darkness had changed something, moved things around, worked some curious magic. She looked back to Darcy, who was now fiddling nervously with her hands. Without another thought she went and sat down beside her and took one of her cool, dry hands and pressed it between hers. They sat like that for a few minutes, saying nothing amidst all the commotion, and then Grace squeezed her hand tightly and Darcy lowered her head and rested it against the top of her friend’s arm. Grace looked down at the top of her head and, despite a much deeper current of confusion running through her, was sure she’d done the right thing. After a while she lowered her head until her mouth was right over Darcy’s ear.
‘How can I help you if you won’t tell me what the matter is?’ she whispered. She felt her friend take a deeper breath, as if she were about to speak, but then she let it out again, and Grace began to wonder, despairingly, whether Darcy would ever answer.
Tom took a few more shaky steps and then stopped. There was a road beneath his feet but its flat hardness felt more like the deck of a rolling ship. The road glistened with dew and there were lights shining upon it. He blinked and looked down at his feet for a moment and then he looked up at the source of the lights and began to walk towards it.
It was much further than he thought possible and more than once his legs nearly gave way beneath him, but he kept walking, a determination untainted by reason or any other consideration keeping him moving. A sound grew and swirled around him. It was like a swarm of wasps, maybe a whole plague of them. He thought he heard words in the sound but he was also quite certain it was not speech and had nothing to say to him. He stopped and sucked in air until the sound receded back into nothing and all he could hear were the trees on either side of the road and the leaves rustling in the slight evening breeze. He walked on, his head down, until he reached the gate of the house. He put his hand on the gate and rested for a few moments and then he opened it and walked up to the front door and knocked. Golden light streamed from the windows. He thought he could smell food. A flustered-looking woman opened the door and stared at him for a moment, her eyes growing slowly wider and wider.
‘Tom Ferry!’ she breathed. She crossed herself as if he were a ghost and then she brought up her big arms and embraced him. He looked into her eyes and saw the worry, the big buttery dollops of concern, and was overwhelmed, lost for even the simplest of words. Then the woman’s children came and thrust their heads between the doorway and their mother to blink and stare at the ragtag boy on their front step. Then she looked through him, past him, behind him, already looking for his little slip of a brother, his little shadow.
‘Where’s your brother, Tom? Where’s Flynn?’ asked the woman – over and over – but he could not answer her, and could not even begin to. Things began to whirl around him then. One of the children raced by, up the road, into town, shouting at the top of his lungs. Tom stepped back and sat down, pulling his legs up and hugging his knees. The woman came and helped him up and together they walked down the path and out onto the road. When he next looked up there was a whole crowd of people running towards him. There were girls in nice dresses, boys in suits, men and women following behind. He could see the hall in the near distance, the people standing on its front steps holding candles, their flickering shadows falling in every direction.
Grace Mather was one of the first to reach him. She stopped a few yards away, sucking in breaths like a Gift runner, and just stared at him. He saw Sonny, his sister Darcy, and then everyone was around him, all talking at once, all making no sense. Sergeant Mather elbowed his way through the crush and bent down and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder and peered hard into his face. There was a hush as he began to speak.
‘It’s Sergeant Mather, son – Pop Mather,’ he said quietly. ‘Can you tell me your name?’
Tom nodded. ‘Thomas Ferry,’ he said.
‘Good boy,’ Pop said. He let the air out of his chest through rounded lips and then helped Tom to his feet. ‘All right,’ he said, turning round. ‘Give him some room, folks. Let’s get him to the doc.’
An opening appeared through the people and Tom took a few steps along it before Pop picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to the station house. When they arrived Pop set him down on a chair in the kitchen, a wide-eyed audience of children peering round the doorjamb at them both. Pop swung the door shut and jerked his head and then there were only the two of them. Lil had set a candle on the table and Tom stared into the flame.
‘You look like you’ve been through the wars, Tom,’ Pop said.
Tom nodded and was about to cry but then he gritted himself and stopped it.
‘I don’t know what’s happened to Flynn,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘That’s all right, Tom. We’ll work that one out soon enough.’
Pop looked at the boy. His face was pinched and pale and his large green eyes seemed about to fall out of their orbits. His clothes were about to give up the ghost and his bare legs were covered in scratches and scabs and there was a nasty-looking gash across his forehead. He appeared in serious need of a decent feed, a hot bath, and a good bed, but other than that he seemed in fair physical shape.
‘Wait there a minute, son, then we’ll get you home.’
After he rang the doctor he had Lil fry up a couple of eggs for Tom to eat. Between tiny mouthfuls of egg and bread Tom told scraps of his story. A kangaroo, Flynn running, something about smoke. Pop listened and let him take his time. His nerves seemed to have taken a beating. He’d lost track of the days and was confused about the sequence of events leading up to the Saturday afternoon they’d gone missing. Soon the words dried up. Pop went into his room and came back with some clothes.
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