33
Sunday, 8.30 pm
Green River Campground
Dani
It was the noise.
Even under the music, under the shouting insects and the chattering children, Dani could hear the strangled scream as it went up. And Dani could see it coming out of Lachy Short’s mouth, because she’d been watching him just before he fell.
An intense flash of surprise, a mouth forming an O, a hand to a throat – a split second before Lachy collapsed.
And then, when he fell to the floor, legs pumping, Lachy’s hands kept flying to his neck, as if trying to pull at a tightening scarf. Then he stopped. And the next noise was everyone else’s screams.
Tia and Gracie stepped back, Grace’s little hands to her mouth as adults rushed in. It had taken Dani a moment to move from her spot. She was with Lyra, after all, which was where she wanted to be, now, before, always. Where had she been, all the other times? But Lyra seemed calm and Dani touched her daughter’s hands. ‘Get Tia and Gracie out of here,’ she said.
Somehow, in that strange swirl of time moving at all different speeds – the slow motion of a big, heavy body falling to the ground, the rush of panic at hearing breath so hard fought for, the shock of trying to understand just what it was they were seeing – Dani had a moment where she looked up and caught Liss’s eyes. Her friend was standing, just back from a kitchen run, a clutch of soft drinks in her hands, her face a frozen mask, her mouth open.
Of course, their eyes seemed to say, in that second. Of course this happens now.
Tomorrow Lachy Short was going to be exposed. Dani and Liss had come out of the cave and found Sadie and Juno. A walk to Liss’s fig tree. Truth-telling in low voices among the ancient roots and branches. A hunt through Juno’s phone. A call to Dani’s boss, a man six degrees of separation from every major property deal in the state. Another call, to a locksmith. Another to Liss’s lawyer, from the same trusted firm who’d drawn up her mother’s will all those years ago.
It was astounding what these women could set in motion in one hour on a Sunday afternoon, now that they could see clearly.
Tomorrow Liss would leave Lachy Short. He would be locked out of his home. He would find that the developer deal for Green River was under review. A sale perhaps secured by illegal means. He would see the footage buried in the background of Juno’s film of Emily dancing on Friday night. Dani had barely been able to look at it, his hands on Lyra’s skin, his face at her daughter’s neck. He would be told this would be taken to the police. To his professional partners. That Lyra was no longer keeping his secrets. The gifts. The texts. The hands.
Tomorrow Liss and Dani and their children would start a new chapter. And all they’d had to do was to keep Lachy Short calm and happy for one more night, for him not to suspect a thing as they pulled it all together.
And now, this.
Time collapsed back on itself, back to Liss’s bottles hitting the floor and she and Dani running towards him.
By the time Dani had reached Lachy, still squirming on the dusty plastic sheet of the floor, his eyes were bulging and his lips were swollen. He seemed to be gasping for breath and finding only whispers.
Who had been standing over him? Sadie, Ginger.
‘It looks allergic,’ Ginger was saying. ‘Lachy, can you hear me? We’re going to need an ambulance, who’s got a phone?’
Of course, they all did.
But before those calls could be made, Lachy took in a huge jagged breath and pushed out a growl. He was rising, pushing the hands away. Shoving. Throwing. Dani felt herself fly backwards, her back hitting the metal side of the table in a spike of pain, her head smashing into the ground.
She watched Lachy Short pull himself up to one knee, to standing, and then stop, panting like a racehorse. His face was illuminated by a lantern swinging from the centre of the makeshift roof, his eyes spinning, unable to focus on anything. His forehead was wet with sweat, the muscles in his neck were twitching. He looked dangerous.
It went quiet. The children’s crying faded to soft whimpers. The mothers backed away to stand in front of them. Aiden’s feet stepped in front of Dani’s eyes. Liss ran to crouch beside her.
‘Lachy, mate.’ It was Aiden, his voice breathless but calm. ‘Are you okay?’
He sounded concerned, but his stance, Dani could see, was one of defence. He was standing between this wild-eyed man and the women and children who had, moments ago, been trying to save Lachy Short.
‘What?’ it sounded like Lachy shouted. ‘Whaaat?’
Liss, one hand on Dani, tried to speak from her position on the floor. ‘Lachy, you need to calm down,’ she said, with as much authority as she could muster, her voice trembling. ‘Let Ginger check you out.’
Her husband did not appear to hear.
The pain in Dani’s head was making her close an eye, although perhaps not by choice. But even with only one open, she could see that Lachy was vibrating.
She heard Emily saying to the children, ‘Let’s go to the kitchen, kids. Let’s just walk calmly to the kitchen together. It’s going to be fine.’
And then Lachy roared again. Did he charge, like a bull? It felt like he did, as everyone screamed again, and there was a thunk of bodies hitting each other as he flew past Juno, who was filming, phone raised, into Aiden, through Aiden maybe, towards where, Dani would learn later, Tia and Lyra and Trick were standing tightly together, watching everything.
She saw Aiden on the ground, and Lachy Short running, stumbling, charging towards the beach path and then veering into the rainforest, the sound of him crashing through the trees audible over the music that was still playing, as if everything that had just happened had not happened, and there was still a collection of happy families dancing to Madonna under moonlight.
And then the track finished, and there was silence for a moment, before all the crying started again.
