Girl in the Shadows

and

Resilience and coping strategies in

contemporary young adult fiction

(a novel manuscript and exegesis)

By Maree Kimberley

(Bachelor C.I. – Creative Writing QUT)

Creative Writing and Cultural Studies Discipline

Creative Industries Faculty

Queensland University of Technology

Submitted in fulfillment of Master of Arts (Research)

2009

Key terms

Resilience, Mental illness, Adolescent brain development, Trauma, Child abuse,

Coping mechanisms, Young adult literature, Creative writing, Thesis, Masters

ii Abstract

The novel manuscript Girl in the Shadows tells the story of two teenage girls whose friendship, safety and sanity are pushed to the limits when an unexplained phenomenon invades their lives. Sixteen-year-old Tash has everything a teenage girl could want: good looks, brains and freedom from her busy parents. But when she looks into her mirror, a stranger’s face stares back at her. Her best friend Mal believes it’s an evil spirit and enters the world of the supernatural to find answers.

But spell books and ouija boards cannot fix a problem that comes from deep within the soul. It will take a journey to the edge of madness for Tash to face the truth inside her heart and see the evil that lurks in her home. And Mal’s love and courage to pull her back into life.

The exegesis examines resilience and coping strategies in adolescence, in particular, the relationship of trauma to brain development in children and teenagers. It draws on recent discoveries in neuroscience and psychology to provide a framework to examine the role of coping strategies in building resilience.

Within this broader context, it analyses two works of contemporary young adult fiction, Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates and Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender, their use of the split persona as a coping mechanism within young adult fiction and the potential of young adult literature as a tool to help build resilience in teen readers.

iii Table of contents

Statement of Original Authorship v

Acknowledgements vi

Creative Work – a novel manuscript: Girl in the Shadows 1

Exegesis – Resilience and coping strategies in young adult fiction 257

Introduction 258

Section one: literature review 261

i. Brain development 261

ii. How trauma affects brain development 263

iii. Adolescence and the emergence of mental illness 264

iv. Resilience and coping strategies 266

Section two: case studies – the split persona 270

Section three: creative reflection – reconciling the split 277

Conclusion 284

Bibliography 286

iv

Statement of original authorship

This work has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this work contains no material previously published by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature: ______Maree Kimberley

Date: ______

v Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Associate Professor Sharyn Pearce, who encouraged my first attempts at writing for children and young adults while I was an undergraduate student, and who has always been a strong source of support and inspiration.

Thanks also to Dr Vivienne Muller for her wise words, support and encouragement.

Many thanks to Kelleigh Ryan who was a constant source of knowledge on all matters psychological and who pointed me in the right direction when I had no clue what I was looking for. Thanks also to Leah Meager Andersen for her support, encouragement, feedback and proof-reading skills, to my sister Claire Mason for always taking my characters seriously and to Judith Cheyne for her ongoing interest and support.

And of course, love and gratitude to my original and constant sources of inspiration, my children Jack and Taylor. They are the most important people in my life and have never given up on me even when I’ve been at my craziest.

vi

vii Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 1

Tash hovered her hands above the cards spread across the thick cream rug on her bedroom floor, her gold rings glinting under the crystal light.

The rest of us - me, Jules and Erin - sat sprawled behind Tash like bored back-up singers. We’d been at Tash’s since five, trying to pick a local artist to be the subject of our English doco assignment, and had already agreed on our favourite. But Tash couldn’t—or wouldn’t—decide.

I stretched out my cramped left leg and studied the patterns of pink and silver fake jewels edging the full- length mirror on Tash’s ensuite door.

Tash was the mirror queen. It was a sure thing that anywhere, anytime, you could catch Tash checking her reflection. Which, with her A-list looks, was always perfect. But even from the other side of the room I could see a redder-than-Mars pimple glowing on the side of my too long nose.

That’s the problem with mirrors. Look into one and it’ll show you the truth whether you want it or not.

‘Honestly, Tash,’ Jules picked at the black paint on her fingernails. ‘I know the assignment’s not due for five

1 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley weeks but we have to decide on the artist today or we’ll be behind schedule.’

‘This is 80% of our mark.’ Tash’s gaze didn’t move from the three cards. ‘I have to be sure.’

Erin lay back on the floor and pedalled her netballer’s legs in the air. ‘Please, Tash. Just pick one.’

Tash shook her head. ‘I need more time.’

‘What I need is coffee.’ Jules stood up and stretched.

‘Come on Tash, it’s time to take a break.’ I put my hands on her shoulders and started to massage.

She shrugged them off. ‘Not now, Mal.’

‘Girls, you’re losing per-spec-tive,’ Jules did a perfect imitation of Mr Fargus, our slightly insane Year 10 coordinator. We all cracked up, even Tash. She flopped forward over the cards.

‘You’re right, you’re right. Coffee and cake it is,’ she mumbled through her shiny veil of blonde hair.

‘Excellent decision.’ I dragged Tash to her feet and pushed her towards the door.

‘Isn’t it great just to hang out for a while without those stupid cards in front of us?’ Erin settled onto the floor cushion and blew on her coffee.

2 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I spread out on the carpet opposite her. ‘I vote we don’t talk about the assignment for the next thirty minutes.’

‘Count me in on that,’ said Jules.

We all looked at Tash as she walked back into her bedroom carrying a silver tray piled with food. ‘Sure.’ She smiled.

‘Except can I just say…’

I was about to run over and put my hand over her mouth but she continued ‘…this chocolate mud cake is to die for.’

She put the tray on her dresser, then spread a velvet cloth over her carpet and put the cake, plates and forks on top of it.

‘A bedroom picnic.’ Erin licked her lips. ‘This is exactly what I needed.’

Jules grabbed herself a slice of cake and stuck her fork into it. ‘Well, what I need is to know who was that guy that

Tash was pashing last night?’

‘Which one?’ Erin blurted. ‘I saw her with at least three.’

A flush of pink spread across Tash’s cheeks. ‘It was my birthday party. Every hot boy owed me a birthday kiss.’

‘What happened with Andrew?’ Jules raised her eyebrow.

‘Last week you couldn’t stop telling us about the hot

3 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley birthday date you had planned for Friday night, you and your older man.’

Tash’s cheeks darkened. ‘That’s over.’

‘I’m not surprised. Guys his age are so gross. What sort of thirty-year-old freak hangs out on myspace and goes out with a sixteen-year-old girl anyway?’

‘He’s twenty-eight.’ Tash’s gaze was fixed on the floor.

Jules rolled her eyes. ‘Same difference.’

Sometimes it was hard to work out if Jules was socially clueless or just enjoyed teasing Tash. It was obvious that the break-up with Andrew was not for discussion. I threw

Jules a ‘shut-the-hell-up’ look but it was only Erin shoving more cake into Jules’ open mouth that stopped the flow of questions.

Tash and I tell each other everything—we’ve been best friends for eight years—but when I’d asked her what went wrong with Andrew she wouldn’t talk about it. Her solution to whatever had happened was to pash every boy in sight at last night’s party, even Ben who’d been talking to me all night.

The sound of forks scraping on plates made the silence even more painful. We were stuck in a time-freeze of

4 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley embarrassment until Erin jumped up and went over to the bay windows. She pulled the curtains aside, leaning her dark curls against the window frame, looking up at the creamy three-quarter moon glowing above the city lights. ‘The moon is gorgeous tonight. Let’s go outside and run around naked under it.’

Even Tash smiled at that. ‘Erin, you really are crazy.’

‘It’s the moon that makes me that way.’ She waggled her fingers and fluttered them about Tash’s head. Tash grinned and batted Erin’s hands away.

‘I know.’ I ran into the en-suite and put on the new cream designer bathrobe Tash had got from her parents. It was so soft my skin almost melted into it.

‘I’m not going to dance naked but I’ll dance under the moon with you wearing this.’ I shimmied up against Erin and she giggled and twirled around me, waving her arms like a belly dancer. ‘If I had something like that I’d never bother dancing naked again.’

Jules jumped up and joined in Erin’s dance. ‘Now that’s something I never thought I’d hear you say.’

‘You’re not having my new bathrobe!’ Tash said through a mouthful of cake. ‘But Mum and Dad are going to Paris again in January. I’ll get them to buy you one, if you

5 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley like.’ She nodded at Jules and Erin. ‘And one each for both of you, too, if you want.’

Erin almost choked. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Sure, designer bathrobes for everyone,’ Tash posed her arms celebrity model style. ‘But that’s enough for now, dancing queens. Time to get back to work.’ She began to clear the plates off the cloth.

‘No way.’ Erin pointed at her watch. ‘We’ve got another fifteen minutes of break time.’

Jules folded her arms. ‘We promised ourselves thirty minutes and we’re having thirty minutes.’

‘Come on Tash,’ I crouched beside her, ‘if we wait another fifteen minutes your head will be clearer and it’ll be easier for you to decide.’

‘What are we going to do in fifteen minutes? We might as well get back to work.’

‘Only an A-grade study freak would say that,’ I sighed.

‘There’s heaps of stuff we could do.’

Tash gathered up the empty coffee cups. ‘Like what?’

Erin took a cup from Tash. ‘We could tell your fortune from the coffee dregs.’ She looked inside it. ‘Except we used instant.’

‘I could read everyone’s palm,’ I offered.

6 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘I thought you hadn’t finished reading the book yet,’ said Tash.

‘True, but I need practice.’

‘What about levitation?’ Jules rubbed her hands together and grinned. ‘I was reading about that last week. I reckon, if we concentrate, we can make it work.’

‘You reckon we can lift one of us into the air using mind power?’ Tash smirked. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What are you scared of, Tash? Something you can’t control?’

‘No.’ Tash’s spine stiffened. ‘It’s just I’d rather dance naked under the moon.’

The razor-wire of tension between Tash and Jules sprang up again. On instinct, Erin and I moved between them.

‘Too late for you to decide that now,’ said Erin.

‘Besides, dangling someone’s body in mid-air sounds like much more fun.’

‘Come on, Tash.’ Levitation was something I’d wanted to try for ages. ‘It won’t take long, then we get straight back to work.’

Erin and I begged together. ‘Please?’

‘Okay, fine.’ Tash rolled her eyes. ‘What do we do?’

‘You lie down on the carpet,’ said Jules. ‘We need to create a space.’

7 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Erin and I cleared the rest of the picnic stuff away while Jules lit some candles then turned off the light.

‘Get comfortable, Tash,’ said Jules. ‘You need to be totally relaxed.’

Tash squirmed into place on the rug, her toes facing the ensuite mirror. ‘That’d be a first.’

Erin sat on one side of Tash and Jules settled into position behind her head. I choked back a laugh as I wriggled into place opposite Erin.

‘Come on Mal, no laughing.’ Jules placed her hands either side of Tash’s head. ‘Close your eyes and focus.’

I let out my breath and relaxed my shoulders like I’d learnt off Mum’s yoga DVD.

‘Okay, I need you to relax and focus on being weightless.’ Jules’ voice softened to a whisper. ‘Imagine there is no gravity, you’re just an object floating around in space.’

She gazed at us through lowered eyes. ‘Slide two fingers from each hand under her body, then close your eyes and repeat after me: light as a feather, stiff as a board.’

Erin giggled.

‘Come on, guys. Concentrate.’

‘Sorry,’ said Erin. ‘I’ll try again.’

8 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Jules drew in a long, deep breath. ‘Okay now, one long breath in and out. Light as a feather, stiff as a board.’

We chanted the words softly.

‘Now focus on Tash’s lightness. Keep focusing and wait.’

Our breathing filled the room with soft silence. I imagined a clear, white space in my mind, a room empty except for a single, floating feather. My shoulders relaxed and my fingers tingled, then something shifted, like a thin chain snapping.

Tash sat up. ‘What was that?’

‘Stop being stupid,’ Jules tugged at Tash’s sleeve.

Erin pointed at the mirror on the ensuite door. ‘What’s that near the door?’

My heart crashed in my chest. Tash scrambled to her feet and moved towards the mirror. ‘What can you see?’

‘I’m not sure. It was just a shadow but I—Tash, are you all right?’

She crumpled to the floor.

Erin rushed to switch on the light and I grabbed Tash under her arms.

‘Erin, some water, quick! Jules, help me.’ I could feel

Tash’s body shivering as Jules and I half carried her to her bed.

9 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Here.’ Erin held a glass of water to Tash’s lips.

I brushed a few strands of damp hair off her face. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know, I just felt sick then everything went grainy. Next thing I was on the floor.’

‘Something was here, in the room, with us.’ Erin’s face paled. ‘You saw something, too, didn’t you?’

Tash twisted her old blue teddy in her hands. ‘I don’t know.

Maybe.’ Her voice was tight. ‘It was probably just light reflected off a candle.’

‘I didn’t see anything, but I did feel a…’ I looked at

Tash. Her face was a pale mask.

‘What did you feel?’ Erin’s eyes were bright with fear.

‘A presence?’

For a moment we were so quiet the sound of my breath echoed loud as crashing waves inside my head.

‘No… I don’t think so… just a weird sensation. I can’t explain it.’

‘Maybe the levitation attracted a restless spirit. We should try again,’ said Jules.

‘Are you crazy?’ Erin shook her head. ‘I am never doing that again.’

Tash sat up. ‘I told you we should have just got on with the assignment.’

10 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Jules glared. ‘We would get on with the assignment if you’d agree with us on an artist. Now you’re wasting more time with your little freak out.’

‘It’s not a freak out.’ Tash’s mouth was a thin white line.

‘What are you so spooked about then, Miss Superbrain?’

‘Erin’s spooked, not me.’

‘So that fainting spell was just another one of your stunts?’

Tash pushed past us into her bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

Jules gritted her teeth. ‘Sometimes it’s really hard to remember why we’re friends.’

‘Don’t, Jules.’ Erin flopped back on Tash’s bed. ‘I don’t know what happened but something did. I felt it. I reckon we all did, no matter what Tash says.’

Jules stormed over to her bag and starting chucking her things in. ‘The only thing I’m feeling is that, yet again,

Tash is getting her way by throwing a tantrum.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I stood and faced

Jules.

‘It means that I’m out of here. Tash isn’t interested in my ideas for this assignment anyway. She’ll do what she always does and take over the whole thing.’

11 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Tash flung open her ensuite door, her face blotchy from crying. She stared daggers at Jules. ‘Now, who’s throwing the tantrum, Jules?’

Jules threw her bag over her shoulder. ‘See you Mal,

Erin. Kiss my butt, Tash.’ She stalked out of Tash’s bedroom and stomped down the stairs.

Erin gathered up her things. ‘Looks like we not going to get anything more done tonight.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. She’ll have cooled off by then.’

‘Whatever.’ Tash threw herself down on her bed.

I shook my head and walked with Erin down the stairs to

Tash’s front door.

‘Sorry about that.’

‘You don’t have to apologise for her behaviour, Mal.’

‘Yeah, I know but…’ I shook my head. ‘I wish I knew what was going on with her sometimes. The last couple of weeks she’s been acting really moody.’

Erin raised an eyebrow. ‘More moody than usual?’

I chewed on my lip. ‘I know she’s not the easiest person to get along with sometimes, but yeah, she’s been super-tense, even for her.’

She gave me a hug. ‘Don’t stress about it. Tomorrow they’ll both see how stupid they’ve been acting and, as usual, they’ll just pretend that nothing’s happened.’

12 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I laughed. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’

‘You know I am.’

Erin opened the front door, then turned and put her hand on my arm. ‘Mal, I really did feel something up there. I don’t know if it was a spirit or what it was. But you know me, I don’t freak out over nothing. And no matter what Tash says, she felt it too. I could see it in her eyes.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ I closed the front door and leant my back against it, staring up to the light spilling from

Tash’s bedroom. The shadows from her glass chimes danced along the wall leading up the stairs, a band of thin, grotesque mutants.

I braced myself and walked up to Tash’s room.

‘What was that about?’

‘Jules is such a cow. Everything always has to be her way.’

I took in a deep breath. ‘She’s just frustrated that we haven’t picked an artist yet.’

Tash’s eyes challenged me. ‘Are you?’

‘Well, yeah, to be honest. I don’t know why you’re making it so hard when it doesn’t need to be.’

‘I’m just stressing.’

‘About what? We haven’t done anything except decide that we’re doing it on a local artist.’

13 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘That’s the problem. It’s got to be the right one.’

‘Does it really matter that much? They’re all local,

they’re all good and they’ve all got shows on at the moment.

You’re just creating the stress in your head.’

Tash sucked in her cheeks and stared at the floor.

‘C’mon Tash, what’s really bugging you? Did you feel something before?’

She snorted. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘But Erin reckons she did, and I did, too. Something

must have made you sit up.’

She rubbed the side of her cheek and turned her face

away from me. ‘I just want to go to sleep.’ She climbed into

her bed and pulled the covers up over her face.

I gritted my teeth and sat on the edge of her bed. ‘Is this

about Andrew?’

‘No.’ The covers muffled her voice but not her

distress. ‘Yes, maybe. But I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘What did he do to you?’

Tash pulled the covers down and took in a deep breath.

‘He… he’s just not who I thought he was. It’s over and I’m

glad. Okay?’ She stared at her fingers, then picked up her

old teddy and started mangling him again. ‘I wish Katie was

here. When she emailed for my birthday she still didn’t give

14 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley me her phone number or address. I’ve asked her but she says she can’t.’

I stroked her hair, not sure what to say.

‘Katie’s fights with Dad were so… they just messed me up and made me feel sick. I don’t miss the fights but…’She shook her head. ‘I just feel like I’m in this on my own.’

‘In what?’

‘I don’t know, everything. Life.’

‘You’ve always got me.’

‘I know, but it’s not the same.’

‘I’d better go.’ I gathered up my things. ‘Mum’ll be back from her date soon.’

‘I thought you were going to sleep over.’ She sat up and hugged her bear into her chest. ‘I don’t want to be on my own. Please stay?’

Dealing with Tash’s moods was like being stuck on a demented roller-coaster. But life with Tash had always been like one long crazy ride and I couldn’t think of a good reason to bail out now.

‘Okay,’ I shrugged. ‘If you really need me, I’ll stay.’

‘Can you lock the door?’

‘Are you sure?’ With what had just happened it seemed like a good idea to leave the bedroom door open.

15 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘You know I can’t sleep if my bedroom door isn’t locked.’

‘You’re the boss.’ I set the deadlock, then flopped on the bed beside her and hoped I hadn’t locked some restless evil spirit inside with us.

16 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 2

The late afternoon sun burnt the back of my neck as we waited outside the gallery for Tash to show up. She was already fifteen minutes late.

‘Can we just go inside where it’s air conditioned?’

Erin slumped against the wall and kicked at some old take- away wrappers.

‘She’ll be here in a second.’ I rang Tash’s mobile again but it went straight through to her messagebank. She’d warned us not to go into the gallery without her; said it was “important for the integrity of the assignment” that we saw the paintings for the first time as a group.

‘Give us a look at that email again?’

I handed Jules the crumpled piece of paper. She traced her finger down the page then peered in through the gallery window. ‘Louise de Piccolo, Dream Dialogues exhibition. Jack

Dunleavy was my first pick, but this work looks pretty interesting.’

Erin read the email over Jules’ shoulder. ‘Some critic said de Piccolo’s work is “disturbing and somewhat macabre”. She turned to us and grinned. ‘Sounds awesome.’

‘Hey!’ Tash waved at us from the top of the hill, and sauntered down, schoolbag slung over her shoulder.

17 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Jules rolled her eyes. ‘Make way for the queen,’ she hissed.

‘Jules,’ Erin poked her with her elbow.

My heart quickened. I wasn’t up for another Jules versus

Tash battle.

‘Thanks for waiting,’ Tash kissed me and Erin on the cheek and gave Jules a half-hearted hug. ‘Pick-face made me stay back to clean up.’

‘Let’s just get inside.’ Jules pushed open the gallery door and we followed her into the air conditioning where it was ten degrees cooler and a hundred degrees calmer. We wandered around the gallery, notepads in hand, taking down our first impressions of the work.

‘Powerful,’ murmured Jules. She stood in front of a huge painting that had two girls standing with their backs to us, arms around each other’s waists, in front of heavy, dark-red theatre curtains.

‘Powerful or petrifying?’ A shiver ran down my back. ‘I’m thinking there’s no cute puppy waiting back there for those girls.’

‘Powerful, in a watch-out-for-the-psychopath-behind-the- curtain kind of way.’ Erin stood between Jules and me. ‘I’m hearing horror-movie music crashing inside my head.’

18 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Good description. Like a still-life horror movie.’ Jules scribbled on her notepad. ‘I hate to admit it, but now that

I see these paintings, Tash picked the right artist.’

‘Wish they’d turn down the air conditioning.’ I rubbed the goosebumps on my arms. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

‘All part of the atmosphere, probably,’ Jules grinned and spidered her fingers lightly along Erin’s neck.

‘Ooh,’ Erin’s whole body shivered. ‘Stop that, you’re freaking me out.’

Our giggles echoed around the open spaces of the gallery. The woman behind the desk looked over her thick, black-framed glasses at us and frowned.

‘Worse than our school librarian,’ Jules bulged out her eyes and pulled her famous fish face. Erin clapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from snorting out loud while

I buried my head in my notepad and headed towards Tash. She was at the far end of the gallery, in front of a smaller painting.

Quiet descended on the gallery again. My shoes, soft on the gallery’s carpeted floor, barely made a whisper as I came up behind Tash and touched her on the shoulder.

‘Creepy, aren’t they?’

Tash jumped. ‘What?’

‘These paintings.’

19 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Yeah.’ She rubbed her arms and shivered. ‘See the shadow in the mirror there?’

‘What mirror?’ I stood back. The painting was of a bedroom empty except for an unmade bed and an old cupboard.

‘On top of the cupboard, there’s a broken piece of mirror. See the shadow in it?’

‘Oh yeah, I completely missed that at first.’ I went in for a closer look. The shadow cloaked the mirror’s edge then swept in an arc across the centre. ‘There’s evil in that there room, Billy-Sue.’

Tash ignored my lame hillbilly accent and stared at the painting as if mesmerised. ‘What do you think’s in that shadow?’ Her voice was low. ‘I think evil’s in the shadow.’

My stomach lurched as I forced a laugh. ‘Write that down, then, write that down in your notes.’ The creepiness of the paintings was getting to me. Bubbles of panic raced through my veins. ‘We can use that in the doco, for sure, maybe for the title. The doco’s gonna be great, we all love the paintings and even Jules said she’s really glad you made us pick this artist.’

But my chatter didn’t seem to enter Tash’s space. Small beads of sweat shone across the top of her forehead as she stared at the painting.

‘Tash, are you okay?’

20 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

She gripped my arm. ‘Let’s go.’

We’d only looked at half the exhibition but I was more than ready to get out of there. ‘Jules, Erin, coffee at

Stripey’s.’

‘But…’ Jules frowned and swept her hand around the gallery.

‘Come on, I’m dying for a latte,’ Erin put her arm around

Jules. ‘We can always come back for a second look.’

‘Whatever,’ Jules sighed and followed us out of the gallery and down the road to the café strip.

‘That was weird.’ I sunk into the comfy old couch opposite

Tash and grinned. ‘Good, but weird.’

‘Yeah. Me too.’ Tash looked straight past me, rubbing at the inside of her wrist.

‘Huh?’ Jules looked up from the menu. ‘You too, what?’

‘Are you okay, Tash?’ Erin touched Tash lightly on her

shoulder.

‘Of course.’ She shrugged off Erin’s hand. ‘Did you see if they have baked cheesecake today?’ Her eyes flicked up towards the mirror behind me.

I turned around. The big mirror on the wall, framed with fake zebra-striped fur, was my favourite.

21 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Are you checking your make up? Don’t worry darling, you look fabulous,’ I drawled. I reached across and patted her wrist. She pulled her hand away. Her eyes darted up to the mirror again.

I looked behind me. ‘Are you trying to avoid someone?’

‘She’s probably trying to hide from some guy,’ said

Jules.

‘No, as if.’ Tash rolled her eyes but she kept rubbing at her wrist.

‘Skinny lattes, ladies?’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled at the waiter as he put our coffees on the table. He smiled back. That was the other thing I liked about this café. The waiters were always hot.

‘Check out his sexy butt,’ I whispered.

Erin and Jules grinned. Tash stared at her coffee and poured two sugars into it.

‘Tash?’

‘What?’ she snapped, then shook her head. ‘Sorry.’ I’m just wondering if this is the right artist for the doco assignment.’ She fumbled around in her bag for her notebook.

‘Her work is a bit too out there. I don’t think she’d be easy to interview.’

Jules’ face crumpled into a volcanic frown. ‘You’re kidding, right? You’re the one who insisted we pick her.’

22 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Erin gave Jules a warning kick under the table. ‘I gotta admit she wasn’t my first choice, Tash, but when I got there I was glad you talked us into picking her.’

‘I didn’t talk anyone into anything.’ Tash gripped her coffee cup so tight I thought it would shatter in her hand.

Erin flicked me a concerned look. I stirred my coffee in slow circles, as if that action could magically clear the tension strung between us. ‘You did say she was the most interesting artist.’

‘And had the most potential for a killer doco proposal, remember? And you were right,’ Jules dropped her spoon and it clattered onto the table. ‘I absolutely loved her stuff.

We all did.’

‘So why do you want to change your mind now? Did you pick her because you thought we’d all hate her work and now your little plan has backfired? Is that the game you’re playing this time?’

‘I’m not playing games.’ Tash glared into her coffee, her face flushed red.

‘Whatever, Tash.’ Jules stared at the ceiling and did her exasperated dragon huff. ‘Can we just get on with the assignment?’

‘Here,’ Tash threw her notepad on the table. ‘You guys sort it out. I’ve got other stuff to do.’ She grabbed her

23 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley bag, sprang up from the sofa and was half way out the door before any of us had time to realise what she was doing.

‘Tash!’ I scrambled to my feet.

‘Let her go,’ said Jules. ‘She’ll get over it.’

‘She’s upset and she’s my best friend. I’m not going to let her run out like that.’

‘You know she’s just—’

‘Go after her, Mal. Jules and I can catch up with you later tonight.’ Erin raised her eyebrows at Jules. ‘Right?’

‘Right. We’ve all got to do what’s best for Queen

Natasha.’

Jules’ comment echoed in my head as I threw my bag over my shoulder and ran after Tash. I didn’t blame Jules for getting angry. Tash had tired us out with her arguments about why we should choose Louise de Piccolo as the artist for our assignment. In the end we’d given in because we knew she wouldn’t shut up if we didn’t. And now she was trying to talk us out of it. But I knew she wasn’t game playing or trying to get attention. Something was really worrying her.

I caught up with Tash just before our bus stop.

‘Wait.’

She bit her lip and kept walking, staring straight ahead.

24 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘I wish you’d talk to me.’ I linked my arm through hers. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Crap. You’re my best friend and I know when something’s wrong. Besides, we’re supposed to tell each other everything.’

We sat side by side at the bus shelter. I took her hands and turned them palm up. Across the top of her right wrist was a small scar with a faint trace of blue.

I shook my head. ‘Home made tattoos, what were we thinking?’

A small smile flitted across her lips. ‘I thought your mum was going to kill us when she saw us with the compass and pen.’

‘We’re lucky that poem we wrote didn’t kill us. It was so lame.’

Tash clasped her hands under her chin. ‘Best friends forever, going hand in hand, from the top of the highest mountain to the warm yellow sands.’

‘Don’t,’ I groaned and covered my ears. ‘We were such dorks in year 8.’

She turned her head sideways and struck a pose. ‘Dorks with attitude!’

25 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘And attitude is everything.’ I laughed and wiped a tear from my eye. ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’

‘Can’t now.’ She stood and picked up her bag. ‘Here’s our bus.’

I followed her onto the bus and we made our way towards the back. The guy in front of us turned and smiled.

‘You’re Tash, right? I met you at Zac’s party, remember?’

‘Yeah, sort of.’ Tash shrugged. ‘This is Malia.’

‘I’m Chris.’ He smiled at me. He had really nice white teeth. ‘Were you at the party, too?’

‘No, I think I was away that weekend,’ I lied. Mum never let me go to any party that wasn’t invite only.

‘Bummer. It was a good one.’ He smiled his white-teeth smile again but Tash turned her head towards the window. I stared at my hands and pretended to check my nails.

He leaned in closer to me. ‘Are you wearing coloured contacts?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t believe it. Those blue eyes can’t be real.’

Heat rose up the back of my neck. ‘I…ummm…’

Tash pressed the stop button. ‘We get off here.’

26 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Hey’, Chris put his hand on my arm. ‘I was wondering if maybe—’

‘Sorry,’ Tash tugged at my dress. ‘Have to go.’

‘He was hot.’ I stared at the back of the bus as it drove off down the street. ‘I don’t care what Mum says. Next time you’re going to a party, you have to come and kidnap me.’

‘I don’t trust that guy. Him and his mates at the party were acting like real dickheads.’

‘How?’

‘They were really pissed and mouthing off.’ She put her hands on her hips, thrust out her chest and screwed up her face. ‘Check me out, baby, I’m gonna be yo’ maa-aan.’ She swaggered and strutted around until I burst out laughing.

‘Come off it, Tash. They couldn’t have been that bad.

He seems like a really nice guy.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t as bad as the others. But some of his jock mates were real freaks. A couple of them were about to get this girl who’d passed out in one of the bedrooms but lucky someone saw them.’

‘Seriously? They were going to rape her?’

‘If they had the chance I reckon they would have, yeah.’

27 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘But not him, not Chris?’

‘No, it was some other guys from the football team.’

‘Just because he plays footy with them doesn’t mean he’s like them.’

Tash shrugged. ‘S’pose not.’

‘And he did say something nice about my eyes.’

‘Yeesss,’ she drawled, then stuck out her chin and fluttered her lashes. ‘Perhaps it’s luuurve.’

I giggled and slapped her on the back. ‘You’re such a nutcase.’ We were still laughing ourselves silly when Mrs

Steppa called out from across the road.

‘Malia, have you got a moment?’ She waved us over. ‘I promised your mum some lemons last time I saw her. Can you wait while I go inside and get them?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ I’ve known Mrs Steppa forever. Mum and I lived next door to her until we moved to the townhouse and when I was little she used to sneak me lollies over the fence.

I crossed the road and Tash followed.

‘What is it with you and old people?’ Tash leaned on the fence and studied her nails.

My neck prickled. ‘I’m just picking up some lemons for Mum.

We’ve known Mrs Steppa for ages, you know that.’

28 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Yeah, but old people are weird. They’re always talking about random stuff.’

I opened my mouth to answer but Mrs Steppa came around from the back with the bag of fruit.

‘Hi Mrs Steppa,’ Tash’s voice was so fake I wanted to strangle her but I satisfied myself by stepping on her toe.

‘You remember Tash, don’t you, Mrs Steppa?’

‘Of course I remember Tash.’ Mrs Steppa smiled. ‘You remind me of my Jenny when she was about sixteen with those long coltish legs of yours. And she had long blonde hair too.

‘These days she has short hair that changes colour every time I see her. I’m surprised you girls don’t colour your hair. I can see violet highlights suiting you, Malia.

And a strong colour for Tash. Red, I think.’

‘Ummm, yeah, thanks for these,’ I took the lemons.

‘We’d better get going.’

‘Of course, luvvie. Say hello to your Mum for me.’

‘Sure, bye.’

‘Bye,’ Tash sing-songed, then hissed, ‘like I’d take fashion tips from a wrinkly old woman.’

I strode down the hill. ‘You’re such a fake.’

‘Oh, Mal, don’t be mad at me.’ Tash flung her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. ‘You know you love me.’

29 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I shrugged her arm off my shoulder. ‘I don’t love the way you bitch about people but are nice to their face.’

‘I wasn’t bitching. I was making an observation about old people always talking about random stuff. And I’m right because she did.’

‘Like I’d take fashion tips from an old woman,’ I mimicked and shook my head. ‘You don’t think that’s bitching?’

‘It’s not bitching because she’s old and old people don’t count. Not for bitching, I mean.’

‘Old’s got nothing to do with it. I don’t like the way you’re nice to a person’s face and then turn around and are mean about them.’

‘Really?’ She stopped and folded her arms. ‘What else don’t you like about me?’

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about Tash right at that moment. Her bitchiness, her bossiness, her fakeness; her moods, tantrums and demands. The way she expected everyone to wait for her but wouldn’t wait for others. The way she expected me to back her up even when she was wrong. I turned my face away as the list built up inside my head.

‘Mal?’ She stood in front of me. ‘What do you really want to say?’

30 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I sucked in a deep breath; the strong, fresh scent of the lemons cleared my head. Tash and I rarely fought because

I kept my mouth shut a lot of the time when I wanted to say something. It was easier that way. But this time questions were eating at me. And I knew it wasn’t about Mrs Steppa.

‘What really happened between you and Andrew?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘It’s got to do with you and me supposedly being best friends and telling each other everything.’

Tash slumped against a brick fence. The afternoon shadows fell across her face, masking her eyes. ‘It’s over. What else do you want to know?’

‘Did you break it off or did he?’

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

Tash stared at the cracked footpath. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She scratched her thumbnail down her wrist.

‘Last week he was the man of your dreams. And now—’

‘And now I realise that everyone else was right, that picking up guys from myspace is a big mistake, that twelve years is too big an age difference, that they want you to do stuff that…’

‘That what?’ I put my hand on her arm. ‘Did he hurt you?’

31 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘No.’ She flung my hand away. ‘I have to go home.’

I watched her walk down the road, her face a mask. What could be so huge that she couldn’t talk about it?

I knew she’d slept with him. For weeks she didn’t shut up about how romantic he was and how fabulous it was being with an older guy who knew how to treat you like a woman instead of a girl. She was so happy it was almost sickening.

What had changed?

My stomach lurched. What if she was pregnant? That could explain why she’d been so crazy with her moods lately, changing her mind every five seconds. What if she’d told him she was pregnant and he’d dumped her but she was too scared to tell anyone about it?

I dragged my feet along the nature strip and headed for home. Every adult that knew Tash said she was a smart girl.

She was mature, she was confident, she knew how to look after herself.

There was no way Tash would be so stupid to get herself pregnant. Was there?

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Subject: doco artist

Hey super group,

32 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Sorry I ran out on you guys today. I’m PMS-ing big time & it’s making me a bit crazy. I don’t really want to change the artist. I think Louise de Piccolo is going to be great and the out-there creepiness is the best thing about those paintings!!!

I reckon this doco assignments gonna be our best yet so just ignore me if I say dumb stuff like that again, ok??? I’m attaching some research I did. I found another really good website that’s got interesting stuff about her influences. xxx tash

I sat in front of my computer reading Tash’s email over and over again. She hadn’t called me all afternoon or answered any of my calls or texts. Then suddenly this weird email arrives in my in-box, with her acting as if everything is perfectly normal and she was just having a bad case of PMS.

It didn’t make sense.

Erin’s sign in appeared on the bottom of my screen. I hesitated, wondering if I should sign out. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to anyone about Tash just yet; I really needed to talk to her first.

Erin’s message popped up on my screen hey mal did u read that email from tash???

I still had time to sign out; pretend I hadn’t seen it. But

I’d have to talk to Erin sooner or later. Might as well find

33 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley out what was going on in her head, or at least get her to tell me what her and Jules talked about after I left the café to chase Tash. hey mal u there?? yep so u read the email? yep has she told u anything? like wot? like wots really up with her probably just pms like she said super pms!!! I reckon it’s to do with andrew. do u know y they broke up? no she just told me that she dumped him did she tell u y?

