A Story of Now

Hot and tired from all the work, they decide to spend one more sneaky hour by the lake before they pack up and head back to Melbourne.

She and Mia have spent the last couple of hours since the others left industriously cleaning. They tidied up the bedrooms, cleaned the bathroom, swept the porch, aired out the place—all the jobs Pete didn’t get to—with the radio turned up loud and the breeze rushing in the open windows and doors. They haven’t spoken much, except about what they’re doing. They haven’t even touched. But Claire isn’t worried. They have some time now. And she’s strangely enjoying just being alone with Mia, knowing they have the rest of the afternoon together. Maybe more, if Claire can swing it.

Mia sighs and looks out at the trees as they step onto the path, Blue at their heels. “I don’t want to leave. It’s so beautiful here.”

And that’s when Claire presents the idea that’s been circling her mind for the last hour. “Hey, do you have to do anything tonight? Back home?”

“Nope.” Mia shakes her head. “No plans. I don’t even work until the weekend.”

“Would you want to, I don’t know, maybe stay here another night?” Claire asks, clutching the towel around her neck. “Mum and Dad won’t get here until the afternoon, so as long as we left by then?” She feels suddenly clumsy. “Only if you wanted. I just thought…”

Mia turns and smiles at her, but before she can say anything, a couple of kids come sprinting up the track toward them.

Claire steps to the side, expecting them to barrel past. They don’t. They stop right in front of them.

The girl, about ten or eleven, wide-eyed and panting, gasps and says, “Can you please help us? Emily’s stuck in the rocks.”

“Where is she?” Claire asks.

“Down there.” The girl points toward the grass path. “And she’s hurt herself.”

At those words, the boy, who is only about five or six, starts to cry. Mia immediately leans down and puts an arm around him. He kind of ducks his head but submits.

“Okay, come on.” Claire puts her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Show me.”

The girl takes off down the path at a run, and Claire follows her along the grass path. She spots another boy of about the same age with bright-red hair, looking down at something near the water, and drops her bag down on the ground.

When Claire climbs onto the rock where he stands, she sees what he’s looking at. Another girl is down there, sandwiched between two large rocks, half in the water, with her torso draped over the rock. She stares up at them with the wide-eyed look of someone in shock.

Clair kicks off her shoes and slides into the water and flinches at the shock of cold. She wades over to the girl and puts a reassuring hand on her back. “Hey, sweetie, you okay?”

The girl shakes her head.

“Her foot’s stuck under the rock,” the boy says.

“Does it hurt?”

The girl shakes her head. “My arm,” she mumbles.

Claire looks at her arms and immediately notices that the left one is clearly not okay. There’s no mistaking the misshapen form of the bone just above her wrist that pushes the skin up and turns it a mottled reddish purple. It’s a very broken arm. They need to get her out.

Claire peers into the water, but there’s nothing to see but muddy brown and the faintest red wash of blood in the water. “Does anything else hurt?”

The girl shakes her head.

Claire pulls in a deep breath and steels herself, nervous of what she’s going to find down there.

She leans over the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Rhiannon.”

“Rhiannon, honey, I’m going to try and get your foot out, okay?”

Rhiannon nods and presses her lips together, clearly terrified.

“I’ll be really careful, but you just tell me if it hurts, okay?”

Rhiannon nods again and shuts her eyes as if trying to block it all out.

“Do you need help?” Mia steps over to the edge of the rock, holding the little boy’s hand. The other two kids huddle close to her.

“Maybe. Get ready to pull her out when I get her foot loose, okay?” She looks up at Mia and then at the arm, guiding her with her eyes. “She’s hurt her arm, though, so be careful.” She doesn’t want to say the word “broken” out loud.

Mia flicks her eyes over the girl and looks back at Claire. Her eyes widen slightly.

Claire crouches in the water and follows the girl’s leg with her hand along her shins to her ankle as she tries to keep her face above the water. She fishes around on the muddy, pebbly bottom and locates Rhiannon’s small foot. It’s half under the rock while her heel is wedged against another. She must have twisted it and got jammed in this tight spot between them.

