CHAPTER 1:

May, Year 12

Silhouettes framed by a peachy sky kicked up dust on an autumn horizon. Gab watched, wishing she was bovine so that she could plod her way through life munching grass and flicking flies, like the silhouettes in front of her. She wondered what it would be like to have no conscious thought of herself as a thing, distinct from all other things in the universe. As it was, her mind whirled and whirred and hardly stopped, constantly scrounging for a footing—a footing it never found. Footings were deceptive, anyhow; they crumbled. Gab’s footholds couldn’t bear her weight when she pushed up. However, she maintained a distinctly even keel on the outside. She had to. She didn’t know how not to.

The light sank lower as Gab sat on Tony’s fence, staring at the sunset. The breeze flicked wisps of auburn hair across her freckled cheeks, across her hazel eyes. Finally, she checked her watch.

“Come on Jack, time to go.”

Gab jumped off the fence and then swung her six-year-old brother down too. She was seventeen and family boss—not on paper, but realistically. The family needed someone to hold it together; she had to hold it together, because there was no one to hold her if she fell apart.

Gab and Jack ran back to their granny flat on Tony’s farm, out on the edge of Wattle Gully. Gab pulled open the flimsy pea-green door with its flywire hanging out, and she and Jack stepped inside.

“Don’t traipse dust in here!” came the shrill call of their mother.

Gina was in her usual spot in the throne-room. The sunroom wasn’t really a throne-room of course, but Gab thought of it like that, in a twisted way. Gina spent her days there from sunrise to sunset—her kingdom. It was her escape and her prison at once. She would sit upon her bed of cushions and faux furs, garbed in flowing floral prints and heavy necklaces. Incense burned, always, on a table to her left and the smell made Gab sick. Images of the gods and gurus of various religious traditions papered the fibro wall behind Gina’s throne—Gautama Buddha, Vishnu, Jesus (white, with flowing blonde, distinctly-non-Middle-Eastern hair), Osiris the Egyptian god, Gaia the Mother of Life.

Gina never moved unless she had to. Gab used to wonder why her mother didn’t just sleep in that room. But at night, Gina shifted to her musty, fusty bed in its dark, damp corner of the granny flat—a strange contrast to the light, airy sunroom. Occasionally, Gab also wondered whether her mother wanted her and Jack at all. Whenever Gina bothered to engage, there was always admonishment, filtered through a religious saying or proverb—or a complaint with spiritualist spin, disguised in honeyed tones. Gina’s faith was an eclectic mix of Gab didn’t know what … but it always seemed to suit Gina’s convenience.

Gab knelt down, untying Jack’s laces for him.

“Time to get ready for bed, mate,” she said, helping him to pull his shoes off. “Go brush your teeth and go toilet. Then I’ll read you a story.”

“But I don’t want to!” Jack whined.

“Come on, Jack,” said Gab with a sigh, placing his dusty runners in the old, cracked plastic washing basket by the door. “I don’t want to fight. Just do it.” She mustered up some energy and enthusiasm. “How about we race? I’ll go do teeth and toilet too and we’ll see who’s finished first … but make sure you brush your teeth properly! Set your egg timer, okay?”

“Ohhh, okay!” said Jack. Races could generally be counted on to lure him in. “Now say ready, set, go!” he instructed.

Gab looked at her watch. “Ready …. Setttttttt … GO!” They raced off towards the bathroom, with Jack determined to win and Gab relieved her tactic had worked.

Would Jack settle? If so, Gab could get back to her homework. It was unrelenting this year—Gab’s final year of schooling. Unrelenting, exhausting, demanding— something of an escape, but the uncertainty of managing Jack on top of it all made every evening a juggle.

Gab crossed her freckly fingers for good luck while she brushed her teeth, willing the evening to run smoothly.