‘Urgh.’ Melissa throws the paper across the room.

  A gust of wind blows from across the valley, its whirling edges pressing against the windowpanes of the cottage. The noise reminds her of the last holiday she’d taken with Rich and Kate, when their daughter was still a baby. They’d rented a wind-scarred cottage in Tasmania’s south, and the gusts had howled and howled, ramming the windows until she thought they would break. They’d stayed in for most of that week, reading by the fire, fawning over Kate, who lay kicking and grabbing on the rug. Melissa and Rich should take Kate back to Tasmania, make new memories, treasure them now that Kate’s older, now that Melissa is . . . what is she? Better isn’t right. Better than she was, sure. But not better in the complete, healed sense of the word.

  A horse whinnies and she walks to the window, cups her eyes and leans against it. She cannot locate the horse. She flicks the light off to stop it reflecting off the window. The night out there is full of movement. Branches billow, bow and straighten, change shape and shade and form. Big old trunks moan, colliding and groaning in the tumult.

  Something metallic clatters by the door and she jumps, steps back, steps forwards again.

  She exhales and her breath hangs suspended. Something has changed. There’s something here. In the cottage, creeping up her spine, iceberg windchill—a witness; a watcher; her watcher. And motion slows, as if the cold has made time itself struggle to go on. Melissa senses each hair follicle rising, anticipating. This thing, it sees her. It hasn’t gone at all; that goat had provided an explanation for Bridie earlier today, but Melissa knew something else had been there too. Something darker, something that has followed Melissa around since she pulled off the road last night. She’d sensed it among the trees. It had eased off when it thought that she was leaving, heading home, but now she has returned.

  And here it is.

  Something flickers across the windowpane, a reflection from behind her. It’s slight, quick, agile. Melissa fixes her eyes on the glass, observes the flash of white that shoots back across the hall. She doesn’t dare turn towards it. There’s a kind of knocking, and she can’t tell if it’s coming from inside her mind or out. And now a giggle, a small child’s laugh—no, more than one child. She senses its approach, waits for it, grasps the window ledge to steady herself. She’s not seen this thing yet. Maybe, if she can hold her nerve, she will have her chance.

  It’s getting closer, close now, here, behind her shoulders, angular in the dark. She cannot overpower this thing; it is too much. She senses it radiating towards her: a mass, dense. Magnetic. Melissa closes her eyes, submits, as its gnarled fingers reach for her.

  The front door blasts open, bangs hard against the wall. Swings closed, squealing. Blasts again. Slams hard into the wall. The thing escapes. She rushes to the door, brushes hair from her eyes, looks to the night beyond. A flash of light, beyond the porch. The thing, her watcher, out there, darting among gusts of wind, weaving under bowing tree branches.

  ‘Wait!’

  Melissa runs into the night, leaves the door slamming behind her. A flash, over by the trees: she heads towards it. Her feet cut cold, bare against the ground, but still she runs, chases this thing out here in the wind.

  She is further into the bush now, a space without a trail, a space alive with movement and chaos and treachery, shrubs rising and falling like heaving monsters. She stops and watches, searches for the flash.

  There.

  She runs again, deeper into the bush, pushes away talons of bottlebrush, clawing at her face. She vaults a fallen tree, slides sideways between boulders, finds a clearing and stops. The wind quiets. Branchlets settle. A last puff of breeze through leaf litter.

  Melissa spins. Spins again, slower, waits for the dizziness to still. The clearing is small, only a few metres across. Surrounding gums watch her, wait.

  Now, something more. A kind of gyrating darkness, just beyond the clearing. A blip, a portal, a black hole, swirling. Awful. Cries of agony, gasps for breath—in there, wretched. The thing widens, writhes. Lunges and withdraws.

  She awaits its approach, but no. This time the mass sends something outwards, connects to her like a jolt of electricity, activates somewhere deep within her belly. It beckons her, draws her towards it. She steps, one foot after the other, seeks it out.

  There’s a giggle, and she steps again, closer to it, extends one hand, clasps her belly with the other. She moves out from the clearing and into the brush, reaches, hears it calling from the dark.

  ‘Melissa.’

