Thyla. Part 4

I felt my cheeks colour. It was was weird to not know if you had a suitor. I chastised myself and vowed to be more mindful in my future conversations. weird to not know if you had a suitor. I chastised myself and vowed to be more mindful in my future conversations.

'It's not weird,' said Claudia, soothingly. 'There have been heaps of times in my life when I haven't really known if a boy was my boyfriend. They can be pigs sometimes, can't they, Tessa?'

I nodded, yawning as I did so and Amy snapped, 'Sorry for keeping you up, Tessa.' She flicked her streaky blonde hair over her shoulder and looked at Inga, who rolled her eyes.

'She's had a big day,' Claudia said, touching me gently on the arm.

It was true. I'd had a big day. I was tired. But, later, when I was lying on my side on my new bed, in my new room, in my new school, sleep seemed a million miles away.

My new roommate was not in her bed. She was away on a bushwalking trip. Ms Hindmarsh had told me this when she showed me to my room, earlier in the evening, but still, I was disappointed. I wanted to meet her.

Ms Hindmarsh told me that her name was Rhiannah. This cheered me. I a.s.sumed (and secretly hoped), that there was only one Rhiannah, the one Charlotte had introduced me to, the one with the black hair and the pretty bangle. I remembered Charlotte calling her strange, but Rhiannah seemed nice to me. I thought she would make a pleasant roommate.

'Rhiannah is a bit of a nature nut,' Ms Hindmarsh had explained. 'Loves the bush.'

'Me too,' I said, again without thinking, and the next words to come into my mind were, How do you know that, Tessa? How do you know that, Tessa?

Ms Hindmarsh didn't ask how I knew that, though. She just squeezed my shoulder and said, 'Great! Well, you'll have lots to talk about, won't you? I really hope you get along. I would, ideally, have liked you to bunk down with one of the prefects, but they all have roommates already, and I wouldn't like to cause disruptions to their lives and routines. They're all very conscientious students, and I'm aware that disruption can be detrimental to academic progress.'

'Rhiannah didn't mind being disrupted?' I asked. 'She didn't mind her other roommate moving out?'

'Her other roommate had ... already gone,' said Ms Hindmarsh, and a curious darkness settled on her face. I remembered what you said, Connolly, about Ms Hindmarsh's husband being 'gone'. You hadn't said 'dead'. Just 'gone'. There seemed to be so much uncertainty in that word so much emptiness, as though the word was made of air. Rhiannah's roommate was 'gone'. Ms Hindmarsh's husband was 'gone'. My parents were 'gone'. Cat was 'gone'. They were like leaves, blown quietly away by a summer breeze. I didn't know what to say to Ms Hindmarsh. I wanted to tell her I would help to find her husband too, but I knew my first priority was to find Cat. Maybe one would lead to the other.

As quickly as the darkness appeared, brightness came again and Ms Hindmarsh smiled. 'Anyway, Tessa, make yourself at home,' she said, as she opened the door to room 36. 'I know you don't have many things with you but I'm sure you'll settle in soon and find some way to make it yours.'

I looked around the room. 'Does Rhiannah not have many "things" either?' I asked.

The room looked very comfortable, but its furniture and decorations were decidedly minimal. The furniture consisted of two beds with thick charcoal-coloured quilts and dark pillows, two armchairs, a black box which I took to be some sort of electronic equipment (the operation of which I would have to sneakily ascertain at a later time), a deep-red rug on the floor, two small wooden bedside tables, two charcoal reading lamps, a wood-framed mirror on the wall, two tall wooden wardrobes and a strange, misshapen black splodge in the corner.

'A beanbag,' Ms Hindmarsh said, as if reading my mind. 'For your guests to sit on. I'm afraid we couldn't quite spring for three armchairs per room, and a beanbag is more comfortable than a plastic chair, I suppose. I don't know; it was the interior decorator's idea.'

A 'beanbag'?

The word squeezed into my mind with the other words, but it looked uncomfortable there. As if it wasn't sure of its place or purpose. As if it knew knew it looked a bit funny and silly. it looked a bit funny and silly.

I wondered whose idea it was that chairs were a less than ideal apparatus for sitting on, and that a wonky, bean-filled splodge might be a more sensible idea. The thought made me smile. I wondered if the gentleman who had created it was now very rich and famous, like the man who invented the refrigerator, or mechanical sheep clippers!

My eyes moved away from the funny beanbag to other features of the room. There was one picture on the wall a painting of a Tasmanian devil. The image looked as though the creature might be slightly fearsome, but I didn't feel scared by it. In fact, I thought it was strangely beautiful.

'Yes, she does love her devils,' said Ms Hindmarsh when she saw me looking at the picture. 'But she calls them purinina purinina, which is the Aboriginal name for them.'

Purinina.

That was the word that had been trying to squeeze into my head before, when I was talking to Rhiannah.