Erin had a way of getting information out of people; sometimes it was as if she could read minds. I didn’t trust myself to say anything else to her. All I had were crazy suspicions, and the last thing Tash needed was her best friend to start a pregnancy rumour. no she don’t want 2 talk about it, hey I gotta go talk 2 u tmo ok ok cu

34 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I signed out and checked my phone: no messages from Tash. I started to text her, then snapped my phone shut. I’d done enough obsessing over Tash’s weird behaviour for today. If she didn’t want to talk to me about it, I had to accept it, for now at least.

35 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 3

‘Can I hold him?’

‘Are you going to buy him?’

‘Maybe.’ I stared in at the puppy with his paws up on the glass, tongue out and tail wagging. ‘Please, let me hold him. Look, he loves me.’

Tom shook his head. ‘I hear you say that at least once a week.’

It was true; I’d have been one of Tom’s most regular customers if I’d ever bought anything. The pet shop was my favourite place to hang out when I was on my tea-break. At first I used to hang out there because Tom was so cute but that was before I saw him and his boyfriend holding hands in the car park. Now I just came for my regular puppy fix.

I turned to Tom and made my own doggy eyes at him. ‘But this time it’s true love.’

‘Okay. But only ‘cause the boss isn’t around.’ He went inside the cage and opened it up. Four puppies tumbled around, trying to be the one that would escape this time.

‘Come on, in here.’ Tom handed me the puppy. ‘If he wees on you, don’t blame me.’

‘Who’s a beautiful boy?’ I cuddled the puppy in my arms. He was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. He was all

36 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley black except for his front left paw, which had a patch of white. He had the sweetest face and the most gorgeous brown eyes.

‘How big will he get?’

‘Not very. Maltese Poodles are lap dogs.’

‘So you could keep him in an apartment?’

‘Yeah, as long as you walked him every day.’

‘Well we’ve got a small garden.’

‘That’d be good for him to play in, but you’d still have to take him for walks to get proper exercise.’

‘We could both get exercise. Then Mum’d have one less thing to nag about.’ I held the puppy up to my face. ‘Who could look into these eyes and not fall in love?’

‘I knew it was a bad idea to let you pick him up.’ Tom reached out to take the puppy back.

‘I’ll take him.’

‘Are you sure? Getting a puppy is a big responsibility.’

‘Of course I’m sure. You saying I’m not a responsible person?’

Tom shook his head. ‘Whatever you reckon. Here, give him to me and I’ll sort it all out for you.’

I looked around the rest of the store for the stuff I’d need – food, feed and water bowls, puppy toys. In the end I

37 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley had to put half the stuff back on the shelves because it cost a fortune. For now, I’d have to make do with the basics. But that was fine because I had the puppy.

‘So what are you calling him?’

‘Beetle.’

Tom screwed up his nose.

‘It’s a great name,’ I said. ‘Just look at him, he looks like a cute, little black beetle.’

‘You’re the customer.’ Tom rolled his eyes.

‘That’s right,’ I picked up the box with Beetle in it.

He stared up at me with his intelligent eyes and I blew him a kiss.

‘Here,’ Tom picked up the bags of puppy food and accessories. ‘I’ll help you out to your car.’

‘Umm. I don’t have a car.’

‘Okay.’ Tom put the bags down again. ‘You’re not planning on taking all of this home on the bus are you?’

‘I hadn’t actually thought about that bit.’

He grinned. ‘So much for planning ahead. Tell you what, if you can hang around here for another half an hour I’ll give you a lift home.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I might even hang around to see the look on your mum’s face when she sees what you’ve got in that box.’

38 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘She’s out tonight. I’ll surprise her tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.’

‘You can’t hide a puppy. They make noise.’

‘I haven’t heard a peep out of him yet.’

‘Believe me, you will.’

I took Beetle out of the box and held him close to my chest. His fur was so soft it made my heart melt. ‘You’re not going to be any trouble at all, are you my darling?’

Beetle snuggled against my chest, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Mum’s boyfriend was great for my conscience. Because she was out again with him, I didn’t have to lie about buying my new puppy, at least, not when I walked in the door. I hadn’t decided how long I’d keep Beetle a secret from her, but I was hoping I could for the weekend at least.

Beetle was quiet—he just made cute little puppy noises— and I could hide his litter box and feed and water bowls in my bathroom. Mum never went in there: she said it was a hazardous waste site.

I sorted out his stuff in my bathroom then I lay on my bed with him snuggled in beside me and flipped through my

Caring for your puppy book. He was so sweet I couldn’t

39 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley believe I’d waited so long to buy him. Everything was perfect.

The tune from my mobile made me jump. I reached over and picked it up. It was Tash.

‘Can you come over?’

‘Tash, you’ll never guess what I got.’

‘I need you to come over.’

‘I can’t. I bought a puppy and I can’t just leave him here alone.’

‘You have to come over right now. Please.’ Her voice shook. ‘It’s an emergency.’

‘I can’t. I’ve got Beetle here–’

‘Who?’

‘Beetle. My new puppy.’

Tash burst into tears.

‘I thought you’d be happy for me. Why don’t you come over here and see him. He’s so sweet.’

‘I’m begging you, Mal. I need you here. Please.’

Beetle was asleep, snuggled into my pillow. I supposed he’d be okay for an hour or so. Tash sounded desperate. Maybe now she was ready to tell me what was going on.

‘Okay. I’ll come over, but I can’t stay long.’

I pulled on a pair of pants and T-shirt, slipped on my sandals and ran down the stairs.

40 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Outside in the street a pale orange moon hung in the sky. I hurried along the road, arms folded tight around me.

In the mango trees the bats fought and screeched. A crow cawed and swooped above my head. I broke into a run and didn’t stop until I saw the lights from Tash’s house.

She was waiting for me outside her front gates. ‘Thanks for coming so fast.’ She clutched my arm while we walked inside and I could feel her trembling all over.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I need you to look at something for me.’

‘What? Why?’

In the light her face was blotchy and her eyes red. She looked as though she’d been crying for a month. ‘I just need you to look.’

Was it a pregnancy test? A knot tightened in my guts.

We ran up the stairs and stood outside her bedroom door. Her breathing was fast and shallow. She held both my hands in hers. They were slippery with sweat.

‘Go inside my room and look into my mirror.’

‘What? Your mirror? Why?’

‘Please, Mal.’

My skin was crawling. ‘Are you coming in too?’ I didn’t want to go anywhere without Tash, not even into her room.

‘I’ll be right behind you.’

41 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I pushed open her bedroom door. It looked the same as it always did: CDs stacked next to her stereo, uniform thrown on the edge of her bed, bag on the floor, school books scattered on her desk.

‘It’s fine,’ I said, but my heart was beating a million miles an hour.

‘Go in and look at the mirror.’

Goose bumps shivered across my arms as I tip-toed around the stuff on her floor towards the mirror on her ensuite door.

‘Tash—’

‘Just look, please, Mal.’

I stood in front of the mirror, my mouth dry, breath tight in my throat.

Slowly, I raised my eyes from the carpet until I was staring straight into the mirror.

‘What do you see?’ Tash whispered.

‘I see me.’ I stared into my own blue eyes and traced my fingers down along the mirror’s fake jewels. My head whirled and I gripped the edge of the door. It was cool and smooth, solid under my hand. I breathed in deeply to calm the hammering in my chest.

‘What else can you see?’ She crept across the floor and stood behind me.

42 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Your bathroom.’ I wrapped my arms across my chest.

‘What’s this about? You’re scaring me to death.’

She grabbed my arm so hard it hurt. ‘Look again,’ her voice was pitched with fear. ‘Tell me what you see.’

I pulled away from her. ‘What do you think I see? I told you, I see me and your bathroom.’

Tash stumbled to her bed and sat on the edge, hugging herself. Tears dripped down her face and off the edge of her nose. For a moment I just stared at her, then I glanced back into the mirror. Maybe I’d missed something, but it was still just me with my boring face and that ugly red pimple on my chin.

I sat beside her and put my arm around her. ‘What is it? What can you see?’

She sobbed with her whole body, like a pain inside was tearing her apart.

‘Shh,’ I held her and rubbed her back, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry I yelled but you’re freaking me out. Just tell me what you see.’

Tash pushed me away and stood hunched, her arms loose by her sides. She stepped across the room, unsteady as a drunk, and placed her hand in the centre of the mirror.

‘I see a face that’s not mine.’

43 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Tash’s words hung around my head like a dream fog, their meaning just out of reach.

‘She has long dark hair, in plaits,’ she whispered.

‘And her face is round and pale.’

A bitter taste rose up in my throat. Tash’s face was heart shaped and tanned with a few freckles.

‘What else do you see?’ I swallowed hard, trying to force the foul taste down.

‘She has pale blue eyes, almost transparent. She has blood red lips and when she smiles she has a gap between her two front teeth.’

‘She smiles?’

‘Come here.’ She held out her hand towards me. ‘Stand in front of this mirror with me and swear that you don’t see her.’

I didn’t want to go back and look. What if this time I saw the face, too? But I had to, for Tash’s sake. I strode across the room like a firewalker and stood next to her.

Our faces stared back at me. ‘All I see is us.’

Tash’s eyes didn’t move from the mirror. ‘Do you believe I see someone else?’

‘Yes.’

44 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Tash held my hand and put her head on my shoulder. In the mirror, I watched tears roll down her red-blotched cheeks.

A chill stabbed from my neck to my feet. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see the dark-haired girl. I knew Tash wasn’t lying.

45 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 4

When we got back to my place I rushed up the stairs into my room. Beetle was on the bed chewing the corner of my pillow.

‘No, Beetle.’ I picked him up and cuddled him. ‘That’s naughty.’

Tash came in and dumped her stuff on the floor. Her parents had gone away for the weekend again and there was no way she was staying in her house alone.

‘Look at this little cutie-pie.’

‘Oh, Mal! Can I hold him?’ Tash sat on the other side of the bed and picked up Beetle. ‘He has the sweetest face.’

She snuggled his fur against her cheek. ‘And he’s so soft.

He’s just like the little soft toy I had when I was a kid, my little Muppy.’

‘Muppy? And Tom reckoned Beetle was a dumb name.’

‘Well I was only little.’

Tash shivered. A shadow flickered across her eyes.

‘What?’ I checked over my shoulder. ‘You don’t… you don’t see –’

‘No, thank god,’ she snuggled Beetle close against her chest. ‘But I haven’t thought about that toy in ages. I don’t even remember what happened to him.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m just feeling a bit spooked, that’s all.’

46 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Tell me about it.’ I stroked Beetle’s head. ‘But this little man’s going to make everything all better. I told you he was gorgeous, didn’t I?’

‘Yeah, no wonder you couldn’t resist him. But how did you get around your mum?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Mum doesn’t know yet. I went into the pet shop after work to look at him and he was so adorable I thought, why should I care what Mum thinks, I want him.

‘He won’t grow very big, he’s a perfect indoors dog and

I can even carry him in a handbag, just like a celeb.’

‘I can just see you doing that. But what are you doing about the toilet situation?’

‘I got him a litter box. Tom at the pet shop says they work fine with small dogs. I’ve put it in my bathroom.’

‘It’s going to stink.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ I bit my lip. ‘I’ll just have to empty it five times a day.’

Tash laughed. ‘Lucky you.’ She put her arm around me and hugged me, with Beetle’s soft little face squeezed between our shoulders. ‘Thanks for letting me stay over tonight.’

‘It’s no biggie.’ I patted her back. ‘Beetle needs company, don’t you munchkin?’

47 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘I know how he feels.’ She hugged me closer for a few seconds, then pulled away. ‘Malia, I…’ her eyes filled with tears. ‘I want… I want to…’ She shook her head.

‘Hey, it’s going to be okay.’ I hugged her again. ‘How about you bring this little bundle of love downstairs and

I’ll make us some hot chocolate.’

We sat at kitchen table, Tash with Beetle on her lap. I sipped my hot chocolate, almost biting my tongue to stop myself from talking. I knew that if Tash was going to tell me everything that was going on, I had to keep my mouth shut.

She stroked Beetle’s fur, looking into his sweet face as she spoke.

‘When I got home after school I thought I saw a smudge in the mirror and I tried to clean it off.’ She took in a deep breath and shuddered. ‘But then the face started to appear, slowly; it started off like a shadow. And it was like I was hypnotised by it.’

A moth battered against the kitchen light. It flickered and buzzed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was so scared but I couldn’t look away. At first, her face was blurred, like seeing it through a thin curtain.

48 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Then, she came into focus. Her hair, eyes, nose, mouth. Her lips even started to move, as if she was trying to talk to me.’

‘Can you hear her?’

‘No. Thank god. If I started hearing voices I’d know for sure I was going crazy.’ She tried to laugh but it turned into a sob. ‘Do you think that’s what it is? Do you think I’m going crazy?’

‘No.’ I bit down on my thumbnail to push away the sense of unreality that washed over me.

‘When I called you I was half hoping that you would see her. That way I would know that it wasn’t just me, that maybe she was some ghost or spirit…’ She took in a deep breath and held it. I thought for a moment she wasn’t going to breathe again.

She let out a sigh. ‘But it’s just me.’

I concentrated on pushing grains of sugar into a small pile on the bench with my fingertips, as if completing this task to perfection could somehow change what Tash was telling me.

‘Have you seen her anywhere else?’

‘No, only in my mirror. So far.’

‘Maybe it is a ghost,’ I squashed the pile of sugar grains under my thumb and looked at Tash. ‘A spirit of one

49 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley of your ancestors and they only want to reveal themselves to you.’

She shook her head. ‘That’s too crazy.’

‘Crazier than a face in the mirror?’

‘Yeah.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘You could be right.

Gran used to tell me stories about her aunty who died pretty young. She was killed by her husband who’d gone crazy during the war.’

‘See? Maybe she’s not at rest and needs your help to move on.’

Tash frowned. ‘Trust my family to have restless ghosts.’

‘That’s a good thing. It means you have an interesting family history.’

Tash rolled her eyes. ‘Great.’

‘Hey, I’m just trying to see the positive in this.’

She gave me half a smile. ‘Thanks. But I’m not sure there is any.’ Her face crumpled. Tears rolled down her cheeks again.

My eyes stung. I hated to see her like this. But me bursting into tears wasn’t going to help her.

‘Come on,’ I linked my arm through hers. ‘Let’s watch

The Wedding Singer and we can cry at all the bad eighties fashion.’

50 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

The movie was only halfway through when I noticed Tash had fallen asleep, Beetle snuggled against her chest. She looked like crap: the skin under her eyes was grey and her lips were pale.

But I had a sudden urge to shake her, wake her up and get her to tell me everything, right from the start. There had to be something she’d left out. I paced the room, questions circling in my head.

A sudden thump on the roof made my heart crash into the pit of my stomach. My fingers shook as I switched on a lamp.

Then I heard the scrambling of claws across the tiles.

Bloody possums. I sat back on the sofa feeling tired, cranky and confused, and chewed my nails. Earlier Tash had totally convinced me that she could see that girl in the mirror but now I wasn’t so sure. I wished morning would hurry up and come. The night was messing with my head.

Car lights beamed into the room as Mum pulled into the driveway. In an instant, my head cleared and avoiding an argument about my new status as a dog owner became my number one priority.

51 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 5

Next morning I woke with Beetle curled up with his face on my pillow and Tash sprawled on a mattress on the floor.

Beetle hadn’t whimpered once during the night. That meant so far, Mum had no clue I had him.

I still wasn’t sure when I was going to tell her about him. I knew she’d go absolutely schiz and I wasn’t looking forward to that but there was no way she was taking him away from me. Beetle was mine and he was staying.

I checked my watch: 6.45am. Mum wouldn’t be up for a while. I carried Beetle into my bathroom and sat him on his litter box then filled up his water and food bowls. Next door I heard Tash get up and move around in my room.

Poor Tash. She wasn’t inventing that girl in the mirror just to get attention—no one could fake that spooked look on her face last night—but I still wasn’t convinced she was telling me everything.

I crouched beside Beetle and stroked his velvety fur while he gobbled his food. ‘It’s a good life, being a puppy.’ He turned and licked my hand with his rough puppy tongue.

There had to be something Tash was leaving out, something that would help it all make sense. Random faces

52 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley didn’t appear in the mirror for no reason. Maybe there was something she was still too scared to talk to me about.

A crash came from my bedroom.

‘Tash?’ Shivers cut through my body. I stuck my head out the bathroom door. ‘Are you okay?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Tash?’ I picked up Beetle and cuddled him close to me, then pushed open my bedroom door. Tash was crouched in the corner beside the window, her hands over her face.

Beetle whimpered and scrambled to get out of my arms. I put him on the floor and he ran over to Tash, fur hackles raised along his back.

My heart pounded as I stepped inside my room. ‘What’s wrong?’ I closed the door behind me. ‘What is it?’

She pointed to my mirror. It was nothing special, just a cheap one Mum had bought a few months ago. I crossed the floor and dug my fingers into its plastic frame.

‘Can you see her?’ I whispered.

Tash nodded her head then burst into tears.

This was my room, my mirror. Why couldn’t I see this stupid girl? I gripped the mirror tighter.

Tash stood up, swaying, her face pale. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

53 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

She ran out of the room and seconds later I heard her throwing up into the toilet.

In the bathroom the stink of vomit slunk up my nostrils. I wet a face cloth, pinched my nose and held the cloth to Tash’s forehead while she vomited into the toilet bowl again. At last she sat back, a trail of spit hanging from her mouth. She flushed the spew down the toilet and slumped down on the seat.

‘Here.’ I wiped her face with a tissue and gave her some more so she could blow her nose.

For a minute she just sat there, eyes closed, trying to get her breathing back to normal. Her face was so pale I could see the tiny purple veins in her eyelids. Every vein, every pore, even her one pimple, seemed to stick out. I’d never seen her look so bad.

‘How did she get in there?’ Tash opened her eyes and stared at me. ‘She’s following me. If she’s in your room it means I can never get away from her.’ She dug her nails into her wrist and scratched red welts across her skin.

‘Tash, stop.’ I wrenched her hands apart. ‘Stop it.’

Her face crumpled and she started to sob.

I didn’t know what to say or do. Usually when one of us was in tears it was over a boy or some bitch of a teacher.

When that sort of stuff happened I knew exactly what to say.

54 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

But this? What did you say when your best friend was either being haunted or going crazy?

‘Maybe we should tell someone about this. We could tell my mum, she’s pretty cool, or maybe—’

‘No.’ Tash’s lips pulled into a grimace. ‘Promise me you’ll never speak to anyone about this.’ She squeezed my hands hard. ‘People will think I’m crazy, they’ll try to lock me up.’

‘No they won’t. You might have to see a doctor or something but—’

‘No. Promise me. We have to handle this thing ourselves.’

‘But how? You can’t avoid mirrors 24 hours a day.’

‘I don’t think that matters.’

‘What do you mean?’

Tash bit her lip and a shudder ran through her body. I thought she was going to vomit again but she took in a deep breath and exhaled.

‘She’s trying to get out of the mirror.’ Tash looked straight past me, as if she was staring at something outside the window. ‘This time it wasn’t just her face. I could see her whole body. And she was trying to move.’

‘Move?’

55 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Her movements were slow, like someone pushing through deep water…’ she trailed off and closed her eyes again. ‘I think she’s trying to get out of the mirror. I think she’s trying to get inside me.’

It was like all the breath had been sucked out of my body. I gasped for air and the stink of vomit rushed up my nose again.

‘Why is she after me?’ Tash fell forward, clinging to me. ‘Who’s going to help me? I don’t know what to do.’

I held her and soothed her as best as I could but I was freaking out, too. Tash had to talk to somebody else about it, a doctor or counsellor or someone. What if she was going crazy? Or what if it was the start of a brain tumour or some other disgusting disease? So many horrible thoughts were firing in my brain I knew I had to calm down, think of something positive.

‘What about if you got your cards read?’

‘What?’ Tash pulled away from me. She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose hard.

‘Tarot cards. You wouldn’t have to say much to a reader about what’s happening, just think about the question in your head. There’s a reader at the shopping centre that’s supposed to be good. Mum and her friends go to see her.’

‘How can a tarot card reader help?’

56 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘She can see what’s happening in your life now and try to explain things. Plus she can see what’s coming up in your future.’

‘I don’t want to know.’ Tash leaned back against the toilet. ‘I don’t even want to face the next hour of my life, much less my future.’

‘She might be able to give you some clues about what’s happening. And if you know what’s going on, maybe you can work out a plan to deal with it.’

‘No, it’s too risky. What if she summons it up or it appears in the middle of it all?’

‘You’ll just be getting your cards read, nothing like that’s going to happen, trust me.’

Tash rubbed the inside of her wrist slowly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. And if she doesn’t help, you’re no worse off.’

‘Okay.’ Tash blew her nose hard again and sighed.

‘Look, whatever is going on, I’ll help you work through it. You’ve always got me, okay?’

‘Thanks.’ She put her arms around me and hugged, her skin clammy under my hands.

I didn’t know if the tarot reader could help; I had no clue what I was doing. But I ignored the sinking feeling in

57 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley my stomach and hugged her back, and tried to convince myself that I did.

58 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 6

‘Let me check.’ The girl behind the counter at Mystical

Moments flicked through an exercise book. ‘Sorry. She’s booked out for today. I can get you in on Tuesday afternoon.’

‘But we really need to see her today. This is an emergency.’

‘A psychic emergency?’ The girl raised her eyebrow and curled her lips in a smirk.

I stopped myself from slapping her smug face and tried to appeal to her nice side. ‘Please. It’s important.’

‘Sorry,’ She pointed at the book, ‘There are no appointments available.’

‘But-’

‘I said, there’s nothing available.’

‘Is there a problem here?’ A hippie-looking grandma came from out the back of the shop.

‘No. I’ve just explained to these girls that Zoe can’t do a reading for them today.’

Tash’s eyes filled with tears. I’d made it sound like the tarot reader was going to make everything clear for her and now that it wasn’t going to happen, she was devastated.

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‘Don’t get upset, sweetie.’ The hippie-grandma touched

Tash’s arm. ‘I’m Edwina, I manage the store but I can do readings as well. Would you like me to do one for you?’

Tash nodded.

‘Just wait here for a few minutes. I’ll go back and set things up then I’ll come and get you.’

I bit my tongue to stop myself from sticking it out at the girl behind the counter, even though I seriously wanted to.

‘See?’ I led Tash towards the bookshelves. ‘It’s all going to work out.’

‘I feel sick.’ Tash squeezed my hand.

‘Relax, everything will be fine.’

‘What do I have to say to her?’

‘She’ll just ask you to shuffle the cards and think about the question you want answered.’

‘She won’t ask me anything personal?’

‘She might, it depends. Here.’ I handed her some tissues out of my bag. ‘Just relax.’

‘Will you come in with me?’

‘I don’t know if she’ll let me but we can ask.’

Tash gripped my hand tighter. ‘You have to. I can’t go in there alone.’

‘Okay. But can you let go of my hand, you’re cutting off the circulation.’

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‘Come on through,’ Edwina popped her head through the dark velvet curtain.

Tash and I stood up.

‘You want a reading together?’

‘The reading’s for Tash. But she wants me to come in with her if that’s okay.’

‘Sure,’ Edwina smiled and held the curtain open.

‘Tash, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sit down here, sweetie.’ Edwina motioned to a chair in front of the table. Behind it was a small altar decorated with a vase of flowers and tall, thick white candles that glowed dimly against a rich purple wall hanging.

‘And you can sit over here, love. What’s your name?’

‘Malia. We’re best friends,’ I added.

‘You can sit over there.’ Edwina smiled at me like I was a little kid and my skin prickled with embarrassment.

I sat beside the altar and studied the ornaments that cluttered the shelf above it: a small Buddha statue, some goddess and other religious statues and a picture of Jesus.

It looked like Edwina had all the religions covered, just in case.

‘Okay.’ Edwina smiled and smoothed the cloth on the table. ‘Hold out your hands, sweetie, palms up please.’

61 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

She touched Tash’s hands and stared at her palms for a few seconds. ‘Hmm.’ Then she took Tash’s hands in hers. ‘I need to make the connection,’ she said. ‘Relax, love. If I’m to get a thorough reading I need you to be open.’

Edwina closed her eyes, so did Tash. I sat back against the chair, breathing in the musky incense, letting it fill my head and relax my body. But the churning in my stomach grew stronger.

‘Okay.’

Edwina’s voice made me jump.

‘Take this deck of cards and shuffle it. While you’re shuffling think of the question you want answered.’

Tash’s hands shook as she shuffled the cards. Edwina touched her wrist. ‘Just breathe deeply and think of your question.’

Tash nodded.

‘When you’re ready, put the deck on the table and cut it.’

My heart picked up speed as Tash’s fingers fumbled around the cards. Finally, she put two piles on the table.

Edwina took half the deck and put it aside.

‘Spread these cards across the table in a fan shape.

Then choose ten cards and keep them face down. Feel which cards attract you the most. Choose wisely.’

62 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I dug my fingers into my palms and watched Tash hover her hands above the cards. She took in another deep breath, then stuck out her chin and clenched her jaw. Slowly, she picked out the cards and put them aside.

‘Good.’ Edwina frowned as she laid the cards out on the table in a pattern. She cleared her throat and took a sip of water, her left eyebrow arched high. ‘Yes, this is a very interesting spread.’

I leant forward, trying to see the cards. I couldn’t get a clear view of all of them but I could see the Moon card. And Death. My heart froze.

Edwina’s face was still as she studied the cards. She put her hand across Tash’s. ‘Are you ready to begin?’

‘Actually,’ Tash crossed her legs and squirmed in her chair. ‘Maybe it would be better if we were left alone, to help us concentrate more. You don’t mind, do you, Mal?’

My stomach dropped, just a little. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’ She kept her eyes on the cards.

‘Okay,’ I bit my lip and shrugged. ‘I’ll wait outside.’

I pushed through the velvet curtain back into the shop and traced my finger through the thin layer of dust along the bookshelves. I’d bought a couple of books from here before, one on dreams and another that had some basic spells. Not that I was seriously into this sort of stuff,

63 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley but I did cast a spell to get more money and two weeks later

I got my job at the bakery. I suppose that meant the spell worked.

There was a pile of books on the discount table and I picked up one that had a picture of a woman with a snake wrapped around her body. In her left hand she was holding a stick topped with a red jewel and in her right hand she held a crystal ball.

The shop assistant’s eyes lasered into my back as I flipped through the book. What a bitch! She didn’t know how lucky she was to be working in a shop with incense, soft music and water fountains. She should try working in a hot bakery with pushy customers all desperate to get the last chocolate croissant or throwing hissy fits because we’d run out of sour dough.

I flipped through the book. The chapter headings were pretty weird: ‘Meditation, your mind map to the universe’;

‘Seeking your spiritual fate through astral travel’; ‘Divine intervention: making contact with your spirit guide’. But weird was what I needed to help get my mind around what was happening with Tash.

The shop assistant looked down her nose as I handed over ten dollars for the book. ‘This is probably too advanced for you.’

64 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘My spirit guide told me you’d say that.’

‘Really?’ She smirked.

This time I didn’t deny myself. I smiled sweetly and gave her the finger, then sat on the bench just outside and settled down to read.

I’d got to the end of chapter two when I realised Tash had been in with Edwina for nearly an hour and I was due at work in five minutes.

Just as I stood up Tash rushed out of the shop holding some sheets of paper. ‘Sorry, are you going to be late for work?’

‘No, but I have to go right now. How was your reading?’

‘Okay. Good, I suppose… it’s hard to tell, seeing it was my first time.’ She turned her head and her veil of blonde hair covered her face. She let it hang there for a second, then flipped it back and pasted on a fake smile.

‘I’m glad I went.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course.’

Her blank eyes said she was lying. But I didn’t have the time to go into it then. Or to ask her why she hadn’t wanted me to hear the reading. ‘I’ve got to run for work.

Meet you at my place later?’

65 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Yep, I’ve still got the key. I’ll meet you there about five.’ She put her arm around me in a choked half-hug then walked off.

She weaved her way through the lunchtime shopping crowds, shoulders hunched, head down and scanning the papers clutched in her hands. For a split second an image flashed in my mind of her as one of those crazy people who mutter away to themselves. Then the crowd swallowed her up.

I threw my bag down in the bakery staff room and got on my apron and hat. I hated those hats. They made me look like some sort of old-time dairy maid, as if I should be milking a cow instead of selling bread.

The first couple of hours flew by. Then I saw the cockroach woman scuttling towards the counter in her oversized, dirty, work boots and my heart sank.

The cockroach woman was a local crazy who hung around the shopping centre. Everyone said cockroaches lived in the matted mess of grey-brown hair that hung down her back like a thick dreadlock.

She lifted her stick-thin arm and pointed right at me.

‘You,’ she yelled.

The customers stepped back and stared as she burrowed her way to the front of the queue.

66 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Excuse me, but I was serving—’

‘You.’ She scraped her dirty, yellow nails across the top of the glass cabinets. ‘I know who you are,’ she snarled.

Her breath in my face almost made me gag. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘You think llamas buy these frantic spots but my phones paint the stars.’

She reached across the counter, snatched a sticky bun and began to shove it in her mouth.

‘Hey,’ Sam, the other guy serving, called out.

The cockroach woman pointed at him and hissed, spraying bits of sticky bun all over the counter. One customer grabbed her little girl’s hand and hurried away. The others huddled nearby.

Sam ran behind me. ‘Stay put. I’ll call the manager.’

I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there while the cockroach woman stared at me, chewing her bun with her mouth open so wide I could see bits of food mashed between her back teeth. Finally she gulped it down and wiped her hand across her mouth, spreading sticky pink icing and coloured sprinkles across her grimy face.

She lunged across the counter again and grabbed the front of my apron. ‘In my head, you know there are light snails, popping.’

67 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Hey!’ The security guards ran up behind her. ‘Stop that!’

She turned, hissing and raising her clawed fingers.

‘Come on, dearie.’ The security guard touched her arm gently. ‘You know you can’t behave that way.’

She lowered her head, all of a sudden looking like a six- year-old kid.

‘She took my magic pencil hat,’ she mumbled.

‘No, she didn’t, she’s a nice girl.’

‘No she’s not,’ she roared.

Beck, the manager, appeared from behind me. She’d probably been out the back of the centre smoking again.

‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s under control, Ma’am,’ the security guard stood between cockroach woman and the front counter. ‘We’re taking care of her now.’

‘I want to lay charges. She can’t come and scare off my customers like that.’

‘No, nor should she be harassing your staff.’ The security guard glared at Beck. ‘If you want to press charges you’ll need to contact the police and get your staff members and any other witnesses to make statements.’

I burst into tears. Sam came and took me back to the staff area.

68 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘That woman is a nut job. Someone should lock her up.’

He handed me a piece of paper towel to wipe my eyes. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

‘Just some water, thanks.’ My hands shook so much I could barely hold the cup.

Beck walked in. ‘You okay?’

‘Sort of.’

‘I think you’d better call her a cab,’ said Sam.

‘She has to wait until she’s given the police a statement.’

‘I don’t want to talk to the police. They’re not going to arrest her, she’s crazy.’

‘Yeah, there’s no point in trying to get cockroach woman arrested.’ Sam squeezed my arm. ‘Mal just needs to go home.’

‘I’m the manager here, I’ll make the decisions thanks,

Sam. You get back out there and serve.’ Beck and her wide- load bum wobbled off towards the exit.

‘Hang on,’ Sam called out after Beck. ‘Shouldn’t someone stay here with Mal?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘You’re not going to faint or anything are you?’ Sam pulled across a chair. ‘Here, sit down.’

‘I’m okay. Just a bit shaky.’

69 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘See?’ Beck rubbed her hands together. ‘It’s all good.’

She pulled out her cigarette packet and kept going.

Sam shook his head. ‘Useless cow,’ he muttered.

It was almost an hour before the police showed up. They were nice to me but Sam was right. As long as the cockroach woman hadn’t physically hurt me, they weren’t going to do anything about her crazy-attack, no matter what Beck said.

They were obviously on cockroach woman’s side—not blaming me for anything but trying to protect her. I was sort of angry, but in a way I was sorry for the cockroach woman, too. There must have been some time in her life when she was normal, maybe even smart and pretty and popular.

What if she’d had a secret that she’d kept inside?

Something that scared her so much she couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Something that scared her so much it tore at her brain, destroying every normal thing about her until all she could be was crazy.

It made me sick to think about it. And I knew I’d die before I let it happen to Tash.

70 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 7

When I walked in the door Mum and Tash were sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea. Beetle was curled up in Tash’s lap. My mouth went dry.

‘It seems you forgot to introduce me to someone yesterday, Malia.’ Mum’s sharp blue eyes glared at me. ‘When were you planning on telling me you had a dog?’

‘I…umm… soon.’ I sat down at the table. ‘Can I have a cup of tea?’

‘You’re kidding me? You waltz in here more than an hour late from your shift, having hidden the fact that you’ve gone out and bought a dog, and expect me to make you a cup of tea?’

‘Mum, you don’t—’

‘I don’t what?’ She pointed at Beetle as if he was a bag of dirty washing. ‘Don’t understand that you’ve gone behind my back and spent God only knows how much on a dog that you know we cannot possibly keep.’

Tears fell down my face. I stared at the table.

‘Sue, I—’

‘I’m sorry Tash, but this is not your business. Malia knows full well that the rules of us renting this place

71 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley state that there are no pets allowed. Do you want us to get kicked out?’

Mum’s words rang around my head but weren’t going in.

All I could think about was the cockroach woman pointing and yelling at me. I put my head down on the table and covered it with my arms.

‘Malia, you are not two years old.’ The phone started to ring. Mum yelled above the noise. ‘You cannot pretend that you have done nothing wrong. You have to face up… dammit.’ She picked up the phone.

‘Yes?’ She tapped her fingers on the handset. ‘Who?’

Tash touched my arm. I looked up at her and she mouthed sorry. I just shook my head.

‘Can you repeat that?’

Mum drummed her fingers on the bench. Whoever was on the other end of the phone was about to cop it.

‘And you didn’t think it was your responsibility as store manager to drive her home yourself.’

In spite of how crap I was feeling, I smiled. Mum’s tolerance for stupid people was very low, and Beck was one of the stupidest people I knew.

‘Yes. I should think you would be sorry. Goodbye.’ She hung up the phone.

72 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Mum’s hand was on my back. ‘Malia, are you okay? Sit up, honey.’

I started sobbing. She pushed my hair back off my face then sat down opposite me and held my hand. ‘That was your manager on the phone saying there was an incident at the bakery today with some madwoman. What happened?’

I explained it all to mum and Tash. Mum seemed particularly angry that I’d been interviewed by the police and sent home in a cab without her being contacted. She said she was going to report Beck to the store owner and the franchise main office. But I knew she wouldn’t. She’d just write a long letter of complaint that she’d never send because by then she’d be over it.

‘I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,’ Mum rubbed my back. ‘That idiot manager should have rung me as soon as it happened.’ She put her arms around me and gave me a big hug. ‘I’ve made plans to go out with Mick again tonight but are you going to be okay here? I can call him and cancel.’

‘No, I’ll be fine. I’ve got Tash to keep me company.’

‘And the dog.’ Mum pursed her lips. ‘What have you called him?’

‘Beetle.’

73 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘That is a cute name.’ She smiled and patted his head.

‘And he’s a gorgeous dog but you know you can’t keep him.’

‘Can I hold him?’

Mum lifted Beetle in the air and pressed his nose against hers. ‘I do wish I had his curls.’ She laughed and put Beetle in my lap and pulled at the short red strands of her hair. ‘And colour. Then I wouldn’t need to pay a fortune covering up the greys.’

My heart lifted. Beetle was so gorgeous it was impossible not to fall in love with him and Mum was already falling under his adorable-puppy spell. Maybe I wouldn’t have to give him up.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Mum smoothed her skirt as she switched on the kettle, then checked her watch. ‘Mick’ll be here in an hour. I’d better get a move on.

