Alice sat back in her chair. Her eyes were hot and gummy. She pressed her hands on the pages, over the photo of a burning man made of wicker. What miracle would her fire welcome? For a start, never again would there be the sound of things breaking in their house. The sour stench of fear would no longer fill the air. Alice would plant a veggie garden without being punished for accidentally using the wrong trowel. She might learn to ride a bike without feeling the roots of her hair tear from her scalp in her father’s enraged grip because she couldn’t balance. The only signs she would need to read would be in the sky, rather than the shadows and clouds that passed over her father’s face, alerting her to whether he was the monster, or the man who turned a gum tree into a writing desk.
That happened after the day he shoved her into the sea and left her to swim to shore on her own. He’d vanished into his wooden shed that night and not emerged for two days. When he did, he laboured under the weight of a rectangular desk, longer lengthways than he was tall. It was made from the creamy planks of spotted gum he’d been saving to build Alice’s mother a new fernery. Alice hovered in the corner of her room while her father bolted the desk to the wall under the windowsill. It filled her bedroom with the heady fragrances of fresh timber, oil and varnish. He showed Alice how the lid opened on brass hinges, revealing a shallow underbelly ready to be filled with paper, pencils and books. He’d even planed a eucalyptus branch into an arm to hold the lid up, so Alice could use both hands to fossick inside.
‘I’ll get you all the pencils and crayons you need next time I go to town, Bunny.’
Alice threw her arms around his neck. He smelled of Cussons soap, sweat and turpentine.
‘My baby bunting.’ His stubble grazed her cheek. A lacquer of words coated Alice’s tongue: I knew you were still in there. Stay. Please don’t let the wind change. But all she could say was, ‘Thank you.’
Alice’s eyes drifted back to her open book.
Fire is an element that requires friction, fuel and oxygen to combust and burn. An optimum fire needs these optimum conditions.
She looked up, out into the garden. The invisible force of the wind pushed and pulled the pots of maidenhair ferns on their hooks. It howled under the slim crack of the open window. She took deep breaths, filling her lungs and emptying them slowly. Fire is an element that requires friction, fuel and oxygen to combust and burn. Staring into the green heart of her mother’s garden, Alice knew what she must do.
As the windstorm came in from the east and drew across the sky in dark curtains, Alice put her windcheater on at the back door. Toby paced by her side and she entwined her fingers in his woolly coat. He whimpered and nuzzled her belly. His ears lay flat. Outside, the wind tore the petals off her mother’s white roses and scattered them across the yard like fallen stars. In the distance, at the bottom of their property, sat the shadowy hulk of her father’s locked shed. Alice patted the pockets of her jacket, feeling the key inside. After taking a moment, willing herself to be brave, she opened the back door and ran out of the house, into the wind with Toby.
Although she was forbidden to enter it, nothing had stopped Alice from imagining what might be in her father’s wooden shed. Most of the time he spent inside followed the awful things he did. But when he came out, he was always better. Alice had decided his shed held a transformational kind of magic, as if within its walls was an enchanted mirror, or a spinning wheel. Once, when she was younger, she was brave enough to ask him what was inside. He didn’t answer her but after he made her desk, Alice understood. She’d read about alchemy in her library books; she knew the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. Her father’s shed was where he spun straw into gold.
Her legs and lungs burned as she ran. Toby barked at the sky until a spear of dry lightning overhead sent his tail between his legs. At the shed door, Alice took the key out of her pocket and slid it into the padlock. It wouldn’t give. The wind stung her face and threatened her balance; only Toby’s warmth pressed against her kept her steady. She tried again. The key hurt her palm as she pushed against it, willing it to turn. It would not budge. Panic blurred her vision. She let go, wiped her eyes, and brushed her hair out of her face. Then tried again. This time the key turned so easily the lock could have been oiled. Alice wrenched the padlock off the door, twisted the handle, and stumbled inside with Toby at her heels. The wind sucked the door shut behind them with a loud slam.
The windowless interior of the shed was pitch black. Toby growled. Alice reached through the darkness to comfort him. She was deafened by the rush of blood beating in her ears and the howling ferocity of the windstorm. Seedpods from the poinciana tree beside the shed rained down in sharp succession, like a clatter of tin slippers dancing across the roof.
The air was pungent with kerosene. Alice groped around until her fingers touched a lamp on the workbench. She knew the shape of it; her mother kept a similar one inside the house. Next to it was a box of matches. An angry voice bellowed through her mind. You shouldn’t be in here. You shouldn’t be in here. Alice cringed, yet still slid the matchbox open. She felt for the tip, struck it against the rough flint and smelled sulphur as a quick glow of fire filled the air. She held the match to the wick of the kerosene lamp and screwed the glass top back onto the base. Light spilled across her father’s workbench. In front of her, a small drawer was ajar. With a shaking finger, Alice slid it open. Inside was a photograph and something else Alice couldn’t see properly. She took out the photo. Its edges were cracked and yellow but the image was clear: a rambling, resplendent old house covered in vines. Alice reached into the drawer again for the second object. Her fingertips brushed against something soft. She drew it out, into the light: a lock of black hair tied in faded ribbon.
An almighty gust rattled the shed door. Alice dropped the hair and photo as she swung around. There was no one there. It was just the wind. Her heart had just begun to slow when Toby lowered on his haunches and growled again. Shaking, Alice lifted the lamp to illuminate the rest of her father’s shed. Her jaw went slack; there was a strange jellying in her knees.
Surrounding her were dozens of wooden sculptures, ranging from miniatures to life size, all of the same two figures. One was an older woman, caught in various poses: sniffing a gum leaf, inspecting pot plants, lying on her back with one arm bent over her eyes and the other pointing upwards; another held the bowl of her skirt, filled with flowers Alice didn’t know. The other sculptures were of a girclass="underline" reading a book, writing at a desk, blowing the seeds off a dandelion. Seeing herself in her father’s carvings made Alice’s head ache.
Version after version of this woman and girl filled the shed, closing in around the bench. Alice took slow and deep breaths, listening to her heartbeat. I’m — here, it said. I’m — here. If fire could be a spell that turned one thing into another, so too could words. Alice had read enough to understand the charms that words could possess, especially when repeated. Say something enough times and it would be so. She focused on the spell beating in her heart.
I’m — here.
I’m — here.
I’m — here.
Alice turned in slow circles, taking in the wooden figures. She remembered reading once about an evil king who made so many enemies in his kingdom he created an army of clay and stone warriors to surround him — except clay is not flesh and stone is neither heart nor blood. In the end, the villagers the king was trying to protect himself from used the very army he created to crush him while he was sleeping. Prickles ran up and down Alice’s back as she recalled the words she’d read earlier. Fire requires friction, fuel and oxygen to combust and burn.