Strange that the word I had been trying to think of would turn out to be the name of Rhiannah's favourite thing.

'She's always drawing them in art cla.s.s,' Ms Hindmarsh went on. 'And she helps out at the market, selling scarves and badges and things to raise money for them. It's very important to her. Maybe you can talk to her about it? I'm sure she'd love to tell you. I hope you'll be happy here with her, Tessa.'

Later, staring through the darkness at Rhiannah's empty bed, I hoped so too.

And niggling in the back of my mind was another hope.

If Rhiannah liked bushwalking, maybe she knew Cat. Maybe she was there on the bushwalk when Cat went missing. Maybe she knew something about what happened.

I wondered if she might tell me what she knew, and if it might be the first clue to finding Cat.

I also wondered about the pair of s.h.i.+ny brown hiking boots sitting neatly side by side beside Rhiannah's bed. If Rhiannah was on a bushwalk, why hadn't she taken her boots with her? I pictured her, running through the trees, barefoot and wild. My stomach pulsed with yearning.

It was too hot in the room. It was like the hospital heated far too well, though n.o.body else ever seemed to notice. I was sweating.

I looked over at the window on Rhiannah's side of the room. The crack in the dark-red curtain gifted me a beguiling glimpse of the cool night sky. I felt the hairs on my back stand up; my pulse quicken. I wanted to jump out. I wanted to run through the playground, through the sporting fields, through the high metal gates and away, into the bush that surrounded Cascade Falls, into the trees and moss and bracken and dirt and rocks and wild water.

I padded across the room and perched on the corner of Rhiannah's armchair. I pressed my hand against the window. It was cool to my touch.

I opened it just a little bit, and then turned the latch backwards to lock it. I didn't want my instincts to take over my logic; to allow my body to follow my longing to push the window wide open and leap. I knew my instincts to be powerful. In the days since I had been rescued I had, many times, felt compelled to do things my brain told me were illogical or even dangerous. I remembered biting the nurse. I remembered the fire that sometimes smouldered in my belly, crackling and simmering, making me want to run away from the hospital and into the wilderness. I knew I was capable of madness. I didn't want it to compel me out of the window.

Despite my initial misgivings, I liked my room, my school, my new life.

I didn't want to leave.

But the night air was intoxicating.

I breathed it in and it seemed to fill not only my nostrils but my entire body, from my scalp right down to my toes. It smelled of wet gra.s.s and bark and dirt and something else. Something without words. Something wild wild.

I wanted to roll in the dirt. I wanted to hurtle through the trees. I wanted to sniff things. sniff things.

I wondered if the other girls felt these urges, or if they were unique to me. I could not imagine Charlotte Lord wis.h.i.+ng to leap out of a window. I wondered if the old me the one before my accident would have just leapt without thinking.

My body pulsed and shuddered and I willed it to still. Something told me I needed to control myself if I was to fit in here at Cascade Falls.

And if I was to find Cat.

A voice whispered inside my mind. Howl Howl, it hissed. Bay. Growl. Bay. Growl.

'No,' I whispered out loud. 'I am in control.'

The words felt familiar, like a mantra or a hymn. I was certain I had said them before. But what had I needed to control? This same burning, fevered desire to break out? What had I been trapped in before? What was I trapped in now now?

I stretched out my fingers against the gla.s.s and allowed my eyes to blur. It seemed like my hand was part of the sky. Then, as I watched, half-squinting, my fingernails seemed to lengthen, my fingers curled up ...

Like paws. I gasped, blinking quickly, and looked closely at my fingers. They were normal. An eerie, unsettled feeling remained.

I looked up at the sky, letting it soothe me. It was beautiful. I couldn't see much of it above the high stone walls, but it was enough. The stars were like glimmering specks of sand, and the moon was almost full. It looked like an apple that had been peeled on only one side.

'h.e.l.lo, moon,' I whispered, and my words flew out on the night air and up into the sky.

I didn't sleep very much that first night, but when I did, I dreamed again one of my odd, unsettling dreams.

I was floating in the sky overlooking a large building in the middle of a wide, green valley guarded by craggy hills.

As I slowly drifted down towards it, I saw that nestled in the valley was a thin snake of buildings coiling around flat, muddy courtyards. The courtyards reminded me of the yard out the front of Cascade Falls, where you had stopped your car, and the trees seemed familiar too. The buildings I knew also, but it was a hazy memory. I felt strangely as though I had seen them on our car journey and yet I knew they did not look like any of the buildings you pointed out to me.

They did not look like they were part of your world.

As I flew farther down, I saw a young girl sitting hunched against the wall of one of the buildings. She was dressed very differently from the girls here at Cascade Falls in a long pale cotton dress and a cloth cap.

Her head was bowed and her face was hidden by her long hair.

Her hands were grasping at the cloth of her dress, wringing it and then smoothing it out, over and over again.

