Authors: Anne C. Petty
Smoke and flames burst out of that single window, and then she heard a heavy, rumbling crash, as parts of the second floor gave way. Fire licked along the eaves of the back bedroom that had been Suzanne’s—soon the entire wooden frame of the house would be completely engulfed. She could only hope it had snuffed the Quinkan and its serpentine accomplice before it could escape to wherever it went when it shifted bodies.
Alice stumbled to the front yard where Carlisle lay like a sleeping
watchdog in the moonlight, highlighted now by leaping flames orange against the sky. She made it to the car and retrieved her phone, then punched in 911 with trembling fingers. After she had given the address and a general desperate statement about fire and death, she dropped the phone, exhausted.
Alice knelt on the ground, her head swimming. In the haze of timber smoke filling the yard, it was hard to breathe. Putting her hand on Carlisle’s silky coat, she lay down beside him and shut her eyes. The roar of a forest fire played at the edge of her consciousness until she slipped into a pool of black silence. Then the disturbing noise went away.
Chapter 26
December 1969
Early morning sunlight streamed over Suzanne’s shoulder, falling on the hotel’s ivory letterhead where she’d written the date, December 11, 1969, and the salutation, Dear Brother. With the city phone book balanced in her lap as a writing desk, she chewed the end of her pen and thought about how to frame what she wanted to say. She could be conciliatory, or cheerful and informative, with a dash of local-color sightseeing info. Or she could be honest and try to describe why they were here in Queensland, in this place called Townsville on the eastern coast of Australia, and what she was feeling at the moment.
Through their hotel room window Suzanne saw bright blue sky and the gently waving tops of palm trees. Townsville was tropical and, at this time of year, warm and humid, so similar in look and feel to Miami that Suzanne was flooded with a momentary wave of homesickness. She loved travel and strange new places, but this wasn’t a honeymoon; they had a dangerous trip ahead, with a questionable outcome. Traveling up the coast toward Queensland, she hoped they were heading in the right direction, but there was no way to be sure: Ned was following his instincts and the voices in his head, which she couldn’t hear and didn’t trust.
She looked at Ned, deeply asleep in the double bed, his mouth slightly open and arm flung back over his head. He was so beautiful to her when he lay like that, serene and undisturbed. It was a shame he couldn’t just be an ordinary good-looking guy with a rather peculiar past. But that childhood, she now knew, was part of what kept him from ever being ordinary.
And she held no doubts at this point about his being truly hounded by demons or something unnatural. At first, she’d tried to rationalize his seizures as physiological and his visions as psychological, but after moving in with him, she’d seen enough to be convinced there was something that wasn’t just the effects of too much Acapulco Gold. She’d seen an alien presence in his eyes when she was straight and sober, and it had rendered her speechless. But it had not scared her away; if anything, it made her more determined to fight for him and win against whatever was trying to ruin him. He was hers now, and when she dug her feet in, Suzanne could be surprisingly stubborn.
Sighing, she put the letter aside and stood up, stretching. Her white satin nightgown slid softy against her skin in folds of molten silver, the scalloped hem pooling around her ankles. The peignoir set was an interesting combination of tastes in which the elegant simplicity of the gown with its thin shoulder straps and straight lines was eclipsed by the elaborate lace insets and pink and white roses appliquéd across the shoulders and down the breast of the matching robe. It must have been expensive as hell, and she dutifully wore it because Bailey and Paula had given it to her with such enthusiasm.
For her own taste, Suzanne would have been more comfortable sleeping in one of Ned’s well-worn T-shirts or nothing at all. She looked at him again and was tempted to crawl back under the coverlet and fit herself against his side. She loved him intensely. They were two against the world, bravely facing the unknown. What romantic rubbish, Hal would have said. What they were doing was completely mad and driven by much baser intentions than high adventure and heroic battles. Plus, it was costing them a lot of money.