‘Tash, can you take care of this? Malia, you’d better go into the living room and rest on the sofa. You’ve had a big shock today. And no playing up tonight either, you two.

I’m trusting you to behave.’

‘Don’t worry, Sue.’ Tash put her arm around me. ‘You can trust me to look after Malia.’

Tash was in a much better mood. That tarot card reader must have done her some good; at least that was something positive that had happened today. I snuggled into the sofa,

74 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley held Beetle up against my chest, flicked on the TV and closed my eyes.

‘Wake up.’

‘What?’

Tash jumped on top of me and grabbed my shoulders. ‘Get up.

We’ve been invited to a party.’

‘What? Where?’

‘Not far. Jase from work just texted me about it.’

‘Who?’

‘Jase. He’s new. It’s at his mate’s house.’ She jumped off the sofa, grabbed my wrists and pulled me up. ‘It’ll be fun. And we’ll be home way before your mum so she’ll never find out.’

‘What about Beetle?’ He was still curled up at the end of the sofa.

‘He’ll be fine. We won’t stay long, just a couple of hours. Please?’

I fell back into the sofa, sleep dragging at my brain.

Getting dressed and putting on make-up sounded like too much effort. But this was my big chance to go to an open house party with Tash and find out if everything she said about them was true.

75 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Okay.’ I got up and stretched. ‘Come and help me find something to wear.’

When we got there about twenty kids were in the street hanging around outside the house. Tash grabbed my hand and led us through the crowd like she was strutting down a red carpet. She was great at being the centre of attention. It made me feel sick.

Suddenly I wished I’d never come. What if Mum came home early and found us gone? What if Beetle woke up and fretted because I wasn’t there? What if he started barking and the neighbours called the cops? What if the cops came here to break up the party and I ended up at the police station?

Sweat trickled from under my arms as Tash pulled me through the front door of the house and out onto the back deck.

‘Jase!’ She dropped my hand, ran and jumped onto a tall guy with bored brown eyes and a thin silver ring through his lip.

A group of guys pushed past me and flattened me against the wall. One of them stepped on my foot, turned and looked at me, then kept going, as if I had a massive sign saying

“loser” flashing above my head. Tash seemed to have forgotten I existed until Jase pointed at me.

76 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Sorry, Mal.’ She grabbed my hand again. ‘I thought you were behind me. Come and meet Jase.’

I forced a smile onto my face as Tash introduced me around but the party was like an alien planet where I didn’t know the language. Everyone was drinking and most people were smoking cigarettes. Over in the corner I was sure some guys were smoking something else. I stood there chewing on my nail wishing someone would offer me a drink so I wouldn’t feel so left out. Tash and Jase were giggling, their heads bent close together.

Suddenly Tash grabbed my hand and pulled me in closer to them. ‘Malia, come with us for a minute.’

I followed them out to a quiet spot in the garden. There were just a few small groups out here but no one looked up at us as Jase pulled a small plastic packet out of his jeans. He opened the packet and pressed a white pill into

Tash’s open hand. Then he offered one to me.

‘What’s that?’

‘Something to make you feel better.’ He grinned at me with narrowed eyes.

‘What sort of thing?’

Tash gave a fake laugh and patted my shoulder. ‘Come on, it’s good stuff. Jase always has the best.’

‘How many times before have you had it?’

77 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Oh you know, maybe once or twice.’ She forced a giggle. ‘Come on, it’s fun.’

I stared at Tash. Since when had she thought taking drugs was fun? Her fake party-girl act was as annoying as hell and I didn’t want to be around her.

‘No thanks. I think I’ll go.’

Tash caught my wrist. ‘Go where? Home?’

‘Yeah. I feel guilty leaving Beetle all alone.’

‘You have a boyfriend called Beetle?’ Jase started laughing.

‘No. He’s my puppy.’ I walked towards the house.

‘Wait.’ Tash ran up behind me. ‘Don’t go. Stay here and have fun.’

‘Fun doing what? Watching you take drugs from some dickhead guy and hanging off him like he’s a superstar?’

‘Why are you acting so straight?’

‘Why are you acting like a druggie?’

‘I’m not a druggie, Mal, I’m just trying to have fun.

That’s not something I’ve had a lot of lately.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Please stay, for me? You don’t have to take anything if you don’t want to. Just have a drink.’

‘We didn’t bring any drinks.’

‘There’s heaps in the fridge. Jase won’t mind if you have a couple.’ She tugged at my wrist. ‘Please?’

78 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Okay. But I’m not taking any pills.’

‘Sure. Come inside and we’ll get you a beer or something.’

Once I had a beer in my hand I relaxed a bit. But I got bored watching Tash hang all over Jase so I wandered around the house, pretending I was looking for someone and trying not to screw up my face every time I took a sip of beer.

‘Hey,’ a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. ‘Bus girl.’

I turned around.

‘I remember those blue eyes.’ He smiled at me with his perfect white teeth. ‘I’m Chris, from the bus.’

‘Yeah. I remember.’ I took a small sip of beer and acted bored but my heart started beating a million miles an hour.

‘You’re Maria?’

‘Malia.’

‘Yeah, right. Sorry.’ He tapped his head. ‘Too many concussions.’

‘Don’t lie, you gotta head like a brick, Chriso.’ Some idiot guy forced himself in between me and Chris. ‘Found yourself a nasty girl, have ya?’

79 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Piss off.’ Chris pushed him away and curled his arm around my shoulder. ‘Ignore him, he’s an f-wit.’ He guided me down the hallway towards the front verandah. ‘Who’re you here with?’

‘Tash.’

‘Of course, the party queen.’ He laughed and took a swig of his beer. ‘Anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘No boyfriend?’ ’He held my gaze with his eyes.

‘No.’

‘Good.’

He bent down and kissed me. Suddenly I was really happy

Tash had talked me into staying. His breath stank a bit, but

I didn’t care. This guy really knew how to kiss.

80 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 8

‘Let’s make biscuits.’

‘It’s after midnight. I just want to go to bed.’

Tash had been flying ever since she took whatever it was Jase gave her. I had to almost drag her out of the party. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve liked to spend more time with Chris, but I knew Tash and I had to be home before

Mum, otherwise I’d be grounded for life.

She flung her arms around my neck. ‘You don’t hate me, do you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Are you sure? Sometimes I think you must hate me.’ She pulled away and paced around the kitchen, frantically rubbing her wrists. ‘You do love me, don’t you? Coz I love you, I couldn’t do anything without you.’ She stared at me, her pupils huge black holes in her brown eyes.

‘I don’t mean to cause trouble. I don’t want to hurt anyone I just want to be happy but my parents think all I do is cause trouble that’s why they don’t want me.’ Tears filled her eyes. She scratched at her wrists now, marking them with deep red welts.

‘Calm down, Tash.’ I took her wrists. ‘Stop that. Look what you’re doing.’

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She looked at the scratches on her wrists then threw her arms around me again. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

I sighed and pushed my hair out of my eyes. Great. Mum would be home soon and Tash was wired. I steered her towards a chair and sat her down.

‘I’ll make you a hot chocolate.’

‘What about biscuits?’

‘I’ll check the cupboard.’

‘No. I want to make biscuits.’ Suddenly Tash was all excited again, jumping around like a three-year-old. She ran to the pantry and started pulling out flour and sugar.

‘Tash. It’s the middle of the night.’

‘So?’

‘Mum’ll be home soon.’

‘She can have some, too. I’ll make enough for everyone.’ She opened up cupboard doors and grabbed mixing bowls and the mixmaster and set it all up on the bench.

‘I suppose it’ll keep you occupied,’ I muttered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I’ll get the recipe book.’

‘Any choc chips?’

I got them from the pantry then put on the kettle.

‘Did you get Chris’s number?’

‘I gave him mine. If he’s interested, he can call me.’

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‘Oooh, playing hard to get, girl?’ Tash nudged me.

‘Good work.’

‘Do you like Jase?’

‘He’s good looking and got a great body.’ Tash concentrated on sifting flour into the mixing bowl. ‘But he slobbers when he kisses and his breath really stunk.’

I smiled and hugged my arms around myself. ‘Chris is a great kisser, even if his breath did stink a bit.’

Tash started giggling. ‘Boys with their stinky breath.

What’s with that?’ She laughed harder until it wasn’t really laughing anymore.

‘Tash?’ I put my arm around her. ‘What’s the matter?’

She pressed her hands to her temples and sank to the floor.

‘I feel like my brain’s going to explode.’

‘Don’t let it get to you,’ I crouched beside her.

‘Everything will be okay.’

‘No it won’t.’ She rocked back and forth on her haunches. ‘That girl’s going to get me. She’s trying to get inside my head.’

‘She can’t get you. She’s not real.’

‘If she’s not real why do I see her?’ Tash lifted her head, her face streaked with tears and mascara. ‘Why is she here?’

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‘I don’t know.’ I hugged her to me again. I’d never seen Tash out of control like this. For a second I thought about calling an ambulance. But then there’d be too many questions. Somehow I had to deal with this situation myself.

‘I’ll help you work it out, I promise.’ I patted her back until her sobs subsided, then I held her wrists and pulled her up. ‘I do know that taking drugs is just going to make things worse.’

‘Yeah.’ She hugged me close to her.

‘Come on.’ I pulled away. ‘I’ll make the hot chocolate.

You keep going with these biscuits. Mum’ll go nuts if she sees this mess but if we’ve at least got some food to show for it she might be okay about it.’

‘All right.’ Tash’s voice was as tiny as a child’s.

I mixed the hot chocolates and watched her frown as she concentrated on rolling out the biscuit dough. She looked really tired.

‘Hot chocolate for Miss Natasha.’ I put her drink in front of her.

She didn’t hear me as she hovered the cookie cutter carefully above the dough, then shook her head and moved it a millimetre, put it down and twisted. She repeated this a dozen times, each time spending at least thirty seconds thinking about where she should place the cookie cutter. It

84 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley almost hurt to watch but eventually she got the tray of biscuits in the oven. She crouched down in front of it and stared.

‘Hey. Your drink’s getting cold.’

‘Oh.’ She stood and stretched and took the mug from me.

‘Feeling better?’

‘A bit.’ She took a long drink and closed her eyes.

‘Whatever that stuff was that Jase gave me, I’m never taking it again.’

‘Good idea. Now help me get rid of this mess before Mum gets home.’

We were still cleaning up when Mum walked in the door.

‘What are you girls up to?’

‘Biscuits.’ I acted as if making biscuits at one in the morning was totally normal.

Mum narrowed her eyes. ‘Biscuits.’

‘Yep. They’re just about to come out of the oven.’ The timer bell went off. ‘See?’

Mum walked up to me and looked right in my eyes for about five seconds. I started to feel guilty even though I hadn’t really done anything wrong. Finally, she stepped back.

Tash took out the oven tray and put it on the bench.

‘We have to wait fifteen minutes before we can eat them.’

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Her face was strained with the effort of trying to look normal.

‘Okay.’ Mum twisted the rings on her middle finger and took in a deep breath. ‘Well I’m tired so I’m going straight to bed. Don’t stay up too late.’

‘Night, Mum.’

‘Night, Sue.’

Mum opened her mouth, then shut it tight. She stared at

Tash’s face for what seemed like ages. Then she picked up her bag. ‘Goodnight, girls. Save me a couple of biscuits for my morning coffee.’

‘Sure,’ I said with way too much enthusiasm.

When Mum walked up to her bedroom I sank into the chair. ‘I need to go to bed.’

‘But I can’t sleep.’ Tash scratched at her wrists.

‘Can’t we put on a DVD?’

‘All right, you choose one. I’ll get my PJs on.’

When I went upstairs Beetle was curled asleep in front of his food bowl. I picked him up and held his warm, soft, puppy fur against my face.

‘Who’s a beautiful boy?’ I sung softly, cuddling him to my chest. ‘Who’s a beautiful boy?’ His little heart beat against mine as I headed back downstairs.

Tash held out her arms. ‘Can I hold him?’

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‘Mmm, okay, but not for too long.’

She took Beetle and settled back into the sofa, snuggling him into her chest. ‘You heart-breaker. I’m so jealous. I wish I could have you all to myself.’

‘Why don’t you get one of his brothers from the pet shop. Then they could grow up together.’

‘Ooh, that’d be so cute!’ Tash rubbed his wet button nose against hers. ‘I’d call him Muppy after my long-lost toy.’

I squeezed in next to her and tickled Beetle’s tummy.

‘Beetle and Muppy, best friend puppies.’

Tash screwed up her face. ‘I thought we left the bad rhymes behind in Year 8?’

We looked at each other and broke out into giggles.

Then Tash snorted and I almost wet myself.

‘Don’t, you’re giving me cramps.’ She grabbed a biscuit and shoved it in my mouth.

I took a bite. ‘This is pretty good.’

‘Yeah?’ Tash took one and picked at the choc bits.

‘Maybe you should take drugs more often.’ A weird half- laugh brayed out through my mouthful of biscuit.

Tash’s face went blank.

‘Is that the first time you’ve taken… that Jase… you know…?’

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‘Is it the first time I’ve had an eccy?’ She stared at the TV and pulled Beetle in closer to her chest, winding his curls around her little finger. ‘I’ve had a couple before.

Why?’

‘You don’t think…’ I paused the movie for a moment.

‘Like, maybe taking that sort of stuff’s got anything to do with last night.’

Tash glared at me. ‘I’ve taken something a couple of times when I’ve been at a party. How could it have anything to do with what I saw last night?’

‘It’s just that those sort of drugs can—’

‘Right Mal, you’re such an expert on drugs.’ She grabbed the remote and pressed play again.

‘Sorry.’ I got up, grabbed another biscuit and slumped into Mum’s chair.

Tash hunched into the sofa with Beetle snuggled up around her neck like a woolly black scarf, staring at the

TV, the deep crease of a frown between her eyes.

We’d been best friends so long I’d assumed I knew everything about her like she knew everything about me. But in the last few days she’d refused to tell me the real reason she’d broken up with Andrew, asked me to leave her

Tarot card reading then dropped an eccy in front of me like it was no big deal.

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I didn’t need a mirror to see she was starting to look like a stranger, even to me.

89 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 9

I ignored Beetle’s whimpers until I woke up enough to remember that if he peed on the carpet Mum would kill me. I crawled off the couch and took him outside into the cool air and watched through sleep-heavy eyes while he snuffled around in the garden to do his business.

The bushes rustled and Beetle gave a low growl.

‘Probably just a possum, Beetle. They won’t hurt you.’

I flopped into the hammock and swung gently, gazing at the moon through the frangipanni’s branches. Its flowers glowed in the moonlight and I breathed in their sweet smell.

A thud against the fence jolted me wide awake. There was a scrabble of claws then a wail pierced the silence, sharp as a firecracker. Beetle yelped.

‘Shhh,’ I jumped out of the hammock and scooped him up.

‘It’s all right, baby,’ I soothed but his shivers went right through me.

My stomach clenched as I hurried back inside and shut the door, double-checking that I’d locked it properly.

Tash was still asleep on the sofa. Her doona had fallen to the floor and I went over to cover her with it. She sat up.

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‘It’s okay, Tash, it’s just…’ The words stuck in my throat. Tash’s eyes flashed open and she looked right through me, her face a hard mask.

‘You can’t hide from me,’ she hissed, her lips twisted in a sneer.

Goose bumps prickled up my arms and across the back of my neck. Beetle whimpered and I snuggled him in my arms, too afraid to move until Tash lay down and relaxed into the sofa, her face softened.

I backed away, ran up to my room and lay down on the bed. For ages I stared at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that Tash talking in her sleep was no big deal. But in the hundreds of times that Tash and I had slept over at each other’s houses I’d never heard her talk in her sleep before.

It could have been the pill she took at the party. It could have been because she ate those biscuits right before she fell asleep. It could be her stressing about her parents or school or a million other things. Or it could be the spirit girl.

Wind rushed through the trees outside and a branch scraped against my window. Beetle gave a sharp bark. I turned on my lamp and sat up, heart thumping.

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‘It’s just the wind,’ I patted his head. ‘Don’t be silly.’ But my mind raced with whispered dangers. I had to calm down.

I searched around my bed for the book I’d bought that morning and from the corner of my eye I saw a pile of papers sitting on top of Tash’s bag. I knew they were the notes from her reading; that it was her private stuff and none of my business. But if it was information that could help me help her, maybe I was meant to read it. After all, if she hadn’t wanted me to she would have hidden them away.

I climbed out of bed to get Tash’s notes. Outside a possum screeched and another hissed its low guttural growl. My stomach clenched again; in the dark of night possums sound like pure evil.

A gust of wind billowed and whipped at the curtains as

I reached for the papers, scattering them across the floor.

I gritted my teeth and marched over to the window. Again the possum’s hiss sent a chill up my back.

‘Shut up.’ I hissed back. I slammed the window shut then gathered up the papers, got back into bed, and started to read.

Tash had neatly listed the name of each card she’d pulled and underneath each card name she’d put down a list of points: exam success; support from true friends; parties,

92 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley celebrations; letting go and new beginnings (she’d put “new boyfriend??” and a big heart next to that one); an unexpected gift or visit. They read like notes from a pep talk Mum gave me when she thought I was feeling down. It didn’t look right.

The possums had gone quiet but the wind still howled outside, scraping branches against my window like nails down a chalkboard. I grabbed my MP3 and put on my headphones to block the noise, then picked up my new book and flipped through the pages. There was a section on Tarot that listed all the cards and what they meant. I went through each of the cards Tash had drawn, one by one.

The first card was one of the most important in the reading because it foretold what the main issue coming up in your life would be. Tash had drawn The Tower.

I knew it was one of the worst cards in the deck. Any time Mum or her friends drew it in a reading, they freaked.

But maybe they overreacted to it. I checked my book:

Misery, distress, adversity, calamity, deception, ruin

A noise like rushing water spun around in my head. I turned up my music to drown it out and sucked in a deep breath. If I wanted to help Tash, I had to know what she was dealing with; I had to be strong for her.

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The next card, the obstacle, was the eight of swords.

The illustration in the book showed a blindfolded female, her body bound with ropes, and eight swords shoved into the earth behind her. It foretold a crisis.

Then followed three of cups. It was a positive card but it represented the surface reality; the face Tash showed to the world, not her real feelings. Her deep reality, her true feelings, was in the next card: the nine of swords.

Failure, deception, disappointment, despair

I searched for some positives, but apart from Wheel of

Fortune that showed her immediate past, each card that came up was worse than the one before.

The Moon: hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness,

terror, deception

Ten of swords: pain, tears, sadness

The rushing noise came crashing into my head again. I turned my music up louder.

Nine of wands: opposition, prepare for attack

The Hermit: treason, corruption, falseness, disguise

Then was the final card, the outcome. Tash had drawn

Death.

I threw the papers to the floor, ripped out my headphones and jumped out of bed, my heart thumping. This

94 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley was crazy. Almost every card foretold destruction, death and evil.

Either Tash had written down absolute crap in her notes or Edwina had lied to her. I knew that tarot readers had to be careful. They weren’t supposed to predict deaths or tragedies. But they weren’t supposed to lie either.

I read the card meanings over and over, to see if I could come up with anything different. But the answers were plain. If the tarot cards meant anything, then this spirit, this girl in the mirror, was out to get Tash.

Suddenly there was a chill in the room. My skin prickled and I hugged my arms to my chest.

‘Hello?’

I don’t know why I called out. There was no noise. But

I could feel something. The light in my bedroom flickered.

‘Hello?

Outside the possums screeched again and banged into my bedroom window.

Sweat broke out across my forehead and a disgusting taste filled my mouth. I stumbled to the bathroom and spat into the basin. My arms shook then my legs gave way and I crumpled onto the tiled floor.

The cold tiles through my thin pyjamas gave me the shock I needed to focus: I concentrated on breathing slowly,

95 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley in and out, and after a few minutes my heart stopped racing.

I stripped off and got into the shower, letting warm water run over my shoulders and neck.

Beetle came trotting in and put his paws on the end of the bathtub, his little head not quite peeping up over the edge. I looked at his sweet face, his trusting puppy eyes.

He depended on me for everything and I was never going to be able to prove to Mum that I could be responsible for him if

I fell apart just because of a few spooky noises.

I got out of the shower, dried myself and got back in my PJs then I tidied up Tash’s papers and snuggled up with

Beetle in bed.

I opened my eyes to a room filled with sunlight. Beetle was on the floor, chewing on my thongs.

‘No chewing.’ I picked him up and put his sweet face on mine. ‘If you start wrecking stuff I’ll never have any hope of keeping you.’

He wriggled away and jumped around like a wind-up toy. It was pretty early for a Sunday to be getting up but his energy was catching.

‘Want to go for a walk, baby dog?’

I rolled out of bed, threw on a pair of shorts and a T- shirt and snuck downstairs.

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In the living room, Tash was sprawled out on the sofa, her mouth open and snoring. She looked completely normal. I don’t know what I was expecting—maybe some spirit form lying where she should be—but I was happy to see that she was okay. Maybe I’d imagined her sleep talking last night. Maybe that was just my own nightmare.

I went outside and stood in the morning sun. In the daytime, everything seemed so normal my night-time freak out faded like a dream. Lucky no one else had seen it or they would have thought I was as crazy as the cockroach woman. I headed over to the park across the street, sat down on the swings, put Beetle on the grass and watched him tumble around chasing a leaf. He was so cute: he’d jump on the leaf, hit his nose and then pounce and growl at the invisible thing that had attacked him.

I pushed myself slowly on the swing, leaning back, the morning sun warm on my skin. It was so peaceful. All that scary stuff—Tash talking in her sleep, the crazy possums, the foreboding tarot cards—seemed a hundred years away.

Maybe I was stressing out about school and assignments more than I realised and it was making me jumpy. If that was the case I’d better find a better way to deal with it. If I couldn’t handle year 10 I’d never make it through Senior.

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As for the face in the mirror Tash was seeing, maybe it was some kind of waking nightmare. I knew she was stressing about school, too, especially the documentary assignment.

She hated group assignments because she never trusted anyone else to take them as seriously as she did. Not even me.

Maybe I should tell Mum about what Tash was experiencing. Tash had sworn me to secrecy but I trusted Mum to listen to me and take me seriously. Tash’s parents would be no use; her mum’s response would probably be to take her shopping. But my mum might be able to really help.

By the time I got home Tash was already up and about in the kitchen, pulling stuff out of the fridge.

‘Got any bacon?’

‘In the freezer.’

Tash hummed to herself while she got out the bacon and frying pan. ‘How does your mum like her eggs for brekky?’

‘Depends on her mood. I’m going to make her a coffee and take it up to her, so I’ll ask her then.’

Tash leaned on the bench. ‘Maybe I should make omelettes. What sort of cheese have you got?’ She went back to the fridge. ‘I’ve already turned the coffee machine on so it should be ready for you to use.’

‘You want one?’

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‘No. I’ve already got energy to burn.’

I got out coffee cups and poured milk into the jug. ‘You slept okay? I thought you might have been uncomfortable on the sofa all night.’

‘No way. It was the best sleep I’ve had in ages.’

‘Yeah?’ I tried to keep my voice light. ‘You didn’t have dreams or anything.’

‘Not that I can remember.’ She grinned. ‘You must have a magic sleeping sofa. Or maybe it was the biscuits.’

I concentrated on frothing the milk. ‘I thought I heard you talking in your sleep last night.’

‘Really? I’ve never done that before, have I?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Was I talking so loud I woke you up?’

‘No. Beetle woke me up ‘cause he needed to wee.’ I poured milk into the coffee cups and spilt half of it onto the bench. ‘Maybe it was me dreaming about you dreaming.’ I tried to force a laugh but it came out like a witch’s cackle.

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Tash looked at me as if I was going crazy. My cheeks burnt with embarrassment and flopped my hair forward over my face. ‘I’ll just take this up to Mum,’

I mumbled.

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‘Coffee for Ms Atford.’

‘Come in.’ Mum was sitting up in bed reading a magazine. ‘Are you sucking up?’

I put the coffee down on her bedside table and flopped down on her bed. ‘Thought I’d better.’

‘Mal,’ Tash yelled from the kitchen. ‘How does your mum want her eggs?’

Mum looked at me over her reading glasses. ‘Full service this morning, is it?’

‘Yep.’

‘In that case I’ll have two fried eggs, bacon and tomatoes.’

‘She wants them fried. Two. Plus bacon and tomatoes,’ I yelled back.

‘Where’s the dog?’ Mum’s voice was stiff.

‘In my room having a sleep. He’s all tired ‘cause I took him for a walk to the park this morning.’

‘You got up early on a Sunday morning to walk a dog?’

Mum raised an eyebrow. I hated it when she did that. It made me feel guilty, even when I hadn’t done anything wrong. ‘Are you trying to demonstrate that you can be a responsible pet owner?’

‘Mum, I love him.’ I crawled forward on the bed and did my own puppy dog eyes expression.

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Mum rolled her eyes. ‘At least I can thank the universe that you’re saying that about a dog and not about some loser boyfriend.’ She held my hand. ‘The thing is, we’re not allowed pets here. It’s in the lease. If it was up to me, I would probably let you keep him.’

‘But Mum, no one need ever know we have him. He’s an inside dog. The real estate people will never even find out.’

‘I’m not in the habit of lying, Malia. Not to anyone. I thought I’d instilled that value into you as well.’ She pursed her lips into a cat’s bum mouth. That was a bad sign.

It meant a full-blown lecture was coming.

‘You have been wilful and deceitful. I’ll admit the puppy is very cute, but that’s not the issue—’

Tash screamed from the kitchen. Mum looked at me. ‘Are you two planning—’

Tash screamed again. ‘Mal! Quick!’

I ran down the stairs. Mum jumped out of bed and followed close behind me.

Tash was crouching on the floor next to the stove, holding her wrist. The frying pan and a mess of broken eggs and tomatoes were on the floor beside her. ‘My hand,’ she screamed, ‘my hand.’

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Mum pushed past me, grabbed Tash’s red-raw hand and put it under the cold tap.

‘Calm down, Natasha,’ Mum said. ‘Keep still. You need to keep your hand under this water.’

‘It hurts,’ she cried like a little kid. ‘It hurts.’

‘I know it does, love. But you have to hold it under the water, okay?’

Tash nodded and bit her lip, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain.

Mum spoke quietly. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. I was just going to cook breakfast and…

I don’t know.’

‘Okay. Never mind now.’ Mum looked at Tash’s hand. ‘I need to get you to the doctors so they can treat this properly. Are your parents home?’

‘No. They’re up at their weekender.’

Mum’s jaw set like rock. ‘Okay. I’ll take you to the medical centre in The Grove.’ She turned off the tap. ‘Malia, get the ice pack out of the freezer and wrap it in a tea-towel.

‘I’ll just run upstairs and throw some clothes on. Wait for me in the car. Tash, just rest your hand on top of the ice pack, okay?’

Tash nodded, still sobbing. I led her to the car and opened the door for her to get into the back. My mind was

102 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley racing. Tash was a whiz in the kitchen. She’d been able to crack eggs open with one hand since she was five years old.

I was the kitchen klutz who constantly had burn marks from the oven. I didn’t understand how she could’ve had an accident like this.

I sat in the back next to her. ‘What happened? How did you burn yourself?’

She just shook her head and cried some more.

‘It’s okay,’ I handed her some tissues. ‘Just try and stay calm. Mum’ll have you to the doctors as quick as she can.’

Mum picked up a magazine, flicked through it, then put it down again and let out a huffy sigh as she checked her watch. ‘This is hardly the way I want to spend a lazy Sunday morning.’

She turned and faced me. ‘If I had my choice, I’d rather be spending it at my weekender at the coast. Oh, that’s right. I don’t have one.’

My stomach sank. Mum was about to have a dummy spit over Tash’s parents again. It was as if she had a tank inside her that slowly filled up with things about Tash’s parents that made her angry and every now and then it

103 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley spilled over and she’d go off about it. Then she’d be fine again for a few months.

She picked up another magazine, looked at the cover, snorted in disgust and threw it down again. ‘Why is it that

I’m in the doctor’s surgery with their daughter while they’re relaxing at the beach?

‘Do you think, just once, they might like to take Tash with them and invite you? Hell, why don’t they invite me? I wouldn’t say no to a relaxing weekend at the beach.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Those bloody people have no idea.’

‘Ms Atford?’ A doctor at the reception desk looked around the room. Mum pursed her lips then walked over to him. I watched as he took her aside, talked to her quietly, his face grim. Mum frowned, shook her head, said something to him. I didn’t know what was going on, but they both looked way too serious. And it didn’t look like they were just discussing how to care for Tash’s burn.

Mum put her hand over her mouth and shook her head, then came back and sat down next to me. She stared straight ahead, her hands clasped tightly on her knees.

‘Malia,’ she said quietly, ‘I need you to be honest with me about something.’ She turned and looked right in my

104 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley eyes, then shook her head. ‘No, that’s not fair. Now’s not the time.’

I had no idea what she was talking about but I kept my mouth shut. I got the feeling I’d just got away with something, at least for a little while.

105 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 10

On the way home the car was loaded with Mum’s resentment and

Tash’s pain. The car’s engine rumbled in my ears, punctuated every now and then by Mum’s muttered swear words as she cursed any driver who dared interfere with her straight- down-the-white-line journey.

I tried to catch Tash’s eye. There was something weird about how she’d burnt her hand, something that didn’t make sense. But she turned her shoulder against me and burrowed herself further into the corner, cradling her bandaged hand in her good one.

We pulled into our driveway and Mum cut the engine. In the silence a thick pane of her anger rose up between the front and back seats.

‘We need to have a serious discussion.’ She spoke to the windscreen. ‘You girls go inside while I put the car away. I’ll meet you in there.’

In the living room, perched on the edge of the sofa, Tash still wouldn’t look at me.

‘Are you angry with me?’ I reached across and touched her arm.

She flinched. ‘It’s not all about you, Mal.’

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‘Sorry.’ I slumped into the sofa and folded my arms.

‘My hand is killing me. I can’t think straight.’

‘Didn’t the doctor give you something for it?’

‘He gave me a needle. But it hasn’t helped much.’

I looked up. Mum was standing between the kitchen and the lounge room, staring at us, her mouth a thin line. She twisted the rings on her middle finger and drew in a deep breath.

‘Tash, how exactly did you burn your hand?’

‘I’m…I’m not sure.’ Tash moved her hand gingerly. ‘I started to feel dizzy, I must have put my hand out to get my balance and put it on the hotplate.’

Mum lowered herself into the antique armchair. I hated that chair. It stank of authority. She looked like a judge about to pass sentence.

‘But wasn’t the frying pan on the hotplate?’

‘No. I was just getting it ready.’

Mum sucked in another big breath, as if she was trying to stop herself from raising her voice. ‘I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this until I’ve spoken to your parents—’

‘Please don’t say anything to them.’

‘You have third degree burns on your hand. I think they’re going to notice.’

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‘But you don’t understand—’

‘No. You don’t understand.’ Mum clenched her fists then stretched them open. ‘I believe… the doctor gave me cause to believe, that you were under the influence of drugs.’

I stared at the floor and stuck my little finger in my mouth. Before I knew it I’d ripped off the nail.

‘The doctor believes that you put your hand on the stove because your normal defences were down due to the effects of ecstasy or something similar.

‘I cannot have you staying in my house if you take drugs. I cannot be responsible for or condone that sort of behaviour. Do you understand?’ A knotted muscle bulged along

Mum’s neck.

I shifted my eyes across and looked at Tash. Her face was pale and her lips trembled.

‘I swear, Sue, it’s not drugs.’

My mum hates liars more than anything. She takes it as a personal insult. Her eyes fixed on Tash’s.

Tash shifted in her chair but there was no hiding from

Mum’s laser-beam glare.

‘Okay.’ Tash stared at the floor as she spoke. ‘I did take something last night. I went out and met up with a friend and he gave me something. Malia wasn’t in on it.’

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Mum unflinching blue eyes glared at us, a human lie detector. ‘What was it? Ecstasy?’

‘I’m not sure. He said it was something he got from his mum’s medicine cabinet, some tranquilliser. He said it would calm me down but instead it made me a bit crazy. That’s why we were doing the midnight cooking last night.’

Tash’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I suppose that’s why I was feeling dizzy in the kitchen this morning. I didn’t sleep too well. I kept waking up every hour or so. And I was having these horrible dreams, nightmares…’

My stomach sank. She was telling Mum the exact opposite of what she’d told me when I’d got back from the park.

‘I’m going to have to tell your parents. What’s their mobile number?’

‘It’s in my phone. Here.’ Tash pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it to Mum.

‘You’d better rest here for now. I’ll ask them to come and get you as quickly as possible. Malia, go and finish cleaning up the kitchen.’

‘I’ll help.’ Tash started to get up.

‘No,’ Mum’s voice was hard. ‘You lie here and rest.’

She followed me into the kitchen. ‘Did you take anything last night?’

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‘No, Mum. For chrissakes you know me better than that.

You’ve given me enough of the lectures about that chemical crap.’

‘Enough to convince you to stay away from it?’

‘Yes.’ I wet some paper towels and bent down to clean up the egg mess on the floor. I could feel Mum’s eyes staring down at me. I knew she could tell I was hiding something. But I didn’t feel I could tell her about the face in the mirror, not now. She’d never believe me, she’d just think it was something Tash and I were making up, or say that it was drug related.

But I knew in my heart that wasn’t true. On Friday night when Tash called me over to her place and told me about the girl she’d been straight and sober. And I hadn’t imagined that look on her face when she spat those words out of her sneering mouth last night. I’d almost convinced myself it was my own nightmare but I’d been wide-awake; what

I’d seen was real.

I finished cleaning up the mess and put the paper towels in the bin. Mum was standing right behind me, looking at me as if she was trying to read my mind.

‘You don’t have anything else to say to me then?’

‘No, Mum.’

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‘Malia, look at me. Tell me if you know something else is going on.’

I shook my head. ‘No Mum, there’s nothing.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

She tapped her fingers on the bench. ‘What about Kate? Do you think it’s something to do with her leaving?’

‘Why would it be anything to do with her?’

‘Not sure…’ Mum frowned and crossed her hands across her belly. ‘Has Tash told you why Katie left?’

‘No… not really. She told me Katie hated her dad and they fought a lot but not much more.’ Tash had told me more but she’d sworn me to secrecy; said I could never tell anyone.

‘Her dad…’ Mum’s fingers tapped across her belly as if trying to pick up some secret code. Her eyes clouded with worry. ‘You’re sure she didn’t say anything else?’

Maybe it was time to tell Mum what I knew. Words rose up in my throat—a strange girl in the mirror; not Tash’s face; another girl, a spirit girl. I sifted the jumbled words through my mind but I knew, no matter what I said, it wouldn’t make sense.

‘No.’ I crossed my arms over my chest. ‘Nothing else.’

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Angry Mum snapped back into action. ‘Fine. I’ll call Tash’s parents now. And you can take that bloody dog back to the shop today.’

‘But Mum—’

‘But nothing. You’ve caused enough trouble this weekend to last a whole year. That dog goes back to the shop today.’

‘I don’t think the pet shop’s open today.’ I knew it was open, but I just had to try and get more time so I could either change Mum’s mind or come up with another plan.

‘Tomorrow then.’ Mum put her hands on hips—that meant end of all negotiations. She grabbed Tash’s mobile and thumped up the stairs. ‘And you better get up here now and hope he hasn’t made a mess all over the bloody place or I’ll barbecue him for dinner. I don’t care how cute he is.’

I sat on my bed and cuddled Beetle. ‘Don’t worry about that horrible old woman. No one’s going to barbecue you, my little sweet-pea.’