Claire stays crouched in the water, her hand still on the foot, and tries to figure out how she’s going to turn her without hurting her. Finally, she stands up and leans on the rock next to the girl. Her eyes are still squeezed shut as if she is waiting for a needle. Claire puts a hand on her arm. “Hey, Rhiannon, I want you to do something for me, okay?”

Rhiannon opens her eyes. She doesn’t nod, though, clearly not ready to commit until she knows what it is. Her good hand flattens against the rock.

Claire strokes the skinny, freckled arm under her hand. “My friend Mia is going to grab you and just pull you up a tiny bit so I can get your foot out.”

Claire can already see Mia react in her periphery. She moves close to Rhiannon, one hand still attached to the little limpet boy.

“And all I need you to do is be brave and stay very still. Then I’m just going to turn you around a little bit and get that foot out, okay?”

Rhiannon nods, clearly terrified into obedience.

Claire bites her lip, scared of hurting her. At least she’s fairly certain Rhiannon’s too shocked to feel too much pain.

“It going to be really easy, okay? And it won’t hurt.” Claire hopes she’s telling her some sort of truth.

Rhiannon nods again, and Claire decides to just get on with it.

Mia lets go of the little boy, which makes him cry louder, and grabs Rhiannon. The girl who accosted them on the path immediately steps in and takes the crying boy’s hand.

“Okay, can you lift her a real tiny bit?” Claire asks. “I’m going to turn her toward you.”

Mia nods, hooks her hands under Rhiannon’s shoulders, and pulls her up. Rhiannon whimpers but remains stoic.

Claire takes a deep breath, ducks right under the water, and feels around for the foot while her other hand reaches up and swivels Rhiannon around a little by her hips. A second later, her foot is free. Claire pulls her head back above the water, pushes her wet hair out of her face, and nods up at Mia. “It’s out. Let’s get her up.”

Claire hauls herself out of the lake and helps Mia pull Rhiannon up and lay her down on the dry, flat surface of the rock. That’s when she sees the source of the blood in the water, a big gash along the side of Rhiannon’s skinny little thigh. She must have scraped it against the rocks as she fell. It doesn’t look deep, but it’s weeping and angry.

At the sight of the blood, the little boy starts to wail. The other girl pulls him a few steps back, away from it all, but it doesn’t make a difference.

Mia crouches down next to Rhiannon, pulls a towel out of her bag, and places it under her head. “Can you please get that for me?” Mia asks the older boy, pointing at Claire’s bag. He obediently grabs it and brings it over to her. Mia pulls out Claire’s towel.

Claire places a hand on Rhiannon’s head. Her face is ashen.

“It’s okay, honey.” She strokes a hand through her red curls and tries to sound as soothing as she can. They need to get help, though. She looks up at the boy with the matching ginger hair. “You’re her brother?”

He nods.

“What’s your name?”

“Liam.”

“Where do you live, Liam?”

“Over there.” He turns and points across the arm of the lake toward one of the houses near the jetty. Not too far away.

“Are your parents home?” She presses her hand on Rhiannon’s head as the girl begins to whimper a little.

He nods.

“Liam, I need you to run home, okay? And tell your parents that they need to drive around to 451 Currawong—the driveway with the blue letterbox on the road, okay?”

“Ambulance?” Mia mutters under her breath.

Claire shakes her head. “Takes too long around here. They’ll get her there faster.”

She turns back to Liam. “Can you repeat that address?” She tries to sound as light and calm as possible even though the blood seeping from Rhiannon’s leg has started to unnerve her.

“451 Currawong, blue letterbox.”

“Good boy.” She smiles at him. “Tell them she’s fine, but they are going to need to get her to the doctor, okay?”

He nods and runs off.

Claire looks at the older girl. “Can you do something for us too?”

The girl nods, eager.

“Go up to the house at the end of the path. The one with the big porch and the silver car outside. Go in the back door—it’s open. And on a shelf just inside, you’ll see a first aid kit. You know what that looks like? A white metal box with a big red cross on it?”

She nods vigorously. “Yep.”

“Good. You grab that and bring it back here, okay?” Claire looks at the little boy, his wails reduced to teeny shredding little sobs. “You want to sit with me and help so she can run fast?”