Suzanne worried about that. She had emptied her bank account so they would have cash for the trip, and the big purchases like the Qantas flight from L.A. to Sydney, and from there to Brisbane and on to Townsville, with the requisite hotel rooms, had all gone on her credit card. It had a high credit limit, thanks to Hal, who’d presented it to her for her trip to France, but she knew they couldn’t keep using it indefinitely. Soon it was going to hit the wall. She hated taking advantage of Hal’s generosity, but the trip was Ned’s salvation, and there was no other way to make it happen.
And so here they were. She’d convinced Ned that it would be better to rent a vehicle and drive the rest of the way from Townsville up toward Cairns and smaller towns northward. Suzanne loved to drive and was not the least bit intimidated at the prospect of getting behind the wheel of a Land Rover, even if it was located on the wrong side.
Ned moaned in his sleep and rolled over. She stood by the bed, looking down at him. Over the months of their courtship and especially after the wedding, he’d given her pieces of his history, little by little, stoned and not stoned, so that she figured he’d now told about as much of his twisted tale as he was able to share. For the moment, she was content to think she understood him better than anyone.
His mother had been one nasty piece of work as far as Suzanne was concerned. Physically and mentally abusing a child that way, it was unforgivable. Who wouldn’t have nightmares? If Suzanne and Ned ever had children, she was going to make certain they never doubted, even for a second, that they were completely loved and wanted. Suzanne smiled to herself; her period was late, and although the disruption of her menstrual cycle might be caused by the stress of travel, it could also mean something else. She hoped Ned would be pleased if she turned out to be pregnant.
After they got this business with the lost totem thing taken care of, they might even want to settle in Australia. So far, she liked what she’d seen, especially here in the northern tropics. She could get a job teaching or something related to languages, and Ned could become a famous artist. Their children would be comely and intelligent, and take on noble causes like fighting for Aboriginal rights and protecting the Queensland rain forest. It was a wonderful fantasy, and might even come true if they could chase Ned’s Furies away. Suzanne sat down on the bed beside him. That was a monumental if. Thinking about it pulled her back to the list of things needing to be done, like finding a rental vehicle and making preparations for the next leg of their journey. Ned moaned again.
She stroked his arm. “Neddy? Are you awake?”
Ned rubbed his eyes and sat up. “Sort of.”
“It’s a beautiful morning. Want to go walk along the beach before we try to get any business done?”
“What time is it?”
“Um, eight-thirty-ish.”
Ned fell back on the pillows. “Too early.” He patted the mattress beside him. “Come back to bed, m’love.”
Suzanne was sorely tempted, but she knew if she gave in, it could be noon before they got out of bed, which might delay everything for another day. She leaned over, kissed him, and wriggled out of his grasp.
“Well, I’m going for a quick walk. Sleep in if you like, and when I get back we’ll call around for a vehicle.”
Suzanne got dressed in shorts and a cotton shirt, pulled her hair up into a high ponytail, and stepped into a pair of flip-flops. Then she stood with her hand on the doorknob for a moment, debating whether to leave him alone.
Ned lifted his tousled head. “Wake me when you’re back.” He buried his face in the pillow.
Suzanne shut the door quietly behind her. She felt a little uneasy, leaving him like that. His physical and mental well-being fluctuated, often without warning. Ned seemed to be following some homing instinct that felt “right” when he was on target and “muddy” and confused when he was off. She had the image in her mind of an old-fashioned dowsing rod questing for hidden waterlines running underground. Neddy was like a human dowsing rod, pointing toward something invisible, yet becoming more convinced of its presence the closer he got to it. Like the dowser, he was after a source; he was convinced that if he could get back to the locus of the original wrongdoing, the place where this dreadful taboo surrounding the stone had taken place, he could somehow make it end. Chewing her lip, Suzanne hesitated, then stepped out into the bright sun flooding the street.
The lodge was within walking distance of the shoreline, and it wouldn’t take her long to reach the beachfront walkway known as the Strand. Suzanne headed down Fryer Street toward the winding beachfront esplanade where it seemed at least half the citizens of Townsville took their morning constitutionals. Wandering along the Strand with the deep azure waters of Cleveland Bay, and beyond that the Coral Sea, off to her right, Suzanne thought about what they might be facing once they got to wherever Ned felt was their destination. He’d tried to do a trance drawing the first night they’d come here to see if he could make an actual map, but no connection had been made.
