Thyla - Kate Gordon [28]
‘How?’ I asked. ‘Do you mean that the bush is dangerous? Because, I don’t know for sure, but I was found in the bush, so I’m guessing I’ve bushwalked before.’
Rhiannah looked at me curiously, and I could tell she wanted to ask, ‘How can you not know if you’ve bushwalked before?’
But she didn’t. Again, she gave me space and time. I knew I should give her time in return. But I promised you, Connolly, and I intended to keep that promise. Finding Cat was my purpose. I had to make progress on it, even if it meant being a bit forceful with Rhiannah.
‘Please let me come?’ I pushed.
‘Okay,’ she said, slowly. ‘I mean, maybe.’
‘When are you going next?’
‘Tomorrow night.’ And then her voice turned hard and adamant. ‘But tomorrow night is not the night for you to come. It’s going to be a difficult walk. When you come with me, it should be on an easier walk – just so we can assess your skills – and probably during the daytime. A night-time walk is definitely not the right kind of walk for you to start on.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Not tomorrow, then. I won’t come tomorrow.’
And at the time, I meant it.
That night, there were no monsters in my dreams. There was no darkness. There was me, alone, in a sun-dappled grove, in the middle of a forest.
I was on a bushwalk. By myself. But I was not scared.
In the corner of my vision I sensed movement, then heard a small twig break. My breath quickened, but I stilled myself. I did not want to appear as though I had seen or heard.
Then, at my ear, a warm breath. ‘What are you doing out here all alone, little girl?’ came a whisper. My face broke into a smile, and I let him run his fingers gently down my neck, down my shoulders. I let him slide his arms around my waist.
‘I love you,’ he whispered as reality pulled me, dragging my heels, to wake.
‘The Female Factory at the Cascades operated between 1828 and 1856,’ said Mr Beagle, reading from his notes. ‘The site of the factory was originally a rum distillery, run by a company called “Lowe’s”. The colonial government bought the distillery in 1827. Builders – under the direction of an architect called John Lee Archer – extended the buildings that were already there in order to make enough space for the ever-increasing numbers of female convicts imprisoned in Tasmania. At its fullest, the Factory housed twelve hundred women, who were engaged …’
‘And children,’ I whispered. The words just slipped out of my mouth. I didn’t know where they came from, and I did not call for them to emerge. They just did.
‘Sorry, what was that, Tessa?’ asked Mr Beagle, looking up from his papers. I jumped in surprise. I thought I had whispered very quietly; so quietly nobody would have been able to hear me. But Mr Beagle had.
‘I … I said “and children”, Mr Beagle,’ I replied. I wriggled in my seat uncomfortably. I could feel the eyes of my classmates burning into my back and sides. ‘There were children at the Factory too, weren’t there?’
Even though I made it into a question, I knew it to be true.
I didn’t know how I knew, though.
And I didn’t know why it suddenly seemed so important to say it, and to have Mr Beagle verify it. It just was.
Mr Beagle nodded slowly. ‘Well, yes, there were, Tessa. Children often stayed with their mothers, though most of them were sent away to orphanages and boarding schools. Well done.’
He began to read from his notes again, and the words washed over me. I didn’t hear any of them. I could still feel everybody staring at me.
I knew they talked of me. I knew Charlotte and her friends were spreading rumours about me. Rumours that I had been in an asylum before I came to school. Rumours that I was mad and dangerous. I had only been at Cascade Falls a handful of days, yet already people were beginning to think me strange.
And I was beginning to agree with them.
In the shower that morning, as I scrubbed at my back with my flannel wash-cloth, and the soap that smelled of lemon peel and roses, I noticed that my scars seemed to have raised and hardened.