thousand to shear?’

  ‘Nup. Never is.’

  Kerra seemed to be having fun, picking up tiny flowers. She’d left her sneakers on to avoid sharp stones and sticks. They were the washable canvas kind and I soon found myself wishing I had some too.

  ‘I’m sorry the water’s low,’ Blake continued. ‘We don’t have a high rainfall. That’s what makes it mucky, but there’s nowhere else to go at the moment that’s close enough.’

  Right, close enough for me to ride to. I made another resolve: to learn to ride Rainmaker so well we could go anywhere, like Richelle could. Her mother probably gave birth to her on a horse.

  ‘A penny for them?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Blake was staring at me, the corner of his mouth dimpling. ‘What are you thinking?’

  I was about to say he wouldn’t want to know when there was a squeal behind us. I sprung round to see Kerra in the dam with water past her chin, struggling and flapping her head from side to side. There was a frozen moment until I reacted and pulled off my jacket. A sharp sensation squeezed like giant pincers in my chest. Kerra was going to die. Then Blake’s hand was on my arm, holding me back.

  ‘Don’t worry, she’s just putting it on. Play-acting, to get attention.’ It didn’t look like playing to me and I shook off his hand.

  After that I don’t remember thinking. I threw the jacket down and jumped in the water. It wasn’t deep but the sudden cold burned like fire and took my breath away. I swam up to Kerra and tried to pull her in. It should have been simple but she wouldn’t budge. She could hardly breathe; the water was washing over her face every time she splashed to rise and gasp at the air.

  ‘My sneakers…’ She was gulping, flailing, swallowing mouthfuls of that dark murky water. Her shoes were stuck in the mud. I dived, but couldn’t see and I surfaced again. After gulping air, I dived again. The water was too opaque. I couldn’t even see Kerra. I rose again, worried my backwash would swamp her. Then Blake was there.

  ‘Her shoes are stuck!’ I dived again before he did, knowing I had to try even if he didn’t. This time I felt my way down her body and legs, trying not to pull her down further. I could feel her sneakers—I fumbled for her laces but they were lost in mud. I felt another pair of hands just as my lungs began to hurt. Blake. Kerra and I were dragged to the surface. The mud didn’t give Kerra up easily.

  Kerra was in a full choke. I was coughing too as I helped Blake drag her, spluttering, onto the bank. I sat beside her as she rolled over and was violently sick. It looked painful. Brown muck spurted out and I tried not to think of terrible diseases kids could get from stagnant water. It was weird after that; even though she held my hand, no thanks were offered. The clasped hand said it for me, but there was nothing for Blake. They sat staring at each other. I couldn’t imagine what they were thinking.

  On the way home I asked him about Kerra, get it out in the open. ‘Why don’t you and Kerra get on?’

  Blake shrugged. ‘Nothing unusual, is it? All siblings fight sometimes.’

  ‘I guess.’ But I wasn’t convinced. I fought with my brother, Andrew, and Elly too, but it wasn’t there all the time. Not like the palpable mood in the air between Blake and Kerra on the dam bank, as if that watchful truce was an illusion and their fighting was the real world.

  That was when I began to worry about Blake. Dad’s voice echoed in my mind: What do we know about him anyway? We weren’t a couple; we hadn’t shared on a deep level like close friends. Yet he’d helped me in Year 11 last year, had faith in me when I didn’t have it in myself. The way he saw I was upset one day and drove me home. I’d never forget that. ‘Don’t try too hard,’ he’d said. He’d been a good friend to me after Liana died, coming to my house in Adelaide, listening when I needed to talk about her. One night he’d even said he’d understood what I’d come from, being brought up in a Muslim country, and how I found it difficult to know the right way to relate to guys. He said it sounded a lot like the mateship of the Outback and he was happy to be my friend. Lately I’d found myself wishing there was more with Blake, but right now I wasn’t sure. What if he had some quirk in his personality that didn’t show up until he was home? Isn’t that where you find out how a guy is going to treat you? In how he acts at home?

  And what about Kerra? Did she have a disorder or just perceive things differently?

  That night, after I sent an email to Mum about my life in the Outback so far, I sat up in bed in my dressing gown, reading on my iPhone. Kerra crept in to my room. She had a bundle in her arms wrapped in a baby blanket.

  ‘I’ve brought Sasha.’ And under her arm was a cat, young and very fat. ‘She’s a secret.’

  ‘Why?’ There was a lot to learn about station life, especially when no woman lived there.

  ‘Because cats are only for catching mice in the sheds.’ I could hear an echo of Blake telling me not to touch the dogs. ‘But Sasha loves me, and I take her into my room.’ A shadow passed over Kerra’s face then, as if she’d said too much. ‘You won’t tell?’

  ‘Certainly not. Bring her up here.’ And I moved over.

  ‘She’s going to have kittens.’ The tone was confidential—the way my aunt talked to my mother about ‘women’s business’ when she thought we kids weren’t listening. ‘I saw them, you know, the tom and her. She growled funny.’

  Weird what a paradox Kerra was. So much of life she’d experienced and in the next breath she could sound so fragile, as though I had to protect her—but from what? Blake’s temper? The temper I didn’t know he had.

  ‘Do you get to play with anyone, Kerra?’ Maybe she was in the company of adults too much.

  ‘Sasha plays with me.’ The child again. ‘Everyone on School of the Air lives too far away. No one has time to take me to visit.’

  ‘Would you like me to take you?’

  ‘Can you drive?’

  ‘No.’ I hadn’t gotten the nerve yet.

  She brightened then. ‘We could ride to Matt’s one day.’

  I didn’t feel enthusiastic. How many lessons would it take before I could sit all day on a horse? The ride would take all day. Bulcanna was twenty kilometres away! I decided to drop that subject. Kerra settled down with Sasha in the crook of her arm, her thumb close
to her neck. Then she reached out and touched my arm. ‘Why do you wear that bangle all the time?’

  ‘My friend gave it to me.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  I pretended to be shocked. ‘What makes you think it’s a guy?’

  ‘A girl wouldn’t give something like that. What’s his name?’

  ‘Jasper.’

  ‘He’s your boyfriend.’

  ‘No, just a friend.’

  She stared at me, disbelieving, but it was too long a story to explain: how Jasper exchanged my gold bangle for horses to help us escape in Afghanistan and had a copy made later.

  Kerra touched my hand next. It was the closest she’d moved towards me and, just as if she were a feral cat I wanted to befriend, I held my breath. ‘What sort of ring is that, Jaime? You even had it on today at the dam.’

  I gently stretched out my fingers for her to see. ‘I had it made in Pakistan. It’s a copy of an ancient ring, the sort you give someone you love.’

  ‘It looks like a hand.’

  I took it off to show her. ‘It’s a puzzle ring and there are two hands, like the hands of friendship. See?’ I pulled it apart. ‘These two bits fit together and make the hand clasp.’ Maybe it was the look on her face—such yearning. She didn’t seem old enough to look like that, as if she’d never been loved and wanted to know what it felt like. Maybe that’s why I did what I did.

  ‘Would you like to wear half of it, Kerra? I’ll have half, and you could wear half?’ I could hear shouting in my head. What am I doing? This was a copy of Liana’s ring—it was her treasured possession. Mr Kimberley had the true one but he’d said I could have it copied in the bazaar to remember Liana by. Besides memories it was my only link with her.

  Kerra didn’t gush or say thank you, just held out her hand, her eyes the closest thing to shining, but not quite. It fitted her biggest finger and her hand settled back near her chin.