He shakes his head.

The girl pushes him gently toward Claire. “Stay with the lady. I have to go fast. I’ll come right back.” She takes off at a sprint across the rocks.

Claire smiles at him in a way she hopes is reassuring and holds her hand out. He takes a few tentative steps forward and grabs her hand.

Claire pulls him to her side gently. “Here, you sit down next me.”

He obediently drops into a squat next to her as his little chest heaves.

“Why don’t you help, by holding your… is she your sister? Hold her hand?”

“Cousin,” Rhiannon mutters faintly as the little boy takes her hand.

Rhiannon watches as Mia bolsters the broken arm with Claire’s folded towel. Her eyes widen at the sight of her arm.

“Hey, don’t look at that. Look at me,” Claire says as lightly as she can. She pulls Rhiannon’s face gently toward her with the flat of her hand against her cold little cheek and smiles down at her. “My name is Claire, and you’re Rhiannon, right?”

The girl nods.

Claire turns to the little boy. “And what’s your name?”

The boy just stares at her and sniffs.

“He’s Will,” Rhiannon tells her.

“Hi, Will. That’s my friend Mia.” Claire points over at Mia, who is digging in her bag for something.

“Hi, Will. Hi, Rhiannon,” Mia says super calmly, flashing them a warm smile as she pulls a bottle of water from her bag. “And this is Blue.” She points at the dog.

“Mia’s going to be a doctor some day, so she’s going to be really good at looking after you until your mum and dad come.”

Rhiannon nods faintly.

“You know what?” Claire leans forward, conspiratorial, still trying desperately to run distraction. “I bet I know what you guys were up to.”

“What?”

“I bet you guys were climbing the rocks to see what’s around the other side, weren’t you?” She tilts her head to the small rocky hill at the point of the inlet, where the lake disappears into the trees.

“How did you know?” Rhiannon gasps.

“Because I have been coming up here since I was younger than Will.” Claire wraps an arm around the boy who is fixed on the project of holding his cousin’s pale little hand in his tiny brown one. “And when I was younger, I always wanted to know what was around there, too. But our parents wouldn’t let us climb those rocks, because they were scared we would fall.”

“I fell,” Rhiannon gravely tells her.

Claire fights the urge to laugh when Rhiannon states the complete and utter obvious. Instead, she watches Mia unscrew the cap of a bottle of water and pour a little on her leg, washing it clean. It’s bleeding less profusely now.

Rhiannon winces, taking in air with a pained little gasp.

Claire smoothes a hand over her pale forehead again. “Well, we used to think there was some kind of magic land around there. But, want to know a secret?” She smiles down at her.

“What?” Rhiannon asks, truly distracted now.

“I’ve been around there.”

“You have?”

“Yep.” Claire nods. “My brother and I snuck around there one day when our parents weren’t watching.”

“What’s there?” Rhiannon asks, blinking.

“You really want to know?” Claire asks as the other girl arrives, the first aid kit clanking against her legs. “That was super quick,” she tells her. “You should try for the Olympics.”

The girl smiles proudly, panting, and passes the box to Mia. She immediately opens it and pulls out gauze and a bandage to wrap up Rhiannon’s leg.

Rhiannon doesn’t even seem to notice, she’s too distracted—as planned—by the carrot Claire dangles in front of her. “What’s around there?” she asks, urgent now.

Claire sighs, dramatically. She affects a despondent, disappointed expression. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just more trees and rocks. And some more houses.”

“Oh.”

Claire wants to smile again but doesn’t. Rhiannon looks crestfallen. But at least she’s occupied while Mia dresses her leg.

“I know, right?” Claire frowns, sighing dramatically. “It was so boring. But hey, I saved you another trip, right?”

Before Rhiannon can say anything, the sound of footsteps running down the path echoes through the air.

She looks up. Coming at them in great strides is a tall man with a shock of curls that are clearly the genetic source of his kids’ extreme gingerness. He bounds over to the rock, Rhiannon’s brother at his heels, and crouches down over her.

“Rhi.” He pants.

“We think she’s okay,” Mia tells him. “Just her arm and the leg.”

