Holly Ringland
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Dedication
For women who doubt the worth and power of their story.
For my mother, who gave everything to bring me flowers.
And this book is for Sam, without whom my lifelong dream would remain unwritten.
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near;’
And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late;’
The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’
And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’
1. Black fire orchid
Meaning: Desire to possess
Pyrorchis nigricans | Western Australia
Needs fire to flower. Sprouts from bulbs that may have lain dormant. Deep crimson streaks on pale flesh. Turns black after flowering, as if charred.
In the weatherboard house at the end of the lane, nine-year-old Alice Hart sat at her desk by the window and dreamed of ways to set her father on fire.
In front of her, on the eucalyptus desk her father built, a library book lay open. It was filled with stories collected from around the world about the myths of fire. Although a northeasterly blew in from the Pacific, full of brine, Alice could smell smoke, earth and burning feathers. She read, whispering aloud:
The phoenix bird is immersed into fire, to be consumed by the flames, to burn to ashes and rise renewed, remade, reformed — the same, but altogether different.
Alice hovered a fingertip over an illustration of the phoenix rising: its silver-white feathers glowing, its wings outstretched, and its head thrown back to crow. She snatched her hand away, as though the licks of golden, red-orange flames might singe her skin. The smell of seaweed came through her window in a fresh gust; the chimes in her mother’s garden warned of the strengthening wind.
Leaning over her desk, Alice closed the window to just a crack. She pushed the book aside, eyeing the illustration as she reached for the plate of toast she’d made hours ago. Biting into a buttered triangle, she chewed the cold toast slowly. What might it be like, if her father was consumed by fire? All his monsters burned to ash, leaving the best of him to rise, renewed by flames, remade into the man he sometimes was: the man who made her a desk so she could write stories.
Alice shut her eyes, imagining for a moment that the nearby sea she could hear crashing through her window was an ocean of roaring fire. Could she push her father into it, so he was consumed like the phoenix in her book? What if he emerged, shaking his head as if woken from a bad dream, and opened his arms to her? G’day Bunny, he might say. Or maybe he would just whistle, hands in his pockets and a smile in his eyes. Maybe Alice would never again see his blue eyes turn black with rage, or watch the colour drain from his face, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth, a foam as white as his pallor. She could focus solely on reading what direction the wind was blowing, or choosing her library books, or writing at her desk. Remade by fire, Alice’s father’s touch on her mother’s pregnant body would always be soft; his hands on Alice always gentle and nurturing. Most of all, he would cradle the baby when it came, and Alice wouldn’t lie awake wondering how to protect her family.
She shut the book. Its heavy thud reverberated through the wooden desk, which ran the length of her bedroom wall. Her desk faced two large windows that swung open over the garden of maidenhair ferns, staghorns and butterfly-leaf plants her mother tended until nausea got the better of her. Just that morning she had been in the process of potting kangaroo paw seedlings when she doubled over, hacking into the ferns. Alice was at her desk, reading; at the sound of her mother’s retching, she scrambled through the window, landing on the fern beds. Unsure of what else to do, she held her mother’s hand tightly.
‘I’m all right,’ her mother coughed, squeezing Alice’s hand before letting go. ‘It’s just morning sickness, Bun, don’t worry.’ As she leant her head back to get some air, her pale hair fell away from her face and revealed a new bruise, purple like the sea at dawn, surrounding a split in the tender skin behind her ear. Alice couldn’t look away quickly enough.
‘Oh, Bun,’ her mother fretted as she hauled herself to her feet. ‘I wasn’t watching what I was doing in the kitchen and took a tumble. The baby makes me so dizzy.’ She placed one hand on her stomach and picked crumbs of dirt off her dress with the other. Alice stared at the young ferns that had been crushed under her mother’s weight.
Her parents left soon afterwards. Alice stood at the front door until the plume of dust behind her father’s truck vanished into the blue morning. They were making the trip to the city for another baby check-up; the truck only had two seats. Be good, darling, her mother implored as she brushed Alice’s cheek with her lips. She smelled like jasmine, and fear.
Alice picked up another triangle of cold toast and held it between her teeth as she reached into her library bag. She’d promised her mother she would study for her Grade Four exam, but so far the dummy test the correspondence school had sent in the post sat unopened on her desk. As she pulled a book out of her library bag and read its title, her jaw slackened. Her exam was completely forgotten.
In the low light of the approaching storm the embossed cover of A Beginner’s Guide to Fire was an illuminated, almost-living thing. Wildfire shimmered in metallic flames. Something dangerous and thrilling rippled through Alice’s belly. The palms of her hands were clammy. She had just touched her fingers to the corner of the cover when, as if conjured by her jittery nerves, the tags of Toby’s collar tinkled behind her. He nudged her leg, leaving a wet smudge on her skin. Relieved by the interruption, Alice smiled as Toby sat politely. She held her toast out to him and he gingerly took it between his teeth before stepping back to wolf it down. Dog drool dripped on her feet.
‘Yuck, Tobes,’ Alice said, ruffling his ears. She held up her thumb and wagged it from side to side. Toby’s tail swept back and forth across the floor in response. He lifted a paw and rested it on her leg. Toby had been a gift from her father, and was her closest companion. When he was small he had nipped her father’s feet under the table one too many times, and been thrown against side of the washing machine. Alice’s father forbade a trip to the vet and Toby had been deaf ever since. When she realised he couldn’t hear, Alice took it upon herself to create a secret language that she and Toby could share, using hand signals. She wagged her thumb at him again to tell him he was good. Toby slurped the side of Alice’s face and she laughed in disgust, wiping her cheek. He circled a few times and settled at her feet with a thud. No longer small, he looked more like a grey-eyed wolf than a sheep-dog. Alice curled her bare toes into his long fluffy coat. Emboldened by his company, she opened A Beginner’s Guide to Fire and was quickly absorbed by the first story inside.
In faraway places, like Germany and Denmark, people used fire to burn away the old and invite the new, to welcome the beginning of the next cycle: a season, a death, a life, or a love. Some people even built huge figures out of wicker and bramble, setting them alight to draw an end and mark a beginning: to tempt miracles.