One
The room was dark.Only a vague reddish light showed the images coming to life on the paper held beneath the liquid’s surface. Eveleigh Mair used a small pair of tongs to pick up the photography paper by the edge and lift it from the tray. She held it aloft a few moments as the excess fluid dripped back into the tray, her eyes squinting behind a pair of clear plastic goggles. Then she raised the image over her head and pegged it by one corner to a thin line of rope.
She must’ve been the only person on Coral Island who still used a film camera. She did it for artistic reasons — she loved the way photographs looked using film. She’d grown up taking photos with her mother’s SLR and couldn’t shake the habit, even though digital photos these days were so much easier to use and had amazing clarity. There was something special about the process of taking photos the old-fashioned way and developing them in her own darkroom behind the bookshop.
Her entire family thought she was crazy. Her mother had updated to using her phone for every captured memory years ago.
“Why go backwards?” she’d asked when Evie questioned her about it. Suddenly Evie had felt as though she was the oldest person in the world. It was a good question. Why? But she’d kept it up anyway because she enjoyed it. And these days, she didn’t have many hobbies. Most of her time was spent running the business, a quaint old bookshop calledEveleigh’s Books.She’d rented and fitted out the space with the nest egg she’d saved over many years. Anothercrazyinitiative. Most people asked her why she didn’t simply accept that people shopped online these days and read ebooks on their phones, but she liked holding on to the past. To her, tradition meant something, and she fully intended to maintain doing what she loved for as long as she could.
The photographs hanging above her head looked fearsome in the morbid lighting, but they were happy images — beachscapes, birdlife, the dock where ferries came to rest after bringing tourists to the shores of Coral Island on a daily basis, and then taking them back to the mainland again after sun-filled days in a tropical getaway.
Her clients were people like her—they loved to take film photographs, and since there were few studios with a darkroom in northern Queensland, they’d mail their film from near and far for her to develop on their behalf. It was a small but thriving niche business and she enjoyed the artistry it sometimes took, especially when developing old film canisters like the one Beatrice had found in her cottage’s kitchen wall cavity. Maintaining the integrity of the images had been something of a challenge, and Evie had loved every minute of it.
Finished, she flicked the red glowing safe light on, and the bulb burst to life with a low hum. Then she set about packing everything away. With one last look of appreciation at the images, she picked up a basket full of items to take back to the kitchen with her — dirty coffee mugs and plates, a half-eaten bag of chips, an empty wine bottle for the recycling bin and the latest book she was reading.
As she pushed the darkroom’s door shut with her behind, she heard a pounding sound coming outside the bookshop. With a frown, she considered ignoring it since her hands were full and she was exhausted after a long day of work, but in the end, she realised it might be a delivery of books. She was waiting on several boxes of the latest releases to put up in a display over the weekend, and she couldn’t very well leave them sitting outside all night long.
The knocking had stopped. Hopefully, the delivery man had left the boxes on the porch. She hated when they pushed a card into the door and expected her to drive to the post office to pick them up after only missing them by a few seconds. Determined not to add to her to-do list the following day, she quickened her steps along the narrow corridor and through the small kitchen, then into the bookshop.
Just as she passed the register, her foot broke through the floorboards, and she went plummeting down with a squeal of fright. She landed on her rear end with one leg dangling through the floor. The basket she’d been carrying went flying across the room and landed with a disheartening smashing of china against the far wall.
Her eyes squeezed shut as pain shot up her leg. She squeaked in dismay and then gingerly felt along her limb as she slowly pulled the leg out of the hole. If it was broken, it would be a complete disaster. She had the busy season coming up — the winter months were when most of the tourists arrived on Coral Island. The delightfully warm weather and brilliant sunshine throughout the colder season was the perfect opportunity for holiday makers to fly north for the winter to escape the ice, driving rain and falling snow in the southern states.
Satisfied that she hadn’t broken a bone, she studied the floorboard that had given way.
“What on earth?” It had rotted through. She’d known there was movement in some of the boards—she had noted it a few times and had seen some customers give the floor a questioning look every now and then. But it was an old building. Surely older buildings like this one always had a few rotten boards in them, but she’d had no idea that might mean she’d one day fall through and almost end up spread-eagled on the concrete foundations. Just thinking of the nasties that might be hidden below her timber floor sent a shiver up her spine. She could’ve landed feet first in a rat’s nest, for all she knew. Although she did her best to make sure there were no rats beneath the bookshop, she supposed you could never be certain, and and apparently, you couldn’t be certain that the ground wouldn’t open up beneath you either.
There was another knock at the front door, this time a quiet tapping rather than the thunking of a fist that’d come before. Surely the delivery man had given up by now. She’d never known him to give more than a cursory thump before skedaddling down the stairs and back into his vehicle. He was always in a hurry, and she supposed that made sense given how much the postal service had cut back on staff in recent years. But it still frustrated her at times, and because of that she’d rushed to answer the door and fallen through her floorboards.
“Just a minute!” she shouted as she worked her leg out of the hole, grimacing at the pain in her knee.
She’d scraped her leg badly down the shin and the calf as well. She hobbled to open the door, then steadied herself by leaning against the wall briefly before pulling it open.
“Hi… sorry for the wait. I fell… Oh, you’re not the postie.”
A man with brown curly hair and dark brown eyes stood on the landing, both hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans.
“I’m David Ackerman, the new principal at the primary school across the street, and I thought I’d come check out the local bookshop. I’m an avid reader, and I’m passionate about getting kids into reading. Are you closed? I’m sorry—I’ve probably come at the exact wrong time.” His face registered alarm. “Is that blood?”
“I was expecting the postman,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Huh? The postman?” He bent to examine her leg. “You’re definitely bleeding. What happened?”
She blinked. “I was trying to get to the door, and I fell through the floor. It’s rotten and I’ve been meaning to get the boards fixed, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I should’ve made it more of a priority, but you know how these things go — you’re juggling so many urgencies as a small business owner, it’s hard to know which one to give your attention first.”
“Lean on me, and let’s get you inside,” the man said, reaching for her arm and looping it around his waist. He was tall, and she felt tiny next to his looming frame. She did her best to hobble back into the bookshop, but within seconds, he’d swept her up into his arms and was carrying her across the shop and past the hole in the floor to the small kitchen, where he gently lowered her into a chair.
“Is this okay?”
She nodded silently. He’d picked her up as though she were a twig. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been carried. She was forty-six years old, and no one had picked her up since she was a child. It felt nice to be taken care of, but it caught her by surprise. She hoped he wasn’t a serial killer or a robber—not that she ever kept much in the way of cash inside the shop. She tucked her red curls behind her ears.
“Thanks,” she said.
He pulled a second chair towards her and raised her foot onto it, cradling it with tender hands. “You’re welcome. Let’s take a look and make sure nothing’s broken. This is a pretty nasty cut.”
“I don’t think it’s broken. Probably only bruised.”
“Bruising we can deal with, although you may need a tetanus booster.”