  She steps again, trance-like.

  ‘Melissa!’

  Someone is near—her watcher? She continues.

  A hand on her shoulder.

  She swivels.

  Bridie.

  •

  Melissa does not remember coming back in from the bush, does not remember Bridie covering her in a blanket, placing her feet into a warm bucket of water. Does not remember what she told Bridie about why she was out there or what she was doing. She’s not really sure what to tell herself about it.

  Bridie sits next to her on the couch, concerned. Melissa must tell her something.

  ‘I think I’m losing my mind.’ She speaks the thought before thinking it, can’t take it back now.

  Bridie nods, a kind of confirmation, as if this is information she’s known all along.

  ‘What were you chasing out there, Mel?’

  Melissa looks at Bridie, looks away, contemplates telling her friend everything. About the feeling she had on the roadside last night, what she felt during their walk, the ease that had come when she’d decided to leave, the way it returned the moment she came back. But she doesn’t know how to begin. So she says, ‘I don’t know.’ Means it.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Bridie says, passing her a towel and gesturing to her feet. ‘It’s okay.’

  The two sit in silence, staring at the unlit fireplace, while Melissa dries her feet. Bridie switches on the heating, and Melissa’s cheeks itch with the change. Bridie doesn’t push, doesn’t demand answers—seems happy simply to sit in the quiet and be.

  Melissa sits next to her, exists.

  •

  The day of the election started like any other: Weet-Bix and honey for Kate, a lunchbox full of food. Hat, shoes and sunscreen, and out the door.

  Sarah was at the stall outside the school canteen already, scraping clean the barbecue plate and talking into her earbuds.

  ‘It needs to be running by seven thirty,’ she said. ‘No one carries cash these days. Everything will go to waste.’

  Rich took the scraper from her and started cleaning the hot plate.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sarah mouthed to him, and then to Kate, ‘Alexis is at the playground.’

  Kate looked at Melissa, who smiled and nodded. ‘Off you go. And keep your hat on!’ she yelled after her daughter, already sprinting up the hill.

  Sarah handed Rich an apron and motioned to Melissa. ‘Can you count the float? It’s inside.’

  ‘Sorry we’re late.’ This was Bridie, approaching from behind with Robert and Freya in tow. Freya spotted Kate running towards the playground and called out, took off after her.

  ‘Barbecue team represent, am I right?’ said Robert, shaking Rich’s hand, kissing Melissa on the cheek.

  ‘For you, kind sir,’ said Rich, handing him the second apron. ‘Charitable of you to offer your services this fine Saturday morning.’

  ‘And also you, sir. What can I say? Not all heroes wear capes.’

  Give me strength, Melissa thought, following Sarah and Bridie through the canteen door. ‘They do one thing and think they’ve saved the world.’

  ‘Oh my god, yes,’ said Bridie. Catching Sarah’s eye, she buttered an imaginary piece of bread in the air.

  ‘Yes, please,’ Sarah mouthed, grabbing a tub of margarine from the fridge and sliding it to her.

  Melissa opened the till, began counting the cash.

  Eventually Sarah finished on the phone, hugged each woman in turn.

  ‘Would you believe the EFTPOS machine is down? The woman on the phone said it’d be right by seven thirty, but . . . What on earth?’

  Maddie traipsed into the kitchen, clutching a pile of bright yellow voting placards, now threatening to topple out of her small grasp. The wide grin on her face faltered when she saw her mother’s expression.

  ‘What have you done, Maddie?’

  ‘You said these were garbage, so I got them. I can’t reach the big bin . . . Am I in trouble?’

  Sarah covered her mouth with her hands. In front of them, the bigoted independent smiled out from the placard, all oily and bloated with uninterrogated privilege.

  Melissa worked to control her face, lest she smile or laugh and embarrass well-meaning Maddie.

  Sarah took the pile from her daughter and looked to the fence.

  Maddie studied her mother’s face anxiously. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Here.’ Melissa intervened, leaning to rest her elbows on her knees and meet Maddie’s eyeline. ‘You know what?’ She pointed to the placards. ‘These are garbage.’

  She smiled at Maddie and Maddie smiled back, relieved at a job well done.