‘Can I cuddle him?’ Tash stood at my bedroom door, her face as pale as candle wax.

‘Jeez, Tash, come here and lie down.’ I made room for her on the bed and put Beetle between us. He snuggled up and licked her face.

‘It’s not just the burn, is it?’

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‘What?’

I looked at her shaking hands. ‘The pain from your burn, that’s not what’s making you like this. It’s her, isn’t it?’

Tash stared at the ceiling. A tear spilled down her cheek. ‘She’s… not just in the mirror any more.’

My stomach twisted.

‘I slept fine last night. I don’t remember having any dreams, that’s unusual for me. And I woke up this morning feeling good. Then…’ Her voice choked with a sob. ‘Then when

I started cooking, I saw her face.’

‘Where?’

‘In the air, in nothing, she just appeared. I freaked out so much I fell back, put my hand out to steady myself and it landed on the element.’

‘So when you first screamed, that wasn’t from the burn.’

‘No, it was because I saw her.’ Tash’s voice cracked and she swallowed a sob. ‘What am I going to do, Mal? Am I going crazy?’

‘Maybe it was the stuff you took last night, maybe it made you hallucinate.’

‘It doesn’t do that. Especially not after ten hours.’

A sudden chill in the room prickled my skin. ‘Last night, you don’t remember waking up at all?’

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‘No. Why?’ She sat up and gripped my wrist. ‘Why have you got that look on your face?’

‘Last night, Beetle woke up and I took him outside for a wee. When I came back, you were…’ The words stuck in my throat.

‘I was what?’

I stared straight ahead at the posters on my wall. I couldn’t look at her.

‘Mal, what did you see?’

‘When…when I came in you sat up straight on the sofa, your eyes wide open, staring out at nothing. You said, “you can’t hide from me.”’

‘Oh God,’ Tash scratched at the skin above her bandage.

‘Oh God.’

‘That’s not all. It was your face. It was…it was…’ The words choked me up again.

Tash shook her head violently. ‘No, don’t tell me any more,

I don’t want to hear it.’ She grabbed my wrist again and squeezed harder. ‘You saw her face, didn’t you?’

‘It was dark and I’ve never seen her—’

‘What’s wrong with me?’ She swung her legs off the bed and paced around the room.

‘Sit down before you pass out.’

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‘I can’t sit. Jesus.’ She tugged at her hair with her good hand. ‘Why is this happening to me?’

‘Natasha.’ Mum stood at the doorway. ‘What are you doing? I told you to rest.’

Tash sat on the edge of my bed.

‘I’ve rung your parents. They’ll be here to get you in thirty minutes. On the phone we discussed what has happened and your father has decided that it’s best if you girls don’t see each other for a while.’

‘What?’ I yelled. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Malia, I’ve had enough of your nonsense. I don’t know exactly what is going on with you girls but I do know you’ve only told me half the truth. Until you both settle down and grow up a bit, it’s probably best if you don’t spend any more time together.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ I stood right in her face. ‘You can’t do that to us. That’s so unfair. We haven’t been doing anything wrong. Why don’t you stand up to him?’

‘It’s not a matter of standing up to him or even if I agree with him. It’s his decision as a parent and I choose to respect that.’

‘You are so full of crap. What happened to respecting me and my choices?’

‘Settle down, Malia. This is not the end of the world.’

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‘Yes it is. You just don’t get it, do you?’

‘Stop being so goddamn melodramatic.’ She pushed past me. ‘Tash, get your things together then wait in the living room until your parents get here. You,’ she pointed at my face, ‘stay here until you calm down and apologise for your unacceptable behaviour.’

I picked up Beetle’s squeaky toy and chucked it at the door as Mum slammed it behind her. We’d had fights over stupid small stuff, but never anything like this. My guts churned.

‘I can’t do this,’ Tash whispered, ‘I can’t face this alone.’ She clutched my arm. ‘Why don’t we just take off somewhere?’

‘What? Run away?’

‘Yeah. Why not?’

‘Where would we go?’

‘We could try to find Kate.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘No… but I’m sure if I email and let her know what’s happening she’ll tell me.

I hesitated. ‘Sorry, Tash, I can’t just run away.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of Beetle. I’m not giving him up.’

‘Who says you have to? We can take him with us?’

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‘You know there’s no way we can do that. He’s a puppy.’

‘We can take him on a bus or train and hide him in your backpack. No one will know.’

For a moment Tash’s idea almost seemed workable. Then reality kicked in. ‘We have no idea where Kate is. And

Beetle needs to wee every ten minutes.’

‘What are your bright ideas? Our parents want to split us up? Is that what you want?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘The reader said this would happen.’ Tash slumped back on the bed.

‘What?’

‘The reader said there would be a split. I thought it was about Andrew, but she said it hadn’t happened yet. It must be about you and me.’

‘What exactly did she say?’

‘Something like, “you will be forced apart from a true supporter”.’

‘What else did she say?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

Tash’d be furious if she knew I’d read her notes last night. My face reddened. ‘If it affects me you have to.’

‘Maybe it’s better that we’re apart. The reader said…’

Tash gulped, her mouth wide open.

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‘She said what?’

Beetle growled in his sleep and the fur on his neck prickled.

‘Tash, what did…?’ I followed her stare into the corner of the room. ‘What is it?’

‘She’s here now,’ Tash gripped my wrist so hard it hurt.

My breath stuck in my throat.

‘She’s standing in the corner.’ Tash nodded to the space behind my desk.

I pulled my wrist away from her grip. ‘You bitch,’ I took a couple of steps towards the desk. ‘Show yourself to me, you bitch.’

Beetle yapped. My heart pounded hard in my chest.

‘It’s no use.’ Tash grabbed my shirt and pulled me back. ‘This is something I have to deal with myself.’ She kept her eyes on the floor as she picked up her clothes and shoved them in her backpack.

I stared at the corner, willing myself to see the girl, but I couldn’t. I could feel her though; she was a chill deep in my bones. I shivered and sat back on my bed, pulling the doona around me. Beetle crawled onto my lap, growling low.

‘Is she still there?’

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‘Probably. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of looking.’ Tash zipped up her bag and sat next to me. ‘Don’t worry about our parents. I’ll catch up with you at school, we’ll work something out then.’ She stroked Beetle’s fur and gave a half smile. ‘Something that includes our little Muppy here.’

‘You mean Beetle.’

‘Oh. Yeah, Beetle.’ She got up and left, closing the bedroom door behind her.

I sat on the edge of my bed, holding my doona tight around me, feeling Beetle’s warmth against my belly. After a few seconds the chill left my bones and the room seemed lighter, easier to breathe in. Whatever it was had left.

After a few minutes I heard Tash’s parents arrive. The deep tones of her father’s voice oozed through our house. As usual, he was doing all the talking.

I sneaked out of my bedroom and crouched at the top of the stairs, looking down towards the front door. Mum had her back to me. I couldn’t see her face but her spine was stiff with distaste.

Mr Benetti’s sloppy frame blocked the doorway. He flared his nostrils and folded his arms across his paunch while his wife stood behind him, eyes blank and mouth zipped tight, a wax model of a real human being. They were both

119 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley dressed as if they’d stepped out of a glossy magazine ad for a super-rich-people-only resort.

In the middle of the adults Tash stared at the floor, arms stiff by her sides—a prisoner on trial.

‘Have you apologised to Mrs Atford for the trouble you’ve caused?’ Mr Benetti put his hand on Tash’s shoulder.

‘Don’t make me vomit.’ She jerked it off as if it was a venomous spider. ‘And if you want to be respectful, she prefers Ms Atford.’ She picked up her bag, pushed past her parents and stalked out the front door.

Mr Benetti jerked his head towards the door, a silent order to his wife.

‘Tash! Do you think that’s appropriate?’ Mrs Benetti plucked at her blonde helmet hair as she scuttled out the door.

Mr Benetti stared down his long nose at Mum. She tilted up her chin and glared right back at him. For a moment it looked as though she was about to challenge him to step outside and fight.

Finally he took a step back towards the door. ‘I apologise for my daughter’s behaviour. I shall take appropriate measures to ensure she doesn’t contact Malia.’

He turned his back on Mum and shut the door behind him.

I burst into tears.

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The Benettis were such horrible people. Mum knew that, she knew how much Tash depended on me, depended on both of us to give her a place to go when she needed it. But Mum didn’t seem to care about that any more, or care how wrong it was that she’d given me the most stupid punishment at the worst possible time.

The well of tears inside me dried into a small hard ball of anger. I wiped my face dry. It didn’t matter what

Mum or the Benettis said. They couldn’t watch us twenty-four hours a day. They couldn’t stop us seeing each other if we wanted to. Especially not now.

121 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 11

The sun glowed hot and orange through my window and into my sleep-heavy eyes, making my head ache. I lay still, listening for Mum-noises, but the place was silent.

Good. I wasn’t up for another argument, not yet anyway.

I went downstairs and grabbed some water and fruit from the kitchen then took it back up to my room, got on the net and checked my email. My inbox was full of the usual junk but I waited for a few minutes to see if Tash or anyone else

I wanted to talk to came online. No one did so I flopped onto my bed and picked up my book.

I showed it to Beetle. ‘Want to see if we can unleash the psychic within?’ He wagged his tail and I laughed.

‘Well, it scared my brain stupid last night, sweet-pea, but let’s give it another go.’ I flicked through to the chapter on spirits and started skimming through it. On the floor Beetle was wrestling with one of his soft toys, rolling around and pouncing on it. When the toy squeaked he jumped back in fright then pounced again.

I kept half an eye on him, not taking much notice of what I was reading, until I came up to a section on psychic attacks.

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Psychic attacks are a form of negative energy. Many

experiences, from so-called accidents to life

threatening diseases, such as cancer, can be caused by

psychic attacks.

Psychic attacks causing cancer? Now that was just dumb.

Maybe I was wasting my time with this book; maybe even the section on tarot cards wasn’t reliable. I decided to pay more attention to what I was reading. If I was going to help

Tash I needed facts, not psycho-rubbish.

People who are suffering from grief, depression or

extreme stress are particularly vulnerable to this form

of attack. Females are more vulnerable than males.

A common method of entry for psychic attack is the

mirror.

I sat up, my heart pounding. But this time I refused to be spooked. Instead I got on the net and started searching.

Some of the stuff I found was just out there—it had been written by total wackos—but there was other information that related almost exactly to what had been happening to

Tash and some of it had been written by scientists.

The phenomenon, according to one website, was called

Adolescent Transference. I read the opening paragraphs on the screen.

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With all the physical and mental changes that a teenager goes through, the chaos in their bodies leaves them psychically open and vulnerable to the souls of dead teenagers; young people who died before their time and are desperate to live again. The most common method that these lost teenage souls use to transfer into their host is a mirror.

My mouth went dry as I stared at the screen. There was more information and links to case studies from scientific websites. One article was by a Doctor Flann-Hill from the

Hurst University.

There is much debate about the so-called phenomenon of

Adolescent Transference. Many within the scientific and

medical communities believe that to support the

existence of such an event as medical fact is

professionally inept and unethical. And yet, the facts

remain that such cases have been scientifically

observed.

My head was buzzing. I didn’t want to believe what I’d just read. They told us hundreds of times in school that so much of the information on the web was rubbish, just people making stuff up, creating a million and one urban legends.

But this fitted with everything that was happening to Tash.

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There was too much information about it for it to be all lies.

Erin’s sign-in popped up on my screen. Straight away a message box appeared.

hey mal, where u been all weekend? have u seen tash?

Seconds later there was a message from Jules.

hey mal, wot u doing? have u & tash been doing research for the doco

I blinked at the messages on my screen. Part of me was screaming to talk to them about the stuff I’d been reading on the web but I knew that was impossible. There’d be too many questions. And with Erin’s magic talent for getting information out of people, she’d probably get the truth about Tash, or something close to it, out of me in minutes.

you there mal?? Not ignoring me r u??

But how could I keep something as huge as this a secret from Erin and Jules. My brain was bursting.

earth to mal, come in mal

I had to tell someone. Anyone.

r u there or wot?????

I pushed away from the computer and paced around my room, staring at the messages popping up on the screen, one after the other.

I wanted to tell them. I had to tell them. Maybe together we could do something to help Tash.

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My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

A key jiggled and turned in the front door lock.

My back stiffened. Maybe Tash had escaped her parent’s clutches and come back here.

Then I heard Mum and Mick’s voices in the kitchen.

I shut down my computer before I did anything stupid.

There was no way I could betray Tash to Jules and Erin; no matter how crazy it made me to keep everything to myself I had to be loyal to Tash. It had to be her decision to tell them about the girl in the mirror.

‘Mal, are you home? We picked up some Thai if you’re hungry.’ Mum almost sounded like a normal human instead of an evil queen. That was Mick’s magic: he was a genius at putting Mum in a good mood.

I went downstairs with a smile plastered on my face.

Even though I hadn’t forgiven Mum for banning me from seeing

Tash, with Mick around, it was happy-families time. Scaring him off would only give Mum more time to obsess over my life.

‘Smells good.’ I sat at the kitchen bench while Mum served up the food.

‘You missed out on a great movie, Mal.’ Mick pushed a plate and fork over to me. ‘Funniest thing I’ve seen all year.’

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Mum smiled and gave Mick a playful smack on his shoulder.

‘You say that about every movie we go to.’

‘Maybe, but this time I really mean it.’ He darted his dark eyes side to side like a cartoon bad boy and grinned.

‘This movie was fully sick.’

‘I think you missed the peak time for that slang by at least a decade.’ Mum sat next to Mick and rolled her eyes at me.

‘No, I think you’ll find that term is coming back into use, isn’t that right, Mal?

‘Uh, sure.’ I put a forkful of noodles into my mouth and rolled my eyes back at Mum.

‘Yep,’ Mick shoved stir-fry into his mouth, ‘fully sick, mate.’

Mum shook her head in pretend disgust but she couldn’t hide her smile. Mick was weird, but Mum said that’s what she liked about him. He was the tall, sort of goofy-looking guy with the shy smile that started out a loser at the start of a movie but got the good-looking girl in the end. He was so different to Mum in some ways – like he collected comics and was obsessed with super-heroes – but he made Mum laugh, even at the dumbest things. And best of all, he never tried to suck up and act best-buddies with me.

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Three short yelps came from upstairs. Mick kept on eating, acting as if he couldn’t hear a thing. Beetle yelped again, louder this time. Mum raised her eyebrows, her mouth tightening as she chewed. I slid off my chair and ran upstairs to Beetle, put him in the litter box, then brought him downstairs.

I walked back into the kitchen just as Mum and Mick were about to kiss. ‘Excuse me. I don’t want to be scarred for life.’

‘I think you’ll survive.’ Mum slid off her chair, her cheeks pink, and started to tidy the kitchen.

‘Ah,’ Mick tickled Beetle under his chin. ‘This must be the infamous Beetle.’ He held out his hands. ‘Can I have a play?’

‘Sure,’ I shrugged and handed Beetle over. Mick put him on the floor on his back and spun him around. ‘Look, he’s break dancing!’

Mum bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. ‘Mal, can you stack the dishwasher please? I need to sort out the washing.’ She headed to the laundry, sidestepping Mick and

Beetle.

‘So,’ Mick waited until Mum was out of earshot. ‘The puppy’s not too popular with your mum?’

‘Not exactly.’

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‘Did you expect her to be?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Hmmm,’ he spun Beetle around one more time and tickled his chest. ‘I can see why you wanted him. Even a bloke like me could fall for a charmer like this.’

I plonked myself on the floor next to Beetle. ‘I don’t want to lose him.’

‘I think your mum’s just a bit angry that you got him behind her back.’ Mick scratched the grey stubble on his chin. ‘Maybe if you give her a bit of time to cool down, she’ll change her mind.’

‘You think so?’

Mick shrugged. ‘Maybe. She’s not a monster. And you two get on pretty well most of the time.’

‘Yeah,’ I pulled Beetle onto my lap and hugged him to me. ‘Maybe.’

‘I’m no Dr Phil, but I reckon if you show your Mum how responsible you can be with Beetle, and show her a bit of respect, you might be surprised how things turn out. Just be honest with her.’

‘Yeah.’ I nodded.

‘Well, I’m off to show your Mum how irresponsible I can be by interrupting her while she’s busy. That way you’ll look like a star performer.’ He spun Beetle around on the

129 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley floor once more. ‘This dog’s a natural.’ Then he jumped up and sauntered off to the laundry.

Mick was right. Mum was pretty reasonable most of the time. We didn’t fight much, at least not as much as my friends fought with their mums. I could talk to her about pretty much anything: sex, drugs, boys, weird stuff that was happening to my body. She’d listen to me and talk calmly, giving advice or sometimes just giving me a hug. Okay, sometimes she could be annoying and would start to ask questions I didn’t want to answer. But we were pretty close.

I desperately wanted to keep Beetle. If being responsible and honest was what it took to keep him, then

I’d do it.

My stomach twisted into a jumble of knots. Acting responsibly with Beetle was one thing; being honest, really honest, was another. Because that would mean talking to Mum about what was happening to Tash as well.

Mum could always sense when I had something big on my mind. It was obvious she already suspected that I was keeping a secret from her. But if I told her the truth, or as much of it as I knew from Tash, would Mum believe me anyway? She says people will do or say anything to justify actions they know are wrong. And after what had happened this morning, she’d just blame everything on drugs.

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And the adolescent transference theory was nagging at my brain. It was the perfect explanation for what was happening to Tash.

She was the rich, beautiful, straight-A student that boys fell over themselves for and teachers loved. If some lost teenage soul was out there looking to take over someone’s life, Tash would be a perfect target.

I hugged Beetle close to my chest. There had to be a way out of this situation; a way for me to be responsible and keep Beetle as well as help Tash and keep her secret.

And it was something I was just going to have to figure out myself.

131 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 12

Jules, Erin and I sat together near the back of the classroom, the notes for our proposal spread out in front of us. Under the desk I had my mobile flipped open, showing them photos of Beetle while we waited for Tash to show up—we had to give a group update on our assignment. Erin was in love with Beetle just from the photos and even though Jules liked bigger dogs she thought he was adorable, too. I hadn’t got around to telling them about Mum wanting to send Beetle back to the pet shop. I was trying to pretend that bit would go away.

The teacher called out Tash’s name from the roll and looked over at us. I hid my mobile in my hand just as the door crashed open and Tash tumbled in, her bandaged hand in a sling.

Everyone in the room stared at her. She hunched over and hung her head, as if she was trying to make herself invisible. A frown flickered across Ms Fitzwallace’s forehead, then she slipped on her teacher-in-control mask.

‘Natasha, are you unwell?’ She held out her arm like a traffic cop, hovering her hand just above Tash’s shoulder.

Tash kept her face to the floor. ‘My hand’s aching but

I’ll be okay, Ms Fitzwallace.’

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Ms Fitzwallace gave a sharp nod. ‘To your desk then.’

Tash stumbled. Ms Fitzwallace grabbed her shoulder and held her upright. ‘Do you need to go to sick bay?’

Tash shook her head. ‘No thanks, Miss.’

Ms Fitzwallace watched Tash make her way towards her desk through lowered eyes. Tash gave me a quick, helpless look then slumped in the chair next to mine and shoved a folded piece of paper in my hand. She stared straight ahead as I put the paper into my pocket.

‘Julia, is your group ready to present your proposal now?’

‘Yes, Miss.’ Jules picked up her papers. ‘We’ve chosen a local artist, Louise de Piccolo, as the subject for our documentary. She has an exhibition at a gallery in the

Valley showing at the moment. We’ve all seen the exhibition, have copies of her artists' statement and also have arranged a time to interview the artist this Wednesday.’

‘But what is your documentary’s theme? What is its main point of interest? What is going to make people want to see it?’

Thank God for Jules. She answered every question

Fitzwallace threw at us—even the ones to do with budget which we’d barely talked about. Tash sat cradling her bandaged hand, her hair hanging over her face, while I

133 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley ignored Erin’s concerned looks and not-so-subtle jabs in my leg and waited for the interrogation to be over.

Ms Fitzwallace leaned back against her desk, arms folded. ‘Do the rest of you have anything to say? This is supposed to be a group effort. I hope you have not left everything up to Julia. Malia, what has been your input so far?’

‘I…umm…well, we all went to the gallery—’

‘Yes, we’ve established that. And?’

‘We’ve had several group discussions about different angles we could take and…we also…ummm—’

‘I…’ Tash stood, her legs trembling. ‘I need to be sick.’

Her chair clattered to the floor as she pushed past us and ran out the classroom door. I stood to follow her but Ms

Fitzwallace motioned instead to the girl who was closest to the door.

‘Fiona, please check that Natasha makes it to sick bay.

The rest of you, quiet.’ Ms Fitzwallace stared down at Erin,

Jules and me, her eyebrows raised in a death-look.

‘As for your group, I want evidence that you are all contributing to this assignment equally. Is that clear?’

‘Yes Ms Fitzwallace,’ we mumbled.

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For the rest of the lesson I kept my head low and out of Fitzwallace’s line of sight. As soon as the bell rang I hurried out of the classroom towards sick bay, hoping to see

Tash.

‘What did Tash do to her hand?’ Jules followed close behind me.

‘She had an accident.’

‘An accident?’ Erin ran through the crowd of Year 10 girls and joined us. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Tash burnt her hand on the stove at my house when she was making breakfast. Now our parents have banned us from seeing each other.’

‘What?’ Erin walked double time to keep up with me.

‘For burning her hand?’

‘That’s barbaric,’ Jules huffed.

My heart was pounding when we got to the sick bay. I was desperate to see Tash, but I knew she wouldn’t be happy I had Erin and Jules with me. I knocked quietly and opened the door. But the sick bay room was empty.

Erin peered over my shoulder. ‘Where’s she gone?’

‘She must have been sent home.’ Jules stuck her head in and looked around. ‘She looked pretty crap.’

I shut the door and leant against it, my head buzzing. In my pocket I could feel the note she’d slipped me in the

135 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley classroom. I was desperate to read it, but not with Jules and Erin around.

‘I gotta go,’ I mumbled and headed to the toilet block.

‘Mal!’ Erin grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a bench seat. ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ She sat beside me.

‘I told you. Tash burnt herself at my place and now we’re banned from seeing each other.’

‘Come on, there’s more to it than that.’ Jules stretched out on the grass in front of us, her legs dappled with shadows from the tree above. ‘Why would you get banned just because she had an accident?’ She narrowed her eyes like an archer fixing her focus on a target. ‘And since when do her parents care about what she does or who she sees?’

I stared at the ground so they couldn’t see my face start to redden. ‘Since now.’

Erin and Jules faced me like a two-person jury.

‘Why?’

‘How come?’

Their questions buzzed around me like a cloud of mosquitoes.

I hated to lie. But picking out which pieces of the truth to tell was going to get messy. I stared at the tree branch that hung above us, thick with frangipani flowers, wishing I could rise up and vanish into it.

136 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Tash’s parents have decided to mend their abandoning ways and act as if they’re some sort of super parents. They think me and Tash are a bad influence on each other because we snuck out on Saturday night and went to this party.’

Erin shook her head. ‘But Tash is always going to parties. There’s got to be more to it than that.’

‘Yeah, come on Mal. What did you guys really get up to?’ Jules leant forward. ‘Drinking, drugs?’

‘Sex?’ Erin tilted her head and gave a sly grin.

‘Well…’ They weren’t going to let up until they got some details. My best bet was to distract them with some juicy gossip. ‘Maybe a little bit of everything.’

Jules and Erin gasped like a TV sitcom audience.

‘You really did have a big weekend,’ Jules nodded her head in admiration. ‘Buying a puppy and getting busted for going to an open house party.’

‘Details, please, details!’ Erin rubbed her hands together.

‘Tash was with this guy Jase from her work. He gave her an eccy and she went a bit nuts with it.’

‘Serious?’ Erin’s grey-flecked eyes widened with shock.

‘And you?’

‘I hate drugs, you know that. I pretended to drink a beer.’ I hugged my arms around myself. ‘But I did get with

137 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley this guy called Chris. Gorgeous eyes, six-pack abs, and he knows how to kiss.’

Erin elbowed me in my side. ‘Is that all?’

‘Of course. Leave ‘em wanting more is what my mum taught me. And it worked. He sent me about ten texts last night.’

‘Good work, Mal,’ Erin punched my arm.

‘But why are you and Tash getting separated?’ Jules flicked a strand of hair off her face. ‘Did her parents find out Tash took an eccy?’

‘Yeah, Mum told them,’ I chewed on my fingernail. ‘When she came home from her date Tash was making biscuits and running around like a two-year-old on red cordial. Mum was a bit sus, and then, in the morning, Tash started making breakfast, got dizzy and burnt her hand on the hotplate.

‘We had to take her to the medical centre and the doctor told Mum that Tash was coming down off something.

‘Tash denied taking anything at first but eventually she told Mum the truth. Then Mum told Tash’s parents and so now they’re banning us from each other.’

‘That’s so ridiculous,’ said Jules.

Erin shook her head. ‘It’s weird how Tash’s mum went for the banning thing. Like Jules said, her parents have never cared before. Why start now?’

138 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I looked up at the cloud-darkened sky and shrugged. ‘It was her dad that wanted the ban. I think her mum just went along with it. But ever since Katie left their mum’s been paying

Tash a bit more attention. Well, taking her shopping more often.’

‘My sister always reckoned Kate was a bit of a freak.’

Erin raised her eyebrows. ‘Maybe she was into the drugs, too.’

‘Has Tash ever told you why Katie left?’ Jules leaned forward again. ‘Was it drugs?’

‘Not really…’ I hesitated. I was starting to get overloaded with Tash’s secrets. I figured if I only half told it, it wouldn’t count. ‘She did tell me once Kate and her dad were having this huge screaming fight and Kate said she was going to call the cops and charge him with assault and her dad said go ahead like they’d ever believe you against me and Kate went totally schiz and threw a knife at him.’

‘Freakin’ hell.’ Jules stared at the ground and shook her head.

Erin gripped my arm. ‘Did she get him?’

‘No, but her dad threatened to get her locked up. It was a couple of days after that she left.’

‘Jeez,’ said Jules.

139 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Her family sound nuts.’ Erin wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. ‘Even more psycho than my Mum’s psycho cousins in Adelaide.’

We sat on the bench for a few moments, each lost in our own space. I knew most people had family secrets, things they were too ashamed to talk about. Not mine, though. My mum said secrets destroyed families. If anything, she gave me too much information sometimes.

The bell for the next lesson broke the silence.

Erin jumped up and pulled me up too, giving me a hug.

‘Don’t stress Mal, it’ll work out.’

‘Yeah,’ Jules flicked a leaf off her dress. ‘I give it forty-eight hours. By then Tash’s mum will get sick of having to keep her grounded and just forget it ever happened.’

‘You’re probably right.’ I pasted on a smile and watched them go to their class then sat back down on the bench and pulled out the note Tash had given me. Her writing was big and messy—she couldn’t write with her burnt hand—and she’d drawn a doodle of a face with huge blank eyes.

I’m desperate to see you but mum is all over me. If she

goes out this arvo maybe you can sneak over after

school? I need to talk to you about you-know-who.

140 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I folded the note and put it in my pocket. Jules was right—

Tash’s mother was a useless cow. She’d get bored with the banning deal pretty fast. It would interfere too much with her busy schedule of shopping and plastic surgery. And even if she was home when I went to see Tash, it wasn’t like she could do anything anyway. If she touched me I’d get her for assault. Not that she’d try; she’d be too scared of breaking a nail.

It was settled. After school, I was going to Tash’s house.

141 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 13

Tash’s mum opened the wide front door, her helmet of blonde hair framing her shiny, botox-frozen face. ‘What are you doing here, Malia?’

‘I need to see Tash to talk about the group assignment for English.’

‘Now isn’t a good time, as I’m sure you know.’

Like a life-size plastic doll, the words squeezed out of her mouth without her lips moving.

‘Couldn’t I see her just for a few minutes? It’s really important.’

‘You know I can’t allow that.’ Mrs Benetti patted my shoulder as if I was a stray dog. ‘Your mother and Mr

Benetti agreed—’

‘Please Mrs Benetti, I really need to see her. It’s about our English assignment. I have to give her—’

‘Oh dear, Malia,’ she shook her head like a soap opera tragic and stepped out onto the front verandah. ‘Come with me, sweetheart.’

She guided me down the pebbled path towards the garden pond. Glossy plants shaded a white table and chairs, carefully arranged to view the golden fish that glided below the water’s surface, their scales shining like jewels.

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Tash told me her mum had spent a fortune hiring a specialist feng shui landscape artist—whatever that meant—to create a peaceful space in the garden, like a mini-resort in their own front yard, but they couldn’t get rid of the plastic pond’s chemical stink.

‘Sit down, sweetheart, it’s been so long since you and

I had a nice talk.’ She clasped her hands in her lap. Huge, brilliant diamonds glittered across her fingers in the afternoon sun.

I smiled and sat on the cold, stiff chair opposite her.

Tash’s mum and I had never had a “nice talk”. I barely saw her at all, and when I did she was usually rushing to get somewhere “important”: like lunch with her friends, tennis with her friends, golf with her friends and shopping with her friends.

‘Malia, I know you don’t think so, but I do understand how you feel.’ She lowered her make-up caked eyelids and her fake eyelashes curled like mutant insects on her skin. A drift of stale perfume hit my nostrils and I wriggled back against the hard chair, watching the fish as they swam around the edge of the pond, searching for a way out.

‘Tash is an intelligent, imaginative girl. Very bright, but highly strung. Mr Benetti believes Tash needs a

143 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley good dose of reality. And in grounding her he hopes to bring her back down to earth.

‘I am not entirely in favour of this forced separation between the two of you. Mr Benetti just doesn’t understand the needs of teenage girls the way I do.

‘Nevertheless, he has made his decision. And it’s best for all of us that we abide by it,’ she raised her eyes and fixed her gaze on a distant point in the garden.

‘Did I mention he leaves for a business trip on

Thursday and will be away for several days?’ She shrugged and twisted her lips into a conspiratorial smile. ‘If you and Tash happen to run into each other in the city or at the shopping centre, I couldn’t stop that, now could I?’ She spread her hands apart, her mouth still fixed in an odd half-smile.

I nodded.

‘Good, it’s all clear then.’ She patted my hand and stood. ‘Take care, then, sweetheart.’ She turned and went back inside the house, closing the door behind her.

A cloud dimmed the sun as I wandered across the lawn to the front gates, trying to make sense of what had just happened. It had been too easy. In my head I’d pictured a confrontation: Tash’s mum yelling and me standing my ground,

144 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley defending my and Tash’s rights. That’s what I’d practised, what I was ready for.

But she’d basically encouraged us to break the ban. The way she talked about it, the ban wasn’t really a ban at all, just something to keep Mr Benetti from interfering and all we had to worry about was him not catching us.

What if she was setting us up to get caught? But she wasn’t that interested. The truth was that everything Tash’s mum did, she did because it was good for her. And if it meant going behind Mr Benetti’s back so she didn’t have to deal with Tash being angry, then she’d do it.

My skin chilled under the shadowed sun. I knew Tash’s mum was betraying some sort of world-ordered parents’ code: the parents’ code my mum lived by twenty-four/seven. The parents’ code that meant working out how to keep Beetle was going to be a much bigger problem than getting around Mr

Benetti’s ban.

Mick’s acting responsibly theory sounded good when he said it, but I knew Mum wouldn’t go for it. To my mum, rules were rules and if the rental rules said no pets, to her that meant absolutely no pets. No exceptions. Ever.

But I couldn’t let Mum take him away from me. My only answer was to hide him and that was impossible to do in our townhouse. I had to take him somewhere else. But who else

145 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley could I trust? Erin’s family were cat lovers and Jules’ family already had two big dogs: they’d eat Beetle alive.

Tash obviously couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t dare ask anyone else in the townhouses because they’d just tell Mum. And I hardly knew anyone else in the street.

Then I remembered Mrs Steppa. She liked me and she liked dogs. And she was pretty old so she was probably bored and lonely. She’d love to have Beetle’s company for a while.

I checked my watch—I had about fifteen minutes to get home, gather up his things and get him to Mrs Steppa’s before Mum got home from work.

I pressed Mrs Steppa’s doorbell and chewed on my thumbnail, waiting for her to open the door. Finally she peered at me through the screen.

‘Malia? What a lovely surprise!’

‘Hi Mrs Steppa.’ I picked up Beetle and held him to the screen door. ‘I brought my new puppy to show you.’

‘Oh!’ She smiled and opened the door. ‘Isn’t he adorable! Come in, come in.’

I followed her into her living room, sank down into a chair and put Beetle on the floor with one of his toys.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Beetle.’

146 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

She patted her knees. ‘Come here, Beetle, come on over here and give me a cuddle.’ She picked him up and rubbed his fur against her cheek. ‘What a sweet boy,’ she crooned. ‘When did you get him?’

‘Just last Friday.’

‘I bet your Mum loves him, too.’ She put him back down on the rug and looked right at me. ‘Does she?’

I bent down to throw Beetle his toy so she couldn’t see my face turning red. ‘Yeah, of course. Who wouldn’t?’

‘Yes but…’ She frowned and drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, then shook her head and smiled. ‘My granddaughters were over just last week with their new dog.

A cocker spaniel, very pretty but not too bright.’ She chuckled. ‘Would you like a drink, luvvie? A juice or a cup of tea?’

‘Tea, thanks.’

‘Normal or herbal?’

‘Just normal, thanks.’

I flopped back in the chair and took in a deep breath, trying to ignore the smell from the oil burner that wafted across the room. It stunk like a second-hand clothes stall at the Valley markets, so overpowering it made it hard to think.

147 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

And that was a problem because I really hadn’t thought through any details besides take Beetle to Mrs Steppa’s house.

What if she couldn’t or wouldn’t take Beetle? She already seemed a bit sus, asking me if Mum liked him. But maybe I was just being paranoid; there was nothing unusual with her asking about Mum. Old people were always asking stuff about your parents.

Beetle nosed his toy around and chewed on it, then sniffed the rug and sneezed. He rubbed his paws over his little nose, sneezed again then pounced on his toy as if it was to blame.

‘Hope he’s not allergic to patchouli.’ Mrs Steppa put a tray with the cups of tea and some chocolate biscuits on the coffee table. ‘Some people think it’s a bit too much but I find it soothing. Reminds me of fun times.’ She gave me a wink and did this weird dance move with her arms.

‘You don’t know the psychedelic? No, of course not.

Your own mother was just a twinkle in your grandfather’s eye back then.’

I had no clue what Mrs Steppa was talking about but I smiled politely as she handed me a cup of tea and sat down.

‘What breed of dog is he?’

148 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘A Maltese-Poodle. That means he’ll never shed hair all over the place.’

‘Well, isn’t that clever. Pity they can’t breed a dog who picks up its own poo!’ Mrs Steppa dipped a biscuit into her tea and sucked off the melted chocolate.

‘Yes.’ I forced out an unconvincing laugh.

She looked as if she was waiting for me to say something else.

‘That would be good, not having to pick up poo.’ My face burnt with embarrassment—I swear it was giving off steam—but I couldn’t stop the stream of dumb words pouring out of my mouth. ‘But having a dog is fun, even if you do have to pick up after them. They’re such good fun to play with.’

‘Yes, but of course I’m too busy for that sort of thing. You can’t have a puppy when you’ve got the travel bug like I have.’

‘Travel bug?’

‘Taken me a long time to get around to it, I know, but now I can’t stop. I’m off to Western Australia at the end of the month.’

My throat dried up and I started coughing.

‘Are you all right, luvvie?’

149 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Yes,’ I croaked. I took a gulp of the sweet, milky tea. It tasted the same as when she used to make it for me when I was six.

