A wave of laughter swept the crowd. One of the boys who was being confirmed sniggered. He elbowed his mate and nodded at Jemma’s short hem. All the other girls’ dresses were modest lengths with capped sleeves and pretty trims.
Jemma glared at him. So now she not only didn’t have a functioning mother, but had godparents her own age. She switched her gaze to the cross, determined not to show a flicker of emotion. None of it mattered, anyway. She’d only done this to make Mum happy.
She didn’t bother listening to the service, just followed the other kids.
As it seemed things were winding up, there was a commotion behind her, at the church door, and everyone turned in a rush of interest.
‘That’s my baby in there,’ her mother slurred. Her voice rose to a shriek and she jabbed a finger at the priests. ‘I’m not signing her over to you devil-worshippers. She’s not a sacrifice! Jemma! Jemma, where are you?’
Jemma tried to shrink smaller, a weed among the white blossoms. There was a flurry of shock, murmurs of outrage. The kids laughed; Father Richmond dashed toward Mum.
‘You’re all possessed, you hear me?’ her mother screamed. ‘You’re turning my baby into a demon!’
Her mother was either drunk or drugged. Jemma had witnessed it all before, but never had her mother’s actions made a fool of her. As everyone focused on her mother, some even taking out their fancy new phones to film her, Jemma slipped quietly out of the side door.
She was going to Dad’s, her grandparents. She’d never tell them of her humiliation, but nothing they could say would make her ever live with Mum again.
Jemma rolled onto her back and let out a groan of frustration. She wiped her hand across her forehead, dashing away the chill sweat. Damn. She had to get a grip on the dreams. She knew they were stress-induced, the threatening notes she’d received somehow linking in her mind with the note given to the priest that had evidenced her mother’s betrayal. She needed to find a way to short-circuit the memories—although it was just as likely Rohan’s latest dirty trick that had her mind churning.
Her teeth gritted, she thrust from the bed and started tumbling clothing out of the suitcase as she searched for her running gear. Dad had snorted with laughter the previous evening when she’d flagged her intention to drive into Settlers Bridge in the predawn darkness to go for a jog. Although her father had been into working out at the gym when he lived in the city, he’d never been a runner. He had no concept how hard it would be to set an even pace on the patchy, muddy, unlit path along the edge of the river in front of the Wattle Seed Inn. She needed pavement. Besides, there was a wildness out in the country that didn’t sit easily with her need for structure and security. More importantly, Dad didn’t realise—and she’d make sure he never knew—just how much she needed the stress release and endorphin hit.
As she navigated the simple grid-pattern of streets, Jemma realised that, though shrouded in a secretive pearly mist, the town was so small she probably need only blip her key fobon her run and the click of her indicators would guide her back through the Sunday silence.
She parked in front of one of the two large sandstone buildings that faced one another across the street. The edge of the high kerb served as a bench to rest her foot as she tightened the laces of her Brooks runners, then she did a few preliminary stretches before jogging down the incline toward the river.
A crystal-studded blanket of mist roiled along the banks of the Murray, joined to the heavens by random sunlight staircases. Jemma lengthened her stride on the path that ran parallel to the water. Devoid of the smoothing fumes of the city, the crisp air seared her lungs, but she forced herself to deeply inhale and rhythmically exhale. A pair of black, hen-like birds with bright red beaks wandered along the bank. A pelican glided down from the grey clouds, its plumage the identical shade of the water, making it hard to see when it touched down. The wake fanning out behind the bird reminded Jemma of the pedal boats on the Torrens—although, despite that river threading through the heart of the city only a couple of kilometres from her office, she hadn’t found time to wander that way in years.
She’d always allowed the rhythm and effort of running to provide a rare and precious space for her mind to disengage. Lately, though, her brain was fixated, still obsessed with those threatening notes. Why couldn’t she put them out of her mind? She’d never personally crossed anyone, and doing her job—and doing it damn well—couldn’t be held against her. After all, innocent or guilty, both the verdict and the sentence came from the court.
That left Kain. She hadn’t thought about him for months—in truth, for many more months than they’d been broken up—before Tien’s questioning. But the notion that he could be her stalker was well beyond the realms of reality.
Stalker?She snorted and turned into a street that led away from the river, picking up the pace as though to punish herself for entertaining such a ridiculous word. Besides, Kain would have neither the initiative nor resourcefulness to be vindictive; he was more prone to dramatic sulking.
Yet, while logic urged that she rule out any real danger attached to the notes, still her gut tensed each time she checked her letterbox, and the shadows that wandered her apartment at night had become terrifying. She knew they were caused by the shifting branches of the trees waving above the streetlights yet she’d taken to childishly leaving a light on.
The gentle hill was longer than she’d anticipated and her calves ached. She took several corners, jogging along a street a few blocks back from the main road. Here, kerbs were apparently optional, the bitumen road giving way to a gravel-edged verge where flowering weeds grew despite council mowing schedules. If such things existed here. The trees glittered with damp-spangled cobwebs so she moved to the middle of the wide road and picked up her pace back to the centre of town. In quick succession, she passed a business selling farm supplies, a printer and a second-hand shop apparently trading in spider carcasses, judging by their window display. An assortment of old garden tools in a forty-four-gallon drum outside the door attested to either the honesty of the locals or their disinterest in rusty implements. She huffed out a breath and grunted with dark humour as she noticed the sign for a medical clinic in front of an old house: appropriate timing, given that she was fighting for oxygen. The air seemed sothinhere, slicing through her lungs like a crystal blade.
Almost opposite the practice was a high-roofed stone building with an impressive façade and multipaned windows.Embossed lettering above the door proclaimed it ‘Council Chambers circa 1880’.
Curiosity slowed her as she caught sight of another sign, this one partially hidden by the canopy of an ironbark tree. She ducked beneath the clusters of narrow grey leaves, her feet crunching through red scoria gravel as she approached the sign. A library—open Thursday afternoon only. The tourist centre—surely open even less frequently? The historical society, an MP’s office. A portion of the sign had been taped over. Jemma prised up the masking tape. She snorted: the lawyer someone had mentioned the previous evening. No one she’d ever heard of, and the tools outside the secondhand shop probably explained the demise of the practice. No crime was fine—unless you were a lawyer.
She hit the bitumen again, taking every side street or passageway she saw so that she would be forced to vary her pace. Her pedometer beeped, signifying she’d hit her goal, and she glanced at her Garmin tracker. Just shy of an hour. Not her best time, but fine for ten clicks on unfamiliar terrain.
She slowed, hands on her hips, as she monitored how quickly her breathing returned to normal. As with everything, it was imperative she maintain control. Taking a moment, she got her bearings.
The mist had blown away—along with the brief, teasing hint of sunshine—to reveal a drab day.
‘Oof!’ A solid force slammed the back of her legs. She staggered and spun, reflexively taking a defensive stance, hands raised and muscles tensed to respond.
‘Chance! Sorry.’
She scowled as she recognised Hamish striding toward her.
‘Chance is at that awkward age,’ he said, as though that excused the dog’s behaviour.
‘Thought farmer’s dogs were supposed to be well trained?’ She switched her scowl to the medium-sized dog as she straightened.
‘He’s Amelia’s pup,’ Hamish said. ‘He’ll work out all right eventually, just gets a bit excitable with changes to routine.’