He didn’t come back. Not in the first few minutes as Ginger crouched over Aiden and Liss over Dani. Dani’s good eye could only see her friend’s face. Could only say, ‘What just happened?’ And Liss, tears pouring, wiping at Dani’s forehead with napkins, shaking her head with no answer.
Lyra and Tia came to their mothers, kneeling down next to them, wet faces, frightened eyes.
The little ones, corralled by Emily into the camp kitchen, made hot chocolates and were assured of things that no-one could actually assure them of.
‘Aiden?’ Dani asked, and Ginger looked up, grimaced. ‘He’ll live. Punch in the face, fell on his arm. You’re okay, aren’t you, mate?’
Dani heard Aiden grunt, and make something like a ‘Sorry’ sound.
‘Is Lachy . . . dead?’ It was a voice none of them were expecting.
Trick. Standing in the centre of the space between Dani and Aiden and the people gathered around them. His pale, determined face set in confusion. ‘Did he go off to die?’
‘Trick,’ said Lyra. ‘Shut up.’ Her voice was sharp, scolding. It took Dani by surprise.
‘What do you mean?’ Dani asked.
‘Poisoned rats,’ Trick said, slowly, as Lyra shook her head at him. ‘They go away to die.’
Liss and Dani looked at each other, some slow gears clicking into place.
‘Trick,’ said Liss, and Sadie, suddenly, was with them. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, turning his phone over in his hands. He was looking, though, from Lyra to Tia.
‘What do we do now?’ Sadie was asking. ‘Are we just waiting for that lunatic to come back and beat us all up? Liss?’
Even now, after everything that had happened, they were looking to Liss to make the rules.
Ginger and Juno had propped Aiden up against the barbecue, a handful of ice cubes at his temple, cradling his arm.
‘Was he drunk? Was that drugs?’
‘Did he know?’ Sadie asked. ‘Was that rage?’
‘Did he know what?’ asked Tia, and her mother shushed her with a hand.
Dani was trying to think, but everything was too blurry. She, too, looked to Liss.
‘I think we need to call the police,’ said Liss. ‘And an ambulance, I suppose. I think that’s what we need to do.’ She looked into Dani’s eyes, across to Sadie and Juno. ‘Bring the plan forward.’
The women nodded, and Dani felt a wave of relief along with the breeze that was kicking up from the river now, as it often did in the evenings, quieting the cicadas, whistling up a rustling lullaby.
‘No.’ A yelp of a word, wrapped in a teenage girl’s sob. ‘You can’t call the police. You can’t.’
‘Tia!’ It was Lyra.
All the adults’ faces turned to Tia Short. Lachy’s quiet daughter, with something to say.
‘It was us,’ Tia said, softly.
‘It was me, Tia,’ Trick spoke up. ‘Really. It was me.’
‘It was us.’
Dani was looking at Lyra, at the face she could look at forever, the one she knew better than her own, and tried to understand what her daughter was saying.
‘Mushrooms,’ Trick said. ‘We made mushroom poison.’ At the word poison, Dani saw Lyra flinch. Not Tia, though. Tia was crying, her mother’s hand on hers.
‘What?’
‘Like grandad,’ said Trick, and Sadie made a noise. A low moan.
It took a moment for Dani to unravel those words and understand them.
‘Tia?’ Liss moved in front of her daughter, hands on both her shoulders. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Trick, you have to tell me.’ Ginger’s voice was clear, she was next to Sadie, an arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘You have to tell me what the mushrooms were, where you got them, and what you did with them. Exactly.’
‘Lyra,’ Dani asked, lifting her daughter’s face to hers. ‘Is this because of what he did?’
‘I wanted him gone.’ Tia’s voice. ‘He doesn’t deserve you. Us.’
‘The forest,’ Trick said. ‘We made tea. The mushrooms are called yellow stains. There were about six of them. We . . .’ He looked down at his phone. ‘We googled.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lyra. ‘I don’t know. There was just so much. So much drama. So much noise. We,’ she looked at Tia, ‘we wanted it to stop.’
‘We were handling this, kids,’ Dani said. ‘We had a plan. It didn’t involve poison,’ she almost choked on the word, ‘but we had a plan.’
She looked to Liss, who still said nothing.
Juno waved her phone. ‘I’ve got it – Lachy hurting Dani, punching Aiden. We were attacked by a drunken, violent man, and we have evidence.’
‘Yellow stains aren’t deadly,’ Ginger said. ‘Just very unpleasant. Judging by Lachy’s reaction, he’s allergic. He’ll probably lose consciousness.’ She looked cautiously at Tia and Liss as she said the next part. ‘He’s probably not going to die.’
‘Did you tell anyone about this?’ Dani asked. ‘James? Bob? Did you send any messages?’
‘James and Bob haven’t hung out with us all weekend,’ Lyra said. ‘They’re always off,’ she raised her eyes to Juno, Ginger, ‘getting stoned. Like now.’
‘Hardly the time for the moral high ground, Lyra,’ said Juno, with something that was almost a laugh. ‘Trick, send me your video.’
It was just Liss, now. Liss who was going to get to make the call, as always.
What to be done about her husband. About these children. About all of them, and this beautiful, terrible place.
She was just sitting there, still holding Tia’s hands. Her face blank, her mouth slightly open.
‘Liss, darling?’ Dani asked, her hand heavy on her friend’s leg. ‘What do you want us to do?’