The Witch Doctor's Opal E-Book

Tristan A. Smith

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Tristram Jones is given an opal by his dying grandfather. Little does he know its connection to an old aboriginal witch doctor with bright orange eyes. He is Dinewan - meaning Emu - taken from the Great Spirit of the Dreamtime.

But is he just a wicked and bitter misfit, or something far more marvelous, and dangerous?

The stories that swirl around Tristram and the opal stretch across generations, and are connected by both Dinewan and the fabled monster of the billabong: the Bunyip. Scottish highlanders, bushrangers, and an old Chinese goldminer each play their part in a family legend that seems doomed to end in blood.

Bunyip is a modern tale influenced by much older stories and spiced with science, legend and sensual experiences. It is gruesome in places, funny in others and tender where it counts.

This book is intended for a mature readership and is not suitable for readers under the age of 18.

Leseprobe

THE WITCH DOCTOR'S OPAL

BUNYIP BOOK 1

TRISTAN A. SMITH

CONTENTS

The Opal

Into The Wild High Country

The Haunting Pool

The Battle With Big Scale

Old Fred Morris

The Smell of Mischief

Dreams, Witchcraft and Cries in the Night

Stewart’s Tale

Memory of a Monster

Stewart and Big Scale

Fred’s Warning

Jase’s Wander

The Terrible Run

The Bunyip

Life Goes On

Melvin Dubrelle’s Account

The Brutal Murders

Visitors in the Night

The Bushrangers’ Tale

Our New Uncle

The Heirloom

The Ride to Fiery Creek

The Djapwurrong

The Meeting With Dinewan

The Gruesome Omen

The Ambush

The Final Battle

The Confrontation With Dinewan

What Became of Cameron MacAllister

Next in the Series

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2021 Tristan A. Smith

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

To my parents, Ross and Pauline, with all my love and gratitude.

THE OPAL

Tristram Jones was a child who wanted to be good. Unfortunately, his idea of what was good was limited by the Jehovah’s Witness religion.

Tristram’s parents were not Jehovah’s Witnesses. His father was agnostic, and his mother was eccentric.

Holly, his mother, was a strong, intelligent woman with her own peculiar ideas on spirituality. One of her peculiar ideas was that Tristram was blessed by Jehovah whilst she was pregnant with him. Hence, she was quite proud when at ten years old, Tristram organised his own bible study with a young elder for the small country town of Bairnsdale.

Russell, Tristram’s father, approved of the moral fibre that his son was developing under the influence of the Witnesses. However, he hoped along with Holly that Tristram would eventually lighten up. Fear of God makes a serious child.

Today, everybody was serious.

Tristram sat in the front row of a Presbyterian Church and listened sceptically to the eulogy. He noted every contradiction to Witness dogma with zealous scorn.

His little sister Saffi, two years younger than he, sat beside him and nursed their little brother Jase. Jase was four years old. Both Tristram’s siblings were blonde, attractive children, and he felt ugly in contrast with them. Saffi had large, gorgeous blue eyes, and little Jase had curly blonde hair and dark hazel eyes that shone like a sparrow’s. Tristram, on the other hand, was a skinny asthmatic child with brown hair, freckles, and a big nose. He did like the colour of his eyes, which were hazel like his mother’s. Other than that, he had decided from an early age that he was ugly, and that the only advantages that he could hope to nurture were his intelligence and imagination.

Toby Jones, their grandfather, lay hidden in a beautiful casket behind the old priest. It was the middle of April when Granddad Toby died. He was only fifty-eight.

“Do you know why they call it the Dead Sea?” The old priest suddenly asked Tristram.

“Yes.” Tristram replied with a cynical glare.

The priest returned a kindly, paternal smile.

“Yes? Very well then, young fellow. Why it is called the Dead Sea?”

Tristram shrugged. “Because they throw dead things in it.”

Startled laughter rippled across the audience.

“It is called the Dead Sea because nothing lives in it.” The priest corrected, turning his attention to the audience. “Many sweet waters run into it, but none leave it. A greedy entity, it keeps all that comes to it. Yet, despite all the sweet water that pours into this accursed sea, it remains utterly salty and undrinkable. No beautiful birds float on its surface. No coloured fish swim in it. It tries so hard to fill itself with life, but it remains dead.”

