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indignant shoulder, stooped, and went inside.
    Oh, for crying out loud. She was probably being paranoid.
    “Geronimo,” she said under her breath and followed him three steps down into the basement.

Chapter Nine
    “Wow!”
    The room was windowless but beautifully lit and redolent of fresh paint. Shelves lined the back wall and Aboriginal art adorned the other three. A campaign table in the center of the room was stacked with books on Aboriginal art, culture, and mythology.
    “This is my study.” He smiled broadly, mollified by her admiration.
    “I can see where Lucien’s been learning about Aboriginal myths and art.”
    “He’s been in to browse every day. He’s going to buy two paintings and Neesha’s also expressed a strong interest. The paintings are all by highly respected local artists, and all based on Aboriginal myths.”
    It sounded like a sales pitch. She said, “Aboriginal mythology seems so much more esoteric and mystical than other mythologies I’ve studied. My Western bias, I guess.” She stroked the feathers on a pair of brightly painted poles. “What are these?”
    “They’re morning star poles, used in burial ceremonies. The morning star connects the feathered string to the deceased’s soul to guide it to the Land of the Dead.”
    She spied a quartet of intricately painted sticks in the corner. Each stick was different, whimsical, like figures in some children’s game. “These are fun.”
    “Burial poles. The more ornate the pole, the more important the dead man.”
    Was she hypersensitive or did the Top End overdo the death motif? She ambled around the room taking in the art. There were crocodiles and crocodile men in a design of wavy lines and diamonds. There was a kangaroo with x-ray bones being speared by an elongated striped man. There were leaves and flowers and arcane symbols in a complex mosaic of dots, all in the vivid ochres and browns and reds of the Australian earth.
    “It’s a fascinating collection. A fine start toward reconnecting.”
    He riffled through some papers on the table and handed her a magazine article titled
The Stolen Generation
. “Until nineteen-seventy-one, it was the policy of the Australian government to assimilate their Aborigines through a program of eugenics until the race died out. This agenda entailed, among other things, the removal of mixed race children like myself from their black mothers and placement in detention centers. I was one of those children.”
    “You grew up in a detention center?”
    “After a year I was adopted by an English couple. They took me back to England and I grew up with only a vague awareness of my origins.”
    She supposed from the relatively light color of his skin that Mack’s non-Aboriginal parent was white. “You have no idea who your real father might have been?”
    “None. He was probably just some drunk who raped an Aborigine woman and went cavalierly on his way.” His tone was caustic.
    “How old were you when you were adopted?”
    “About three.”
    “And now you’re back to reclaim your Aboriginal identity.”
    “Well, I won’t chant or dance or do any body painting. Not while your family is visiting anyway.”
    Dinah laughed. “Wise decision. Neesha would brook no body painting. She’s really pouring on the pomp.”
    “She wants to make the last few days of Cleon’s life a celebration rather than a prelude to death, something she and the children can remember in a positive way.”
    So he did know. Not finicky about the nation’s laws, she decided.
    She paused in front of a large serpent coiled around what she assumed were eggs. “Snakes seem to figure prominently in Aboriginal art and mythology. Is this the Taipan?”
    “Not necessarily. The Rainbow serpent is known by many names. He’s the father who gave healing powers to the shamans. He could create or destroy. The painting next to it is the mother deity who gives us our monsoons here in the North. Her travels across the land during the