  Sarah was pacing. ‘We’ll have to put them back up.’

  Melissa bent low to peer through the counter window, grinned to see the noticeably bare section on the wire fence across the oval. How little Maddie got the placards off, she doesn’t know. She imagines her, brave and determined at the fence, tongue peeping through lips, snipping the zip ties one by one.

  Melissa spotted a space underneath the island bench. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘help me with this.’

  Maddie and Melissa slid the placards into the space, covered them with a wad of butcher’s paper. ‘Perfect fit.’ She high-fived Maddie, who dusted off her palms with pride before skipping out of the kitchen and up the hill towards the playground.

  Sarah rummaged through drawers, said, ‘I’m sure there are zip ties here somewhere.’

  Melissa went to her, put her hand on her back. ‘Seriously, I wouldn’t bother.’

  Sarah paused, looked at Bridie, who shrugged in response. ‘We don’t really have time. And they’ve got placards at the other gate, so . . .’

  ‘What if they find out?’

  ‘Who’s going to find out?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sarah,’ Melissa said. ‘It’s all going to be fine.’ She looked to the pile, now concealed under the bench. ‘We might even save democracy in the process.’

  Sarah considered the concealed placards, took a deep breath, eventually nodded. ‘Yes. Okay. Look. The snags. They just need to get those snags going, or . . .’

  ‘Where’s Lindsay?’ Bridie asked from across the bench, now opening another bread bag.

  Sarah reached for the bottles of sauce in the fridge, arranged them by the serving window. ‘He isn’t going to make it, after all.’

  Melissa frowned, glanced at Bridie.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s just . . . It’s just been a lot, with him getting back after so long away. Will you get the other roller door?’

  Melissa forced open the dinted door, opened the second side of the servery, contemplated this. Lindsay had arrived home only last week, earlier than expected, but still after an eight-month absence. According to Sarah, he’d be on leave for the next month. Melissa would have thought he’d jump at the chance to be here with his family. But then again, what did her mother always say? You never know what goes on in other people’s relationships.

  Sarah took a tray of sausages from the fridge and rushed outside to the barbecue, instructed Rich on how best to cook them.

  Melissa looked at Bridie, who shrugged awkwardly, butter knife slathering furiously.

  Melissa sliced open a six pack of juice boxes, began lining them up in the fridge. Sarah rushed over, snatched them from Melissa’s hands, said, ‘No, like this.’

  •

  Melissa wakes disorientated, struggles to recognise the exposed beams in the ceiling. She sits up and waits for her brain to organise itself. She is in the cottage. Bridie is beside her, reading a novel. Melissa runs fingers through her hair, clears her throat.

  ‘Sorry. How long was I asleep?’

  ‘Oh, only, five, maybe ten minutes.’

  Melissa’s limbs feel the rejuvenation of a much longer sleep. ‘Still no Cassandra?’

  Bridie shakes her head. ‘Here.’ She puts the novel down, pours Melissa a fresh cup of tea from a pot on the coffee table.

  Melissa takes a sip, hot liquid welcome in her throat. The thing occurs to her again. The thing she’d chased into the night, that she’d longed for. She will have to talk to Bridie about it eventually.

  ‘Brides? Thanks for coming after me.’

  Bridie winks at her. ‘Of course.’

  That force of energy had so terrified her—and yet she’d been exhilarated too. She’d wanted to go to it, felt drawn to it.

  She looks at Bridie again. Bridie is too literal to understand any of this. She’ll panic, think something has gone truly awry within Melissa. She will have to phrase this in a way that Bridie might understand.

  ‘I think someone’s trying to tell me something,’ she says.

  Bridie leans in, looks closely at Melissa.

  ‘There have been things . . . happening. I don’t know how to explain it, but . . .’ Melissa stops, unsure how to go on.

  Bridie’s forehead creases, and she arranges and rearranges her hands, reaches for something to say. Melissa can see that she is rattled.

  ‘You think I’ve lost my mind.’

  ‘No, no.’ Bridie opens her mouth as if to speak then closes it again, rearranges her hands once more, and this makes Melissa laugh, her friend’s complete inability to offer meaningful comfort. She finds herself consoling Bridie.

