Death faced me and if it was victorious I would never know ou the life Joss had promised me. I could see two roads stretch-ring out before me-one ended abruptly in death and the other was full of exciting twists and turns which life with Joss ‘, would be. I should long ago have started down that road.
Why had I been such a fool as to fear it ? Oh, where are you now. Joss? I wondered. I want us to start to live. now.
Where would it end? He was off on a false trail, hunting for Jeremy Dickson who was no doubt sitting in his Sydney office discussing the properties of certain stones which had recently been found in the Fancy mines. Mrs. Laud was remembering.
“Everything is ready. It’s in the garden … I shall bury you ( there and no one will think to look. I shall hide your travelling bag and some of your clothes will be missing.”
“You couldn’t do it, Mrs. Laud. Think what happened to Ezra Bannock’s purse. The Flash wasn’t very clever about that, was it?”
“I told you that it did not want that. It was where I went wrong. I wouldn’t mock it, if I were you. It’d never forgive you. It was warning me then. It was saying: ” Bury her deep. No one must find her like she found the purse . “
“Still you were wrong about the purse.”
“It was meant as a warning to me. It was a preparation for this. That’s how it happens sometimes.”
“It seems strange to be sitting here discussing my burial.”
“What are you getting at, Mrs. Madden? You’ve always been one for a joke. But this is no joke. I shall tell them that you have the Green Flash, that you showed it to me, that I tried to persuade you to give it up. That you’ve gone right away with the Flash.”
“It wouldn’t be possible. Unless you are going to kill Wattle and bury her too.”
“Oh no. You’ll have gone away with someone who came for you. He brought horses and you rode away together.”
“Jeremy Dickson, I suppose.” That could do for a start. “
“And when he comes back?” The Flash will know. Why don’t you go to sleep? It’s better if you do. Then we can get it over “I’m not going to sleep.”
“You must. You can’t help it.”
She was wildly fanatical. I saw the greed in her eyes and I thought:
This stone has done this to her. She means to do exactly what she has told me. This stone ruined my mother’s life and now I may well die because of it. I have seen it and that is enough, for I understand what it can do. There is evil in it and it has taken possession of this woman.
I gripped the table. Waves and waves of weariness swept over me. I tried not to think of the softness of a feather bed and downy pillows.
I thought of death and Joss’s coming back and finding me gone. Would he really believe that I had gone off with Jeremy Dickson . and later when Jeremy returned, with some person unknown . taking with me the Green Flash?
Others had been possessed by that stone. Would he believe that it could happen to me?
I must stay alive. I was fighting for my life as I had never fought for anything. I must remind myself that all that stood between joss and me and our exciting future was a madwoman.
I heard myself saying over and over again: “You could never do it…”
I saw her face as though it floated before me . the mask down . the madness of the possessed, and I knew that her very madness would give her the powers she needed.
The scene in this room was getting more and more remote. I felt that I was outside looking in on the actions of others: myself limp and lifeless being dragged to a spot in the garden where the sandy loose soil encroached on the cultivated part. It would be easy to bury me quickly there and later she would make ,a better job of it. She would give me a deeper grave. She would take my clothes away and hide them . I saw Joss returning from the hunt for Jeremy Dickson which would prove fruitless. How could it be otherwise when he was working in Sydney? I could see his anger, his fury, his wounded pride. How. he had hated to be repulsed by me! How he had retaliated by wounding me through Isa Bannock!
And now he would believe that I had deceived him. How could he? Her plan could not work. With whom should I have gone off? There was no one who could possibly be suspected.
Yet who would believe that the quiet unassuming housekeeper could be capable of such diabolical plans? But it was not really this one. It was the devil which possessed her. I; I heard myself murmuring: “No … no .. no …” hap The minutes were ticking by.
“Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo …” said the silly little bird in out her dock. I could hear the cuckoos going on and on in my tur head, as I felt myself slipping away. But every time I brought myself back. I s. She was getting worried.
“I don’t understand this. You should be off by now.”
“My will-power is stronger than your drug, Mrs. Laud.”
“Why,” she said, ‘anyone would think you had the Hash. “
“It is mine … by right. I share it jointly with my husband. Perhaps it knows that.” I saw the real fear in her eyes.
"Yes" I went on.
“It knows. See how it shines for me. It cc knows it is mine.”
“No, no. I’ve had it all this time. It’s not the one who owns it by law. It was meant to be mine. I’d never had anything very much before but with the Flash I had everything. It’s possession that counts. All this time ifs worked for me.”
“But not against me, Mrs. Laud. You made an accident for Tom Paling. You killed Ezra Bannock. You lured me to the stairs but see how I saved myself.
Then you tried the mine a and I was rescued. “
Her face had turned a pale grey.
You see,” I went on, ‘the Flash won’t hurt me because I’m’s the true owner. It’s mine, Mrs. Laud.”
"I'll never give it up. never,” she screamed.
“Look, Mrs. Laud, it’s only a piece of opal… silica deposited at some time in the rock. How can you attach special powers to that?”
She looked at me as though she did not understand what I was talking about.
“It’s done you a great deal of harm,” I went on.
“Don’t you see?” She stared at me blankly.
Oh, thank you. God, I prayed, I’m fighting off my sleepiness. I’m going to do it. I’m going to live. Keep her talking. Keep remembering that Joss is waiting for you and you are going to start to live as you never have before.
“You’ve become obsessed by a stone … by a legend … you’ve built all this up in your mind, but it doesn’t really exist.”
“How dare you call it just a stone. You haven’t lived with it. You haven’t held it in your hands. Look now …”
“Yes, let me see it. Let me hold it in my hands.”
She shook her head craftily.
“Oh no. You can see it from where you are. Look at it. It’s the sun going down into the sea. If you look closely you might catch a sudden flash of green. That’s what the sun does and that’s what my Green Flash does too.”
I was alert suddenly. I thought I heard sounds from below.
Someone was coming. I looked at her, but she was staring at the opal absorbed in the wonder of it and her own beliefs.
Waves of relief were sweeping over me. I believed I had won.
The door was flung open. Joss was there. Someone else was with him. It was Jimson.
Jimson cried out in a voice of anguish: “Mother.”
She stood up, her eyes on her son.
“You’ve brought him back,” she screamed. "Lilias did it before . and now you. My own children." “She stood up clutching the stone."