After a calculated pause for the audience to reflect, the priest smiled down at Tristram.

“Do you think there is a lesson in that?”

“Probably.” Came the petulant response.

The priest chuckled.

“Ladies and gentlemen, like a body of water, we have in each of us a body of spirit. And just like a body of water, the spirit in our bodies is constantly being replenished by outside sources. The love of our heavenly father, and the love of our fellow human beings, trickles and flows between us. But unlike the Dead Sea that takes all and gives nothing, we can pass on the love that dwells within us. I see today, a lot of love and respect for this man, Toby Jones. Clearly, he gave more than he kept, or there wouldn’t be so many of you here today…”

Later, when the sermon had concluded, it was time for everybody to walk past the open coffin and pay their last respects.

Tristram stood at a distance and watched his mother approach the coffin.

Holly was more charismatic than beautiful. She had a lean and curvaceous figure, but her face was rather masculine, with a prominent nose that she had inherited from her father.

Holly beckoned to her children. “Come and look at his face, Tris. You too, Saffi – bring Jase with you.”

Holly was adamant that her three children would understand and accept death. The fashionable psychology of the time was to let children see and perhaps even touch the dead, so that they did not form any unhealthy misconceptions.

Tristram stood his ground. “No.”

Holly smiled patiently.

“I won’t force you, but it will help you to look at him.” Her voice was low and mellow.

Tristram shook his head.

“Alright.” Holly nodded. “Saffi?”

Saffi looked up at her brother.

“I will if Tristram will.”

Tristram crossed his arms. “I will not.”

Tristram’s father came and stood beside Holly. Tristram marvelled at how handsome his dad looked.

Russell Jones often described himself as a ‘short, fat, hairy guy with glasses’ – which was true but misleading. The description hints at ugliness but Russell was not ugly. He had simply settled for being comfortable rather than handsome. In a suit, however, with his raven hair brushed and his beard trimmed, the glasses folded neatly in his breast pocket, he looked almost regal. His steel, dark blue eyes and broad shoulders became more apparent than his pot belly, short legs and long torso.

His father’s appearance affected Tristram. It was one of the first occasions that he saw him as a role model.

Tristram marvelled at how the family looked to his dad. He noticed his uncle, Russell’s younger brother by eight years, a man in his own right – yet now looking up to his older brother in the day of darkness. Tristram saw a similar look in the eyes of Saffi and Jase, whenever they looked at him. He understood that one day, he would stand where his father was, and Russell would be a cold, grey corpse in an ornate wooden box…

“Come and see him, Tris. You won’t get another chance to see him.” Russell asked with quiet composure. His voice was light and muted, with an accent that was English. In times of high emotion, Russell abandoned his Australian accent in favour of the more cultured one that he had used in Nottingham, England, when he was a boy.

Grandma Joan tried to lead Tristram to the coffin, but he politely and firmly refused yet again.

“I do not need to see him, Grandma. He is not there. He has gone. That is just a corpse now.”

Joan did not press the issue. She was not that sort of grandmother.

“I think you’re quite right, darling-heart.” She said. “He is somewhere much better. I am absolutely sure of it.”

Joan’s voice was strong and clear, with a jovial Australian ring to it. Though a grandmother and five years older than her late husband, she seemed youthful. Her hair was dyed and in auburn curls. There was a roguish yet motherly air about Joan, and a substantial intellect behind her grey-blue eyes.

Today, Joan was beside herself with grief. Tristram sensed in her a panic and disbelief that were contained only with superhuman force of will.

He took her hand and placed in her palm a large opal.

Joan gasped as she recognised it. “Tristram…”

“He gave it to me so that I would remember him.” Tristram answered. “It has pieces of his soul in it.”

Eight days earlier Tristram Jones was utterly inconsolable. Anxious hope and realistic despair fought a raging duel inside him. Morbid curiosity waited to see if Granddad Toby would really die.

Tristram did not understand the meaning of ‘bowel cancer’. It therefore became a half-formed, malevolent shadow in his mind that grew in him day by day. A gauntlet of nightmare filled nights and forlorn, prayer filled days had all but crushed him. He was rapidly losing health, and this worried his parents. Holly and Russell decided to let Toby talk to the boy from his death bed; even though they felt that the sight would repulse and sadden him. Toby had a way of reassuring people that no matter what, everything would turn out fine.

