glared at Jansen then at the others around the room. No one spoke. Between two men she caught a glimpse of Maryâs head leaning on Matthew. Then someone started to laugh.
âYou show them lass,â shouted a voice from the back.
âAye.â
She froze then, uncertain what to do next. Waiting for one of them to lunge towards her. Slowly Anderson stood up. There was silence again. She let the poker drop to the ground. She watched the smirk slip off Jansenâs face and he sunk towards the wall. Anderson pushed past the men in the doorway and opened the door. The rain had stopped but the air was brittle. He looked at her sideways and told her there was a pile of skins in the storeroom if she was cold.
From her nest of stinking fur she could see the line of light beneath the door. They were still drinking for she heard laughter. She tried not to think about the lizard that also lived there. The room was dry and warm but thick with dust. And things crawled beneath her.
January 1886
It was strange. Last night I had a dream about England. You were there beside Grandmother, playing with the ties of her bonnet, sucking your thumb and running the silky ribbon across the top of your lip. I am leaning against her shoulder and she is telling us a story about a prince and a princess. She smells of rosewater. We sit still on an old wooden chair even though we know there is no one to scold us for Grandfather is dead.
Then I leave Grandmother and I am older, walking the lane, which is edged on one side by a low stone wall, from her house to the town. It winds past the village hall where our mother had dancing lessons when she was a child. Then I reach the outskirts of town where they have built the big house for the poor. I see Grandmotherâs pale face in one of its mean little windows. Mother didnât want us to know. It is where Grandmother is to live after Father sells her house so we can sail to our new home.
Middle Island 1835, Dorothea Newell
The pool of clear water reflected the sunâs progress as it rose from the other side of the island. The pool was a natural depression in the rock which had been deepened by the sealers. After they had lit a fire on the granite and the heat had split the rock, the men had dug out the fragments and built a wall at the lower end so that when it rained it would fill to a depth of about two or three feet. But that had been done before Dorothea arrived on the island. The rain over the past three weeks had filled it to capacity. She was sitting beside it, as she did most mornings. She squinted as the light brightened, for she was on the edge of the pool, facing it directly. The feathery pink dawn faded from its reflection.
The rock in front of her sloped down to the bush. To the left was the track to the camp but ahead was another track through the dense wattle to an inland lake she could glimpse over the treetops. Although salty it wasnât connected to the sea. The black women collected its salt for curing the skins. It was one of the main reasons the sealers made the island their base. As the sun moved further overhead the lake deepened in colour from a pale pink to a dusky rose. When she and her sister first discovered it, they were sure that it was a trick of the light. But when they stood on its spongy banks, the water rippled pinkly in front of them. Crystals lay below its surface and small shrimp flurried in its shallows. They held the water and it burnt the scratches on their hands.
Dorothea peered over the edge of the rock pool and stared hard at her reflection. Her eyes saw the outline of her head against the sky but then the image faded as her eyes focused beyond it to the strange translucent creatures that floated along the filmy bottom. Sometimes she wished she could disappear like her reflection. She felt like an animal that was being hunted but not in a way that was obvious. The hunter remained just beyond her vision. She sensed he was there and
âYou show them lass,â shouted a voice from the back.
âAye.â
She froze then, uncertain what to do next. Waiting for one of them to lunge towards her. Slowly Anderson stood up. There was silence again. She let the poker drop to the ground. She watched the smirk slip off Jansenâs face and he sunk towards the wall. Anderson pushed past the men in the doorway and opened the door. The rain had stopped but the air was brittle. He looked at her sideways and told her there was a pile of skins in the storeroom if she was cold.
From her nest of stinking fur she could see the line of light beneath the door. They were still drinking for she heard laughter. She tried not to think about the lizard that also lived there. The room was dry and warm but thick with dust. And things crawled beneath her.
January 1886
It was strange. Last night I had a dream about England. You were there beside Grandmother, playing with the ties of her bonnet, sucking your thumb and running the silky ribbon across the top of your lip. I am leaning against her shoulder and she is telling us a story about a prince and a princess. She smells of rosewater. We sit still on an old wooden chair even though we know there is no one to scold us for Grandfather is dead.
Then I leave Grandmother and I am older, walking the lane, which is edged on one side by a low stone wall, from her house to the town. It winds past the village hall where our mother had dancing lessons when she was a child. Then I reach the outskirts of town where they have built the big house for the poor. I see Grandmotherâs pale face in one of its mean little windows. Mother didnât want us to know. It is where Grandmother is to live after Father sells her house so we can sail to our new home.
Middle Island 1835, Dorothea Newell
The pool of clear water reflected the sunâs progress as it rose from the other side of the island. The pool was a natural depression in the rock which had been deepened by the sealers. After they had lit a fire on the granite and the heat had split the rock, the men had dug out the fragments and built a wall at the lower end so that when it rained it would fill to a depth of about two or three feet. But that had been done before Dorothea arrived on the island. The rain over the past three weeks had filled it to capacity. She was sitting beside it, as she did most mornings. She squinted as the light brightened, for she was on the edge of the pool, facing it directly. The feathery pink dawn faded from its reflection.
The rock in front of her sloped down to the bush. To the left was the track to the camp but ahead was another track through the dense wattle to an inland lake she could glimpse over the treetops. Although salty it wasnât connected to the sea. The black women collected its salt for curing the skins. It was one of the main reasons the sealers made the island their base. As the sun moved further overhead the lake deepened in colour from a pale pink to a dusky rose. When she and her sister first discovered it, they were sure that it was a trick of the light. But when they stood on its spongy banks, the water rippled pinkly in front of them. Crystals lay below its surface and small shrimp flurried in its shallows. They held the water and it burnt the scratches on their hands.
Dorothea peered over the edge of the rock pool and stared hard at her reflection. Her eyes saw the outline of her head against the sky but then the image faded as her eyes focused beyond it to the strange translucent creatures that floated along the filmy bottom. Sometimes she wished she could disappear like her reflection. She felt like an animal that was being hunted but not in a way that was obvious. The hunter remained just beyond her vision. She sensed he was there and
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