lavender sprigs she’d stitched into the big white bow that decorated the dress box.
A single tap made the computer whir. She didn’t bother to sit, just stretched her forearms over the back of the chair to the keyboard.
Lily Malone
The message loitered in her inbox, black and bold. The subject line read: Introducing CC & Muddy Pot.
How does he know Mikey’s nickname was Muddy? As far as she knew, Tate had never met her brother. Her fingers dived to the mouse. Double‐clicked.
The file took its own sweet time to download. The screen buzzed from grey‐blue to black and white and a hand‐drawn picture appeared, magnified so high she couldn’t recognize any piece of it. She zoomed out to a view that better fit her screen.
Her mouth opened with the phluck of lips gone dry.
There was a character with a Lara Croft plait halfway down her back. A hat. Killer heels.
The other wore footy shorts, a singlet and Wellington boots.
Each character was drawn with an upside‐down terracotta pot body— a clay pot —
with skinny arms and legs poking through holes top and bottom, knees and elbows like golf balls.
She was looking at a scene in a bottle shop, shelves filled to overflowing with wine.
Muddy Pot’s arms were clamped across his pot stomach and he was laughing with CC Pot.
Laughing fit to bust. A bottle of wine had smashed on the floor, its contents spilled like ink.
The crashed bottle pointed a shaky finger at Muddy Pot. Its speech balloon said: He told me to jump .
The speech balloon above Muddy Pot’s read: He said he wanted to know what happened to all the other green bottles .
Christina’s view drifted to the words at the bottom of the page.
CRACKED POTS by CLAY
She turned the chair and slumped sideways to the padded seat, heard it gush air.
Chair wheels tracked over carpet as she pushed back, swivelled toward the window and pulled the curtain aside. A dog barked at the morning. Little dog. Yappy bark.
A lone male jogger, earphones in, passed her mailbox, wind creasing his white shirt.
A camellia flower flopped to the bed of red petals on the lawn. It was impossible to tell where red‐brick path ended and the red flower carpet began. Then a second email pinged into her inbox.
Chapter 6
Suburbia hunkered on the right side of Main North Road, all orange‐roofed and brick‐walled behind a row of roadside eucalypts choked by weeds, branches petrified into the shape of the prevailing winds. The left side of the highway housed plumbing supply shops, used-caravan lots and discount car yards, most boasting signs about end‐of‐financial‐year sales.
Christina drove past a McDonalds doing brisk breakfast trade and an adults‐only store, windows blacked out.
It was a while since she’d been out here, not much had changed.
Kings Road intersected Main North ahead. One other car exited there and she followed it left. A second left took her into Parafield Airport. Hangar 56 was easy to find, its door gaped like a missing tooth and she recognised the tank hulking out front. She slotted the Golf beside it, let her foot rev the engine a few seconds longer than necessary, then buzzed the window up, cut the motor and stepped into an arctic wind laced with the smell of tarmac, fuel and fast food. The wind tried to blow the driver’s door off its hinge.
“Less than an hour, I’m impressed,” Tate called, wiping his hands on a rag. He stuffed something that might once have been silver—a wrench or a spanner—in the pocket of a long‐sleeved red‐checked shirt and emerged from the hangar. Black jeans hugged his thighs.
The shirt blew open over a black Springsteen T‐shirt that clung to his chest like a peach to its stone.
A plane barely big enough to earn the title squatted behind him, and she could make out the word Jabiru written in a double red stripe on the tail.
God help me, he’s serious. We’re flying. In that.
“Did you shoot that cat? Or did it volunteer its spots?” He eyed her
A single tap made the computer whir. She didn’t bother to sit, just stretched her forearms over the back of the chair to the keyboard.
Lily Malone
The message loitered in her inbox, black and bold. The subject line read: Introducing CC & Muddy Pot.
How does he know Mikey’s nickname was Muddy? As far as she knew, Tate had never met her brother. Her fingers dived to the mouse. Double‐clicked.
The file took its own sweet time to download. The screen buzzed from grey‐blue to black and white and a hand‐drawn picture appeared, magnified so high she couldn’t recognize any piece of it. She zoomed out to a view that better fit her screen.
Her mouth opened with the phluck of lips gone dry.
There was a character with a Lara Croft plait halfway down her back. A hat. Killer heels.
The other wore footy shorts, a singlet and Wellington boots.
Each character was drawn with an upside‐down terracotta pot body— a clay pot —
with skinny arms and legs poking through holes top and bottom, knees and elbows like golf balls.
She was looking at a scene in a bottle shop, shelves filled to overflowing with wine.
Muddy Pot’s arms were clamped across his pot stomach and he was laughing with CC Pot.
Laughing fit to bust. A bottle of wine had smashed on the floor, its contents spilled like ink.
The crashed bottle pointed a shaky finger at Muddy Pot. Its speech balloon said: He told me to jump .
The speech balloon above Muddy Pot’s read: He said he wanted to know what happened to all the other green bottles .
Christina’s view drifted to the words at the bottom of the page.
CRACKED POTS by CLAY
She turned the chair and slumped sideways to the padded seat, heard it gush air.
Chair wheels tracked over carpet as she pushed back, swivelled toward the window and pulled the curtain aside. A dog barked at the morning. Little dog. Yappy bark.
A lone male jogger, earphones in, passed her mailbox, wind creasing his white shirt.
A camellia flower flopped to the bed of red petals on the lawn. It was impossible to tell where red‐brick path ended and the red flower carpet began. Then a second email pinged into her inbox.
Chapter 6
Suburbia hunkered on the right side of Main North Road, all orange‐roofed and brick‐walled behind a row of roadside eucalypts choked by weeds, branches petrified into the shape of the prevailing winds. The left side of the highway housed plumbing supply shops, used-caravan lots and discount car yards, most boasting signs about end‐of‐financial‐year sales.
Christina drove past a McDonalds doing brisk breakfast trade and an adults‐only store, windows blacked out.
It was a while since she’d been out here, not much had changed.
Kings Road intersected Main North ahead. One other car exited there and she followed it left. A second left took her into Parafield Airport. Hangar 56 was easy to find, its door gaped like a missing tooth and she recognised the tank hulking out front. She slotted the Golf beside it, let her foot rev the engine a few seconds longer than necessary, then buzzed the window up, cut the motor and stepped into an arctic wind laced with the smell of tarmac, fuel and fast food. The wind tried to blow the driver’s door off its hinge.
“Less than an hour, I’m impressed,” Tate called, wiping his hands on a rag. He stuffed something that might once have been silver—a wrench or a spanner—in the pocket of a long‐sleeved red‐checked shirt and emerged from the hangar. Black jeans hugged his thighs.
The shirt blew open over a black Springsteen T‐shirt that clung to his chest like a peach to its stone.
A plane barely big enough to earn the title squatted behind him, and she could make out the word Jabiru written in a double red stripe on the tail.
God help me, he’s serious. We’re flying. In that.
“Did you shoot that cat? Or did it volunteer its spots?” He eyed her
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