Grandma Joan ushered Tristram up the dark hallway of her and Toby’s old house. It was a charming, weather-board house in East Geelong. The house had been renovated over the years with patience, love and gentle happiness. Intricate floral wallpaper reached from the thick carpeted floor up into the high ceilings. Grandma’s kitchen still had a wood and coal stove and oven – things that she would not trade for the finest modern technology. It was a house that sighed with a contented love, even as Toby lay dying within it.

Before Tristram was ready, Joan led him into their bedroom. She gave Toby a cup of tea and a kiss and was rewarded with a brave smile. She left him and Tristram alone.

Tristram was afraid to approach the bed. Everything in the room was neat and comfortable. The morning light through the windows gave the scene a peaceful, ethereal glow. However, Toby provided a ghastly contrast in the romantic picture. He was a skeleton wearing pyjamas. His breathing was laboured. Tristram was about to make a quiet exit when Toby looked up and gave him a craggy, beautiful smile.

“How’s my racing ferret this morning?” He asked in a light, husky voice with a pleasant English accent. He and Joan always called the children racing ferrets whenever they had recently had a bath and combed their hair.

Tristram smiled and came to his side. Granddad Toby was still with him after all. He was about to tell him how good it felt to see him, when Toby suddenly tensed his whole body and coughed a terrible, violent cough. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

“Should I get Grandma?”

Tristram was on the verge of panic, but Toby settled again with a sigh and a pained smile.

“No…it’s alright, Tristram. It’s not as bad as it seems.”

In his health, Toby was a tall, well built man with an ever-present grin that gave way only to heart-felt smiles. Like Joan, he had a youthful energy about him. He laughed heartily and often, and his whole body quivered helplessly at the deep mirth that welled inside him. He loved music – lived it. There wasn’t a song he didn’t know off by heart. The children would shake their heads in wonder when he would suddenly burst into a song in the middle of their conversations, having been reminded of a tune by some key word or phrase.

Today, Toby’s light was fading, but it was a most magnificent light. The yellow mask of death would have been an unbearable horror if it weren’t for the radiance of Toby’s soul, gently beaming out from his kind eyes.

“I heard music this morning.” Toby began deadpan. “Jazz music. Stan Kenton.”

“Did you?” Tristram answered poker-faced.

Toby’s light blue eyes twinkled.

“Tristram…were you dancing in the other room this morning?” He asked with playful suspicion.

Tristram went red and grinned. “No.”

Toby narrowed his eyes and smiled. “No? I think you were dancing in the other room, Tristram.”

Tristram giggled. “Just one dance.”

“Ah-ha. Just one dance. Was it with a beautiful woman?”

“It was Grandma.”

“Ah…” Toby sighed with pleasure. “Then it was a beautiful woman…”

A flash of life and memory washed over Toby’s face. He grinned and grunted with amusement.

“What’s so funny?” Tristram asked.

“I can’t dance, Tristram. I have two left feet. It doesn’t stop me dancing though.” Toby smiled.

Tristram returned the smile, and then it vanished as he realised that his granddad would never dance again.

Toby read the change in his expression. He made eye contact with Tristram and then carefully reached out a closed hand.

“I have something for you.” He said solemnly. “Something…to make you feel better about what’s going to happen.”

“Nothing can do that, Grandad.” Whispered Tristram, tearfully.

Toby smiled and opened his hand. He was holding a large, tear shaped opal about the size and girth of a hazelnut. It was the colour of the sky on a bright blue morning. Luminescent reds, pinks, oranges, purples and greens swirled and wheeled within in it like tiny galaxies.

“Do you know what this is, Tristram?”

“It’s an opal.”

“That’s right. A very special opal, with a long and rich history.”

Toby placed the opal into Tristram’s hand.

Immediately, Tristram felt a most unusual sensation from the opal. It was cool to the touch, but it made him feel warmer, as if someone were embracing him from the inside.

Toby’s eyes glowed briefly with an excited joy.

“Do you know what this is made of?” He asked in a way that sent a thrill through Tristram.

“Glass?”

“No.”

“Quartz?”

A gentle chuckle from the dying man. “Quartz?”

Tristram shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Toby took a long, deep breath, and then gave the most contented smile that Tristram had ever seen.