He nods but doesn’t say anything, too fixed on his kid. He puts his hands under her knees and neck, ready to scoop her up, and turns to Mia. “Can you support her arm?” His voice is gruff with fear.

But Mia is already doing it. She holds Rhiannon’s arm and the towel as he rises to his feet. She gently places the towel on Rhiannon’s stomach.

“Thank you,” he mutters and strides away across the rocks with Rhiannon in his arms, Liam at his heels. The other girl holds her hands out for Will, who immediately scurries over to her and grabs it. They take off behind the others.

Claire and Mia pick up the bags and set off after them.

Halfway up the track, as the girl and Will disappear, Claire turns to Mia and lets out a breath. The adrenalin dissipates.

Mia matches her sigh with a relieved look.

Claire nods. “Wasn’t expecting that this morning.”

Mia smiles at her and takes her hand. She squeezes it gently as they stride up the path.

Claire squeezes back, still rattled. And relieved they didn’t have to deal with anything worse.

Just as they near the top of the path, Claire spots a flash of black next to a red car through the scrub ahead and stops in her tracks. She drops Mia’s hand.

Is that her parents’ car?

She stares. Yes, that’s unmistakably her parents’ car. She stands there, frozen on the spot, and blinks.

“What’s up?” Mia adjusts her bag on her shoulder and turns to Claire.

“My parents are here.” She says it slowly, not quite believing the words.

“Really?” Mia peers through the trees.

Claire nods, speechless. This is not ideal, to say the least.

“Oh.”

Claire doesn’t reply as she walks mechanically up the track, already resigned to this weird and highly uncomfortable fate. What are they doing here? They aren’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow. And they never change their perfectly laid plans.

They come out at the top of the trail, and Claire pauses again to take in the harried scene. The ginger-haired man is packing Rhiannon into the back of the car with the help of Claire’s father. A small, thin woman holds the door open on the other side. The other kids are clustered near the car in a tight group, looking cold and still a little scared.

Her parents have clearly just arrived, the doors of the four-wheel drive, which is parked halfway up the drive instead of the usual spot, hang wide open.

Claire’s mother trots out of the house, cushions and a blanket in her hand. She comes around the side of the car and hands them to the woman.

“We’ll take care of them, don’t worry,” her mother says as the woman climbs in the back of the car.

The man scrambles into the driver’s seat and starts the car as Christine shoos the remaining kids off the driveway and watches him make a turn and speed off down the driveway. That’s when she spots Mia and Claire standing at the top of the lake path.

“Sweetheart,” she calls out, hands on hips. “Not quite what we were expecting.”

Reluctantly, Claire takes a deep breath and trudges slowly over to her, Mia and Blue beside her.

“Hey, Mum,” Claire mumbles. “This my friend, Mia. Mia, this…this is my mother. And that’s my dad.” Her father gives her a wave as he closes the doors of the four-wheel drive.

“Hello, Mia. Call me Christine.” She turns back to Claire, straight to business. “They’re taking the girl to the hospital. And I said we’d look after these little ones until the aunt comes to get them. She’s still a way away.” She shields her eyes from the afternoon sun and appraises the little group. She gives the kids her best Christine Pearson smile.

They smile politely back, still huddled in a tight cluster.

“What on earth happened, sweetheart?” Christine asks as Claire’s father comes over to join them. He leans down to pat Blue. “Were you with them?”

As she wrings out her wet T-shirt onto the gravel driveway, Claire gives them a brief explanation of what happened.

“Well, it was lucky you were here,” her father says. “Good job, girls.” He pats Claire’s shoulder and then holds out a hand to Mia.

Claire watches numbly as Mia shakes his hand and shivers slightly with cold.

Her mother goes straight into crisis-management mode and hustles the kids into the house, telling Claire that due to a dropped case they had been able to leave a day earlier. Then she busies herself making sandwiches and warm drinks for the kids.

Meanwhile, Claire ducks off to the sleeping porch and digs through her packed bag for her jeans and a jumper, warm clothes she hasn’t needed to put on since they arrived. Once dried and changed, she pauses by the door and takes a deep breath before she returns to the house. This is not the day she expected. Nor is it the one she hoped for. Not one little bit.