Lulu stood in the dark at her back fence, watching the beam of the torch she’d given Alice bounce down the dirt road between their houses. When Alice’s torchlight waved, Lulu clicked hers on and waved until she saw Alice’s flick off. She walked back through the yard to her house. The splatter of water came from the bathroom. Aiden was in the shower. She cleared away the dirty dishes and empty Corona bottles with soggy slices of lime at the bottom, waiting for him to finish before she filled the sink.
There was nothing left of dinner. Lulu had made fish tacos using her abuela’s recipe, which had travelled around the world from Puerto Vallarta in Mexico with her when her abuela fled an arranged marriage. The secret to her spices was fresh cocoa. Always. Even if only a pinch. And it worked. Alice ate like a hungry dog, cleaning her loaded plate three times and necking beers until she wore the dozy smile of satisfaction that Lulu strived for whenever she cooked. Just one of the things her abuela taught her.
It was also Lulu’s abuela who taught her she had prevision. Just like me, she’d say knowingly. Foresight ran in the women of their family, an unbreakable thread through generations, to see danger before it arrived; to see trauma when it was hidden; to see love before it bloomed. Trust yourself, Lupita, her abuela used to say, looking deep into her eyes. This is why we named you ‘Little Wolf’. Your instincts will always guide you, like the stars.
Lulu was twelve when her abuela died. Afterwards, Lulu’s grief-stricken mother banished their traditional ways. She cleansed their home of shadow boxes and rosary beads. No chilli chocolate, no sugar skulls. No fire, no spice. No folktales. No monarch butterflies. No foresight. But Lulu’s visions didn’t stop. Her mother took her to a doctor in the city. Overactive imagination, the doctor said with a smile as he gave Lulu jelly beans, and her mother a referral to an optometrist. Lulu was prescribed glasses. Are they gone? her mother asked, eyes brimming with desperation. Lulu pushed her new glasses up her nose and nodded. She never again told anyone about her visions. Instead she spent nights by her window, whispering to her abuela in the sky.
As Lulu grew up, the visions grew stronger. At the sound of someone’s laugh, the smell of rain, the way light fell, or the sight of a flower, a curtain in Lulu’s mind drew back and there it would be, a slice of someone else’s life. Don’t be afraid, her abuela told her. This is your gift, Lupita.
Years later, Lulu’s visions continued though rarely made sense — a strange woman running along a beach, an unknown boy setting a paper boat into the sea, a house of flowers engulfed in fire — but Lulu experienced them as vividly as any memory of her own.
Three weeks before Alice arrived, Lulu had been on her back patio, potting seedlings, when the curtain drew back and a torrent of monarch butterflies swarmed through her, the sensation of their wings fluttering so strongly in her body she lost her balance. That afternoon, when Lulu pulled up outside Alice’s house and saw up close the monarch butterfly stickers on the sides of Alice’s truck, she’d heard her abuela’s voice. Guerrero del fuego. Fire warrior. Lulu had never been able to connect a vision to someone she knew. Until she met Alice Hart.
‘Lu?’ Aiden came down the hall, towelling his wet hair.
‘Sorry?’ She turned to look at him.
‘I asked if Alice got home okay?’
Lulu nodded. While she talked to Aiden often about her abuela, Lulu never told him, or anyone else, about the foresight. She’d tried a couple of times but could never find words that felt true, so in the end she outright lied. Aiden consequently thought vertigo was hereditary in Lulu’s family and often asked if she was getting enough rest, or eating enough to keep her blood sugar up.
He slung his towel over the back of a dining chair and went to the cupboard.
‘Alice seems pretty great,’ he said. ‘Sounds like Dylan made his classic impression, though.’ He took down a wine glass, and the bottle of red they’d opened the night before.
‘Yeah,’ Lulu agreed. Dread spread through her as she thought of the way she’d seen Alice looking at Dylan.
‘Does she know he’s got a girlfriend?’ Aiden poured a glass of wine.
Lulu ran the sink, added too much dishwashing liquid. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Maybe you should mention it?’ Aiden asked.
‘It’s not my place, mi amor.’ Lulu turned the taps off. Kept her back to him.
‘Reckon it’s precisely your place, my love,’ he replied. Lulu sunk her hands into the hot, soapy water, washing a plate clean. If only past mistakes were as easy to wash away.
‘She seems a bit sad though,’ he said, gently nudging Lulu away from the sink to take over. He gestured towards the glass of wine. Lulu dried her hands and took a sip.
Their conversation lulled. Lulu wandered to the back door with the wine glass. Put her hand on the latch.
‘Say g’day to your grandmother for me,’ Aiden called. She smiled at him gratefully.
Outside, the night was warm and silver, the sky thick with stars and the light of a waning moon. Dogs howled in the distance. Lulu sat on the dune at the back of their yard and sipped her wine. The red dirt was cool and fine. She picked up a handful and let it run through her fingers as she looked through the silhouettes of desert oaks towards the lit windows in Alice’s house. Flames fluttered through her mind; fire-coloured butterflies.
After a while she swivelled slowly in the other direction until she was facing Dylan’s house. Its shadowy bulk sat dark and silent. A movement in the shadows caught her eye. Lulu watched, taking a shaky sip of her wine. The memory of his cologne flooded her senses.
21. Sturt’s desert pea
Meaning: Have courage, take heart
Swainsona formosa | Inland Australia
Malukuru (Pit.) are famous for distinctive blood-red, leaf-like flowers, each with a bulbous black centre, similar to a kangaroo’s eye. A striking sight in the wild: a blazing sea of red. Bird-pollinated and thrives in arid areas, but very sensitive to any root disturbance, which makes it difficult to propagate.
In the pre-dawn light Alice and Pip wound through the bushes to the back gate. Pip wagged her tail, her nose bent to the ground, following scents. They headed up, over the sand dune, and down the other side to the fire trails, as Aiden had told her the tracks around Parksville were called. They’re breakers, he’d said. To stop the flames jumping if there’s ever a bushfire. Alice had nodded, trying to look interested, but her insides went cold. She’d taken a long slurp of beer to wash away memories of smoke and fire.
Talking with Aiden while Lulu cooked, Alice had been transfixed by their company and home: Lulu’s husky laugh, the sizzling tacos, the brightly painted pots of aloe vera and green chilli, shelves of books, framed prints of Frida Kahlo self-portraits. Alice was consumed by a sense of longing, though for what exactly she wasn’t sure. Going back to her mostly empty, bleach-scented house was sobering. She’d gone to bed yearning for coloured walls, glossy pots, and books to fill her empty shelves.
Alice and Pip walked through a huddle of desert oaks and reached the ring road. They crossed and slipped into the bush, joining the trail that zigzagged up the wall, disappearing over the top.
‘C’mon, Pip.’
The sky was starting to lighten. Her boots crunched loudly on the grit.
By the time the two of them reached the viewing platform, the neck of Alice’s T-shirt was ringed with sweat. Pip flopped onto her side, panting hard. Black flies buzzed around Alice’s face. She swatted at them as she took in her surroundings. On either side of the platform, ochre walls peeled up and away, a circular wave of rock gouged from the earth by violent impact. At the centre of the crater, in a perfect circle, was a wild garden of blooming desert peas, a mother’s heart, a rippling sea of red. There was a surprising covering of lime-green grass on the crater floor. Kututu Kaana was more staggering than Alice had imagined; it was every story she had ever read or heard or imagined about an oasis in the desert.