  ‘It’s okay, Brides. I wouldn’t know what to say to me either.’

  The two smile, fall silent.

  At last Bridie says, ‘You know you can talk to me, though? About anything?’

  And yet, Melissa wants to say, irritation taking root despite all the kindness Bridie has shown her. Something about this invitation to talk feels disingenuous. One-sided. Because Bridie, her thoughtful, always-willing-to-help friend, will only accept this kind of connection from a certain position. She will never offer up her own vulnerable self, never see herself as the one in need of a friend.

  ‘What about you?’ Melissa says, a little more harshly than she’d intended. She resets, evens her tone. ‘You’ve been distracted this weekend. What’s on your mind?’

  Bridie’s lips part a touch, close again. She shakes her head, apprehensive.

  ‘You just found me running through the night like a maniac,’ Melissa points out. ‘I doubt anything you say will surprise me.’

  Bridie laughs at this and, Melissa thinks she appears ready to lower her guard.

  ‘I can give it a good try. Get this: when I was at the restaurant before, I saw Sarah sitting at the window, as clear as I see you now.’

  Bridie watches Melissa, seeking a response, so Melissa nods, tells her to go on.

  ‘She looked at me—like, right at me—and instead of feeling relief or sadness or even gratitude, I felt this horrible surge of anger. I was angry with her, Mel. I wanted to scream into her face.’ Bridie leans back and covers her mouth as if it’s betrayed her.

  ‘That makes sense,’ Melissa says.

  ‘Really? Because that’s not what I’d do if she were here, Mel. That’s not what I’d do at all.’

  ‘She kept a big secret from you, Brides, from all of us. Sure, she had her reasons, but it still hurts.’

  ‘Do you really think that?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘And there’s something else, too.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I can’t shake all these negative thoughts I’m having about Robert. Before I found you just now, I was walking up from the restaurant, questioning if Rob still loves Janice, or if that’s something I’ve worried into existence in my own mind.’ Bridie’s voice cracks. ‘Does it only exist there or does it exist in real life? And how can I tell the difference?’

  Melissa considers this. She doesn’t know Robert that well, and she’s never seen him interacting with his ex-wife, so she can’t even hazard a guess at the state of their relationship. So maybe Bridie has conjured the whole thing up—she is the new, younger lover—but in Melissa’s experience, hunches are usually right. Intuition is something she’s learned to trust. But she can’t say that, of course. It’d upset Bridie, and Melissa—who is strangely proud of her friend for opening up—does not want to do that. Instead, she says, ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘I know, I know. That’s the sensible thing to do, right? But really, even if he said it wasn’t true, I don’t think it would change anything. The niggling suspicion wouldn’t go away.’

  ‘Okay.’ Melissa holds up both palms. ‘Let’s go there. What if you asked and he said yes? What if he will always have a special place in his heart for her—a little segment locked in the past—but all the rest of his heart is devoted to you? Would that be okay?’

  Bridie watches the empty hearth. She reaches for her tea but doesn’t grasp it, leans back again. ‘See, I think what you’ve described is exactly what I’m afraid of. And’—she glances at Melissa and then the carpet—‘I’m a grub for thinking it, but sometimes I wish they hated each other. I wish that Rob and I could sit around and talk about what a horrible person she is and whinge about the things she does. Maybe—and this is the grubbiest thing—we could even pick on obnoxious stuff, the annoying way she calls Freya “Frey-Frey” in that stupid voice. It makes me cringe every time.’

  ‘Wow,’ says Melissa. She sees hurt in Bridie’s eyes and rushes to fix it. ‘I’m not judging you for saying these things. It’s just . . . you’ve always been so level-headed about it all, so high road. I never knew you felt this way.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve never said anything like this out loud before. Not to you, anyway.’

  Melissa understands immediately: Bridie would talk to Sarah about this stuff.

  ‘You and Cassandra are always so . . . I don’t know . . . ideological. And I am a feminist, of course I am. I support other women. I . . . I endeavour to understand diverse situations and choices. I know I should prop her up in all of this. But it’s just so damn hard. I just . . .’

 

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