‘He is a darling thing.’ She leant forward and whistled to him, holding her hand out for him to sniff. Beetle came up, tail wagging, and licked her hand.

‘He really likes you.’

‘I think he does.’ Mrs Steppa laughed and patted his head. ‘I’m so glad you brought him around to visit.’

I took a deep breath and pressed my fingertips together so I wouldn’t bite them. ‘The thing is, I was wondering…’

‘Yes?’ She sat back in her chair. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘I was wondering if you’d be able to keep him here for a few days.’

‘You mean take care of him? Are you going away?’

‘No, it’s just that…’ I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Then she’d just insist I take him back home again. ‘…the thing is, we… we have to move out for a few days while the pest control guys come in. We’ve got a rat problem.’

‘Rats? I can’t believe it - those townhouses are only a few years old!’

‘Well the body corporate can’t find out how they’re getting in so everyone has to move out for a few days while

150 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley it’s all getting sorted. We’re staying at a motel so of course I can’t take Beetle with me.’

‘Rats!’ She shook her head. ‘Who’d believe it?’ She took another bite of her biscuit, chewed slowly, then looked right into my face. ‘Which motel are they putting you up in?’

I coughed and took another drink of tea. ‘I don’t know the name. Mum has the details.’

‘Should I ring her for them, then?’

‘No! I mean, I can get them for you later, if you need them.’

‘Well, how long do you need me to look after him for?’

‘From now until Friday.’ I was hoping she could take him for a bit longer but I was already scared she’d ring Mum to see if I was telling the truth. And if Mrs Steppa had him until Friday at least that gave me more time to work out another solution.

Mrs Steppa rubbed her chin. ‘I don’t know, luvvie. He’s very sweet but puppies need lots of work.’

‘You can see how good he is. And he’s so cuddly.’

‘Is he toilet trained?’

‘Almost. I have a litter box for him. He hasn’t had an accident yet.’

151 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Beetle put his paws up on Mrs Steppa’s legs. She picked him up and snuggled his soft face under her chin, stroking his back. ‘He is a lovely little puppy.’

‘I’ll come around every afternoon to play with him and make sure everything is okay.’

‘Perhaps I should call your mother about this first.’

‘No, I mean, she’s not home at the moment. She’s busy organising this motel thing.’

‘Hmm.’ Mrs Steppa lay her head back, closed her eyes and mumbled to herself. I sat on the edge of the armchair and crossed my fingers behind my back. If this didn’t work out, I was screwed.

Finally she opened her eyes and held Beetle in front of her face. ‘He is very sweet…’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I could look after one small house guest for a few days.’

‘Thank you! Thank you so much. I’ve got everything he needs here. I can show you how much to feed him, and I’ve written it all down, too. Thanks so much.’

Mrs Steppa patted Beetle then put him down on the floor with his toy. ‘I’m sure he’ll be no problem at all.’

‘Where the hell have you been?’

I took in a deep breath, then walked past Mum and up to my room.

152 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Malia. Don’t you dare ignore me.’

Mum’s footsteps thumped up the stairs behind me. ‘Where’s that bloody dog? I left work early so I could take it back to the shop.’

She pushed my bedroom door open and stood in the doorway, hands on her hips. A piece of her hair was sticking up from the back of her head. I had to stop myself from laughing.

‘You’re just making it harder on yourself. There’s no point in you getting attached to him. I’ll take him back myself before work tomorrow.’

‘Okay, Mum.’ I sat on the edge of my bed, legs together, hands resting on my knees and stared at the floor.

‘Did you hear me? I’m taking him back tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Mum. I heard you.’ I kept my mouth straight and my body still. Mum was close to the edge and I knew from past experience that if I showed no reaction she would storm off downstairs and leave me alone.

‘Don’t you give me that smart look.’

‘Sorry, Mum.’ I knew my face hadn’t changed. That meant

I was getting to her.

‘You think the world owes you, don’t you?’

Here it came, lecture number sixty-three from Mum’s repertoire, the classic I’ve worked my arse off for you as a

153 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley single mother, you ungrateful child. Mum had about eight or nine different variations on that particular theme, but they all ended with her slamming my bedroom door and any other doors that happened to get in her way.

I zoned out and stared at the floor, her words a distant buzz while I looped The Simpsons theme song through my head. For some reason, it just seemed to pop randomly into my brain when Mum yelled at me.

Finally she ran out of words. She stood at the end of my bed, hands on her hips. ‘Well?’

‘It’s okay. I took him back to the shop this afternoon.

That’s why I was late.’

‘Oohh!’

The bedroom door slammed. Mum thumped downstairs and thumped some more in the kitchen. Then the front door slammed too.

Sometimes pissing her off was almost too much fun.

154 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 14

Dream images skipped around like a scratched DVD in my head.

I sat up, switched on my lamp and snatched at them as they faded, writing down the bits I could remember.

It was hard—the dream was disappearing faster than I could write it down—but I knew I’d been in a weird supermarket, with long aisles of products that I didn’t recognise. I was looking for cake mix, and every time I thought I’d found it, it would disappear and all the boxes would vanish off the shelves.

I was getting desperate when a woman came up behind me and said, “is this what you’re looking for?” And she handed me a box filled with little packets of things, I can’t describe them, but they were all different colours and they glowed and then began to turn into baby animals, coming alive and crawling around. I screamed and dropped the box but the woman picked it up and held it out to me and said,

“You need these. This is what will help you.”

There was a word stamped in big black letters on the side of the box but every time I thought I could read the word it changed.

I finished scribbling and read over what I’d written.

Weird supermarket: the words jumped out at me. That’s

155 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley exactly what I’d said to Jules about the Wicca shop in the city that she’d taken me to last holidays. We were wandering around its shelves filled with herbs, powders and potions, tarot cards and wands, and I picked up a jar of something that looked like mashed seaweed and said, “This is some weird supermarket”.

The dream was telling me to go to the Wicca shop: it was there I’d find what I needed to save Tash.

The radio woke me and for a few seconds I stared blankly at the ceiling, knowing today was important but not remembering why. Then the dream came back to me.

I jumped out of bed, hoping I’d miss Mum altogether—she usually went into her office for an early meeting on

Tuesdays—but when I went into the kitchen she was still having her coffee.

‘Morning, Mum.’ I fixed my eyes on the floor, switched on the kettle and stood with my back to her, busying myself with a cup and tea bag. She’d kill me if she knew I was wagging school today on top of everything that had happened on the weekend. ‘You going into work a bit later today?’

‘I wanted to talk to you before I left. We need to sort out this Beetle issue.’

156 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I poured the boiling water into my mug, my heart burning in my chest. ‘There is no more Beetle issue, Mum. He’s gone, remember?’

‘Sit down, please.’

I sat opposite Mum and poured milk into my tea, not daring to look at her face.

‘I’ve had a long think about Beetle; about how you chose to buy him and also about your behaviour on the weekend with Tash.’ She hesitated, her mouth slightly open, and drummed her fingers lightly on the bench. ‘He is a lovely dog and I can understand how he captured your heart.’

My heart skipped. Was Mum saying good stuff or bad stuff? I wished she’d just get to the bit where she said

Beetle could stay.

‘I know when you bought him it was a spur of the moment thing and you didn’t think it through.’ Mum put her hand over mine. ‘I know how much it must have hurt you to take him back to the shop. You were very brave.’

It was like a fist pushed through my chest and squeezed my heart. I missed Beetle so much already. I stirred my tea, tears stinging my eyes.

‘I’m sorry I slammed doors last night. It was immature of me. It was immature of you to not tell me until the last

157 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley minute that you’d returned Beetle but I understand that’s because you were hurting and you needed to lash out.’

Mum’s apology sank and churned in my stomach. She was praising me when all I’d done was told her another lie.

‘Mal?’ She held my hand. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, really, I am.’ She kissed me on the top of my head. ‘Bye, love. Have a good day.’

I turned my head as she walked out the front door so she couldn’t see the tears spill out of my eyes. I was sick with guilt and sick with sadness. My hands shook as I gripped my mug of tea and took a sip.

My Gran always said drinking tea could solve any problem but this time it didn’t help. It made me feel worse because I started thinking about her and something opened up inside me and I realised how much I missed her.

It was almost a year since she’d died.

Gran was always so much fun. Anytime Mum was mean to me

Gran would always taken my side, stick up for me even when she probably shouldn’t have. But when she got really sick I didn’t want to visit her and the few times I did I barely spoke. I just wanted my fun Gran back, my Gran who’d stick her tongue out at Mum when she wasn’t looking and sneak me an extra twenty dollars when we were out shopping. I wished

Gran was here so I could talk to her, not that I would have

158 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley told her about Tash, but just to visit and drink tea with her and have her pat me on the back and give me some chocolate from her secret stash.

But nothing could bring Gran back. And wasting time wishing she was here wasn’t going to help anything.

My palms started to sweat as soon as the bus entered the city. From the window I watched people push past each other; watched the wind rush between the skyscrapers, pick up swirls of rubbish and dump it on street corners; watched the shadows fall across the road and onto the slumped shapes of the homeless people.

At the main bus stop there are always a few hanging about, sleeping on the benches or slabs of cardboard, plastic bags stuffed with junk at their feet. They look at me sometimes, the older ones with dead eyes, the younger ones hungry and hollow.

This time there were two old men and a younger guy and his girlfriend; she didn’t look much older than me. I kept my head down while I passed them. One of the old men bared his lips in an attempted smile.

‘Nice legs,’ the old bloke called out. The others laughed and the young guy came towards me, his bright blue eyes staring me down.

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‘What’s your name?’ His grin revealed a mixture of bare gums and broken teeth.

‘That’d be right,’ his girlfriend twisted a strip of dirty blonde hair in her fingers. ‘Leave me again why don’t ya?’

The men’s cackles made my guts churn as I swerved past them. I hurried down the street and let myself be swept along by the rushing lunchtime crowds until I realised I’d gone way past the Wicca shop and had to back track to find it.

It was away from the main shopping area, in an arcade jammed with funky-but-weird clothes shops, a jewellery shop that specialised in body piercings and a tattoo place.

Instead of a food court uni students and local workers packed into noisy Asian restaurants. On scattered tables along the arcade, people oozing cool sipped their coffees and tapped at their laptops while outside the indie music shop a huddle of people clad in death-metal black argued about music. As I went past they fell silent, then one of them said something. They all laughed.

Embarrassment burnt across my face and down my neck.

Who was I kidding with all this Wicca stuff? I didn’t belong here. I almost turned around and went back out into the street but I was doing this for Tash so I kept going—fists

160 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley clenched, staring straight ahead—and ignored the people who looked so much cooler than me as I headed up the worn wooden staircase.

The stairs led to a long, dim corridor with doors leading off both sides and the Wicca shop right at the end.

My footsteps echoed on the lino floor and a huge guy with tatts covering his bulging arms stared at me as I went past him.

‘Hey’, he called and I froze. I almost turned around then I realised he was talking to two skinny, blonde girls who’d just come out of another door.

I walked as fast as I could until I was in front of the door to the Wicca shop, and pushed it open.

Inside, the lights were soft and the air was thick with the spicy smells of incense. A few people browsed through the shelves while a woman with big silver hoop earrings and bright red lipstick sorted through some books at the front counter. On her cheek she had a tattoo of three small tears.

She looked up at me with startling green eyes and smiled and nodded. Her eyes were so green it was spooky; she had to be wearing coloured contacts. I realised I was staring at her and the heat of embarrassment rushed around my face again. I shoved my hands in my pockets and went to the back of the shop.

161 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Everyone’s eyes were on me, I was sure, glaring at me as if they knew I didn’t belong there. I ran my hand along the shelf, staring at the jars and packets of herbs and potions, at the odd names on them, and picked up a jar of something green.

‘That ingredient is not for beginners.’

The bottle almost slipped out of my grasp. I grabbed it and turned around.

‘How many spells have you made before?’

‘A few… not many.’

‘Is this a love spell?’

‘No. It’s for a friend.’

‘Are you working alone or do you have a mentor?’

‘Alone.’ I coughed and took a deep breath to disguise the tremble in my voice. ‘My friend…’ My mouth clamped shut.

I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself by bursting into tears.

The woman’s eyes softened. She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re in no state to be choosing ingredients for a spell.’ She signalled to one of the other staff. ‘Viv, can you take over the front counter for a while?’

She guided me through midnight-blue satin curtains to an office area at the back of the shop.

‘I’m Lana. What’s your name, honey?’

162 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Malia.’

‘Here, sit down.’ She pointed to an old armchair and put the kettle on. ‘Do you like chamomile tea?’

‘I’ve never had it.’ I sat on the edge of the chair and picked at my chewed-to-the-quick fingernails.

‘It’ll make you feel a little calmer. Here,’ she handed me the cup of chamomile tea then sat down opposite. ‘Your friend has a problem?’

At first I thought she was pretty rude. All I wanted to do was buy ingredients for a spell. What right did she have to interfere? But my head was almost bursting with wanting to talk to someone about Tash.

I took a sip of the tea. It tasted plain, but was comforting somehow. I held the cup under my nose and breathed it in, let it clear my head.

Lana leant forward, her green eyes gentle. ‘So, tell me about your friend.’

Tash had made me swear not to tell anyone. But if I was going to help her then I needed someone to help me. And once

I walked out of this shop Lana would never know how to find me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and began. ‘My best friend has started seeing a face in the mirror, the face of

163 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley a girl that isn’t her. And I’m scared it’s the spirit of a dead girl trying to take over her life.’

She nodded and settled back in her chair. ‘When did this first happen?’

‘Just last Friday. Tash rang me, really upset, and I went over to her place. We were in her bedroom and she told me she could see another girl’s face in her mirror. I couldn’t see her but I knew Tash was telling the truth.’

‘Has she described the girl to you?’

‘She says the girl is about the same age as us, sixteen or seventeen. She has a pale round face and long brown hair in plaits. And now…’ I bit my lip, then picked up the cup and took another long sip of tea to force back the tears.

Lana studied the thick green beads around her wrist, her face intent. ‘Go on.’

‘Now she’s coming out of the mirror. She appeared to

Tash in my kitchen on Sunday morning.’

Lana nodded. ‘Right, I see.’

‘Tash was cooking breakfast. She’d turned the element on the stove top ready for the frypan then the girl appeared out of nowhere. Tash freaked out so much she fell back and her hand landed on the hot element and she burnt it so badly

Mum had to take her to the medical centre.’

164 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I took a deep breath. Getting the words out loosened the tightness in my throat, but now the look on Lana’s face worried me. A deep frown creased the skin between her eyes.

‘She’s not taking drugs, is she?’

‘No.’ My voice was sharp. ‘This all…’ I shut my mouth before I said anything else. I didn’t want to get into the whole drug thing with Lana. Besides, I believed Tash. Drugs had nothing to do with what was happening to her. ‘It’s nothing to do with drugs.’

Lana pressed her hands flat under her chin. ‘So you and your friend haven’t told anyone else about the girl? You haven’t told your parents?’

‘No. She might have told the tarot card reader she went to see on Saturday but I’m not sure. She wouldn’t tell me much about what the reader said, she was about to but then the girl appeared again.’

‘Where?’

‘In my bedroom.’

‘Can you see this girl?’

‘No. That’s what drives me crazy. I’ve been with Tash a few times when she’s seen her, in the mirror at her house and at my house in my room, but I never see anything. I feel something, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

165 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘It’s hard to explain. It gets cold and the air seems thicker, as if I’m surrounded by something I can’t see. And then on Sunday night…’ my voice cracked in my throat. I sipped my tea and took some slow, deep breaths. ‘…I was looking stuff up on the net and I found all this information about how the spirits of dead teenagers can try to take over the lives of others. It’s called adolescent transference. I think that’s what’s happening to Tash.’

Lana leant back in her chair and closed her eyes, her pale face as still as a mask. I pressed my hand against the thud of my heart in my chest. Then Lana opened her eyes. She came forward in her chair and touched my arm; her intense green eyes held mine.

‘I don’t think this is about the spirit world. It’s important that one of you speaks to your parents about what is happening straight away.’

‘But I read on a website that this sort of thing happens all the time and Tash is so beautiful and smart she’s the perfect victim. It all makes sense.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve read about this adolescent transference, too. You’re not the first customer to come in here looking for a spell to combat it, I can assure you it is complete nonsense.’

166 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘But I read heaps about it and there was a scientist backing it all up.’

Lana raised her right eyebrow. ‘Dr Flann-Hill?’

I nodded.

‘He’s a charlatan. I know that what he has written sounds plausible. But he is not a real scientist; if you read his credentials you’ll see that his qualifications come from a sham online university that sells degrees to anyone for five hundred dollars.’

‘You’ve read about him?’

‘Like I said, you’re not the first to tell me about this so called phenomenon.’ She swung around in her chair and brought up a web page on her computer screen. ‘Come over here and read this.’

I scanned the screen. It was an article from an online newspaper about the number of fake scientists publishing totally made up experiments on the web and claiming it as real science. Dr Flann-Hill was one of the fake scientists named.

‘I can show you plenty more, if you like.’

I sat back in my chair and stared at the floor. Not having the spirit of a dead teenager trying to take over my best friend’s life was a good thing. But now I had no clue what was happening to Tash. ‘I feel like such an idiot.’

167 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘You were just looking for an answer to help your friend. That’s an admirable quality.’

‘But why would people just invent something like this?’

‘Maybe they think it’s a joke; maybe they’re sceptics themselves trying to point out how gullible people are. I don’t know.’

‘So if it’s not adolescent transference it’s still some type of ghost or spirit, isn’t it? What else could it be?’

‘It could be many things, honey.’ Lana looked down at her hands. On her middle finger was a thick silver band with a huge green stone that matched the colour of her eyes. She twisted the ring around her finger three times, her lips parted, then sat back and clasped her hands in her lap.

‘I feel your friend needs to see a medical professional. There’s an excellent counsellor who specialises in natural therapies working in this arcade. I know she’s worked with cases that sound similar to your friend’s. I’m sure if you could convince Tash to see her, she’ll be able to help.’

‘But what if this ghost or whatever she is starts attacking her? She’s already following Tash around.’

‘Tash is in danger, but not from a ghost. She’s in danger from her own damaged spirit. She needs love, support, rest, help; not an amateurish spell.’

168 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

My head started to ache. ‘I don’t think you understand.

Some spirit or ghost is stalking Tash and—’

‘Malia. Listen, please.’ Lana’s voice was sharp.

‘Forget about everything you’ve read and everything you think you know. You need to tell a trusted adult who is close to you. Your mother, or—’

‘I can’t tell my mum. She’s angry with me, she’ll never listen to this.’

‘You need to trust your mother. We’ve just met and you’ve opened up about this to me. Surely you can tell someone you’ve loved your whole life.’

Tears rolled down my face. I tried to talk but I was so choked up that when I opened my mouth nothing came out.

Lana took a tissue and wiped off my tears, then crouched beside me, patting my back as I cried.

‘I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. You’ve done the right thing in opening up to me. But now you need to take the next step and talk to your mum.’ She pulled a card out of her pocket. ‘If you like, you can tell her to call me.’

‘Thanks.’ I took the card.

‘I know that you’d prefer this to be about ghosts and spirits from another world that can be banished with a fabulous spell. But if you love your friend, the best thing you can do for her is to swallow your pride and speak to

169 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley your mum as soon as you get home. Trust me.’ She smiled gently. ‘I’ve seen this sort of thing many times before.’

‘Lana?’ One of the staff stuck her head through the curtain. ‘Can you come out front for a moment?’

‘Of course.’ She stood up. ‘Take your time to collect your thoughts. When you feel ready, come out and see me at the front counter. I’ll have something ready for you to take home that will give you the courage to talk to your mum.’

She patted my shoulder and smiled, then disappeared through swirling curtains. I sat back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, thinking about what she’d said.

Lana had confused me: she owned a shop that sold books about magic and spells and psychic phenomena; her shelves were stacked with herbs, potions and paraphernalia for making spells. But she was telling me that spells couldn’t help Tash. Did she think Tash was crazy?

I was Tash’s best friend. I knew everything about her.

She wasn’t crazy. What was happening to her was real.

I drank the rest of the watery tea and went out to the front counter. Lana was still serving someone so I picked up a book with a metallic purple cover that had a picture of a woman holding a sword in one hand and a flower in the other.

It was called Women’s Wisdom: harnessing your inner power.

170 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I flicked the book open. On one side was a beautiful black and white illustration of a woman riding a tiger through a jungle. On the other side of the page was a quote.

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”

As soon as I read those words I had a strong feeling inside me, right below my ribs.

‘Fabulous, you’ve already found it. You are an intuitive girl.’ Lana leant over the counter and smiled.

‘This is a gift from me. Promise me you’ll read through it, let the wisdom of women guide you.’ She closed the book and put it in a bag.

‘Thanks. It’s beautiful.’

‘I hope it will inspire you.’ She put her hand on mine.

‘You are a smart, sensitive, girl with inner power. You just need to learn how to harness it. Maybe I can even use you over summer holidays, it always gets busy in here then.’

‘You’re offering me a job?’ I looked around the shop at the books, cards and music, the potions and herbs, breathing in its magic. It would be awesome if I could work here over the summer instead of in that stinking hot bakery with the idiot manager and nutso customers. ‘I’d love to work here.’

‘Come back and see me near the end of semester. We’ll see what we can work out.’

‘Thanks.’

171 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

She reached across and gently touched my arm. ‘Malia, talk to your mum. She will help you and your friend, trust me.’

‘Sure.’ I smiled, picked up the book and walked out of the shop. Maybe Lana was right about that adolescent transference thing being all crap. And maybe she was right about Mum helping, too. But I also knew that as long as I believed in myself, I could help Tash through this and get rid of whatever ghost, lost spirit or evil thing was haunting her. Like that quote said, if I didn’t think I could do it, then I absolutely had to.

As soon as I got home I ran up to my room and pulled out the book Lana had given me, closed my eyes, flipped to a random page and opened it. The same page came up as before, the one with the woman riding a tiger.

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”

I flopped back onto my bed and stared at the ceiling, repeating the words over in my head and ignoring the object digging into my shoulder until I realised what it was.

From under my pillow I pulled out the book I’d bought on Saturday and turned it over in my hands. So far it hadn’t been exactly practical but as I held it a warm sensation washed over me. I closed my eyes again, breathed deeply and

172 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley flipped through the pages slowly, feeling for the one that would give me an answer.

When I settled on a page I opened my eyes. It was the first page of chapter 11, Connecting the worlds, about the right way to use an ouija board. I got that warm feeling below my ribs again. This wasn’t an accident.

I skimmed through the chapter and it all made sense. An ouija board was perfect for dealing with spirits. You could communicate with them and find out why they were doing what they were doing. So if the girl in the mirror was here to warn Tash we’d be able to find out why; or if she wanted

Tash’s help with something we could find out what it was and make things right again. And if she was here to harm Tash, we could banish her.

I lay back on the bed, my whole body a giant smile.

This women’s intuition was great stuff. If only I’d worked this out before; that the answer to everything you ever needed to know, to every problem, was always somewhere inside you. All you had to do was be quiet, concentrate and listen to your own wisdom.

I sent Tash a text:

dnt wrry all will be ok wkng on a plan trust me & keep fri nite free

173 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I pressed send and hoped Tash’s Dad hadn’t confiscated her phone. If he got the message instead of her I’d deal with the consequences when they happened. There was no time to worry about that now. I had too much to do.

174 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 15

Erin grabbed my arm as soon as I got into the locker room.

‘So what did you and Tash get up to yesterday? Did you meet up with those guys from the weekend?’

‘Huh?’ I put my bag in my locker and got my stuff ready for the first period. ‘Wasn’t Tash at school yesterday?’

‘Didn’t you wag together yesterday?’ Jules came over and huddled between me and Erin.

‘Shut up.’ I glanced across at the Year 12 prefect hanging around the front of the lockers. ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet.’ I kept my head down as I walked out of the locker room, Erin and Jules following close behind.

‘So?’ Erin clutched my arm. ‘What’s going on? If you didn’t wag school with Tash, where were you?’

I waited until we got around the side of the building and sat on the bench at the bottom of the stairs near the science block so I had time to think. If I told them where

I’d been yesterday they’d only have more questions. Even though I hated doing it, especially to Erin, I knew it was safer to lie.

‘It was no big deal. I had a headache and couldn’t be bothered coming to school so I stayed home and watched TV.

175 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

And I haven’t talked to Tash yet but she probably stayed home ‘cause her hand was hurting.’

‘Boring!’ Jules tapped her pointy black lace-ups on the concrete. She’d almost scored a permanent detention for wearing those shoes but had managed to argue her way out of it. ‘Are you sure you and Tash didn’t hook up with those guys again?’

‘As if.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I was in enough trouble from Mum for the weekend without pulling a crazy stunt like that.’

Erin clutched my arm harder. ‘So you haven’t seen Tash since

Monday?’

‘No.’ I peeled Erin’s hand off me before she gave me a bruise. ‘But I did go around to her place and saw her mum.

You were right, Jules.

‘Tash’s mum basically said that if me and Tash happened to meet up somewhere by accident, then who was to know.’

‘Told you.’ Jules widened her eyes and wriggled her

“spirit fingers” in the air. ‘I can see the future,’ she drawled.

I forced a laugh. ‘Yeah. That’s why I need to ask you about something.’ I picked at the hangnail on my thumb. I knew it was dangerous to ask. But it could be more dangerous not to.

‘Promise you’ll keep this between us?’

176 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Jules’ eyes narrowed. She tapped her foot on the concrete again. ‘Depends what it is.’

‘Come on Jules, just promise.’ Erin leaned in towards me. ‘We promise.’

I knew I could trust Erin, but from the gleam in

Jules’ eye I wasn’t too sure about her. I’d have to keep it simple.

‘I want to use a ouija board.’

Jules stretched out her legs and stared at the ground. Erin bit her lip and looked away. My heart started to beat a little faster. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut and just read a few more books, but I’d opened up the subject now so I had to keep going.

‘I…I was reading about them in this book I bought on the weekend and it sounded interesting and I thought maybe,

‘cause you’re into Wicca and all that psychic stuff way more than I am, Jules, I thought you could tell me something about it.’

Erin face flushed red. She darted a look at Jules; her mouth was zipped tight.

Jules twisted a strand of hair between her fingers. ‘You shouldn’t muck around with ouija boards.’

‘I don’t want to muck around with one. I want to use one properly. I know they can be dangerous—’

177 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Seriously, Mal, you’ve really got to know what you’re doing,’ Erin knotted her fingers together. ‘Even then I think it’s a bad idea.’

‘Why? Have you used one?’

‘Yes, well sort of. Last holidays, when I was at my cousin’s place, she and one of her friends were using one and they summoned up an evil spirit.’

‘Really? How come you didn’t tell me this before?’

‘Felt too stupid, I suppose.’

‘So you were there using it too?

‘I was there for the first part of it but it totally spooked me so I left. But a couple of minutes later I heard this man’s yell come from her room—it was like someone was getting murdered—and my cousin and her friend came running out. They were screaming and crying and couldn’t stop shaking, it was really freaky.’

My head began to spin. I gripped the seat tight to ground myself. ‘Maybe they were just trying to scare you.’

Erin shook her head. ‘No way. My cousin’s face was completely white and her friend had to go home, she was crying so much.’

‘That’s typical of what can happen if you don’t know what you’re doing.’ Jules pushed her hair off her face and leant in closer towards me, her voice low. ‘I’ve had some

178 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley experience with ouija boards. Believe me, they’re not for amateurs.

‘I know people muck about with them and act as if they’re a party toy. But the thing is that they work. You can contact spirits. And like humans, some spirits can cause big trouble.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I said under my breath.

‘What?’ Jules frowned. ‘What did you say?’ She leant forward, her eyes staring up into mine. ‘Mal, has this got anything to do with Tash?’

I put my fingers in my mouth and bit off a nail, chewed on it slowly. Half of me wanted to spill my guts about the whole thing, tell Jules and Erin everything that had happened on the weekend.

The problem was it wasn’t my stuff to tell; it was

Tash’s. And I knew she didn’t want me to go blabbing about it to anyone else.

But if working with an ouija board was dangerous, I needed someone to help me. Otherwise I could end up making things worse for Tash instead of better.

I shook my head. ‘No, of course not. Like I said I was just reading this book I bought on the weekend. I wanted to give it a go but I thought I’d ask you about it first, that’s all.’

179 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘You have to tell me if it is, Mal. It’s serious business.’

Erin put her arm around me. ‘It’s okay, you can trust us, you know that. If this is anything to do with Tash and her latest craziness just tell us. We can help you deal with it.’

My lip started to tremble. The words bunched up on the tip of my tongue, ready to spill out along with a bucket full of tears. But I had to fight them back. This was a best-friends thing, not a group thing.

‘It’s nothing. I’m just interested, that’s all. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘Okay,’ Jules flicked a leaf off her dress that had fallen from the gnarled tree that hung over us. ‘I believe you. If you’re really going to do it, I can at least help stop you from causing damage.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

Erin squeezed my shoulders. ‘But if I were you, Mal,

I’d just leave it alone.’

Again the words crammed in my mouth, begging to be spoken. I clamped my mouth shut against them: I couldn’t betray Tash.

We sat in silence as a bunch of yelling Year 8 kids ran past us. My heart was a lump in my throat. I knew Erin must

180 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley have been dying to ask me more—she hated not knowing everything that was going on—but she was quiet.

I pushed my hair off my face and took in a deep breath. ‘Do you have a board? I mean, one I can borrow?’

‘Ouija boards aren’t something you can just hand around.’ Jules twisted another strip of hair in front of her face. ‘They suck up negative energy like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.

‘You can buy one but I think it’s better to make your own, that way you can put all your positive energy into it, make sure no one else has messed around with it.’

Erin rubbed my back. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Mal. I really wish you’d leave it alone.’ She stood as the bell sounded for the next lesson and gave me a hug.

‘See you after French, okay?’

Jules put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. ‘And don’t forget the library at lunchtime. We have to book the equipment for the interview with Louise de Piccolo tomorrow.’

Jules and Erin spent the rest of the day thinking up more horror stories about ouija boards, trying to put me off using one. In the end I agreed that I wouldn’t just to shut them up. They tried to drag me to Stripey’s for coffee after

181 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley school to make sure I believed them but as soon as the bell went I got the bus straight to Mrs Steppa’s to play with

Beetle.

As soon as I opened the door he jumped all over me. I scooped him up and he snuggled into my chest, licking my face. We ran around the back yard playing ball until he was exhausted, then I put him to sleep in his basket. It was hard to leave him again but I knew Mrs Steppa was spoiling him with treats, cuddles and belly rubs and that, for now, being with her was the best thing for him.

I kissed his sweet sleepy face goodbye and ran all the way home so I could be in my bedroom, pretending to study, before Mum got home. This week I planned on acting as the perfect daughter: anytime Mum saw me I’d be hard at work on school assignments or helping around the house.

Last night I’d spent two hours cleaning up every piece of clothing off my bedroom floor and finding a place for it in my wardrobe. In the massive clean-up I found a pair of red sneakers I thought I’d lost forever, Jules’ retro t- shirt (the one I swore I’d given back to her) and a dusty photo of me and Tash taken at this year’s school camp.

The photo was next to my computer now and I studied it as I logged on. It was taken at the river after we’d gone kayaking. My hair was dripping wet—I’d fallen in moments

182 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley before reaching the river bank—and Tash was behind me, hugging me around the neck, a big grin plastered on her face.

But the more I looked at the photo, the more fake her grin seemed. To say Tash had been a pain in the butt on that camp was being polite. It was just after she’d first started chatting to Andrew online and her mood swings were wilder than a monkey on a trapeze. Weird how I’d forgotten that.

After a couple of weeks she’d settled down a bit, once she worked out how to “handle him”, as she said. Then things were all lovey-dovey until their break-up last month.

I switched on my MP3, plugged in my headphones then started researching ouija board sites. There were plenty around. Some said ouija boards were perfectly safe and that stories about them summoning evil spirits were rubbish.

Other sites supported what Jules had said: that if you didn’t use an ouija board properly it could be dangerous. I scribbled down a few notes and got some ideas for making my own board then pulled the materials I needed to make it out of my cupboard.

An old snakes and ladders board would do for the base.

I had sheets of silver wrapping paper to cover that with, some plain pieces of white card and some gold stickers. One of the websites said you could protect yourself from bad

183 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley spirits by decorating the board in your personal power colours. Red was Tash’s favourite colour and mine was purple, so I pulled out those tubes of paint.

From another site I printed out a simple template for a board and glued that onto the snakes and ladders board. It was fun: like doing a junior school art project where as long as you had plenty of glitter you were sure to get an A.

A message from Tash popped up on the computer screen.

hey mal r u there

hey how is ur hand

ok doesn’t hurt much now

how come u weren’t at school 2day

mum sd I needed 1 more day off but i’m goin to school tmo

get this she wants to take me to her shrink

serious?

yeah, but no way I’m going

did she tell u I came round Monday after school

yeah she sd when dad goes away tmo then we can maybe meet up

did u get my txt last nite

no dad’s got my phone but don’t worry he’s clueless, can’t open my

messages

cool, I got a great idea for fri nite

wot? party?

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no a séance, I’m making a ouija board so we can get rid of spirit girl

good that bitch is driving me crazy

y? wots been happening?

she won’t leave me alone, she’s here now, behind my computer, she’s

holding something in her hand

wot?

I pressed send and waited for Tash to respond. The screen cursor blinked at me like a warning sign.

wot’s she got in her hand?

No message popped up.

tash? u still there?

No response.

A chill rippled across my skin. I ripped off my headphones and stood up, my heart pounding.

The house was quiet and still. From the unit below I could hear the muted sounds of a TV. Outside a dog barked as a skateboarder buzzed down the street. Curry smells wafted from across the road. Everything was normal.

But my guts clenched as the computer’s beep jolted through me. I spun around to see Tash’s message on the screen.

nothing it ok, gotta go, c u tmo

185 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I closed the chat window and flopped back in my chair.

Tash’s face grinned at me from the photo, her blonde hair darkened from the afternoon sun’s shadow. I put the photo face down and went back to work on the ouija board.

The spirit girl wasn’t going to give up on Tash without a fight. And neither was I.

186 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 16

We walked single file down the steep brick-paved driveway to

Louise de Piccolo’s studio.

A chorus of kookaburras cackled as we followed the path winding past pots of flowers and herbs, moss-covered goddess statues and an old leaf-filled bird bath, down to the studio, which was half-hidden behind a huge frangipanni tree at the back of the garden. Butterflies played kiss-chasey around our heads and the sunlight, filtered through a giant gum tree, dappled our shoulders.

Our interview subject stood at the studio door in bright green paint-spattered overalls, pieces of red hair sticking out from under a yellow bandanna. Framed by the garden and her white-painted studio, she looked like someone who painted fairies for kids’ picture books; not the person who produced the nightmarish paintings we’d seen in the gallery.

‘Welcome girls,’ she waved us through her doorway into her studio. ‘I’ve got the kettle on, just make yourselves comfortable and I’ll be with you in a moment.’

Inside, the strong sharp scent of turpentine and oil paints stung my nostrils. Mismatched pieces of furniture cluttered the doorway end of the long room: a couple of old

187 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley armchairs, some beanbags, a saggy sofa and a long, paint- spattered timber coffee table. Huge floor to ceiling windows down each wall of the studio let in sunlight, filtered through the garden outside. Dull patches of paint stained the floor, which was messy with sheets of paper, paint tubes, palettes and brushes. A stack of canvasses lined the back wall and in the centre of the studio, facing the opposite wall, sat a large canvas on a timber easel.

