Read Online For the Forest of a Bird by Sue Saliba - Free Book Online Page B

mess?’
    That mess was somebody’s home, Nella thought.
    Her father turned his head to a sound coming along the street. A gear shift, the crushing of stones. A car was heading down the road.
    â€˜Dad.’ Nella tried to make herself heard.
    The noise of the car was getting louder and louder.
    â€˜Dad,’ she said. She was almost yelling.
    The car came closer.
    â€˜Dad, it isn’t right,’ she said. ‘It’s . . .’
    The car slowed and began to turn into the driveway.
    She stood up. ‘I’ll tell her,’ Nella said. ‘If you won’t, I will.’
    Nella strode across the verandah to the gravel of the driveway.
    The car moved slowly towards her.
    It came to a stop.
    Inside she saw the figure in the driver’s seat lower the passenger window. She readied herself.
    A female’s voice came out at her.
    â€˜I didn’t expect to see you here,’ it said.
    Nella looked into the interior of the car.
    Smiling back at her was the girl from the side of the road.

    They stood either side of her; Nella’s father on her left, the girl to her right. And Nella felt, for a moment, a strange kind of vertigo like she was being pulled one way and then the other and then not at all.
    â€˜You came for the gift?’ her father said to the girl.
    â€˜Yes, yes . . . it’s late, but . . .’
    â€˜It is,’ her father said. ‘But Linda wanted it to be perfect.’
    â€˜I’m sure she did.’ The girl tightened her mouth just the tiniest bit.
    â€˜Come on,’ Nella’s father said. ‘Let’s go and get it.’ He began to turn towards the backyard.
    â€˜Nella . . .’ he was hesitant. ‘Do you want to help?’
    Nella looked at the side gate that led to the back.
    â€˜I’m Isobel,’ the girl said. She touched Nella’s arm.
    Her father stopped. ‘Oh, I thought you knew each other. It seemed as though . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry. Nella, this is Isobel. Isobel is Linda’s niece.’
    Linda’s niece
. Nella felt her whole body stiffen. She wanted suddenly to wrench her arm from Isobel’s reach.
    â€˜And Isobel, this is Nella, my daughter.’
    â€˜Your daughter?’ Isobel sounded surprised.
    Her father continued on, fiddling with the lock of the gate.
    Hadn’t he spoken of Nella? Hadn’t he mentioned his only daughter?
    Nella felt herself stop completely.
    And Isobel stopped beside her.
    â€˜Come and help,’ she said. ‘Please, Nella, your dad’s not well enough yet. I need your help.’
    And she took Nella’s wrist so effortlessly that despite everything screaming against it, Nella found that she did not resist.
    And together they walked through the opened side gate and across the backyard to the shed right at the end of the property.
    â€˜What do you need my help for?’ Nella said as they stood at the front of the shed.
    â€˜To carry something,’ Isobel answered.
    Nella looked at Isobel then and she wondered with a sudden intensity what this gift could be. She remembered Isobel by the roadside, her T-shirt wet with blood, Isobel in the coastal scrub heavy with the weight of the wallaby in her arms, Isobel at the graveside and her sudden words. ‘Nothing ever dies,’ she’d said. ‘It just becomes something else.’
    â€˜What is this gift?’ Nella wanted to ask but before she could, Isobel had walked around the back of the shed.
    â€˜Does she really want my mum to have this as a birthday present?’ Nella heard.
    â€˜Just take it to your mum. It will make your aunt happy,’ Nella’s father said. And then he added as a kind of afterthought, ‘And maybe your mum too.’
    Nella followed a little way until she stopped at a distance in the shadow of a giant eucalypt. There she watched as Isobel stood in front of something, bent towards it, then