“Memories.” He said finally with quiet triumph. “It’s made of memories, Tristram. Look closely at it, can’t you tell?”

Tristram gave a sad smile at the fantasy.

“You don’t believe me?” Toby asked, with mock indignation. “Pick one of the tiny colours and look very, very closely at it. What is your favourite colour?”

“Green.”

“Look at one of the greens.”

As Tristram focused on an olive-green speck he instantly became aware of a temperate rainforest. He could smell wet, earthy smells and he could hear bird calls, and a rushing stream in a gully nearby. The sensation passed like a transient daydream, and he was back in Toby’s room again. The colour seemed to flash and roll into the other colours like a speck in a kaleidoscope.

The boy was positively startled.

“A rainforest!” He shouted.

“Tasmania.” Explained Toby with a vindicated expression. “A rather recent memory. The sensations are what you feel first, but with practise you can feel the emotions and the thoughts of the memory as well.”

“I see a beautiful sunset.” Tristram was being flooded with sensations.

“There are many of those.” Smiled Toby.

“I feel sad, though.”

“It must have been just after Sally died. I still miss that old dog. Do you remember how she used to say ‘mama’ to Joan?”

A mirth trickled into Tristram as the pink and orange colour rolled away to be replaced by a pearly hue.

“Yes, I can see her now, wagging her tail.” He frowned. “She is very young.”

“She wasn’t always an old dog, you know.”

“I see purple flowers…”

“Port wine magnolias. I admire them every year.”

“There is so much blue…”

“I love the ocean on a clear morning, and I love looking up into the sky…I think everybody does.”

A deep, rusty red colour suddenly arrested Tristram’s attention. He tensed and then his face set in a bitter, determined scowl. He began to wheeze roughly.

Toby’s face became anxious.

“What are you seeing now?”

“The red desert…It’s night time. It’s cold and there are so many stars…” Tristram’s voice was filled with awe.

“Oh yes, that one. That memory isn’t mine, Tristram. It is a strange, disturbing memory.”

Tristram felt a terrible hatred. He had a headache from a troubling dream.

“Beware of thieves…” He hissed.

“Don’t focus on that colour, Tristram.” Warned Toby, but Tristram was in a trance.

“My left leg feels funny…it doesn’t bend the way it should.”

Suddenly Toby snatched the opal from Tristram’s hand.

“I’m sorry.” Tristram breathed, startled.

The concern on Toby’s face lingered as he looked into Tristram.

“Opals like these, Tristram, are made from all sorts of memories and feelings. Each colour you see in it is a moment, a memory, an emotion. You need only hold the opal, and whatever passes through your mind is accepted by it, you see? And then the opal translates the experience into a fragment of colour. Unfortunately, the opal does not discriminate between pleasant and awful memories. It keeps everything given to it, the bad and the good. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Tristram nodded.

“Like the others before me, I have made a very great effort to only hold the opal when I have something pleasant to give it.” Toby continued, looking seriously into Tristram. “In a funny way, it is a positive mirror of my whole life. That is what the opal is, Tristram. It is a container with the best memories of my life – of lots of other lives. Do you see?”

Toby enjoyed the thought for a moment.

“I will try to give the opal only good memories.” Tristram murmured.

Toby nodded. Then he frowned.

“I am worried that you might be too young for this, Tristram.” He continued. “But life is unpredictable, and we have no choice in some of the hurdles set before us. The opal is… special and dangerous, like life itself. Take the journey the best way you can. This opal is yours now; make it even more beautiful with your own life. But remember not to dwell on the rusty red colours. At least, not the ones with the limping witch doctor.”

“Witch doctor!?”

Toby sighed with a resigned smile.

“I presume that he has been dead for decades, but from my own experience and the legend told to me by the opal’s previous owner, he was an aboriginal witch doctor.”

“How did you know he was limping?”

“When you experience his memories, you know what it is like to be him.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was an aborigine. I don’t know which tribe he belonged to, but aborigines of many tribes seemed to recognise and fear him. He was very unusual, Tristram. I once saw his reflection in water and he had orange eyes. Rich orange, like the peel of the fruit.”

Toby frowned as he ruminated on the strange character of the witch doctor.

“Tell me more.” Tristram asked eagerly. “Is he wicked?”