I was glad I couldn’t see the canvas. Unless Louise de

Piccolo had recently done an artistic backflip I guessed it would be as creepy as her other work.

‘This is good research.’ Erin grinned and settled back into an overstuffed armchair that was covered in a swathe of hot pink sari fabric. Jules and Tash frowned at her. They were serious about this interview going to plan and for once had worked well together, spending the morning break and all lunchtime fine-tuning the list of interview questions.

Jules had borrowed the school’s digital video camera and Tash had the voice recorder and mike to make sure we got good quality sound. I was in charge of taking notes and Erin was going to ask the questions. Jules and Tash had warned her to follow the interview script exactly, no matter what happened.

188 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

I’d argued against that. Some of the best interviews are the ones where you let the interviewee go off and talk about their own thing: that’s where they let out the real secrets. But Jules and Tash had their control-freak hats on.

Tash’s long fingers trembled as she fiddled with the knobs and settings on the equipment. She said her hand didn’t hurt much anymore and that she was feeling heaps better after spending the last couple of days lying on the couch watching DVDs. But her eyes were clouded and ringed with dark circles.

‘Okay girls,’ the artist entered the studio with a tray laden with teapot, cups and biscuits and put it on the battered timber coffee table in front of us. ‘Help yourselves to tea and bickies and then we can get started.’

She poured tea into a huge blue mug and settled back into the sofa. ‘Is sitting here okay?’

‘That’s great,’ Jules adjusted the camera. ‘The light in here is excellent. Do you mind if Tash pins a mike to you, Ms de Piccolo?’

‘No problem. And call me Louise. I want this to be nice and informal.’

‘Thanks. I’m Jules and this is Tash, Mal and Erin. I’ll be filming, Tash is looking after sound, Mal is the note taker and Erin will be interviewing you.’

189 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Sounds perfect.’

Tash’s hands shook slightly as she pinned the mike to

Louise’s faded yellow t-shirt.

‘Are we ready to go?’

Tash and Jules nodded at each other. Erin smoothed down the papers on her lap and cleared her throat. ‘Ready.’

We soon found out Louise de Piccolo liked to talk a lot. We’d only allowed about 30 minutes for the interview, but it took her nearly all that time to answer the first three questions. Jules started to look worried. She only had a one hour tape and there were heaps more questions to get through. She gave Erin a hurry-it-up signal but she ignored her and continued with the set questions.

‘Can you tell us about what you’re working on at the moment, Louise?’

‘Sure,’ the artist’s blue eyes glittered. ‘My next show—’

From the garden, a gang of myna birds squawked and screeched. She waited until the noise settled down. ‘Bloody birds, they’re inspiring, but loud.’ She gave a short laugh.

‘My next show is due in two months. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t really.

‘Those canvasses,’ she pointed to the stack along the wall, ‘all need to be filled by then. But I’m getting very

190 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley caught up in my current piece.’ She jumped over the side of the sofa and almost skipped to the easel in the centre of the room.

‘This piece was inspired by some experiences I had when

I was not much older than you. For my Year 11 I was an exchange student in the US. It was lots of fun, much more different from here than you’d think, I’d recommend it to you. Anyway, one night a group of us slept over at a girl’s house. A big old place it was, sort of scary, and we started to play a game called Bloody Mary. Have you heard of it?’

We shook our heads and shrugged.

‘Neither had I until I went to the States, but apparently everyone there plays it. God only knows why, it scares the living daylights out of you, but then again it gave me a great subject for this picture.’

She turned the easel around. My stomach fell to the floor.

A seated girl looked into the mirror, her back to us, long brown plaits falling down to her waist. From the back she looked young, innocent. But the face that stared out at us from the mirror was cold and harsh: the taut, white skin and thin blood red lips breathed wickedness. I heard Tash’s breath catch in her throat. She jumped up, knocking her mug of tea to the floor.

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But Louise just grinned. ‘Creepy, isn’t it?’

‘Wow,’ Erin walked over to take a closer look.

‘Hold on,’ Jules fiddled with the camera angle, trying to get Louise and the painting into the frame.

‘The game is only played at night, in the dark.’ Louise rubbed her hands, her eyes wide; a lop-sided, evil-clown grin flickered across her face. ‘You sit in front of a mirror repeating “bloody Mary, bloody Mary” and a witch’s face is supposed to appear in the mirror. It’s a truly terrifying bit of fun.’

None of them noticed Tash as she fumbled with picking up pieces of broken mug from the floor. I knelt beside her.

It’s okay,’ I whispered. ‘Do you want me to take over while you go outside for a bit?’

A piece of the broken mug sliced into her middle finger as she grabbed it. Blood welled up instantly. A short sharp scream burst out of her throat.

Louise, Erin and Jules turned to look at us.

‘Sorry, Louise, but have you got a bandage?’ I stood in front of Tash. ‘Tash has cut herself.’

‘No need to be sorry,’ Louise walked towards us. A stench of turps mixed with a tacky perfume secreted out of her pores, making my head spin.

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Tash shrunk behind me. ‘Don’t let her near me,’ she whispered in my ear, and clutched my shoulder, digging her fingers in.

A pair of squawking mynas bashed into a window with a thud as their territorial violence reached a peak. Louise ignored them, quickening her pace across the room.

‘It’s okay, Tash.’ Louise held out her hand. ‘Here, let me see the damage.’ The lop-sided grin distorted her face again.

‘No!’ Tash screeched above the still squabbling mynas.

She buried her face into my back like a terrified child.

‘Get her away from me.’

‘It’s okay, Tash,’ I tried to soothe her but the closer

Louise came the more Tash freaked out.

‘Get that evil bitch away from me!’

Erin’s face paled with shock. Jules froze.

The pasted grin fell from Louise’s face. ‘Is this some stupid schoolgirl prank?’

‘That painting,’ Tash sobbed into my back. ‘It’s her.

It’s her.’ She turned and ran out of the studio.

Louise glared at me. ‘What is that silly girl on about?’

‘I’m sorry, it’s… it’s just—’

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‘I’ll be contacting your school about this.’ Louise’s mouth was white with anger. ‘Wasting my time, treating my work as a school prank—’

‘This isn’t a prank, we’re not trying to waste your time.’ Jules pleaded with the artist while I ran out after

Tash.

By the time I made it to the footpath, Tash was nowhere to be seen. I rang her mobile but it went straight to her messagebank.

‘Dammit.’ There was no point in running after her; I didn’t know what direction she’d gone in. I headed back to the studio hoping I could fix some of the damage, come up with some explanation, but Jules and Erin were already on their way back.

‘She kicked us out,’ Erin tugged at the rings in her ears. ‘Reckons she’s going to report us to the school.’

‘I’m going to kill Tash. I mean it.’ Jules’ face burnt with anger. ‘She’s completely screwed us over this time.

What the hell is going on with her, Mal?’

I sat on the brick front fence and stared at the ground. My whole body shook, white noise rushed around in my head, filling my ears until they seemed ready to burst. I dug my fingers into the brick fence and sucked in a deep breath to calm myself.

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‘Mal?’ Erin sat beside me and hugged her arm around my shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’

‘This is to do with that bloody ouija board, isn’t it?’

Jules sat on the other side of me, arms crossed in anger. ‘I bloody knew it.’

‘It’s not that,’ the words choked out of my mouth.

‘It’s not the board. I haven’t even made it yet.’

‘Then what, Mal?’ Erin rubbed my back. ‘You have to tell us. Whatever it is, it’s affecting us all now.’

The words spun around in my head. Tash sees the face of another girl in the mirror. They sounded stupid. I couldn’t say them out loud. ‘She’s just stressed.’

‘Stressed? She’s gone totally nuts. What the hell was she thinking, calling our interview subject an evil bitch?’

I opened my mouth. ‘She sees…Tash sees…’ the words dried into a croak. I shook my head.

‘Please Mal, you have to tell us.’ Erin squeezed my shoulder. ‘Please.’

‘I can’t, sorry.’ I pulled away from Erin and gathered up my stuff. ‘I gotta go, I’ll be late for work.’

‘Mal?’ Erin reached out for me but I shook her off again and ran down the street, heading for home.

195 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 17

At first I was glad to be at work. We were so busy with the

Thursday afternoon rush that I didn’t have time to think about Tash losing her mind, stuffing up the doco interview and making Erin and Jules as suspicious as hell.

But then Sam pointed out the cockroach woman skulking behind the jewellery stand.

Every time I looked up her creepy insect eyes were on me, glaring at me, her mouth open, fingering the necklaces.

The girl running the jewellery stand rearranged the same pieces over and over, glancing up at cockroach woman and then looking over her shoulder, probably for the security guys. Not that they’d been any help to me.

I kept serving customers but I was so flustered I’d screwed up people’s change five times, dropped a tray of pastries on the floor and almost broke the bread-slicing machine.

Sam patted my shoulder. ‘Calm down, she’s not coming over here.’

‘She keeps staring.’

‘Just try to ignore her.’

I continued working, a smile pasted on my face. At least I thought it was a smile, but most customers looked at

196 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley me oddly or tried to get Sam or Jo to serve them. After a while I couldn’t take it any more and went out the back for a five-minute break. Sam stuck his head around the door.

‘You okay?’

‘Sort of.’ I chewed at my fingernail. ‘Why won’t she leave me alone? She’s creeping me out.’

‘Just go home. Jo and I can handle it.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, go on.’

I was so relieved to get out of there I didn’t think the cockroach woman might follow me. Tom noticed her when I went into the pet shop to get some treats for Beetle.

‘Who’s that?’ Tom squinted his eyes and looked towards the shop entrance. My heart sank.

‘Is it cockroach woman?’

‘She’s female. And she looks like she’s got a cockroach nest sitting on her head.’

‘Friggin hell.’ I hid behind Tom. ‘Now she’s following me.’

‘How come?’

‘I don’t know. She’s obsessed with me for some reason.

Last Saturday she went crazy at me. Beck the manager called the cops and I had to be interviewed; it was horrible. But

197 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley the security guys reckon as long as she stays away from me there’s nothing I can do.’

‘She’s still staring at you.’ Tom looked over my shoulder and waved.

‘Don’t do that.’ I pushed his arm down. ‘I’ve got to go and wait for the bus now.’ I blinked away tears.

Tom put my things in a bag and came around the counter.

‘Tell you what. I’ll have a word to the boss and see if I can take my break now. Then I’ll wait outside with you.’

‘Thanks.’

I turned my back to the door but I could feel the cockroach woman’s eyes burning into me.

‘Let’s go.’ Tom took my arm and we walked towards the shop entrance together.

Cockroach woman stood just outside; her eyes didn’t leave me for a moment. I tried to stare her down but looking into her face made my skin crawl.

As we neared the door Tom pulled me in closer to him.

She was so close to the door we were going to have to push past her.

‘Excuse me.’ Tom spoke sharply. He faced cockroach woman while I stood behind him. She took a step back, her mouth slack, eyes wide. Then she lifted her arm and pointed at my face. ‘You are making a mistake.’

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‘You’re making a mistake, lady. You’ve been told to keep away from her. Now move before I call security.’

Cockroach woman planted her feet, hands on her hips.

‘You are responsible for the snails that fry trees in my moonlight shoe shop.’ She closed her mouth and her eyes and started to hum.

Tom pushed me past her, out of the shopping centre doors, and we ran to the bus stop.

‘She is a total freak.’ Tom put his hand on his chest.

‘My heart’s going mental.’

‘Know how you feel.’ I slumped down on the bus stop seat.

‘And what was with that snails in the shoe shop stuff?

How crazy was that?’

‘She’s totally insane.’

‘That doesn’t give her the right to be stalking you.

Maybe you’d better report this to the cops.’

‘What’s the point? They didn’t do anything about it last time. Everyone seems to be on her side. They all feel sorry for her ‘cause she’s crazy or homeless or whatever.’

Tom cracked his knuckles and stared straight ahead. ‘Do you think you can control anything in your life? I mean, really control it?’

‘What?’

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‘You know. Do you think you can make your life go how you want it to? Or do you believe that it’s all pre-planned and nothing you can ever do will change the way your life is meant to be?’

‘Of course you can control your life. I control my life.’

‘Do you? You can’t control that cockroach woman. Look how much she’s freaked you out; freaked me out, too.’

I put my hands over my face. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’

Tom rubbed my back. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that…’ he shook his head. ‘Never mind. Here’s your bus.’

‘Thanks for waiting.’ I gave him a hug.

‘No worries. And bring Beetle in to see me sometime, okay?’

‘Yep, sure.’ I got on the bus and waved to him. In the distance, at the entrance to the shopping centre, I watched cockroach woman stare at the bus until it turned the corner and she disappeared from view.

When I got home I went straight to my room and logged on.

There were still a few things I needed to double check before the ritual tomorrow night. With the way Tash had

200 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley acted at the interview, I had to make absolutely sure I had everything perfect: there could be no mistakes.

I’d only been on a few minutes when Tash came online.

hey mal sorry about this arvo r jules & erin cool with everything?

I read and reread her message, not sure how to respond.

mal, r u there

yeah r u ok?

yeah mum gave me some tablet to calm me down

wot tablet?

i don’t know something 2 calm me down

wot did u tell her?

nothin, wot do u mean?

did u tell her wot happened at the interview?

nothing happened except that artist is a crazy bitch, wot r u talking about?

Either the tablet had totally messed with her brain or Tash was losing it. Before I could work out the right thing to say another message popped up on screen.

hey guess wot i saw cockroach woman on the bus

My breath caught in my throat. That crazy woman was weaving her way into our lives like a dysfunctional guardian angel.

she was saying crazy stuff about the moon and umbrellas to the bus

driver, don’t know y u hate her so much she’s funny, she sd i was a divine

creature ha ha ha

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I chewed on my thumbnail and stared at the computer. Tash sounded totally off her head. A thought pushed around the edges of my brain but I didn’t want to let it in.

mal r u still there

yeah

we still doin seance tmo nite? i want 2 give that spirit bitch wots coming 2

her

My fingers froze above the keyboard as the thought burrowed into my brain: Tash needed real help. And she wasn’t getting it from her mum.

I pushed the thought away. Anyone who was going through what Tash was would have freaked out at seeing that painting today. And she was probably having a reaction to the tablet.

Trust her mum to give her drugs instead of taking her to a doctor like a normal parent.

Tash’d been fine this morning at school and she’d be fine tomorrow. Then we could deal with this spirit girl once and for all.

yeah sure, just finishing off the board 2nite

cool ☺ txt me the details c u tmo

She logged off.

I pulled the ouija board out from under my bed and glued on the protection prayer.

Angels be with us and guide us true

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As we open the door and let spirits through

Watch over us now as the veil falls

And let us heed the spirits’ call

An image of the cockroach woman flashed into my head: angel wings behind her back but eyes like black buttons and an empty cave-mouth grinning at me. My skin prickled with goosebumps and I couldn’t be alone in my room any more. I shoved the board back under my bed and ran down to the kitchen. Mum was putting lasagne in the oven. ‘What’s up with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?’ She put her hand on my forehead.

My head buzzed and hummed, diving into a freefall tumble. I grabbed hold of the bench-top.

‘Malia, what is it?’ Mum sat me down in a chair. ‘Take a deep breath, just relax.’ She stood beside me and rubbed my back. ‘When was the last time you ate?’

‘I had a scroll at the bakery.’

‘Did something happen at school?’

‘No.’

‘What about work? Is everything okay there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it Tash?’

My eyes started to burn with tears.

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‘I know you’re worried about her, but her mum is looking after her.’

‘No she’s not.’ I flung mum’s arm away. ‘That stupid bag of botox doesn’t have a friggin’ clue.’

I ran out of the house and down the street and kept running, not even thinking about where I was going until I realised I was outside Tash’s house.

I stared up at her bedroom window, half expecting to see the girl standing there, looking down at me. The curtain shifted a little and my stomach lurched. I couldn’t risk going up there in case her dad was at home so I sat and waited outside her front fence for a few minutes, willing

Tash to come down.

The wind blew hot against my skin and an eddy of leaves and debris swirled, dropping a crumpled piece of paper at my feet. I opened it up and spread it out. It was a drawing of two girls, one behind the other: the one in front had short hair, the one behind had long plaits and pale, malicious eyes; her hand was clamped over the other girl’s mouth.

I tore the drawing into a hundred pieces and threw it into the wind, then ran home.

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Chapter 18

Friday morning. Nausea uncoiled and squirmed in my stomach.

I lay flat on my back and stared at the ceiling for ages, pretending to myself that I could stop things from happening just by staying still; that if I didn’t get out of bed I could pretend that today was a normal day and everything was fine with Tash.

But my mind was spinning with thinking about what I needed to get and what I had to do. I couldn’t pretend everything was fine. I had to get up and face things.

The first thing I did was call the bakery and tell them

I was sick. Beck would be angry that I’d stuffed up the afternoon roster but I didn’t care. I just couldn’t handle seeing the cockroach woman again.

At least I knew it wasn’t just me that cockroach woman affected that way. Tash might think she was funny but Tom was spooked by her. Why else would he ask those weird questions about fate and control?

Suddenly cold dread filled my mouth, my bones, every part of me. I sat on the edge of my bed and wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stop the thoughts buzzing through my head, to stop the feeling that I was freefalling head first into a black hole.

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I wished Beetle was with me, if I could only cuddle him, feel his soft fur against my skin, I knew I’d feel better. But I only had 30 minutes to practice the ritual and make it perfect for tonight. Beetle would have to wait until after school.

I got out my list and checked off each item, laid them all on the floor, then checked each one off the list again and put it back in my bag, except for the ouija board and glass.

I placed the glass in the centre of the board, closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. In my mind I pictured a blank screen, pure white, then focused on golden light coming out of the screen and spreading throughout my body.

A crow screeched outside my window.

‘Stupid bird.’

I slammed the window shut, went back to the board and put my hand on the glass again, trying to summon up the blank white screen. But each time my hands touched the glass they began to shake.

It was impossible. How could I focus if I couldn’t control my own hands? I’d only been going for fifteen minutes and already I couldn’t concentrate. My whole body was exhausted, as if I’d just run a marathon. I tried to

206 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley push myself but it was no use, I couldn’t hold the light inside me anymore.

At morning break time Jules and Erin were waiting for me outside class. They each grabbed an arm and marched me to a deserted corner of the school garden that stank of damp earth and fertiliser. I sat on the bench beneath the water gum tree and shivered beneath its heavy shade.

I almost told them both to piss off but the truth was part of me was relieved they’d grabbed me. Tash was off sick again today and her secret tumbled and churned in the pit of my stomach.

Jules faced me, rigid as a military guard, her arms folded across her chest. ‘Out with it, Mal. What the hell is going on?’

‘Bloody hell, Jules. Are you heading for a career in the secret police or what?’ Erin sat beside me and rubbed my back. ‘Mal, whatever’s going on can you tell us about it?

Please?’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t.’ A golden flower from the water gum fell into my lap, its petals limp and bruised. I crushed them between my fingers, but their honey perfume wasn’t strong enough to block out the rotten earth stink.

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‘Please, just tell us what’s going on.’ Erin hugged me close to her to stop my shivering. ‘I know you want to protect Tash. But this isn’t just about her anymore. What she’s doing—whatever she’s going through—it’s affecting all of us.’

‘What if Louise de Piccolo contacts the school?’ Jules paced in front of us. ‘I’m not going to take the blame for what Tash did during the interview yesterday just because you ask me to.’

‘The principal hasn’t dragged us into her office yet.’

Erin shot Jules a dark look. ‘But if she does we all have to know what’s going on. How can we stick up for Tash if we don’t know what’s making her act so crazy?’

Maybe Erin was right. If Louise de Piccolo did call the school to complain, Tash would be the one getting all the blame. I didn’t want to risk that happening.

But if I told them the truth would they believe me anyway? I wasn’t sure if I’d believe anyone else if they told me the same story. Like a cartoon angel and devil fighting it out around my head, half of my brain said tell them, the other half said don’t.

‘Mal,’ Erin’s voice was soft. ‘We just want to help you help Tash. Whatever it is, we won’t judge her, I promise.’

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Erin turned my face towards hers and her clear, honest eyes held mine.

‘Okay.’ I sucked in a deep breath. ‘But you have to promise not to tell anyone about this.’

‘Of course we won’t, right Jules?’

Jules nodded grimly.

‘Tash has been…she sees someone in the mirror that isn’t her.’

Jules rolled her eyes. ‘Is that what the ouija board stuff was about? Bloody hell, what crazy stories has she been telling you. Tash will do anything—’

‘Shut up, Jules.’ Erin gripped my hands. ‘Isn’t that a symptom of anorexia?’

The angel and devil picked up their weapons and circled each other around my brain again. If I told Jules and Erin the truth and they jumped to a wrong conclusion, that wasn’t a lie. It was just their interpretation of what I said. I stared at the ground and kept my mouth shut.

‘Holy shit,’ Erin put her hand on her mouth and bit her knuckle. ‘Anorexia, that makes sense.’

Jules tapped the toe of her shoe against the bench in a death-march beat. ‘She’s a classic candidate for an eating disorder. But that doesn’t really explain her behaviour at the interview yesterday.’

209 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

My heartbeat picked up speed.

‘Then again,’ Jules sat on the other side of me,

‘anorexia can express itself in a lot of ways. Maybe Tash found that girl staring at the mirror painting too confronting.’

Erin nodded. ‘Like it forced her to see the disease in herself?’

‘Yes,’ Jules leant forward. ‘The painting shocked her into facing a truth about herself that she isn’t ready to see.’

Jules’s explanation was so convincing I almost started to believe it. Perhaps the girl wasn’t a restless spirit.

Maybe Tash was starting to develop anorexia. Except that

Tash described the girl in the mirror as having completely different features to her and never said anything about her being fat or skinny or any other body type.

But it was a good theory. And by letting Tash and Erin believe it I kept Tash’s real secret safe and got them off my back. There was nothing Jules loved more than a crusade.

By the end of the day, she’d have started planning an intervention to get Tash to face her anorexia. All I had to do was leave her to it.

‘I hadn’t thought of that, but you could be right.’ I chewed on my fingernails. ‘What do you think we should do?’

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‘I’ll need to do a bit of research,’ said Jules. ‘Maybe we can get together tomorrow night to talk about a plan?’

‘Sure,’ I gave Jules a small smile. ‘Thanks for understanding.’

Erin hugged me. ‘What else are friends for?’

I ignored the lies tightening my stomach into knots and hugged her back as hard as I could.

211 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 19

As soon as the final bell rang I hurried to the lockers, grabbed my bag and ran to catch the early bus.

I missed Beetle. I wanted him with me so much. But I knew I had to ask Mrs Steppa if she could mind him again tonight, and maybe the weekend as well. As far as Mum knew, he was back in the shop. And I’d been too preoccupied with all the other dramas to come up with any more plans about how I could keep him.

Mrs Steppa opened the door. ‘Malia? What are you doing here, luvvie? I thought you were working this afternoon.’

‘I brought some treats for Beetle.’ I smiled and pulled the screen door open, waiting for him to come running out.

‘But your friend has already picked him up for you. I was sad to see him go, I’ll really miss the little rascal.’

My body sank like I’d been slammed in the chest. I gripped the side of the door to steady myself.

‘Is something wrong?’

I stared at Mrs Steppa, my mind a complete blank.

‘Tash…’

A cough stuck in my throat. I tried again. ‘Tash has got

Beetle?’

212 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Yes, luvvie, she turned up about twenty minutes ago and said you were at the bakery so you’d asked her to come and get him. She took Beetle and all his things.’ She put her hand on my arm. ‘Malia, is everything okay? Should I have kept him here?’

‘No, no, it’s okay I s’pose. I… I just wasn’t expecting

Tash to pick him up.’

‘You didn’t ask her to?

I shook my head.

‘You look a bit pale. Why don’t you come inside for a moment?’

I followed Mrs Steppa into her kitchen and sat down at the table. Why would Tash lie to Mrs Steppa like that? If she wanted to see Beetle so desperately why didn’t she just text me?

‘Biscuit?’

‘No, thanks.’

Mrs Steppa put two mugs of milky tea on the table and sat beside me. ‘I’m sorry I gave Beetle to Tash. I did think it was a little odd, I should have trusted my instincts but she seemed so happy to see him. And I know she’s your best friend so I had no reason to doubt her.’

‘So she was happy?’

213 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Well, happy to see Beetle.’ She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘I suppose she was a bit fidgety, perhaps a little high strung.’

I stared at the table, chewing on what was left of my thumbnail, and tried not to cry.

‘You know, I had a lot of important conversations at this table with my daughters when they were about your age, and I’ve had a few with my granddaughters here, too.

‘You really only get old on the outside. Inside, things aren’t much different now than they were forty something years ago. So if you want to talk to me about anything, anything at all, you know you can trust me.’

‘Yes.’ I bit my lip but I couldn’t stop my tears splashing onto the worn timber table top. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about, luvvie.’

‘I can’t talk about it. I…I just can’t.’

‘That’s okay, I understand,’ she patted my arm and pushed a box of tissues in front of me. ‘Really, I do, and

I’ve got something to give you that I think might help. Wait here.’

My heart was pounding all the way up into my head. If

Tash had taken Beetle she mustn’t be thinking straight at all. Was she still zonked out on those tablets her mum was giving her?

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‘Here you go.’ Mrs Steppa opened up a velvet pouch on the table and took out three gemstones. She pressed a pink coloured stone into my palm, closed my fingers around it and held my hand in hers. The stone was warm and pulsed in my palm, almost as if it had a heartbeat of its own.

Straight away the pounding sensation in my body calmed and it seemed easier to breathe.

‘Ah, see? You feel better already, don’t you? I can feel it.’

I nodded.

‘This is a rose quartz crystal. It gives peaceful, loving feelings to those who hold it.’ She let go of my hand and picked up another two gemstones. ‘I think these will help, too. An amethyst to transform negativity and strengthen your intuition and an obsidian for protection.’

She placed the other two crystals in my hand.

‘Thanks.’

‘Whatever problems you and your friend are having, these will help, I promise.’

‘Okay,’ I sniffed.

She held out her arms and hugged me.

‘Thanks again, Mrs Steppa.’

‘Anytime, luvvie. And make sure you bring Beetle back to visit me soon, he’s a little sweetheart.’

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‘Sure, of course… thanks.’

I held the crystals tight in my hand as I headed for home. So much crap had happened to Tash this week it was natural she’d want to spend some time alone with Beetle to make herself feel better. And she’d probably taken him back to my place so we could practice the ritual. I’d hardly had a chance all week to tell her what I was doing. It was only natural she’d want to make sure she was comfortable with the ouija before we summoned up the spirit girl tonight.

I rubbed the crystals in one hand and with the other twisted the key in my front door and pushed it open.

‘Tash?’

Silence. I squeezed the crystals harder in my palm and went into the kitchen. ‘Tash? Are you here?’

There was a note on the table from Mum saying she was going to dinner and a late movie and that I was not to go out. But no Tash and no Beetle.

‘Tash?’ I ran upstairs to my room and shoved the door open. She wasn’t there but maybe she’d taken Beetle for a walk.

I went to the park across the road but it was empty, so

I headed down the three blocks to the big park and followed the path along the creek. Beneath the sinking sun joggers sweated and people with dogs on leads trotted past. From

216 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley behind me I heard a puppy bark and my heart jumped. I turned to see a group of people fussing over a small Jack Russell and another black puppy and walked towards them. But there was no Tash and no Beetle.

I wanted to believe Beetle was okay. I wanted to trust that Tash had a good reason for taking him and that she was looking after him. But the tingle at the back of my neck was turning into a throb and pulsing up into my head.

I flopped down on a graffitied bench, pulled out my phone and dialled her number. The phone clicked and I heard a muffled, whimpering sound.

‘Tash? Tash? Is that Beetle?’

She hung up. I called her straight back, two, three, four times. But she didn’t answer again.

I sent a text

r u ok? is beetle ok? and stared at the phone willing her to reply. But she didn’t.

Panic rose in my throat but I forced myself to swallow it down again. Everything was okay. She’d probably just dropped her phone and the battery had fallen off or something. I ignored the throbbing in my head and gripped the rose crystal in my hand as I followed the path back to home.

217 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

My phone rang but it stopped before I could answer it.

I checked to see who’d called but it said number withheld.

It must have been Tash. I pressed redial. She had to answer this time.

But she didn’t.

I ran up the hill, my head thudding every time my feet hit the ground, raced to my front door and swung it open.

‘Tash!’

No answer.

My breath caught in my chest and it didn’t matter how deep I tried to breathe I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I ran into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.

My mobile went off in my pocket. I fumbled and dropped it, then scooped it up. It was a message from Chris asking me to go with him to a party. The phone was still in my hand when another message came through. This one was from Tash.

she luvs hates muppy

What was that supposed to mean? My heart thumped so hard it echoed in my throat. If Tash was pranking me I’d never forgive her. I paced up and down the house, calling her, but she didn’t answer.

‘Jesus, Tash!’ I threw the phone at the sofa then picked it up and pressed her number over and over but she

218 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley still wouldn’t pick up so I sent a text saying call me. Her text came back almost straight away.

she luvs him but hates him coz he saw but couldn’t stop it

I stared at her message. As its jumble of words danced around the edges of my brain all the things that Tash had said and done over the last week—seeing the spirit girl in the mirror and in my room, taking drugs at the party off a guy she hardly knew, burning her hand like a klutz, days off school, going psycho at Louise de Piccolo, those weird online conversations, taking Beetle—everything finally locked into place.

Lana had been right: this wasn’t a game, Tash was really sick.

I chucked the phone to the floor, buried my throbbing head into a sofa cushion and screamed at my stupidity then threw the cushion at the TV and ran out into the courtyard.

I crawled into the hammock and stared above me into the darkening sky, rolling the crystals around in the palm of hand, but any magic they’d held was gone.

The clouds, thick and heavy across the sky, closed in the heat. Humid air clung to my skin like cobwebs. The whole universe was a swamp.

I took in a deep breath, went back inside, picked my phone up off the floor and called Mum. I didn’t care if she

219 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley yelled at me or grounded me for a year; I couldn’t deal with this alone anymore.

But the call went straight to her message bank. She’d switched off her phone.

Every ten minutes I redialled Mum’s number and in between that I called and texted Tash. I got nothing back from either of them.

By 11pm I knew I had no choice: I had to set up the ritual and hope Tash would come. And hope that Beetle would be safe.

220 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 20

Neighbourhood dogs barked their chorus of night-time warnings as I hurried down the deserted street towards the park. Hot sticky air dragged across my skin and thrashed around my feet, picking up piles of leaves and rubbish and swirling them like mini tornadoes. The neighbourhood lights flickered then died. Another power outage. I froze in the middle of the road, in the suffocating darkness, and willed the world to stop. But there was no backing out now.

Whatever was going to happen was already in place and no one could help me. I fumbled in my backpack for my torch, switched it on and headed into the park.

In the dark the flame trees towered like judges. I crept towards the largest tree and emptied out my backpack.

The leaves around me crunched and rustled. I swung my torch.

Two glassy eyes shone in its glare, then vanished.

‘Probably a baby possum.’ I spoke out loud to calm myself. My armpits were damp with sweat but I shivered as I laid the velvet cloth on the ground and placed the ouija board in the centre of it.

I got out my notes and held the torch above them to read then balled them up in my fist, chucked them away and

221 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley started to cry. I was such an idiot. Everything was going wrong and it was all my fault.

I lay down on the ground and stared up at the moon. The wind blew leaves and twigs across my face; I didn’t bother to push them off. I didn’t want to move.

The drunken shouts of a group of guys drifted across from the end of the street. Whoever it was, I prayed they would stay away from the park. I tried calling Mum again but her phone was still switched off. I flattened myself onto the ground and wished it would split open and swallow me up.

Then I heard a short, high-pitched bark. Beetle! I jumped up and saw a figure coming down the gully—I knew it was Tash by her long stride—and ran towards her, holding out my hands. She stopped and stared at me, her eyes wild,

Beetle clutched tightly under one arm.

Fear drenched my guts. Tash’s wind-whipped hair stuck out all over her head. She hunched like a cornered animal.

‘Can I have Beetle?’

‘No!’ She gripped him tighter and he yelped in pain.

‘You’re hurting him. Give him to me, please.’

‘No. I have to hold onto him while we do the ouija board.’

Beetle whimpered and struggled to get out of Tash’s arms, his big brown eyes pleading with me to help him.

222 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Tash, I’m here to help you.’ I focused on keeping my voice low and steady. ‘Come and sit down here in the circle where it’s safe. We can all be safe there.’

Tash glared at me. I held out my hand and she looked at it for a moment, then shoved past me, sat next to the ouija board and let Beetle go. He ran to me and I scooped him up and held him gently, close to my face. ‘I’m so sorry,

Beetle. I’m so sorry.’ I choked back a sob; I had to stay calm.

I watched Tash sitting at the edge of the velvet cloth.

She rubbed her wrists over and over again, rubbing so hard the skin was almost raw. Then I noticed the left side of her nose had a silver stud sticking out of it.

‘You’ve had your nose pierced.’

‘Yeah, I got it done today.’

‘I thought you hated piercings.’

‘Not any more. Do you like it?’

‘Yeah, of course.’ I forced a smile. ‘It suits you.’

‘You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to like me either. You wouldn’t if you knew.’

‘Knew what?’

‘You think you’re my best friend but you’re not. She is. She knows me, knows my truth. You only love the me you think I am.’

223 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘That’s not true, Tash. Of course I love you.’

‘You won’t when you know the truth. You won’t.’

She screeched the last words into the wind as it clawed at our clothes and hurled leaves into our hair. I took in a deep breath to slow my racing heartbeat then clasped my hands under my chin, said a quiet prayer and sat down opposite her.

‘Hurry up.’ She grabbed the glass off the top of my backpack and put it on the ouija board. ‘We need to do this now.’

I knew that any ritual I did was useless, that Tash needed real help. But I also knew I had to go through with it. She wasn’t making any sense now and if I didn’t try using the ouija board she might do something totally out of control.

Tash swung her head around, as if searching for a hidden enemy. ‘I thought we had to light candles to protect us.’

‘We can’t do that in this wind,’ I said. ‘We’ll just have to hold them, unlit.’

‘Will that count?’

‘It’s fine, Tash.’ With the lie my heart pounded harder in my chest.

224 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Her hands shook as she took the white candle from me. She jerked around and looked back into the darkness. Then she dropped her head to her chest and closed her eyes.

In the distance, a dog howled as the drunks’ rough voices drew closer. Beetle whimpered and snuggled into my lap. I bowed my head. ‘Guardians of the north, watch over us. Guardians of the south, watch over us.’

The splintering sound of glass on concrete broke the silence. Voices roared and swore right next to the park.

‘Guardians of the east, watch over us. Guardians of the west, watch over us. All corners, be with us now, guide us with your benevolent powers.’

I placed my hands on the glass, pushing it into the centre of the board.

‘Put your hands over mine, Tash.’

Her hands trembled on my skin. Suddenly I started to shake all over. A chill stabbed through me. I took in a sharp breath, tried to let it out slowly.

The drunks’ harsh shouts and hollow laughs punched the air. Beneath our trembling hands I could feel the glass chill until it was like ice. I couldn’t work out what was happening. Was this fake or real? Panic gripped me like hands around my throat. The glass began to shake.

‘Say something,’ Tash shrieked. ‘Talk to it.’

225 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

The angry wind flung a stick into my eye. I put my hands to my face. Tash gripped the glass as if her palms were glued to it but it spun wildly across the board, out of control. She stared at me, eyes haunted and mouth a frozen scream, as the glass shattered beneath her hands. Before I could stop her she’d grabbed Beetle and held a shard of glass to his neck.

