Candy looked at the ceiling again, thinking about Alice, Agnes and Clem’s silent daughter, caught in her own world of memories, sifting through them, trying to understand what had happened to her life. Candy had overheard June telling Twig the story: Clem had beaten Alice unconscious, and Agnes’s pregnant body wore bruises that told a similar story. What sort of coward did that? What kind of beast had he become? And what now of Clem’s baby son, Alice’s brother?
She pushed the questions away. Ran the pad of her thumb over the pendant, focusing on the language of the vanilla lily: ambassador of love. Since June’s great-grandmother Ruth Stone created a flower farm from drought-stricken land in the nineteenth century, Thornfield’s motto had remained the same: Where wildflowers bloom. It was the one thing Candy and every other woman who came to June for safety knew to be true.
As she readied herself for bed, Candy wondered if Alice knew yet, in even the smallest way, that no matter where she’d come from, or what had happened to her, she had come home.
9. Violet night shade
Meaning: Fascination, witchcraft
Solanum brownii | New South Wales
A member of the nightshade family, often toxic. Commonly associated with death and ghosts in folklore. Latin name comes from ‘solamen’ meaning to quieten or comfort, and refers to the narcotic properties of some species. Used as food plants by the larvae of some butterflies and moths.
Alice bolted upright in bed, dry retching. Her skin was covered in cold sweat. In her dreams ropes of fire were choking her. As the heat began to fade from her face, she lay back on her damp pillow, squinting in the glare of the morning light. Candy’s letter lay crumpled beside her. Alice picked it up and traced a fingertip over the curls of the handwriting. The dream fire had been different this time. It was blue. The colour of her name, of Candy’s hair, and a woman’s gown turned into an orchid by grief.
She tried to stop the tears, but they came anyway, signalling Harry like a whistle. He padded into her bedroom, his collar tinkling, and nudged her bare knee with his wet nose. His vast size made her feel safe.
Alice closed her eyes and pressed her fingers over them, hard, until it hurt. When she opened them her vision was full of black stars. As they cleared, she noticed someone had been into her room and set out clothes and a tray of breakfast on her desk. Harry licked the side of her face. Alice half-smiled at him and got up.
Laid over the back of the chair was a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Socks and knickers were folded on her desk, and her boots sat neatly on the floor. There was also a broad-brimmed hat, and a little apron just like the one the Flowers wore. Someone had embroidered her name in azure thread on the pocket. Alice ran her fingertips over the stitched lettering. It was the colour she imagined the queen’s gown in Candy’s favourite story. The thought of waiting so long for love to return that you could turn into something else made Alice’s head hurt.
She reached for a slice of peach from the tray and popped it in her mouth. Her cheeks ached from its sweet juice. After another slice, she wiped her hands on her pyjama bottoms and picked the T-shirt up. It was the kind of cotton that felt like it had been worn a thousand times already. Her mother used to have one just like it. Alice loved to wear it to bed after Agnes had worn it long enough for it to smell of her.
‘Morning.’
June stood at the door. Harry snuffled happily. Alice’s hair hung over her face. She made no move to push it behind her ears as June stripped the bed again and left the room wordlessly. She came back up the stairs moments later, slightly out of breath, carrying a clean set of sheets. Shame burned Alice’s cheeks. Leaning against her, Harry licked the tears from her face. June’s knees popped as she crouched next to Alice.
‘It won’t always feel this strange, Alice,’ she said. ‘I promise. I know you’re hurting, and I know everything is new and frightening. But this place will look after you, if you’ll give it half a chance.’
Alice lifted her head to look at June. For the first time, her eyes weren’t far away, on the horizon. They were right there, close and full, focused on Alice.
‘I know everything seems pretty awful now, but it will get better. You’re safe here. Okay? No more bad things are going to happen.’
The longer Alice looked at June, the faster her heart beat in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut. It grew hard to breathe.
‘Alice? Are you okay?’ June’s voice started to sound like she was far, far away. Harry paced around them, barking.
Alice shook her head. Memories broke apart inside her. Before Thornfield, before the hospital, before the smoke and ash. Back further, before.
Inside her father’s shed.
The carved wooden figures of a woman and a girl with flowers.
June’s lips were moving but Alice couldn’t hear her properly. Everything sounded as if she was underwater, sinking and floating at the same time, looking up at June through the filter of the sea. Her face swam in Alice’s vision, except for a fleeting moment when she was perfectly clear.
Finally, Alice recognised her.
June: her expressions, her hair, her posture, her smile. Alice had seen them before.
She struggled to breathe.
June was the woman her father carved over and over again in his shed.
June whipped her Akubra off the hook by the front door, jammed it onto her head, and grabbed her keys from the sideboard. She raced outside and down the front verandah steps, squinting against the glare of the morning as she strode to her truck. Yanking the door open, she yelped in surprise to see Harry inside. He’d just been upstairs with Alice, but there he was sitting to attention with his tail curled around his feet, staring at her.
‘You bloody escape artist,’ June muttered. ‘You never fail to amaze me.’ She ruffled his big ears. As she climbed into the truck, she broke out in a cold sweat recalling the look on Alice’s face upstairs; the recognition deep in her eyes. June tried to settle her shaking hands, having to make three attempts before she got her key into the ignition. She patted down her pocket and pulled out her flask for a quick swig.
‘June,’ Twig called from the front door.
She quickly slipped her flask back into her pocket. The whisky burned as it went down.
Twig hurried to the truck and stood at June’s window, waiting. They hadn’t exchanged more than clipped sentences since Alice arrived. June braced herself for another flare-up in their ongoing argument, which was becoming the kind that either ends old friendships or makes them stronger. They’d had some doozies over the decades, but here they were in the middle of another, still pulling together. As family was meant to do.