Toby looked perplexed “I don’t know. His memories are all bitter. But not just bitter. His feelings were cold, hateful, determined…very determined…”

Toby began to drift into his own thoughts, tackling an old puzzle that he could never quite solve.

“It doesn’t matter.” Toby concluded, finally. “The point is that his dark memories are a part of the opal, just as trials and tribulations are a part of a lifetime…but trust me, Tristram; it is the good that is worth holding on to, always. Remember the pleasures of life and remember also the lessons of heartache – but let the heartache go. You must learn this, Tristram.”

Toby reached out and held Tristram’s hand.

“I will, Granddad.” Tristram solemnly promised.

“Treasure the opal; make it beautiful, like a mirror of your soul, made by wonderful memories from your life. And one day, Tristram, you will realise that you no longer need the opal, and on that day, you should pass it on to someone special, as I passed it on to you today.”

A silence of some time passed between them, in which Tristram’s mind swam in a whirl of thought and Toby breathed slow, painful breaths. Tristram did not know what to say, and Toby understood.

“It’s time for you to go out and enjoy the sunshine and the fresh air.”

“OK, Granddad.” Tristram answered with some relief. He looked into Toby’s faintly smiling face and knew that he should hug him tightly.

Yet he couldn’t. A shame filled his stomach as he realised that he was repulsed by Granddad Toby’s dying body. Toby’s beautiful spirit was unreachable in that emaciated flesh.

Tristram stood forward and tenderly shook Toby’s hand.

“I love you, Granddad.”

“Take care, Tristram.”

Just before Tristram reached the door, Toby spoke again.

“Tristram?”

“Yes?”

“Could you please take that cup of tea outside and empty it on the camellias?”

“OK.”

Tristram took the cup beside the bed and Toby gently touched his arm.

“Could you tell Joan that it was lovely? I would like her to think that I was able to drink it all and that it made me feel better.”

Tristram gave a teary nod, and then left his grandfather forever.

Tristram kept the opal secret from that day. He dared not to show it to anyone, until the moment that he felt Joan needed it most, as they stood beside her husband’s coffin at the funeral.

“Is that an opal?” Russell asked in an incredulous whisper.

Tristram closed his hand over the opal with an anxious jealously.

“Yes, it is.” Joan answered resolutely. “And Tristram is going to take excellent care of it. Aren’t you, Darling-heart?”

“Yes.” Tristram answered solemnly.

“I don’t know that I would trust a child with such an expensive heirloom, Mum.” Russell objected. “I mean, do we know how valuable it is?”

“It is absolutely priceless.” Joan answered. “And I am certain that Tristram would not part with it for all the world.”

Holly knelt down and looked Tristram in the eyes.

“We’re not going to take the opal from you, Tris.” She said. “But we should put it in a bank-safe until you are old enough to look after it.”

“No!” Tristram shouted. “I am old enough to look after it. You say I am responsible, but you don’t trust me!”

“It will still be yours; it will just be in a safe place.”

“No! Granddad gave it to me to look after, no one else!”

“Don’t shout at us, Tristram.” Warned Russell. “We’re your parents. We’re not trying to rob you; we’re trying to do what’s best for you.”

“You don’t look after any of your other toys.” Added Holly coolly. “What if you lose it? What if some other kid steals it from you? Give it to us to look after; you know it’s for the best.”

“No!” Tristram was on the verge of panic. “You don’t understand – I have to look after it. Me only. You don’t understand. Grandma!”

Joan answered his appeal.

“Toby, for reasons of his own, has given Tristram the responsibility of looking after this opal. It is a very special opal. I fully believe that it is a piece of Toby’s very soul – and he gave it to Tristram, and so Tristram must keep it. I will not have it otherwise.”

This last command was not going to be disputed by Holly and Russell at that moment, though the issue was hardly finalised in their minds.

Accepting their silence as acquiescence, Joan then turned a serious but kindly eye on Tristram.

“Now then. Tristram, you are now responsible for keeping this opal very safe – because you know better than anyone else how precious and priceless it is. But you must promise me to put it somewhere safe and secret and not to tell a soul where you keep it. Will you promise me this, Tris?”

“I promise, Grandma.” Tristram answered sincerely.

“Then it is settled.” Joan kissed Tristram on the forehead. “I know that a promise from my number one grandson is a promise that will be kept. Now let us say no more of the matter.”