‘Tash!’ I grabbed at her arm but she swung it away and slashed the glass across his face. Beetle squealed and clamped his teeth into her hand. She fell back. He squirmed out of her grip and sped off into the darkness.

‘Beetle, come back.’ I stood to run after him but Tash flung her arms around my leg and dragged me to the ground. I kicked at her but she lunged at me. The razor-sharp sliver shaved across my cheek. She raised her hand to stab again. I grabbed her wrist with both my hands and pushed, arms shaking with the effort of keeping her weapon away from my face. Her eyes were vacant holes as she bore the weight of her body down, drips of her blood spattering onto my face.

‘Tash! Stop it! Tash!’ My throat scraped raw with screaming but her face was blank, a horror mask stripped to its bones. The harsh voices veered away towards the road, braying and hooting. If they could hear me yelling they didn’t care. I gritted my teeth and drove my legs and arms

226 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley up until Tash fell back onto the ground. I clambered to my feet, kicking her away again as she grabbed at my leg. She howled with fury and sliced the glass across her thigh. A dark gash split her leg. She raised the shard again and jagged it down her forearm and wrist.

‘No!’ I lunged at her and threw her to the ground. The force knocked the piece of glass from her hand but it was too late, blood spilled from the deep cut in her wrist. I grabbed it in my hand to stop the flow. The blood oozed, pulsing under my palm.

‘It’s okay,’ her voice sounded disconnected, a false calm. ‘I want it like this. It feels better now.’ A vacant smile flicked across her lips.

‘Jesus, Tash, what have you done?’

Bile filled my throat. I swallowed it down and grabbed the velvet cloth and wrapped it around the worst cut then pulled out my mobile and called 000.

‘I need an ambulance. My friend’s cut her wrist and it’s really deep.’

‘Okay, honey, stay calm. Is she losing much blood?’

‘I’ve wrapped some cloth around it but it’s already soaked.’

227 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Okay. Keep your friend still, keep the wound elevated and we’ll get an ambulance there as soon as we can. Where are you?’

The operator took the details and promised me someone would be there soon.

Every minute Tash got weaker and weaker. I talked to her, sang to her, quoted our favourite movie lines, shoving the panic down my throat. Every now and then a tiny smile curled at the corner of her white tinged lips but most of the time she stared at the sky with eyes as blank as the flame tree’s shadow.

My heart hammered against my ribs as the wail of the ambulance pierced the night’s silence. Finally it turned into the street. Doors slammed.

‘Over here,’ I yelled. I shone my torch at the top of the park to guide the ambos. They thudded down the hill.

Tash’s breathing had slowed and in the torchlight her skin was bread-dough white.

‘What’s her name?’ A female ambo motioned me aside and took Tash’s wrist as the male shone a small torch in her eyes.

‘Tash.’ My voice was a raw whisper.

‘Tash? Tash, honey can you hear me?’ The man gently shook her shoulder. She didn’t answer.

228 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Has she been talking to you?’

‘No. I’ve been talking to her and singing but she hasn’t said anything.’

He checked her breathing and heartbeat. ‘Do you know if she’s taken anything?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Don’t lie to us,’ the ambo’s voice was matter-of-fact.

‘If she’s taken any drugs we need to know.’

‘She could have but I honestly don’t know.’

The woman pressed a thick wad of cotton against the deep cut in Tash’s wrist. ‘She’s lost a bit of blood but she’ll be fine. What’s your name, love?’

‘Malia.’

‘We’re going to take Tash to emergency. You’ll need to come with us to give us her details, okay?’

‘Okay.’ I choked back a sob. Now that they were here I couldn’t hold back any more. My whole body shook as a feral half-howl-half-cry rumbled up from my stomach and burst out my mouth.

‘Shh,’ she patted my back. ‘She’s going to be okay.

She’s lucky you were here to help her.’ She helped me to my feet. I stumbled on jelly legs behind the other ambo as he carried Tash to the ambulance and settled her onto the

229 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley stretcher. The woman helped me up and put a blanket around my shoulders. She felt my hands and my forehead and frowned.

‘What’s this on your cheek?’

I’d forgotten that Tash had scratched me. Suddenly the image of her above me, holding the glass, her eyes vacant, flashed in my head and I bent over, sobbing.

‘It’s okay, honey.’ The ambo patted my hand.

‘Whatever’s happened it’s going to be okay. We can sort it all out later.’

The rest of the ride in the ambulance and arriving at the hospital is a blank. I know I must have talked because the hospital had all Tash’s and my details. But I only remember waking up in a bed in the emergency ward and seeing Mum sitting beside me.

‘Thank god you’re okay.’ She gripped my hand. Sweat from her palm slid over my skin.

I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to work out where I was. Then I saw the hospital band on my wrist.

‘Where’s Tash?’ I struggled to sit up. ‘Is she okay?

Have you seen her?’

‘Shh,’ her fingers trembled as she stroked my hair.

‘She’s fine. But you’ve had a huge shock, so just lie back.’

‘But where is she? Can I see her?’

230 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Maybe when you check out in the morning you can visit.

You need to rest now.’

Lights and shadows pulsed behind my closed eyelids then pieced into images: the glass spinning out of control, shattering, the zombie violence in Tash’s eyes as she slashed at herself. My heart gripped and stopped, stammered and sped, a careering car headed for a crash.

‘Mum!’ I screamed but she couldn’t hear me. ‘Mum! Mum!’

A rush of feet pounded around me, split voices speaking words I couldn’t understand. An invisible weight pinned me to the bed. Then I was falling.

‘Mal, honey wake up, you’re okay, you’re okay.’ Mum held me, kissing the top of my head. ‘Just a nightmare, you’re okay.’

I blinked up at the grey ceiling, pitted with shadows, and felt the scratch of the hospital band around my wrist. A nightmare, that’s what it was. But Tash and me were living in it.

231 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 21

‘In here.’ The nurse pointed to the corner of the room. Tash was in a wheelchair, facing the window, blonde tangles tucked into the neck of her gown. Her right arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow. Her drip stand was beside her, a silent guardian.

Mum gripped my hand as we walked across the room. The staff had warned us that Tash might not respond. She hadn’t said a word to them all day.

‘Hey, Tash,’ I hugged her stiff body. Her skin let off a bitter chemical smell that stung my nostrils. Mum’s eyes were dark with concern as she patted Tash’s hand.

‘Hello, love.’ She sat down in one of the chairs beside

Tash and motioned for me to do the same. For a few minutes we all stared out at the hospital garden’s faded grass, its flowers wilting under the afternoon sun.

My mind raced through the things I’d practised to say, safe things that wouldn’t upset Tash. But my throat was too dry for words.

‘What a beautiful frangipani tree.’ Mum drummed her fingers softly above her knees. ‘Such gorgeous pink flowers.

Bet they smell gorgeous, too. I love this time of year when

232 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley the frangipanis are in full bloom, it makes everything seem sunnier.’ Mum’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat.

I took in a sharp breath. ‘Yeah,’ I tried to continue the conversation but words had fled my brain. ‘Yeah, sunnier.’ I kept my eyes focused out the window at the single frangipani tree. ‘Don’t you think so, Tash?’

No response.

‘Jacarandas are beautiful, too, but of course they’ve stopped flowering by now…’ Mum’s voice trailed off into a cough again.

The hospital air conditioning made me shiver. I folded my arms tight across my chest and tapped my toes in a slow beat on the floor. I couldn’t think of a single other thing to say about trees or gardens or the weather.

The three of us sat, silent, staring out the window as if waiting for some magical thing to happen. Dancing fairies, dogs in superman capes, a giant bird carrying laughing kids, my mind filled with silly things reminding me of a game Tash and I used to play when we were really little. We’d make up a story, pretend we’d seen something magic, and we’d have to make the story as real as we could so the other one would believe it. There were lots of times when Tash’s stories seemed so real I almost did believe them. I wanted to believe them. Her made up world was

233 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley funnier, more beautiful, more adventurous than anything we had in our ordinary kid’s lives.

I opened my mouth, not sure what was going to come out of it.

‘Natasha!’ A man’s deep voice echoed into the room.

Tash gripped the arms of her wheelchair, her knuckles white.

‘Hello Evan, Marian.’ Mum’s voice was stiff.

Tash’s parents. My stomach coiled. I fixed my eyes straight ahead so I didn’t have to look at them.

‘Sue,’ he spoke as though his throat was lined with cold stone. ‘Thank you for visiting but now my wife and I need time alone with our daughter.’

I glanced across at Mum for a cue. She was still for a moment, then reached across and put her hand over Tash’s.

‘Bye love, we’ll come again soon.’ Mum stood and turned to go.

Tash grabbed at her hand and yanked her back. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him.’ Her voice was ragged. ‘Don’t.’

Mum sat back down.

‘I said, my wife and I want to be alone with our daughter.’ Tash’s dad shoved his hands on his hips, his belly slung out over his pants like a deflated balloon.

‘I said,’ Tash stood shakily, one hand holding my Mum’s wrist, the other gripping her drip stand. ‘I said I want

234 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley them to stay. And I want you…’ she turned to her dad, her eyes red-rimmed and burning, ‘… to F off.’

‘Now Natasha—’

‘And you’re no better than him.’ Tash’s hate-filled eyes burnt into her mother. ‘You stayed. You stayed because it was better for you and so I had to stay, too.’

‘Tash, honey,’ Mum tried to get her to sit down. ‘Don’t get upset, whatever it is I’m sure we can all—’

‘He hurt me,’ Tash screamed, flecks of white spittle at the corners of her pale mouth. ‘He hurt me and she knew.’

Two nurses rushed in.

‘Calm this child down,’ Tash’s dad pointed an accusing finger at the female nurse. ‘Can’t you give her something?’

‘Get him out! Get them both out or I swear I’ll…’ Tash ripped at the drip in her arm. The female nurse lunged to stop her while the male nurse put his hand on Mr Benetti’s shoulder. ‘Please leave so we can sort this out, sir.’

‘I am her father. I am entitled—’

‘We need to help your daughter right now. I’ll come out and talk to you in a moment. All of you, leave now please.’

‘This is all your fault,’ Tash’s dad pointed at me.

‘You stupid, stupid girl filling my daughter’s head with rubbish.’

235 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Mum took my hand and pulled me out of the room. Tash’s dad’s strident voice followed us down the corridor, pelting us with accusations. ‘You’ve been taking her to parties, giving her drugs, haven’t you? I know your type. Seen it before, bloody single parents with their permissive ways, ripping off the government, bleeding the country dry.’

Mum stopped, her face burnt crimson with anger, her body shaking. She turned and glared at Tash’s dad.

‘You touched her, didn’t you?’ Her voice was a low rumble. ‘Look me in the eye and see if you can deny it.’

He clenched his fists, a cold marble statue. His eyes flickered. ‘I do not have to explain myself to you or anyone.’

He marched past us and whacked his shoulder into Mum, shoving her into the wall. Tash’s mum scuttled along behind him, eyes to the floor.

Mum sank into the wall. I grabbed her arms as an orderly ran up to us.

‘Are you okay?’ He helped Mum to a seat down at the nurse’s station.

Mum shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’

The orderly crouched beside Mum’s chair. ‘I can get you a cup of tea, if you like.’

236 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Thanks but I think we just need to get out of here.’

Mum grasped my hand. Her skin was icy. ‘We need to be home.’

Mum picked the olives off her pizza slice and pushed them to the side of her plate. She was too tired to cook and we were both too tired to eat but we pretended to anyway to make each other feel better.

I’d told her pretty much everything that had gone on, about Tash seeing the spirit girl, about the ritual, even about Beetle staying at Mrs Steppa’s. Mum had been better about that than I thought. There were no lectures; she just rang around the local vets to see if anyone had found him and when she got onto the one that did, arranged for them to find him a good home. The vet said it wouldn’t be hard to re-home a cute puppy like Beetle. But I’d never see him again. Mum said that was punishment enough and she was right. I already missed him heaps. But at least he was alive and safe and that was no thanks to me.

We stared at the TV, untouched pizza on our plates, the awful question hanging between us, a bitter shadow.

‘There was always something about that man,’ Mum stopped pretending and pushed her plate away. ‘There was never anything much about him to like—rude, arrogant,

237 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley pompous, self-centred—but still you never like to think…’

Her narrowed eyes held mine. ‘He never touched you, did he?’

‘Mum, I was hardly there.’

‘Yes, of course.’ She leant back into the sofa and breathed out through pursed lips. ‘Did Tash ever say anything to you about it?’

‘No. Never.’ Of all the stuff she’d told me, all the stories, all the truths and maybe even lies since we were little kids, hardly any of them had been about her father or her mother. It was like they weren’t even a part of her world. Now I understood why.

‘What’s going to happen to her, Mum?’

‘I don’t know, honey.’

‘She should come and live with us. We can’t let her go back there.’

Mum shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know? You can’t let her go back there if he’s been…’ A sour taste filled my mouth. I couldn’t even say the words.

‘She won’t be out of hospital for a few days at least.

We’ll see what happens then. Perhaps she’ll want to stay with her sister for a while.’

‘No one knows where Katie is. Tash hasn’t heard from her since she left.’

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‘Oh?’ Mum frowned. ‘That’s odd. I saw her near my work the other day.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘No, I’m sure it was Katie. She has that tattoo of a

Queen of Hearts on her left shoulder; it’s quite distinctive. I remember seeing it when she came to pick Tash up from here once, last year sometime.’

Mum drummed her fingers on the sofa arm. ‘Yes, it was definitely her. She was having a coffee in that little place across from the bookshop on Daybell Road. You know, just up the street from my work.’

My heart quickened.

‘Come to think of it, that’s the second or third time

I’ve seen her around there. Perhaps she works in the area, too.’

‘But Tash said Katie had left home, not told anyone where she was. If she was still around here then wouldn’t

Tash know about it?’

Mum rubbed her forehead. ‘I don’t know, honey.’ Tiredness dragged at her voice. ‘I really don’t know.’

It made no sense. Either Katie was lying to Tash about where she was or Tash was lying to me. The next day, I was going to find out the truth.

239 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 22

Mum didn’t act surprised when I asked to get a lift with her the next morning. She never said anything but I know she thought it was a good idea that I went looking for Katie.

Someone had to tell her what was happening to Tash.

I was ready for a long search but Katie was so easy to find it seemed like fate. Almost as soon Mum dropped me off

I saw her: Katie was putting the open sign up on the footpath outside an art gallery less than a hundred metres from Mum’s work.

When I called out her name Katie froze, then turned to me and stared, unsmiling. My heart dropped. I wasn’t expecting hugs and kisses—I didn’t know her that well—but she glared at me like I was a nosy cop. Her thin tattooed arms hung by her sides and she curled and stretched her fingers as if warming them up to play an instrument.

With each step I took towards her my heart hammered faster in my chest. My mouth dried and a cough scratched at my throat.

‘Hello.’ She folded her arms tight across her chest.

‘Hi, Kate.’ I took in a deep breath to calm myself, but my eyes stung with tears. Then the words just rushed out.

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‘Tash’s in hospital, she hurt herself pretty badly. A lot’s been going on and she needs your help.’

Katie covered her face with her hands. Her body shivered in the strip of morning sun.

‘Katie, can you…can you help?’

For a moment she was still. Then she dropped her hands by her sides and motioned to the art gallery door, her silver- blue eyes hard. ‘Come in and tell me what’s going on.’

We walked through the white-walled gallery to the kitchen out the back. Paintings lined the room, some hanging, some stacked together against the walls. Kate pulled a pile of magazines off a chair, sat down and lit a cigarette.

‘I shouldn’t. It’s bad for the paintings, but...’ She shrugged and watched a curl of smoke spiral up to the ceiling. ‘Sit down.’

Outside a magpie warbled, its clear, bright song piercing the stillness of the room. I pulled out a paint- splattered plastic chair and sat opposite her, my eyes fixed on the table. It was one of those old laminate ones that you see in retro cafes sometimes. Words tumbled around in my head and I traced my finger across the table’s scratches, trying to work out which word I should say first.

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‘Things started getting weird not long after Tash’s birthday,’ I began.

‘Yeah, I feel bad about not being there for her birthday.’ Katie stared out the window at the morning blue sky and shook her head. ‘I feel bad about a lot of things.’

I laced my fingers together, unsure whether to let

Kate keep talking or whether she was waiting for me. The room was filled with the art works’ silent messages, and a flash of red leapt out from the corner of the room. It was a painting of a young girl, maybe about ten, in a red dress holding a solid black balloon. The girl’s huge black-rimmed eyes glowed with a strange mix of sadness and anger.

Something about the painting pierced my heart.

‘I felt bad about leaving her there but at the time it was the only thing I could think to do.’ Katie stubbed out her cigarette in a battered silver ashtray and straightened up in her chair, her hands folded in front of her like a school kid waiting to see the principal.

‘She misses you,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Katie sighed. ‘I miss her, too. But I couldn’t let her know where I was in case she let something slip to

Mum.’

‘So you’ve been here since you left?’

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‘I was going to go to WA but I figured that if I stayed close to the city no one would ever think of looking for me here. And that way I could be here in case Tash ever needed me… which I guess she does now.’ She tugged at the piercing in her lip, twisting the silver ring between her fingers.

‘Tell me what’s happened.’

My stomach clenched into swirling knots as I stood outside the hospital’s main entrance, waiting for Katie. She was late. I was terrified her parents would turn up and see me there and her dad would start yelling again. That man was like bugs crawling under my skin.

A taxi pulled into the entrance and Katie jumped out and waved to me.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘traffic.’ She grabbed my hand. ‘Are you ready for this? It could get ugly.’

I nodded and followed her into the hospital. Tash was in the psych ward, which meant that all her visitors had to be signed in and signed out. Katie sucked in a deep breath, her body tense as we walked up to the nurse’s station outside the locked ward doors.

‘We’re here to see Natasha Benetti.’

‘Names?’ The nurse squeezed the word out through lemon- pinched lips.

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‘Kate Benetti and Malia Atford.’

My knotted stomach lurched as the nurse checked something on her screen.

‘Sorry, your names aren’t on the visitor list.’

‘I’m Natasha’s sister.’

‘Doesn’t matter. If your name isn’t on the list you’re not going in.’

‘Who compiled this list?’ Katie’s voice simmered with anger.

‘Probably the patient’s parents.’

‘Is Natasha an involuntary patient?’

Nurse Bitch-face checked the screen again. ‘No, apparently not.’

‘If she’s a voluntary patient, and she’s sixteen, my understanding is that she is allowed to choose her own visitors.’

‘Is that right?’ The nurse flared her nostrils.

‘Yes,’ Katie smirked. ‘It is. So I suggest you let us in.’

The nurse’s face turned a new shade of red. ‘Wait here,’ she spat.

I gripped the counter with shaking hands as she turned to make a call. Katie rubbed my arm, mouthed ‘it’s fine’ but my stomach and heart boiled and clawed inside my skin.

244 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

The nurse slammed down the phone. ‘Right. Follow me.’

She stalked out from behind her desk and unlocked the ward doors. Katie and I followed silently behind her, our arms linked. The fact that we were both shaking made me feel a bit better, I suppose because it meant that we were in this together. It was weird, before this morning I barely knew

Katie—she was just Tash’s slightly strange big sister—but our need to save Tash made us close, in a way closer than

Tash and I had ever been.

The nurse grunted at us when we stopped outside Tash’s room, then turned and stalked off, the squeaking of her shoes echoing off the floor like crying mice.

Katie gripped my arm and we walked through the doorway.

Tash was in bed this time, and the drip was gone. She stared out the window as if she couldn’t hear us.

‘Tash?’ Katie leant across the bed and kissed her on the cheek.

Tash shivered so hard it was like a spirit had yanked itself out of her body. She turned her head to Katie, then to me, and started to cry.

The human body is supposed to be ninety per cent water and I think that afternoon Tash cried out eighty-five per cent. Katie and I sat on either side of the bed, each of us holding one of Tash’s hands, and let her cry. We didn’t try

245 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley to quiet her, didn’t make soothing sounds, just sat with her. Tears fell down my face, and Katie’s too, but it was more than tears for Tash. It was like she was letting go of all the bad things she’d ever seen, heard, felt or experienced. Her sobs resounded around the room, a song of fear, helplessness and pain rising up then slowly ebbing away until there was silence.

Tash took a tissue from the box next to her bed and blew into it noisily. ‘I’m going to need another drip.’ A smile trembled at the corner of her mouth. ‘I don’t think there’s any liquid left in my body’.

‘I’m sorry I left you,’ Katie said. ‘But I had to.’

‘I know,’ Tash squeezed her hand. ‘It’s okay.’

The quiet of the room wrapped around us like a soft, worn sheet.

‘When do you get out of here?’ Kate brushed the hair from Tash’s cheek.

She glanced at her bandages. ‘They’re waiting for these to heal up a bit more. Plus the psych wants me to start group therapy.’ She shook her head. ‘Friggin’ hell, like I want to sit around in a circle with a bunch of crazies and spill my guts.’

‘You’re a voluntary patient, you don’t have to stay.’

‘Where else am I gonna go?’ Tash’s voice cracked.

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Katie wrapped her arms around her sister and rocked her.

‘You can live with me, of course.’

‘But mum and dad…’

‘They don’t know where I live and they never need to know. You’re sixteen, you can legally move out. And I can take care of you, I’m strong enough now.’

A cry came from inside Tash, as though something within her had finally broken free, and she sobbed in her sister’s arms.

‘Mal,’ Katie lifted her head as she stroked Tash’s hair, ‘can you pack up Tash’s things? We’re out of here.’

Relief rushed through me as I stood up and all the crap of the last week dropped off my body like a discarded costume. That whatever it was, whatever it meant, it was over.

247 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Chapter 23

The front door was wide open.

‘Tash?’

‘In the kitchen.’

I walked through the living room out to where Tash was spreading thick chocolate icing over the top of a cake.

‘Good timing,’ she said. ‘Go out the back and I’ll be there in a sec.’

Out on the back deck I sunk into the saggy couch, shoving a pillow in behind my back so my bum didn’t get wedged into its fold. It’d been ages since I’d seen Tash, almost five weeks. After she first moved in with Katie I’d dropped over a few times but since then I’d been so busy working at Lana’s bookshop and hanging out with Chris I’d hardly had any spare time. Okay, to be honest, I did have some spare time but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend it with

Tash.

She almost tripped as she carried the cake out onto the deck. She righted the cake on its plate and put it in the middle of the old pine table. ‘Okay,’ she licked some icing off her fingers. ‘Knife, plates, you want tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee. Do you want me to help?’

‘No, I’m fine, won’t take long.’

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She rushed back into the kitchen. I picked up a magazine from the pile on the deck floor and flipped through pages.

Same old boring celebrity gossip. I chucked it back and pushed myself up out of the couch, leant across the railing and watched a bush turkey scratching at its mound over in the neighbour’s yard. Its progress was slow—adding just a couple of leaves and twigs to the pile with each scratch—but the mound was huge. Bush turkeys might not be smart but they were determined.

‘How’s the bookshop?’ Tash’s voice made me jump.

‘Good, heaps better than the bakery.’

‘I’m thinking of doing a baking apprenticeship. Don’t know about the hours, though.’ She picked up the knife and sliced it into the cake; the shiny blade reflected the long scar down her forearm. It was still red and raw.

‘Here’s your coffee.’ It slurped on the table as she pushed it across. ‘Damn, hang on a sec.’ She rushed back into the house, came back out with a cloth to wipe the spilt coffee, then ran back inside again.

‘Okay, all good now.’ Tash sat at the table, pushed a slice of cake towards me and smiled one of her sunny smiles that lit up a room. ‘Have a taste and tell me what you think.’

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‘It’s great,’ I said through a mouthful. ‘Better than stuff from the shops.’

‘Really? I got the recipe from this old cookbook I got at the op shop.’

‘Yeah?’ I took a sip of coffee. ‘It’s really good.’

‘So, how’s things going with Chris?’

‘Good,’ I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face.

‘That good, huh?’

‘Yeah,’ I nodded. ‘Just taking things slow, but it’s good. He makes me laugh.’ I picked some cake crumbs off my plate and licked my fingers. ‘I like your new colour.’

‘Thanks.’ She ran her fingers through her short, ruby red hair.

‘It’s different, but it suits you, especially with the lip ring.’

She looked nothing like the girl who’d been at school only two months ago. Her piercings and short hair made her look much older; she could pass for nineteen or twenty, easily.

We ate our cake in silence, listening to Kate’s collection of wind chimes clacking and tinkling in the afternoon breeze.

250 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘Are you really thinking about an apprenticeship? What about school?’

‘Don’t have the money to go back to St Agatha’s. And I figure it’s time to start my real life.’

She frowned, concentrating on rolling cake crumbs into little balls between her fingers then pushing them into little piles. ‘What do you remember about that night, about the ritual?’

My mouth dried. A huge lump rose up in my throat. ‘Same as you, I suppose.’

‘I hardly remember anything.’

‘Oh.’ Tash and I hadn’t spoken about the ritual since it happened. The couple of times I’d come to see her after she’d got out of hospital it seemed too soon. Now the unsaid things hung between us, thick and cloying as smoke from the mozzie coil.

‘I know whatever happened must have been freaky. I remember the glass spinning out of control and smashing in my hand. I suppose I was gripping it so tight it shattered…’

Her lips trembled. ‘I hurt Beetle, didn’t I?’

‘It was only a scratch, he was fine.’

‘I’m so sorry I hurt him, I didn’t know what I was doing.’

251 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

‘I know.’ I gripped my coffee mug so hard it almost burnt my fingers.

‘And this?’ She leant across the table, tracing her finger down the faint scar across my cheek.

‘You didn’t know what you were doing, Tash, you didn’t mean it.’

She flung her arms around me and buried her head in my shoulder. I patted her back as her tears dripped down onto my clothes. ‘It was only a scratch.’

She sat back, pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose hard. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t have to keep saying that.’ I took a mouthful of coffee. Its bitterness scoured down my throat. ‘But there’s something I don’t understand. Before the ritual you sent me a text, something about she loves hates Muppy. What did you mean?’

Tash pushed the pile of chocolate crumbs around with her fingertips. Her chest shuddered as she forced down a sob. ‘Do you know what my dad did to me and Katie?’

‘Katie’s told me a bit. Enough to… I know why you can’t ever go back to live with your mum and dad.’

Tash crushed the pile of chocolate crumbs under her fingers. ‘He held Muppy over my face while he did it.’

252 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

It was like a knife had slashed my lungs and ripped all the air out of my body. Blood rushed around my head and pounded in my ears. For a few seconds I couldn’t breathe.

Behind me the bamboo chimes knocked together in the breeze and the sound echoed around my brain. I lifted my eyes and looked at Tash.

‘He can’t hurt us anymore. Katie’s made sure of that.’

She gripped her hand tight around the knife handle until her knuckles were white. ‘But there’s…there’s something else I have to tell you.’

I didn’t want to hear anymore. My stomach clenched and my feet and legs tingled, ready to run.

‘Not everything I told you about the girl was true.’

My heart thumped then, hollow, like I was free-falling.

I slumped back into my chair. ‘What?’

‘I did see another girl’s face in the mirror, at my place and at your place, I didn’t lie about that. But that morning in your kitchen, I burnt my hand on purpose. I made up that story about her appearing in the kitchen because I knew you’d believe that easier than you’d believe I wanted to hurt myself.

‘I felt so disconnected, if I couldn’t see my own face in the mirror anymore, then who was I? I thought that pain

253 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley might make me feel more real.’ Her fingertips grazed my arm. ‘Please don’t be angry.’

I dug my chewed fingernails into my palm and stared at the floor. ‘What else did you lie about?’

‘About seeing the girl in your room that same day. I had to keep you believing that I saw her so you wouldn’t think I’d hurt myself. I only ever saw her in a mirror. Any other place I said I saw her, I was lying.’

I pressed my fists to my temples to stop my head from spinning. We’d always promised there’d be no secrets between us. I’d never doubted any of her story about the spirit girl for a second and now she was telling me that half of it was bullshit.

I stood and pressed myself into the railing. Over the back fence the turkey scratched away at its mound as if nothing in the world had changed.

‘I’m so sorry, Mal, but please try to understand. I was ashamed. I didn’t want you to know I self-harmed. It was easier to make up stuff, turn my reality into something different, something I thought you’d accept.’

‘I’m your best friend,’ I turned and faced her. ‘You didn’t trust me enough to think I’d accept the truth?’

She stood in front of me, her hands clasped in front of her mouth. ‘Please, just sit with me and listen.’

254 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Half of me wanted to walk out and never see her again but there was something in her eyes, some truth that I knew

I needed to hear. I followed her back to the table.

‘It was the girl in the mirror that made me face the truth. I knew my dad was selfish and a liar but I’d blocked out the things he did.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘That’s why I flipped out, because I didn’t want to remember. I’d tried so hard to forget ‘cause when the person who is meant to protect you hurts you like that you feel totally alone.

When you’re not safe at home, it feels like there is no safe place in the world for you.’

No safe place. I’d always been jealous of Tash’s beautiful home, wishing Mum and I could own our own place to do with what we wanted instead of always having to worry about what the landlord would say if I wanted to put some posters on the wall or paint my room a different colour.

We’d never really had a place of our own but I’d always been safe; Tash had everything she wanted but was never safe.

I stared at a ladybug as it scurried along a palm frond overhanging the verandah. ‘Do you still see her? The girl in the mirror?’

‘Not any more, not since I started taking the medication anyway.’

‘Do you think she’ll come back?’

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‘I don’t think so.’ Tash pushed her fringe off her face. ‘But if she does I won’t be scared.’ She put her hand on my shoulder. The scar tissue up the inside of her forearm lightly brushed my skin.

‘I don’t have any excuses for the lies I told you.

You’re right, you’re my best friend and I should have trusted you. But I couldn’t trust myself.’

The late afternoon sun filtered through the frangipanis and caught the mirrored pieces of the glass wind chimes.

They spun in the breeze, scattering diamonds of light across us.

‘It’s okay, Tash. I understand.’

As soon as the words came out of my mouth my body relaxed, as if it had released a huge chunk of toxic waste made up of jealousy, of fear of not being good enough, pretty enough, cool enough. Just of not being enough. I leant over and hugged her and I knew no matter what had happened, this not-so-perfect girl was my best friend. And that would never change.

256 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Girl in the Shadows:

Resilience and coping strategies in contemporary young

adult fiction

An exegesis by Maree Kimberley

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Introduction

Resilience is a concept, a state of being, a tool, a wished for state of grace and an identifier of strength. We want it and yet, to those who need it most, it might always be out of reach. The science of psychology defines resiliency as a theory that “…seeks to understand how children, adolescents and adults thrive despite adverse conditions…”

(Breinbauer and Maddaleno 2005 p. 168) and yet, within the essence of the human spirit itself, resilience is almost beyond definition. How do we get through the things we do, particularly when we are quite young? When something horrible happens to us as a child or adolescent with little life experience, how do we cope? What is it within us that chooses one action over another, leading to destruction or strength?

None of these things was in my mind when I began writing Girl in the Shadows. The manuscript started out as speculative fiction with what appeared to be only a minor focus on the characters’ psychological development. It was a ghost story, with the ‘girl in the mirror’ as a poltergeist haunting one of the central characters, Tash, and the narrator,

Mal, working out ways to combat the ‘evil spirit’. Yet, even in its earliest incarnations, Girl in the Shadows had a strong psychological element: but it took many drafts for this element to be uncovered and given prominence. The manuscript began as a writing exercise, a ‘conversation’ between myself and a character, who later developed into Mal.

This initial conversation took the form of an interview, where I typed out on my computer open-ended questions such as ‘Who are you’ and ‘What do you want to tell me?’. During the process of discovering this character and her story, I thought about using an experience from my own teenage years, where a close friend ‘saw’ a stranger in her mirror, as an event on which to base the story. The first draft of Girl in the Shadows was a sequence of conversations and events, a narrative synopsis of approximately 12,000 words where I wrote the outlines of scenes and snatches of dialogue. From this came the

258 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley first actual draft of about 40,000 words (21 chapters). I worked on this manuscript for two years, on and off, before finally accepting that I had yet to confront the question that held the key to the story: was the girl who appeared in the mirror a ghost or an hallucination, a symptom of mental illness? It was not until I began to answer that question that the manuscript in its current form finally began to take shape.

The journey to the final answer came through research into the human brain and its relationship to trauma. This was a potentially fertile and yet perhaps under-researched subject for a dissertation on young adult fiction to explore, and it took some time to discover the most appropriate research methodology to analyse the topic in relation to relevant contemporary fiction. Initially, my research into the question ‘who is the girl in the mirror’ led me to more well-trodden literary ground: Jungian shadow theory. The role of the shadow as defined by Jung is well documented in literature and in psychology.

Lorelei Cederstrom’s Jungian archetypes in twentieth century women's fiction (2001), which discusses Jung’s shadow theory in relation to contemporary writing by several women authors, and Kaspar Kiepenheuer’s Crossing the bridge: a Jungian approach to adolescence (1990), which discusses how the suppression of the shadow can lead to mental illness, particularly in teenagers, are just two of many books and journal articles written on the topic. Thus, at first Jung’s shadow theory seemed to be an obvious research choice for a manuscript that had as its focal point a girl who saw a face in the mirror that was not hers. However, as I widened my research to try to draw parallels between shadow theory and seeing yourself as another, I was gradually drawn to the relationship between trauma and hallucination, and, from that, the impact of trauma on the developing brain of children and adolescents. This in turn led me to discover more about what science knows about the relationship between what we experience, how our

259 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley brains develop and our cognitive ability to make effective choices to deal with stress and trauma.

This exegesis examines coping strategies and the development of resilience as it is expressed through the actions and behaviour of the main characters in three pieces of young adult fiction: Freaky Green Eyes, by Joyce Carol Oates; Surrender by Sonya

Hartnett and Girl in the Shadows. It seeks to discover any possible relationship between stressful and traumatic experiences, both real and fictional, and the development of resilience during adolescence. In looking at recent scientific discoveries and knowledge about the development of the human brain and the impact of trauma on the child and adolescent, it seeks to connect the science, as it impacts on psychology and medicine, with the representations of adolescent experiences and behaviour in the characters represented in a selection of contemporary young adult fiction. As this is a broad topic, I specifically chose to examine the splitting of the persona as a coping mechanism that may or may not lead to the development of resilience. Creating a new persona is a common coping mechanism for adolescents and I was interested in exploring the factors that may change the split persona from a useful resilience-building tool into a decline into mental illness. Section one, the literature review, examines current medical knowledge about the development of the human brain through childhood and adolescence and the impact of trauma on the brain’s development. It also looks at how brain development impacts upon coping strategies and behaviours, particularly during adolescence, and the factors in a young person’s life that impact either negatively or positively on the development of resilience. Section two unpacks the actions and behaviours of the characters in two contemporary young adult novels, Freaky Green Eyes, by Joyce Carol

Oates, and Surrender, by Sonya Hartnett, in terms of the characters’ choice of coping strategy and how that affected their ability to develop resilience. Section three reflects

260 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley upon my own writing process, and how my research guided my characters’ development and influenced the choices I made in plot direction, structure and narrative.

Section 1: literature review

Brain development

The brain starts growing in the uterus and continues to grow and change until early adulthood. The four major parts of the brain are the brain-stem, the diencephalons (these are the simplest regions of the brain and develop first as a child grows), the limbic system and the cortex; the latter being the most complex part of the brain (Perry and

Szalavitz 2006).

Until the late twentieth century it was believed the human brain reached maturity at about twelve years of age. However, recent scientific research has proved that, although the brain does not grow much more in size from the age of about six, it continues to develop and mature right up until the twenties. This development does not change the number of nerve cells but rather the number of connections between them (Wallis and Dell 2004).