She sniffed loudly and looked up, her face angled away from me and still obscured by hair. I could see only part of a cheek, slick with tears.

'Stop it!' she whispered. 'Stop crying! You don't cry!'

She rubbed at her face, roughly, then shook her head so suddenly that my dream self was startled. 'It's not true,' she said. 'It's not true. They're lying to me again. It can't be true. It's not true.'

She looked up and off to the left, and I could feel that another presence was there. I tried to turn and see who it was, but my eyes were fixed on the girl.

'Is it true? What they say? That she's gone?' she asked, her voice gritty. Then she shook her head again, her hair hanging in front of her face like a mourning veil.

'No!' she growled. 'No, it's not. It's not ...'

Sobs took her body captive, and she tried to rock herself free.

When she spoke again, all traces of her girlish voice had gone, and the sound was like a howl. 'Please,' she begged the invisible one. 'I'm all alone now. I have seen what you have done! I know what you can do! Do it to me. I will join you. I will help you! Please! If you don't take me with you ... if I am here alone, I will die. I am strong. I will prove it. I know you think I am weak, but that is only what she wanted you to think. She wanted to protect me, can't you see? I would have joined you long ago! Please don't leave me here like this!'

The girl pushed herself to her feet and I could feel the pain searing her palms as the jagged gravel bit and scratched them. She didn't seem to notice.

She walked quickly towards me, towards the invisible one, and as she did so, the edges of my vision began to blur. Shadows crept in and I began to drift away.

I was floating above her, far away, when I heard her final cry.

'Please!'

I was up in the sky now. The moon was full and plump and the stars gave me just enough light to see the girl. Another shape moved towards her; fast and taut and terrifying. It was a monster. Even from so far away, I could see that it was a monster, and I opened my mouth and let out a silent scream.

The girl didn't scream, though. She just stood there and watched as the monster leapt at her, and made her disappear.

I shook and shuddered, and the sky around me bubbled and quaked and then, all of a sudden, there was light, blinding and piercing and horrible, and I couldn't see anything any more.

And the air was full of my screaming.

When I opened my eyes, a pale face filled my vision.

Of course, I screamed blue murder! And, of course, the other girl screamed too. It would have seemed very comical from the outside. From the inside, it was wholly terrifying!

Then, the other girl stopped screaming and started laughing hysterically.

And then I recognised her face. 'Rhiannah?' I said.

She nodded. She was still laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her face. 'I'm so sorry, love. It's just ' She broke off as giggles took over again. Despite myself, I could feel the corners of my mouth begin to push upwards.

'What?' I said.

Rhiannah took a deep breath and opened her dark eyes wide. 'Right, Rin. Focus. Tessa, I'm sorry for scaring the c.r.a.p out of you. I didn't mean to. You were just making funny noises and I was worried. Sorry.'

Her lips twitched but she controlled them.

'It's okay,' I said. 'I think I was just having a bad dream.'

Rhiannah offered a hand to help me up. 'Whoa. That's some grip you've got there,' she said, shaking her hand. 'I noticed it yesterday. Did you do bodybuilding at your old school?'

I looked down at my hand, flexing it. I tried to ignore the memory of last night's hallucination; the one where my hands had become paws. My hands were normal. I had thought Rhiannah's grip strong as well. If my my strength was abnormal, then hers was equally so. strength was abnormal, then hers was equally so.

'Hey, it's okay. I'm just teasing,' said Rhiannah, smiling. 'I'm pretty fit myself. It's not a bad thing. You wanna tell me what your nightmare was about?'

I shook my head. Part of me wanted to tell her about the monster and the screaming but another part of me worried she might not understand. She was an ordinary girl. I was sure she did not dream of beasts and howling. My face flushed as I lied, 'I'm not really sure.'

Rhiannah grinned. 'Yeah, I have dreams like that all the time. Isn't it frustrating when you wake up and you can't remember a single thing? You okay now, roomie?'

'I'm okay now, roomie,' I replied. I liked the way the word felt in my mouth. It felt friendly. I couldn't imagine Charlotte Lord saying 'roomie'.

Rhiannah grabbed a bunch of her thick, dark hair and shoved it roughly behind her ear. I noticed that she had a small scratch on her forehead just below her hairline and a streak of mud above her nose.

'Did you hurt yourself on your bushwalk?' I asked.

'What?' Rhiannah's hand rushed to her forehead. 'Oh. Yeah, I guess so. Those bushwalks can get pretty rowdy!'

And right then I wanted to ask, 'How rowdy can they get? Was it rowdy on the day Connolly's daughter disappeared?'

But maybe it was too soon.

Maybe I should wait for a little while before I asked. Rhiannah seemed very nice, but I should get to know her a little bit better before I decided whether I could trust her.

Rhiannah grinned. Then she put a hand on my shoulder and said, 'Listen, mate, I'm sorry I wasn't here to, you know, welcome you to Casa Rhiannah and all.'