But last night was a different story, when he’d jerked awake in a cold sweat, trembling from the visitation of his taipan guardian, as he’d begun to call her. Suzanne wasn’t fond of reptiles, and it made her squirm just to hear his recount of the dream where the golden snake-woman had whispered in his ear, tasting his cheek with her forked tongue while keeping that terrifying other one away from him. Despite this fear, Suzanne understood that Ned’s love/hate relationship with serpents was what powered his visions, which they now needed if there was to be any chance of ending this inherited saga.
What had really convinced them they were on the right track was the white-haired Aboriginal man at Nielson Park beach in Sydney who’d taken one look at Ned’s drawing of the sacred stone and told them not only what it was and what sort of clan it likely belonged to, but also why it was such a powerful object and that Ned would do well to fold up the picture and keep it in a private place. Persons were obliged to be speared for displaying another clan’s tjuringa in public, he’d warned them. If someone had in fact stolen it, he’d said, it would mean the greatest of calamities for the one who was the thief as well as the people from whom it had been taken.
From then on, Ned had been more careful about showing the drawing around, instead asking people if they’d seen the landscapes in his other pictures. That was when he’d found out about the Foundation of Aboriginal Affairs on George Street. More than a few people had told him to go there if he wanted to talk to some real Aborigines. Suzanne had decided to stay behind in their Sydney hotel room while he went alone to check the place out. With her pale skin and Anglo features, she had been pretty sure her presence wouldn’t have helped his cause all that much.
Walking down the Strand with its dazzling blue sky overhead and scent of flowers on the breeze, she remembered the waves of anxiety she’d endured that night, sitting alone in a hotel room in a strange city halfway across the world from home, not knowing if Ned had found this notorious Foundation or gotten into any trouble. As the hours ticked by she began to rehearse in her mind what she would do if he didn’t return, and even went so far as to look through her passport to find out what one should do to report missing foreigners. She tried not to think about the possibility that she could be stranded in this place with no way to find her husband of just seven months, but as it got later and later, with still no word from him, she’d begun to think the worst. Even a short burst of tears did nothing to relieve her rising panic.
Finally, toward dawn, she’d heard the door unlock. It was Ned, so excited he couldn’t sit still. He’d seemed oblivious to her tearful state and sat on the bed trying to tell her about the trio of young Aborigines he’d met loitering outside the converted funeral parlor that served as Foundation headquarters. They’d been predictably suspicious of him, but when he’d shown them the scale markings on his arms and told them he had a taipan spirit totem, and that he was from the United States and had been on the fringes of the nascent Black Power movement in San Francisco, they’d decided to call him Brother. Back at the Foundation they’d introduced him to an elder whose black eyes had stared at Ned for several uneasy moments and then contemplated his pictures for a solid twenty minutes before he was prepared to share what he thought about them.
Eventually, once he’d sorted out how Ned was to be properly addressed, which he decided was “brother of these three,” he advised Ned to head up the coast to Queensland and look around in the sandstone tablelands and wilderness gorges, especially in the Laura River area where there were many escarpments with caves like that picture he’d drawn. But he also warned that Ned might want to have a guide with him who knew how to avoid the Dangerous Places. Ned told her, laughing, how he’d suppressed the urge to tell the old man that he didn’t want to avoid such places—he was specifically trying to find one.
His new Aboriginal friends had been kind enough to return him to his hotel and wish him well on his journey. All that took place nearly a week ago, and now here they were over a thousand miles up the coast, still following the pull of that invisible spirit-line back to … where?
Ned seemed convinced that the sacred site he needed to find was somewhere in the rock-strewn landscapes of his artwork, hidden among all the rock shelters where Aboriginal ceremonies had taken place over the centuries. Caves filled with Dreamtime rock art were the most likely, they’d both agreed, and locals had confirmed there was a lot of it in the area from Cairns to Cape York. So they’d headed north.