The brain has both grey matter and white matter. Grey matter comprises neurons (brain cells), which transmit messages from one cell to the next using neurotransmitters via connections called synapses. Synaptic connections create chains of neuron to neuron networks that facilitate all the brain’s functions, including thought, feeling, motion, sensation and perception (Perry and Szalavitz). White matter is made up of fatty myelin sheaths and works “like insulation on a wire [to] make nerve-signal transmissions faster and more efficient” (Wallis and Dell p. 4).

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Neuroscientist Jay Giedd began studying healthy adolescents’ brains using Magnetic

Resource Imaging (MRI) in 1997. His research has shown that the grey matter, which thickens in childhood, thins during adolescence. The thinning occurs “…in a wave that begins at the back of the brain and reaches the front by early adulthood” (Powell 2006 p.

866). The pruning of gray matter during this period has been described as ‘neural

Darwinism”: that is, use it or lose it. As a specialist in adolescent behaviour, Dr Michael

Carr-Gregg, explains:

Pruning allows the brain to invest in strengthening the connections that the

individual finds most necessary and important. If your daughter does a lot of

reading, she will become a better reader; if she plays the piano a great deal when

young, she will become a better pianist. (Carr-Gregg p. 9)

While the grey matter is thinning during adolescence, the white matter is thickening.

Much of the brain’s white matter is in the corpus callosum (CC). Changes in the CC occur from the front to the back, with development in the prefrontal cortex, which is the brain’s centre of reasoning and problem solving, occurring last (Carr-Gregg 2006);

(Keshavan, Kennedy et al. 2004); (Giedd, Rosenthal, Rose et al. 2004). This means that during adolescence, teenagers are not physically able to think as quickly as adults because while the grey matter is thinning from back to front, the insulating white matter is developing from front to back. As Carr-Gregg explains:

Just as a bare electrical cable, without plastic insulation, allows some electricity to

escape and so loses power, the uninsulated adolescent brain transmits signals

much more slowly than that of a fully mature adult. (Carr-Gregg 2006 p. 10)

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The research of Giedd and his colleagues has proven that it is not only ‘raging’ hormones that are behind the sometimes unpredictable behaviour of teenagers: their brain development also has an enormous impact. For example, the adrenal sex hormones are extremely active in the brain during adolescence, which causes teenagers to seek activities that create intense feelings. However, the part of the brain that allows them to consider consequences of their actions is still developing, so they will take the risk without considering the impact (Wallis and Dell 2004).

Thus, when a teen does something particularly stupid or dangerous and an adult berates them with ‘what were you thinking?’ the simple answer is that the teen was only ‘thinking’ as fast as their brains would let them. They are only able to reason as much as their brain allows them to.

How trauma affects brain development

At around the same time that Giedd and his colleagues were making discoveries about adolescent brain development, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry was learning about how trauma in childhood affects the developing brain, leading to a range of problems in later life. In his book, The Boy who was Raised as a Dog, Perry traces his professional and personal development as a child psychiatrist as he begins to piece together the correlations between abuse in early childhood, brain development and a range of mental health issues in childhood, adolescence and beyond. His first patient, a seven-year-old girl known as Tina, was sexually abused by a neighbour from when she was four until she was six. She suffered from numerous problems including delayed speech and language, aggression and inappropriate behaviour. During the three years Dr Perry treated the child, from 1987 to 1990, he came to believe that:

…in Tina’s case the repeated activation of her stress response

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systems from a trauma endured at a young age, when her brain was still

developing, had probably caused a cascade of altered receptors, sensitivity and

dysfunction throughout her brain…Consequently I started to think Tina’s

symptoms were the result of developmental trauma. (Perry and Szalavitz p. 24)

As his work with abused children continued, Perry began to develop links between child abuse and other childhood traumas, brain development and future episodes of mental illness and behavioural problems.

Adolescence and the emergence of mental illness

Many forms of mental illness first manifest themselves during the teenage years and researchers, including Giedd and Perry, are currently looking at the link between child and adolescent brain development and the onset of mental illness. For example, recent research has found that “Patients with schizophrenia showed a significant difference in the developmental trajectory for the splenial area…” (Keller, Jeffries et al. 2003 p. 105).

Other mental illnesses, such as bi-polar disease and schizoaffective disorders, also often begin to manifest during adolescence.

However it is common for adolescents to experience psychotic-type episodes, such as aural or visual hallucinations and delusions, but not go on to develop psychosis. In a study that followed the progress of children and adolescents who had initially been diagnosed with schizophrenia, it was discovered that their early manifestation of schizophrenic type symptoms did not necessarily result in a final diagnosis of that disease:

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studies have reported high rates of initial misdiagnosis, perhaps in part due to

symptom overlap…and the appearance of hallucinations and delusions in

pediatric patients without psychotic disorders. (Nicolson, Lenane et al 2001 p.

319)

Other researchers have had similar results. Ulloa et al report that “Psychotic-like symptoms have also been reported in other psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, disruptive, personality, substance abuse and post traumatic stress disorder…” (Ulloa,

Birmaher et al. 2000 p. 337). Nevertheless, many of the adolescents studied did go on to suffer from some form of mental illness in adult life, though not a psychotic illness.

Research by Hlastala et al suggest that young people who experience atypical or transitory psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations, “…are more likely to have a nonpsychotic emotional or behavioral condition (such as PTSD) than a current or prodormal psychotic illness” (Hlastala and McClellan 2005). Ulloa et al’s research supports this finding (Ulloa, Birmaher et al. 2000). In many cases the appearance of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was related to either sexual or physical abuse.

(Hlastala and McClellan 2005); (Altman, Collins et al. 1997).

Thus there is now an enormous amount of research supporting Perry’s early discoveries and it is widely accepted that trauma in childhood affects brain development and in many cases may go onto to cause a range of behaviourial and psychological problems. For example, research by Perry and his colleagues earlier this decade challenged the accepted view that schizophrenia is a largely biologically based mental disorder, and they posited an alternate hypothesis that:

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...for some adults diagnosed schizophrenic the diathesis that leads to the well-

documented high responsivity to stress is the abnormal neurodevelopmental

processes originating in traumatic events in childhood. (Read, Perry et al p. 320)

Resilience and coping strategies

Dr Perry’s own experience and numerous other studies, including the Werner and Smith and the Dunedin longitudinal studies, show that some children and adolescents are able to ‘bounce back’ from trauma more effectively, that is, to develop greater resiliency and more effective coping mechanisms that allow them to deal with their traumas and create successful lives as adults. Werner and Smith’s Kauai longitudinal study, which was conducted over 32 years and studied 505 at-risk children born in Hawaii, found that:

By the time the study participants had reached their mid-30s, almost all had

become constructively motivated and responsible adults. Only a small percentage

of the original group did not affectively “bounce back” from their adverse

conditions. (Breinbauer and Maddalena 2005 p. 168)

Similarly, the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which has tracked 1037 people born in Dunedin in 1972-73, has found close links between childhood trauma and mental illness, criminality and poor physical health in later life

(Macfie 2008). However, the Dunedin study has been able to link these environmental factors with genetic factors. For example, in collaboration with teams from the United

Kingdom and the United States, the Dunedin team, led by Professor Richie Poulton, has discovered that levels of the gene MAOA (monoamine oxidase A) can interact with childhood trauma events to predispose individuals to crime:

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…badly treated boys with low MAOA activity were twice as likely to have been

diagnosed with a conduct disorder by the time they were teenagers than badly

treated boys with high MAOA levels. And they were three times more likely to

have been convicted of violent crime by age 26. (Macfie 2007 p.1)

Thus it has been proven through several studies that although trauma affects a child’s developing brain, environmental factors and genetics combine to affect the growing child’s ability to cope with life’s challenges.

Resiliency is defined as a person’s ability to bounce back from stressful or traumatic events. In the field of psychology, resiliency theory “seeks to understand how children, adolescents and adults thrive despite adverse conditions such as extreme poverty, parental mental illness, abuse and/or catastrophic events” (Infante 2001 as cited by

Breinbauer and Maddaleno 2005 p.168) . All human beings use some form of coping strategy to deal with stressful events, from illness to financial problems to violence.

Australian psychologist Erica Frydenberg defines coping as representing “…thoughts, feelings and actions that an individual uses to deal with problematic situations encountered in everyday life and in particular circumstances” (Frydenberg 2008 p. 36).

Coping strategies can be defined as emotion-focused or problem-focused. Emotion- focused coping strategies focus on relieving discomfort and include efforts to change the way a person feels about a situation. They include a range of behaviours, such as seeking support from peers or family, venting feelings or using avoidance techniques to distance oneself from the problem. While seeking support is a positive coping strategy, avoidance, denial and distancing can be classified as “disengaging coping strategies”

(Breinbauer 2005) and although they help a person cope with a stressful situation in the short-term they do not support long-term mental and physical health. Emotion-focused

267 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley coping strategies are more likely to be used when the distressing situation is viewed as unchangeable (Frydenberg 2008). Problem-focused coping strategies involve confronting a problem in order to solve it and include actions such as getting information, looking for alternative solutions and evaluating the costs/benefits of a response (Breinbauer 2005).

They are more likely to result in a positive long-term effect in dealing with a stressful situation.

It is evident that all forms of neglect and abuse will adversely affect the development and adjustment of children and teenagers and may result in a range of behaviours including aggression, depression, social withdrawal and poor academic performance (Trickett

2004). However, a range of studies, including the ones cited above and others investigated by Trickett et al, suggest that it is not one single thing that enables a child or teen to cope with life traumas but a range of experiences (and genetic luck) can combine to help a person develop resilience. As Frydenberg, citing Rutler and Seligman, states:

The promotion of resilience does not lie in the avoidance of stress but the

encountering of stress allows self-confidence to build up and competence to

increase through a sense of mastery. (Rutler 1985 and Seligman 1995 as cited

by Frydenberg 2008 p.176)

Several factors that support the development of resilience (apart from a genetic disposition) have been identified. Werner and Smith found that the child’s temperament, an ability to plan, achievement in primary school and successful graduation from high school, having chores and responsibilities in childhood and adolescence, having a strong mother role model and supportive alternative care-givers from the extended family all contributed as protective factors to enable a child to deal with economic hardship,

268 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley neglect and other risk factors. Their own findings were replicated in other studies across different generations and geographical locations (Werner and Smith 1992). Library media specialist, Jami Jones, uses Werner and Smith’s findings to support the strong role of reading in building resiliency in youth, quoting their finding that “reading skills by grade four were one of the most potent predictors of successful adaptation among the high risk children” (Werner and Smith as cited by Jones 2003 p. 48). A recent Australian study found that involving adolescents in meaningful participation, where their participation in a program is valued and involves real input from them, can also help build resiliency, particularly in terms of addressing mental health issues (Oliver 2006). A series of case studies carried out by psychologist Warren Rhodes in the mid 1990s also identified several common factors that enable children and young adults to overcome adversity in their lives and go on to become successful adults, including the strong influence and support of at least one parent or caregiver, a strong religious faith, one or more mentors and academic success (Rhodes 1994).

In 2000 three Australian mental health specialists wrote a paper examining the representation of mental illness and psychiatric treatment in contemporary Australian young adult fiction. The paper’s authors ‘diagnosed’ mental illness in the books’ characters by assessing the characters’ behaviour against a standard diagnostic tool and found that “Characters who met criteria for psychiatric diagnosis were more likely to have been abused, traumatised and to have suffered a loss” (Bokey, Walter and Rey 2000 p.

626). The authors expressed concern that many of the books they assessed associated psychiatric treatment with negative connotations and that this may have adverse effects on a teenaged reader’s mental health as well as their attitudes towards seeking treatment for mental health problems. However, the authors did not consider the possibility that the books they assessed may have a positive impact on the readers’

269 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley mental health by showing a range of coping skills, both positive and negative, that may contribute to a reader developing resilience. Nor did they consider the notion of reading as a positive coping mechanism and a contributor to resiliency.

It is the experiences and supports a child receives up until about the age of fifteen years that will help them develop resilience and positive coping strategies, even if they have suffered from abuse, neglect or other risk factors in their early years. However, if the child’s trauma has adversely affected their brain development, it is highly unlikely they will have the ability to adopt appropriate coping strategies or develop resilience without professional and bio-medical intervention.

Section 2: case studies – the split persona

Adolescence is a frightening and confusing time for most teenagers. In emerging from childhood, adolescents must learn to recognise that not everything is black and white, and in doing so, they often have to face a new side of themselves that they may barely recognise. This is difficult for any teenager; for those who have suffered a severe trauma, the battle can seem insurmountable. A common coping mechanism teenagers adopt to deal with adolescent stressors is to create new or different sides of themselves that seem able to adapt to new and difficult circumstances. This can be as simple as choosing a new style of dress to fit in with a peer group or as complex as suffering from hallucinations or even creating a range of personas to deal with specific situations. This splitting of personas does not necessarily equate with long-term mental illness, although it may manifest in this way.

In the English-speaking world, many contemporary young adult novels deal with a range of traumas including loss of a parent (Losing It by Sandy McKay), parental neglect (Solo

270 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley by Alyssa Brugman, Surrender by Sonya Hartnett) and domestic violence (Freaky Green

Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates, Tulip Touch by Anne Fine). In each of these novels the characters choose some form of coping mechanism to deal with the situation and display varying levels of resiliency as they face the traumatic events and their aftermath.

Surrender and Freaky Green Eyes illustrate two different ends of the split persona as a coping mechanism. Freaky Green Eyes features a teenage girl, Franky, who cultivates a split within her personality to deal with domestic violence in her home. However, despite the traumas she experiences, she uses the split as a coping strategy to confront stressful situations rather than avoid them. Her approach could be described as an adaptive emotion-focused coping strategy because it enables her to make some tough decisions in her life and, through her journey, she gains resilience. In contrast, Surrender is the story of a young boy, Anwell, who has suffered severe trauma as a child. The trauma causes severe developmental and behavioural problems. He, too, chooses to split his personality. However his is an avoidant coping mechanism, and, lacking any of the factors that support the development of resilience, his mental health deteriorates.

Freaky Green Eyes is a confronting novel about family violence narrated by 15-year-old

Francesca, who prefers to be called Franky. Franky lives in privileged circumstances.

Her father, Reid Pierson, is a local celebrity. A former star football player and now sports

commentator, his image as a devoted family man is paramount. Although he is much

loved by the public, in private he is a man beset by paranoia and suspicion who controls

his family through manipulation and violence.

The story opens with a 14-year-old Franky attending a party where an 18-year-old boy

takes an interest in her. Without friends to support her, she finds herself in a risky

271 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley situation with the older guy, who attempts to rape her. Franky is terrified, but finds something within herself, a part of her she’s never recognised before, and fights back.

Disturbed by her ferocity, her attacker calls her ‘Freaky Green Eyes’. Franky escapes unhurt with a different sense of self, and a new name for that part of her. Thus begins the split between Franky, the good girl, and the tough, uncompromising Freaky Green Eyes.

Throughout the novel, Franky refers to Freaky Green Eyes in the third person and as a separate personality, someone within her and yet not her. She talks of ‘Freaky-thoughts’, of ‘a Freaky-trick,’ of a ‘Freaky-feeling’ of a ‘Freaky-remark’. She imbues Freaky Green

Eyes with all the strengths that, as Franky, she feels she lacks: the courage to speak her mind, to follow her instincts and, ultimately, to face up to a horrible truth: that her father has murdered her mother.

Freaky Green Eyes is smart-mouthed, strong-willed and a risk-taker. She acts on instinct. While spending the fourth of July weekend at the home of one of her father’s wealthy business associates, Mr Blount, Freaky Green Eyes decides to free several wild animals that have been captured by the teenage Blount boys and caged in what they call their private zoo: ‘Freaky-quick and shrewd, I slipped away from the party while everybody was gaping at the fireworks’ (p. 85). When she confesses to setting the animals free, Franky infuriates her father by refusing to apologise (‘I was being Freaky- stubborn saying, “I can’t, I won’t. I did the right thing and I’m not sorry”’, p. 87). Reid

Pierson loses control, grabbing Franky and shaking her until the Blounts intervene. Even in dealing with the violence of the punishment her father has meted out, Franky has

Freaky Green Eyes shoulder the responsibility (‘All I knew was that Freaky had done the right thing, and Freaky had to accept punishment for doing it’, (p. 88). Thus Franky uses her alter ego, Freaky Green Eyes, to deal with the difficult realities of her life.

272 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

In contrast, Franky takes the good girl role, the role that pleases her father and keeps the peace. But in keeping this role, she must also alienate her mother, and in doing so, she denies the part of herself that loves her mother and wants to be with her. Franky’s mother, Krista Connor, has never been allowed to have a separate identity within her marriage. Her husband expects her life to be totally focused on his needs and he derides her work as an artist, dismissing her friends as ‘artsy-craftsy…”menopausal females” and

“gay boys”—categories of human beings to be scorned,’ (p. 22). When Krista starts to try to establish some degree of independence, Franky blames her, rather than her controlling father, for the tensions caused within the family (‘You’re doing things to deliberately make Daddy angry. You know how he is and you keep doing them’, p. 56) even though, only days before, she’d been missing the closeness she and her mother had once shared (‘I wanted to squeeze over to her and nudge her…pushing against her so she’d pull me onto her lap’, p. 48).

While it is normal for a 15-year-old girl to experience a change in attitude towards her parents as she moves towards a greater reliance on her peer-group, Franky finds herself alienated from both her parents and her peers. She finds herself playing a part to cope, to act normally (‘There was this puppet-girl, Franky Pierson. I hoped that people were marvelling how extra normal and totally sane she was’, p. 70). Disconnected from her self, Franky finds herself not only relying on Freaky Green Eyes to help her through tough situations, but also wearing a range of masks to get through each day.

Despite the family tensions as Krista attempts to create her own life away from Reid, a shaky compromise between the couple is reached when Reid allows Krista to spend several days each week at a small cabin in Skagit Harbor, a rural town about one hour’s

273 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley drive away from their architect-designed Seattle home. Franky and her younger sister,

Samantha, aren’t allowed to visit their mother at first—Krista has to earn that right from her controlling husband. Nevertheless, after a few months of the new living arrangements, Reid decides to let Franky and Samantha spend a weekend with their mother in Skagit Harbor. Franky is able to relax but the family tensions are never far below the surface (‘Samantha and I had a wonderful time in Skagit Harbor. As if some part of us understood that it couldn’t last’, p. 105). Her instincts are correct: the next day her father arrives in a violent fury and takes the girls back to Seattle. No explanation is given to the girls as their mother tells them to leave (“Go with Daddy, please. Samantha,

Francesca. At once.” Her face was masklike, rigid.’, p. 113). Soon after this event, Reid kills his wife. However she is listed as missing until Franky, acting on instinct after a dream, discovers her mother’s journal and finds information that leads police to discover

Krista’s body.

Freaky Green Eyes is a positive-coping strategy for Franky because by splitting her self image off into another, stronger character, Franky is able to absorb those positive traits and, in end, become more truly herself. It is the strength that Franky finds within Freaky

Green Eyes that allows her to follow her instincts and not only find the evidence that ultimately sends her father to jail, but to act on her findings in spite of her fear of her father and her breaking of the false sense of loyalty to family that he has tried to instill into her. Franky is also able to trust and rely on her mother’s sister, Vicky, as well as her best friend, Twyla, andTwyla’s mother. This group of mentors and supporters gives

Franky the courage she needs to face up to the reality of her father’s violent actions.

274 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Surrender, by Sonya Hartnett, also is the story of a child, Anwell, who splits his personality as a coping mechanism. However, unlike Franky’s, Anwell’s split ultimately destroys him.

Set in a small, dreary town in rural Australia, Surrender is a bleak story where peace is ultimately only found in death. The story is told in the first person by two narrators,

Gabriel and Finnegan. However, it eventually becomes clear to the reader that both

Gabriel and Finnegan live only in Anwell’s disturbed mind.

When he was seven years old, Anwell accidentally killed his intellectually disabled older brother, Vernon. Their emotionally distant parents, who found Vernon repulsive and a blight on their family, did nothing to ease Anwell’s distress over his brother’s death. As a coping mechanism for this traumatic event, as well as for the cruelty he suffered at the hands of his self-absorbed parents, Anwell, split himself into two personalities: Gabriel, who could do only good, and Finnigan, who was ‘allowed’ to be bad:

“We should make – a packet, or something.” He struggled. “A packet. You swear

not to do bad things – never again. From now on, you only do good things…I’ll do

the bad things for you. Then you won’t have to. You can just do good things.”

I stared at him, mystified. “A bit like cops-and-robbers, you mean?”(pp. 36-37)

Hartnett’s writing cleverly creates the existence of the separate characters while simultaneously acknowledging that they are the same person. Finnigan is the same age, the same height and build. He ‘smells of nothing’ (p. 13), he vanishes ‘…instantly, leaving no trace behind.’ (p. 17). He comes from nowhere and follows no rules. And

Anwell, as Gabriel, agrees that he will keep Finnigan ‘like a secret.’ (p. 36). Throughout the narrative, as Gabriel lays dying, kept on a bed in a small room, he tells his side of the

275 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley story, while Finnigan, the wild creature, always free, tells his. Through the twin storytellers the reader discovers the tragedy which is Anwell’s life, and also his greatest love, his dog Surrender.

Surrender is the one who draws Finnigan and Gabriel together. The dog is a thief, a killer but also a faithful companion to Anwell; in this he embodies the wildness of Finnegan but also loyalty and devotion, the good qualities Gabriel aspires to. Thus, the dog Surrender represents the whole person that Anwell strives to be, and it is Surrender’s death that draws Gabriel and Finnigan together in the ultimate act of violence.

A local farmer shoots at Surrender while the dog attacks and kills the farmer’s goats.

Surrender escapes, but the farmer had identified the dog and comes to Anwell’s home to confront the family. Anwell’s father agrees that the dog must be put down, and orders

Anwell to do the killing. It is this act that breaks the thin hold Anwell has on his sanity. He tries to cope by convincing himself that Surrender is still alive (‘The real Surrender, I remembered, had stayed in the forest with Finnigan. Good dog.’ p. 228) but a further shock, when his mother’s appearance at his friend’s house makes him realise that he fears Finnigan more than his mother, sends him over the edge:

And I hadn’t thought it was possible, Finnigan, to fear someone more than I

feared her…After that, I started to see you shouldn’t be here. (p. 220)

With no extended family, no mentors and no real friends, he was alone in the world except for Surrender. There was no one in Anwell’s world to help him build resilience: his life consisted of a series of horrible and traumatic events, never discussed and never resolved. The act of violence Anwell is forced to carry out when his father hands him a

276 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley gun and orders him to shoot Surrender destroys Anwell’s precarious balance of good and evil, and it is Gabriel, not Finnigan, that enacts the ultimate act of violence when he kills his (Anwell’s) parents:

It wasn’t I, who, turning away, saw the hatchet resting on the tree-stump chopping

block. I was elsewhere. Yet – somehow – I agreed, and approved – I must have.

Because I picked it up without a thought… (p. 208)

In this action, the desperate attempt that Anwell has made to split the evil side of himself off into another persona fails, as his ‘angel’ Gabriel carries out the killings, despite his distancing of himself from the event. Thus Anwell’s coping strategy of splitting off his personality into two distinct personas – one good and one evil – fails and he descends into madness, spending his final days as a prisoner in a high security institution.

Section 3: Reflective case study – reconciling the split

Young adult fiction, across a range of sub-genres, often deals with the painful process of growing up and taking the first steps into real independence. Sometimes these steps are made within safe worlds, where the teen has a supportive family despite disruptions; sometimes they are not. However, even in the face of severe trauma, some adolescent characters develop the resilience to make it through and emerge into young adulthood not necessarily unscarred but nevertheless able to cope and even thrive.

In section 1 I discussed current scientific knowledge about brain development in children and teenagers and how trauma can affect brain development, and how using positive coping strategies can help children and young adults, no matter what their

277 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley circumstances, to deal with trauma and go on to create happy and successful lives. In both Surrender and Freaky Green Eyes, we have examples of characters who created a split in their psyches as a coping strategy with diametrically different results: Anwell, whose coping strategy ultimately failed and led to his complete mental breakdown, and

Franky, who by the end of her story had emerged, not unscathed, but nevertheless strong and resilient.

Girl in the Shadows takes a different perspective on the split persona as a coping strategy in several ways. Firstly, Tash does not embrace the split or see it as an ally, as did both Franky and Anwell. Rather the split is thrust upon her from her subconscious as a way of forcing her to look at a trauma she wants desperately to forget. As Dr Perry states, “The problem with traumatic memories tends to be their intrusion into the present, not an inability to recall them” (Perry 2006 p. 165). Secondly, the split is observed rather than experienced because we hear the story from Mal’s perspective as she observes the changes in her best friend, instead of from Tash, who sees the stranger’s face in the mirror. Thirdly, in terms of the split persona as a coping mechanism, Girl in the Shadows takes the middle ground in that the personality split manifests as a hallucination and leads to a mental breakdown. However, the breakdown is not permanent and by the end of the narrative both Tash and Mal have increased their levels of self-knowledge and resilience.

A core event in Girl in the Shadows is when Tash looks into her mirror and sees the face of another girl. This happened to a close friend of mine when we were both about sixteen years old. I was over at her house one night, getting ready to go out, when she looked in the mirror and told me that the ‘other girl’s face’ was in there. I walked over to the mirror and looked into it—I couldn’t see any other girl, I could only see me—but I believed my

278 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley friend when she told me that she saw another girl’s face, slightly menacing, other- worldly, perhaps a poltergeist or malevolent spirit. This is what I had in mind when I began writing what would eventually become Girl in the Shadows. The working title for the manuscript in its early drafts was ‘Girl in the Mirror’ and at that point it was taking shape as a speculative fiction novel, with the ‘girl in the mirror’ as a ghost who terrorised

Tash, while Mal tried to combat the ‘evil spirit’ and save her best friend.

In these early stages I considered writing the book from Tash’s perspective. However, it

was Mal’s character that spoke to me first and, although Tash’s voice was often quite

demanding, Mal’s voice was consistently stronger. It seemed that Tash needed a

spokesperson and Mal was the one for the job. I also worked with the idea of Mal seeing

the strange girl’s face as well, however eventually rejected that idea as I sensed a

deeper imperative driving me to leave Tash as the only one who could ‘see’ the ghost. It

was this deeper imperative, which I slowly uncovered through multiple rewritings of the

manuscript, that eventually led me to discard writing the novel in the speculative fiction

genre.

Although representing the girl in the mirror as a ghost (and regardless of whether only

Tash or both girls could see her) could still be interpreted from a psychological

perspective, for me it would have been less effective as a piece of writing because it

dealt with fantasy rather than reality. This is not to say that fantasy has not successfully

been used to explore psychological trauma but that it was my instinct not to use it in this

manner because, as a writer, I probably would have used the speculative nature of the

novel to avoid the trauma of child abuse rather than dealing with it as I have done in the

novel’s current realistic form. As the story is based on an actual event, there was

something that drove me to discover the essential truth of that event. I had never

279 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley questioned why my friend saw another girl’s face in the mirror. It was something that happened, and then (as far as I knew) stopped happening. Initially I chose the event as the basis for a novel because I thought it was interesting, and I was, at that time, interested in writing a ghost story. My teenage years were well in the past and I was no longer in contact with the friend who saw the girl in the mirror. I was merely using my writer’s instinct to take a unique event and turn it into an interesting (and hopefully saleable) story. Initially, it seemed easier to blame the event on the unexplainable than to delve into the possible truth behind it. However, making the appearance of the girl in the mirror a psychological response to trauma, rather than something from the spirit world, forced me as a writer to face that truth. So with a manuscript that was hovering between the speculative and the psychological/social genres in hand, I undertook the Masters program to rewrite the manuscript struggling with these key questions. What type of book was this? What was the girl in the mirror? If she wasn’t a poltergeist, was she a hallucination, a product of Tash’s mind, and if so, why would this happen?

After reading through literature from sources ranging from studies of urban myths to psychosis in teenagers to recent discoveries in the developmental rate of the human brain, my early research came up with a familiar theme: that a ‘hallucination’ would most likely be triggered by a trauma, probably violent or sexual in nature, and that the hallucination response was most likely a coping strategy as the young person’s brain struggled to cope with the reality of their traumatic experience. Thus my friend’s inability to see her own face in the mirror, this splitting of her self image, was a coping mechanism most likely triggered by some form of trauma. Although this is not in any sense a true story—apart from the incident of seeing a girl in the mirror, none of the events in the narrative happened, and none of the main characters bear any resemblance to my group of friends—I knew that in getting to the truth of my narrative I

280 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley would come close to the truth of what may have caused my friend to see the strange girl’s face in her mirror. This was both a concern to me ethically (was it really my story to tell?) and psychologically (did I really want to face the truth of what may have happened to her; did I really want to push this story as far as it could go?).

Choosing Mal as the narrator, rather than Tash, solved the first question because I could draw on my own experiences as the observer of the ‘real’ event and at the same time feel free to invent the rest. In terms of the second, once I committed to telling it the story from Mal’s perspective, I trusted that the story’s internal truth would evolve and the truth of the original ‘real’ event was irrelevant. Having made the decision to tell the story from

Mal’s rather than Tash’s perspective, I faced another difficulty: Mal, as the observer, can never really know what Tash is feeling or experiencing. Mal can never really know for sure what Tash is seeing in her mirror and there are times when she has doubts about whether what Tash claims is happening is real. The split in her psyche that Tash experiences, if it is indeed that, is only ever told from Mal’s perspective. This was not always the case. In all but the most recent drafts of the manuscript, Tash’s voice appeared as a series of diary entries, which were interspersed between the chapters narrated by Mal, so essentially Tash co-narrated the story. Ultimately, I rejected the co- narration because essentially, this was Mal’s story. However, this means Tash remains somewhat of a mystery because the reader can only ever interpret what is happening to her through Mal’s eyes. Despite this, telling the story from the Mal’s perspective as the observer also provides a unique insight because she gives the story an objectivity that allows a different insight into the sufferer’s world. Tash was delusional, and from her perspective, there was no way out. She needed Mal to help her face the truth; and Mal’s support is instrumental in helping Tash to develop resiliency as she faces the trauma of being sexually abused as a child.

281 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

In some ways, Mal acts as Tash’s “Freaky Green Eyes”: just as Franky used Freaky

Green Eyes to support her, to give her strength and courage to stand up for herself, so

Mal stands up for Tash. This is evident in Mal’s willingness to confront Tash’s mother in the garden of her home as well as Mal’s willingness to stand her ground and face Tash’s parents at the hospital and also risk confrontation with them when she and Katie, Tash’s older sister, go to the hospital to take Tash home to Katie’s. In many ways Mal is Tash’s strength because Mal has the strong support networks in place as well as a strong belief in herself and her abilities to cope with the situation. Mal never really doubts that she can help Tash. She uses problem-focused coping strategies to deal with the situation head- on—seeking information, looking for alternative solutions, asking for help from her support network, taking action—and although she unwittingly precipitates a crisis she follows through. In the climactic incident at the park, when Tash becomes violent then dissociative, Mal doesn’t fall apart, she calls the ambulance, follows the operator’s instructions to stabilise Tash until the paramedics arrive, and gives the paramedics important information before she finally succumbs to shock. Mal is able to implement these positive coping strategies because, despite coming from a ‘disadvantaged’ background (in that she lives in a single-parent family and has no contact with her father), she has a strong and loving relationship with her mother as the primary care- giver, as well as strong social supports, including Mrs Steppa. These elements have enabled Mal to develop resiliency. In contrast, Tash’s early childhood trauma, including incest and emotional neglect, have made it more difficult for her to choose positive coping strategies. Her choice to self-harm, for example, is a common response to childhood sexual abuse, as is her dissociative state after she attacks Mal with the broken glass and also later in hospital, when she is non-responsive to both Mal and Sue. Tash’s choice to take drugs at the party, where Mal does not, also points to their differences in

282 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley coping styles. While Tash takes an illicit drug to escape from the girl in the mirror, Mal, despite her discomfort at the party, avoids the drugs and instead chooses to pretend to drink beer to give her the illusion of belonging, while maintaining self-control.

Nevertheless, Tash has also enjoyed strong social support networks, from Mal and Mal’s mother Sue, and also has her older sister Katie to support her. Tash is intelligent, performs well in school and has some support from her peers. Thus, despite her childhood trauma, Tash is in a good position to find more positive coping strategies and continue to develop resiliency. This is what enables her to recover from her mental illness and psychosis, unlike Anwell, who had no such resources to support him. His isolation from other relatives, peers and possible mentors left him extremely vulnerable.

Forced to live with a complete lack of emotional support, he had nowhere to turn. Thus his mental illness wasn’t diagnosed until he had deteriorated to the point where he murdered his parents and by then recovery was not possible.

In contrast, Tash and Franky found the ‘split’ to be a successful coping mechanism.

Freaky Green Eyes initially confused Franky but she soon turned it into a positive.

Similarly, although the girl in Tash’s mirror initially frightened her, ultimately it was successful as a coping mechanism. However, Tash’s path to strength was much more complex and also more reliant on her best friend’s support. While Franky embraced

Freaky Green Eyes from the start, Tash fought against the girl in the mirror until it forced her to see the truth she had been avoiding. It wasn’t until her hospitalisation and subsequent recovery that Tash finally saw the girl in the mirror in a positive light as the catalyst for making her face the truth of her father’s abuse. Thus, for Tash, professional intervention and a strong support network made a full recovery possible.

283 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

Conclusion

A person’s level of resiliency comes from many areas of their life. The Dunedin study identified genetic legacy as one contributing factor and Werner and Smith found that several factors, including reading and literacy, are strong indicators of a child’s ability to succeed in life. Reading as a contributing factor in the development of resiliency and the future success of children and adolescents, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds or who have suffered from extreme stress or trauma, has not been specifically studied. However, I support Jones’ view that the impact of reading on a person’s ability to develop resiliency through childhood and adolescence is an important one (Jones 2003). I believe that when a child or adolescent reads a book where the characters they identify with are able to deal with a stressful or traumatic situation, they then learn about resiliency from that experience. The knowledge they acquire from that reading experience can add to the many complex factors that contribute to their development of resilience. If a child or young adult is able to read about situations in novels that directly or indirectly relate to their personal circumstances this also has the potential to contribute to their development of resiliency. It may make the reader feel less alone, for example, and may contribute to their knowing that others experience the same situations, thoughts, feelings and experiences that they do. Through stimulating their imaginations during the reading process, they may in turn spark new thoughts and ideas that feed into the development of the problem solving skills that are another strong predictor of the ability to develop resilience.

Girl in the Shadows and Freaky Green Eyes share a common thread in that the protagonists face difficult and traumatic circumstances and are able to draw upon coping strategies that ultimately allow them to deal with the situation and develop resilience in

284 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley the process. Thus they give the reader a positive model in dealing with trauma to draw from. In contrast, the protagonist of Surrender chooses negative coping strategies which, although they work for him in the short term, eventually lead to his destruction. Both Girl in the Shadows and Freaky Green Eyes offer this concept of hope in their endings;

Surrender does not. Nevertheless I believe all three stories, through the actions of their characters, can contribute towards developing resilience in readers. A clear representation of how negative coping strategies fail is just as valid a way of seeing alternatives as presenting positive coping strategies. As long as the young person is reading, they are developing literacy skills and acquiring knowledge, including problem- solving skills, which can contribute towards the development of resiliency. Thus, as

Franky, Malia and Tash are able to develop resilience through their journeys, so may their adolescent readers see these characters’ thoughts, actions and outcomes as possible pathways towards their own resilience.

285 Girl in the shadows Maree Kimberley

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