The issue was put to rest for the remainder of that sad and solemn day. It remains only to describe two other characters that witnessed that exchange: Tristram’s maternal grandparents, particularly one Stewart MacDougall.

The rough old farmer was another personality in this picture whose dress was out of his usual character. Granddad Stewy had foregone his cheap shirts and casual trousers for quite a smart grey suit. The grey wisps of his fine hair were neatly combed over his forehead, rather than flying in the haphazard directions that usually attracted the silent criticism of his gentle wife. He was a short, barrel-chested figure with ropey, sinewy limbs that were forged from years of labour and perseverance in the face of adversity – his mettle was fired in the harsh kiln of the dry Wimmera country of Western Victoria. His face and forearms were permanently tanned. His eyes had a determined gleam behind cheap glasses that sat on a bulbous nose.

Stewart’s hazel eyes lit up and flashed when Tristram gave the opal to Joan.

He sighed worriedly when the discussion of the opal had ended.

“Well, Jack…” Stewart began in his deep, nasal drawl. “That’s a bit of a worry.”

Mary Allison MacDougall was a true lady, and never liked the rough, farm nickname of Jack.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m sure he’ll look after it.” She returned in her soft, well-spoken manner. Her gentle, musical voice was a complete contrast to the ocker boom of her husband.

“He’s a good lad, Jack, but he’s a child – and all children are irresponsible.”

“Oh Stewart! Tris will look after it.”

“Nope – he’ll lose it, and it’ll be a legacy lost forever.”

“Holly has brought him up well, he’ll be careful.”

“Holly is a good mother.” Stewart conceded. “So, she’ll probably put us both at ease by taking it off him.”

“I’m at ease as things are.” Mary murmured.

“Mmm?”

Mary gave a gentle, frustrated sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Speak up, Jack, you’re forever makin’ me strain me ears!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Then why did I hear something? If yer gonna say somethin’ Jack, you should belt it out, so I can hear it. But no – you always just sorta mutter and mumble about.”

“It was nothing, Stewart! God!”

“Well, I am going deaf, you know, Jack.”

“Yes, I know.” Mary mumbled. “I wish I was.”

“Mmm?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Stewart, it doesn’t matter!”

“Well, you know I do worry about these things, Jack. You gotta look ahead to avoid every disaster.”

“It isn’t our place to meddle.”

“No – we don’t meddle…We don’t meddle.” Stewart rejoined with a mixture of great pride and reluctance.

A silence ensued whilst Stewart ruminated on the issue.

“Yeah…” He finally drawled. “We don’t meddle, Jack. We’ll just have to sit back in total helplessness and hope we’re wrong about everything.”

Mary rolled her eyes but offered no other rebuttal.

INTO THE WILD HIGH COUNTRY

Bright is a small town near the snowfields in the high country of Eastern Victoria. It is busy in winter and beautiful in autumn. Fortunately for the Zumstein family, it was autumn now. Though they were unaccustomed to the chill, the four Queenslanders appreciated the vibrant colours of the season about them. Bright had many mature, introduced specimen trees, such as liquid amber, oak, claret ash, golden elm and birch. Hence, the place was alighted with fiery reds, warm oranges, honey goldens, and rich clarets. The foliage of the town was an invigorating contrast to the surrounding smoky evergreen of the eucalyptus forest that covered the mountains.

Hester Zumstein was never satisfied with her appearance. Her hair was short, blonde and stylish. Her blue eyes were compelling. However, Hester hated her body, because no amount of exercise would make her large behind go away. Yet, whatever lot nature had bestowed upon her, Hester was the best looking she could be. This principle dominated every aspect of her life. Her house on the Gold Coast of Queensland was large, white and polished both inside and out. The garden was wrought with fashionable palms, and granite boulders and a salt-water swimming pool. There was not a bare patch on the lawn, not a weed in the garden, not a leaf on the wide decking of the veranda. Inside, there was never a scuff on the carpet, a drop of water on the kitchen floor, or a picture crooked. At least, not for long. Order and cleanliness was Hester’s special religion – but in that regard, her two children were positively sacrilegious.

Hester cast a critical eye over her boys as they sat in the car.

Pyran, a red-haired boy Tristram’s age, had already lost a button on an expensive shirt. His bright green eyes squinted nervously under his mother’s fierce glare. His older brother Warrick, a dark-haired lad approaching fifteen, had rolled up the sleeves on his shirt and refused to tuck it into his costly jeans. He had an angular face with narrow blue eyes that gleamed with petulant defiance.

Hester sighed sharply and gave an exasperated roll of her eyes.

“Why must you two be such messy little shits!? God! I bought you these expensive clothes and you’ve already ruined them!”

“Oh, come on, Mum, I’ve lost one button.” Pyran protested.

“Don’t answer back! I told you not to go and get dirty, because I want you both to look nice for your grandparents. But no! As usual you have completely defied me; you bloody ungrateful pair of shits.”

“Get a grip, Mum, whadya expect? Were goin’ bush – were gonna get dirty anyway.” Warrick smirked.

“Warrick…don’t be cheeky. Tuck your shirt in and put a jumper on, it’s freezing.”

“No.”

“Do it now.”

“How about a please?”

“How about a bloody good hiding?!”

“Pfffff. Go on, then.”

Hester gasped and then, eyes ablaze, reached over and slapped Warrick on the shoulder.

Pyran winced but Warrick merely scoffed.

“Weak as piss, Mum.” He sneered.

Hester resorted to her back up measure.

“Karl!”

Hester’s husband Karl was a tall, muscular man with thick sandy hair and a moustache. His features were a pleasing mix of his Italian and German ancestry. Karl was an easy-going man but could find no peace when his wife was agitated. It was going to be a long car trip.

“What is it, Hezz?” He asked. His green eyes showed a tired impatience.

“Warrick is being disrespectful.” Hester answered vehemently.

Karl responded the only way he knew how. Warrick yelped as he received the mighty backhand, and Pyran screamed as he received a belt straight after his brother.

“Don’t disrespect your mother.” Karl growled.

Warrick sulked whilst Pyran tearfully protested.

“Dad! I didn’t say anything! Warrick said it!”

“Shut up, weasel.” Warrick snapped.

Hester was sorry to see her children hurt, infuriating as they were. This was supposed to be a family holiday.

“Karl, Pyran didn’t really say anything worth a hiding.”

“See?!” Pyran bawled, vindicated.

“You still dirtied your clothes.” Muttered Karl.

“This isn’t fair!”

“Pyran – stop crying, or I will give you something to cry about. Now get in the car, both of you.”

Their vehicle was a brand-new topaz Farelane. The interior was stylish and comfortable, and air-conditioned – yet the four of them were restless and impatient as they zoomed along the highway.

“Can I listen to me Southern Sons tape, Mum?” Warrick asked with a trace of petulance.

“Why don’t you ask properly?”

“Please?”

“No-”

“Why not?!”

“Let me finish! No, that’s not asking properly.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Warrick!” Bellowed Karl, “Watch your language.”

“I was joking!”

“No, you weren’t.”

Hester resumed her lecture. “You don’t say ‘can I listen to me tape’ as if you’re a thick, uneducated country bumpkin.”

“Alright! God! May I, darling Mum, please listen to my Southern Sons tape, please, Mum?” Warrick attempted with a sullen glare.

Pyran giggled and it broke the tension. Hester chuckled.

“Yes, Warrick, my polite, beloved son. You may listen to your tape.”

He handed the cassette over to her and peace was obtained temporarily.

“Mum,” Pyran asked, “Can me and Warrick have a drink?”

“Next service station, mate.”

“Where’s the next service station?”

Hester looked to Karl for the answer.

“We’ll stop at Omeo.” He said.

Twenty minutes later, the tiny township of Omeo finally appeared before them as they descended the surrounding high country, and it wasn’t long before Karl pulled over at the general store.

As he went inside to fetch refreshments, Hester used the opportunity to talk with the boys again.

“Remember what I said. You be polite to Holly and Russ. You do whatever Granddad says without question. And most important boys: be really nice to Tristram and Saffi and poor, dear little Jase. They have been very upset over Toby’s death.”

Pyran answered first. “We will, Mum.”

Hester then got out of the car to stretch her legs.

Warrick turned to Pyran and rolled his eyes.

“This is going to suck eggs.”

“I know.” Pyran groaned “Tristram is a bloody goody-goody, eh?”